the Gra and Rav Shach

The importance of the Gra and Rav Shach is not to follow them in every detail. The way I see things is that there is a kind of בירור האמת [the truth coming into the clearing like a meadow you find in the middle of a forest -to borrow an analogy from Heidegger.] The point is that sometimes even a great tzadik gains only certain aspects of the truth--but not the whole thing. So I see a kind of dialectical process that happens over time.
Even if Bava Sali was a great tzadik, it does not mean he never made a mistake. We do not even say that about Moses who made at least one major mistake that is recorded in Numbers. We do not say even the greatest tzadik does not and can not make a mistake. Even a sin. But the tzadik tries to repent. And if he does not know or understand his mistake in this world, he tries to correct it in the next world.
The the issue is not to choose a particular tzadik to follow. Rather the point is balance. To find the good values that one ought to stick with and some way to determine what kinds of people or ideas come from the Dark Side [the Sitra Achra] in order to reject what is evil.


[To me it seems that the Musar path of Rav Israel Salanter was in fact very much balanced. Still the "Musar movement" became a movement instead of a path of personal improvement as implied by the words itself. But the actual "Igeret HaMusar" is about learning musar, not making any kind of movement..]

I should add that the path of the Gra certainly is that of "Iyun" deep learning, even though there is an aspect of "Bekiut" [fast learning--saying the words and going on] also. There is a kind of balnce between these two types that I saw in the Mir in NY.

The path of the Gra

The path of the Gra involves learning Torah as a prime ideal. But I want to add to that learning Physics and Math because of discovering this in the Musar of the Rishonim [first authorities, i.e the authorities of the Middle Ages] even though in the achronim [later authorities after the Beit Yoseph.] the opposite is their approach.
 [The Rishonim also add Metaphysics.]
The way to accomplish this I believe is by the  Derech HaLimud [method of learning] of Rav Nahman of saying the words and going on.
(Sicha 76 in Sichot HaRan).
That would mean going through the Gemara with Tosphot and Maharsha. [That is the Oral Law]. In understanding the profound aspect of the Gemara I also think one must add the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. In terms of the Math and Physics, I think one should have a session in getting through Algebraic Topology and Quantum Field Theory and String Theory. [But I have no specific texts in mind.] [As for Metaphysics, clearly the Rishonim were referring to the Metaphysics of Aristotle. But I would add Kant, Leonard Nelson, and Hegel. (I do not have much of an idea how to resolve the difference between Hegel and Nelson.]


[I hope this is clear, But just in case let me add that the idea is to have a session in Gemara Tosphot and Maharsha every day. That is to do a few pages just straight. Then put in a place marker. Then pick up an Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and also go through a few pages. Put in a place marker. Then Physics. Same as above. Then a few sessions in Mathematics.]

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Steven Dutch said : I can think of any system that can not be misused."

The issue of Torah scholars that are demons Rav Nahman brings in the very last Torah lesson of his life. So in the thought of Rav Nahman this issue is of great importance. היינו תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים.  In the thought process of Rav Nahman the point is that he is actually thinking of real "shadim" or what might be called minor deities with real powers--even miraculous powers.
Though it is clear anyway that that is exactly what the gemara itself holds. As the issue applies to Torah scholars what seems that Rav Nahman is getting at is that the very inner essence of these people has been changed from a human essence to an essence of a demon. Kind of a frightening thought I must add.

Though I have mentioned that this is actually brought in the Gemara itself and even the Mishna yet seems to be an unpopular subject. You don't usually hear about it much--unless you happen to read Rav Nahman's books. Because in the Gemara itself it is mentioned I think just once.

The main thing here is not that this is a reflection on Torah itself. Rather like the Roman saying: "Abuse does not cancel use." Or as Steven Dutch said : I can not think of any system that can not be misused."

The way to understand this is that of בירוד. You have to separate the wheat from the chaff. The way to go about this is a kind of process desired by Hegel. That is in every concept is contained aspects of its opposite until you get to the ultimate Truth. So you need some kind of sublimation to get to the truth. That is in short you find what is right in both and then you can make a synthesis.
[I know this is hard to see in Hegel. I understood this only after learning McTaggart's commentary of Hegel's Logic

Sometimes you have one person who embodies a certain value -like the Gra would embody the value of learning Torah.

