the subject of Jesus

The main subject of the messiah son of Joseph that I brought in my previous post from Rav Avraham Abulafia that concerns the subject of Jesus can easily be understood based on the Ari [Isaac Luria] that the light of kindness went into the vessel of Foundation.

In short that means the Divine light was sent down into the empty space and then there was the breaking of the vessels. Then in the long process of correcting this the light of kindness was brought back up into the vessel of Foundation. [[I forget exactly where this is in the Eitz Chaim, but it is also brought in Rav Nahman from Breslov's book the ליקוטי מוהר''ן [Magnum Opus of Rav Nahman.]

[For a short introduction let me just mention that the basic structure of the Eitz Haim is this> When God wanted to create the world there was no place for it since everything was just God. So he withdrew his presence and made an empty space-a sphere. Then He sent down light [shem beit nun 52] that went down a drop and then went sideways to make an inner sphere of light. Then that went down again a drop and again went sideways to make another inner sphere of light. That is the spheres of Adam Kadmon (the Divine Man) [That Hegel also brings down.] This process continues for the ten spheres of עיגולים round spheres. Then again the process starts with a new beam of Divine light [shem mem he 45.] that instead of going sideways went down vertically and became the form of a man.--that is Yosher of Adam Kadmon. Light then came out from this Divine Man from the extremities but mainly from his forehead nose ears mouth and then eyes. From the eyes the light went down and became עקודים which are mentioned concerning Jacob and the sheep that were striped.(had stripes). When the light went lower you get the breaking of the vessels. the breaking of the vessels means the vessels fell lower into Creation, Formation and the Physical Universe. The light went up but some sparks also fell. So to start the process of correction you have to bring up the vessels and bring down the light. That is what the Ari means when he says the light of Kindness goes into the vessel of Formation in short. The best introduction to this I think is the Eitz Chaim of the Ari [written by Rav Chaim Vital] but David Bronson thinks the Four Hundred Shekels of silver--also of the Ari is a better intro. The edition of the Baal Hasulam [Rav Ashlag]is best.]
[The difference is the Eitz Chaim itself was written directly by Rav Haim Vital. The Four Hundred Shekels of silver is part of the 8 Gates which was put together from the writings of Rav Chaim Vital by his son Rav Shmuel Vital. 

[Incidentally to go deeper into the Ari, I found a few people's approaches to be helpful, especially Rav Nahman of Breslov, but also the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi and his grandson), Yaakov Abuchazeira, the Ramchal [Moshe Luzatto] and the Gra's commentaries.]

Rav Avraham Abulafia

The idea of Rav Avraham Abulafia is that Jesus was the messiah son of Joseph and that is different from messiah son of David. It does not mean that he was divine in the sense of the Trinity but rather a soul of Emanation אצילות similarly to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David.
[Rav Kaduri also brought down a similar idea in a note that he said should not be opened until after he would be gone. The note is fairly famous.]

You can see this clearly in his writings of Rav Abulafia, and also in the Ph.D. thesis of Moshe Idel at Hebrew University.
The subject of messiah son of Joseph is dealt with in the Talmud in Suka [at the end] and also in Moshe Haim Luzato in his Tikunim Hadashim [תיקונים חדשים] and also in the Gra in his Kol HaTor (קול התור). [Voice of the Dove].

Moshe Idel also points out a gematria [numerical value of the letters] that reflects negatively on Jesus. But that is not any different than countless gematriot [numerical values] that mean one is the opposite of the other. For example Moshe [משה] is gematria heresy [שמד עם הכולל] with the value of the word itself counting as one. That means Moshe stands against it. Not that he is identified with it.

This same idea is also in the Ari (Isaac Luria) in the books of his disciple Rav Haim Vital on the Five Books of Moses--at the end of Breshit concerning Joseph. [That is the books that are commentaries on the Torah at the end of Genesis -that were actually written by Rav Haim Vital but are of lessons he learned from the Ari.]

This makes a difference in terms of "faith in the wise", that is that it adds something good to one's soul when one believes in a true tzadik [saint].

[Other places that deal with this subject are Tosphot in Avoda Zara, which is quoted by the Rema. But to me it is seems what Tosphot is saying is three different hypotheses. Not just one. I learned that Tosphot with David Bronson.]

[Rav Abulafia is quoted by Rav Haim Vital at the end of his Gates of Holiness and by the Remak. It is a surprise that in the last part of Gates of Holiness is where Rav Haim Vital is talking about unifications that bring to the Divine Presence and as the authority for that he is quoting the books of Rav Abulfia,-- and does not bring the Ari!] [The Chida (Rav David Azulai) also brings Rav Abulafia in his Shem Hagedolim the book that brings a short biography of all the great sages of Israel.]

the word "science" is used nowdays for pseudo science like psychology.

In the West a lot of people are into attacking science nowadays.
This mainly comes from the humanities and social pseudo sciences.

In the meantime it seems the Chinese are building a collider that might be able to discover super symmetry.

Part of the problem is the word "science" is used nowdays for pseudo science like psychology.

woman's property when she gets married.

I do not have any new idea about this but I thought that it is a good idea to make clear some different categories about a woman's property when she gets married.

The famous categories are נכסי מלוג ונכסי צאן ברזל. [Property that she owns before she gets married and then gets married]

And in these there are lots of subdivisions as you can see in Ketuboth page 78 and 79.

But these categories are very different than money she earns as wages or if she ruins a business or if she finds some object that has no owner.

[I admit I was confused about the differences between these things when I first was learning Ketuboth in my second year in Shar Yashuv [NY] of Rav Freifeld and Rav Naftali Yeger.

So when you encounter right in the beginning of Ketuboth what a woman acquires is acquired by her husband מה שקנה אישה קנה בעלה has nothing to do with property she owns before she gets married. It refers specificall to מעשה ידיה the work of her hands.

This is big subject in Ketuboth and Yevamot. But the reason I mention this even though I have no new idea about it is because some women think that whatever their husband's owns is owned by them--at least half. And that is false.

[In any case some of the differences are if property [land] comes to her before ארוסין betrothed and the then she becomes betrothed. Or it falls to her after she is betrothed and then she sells it when she is betrothed. Or after she gets married.]
In the Mishna Beit Hillel holds property she owns before she is betrothed she can sell after she is botrothed. But if it comes after she is betrothed then she should not sell it but if she did already the sell is valid.]

woman's first intuition is always correct?

The press agent of Hitler [Ernst Franz Sedgwick Hanfstaengl] that eventually turned against him, and had to escape made note of how Hitler would address a crowd of people that had plenty of people were there specifically to heckle him and shout him down.  The way he did it was brilliant. His very first remarks were about how woman's first intuition is always correct since they are more spiritually attuned to reality. That immediately silenced his detractors who were eager to hear more about how great women are.

Praising women as always right is the general way that people try to gain power. 

immediate non intuitive knowledge and faith.

I suggested a long time ago to David Bronson in Uman that immediate non intuitive knowledge is the exact same thing that Rav Nahman of Breslov was talking about in his emphasis on faith.

[This came up because I was noting that Einstein has an essay commenting on Bertrand Russel's approach to Hume.]

To me it seems clear that there is another way to access knowledge besides pure logic which can detect contradictions and empirical knowledge based on sense perception.

Hegel was trying to get to a kind of nationalism without the flaws of the nightmare of the French Revolution.

Nationalism has support from Hegel. But some people are not happy with Hegel like Dr. Kelley Ross and Michael Huemer.  Brand Blanshard defends Hegel and also Walter Kaufman. My feeling about the State is that along the lines of Blandshard--that no human good is possible without the State. But why the state? Why not the village? or the whole world? The answer is like why the human brain works like it does. It is not that it is big. There are bigger brains. The point is it is right size for abstract thought. Too big would ruin it. So the state. Village would just be in conflict with  other villages. World government is too big and just would be the same as war of all against all. The State is the right size for people to work together. [This aspect of State I think Dr Ross would agree with.]

