religious teachers

The main power of religious teachers comes from their pretense of secret knowledge. Especially knowledge of Kabalah. So they are in particular jealous of the Kabalah Institute [founded on the approach to the Ari of Rav Ashlag] as being a threat to their supposed superiority about this secret knowledge. The only way one can really see through their deception is by experience. There is really very little in the way of checking up on them otherwise.
Only people that were believing in them and burnt are the ones openly saying that they are all frauds, and these people that have been burnt are usually not believable because of the fact that they are losers at this game of fraud. Losers tend to have little of no credibility because of the fact that they are losers even though they are the ones in position to have actually seen the truth.

The truth is religious teachers do not have knowledge of the Ari at all. Most have not even read through the entire works of the Ari at all. And those that have learned the Ari in some depth are usually ignorant of Gemara and thus unqualified. The whole thing is  a scam. 

Even the so called Kabalah yeshivas in Jerusalem are frauds, and are just private county clubs for the macho man and his thugs to sit around all day and chat. Beware.



[In any case for actual knowledge of the Ari the Kabbalah institute seems very good. They have a great edition of all the Ari and without pretense of great knowledge of it they study it seriously. It is the best and most honest approach to this that I have seen.]


This should not be construed as a critique on the Holy Torah, not the written Law nor the oral Law. Rather this is a critique on the creeps that pretend to know it an keep it. in so doing the give the Torah and all Jews a bad name. The religious world are more like enemies of the Jewish people and of the Torah than the friends they claim to be.

In fact I think the Oral and Written Law are very important and I think Reb Israel Salanter found the best approach to make this simple and easy--to learn Musar [the Ethics of the Torah.]

I know on a blog with the Gra in the title it is hard to understand why I would put being in the Armed Forces as good thing. While being in the Armed Forces could cramp your ability to keep all the Mitzvot with all the details. 

Still getting married takes precedence. If a Litvak (Lithuanian) Rosh yeshiva's daughter is a possibility I figure then those people  are not looking at this blog anyway, and that would have happened already.  So obviously you were by-passed. 


 And the religious world is a disaster zone when it comes to shiduchim. [It is  a cheat and a racket for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many  baal teshuvas.]
The main thing there is the fraud and scams. This is besides the fact that the religious world outside the yeshivas is simply a fake religion. It pretends to keep Torah, but worships their human gurus. 

So to be man, it seems to me there is little choice but to  do the Armed Forces thing. [Unless something clicks in university.]

War is justifiable if it is to protect one's home.

Slavery is a biblical law. There are many laws concerning how to deal with slaves. See the laws of slavery in Maimonides. It is a whole book. And the laws of the Bible are forever. There is nothing to indicate that the laws were temporary. The very last of the prophets Malachi ends his prophecy with "Remember the Law of Moses." The whole idea that the Law can be abridged when it says openly that it is forever is ridiculous.  Besides the fact that it says by the laws that they are forever like Tzitzit and Chalah, there is the verse  הנסתרות להשם אלהינו והנגלות לנו ולבנינו לעשות את כל דברי התורה הזאת

And for what purpose would there be a document that you can change its meaning at will? There would be no function for such a document except to give power to the people that claim to understand it and represent it and get money because of their supreme holiness.
A document that's meaning can be changed has no legitimate function in the first place.
We have to say the the Torah has a meaning that is independent of interpretations. And it is only upon us to discern than meaning, not to change it. 

the religious world

c An religious teacher will be the first person to betray you to the enemy.Much less be trustworthy.

The main profession the religious world learn is how to ask others for money. That is their main goal in life. How to get money from others. 


The way they do this is sneaky. They pretend to be doing public service by getting people to  do meaningless rituals and then expect to get paid for that. They also make yeshivas that are frauds. They pretend we are all one big happy family but then when one is on board the ship and no longer is able to learn an independent livelihood they throw off the pretense and it becomes about being their slaves.

This is not Lashon Hara (slander) because just think fora minute if I am right. Lets say all religious teachers are this exact way. Then anyone who knows this and is quite about it is transgressing every second the prohibition אל תעמוד על דם ריעך Thou shalt not stand by and see the blood of your neighbor spilled.

r68 F Major

I am very happy about the improvement to the American military that I have seen recently. My Dad had invested a large amount of his life towards improved and upgrading the military might of the USA. While in the US Air Force he served in the European theater of action. Later literately invented night vision.[At first it was telescope that focused infra red waves. Later the US Army did its own modification to make it small and portable as we see today in night vision helmets. After that he was the head of one of the teams that developed  cameras for the U-2. Then he was recruited to build laser communication for the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI (Star Wars).

Isaac Luria has a modification of the theory of ideas of Plato and the Neo Platonics. Just because some people take the Ari in wrong directions does not mean there is nothing to be gained from him.
I was troubled for some time by the fact of the Zohar itself not being from Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai but I think there is much to be gained from the Ari himself.
I will try to take a minute here to describe my own world view in short terms. In short I take the idea of Kant that there is a limit to pure reason. Beyond that there is the world of the form, [or ideas as Aristotle called it.] That realm has a hierarchy.  Forms of necessity. Areas of more human interest with have less strict forms and more numinous content. But there are areas of the world of forms that are more formal like Mathematical logic. These areas are not completely of bound to human reason because of their formal content.
But even those areas of formal content depend on a kind of knowledge which  reason perceives

Organized schizophrenia is not the same thing as being careful in keeping the commandments of the Torah.

