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the Labor Theory of Value is false.The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle.

 The major thing I dislike about communism is that it makes no sense. [It is based on the Labor Theory of Value which is false. The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle. That makes it no more valuable to me than if  a factory produced it and I can buy it for one cent. Rather, the value depends on how much people want it. And the factory owner does not extract excess value from the worker. He creates value. The proof you can see yourself. Try to make on your own something and then try to sell it on the street. One day of doing that would have shown Marx and Lenin a thing or two about capitalism.] But that is besides the fact of its supposedly scientific predictions came out just the opposite of what it was predicting. But when things are in chaos, it does provide a means to taking control. That was the assessment of the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. And he meant that in a negative sense. But the same idea was expressed to me by a Mormon who worked as an economist. [I asked him about President Hoover  and the depression and the fact that Roosevelt instituted lots of socialist policies to bring the USA out of the Depression. Whether that worked I do not know, but the answer that Mormon fellow told me was that sometimes in a times of chaos, you need some way that central government can take control.] And in a more startling way it was expressed by many people I met in the Ukraine. No one ever told me things were better under democracy than under communism. Whenever I asked, people always told me things were better than than they were under democracy. [They always said: "It was better then than now." And I saw that also. The police were spending their time hiding in their station, and the streets were empty of police. The more the fear of the KGB dissipated, the more crime and chaos.] You could see this clearly. The more distance the memory of communism was, the more crime was taking over.  

Still the point seems to be the same. To establish some kind of stability when everything is in chaos. But the order ought to be to first bring stability and then an free market democracy. Not the opposite.

So if one is connected with this highest area of value--when he falls he falls into its exact opposite the peak of evil

 It is an odd thing that you see in the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought that there is no cause and effect relation between subject and object (as Dr Kelley Ross makes clear in his blog site https://www.friesian.com/).

And in fact when I was looking at Physics I noticed that Newtons laws are expressed by the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian  in such a way that objects simply tend towards the lowest energy state [or in optics towards the highest energy state] [So one might be excused to wonder how to they know where the lowest energy state is? Are particles that smart?]The causes of things seem to be the actual laws of nature, not the physical forces. It is almost as if we live in a Platonic world where the really real are the laws of mathematics. The physical world is a shadow representation of the really real.

One advantage of the Kant Fries school for me is after one has worked out all the kinks which was done by Greta Hermann and Kelley Ross, it proved me a sort of template to understand my own experience. For seven years in Tzefat [Safed] I had what in various schools of thought is categorized as "devekut", the "Infinite Light", Samadhi etc. [Though I can not tell which is more to the point.] This is not religious fanaticism  but rather a direct experience of the Divine. Or sometimes even more--a direct connection with the Divine.-and absorption into the Infinite Light. But what you see in Kelley Ross is that this is just one area of value. Not all. In terms of the Ari one would say this is the area of value of "Keter" but lacks a;; the other areas. Thus one might have total devekut with God but lack any of the other areas of value. And even more so--each area of value is opposite to its exact opposite. So if one is connected with this highest area of value--when he falls he falls into its exact opposite the peak of evil   

He was dealing in this from strictly a legal standpoint, but I think he also saw some of the implications of using Torah as means to make money. One implication is the ruin of Torah.

The major place where the Rambam is critical of the yeshivas in his time is in his commentary on Pirkei Avot  דאשתמש בתגא חלף. ["One who uses the crown passes away."] [Not in the first place in Pikei Avot where this statement comes up but later in ch 4.] So he would not have been very happy with the kollel system. And even today it is a major shock to read what he wrote 800 years ago and basically is still impossible for anyone to swallow.  He holds that (I am paraphrasing) the heads of the yeshivot that say it is a mitzvah to give money to support these institutions are liars.

There should be yeshivot where people learn Torah, but they ought not to be means of making money.

But in his own days, the implications of what he wrote were clear to people and caused the first major controversy.

 He was dealing in this from strictly a legal standpoint, but I think he also saw some of the implications of using Torah as  means to make money. One implication is the ruin of Torah. Or rather-the ruin of sincere Torah. Those that are sincere are despised.

So while there is no promises, still the idea was the only way to deal with life's difficulties is to learn Torah.

 The general approach of the Mir Yeshiva in NY when it came to life's questions was "learn Torah". [In pain English that means the oral and written Law: the Old Testament, the two Talmuds plus the midrashim.] That was at least the basic idea I got by hanging around the rosh yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum. That is there was an implicit awareness that life has tons of difficulties and most of which simply have no "solution". That is just the way life is. As Jordan Peterson puts it: "Life is hard." [He means that it is implicitly hard, not because someone else is making it hard.] 

So while there is no promises, still the idea was the only way to deal with life's difficulties is to learn Torah. 

[There are differences in approach however. How much in depth learning and how much fast leaning and the proper balance seems to differ from Litvak yeshiva to any other Litvak yeshiva.]

The only two things I would like to add to this is the idea of Physics and Mathematics being part of the command to learn Torah as you can see in the last of the first four chapters of Mishna Torah where "Pardes" is defined as Physics and Metaphysics as the Greeks understood them, and then later where it is stated that one should divide the learning time into Tenach, Oral Law, and Gemara and in the category of Gemara is ''Pardes." 

Plus the idea that even Math can be learned in that fast sort of way that is usually reserved for learning Gemara fast- that is to say the words and go on. 

crises [plural] in an individual's life

 The point of Rav Nahman of Breslov and the point of those learning his books is to address crises [plural] in an individual's life. It is not to define Torah. Nor is it actually to "be mehazek" strengthen one in keeping Torah-- though sometimes that is the effect. The cause of this is that something changed in human mentality in the 1700's. The old forms of community were still in place, but something about the modern mind changed. The issues and problems became very different.

This is very different from the sort of Musar (Ethics) books of the Middle Ages which were to define what it is that Torah requires from you in terms of Fear of God and character traits. They in essence explain what the Torah is all about in a practical sense. They are slightly different from books of the Middle Ages which deal more directly with the actual worldview of Torah. 

What were some of the crises that Rav Nahman was dealing with? The average layman could accept the idea that we ought to just learn and keep Torah plainly and simply.  But the problem was with religious leaders that seemed intent on fouling up the whole thing--and still are. So he deals with that often in e.g. LeM vol. I ch.s 8, 12, 28, 60, vol. II ch.s 1, 8  and many other places I forget off hand.

בבא בתרא דף ב' ע''אAt the very end of this i suggest an approach that might help understand this sugia. But without my learning partner, David Bronson, I am not sure how it all would fit together.

תוספות asks in of בבא בתרא דף ב' ע''א why do you need "therefore"? [היינו since they are required to build the wall, therefore they divide if it falls.]. Answers תוספות: it might fall into the domain of just one and he would be believed saying, "I built it" because he has a מיגו of saying, "I bought it." רב עקיבא אייגר asks, "Why do you need 'I bought it?'" Perhaps just "I built it" alone should be believed since it is in his domain except for the "therefore" of the משנה. To answer this question רב שך says if he would say "I built it", and if he is believed, that takes the wall out of its חזקה of belonging to both. He got the idea from  רב איסר מלצר the author of the אבן האזל. That means that he would not be believed to say I built it except for the possibility that he could have said I bought it. So now we know he can not even say that because they are both required to build the wall. רב שך suggests further that this might depend on a similar argument between תוספות and the Rambam in בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א. The case is two people come into court holding a garment. The law is they divide. What happens if after that, one comes in and only he is holding it and says, "The other admitted to me that it is mine." The other says, "I rented it to him." The גמרא says, "He is not believed, because we say 'Until now you thought he is  a thief, and now you rented it to him without witnesses?" תוספות asks why do we need the "We are witnesses?" Answer: because there is a מיגו he could have said, "You grabbed it from me." So we see that in fact if he had said that he would be believed. So why not believe the first one that has the object? Because he says you agreed with me and by that he tries to place the other in the category of  a thief and so he is not believed. What רב שך is saying here is hard to figure out. It seems to me that both are accusing the other. And why would this have a חזקת מטלטלים after they were already in court and it was decided they should split? I would like to suggest that this is in fact the reason the גר''א in חושן משפט קל''ח  and the ריטב''א have a different answer for why he would be believed to say, "The other grabbed it," because it is talking about things that are commonly borrowed or rented out. That is what I think that note of the גר''א means over there. Furthermore the רמב''ם is consistent with his other opinion  about if one grabs after there is already a doubt [תפס אחר שנולד הספק] that we do not take it from him and the רא''ש holds we do take it from him. That is about the case of  "a כהן grabs a animal of tithe that is doubtful." So the רא''ש is just going with the תוספןת as usual. That is to say both of the pleas cancel since each is accusing the other of lying so we simply go with חזקה. And the one that has it now has no חזקה since he has it after there has already been born the doubt.

However the reason why I think the גר''א is right here is that תוספות is saying that the טענה "he took it from me" in the בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א is believed in and of itself, not just because of the חזקת מטלטלים. So while the issue of  one party seized it  after the doubt is born is relevant, still that is not the reason for תוספות to say the actual טענה of "he seized  it" is believed.