Hegel was trying to get to a kind of nationalism without the flaws of the nightmare of the French Revolution. And as Walter Kaufman noted he thought the America is the country of the future, not Prussia.

And the more people depend on the Zohar, the more they fall in delusions. The reason is that the Zohar itself has a certain flaw.

I agree that there were great mystics like the Ari Isaac Luria], Rav Nahman, the Remak [Moshe Cordovaro]. But to the degree they depended on the Zohar they seem weak.  But that does not invalidate their teachings. It just means that was the sort of looking glass that they were seeing through. It is like when one wears green colored glasses everything looks green.

But to account for the true revelations of great mystics you do not need the Zohar. There is more or less a basic path that people can follow--of separation from pleasures of this world and to spend time learning Torah. That in and of itself leads to attachment with the Divine.


But to account for mystic revelation I think the best approach is the Kant Friesian School which is a kind of Neo Kant School different than the Marburg School of Herman Cohen.

[The sad thing is no one has translated Leonard Nelson which is a very important development of Kant. So unless you have time to go and learn him in German, he is more or less a closed book. However Dr Kelley Ross does make up for that to some degree in his development of Nelson's Philosophy. But that still does not replace the original.]



The fact is that kabalah has flavor. It is Geshmak. But not accurate. And the more people depend on the Zohar, the more they fall in delusions. The reason is that the Zohar itself has a certain flaw. Though it was written to encourage people towards the service of God and is based on previous great books like the Sefer yezira. Still the intention of presenting it s as if it was written by R Simon Ben Yochai leaves it with a certain degree of some aspect of the Sitra Achra, a sort of spirit of fraud. Andthat spirit gets into people that learn it.

the four elements that turns up in Kabalah

The odd thing about the four elements that turns up in Kabalah quite a lot is that it does not really seem to be all that accurate. If the kabalists were receiving this idea  by Ruach Hakodesh [the Divine Spirit] then it seems that they were being fooled. If they were just borrowing from Aristotle and the ancient Greeks then why not at least attribute their sources?
[The four elements idea in fact seems to have been an obstacle instead of a help in coming to understand the nature of matter and energy. It took a lot of effort of Boyle, Dalton, Newton, Locke et al to get to the idea that matter has elements that are not divided so neatly into Fire Water Air and Dirt.




The system of the Ari towards the end of the Eitz Haim also has the regular Ptolemaic scenario of the sun going around the Earth.

While I would not doubt the Ari and the Remak [Moshe Cordovaro] on the deeper meaning of Torah, still I tend to limit their validity to areas outside of their expertise.

However when I really what to learn about the Wisdom of God as it is revealed in the Work of Creation and the Divine Chariot as the Sages said it seem to me that the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda were more correct to say that that is what the ancient Greeks were learning and what they called Physics.


[Also the עם כל דא [although] that comes up all the time in the Zohar is a medieval invention of the Ibn Tibon family meant to replace the other ways of saying "although" that you have in the Midrash and Gemara like אף על פי, אף על גב which are in fact really difficult. (One means "also on the mouth," the other is "also on the back.") You can see why Ibn Tibon would have replaced them. But this does show that the Zohar is not from R Shimon Ben Yochai.]

Rav Isaac of Aco asked the person that publicized the Zohar in Spain about the original manuscript. But was never shown it, and when he asked his wife about it, she said there was no original manuscript.

[It is like people are looking for  a Jewish point of view about the world, and kabalah seems to be the only thing out there that is presented as authentically Jewish and has flavor and interest. But is it so accurate? Once I stated looking for accuracy in my world view, the Zohar seemed less impressive. But as far as mysticism goes I think Rav Avraham Abulafia and the Ari and Remnak are important. However at least Rav Abulafia was simply stating his own revelations with no reference to any books at all. [He even attacked the kabalists.] This seems a lot better than even the Ari or Remak who are basing themselves on the Zohar at least to some extent. And philosophy does not seem to have any validity at all. Philosophers spend their time wondering what scientists do and thinking about words. Philosophy is meaningless.]

Recovered memories

Recovered memories are just one of many examples how people get work themselves into a frenzy to believe what they want to believe.

This all goes back to Howard Bloom's the Lucifer Principle. People get hard wired to hold to certain beliefs. [e.g. like their father raped them.] And then after a certain age the belief is transformed from software to hardware. That is the way circuit boards are made nowadays as opposed to long ago.
Once long ago you could rewire a circuit board because it was made of removable parts . But after the transistors were thought up by Shockley people started making the wiring onto boards and then putting them into the oven to harden them. after that you can not change the wiring. It is hard wired. All you can do is to throw out circuit board and make a new one.
That is how people's brains work. They accept certain beliefs because their mother told them so. After that it becomes hardwired.

Self justification is the way people makes excuses for what they ought to know is wrong. Recovered memories is one of the ways people do that.

The best approach to combat self justification is to get the meme at a young age.

The best approach to combat self justification is to get the meme at a young age. That is to learn the Shaari Teshuva by R. Yona of Gerondi.[Gates of Repentance.]

That is to get it hard wired into yourself to not assume your are correct but to check your work.

This is one of the great advantages of the Musar Movement of R Israel Salanter that he emphasized the classical works of Ethics from the Middle Ages which includes the Gates of Repentance.

self justification is the source of all evil. For everyone makes mistakes.

For everyone makes mistakes. But the real evil occurs when people dig in to justify their mistakes.

Rav Nahman has this idea that it is good to look for the hints in events. But not always. For there is such a thing as obstacles for a mitzvah.


So to fight self justification the best thing is to look at when actual events showed you that you were wrong about some decision.

Why to fight self justification? Because it is not good to justify doing evil. So when you wrong the best idea is to repent on it instead of justifying it.

But how can you actually tell when your decisions were wrong? By events.

It is worth repeating that pantheism is not a part of Torah thought. In the Middle Ages--in all rishonim this simply never appears. On the contrary in the Rishonim the major idea is Creation Ex Nihilo. [The Torah holds that God made the world from nothing. He is not like a spider whose web is made from itself. 

But you can see this right away in the beginning of the Eitz Haim of the Ari also. This exact point is  reiterated a few times. Emanation does not contradict Creation Ex Nihilo. [An example: your son comes from you, but he is not you.]


[I have to go soon because this is the library here an they are closing soon. But you can look this up yourself and see that the whole emphasis in the Religious Jewish world on pantheism is a kind of fraud. --claiming that it is traditional Jewish Thought.

If they would be simply going with Spinoza that would be different. At least then there would be some justification. But that is not what they are saying. They are rather trying to import a pantheism into Torah though from the outside for a certain agenda they have.[That is to claim divinity for their  leaders.] Rav Nahman also noticed this and brought up the point about the evil leaders of the religious world many times in the Lekutei Moharan.[ e.g. L.M. Vol. I ch. 12 and ch 28. But also 61 and vol II ch 1 and 8 and other places I have forgotten.]

Fast learning of Physics

I have tried to take Physics out of the realm of the elite priesthood and show how it is for everyone.

Mainly by the idea of the Hidden Torah inside the work of Creation and also by the idea that you can learn it simply by saying the words and going on.
But that being said I admit there is  a place for review. In fact in Lithuanian yeshivas based on the path of the Gra and Rav Shach it is the regular schedule to do intense learning in the morning and fast learning in the afternoon.

[And though in these great places like the Mir and Shar Yashuv the way of deep learning is more or less along the lines of Rav Haim from Brisk, still I find that for myself review is the only way I can get into any kind of understanding at all.]

So in conclusion what I think is best is to have some sessions for simply saying and words and going on until one finishes the book and then reviews it again and again. But also to have one or two sessions where one does lots of review on the exact same page or else even goes to previous pages and works oneself up to place where he or she is holding.


You might laugh at this but I think that even talented people that have high IQ and do well in Physics--could also benefit from this.]

