carrying in one's pocket on the Sabbath Day

It might be a good idea to explain why I think carrying in one's pocket on the Sabbath Day is OK. To do that in a structured way.
The basic idea comes from the gemaras [Bava Batra 85] about acquisition. The question is if an object in the vessel of a person is thought to be in the domain of the person or the larger domain. There are differences if the vessel belongs to the seller or the buyer or to a third party. But the fact remains that the major question is if the object is considered to be in the larger domain or the bag. That is how the Rashbam explains it. Then the connection with Shabat comes from the Gemara that equates the two issues in Bava Batra 86.


The reason this is important is that a public domain does not seem to need 600,000. Even though Rashi and Tosphot both say that it does still it is hard to see how this could have been fulfilled in ancient Persia and the Gemaras in Shabat seem to treat the streets there as public domains.  

פ''ה in בבא בתרא

There seems to be a proof to carry in a כיס on the שבת is permitted.




This is because the גמרא in בבא בתאר says one who steals  a כיס on שבת and carries it out is obligated to pay back because the prohibition of שבת and theft happen at different times.
But if he drags it out, then he is not obligated. קם ליה בדרבא מיניה.
Now if the object in the כיס was considered different then that כיס itself then the two sins would be happening at different times. The object or money in the כיס would be considered to have been taken at one second in terms of laws of  שבת and the bag as far as acquisition would precede it.
So when the גמרא says the object in terms of acquisition goes with the bag then the same applies to שבת.
So when on שבת one is allowed to walk in a public domain with a pocket sewn into one's coat the object in the pocket is also considered to be in the pocket not in the public domain.
If you would hold a direct connection between acquisition and שבת, then in fact carrying in a כיס would not be allowed because a bag does not acquire in a public domain. But a כיס might very well be better than a bag. The case of the man that throws a divorce into the bag of his wife shows that a כיס that is connected with one's body is different that a bag one is holding.
The  משנה says she is divorced but the גמרא puts a few conditions like that the bag has to be connected with her. Incidentally the רשב''ם on page פ''ה in בבא בתרא does mention this question in terms of acquisition, whether the thing in the vessel is thought to be in the vessel or in the larger domain. Putting that together with what the sages say about throwing the divorce into the bag of the wife to me seems to indicate that a pocket in thought to be part of the person, not the domain. That is רב יהודה in the name of שמואל, and ריש לקיש.


The major point is the רשב''ם says the question of an object in a bag in terms of acquisition is if the object s thought to be in the bag or in the larger domain.

[This is important because a public domain does not seem to need 600,000.]


נראה שיש הוכחה שמותר לשאת בתוך כיס בשבת. הסיבה לכך היא הגמרא בבבא בתרא שאומרת שהגונב כיס בשבת מחויב להחזיר את הכסף משום איסור השבת והגניבה קורים בזמנים שונים. אבל אם הוא גורר אותו החוצה, ואז הוא אינו מחויב. קם ליה בדרבא מיניה. עכשיו אם אובייקט בכיס נחשב שונה מן הכיס עצמו אזי שני החטאים קורים בזמנים שונים.  הכסף בכיס יחשב גנוב שנייה אחת קודם מבחינת דיני שבת. אז כאשר הגמרא אומרת האובייקט במונחים של רכישה הולך עם הכיס אז כן הוא לגבי שבת. לכן, כאשר ביום שבת אחד מותר ללכת בתוך מרחב ציבורי עם כיס תפור לתוך המעיל כן האובייקט בכיס נחשב להיות בטל בכיס. אבל אם היית מחזיק חיבור ישיר בין רכישה לשבת, אז למעשה לשאת בתוך כיס לא יורשה בגלל כלי של לוקח אינו יכול לרכוש בתחום ציבורי. אבל כיס תפור בבגד יכול מאוד להיות טוב יותר מאשר שקית. המקרה של האיש שזורק גירושין לתוך השקית של אשתו מראה כי כיס מחובר עם הגוף של אישה הוא שונה משקית שהיא מחזיקה. המשנה אומרת שהיא גרושה, אבל הגמרא מכניסה כמה תנאים כמו שהתיק צריך להיות קשור אליה. 

carrying in a pocket on the Sabbath

There seems to be a proof that carrying in a pocket on the Sabbath is permitted.
This is because the Gemara in Bava Batra says one who steals  a pocket book on Shabat and carries it out is obligated to pay back because the prohibition of Shabat and theft happen at different times.
But if he drags it out, then he is not obligated. קם ליה בדרבא מיניה.
Now if the object in the bag was considered different then that bag itself then the two sins would be happening at different times. The object or money in the bag would be considered to have been taken in terms of Shabat and the bag as far as acquisition would precede it.
So when the Gemara says the object in terms of acquisition goes with the bag then the same applies to Shabat.
So when on Shabat one is allowed to walk in a public domain with a pocket sewn into one's coat the object in the pocket is also considered to be in the pocket not in the public domain.

I think this fact was note in Far Rockaway in Shar Yashuv when we were learning אלו מערות where the same mishna comes up.



If you would hold a direct connection between acquisition and Shabat, then in fact carrying in a pocket would not be allowed because a bag does not acquire in a public domain. But a pocket might very well be better than a bag. The case of the man that throws a divorce into the bag of his wife shows that a pocket that is connected with one's body is different that a bag one is holding.
[The  Mishna says she is divorced but the Gemara puts a few conditions like that the bag has to be connected with her. Incidentally the Rashbam on page 85 in Bava Batra does mention this question in terms of acquisition-- whether the thing in the vessel is thought to be in the vessel or in the larger domain. Putting that together with what the sages say about throwing the divorce into the bag of the wife to me seems to indicate that a pocket in thought part of the person -not the domain. [That is Rav Yehuda in the name of Shmuel, and others.]

Gemara says what it means.

The way I look at the Gemara (i.e. Talmud) is that it says what it means. This is different than interpretations of charity--looking at it in the way that agrees with what one already thinks.

It did not occur to me to mention this until yesterday when I mentioned that the path of my parents is Reform.


So I thought today just to mention a few Gemaras that go along with this idea.
One would be the Gemara in Bava Batra [14b] that Moses wrote his book (that is Deuteronomy) , the Book of Job, and the parsha [section] of the Holy Torah that deals with Bileam. [משה כתב ספרו ופרשת בלעם ואיוב]  The simple way of understanding this is that that is all that he wrote. Not the rest of the Five Books of Moses. The Five Books were certainly Divinely inspired, but that does not mean that Moses {Moshe} wrote them. [There is a Gemara in the very first tractate of the Talmud that says that Moses wrote all Five Books, but that seems to disagree with the Gemara in Bava Batra. [The 13 principles of Faith then would be deciding like the other  Gemara].
[At any rate, the Gemara in Bava Batra can not mean that Moses wrote all Five Books because that would include the section on Bileam. It has to mean just "his book", ספר דברם Deuteronomy



The other very well known Gemara is in the end of Makot where the obligations of the commandments are lessened.  Rashi explains that if people would be required to keep all the commandments then no one would merit to the next world. Therefore the obligations were lessened down from 613 to one [faith]. It was a long process starting with King David and Isaiah.

Another lesser known example is the opinion of Hillel [the Amora] in the Gemara that the whole idea of a final redemption does not apply since we already had a final redemption in the days of King Hezekiah.

There are many more examples of where you can see that the Gemara is not "PC." It says lots of things which offend many people's sensibilities.

[The author of the regular commentary on the Guide for the Perplexed, Joseph Albo also wrote on the principles of faith in a separate book  where he disagrees with the Rambam about the actual principles. I vaguely recall that Rav Joseph Albo reduced the principle one must believe in down to six and I think Abravenal down to three.]

u37 u57 music files

U-37 D Major U-57 D Major in this last piece I used an idea you can find in the Middle Ages of let's say you have a major scale as the tonic and then you go down to C Major instead of the expected A Major. Its's also found in Irish Music. [here is U-57 in midi format so that the scores can be downloaded by who ever wants] both pieces need slurs that i neglected to put in.

The Rashbam explains there [Bava Batra 76b]

It might seem trivial but to me there seems to be another place where you can see that you do not need 600,000 people walking on a street to make it a public domain. That is the opinion of Yehuda HaNasi that a boat is acquired through מסירה [passing--not pulling] in a public domain. The Rashbam explains there [Bava Batra 76b] because pulling is not possible in a public domain like a רקק מים [a water-way].
Even though it is a perhaps over doing it to apply that to Shabat, still the implication seems clear. It is a water-way that ships can sail through. And on no water-way do 600,000 people walk every day.