תוספות שואל בבבא בתרא דף ב' ע''א מדוע אתה צריך "לפיכך"? [היינו מכיוון שהם נדרשים לבנות את הקיר, ולכן הם מתחלקים אם הקיר נופל.]. תשובת התוספות: זה עלול ליפול לנחלתו של אחד בלבד והוא יאמין באומרו, "בניתי את זה" כי יש לו מיגו לומר: "קניתי את זה." רב עקיבא איגר שואל, "למה אתה צריך 'קניתי את זה?'" אולי צריך להאמין רק "בניתי את זה" לבד מכיוון שהוא נמצא בתחום שלו, למעט "לכן" של משנה. כדי לענות על שאלה זו רב שך אומר אם הוא היה אומר "בניתי את זה", ואם מאמינים לו, זה מוציא את החומה מחזקה של שייכות לשניהם. הוא קיבל את הרעיון מרב איסר מלצר מחבר אבן האזל. זה אומר שלא יאמינו לו שהוא אומר "שבניתי את זה" למעט האפשרות שהוא יכול לומר "שקניתי את זה." אז עכשיו אנחנו יודעים שהוא אפילו לא יכול לומר את זה בגלל ששניהם נדרשים לבנות את החומה. רב שך מציע עוד שזה עשוי להיות תלוי בוויכוח דומה בין תוספות לרמב"ם בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א. המקרה הוא ששני אנשים מגיעים לבית המשפט המחזיקים בגד. החוק הוא שהם מתחלקים. מה קורה אם אחרי זה, אחד נכנס ורק הוא אוחז בזה ואומר, "השני הודה בפניי שהוא שלי." השני אומר, "הישכרתי לו את זה." הגמרא אומרת, "לא מאמינים לו, כי אנחנו אומרים 'עד עכשיו חשבת שהוא גנב, ועכשיו הישכרת לו את זה בלי עדים?' תוספות שואל מדוע אנו זקוקים ל"אנחנו עדים"? תשובה: מכיוון שיש מיגו הוא יכול היה לומר, "תפסת את זה ממני." אז אנחנו רואים שלמעשה אם הוא היה אומר את זה שיאמינו לו. אז למה לא להאמין לראשון שיש לו את האובייקט? כי הוא אומר "שהסכמת איתי" ועל ידי זה הוא מנסה למקם את האחר בקטגוריה של גנב ולכן לא מאמינים לו. את מה שרב שך אומר כאן קשה להבין. נראה לי ששניהם מאשימים את האחר. ולמה שיהיה לזה חזקת מטלטלין אחרי שהם כבר היו בבית המשפט והוחלט שעליהם לחלק? ברצוני להציע שזו למעשה הסיבה שלגר"א בחושן משפט קל''ח והריטב"א יש תשובה אחרת מדוע יאמינו לו לומר "האחר תפס את זה" כי זה מדבר על דברים שמושאלים בדרך כלל או מושכרים. זה מה שאני חושב שפתק הגר"א אומר שם. יתר על כן הרמב''ם תואם את דעתו האחרת לגבי אם תופס אחרי שיש כבר ספק [תפס אחר שנולד הספק] שאנחנו לא לוקחים את זה ממנו והרא''ש מחזיק שאנחנו כן לוקחים את זה ממנו. זה בערך המקרה של "כהן תופס חיה של מעשר שהוא בספק." אז הרא''ש פשוט הולך עם התוספת כרגיל. כלומר שתי התביעות מתבטלות מכיוון שכל אחת מהן מאשימה את השנייה בשקר ולכן אנחנו פשוט הולכים עם חזקה. ולמי שיש לו עכשיו אין חזקה שכן יש לו את זה אחרי שכבר נולד הספק [ביניין תקפו כהן]. אולם הסיבה שבגללה אני חושב שהגר"א צודק כאן היא שתוספות אומר כי הטענה "הוא חטף את זה ממני" בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א מאמינים כשלעצמה, לא רק בגלל של חזקת מטלטלין. אז אמנם הנושא של צד אחד תפס אותו לאחר לידת הספק הוא רלוונטי, אך עדיין זו לא הסיבה של תוספות לומר כי מאמינים בפועל לטענה של הוא תפס אותו  

Leonard Nelson

 There seems to be an argument about who is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century. That would imply that 20th century philosophy had much to say.

However my suggestion is Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School. [His ideas are explained in plain English by Dr Kelley Ross on his Friesian.com site].

The reason is that Dr. Ross tends to combine a few admirable things. One is the rigor of the analytic school-and yet not be caught in their triviality. Two is deeply human concerns--that very things that were of great interest to Nietzsche. Third is that odd fact that philosophical profundity and political common sense usually so not come together, yet in Kelley Ross they do.

cease using Torah to make money.

The arise of science, and organized religion have produced a crisis in faith.

Organized religion is known to be at the cost of sincere religion. This theme you can see in the Prophets. [Just one example is in Isaiah at the very beginning where he does not think more sacrifices or more attendance at the Temple is a positive thing.  He reports that God is displeased with that.]

Science also does cause questions.

Since you can see this in the Old Testament itself, it seems best to keep Torah private. Though there are times that there is some use for organization. [As I saw in the great and amazing Mir of NY and Shar Yashuv also.] Still the general result comes at a cost of authentic Torah.

The organization tends to promise the absurd --you can have everything. No need for moral choice.

It seems not to be authentic. And that follows. Fraud follows organized religion as heat follows fire.

And besides that we know from Pirkei Avot, that Torah is not meant to be a means of making a living.

Rav Nahman clearly indicates this problem when he discuss the problem of Torah scholars that are demons. 

[What is the source of the problem of organized religion? Self deception, not hypocrisy. That is people willfully ignore their own evil. [You can see this problem brought up a lot in Dostoyevsky in Anna Karenina ,]

Since I have seen this problem a lot, to me it seems the best idea is to listen to the Mishna in Pirkei Avot to simply cease using Torah to make money.

Tosphot asks in the beginning of Bava Batra

 Tosphot asks in the beginning of Bava Batra why do you need "therefore" [that is since they are required to build the wall, therefore they divide if it falls.]. Answers Tosfot: it might fall into the domain of just one and he would be believed saying, "I built it" because he has a migo  [i.e a case of "he could have said such and such and be believed, so if  he puts in a different plea, he should be believed. For after all if he wanted to lie, he had a better way of doing so."] of saying, "I bought it."

Rav Akiva Eigger asks, "Why do you need 'I bought it?'" Perhaps just "I built it" alone should be believed since it is in his domain except for the "therefore" of the mishna.

Rav Shach says if he would say "I built it",  and if he is believed, that takes the wall out of its hazaka [prior status] of belonging to both. [He got the idea from Isar Meltzer the author of the Even HaEzel]

So to say, "I built it" would be believed only because "I bought it" would be believed. But as the mishna says here neither would be believed because both are required to build the wall.

Rav Shach suggests further that this might depend on a similar argument between Tosphot and the Rambam in Bava Metzia 6b. The case is two people come into court holding a garment. The law is they divide. What happens if after that, one comes in and only he is holding it and says, "The other admitted to me that it is mine."? The other says, "I rented it to him." The Gemara says, "He is not believed, because we say 'Until now you thought he is  a thief, and now you rented it to him without witnesses?"

Tosfot asks why do we need the "We are witnesses?" Answer: because there is a migo he could have said, "You grabbed it from me." So we see that in fact if he had said that he would be believed. So why not believe the first one that has the object? Because he says you agreed with me placing the other in the category of  a thief and so he is not believed.

It is times like this that I wish I was learning with David Bronson, my learning partner in Uman. For what Rav Shach is saying here is hard to figure out on my own. It seems to me that both are accusing the other. And why would this have a Hezkat [prior status] movable objects after they were already in court and it was decided they should split. 

I would like to suggest that this is in fact the reason the Gra [in Choshen Mishpat 138] and the Ritva have a different answer for why he would be believed to say, "The other grabbed it," because it is talking about things that are commonly borrowed or rented out.

[That is what I think that note of the Gra means over there.]

Furthermore the Rambam is consistent with his other opinion  about if one grabs after there is already a doubt that we do not take it from him and the Rosh holds we do take it from him. [That is about the case of "a cohen grabs a animal of tithe that is doubtful."]  

So the Rosh is just going with the Tosphot as usual. That is to say both of the pleas cancel since each is accusing the other of lying so we simply go with hazaka. And the one that has it now has no hazaka since he has it after there has already been born the doubt.

However the reason why I think the Gra is right here is that Tosphot is saying that the plea "he took it from me" [in the Bava Metzia case on page 6] is believed in and of itself, not just because of the hezkat metatalim [status of movable objects.] So while the issue of  one party seized it  after the doubt is born is relevant still that is not the reason for Tosphot to say the actual plea of he seized  it is believed.

"Secular learning" חכמות חיצוניות is something that Rav Nahman Breslov was against. However his disciple R Nathan takes it to a degree that I think was not in the intension of Rav Nahman.

"Secular learning" חכמות חיצוניות is something that Rav Nahman Breslov was against. However his disciple R Nathan takes it to a degree that I think was not in the intension of Rav Nahman. I do not think you can put pseudo science into the same category as legitimate science. And there are hints to this distinction in the LeM itself. It is along the same lines as when Rav Nahman spoke at length against going to doctors and yet when a medicine came to that area and was only available in a far away town Rav Nahman said even to take one's children in the middle of winter to get it.

So I think to go with the approach of the rishonim like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam that held one ought to learn Physics and Metaphysics. But how much and how deeply if one is not exactly talented in these areas? I think one ought to get up to String Theory. But what does that require? Well, not a lot of what you might think. That is sure you need Algebra, but how much? I think unless one is going to become a professional Physicist, he or she does not really need to spend a lot of time on solving equations. One needs to know what it means to solve an equation but to actually find the zeros--where the equation hits the x axis you really just need to feed the equation into a graph function hand held calculator and see where the equation hits the axis. Same idea with Calculus. What one needs for Physics is one single integral , the Gaussian integral.  

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A basic problem I see is the intersection between politics and philosophy.

A basic problem I see is the intersection between politics and philosophy.  And the attempt to bring some kind of method to the issues of politics. The thing which makes this a curious kind of problem is the odd fact that politics seems to makes progress against philosophy. Where philosophy leads, always seems to end up in some kind of totalitarian system. 