Dr Kelley Ross and Dr Michael Huemer both have a  libertarian approach to politics. Freedom in personal actions and also in economies. That is to say there is no right of government to steal from the rich and give to aggrieved bodies that want other people's money.

In terms of the American Constitution this is certainly the basis. But being in the former USSR I saw clearly how the kind of system that works in the USA just can not work for other kinds of people.
In places where there is not a kind of WASP mentality, you can not just import to other places the whole system of the USA Constitution that was the result of ages of thinking and conflicts in England on how a government ought to be run to gain liberty justice for all.

I saw first hand on why the Russians do not want a hostile Ukraine right next door to them. [You would not believe me if I told you how much thievery is embedded in the DNA over there.]


What brings this up today is that I am thinking that though Dr Kelley Ross is probably the best philosopher around, still I do not think the negative attitide towards Hegel is warrented[[even though I am no one to debate the issue.]

Besides that I do not see very clearly how the ideas of Leonard Nelson which deal with epistemology are all that incompatible with Hegel's Metaphysics.

[And besides that when it comes to pure politics to me it is clear that Hegel was trying to counterbalance the crazy ideas of the French Revolution that in fact led to chaos and the war of all against all. This is not all that different than Dr Ross and the founding fathers of the USA that also were trying to find  balanced system that would provide liberty but also security from criminals and war.

Rav Avraham Abulafia wrote that hidden in the first forty chapters of the Guide of the Rambam is contained the secret of the redemption.

Rav Avraham Abulafia wrote that hidden in the first forty chapters of the Guide of the Rambam is contained the secret of the redemption.
This includes the introduction. There the Rambam equates the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot with the Physics and Metaphysics of the Greeks.
And he repeats this theme in the Mishna Torah. That is in the first four chapters he gives a brief review of the chemistry and physics and metaphysics of Aristotle. [He does not say that that is all in those first four chapters. rather he says those chapters relate to that subject matter.] And he calls it "Pardes." Then in laws of learning Torah he says to divide the learning into three parts, written Law, Oral law and Gemara. Then he adds the subjects included in the Pardes (according to how he defined Pardes) are in the category of Gemara.

So to the Rambam, learning Physics is in the category of learning Torah. You have to draw the holiness in by being attached to God as you do the learning.  And you have to get in the habit of it.  As Aristotle says "Virtue is habit". You have to get to the point that if you have not learned Physics an Mathematics one day that you feel empty. You feel you have missed out on a little bit of truth.




[This you can see in Ibn Pakuda and the Maalot Hamidot. My impression is that this was a wide spread belief among the Medieval authorities --but not the Ramban (Nachmanides) or others of that school--like the Rashba.


[Honestly I can not see what the Rambam was thinking about Aristotle's Metaphysics. Maybe he actually meant to include Plato and Plotinus? And furthermore there seems to be some kind of tension in the Metaphysics about if as Marc Cohen wrote a few years ago in his article in the Stanford encyclopedia of Philosophy.

So to learn Physics and Mathematics connects one to the wisdom of God inside the work of Creation. But also it is on a level that avoids the problem of igniting the dark side inside of people when they become religious fanatics.

Revealing Torah straight on to people can often cause them to become worse people. This can be because of religious fanaticism. It lites a fuse inside of them that makes them forget what it means to be a mensch (decent human being). סם מוות למשמאילים בה [Torah is poison for those that learn it for profit or ulterior motives.]

So to learn Physics and Mathematics connects one to the wisdom of God inside the work of Creation. But also it is on a level that avoids the problem of igniting the dark side inside of people when they become religious fanatics. Or they start to use Torah for money and/or other alternative motives.


The idea is mainly this: There are ten statements by which the world was created that correspond to the ten sepherot. [Crown, Wisdom, Understanding, kindness, Judgment, Beauty/Truth, Eternity, Splendor, Foundation and Kingship.]

The first statement of Creation is called the מאמר הסתום the hidden statement which corresponds to the Crown. But it is hidden inside of creation. So its holiness is not visible.


The Baal Hasulam [commentary on the Zohar] makes a point that what is known from the Ari and the Remak is not what the sages call the secrets of Torah. [That is towards the end of his introduction to the Eitz Haim of the Ari.] I would rather not go into his points here right now, but in any case there is plenty of evidence that the Rambam held Physics and metaphysics of Aristotle to be the actual work of creation and the Divine Chariot. Besides he saying so openly, you see it throughout his works. It was not an afterthought. And also in his commentary of the Mishna (which he wrote when he was young) he says that from the beginning he was going to write such a book as the Guide. It was not some afterthought.]

Pride

Supremacy --pride is one of the deadly sins. So why is it so emphasized as a good thing?

You see this a lot in terms of the fallacy "All great people are..." (fill in the blank with your favorite ethnic group.)


They dress this in "self esteem". But in fact in the Bible and Talmud and all the books of Musar of the Rishonim pride is thought to be the root of all evil.
So why is this ignored? Because one of Freud's students [Alfred Adler] made pride to be a good thing. But it is not a good thing.

Mathematics and Physics

The way I see Mathematics and Physics is that they are the hidden Torah inside of the work of Creation. That is they extend from the מאמר הסתום [The Hidden Statement of the work of Creation] so the holiness in them is hidden. And that is for a benefit,- since there are people that if they would learn Torah, they would become worse people (as the Sages said סם מוות למשאילים בה [Torah is a tree of life to those that learn it for its own sake, and a poison of death for those that learn it for alternative motives.])[the hidden statement refers to the first verse of Genesis where God created theworld but it doe not say "He said" as it does by the rest of Creation]

This I would not say on my own but for seeing this in the Guide of the Rambam. There he has a parable about a great king in his capital city. Inside the city is his palace. Those that are outside his country are barbarians. Those in his county are those that have laws. Those that are close to the palace are the "Talmudiim" those that learn and keep Talmud. Those that are inside the palace are the physicists.
Those in the inner parts of the palace are the prophets and philosophers. [He is referring to ancient Greek Philosophers. Not to present day ones.]

[Though I saw this kind of thing in the Obligations of the Heart and other Rishonim. Still I never saw it with the degree of clarity that the Rambam brings to this issue.]

However since they are hard most people do not learn them. For that reason I suggest the סדר הלימוד method of learning saying the words and going on. You can see this method of learning in the Gemara ( in tractate Shabat and other places) and the אורחות צדיקים.

I also see a place for review in Mathematics and Physics besides sessions of just saying the words and going on. But I am not sure of how much to emphasize review and how much to emphasize "Girsa"[saying the words and going on.][the way i think is best is to go through the book you are learning from beginning to end four times,  ]

Religious fanaticism

Religious fanaticism is a result of some kind of parasite taking hold of the brain.
But these are not physical parasites. They are memes. Units of social order.

To see this more clearly it is helpful to look at Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. But at the time of Howard Bloom this was stated without the information that came to light about parasites being able to take over one's mind. as in Toxoplasmosis.

But false and evil memes do get around and do try to get into people's heads.


Howard Bloom  is more or less going with the idea of the super organism which attempts to get people. Once it gets them it imprints its meme into their neural network in a way that can not be taken out afterward. But in the time of Bloom the studies by Sapolsky and others about parasites taking over one's brain were unknown.

But to me it seems clear this is what is going on in the religious world. And this explains the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. For the Gra realized this and decided to take a drastic measure even though he was ignored afterwards.

It is sad that Rav Shach also was ignored even though he pointed out the same problems.

I ought to add that keeping Torah should have has nothing to do with religious fanaticism.However for some reason it is the insane fanatics that have the reputation of keeping Torah. But a close examination will show that the religious world is basically a fraud. They use Torah for show, rather than keep Torah.

Kollel

Kollel was an invention of Rav Israel Salanter. It was meant to get over the hurdle that people would learn Torah up until the time they got married and then either had to find work or be supported by their father in law or begin to use Torah to make money. None of these options seemed very good.
So he created what was supposed to be temporary fix by extending the independent yeshiva concept into married years.