Organized schizophrenia is the over emphasis of rituals in the religious world.

This is not the same thing as being careful in keeping the commandments of the Torah.
Organized schizophrenia is when you have had in the past some charismatic figure who was a schizoid personality type obsessed with ritual preparation of food and cleaning rituals and sex.
And because he was in control enough of his obsession to make sure to do them only at the right times and places he gained a following as being a holy man. [That is he was only schizoid, not schizophrenic.]
So these rituals gained acceptance and became obligatory.
So far this is well known. I have added nothing here to what is well known and commonly accepted.

We can see this tendency in the religious world. Mainly with the groups that are obsessed with rituals and  sex and food preparation and cleaning rituals. But this can be traced back further. See the Sidur of Saadia Gaon and the order of prayers of the Rambam. We can see how things just kept getting added on and added on until there is no time left in the day to do anything,-- especially not learning Torah.

But what I wanted to add today is an idea from the מסילת ישרים Paths of the Just by Rav Moshe Chaim Lutzatto. That is that the outer affects the inner. Thus by extra strictness in חומרות added restrictions which were added on by some schizoid personality and became accepted by the whole social organism one becomes himself schizoid.

Appendix: This is well known concerning Pesukai DeZimra--the part of the morning prayer before the blessings on Kriat Shema. But the reason I mentioned the sidur of Saadia Gaon is the the first blessing of Kriat Shema itself is about three lines. The opening blessing, a short sentence, and the closing. ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם יוצר אור ובורא חושך then about ten words after that. And then ברוך ... יצר המאורות

So the problem seems to be be that the leaders of the religious community tend to be schizoid personalities that gain their fame from their fanatic addiction to rituals. It is a great thing that the Na Nach groups have noticed this problem. And in fact Reb Nachman himself made a note of the fact that often the leaders of the religious are demonic and so urged caution in this regard. My own approach is that I have been hurt so much and so often by the religious community that I simply refuse to have anything to do with them because I figure at this point the Sitra Achra has just taken over the whole thing lock, stock and barrel. I get panicky just by seeing them because of the kind of damage they have already caused me.

To Hagai the prophet during the years of Darius came the word of God. He told Hagai that the people are saying, "It is not the right time to build the house of God." So God told Hagai to ask them, "You have time to sit in your houses and plant your vineyards, but you do not have time to build the house of God?"

You have to get the context right. The First Temple was ordered by God to be built while the Jewish people were still not even in the Land of Israel yet. You can see this in the later parts of Exodus. In those later parts of Exodus you can see God ordering the Jewish people to build a temple and bring daily offerings there. And later in Leviticus you can see many kinds of sacrifices that are to be brought there and the words are used חוקת עולם an everlasting law.

Later the Temple was destroyed by the King of Babylon. So what we have here in this later prophet is the idea that the Jewish people should rebuild the Temple in order to keep God's Law, the Law of Moses.

The house of God here is not a synagogue. It is the Temple in Jerusalem. And this is not personal nor subject to individual interpretation. It is a straight forward order by God to build the Temple.

Darius is famous in the Old Testament. He is also the King or Persia that had the famous run in with the Athenians.. The Athenians supported a rebellion of Ionian a Greek colony in Italy that was under Persian rule. The Athenians burnt the ships that Darius had sent to squelch the rebellion. When the messenger told him the Athenians had burnt his ships, he asked "Who are the Athenians?"
He swore to burnt Athens to the ground, and started the First of the Persian Grecian Wars
Presumably. by that time, he knew who the Athenians were. His expedition to conquer Greece included about a half a million men. It was the greatest armada the world had ever seen up until. Nothing stood between him and total conquest of ancient Greece except 300 Spartans.



His work to conquer Ancient Greece was stopped but his work to rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem earned him  honor and mention in the prophets.

One reason to go into the Navy is to learn how to be a man, a mensch. There is something about learning how to be a man that one does not get by books of Musar or even by learning Torah.

This does not apply to any armed forces, but rather to armed forces that are devoted towards righteous causes.
But people that learn what it is to be honest and reliable and upright and trustworthy from books alone never end up with these traits.

The last person you want watching your back in a survival situation is a religious teacher.  A religious teacher will be the first person to betray you to the enemy.Much less be trustworthy.


The main profession that the religious world learns is how to ask others for money. That is their main goal in life. How to get money from others.


The way they do this is sneaky. They pretend to be doing public service by getting people to  do meaningless rituals and then expect to get paid for that. They also make yeshivas that are frauds. They pretend we are all one big happy family but then when one is on board the ship and no longer is able to learn an independent livelihood they throw off the pretense and it becomes about being their slaves.

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch [Abridged Shulchan Aruch]

The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch [Abridged Shulchan Aruch] is a good book in many ways. It does give a basic synopsis of practical laws. But it has a flaw that it says to go to  religious teachers when in doubt.  Religious teachers are not honest. You can not trust them about anything. I do not know why this is but they can be trusted to do as much damage to you and to me given the slightest chance. And they have no idea of Torah law either. If in doubt about some particular case of Torah law, the only choice is to go to the Gemara directly. [Even going to the actual complete Shulchan Aruch of Yoseph Karo does not help, because you anyway have to go to the Gemara to see how the law is applied and understood.
There is no skipping of this step. However, when one has learned the subject in the  Gemara thoroughly, then the actual Shuclan Aruch with its commentaries is a useful tool.

r66 D minor

Definition of a religious teacher: an idiot that thinks he is smart and in fact smarter than anyone else and therefore people ought to give him money.