An example would be communism. A friend told Karl Popper the basic problem of communism is, "What is communism? It is the dictatorship of the proletariat. And who is the proletariat? Lenin and Trotsky."

And Karl Popper while one of the most powerful voices against totalitarianism, certainly was the inspiration of the Open Society organization that is attempting to take over the world and impose the most devastating tyranny that has ever existed.  

So what I think is this: that there always seems to take over some question in philosophy that occupies the central place for many generations until some new problem arises. The Greeks were occupied by the problem of "How is change possible" until Plato and Aristotle. Then the Middle Ages with faith and reason. Then starting with Descartes\ the Mind Body Problem. Now I would like to suggest the problem of "What is the relationship between Politics and Philosophy?" and as a side question "Why is it that philosophy seems to devour itself in the meantime." 

 Perhaps the the relation is this: Philosophy is destroying the West. And that is the cause of the rise of China? 

And what does the rise of China mean? It means to learn Chinese. And it means the rise of racism. That is Chinese think of themselves as one race. So if you are not Chinese, that means you are not in the inner circle. You will be reduced to giving most of your labor in tribute. [That is to say China does not expand in the same way as the West. It stays China and everyone else becomes tributary states.]

  

My impression is that there is no sickness at all.

 My impression is that there is no sickness at all. The purpose of this farce is because there is  a goal to bring down the world's population from 7 billion to 5 billion. The way to do that is by a syringe filled with stuff you know nothing about.

 The great thing about the Litvak yeshiva as built on the ideas of the Gra and Rav Israel Salanter is that it provides that context to live a life devoted to Authentic Torah- that is the sort of idea of the superorganism that Howard Bloom brings.

 Now to live according to Torah is hard from many aspects. One is that the religious world itself tends to be sort of insane. So to find a place that in fact is loyal to straight Torah is by no means simple or easy.

[The nice thing about the Litvak yeshiva world is that it is motivated by love of Torah, not hate of gentiles and secular Jews.]

So to merit to be part of an institution that stands for straight unadulterated Torah is an amazing thing.  

[It is hard to know what is worse. The Social Studies departments of universities or  religious psychos? I imagine one could go into STEM departments of universities. The difficulty with STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] is that there are too many pseudo sciences. And if you really want real science, well, not everyone has the talent  and IQ for that.] 

Avraham Abulafia,

To speak of Jesus in nice terms. If you say something nice, you are suspected of meaning more. In spite of that, I would like to say that there are some misconceptions about the whole subject. ביטול המצוות nullification of the commandments was clearly not in anything he said or did. That was a later stance of the church based on Paul-but not Jesus. As for the problem with worship, he even made it clear that one is not even to call him good. That was the incident when someone called him ''good master.'' He said not to call him good. Only God is good. So the church has one advantage that they respect a great tzadik. Yet, they take that respect way over the line.  

And the opposite approach has the disadvantage of wildly unreasonable disrespect of  a tzadik, and the seeking of every possible negative thing to say. That is also not right, and even worse than the former mistakes.

Better to have an accurate view. 

[The positive opinions are Avraham Abulafia, Rav Yaacov Emden, the Meiri.]

fear God is the key to everything, all good.the first step to coming to fear of God, I think is in fact just as Rav Israel Salanter thought--by an emphasis on the classical books of Ethics of the Middle Ages. And after that, the Physics and metaphysics.

To fear  God is a positive command. Even though it is not included in the Ten Commandments, it still is one of the many other commandments that are in the Old Testament. And one of the original sages of  Musar, Rav Isaac Blazer shows in his book "Or Israel" that it is the key to everything, all good and all holiness. [I have not read that book for some time, but the point was clear.]

However the Musar movement has a slightly different approach to this than what I have seen in the Rishonim. 

Most Rishonim go with the idea that to contemplate the works of God brings one to love and fear God.

This is explained in the Guide for the Perplexed that  it means learning Physics and Metaphysics. [That is what the Rambam says in a round about way. You have to put it all together. Start from the Introduction where he defines the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot as means the subjects of Physics and Metaphysics as the ancient Greeks understood them. Then later in the Guide he says that by learning the work of creation one comes to fear of God and by learning Metaphysics one comes to love God.

But this is not apparent because what people say they believe is different from what they actually believe. You can tell what a person actually believes based on his or her deeds, not their words. people with real fear and love of God do not look religious and make a point of keeping their love and fear of God internal.

They do not make a public show of their fear of God because they value it.

But what I would like to add here is that the purpose of this learning ought to be directed towards Fear of God and not towards understanding. So the way to go about this learning is to direct one's attention to love and fear of God, not towards getting good grades of making a living.

However to get back to the original point of Israel Salanter and Isaac Blazer, I would say that they are right about the emphasis on Musar in terms of orientation. That is to get a proper idea if what Torah is all about is only through the Musar of the Rishonim and Achronim. So the first step to coming to fear of God, I think is in fact just as Rav Israel Salanter thought--by an emphasis on the classical books of Ethics of the Middle Ages. And  after that,  the Physics and metaphysics.

[But I must add that Physics means real Physics, not layman's books. Metaphysics books means as the Greeks understood it as Ibn Pakuda [author of the Chovot Levavot] and the Rambam make clear.]

 

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I gained great advice from reading the books of Rav Nahman. But I think that is not much of a reason to leave off the straight path of the Gra and the Litvak world of yeshivas. The way I see things now, it is best to be in or near a regular Litvak yeshiva in order to learn the straight path of Torah. Then for individual issues that come up it is useful to learn the ideas of Rav Nahman. 

But to go and become "Breslov" seems like a mistake to me.

That is from what I have observed. However for me personally I think, I have gained a great deal by the advice of Rav Nahman and also from my time being in Uman. 

Still if my advice means anything to anyone, I highly recommend to stick with the straight path of the Gra and Rav Shach--at all cost.

[It is however to be noted that not everything within the context of the Litvak path is something I agree with. I am merely saying that there is a array of values in which there is an equal and opposite array of values that attacks it. So while the value of authentic Torah is the path of the Gra and Rav Shach,still on the opposing side there are pseudo Torah scholars that are demons that attack that area of value. However I am not saying that that is the only area of value. For example there is the area of music which is also a holy value, but it has arrayed against it music of the Dark Side. That is to say that every area of positive value has against it a value and forces of the dark side that attack it constantly.

This was cause of the Gra to sign the letter of excommunication. He had in mind to warn people about the forces of the Torah of the Dark Side that were attacking the Torah of Truth, authentic Torah.

[I believe that Rav Nahman would not have been under the excommunication based on the actual wording in that letter.\]

Bava Batra on page four there is a Rashba

In Bava Batra on page four there is a Rashba that is brought in the Shita Mekubetzet that asks why does the Gemara ask "why do we need the mishna? Is not the law of the mishna simple"? The Rashba's question is perhaps it could be  a case of one party says "I built half the wall", and the other party claims "I built the whole wall". Would not the law then be one takes 3/4 and the other takes 1/4? So the law of the mishna would not be simple. We would need it to tell us that since they are both required to build it we say it both 1/2 to each. The answer of the Rashba is that since the place belongs to both, it is simple that we would divide 1/2 for each even if one would say, "I built it all," and the other would say, "I built 1/2."

This seems to go along with the Rambam. While the mishna says since they both have to build the wall, they divide the stones and the place equally if it falls. The Rambam says, since the place belongs to both, therefore they divide the stones. That seems like a contradiction. The mishna hangs the splitting of the place and stones on the fact that they both have to build the wall. The Rambam hangs the splitting of the stones on the fact that the place belongs to both. But it does not have to be a contradiction. It could be that the mishna is just saying the same thing in a shorthand way. And that is apparently exactly what the Rashba and Rambam mean. That the place is known to be of both and that is what causes the stones to be divided equally. [And why would the place be more simple than the bricks? Rav Shach suggests that the Rashba holds like Tosfot that the place is a case of D'rara DeMamona. That would answer why if one says he has 1/2 and the other all, they still divide by half.]

[All this is what I gathered from reading Rav Shach's explanation of the Rashba. ]

[The question that I have is that if this is the idea of the mishna, then it is a round about way of putting it.. It is saying: Since they both have to build the wall, therefore the ground belongs to them both. And then then the bricks belong to both. I mean what does building the wall have to do with the ground? But based on the Rashba I can see what would have forced the Rashba and the Rambam to understand in this way. That is the question of the Gemara, "Is it not simple?"]

 For some reason the great mystic of the Middle Ages Rav Avraham Abulfia is not well known and that seems like a tragedy to me. After all he was highly regarded by Rav Chaim Vital and the Remak רב משה  קורדבירו both. In fact that last gate of the Musar book of Rav Chaim Vital, vol.  4 [שערי קדושה] consists almost entirely of the system of Rav Avraham Abulfia,  and does not even mention the Ari. Plus the Remak quotes the books of Abulafia often in his Pardes [but just the titles of the books and does not mention the author.]

He did have an opinion about Jesus that is not well known. He held he was the messiah son of Joseph mentioned at the end of tractate Suka.  [The subject of messiah son of Joseph is dealt with also in the Kol HaTor of the Gra and the Ramchal. [That is the Tikunim Chadashim of the Ramchal]. 

The thing about the path of the Gra is that it places a lot of emphasis on not showing off one's religiosity

 I ought to mention that while I was in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY, I never learned Rav Chaim of Brisk's book nor Rav Shach. I only mention these two great books as being the prime examples of the deep kind of learning that I experienced in Shar Yashuv and the Mir. The actual classes and their lessons that I did learn and listen to were mostly never published.

I mean to say that the great Torah Scholar that I learned from in Shar Yashuv was Naftali Yeager and the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir that I learned from was Rav Shmuel Berenbaum, but I doubt if anything they ever said was actual written down and kept safe for later generations. So in order to give people an idea of this deep kind of learning I simply latch onto the Chidushie HaRambam of Rav Chaim of Brisk and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.  

