I think that Rav Nahman was not in the category of the excommunication of the Gra however I do think the excommunication was valid.
The reason is something I saw in a commentary of the Rambam Mishna LaMeleh in the beginning of laws of vows [Nedarim] where he brings the Beit Yoseph who brings the Tashbaz that a herem has a category of both a vow and an oath. There the ML himself disagrees and says it only has the category of a vow. Still the point is it is valid.
That is just like one can forbid the use of a loaf of bread on another by saying this loaf of bread is a korban [sanctified for the altar] to you"--so a herem excommunication also has that same kind of validity.

The reason this is relevant to me even though others ignore this issue is that I am horrified by how the Dark Side has taken over the religious world in Israel. I wish that the Gra and Rav Shach would have been listened to. 

Rav Nahman from Uman did not think very highly of being more strict than the letter of the law.

Rav Nahman from Uman did not think very highly of "Chumrot" which is to say being more strict than the letter of the law. I was in the same Na Nach Breslov place and they were learning the beginning of Rav Nahman's book the LM vol 1:8. He does not mention this idea there but he does go into the idea that is related. The actual place is in LM vol 2 around chapter 44 I think and also around 82.
There Rav Nahman does bring up the problem of religious authorities that are demonic for the first time -and that is a recurring theme in the LM.
I was reminded of this by reading the Commentary of Rav Joseph Karo on the Rambam where he brings the case of Shmuel the amora telling one person that he must use the oil of gentiles or he would declare him a zaken mamre rebellious elder.

I was at the Na Nach Nachma Nachman from Uman [in Israel]  place today and did some learning. Then I went to take a nap and when I woke up I had an idea that might help R. Shimshon [a grandson of Rashi].
The question that the Radvaz raised on R Shimshon was that if in the grain stack there is half tithes and half secular grain then how can one take a tithe for it. The answer is that he takes double and calls a name only on a half.
That is like this. In the Mishna in Trume 4 we have a mishna that goes like  this: המפריש מקצת ת''ום מוציא ממנו תרומה עליו אבל לא למקום אחר One who separates only a part of truma or tithe [maisar] takes out truma from it but not to another place. RS [R. Shimshon] says the idea is that the separation is valid but he needs to complete the amount.
The is the basic background. Now the question is let's say that now the stack is half tevel and half secular. So how can he take tithe? [This question is of the Radvaz.]
The answer is this. Let's say that you have 100lbs of grain and one takes 5 lbs for tithe instead of ten. So now the stack is half tevel and half hulin. So what to do is to separate another 10 lbs and to say: "the five lbs of tevel in this ten lbs is now tithe for the rest of the 50 lbs of tevel that are in the stack." Then the stack is now completely  taken care of. but your ten lbs is now half tithe and half secular. Then you could give the whole thing to a Levi. You would lose a little bit of your own grain but tehstack would be okay.

This answer clearly helps R. Shimshon. However there is still the Rambam left to try to answer for. The problem in the Rambam is the exact same one that comes up in R Shimshon but the answer I gave for RS does not work for the Rambam. The issue is this. In Truma 3 law 7 the Rambam brings that same mishna but holds the separation is not valid at all.  But in law 6 he says one who intends to separate 1/60 but instead took 1/61 --the separation is valid but he finishes the required amount. As Rav Shach points out in the Avi Ezri we see that the difference between law 6 and law 7 is that is law 6 he intends to finish the amount. In law 7 he does not. So in law 7 the separation is not valid.
The answer for the Rambam I think is that here he talks about truma alone and in that there is no problem of amounts. If he continues the process it is valid even if he takes just 1/60-1/61. And in fact in laws of tithe the Rambam does not bring up the issue of when he intends to take more. So in that case as far as I can see he would say the same thing as I wrote up above for R Shimshon.

[The police still have my computer so I am still borrowing. I am not upset with the police because they easily could have put me away for ten years if they had wanted to. Instead they had compassion on me and that same night I was arrested, the officer Moshe Cohen asked me two questions. One was to make a search and the other he mentioned perhaps my son would be willing to sign for me. So we all went (about ten police officers) and the police actually did not search because Moshe my son answered the door and said there was nothing to search for and then they asked if he would be willing to come and sign for me and he said yes. That was one of the greatest moments in my life when I heard my son willing to stand up for. me. Still I am sad that I have not written any music or ideas in Torah.]

I had a thought also about something that Rav Shach [on laws of Truma ] I know does talk about in the Avi Ezri. [I do not recall what he said].
The mishna says one who takes only a fraction of the truma or tithe takes out truma from it but not to a different place. R. Meir said also to a different place. R. Shimshon says the idea is it is truma or tithe but he needs to finish. Example: 100 lbs tevel. He takes 5 lbs tithe. It is tithe but he takes another 5 lbs. The idea is to R Shimshon that the original stack is mixed with tevel and hulin but when he takes more tithe we says he is taking from the tevel.
 Rashi says something similar on a different topic in Gitin 47b.   Jew and gentile own crops together. Tevel and hulin are mixed to R. Yehuda Hanasi. Rashi says you take a tithe and assume you are taking tevel.