With Hegel it is important to see that the process of the dialectic is  a process which leads to the truth. [John Mctaggart [philosophy] makes this clear.] Sometimes you have one person who embodies a certain value -like the Gra would embody the value of learning Torah. Or Rav Israel Salanter the value of Musar. The question is how to combine these different values in a practical way for oneself. 

to critique the claim that a communist society would come up with all the good stuff of capitalism and more

I mean to to critique the claim that a communist society would come up with all the good stuff of capitalism and more. But no significant invention shows that claim to be not true.

Not one invention the whole 70  years of the USSR. The spies used to call Silicon Valley "the laboratories of the KGB" because that is where all the tech of the USSR came from. From spies stealing American inventions. [I know because one of my friends was a KGB agent, and I knew him well, and his family. I even taught how to play violin to his daughter.]
In fact, the very corporation my Dad was an inventor in was penetrated by the KGB. [The film, the Falcon and the Snowman was based on this.] [The incident happened after my Dad left the company. He at first had made the infrared detection part of the USA spy satellites. After that my dad continued working for that company --- on laser satellites. But after a few years of that he left.] 

the problem of people that are not physicists commenting on physics.

I also noticed the problem of people that are not physicists commenting on physics. However I also noticed the problem with physicists commenting on physics. That is to say sometimes it is hard to decided who really is the top and who just seems like they know.

Take for example Husserl who knew Physics of his time well. But that did not put him into the same league as an Einstein or Heisenberg. So when t comes to commenting and understanding Physics from a larger picture it turns out that Leonard Nelson was probably a lot better than Husserl. Even though Nelson was not in fact trained as a physicist.
But that does not mean that Husserl was a crackpot. Rather it simply means one has to recognize his own level of experience. Not assume one knows more than he does. Too many smart people over estimate their own abilities. 

Whether in terms of learning Gemara Tosphot and Maharsha or whether in terms of Physics, I think that there is no question that both "Bekius" (fast learning) and "Iyun"(in depth) are needed.

Clearly Rav Nahman was on the side of going fast. Saying the words just once and in order and going on as fast as possible.  And clearly at Shar Yashuv [Rav Freifeld's in NY] and in all places founded on the Gra, the emphasis is on the in depth approach.

But to me it seems clear that the Mir in NY settled on the path of balance. The morning was devoted to "iyun". There that meant preparing for the class of the four roshei yeshiva. And their classes were in fact amazingly deep. The classes were much more than going over Rav Haim of Brisk or R. Akiva Eigger. For some reason the roshie yeshiva had a new idea to add every day. [It was akin to taking classes in Physics from Richard Feynmann or Einstein.] I assume that this was because they had spent all their lives up until about the age of 50 simply preparing. So by the time they became teachers they had plenty of new idea every single day to go into the depths of Rav Haim Soloveitchik. 

The afternoons and evenings were for fast learning.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

Rav Avraham Abulafia for some reason is not as well known as one would expect. On one hand his books were never published until a few years ago. But he was thought to be one of the greatest mystics of the Middle Ages and is quoted at length by the Remak and Rav Haim Vital.

[The fourth section of Shaarai HaKedusha of Rav Haim Vital itself was never published until recently but that is the section of his only Musar book that explains how to come to "Ruach HaKodesh" [the Divine Spirit] and it is based totally on Rav Avraham Abulafia.

אמונת חכמים ["faith in the wise"] is in fact an important principle for me, so I take it as an axiom to believe the wise. The only question is how to decide who comes under that category. [This great importance of faith in the wise comes from Pirkei Avot but is emphasized by Rav Nahman of Breslov.


[The basic story with Rav Abulafia is the well known event that he went to debate with the pope. The pope left orders that when Rav Abulafia would reach the gates of Rome that he would be arrested. But for some reason people that tried to arrest him died suddenly.]

So Torah is not meant to be a profession.