 Perhaps one of the most ugly and perfidious concepts is that somehow  religious teacher are righteous, loving and virtuous. 


They work  politically and economically  for  destruction of secular Jews and Baali Teshuva and the State of Israel.


You are told in a constant sensory assault that these religious teachers who cannot do for themselves and live off the charity of secular Jews, it is your duty to lug the ever burdensome dead weight across your own back until you are satisfactorily broken, beaten and demoralized.

Definition of an  religious teacher: an idiot that thinks he is smart and in fact smarter than anyone else and therefore people ought to give him money.


The farther you stay away from this class of creeps, the closer you will be to God and to the holy Torah.

Some people see Kabalah as a negative thing. They group it together with attempts of things like the New Age cults and such. This was never my impression, but I think this opinion should still be considered.  After all how is it that it got to be so widely and wildly  accepted the  religious world? I am not sure how to answer this? From what I can tell there might be some reason to think the entire acceptance of it as a legitimate part of Judaism might have been a mistake.

In any case it is hard to see any good that comes out of it.

However sometimes it seems  people that were good  did learn the Zohar and the Ari. And that does not seem like a bad thing. After all the Ari is just developing a modification of a neo- platonic system and using it to explain the Torah. Still you have to wonder is there perhaps some kind of bad energy mixed up with the whole thing? Based on what we have seen for the last centuries as Kabalah became popular we certainly did not see people improving in any way because of learning it.

What might be going on is that people are putting anything that smacks of the Dark Side all in one trash basket and throwing it all out without inspecting the particulars of each case. Thus they would be putting the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on and cabala and new age and hinduism all together and saying that it is underneath all the same dark side.



In other words some people are instead of focusing on the positive aspects of their beliefs system are focusing on avoiding the Dark Side in all and every manifestation of it. This is probably a good approach. The reason is that it is easy to be distracted and to swallow the bait. I think people are the most interested in avoiding the Dark Side are probably thinking correctly.The question is how to identify the dark side? But they are not concerned with that. They simply dismiss anything that smells even slightly off.

Now I have never done that myself and I am probably at fault for this. As I look over things I have read I see I have studied in great depth and detail systems that were pretty obviously from the Dark Side. Maybe I did not care, or maybe I thought it would not effect me. Maybe I thought I was immune?

I have talked about kabalah in particular is some other essay. But just for now let me mention that Im Kal Da [even though] which comes up all the time in the Zohar is a translation of Im Kal Ze [even though in Hebrew]. It was a phrase invented by the Ibn Tibon family during the Middle Ages. [There were  ways to say "even though" in Hebrew during the time of R Shimon Ben Yochai, like "af al pi" or "af al gav." But Ibn Tibon was looking for something that made more sense, so he came up with this "im kal ze."] Therefore not one word of the Zohar can be from R. Shimon Ben Yochai. QED.

r65 E Flat Major r65 in midi format r65nwc

Why American should not bow before the pressures of the Federal Government to enforce Queer agenda.

 Moral Principles are worth more than money.

A weakening of faith was the problem in Europe and it still is. Nationalism is not a substitute for numinous holy value. The complete rejection of the Middle Ages was a terrible mistake. In the Middle Ages it was the basic starting axiom that faith and reason are not at odds in any way.And the books written then in philosophy show a rigor that have never been excelled.
Later books of philosophy seems to excel in circular reasoning and often plain false principles that sound good at first.

How empty a man's life would be without a woman's touch

I hate feminists but I love women. I think that they are superior to men in many ways. I am in a college dorm and I can tell you there is a real difference when there are guys than when there are girls. How empty a man's life would be without a woman's touch and encouragement. He starts his first breath from a woman's touch. His pleasure and happiness in his life is from women. His comfort in his sadness is from a woman's love. Life would be empty and meaningless without women. That does not mean they are smarter or better at building bridges.

Girl Friends:

The Book of Chronicles, Volume One, chapter two [2:46] and four concerning Kalev ben Yefuna (כלב בן יפונה). He is the only person in the entire Bible that it says the unique phrase, וימלא אחרי השם "He walked completely after God." He had two girl friends.]

I have seen some different opinions about this. Christians seem to be unaware of the different between the Law of the Ten Commandments and having a girl friend. The Ten Commandments are referring to sex with a married woman. To show how this can be derived rigorously from the usage in the Torah is a good idea. But I do not have the books to be able to look it up.

Jewish people

 I see that the Jewish people are in a spiritual situation that is  serious . I have been hoping to emphasize the importance of learning the Avi Ezri  in the hope that learning that book would save our souls. 

Too many false prophets and demonic  religious teachers claim to represent Torah. 

The religious world is an scam pretending to represent Torah, while in fact seducing people into the Dark Side of worship of  religious teachers by means of using the appearance of Jewish rituals

So the book of Rav Shach I think is perhaps the only thing that can help. Everything else can be perverted. Even Musar and even Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot.

One should have a fast session in it and  an in depth one. The fast one should be just to say the words in order and go on until you have finished the whole book word for word. The slow one is more difficult to describe. To do a slow session in the Avi Ezri you will need to pick one chapter and get the sources associated with it like the Gemaras that it is written on and the Rambam also. 


[Appendix: The Avi Ezri is the book of Rav Elezar Menachem Shach on the Rambam. It is in essence close to the Chidusei HaRambam of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. But slightly different. There are few or no יסודות (foundational principles). That is he does not depend on finding some underlying principle to explain things, but rather takes a common sense approach to answering contradictions and problems in the Rambam and the Gemara. It is deep while at the same time being much more understandable than the Chidushei HaRambam.