[However pockets seem to me to be OK from the case of the divorce that is thrown into a woman's bag.  It is also the Rashbam there that says openly [pgs 85-86 ]that the issue over there is if an object in a bag is thought to be in the bag or in the domain. If the bag is tied or hanging on her it is thought to be in the bag, not the domain.] [I mean to carry things in one's pockets I think is OK on Shabat even in a public domain. There is nothing in tracate Shabat to suggest otherwise and the issue I addressed in Bava Batra in the sense of  acquisition.]

We were Reform Jews.

The way I was raised by my parents seems to have been very purposeful. I mean to say that I think their decisions where to live and where to send my brothers and me to school were with lots of thought and planning. At the time this also seemed to be the case.

So I want to jot down some of the basic details. We were Reform Jews. We had gone to a Reform school when we were in Newport Beach and later when we moved to Beverly Hills we went to Temple Israel of Hollywood.  The decision to move to Beverly Hills I think was largely influenced by the need to find a good high school for their children. Otherwise my parents could have moved closer to my Dad's place of work which was the TRW building where my Dad was working on laser communication between satellites.  [I am pretty sure his research was stolen by the KGB and ended up in the USSR. That was a well known event which ended up as a motion picture.]

In any case the Reform path I think was  very much a conscious decision. Not to be fanatic.

[However there were some aspects of Reform that my parents did not go with. Certainly the "Social Justice" thing was viewed with skepticism. And almost immediately after my bar mitzah we went to a Recontructionist person to do the bar mizvah of my younger brother. The actual views of my parents I think were closer to what today would be called Conservative. Faith in Torah was very important to them and also support of the State of Israel.]


I was encouraged to go into Physics and Math because I was showing a lot of interest in those subjects on my own. But I think that my parents saw a kind of numinous value in those subjects kind of the way I do nowadays. You can see this in the Rishonim [Medieval Authorities] that stem from the school of thought of Maimonides and the חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart.
In any case the path of fanaticism was really very far away from the concept of my parents about the proper path in life.

That is a balanced path of values was what they were striving for. [To conceptualize this you could look at the Polynomic Theory of Value of Dr Kelley Ross which in turn is base on Leonard Nelson's approach to Kant.]

I have to admit that at the time I did not see how I could have gone into the hard sciences. The only way I was able to make progress in that direction was by the kind of learning I saw in a Musar book אורחות צדיקים  where he goes into the idea of learning fast--saying the words and going on.

Law of Moses

In the book of Ezra we see that bringing the proper sacrifices as taught in the Law of Moses was the first priority. Even before there was a building, people put up an altar and brought the sacrifices. Only later did they start to build the walls of Jerusalem and the buildings of the Temple.
The reason this is hard to do nowadays is the lack of a red cow. That lack means that one can not be made pure from the kind of uncleanliness that results by touching a dead body.
But this is simply remedied by genetic engineering. At that point one who has touched a dead body would have to be sprinkled on by the ashes of the red cow and go into a natural body of water.
[The issue with having touched a dead body s that one can not go into the Temple nor eat sacrifices. So the red cow is a requirement before anything can be done.]


The calendar also that is in use today would have to be scraped. It was invented by Meton in Athens and is not a Torah idea. Rather the Torah has the new moon being in fact on the day of the new moon--the conjunction.
In terms of the actual laws the best book to learn is the ערוך השלחן which was written by a very great sage. It is in fact one of the best books written by the אחרונים. The other great books of אחרונים are the Avi Ezri of Rav Shac and the Pnei Yehoshua.


[Different groups have claimed that sacrifices are no longer needed but I think it is clear from internal evidence in the Old Testament itself  that the obligation is even today.]

[In terms of who is  a priest who can offer sacrifices, I think Yemenite people have been careful to guard that information accurately.]

[Most Christians believe that sacrifices are not necessary however that seems based on misunderstandings. The basic way I understand the actual statements of Jesus is that he had no intention to nullify the Law of Moses. To me this seems obvious. However it is customary in Christian circles to claim the opposite. I even tried once or twice to argue this point and I not get very far.]

U58 music file

U-58 D Minor   [U-58 in midi]

a good way to argue for Kant and Plato in terms of there being two levels of reality

There is a good way to argue for Kant and Plato in terms of there being two levels of reality. The dinge an sich things in themselves and the level of phenomenon.

This you can see by the collapse of the wave function into just one state from many possible states.
So on that level there are no classical values of space or time until something is measured. This is like Kant that space and time are imposed by the subject. This also goes along with Plato that there is some higher realm of Ideas not dependent on objects or the classical world.

The other level of reality is the classical world where causality exists and is definitely local. This is seen in GPS satellites. [They have to be calibrated to account for Special Relativity and General Relativity both. The speed they go around the Earth makes them lose time. The fact they are far out from the gravitational center of the Earth means they go faster. In fact the effect of General Relativity is far stronger in this case than Special Relativity. The clocks on the satellites do go fast compare to earth. To get them to correspond they have to be slowed down.]
But there also is some connection between these two realms because the wave function also collapses when there is a thermal bath in the area of the quantum particle.   


[But this would not be the general way Kant was understood by what was called the Neo Kantian schools that denied the very existence of dinge an sich. The only way this would work would be the way that Leonard Nelson understood Kant--which was definitely not the main stream.]

[I should mention that not all schools of thought based on Leonard Nelson are equal. There seems to be  a lot of interest in England and Germany, but the major proponent is Dr Kelley Ross in California and he builds on Nelson, but also on others. ]

To be quite frank I have to say that Leonard Nelson seems a lot better than anything else being done in academia. For some reason people seem to be attracted to Heidegger and/or Marx for reasons that seem to have nothing to do with logical rigor or even the slightest possibility of validity.

The altar in the Temple was set up even before the walls of Jerusalem were built.

There seem to me to be good reasons to bring sacrifices in the Temple in Jerusalem. The well known reason is in Leviticus where different kinds of sacrifices are commanded.
But to me there is more evidence. One is the statement of the King of Judah  when he was arguing with Jeroboam ben Navat where he was claiming that his position was correct because in his territory they were bringing the sacrifices taught in the Law of Moses.
Another proof is in the book of Ezra where the people that returned to Israel did not just build the walls of Jerusalem, but also the altar and began to bring sacrifices, and they said the reason they were bringing the sacrifices was because that is what is commanded in the Law of Moses.

I mean to argue against those that think that sacrifices are not an essential aspect of the Torah.

[There are people that say that the Law of Moses is still obligatory, but that the sacrifices were something added on later. But from what I can tell there is plenty of internal evidence from the entire Old Testament that the sacrifices are an essential part of the Law.]


In fact the altar in the Temple was set up even before the walls of Jerusalem were built. That means to bring the regular sacrifices was a high priority.
One very positive thing about this would be to have a nice family outing and a barbecue by bringing what is called שלמים peace offerings.  You can see how this kind of nice family outing would be instrumental in bringing families together.

[You would however have to genetically engineer a red cow before any of this would be practical. But that seems to be simple. Even without genetically engineering you could get something close to a red cow by simple mating over a few generations. The whole process ought to be simple nowadays.]

The reason this has not been done already is beyond me. It seems to be an extremely simply thing with genes to get a red cow.

בבא בתרא דף צ''ב ע''א

בבבא בתרא דף צ''ב ע''א ר' עקיבא איגר asks a question on the רשב''ם.
That רשב''ם brings the idea that if a bull gored a cow and the calf is found next to it the law is to divide ממון המוטל בספק חולקים. That is like סומכוס. The רשב''ם says that is the law even if either one is sure and the other in doubt. רב עקיבא איגר asks that if המוחזק the one that is is possession of the money is sure, then even סומכוס agrees המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה as it says in the משנה in בבא מציעא צ''ז ע''א השואל אומר שכורה מתה והמשאיל אומר איני יודע פטור. The גמרא says there is a debate. One person says ברי ושמא ברי עדיף. The other person says the משנה is a case of עסק שבועה ביניהם. So the simple thing is to say the רשב''ם is talking according to the opinion עסק שבועה ביניהם.  I mean even in a case of ברי ושמא the rule is to סומכוס ממון המוטל בספק חולקים בלי שבועה and only in a case of עסק שבועה that ברי עדיף
[I should mention the mishna there is like Sumhos.]