There is an important commandment to learn Torah. The basic idea is that when there there is another commandment to do that no one else can do, then one is able  to stop learning and then to do the other commandment, and then get back to learning Torah. ["Able" but not obligated according to the Gra]] Otherwise anything one does besides learning Torah come under the category of "Bitul Torah".[Not learning Torah when one is able comes under the category of כי דבר השם בזה הכרת תכרת הנפש ההיא הכרת בעולם הזה תכרת בעולם הבא עיין בנפש החיים ]

[However there is a large array of commandments that are in fact impossible to do by others. For example ונשמרתם מאד לנפשותיכם. פרו ורבו ויותר [watching your health. Having children, etc.]
There is however an important caveat [condition]--not to be making money by means of Torah. Using Torah for money does seem to detract from the value of the commandment. How much so is unclear to me. But in any case, it certainly is undesirable.

So Torah is not meant to be a profession. [See the commentary of Maimonides [Rav Moshe ben Maimon on Pirkei Avot chapter 4. לא קרדום לחפור בהם ... ואשתמש בתגא חלף.] [That statement of Hillel comes up in the first chapter of Pirkei Avot also but that is not where the Rambam put his long comment on it but rather in chapter 4.]

 So where  does Math and Physics fit in with this? I would have to say that they are in the category of learning Torah and are not just for Parnasa [making a living]. This I saw hints of in Rishonim like the Musar book Obligations of the Heart. But quite openly in the Rambam in Yad HaChazaka and the Guide.

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Torah scholars that are demons

The only person that I know about who noticed the problems with Torah scholars that are demons is Rav Nahman of Breslov. You would think that this ought to be well known. And also a well developed subject. But for some reason the whole idea seems to be ignored.

[Though you certainly find this in the Mishna and Gemara, still the subject seems to be unpopular].

In Rav Nahman the subject is brought up (LeM I:12 I:28 I:60 II:8 and lots of other places I forget off hand.] but without going into the subject in such a way that can give a person tools to discern.]

In tractate Shabat the sages said "If you see a generation in which troubles are coming upon then check the judges of Israel;-- for all troubles that come into the world only come because of the judges of Israel." [I forget the exact page number but it is towards the end.] The Mishna in Avoda Zara says that "The Prushim are the destroyers of the world". [ פרושים הם מכלה עולם].

Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. One section per day.

Even though there is an aspect of keeping Torah which is important, the problem is how to go about this is hard to figure out.
The approach which makes sense to me is to have a few sessions of learning per day.
That is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. One section per day. But go over that section every day for a few days in a row.
Also a session in Physics and a session in Mathematics. [Besides that secular subjects seem like "bitul Torah" to me.]

To me it does seem to make any difference if one has finished Shas before learning the Avi Ezri or the Hidushei HaRambam of Rav Haim of Brisk. It was the path in Shar Yashuv to dig into the depths Gemara right away without any waiting. However I do recall the the first year in Shar Yashuv was spent on catching up. Maybe some part of the second year also. But pretty much the idea was that if one does not learn right away "how to learn" [how to understand the Gemara in a rigorous and exact way]then one never gets it. 

Howard Bloom [The Lucifer Principle]

The idea of Howard Bloom [The Lucifer Principle] in the "meme" the unit of social information that a collective is founded on does not capture fully the idea that a nation is founded on a legend. Like the Plymouth Colony in the the founded on the USA.
And the founding legend is determining a lot of how things develop after that.
The way this is refereed to nowadays is "The Narrative". If you can control how people perceive the past then you control the present and the future.

So in the USA what happens is people try to control the Narrative. They put the Plymouth Colony and anything after that reflects well on the Founding Fathers of the USA or the settling of the West in a negative light. That way they control the future to turn the USA into a totalitarian socialistic state by denying its founding legend and principles.

right kind balance

My point in bringing up my parents is to show it is possible to live a wholesome life of being a mensch and living Torah values while also working for a living and not using Torah for money. Somehow my parents got the right kind balance that is hard to put into words. 

the basic story of my Mom and Dad and their values.

I thought to write in short the basic story of my Mom and Dad and their values. The basic story starts in Poland.That is where my grandparents on both sides decided to go to the USA. So some missed World War I in that way. On the other hand  the parents of my Dad however did not go until after WWI. The basic education that both my parents received was American.  My Dad went to Cal Tech for his education. And then went to fight in WWII  in the USAF. He was a captain.
Their basic values were self sufficiency, be a mensch [good character] and marry a nice Jewish girl. These were values that were stated openly. As for the encouragement of Math and Physics--that is a aspect of my parents that they encouraged, but did not state openly . It was simply understood that when they saw my interest they approved.

