Faith in the wise is one of the great principles

Faith in the wise is one of the great principles I found in Rav Nahman's Le''M vol I chapter 61.

And it is the reason why I will often quote different wise people --for example Rav Nahman himself, and the Gra, and Kant and Hegel. The reason is this principle of faith in the wise. So it can happen that people that are wise can contradict each other. Sometimes that is in order לגרש את הסיטרין אוחרנין to expel the forces of evil. That is often one is no worthy to learn from a truly wise person or a tzadik. So it comes about that different tzadikim disagree with each other in order to sow confusion in minds of people that then go away from them.

This applies to truly wise and great people. So this is  test to see who is worthy. On the other hand there is such a thing as the Torah of the Realm of Evil. And there are Torah scholars that are in fact demons of the Sitra Achra as Rav Nahman brings in Le''M vol I chapter 12 and 28. So it is necessary to develop some kind of common sense to be able to tell the difference between authentic and inauthentic.

"Faith in the wise" is as is well known a principle from the Mishna in Avot [Pirkay Avot] but the reason this stuck in my mind was that Rav Nahman ties it into the problem that I had at the time. He says על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא את משפטינו לאור "by means of faith in the wise one is able to bring his judgment into the light." That is to merit to the right piece of advice that will help him in his troubles." i.e. to merit to the right advice. I was not sure what to do at that time. So I simply learned that particular Torah lesson every day--saying it from beginning to end, until some kind of clarity would come to me. So I was learning that lesson for a different reason --not to come to faith in the wise. But the idea of faith in the wise did stick with me.

Authentic Torah

The major thing which I found compelling about the Litvak yeshiva world was its authenticity.

That is more or less if you put the Gra, together with Rav Israel Salanter, and Rav Shach and Rav Haim of Brisk, you come out with a kind of path that struck me as being "the real thing."

Why was this important to me? I really do not recall very well. Mainly, I think it was that in those days, finding the Truth was the big thing. And to find to Truth was perhaps for me more than intellectual interest.

But you do need a certain kind of common sense to be able to tell in any area of value what is the real thing,-- and what is not. As Steven Dutch says for every area of knowledge there is a pseudo science that corresponds to it. [Authenticity was not mentioned a lot in those days, but it was implicit that in the search for the truth, you did not what to settle for half baked measures.]

The aspect of Rav Israel Salanter is an important aspect of this, since without that, it is easy to get sidetracked about what Torah is really about. His emphasis on Musar [Ethical books] of Torah brings out what is really important in Torah (character, fear of God, trust in God), and what are just side issues.

[In truth, however I find this path hard to stick with, and hard to keep, and hard to understand. There is some kind of aspect of the whole thing that became institutionalized. So for this to work at all you need to be part of a place that really is authentic.--Something like Ponovitch, or Brisk, or the Mir--or along those lines.]

Tikun HaKlali of Rav Nahman. Correction for sexual sin

Rav Nahman of Breslov emphasis on sexual purity makes a lot of sense to me. Even though it is hard to maintain any kind of purity nowadays he did search for a solution for after the fact sins. To some degree you can see this in books of Musar and also the Ari [Isaac Luria]. But Rav Nahman's idea seems best to me. That is to say these ten psalms, 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150. that same day and also to go to a natural body of water like the sea or a river.

In the book of Rav Natan [one of his disciples] he also brings the idea of being married is a Tikun HaBrit [correction for sexual sin]. But nowadays this is hard to do.

The basic idea of Rav Nahman is that sexual sin  causes damage in spiritual realms. And so by saying thiose ten psalms which corrospond to the ten kinds of song that David said the psalms in would bring total correction.

[It should be noted that this saying of teh psalms has the ability to correct even more than sexual sin as you can see in the major book of Rav Nahman the LE"M vol I chapter 19.]

German Idealism

Idealism is the idea that we are only aware of our own minds. what is outside our own heads we have no idea of and have no reason to think it is real.

Idealism of Berkeley is false but has great and rigorous proofs. So Thomas Reid spent a good deal of effort refuting it.

Kant accepted idealism to the degree that he holds there is an outside world but that it must conform to conditions of possibility of experience.

And our own knowledge must conform to the limits of reason. As Kelley Ross puts it: a bathtub full of computer chips is not a computer and cannot process information.

Shopenhaur accepts that Kant proved his point but modifies it. [Shopenaur starts his book with "The world is my representation. So now that he is not here, why is the world still here?]

To me it seems that idealism is simply wrong. I am pretty sure that most people reading this have seen rigorous proofs of absurd things. Like: there can be no motion of Zeno. Or that pi = 3.


That does not mean the idea is true. That is how I look at idealism.

So as Michael Huemer says--the Mind Body problem [which is behind all this] is not solved. What seems true to me is that Hegel got the right idea that any knowledge combines synthesizes both empirical impute and a priori impute. [Michael Huemer says basically the same thing in one essay where he shows all empirical knowledge depends on a priori assumptions.] His way to solve then issue is by probability. Every assumption starts out with a beginning amount of how much sense it makes. So even when you throw out one assumption that at first made sense it is because it disagrees with another assumption that makes more sense. That is for example how Einstein decided to modify Newton instead of Maxwell. To him , electrodynamics was more basic than Classical dynamics.

A major premise of the religious world is that if they would be in charge of things, then everything would be all right. Once you find out that this assumption is wildly wrong, you usually do not have the ability to back out.

A major premise of the religious world is that if they would be in charge of things, then everything would be all right. Once you find out that this assumption is wildly wrong, you usually do not have the ability to back out.

So I see a lot of value in then book of Allan Bloom where he goes into the Enlightenment. There he shows that it was largely a political movement to take power from priests and princes and give it to the educated people.like scientists. I am in full sympathy with this idea after living in a society that was largely based on Enlightenment ideals --especially John Locke--i.e the USA during the period when it was mainly WASP.[White Anglo Saxon Protestant].

However as he points out, the Enlightenment and the USA itself is at a crossroads. It is not just the many people that are American citizens that hate the USA that will stop at nothing to destroy it. It is a focus of lots of forces. But more important it is an epiphenomenon from the problems in the Enlightenment itself.

The best idea would be to answer the question how to move forward. Not simply to give up and go back to the rule of priests and princes.

So what is needed I think is some kind of Hegel synthesis.--to see what is right in Enlightenment philosophy and what is right in the counter enlightenment and to create a synthesis of both and to then discard what was not right in either.

My own feeling is to divide ones time between these two methods. As was done in the Mir yeshiva in NY. The morning for intense in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning.

In the Conversations of Rav Nahman 76 there is the famous few paragraphs about learning fast.
This certainly helped me a lot when I was trying to get up to speed in Physics and Math. After high school I concentrated on Torah learning --which is great in itself. But  that meant that I skipped Physics. [Not being aware of the opinion of Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam. Nor were their opinions well known in the Litvak yeshiva world at the time. ]
But besides learning fast Rav Nahman does talk about review in his sefer hamidot.
So how to combine these two opposites?

In books of Musar before Rav Nahman like the אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righeous there seem to be both things.

[ My own feeling is to divide ones time between these two methods. As was done in the Mir yeshiva in NY. The morning for intense in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning.

American life before things got weird

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind goes into the conflict between the Enlightenment vision of people as improvable by means of education and the anti enlightenment philosophers.
In that book he traces the conflict to be a question between John Locke and Rousseau about what is the state of nature of man before you would have any education or civilization.

It occurred to me a long time ago that he leaves out the treatment of these question of Kant and Hegel. And I am not sure why. Maybe he did not think that there has been any kind of solution.

Why would not the Hegel kind of synthesis work here?


In any case-my own view is based on basic experience. I had the opportunity to experience average American life before things got weird. The regular experience was  is the regular schooling up until university and family outings every weekend. It was Freedom combined with responsibility. There were no free rides. the Welfare state had not been expanded yet.
Of course all that changed. But that is how things once were and it was great.
So all the arguments against capitalism and the American way just fall off me like water on a duck.

But I see the USA in a deep crisis. And I am not sure why people want to make it into a socialist society. However i also can see why Russia had to become the USSR. It was not just the end of the effects in the Ukraine now that the thawing out period is over and the criminal elements in the Ukraine are raising their heads again. But even before that--I saw all the working infra structure was from the communists. So as far as Russia goes I can see the point of the USSR. But not in the USA. So what is the difference? I could take  a guess and say that the USA used to be WASP. But there might be lots of other explanations. The point is that my views are not based on idealism but experience and just seeing how things are and how the used to be.