[I did learn achronim in both places like the Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua and many other achronim on the Gemara. But that is different than Rav Shach and Rav Chaim.]

The thing about the path of the Gra is that it places a lot of emphasis on not showing off one's religiosity.

There is in this path [as I  experience this in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY] an implicit awareness that what people say they believe is most often the exact opposite of what they actually believe. You can see this a bit in the verse כבוד אלקים הסתר דבר "the honor of G-d is to hide it," and "What does the Lord your G-d ask of you but... and to walk modestly with the Lord your G-d."

You see this kind of irony in Socrates also when he asked the slave about a question in Geometry that teh slave boy did not know the answer to but by careful questioning Socrates brought out that knowledge. And that was without any statement at all, just questions. That shows that there are things we know but we do not know that we know them. And also continually he showed that almost everything people think they know, they really do not know. Thus it is with faith. Those that show it off by rituals and clothes might think they have faith but are in fact empty.

Not every idea that anyone gets about some verse in Torah counts as Torah.

Not every idea that anyone gets about some verse in Torah counts as Torah. Not only that, but sometimes the effect is even negative. Rav Nahman of Breslov himself brings this idea that it is forbidden to listen of even to hear the Torah lessons of a wicked person.

To get some clarity about this, I learned the Mishna in Sanhedrin about "outside books" that are forbidden to learn. I discovered that the Rif and Rosh explain what are "outside books"? Books that explain verses of the Torah, but not based on a midrash Chazal. That is, they explain the verses in some way not like the sages of the Mishna and Gemara explained them. This would include the vast majority of books today that claim to be ''Torah books.'' But in fact, we see from the Rif and Rosh that they are "outside books."

[So natural science books are not "outside books". ]

"Just like you can not add or subtract from the Written Law, so you can not add or subtract from the Oral Law." No one imagines that someone today could write a new book of prophecy to add onto Isaiah. Similarly with the Oral law--the two Talmud and midrashim. Anything else is not included.

I can see that the system of schooling in  the USA is meant to help people find their forte and to go into that. But I hated taking tests. Still, with all that I still tried my best. But I can see the point of even going into what is not your forte. That is the whole point of all the rishonim that count learning Torah as one of the 613 commandments. That does not depend on whether one is smart or not.

But I have to say that learning Torah in  view of the rishonim is more limited than most people think. The view of the Rishonim is that Torah includes the Oral and Written Torah alone. That is the actual Old Testament and the two Talmuds and midrashim. So do commentaries on the Talmud count as "learning Torah"? That is not at all clear. I would probably include Tosphot and Maharsha and Rav Shach, but still there is  a limit. 

That is clear from the Rambam himself who wrote:  "Just like you can not add or subtract from the Written Law, so you can not add or subtract from the Oral Law." No one imagines that someone today could write a new book of prophecy to add onto Isaiah. Similarly with the Oral law--the two Talmud and midrashim. Anything else is not included.

However that is in terms of law. But these same rishonim do add two new categories to learning Torah: Physics and Metaphysics. But let's say that one is not so smart? Then is one no longer obligated? Certainly not. But then how to go about learning these difficult subjects? That is by the path of "Girsa" saying the words and going on.    [This method of learning is mentioned in Shabat I think around page 63, and also in Avoda Zara but I forget the page number.]

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But there is also the evil inclination that is spiritual--the desire to do what is wrong because it is wrong, The "imp of the perverse" as Edgar Allan Poe calls it.

 Rav Nahman in the LeM vol. I chapter 72 holds that there is a continuum of the evil inclination from the very bottom of physical desires up until the angel of God [the Samech Mem/ aka the Satan]

This subject you can see also in the Letter of Musar of Rav Israel Salanter where he brings down that some Rishonim held the evil inclination to be physical desires. [But no completely physical. After all there are plenty of desires that are connected with our biology that are not physical completely but not spiritual either. E.g., the desire for power or honor. These desires we share with many species of animals like baboons as Sapolsky noticed. I even recall the picture of one beta baboon that dis-respected the alpha baboon. His pieces were found the next morning strewn all over the place.

But there is also the evil inclination that is spiritual--the desire to do what is wrong because it is wrong, The "imp of the perverse" as Edgar Allan Poe calls it.   

But I have also seen that people that do only the fast type tend to not really get the learning at all.

To me it seems you need a combination of learning fast along with deep in depth learning. I did notice that each type has its advantages. But I have also seen that people that do only the fast type tend to not really get the learning at all. On the other hand the slow and in depth type that you see in places like the Mir or Ponovitch tend to lack the broad perspective.

It looks to me that the only way that each type of learning really works well is when there is some kind of balance.

"Secular learning" חכמות חיצוניות is something that Rav Nahman Breslov was against. However his disciple R Nathan takes it to a degree that I think was not in the intension of Rav Nahman.

 You might have noticed there is an over abundance of insane people in the religious world and I think I can see why. Sapolsky at Stanford noticed the relationship between a mild case of schizophrenia and obsession with religious issues. It used to be on his second lecture of Schizoid personalities but Stanford apparently deleted it. The point is that while in the secular world religious obsessions are not well respected, but in the religious world they are thought to be signs of great holiness. And besides that people with mild religious obsession tend to be schizoid. So if you put  a lot of that all together, you get group behavior that is schizoid. Not just individual behavior. However the Litvak yeshiva world seem to be more or less OK. They do not seem much afflicted with these mental diseases as other parts of the religious world are.

I think, there is a way that knowledge enters the mind by reading the words forwards and backwards.

I used to do this myself at Polytechnic in NYU for Physics. As a matter of fact we do not know how knowledge enters the  mind. So this is as plausible as anything. And at last for me this seems to work but it only works in conjunction with learning fast. 

[The "learning fast" thing is advice from the Musar book אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righteous in his Gate on Torah where he explains that that was the way of the rishonim [mediaeval people]. 

I would like to suggest that it is helpful to know if you are more Left brain or Right brain. The learning fast thing is more applicable to he right brain types. The detailed analysis more for the right brain types.

But you also need to combine both. So even right brain types, need a ertain amount of detailed analysis type of learning and left brain also need some amount of the learning fast type of learning. It is a matter of emphasis.

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Rav Haim of Voloshin who was a disciple of the Gra a

 Litvak yeshivas were mainly based on the model of Rav Haim of Voloshin who was a disciple of the Gra and my experience in these kinds of places was amazingly positive. So even if I have fallen from that sublime wonderous path, I still feel a twinge of regret that I was not able to stay within that context. It is like they say you never know what you have until you lose it.

However I do have a suggestion for those that are willing to listen. To me it seem the problem for me and for many others is the fact that the Herem that the Gra signed is ignored. [That is somewhat related to the idea of excommunication but within the context of halacha it is much more serious.] 

So it might seem ironic that I quote Rav Nahman of Breslov often and yet also hold that the herem of the Gra is valid. However there is an easy answer for that. It goes back to a famous book that contained the actual language of the herem and there I saw that it did not apply to Rav Nahman.

But now that I come to objective morality, I have a hierarchy of values. Natural Law takes precedence. That is the Torah is beyond natural law, however it does not override it. It is based on coming to it.

 I learn Torah to come to understand objective morality. And I think many other do so also. But that does not mean I give  a blank approval of the religious world. The best is of course the Litvaks that go by the Gra and Sefardim that keep the Torah plainly and simply. But no one group is ever OK all and in itself. Especially  we know from Rav Nahman that many  religious leaders are demons, and I have experienced much of this.  That probably means I guess that their human souls have been exchanged for demonic souls. But who knows? Maybe Rav Nahman meant it literally?

[It seems that at least one major [problem in the religious world is that they can not feel good about themselves except by pitting down others. No from any accomplishment. They are not astronauts, even though they try to convince fry yidden [secular Jews] that they are.

So what is objective morality? I would have to go with the intuitionists as far as that goes that reason recognizes objective morality [Prichard, G.E. Moore, Huemer.] But the idea that reason recognizes objective morality goes back to Fichte and Hegel. That is not all that far from Kelley Ross and Leonard Nelson except that these being faithful Kantians, hold that while morality is objective, not structures in the mind, but they can only be known by immediate non intuitive knowledge and that seems a bit too much for me to swallow. I see no reason that implanted knowledge ought to be knowledge at all.

But now that I come to objective morality, I have a hierarchy of values. Natural Law takes precedence. That is the Torah is beyond natural law, however it does not override it. It is based on coming to it.

 In order to learn Torah, what I think is the best idea is to concentrate on the basic achronim [authorities after the middle ages] that show how to get into the depths of Torah, i.e. R. Haim of Brisk and those from that school up until Rav Shach.

The reason is that maybe in first generations it was clear to them, but nowadays it is hard to get into the depths of Torah without those that showed the way. 

Now if one is in a Litvak yeshiva like Brisk or Ponovitch, one could simply learn the Gemara with Tosphot and the rishonim, and then go to the class of the rosh yeshiva. But if you are like me in so far that Ponovitch and the other great Litvak yeshivas are not within walking distance, then the best idea is to have your own copy of the Hidushei Rav Chaim and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

[In my own time at the Mir in NY I learned a lot of the early achronim R Akiva Eiger, the Pnei Yehoshua etc, They were more understandable to me  I was not really ready for the depths of Rav Shach.] 

I have had a great deal of trouble trying to figure out the argument between Hegel and Jacob Fries. One one hand I can see valid points in each. If the whole issue is immediate knowledge,-- well that question seems to have been taken care of by Michael Huemer when he writes about reason having direct awareness of things. It might need to understand what is a line in the first place, but after that it can see immediately that two lines can not make  a closed figure but three lines can.   