The answer for R Shimshon at this point is unclear. I tried last night to think about it but came up with nothing. I ought to mention the person that asks on R Shimshon is the Radvaz. Sometimes it takes a long time for me to come up with an acceptable answer for the baali Hatosfot.

Bava Mezia 101a

I have had a few ideas that I have not written down in Talmud. Most I forget but at least for now I would like to write down a few things.[Most of the ideas were written in Uman.]
I think i had some idea in bava Kama but I forget it.]
Bava Mezia 101a.  My idea here last night as I was drifting off to sleep was that the Ri [R. Isaac the grandson of Rashi] can answer a very obvious and essential question in the Gemara that I think both Rashi and the Rambam would have a lot of trouble answering. The question is this: why change R. Yehuda? He said the serf would have to give a tithe for any field in Israel and then for seemingly no reason the Gemara changes it to only a field that he once owned and then sold (to the Rambam) or was simply stolen (to Rashi).  While the Gemara was right to change to "there is possession" but that gives no reason to the Rambam or Rashi to change the opinion of R Yehudah.

I assume either Rav Shach or Rav Chaim Soloveitchik answer this somewhere but as far as I can see right now, the Ri is more sensible. {Anyway as D. Bronson always told me "Tosphot is always right."]

Just for background information: The Mishna says that a renter from a gentile in Israel has to take the tithe and then pay the rent. He can not pay the rent with un-tithed fruit. R. Yehuda adds a serf also. The Gemara starts out thinking like Rabah that a gentile has possession and a serf is like a renter. Then it changes both. The Ri says it changes both because one depends on the other. But the Rambam and Rashi hold those are independent variables.

I already wrote something about this in my little booklet on Bava Mezia but this idea I think is new.

I have more time but my back is hurting. So to be short let me just mention that that rambam hold "there is no possession" and yet hold like the Gemara's conclusion in Bava Mezia 101 about R Yehuda and so clearly he holds like Rashi that the conclusion of the Gemara does not depend on whether there is or there is not possession.

about Ukraine

My basic feeling about Ukraine is that things were better under the rule of the USSR. There seems to be a kind of inherent anti semitism  which was held in check during the time of the Soviets but has recently come to the surface. In the last place I was staying there there was a tunnel dug for the sake of immediate escape that the Jewish family that owned the house had dug. If you have ever been to the Ukraine you can imagine how hard that must have been since the levels under the ground are mainly made of hard solid granite. That tunnel was a mile long (from the river Ostashivka until some escape route towards  the town center.) and was still standing a hundred years later. So the pogroms before the soviets took power were serious enough for that Jewish family to be really terrified.
[To this day I still have no idea how that family could have dug that tunnel without electricity. and only with shovels.]
So when I read Hobhouse and his critique of the Hegelian State, I take it with a grain of salt. I realize that there are times and places where a strong central government is needed.

Frankly I have to admit I was also terrified when I was there. The attacks on me were getting more and more frequent and violent.

[Besides that there was the odd fact that almost every person that I asked in Uman how things were during the time of the USSR, every single one told me things were better. You can ask anyone in Uman that lived during the time of the USSR and all of them will tell you the same exact words "Things were better then."]

[Because I still have no computer I have to be short. And to be fair L.T. Hobhouse realizes himself that the balance between government and the individual is a hard problem to solve. And he also realizes that all social questions come about because some kind of problem has arisen.

The trouble to me seems to be that Wasps in the USA assume everyone is like them. They think importing an American kind of democracy into the Ukraine would make everything hunky dory.
They ought to try renting a room for a while there and then find out what things are really like.

My feeling about Tora

My feeling about Tora is that the basic approach of the Gra and Rav Shach is correct.--and to a large degree I feel it would have made a lot of sense to stick with their basic ideas of learning Torah in depth and trust in God. However I did get involved in Breslov. That helped in many ways, but it also seems to have gotten me off track. It would be nice to find a kind of middle path in which one could partake of the great insights of Rav Nahman, and yet stay within the context of the straight Lithuanian Yeshiva world.

So nowadays I try to find the path of balance- Gemara Tosphot, Rav Shach's Avi Ezri, Math, Physics and exercise. That seems to work for me.

The path of balance certainly was the approach of some Rishonim-- as you can see in some of the Musar books of that period.

