Friday, April 27, 2012

Heresy from the Jewish Front

'Bitul zman' is an expression that the ultra religiously aligned have invented to indicate that something is a "total waste of time" that one may be involved in doing.   In effect, the going consensus is that if you did not take care of your family, study or otherwise be engaged in a jewish learning experience, your ways are a waste of time.

A fellow remarked this nice term to disparage a fellow jew online today about his interest in playing with rubik's cubes.

A lifestyle can be frivilous or foolish, but all in all, any life activity is not a total waste of time.
Toys and puzzles can build skills and happiness.  Even the ball games that many orthodox jews stay far from can build community and excitement.

I am not going to clearly obviously endorse a world of avoiding Torah study of course, but really, Torah has many facets and thus I believe that there really is not much that is a total waste of time for you unless perhaps you have lost a trinket and keep looking over and over and over in the same place where you are confident it no longer exists.

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