בבא בתרא דף צ''ב ע''א
בבבא בתרא דף צ''ב ע''א ר" עקיבא איגר שואל שאלה על הרשב''ם. רשב''ם זה מביא את הדין שאם שור נגח פרה ועגל נמצא לידו החוק הוא לחלק, ממון המוטל בספק חולקים כמו סומכוס. הרשב''ם אומר כי זה החוק אפילו אם אחד הוא בטוח ושני בספק. רב עקיבא איגר שואל שאם המוחזק (זה שנמצא ברשותו את הכסף) הוא בטוח, אז אפילו סומכוס מסכים המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה כפי שכתוב משנה בבבא מציעא צ''ז ע''א השואל אומר שכורה מתה והמשאיל אומר איני יודע פטור. הגמרא אומרת שיש ויכוח. אחד אומר ברי ושמא ברי עדיף. השני אומר המשנה הוא מקרה של עסק שבועה ביניהם. אז הרשב''ם מדבר כדעת עסק שבועה ביניהם. 

Bava Batra 92a

It does not seem like a big deal because the questions of Rav Akiva Eiger are often only to one opinion.  In any case in Bava Batra 92a he asks a question on the Rashbam.
That Rashbam in itself is of great interest but just to be short he brings the idea that if a bull gored a cow and the calf is found next to it the law is to divide the amount of the cow and calf in half.-That is like Sumhus. The Rashbam says that is even if either one is sure and the other in doubt.
Rav Akiva Eiger asks that if the one that is is possession of the money is sure then even Sumhus agrees המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה as it says in the Mishna in Bava Metzia 97 השואל אומר שכורה מתה והמשאיל אומר איני יודע פטור.
The Gemara  says there is a debate. One person says ברי ושמא ברי עדיף. The other person says the Mishna is a case of עסק שבועה ביניהם.
So the Rashbam is talking according to the opinion עסק שבועה ביניהם.

(I noticed this aspect of Rav Akiva Eiger at the Mir in NY. There was some question of his somewhere in Shabat and I noticed an opinion somewhere that would have answered it.)

Tikun HaKlali [general correction]

I tend to believe that the Ran from Breslov was right about the Tikun HaKlali [general correction] mainly because it makes sense to me in itself. Plus this was an area he gave a lot of time and thought and effort towards. If you look at writings of Isaac Luria and previous writers you can see that sexual sin is significant and requires some kind of repentance. But the general ways of going about it seem either impossible or difficult.
Also I tend to give confidence in people that are experts in their fields.--So when Reb Nahman says something that clearly he spent a great deal of effort on, I tend to trust him.

The basic idea is that in the Torah there are different levels of sexual sin. The most famous ones are in Leviticus called the עריות forbidden relations. Some of those get the death penalty and some are merely lashes, but they all get כרת {what the Torah calls being cut off from ones people which more or less means being cut off from one's portion in the next world.} [You can go through the list if you want, but right now I would rather continue my train of thought. Homosexual relations are included in this most severe category.]
After the עריות [forbidden relations] there are other things that are לאווין simple prohibitions from the Torah. Off hand I would say a Kohen with a divorced woman is one example. But there are many other examples.
The aspect and insight that Reb Nahman brings to this is in his Magnum Opus Vol I:29 that שמירת הברית (sexual purity) is the key.
Since "spilling seed in vain" comes under the category of sexual sin, he spent time and effort to find some correction and came up with two things. First to go to a natural body of water like a river that same day. Next is to say ten psalms 16,32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90,105 137 150. [And to intend the Divine Names אלף למד אלף למד הי יוד מם.]


While  I am not expert in Rav Isaac Luria, I would have to say that this idea of the Ran from Breslov makes a lot of sense based on what I do know. The עשרה מיני נגינה [ten types of song] are certainly brought up in the Tikunei HaZohar. The whole thing seems well based on the Ari and the Zohar.
[The actual things Rav Isaac Luria says to do are fasting and certain unifications. Unifications to me seems to work only if the "electric current" is running. If one is disconnected with the Divine light, then they simply do nothing. So Reb Nahman's idea makes a lot of sense.]

The סטרא אחרא [Realm of Darkness] has the ability to give people true spiritual powers to enable them afterwards to trick them.

The events surrounding the fall of King Ahab [the King of Israel] are  not well known. The basic thing was he was together with Yehoshaphat (King of Judah) and all the prophets were telling him to go up to retake Ramot HaGilead.
  Yehoshaphat asked him, "Is there no true prophet here to tell us the word of God?" They brought Mihayu.

  He said, "I saw the Lord sitting on his throne asking, 'Who will go and trick Ahab?' A lying spirit came forth and said 'I will.'

The Lord asked him 'How?' He said 'I will be  a lying spirit in the mouths of his prophets.'[Ahab then in fact went to war and fell in battle.]

To me this seems to be a warning about the problem when some people get some things right and that lends to them credibility. So then they have the ability to cause people to fall later because of their initial credibility.

The סטרא אחרא [Realm of Darkness] has the ability to give people true spiritual powers to enable them afterwards to trick them. [In Lithuanian Yeshivas this kind of phenomenon is well understood and thus people there are more careful.]

[It should be noted that the actual sin involved was not idolatry but rather the fact that Ahab had murdered someone Navot and taken his field-even though it was done according to the laws of the Torah. Two witnesses came and testified that Navot had cursed. That is something there is a death penalty for. At any rate, what I want to point out is בין אדם לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man were the reason Ahab was killed. This goes along with Rav Israel Salanter who did make a point of the aspect of Torah that is between man and one's fellow man. You can see this in particular in the books of Musar of his disciples like Navardok and the אור צפון. [This last one I do not know if it is in print anymore.]]

What I am trying to get to is this: the actual falling at Ramot Gilead was the result of an original sin. That is a first sin that caused Ahab later to be able to be fooled by the lying spirit. This is the issue: to identify one's first sin that caused all the later problems. For the bed one makes that is the bed he sleeps in. Everything goes by the original pattern that one chooses--the original set of rules one decides to go with. If you get that wrong, then you  have no one to blame for subsequent problems.

In other words real, authentic attachment with God is only on a personal private level.

The Ran from Breslov is the only one who warned against false teachers of Torah on a huge scale.

This type of warning you can see in the Talmud itself and also in the Rishonim . But nothing like the force that the Ran from Breslov brings to this issue.

Why this is important is that good intended people can easily be fooled.

This is one good reason to  attend  Reform Temples only-- because that is the only safe way to avoid this problem.  There are other very good reasons to attend Reform Temples --for example the emphasis on balance and the awareness that a good deal of Torah is all about good traits.

The end result of all this is the longing for God and the ultimate meaning of life really has to be personal and at home or in the forest--another point that the Ran himself emphasized.

I should mention that I was very inspired to walk on this path of the Ran [Nahman from Breslov]  and felt great attachment to God while on that path for the few years I was in Safed.
[That is the path of personal prayer towards God while alone in a forest or some other lonely spot.]

In other words real, authentic attachment with God is only on a personal private level.

Is carrying something in one's pocket is considered carrying on the Sabbath?

To me it is not clear that carrying something in one's pocket is considered carrying on the Sabbath Day. In laws about acquisition this issue comes up.  The basic question is if the vessels of a buyer acquire in the domain of a seller. The law comes out that they do acquire in any place the buyer has permission to put his vessels.

The Rashbam over there in Bava Batra says the question is if an object in a vessel is considered to be in the vessel or the domain.

What I mean to say is that it is considered in general simple that e.g. a key in a pocket is not thought to be nullified to the pocket in terms of carrying and in tractate Shabat itself there does not seem to be anything to indicate whether this is so;  one way or the other. But in laws of acquisition in Bava Batra 85 this  comes up.
Now what is a public domain itself is a debate. The Rif, Rambam hold you do not need 600,000 people walking through it every day. Rashi and Tosphot hold you do. So to me it seems putting Rashi and Tosphot together with the above idea that an object in a  pocket is thought to be in the pocket, not in the domain, then there comes out a permission to carry something in one's pocket, but not to take it in one's hand until one reaches a private domain.