So based on my experience I do not see the religious world as any kind of noble ideal.  My experience in the religious world shows me clearly that it is no where near as nice as the just average day experience in the USA only just a few years ago. In fact, the very concept of the religious gaining power gives me horrible nightmares.

Rav Nahman's Sefer haMidot-- "If you want to repent be sure not to be in debt."

Dr Kelley Ross has a nice section dealing with Kenyan economics on his Kant Fries site.http://www.friesian.com/.. Michael Huemer also I kind of recall. The basic idea is that the driving force of economies is demand, not supply.

My opinion about economies is based on a statement in Rav Nahman's Sefer haMidot-- "If you want to repent be sure not to be in debt." And since I got the idea from Musar books I had read before I discovered Rav Nahman about the importance of repentance, I decided to not be in debt even for a minute.

This related since  the way the government works nowadays is based on Kenyan economics. Which is the idea that going into debt is a good thing and it is what drives the economy forward. [They use weasel words to disguise what they mean. They call it the "supply side". But that simply means the more debt you go into, the richer you will be.

ideas of Rav Nahman of Breslov

There are a few basic ideas of Rav Nahman of Breslov that i think are very important. Clearly the talking with God  in one's own language as personal friend has to take the top of the list. But there is also his way of learning of just saying the words. Though this is mentioned in Sihot Haran 76, there are other hints to it in the LM. I forget exactly where But one lessons starts out "על ידי אמצעות הדיבור יכולים לבא לתבונות התורה לעומקה".[By means of saying the words one comes to understanding of the Torah in its depth.']

However in Shar Yashuv review was emphasized by Rav Freifeld. The Mir clearly was into learning in depth. In fact the classes of Rav Shmuel Berenaum had the reputation in those days of being the deepest in the world.--And that might have been true. That is what students of Lithuanian yeshivot were all saying all over. To me it is hard to compare. All the great Litvak gedolim seemed to have very great depth--especially Rav Shach.

But I found a wealth of great ideas besides these in the books of Rav Nahman. But these two things seems to be the most important. (1) Learning fast and (2) talking with God as a friend talks with another.
As for learning in depth (of the Mir) this to me sometimes seems important, and sometimes it seems to just get me weighed down.

I found for example that learning fast helped me in Physics - since the kind of nitty gritty calculations that one need to do take me a very long time. To get an idea of physics beyond the surface level I think the fast learning is right thing. [As for Rav Nahman's discussions against science, I think he was referring to the pseudo science that was in his days.] 

It seems to me that Kant is going like Aristotle. That is that he agrees there are universals but that they depend on particulars.

That is to say (to take an example from Dr Huemer) lets say I have two pieces of paper in front of me. Do they have anything in common? Yes. They are both white. Whiteness is a universal. It is something that particulars have in common. How do you recognize particulars is by the fact that you see and feel them. But a universal you can not actually feel of see. You recognize it by a different faculty. Reason.

It was a point of Kant to limit the validity of reason to conditions of possible experience. That is particulars.

To be able to get to faith beyond the realm of possible experience it seems to me you would need either Leonard Nelson's Kant Fries School of non intuitive immediate knowledge, or Hegel.

For even though Kant did limit the realm of reason, there were enough problems in understanding Kant that leave room for a Friesian Development or a Hegelian one. [Maybe Shopenhaur also but I am not sure about that.] In any case, I have to say that I am just offering this a a suggestion but have really not do the homework to be any kind of expert. Still Americans have a good and health suspicion of experts as they ought. So I feel somewhat at ease in offering my opinion about areas of value that are more content and less formal. [Going in this like Dr Kelley Ross who divides areas of value along curve of all form and no content like logic and going up to more content like math but less formal. Then justice and art and music which have more content and less form. In those areas it seems the more expert one is the more they lose common sense.]

Kelley Ross has spent a good deal of effort to try and bring attention to Leonard Nelson. At least some of those efforts are gaining success.The  Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy by Nelson seems to have been published in English by Yale University Press.

Shulhan Aruch Even HaEzer 93

That section deals with laws of a widow. The basic law is that a widow gets mezonot [food] from the land of her husband until she asks for her Ketubah [marriage document which gives 200 zuz to a virgin if the husband divorces her or if he dies. But in it are included mentions of other obligations. 200 zuz  I figured might be a few thousand dollars based ona Rosh I saw once.]] or until she gets married again. But the Geonim who came after the Gemara made a tekana [law from teh scribes, not from the Torah] that she can receive food also from movable property. [This does not apply to a divorced woman who gets her ketubah right away but there is no obligation of "alimony".
But what happens if there are a few wives. Since they all got married to the same guy at different times so the obligation of the ketubah stars at different times. So the first one married gets her ketubah first. Then if there is any property left over the second one collects etc. [Just like would be the case if he owed money on loans he took out.]


I only had a few minutes to look at it but it seems to me that one way to understand the Rambam is that the obligation of mezonot starts at the marriage. [If there is the word therefore].

The Raavad understand that the obligation of mezonot starts at the time the husband dies, not when they got married. And that is how I think most of the people on the page over there in the Shulchan Aruch  like the Beit Shmuel and Helkat Mehokek understand the Rambam also.
[The simple way to understand this is that clearly the actual obligation of mezonot stars when the husband dies but the tekana stated at the marriage. The thing here is I actually recall Rav Shach mentioning this issue and that he took it as a simple thing that the obligation starts at the death of the husband. But then you can ask why would the ketubah be any different? There also there is no obligation until she is divorced or until she dies! What is the difference?]

When I saw the importance of  learning metaphysics and physics in Ibn Pakuda's חובות הלבבות it did not click with me right away. I was at the Mir in NY and was not looking for distractions from learning Gemara. still something of what he was saying must have stuck with me because later when I saw the same thing in the Guide of the Rambam, it started making sense that maybe that was the aspect of learning Torah that I had been lacking. However I really was not sure what to do with the metaphysics aspect of the whole thing.  On one hand the Ibn Pakuda and rambam were clear they were not talking about mysticism. [No offence intended towards the Remak (Moshe Cordovaro) and the Ari (Isaac Luria). It is just that that is not what the Rambam was talking about.] But what can one do with Metaphysics? What could be considered the be fulfilling what the Rambam was saying? Aristotle and Plato for sure. I guess Plotinus also. But what about later on people?


To make this short I should just say that I found the neo Kantian people to be pretty important, though I can not say who is better. Leonard Nelson and his Kant Fries School of thought look to me to be very great, but not to the degree of being the only ones that added or improved on things.
I mean to say that when Kant wants to limit the realm in which reason is justified he goes to conditions of experience. But a group pf people noticed some inner contradictions with that in Kant himself. That is the circularity that experience itself depends on a priori assumptions. So Reinhold came up with the Representation. That answers the issue since it is neither just a priori nor posteriori. Shopenhaur made good use of this in his The World as will and Representation. Still it seems that each one of these people fills in pieces of  a big puzzle. Hegel pointed out how the dialectic brings to truth and knowledge From Being to Logos]. And that is an accurate description of how in fact knowledge progresses.[You see this in Rav Nahman also in his claim that talking with God brings one to truth.].

Pantheism

It is not the belief system of Jews , Muslims nor Christians.[See Volume II of the Guide where a similar issue is the focus. If creation was from an eternal substance. The Rambam rejects this and says that if it would be true then the Torah would not be valid.

This all came up because the pope has been in South America recently and the announcement from the Vatican seems to indicate a kind of pantheism that leaves Catholics wondering what is going on with the pope.

The Rishonim held that creation is ex nihilo. Or in Hebrew "Yesh Mei'ain" "יש מאין".[Something from Nothing.--not from any pre-existing substance.]
[You can see this mentioned in all the medieval sages, and even the Ari himself right smack in the beginning of the Eitz Chaim.]


In spite of this being the belief of Spinoza, it does not seem to have a lot of evidence or support even from reason. --Because the basic assumption of Spinoza that one substance can not effect another substance is not at all obvious. [And the reasonableness of axioms is important. For example in mathematics you do not start out with wildly unreasonable assumptions. You start with things that are almost too simple to state. Like the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Or if A =B and B=C then A =C. So for Spinoza to build his system on shaky foundations does not add a lot of credibility to it.