In the past I have said to learn it because it is a good thing. Now I am trying to make my point a little clearer. The difference is a doctor who says, "Take this medicine because it is good for you," and the doctor who says the same thing but puts it in this way,"Take this medicine so you do not die."


A יסוד is foundational principle. Reb Chaim depends on these very much. He starts in the normal way of finding some contradiction in the Rambam, or between the Rambam and the Gemara. Then he introduces a axiom. Then tries to answer the problem based on the axiom. Rav Shach also begins the same way, but skips the idea of introducing some axiom though he might end up with one.


Instead of Torah and the Oral Law people get interested in Kabalah

 Kabalah might be a negative thing. It might be similar to New Age cults and such.  After all how is it that it got to be so widely and wildly  accepted in the religious world? I am not sure how to answer this? From what I can tell there might be some reason to think the entire acceptance of it as a legitimate part of Judaism might have been a mistake.

In any case it is hard to see any good that comes out of it.

However sometimes it seems  people that were good  did learn the Zohar and the Ari. And that does not seem like a bad thing. After all the Ari is just developing a modification of a neo- platonic system and using it to explain the Torah. Still you have to wonder is there perhaps some kind of bad energy mixed up with the whole thing? Based on what we have seen for the last centuries as Kabalah became popular we certainly did not see people improving in any way because of learning it.


What might be going on is that people are putting anything that smacks of the Dark Side all in one trash basket and throwing it all out without inspecting the particulars of each case. Thus they would be putting the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on and Cabala and New Age and Hinduism all together and saying that it is underneath all the same dark side. This might be the best approach.

Life would be empty and meaningless without women

I hate feminists but I love women. I think that they are superior to men in many ways. I am in a college dorm and I can tell you there is a real difference when there are guys than when there are girls. How empty a man's life would be without a woman's touch and encouragement. He starts his first breath from a woman's touch. His pleasure and happiness in his life is from women. His comfort in his sadness is from a woman's love. Life would be empty and meaningless without women. That does not mean they are smarter or better at building bridges.

Girl Friends: See the Book of Chronicles, Volume One, chapter two [2:46] and four concerning Kalev ben Yefuna (כלב בן יפונה). He is the only person in the entire Bible that it says the unique phrase, וימלא אחרי השם "He walked completely after God." He had two girl friends.]

What the religious world does is put all the emphasis on rituals and the worship of religious teachers.

The prophets end with זכרו תורת משה. Remember the Law of Moses.
The Law of Moses is composed of several areas of value. One important area that is largely forgotten is character traits and the whole area of what is called בין אדם לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man. This is the reason why Lithuanian Musar yeshivas are important.Because they strive for this balance.
What the religious world does is put all the emphasis on rituals and the worship of  religious teachers. That means it is really a different religion than Torah.
Still that is not to say the ritual part of Torah is not also essential. One needs a balance.

I believe in capitalism from a different aspect. That is from learning Torah and Talmud. In the Talmud, property is not considered to belong to the government, but to the individual. And not just taking it by theft or fraud is considered to transgress the command not to steal, but even if the court awards one money that does not really come to him by the law of the Torah (din Torah), that is also considered theft.  Reading Ann Rand later on reinforced this. But Ann Rand was really just emphasizing a point I had seen before, that Socialism is theft disguised as virtue.

But to get a really full fledged defense of capitalism I really had to wait until I read Kant. I do not know if I was trying on purpose to come out with a defense of private property.  I was after all interested in the argument against it. I read the Communist manifesto and Rousseau and approaches that defended the State as opposed to the individual. But these approaches never seemed to hold much water. Especially Marx. To me what he was saying seemed ridiculous. He had some concocted theory that things have as much value as much labor went into making them which is patently absurd. Things have as much value as people want them, not as much time and labor went into making them. You can work all year long on making a pin. It will not be worth more than if you spent less time.

There was  effort from the communists to get the collage curriculum in the USA to feature anti capitalist  thinkers. A lot depends on what he reads and digests in his or her college years. As for me even in my yeshiva years I continued reading left wing and right wing thinkers along with the Talmud. I read Lenin, Sartre, etc. Still the more I read the less they made sense. They would start out with some nice sounding principle and think they and proved it. And then by that dubious principle proceed to demolish normal moral values. You can see how reading the Talmud was for me a relief of logic and sanity from the inanities and absurdities of Lenin and Sartre. The contrast could not have been more stark.
[Sadly though I did not get to Kant until years later. That was a stupid mistake on my part. I had seen him in some private home and could have borrowed him if I had wanted. So instead it took me many years until I finally got to Kant.]

However there is a use for Marxism. It can harness the greed of people to gain power for central government. This is how it played out in the USSR and in China. But I do not think that is a good thing. It all depends if you think the state is more important or the individual.

Every mortal is born with a equal measure of good and evil.

The Ancient Greeks in order to gain allies when Xerxes was coming to invade  sent to potential allies this idea. They said, "Every mortal is born with a equal measure of good and evil. No exceptions." Thus Xerxes would not, and could not, have unlimited success.

Some people like Bava Sali [Israel Abuchatzeira] in their  own way applied this idea to their own lives.  They said there is a limit to how much good and pleasure they will have so they voluntarily limited it. It is well known that Bava Sali fasted most of his life from Shabat to Shabat.

marriage delay.