What I find is that it is curious that the Gemara does not deal with carrying in a pocket on the Sabbath at all, and yet when it comes to the issue of acquisition it goes into great detail.

If you would hold a direct connection between acquisition and Shabat, then in fact carrying in a pocket would not be allowed because a bag does not acquire in a public domain. But a pocket might very well be better than a bag. The case of the man that throws a divorce into the bag of his wife shows that a pocket that is connected with one's body is different that a bag one is holding.
[The  Mishna says she is divorced but the Gemara puts a few conditions like that the bag has to be connected with her. Incidentally the Rashbam on page 85 in Bava Batra does mention this question in terms of acquisition-- whether the thing in the vessel is thought to be in the vessel or in the larger domain. Putting that together with what the sages say about throwing the divorce into the bag of the wife to me seems to indicate that a pocket in thought part of the person -not the domain. [That is Rav Yehuda in the name of Shmuel, and others.]





[The nice thing about carrying in one's pocket is that a public domain is probably like the Rif and Rambam --just a public street  that is 16 yards wide. Rome was the largest city the ancient world had ever seen and it was a million strong. To imagine the cities of Sura and Pumbadita in Persia were more than 600,000 on public streets every day is just not likely. And the way the people in the Talmud deal with a public domain in Persia is very simple--as if a public domain is common place even in Persia.
[Besides that, a large city is impossible without running water. No city in Persia had anything like an aqueduct of the Romans nor did they have the know-how or type of concrete the Romans had. [The Romans had a special type of concrete mixed with volcanic ash that was much stronger ] Therefore there simply were no large cities like Rome in Persia. Period. At best they would have had to be spread out villages.





The thing to be careful about is not to take anything out of the pocket as long as one is walking outside unless he stands still. Also carrying from a public domain to a private one is forbidden.

connection to a thermal bath can cause a collapse of the wave function

I really do not know if it makes any difference to the Kelley Ross Kant-Friesian system the fact that connection to a thermal bath can cause a collapse of the wave function of an electron even before it is observed. This is a well known phenomenon and is known as coherence lifetime.

The Kant/Fries system depends on questions on Kant that result n the necessity of non intuitive immediate knowledge. One of those questions is the fact that Kant has causality among dinge an sich things in themselves, even before the observer is introduced.


The nice thing about the Kant/Fries system is faith. Knowledge that is not based on logic nor on sense perception. Plus that a lot of the arguments of Michael Huemer and the whole intuitionist school tend to fit in to the Kant Fries system even better than they do with intuintionism. For the intuinionists stake a lot of how things seem before reasoning. But seeming in senses is not the same as seeming to the mind. Thus what Huemer really is arguing for is non intuitive immediate knowledge.

[If you would extract from Hegel all the extraneous things and just leave the good insights and do the same with the intuitionists like G.E. Moore and Huemer, I think you would end up with a system that more or less would correspond with the Kant Fries system.

This is similar to what Dr Huemer himself does with alternative systems. He tends to reduce them to their essential details and then argue against them--which is a perfectly nice approach. Getting through the maze of extraneous words to the basic essence. But then you could do the same with the intuitionists and the Kant Fries School and say they are really in essence the same.

Tthe good Samaritan story

Sometimes I find the good Samaritan story to seem to have affected people.
When I have been in trouble, for some odd reason I find people with a basic Christian point of view willing to help me.  That seems often to me to be in stark contrast to the general apathy or even downright malevolence of people of other faiths (or people of no faith).

For example today I was cold. I had been in a cold river and my clothing was wet. I was on my way home, but at some point I realized my body temperature was going dangerously low. I was beginning to wonder if i could make it back. Out of the blue a car [husband and wife] stopped by to pick me up and take me home even though they had thought I was homeless and they might have to put me up in their own home.

I have found this attitude to be fairly common in the Christian world. A willingness to help. The contrast to people of other faiths could hardly be more pronounced -- they often do as much damage to me as they can while trying to be careful not to get in trouble with the law.


[Other events like this were in Uman on Rosh Hashanah when I was sick--maybe from the strain of travelling. The room mate I had for those few days simply ignored me though I was burning up with fever and could not move , while the owners of the apartment saw I was sick and brought to me food and medicine.

Other events were with a fellow in Kiev that dropped his affairs for a month to help me get my papers together to I could go to the USA. Recently also I was in the hospital in Uman where they treated me for free, and only to help get better materials for the operation did they ask for a a small amount.

What I am trying to say is that this does not seem to me to be normal human reaction that generally consists of malice. There is something about the Good Samaritan story and the Golden Rule that seems to have sunk deeply into Christian consciousness.

[This type of thing was noticed by the Ran of Breslov in the last lesson he gave on Rosh Hashanah [Vol II:8.] There he mentions this fact that מעט הרחמנות הנשארת אצלינו היא בחינת אכזריות. I forget the context but the idea is that because of some reason: "the little bit of compassion that is left by us is in essence cruelty." So you really have a hard time  finding compassion when you need it. I do not have his book to look this up.]

[There are some essays from Bryan Caplan and Steven Dutch which deal with similar issues.]

Bryan Caplan has his essays contra-Christianity on his site along with a rebuttal that I could not down load.
In any case if it would just be my own personal experience that would not say much but I do have at least the Ari and Rav Abulafia. [To see this in the Ari you have to see what he says about the very end of the Book of Genesis.]  Rav Abulafia's opinion means a lot to me but on the same hand he does consider Christianity itself highly negative. It is well known he went to debate the pope.

But to get a clear idea of Rav Abulafia it is helpful to read the Gra's Voice of the Dove קול התור and also the book of Rav Luzatto "The New Corrections" תיקונים חדשים.--That is if this at all interests you. As for myself I have grown weary of these kinds of topics. The book of the Rav Luzatto is not well known. He is more famous for his book the מסילת ישרים but his other more mystical writings shed some light on this subject.


Some sent to me the actual quote from the Ran of Breslov:

Things involved with religion. The problem seems to be that positive value can all too easily turn into negative value, and that seems to be what has happened on a vast scale.

They do not tend to lead towards a more sincere heart.

In any case things involved with religion make me nervous. I think it is best if we do not discuss them. Ayn Rand and Kant are different, but  other issues--even with M. Idel and Abulafia make me upset and nervous. They do not tend to make me happy nor help me be closer to God. If we can just drop it, all the better.
  I can manage to learn Gemara and try to keep the Law of Moses (in private), but besides that of what is involved in religion nowadays just makes me upset and nervous.
The whole thing just got  to be in bad taste.
  [The problem seems to be that positive value can all too easily turn into negative value, and that seems to be what has happened on a vast scale.]
So the approach of my parents to find positive value in Torah but not to make a parade out of it seems best to me. 

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Kant-Fries School

 I really have to say that the Kant-Fries School makes the most sense to me. [That is what is called in Germany the Critical school.] That means more or less Leonard Nelson who kind of revived the whole thing and then Dr Kelley Ross.

There are some good reasons for this. One is the the best second seems to be Hegel, but Hegel seems to have enough problems to make his approach not really as good as the Kant/Fries one.
 It is not just the maddening maze of words--which is a challenge. But rather, outside of certain basic insights, he does not seem to have a lot to offer, even after you get by the challenge  of  his writing style. [It is like reading a book of free associations].

Another second best seems to be the intuitionists like G.E. Moore and Dr. Michael Huemer. But there also there seem to be enough problems as Danny Frederick noted.

It is not to say that there is nothing to learn from Hegel or Huemer. But rather it seems if one is going to spend the time and effort, it might as well be on the best thing available.

Of course you might want to avoid all the issues by going back to the Middle Ages. But that also does not seem like much of an option. Too many axioms that just do not seem right. [It is almost medieval you might say.] Even though almost all scholastics were amazingly rigorous about what they derive from their axioms. The problems with later philosophers are the opposite,-- often nice sounding axioms, but amazingly sloppy logic about what they would derive from them. 

It might make some sense to write an essay about this all, but it would just be covering ground that has already been worked on.

I really think that if you do your own work, you will have to agree that that Kant-Fries School is about the best thing out there.