So when Rav Nahman emphasizes the importance of faith, I have to assume he is not talking about pantheism. In fact, in the context of the L''M of Rav Nahman, it seems he is simply talking about straight and simple faith in God,--not pantheism nor even facts about God, but simple faith and trust.

[He never mentions the 13 principles of faith of the Rambam and might well be thinking along the lines of Rav Joseph Albo that the actual principles are 6 or like the Abravanel that they are 3 principles.]

The meals that a husband owes his wife. [Shulhan aruch of Rav Joseph Karo Even HaEzer 70 sif 8]

Lets us say a husband has gone off to work in a foreign country and his wife borrows money to feed herself. Then of course the husband is obligated to pay back the debt when he returns [Shulhan aruch of Rav Joseph Karo Even HaEzer 70 sif 8] But what happens if she forgives the loan?  Normally I would think that once one is obligated in some debt then that is that. But that is the odd thing about loans in general. A lender can always forgive a debt even after it has been incurred.

So I just happened tp stop by the Breslov place of learning today and noticed this issue comes up in the Shulchan Aruch. The Halkat Mehokeke says in fact she can not forgive the loan.[[opposite of what the Rema writes there from the Mordecei in in the end of Ketuboth. I saw that the Beit Shmuel does in fact defend the Rema and the Mordechei but I did not get a chance to see his reasoning. It might be what I am saying here. That the loan the debt does not go directly from the husband to the lender but rather it goes through the wife. But if that is the case then this whole issue certainly depends on that exact issue that i recall came of in Shas and I recall seeing that Rav Shach brings it in his book the Avi Ezri.

But if I recall this issue was decided already in the Gemara itself and in the Rambam that the middle man can be excluded and we can consider the debt as going directly from A to C without B.[In the case of loans]. That is all I have to say about this issue for now except that I did get a second or two to notice the Taz over there does bring up this issue that it is like a a regular loan.


I ought just to add that over there you also see what I mentioned a few days ago that the husband does not owe a lot of מזונות [meals] to his wife. Just two a day plus one me'ah of money per week. Which is just a few dollars. And you can see right there in shulchan aruch that a divorced woman get zero support. --which just goes to show how the religious nowadays are liars as they claim the Torah gives alimony to a divorced woman.

In any case we do see also in the Shulchan Aruch at the end of 69 that the wife can forgive the meals.- Just like you see when people get married on condition that the husband keeps on learning Torah. This is clearly a great thing --as long as the husband is not using Torah to make money.

כנגד מדינת הלכה A state of halacha is against halacha.

I claim that a state of halacha [Jewish Law] is against halacha. [There is no such thing as ordination. Authentic ordination stopped during the time of the Talmud. After that there is only pseudo ordination. And even if there would be the authentic thing no one today were qualify.]  It is merely an attempt to use the appearance of ordination to gain power and money.  The whole religious world is just one big scam. [There is no legitimate excuse to use Torah to make money or to be excused from military service. But the problems are much deeper than these two issues.]
  One one hand there is much to learn in Torah about values and morality. But the attempt of the religious world to impose their power and authority on others would result in the worst kind of nightmare I can imagine.
   The main support for this idea is experience, not theory. That is to say I can pick out things in which the religious world is obviously against the Torah.  But these would be after the facts that I and anyone who has lived under the authority of the religious leaders knows about.
  There is a kind of cult mentality in the religious world that you would expect more in Adi Da or Scientology.
  There are better places and worse but the major emphasis of getting the fry to be frum has hidden agenda. It is no as innocent as they try to make it look.
  Netanyahu [The Prime Minister of Israel] was actually asked a few days ago about this exact question and he said a state of halacha. that is just a sick joke. I will not give any support to such a thing.
  I do not know how he knows this. But it is clear that he is as aware of the evil and sickness of life under Jewish religious authorities as I am. It is no accident that anyone who has lived under that kind of authority leaves it as soon as they are able.
  However on the positive side of things --if I could I would try to learn a and keep Torah as much as I could. But that has nothing to do with the sick frum world.
The basic idea is that part of the Torah בין אדם לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man. In these areas as is well known the frum religious world is a nightmare.

[ Rav Nahman was aware of these problems. Especially you can see this in LM vol I chapter 61 where he warns about allowing religious leaders to claim ordination.]

I thought the USA was doing well when it was basically WASP. There is a principle --a guest can not invite a guest. So WASPs graciously allowed people in need to come. But that does not mean they the guests ought to invite others. The change in the USA is such that a swamp of people in the USA are hostile to America. Also the Socialist Left made the USA seem a lot different than the period that I recall.


A similar thing seems to apply to Israel. The religious did everything they could to stop its foundation. But now want all the benefits.

religious leaders

Even though Rav Nahman made it clear that religious leaders in the Jewish world tend to be demons (note 1)--that is from the realm of Evil. Still I think the problem is not the people but the system.

That is that the system is not really based on Torah at all but is rather based on a group dynamics that rewards fraud.


I noticed that the religious world tends to believe they are smarter and better morally than anyone else.
These two claims do not hold up to scrutiny. And they are not minor issues. The whole  raison d'être (reason to be) depends on these claims being factual. (note 2) As you can see in the Rambam in his reason for the commandments in the Guide for the Perplexed.


(note 1) For example in L''M I: 12. I:28  and many other places were he refers to Torah scholars that are demons. "The reason that some Torah scholars are against those who fear God is because they receive their Torah lessons form the demons" (LM I:12).  Another quote is" Torah scholars that are demons receive their Torah lessons from the "alfin hanefulin" [the fallen letters A"]

(note 2) See Talmud Bava Mezia 119 the argument between R Shimon Ben Yohai and the sages. The Rambam in Mishne Torah seem to decide the halacha in opposite ways. Once like R. Shimon and in another place not. But Rav Shach pointed out there is a third opinion R Yehuda and that the Rambam in consistant in deciding like him in all cases.

I was in Uman

 I was in Uman and needed an operation on my foot and the doctor there did a fantastic job.[Though as you can imagine that same hospital had a dreadful reputation from the time of the USSR.

Not to say I have any desire to go back. Ukraine was getting to be  a nightmare. I would be attacked in the middle of the day just randomly by people that recognized I was not a Ukrainian. There are too many criminals over there. 

A lot of the yeshiva world is about using Torah to gain power and money. Otherwise it would be more or less simple to simply stay home and learn Torah.
[You can simply buy a Shas and Rishonim and even Rav Chaim Solovietchik's Hidushei HaRambam and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.] [I do not mean this critique to apply to the yeshivot where Torah is learned for its own sake, for example the yeshivot I was in the Mir of NY and Shar Yashuv. Certainly there are places like that in Israel --like Ponovitch. Torah for its own sake I agree with. Torah for the sake of making money I do not agree with.\ 




 But the religious world is kind of like a parasite that needs the secular world to survive. The religious are about as healthy for Klal Israel and  sores are necessary for the human body.

Not that it was always that way. But that is the present day situation. Probably you can understand from this why the Rambam wanted to make an iron wall between Torah and money.

Hints that come from Above.

There are hints in what happens to one that come from Above. This is something in the book of Rav Nahman that comes up in a few places.

[In one place Rav Nahman says that "God condenses himself from infinity to the place where one is and gives him hints about how he can return to Him." That is to say:  God is above logic and comprehension. But still he gives hints to every person --even one who has fallen from holiness completely and is totally absorbed into the evil realm, still He gives him hints how to return to Him in repentance. קול קורא במדבר.


So even though learning Torah is a great thing, still there is a higher level that I believe I was getting hints about that I should spend time and effort on.

It is kind of like the gemara brings about Rav Zeira [an Amora from the time of the Talmud] who fasted forty days in a row in order to forget the Talmud that was being written in Iraq [Babylon] in order to come to the higher level of understanding on the Jerusalem Talmud

From the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda I would have to say that Metaphysics and Physics are a part of Torah

It is not that I am unconcerned about Bitul Torah. It is more along the lines that the Gra said--that according to lack of knowledge in any one of the seven wisdoms, one will lack 100 times more in Torah. [As brought in to Introduction to Euclid by a disciple of the Gra, i.e. Rav Baruch of Shkolev].
There seems to be some kind of Achilles heel in the world of Torah when this aspect of things is lacking.

