Talk:Musar movement

Hi Ezra,

You want to delete three alleged facts: that Luzzato

wrote romantic plays in Hebrew and Italian
claimed he was the Messiah, and
was considered a heretic by most rabbis of his day.

Are you saying these facts are wrong? Danny is pretty well-educated, and I am generally willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Do you know for sure that Luzzato did not write plays in Hebrew and Ialian? Do you know for sure that Luzzato never claimed he was the Moshiach? Do you know for sure that most Rabbis of the day did not call him a heretic? If you know for sure, of course, you should delete these claims. But you didn't provide any explanation or evidence, so it is hard to know why you deleted it, Slrubenstein

I would add that Luzzato had nothing to do with the Mussar movement. He wrote a book. Period. About 250 years after he died, Rabbi Yisrael Salanter founded a movement called the Mussar movement because he thought that many yeshiva students were acting unethically and justifying it by the fact that they were scholarly. He therefore decided that they should spend a set amount of time each day studying ethics from a religious perspective . The primary text that he chose for this movement was this long-forgotten book. Danny

they are your words, so I won't do it, but would you put the second and third sentences of the above into the article itself? Slrubenstein

Not every fact is equal. For one, these facts belong in a biography of Rabbi Luzzato.

yes, I agree with you. Do you want to create the link and transfer the text to that article?

Second the purpose of the presentation of these facts is to denigrate both Rabbi Luzzato and the Mussar movement, and that is not NPOV.

Do you really think that the fact that he wrote plays in Italian in Hebrew is a denigration? I sincerely apologize if I am misunderstanding your sensibilities and sensitivities -- personally, I could not plays in English, let alone Hebrew and Italian, so to me this particular fact sounds like praise. As for the "heretic" part of course you are right BUT does this mean we should remove that "fact" from the Kaplan article? For us to work together we need to achieve some consistency. In any event, I do agree with you about a linked article about Luzatto with the biographica information.

Danny knew very well that an Orthodox Jew would find it odd that Rabbi Luzzato participated in such activities. He put it in there partially to tease me, and I think he would agree with my evaluation. Ezra Wax

And third, all of these facts have rebuttals, and just sticking in facts in an article I wrote and then expecting me to do all the work to rebut every point is unfair. If you are going to put in facts that weren't there, then put in both sides of the story.

Excuse me, but I believe that this is EXACTLY what I did. I do not thik I removed any of the facts you included. I assumed that you put in facts that represent one side of the story, and that Danny's facts represented the other side of the story. Thus, but neither cutting what you wrote, nor what Danny wrote -- voila! -- both sides of the story. If you want to add other facts (here or in the linked bio) by all means do so; if they are facts I will not cut them. My only question is, did you originally cut these because they are not facts? If they are facts, we will never achieve "both sides of the story" by cutting them! Slrubenstein

The article as it was, was neutral, unless you consider a neutral description of the mussar movement non-neutral. It could use more facts, and I don't deny it, but like any initial article, it takes time to write.Ezra Wax

I will tomorrow. I want to check my sources first. It's been a while since I touched this stuff. There is a lot more to add too, but the truth is, I so wanna stay away from this kind of material. I do it at work all day and Wikipedia is chance to pursue my other, non-professional interests. Or at least it I wish it was ... Danny

Um, why do we have an entry on Mussar that contains no information at all on what Mussar actually is? It looks like Ezra Wax is just creating entry after entry to fill Wikipedia with his personal bias, irregardless of the fact that much of what is writes is useless, biased, racist or outright false. This is really getting out of hand. RK

I put back one sentence Danny deleted, but the following links are questionable, because (A) they aren't in English & (B) they link to non-existent articles.

Ezra, try to bear in mind that Wikipedia's target audience is English speakers. A few foreign-language terms are okay, like Torah, because they have became part of the English language. --Ed Poor

I did not finish the article, it was a stub, so in answer to your criticism, I will provide more information about the books.

The addition of non-Orthodox points of view in this article is unacceptable. Orthodox Judaism denies the validity of non-Orthodox forms of Judaism as such, presentation of its views as valid without clearly pointing out that they are not accepted is not neutral. As the article was neutral, as it was although deficient in other ways, any additional information must be added from a neutral point of view. As such, I will delete such information, as I do not consider it my responsibility to refute non-neutral information added to an article that I wrote. Ezra Wax

Actually, Ed, didn't mean to erase that sentence, but it is wrong. I have the sources here now, and will rewrite the article tonite. Danny

It's easy to delete text accidentally, especially when working quickly. :-) --Ed Poor

Get this straight, Ezra Wax: you cannot claim simultaneously that the non-Orthodox view is not neutral, and the Orthodox view is neutral. You have to distinguish between facts and interpretations of facts. Facts are facts no matter what you personally think of them. It is also a fact that non-Orthodox Jews have certain interpretations of some facts, and you are right to say that such inerpretations must be identified as such. But it is also a fact that Orthodox Jews have certain interpretations of facts, and those interpretations must be identified as such as well. A good encyclopedia article will present a variety of views (identifying them and contextualizing them adequately). Do not delete a view just because you disagree with it. Do not think that just because a view is your own, that is enough to render it neutral. Slrubenstein

I do not give credence to the other views, and do not consider it my duty to provide them. In any case, I do not know what they are. As such, anybody wanting to add them fairly, is welcome. Ezra Wax