[The reason in Germany the Kant Fries approach is called Critical  is based on Kant's idea that there is a limit to how far Pure Reason can go. ["Critique" means "limit".] His answer was however unsatisfactory. He put objective knowledge into the subject. So you can see the problem with that. The Kant Fries answer is non intuitive immediate knowledge. A kind of knowledge than does not depend on reason, nor sense perception. The best idea to see what this means is to see Dr Kelley Ross's Phd Thesis and the books of Leonard Nelson.]
[One thing Dr Ross noted in his PhD thesis is that Kant requires causality among dinge an sich things in themselves and to me that seems to be fine since interaction with its environment causes a collapse of the wave function to just one state.]

IDF (Israeli Defense Force)

I think there are at least three good proofs in the Old Testament that show it is important to serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force).

One is well known already in the Book of Numbers אחיכם יעלו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה.
["You will sit here while your brothers go up to war?"]

Another is the other less known events surrounding the פילגש בגבעה.
The third are the even less known events concerning Ezra and the building of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

The major point I wanted to bring out today is about the פילגש בגבעה. The Concubine of Giveah.
There the Tribes of Israel were upset that the tribe of Benjamin had sat by quietly while a terrible crime had been committed. The tribe of Benjamin said "It is not our business. It is not our affair."
The other tribes said, "We will make it your business." At that point in time the grandson of Aaron was around;-- Pinhas. And he asked consul from God directly by means of the Urim and Tumim and received an answer to go to war against Benjamin. One city (יבש בגלעד) did not go up to war. They also said it is not our affair. So after the war with Benjamin was over the tribes went to war with that city and wiped them out.

The same idea that came up in Numbers is here again. To sit by while everyone else has to go to war is not an acceptable course of action.

As was noted by Shimon Buso that when missiles were raining down on the north of Israel, everyone fled south. No one said their learning Torah would protect them.


The other thing is the fact that a lot of people were against the return of Israel to build Jerusalem and the Second Temple. This is gone into in great detail in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah.
The book of Nehemiah has a major theme about the wicked people that tried to stop Ezra and Nehemiah from rebuilding Jerusalem.]




[There are problems today that remind me of the problems that Ezra had. Sefardim often make it their most essential business to get rid of Ashkenazic people--especially in Jerusalem. That is just one example. There are many kinds in Israel that make it their business to get rid of anyone not like their own social group. Sometimes this might even be justified. Still, this is  a factor to consider. Aliya to Israel without taking into account this tremendous animosity is ignoring a factor that might come to one's attention later.]
However my first time in Israel was quite amazing. If you can find a good group, then it is probably a good idea. Probably the best idea is to go to Tel Aviv.

group-think

The power of "group-think" is so powerful that often one can get mixed up whether his own thoughts and attitudes are actually his or her own or from the group. The Spartans were well aware of this when they developed their system of keeping the boys and adolescents away from their family and rather had them hanging out with each other in order to develop the kind of group solidarity needed for the kind of warriors they needed to sustain their system.
[In warfare, the whole strength of the Spartan system was the group locking shields together.]


After all how much of your own attitudes do you really think you came up with all on your own?

[The best idea then is to choose carefully with whom you want to hang out with.]

Bava Batra page 75

There are ways to argue for Christianity. One way is from Bava Batra page 75 from a statement of the Gemara that in the future saints will be called by the name of God. Then the next statement is that they are already called by the name of God. And R. Gershom says they are called the absolute name of God.  The first  idea come from a verse in Isaiah 43. The Gemara only quotes the verse itself but to see why the verse means that you have to go to the whole paragraph and get the context.

This is not to say that everything Christians say is right. Rather the automatic dismissal of everything they say is not in accord with Torah. They have some good and important points.

The events of the barber that gave Sanheriv, the king of Assyria, a haircut. The Gemara in Sanhedrin that was G-d coming down in a physical body. The Gemara itself says that if not for the open implication of the verses it would be impossible to say this.


The other most obvious aspect of this is of course Avraham Abulafia, the famous mystic. [Quoted in the last volume of שערי קדושה  and also brought in the Remak.]  [Professor M Idel has made a lot of books surrounding Rav Avraham Abulafia and it is worth while to pick up and read his essays. ] [The Ari also has at least one hint to what Rav Abulafia was saying.]

Relativity cancels non locality

The way I look at Physics from my admittedly amateur point of view is that Bell's inequality tells us either non locality or non realism. But since Relativity cancels non locality, it must be that non realism is true. That is that the electron has no space time values until measured.

However in the actual equations, it looks that the electron does have a sum of different states.
[In Physics language it is a "superposition of linear states." That means simply that the wave function is a sum of simple values of space or time with a simple coefficient in front of each term to tell you the probability of finding it there. When you observe it, the wave function collapses to just one term.]

So the way to put it perhaps is not that the electron has no space time values until measured,- but rather it has certain possible values before measured, and then the wave function collapses when it is measured.

This way of looking at it  makes more sense in the actual equations.

Also this helps the Kant/Friesian school of thought in that there is causality among dinge an sich things. The reason is that not just observation can cause the collapse of the wave function-- but also a connection with the environment. That is what makes quantum computing hard --that fact that you need the quantum particles to be isolated from their environment.

[The Kant Friesian School seems to me to be very important much more so than Hegel. Apparently Dr. Kelley Ross would like a whole shift in academia from 20th century vacuous philosophy to Leonard  Nelson and Kant. And he is probably right about that. In Germany the Kant/Fries school is called the Critical School and is slightly different from Dr Kelley Ross in their emphasis on the Socratic Method.]

Appendix:
1. What I mean by Relativity cancelling non locality is possible to see on a day by day basis in the Global Positioning Satellites [GPS] found in many taxis. If not for relativity they would be wrong by a few kilometers every day. The nice thing about GPS is it proves both Special Relativity and General Relativity.

We are not all that sure about what we did wrong.

In terms of repentance the Gates of Repentance {of Yona of Granada} does accept the basic  formula that it consists of three steps (1) Acceptance of doing right in the future. (2) Regret for the past. (3) Confession. Yet as you can see he does have lots of additional things which makes it more accepted.
That is what the entire first part of his book is about.
What I wanted to suggest is based on the events of the son of King Solomon [King Rehabaom].
The prophet came to him and his princes with the news that  Shishak  would attack them and be successful because of their sins. At that point from what I can tell they did not repent but they did humble themselves before God. And that helped to nullify at least some part of the evil decree.

What that means is that often one [like me] really does not know what we have done wrong in the past. It is hard to repent because we are really not all that sure about what we did wrong--though we are certain that we did something wrong. Sometimes this confusion is because of conflicting messages.  [Our parents told us one thing and society tells us something else. Reason is normally the most reliable guide towards proper action but sometimes itself does not gives clear answers.]
In such cases simply humbling oneself towards God is apparently a good approach. We see in this case in the Old Testament that simply humbling themselves helped.

 Ahab also humbled himself and from what is possible to tell in the Old Testament, that helped to nullify an evil decree even though he did not actually repent.

Often doing what we think is right leads us into great evil. You can see an example of this in history Richard [the most notorious king of England]. It looks that in the beginning he simply was trying to do what was right. But that led him from one evil deed to another. Often Reason is the worst possible guide. [In fact, in the kings of England there is much to learn in terms of Ethics. ]

[The Middle Ages had a combination of Reason with Faith in order to take care of this kind of dilemma. In particular you see this in Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Aquinas and Anselm.]

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learning Musar

The idea of Reb Israel Salanter about learning Musar is in my mind a great idea even though the whole thing got off track to feed into a kind of fanaticism. Still the original idea seems important to me.

The original idea was an emphasis on several points as I think is clear from the writings of his disciples.  Clearly the importance of "Midot Tovot" [good traits: honesty, kindness, not to speak lashon hara (slander)] was foremost in his mind as you can see from his own statements about his motivation to begin the Musar Movement. Fear of God also I think you have to say was  apart of it as you can see in the writings of Isaac Blazzer.
 The trust in God aspect of it really I think was from Rav Joseph Horwitz of Navardok because you do not see that much in the other disciples.


The problem is the basic idea of Musar is not to be a fanatic, but rather to keep the Law of Moses in the most simple basic way possible. Not to add and not to subtract.

[The Middle Ages got a bad name that is not justified. In fact in certain areas of thought, the Middle Ages far surpasses later ages. You can see this when you learn Rishonim [medieval sages] on the Gemara. However for me personally I found Rishonim hard to get into without the help of people like Rav Shach in his Avi Ezri, or  a good learning partner.]