The actual opinion of the Rambam you have to get to in a more round about way. But it is hinted to in the commentary of the Mishna, in the Mishne Torah and in the Guide.

It seems that however the Ramban [Nachmanides and other rishonim would have disagreed. But still from what I can tell, the Rambam was right. The Ramban has some choice words for Aristotle!  But perhaps it is not so much that the Rambam was right as this is an are of the dinge an sich [things in themselves] where reason can not enter. For on one hand, I wished I would be able to sit and learn Torah all day every day for every second all my life. I was that attached to Torah. [] But then circumstances tore me from that and I have had to discover that point of Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam.

you have to take all the Neo Kantian as a collective whole.

Even in high school I had a lot of interest in Philosophy. But what philosophy was in those days did not seem very inspiring.  mainly it consisted of word analysis and the claim that there are no values nor truth. [The Eastern religions that were popular did not seem to have much going for them. That is how it seemed to me.] So I gravitated towards more ancient philosophies like Plato, Spinoza, and Chinese philosophy. Kant and Hegel were no where to be found. Not in the public library nor in the high school library nor even in book stores! Those were the  days of existentialism. It all seemed vacant of any content or meaning. [John Searle said rightly about most of twentieth century philosophy "It is obviously false". I could not agree more.]

So instead of Philosophy I went to Shar Yashuv and then later on the Mir and decided to put philosophy on hold. Eventually I picked up Spinoza again and in Brooklyn public Library I found an edition of the Cambridge Hegel. That is some of his major writings along with rigorous commentary.

At some point after going through the pre_Kantian thinkers I got to the point of realizing that Kant and Hegel are important. And that you can not just go back to business as usual in philosophy as if they were never around.

[This idea of the importance of the Kantians came after seeing a good deal of the pre Kant people that had some great points but also had problems. Just take a look at Leibiniz, Thomas Reid, Hume and you will see what I mean. I got the idea that Kant is important. What school of Kant? Reinhold, Maimon, Shultze, Fries. Or the Shopenhaur or even later Marburg or Leonard Nelson?
For  along time I have had the idea that you have to take all the Neo Kantian as a collective whole. It is hard to point to any one in particular as having all the truth..]


[Even though in the Guide of the Rambam, he does say that the Metaphysics of the Greeks is important, my feeling is that tis would have to apply to Kant also.]

It is not that I am unconserned about Bitul Torah. Rather that from the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda I would have to say that Metaphysics and Physics are a part of Torah

The Rambam held learning Physics and Metaphysics is a part of what one must learn every day

To make a synthesis between faith and reason was a major concern of the Rambam. However in his emphasis on learning Physics and Metaphysics [of the ancient Greeks as he says in the intro to the Guide] was not meant to provide answers for this issue, but rather as things that are in themselves a part of what one must learn every day. That is he saw these as part of the Mitzvah of learning Torah.--a view that was unique to rishonim [medieval people up until about the 1500's] but never comes up in achronim [later on people after the Beit Yoseph].

It is my feeling that the rishonim were right about this issue and I have trouble understanding why Rav Israel Salanter did not mention this in his Musar Movement program.

 Chesterson-- "The trouble with women is not that that they feel too much. It is that they do not feel at all!." That is they have no conscience. If they feel they can lie and get away with it, then they will lie.
 Like King Solomon said " One man among a thousand I have found, but even one women like that I have not found."

This is the opposite of what is thought nowadays that whatever lie  woman says is always believed. And I fear this might even get to Israel someday. It is already the case in the USA.

That is the reason Robert Foster, a state representative in Mississippi decided to refuse to let a woman reporter go along with him on his campaign . The trouble is that instantly that she would claim he had done something wrong she would be believed.

Rav Nahman railed against doctors

Even though sitting and learning Torah [Gemara) all day is a great thing --and I am happy that I merited for a few years to do this at the Mir and Shar Yashuv in NY, at this point I tend to believe that it is best to also learn Physics and Math.

Even though it is thought that Rav Nahman disagreed with this, I noted many places in his major book  that seemed to go in the opposite direction. The first time I saw this was about the issue of vaccination. As is well know Rav Nahman railed against doctors often and warned people to stay away from them. Yet when the first vaccinations arrived in Europe Rav Nahman said you have to take your child even in the middle of winter to whatever city is administering the vaccinations. So I got the idea at that point that Rav Nahman was against false medicine. So from that I decided his being against science was meant against false science pseudo science as almost all science was in his days. They still were going with the "four elements"!!


[Psychology is just plain pseudo science anyway.] But in terms of Rav Nahman, the fact is that medicine in his days was quite primitive. Oxygen had not yet been discovered. Blood letting was still the big cure all. George Washington in those days woke up one day with a sore throat. So what to do? Bloodletting is what the doctors prescribed. Well that did not work. So do it again! And again. and again...!

The actual obligation to support a wife really does not add up to much. In the Mishna in Ketuboth [pg 63 and 64] it comes out to about a quart of wheat flour.

The actual obligation to support a wife really does not add up to much. In the Mishna in Ketuboth [pg 63  and 64] it comes out two kavs of wheat per week or about a quart of wheat flour. That is more or less about what you would need to bake two loaves of bread per day. But the issue that I wanted to bring up is the issue of the wording of the ketubah where it says " I will work for you."

The odd thing about this is the argument between the Rambam and the Raavad brought in the Tur Beit Yoseph in Hoshen Mishpat 176 in paragraph 3. The obligation is of course not to make money in an illegal way. So when people use Torah to make money as in kollel they are certainly not "working for  a living" since it is forbidden to use Torah to make money. But besides that can the document in itself make one obligated in something that he would not be obligated in? Not to the Rambam (and the Ramban). However the Raavad (and the Rashba) both hold that he can make himself obligated by a document that says "I will work". The Raavad brings two proofs. One from a slave. We know a slave is obligated to work. Also from the case יקדשו ידי לעושיהם. [That is: a woman can say to her husband "My hands are holy for Him who made them." And by that what she makes at her job becomes the possession of the Temple--if she also adds איני ניזונת ואיני עושה [I will not need support nor will I work for you)

The Gold Standard in the Torah world is unquestionably the Litvak Yeshiva World. The problem with any gold standard is the people that commit forgery and pretend to be the real thing. That is one good reason for me to warn people that the religious world outside the few straight Lithuanian yeshivas like the Mir or Ponovitch are false Torah, pseudo Torah or as Rav Nahman put it Torah of the Sitra Achra--the realm of evil.

Musar [Movement of Rav Israel Salanter

I was in a synagogue over here that is mainly for Lithuanian types of Yeshiva types. And I noticed a book of letters by Rav Israel Salanter. One letter I opened to was emphasizing the importance of learning Musar [Books teaching Morality]. Some one had apparently written to him about some kind of hilul hashem (note 1) when someone was learning Musar but was not acting very properly.
What's the surprise? Is not that the exact reason most of us do not learn Musar? Too many people that supposedly do and do not seem like very nice people.

The point however of Rav Israel Salanter is that it helps. And that point I have to agree with just from simple observation of the Litvak Yeshiva World. Apparently they manage to raise fine families and are basically in accord with Torah as far as one can tell. (2) So then why is it that you or I apparently encounter not the best exemplars?
I am not sure about others but as for myself it seems the reason is I once walked away from it. I imagine if I had just stuck with the basic Litvak Torah path that things would have been different. But somehow I got sidetracked.





(note 1) "Hilul hashem" means acting in such a way that brings doubt on the value of Torah. That is it gives Torah a reputation as if it is not worth much. That was from the letter what had happened. Someone was known to be  a person that learnt Musar but was not acting nicely.


(2) That is while I was at the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv I did notice  very good family values  and loyalty to Torah. That was pretty inspiring for me. But apparently not inspiring enough for me to stick with it.

I ought to add here that what I see great about the Musar movement is that it advocates true values of Torah--character, menschlickeit, fear of God. And to a large degree seems to accomplish these ends from what I can tell even though I am outside that world. 

Bava Metzia page 99. בב''מ צ''ט ע''א A New Idea based on Rav Shach.

