Only so as not to hurt people? Meaning, if everyone were smart philosophers like you, then none of you would stand? The siren would sound and you’d all go on drinking coffee like always. Very impressive.

I don’t know whether you’re less intelligent than I am, but in reading comprehension you still have a lot of room for improvement. On the other hand, in passive-aggression, ad hominem, and irrelevant arguments, your abilities are clearly well above average.

You wrote that there is value in it if it is meaningful to you. And that there is no general answer. You did not write that it is something meaningful in itself. If in your view it were something meaningful in itself, then you would say it is something meaningful, and that would be a general answer, and therefore one should stand. Obviously, someone who doesn’t think it’s meaningful won’t stand. Just as if I asked you whether murder is permitted, you wouldn’t say that murder is forbidden if murder is meaningful to you and that there is no general answer. So you don’t have to be some great expert in reading comprehension to understand that in your eyes this is not inherently meaningful, and at most you relate to it as a completely personal feeling. From here the conclusion jumps straight out that if there are no other people around you, you won’t stand. That’s not ad hominem; it’s using your presumed behavior to diagnose your opinion. But moral feeling is directed more toward actions than toward opinions, and so it is useful and convenient to attack actions. I have more expressions I could use, but they’re more in the aggressive-aggressive category, so I’ll spare them. So much for your claims that I have problems with reading comprehension and with ad hominem. With passive-aggressive I have no problem, as you understood. And in the area of irrelevant arguments, you’d probably need a microscope to find any on my side.

Since you ask so nicely, I’ll give you a short free lesson in logic and reading comprehension.
1. When I say that the value of standing is not objective, but rather that anyone who finds benefit in it should stand, there is no apparent way to infer from this that the value of the matter depends on how intelligent the person in question is. It could be that a very intelligent person sees value in it and therefore it is proper for him to stand, and a spectacular fool sees no value in it, in which case there is no point in his standing either (except for the issue of hurting others).

2. You wrote:
"Obviously, someone who doesn’t think it’s meaningful won’t stand."
Even if a person sees value or meaning in it, he still may not do it in practice. There are people who agree that one ought not steal and nevertheless do so, or those who think one ought to help others and don’t do so. Therefore, if a person sees value in standing, one cannot infer from that that in practice he will indeed stand, and vice versa.

On the contrary, thanks to you I’ll say that perhaps you meant that if he sees value in standing, then in his eyes he ought to stand. And lo and behold, even that is not a tautology. A person may undergo a stirring emotional experience when standing during the siren, but think that it is not right to invest time in accumulating stirring experiences. Or someone else may feel that standing during the siren creates in him a profound identification with the Jewish people or with the universe, but in his opinion there is not much value in such identifications, and therefore he thinks there is no value in that standing.
QED.

The messages were split because of a glitch on my phone.

Are you kidding?
I suggest an alternative test, astonishingly enough:
Do you think, in your own personal view, that there is objective significance to a Jew in Israel standing during the siren? Do you stand? And in a situation where the entire population agreed with you in all opinions and feelings, would everyone stand in public?
If you answer that and it turns out I really didn’t decode you correctly, then I’ll admit I was wrong.

Let’s forget my outburst and start as if from the beginning. I’m asking for myself the 3 questions I asked. What do you think about them? You answer everyone here, maybe answer me too.

I’ll certainly answer.
1. There is no objective significance. Whoever feels it adds something for him should stand.
2. I stand because for me it is meaningful. At home, though, I do not stand; rather, I reflect.
3. I didn’t understand this strange question. I answered what I do. If everyone thought like me, then presumably everyone would do as I do (subject to the limitations of the mistakes I already pointed out to you).
You don’t need to admit you were wrong, and your mistake is in no way connected to these answers. Your mistake is right there on the pages of this thread, and anyone who wishes can see it.
All the best.

Now I really don’t understand reading comprehension. At the beginning I wrote that what follows from your words is that you don’t stand when you’re alone, and if everyone thought like you, no one would stand. Over that you poured on me all sorts of fine distinctions and pilpulim about how with various tricks one can evade the inferences I made. And now in the end it turns out that this is exactly what you in fact think and do. So everything I said stands in its place, and I definitely do not admit I was wrong, because I wasn’t wrong about anything. If you had answered that in your opinion there is objective significance to it, and the rest of the answers had continued along that line, then it would turn out that I was wrong in the conclusions I drew from reading comprehension. But right now you have stood up and confirmed everything I said.

The point of standing is to elevate the importance of the person standing in his own eyes, as he imagines that by the very ritual of standing he is actually doing something. Those who believe in standing are identical to those who believe in sorcery and in the magical power of rituals to change something in reality beyond the fantasies of the believers.

The point of standing is that this is how the Jewish collective decided to make the memory of the event present through a fixed act of remembrance. Any act and any ritual can be made ridiculous by a childish, cynical perspective.

Actions and rituals that can be ridiculed so easily, with no defense other than the claim that this is what some group of people decided, are utter vanity. Vanity of the sort that trapped humanity for thousands of years in superstitions.

About you the prophet said:
“Bring forth the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears.”

Whether to stand or not stand is less interesting.
What matters is to stop for a moment and join with everyone.
Call it mysticism or normal human feeling.
The idea that there is a minute that all the Jews set aside for something so meaningful, but this little Hersheleh doesn’t—what has he to do with all this nonsense, he’s too smart for it, his coffee will get cold, why should he care at all??? That studied indifference is disgusting in my eyes. Did anyone violate some supreme moral law here? I don’t know. Is it proper / should one / is one obligated to relate to this minute? To me the answer is obviously yes.

If everyone were uniting to help a living person, that would be something.
A unity whose purpose is to intensify the delusion that superstitions are real, and the feelings of self-importance that result from participating in a ritual, is objectionable and should be avoided and warned against. “Keep far from a false matter.”
The orgy of idol worship is connected to that same unity you so yearn for.
There is nothing to it.

Ugh, shut up, you babbler.

That’s how it is. Every ordinary idiot who believes with all his heart in some magic, and whose meager mind fills with hatred when someone points out the ignorance he suffers from.

Magic, my ass.