The world according to Torah is dualistic.

The world according to Torah is dualistic. There are two different things. The Creator and the created. They are not the same thing.


"But nature isn't God himself.  He's not identified [with it]. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine."


However you can see the same ideas in the אמונות ודעות of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed.

The son of Maimonides also goes into this in his book  of Musar. מספיק לעובד השם   Enough for a servant of God.

Why in fact Rav Saada Gaon and the Rambam are ignored in matters of the view-point of Torah seems odd to me. You would imagine that they have some understanding of what Torah is all about, wouldn't you? I, for one,  certainly assume it as a simple thing

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repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps

The basic areas I am aware of for myself that need repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps. It has been a trend in Western society to make fathers look like fools and this trend started with trying to make parents look evil. So there was a good deal of peer pressure to discount the good example of my parents. Still to me today it looks like that was a serious mistake. They were doing everything just about as well as any human being could be expected to do. [As a reference, I suggest looking at Jeremiah 35, and also the חידושי הגרנ''ט which is from one of the great Lithuanian sages Rav Naftali Troup concerning the issue of honor of one's parents. ]

On the other hand it is hard for me to imagine that I could have learned Gemara in any real sense  except by going to the authentic Litvak yeshivas of NY.

And that path would in fact have made it hard to do university along with Torah since the subway ride to Brooklyn College was very long from Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway.

In any case, that is one area. Another important area is the State of Israel which I have to say is very important. I was sadlly set into the mentality of people that had made a mistake in this regard. Today to be against the State of Israel looks to me to be on the moral scale of treason.
[To some degree I confess ignorance because at the Mir Yeshiva in NY nothing was ever discussed about any politics what so ever. People were simply too involved in learning Torah to care. And the very positive opinions about Israel of Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Aaron Kotler were completely unknown.]

I want to mention the building boats is still not as well understood as people imagine. See Catastrophe Theory books. If the variables would be few that is one thing, but with lots of variables flying around you get higher dimensional critical points--i.e catastrophes. [Catastrophes are a particular kind of critical point.]

private conversation with God.

One of the major ideas of the Ran from Breslov I think is worth some discussion: what he calls התבודדות or literally "being alone". The idea is explained by him as private conversation with God.

The point I wanted to make about this is that it goes pretty much along the regular lines of thought of the Ran: that is to make hard things easy. That is a theme running throughout his writings.
So when look at the Old Testament I see a lot of emphasis on the Law of Moses and the need to repent on not doing the Law of Moses. Now repentance is well defined as change of action. But in the Old Testament we see that along with it goes fasting and prayer. [Mainly I am thinking of Ahab and Ninve.]
But to get to the kind of prayer that you see in the Old Testament is hard. Even when one realizes the  need for repentance, it is hard to get on one's knees for a few hours and beg forgiveness from God and help to change one's deeds.

So the Ran from Breslov proposes a more simple way of going about this. Simply going to  a place where one is alone and no one else is around and talking with God from the deepest part of one's heart. That is simple conversation. That is far from  prayers of repentance that the Old Testament is talking about--but close enough to have a similar essence.

Things are good

USA history

While I am only mildly interested in history. Still I feel there are valuable lessons to be learned from it and furthermore I even have a suggestion on how USA history ought to be learned in schools.

I think English history is an integral part of American history and much more relevant to the American experience than most of what is actually learned as part of American History courses.

Furthermore I feel this learning is important not just to Americans, but to all peoples who have need of just government.

My first point is based mainly on the Federalist Papers where we see a big emphasis on the Peloponnesian War which in one way you could say was won by Sparta--but in another way really ruined Ancient Greece in a way that could never be repaired again.
I think there is little doubt that the devastating Civil Wars of England [War of the Roses] must have also been foremost in the minds of the founding fathers of the USA--in the sense that even a powerful Parliament and Christian values could not prevent chaos. To me it seems that the fathers of the USA were thinking deeply about the problem of good government and rejected many solutions that they knew from history were not effective.

The other point I have is really from Allan Bloom. In his Closing of the American Mind, in spite of the title,  he clearly considered the USA Constitution to be the best answer for the question of government for all peoples in all times and places.

The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy.

The Ran from Breslov [author of five basic books but mainly known for שיחות הר''ן]{Informal talks} brings the idea of Torah scholars that are demons in one place in his major work, the ליקוטי מוהר''ן. But that is not the only place he brings up the problem with scam artists that pretend to know Torah. The thing is his warnings usually go unheeded except for the Na Nah groups that take it more to heart.
This kind of warning you can see in the Talmud and Zohar also and other places. For one example I notice recently: "Anyone who wears clothing in order to look like a Torah scholar who is not a Torah scholar--אין מכניסים אותו במחיצתו של הקב''ה is not let to come into the Divine Presence."
That seems a bit of a let down from the drama that the Ran from Breslov brings to the subject.
Still the message seems clear. So what my solution to this problem is to emphasize the legitimate Litvak yeshivas. But I mean this as a double exclusion. That is first they have to be Litvak to be considered valid at all. But next I add "legitimate" or "authentic," because most Litvak yeshivas are far from authentic.--I mean with the real spirit of Torah. The best are clearly Ponoviz in Bnei Brak and the great NY yeshivas.

[The trouble that the Ran is dealing with is not just Torah scholars that are unworthy. The issue is the Sitra Ahra. The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy. ]

Appendix: Just for reference's sake, you might look at Jeremiah 23. But a more  dramatic example would be the events of the fall of Ahab at Ramot Gilead. There he went into battle because of the advice of prophets of the Baal. The true prophet of God told him that he had seen a lying spirit come before God  and offer his services to trick Ahab. So tricks of the Dark Side are not unheard of. Just the opposite. They seem to be the standard modus operandi of the Dark Side.

You can ask what good is is philosophy? And a possible answer for Kant.

You can ask what good is  philosophy?  In an essay the person that discovered the connection between the weak force and EM [S. Weinberg] he says that the major use of philosophy is like the use of states. That is to save one from other states. But in fact that is a great use. The difference between the subject in a state and a slave or dead in another is a big difference.[Without a state we all would be subject to the lowest denominator-the lowest of criminals. Without a state, nothing good is possible. ]

So getting a world view to corresponds with reality--the way things really are-can be of great service.
Like getting an accurate idea of your place in the big picture. This can be helpful in cases like if one is a policeman, not walking out with a loaded gun in front of a speeding car in Times Square. I mean getting too big for one's shoe size can be dangerous.





In terms of the Kant Friesian system, the major spokesman for the system is Dr Kelley Ross in CA.
In his PhD thesis he brings out a few criticisms on Kant which forces the conclusions of Ontological Undecidability. One problem he noted in Kant is causality between things in themselves is necessary for Kant. And yet seems to have no justification. [http://www.friesian.com/origin/chap-3.htm#sect-5]
To me it seems possible to argue for Kant that there is causality between things in themselves in that the collapse of the wave function does not depend on there being an observer, but rather on interaction between particles.
I mean to say that: in general an electron is a sum of linear states; but after it is observed, it is only in one state. But for it to interact with any other particles, it also needs to have its wave function collapsed.


 I was thinking also of adding that the electron does not have any space time location until interaction also just as a support to Kant. 

[ I should mention that it seems to me to be the same basic set of problems in Kant that leads off into three different directions: (1) Kelly Ross and the Kant Fries School. (2) Michael Huemer  and the Intuitionists (3) Hegel and all the subsequent schools based on Hegel.  I have not studied this all well enough to be sure, but I think a close look at each one will show they all had a similar set of problems in Kant. (I would also wonder if it comes down to it if their answers are all that different. I mean for sure Hegel's vast structure looks very different from Huemer's direct intellectual perception. But are they really that different? It is in any case the same process of "dialectics" that give further levels of certainty. And is that all that different from Popper's falsification process?!)

words of encouragement from a custom in Japan

The Age of Disappointment

There is in each age a particular test. This is the Age of Disappointment. People were promised big things from different kinds of idolatry-promises that never came to pass. This along with clear ethical violations in each system gave rise to people leaving and then wondering where they went wrong.

Some examples would be obviously Communism, Socialism that held great promises of workers paradise and the New Man. Other things were in the social pseudo sciences of the mind [in universities] that promised cures. Instead they cause great agony and insanity. In Hinduism, there was a fellow called Adi Da who was a good example of this kind of idolatry.