I have a great deal of trouble in getting to learn Torah. Certainly no new ideas are coming to me since I stop learning with David Bronson my learning partner. But for what it is worth I wanted just to mention a few random thoughts I had about Bava Metzia page 99.




The first thing I think is important is in Tosphot very first question. At first glance it looks hard to understand why Tosphot just does not use the end of the Tosephta that he brings to answer his own question. I mean to say this. Rav Ami in our Gemara on page 99 says one who lends to another person an ax of hekdesh (that was dedicated to the Temple) transgresses the prohibition and the second person can use it.  In the Tosephta it says (as far as I can recall from a few days ago when I had a chance to take a look at that page) that ten people that use an ax one after the other,--they all transgress the prohibition of using hekdesh [an object dedicated to the Temple]. But then it says if one gives it to another, then the first person transgress, and the second is allowed to use it. Tosphot uses the end of the Tosephta to show that we are not talking about vessels used in the sacrifices (which never go out to be secular even if used for a secular purpose).  But why not use that end statement of the Tosephta simply to show that change of domain makes one liable in Meila [using temple goods]?
[התוספתא כותבת שאם עשרה אנשים משתמשים עם קרדום אחד כולם מעלו. זה מיצג קושיה על רב אמי שאומר  שאומר בב''מ צ''ט ע''א המשאיל קרדום לחבירו הוא מעל וחבירו מותר להשתמש בו. תוספות אומר שאי אפשר לומר שהתוספתא מדבר בכלי שרת בגלל שבסוף התוספתא כתוב שאחד נתן את הקרדום לחבירו הוא לבד מעל וחבירו מותר להשתמש בו. אפשר לשאול למה סוף התוספתא בעצמה אינה תירוץ על קושיית התוספות? אני חושב שהתירוץ הוא זה. יש מחלוקת אם מעילה שייכת רק בשוגג או רק במזיד. זאת מחלוקת תנאים במשנה. אני מתכוון לומר שמעילה במצב שהחפץ יוצר לחולין.. ברור שיש איסור בכל מצב. ולכן תוספות רוצים להגיד תירוץ ששייך לשתי הדעות. למשל שהם יודעים שהחפץ הוא הקדש אבל אינם רוצים להוציאו מרשות הקדש. איך זה שייך? רק במצב שהמשתמשים הם גיזברים.





Now I am not really asking a question as much as simply making an observation since it does seem that this is exactly what Tosphot says himself in his answer. That the beginning of the Tosephta is talking about Gizbarim (people appointed to watch and take care of things dedicated to the Temple).
So Tosphot in fact is simply saying the obvious--that the first case of the Tosephta is where each person uses it without intending to change domain.

But what I wanted to bring out which I think is more important is the fact that Tosphot is not making any claims about whether anyone in the Tosphot is doing it on purpose or by accident. That is to say- Tosphot is thinking that his idea applies in either case. If you hold that meila [using a holy object  takes the object out of the catagory of holiness and makes it secular) is only in  case of shogeg (accident) then his idea applies. And if you hold it only applies in a case of Mezid [on purpose] it also applies.
(That is an argument among the tenaim of the Mishna). So in plain English that means that in one case the people that use the ax know that it is hekdesh, but are not intending to take it out of the domain of hekdesh since they are all gizbarim (people appointed over Temple treasury). In the other case they in fact do not know that the ax is hekdesh. And so this answer my first question or observation. Why do the Tosephta have to be talking about Gizbarim? Because that is the only way they can know it is hekdesh and still not intend to take it out of the domain of Hekdesh.[That is to say that Tosphot wants his answer to fit both opinions. Including the one that Meila is only in a case of knowing it is hekdesh.]
I think this is an elegant answer for the observation why Tosphot needs to say the Tosephta is a case of Gizbarim instead of just any group of people.[Incidently I think one of the Tenaim that I mentioned is R Meier.]

The other observation I wanted to make is that perhaps Rav Huna over here can provide some support to the opinion of the Rambam that Meila is only when one actually derives some benefit out of the object. [Since I am not learning Torah, this is all a bit vague --but what I am thinking has to do with Rav Huna here and also on page 43a. That is to say that from what I can recall on page 99 we do not have any proof. But what the Rambam might have noticed is that if Rav Huna on page 43 would hold that meila only applies in a case where one derives benefit then he would have an answer to Rav nahman. So the Rambam decided that in fact that must be the opinion of Rav Huna and decided for some reason to state that that is the law. [I only noticed this opinion of the Rambam after seeing it pointed out in the Even haAzel by Rav Meltzer one of the teachers of Rav Shach.]
[I do not recall what the Even Hazel said about this Rambam. He might have had a different idea of how the Rambam derived his result. I just do not recall.]

עוד דבר. ראיתי באבן האזל שהרמב''ם מחזיק בשיטה שמעילה שייך רק במצב שאחד נהנה מהחפץ. נראה לי שהרמב''ם דייק את זה מרב הונא. היינו שרב הונא בב''מ צט. מחזיק שהמשאיל קרדום לחבירו אם בקע בו קנאו לא בקע בו לא קנאו. אם רב הונא יחזיק בשיטה הזאת גם לגבי מעילה זה יתרץ את קושיית רב נחמן עליו בדף מג ע''א. הרקע כאן הוא שהמשנה שם בדף מ''ג כותבת שהמפקיד כסף אצל שולחני בלא מכסה השולחני יכול להשתמש בו ולכן אם נאבד הוא חייב. רב הונא מחזיק בשיטה שגם אם נאנסו גם הוא חייב. היינו שיש לו דין שואל. רב נחמן מחזיק שרק אם נאבדו המעות  הוא חייב לא אם נאנס. היינו שיש לו דין שומר שכר.
רב נחמן מביא קושייה על רב הונא מהברייתא. גיזבר נתן כסף של הקדש לשולחני-והשולחני השתמש בו ונאבד הכסף,  הגזבר מעל. היינו רק אם השתמש בו הוא מעל אבל היתר השתמשות אינה מחייב אלא כמו שומר שכר. אני לא זוכר את זה בדיוק בגלל שאני לא לומד תורה בעוונותיי הרבים. אבל איך שהוא, אם רב הונא היה מחזיק בשיטה שם שמעילה שייך רק במצב של הנאה אז אין קושיא עליו מן הברייתא. ולכן הרמב''ם הסיק מסקנה שבאמת שה מה שרה הונא חייב להחזיק. וזה יוצא טוב עם שיטתו בדף צ''ט ע''א. ואז בגלל איזו סיבה הוא פסק כרב הונא.

Apollo 11

I had in mind yesterday to mention that the Apollo 11 mission left Earth on July 16. It was powered by the Saturn V that had been developed by Wernher Von Braun. I just wanted to add a few comments. That Von Braun was caught by the Gestapo and put into prison for two weeks. He was accused by the Gestapo of trying to make rockets for space exploration instead of for killing Englishmen. (I think their suspicions were correct) In fact, he was only freed because of an assistant vouching for him.

Another thing is his name is pronounced Von Brown.

Another thing is that there were a few people before him that contributed to the idea of space travel a  Tsiolkovsky (Russian) (The first letter of his name is like the Hebrew letter Tsadi צ) , and Oberth (German) , and of course the famous American, Goddard.

My dad was working at TRW at the time working on laser communication between satellites which was a totally different program than the Apollo Mission. [He had done the work on the infrared satellites an then started on the laser ones.]

[The first words spoken on the Moon were "Contact Light" by Buzz Aldrin--meaning that the sensor on one of the legs of the Lunar module showed contact with the surface.

I ought to mention that the Saturn V rocket was an achievement in itself. it is hard to build a rocket that can withstand the kinds of pressure that were needed to reach orbit.

The subject of Kabalah is a little difficult for me to deal with. Mainly I would say there are people whose judgment I trust as having insight into spiritual affairs like the Arizal [Isaac Luria] and Rav Nahman from Breslov and Rav Avraham Abulafia to name a few. That does not mean that they never made a mistake but rather that they had great insights.

This is to some degree based on Dr. Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school that there is such a thing as non intuitive immediate knowledge.
[Non known by senses but known not through any intermediate step.]

The difficulty that I see is that of the Sitra Achra--the realm of evil that takes a disguise as holiness. And to discern the difference I see is hard. So how can you tell the difference? To me it seems fairly easy since internal rot always appears on the outside. That is you can tell by the fact of a person being overly concerned about outward appearance tells you already that without that concern--something rotten would appear immediately.