Women in the western world today are too comfortable, too spoiled, too pampered, too soft, too selfish. 

Getting to the nub of it,  women are willing to marry if, and only if, the man involved is absolutely perfect in every way. He has to be hot, fit, sexy, exciting, monogamous minded, with a good job and money in the bank, and his own living arrangements. He has to be ready made, off the shelf perfect, with no added input and no assembly required. He can’t be a diamond in the rough or a work in progress. He can’t be a young guy just starting out, he needs to be established and earning very good money, and he has to have all these things first, before he’ll be anywhere close to worthy of consideration.

That’s what’s driving the marriage delay.

Almost all Divorce Petitions are issued on the grounds of the husband’s Unreasonable Behavior, and what you may ask would such behavior comprise? Anything you like! but some of the most popular are, leaving the toothpaste-cap off, leaving the loo-seat up and forgetting the mother-in-law’s birthday. In other words, whim. No man ever complaines in a petition as to his wife’s behavior.

I wanted to suggest two types of sessions in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. One is just saying the words and going on and the other is in depth learning. The in depth learning depends on if you have  a learning partner or not. When I have found myself without a learning partner -which is more often than not- I suggest just to take one chapter and just run through it from start to finish. Then the next day do the same thing. And thus continue at least for forty days. I admit I did not do this myself with Rav Shach but rather other people like Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam. This idea of lots of review  I mainly picked up from my first rosh yeshiva and his son who were always talking about the importance of review.

Talmud Bava Metzia 98a. Tosphot first word משכחת. It occurred to me to ask what seems like a simple question. To Rabbainu Tam to take an oath of  a guard one needs כפירה הודאה ואונס. Why is not just כפירה or אונס enough? Is that not the same thing as מודה במקצת where we say מודה במקצת הטענה חייב שבועה? I guess because it is different than the case of a loan. By a loan we say he takes an oath because he really wanted to deny the whole thing but אין אדם מעיז פניו בפנע בעל חובו because the lender did him a favor by giving him  a loan. But here with a guard the person that gave the guard something to watch did him no favor.
The question on this is:
But then there would be more of a reason to have a person that denies the whole transaction to take an oath, not less.

What I mean to say is this we say מודה מקצת takes an oath because two things cancel. There is a reason to say he is denying only part when he could have denied the whole thing so let us believe him. To cancel this we say אין אדם מעיז פניו בפני בעל חובו. So then normally our starting position is there should be an oath, because 1-1 is the same as zero.







It also occurred to me a simple way to explain the question of Tosphot on Rabbainu Tam. Rava asks on Rav and Shmuel "if there is a migo then there would never be a case of a שומר taking and oath." The question of Tosphot on RT is that to RT the case of  a guard taking an oath is never a case where there is a migo.

________________________________________________________________________________
בבא מציעא צ''ח ע''א תוספות ד''ה משכחת. It occurred to me to ask what seems like a simple question. To רבינו תם to take an oath of  a שומר one needs כפירה הודאה ואונס. Why is not just כפירה or אונס enough? Is that not the same thing as מודה במקצת where we say מודה במקצת הטענה חייב שבועה? I guess because it is different than the case of a loan. By a loan we say he takes an oath because he really wanted to deny the whole thing but אין אדם מעיז פניו בפנע בעל חובו because the lender did him a favor by giving him  a loan. But here with a guard the person that gave the guard something to watch did him no favor.


השאלה על זה:
אבל אז  תהיה יותר סיבה לחייב אדם שמכחיש את העסקה כולה לקחת שבועה, לא פחות.


It also occurred to me a simple way to explain the question of תוספות on רבינו תם. In שבועות רבא  asks on רב and שמואל if there is a מיגו then there would never be a case of a שומר taking and oath." The question of תוספות on רבינו תם is that to רבינו תם the case of  a guard taking an oath is never a case where there is a מיגו because it is always מודה מקצת




בבא מציעא צ''ח ע''א תוספות ד''ה משכחת. עלה בדעתי לשאול מה שנראה כמו שאלה פשוטה. לרבינו תם, שומר כדי להישבע צריך כפירה הודאה ואונס. למה לא  כפירה לבדה או אונס מספיקים? האם זה לא אותו דבר כמו מודה במקצת שבו אנו אומרים מודה במקצת הטענה חייב שבועה? תרוץ: אני מניח כי זה שונה מאשר במקרה של הלוואה. על ידי הלוואה שאנו אומרים הוא לוקח שבועה כי הוא באמת רוצה להכחיש את העניין, אבל אין אדם מעיז פניו בפני בעל חובו כי המלווה עשה לו טוב על ידי שנתן לו הלוואה. אבל כאן עם שומר, האדם שנתן משהו לשמור לא עשה לו שום טובה.
גם עלה בדעתי דרך פשוטה להסביר את השאלה של תוספות על רבינו תם. בשבועות רבא שואל על רב ושמואל אם יש מיגו אז לעולם לא יהיה מקרה בשומר לקיחת השבועה ". שאלת תוספות על רבינו תם היא  לרבינו תם במקרה שהשומר לוקח שבועה הוא לא לעולם במקרה בו קיים מיגו כי זה תמיד מודה מקצת.