I think that the major problem is when philosophy slides into politics.  So I can see that a visceral reaction against totalitarian regimes  would give people a pause about Hegel's concept of the State. [Maybe more than a pause.]]

[And the odd thing is that nothing of the Constitution of the USA had anything to do with  almost any philosophy at all. Even though Thomas Jefferson was a great admirer of John Locke, but he had little of nothing to do with the Constitution which was more of less the product of James Madison.]

My basic impression is that the train of thought of Fries , Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross [called the Kant Fries school] is about the best thing. Still I can see a lot of valid points in Hegel. So the extent of the disagreement seems to be over done. 

 The Gemara in Bava Batra page 106 brings this idea that brothers that inherited property, since if they cast lots, then the lot determines who receives what. It is hard to know what kind of "kinyan" [method of acquiring] a "goral" [drawing lots is].

In fact, the Tur brings [from his father the Rosh] openly [Hoshen Mishpat 177] that drawing lots in fact causes not acquisition to occur. It only verifies which part of a property goes to whom.

Yet at the same time he also bring down that Gemara from Bava Batra.

Rav Shach explains  that there is a debate here between the Rosh and the Rambam. With the Rambam there is a difference between a courtyard that is 4*8 amot [yards] where there is a law that either of two partners can force the other to divide; and one that is smaller in which case the goral [lot. i.e. dividing by lots] does not cause a acquisition. In the large courtyard since it is large and one can force the other to divide, then it is as if he already owns his part and the goral can verify which part.

To the Rosh there is a difference between inheritance where the inheritors never made a partnership in the first place, and in that case the goral can verify what part goes to whom, and in a sense causes the acquisition. [That is the acquisition is already there, but the goral verifies to whom is what.] 

But, in the case of partners, since they made an act of joining together and a goral can not cause a acquisition, there it only verifies.

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The Litvak yeshiva. If one would want to improve the situation, I would recommend that the Litvak yeshivas should go with the Gra totally since, after all, it is that path of the Gra that endows them with the spirit of Torah in the first place.

There was I have to say, an amazing spirit of Torah in Shar Yashuv and in the Mir. But it is pretty much in almost any Litvak yeshiva I have walked into. It is almost as if there is a kind of Divine presence in a place where people learn Torah for its own sake.

[My basic story was my first year in Shar Yashuv was fraught with difficulty. But the second years I started getting more into the learning. That is pretty much when I was what you might call addicted to Torah. I had to get my "Torah high". If that sounds like a drug addict, well maybe it was. After all Aristotle said that "virtue is habit."

 That is, you have to choose as to what kind of habits you want to get yourself accustomed to. I made a choice to get into the Torah addiction instead of other kinds of things which I might have chosen.

Later on, the Mir in NY was my second destination. And then Israel. The second I got off the plane in Israel, that  "spirit Torah" came  in a more intense way.

Nowadays, I would say that the Litvak yeshivas [that go by the Gra and Rav Shach] are the citadels of Torah, though I myself am far off from them. Probably the best is Ponovitch. Also the yeshivas based on the Gra (founded by the father of Rav Eliyahu Silverman) in Jerusalem are great.

[But as I have said before, nowadays I would go with the idea of many Rishonim that learning Physics and Metaphysics ought to be supplementary to the  basic structure of learning Torah.] 

If one would want to improve the situation, I would recommend that the Litvak yeshivas should go with the Gra totally since after all, it is that path of the Gra that endows them with the spirit of Torah in the first place.

when one starts out in the service of God, it is the general rule that he is pushed away.

 I did have a lot in mind when I first went to Shar Yashuv and later to the Mir. [I had a great desire to learn Torah, and was not thinking about parnasa/making a living or getting married.] But the Mir in NY is a Musar yeshiva, and so I started getting the idea of what it is all about. That is: trust in God. So I more or less gained this mind set that all I need to do is to learn Torah and trust in God and then not worry about anything else. God will take care of things if you trust in Him.

You might see this in books of Musar like the Chovot Levavot, but I mainly got this idea from the later Musar book of Navardok.  

So you can ask what do you do when things are falling apart? Well, one can fall from trust in God or trust more in God. I elected the idea that I needed to trust more.

But I admit that is not simple to do. Still I can see in the Torah there is this idea of "tests". Abraham was tested 10 times. So you can extrapolate from this that you or me might have other kinds of tests. And what we do in time of trial makes all the the difference of how things go later after that.

[You can see this in the events surrounding the kings of Israel. The major theme is always this: When king so and so trusted in God, things went well for him. When he turned to other gods, things stopped going well for him. That in a nut shell is the entire major theme of the entire Old Testament. So you can see the importance of trusting in God alone and not in your own ideas and efforts.]

[I ought to add here that my idea of learning Torah has expanded to include Physics and Metaphysics as the Rambam says openly in the Guide and in Mishna Torah and this is hinted at in the Chovot Levavot. I might have thought in this more expanded way just from theory itself and seeing the rishonim that hold this way. But experience brought home the idea to me. That is when my world was shaken up I had to rethink my basic principles. Few people rethink things when everything is going well. And that includes me. Only when I had to, that is when I stated to rethink things.]

[I might add here the LeM of Rav Nahman vol II. # 48 where he brings this idea that  when one starts out in the service of God, it is the general rule that he is pushed away.  Heaven is making obstacles. However this does not happen unless one is really intending to serve God. So if you see that you are having enormous obstacles in trying to learn Torah and serve God sincerely, that simply shows that you are doing it for the sake of God and that is good.]

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On to list the great qualities that R. Yohanan ben Zacai possessed are: "He knew the speech of the birds,.. and even ... and the great thing and the small thing."

The Gemara brings down that Hillel had a certain number of disciples. The greatest was Yonatan ben Uziel. The least was R Yohanan ben Zazai. And it goes on to list the great qualities that  R. Yohanan ben Zacai possessed. "He knew the speech of the birds,.. and even ... and the great thing and the small thing." [דבר גדול ודבר קטן]." Then the Gemara asks what is "the great thing"? The work of the Divine Chariot and the work of Creation. What is the "small thing"? The discussion of Abyee and Rava. [And that later is a major content of the two Talmuds.]

In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides [the Rambam] explains the "Work of Creation" is what was known to the ancient  Greeks as "Physics" and the "Work of the Divine Chariot" is what was known to the ancient Greeks as "Metaphysics."

[So neither refers to any kind of mysticism.]

So, we learn that there is some aspect of these two disciplines that help to bring a person to human perfection more readily than learning Gemara. That is not however meant to diminish the importance of learning Gemara. Rather that Gemara is the first step up the ladder. [The Rambam states this clearly at the end of the first four chapters of the Mishna Torah. That is,-- even though Physics and Metaphysics are greater, still one first must learn "the forbidden and the allowed."

[The way I see this is that there is an area of value in Gemara ("numinous value"),-- but that area of value can easily be subverted. For an example the more powerful an energy source, the more careful one has to be. A mistake in handling an electric battery would not cause the same kind of damage as the mishandling of a nuclear reactor. And since Gemara  and learning Torah is in this area of numinous value, a mishandling of it, causes untold damage. We can see this clearly in the religious world. Something is clearly off there.

[Rav Nahman of Breslov says [LeM II:91] the importance of combing the wisdom of Torah with the lower wisdoms of this world and by that all the judgments are sweetened.]

Rav Nahman warns against philosophy. Most Americans are not thrilled with all the crazy ideas emerging from philosophy departments that have infected all society.

I see a little philosophy as importan.t--but not a lot. It seems important because there are legitimate question in faith. It seems to me that Dr. Kelley Ross helps to provide a decent justification for faith by the use of non intuitive knowledge. But you can ask why not just go with G.E. Moore that reason has direct awareness of universals. [To me that does not seem possible since there are enough problems in G.E. Moore  as Robert Hanna pointed out.] 

[However, rightfully Rav Nahman warns against philosophy, and it is clear that people that go into philosophy generally lose any resemblance of common sense. However, a little bit is needed in order to cancel out all the false ideas that are floating around.]

I think most Americans are not thrilled with all the crazy ideas emerging from philosophy departments that have infected all society. At some point Americans will take back their republic based on faith, not modernism. It is like when James II in England, tried to impose the Catholic religion on Protestants. That led to his fleeing England and William and Mary being crowned King and Queen. That is,-- the people will accept a certain amount of imposition. But only up to a certain point. And their patience with sour faced liberals has grown short.

 If you go by the actual molad [conjunction of Sun and Moon] the Tues night should be the start of Hanuka.

But the calendar everyone else goes by is usually different because they are basing it on the average new moon. However it seems to me that the date of should be by the actual time of the molad, and that ought to count as the first day of the month.

The basic reason I say this is because of the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 10 where the time for the new moon does not depend on the court of law establishing it, but rather on the right time. As R. Elazar puts it: "If the court sanctifies it in the right time, then fine; if not, then the higher court in heaven establishes it."

So what matters is the right time. Is that when it can be seen, or when the actual molad is in fact? That seem to be a debate between the Gemara in Sanhedrin and the Gemara in Rosh Hashana [I seem to recall that is on page 19.] 

So why choose one Gemara over the other? Well as David Bronson told me once that what makes my idea interesting is the fact that there is no court of law to in fact establish the date. And I would have to add the fact that the calendar that everyone is going by is not mentioned in the Gemara. [If Hillel II in fact established the calendar you would imagine that somewhere in the Gemara someone should have mentioned it. So we have to say it got to be the custom to use it during the time of the geonim. [There was readily available a calendar in use at the time that got the solar year and lunar year to correspond more or less that had been in use for about a thousand years from the time of Meton in Athens.]

A certain problem exists on the religious world that refers back to the verse in the Torah: "Do not add or subtract from these commandments which I command you this day."