But that might seem like a hard thing to discern. There is then another way to judge the situation-- character traits. That is even though character and holiness are two difference areas of value, still they are connected.


[In any case in terms of the Ari I recommend the interpretations of the Ramchal, Rav Yaakov Abu-hazeira, and the Reshash. I also ought to add the Remak as being important as David Bronson mentioned to me numerous times.

layman's books in science

When it came to layman's books in science-it depends. In terms of Physics and Math I decided that it was better to learn the actual material. But in other areas like dinosaurs I enjoy the books written by experts for laymen like me.  But the difference I am not sure of. because even in Physics I was looking at books by experts  and yet at some point I got the idea that that was no substitute for the real thing.

Americans have had for  along time a suspicion of experts. and have held highly form self educated people.  When I was young I had a child's biography of Abraham Lincoln where I learnt that he was self educated. And that model served me well in yeshiva where in fact to get anywhere in gemara most of the effort had to be  done on my own. And yet even with that I admit that without the impute of Shar yashuv [Naftali Yegear] and the Mir {Rav Shmuel Berenbaum} in NY --even with all the effort in the world-I would have been a pure am haaretz [ignoramus]. [That is what is called "knowing how to learn." You do not get that by learning. You have to get it from someone who really knows.]
[However for people that do not have the advantage of being in the Mir or Ponovitch I might just add that if you learn Rav Haim from Brisk that is  a good introduction to understanding what it means to know how to learn. Now on one hand he does concentrate on the Rambam but the inner idea is more or less the same whether you apply it to the Rambam or Tosphot.  Mainly knowing how to learn has to do with become able to see the deeper issues inside of Tosphot of the Rambam. Even if you are like me that these issues are not at all obvious. Still being aware of the depth inside of the Tosphot of rambam in itself more or less means that you know how to learn.

Can Morality Be Grounded in Science? [A question I saw mention in https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/can-morality-be-grounded-in-science

Dr. Michael Huemer deals with that exact question. In one place he mentions Hume's law that you can not derive an ought from an is. But he also adds in another place that even if you can not derive an ought from an is still you can learn. For example it is not a fallacy to ask if communism caused the death of millions then how can it be a just doctrine? That is not a fallacy. Further I might add that he does hold that reason can recognize moral principles but not because they are based on science. But rather because reason recognizes universals.

I think Michael Huemer [Intuitionists based on Prichard and GE Moore] and Dr Kelley Ross [Kant Fries school] disagree about these issues. But still I tend to see them in a similar way. For after all what is "non intuitive immediate knowledge" except for knowledge that reason recognizes right away without any intermediate step. Is that not the same thing as what Michael Huemer saying what reason does? And in terms of things being possibly wrong Dr Huemer goes into that. That one a priori can defeat another a priori. based on a higher degree of credibility and also i think if it is more or less supported by the evidence.

In the world of Lithuanian Yeshivas, learning Physics and Math were not high priorities --at least when I was there. On one hand I can understand this because in fact it takes a long time and a lot of effort to gain any kind of understanding of Gemara. So you really do not want distractions.

On the other hand at some point I noticed that Physics and Metaphysics were considered part of the Gemara by the Rambam. Also Ibn Pakuda [the author of the Obligations of the Heart].


[In the Obligations of the hearts you see this in perek 3 of behina where he says to learn the wisdom in side of creation and also  the spiritually inside of creation. Clearly two different things. The Metaphysics part you see right on the first page where he talks about the wisdom the Arabs call Metaphysics. So he is not talking about something differen than the Rambam.

[Still I admit this is not universal among rishonim. Some take a dim view of Aristotle.]

But in terms of Post Aristotle Philosophy what would the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda hold by?

My own feeling about this issue is that Kant and Hegel would be thought to be legitimate continuations of Metaphysics just as i think modern day Physics would be a legitimate continuation of what the Rambam is calling "Physics".

learning Torah for its own sake. Ketuboth circa page 64.

Let's say  for example you are sitting and learning Torah for its own sake. And your wife is complaining that you are not making enough money.--or any money for that matter. How much money are you required to be making to support her? קביים חיטים או או ארבעה קבים שוערים.

That is the volume of 12 eggs of wheat or 24 eggs of barley per week. That is actually easy to figure out because that is in the USA the way they sell eggs. [12 per package]. So just imagine a package of 12 eggs filled with wheat instead of eggs. That is what a husband is required to support his wife.
[about two cups of flour].

From the document of the Ketubah itself it seems to me there is not much to learn. True that a husband is required to give Io his wife two cups of wheat flour per week` to support her, but the fact that work is written into the ketubah does not in itself make it required. As you can see in laws of partners in Hoshen Mishpat of Rav Joseph Karo. That even if one writes a document "I will work for so and so thus and thus per week." and makes a kinyan [acquisition] the document does not cause him to be required to do anything since אין אדם מקנה דבר שלא בא לעולם (acquisition does not happen to anything that is not already in this world).

Besides that instead of trying to force a guy to divorce his wife on the basis of her complaint that he is not making enough money why not help him find  a job? This is exactly what Rabbainu Tam said in such a situation.


But this is not so common anyway. Most women that want a guy that is sitting and learning Torah are not in fact complaining about that fact. Just the opposite --they are proud and happy their husband is learning Torah.

This is usually what is the case when  girl marries a guy in Mir or Ponovitch. But the arrangement of kollel however seems to be a problematic issue. It is like using the Torah to make money. And even if that is not the intention it looks like it is. So at some point I decided it was best not to accept money for learning Torah and rather find some other way of making a living.

My advice however for people that love to learn Torah is this: before you get married make it clear to your prospective bride that that is what you are going to do --learn Torah for its own sake. Period. and if there is no money then so what. As one amora said to his wife when she was complaining about parnasa, " there are lots of reeds in the marshes". [I mean to say--no one is starving in Israel. But to avoid misunderstanding the best thing to do is right at the beginning of one's marriage to make it clear that you are going to learn Torah period. End of sentence.

Ketuboth page 78

I wanted just to mention a few issues that come up in Ketuboth page 78. One is that the case of when a woman acquires property before she gets married and then gets married. and then she sells it. there is a disagreement if the husband takes back the property in total (Rosh) or that it stays in the possession of the buyers but the husband just keeps the profits (Rambam).Also there is a disagreement if when he takes back the property itself if he pays for it. Even though these are two separate issues its seems to me that it would not do for the husband to pay for the fruits of the property so that opinion of paying for it must be going like the Rosh.

Another issue is the Tosphot on page 78b. There there is an argument between Tosphot and the Ran.

The issue is when the husband writes that the property of the wife that comes into the marriage he has no profits from it. In Ketuboth later on in the 9th perek that works if the note is written when she was just betrothed. But over here on page 78 it says property she has before she gets married she can sell after she gets married [not to Rav and Shmuel--but that is the opinion of the mishna.] To the Ran the writing has to be before she gets married but only applies to property she gets after she is married. To Tosphot the later on Mishna in perek 9 is going like R Hanina ben Akavia.( I.e. Tosphot is thinking now that R Hanina holds in fact that what comes to her when she is betrothed she does not own and can not sell. So if the husband writes he does not own it that is valid-but otherwise he would own it.]


The basic background here is this. property that comes to a woman when she is betrothed and then she gets married. Raban Gamliel says she can sell it and the deal is valid. R Hanina asks him if he has gained a wife should he not also acquire her lands? R Gamliel says we are already embarrassed about the new one [property she gets after she is married] and you want to make problems about the old?
Rav and Shmuel both say property that comes to her before or after she is betrothed and she sells it after she is married the deal is null. 


I should mention that I only saw the Ran after the Maharam Shif said to look him up and I admit the answer of the Ran is pretty good. Still there is a need to understand Tosphot.

I have learned that telling the truth at all cost creates a kind of force field around you that protects you from all evil. However, there is  a down side.

Since you tell the truth, you tend to think that others also tell the truth. That is often a mistake. But there is a principle that can help in this kind of situation. Once you have heard someone tell a lie, then you already know they will tell more lies. This applies to slander also. Once you have heard someone say slander, then you can be sure they will slander you too when you are not around .