The Jewish aspect was mainly in going to Temple Israel in Hollywood. But they were not going with the Reform approach exactly. Reform tends to emphasize what is called "Social Justice", which is a weasel word pseudonym for "Socialism."
In any case, regular American values was definitely their thing. Self reliance, straight talk. Truth Justice and Common Sense. However, I had a philosophical bent which led me to two great Litvak Yeshivas, Shar Yashuv and the Mir. [That was the result of my search for "the Truth".] [Shar Yashuv is where I learned from Naphtali Yeager who had a sort of approach to learning like zooming an electron microscop on Tosphot. Later at the Mir the approach was like an eagle--that is global. That you see in books like Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.]

So the path which I think is the best is a kind of synthesis between different areas of value. That is in a sense that would be like Hegel. That is there is an array of positive values and one ought to walk on a path that finds a proper balance. That is Self Sufficiency [or Self Reliance]--but with trust in God, learning Torah, learning Math and Physics.     

So you have an array of values like you see in Kelley Ross [based on Kant and Leonard Nelson.] But then with Dr Ross there is no combining of disparate areas of value. For that you need Hegel. So in short I see the need for both Leonard Nelson and Hegel. Why there has to be conflict does not seem very good to me since they both seem necessary.

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Popper showed psychology is pseudo science

The story he tells about how the idea of being able to falsify a theory is quite amazing. The story was he asked a psychoanalyst what is the proof of his theory?
The answer given was, "I have a thousand case files showing this."
Popper answered him, "And if you will have another one, it will just show what you already think." Right then it occurred to him the crux of the issue is not how much proof you have; but whether there is something that can show it is false. So he showed that psychology is pseudo science because no matter what theory anyone has, they never give any kind of case that could show they are wrong.
 And Dr. Kelley Ross noted that there is a point of starting reason that is not reasoned. It is not so different from Michael Huemer's starting point of prima facie evidence. The way things seem. But that starting point can be falsified by stronger evidence from a different direction.

[And his The Open Society And Its Enemies is quite an amazing book. The title says already quite a lot.] [Still I am not so happy with the chapter on Hegel which seems a bit overdone. But in any case I think there is a point that politics was not exactly Hegel's forte. For that I would rather read the Federalist papers of the founding fathers of the USA and John Locke which seem thought out better.]

to do every chapter [perek]] ten times

I ought to let people know how I learn Torah because it is good useful when you do not have a learning partner with a 150 or more IQ like I had with David Bronson. Or my teachers in Mir or Rav Naphtali Yeger of Shar Yashuv. [Though I am sure that David has at least 160 IQ. I am just saying that without a learning partner like that this method is what I recommend for me and others.]
So without further ado let me just say in short: I find the Maharsha on the page.  I then go over the paragraphs with the Tosphot and Mahaharsha, and do that a few times.
And if you are like me that spending a month or two on one page seems a bit too much, this is the way that I do myself when I get a chance to learn, and also I recommend this to others. That is the Gemara, Tosphot and Maharsha. A few times and then go on.

[Actually this was more or less how I learned in the Mir in spite of everyone else being involved in depth "Iyun" [in depth study] with the deep approaches of the Roshei Yeshiva at the time: Rav Shmuel Brudni, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum, Rav Sharaga Moshe, and the Sukat David.]  

[I should add here an idea that Rav Freifeld used to emphasize--to do every chapter [perek]] ten times. At that time I found that impractical, but since then I have seen the wisdom of this idea.]

In Hegel you have the idea of synthesis of different areas of value to get to the truth. This is not the same thing as "Birur" [choosing the good from what is to be rejected.]

So when you have an array of positive value, you do the "Birur" choosing and then you combine the different areas to get to "The Truth".