[I am getting ahead of myself. Yeshiva as an independent institution was recent. It was begun by Rav Haim from Voloshin. Before that there was no such thing. The situation was simply that the unmarried teenagers of the city stayed and leaned in the local synagogue under the supervision of who ever was chosen as the religious leader of the city that got a salary for his efforts.
This was not accepted at first and in fact the Rav of Mir brought a lawsuit against the person that started the Mir Yeshiva that was independent of his leadership and control.]

To me it seems that using Torah to make money is not a very great idea. And Kollel and yeshivas themselves which were meant to get out of the problem of mixing Torah with money seem themselves to have become a sort of business. --[Though they started with good intentions.]

However there are exceptions to this rule. The Litvak yeshivas which more or less follow the original design of Rav Haim of Voloshin and Rav Israel Salanter seem very good to me. But these kind of straight  litvak yeshivas seem to be rare and exceptions to the rule.

[this issue has always been important to me, but i would not knock people that depend on a kollel check to be able to learn. just for me, that did not seem like a good idea.]

My own feeling about kollel is that it depends on the kind of person one is. If a life of learning Torah for its own sake makes sense to you then it is  a great thing. But if it is being used as a "good guys" country club where freinds get to gossip the whole day, then it seems like a waste.

I wanted to go a little into Kelley Ross's Theory of Value.. [Which seems to be original even though he attributes his theory to Kant and Leonard Nelson.]

The thing that I wanted to add is that areas of value which in his theory are formal have little content.

For example formal logic. The sentenses are more or less empty. A can stand for anything. B also. But if A is true and A implies B then B is true.

But as you approach areas with more value you have less form. For example morals. Moral are what would be called universals as Michael Huemer says. But there is no algorithm to figure them out.

But you do not see this in the Rambam. In the Rambam Physics and metaphysics are both a part of learning Gemara. That means they come under the category of learning Torah.

So what I suggest is not that they have the same numinous value as Gemara. Rather that the Avoda [kind of service]  involved in Math and Physics to to draw numinous value into it.
This is more or less how the Rishonim said to learn this kind of thing--to intend by that learning to merit to love and fear of God.



I mentioned a few years ago that besides the areas of positive value of Kelley Ross I think there is are equal and opposite areas of negative value. In science that is pseudo science.

But further I think these areas of negative value are parasites that can not exist without positive value. That is why you always see the Dark Side trying to get inside of straight Litvak Yeshivas. The Dark Side can not exist without sucking the life energy of True Torah.
See examples of parasites that can not exist without mind controlling their hosts

Two very important principles I learned from the books of Rav Nahman from Breslov

Try never to be in debt and never to ask favors from people. Never to be in debt is a very important principle. 
I recall That i picked these up from the book of Rav Nahman called Sefer HaMidot.

The idea of not being in debt I recall had to do with repentance. That is--he said that if one wants to repent he should be careful not to be in debt.

The other principle I recall came from a statement in the Gemara in Yoma. 

The Oral and Written Law (Gemara and Five Books of Moses) seems to be one area of value among many areas of value. [I.e. It addresses issues of objective morality not beauty, or courage, or mathematics etc.] 


And when any area of value decays its decays into its opposite. [ Torah is a numinous area of value. To see this clearly look at Kelley Ross. Though you can see a many area theory of Value in Hegel also. But since Hegel wants to combine them-it is harder to see there.  The areas of value what Kelley Ross would call numnious would be in Hegel's  areas of Essence. Hegel has Notion being the synthesis of Being and Essence.
You can see this also in the Rambam who has two areas of value Moral and Intellectual. [Not just in Pirkei Avot but also in Mishne Torah Laws of Repentance where he says Olam Haba [ones portion in the next world] depends on both deeds and wisdom]

Nahman from Breslov

The critique on religious leaders permeates the entire book of Rav Nahman from Breslov [The LeM. Lekutai Moharan  Vol I. ch 8, 12, 28 etc] .and by implication the entire religious world that "follows the leader."

But this is not new. In the Talmud itself you have similar statements. In Tracatet Shabat towards the end: "All troubles that come into the world come only because of the judges of Israel."And a wife of a Pharisee is among the destroyers of the world. אישה פרושה היא מן המכלה עולם 

Rav Nahman sees in the religious world and religious leaders a particular kind of problem that is not the same as simply faulty leadership.

My impression is that the exception to this rule are the great Litvak yeshivas. I had very positive experiences both in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. And I am pretty sure that they are not all that unique but that most Litvak yeshivas follow the same basic pattern of simply trying to keep the Torah as straight and simple as possible.
But even when I was there I was aware of this penumbra of kelipot that surround them and attempt to infiltrate.


One important source about this problem with religious leaders that Rav Nahman calls Torah scholars that are demons is a book that is out of print. That is the חיי מוהר''ן the Life of Rav Nahman. The השמטות. The deleted parts. Now even though some of the deleted parts were put back in but not all. Rav Shmuel Horwitz's השמטות של החיי מוהר''ן [deleted parts of The Life of Rav Nahman] was only printed once and sold in the Breslov bookstore near Rehov Salant in Jerusalem Mea Shearim.

FFB Society [[religious from birth]

 FFB  Society [religious from birth] is  predatory towards BT's [newly religious]. This creates a kind of environment in which the BT's expect to be treated equal,-- because of the ideals of democratic society from where they emerge. Yet they are the first to be blamed, and the last to be helped. Often it more than just last to receive help. Often it is first to receive harm.
And there is a kind of fraud involved in which the actual principles are not the ones that are public.
Family values would be a good example. But there are other examples.
  So the problem with the religious world that Rav Nahman noticed was really not confined to the leaders. It is just that the leaders tend to be particularly insane and evil.
  In the major book of Rav Nahman from Breslov there are a few statements along the lines that show his disapproval of the religious leaders of the Jewish world. For example in the Le.M vol I ch 12 he says that many Torah scholars are demons. And he explains how that comes about.--i.e. by learning Torah for the sake of money or other benefits.

This would be a critque on the Torah itself if the religious world in fact had anything to do with Torah. But outside of a few rituals they adhere to for the sake of show, there is little in the religious world that has anything to do with Torah at all. It is mainly pseudo Torah. Torah for show.

Learning and keeping Torah is important. Because of this it is important to stay away from the religious world which has Torah from the Dark Side. [This is an Idea I saw in the LeM of Rav Nahman.]

So to come to authentic Torah one would have to get out of the insane nonsense of the religious world that have driven themselves into a frenzy of self righteousness.

It may not be pleasent to hear this and I woudl rather not dwell on it, but once in a while it is necessary to say the truth--even when it is ignored. After all the Gra himself signed his name to the letter of excommuncation that more or less says teh same points that I have brought up here. And Rav Shach also. And they were ignored. Rav Kaduri also mentioned this.

asteroid-earth-september

There were lots of extinction level events like the one that killed the dinosaurs. Some were even more serious like the Triassic Permian event. But I think it is not known the causes of all of them. In any case asteroids are a serious threat that ought to be prepared for.

asteroid-earth-september

Question.

Question.  Concerning are the gemarot that encourage deception and having different standards for Jews and non-Jews. I would be glad if you can provide me any kind of justification for the very clear bigoted and hateful talk. The supremacist view. Etc. Is this ostensibly for the betterment of the world that we should be skilled in the arts of double speak and deception? Is that how you [think people ought] to be brought up and taught or does this register for you differently or not at all. Does our treatment at the hands of the Egyptians justify? Are we a race that is attempting evolve past the human state? The logic of eisav soneh et yaakov makes it so that immediately when a Jew leaves the faith he must be deceived and hated as well. There is no middle ground. Either eisav or yaakov. These doctrines are written in stone in the haredi world. You either justify it and live it or you're against. Am i right or wrong? Maybe it's a sacred evil... [The curiosity for] Evil leads to evil. Anyway. Trying to understand difference between evil and selfishness vs chaos vs natural action based upon healthy desire and communion with nature vs service to money vs child sacrifice what all these concepts actually mean in today's world. Who really deserves to live? Whom does God take pride in etc.