Ketuboth chapter 6 כתובות פרק מציאת האישה What is the law--the halacha?

If amoraim (sages of the Talmud) are discussing an opinion in a mishna does that mean that is the law? The Rif (Rav Isaac Alfasi) brings this idea in chapter 6 of Ketuboth. It is in fact based on a gemara in Sanhedrin which deals with the issue of when a judge makes a mistake in a law. It is in reference to damages that are owed to a  woman. If someone hits her and makes a wound or causes to her some kind of embarrassment. To R. Yehuda if the embarrassment is public she gets 2/3 of the damages that are owed and her husband gets 1/3. If the embarrassment is private then she gets 1/3 and her husband 2/3.

The Gra asks on this that there are lots of places where the amoraim discuss an opinion in  mishna that is not the halacha.
On the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo one of the commentaries wants to answer this question that when the amoraim discuss an opinion in  mishna then that is the law.

In any case this does deal with the question what is the law--the halacha?

I tried to get somewhere with this subject in Sanhedrin with David Bronson where there are tons of permutations concerning the issue when a judge makes a mistake. When does he have to pay but the law stays and when the law is that the case is reversed.

 But over there the idea of the amoraim arguing about one opinion shows that it is the halacaha is brought.
This will clearly disagree with lots of other places in the gemara where the issue comes up what teh law actually is. In Eruvin the Gemara goes through the list of Tenaim--with whom is the law when there is disagreement.

The confusion about this issue i mentioned a few days ago about an situation where the stam mishna [mishna with no name mentioned in it]  says one thing and the gemara says this is the opinion of so and so but the sages say differently.In Bava Kama this is brought an used as a proof against Sumchos. In Ketoboth this exact situation is brought and the law is like the Mishna!

I heard once from Abigail Bussu [The daughter of Rav Israel Abu-hazeira] the main things are the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo and Musar [Medieval books of Ethics]. So in terms of halacah that would seem to settle things.--

The Shulchan Aruch is I heard one about 70-80 like the Rambam since Rav Joseph karo always goes by the majority between the Rif, Rosh, and Rambam. And in fact a lot of effort has been spent in understanding the Ramabm in recent years mainly starting with Rav Haim from Brisk [Soloveitchik] and Rav Shach. Still I think that the whole issue of halacah is still not clear.
But it is interesting that in the list of books that one is supposed to learn and finish every year Rav Nahman brings the Rif Rosh and Shulchan Aruch [The large edition with all commentaries]and he leaves out the Rambam.

religious world problems

The problem with the religious world is actually easy to understand in terms of Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. That is the intention is to create a super-organism a movement that controls everyone else. and gets all the perks and benefits while they sit on top of us plebeians.

The ideas of Howard Bloom are actually quiet close to Hegel but he explains them in a understandable way.


The point is that if you ask why is the religious world so oblivious about the authentic values of Torah and instead focus on rituals -the answer is they need the rituals in order to seem like they are for the Torah and by that they can entice and capture innocent souls to be their slaves.--at first by love bombing them and then after they are trapped then their true disgusting faces appear.

The religious world presents themselves as if they have the true approach to Torah. The truth is the opposite. The religious world does not worship God. They worship their religious leaders.And they cover up their deception by emphasizing rituals that are in themselves made up to look like they are Torah principles.

The principle of the "meme" that Howard Bloom says is the nerve center of the super organism is also the center of every person's world. We all approach the world with a set of principles. Some of these principles tell of how to evaluate the world around us. Others tell us how to act. What should be the basis of all our actions. The set of principles of the religious world are directly opposed to Torah. Their principles are to put up a nice face in order to get control of everyone else so that they can be on top.

Of course if the religious world would be based on authentic Torah like you have in Ponovitch based on Rav Shach and the Gra then I would have nothing to complain about. But the issue is that once there is an authentic place of Torah like Ponovitch or Brisk, then a million copy cats sprout up. This is like Rav Nahman of Breslov said about the true tzadik. He said once there is a true tzadik then a million copy cats sprout out to try to get in on the act.

"A country of halacha"?

"A country of halacha" sounds to me like a nightmare. One reason we can already see in the Lekutei Moharan of Rav Nahman of Breslov. That is that a lot of the religious leaders in the religious world are actually not human. This is first mentioned in the L''M volume I chapter 8 where he brings the idea of רברבי עשו people that claim ordination but are actually from the realm of evil. [There he brings the cure for this is to groan--that is to pray with such sincerity that one actually groans].

But the most dramatic place this is mentioned in in the LeM chap 12 and 28 concerning Torah scholars that are demons. So it is clear that giving power to these religious leaders could not possibly be a  good idea.

The issue really relates to Howard Bloom's Lucifer Principle. There he goes into the problem of a social system that is set up on principles that are not moral. Even though he does not really go into what is moral and what is not until the very end of the book in a footnote where he advocates the system of the US Constitution as opposed to Islam. But the basic idea is that the religious world is a social system based on a meme that all power belongs to its leaders and that ritual is supreme especially wearing a kipa[ yarmulke similar to the pope.]
Torah itself is mainly for show. The real agenda is actually pretty sinister.


In "halacha" the way the religious world understands is there is no freedom. And the rules are made by religious creeps. So it is no surprise that in Uman my learning partner said one of the greatest thinbgs about it was that it was not under religious authority. 

The regular Mishna holds ממון המוטל בספק חולקים. [Money that is in doubt is divided]. This comes up in several places in the Mishna. And every place it comes up the mishna goes like Sumchos.
But in Bava Kama Shmuel says that is not the opinion of the sages who hold one who enters a plea that money that is in someone else's possession really belongs to him needs to bring proof.


The question of המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה has the same format as a Gemara in  Ketubot page 40b.

There Rabbainu Hananel [last of the Geonim and teacher of the Rif as far as I recall] and the Raavad say the law is like the stam Mishna even though in the Gemara Rava said "These are the words of R. Meir but the sages say..."

In Bava Kama you have the same situation. A stam Mishna says one thing and then the Gemara says [from Shmuel] These are the words of sumchos but the sages say etc.

the religious world a lot of people like to consider themselves as being particularly smart

In the USA it is considered a good thing to find where your talents are and to pursue that as a goal. This can be misleading. For example lets us say you notice that you are not very good in mathematics. But in other of subjects you are a lot better. So you find yourself in a group of people following a course load in some soft subject. The tendency will be to think you simply have found yourself with group of people that have a different set of talents. You do not immediately suspect the truth that that whole group has a low IQ and that the reason you are better in that than in math is because you found yourself with  bunch of dumbbells.


The issue of self deception comes into play here. Just take for a hypothetical example. You are in a Physics class in university and notice that everyone  else in class in doing better than you. So you get discouraged and switch to psychology and immediately notice than you are doing better than anyone else in class. Does that mean that now you have found your real calling and talents? Or does it mean that psychology students have the lowest IQ of anyone else in universities and Physics students have the highest? [The answer we already know. But the point is that this example can be applied to other areas.]

You can use this example to explain why in the religious world a lot of people like to consider themselves as being particularly smart. And like to convince others of this "fact". This comes from a certain degree of self deception. Even being able to memorize a lot of things in the Talmud does not make one smart.  Smartness at least as understood as being able to figure out complicated stuff has nothing to do with how much work you put into something nor with memory. 

When I was in Shar Yashuv [of Rav Shelomo Freifeld]  I wanted to learn fast--that is by just saying the words and going on like you see in Rav Nahman's Sichot HaRan 76. But for some reason that kind of fast learning was looked down on over there.  so I found some kind of compromise in that every section of gemara I would read twice and go on. That was not going exactly fast but not as slow as the path was over there either.

Nowadays I can see the value of both going very fast like Rav Nahman emphasized and also the kind of in depth intense learning that you have in teh great Litvak Yeshivas like Ponovitch and Brisk.

So when I eventually tried to expand my horizons a little and get into Physicsand Mathematics  I also found the need the path of lots of review and also the fast kind of learning of Rav Nahman.

You can tell a lot about a person by what their goals are. I have noticed that people in the space program wanted to accomplish something great for all mankind.


My dad was like that. He contributed a lot to the advance towards space. Little known to most people is the fact that NASA makes very little of what they send up. It was TRW that made the first early warning satellites and later on developed the advance laser beam communication satellites.