_

Rav Elazar Menachem Shach

I added an idea here about an idea of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach of Yeshivat Ponovitch.
In short there is question in the Rambam.
First let me say  the Etrogs on an  Etrog tree do not ripen all at once. They can stay on the tree for years. So there is a question what to do about Maasar [tithes]? The Rambam goes with the opinion you go by the time the etrog was picked. But he also says an etrog that goes from the 6th year into the 7th is obligated in tithes. Direct contradiction. Rav Shach says the fruit of the 7th year is not הפקר. They have owners. All Israel. So when his field is being trampled  he would not be obligated in tithes because of trampling,-- not because that from the law they would not be obligated.

I have another answer for the problem, but here I just wanted to defend Rav Shach.[That is since the Etrog has owners it is fruit that is owned by partners and thus obligated in tithes.]


Rav Shach is important-the only area of disagreement I have is STEM [Science, Tech, Engineering, Math]. But in terms of areas of numinous value, I am in agreement with him.  That is that the holy Torah contains all the answers and all the meaning [for human life].

/leftism-is-about-murdering-father.html

Music for the glory of God. I thank God for granting to me to write this and to share with others.

r64 G minor r64 midi r64 nwc 
r63 E Major r63 midi r63 nwc

r36 r36 midi r36 nwc

r62 r62 midi r62 nwc

r61 r61 midi r61 nwc

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r26 nwc

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r22  r22midi  r22 nwc
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r18 r18 midi r18 nwc  r17 [r17 midi  r17 nwc] r16 [r16 midi  r16 nwc]  r15 [r15 midi i can not find a r15 nwc file--but you can use the midi file to convert this to the original notes]  r14 [r14 midi r14 nwc]   r13   [r13 midi  r13 nwc]  r12 [r12 midi   r12 nwc] r11 [r11 midi r11 nwc]   r10   [r10 midi 10 nwc] r9 [ r9 midi r9 nwc ] r8  [r8 midi r8 nwc]   r7 [r7 midi r7 nwc]  r6  [r6 midi r6 nwc]    r5 [r5 midi  r5 nwc]   r4  [r4 midi  r4 nwc]   r3  [r3 midi r3 nwc  ]  r2 [r2 midi  r2 nwc ]  r1 [r1 midi  r1 nwc]

Most men are shying away from marriage---- comment from Dalrock

A comment from a blog. This is relevant to you to show you why I am telling you with all urgency to marry into a Litvak family and avoid the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on like the plague. They are trash pretending to be aristocrats. They think rituals can cover up their criminal activities.

Most men are shying away from marriage because they don’t want to get divorced. They don’t want to lose most of what they’ve worked for. They don’t want to end up in the poorhouse. They don’t want to be wage slaves. They don’t want to lose their relationships with their kids. They don’t want to end up as social pariahs, where everyone (including their own religion teachers and parents) blame them for the breakups of their marriages.

These are guys who would happily sign on for marriage if it was a good deal. These are guys who would work hard at it if the odds of failure weren’t around 45%. (If 45% of planes crashed, who would fly them?)

Mud sharking

Mud sharking is what is called on the internet black male and white female

The name comes from the fact of the mud sharks hanging around in the mud at the bottom of the sea.

It does remind me of the importance of genes and DNA.

What I recommend is you should try to find a Litvak shiduch, Religious Zionist also. Not the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on. 
If I have time I would like to collect some thoughts and ideas on this. I have seen enough disasters when it comes to shiduchim with individuals with bad DNA. It is as if stupidity and viciousness go hand in hand.

Even not black and white or the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on which are all defective. Even among white and white {Ukraine with Tartar-which are white I have seen that the damaged DNA criminal heritage gets passed on. That is some Ukrainian women I have seen are not careful about this. One very nice woman married a tartar and as expected the children are a combination of insane and criminal. I am sure she though she was getting a good guy because, in fact her husband is a pretty decent fellow. But the bad genes came from potential into reality in their deranged children. Another fellow married a gypsy--not knowing she was a gypsy because there also her skin was white. As expected the children are criminals. You can't outsmart biology. There are so many examples of this in front of my eyes, but because of being from the USA I choose to ignore this. But if you think about it you can see the effects of ruining ones DNA with some bad mixture.

Don't ruin your DNA with by joining it with someone who has damaged DNA.

Litvak [Lithuanian] yeshiva. The real ones as opposed to the phonies and fakes.

Sometimes institutions work against their stated goal and sometimes not. I used to think that all institutions work against their stated goals but someone loaned to me a book about long lasting corporations e.g., MMM that are successful and also in fact produce quality products.

This goes I think for yeshiva also. For I think that to really get a decent idea of what is going on in the Gemara is almost impossible without the context of a Litvak [Lithuanian] yeshiva. But it takes a discerning eye to tell the different between the real thing and the phonies and fakes.
The difference should be clear in terms of intention. What are people in the yeshiva intending to do? To learn and keep Torah? Then it is authentic. If their intention is to use Torah as a profession then it is fake.I might as well make  a short list of the best places. Ponovitch and its branches are great. The Litvak yeshivas in NY are tremendous. i.e. Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. In Yerushalaim there is mainly Brisk. Though I am also impressed by Rav Zilverman in the Old City. His Yeshiva goes by the Gra in all details and it seems pretty good to me.
But in essence almost any place that you can tell is concentrating on Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot and Musar you can be pretty much guaranteed that is it is OK.

[I am not saying to do yeshiva at the expense of going to college. If one is going into STEM that is great and should be done in connection with sessions in Talmud. But the Humanities and Social departments of universities are disaster zones.]

Music for the glory of God

r63 E major 

The meaning of life and "to find the truth."

