To Benjamin I would say –

They say in Kant’s name that there is only one thing to learn from history: that people never learned anything from history 🙂

However, my teacher of Jewish History in 7th grade (in the year 1975), R. Aryeh Kostiner (the father of Rabbi Zvi Kostiner, head of the Mitzpe Ramon yeshiva), related that Rabbi HaNazir told him, when he heard that he was a history teacher, that בכך he was fulfilling a commandment from the Torah: “Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders and they will say to you.”

They say in Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda’s name that his father, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, would write “historia” with an extra hint to concealment, because through history the Holy One, blessed be He, is revealed in a hidden way.

Best regards, Shatz

And Yosef Avivi already wrote: history is a lofty need.
I liked Rabbi Tzvi Yehuda’s witticism (which I knew). Indeed, He is revealed in a very, very hidden way.

“There is no wisdom in them and no practical benefit, only a waste of time” (Mishnah with Maimonides’ commentary in the translation of Rabbi Yosef Kapach, Jerusalem 1965, Nezikin pp. 140-141) — does the Rabbi disagree with Maimonides?
Dear Shatz, for that same reason I also make a point of writing “historia,” but since I was censored last time by Rabbi Michi, I imposed that censorship on myself, searched around and found this spelling “error,” and so this time I tried my luck by changing the name to “history,” and indeed I succeeded, and the Lord granted me favor, kindness, and mercy in Rabbi Michi’s eyes, and he did not censor me this time.

Now that Ramda has become related by marriage to Rabbi Yaakov Levanon of Har Hamor, there’s no concern he’ll censor comments in which “historia” is spelled that way 🙂

Best regards, Sha’ahen Tza’ahen Zohar

What is the questioner trying to achieve?

After all, even the answer belongs to history, since it is written before it is read.

Despite my personal esteem for Rabbi David HaKohen, I don’t understand how this is a commandment. If it is a commandment, then it distances. What do we learn from history? That the Jewish people are a nation like all other nations, that they worshipped gods and idols like all other nations, and that the writers of the Torah were human beings. About Alexander the Great you study history, but where do you study about the Revelation at Mount Sinai?

Through history one can understand processes the world is going through,
and see the hand of God within it.
History is full of wonders. From it one can strengthen complete faith.
In his book If to Scripture, Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh analyzes the fraternal wars of Esau, Ishmael, and Jacob through history, in the appearances of their three religious archetypes. Religiously and culturally, Islam is a spiritual and also to some degree physical descendant of Ishmael; Christianity is the spiritual descendant of Esau/Edom. Through understanding the phenomenon of these religions and the sources of their problematic elements, Benamozegh proposes a solution to the cultural and spiritual problems of these cultures, which have influenced nearly the whole world.

Also in the psychological condition of humanity as a whole, we are inclined to learn from history and understand what mistakes not to make. From history we learn that total cosmopolitanism, such as communism, and in general the attempt to erase the unique identity that every people has, fails and brings disasters. From history we also learn to beware of absolute humanism, which believes in man too much, and we understand that man needs boundaries, laws, and a kind of bending to a framework of values external to him, so that the healthy and natural order of the world should not collapse. On the other hand, we learn that there are revolutions that one is at times obligated to make, firmly and without favoritism, and at times slowly and cautiously. Rabbi Chaim Navon elaborated on this method of learning lessons from history and using it as a condition that helps preserve religious society in his article “The Evil Inclination Has Not Retired.”

Rabbi Sefi Gleditzer, one of the younger rabbis in Religious Zionism, analyzes in a series of lectures the problematic elements in Islam and Christianity through a historical analysis from the Bible to our own day, and suggests ways to repair them.

Best regards.
The Complete Monotheist

יצר הרע לא יצא לגמלאות / חיים נבון

I hope I won’t get a rebuke from the honorable Rabbi for ridiculous preaching just because I’m expressing my opinion that from history one can learn religious lessons about the problems of man (:

In the last paragraph, line 1:
Sefi Gladzler…

Sefi Gladzler is a student of Rabbi Uri Sherki, and often teaches the thought of Rabbi Yehuda Ashkenazi, “Manitou.” Sefi is the brother-in-law of my son-in-law Yair Zand (the husband of my daughter Shulamit). Sefi’s wife, Orit, is Yair Zand’s sister, granddaughter of the orientalist (researcher of the Jews of Iran, Bukhara, and the Caucasus) and activist for immigration from the Soviet Union, Professor Michael Zand of blessed memory.

Best regards, Shatzal

“Geld Tzehler” in Yiddish means “coin counter.” I suggested that he Hebraize his name to “Sapir” 🙂 but the family insists on the original name, as a memorial to family members who perished in the Holocaust