Some made it a point to expose the idols, [often at great risk]  Others tried simply to get away and go back to semi normal lives.


So this kind of disappointment seems the biggest test today. --that is how to deal with it. And also in fact how to heal from the scars?

There do not seem to be easy answers, but rather lessons that one can learn from previous generations from how they dealt with  the particular kinds of tests that they faced.

Clear guidelines seem hard to find since the problem is almost universally ignored.

Bava Batra 36b ממטע עשרה

In answer to the question I asked yesterday evening about Tosphot

It occurred to me that Tosphot understands the area around the tree when the Gemara says it holds from 4 to 16 not in the way I had thought. Rather Tosphot is being exact with the language of the Gemara [Bava Batra page 82b] "How much is there between them?" So  each tree only gets up until 8 yards. In that way in a field that each tree gets 8 yards there will be 16 between each one.
So Tosphot holds that when Abyee said a proof of ownership exists for a field with 10 trees per 50*50 that comes out 250 for each and that is 9 per tree which is too much.


I am grateful to God for granting to me to understand Tosphot when I had pretty much given up on it.

[I should mention that the משנה says קנה שלשה קנה קרקע and the גמרא asks כמה ר' חייא בר אבא אמר כמלא אורה וסלו דק אמות is how much around those trees is נקנה. The later question of the גמרא כמה יהא ביניהן is not the same thing. It is asking how much distance can there be between these trees so that the law of קנה שלשה קנה קרקע should apply.]

אני צריך להזכיר כי המשנה אומרת קנה שלשה קנה קרקע והגמרא שואלת כמה ר' חייא בר אבא אמר כמלא אורה וסלו (ארבע אמות) היא כמה סביב עצים אלה הוא נקנה. השאלה המאוחרת של הגמרא היא כמה יהא ביניהן אינה אותו הדבר. היא שואלת כמה המרחק יכול להיות בין העצים האלה, כך שהחוק של קנה שלשה קנה קרקע צריך להחיל


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It occurred to me that תוספות understands the area around the tree when the גמרא says it holds from ארבע עד שש עשרה אמות  not in the way I had thought. Rather תוספות is being exact with the language of רב חייא בר אבא "how much is there between them". So thus תוספות holds each tree only gets up until שמנה אמות yards. In that way in a field that each tree gets שמנה אמות there will be שש עשרה between each one.
So תוספות asks that when אביי said a proof of ownership (חזקה) exists for a field with עשרה אילנות trees per חמישים על חמישים that comes out 250 for each and that is תשעה אמות per tree which is too much.


עלה בדעתי כי תוספות מבין ששטח שהעץ  תופס כאשר גמרא אומרת שהוא  מארבע עד שש עשרה אמות לא בדרך שחשבתי. תוספות הוא  מדייק עם השפה של רב חייא בר אבא "כמה שטח יש ביניהם". אז  תוספות מחזיק לכל עץ יש רק עד שמנה אמות. ככה בשדה שכל עץ מקבל שמנה אמות תהיינה שש עשרה בין כל אחד. אז תוספות שואל שכאשר אביי אמר הוכחת הבעלות (חזקה) קיימת בשדה עם עשרה אילנות לכל חמישים על חמישים שיוצאים מאתיים וחמישים עבור כל אחד כי זה תשע אמות לכל עץ אשר הוא יותר מדי.

בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב

Ula in the Gemara says that a tree within 16 yards of a neighbor's boundary is guilty of stealing because of the roots that go 16 yards. The Gemara tries to find where this comes from. If the Mishna about 10 saplings with a 50* 50 that leaves each tree with only 9 yards [200=pi*r^2 for each sapling]
So they try another mishna with 3 grown trees for the same 50*50, and that turns out to be close.
Later the Gemara says the area one tree takes up for purposes of acquisition is 4-16. [Buying three trees gets the land between them. Two trees not.]

Now some background. Let's say one person has worked on a field for three years but has no document and the previous owner did not object, then if the owner was near enough to be aware of the situation, we believe the fellow that worked the land and says it was sold to him.
Abyee says let's say a field has 30 trees according to the division of ten to 50* 50 and the fellow worked and ate from each set of ten, that is called a חזקה proof of ownership.


The question Tosphot asks is based on Abyee: What is the difference between acquisition and proof of acquisition. [Tosphot Bava Batra 36B]

I am not at all sure I understand Tosphot. If Abyee actually means 10 per 50*50 that is well within the limits of 4-16. So it must be he is asking on the three trees per 50*50.


בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב תוספות
עולא says is a person owns  a tree that is  within י''ו אמות of a neighbor's boundary is can not bring ביכורים from that tree because of the roots that go שש עשרה אמות. The גמרא tries to find where this comes from. If the משנה about עשר  נטיעות saplings with a חמישים על חמישים that leaves each אילן with only תשעה אמות. So they try another משנה with שלשה grown trees for the same חמישים על חמישים, and that turns out to be close.
Later the גמרא says the area on אילן takes up is ארבה עד שש עשרה אמות. When one buy three trees, he receives the קרקע between them. Two trees not. Now some background. Let's say one person has worked on a field for three years but has no document and the previous owner did not object, then if the owner was near enough to be aware of the situation we we believe the fellow that worked the land and says it was sold to him. אביי says let's say a field has  אילנות שלשים according to the division of ten to חמישים על חמישים and the fellow worked and ate from each set of ten, that is called a חזקה היינו proof of ownership. The question תוספות asks is based on אביי what is the difference between acquisition and proof of acquisition בין מכר וחזקה.  I am not at all sure I understand תוספות. If he actually means עשרה אילנות per חמישים על חמישים that is well within the limits of ד-י''ו. So it must be he is asking on the three trees per חמישים על חמישים.

I wish I had an Avi Ezri to see what he has to say about this.
I have no doubt if I had been learning with David Bronson, he would have figured this out a long time ago. It must be something simple but I just can not seem to figure out what Tosphot means to ask.
If Abyee had said like the Gemara on page 16 that for saplings we go by 10 saplings for a 50*50 space and for grown trees we go by 3 for the 50*50 then everything in Tosphot would be clear. The trouble is that Abyee said "10 trees" not 10 saplings.  I imagine Tosphot is thinking that Abyee meant 10 trees according to the division of עשר נטיעות לבית סאה  ten saplings for a 50*50 space which gives three big trees the same space.




בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב תוספות. עולא אומר הוא עץ בבעלותו של אדם שהוא בתוך י''ו אמות של גבול של שכן אינו יכול להביא ביכורים מהעץ בגלל השורשים שהולכים שש עשרה אמות. הגמרא מנסה למצוא מאיפה זה נובע. אם משנת עשר נטיעות (שתילים) בשדה חמישים על חמישים זה משאיר לכל אילן עם רק תשע אמות. אז הם מנסים עוד משנה עם שלשת עצים הגדלים באותה חמישים על חמישים, וכי מיתברר שזה קרוב. מאוחר יותר הגמרא אומרת האזור שאילן תופס הוא ארבע עד שש עשרה אמות. כאשר אחד קונה שלושה עצים, הוא מקבל את הקרקע ביניהם. שני עצים לא. עכשיו קצת רקע. נניח אדם אחד עבד בשדה במשך שלוש שנים אך אין מסמכים והבעלים הקודמים לא התנגדו במשך השלש שנים, אז אם הבעלים היו קרובים מספיק כדי להיות מודע למצב  שאנו מאמינים האדם שעבד את האדמה ואומר שזו נמכרה לו .אביי אומר תניח בשדה יש שלשים אילנות  לפי חלוקה של עשרה בשדה חמישים על חמישים ואדם עבד ואכל מכל קבוצה של עשרה,(עשרה בכל שנה שלש שנים) כי זה נקרא הוכחה של בעלות (חזקה).  תוספות שואל שאלה מבוססת על אביי מה הבדל בין רכישה והוכחת רכישה (בין מכר וחזקה). אני  לא בטוח שאני מבין את התוספות. אם אביי כיוון עשרה אילנות לכל חמישים על חמישים, זה הוא גם בגבול ד-י''ו. אז זה חייב להיות הוא שואל על שלושה עצים לכל חמישים על חמישים. אבל זה כנראה לא מה שאמר אביי.