Once my learning partner David Bronson pointed out that some people just delight in adding restriction for others. So you find in the LeM of Rav Nahman that he warns against "חומרות יתירות"  extra restrictions. Once there is a "posek" to depend on, one can depend on him. "posek" means a medieval authority in Halacah like the Rif or Rosh or other rishonim when they write about halacha.

And Rav Nahman adds to that that it is possible to serve God with everything.

I tend to depend on this. However I realize there is higher service of God which is to sit and learn Torah. However I found myself not really up to doing so. So I tend to depend on this idea of Rav Nahman that it is possible to serve God through everything. 

In the LeM vol II ch 4 there is explained  there is  higher service of straight Torah. However there is also a service of God that is the 39 types of work that bring light into the work of creation.

Another problem is idolatry, which is related to the first. I think the reason for adding restrictions is to take attention away from the real problem of idol worship.  [Not of statues. But in Torah though all worship is towards God, not people.]

 

The argument to say the South [i.e. the Southern States] was right is דין חלוקה the law of dividing.

 The argument to say the South [i.e. the Southern States] was right is דין חלוקה the law of dividing.

That is, if you have a courtyard that is owned by two people and it is big enough to divide [about 4 yards by 8 yards], then either one can say to the other, "Buy my portion, or I will buy yours".  They are not forced to stay together.

However, you can also say that a political union is not the same thing as a business arrangement.

After all, let's say one is living under a king, and he decides he no longer is subject to that king. That is treason.

 So we see that politics and business are separate subjects although related. See for example Danny Frederick's critique on Dr. Michael Huemer. [Dr. Huemer holds no government is legitimate.

Frederick shows the flaws in his arguments. There was a debate in NY with Dr Huemer and a law professor of NYU  that basically brought out these same point.

 When in Quantum Mechanics you hear about the collapse of the wave function when it is measured that can mean a physicist in a lab but it also can mean simply an interaction with a macroscopic body. It is not saying that everything depends on who is looking at it. It is not an argument for subjective morality as some people think.

 I was listening to the hearings of the State Legislature of Arizona yesterday. The part I caught was of a computer expert showing the ways the computers were rigged. So I would imagine that since the Constitution gives the right to the state legislature to appoint the electors, they ought to do that.   

[Besides being at the sea most of the day so that is why I was not blogging.]

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Torah as monotheism is opposed to idolatry and pantheism.

The issue of idolatry you can see mainly in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. There almost all commandments of the Torah are hardly mentioned. The issue is always centered on idolatry. The idea is simple. One who does idolatry will be punished. One who does not and instead directs his heart towards God alone will be rewarded. Kings and the people of Israel were constantly warned abut this one issue. It is the issue where the religious have failed because they worship people.

Also the belief system of the Torah is Monotheism, not pantheism. [Pantheism makes everything into idolatry.\] You can see this clearly in Rav Saadia Gaon and the later rishonim who clarify the subject of the faith of the Torah. 

You can also see this in the Ari'zal [start of the Eitz Chaim] and Rav Nahman [LeM vol I chapter 4 and vol II chapter 4]. 

However at this point I would like to defend the idea of Monotheism. One, not a composite and that God is an infinite Conscious Being. And completely "other". Not the same as the universe He made. 

But he is also the Absolute Reality outside of which there is nothing.

So what does consciousness mean?

 (1) Consciousness always has a content. There is always something other than the consciousness itself, which exists as the object of it. It is thinking about something. If it is not thinking about something, then it is not thinking.

(2) But consciousness  includes its thoughts  and content as something essentially its own. The content is not received by consciousness as if it were a stranger to be momentarily entertained and then lost forever: on the contrary, the content is the very life of the consciousness that possesses it. There is a unity that exists between consciousness and its content - a unity that is absolutely fundamental to the integrity of each. (3) Consciousness is never identical with, but is always something more than, its content. Notwithstanding the fact that the content is always received by consciousness as its very own, as its other self in fact, still there is a distinction between the two that never disappears; consciousness and its content never fall together in an undifferentiated identity.

The fundamental importance of these three characteristics of consciousness, as well as their vital interconnectedness, may be emphasized by a brief analysis of self-consciousness. It is evident that as a self-conscious being I am of a two-fold nature. In the first place, I am a bundle of sensations, feelings, impulses, desires, volitions, and ideas. And from this point of view I am eternally changing. At any moment of my existence I am never what I have been, or shall be, at any other moment. At one instant I am a center of impulses and passions; at another, a center of ideas and ideals. Today I am a self of pleasures; tomorrow, a self of pains.  But there is another fact about this self-consciousness that must be taken into account. It is true that I am eternally changing, that I am not what I have been heretofore, and that I shall never be again just what I am now. And yet, paradoxical as it may sound, what I have been I am, and what I am I shall be. Underlying the panorama of change, deeper than the self that is in a never-ceasing process of transformation, is another self that gives unity and coherence to the process. This is the subject-self. And this it is that makes education, spiritual development in general, possible; without it our experience would be at best but a chaos of meaningless sensations and incoherent desires. These two aspects or phases seem to be present in all self-consciousness. Take a cross-section of consciousness at any moment, and you will discover that it is of this two-fold nature. Even in our moments of most intense introspection, when we enter as intimately as possible into ourselves, we find that this duality is present; indeed, one is inclined to say, it is then that its presence is most strongly impressed upon us.

It is to be noticed, moreover, that the duality is absolutely essential to self-consciousness. Not only do we find it actually present in self-consciousness; the implication of experience is that it must exist so long as consciousness itself exists. For self-consciousness is just this duality: the subject-self and the object-self exist only as they co-exist. 

And from this follows immediately a further result. Since this duality is essential to consciousness, these two phases of subject and object cannot fall into identity with each other. Take any case of consciousness that you please, whether it be consciousness of objects in the mental or in the physical world. Do you find there a coincidence between subject and object? Certainly not. The object is never its own consciousness; there is, and can be, no identity between them. It is inconsistent with the very nature of consciousness that these two phases collapse into identity. The presupposition of consciousness is that there shall be something, an object in the physical world, an object in the mental world, something other than the consciousness itself, of which the consciousness shall  not be identical with each other. 

So concerning an Absolute Consciousness. In the first place, such a Consciousness would necessarily have a content; that is, there would have to be an Other of which the Absolute is conscious. In the second place, this Other would not be regarded by the Absolute as something foreign or external, in the sense that it lay genuinely outside of the Absolute; rather would it be possessed as an essential element within the Absolute. And, lastly, the Absolute would necessarily differentiate this Other from itself in such a way as to preserve the duality that we have found to be essential to the conscious life. And our justification for making these assertions concerning an Absolute Consciousness is simply that these characteristics which we have attributed to the Absolute are those that experience shows us to be fundamental to all consciousness as we know it; and unless we are to reduce our discussions to meaningless talk, we must test them by concrete experience. Certainly it seems that we must assume that the conditions prerequisite to finite consciousness must be fulfilled in an Absolute Consciousness.

What now must be our answer to the dilemma with which we began our discussion? In the first place, it would seem that we have found a way of escape from pantheism in our doctrine of the Absolute. For so long as we maintain the self-consciousness of the Absolute, we are forced to maintain also that the Absolute and the world are differentiated from each other. Really, pantheism is logically possible only to the metaphysician who denies the self-consciousness of the Absolute. For pantheism, if it means anything, means identity between the Absolute and the world of finite existence; whatever form the theory may take, it ultimately reduces everything in the universe to an undifferentiated unity with the all-inclusive One. But, if the Absolute be regarded as a self conscious Individual, this abstract identity becomes impossible; because, as our analysis of the category has disclosed, consciousness always demands a content from which it is differentiated. Destruction of this duality is the destruction of the possibility of consciousness. Therefore no theory that maintains that the Absolute is Self-Consciousness can legitimately be accused of pantheism so long as it is consistent. But have we escaped the other horn of our dilemma? Our own argument has forced us to admit that an Other to the Absolute is essential; indeed, it is this fact that relieves us from any fears concerning pantheism as the outcome of our doctrine. And have we not virtually limited the Absolute by positing this Other, which our analysis of consciousness has compelled us to assume is necessary? The answer to this objection is involved in what we have just been saying about the fact that the two extremes of the equation of consciousness are not foreign to each other; and it might perhaps be sufficient simply to point to this fact in meeting the objection. 

 

Bezmenov: how to subvert.

 

Some say that he disappeared on purpose. Others think the KGB got to him after he got to be too public. Sadly, I knew the agent that discovered the whereabout of Bezmenov and I must accept that led to the  demise of Bezmenov. The KGB did not like him much.

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here is a link to Kelley Ross's PhD thesis on Kant, Fries, and Leonard Nelson. To me it looks like  masterpiece.

[Dr. Ross is building his system, and does not spend much time showing the problems with other Neo Kantian schools. Nor with other problems with "Analytic philosophy". [Robert Hanna does a great job in that area.] 

But I still have trouble with the arguments on Hegel that tend to be part and parcel of the Kant-Friesian approach.

I just can not see what the problem is. Non intuitive immediate knowledge was a part of Kant's approach as Dr Ross points in Kant's CPR pg 65. ["Immediate" means not through anything. Non intuitive means not through the senses.]

And though Hegel disagrees with this, this disagreement is not a major part of his points.

The problem that people have with Hegel is that the Marxists use his ideal state as a justification for their failed socialist experiments.  Might as well attack Plato for the same reasons. Or Leonard Nelson also! [But of all people, Hegel ought not to be used for justification for socialism. He was a capitalist.]

Because I have been influenced by Plotinus [the beginning of Neo Platonism],  I tend to see all mentions of pure reason in Kant as being the Logos in the heavens. [The order is the One, who emanates Logos which brings forth Being.] And I do the same when I read Hegel. So I just do not see much conflict between Kant and Hegel. Just that they are addressing different issues.  