What is it the Jewish God specifically hates about the world and its morality? Are we bound to the will of this God or are we simply inextricably illogically bound? What happens if you test this God and say no?

My answer: Very important questions. My answer is more or less based on the idea that the mizvot are to bring to objective morality which is recognizable by reason. Therefore, in anything that conflicts with objective morality, they are not valid. You can see this in particular in R Shimon Ben Yohai who holds that there are reasons for the mizvot and they are recognizable by reason and so when there is a conflict they are not valid.
In other words the Rishonim do not hold from Divine Command Theory. That is the theory that mizvot are good in themselves. No rishon holds that because the gemara itself does not hold it. The Mitzvot are to bring to natural law.

Of course this is not a complete answer. The religious world is not very menschlich [decent]. But so what is the answer? Rav Nahman said the Evil Inclination has evolved. It has become the power of delusion."Dimyon".
And this infects the religious world as much or more so than the secular world.

The big answers for these questions are not clear to me Except to say as Breslov says " I need to look at myself" Why talk about others?" That is from the story of the Simpleton and the wise son.

And so to answer these kinds of questions I have tried to pinpoint the areas that I need to work on. These areas are two fold. One set are things that I am aware i did wrong-so I need to correct. Another set is areas that simply are obligations.

 In sum I see Learning Torah as important. But I think the frum religious world does not represent Torah. I think objective morality depends on input from Torah and Reason as many rishonim held.

natural law

So then the Aquinas approach to natural law is different than the Rambam. I guess that is what you are saying. To Aquinas natural law is  objective morality but not meant to bring to certain goals but rather because it is embedded in the nature of things. Teleological by nature. In think this is what the difference might be.

Rav Israel Salanter

The Musar ethics movement at its core was meant to learn the books of Ethics of the Middle Ages which had a kind of balance between faith and reason. Later Musar became more fanatic.

But fanatic in the wrong kind of way. That is religious fanaticism. And this can lead to ריבוי אור ושבירת הכלים  [too much light that leads to the breaking of one's mental state].

The best answer to this kind of dilemma I think was the path of my parents which was that of balance and menschlichkeit. Not religious fanaticism.
But a justification for this kind of path I did not see until I saw Dr Kelley Ross's web Site the Friesian school. That is a development of Kant. This is a trend of thought that was developed by Leonard Nelson.

In Dr Ross it is shown mainly in his PhD thesis about what he calls a Polynomic Theory of Value.

Danny Frederick

Danny Frederick and Berkeley, i.e. consequentialist theory of political authority.

[As Blandshard put it: without the state no human good is possible. It is a "sine que non" "not possible without which".

Michael Huemer had a debate with Epstein on political authority and to me it seemed that Epstein was right even though Huemer is the greater philosopher. however the actual point really was not clear to me until I saw Danny Frederick's idea that the critique of Huemer on political authority does not apply to Berkeley's consequentialist theory.
[Dr Kelley Ross also noticed the problems with Huemer's position in that debate.]


And I think this consequentialist theory goes well with all mediaeval authorities that I know about.
The Rambam has peace of the state as one of the purposes of many of the laws of the Torah.
Even though the Gemara does not state the reasons for the commandments still it holds the Torah is a consequentialist approach. See Bava Mezia 119a. and lots of other places where the sagesagree with r shimon ben yohai that there are reasons for the commandments that are known. They however disagree about cases where the reason and the letter of the law differ. But that we know the reasons they do not disagree.

Rav Nelkenbaum [who later became a rosh yeshiva of the Mir in NY.]  also pointed out to me that the Ari (Isaac Luria) does not disagree with this point. rather he shows the connections of the commandments with the higher worlds but does not disagree that there are rational and known reasons for them. The Ari certainly does not give reasons himself.

Los Angeles looked better to me when church and state were a part of society. Even as a Jew i felt more comfortable with Merry Christmas and preforming Christian themes in the orchestra in high school than after  radial division of church and state took place. Los Angeles seems to have gone drastically down hill since then. עיר הנידחת. A condemned city.

The actual issue seems to me to have best been dealt with by Rav Avraham Abulafia, Rav Yaakov Emden, the Meiri, the Abravanal, and the Beit Yoseph. These sources I think are well known so there is no reason to go into them. Just Rav Abulafia seems to be ambiguous. You can bring quotes from him that seem to go in two different directions.My own impression is based on his statements that are clearly very positive and also the first PhD thesis of Moshe Idel at Hebrew University.

Gematriot tothe opposite effect do not seem to be proof of anything. After all the numerical value of Moshe is the same as Shemad Heresy. There are lots of examples of that kind of thing. And when they occur no one says they mean that each is identical with teh other. Rather they say זה לאומת זה exact opposites.

תוספות בבא מציעא מ''ג ע''א Tosphot Bava Mezia page 43 side a

There is one more question i have about Tosphot Bava Mezia page 43 side a.
Tosphot is asking about buying. What is the status of the money before the deal is complete? If the seller who has the money at that point is like a borrower then there is a question from the barber. If he is like a paid guard then there is a question from the case of R. Yohanan. That is they made the decree that only drawing the fruit seals the deal because otherwise the buyer can say your fruit was burnt up in the attic. So if he is only a paid guard for the money then why can he not say your money was burnt up in the attic. On the opposite side of things if he is a borrower then why is the person that gives bedek habait  to a barber not liable to meila until the haircut starts? Money that was donated to the Temple can not be used for private purposes. One that does use it for private purpose is transgressing "Meila" Usage of temple money.
My question that occurred to me as I was leaving a dip in the sea is this. Is not the barber hired? Not bought? That is it occurs to me and probably occurs to everyone else that there is something hard to understand about comparison of the bathhouse attendant and the barber to a buyer and seller.

Even though you can argue that the money given to the barber might have the same staאus as the money given to a seller until the point that the deal is sealed. That could be. But why does Tosphot assume it has to be?

יש לשאול על תוספות בבא מציעא מ''ג ע''א. תוספות שאול מן הדין של ספר. מי שהוא נתן כסף של בדק הבית לספר. הוא לא מעל עד שמתחיל התספורת. מזה יש ראיה שהמוכר שכבר יש לו את הכסף של העיסקא קודם שנגמר העיסקא הוא בכלל שומר שכר. אבל שעניין של הספר הוא עניין של שכירות לא מכירה. ולכן מה הדמיון?

infatuation with Sodomy

Plato already made the point that not all physical desires are good. So pleasure does not equal good.
So the infatuation with Sodomy nowadays seems to be misplaced.

Secular morality is a fluid as water. But the problem is that religious morality is not much better.
One really needs the medieval approach of a synthesis of  Faith with Reason.

Richard Feynman said, "Philosophers are always standing outside and making stupid comments."

I also noticed that philosophy tends to be indefinite and fluid. Malleable as play dough and as ugly as a Picasso portrait.

That is one of the reasons when I became aware of the importance of what the Rambam had emphasized about learning Physics and Metaphysics I thought it would be more worth my while to concentrate on Physics.  [The Rambam was no alone in this but makes it more clear than the round about way other rishonim mention this.]

Still it does not seem possible to ignore the important issues that philosophy brings up and that there ought to be a good way to deal with these issues.


Though the Rambam is refering openly to the ancient Greeks still it seems to me that Kant, Leonard Nelson [That is the Kant Fries School] and Hegel ought to be included.

Still since at some point I thought to myself if I am going to be spending any time learning at all, I want it to be something that is sure and certain.
[Even so I think these people are good enough to be worth some amount of time. I should add however that Hegel was used a lot by the Left. But still I do not think that invalidates him. "Abuse does not cancel use," as the Romans used to say.

