ready now – And yet after me asking for mareh mekomos, you come back with your opinions. It’s hard to know where to start. You decided that ‘story’ = ‘book’, where this was not in any way indicated in post, then ignore the fact that I gave you the names in a second post and then after I show you exactly where you were wrong you jump back to the first post claiming that you never knew better…
You have this notion of ‘studying on a regular basis’ – what’s that supposed to mean? The Gr’a certainly studied maths to a high level, something you say is unnecessary. I give you logical arguments about loshon horo. You say “I disagree” and that’s that.
You have no understanding of what Chazal meant by ‘Circaso’os’ and ‘Te’atros’ because you do not know what these things were in the ancient world. Circuses were where wild animals were made to fight each other, or men made to fight each other, or both at the same time. The theatre had nothing to do with plays – those were performed in ampitheatres. And to then say that all literature is merely a bluepriint for plays is nonsense in the extreme. Poetry and novels are completely different media to plays. You have no knowledge of science fiction, wherein no magic or the such is performed (the clue is in the name science…).
And Shakespeare’s ‘anti-semitism’ is hotly debated by literary critics. At any rate, he did not ‘indoctrinate generations’, at the worst he reflected the prevailing attitudes of the times. To oppose learning Shakespeare on the grounds that he wrote in Old-English is just ridiculous – it’s not about the vocabulary (though many words we use in modern English were invented by him), it is about how to use the language, sentence structure, grammar, use of language. All of which Shakespeare is very useful for learning.
At no point have you actually answered any of my questions. You simply bleat on about how secular literature is ossur and how Jewish literature is good. And you have absolutely no evidence for either claim. The objective fact is this: the standard of Jewish literature is very poor, and if we wish to teach our children decent English skills then they are not suitable to learn from. Now. PLEASE. Stop being so blinkered and actually answer my questions. Give me mareh mekomos. Something, anything but your own opinions as if they were da’as torah. So, the questions again:
1) You claim the Rambam hated ‘imagination’, I show you the mareh mokom in the Rambam and what the Rambam really says. Where is your Rambam? Mareh mokom please.
2) If secular literature is ossur, how could a Rosh Yeshiva have the Collected Works of Shakespeare on his own private bookshelf, regardless of whether or not he read it?
3) How can you claim that only a ‘basic’ level of knowledge of maths and science is necessary when a good grasp of some fairly intricate maths and science is needed for many sugyos in shas? I even gave you a few of the sugyos to look up so you could see for yourself.
4) How can you learn English skills from Jewish literature when that literature is not of any sort of decent standard? (And please don’t just say that it is good enough. It isn’t. You have displayed a profound lack of knowledge of both literature and English skills thus far. Those who are competent have all agreed that Jewish literature just isn’t good enough. I’m not sure you’re qualified to disagree.)
5) Who on earth gave you the right to decide what a Godol should or shouldn’t do? Who made you the arbiter of Gadlus? If a Godol does not think that there is anything wrong with something, how can you tell me that for me to say that that is what the Godol says is loshon horo?
Direct answers. Evidence. Mareh mekomos. That’s all I ask for. I suspect it may be too much to hope for.