So let's say you have an array of different values [as brought in Kelley Ross's approach based on Kant and Leonard Nelson]. That is you start with all form and no content as in logic where each term of a formula like If A then B. And if B then C. Therefore if A then C is true. Each term is empty of content in that it can be filled with anything. But the formal logic of all classical logic still are applicable. But then you work up towards something that has more content and less form. That is straight Mathematics. It can not be reduced to formal logic. In that sense it has more content but is less formal. Then you work still towards more content as in Music and  Justice. Each has more numinous content but is not empty of logical form either. Then you get up towards all content and no form. God.
 So you have this array of values. Each one can not be reduced to formal logic or to any other area of value. You see a proto type of this in Maimonides where one's portion in the next world depends on deeds and wisdom. Two separate areas of value.

But then you have a process like that of finding what is valid in each area and rejecting what is not and then you combine them. This idea of Hegel of the Dialectic in which you find what is valid in each concept, and see that instead of leading to a contradiction it has to lead to a synthesis. [See McTaggart on Hegel's Logic.]

[What Hegel is doing is to take the approach of Socrates in questioning the slave boy and showing him that there are truths he knows but did not know that he knows. So there is a kind of Dialectical process in which truth becomes revealed. Hegel applied this on a vaster scale in a way that leads to the "Absolute Truth". In any case, it is better to see McTaggart to get a more clear picture of this.]

The Gra himself was the path of straight Torah.

Rav Shach a representative of the path of the Gra, but not the essence of the path itself. The Gra himself was the path of straight Torah.
There is a difference between a representation of something and the thing itself.

The Musar Movement (Musar itself means works of Ethics)

The Musar Movement has an advantage that by means of going through the basic texts of classical Musar, one comes to an understanding of the world view of Torah. The disadvantage is that even with this one can go off on a tangent.

Musar itself in fact became incorporated into the parallel Litvak Yeshiva idea which had been started by Rav Haim of Voloshin the disciple of the Gra. I imagine that the reason was this exact reason. So the idea of sitting and learning Musar hours and hours every day seems to no longer exist anywhere. But the fact is that without the basic texts of the Rishonim [mediaeval Musar], it seems impossible to come to any kind of world view that in fact is close to the Torah world view.


[Quick note of introduction. Musar itself means works of ethics of the Middle Ages. If one learns the Torah itself and also the Gemara it is hard to come to a rigorous cohesive world view of Torah. It was the forte of the sages of Middle Ages to get to a logical cohesive picture of what Torah is about that is understandable.]  

The difficulty in learning Torah is often the religious themselves.

The difficulty in learning Torah is often the religious themselves. In particular I noticed that people that make money off of Torah are are a problem.
Rav Nahman of Breslov brings up this problem in a few places in his LeM. But one place in particular that I recall says that when one wants to come into the gates of holiness, from heaven there is placed someone that seems like one who fears God to stop him.`
At any rate, this problem is wide spread and pervasive./It is almost a guarantee that anyone who makes their living by using Torah (to make their money) is from the realm of Evil.

I am, however, not saying that this is any kind of reason not to learn Torah. Rather my point is that one ought to learn Torah the right way,-- or not do it at all. Either (1) for its own sake, and not use it for making money as is done in kollel; (2) or not to do it at all. It is like any task. Do it right, or do not do it at all. But what ever you do, do not do it wrong.

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Being against Jesus is considered the main prime directive in the Jewish world. This does not seem to me to be the proper position to take regarding this issue.
I mean to say that if your commitment is towards objective truth then being against Jesus is wrong.
The reason for me to come to this conclusion was that originally my commitment was to get to objective truth. Not to go along with the crowd. Also I should add that I was born and raised in a time that going along with what others think was already thought to be a strike against one. [That is thinking like others was thought to be a highly negative trait.]

The main reason I came to a positive approach towards Jesus was mainly from the books of an ancient mystic Rav Avraham Abulafia who held Jesus if from the root of Joseph HaTzadik. He uses the term "the seal of the sixth day".
But for some reason when I have brought up Avraham Abulafia, that never seems to most people to be an convincing argument.

So I add the Ari Rav Isaac Luria in the few books of commentary on Joseph in the very last verse of Genesis. That might to others seem more convincing, but to me to see this in the words of Rav Abulafia was the one thing that convinced me.

It is not that everything is right. You need the Law and there is a kind of balance between these two areas of value--Law and Grace.