Bava Mezia page 43 side a

In terms of Bava Mezia page 43 side a There are two questions I would like to ask.
One is on the end of the sugia there.. Tosphot brings up the Braita about the bathhouse concerning selling and buying. My question is why does the Gemara itself not bring up what looks to me to be a serious question from that same exact Braita. That is to Rav Huna permission to use makes one obligated as a borrower. So in terms of the bathhouse should not the braita be a proof to Rav Huna against Rav Nahman?

ב''מ מ''ג ע''א.תוספות מביא את הברייתא שפוסקת את הדין שאם אחד משלם לבלן כסף של בדק הבית הוא מעל מיד בגלל שהבלן יכול לומר לו המרחץ פתוח לפניך. יש לשאול למה זה בעצמו אינו ראיה לרב הונא שהיתר תשמיש מחייב באונסים? יש עוד שאלה על הרמב''ם כאן. לדעת הרמב''ם אין חיוב מעילה עד שיש הנאה. למה רב הונא אינו עונה את זה מיד שרב נחמן שאל מן הברייתא שמי שנתן כסף של בדק הבית לשולחני חייב במעילה כשהשולחני משתמש עם הכסף?



The other question concerns what Rav Isar Melzar brings about the Rambam. {I think Rav Isar Melzar was the father in law of Rav Shach. I am not sure. But in any case, he is brought up a lot in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.] My question is that Rav Melzar shows clearly that the Rambam holds Meila ("Meila" is using money or things that belong to the Temple.That is "bedek habait".) only applies when there is "Hanaah". ("Hanaah" is usage or some kind of derived please). So in our Gemara BM 43. Why does Rav Huna not answer that right away and why is there even a question in the first place?

Background Information.

The basic subject starts from the Mishna. One gives open money to a money changer. He can use it. So what happens if it is lost? To Rav Huna he has a category of a borrower. To Rav Nahman he only is considered a paid guard. Rav Huna asks from a braita that one gives to a money changer money of the Temple that is open. If the money changer uses it the one who gave it to him is liable Meila.
הרקע כאן הוא זה. המשנה כותבת שאם מי שהוא נתן כסף בלי שאינו חתום לשולחני השולחני יכול להשתמש עם הכסף לכן אם נאבד הוא חייב. רב הונא אמר אפילו אם הכסף נאבד באופן הנקרא אונסים גדולים. היינו יש לו דין של שואל. רב נחמן אמר דווקא אבדה אבל אונסים גדולים לא. היינו שיש לו את הדין של שומר שכר

תוספות שואל מה הדין של מכירה עד שלא נמשכו את הפירות? היינו מה הדין של המוכר לגבי הכסף? הוא שואל או שומר שכר. תוספות מביא את הברייתא של גיזבר נתן כסף בדק הבית לבלן הוא חייב במעילה מיד אבל ספר לא.



Tosphot brings from a Braita that one gives money to a bathhouse attendant. he is liable Meila right away. So my question is why is that braita not already considered a proof to Rav Huna? Permission to use already is thought to be Hanaah! That is a question either on Tosphot or the Gemara itself. Also if the Rambam is right then why does Rav Huna not answer that on the actual question that Rav Nahman asks? I.e., why does he not just say one who gave it to the money changer is not liable until the money changer uses the money because there is no me'ila until one uses it?

For if you go by the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda, then Physics is a part of the Oral Law.

My dad took me to Cal Tech every year for the alumni day. [He got his master's degree in Mechanical Engineering from Cal Tech]. But I never met Feynman or Gelman --sadly enough. ]
  At the time I was not aware of the aspect of physics and math that is numinous.
  And this seems like a serious issue to me now. For if you go by the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda, then Physics is a part of the Oral Law. So take that together with the Gra's quote from the Yerushalmi tractate Peah chapter 1 law 1] "Every word of Torah is worth more than all the other mizvot of the Torah". [The Mishna there says ת''ת כנגד כולם. והירושלמי מסבירה שזה שייך גם לכל דיבור של תורה]

You would get that learning math and physics is tremendous  thing regardless if one is talented in it or not.
After all when it comes to learning Torah no one has even suggested that it is only for smart people.

So going with the Rambam, learning Physics is on par with learning Gemara. [See Laws of Learning Torah where he divides Torah into three parts-(1) oral (2) written and (3) Gemara,- and then says what he calls Pardes is in the category of Gemara].

so I suggest that everyone ought to have an in-depth session and a fast learning session in Physics Mathematics and Gemara. [The fast session is to say the words in order and go on until the end of the book and then review. The in depth session means lots of review plus commentaries.  ]

Sodomy is the death penalty in Leviticus. [That is not the case with all forbidden relations. For example intercourse with a woman that has seen blood but not gone yet to a natural body of water is Karet but not the death penalty.]

So there is really nothing to be proud about doing sodomy. And calling it marriage does not change it.

So the fact that there are some things that one can question in the Torah, yet you can see that without Bible, people have no idea of the difference between right and wrong.

So you do need this medieval idea of combining Reason with Faith.


[What I ought to add is that essay on the web site of Dr Kelley Ross that brings the idea of the Rambam that natural law was a needed stage in order to get to Mount Sinai. Yet without Torah, people lose sight of what really is natural law.



[The synthesis of reason and faith was really a medieval idea. But nowadays you can see it also in Nelson [the Kant Fries School] and in Hegel. With Nelson [and Dr Kelley Ross] the two realms of faith and reason are separate. With Hegel they are also separate but join together in their origin. That is to see that Hegel is basically a kind of modern Plotinus who takes his cue from Plato but uses Aristotle to fill in the gaps. Hegel in a similar way as Plotinus see everything coming down from Logos. [I think so anyway. That is at any rate the impression I get from his Logic. ]

I can see the problems that people have on Talmud when you see the religious world to be kind of off its rocker. My claim is that the religious world represents the opposite of the Talmud. I am sorry if I never made that clear. My feeling is that whatever the religious world claims is obligatory or is the law, you would be more accurate doing the opposite.

Rav Nahman in fact said something similar. There was a rav in some city in which there were a few followers of Rav Nahman. His disciples wanted to know the accurate law about different points. he said to ask that Rav and then do the excat opposite of whatever he says.

This just goes to show how far the religious world is from Torah.


However I should add that there are some aspects of the religious world that I think are great--for example the straight Litvak yeshivas [Lithuanian]. I also think that Rav Nahman is a great souce of amzing advice.


However I admit I did not manage very well in the frum world at all. But I attribute that to the fact that the Sitra Achra has penetrated the religious world. So that there is really no where to go that is clean or pure.

 Questions on Talmud. 
Sex with a female is considered to be sex.  But  Sodomy with a male is always liable the death penalty, no matter what the age is. [That is stoning.]

That is to say: there are three ways to acquire a wife,- Sex, money, or a document. Sex is in fact one way. A when one marries by means of sex in front of two witnesses for the sake of marriage, the marriage is considered valid. Also in terms of prohibitions, sex with a forbidden female among the forbidden relations is thought to be liable the death penalty.





Gentiles
In terms of the attitude towards gentiles you are right there is a problem. The way some have answered that is that gentiles that are Christians are thought to be gerei Hashar according to the Beit Yoseph.. In any case, besides the Beit Yoseph, there is the Meiri [a Rishon and Abravanal and Rav Yaakov Emden.




Secular morality is always shifting. So to ask on this from secular morality does not seem valid. But if there is a question based on objective morality then I agree the Talmud can be wrong. The Talmud does not claim Divine Revelation. It is trying to work on the laws of the Torah based on human reason.

If the laws of Torah would be goals in themselves and thought to stand alone then there can be problems when they seem to disagree with morality based on Reason. But All the medieval rishonim do not hold from Divine Command Theory. All rishonim hold the laws of Torah are right and true because they have as their basis objective morality. That is they are meant to bring to certain goals that are recognizable by Reason.