High School had an indelible imprint on my life. I think the USA was changing at that time. But as a rule families did stuff on weekends. This I think was practically universal in the USA at the time. I had to go to Hebrew School on Shabat so the only day we could do stuff was Sunday. Summers were different. Either we went back East.[NY, NJ] or to summer camps.
Families were much more fragile than ours, but still stable and sturdy as a rule. High School itself was combination of intense frustration and awesome high points. But it was all an integral whole. Family and school and vacations all had an organic connection.
I was intensely curious about the meaning of life and "to find the truth." This was in to some degree part of the environment in S. California at the time. That is I studied philosophy on my own but not as an academic endeavor but to find the truth. Plato, Spinoza, Dante, Buddha, Marx, and Chinese philosophers were like bread and butter to me. Eventually I settled on the Torah--the Law of Moses as having the most accurate representation of reality and the truth. That was my personal journey.

My parents and friends provided as much support as possible but largely this was a lonely effort.

I was looking for the truth but the truth was before my very eyes. Family values, a decent stable democracy as the USA was in those days, it all seems idyllic compared to what the world has sunken into since then. Even though it was an amazing world I still sought the transcendental meaning behind it all.

In any case I found some amazing truth in the Law of Moses. But I also saw it can be misused.
Still in the world of the Lithuanian Yeshiva I found a close connection between the inner essence of the Law of Moses and how people were living their lives.






.

Godel has a proof of the existence of God

Godel has a proof of the existence of God that I mentioned on one of my blogs. The idea was really from Anselm and Godel put it into logical form. It depends on God having all positive traits. I tried to reinforce that idea by means of the Compactness Theorem of Godel. This was all in some other blog entry somewhere. Today I just wanted to add that it seems to me that this completeness theorem itself is related to the fact that in differential manifolds we only talk about C^0 or C^ Infinity. The reason is that a manifold M that is C^r itself has a C^r diffeomorphism from M to a manifold that is C^infinity.
[Kelly Ross rightfully noted that existence is a predicate.]

a C^r manifold is a manifold that you can take a derivative r times over the complex field.  A C^r manifold has a C^r function to a C^infinity manifold.  



[(Compactness Theorem). A set of formulas Γ is satisfiable if and only if every finite subset of Γ is satisfiable.][From the finite to the infinite. Perhaps the simplest use of the Compactness Theorem is to show that if there exist arbitrarily large finite objects of some type, then there must also be an infinite object of this type.] [Mathematical Logic ch. 4 and ch. 9]



This idea is sound. However I prefer to go with the more direct and simpler approach of Saadia Gaon and the חובות לבבות (Obligations of the Heart) and  the  Rambam of the First Cause, and the fact that there has to be a First Cause because of the problem of the infinite regress, For me that is the simplest and strongest approach, though I think  Anselm's one is also good and complementary.


In any case this is related to Kelley Ross in a different way. Here is what he says in his PhD Thesis [Sec III]: "This continues the theory of purposive value by at last addressing the hitherto presupposed polarity of value, although the discussion belong to absolute transcendence because it may be taken to be a general characteristic of positive transcendence (and so characteristic of it as such) and because its meaning seems to be bound up with the meaning of our existence and non-existence."

That is to say in plain English he is considering God as "absolute transcendence" and considers Him to be the One who has positive transcendence. I.e. by means of intention. That is all you can say about this from the standpoint of Kelley Ross. But the connection with Godel and the idea positive traits is certainly tantalizing.

[from Purim]

Xerxes is as far as I know is אחשורוש [from Purim] because that is how the name is pronounced in Persian.
He had two dreams telling him to attack Athens and all of the Hellenes. That was after he had thought to do so anyway. His chief adviser told him not to do so. At night he saw a handsome man standing over him telling him if he does not attack Greece he would lose everything just as fast as he gained everything. Then he had a second dream along the same lines. And then his put his chief adviser in his royal robes, and sat him down on his throne at night to sleep. The same man came to his adviser and said "Are you the one who has been telling Xerxes not to attack Athens? You are jerk." Or something along those lines.
When he attacked his allies were numerous. Everyone thought he would win and joined him. No one joined the Hellenes. Even those that had agreed to ally themselves with Athens stayed away from the battle to see which side would prevail.
300 Spartans and about 4000 other men from other parts of Greece stopped about 1/2 a million men.
And the Spartans would have won if not for one betrayer who showed the Persians and alternative route to get behind the Greek lines.

Xerxes was the last great king of Persia and from then on its glory and might fell.

Ideas in Talmud Bava Metzia chapters 8 and 9.

I added a little idea which is so simple I embarrassed I did not think of it before. Mainly that there was a question on the opinion of the Riva in Tosphot page 98.
[The Riva was one of the Baali HaTosphot.]
I do not know who asked it. Maybe Tosphot themselves or maybe my learning partner. The question was the Riva has to treat a case of  "I do not know" as if it was a case of אונס that is armed robbery, and he also needs to treat it as if it was a case of denial.

For we know the opinion of the Riva is thus if the a guard of an animal or object loses it and says "there was no object" that does not require an oath at all unless there is with it another object that he admits he owes. That is it is a case of מודה מקצת. But if he says there  was an object but there was armed robbery, then he needs to take an oath.

[Unlike Rashi or Rabbainu Tam]

What if he says "I do not know." The Gemara says "I do not know" requires another animal of "I admit I owe it." So to the Riva I do not know is טענת כפירה. But then the Gemara also says to Rami Bar Chama that if you have I do not know you need also
 admission and denial. So there I do not know is a case of אונס

I  can't look it up to see if this fits into the Gemara. But it seems to me this minute that if he says, "I do not know if there was armed robbery or not" that is considered armed robbery--and thus is required an oath. But if he says, "I do not know if I borrowed another animal or not," that is considered denial.