It is possible that what is going on nowadays is a kind of process of "birur" בורר that is taking the good and right and rejecting what is not. This would be like Hegel held that coming to the Truth is a process that happens over time. 

note about colleges nowadays

comment
I have two USMC sons, and one Army. One of the Marines started college, found he didn't like it (neither the students nor the profs). He dropped out after 3 semesters and joined the Corps. There he learned electronics and worked on Harriers and copters. First job when he got out: engineer at SpaceX, making 30% more than I make with a PhD and 35 years in the classroom. I am proud of the fact that I have steered all of my 9 children away from academia, and I do my best to steer my students away from it also.

Michael Huemer has already mentioned some problems with universities. My feeling about this is that certain ones in STEM are very good like CalTech and MIT and Stanford. But outside of STEM it is all just a waste.

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What would be the response of Aristotle to Thomas Reid. [that knowledge that a flame is hot is not similar in any way to the hotness of the flame.] And does Aquinas hold by the approach of Aristotle in this regard?
Rishonim were going with the basic world view of Plotinus as you can see in Ibn Gavirol and Saadia Gaon. It was the Rambam that made the turn towards Aristotle. That had already been the world view of the Muslims. The Christians were the last to go with Aristotle starting from Aquinas. before that they had been totally Neo Platonic.
So the question is with all. Do they have any answer about the questions of Thomas Reid.

My opinion is that they do not. That is to say that it is unavoidable to get to the synthesis of either Hegel of Kant or some synthesis of Kant like in Leonard Nelson.

To trust in God was a major element of the Musar yeshivas of Navardok. But it is implicit in almost all Litvak yeshivas. Where I went was the Mir in NY and before that was Shar Yashuv. But in both places there was a basic idea that all you need to do is to learn Torah and God will take care of the rest.

And trust in God had other benefits. It is brought in the Sefer HaMidot of Rav Nahman that by trust in God good thoughts are drawn to you. That is it is a shield against evil thoughts and evil world views.

In spite of this, in some places Torah is used to make money. But that is not the idea behind a Litvak yeshiva in its original sense.

But the point is that to learn to trust in God depends a lot I think on being in a Litvak yeshiva where that is the prevailing world view --that trust in God is the main thing in life. By being with like minded people one can gain that kind of world view himself.

In Israel I have very little familiarity with the situation, but the best and are Ponovitch and Brisk.

In terms of the issue whether all one is supposed to do is to learn Gemara I have found it helpful to depend on the opinions of Ibn Pakuda and other Rishonim that include Physics and Metaphysics in the category of learning Torah.

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trust in God

The idea of trust in God that is Torah based is trust without effort. You see this in the Levels of Man
Madragat HaAdam of Navardok. And he brings the idea from the Gra.
But in a practical vein what does it mean? My impression is that when there is something immediate that one needs to do, then he does it. But in terms of planning for the future that is where trust in God comes to play its role.

  That is the way trust in God was understood in the Mir in NY. That is to say you sit and learn Torah and do not worry about money.

  [And now that at least for myself I expand the definition of learning Torah to include Physics (as brought in the Guide of Maimonides), I would have to go with the same idea. To do the Physics for its own sake. ]
In any case the idea is that you do what you should be doing to serve God and do not worry about money. That seems to be the basic idea.
In fact I do not have much trust and realize that that is an area I need to work on. So how does one go about working on trust in God. One idea I thought makes sense is to say over that very part of the Madragat HaAdam itself every morning right when you get up--before saying or doing anything..\
Another idea is to encourage others to trust in God and to learn Musar. That is an idea I got from reading a disciple of Rav Israel Salanter.


[I have not made a major issue for the last few years since I have been afraid of self deception. I can imagine I am trusting in God and then when things do not go my way I am afraid I can deny the very validity of trust in the first place. The fault would be clearly my own self deception. So I have not emphasized this for myself. But recently it is looking like an issue that ought not to be ignored.

My impression of the best places to go to learn Torah --at least in terms of what I am familiar with is for beginners Shar Yashuv in NY, and for advanced levels the Mir [ of NY]. I am really not very much familiar with yeshivas in Israel. If, of course, Ponovitch [in Bnei Brak] is still represented by anyone like Rav Shach, well that stands to reason that that is the top. He was the Mount Everest of the Torah world.