If the question is "Is everything in the Talmud right?" The answer is no. In every single question there are different opinions and one is right and the others are wrong. The point of learning Talmud is to try to become awakened to objective morality. And I admit that does not always seem to be the result. But that is the point of it. Or as David Bronson said the point is to discover justice.

to appreciate the great gift I had to be part of the Mir Yeshiva in NY

I am not sure why I have not merited to learn Torah. It seems it always backfires when I try. One simple answer is that verse that the sages brings about Torah--"If you abandon me one day I will abandon you two days." That is to say if I had just managed to appreciate the great gift I had to be part of the Mir Yeshiva in NY or at least when I got to Israel to try to find a straight Litvak Yeshiva --like there already was in Safed. Then maybe things would be different. But once I more or less walked out on that who path, then it seems I just can not get back in.

In spite of the problems in current day USA, I look upon the basic foundations as being sound. I see the development of natural law from Saadia Gaon through Aquinas and John Locke as being a development and not a change of venue.

Most people that are critical of the USA have not lived under a real religious or secular tyranny. They just do not know what a blessing it is to have your human rights safeguarded.

learning Torah

One of the important pieces of advice that come from the Gra is that learning Torah tends to solve a lot of life's problems.

The questions that people have on Torah I think would apply to any system. The reason is that no mater what system is being implemented human nature will always demand that 95% of all the people in that system will be using it for personal motives of power and money and revenge and pleasure. That is simple human nature. It has nothing to do with the actual value of the system. The whole issue is  on that 5% that are doing it sincerely if it actually brings them to a higher moral level. 

And from what I could see at the Mir  and Shar Yashuv in NY, learning Torah lishma [for its own sake-not for money] definitely brings people to a higher moral level. 

The problem is those that learn Torah for money. This causes the יערוף כמטר לקחי ("My teaching will murder like rain") effect. See the Gemara Taanit. 

However those few great Litvak yeshivot, where Torah is learned for its own sake, makes it all worthwhile. [And I wish I was able myself to be learning, but I figure it takes a certain kind of merit to be worthy of learning Torah that I just do not seem to have. Even the little bit I can understand is only because I learned from true Torah greats, like Rav Shmuel Berenbaum,(the rosh yeshiva of Mir in NY) David Bronson (my learning partner), and Rav Naphtali Yeager (the rosh yeshiva in Shar Yashuv).

One is the sunset time in which it looks to me that Rabbainu Tam was correct.

There are areas in which even the straightest of the straight--the best of the best in the Torah world--that is the Litvaks-seem to fall short. Though it is hard to imagine a most devoted system to keeping the Torah than the Litvak  (Lithuanian) Yeshiva World still there are areas in which questions can be raised.
One is the sunset time in which it looks to me that Rabbainu Tam was correct. Another area is the refusal to serve in the IDF {Israel Defense Force}. To me it is hard to see this refusal in positive light.

Other areas are more iffy. For example the accepting of money in order to be able to sit and learn Torah. This is perhaps the easiest thing to justify based on Rav Joseph Karo in the Kesef Mishna.

On the other hand it is hard to find a group that is more devoted to keeping the Torah just as it says with no frills--no additions nor subtractions than the Litvaks. [Though the Litvak world is far from perfect, they seem to have avoided a lot of the keipot and Dark Side that seems to have infiltrated the rest of the Jewish Religious world]

The opinion of Rabbainu Tam is held by almost all rishonim. i.e that the night starts 72 minutes after sunset. I wrote a little about this in the booklet on Bava Metzia.

) בענין שקיעה של רבינו תם. רוב ראשונים פוסקים כמו ר''ת. קשה להבין את הגר''א.  אם הגר''א היה צודק, היה בהכרח לראות  כוכב ממוצע אחד בשקיעה הראשונה, ואחר כך עוד אחד בתוך כמה דקות. 

  זה כדי ששקיעה תיחשב להיות בין השמשות. וזה רק אחרי שכבר קודם השקיעה, היינו צריכים לראות שלשה כוכבים גדולים. ואי אפשר לדעת את הממוצע של קבוצה מסוימת אלא אם כן יודעים את כל הדברים שיש בקבוצה, ואי אפשר לדעת מה זה כוכב ממוצע אלא אם כן קודם זה רואים את כל הכוכבים (שאפשר לראות אותם בלי משקפת), ואז אפשר לדעת מה זה ממוצע. ואז צריכים לבחור כמה כוכבים ממוצעים, ולראות מתי הם יוצאים בליל המחרת. אני עשיתי את זה, ולפי מה שראיתי, לא מתחילים לצאת כוכבים ממוצעים עד בערך ארבעים וחמש דקות אחר השקיעה בארץ ישראל.

תוספות רי''ד בשבת מפרש רבינו תם גם לשיטת חכמי יוון  (שחכמי ישראל הסכימו אתם בגמרא בפסחים)- והם סוברים שאין מסדרון (פרוזדור) שהשמש נכנס בו בשקיעה.  רב נטרונאי גאון מחזיק בשיטת הגר''א. אבל רב סעדיה גאון מחזיק בשיטת רבינו תם (מצוטט באבן עזרא שמות י''ב פסוק ד'). אני חושב ההלכה כמו רבינו תם. אבל יש אפשרות לתרץ את שיטת הגר''א בקושי.

הגם שאני חושב הלכה כר''ת עדיין אני רוצה לתת תירוץ אפשרי לגר''א: החלל מתרחב. ולכן לפני אלפיים שנה הכוכבים היו קרובים יותר  לארץ.ולכן היתה אפשרות לראות שלשה כוכבים ממוצעים קודם הזמן שהם נראים היום. היום שלשה כוכבים נראים אחרי ארבעים וחמש דקות אחרי השקיעה. וזה עוזר לנו להבין את הגר''א שמחזיק בשיטה שהלילה מתחיל אחרי שלש עשרה וחצי דקות. אנחנו מוצאים בגמרא פסחים שיש מהלך ארבע מילים מן השקיעה עד הלילה, אבל הגר''א אומר שזה מדבר על הזמן שכל הכוכבים יוצאים, ולא על התחלת הלילה על פי הלכה. ויש סיוע לזה בגלל שהגמרא הפסחים אינה מדברת על התחלת הלילה לפי הדין. והגמרא נתנה שיעור שלשה כוכבים ממוצעם רק לסימן, לא מה שקובע את  הלילה. נוסף.הייתי בישראל כמה שנים וראיתי משהו שאישר את הגישה של ר''ת בדבר הזמן שמתחיל הלילה. כלומר, עבור 59 הדקות הראשונות לאחר השקיעה, אין שינויים דרמטיים בשמים. השמים הופכים כהים. ואז ב59 דקות קורה משהו דרמטי. סוג של צורות כיפה נעשה מעל האזור שבו שקעה החמה. ואז כי הכיפה עצמה מתחילה לשקוע עד בדיוק 72 דקות הוא שוקע מתחת לאופק, והשמים כהים לגמרי. אתה יכול לראות איך זה מתאים לגמרא בשבת. יש גם משהו על מה שאתה קורא ממוצע. למילה "ממוצע" אין שום משמעות מלבד לעומת משהו אחר. לכן מספר 5 הוא ממוצע בין 0 ו10, אבל לא ממוצע לעומת 100 ו1,000,000. אז כדי להיות מסוגל לקבוע או למדוד מהו כוכב ממוצע אתה צריך לראות כל הכוכבים באמצע הלילה. ברגע שאתה רואה את כל הכוכבים שניתן לראות בעין בלתי מזוינת, אז אתה בוחר שלושה כוכבים ממוצעים. אז אתה לומד לזהות אותם על ידי לימוד יסודי של מפת השמים. אחד צריך ללמוד לזהות את הכוכבים ואת המקום של כל כוכב בקונסטלציה. ואז אחרי שאתה יודע מה הוא כוכב ממוצע, אתה יוצא לראות באיזה לילה כאשר הוא הופך להיות גלוי. שלושה גלויים ב72 דקות. עם זאת, הכוכבים שנראים חצי שעה אחרי השקיעה, כאשר אתה משווה אותם עם כוכבים אחרים באמצע הלילה הם לא כוכבים ממוצעים. הם ענקים לעומת כל האחרים. הם מה שהגמרא קוראה כוכבים גדולים. כוכבים גדולים לא אומרים לך כאשר הלילה מתחיל. רק שלושה כוכבים ממוצעים. במונחים של כוכבים, ראיתי גם משהו שם גם באזורים מדבריים בישראל. אין כוכבים נראים בשקיעה. אף אחד. אז אם בין השמשות מתחיל בשקיעה, איפה הם שני כוכבים ממוצעים? על פי הגמרא, בין השמשות מתחיל כאשר כוכב ממוצע אחד נראה, לא כוכבים גדולים אשר ניתן לראות לפני כן. אז זה מעניין כי בשקיעה, אין כוכבים גדולים, ולא כוכבים ממוצעים גלויים. זה סותר את הרעיון שבין השמשות מתחיל באותה עת.