Off hand it would seem that this probably would not work in our Gemara on page 98 since the Gemra is dealing with only one kind of ''I do not know.'' But without a Gemara, I can't tell.
If this would work, then probably my learning partner would have seen it.  Still it is a tantalizing possibility to think we might have  good answer for the Riva.

the essence of Torah

What is the essence of Torah? The way I see it, it is the Ten Commandments.

What this means in a practical sense is it is a denial of other things that claim to represent the basic sense of Torah.
So believing in some tzadik or other righteous person would not be the essence of Torah.
This would also mean simply learning Torah or Musar would not be the essence either.
Rather it is a strict Ethical Monotheism that says God is one and he is not the world. And what one would call menschlichkeit. being a decent human being. Thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not bear false witness.
The essence of Torah is not to follow other groups that make their main thing some other kind of essence.

Religious teachers expect to be treated as if they represented the Torah. But they don't. They represent false Torah. Pseudo Torah. The Torah of Rituals. Not the real authentic Torah.

Of course to keep  the Ten Commandments requires knowledge of  the Oral and Written Law. For example "Thou shalt not steal" requires knowing the laws of Bava Metzia Bava Kama and all seder Nezikim and Nashim.

For more information on Religious teachers look up: "Home Wreckers".

however damaging to family life liberal society is, it can not possibly come close to the damage that religious teachers cause.

There is a kind of paradox in social norms. True that liberal society tends to weaken family bonds.
But you would expect in the religious world, things would be different. At first the religious teachers encourage one to disobey his parents because they are not religious enough. Then they urge ones wife to divorce him because he is not religious enough or religious in the right way that they think is right. Then they urge his children to disparage and ignore him and make false accusations. Somehow however damaging to family life liberal society is, it can not possibly come close to the damage that religious teachers cause.

They must think there is no judge and no judgment.
If you ask your children just one thing. Your whole life you never asked them a thing but there is something important to you, do you have any authority? Would you not think that the Ten Commandments would make a difference? Forget it. Your worth to your children is how much money they can keep on skimming off of you.
Certainly one should never believe them about the time of day, much less about what the Torah says.

False friends are much worse than open enemies. 

The Major Lies of Feminism

Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia page 98

Introduction. Rabbainu Tam says the only case when a guard swears the object was lost by accident is when there is another object that he admits and he gives back. That is there were two objects or two animals that he was guarding.

Tosphot asks on this in two places. One is in Bava Metzia page 98. The question is based on the Gemara in Shavuot. Over there the Mishna says a employee that says he was not paid takes an oath and gets paid. Rav and Shmuel say that is where there are witnesses that he is in fact an employee. For if there are not witnesses then the employer is believed that he paid because he could have said a stronger plea and certainly be believed. That is the employer could have said "Who are you? I never saw you before in my life."
Rami Bar Chama said what a nice statement that is. Rava asked, "What is nice about it? If it is true then we would never have  a case of a guard taking an oath."
That is the entire Gemara that is relevant for us right now. It is from that Gemara that Tosphot sees a contradiction to Rabbainu Tam.
The question of Tosphot is this. If Rabbainu Tam is right, then the case of a guard is not that where there is a possibility of denying the whole thing because it is always a case when there is one object he is agreeing that he owes.
Crystal Clear. But then Tosphot adds two words  אהייא קאי which to my learning partner [David Bronson] made no sense.
"Which animal does he deny?" To David these words are problematic.

It is in order to answer the question of David that I wrote the next paragraph.
It occurred to me a possible way to answer the question of my learning partner on Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia page 98. The original question was on the Tosphot on that page that asks אהייא קאי on which animal does the guard deny?  The answer I think is this. lets say the guard denied both animals? Then that is a straight case on לא היו דבאים מעולם. That is if he denies the animal that he denies then there is an oath because that is the regular case of הודאה וכפירה. If he denies the other animal then that is the case of כפירה  וכפירה. And in fact there would be no oath in that case--but we do not say he could have said that because that is then העזה and we always say that מודה מקצת is נשבע even though he could have denied everything and be believed. But there is no migo because of העזה
In other words this explains the question of Tosphot on Rabbanu Tam.

_____________________________________________________________________________


 עלה בדעתי דרך אפשרית כדי לענות על השאלה של השותף הלמידה שלי על בבא מציעא צ''ח ע''א. השאלה המקורית היתה על תוספות בדף זה ששואל אהייא קאי על איזו חיה השומר מכחיש? התשובה לדעתי היא זו. נניח השומר הכחיש שתי החיות? אז זה הוא מקרה ישר "לא היו דברים מעולם". כלומר, אם הוא מכחיש את החיה שהוא מכחיש, אז יש שבועה כי זה המקרה הרגיל של הודאה וכפירה. אם הוא מכחיש את חיה האחרת, אז זה המקרה של כפירה וכפירה. ולמעשה לא יהיה שום שבועה במקרה זה, אבל אנחנו לא אומרים שהוא יכול לומר את זה כי הוא אז זה העזה ואנחנו תמיד אומרים מודה מקצת הוא נשבע למרות שהוא יכול היה להתכחש הכל ושיאמין. אבל אין מיגו בגלל העזה. במילים אחרות זה מסביר את השאלה של תוספות על רבינו תם