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בבבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א Bava Batra 63 Rav Shach on the Rambam in Laws of Selling. 23:4

In the case of selling a tree and leaving the fruit for oneself [Laws of Selling. 23:4] Rav Shach suggests that even though the Rambam leaves out the question if the children inherit that right, it seems probable that they would. But to me it seems hard to imagine that a law that the Rambam does not mention one way or the other would be so different from the Gra, the Rashbam and the Ramban. I mean after all, how much can you derive from something that the Rambam does not even mention? I have seen that plenty of times--like in laws of  "tzarat" where in the case of clothes he leaves out plenty of details that are openly important in the Gemara itself!

My point here is that in Bava Batra [63] we have the case of the Levi that sells his field on condition that he gets the first tithe every year. He does get that, but that right does not go on to his inheritors. That we know from the Gemara itself. But what about the case of selling a house and keeping the the roof and extending a walkway from the roof to the walls of the courtyard? There the Ramban says that right does go on to his children, but that is only because it is a "definite thing"-- not like fruit that has not yet come into the world. So the Ramban right here is openly making a distinction between the  extensions and the fruit of  a tree. 

[I should mention that I am not thinking of this question as being final. Rather, it is just a question that I hope eventually to find some answer for. In our case, there might be some reason and a way to answer for Rav Shach. After all, the cases of the roof extensions and the fruit seem different that the first tithe that is not exactly some thing owned by the Levi. And that seem overly obvious. So that very well might be the reason for Rav Shach. After all, even when the Levi owned his field, he did not exactly "own" the first tithe. It still had to be taken and given to some Levi -- which could be himself. So he did not "own it".

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There is an argument of one can give or gain possession of something that has not come into the world. ר' מאיר said one can. However the sages said "no", and so throughout Shas, you see it is a given that one can not. There is a certain order among the  authors of the Mishna with whom is the law. R Jose, R Yehuda, etc. according to order. ר' מאיר is near that bottom unless it is a stam mishna" [no authorship is attributed] in which case the law is like ר' מאיר. [That is how R Yehuda the Prince arranged the Mishna]. In the case of a fruit tree, if one sells it to one person and sells its fruit to another, the other has acquired nothing except fruit which is on it right now. Not anything that will grow in the future. But in a case where he sells the tree to one person and he says, "I am selling to you the tree, but keeping the fruit for me," he keeps the fruit --for it is considered as if he kept the place where the fruit is growing for himself. Same with a sell of a house where he says "I am keeping the upper porch to be able to build upper extensions into the courtyard." But in both cases, there is an argument among ראשונים if he can pass that right along to the people that inherit him. The גר''א and רשב''ם say "no." The רמב''ן says yes. The issue is that the right to build an extension is thought to be a thing that has no substance. The גמרא there in בבא בתרא ס''ג ע''א says the case of the לוי who sells his land on condition that the first tithe he מקבל. That arrangement does not continue with his יורשיו that inherit him. The idea is he keeps in theory the actual ground that the tithe grows on. From there ריש לקיש learns from there about a person that sells his house on condition he keeps the roof space. But he keeps it anyway in the ancient usage of Iraq when if one sells a house the seller keeps top of the roof unless that is specified. To the רשב''ם  saying openly "I sell you the house on condition the גג space is mine" היינו דיוטא העליונה means he added a condition that was implicit anyway. So it comes to include הזכות to extend the גג to the other side of the courtyard and to make  a walkway there. זיזין, To the  רמב''ן that is not because of the language, but part of the actual arrangement in any case. The גר''א holds like the רשב''ם that the case of a לוי and roof are similar in that the children do not inherit the right, but the case of the roof is because of owning a thing that has no substance, not because of the language used in the deal.

In the case of selling a tree and leaving the fruit for oneself Laws of Selling 23:4 רב שך suggests that even though the רמב''ם leaves out the question if the children inherit that right, it seems probable that they would. But to me it seems hard to imagine that a law that the רמב''ם does not mention one way or the other would be so different from the גר''א, the רשב''ם and the רמב''ן. 

My point here is that in בבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א we have the case of the לוי that sells his field on condition that he gets the first tithe every year. He does get that, but that right does not go on to his inheritors. That we know from the גמרא itself. But what about the case of selling a house and keeping the the roof and extending a walkway from the roof to the walls of the courtyard? There the רמב''ן says that right does go on to his children, but that is only because it is a definite thing, not like fruit that has not yet come into the world. So the רמב''ן right here is openly making a distinction between the  extensions and the fruit of  a tree.תירוץ: After all, the cases of the roof extensions and the fruit seem different that the first tithe that is not exactly some thing owned by the לוי.  So that might be the reason for רב שך. After all, even when the לוי owned his field, he did not own the first tithe. It still had to be taken and given to some לוי,  which could be himself. So he did not own it.

יש ויכוח על כך אם אפשר לתת או להשיג רכוש שלא הגיע לעולם. ר' מאיר אמר שאפשר. עם זאת, החכמים אמרו "לא", ולכן בכל הש"ס אתה רואה שזה נתון שאי אפשר לעשות זאת. יש סדר מסוים בקרב מחברי המשנה בשל מי החוק? ר' יוסי, ר' יהודה וכו' לפי הסדר. ר' מאיר נמצא קרוב לתחתית הסדר, אלא אם כן מדובר בסתם משנה "[לא מיוחסת לאיזה מחבר] ובמקרה של סתם משנה, החוק הוא כמו ר' מאיר. [כך ר 'יהודה הנסיך סידר את המשנה]. במקרה של פרי עץ, אם אחד מוכר אותו לאדם אחד ומוכר את פריו לאחר, האחר לא רכש דבר מלבד פירות שנמצאים עליו כרגע. לא שום דבר שיגדל בעתיד. אבל במקרה שהוא מוכר את העץ לאחד והוא אומר, "אני מוכר לך את העץ, אבל שומר לי את הפירות", הוא שומר את הפירות - שכן זה נחשב כאילו שמר לעצמו את המקום שבו הגידול גדל. בדין של בית בו הוא אומר "אני שומר על המרפסת העליונה כדי שאוכל לבנות הרחבות עליונות לחצר." אבל בשני המקרים, יש ויכוח בקרב ראשונים אם הוא יכול להעביר את זה לאנשים שירשו אותו. הגר"א ורשב"ם אומרים "לא." הרמב''ן אומר כן. העניין הוא שהזכות לבנות הרחבה נחשבת לדבר שבו אין חומר. הגמרא שם בבא בתרא ס''ג ע''א אומר המקרה של לוי שמוכר את אדמתו בתנאי שמעשר הראשון הוא יקבל. ההסדר הזה לא ממשיך עם יורשיו שלו שירש אותו. הרעיון הוא שהוא שומר בתיאוריה את הקרקע שעליה צומח המעשר. ריש לקיש לומד משם על אדם שמוכר את ביתו בתנאי שהוא שומר על שטח הגג. אבל הוא שומר את זה בכל מקרה בשימוש העתיק בעיראק, אם מוכרים בית, המוכר שומר על הגג אלא אם כן צוין. הרשב''ם אומר "אני מוכר לך את הבית בתנאי שמרחב הגג הוא שלי" היינו דיוטא העליונה פירושו שהוא הוסיף תנאי שהיה ממילא מרומז. אז זה מכווין לכלול הזכות להאריך את הגג לצד השני של החצר ולעשות שם שביל. זיזין, לרמב''ן זה לא בגלל השפה, אלא חלק מההסדר בפועל בכל מקרה. הגר"א גורס כמו הרשב"ם כי המקרה של לוי וגג דומים בכך שהיורשים אינם יורשים את הזכות, אך המקרה של הגג הוא בגלל בעלות על דבר שאין לו חומר, ולא בגלל השפה בה משתמשים בעסקה. 

בדין של מכירת עץ והשארת פרי עבור במוכר הלכות מכירה פרק כ’’ג הלכה ד’ רב שך מציע שלמרות שהרמב''ם משאיר את השאלה אם היורשים יורשים זכות זו, נראה סביר שהם יורשים זאת. אבל קשה לדמיין שחוק שהרמב''ם אינו מזכיר כך או אחרת יהיה שונה כל כך מהגר''א, הרשב''ם והרמב''ן. הנקודה שלי כאן היא שבבבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א יש לנו את המקרה של לוי שמוכר את השדה שלו בתנאי שהוא יקבל את המעשר הראשון בכל שנה. הוא אכן משיג זאת, אך זכות זו אינה עוברת ליורשיו. זה אנחנו יודעים מהגמרא עצמה. אך מה לגבי המקרה של מכירת בית והשארת הגג למוכר והארכת שביל מהגג לקירות החצר? שם אומר הרמב''ן שהזכות אכן עוברת ליורשיו, אבל זה רק בגלל שזה דבר מסויים, לא כמו פרי שטרם הגיע לעולם. אז הרמב''ן כאן מבחן באופן גלוי בין הרחבות הגג לפרי עץ. תירוץ: אחרי הכל, המקרים של הארכת הגג והפרי נראים שונים מהמעשר הראשון שהוא לא בדיוק איזה דבר בבעלות מהלוי. אז זו עשויה להיות הסיבה לרב שך. הרי גם כאשר לוי היה בעל השדה שלו, הוא לא היה הבעלים של המעשר הראשון. עדיין היה צריך לקחת את זה ולתת לאיזה לוי שיכול להיות הוא עצמו. אז הוא לא היה הבעלים של זה  

The reason the religious world is so messed up

 The first time in the LeM of R. Nahman of Breslov that he brings the problem with religious teachers is the the LeM volume I, chapter 8. רברבי עשיו The princes of Esau. This Rav Nahman says refers to religious leaders of the Dark Side.