U54 U52 music files

U-54mp3 U-54 midi U-54 nwc

   U-52 Music for the Glory of God  [U-52  midi]  [U-52 nwc]

If the entire profession starts off with false axioms, how much good can they possibly do?

It is astonishing how much money every year goes into pseudo science especially in areas that deal with the human mind.

The problem I think stems from that fact that they are starting out with obviously false axioms.
(1) "That whatever anyone does not socially acceptable (to people in society at that time) is  a mental disease caused by their parents." Later this fundamental axiom they altered to "caused by their father"
(2) Whatever anyone does that is not done by 99% of all other people is a mental disease.

If the entire profession starts off with false axioms, how much good can they possibly do?
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Frankly, I blame this on the prestige that science got after the Enlightenment. So stupid people that can not do real science just had to get into the act by this fraud and scam.
But further I would have to say it is I think part of  a general phenomenon of the war between powers of good and evil in the world. In this global battle  Evil tries to wiggle itself into people minds.

good traits and fear of God, --a lot depends of getting them when one is young.

In terms of gaining good traits and fear of God, a lot depends of getting them when one is young. As Howard Bloom points out in The Lucifer Principle one's thought patterns at a certain point get hardened into one mind like a circuit board that after one places the connections in the right places, then heats it up to retain the connections.
That book is I think one of the great books to come out from the twentieth century [along with The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is a wake up call that I think fell  mainly on deaf ears. Still I think some people got the idea.]

The whole issue of needing to work consciously one one traits was certainly a motivating factor of Reb Israel Salanter in creating the Musar Movement--that is the idea of learning medieval books on ethics. [The advantage of the Middle Ages in terms of this kind of study is that it was the period when the scholastic thinkers were at their peak in finding the balance between Faith and Reason. ]

The idea really did not end with the Middle Ages. A lot of good work was done later by the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. They also wrote a few Musar books--some of which are remarkable [Navardok and the אור צפון and אור ישראל come to mind]

Orion

NGC 4676: when mice collide These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart.

NGC 4676: when mice collide

These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the “Mice” because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion – over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The above picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce to form a single galaxy.

Liftoff of the Apollo 17 Saturn V Moon Rocket from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 12:33 a.m., December 7, 1972. Apollo 17, the final lunar landing mission, was the first night launch of a Saturn V rocket." height="480"

questions about German Idealism

The two unstated questions about German Idealism I mentioned before were two world wars. These seems to me to be serious enough even if there were no more questions. But a further question is the fact that communists and socialists did in fact learn and study Hegel with extreme intensity [though they certainly disagreed with major points] and communism as shown clearly by Venezuela is pretty much a tragedy.

What makes this curious is that is hard to find any philosophers of the stature of Kant and Hegel unless you go back to Plato.
So where did things go wrong?

Karl Popper really went full steam ahead in his attack on Hegel, and yet seems to have missed the fact that communists were not implementing Hegel's system.
Still you have to ask: what is it about the USA Constitution that seems to get things right? (And even more startling is that the USA Constitution was a product of long experience in England. It was ad hoc.

Parliament was established not for any higher motives but because Edward I needed money. The Magna Carta was because the lords did not want King John lording it over them. Every single paragraph of the USA Constitution was made because in England that provision was found to be necessary,--not from any kind of philosophy.] 

 

[More or less. It is funny the major point of  Leftists is that whatever the USA does is wrong;-- when Leftist systems seems to be infinitely worse.]

[I should mention that the USA Constitution was not made up out of thin air but did have basis  on pretty good thinkers. I guess that would have to be the Natural Law people like Aquinas and John Locke.]

Sandra Lehman [a philosopher] once suggested to me that there is something about philosophy that takes away common sense. But I think she was touching on a larger issue. That in almost any subject one can get into it to the degree of losing all perspective.

In any case, I have mentioned before that the USA Constitution seems to work best with WASPs [White Anglo Saxon Protestants]. It could be suggested that for populations with some high percent of criminal DNA that it simply would not work. [Thus the USSR might very well have been necessary for that area.]

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American Constitution

The unstated question on German Idealism is two world wars. This tens to lessen the credibility of anything that has the word German tacked onto it. That includes Kant and Hegel.
And the unstated support for John Locke is the success of the USA.

If the political systems supported by each would be irrelevant to their philosophy, then one could ignore the politics and simply look at the world views.

[My own feeling is that the success of the American  Constitution can be best explained by the Kant Fries School which more or less is represented by Dr Kelley Ross. That gives the weight of authority on individual, not the State.

music file U50

U-50 in A Major mp3  u-50 midi  u-50 nwc

the path of the Gra definitely includes Astronomy, Mathematics and Music

I wanted to mention that the path of the Gra definitely includes what in the Middle Ages was called the Seven Wisdoms. That includes Astronomy, Mathematics and Music.

And once I asked Rav Eliyahu Silverman (who was the head of the Yeshiva on the Path of the Gra) if that included Engineering. [I was referring to a book that] given to me from Hebrew University on Electrical Engineering. And he said yes.

But since not everyone is very good at that my suggestion is based on the Musar Book אורחות צדיקים  which brings the idea of learning fast. He has a long essay there in the Gate of Torah about learning fast--saying the words and going on  that is called דרך גירסה

the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed is legally valid

Even though  the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed is legally valid,  and in fact people that ignore it come under the curses that are listed for anyone is transgresses a oath (or in this case a חרם); still I do not feel that Breslov comes under that category. The reason is while I was wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem I stumbled upon a book that brought the original documents  word for word. [That included the other letters of excommunication, and also the statements of the witnesses that were collected in Villna and written down.]
But as the actual issues of Breslov, I think that there should be made a distinction between ideas that the Ran held strongly with and ideas that were less sure [or more doubtful what he actually meant]. I.e. there were things he held very strongly were correct like the saying the ten psalms.    

The idea that transgressing a חרם [excommunication] is the same kind of thing as transgressing an oath I got from the regular commentaries of the Rambam right on the page in Laws of Oaths. And the general warnings about transgressing an oath are pretty explicit.

A cure for one's spirit and body.

Faith in the wise gives good advice for all human problems. Some wise men were expert in certain areas but not all areas. Other wise men were good in different areas. Therefore faith in all the wise gives good advice for all problems.

Why I bring this up is that it occurred to me concerning a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter, that is Isaac Blazer. In the beginning of his book אור ישראל (Light of Israel). Over there he brings the idea that learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] is a cure for one's spirit and body. [It is easy to miss this but if you look there you will see that is what he says.] (He brings the idea from Maimonides.)


Musar itself as a movement seems to have lost its momentum. Still the basic idea is sound --that the medieval sages had the best idea of what the actual requirements of Torah are.

The best idea today I think to get a good idea of what Torah requires from one is to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and the books of the Gra and the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter like Navardok etc.

Closing of the American Mind

Philosophy has relevance for politics as noted by this article [Abbeville Institute]

There they are criticizing a South [Southern States] bashing book based on sloppy research and sloppy ideas about natural law.

Getting world view issues straight has seemed to me to be important for a long time, but academic philosophy I began to notice even while in high school was a dead end.--and as John Searle put it so well about 20th century philosophy "it is obviously false."[Both British and Continental.] Allan Bloom also noticed the same thing in his Closing of the American Mind.

[I think John Searle might have been referring to a good suggestion made by Frege to expand the category of a priori. That was a good idea, but sadly led to idiotic post modern philosophy.  Dr. Kelley Ross noticed this, and it might be what John Searle also is thinking. ]


In any case to be short I think the best thing in Philosophy is the Kant-Friesian school which I think in Germany is called "the Critical School" because of being based on Kant. [Leonard Nelson's books were apparently printed in Germany which is the beginning of the Kant Fries school]

But I have a lot of respect for Hegel also, and the Intuitionists like Dr Michael Huemer. To me each one seems to be making some great points.



My own feeling about Philosophy is the best idea is the suggestion of the Rambam to learn the Metaphysics of Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus. After that, I think Kant and Hegel are important.

In terms of how philosophy relates to politics, the best thing out there are the Federalist Papers by Madison and Hamilton and others. [They were written to convince NY to accept the USA Constitution.]


[The reason I think philosophy got to be so awful is that mainly idiots go into it and teach it. The best idea is of Allan Bloom. Simply throw out the social studies and humanities departments of  all universities.]