My dad was the leading engineer in the infra red satellites. The reason was that he was the person that invented infra red camera in Monmouth Army Base. So when TRW was contacted  and asked to make an early warning system they contacted my dad and asked him to drop what he was doing and help them develop the satellite system.

See this link on page 24 about the first infra red camera invented by Philip Rosenblum.  https://books.google.co.il/books?id=D1QEAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Later after the last infra red satellites went up he stayed on a for a few years to make laser communication satellites. But even though TRW had the plans for that for  along time these more advanced satellites were not made until the 2000's--way after my dad left the corporation. [The reason was that TRW lost all its contracts after the Russians were discovered stealing the plans.]


My feeling about this is there is a need to be able to get out of the solar system. In the short term settling Mars I believe is an important goal. But eventually there is a need  to discover some way of traveling to the stars. And the only thing that I or anyone else can contribute to that at this point is to learn String Theory and make some kind of progress in understanding the basic nature of space time.

As for Mars--there is no need to develop any new technology. everything has already been invented that Mars needs. Nuclear power is 1940's technology. We had it before colored TV's and transistor radios.

Incidental my dad also was the leader of Team II for the camera on the U-2. But that was when I was too young to remember. When I recall when I was five we were already in Newport Beach CA and my Dad had his own company to market a machine he had invented the copymate machine that used x rays technology to make super sharp copies. That went on until TRW contacted him as I said and then we moved so he could be closer to TRW.

[I admit I do not know why my dad is never mentioned in connection with the U-2 camera. There were two teams.]

According to the Rambam, the Torah is a consequential system.--But not in the same way as consequential theories of morality. Rather to the Rambam the idea is that the laws of Torah have a purpose to bring about good character traits and peace of the state and to lessen ones physical desires and to avoid idolatry.

You can see this theme all the time in the Musar movement of R Israel Salanter. One of his original motivations was when he asked someone a polite question but the person was so busy being frum he did not even notice his question. So Rav Israel started putting two and two together seeing how that Rav Shmuel from Salant had come to good traits as by intense learning of Musar.

You can see this in the Gemara itself in the places where the argument between R Shimon Ben Yochai and the  Sages is brought down.

Space Travel.

In the Universe there is a lot of energy which has not been identified. In fact, the vast majority of stuff in the universe is dark energy and dark matter.
For dark energy there are two possibilities: the Lambda constant of Einstein or a scalar field.
So there does seem to be an anti gravity force. This opens possibilities for space travel.

And not just normal space travels in regular space time--but also the possibility of poking a hole in a black hole or a worm hole.to get to another universe.

What I am suggesting here is that I think that space travel is a possibility, but it seems to depend on string theory. Though in the near future it is probably best to concentrate on getting to Mars. But what I am thinking is that to settle the universe is also a possibility for mankind. But it would depend on further work in string theory.

[I admit that I think that string theory is good to learn for other reasons besides the possibilities it opens up. That is that it is the wisdom of God in his creation.  Plus there is a element in it that the Rambam brings of love and fear of God and of learning Torah.]

wife that rebels against her husband

So what is the din about moredet? [דין מורדת]  A wife that rebels against her husband? What is the law? What if he is sitting and learning Torah for its own sake--that is not getting paid and his or her parents support them until at which time she decides to go out and work herself as was the arrangement with Rav Shach and many gedolei Israel?
Or to ask even further--what if her husband in in a kollel? A kollel in itself is really not legitimate; but what if anyway he is sitting and learning in such a place?

[The regular law about a wife that rebels is she loses her ketuba.]


I ask this because one of the very first tracates that I learned was Ketuboth. In Shar Yashuv of Rav Friefeld and Rav Naftali Yeager they were doing a lot of the first and third chapters. But after I got to the Mir I spent a lot of time on the fifth chapter.--where this issue is located.


This is an issue which strikes me as being relevant. Some people will tell the wife to get rid of her husband even though she is in fact being supported by his or her parents and is not exactly starving!
It seems to me she would have the category of a moredet in such a case.

There might be other issues that she feels she can not live with. But the fact that her husband is learning Torah "lishma" (for its own sake) seems to not be a reason that makes her move moral or valid in terms of halacha.

The issue is that here is one area where religious leaders will in general tell the wife to get rid of her husband  because they either do not know Torah, or do not care. The main thing for them is to get money for their social clubs called kollels or yeshivas which really have nothing to do with Torah.

[You can see this fact in Rav Nahman's detailed treatment of religious leaders in his major books. Clearly he thought there is some kind of problem with religious leaders. See the LeM vol 1. chapters 8, 12, 28 61. and vol 2 chapter 8--and other places that I have forgotten off hand.]

The way the evil inclination gets into people is by "first come first served". It is the power of delusion that after it is in one, has a defense mechanism. If one tries to take it out after it has already entered, it brings one into even worse delusions.

You would hope that perhaps Musar [the idea of Rav Israel Salanter of learning Medieval Ethics]  would be solutions to the problem of the evil inclination. But this does not seem to be a very satisfying solution.

Physics.

Eventually I noticed something like that in Musar itself. Mainly from the Middle Ages there was Benyamin the Doctor author of maalot Hamidot. [That used to be part of the regular set of classical Musar]. Then I saw something like that in Ibn Pakuda's Obligations of the Hearts.
Then eventually I saw the Rambam. [This is not to saw the rambam's Guide was not in Shar Yashuv. It was. But while in Shar Yashuv I simply was too busy with Gemara to pay much attention to "Hashkafa" World view issues.

In any case nowadays I am thinking the the Rambam was thinking something along the lines that is pretty much spelled out in the Guide that Physics and Metaphysics brings to love and fear of God and he sees this as a cure for the evil inclination.

The idea is to be connected with God's wisdom as it is revealed in his Creation. You can see this idea in the Ari [Rav Isaac Luria] who holds that as great as the Oral Law is still it is on the level of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. [That is in the beginning of the Eitz Chaim]. So while you might hold then why not concentrate on the Eitz Chaim itself? The problem with Kabalah seems to me to be more clear when you look at people that learn kabalah. There clearly seems to be some kind of problem. Perhaps they are simply not ready? But also I think that what Rav Yaakov Emden was saying about the Zohar that there are a few parts that are authentic but a lot is not. [I forget the name of his book on this subject but it is fairly well known.] So in terms of learning God's wisdom it seems best to go to what is more or less crystal clear--not people's opinions. 

Howard Bloom's Lucifer Principle   brings the idea that units of social information get get into people's head's and then get hardwired. But I go further and claim that these memes are like the Alien that has a protection mechanism that when you try to take it out it sends out some kind of acid that makes things so bad that you dare not touch it.

The whole idea of the Lucifer principle has to do with the super organism and is a way of understanding Hegel's more philosophical approach to the State.


The thing is that the evil inclination some kind of delusion gets into people and then can not be extracted. This is always some kind of delusion as Rav Nahman said that now we have to call the evil inclination with a new name--the power of delusion.

Sex between males does get the death penalty even though not all forbidden relations do. For example even though sleeping with a woman who has seen blood is also in the list of forbidden relations but does not get the death penalty. And this means that it is a serious issue. In fact there are four kinds of death penalty and sex between males gets the most sever one--the same as idolatry. That is even more serve than murder.

The idea that this became OK at some point in time goes against a few statements in the Old Testament that the Law of Moses is forever.

However it is true that the religious world does give a bad name to the Written and Oral Law by means of their evil actions. But that does not make the Law of Moses bad but rather reflects on the religious world.



So why is this pushed so hard nowadays. It all comes down to Daniel Defoe that explains how the evil inclination changes form in every generation. And Rav Nahman also said as much. The issue seems to be this. When people get into a fallen state of mind מוחין דקטנות, the evil inclination can attach itself to them.

לקוטי מוהר''ן חלק סימן כ''ה
. The issue according to Rav Nahman is the the evil inclination has a new name כוח המדמה delusion. That is to say in the old days the evil inclination was devoted towards getting people into physical desires or simply to go against the Bible. But nowadays it has acquired a new trick--delusion.

The answer to this usually is this. You find a place in the book of Rav Nahman that deals with your particular problem and then read it forty days in a row. Also the tendency is that in that very lesson itself are mentioned some themes which relate to the problem.

For example in that Torah lesson Rav Nahman brings the way to get out of the power of delusion by charity.