As for the actual fact that sometimes the right path is unclear -I go with Kant-- that reason has a limit. When it gets into areas of values (dinge an sich) it gets into contradictions. In any case, as far as I can I would like to get back to the straight Torah path of the Gra and Rav Shach. Besides that I have no idea why they both have been ignored to a large extent except to pay lip service to them.
And for some reason my efforts to get back into striaght Tora have always been foiled. Maaybe I simply do not have the merit to be able to sit and learn Torah? Or is there some deeper reason?

Side note --if you go by the actual new moon, then passover falls on April 18 at night. That is the first day is April 19)

My feeling about Philosophy is that Dr Kelley Ross and Michael Huemer are simply not that far apart. If it is a matter of reason knowing things (as per the Kant Fries school) of Reason recognizing things like universals (as per Michael Huemer) I just do not see the difference as it applies to me. I can see however in philosophy itself there is a big difference. but not so much in practical application.

That is reason recognizes universals. Among universals are objective moral values that do not depend on the observer.[Even though as one of the critics of Michale Huemer pointed out [Danny Frederick] there is a difference between universals as predicates and universals as laws of either math or morals. Still it seems to be both schools of though as very close.[ That is the Kant Fries and the Intuitionists.]

Daughter of an Am Haaretz.

I noticed in the Rambam on the mishna [Sanhedrin chapter 9]that he says it is a sin to marry the daughter of an Am Haaretz [person ignorant of Mishna and Talmud.] I had thought that it is simply not advisable.

I wonder if I had taken this advice how things might have turned out differently.
For when I was discussing marriage with my future wife she asked what would happen if there would be no parnasa [money]? And I said I would go and find a job. [The background here is that I was in the Mir Yeshiva in NY at the time and we were planning on my continuing to learn Torah.]
This might very well be the reason that in fact later things fell apart. I might have answered like the sages said in the Chapters of the Fathers one who accepts on himself the yoke of Torah there is removed from him the yoke of the government and of making a living. I might have said if there is no money then I am not learning Torah hard enough and thus I should work harder on learning.

I am not saying eveything about the Litvak world that revolves on the Gra is right. I realize there is an array of values. But what I am saying is that I had found the one thing that worked for me. Learning Torah at the Mir. It seems to me that it was a failure on my part not to be committed to this approach at all cost.

[Nowdays I have a wider constalation of values but for me to list them here would make no sense since many of them apparanetly conflict one with the other. My question is how to resolve this conflict? ]

The dialect of Hegel unfolds in time.

 I want to consider the possibility that the dialect of Hegel unfolds in time. This clearly is not like McTaggart, but I think that it makes sense. That is the basic process is really what you see in the Neo Platonic school of Plotinus. But with Plotinus is is logos which is bringing things about. But in any case the idea is this whole vast process of Hegel is unfolding in time. And this helps a lot. It helps to understand the main problem of this generation of disappointment. For example me. I went very deeply into the Litvak Torah world, but as is usual with the process of thesis anti thesis I found things not perfect. So what needs to be done is to get to the synthesis that finds what is right is both the thesis and antithesis.

The Mishna in Bava kama 36

The law of the Torah is an ox that has not yet considered  to be expected to gore only pays half damages. An ox gores 4 other oxen one after the other but still remains "tam". Each one was worth 200. [It perhaps did it not one after the other exactly] R Meir says the last one gets the whole amount and if anything is left over it goes the one before that etc. R. Shimon says the order is 100/100. The next time the division is 100/50/50. The next time 100/50/25/25.

In another case R. Ishmael considered the damaged ox to be a debtor.But R Akiva thinks the owners of each ox become partners with the owner.

The problem our Gemara brings up on page 36 is who is R. Meir going like? It concludes like R Ishmael. [I would expand on this but I have no computer and and just borrowing a friends for a few minutes.] The next opinion of RS is like R Akiva.

But if it is like RI then the first owner of the first damaged ox should get the whole sum, not the last. The Gemara says each owner of the subsequent ox grabbed the ox to hold it until he gets paid.

The Rif says R Shimon agrees if he grabs it he is a paid guard and he agrees with RM.
Both R. Ephraim and Rav Zarahia the Baal Hamaor degree with the Rif. As you can easily see why. If he would be right then there was no reason to say the opinion of RM is like RI. It could be R Akiva also.

The answer that I think makes sense here is the debate in Pesahim 30. A lender is not paid back on time so he gets some property of the borrower. So when is he considered to own that property? This is a debate over there but the Rif must be thinking that our gemara over here in Bava Kama is like the opinion the lender owns the property only after he collects it. But the Rif is thinking that the ox is different. It becomes a pledge and is owned from the time of the goring and if so then there would be no difference between R Akiva and R Ishmael and so in truth R Shimon who is like R akiva in our case is talking about a different case than R Meir.
Sorry I can not explain this in more detail. If you look it up it will be more clear. Anyway you can see this idea of mine in Tosphot Bava kama pg 33. where Tosphot brings it for a different reason.