The best answer that I have to this question is that Torah and Talmud are to bring to objective morality. That is, it is a consequence based system.

However, I do admit there are legitimate questions on the Talmud. One is the most clear to most people. The same question that you have on any system--that it does not seem to bring people to a higher moral level and sometimes seems even to work in reverse gear.

Now even though you can ask this on any system, it seems worse when the system claims to be perfect.


The best answer that I have to this question is that Torah and Talmud are to bring to objective morality. That is, it is a consequence based system. This you can see in the Rishonim medieval authorities that hold that the commandments of the Torah have reasons and even go about listing the reasons. So they are not goals in themselves but rather meant to bring about some purpose--moral laws that are recognizable by reason. [See Michael Huemer in his essay on why he does not hold in all things by Ayn Rand where he explains this point]
So when there arises a situation in which they seem to work in reverse they do not apply.
That is the opinion of R. Shimon Ben Yochai in page 119 in Bava Metzia. R Yehuda that disagrees with him does hold by the same underlying premise that the commandments have for their purpose to bring about objective morality. But R Yehuda says that when there is a conflict you still go by what the actual verse says--not its reason. [He does not say however what his reason is.] Rav Shach says that the Rambam does not hold by either by rather by a thrid opinion that combines the two.]

an idea of how far people will go to besmirch the name of the Talmud

One of the questions that I heard on the Talmud is that someone heard that there is some kind of permission to do Sodomy on a child less than 3 years old. There is no such statement but it does give you an idea of how far people will go to besmirch the name of the Talmud.
Sodomy at any age is the death penalty.

And not just the death penalty but the most sevre type of stoning. Even murder do not get that. 

Tosphot. To review the same Tosphot every day for forty days in a row.

My whole blog post about  review yesterday I am sure must have seemed incomplete or just an introduction. The reason is that I was trying to get to what I think is  a major point about Tosphot.
It is not necessarily for everyone because this method might be only because of my own particular circumstances in which I am not learning Torah all day. In fact, in the short amount of time I have for any learning at all, I try to divide between math and physics, and then if I can manage to find a Gemara to learn that also.[Or any of the group Rav Chaim of Brisk, Rav Shimon Skopf , Rav Shach,  among the great Litvish sages/gedolim]  But the way I have discovered about learning gemara and Tosphot seems very important to me. It is to review that same Tosphot every day for forty days in a row.

In fact review I see as very important. That is at some point to stop in your learning in order and then to go back page by page. 

Learning fast and without much in depth thought is called bekiut [learning fast.] Going slow with lots of review is call Yiun and both are emphasized in Litvak yeshivot. The morning is for the in depth type and afternoon for fast learning.

Questions on the Talmud. Sometimes what is being said against the Talmud is simply based on misunderstanding. Sometimes there is a point.

Most of those subjects are in " "Nashim" that is the tractates of Ketuboth and Yevamot. And those tractates I learned a long time ago and forgot most of. 

The best I can say is that  what ever it is in the Talmud that is disturbing--it is usually the best thing to open up the Gemara itself and see inside exactly what is being said in the context of the subject. In fact, when I myself had questions of that sort with David Bronson, his usual reaction was to suggest opening up that sugia [subject] and to learn it in depth to find out what is actually being said.

Sometimes what is being said against the Talmud is simply based on misunderstanding. Sometimes there is a point.


To give one example: the value of "pi". This seemed to me to be  a big question until David Bronson and I opened up the actual Gemara and saw that the Talmud states openly that they are just making an approximation.

For another example, I noticed that the time scale of the Torah in Genesis is kind of short. That is to say that you can trace from Adam until the destruction of the first Temple, and you only get a few thousand years. While we can see that the universe is expanding and starting from a point that stated around 13.5 billion years ago. But even before I saw that question I noticed that the Ari understands the Torah in a completely different way. It is not that he says he is explaining the secrets of Torah, rather he says he is giving the simple explanation while the secrets he himself hides in hints that need to be deciphered.

Sometimes norms of society to me do not seem so moral anyway. But other times they do.

One place on the internet I found helpful to answer lots of questions is the Kant Fries School of Kelley Ross. Other places are Michael Huemer's ideas about how reason perceives universals including moral values. And that does seem to be similar to the general approach of Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam. and in fact all the other rishonim that I can think of.

-there is a need for intense review but also to have a session of learning fast.

Review every chapter of Gemara (Talmud) ten times was a theme in Far Rockaway -Shar Yashuv yeshiva. But somehow this idea got over to Brooklyn to the Mir in NY. There was I recall a store owner around the corner of the Mir that was known to have reviewed the third chapter of tractate Shabat ten times. I think I never did that except for the fifth chapter of Ketuboth I vaguely recall that I did a few times but if it ever got to ten I do not know.
In any case I do remember that Moti Freifeld used to make a big deal about the importance of review.

But I had also the Musar book אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righteous about the importance of covering a lot of ground. And that certainly was mentioned a lot in the Litvak yeshiva world-. The question always was "Did that guy finish Shas?" If not then who is he to have an opinion?

My own approach at that point was to do review on anything I was learning mainly twice and then to go on. I see now that that surely was not enough but at the time it seemed like  a good compromise. The only times I recall that I deviated from that was when I was learning the Pnei Yehoshua. There I needed to review each paragraph at least ten times before I would get what he was saying.

In the Gemara itself you do have this idea of review forty times. And in fact Rav Shick [of Breslov] did talk about learning things forty days in a row. He was talking about the book of Rav Nahman but I found this idea to be helpful for other things. For example--when I was learning with my learning partner David Bronson, I always came to the learning session unprepared. But he always was well prepared. But when I needed to do learning on my own of Tosphot and I was not learning with him anymore--but I still wanted to get to some comparable depth I used to review each Tosphot or chapter in Rav Haim from Brisk or Rav Shach about forty days in a row.

So after that whole introduction I want just to say that as is well known in the Litvak world --there is  a need for intense review but also to have a session of learning fast.

Some saints are thought to be more than average saints. For example in Rav Isaac Luria, we find different people that are thought to be souls that stem from Emanation. Examples would be the patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David.
[The entire Shar Hagilgulim is devoted to this theme.]


 However I only use the Emanation idea because it makes sense to me. But I do not want to put too much emphasis on it because of Kant and Leonard Nelson that there is a limit to reason. [So even if you go with Hegel that a kind of dialectical process helps to go beyond those limits--I still feel that in areas of faith, reason has limits.


Emanation has its roots in Plato and Plotinus and so in and of itself--it makes a lot of sense to me- That is it is not just because that Rabbainu the Ari said so. Rather Reason itself indicates that this is  a right track. And you certainly see this in Hegel also.--Though with Hegel it is more hidden how he gets the dialectical process. But to me it seems clear he is going with the Ari and Plotinus.

The Ari held the soul of Rav Haim Vital his disciple was from Emanation.

The thing about Emanation is that it is considered "Divine" [That is there is no dividing curtain between Emanation and the Source.--even though Emanation itself is a lot lower than Adam Kadmon]--while the lower worlds of Creation and Formation and the Physical Universe are not.