The basic idea in that chapter is that the spirit of life comes from Torah. So to be attached to Torah is the source of the spirit of life. But from where do evil people get their spirit of life? From the religious leaders of the Dark Side. The princes of Esau. רב דקליפה The Rav of the Dark Side.

Pretty scary. How do you tell who is who? I say listening to the Gra is the way to go about that. That is: the Gra made clear exactly who are the religious leaders of the Dark Side,--- and the fact that he is ignored is the reason the religious world is so messed up. 

One way you can see that the Gra was right is the who are the people that are in fact attached to Torah?--the obvious answer is: the Litvak yeshivas.

Eliyahu on Mount Carmel

 Eliyahu on Mount Carmel asked the People of Israel, "How long will you jump between two extremes? If the Lord is God then serve him, but if the Baal is God then serve him."

Why did they not just answer "Both?" After all that was the ancient Canaanite religion: that the Lord [Yod he vav he] is the ruler of the heavens and the Baal was the ruler of the Earth. I think that the point of Eliyahu was that there can be only one First Cause. [There can only be one first of any series.] This is the same point that the Chovot Levavot brings in answer to this same question. [That is the first book of Musar The Obligations of the Hearts by Ibn Pakuda

I was reading that whole incident and I had  a few observations. One is the Eliyahu was eating bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat at night. That was from what the ravens were bringing to him. That seems odd in itself in terms of tractate Hulin. [The sages said the meat was coming from the table of Ahav. So the only problem was בשר הנעלם מן העין. Meat that was hidden and then found. But there is an answer to that.]

Another thing is that even after the People of Israel had repented, still the later prophecy when Eliyahu was at Mount Horev said to anoint a king on Aram, then one of Israel and then Elisha who would kill all those who had bowed before the Baal. And you see later that in fact only 7000 people were left of all Israel. That is another thing that is hard to understand.

Another point is that the way the Canaanite religion was, was that the Lord is the God of the heavens which means he has final and absolute control over the heavens. The same with the Baal on the Earth. So the point of Eliyahu was that God has the final and absolute control of both heaven and earth. But we do find in the Torah that people did ask prophets to pray for them. Like Hezekiah asking Isaiah to pray for him. So the idea that there can be an intermediary between one and God is possible. But "asking" is not the same thing as "praying." "Praying" is when one knows there one he is praying to is the final court of appeals and has absolute power over the subject one is asking about. "Asking" is not the same thing. And one does not worship the intermediary. Only askes to pray for one.  

Aliens. My dad used to work in area 51.

 I would like to mention that my dad used to work in area 51. That was when the USA government asked him to develop an extreme long distance camera to mount on the U-2 in order to see what was going on on the ground in the USSR. [There were two teams to develop a camera so in history you do not see my Dad's name (Rosenblum) since he was in charge of the second team.] And he never mentioned anything about aliens to me. OK, (you might say), it was after all Top Secret. However he never hid from my brothers and me (when we were just kids) his work on SDI - Star Wars in making Infra Red spy satellites and later laser communication between satellites;-- and even with him and his friends discussing how far advanced or behind the USSR was from us. [As far as that goes, he and his buddies at TRW explained that the USSR was actually more advanced than the USA in developing the tech and math needed for a SDI program, but then towards the end of the 1960's the USA caught up, and out stripped them. That was even before either government admitted that they had such a project.]

To be up front with you all, I think there probably are aliens, and they probably have been around here looking at earth. [But I am not afraid of them. It from the humans down here that I am afraid of.]

 However as for Area 51, I doubt if anything is going on there with that. 

 x49 AMajor 

Sorry I put this on before checking it. [I forgot to change the key back into A Major at the end. ] Now it seems to be OK. 

sexual purity

 Rav Nahman said for the sake of Tikun HaBrit/sexual purity to go a natural body of water. [That is if one has accidently spilled seed in vain  to go a dip into a natural body of water and say the ten psalms called the Tikun Klali 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.

Bit I have noticed that going into a natural body of water seems to help me get my equilibrium back. (I usually go in with my clothing on and just change into dry clothes when I return to where I am staying.) That is: whenever I am upset or taken off balance for some reason, I run to the nearest body of natural water like a sea or a river.  [If you go in a sea with clothing, then rise them when you get home because the salt eats away at the material unless thoroughly washed out.]  ]Sometimes I have been in area where there is a spring. That is when I was in Safed and also in Jerusalem by the site of Shmuel the prophet. [It can not be man made like a pool.]  This helps purify my spirit. And at the same time, I do some exercise to help me regain physical health also.

Still even though the great ideas of Rav Nahman are important, one needs to be careful that one's focus should be on God, not on the tzadik.

Eliyahu  said to Klal Israel, "How long will you skip between the two ends. If the Lord is God  then serve Him; if the Baal is god, then serve him."  This seems to be ignored by religious people who tend to take some middle agent to serve.

Rav Shach in the Rambam's Laws of Buying and selling, Chapter 23. Bava Batra 63.

There is an argument of one can give or gain possession of something that has not come into the world.

R Meir said one can. However the sages said "no", and so throughout Shas, you see it is a given that one can not.

[There is a certain order among the tenaim/ authors of the Mishna with whom is the law. R Jose, R Yehuda, etc. according to order. R. Meir is near that bottom unless it is a "stam mishna" [no authorship is attributed] in which case the law is like R. Meir. [That is how R Yehuda the Prince arranged the Mishna]

In the case of a fruit tree, if one sells it to one person and sells its fruit to another, the other has acquired nothing except fruit which is on it right now. Not anything that will grow in the future. But in a case where he sells the tree to one person and he says, "I am selling to you the tree, but keeping the fruit for me," he keeps the fruit --for it is considered as if he kept the place where the fruit is growing for himself.

Same with a sell of a house where he says I am keeping the upper porch to be able to build upper extensions into the courtyard. But in both cases, there is an argument among rishonim if he can pass that right along to the people that inherit him. The Gra and Rashbam say no. The Ramban [Nachmanides] says yes. The issue is that the right to build an extension is thought to be a thing that has no substance.

The Gemara there in Bava Batra says the case of the Levi who sells his land "on condition" that the first tithe he gets. That arrangement does not continue with his children that inherit him. The idea is he keeps in theory the actual ground that the tithe grows on.

From there Reish Lakish learns from there about a person that sells his house on condition he keeps the roof space. But he keeps it anyway in the ancient usage of Iraq when if one sells a house the seller keeps top of the roof unless that is specified. To the Rashbam  saying openly "I sell you the house on condition the rood space is mine" means he added a condition that was implicit anyway. So it comes to include teh right to extend the rood to the other side of the courtyard and to make  a walk way there.

To the Ramban [Nachmanides] that is not because of the language but part of the actual arrangement in any case

The Gra holds like the Rashbam that the case of a Levite and roof are similar in that the children do not inherit the right, but the case of the roof is because of owning a thing that has no substance, not because of the language used in the deal.

 x48 F Major

My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum]

 My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum] had a way of downplaying anything good or great that he did. When he volunteered for the USA Air Force, he could have said it was for patriotic motives. But instead he said, "Well, everyone was getting drafted."  I realized that joining the Air Force had a significant effect on his life. For he had just got his master's degree from Cal Tech. So when he got to the Air Force, they must have seen that had someone they could use. So they put him into the development of the top secret B-29.  Then he was sent to fight for the war in Europe. But after the war, he developed the first Infra Red telescope. The the army base where he made that the focus of Senator McCarthy who had noticed that there were hidden communists in the USA government [like nowadays.] So when my Dad came to work on Monday morning, the whole place was empty, except for Berny Marcus, his friend. All the others were fired. So even though it was just window dressing because all the workers were back at work in a couple of days, still my dad and Marcus had been offered to work on a new government project--the top secret U-2 airplane. So he and Berny came to California. [They were flown out every Monday morning to Area 51, and came back home on Friday. [That is how it came about that I was born in California.] Then that was finished and there was apparently some other project at Hycon Corporation. But after that was finished, my dad invented a new kind of xerox machine called the "copymate machine." But that was the first time he was working in a private capacity. That lasted for five years, and then the USA government came calling again. They wanted him to put his infra-red kind telescope onto satellites that would spy on the USSR.  So they got a constellation of satellites into space for that, and then asked my dad to work on laser communication between satellites for SDI (Star Wars).

And that is when the whole incident when the KGB started stealing the documents from  TRW corporation where my dad was working. [That was made into a movie.] But my dad quit there, and started working for himself. He sold our house, and made a tidy sum, and started investing with that. 

[I am not saying he stopped because of the KGB. Rather it seemed to me, that he was going to quit even before that was revealed. He told me that better experts were up and coming from the universities and that his areas of experience were no longer needed.] 

When my dad was making his invention, the copymate machine in Newport Beach, we went to Temple Sharon in a nearby city. Then we moved when he started work on SDI, and I started going to Temple Israel in Hollywood. Then when I graduated from high school, I decided to go to a very great Litvak yeshiva, Shar Yashuv in NY. [My motivation was mainly philosophical. I had spent a lot of time studying Plato, Dante, Spinoza, and Chinese philosophy. To go and learn Torah seemed to me to be the natural next step.] Shar Yashuv had a beginners program, but rapidly advanced to deep "Lumdus" learning. [So my first year there was sort of confusing, but the second year in when we started on Hulin and the third year was for Ketuboth. In the middle of the fourth year, I decided to go to the Mir in NY. That is where I discovered a second kind of deep learning that you see in books of Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach. It is very different from the type done in Shar Yashuv which was more analytic. [Kind of like G.E. Moore in philosophy.] The type of Rav Shach is more "global". [Sort of like Hegel.]

So my education in Physics was delayed by some years and I am finding it hard to catch up.