The things that were amazing to me about Litvak yeshivas in New York was their depth.
Israel is great in many ways, but too many people come because they imagine they will get some level like what you have in Litvak yeshivas in NY. That is usually not actually what happens.

The idea of Rav Nahman of Breslov to do "hitbodadut" [talk with God] the whole day seems to me to be  a good idea. You see this idea in the very end of his book the LeM where he says the main thing is to do hitbodadut the whole day, but for people that are weak the minimum is for them to do an hour a day.

There seems to many great results of this. But one is that to choose between good and evil requires a  kind of common sense that is anything except common. It needs a special kind of help from above.

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"It is possible to serve God with everything."

Grace and Law. The thing is you need a balance between these. You see a kind of balance between these two areas of value in Rav Nahman. In fact in two lessons in his LeM he brings the ideas "Not to be strict" and  "It is possible to serve God with everything." [ LeM II 44.]

The idea is that God's light fills the world. So the idea is not that everything is good. Rather that it is possible to find the Good.

The thing about two different areas of value is you need each area to get to its perfection before it can be integrated successfully with the other. An example would be Newton's Gravity with Maxwell. Each needed to get to the peck until Einstein could see the way to combine, or better said to modify Newton. Same with Einstein and Heisenberg until you got Feynman and Schwinger with QFT. Same with String Theory. So it is with other areas of value.
The way you can see this is with spectral lines. Each one is sharp and defined for every element and molecule. But each has its own signature. so the same element will have very specific lines and nothing in between. No penumbra.

The problem is implanted knowledge. There is no reason to think it is true.

Dr Michael Huemer has a kind of point that he answered to me long ago about a kind of problem in the Kant Friesian approach of immediate non-intuitive knowledge [i.e. faith.] [note 1] The problem is implanted knowledge. There is no reason to think it is true. So what can you do with that. In my own mind I have thought to answer this by the idea of Hegel of the dialectic. That getting to truth is this process between empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge.

[I mean to say that as Dr Huemer has argued that even the most straight forward empirical knowledge has hidden a priori assumptions. I would say faith has also this aspect. That is the old mediaeval approach of balance faith with reason.]


[In case it is not clear what I am saying it is that moral principles are objective universals. And that Reason's "thing" is to recognize universals. But as Huemer mentions that sometimes even for pure reason to get the concept in the first place requires an empirical element.]

[I am really not able to take any sides here. It seems to me that Hegel, Kelley Ross, and Huemer all have good points. I imagine the Kelley Ross answer to Huemer would be that your prima facie assumption would have have to have a starting point before reason can even start, plus that it can be checked empirically. thus even flat space time which for kant was the start of reason without which reason could not even start, had to be sacrificed to general relativity. this in fact caused the major crisis of the friesian school. but as kelley ross pointed out, it did not have to be so. and here the insights of michael huemer are helpful for if you see your starting principles cause problems, you might as well find other tarting principles--just as Einstein did.   [he assumed Maxwell's equations were  more fundamental than newton's, so with Einstein the starting principle had to be that the speed of light is constant in all non accelerating frames of reference --as is the case with maxwell ] 


[note 1] "Non intuitive" is not sensed by any of the five senses. "Immediate" means not through anything. I.e. no mediate step. That means not derived by some logical deduction. So "immediate non-intuitive" means knowledge that you know not through the sense and not by some logical derivation. 

w24 music file

w24 G Major

THE LEFT: "The U.S. is always wrong, therefore the Gulf War was wrong."

Abelard Rules for thinking straight

The basic problem is this. The left takes the view that whatever the USA does is wrong. That includes any and all white, males. Especially if they are Protestant.

The question is not weapon quality Uranium being shipped to Iraq.[See the whole history of the Iraq acquiring.] Or N. Vietnam massacres of civilians in S. Vietnam after they took over. The issues are all easy to decide. As long as it is on the side of the USA and/or  democracy,- then it is wrong. The left just needs to think how to argue the point. But the beginning assumption is always the same. White, Protestant, American is always wrong. That is three strikes and you are out. If only one or two of these three evil categories, then one is only part evil. But put all three together, and you get the whole.

It gets tiring to argue when you know the conclusion anyway.

The truth be told, it is hard to get something like justice. But my feeling about it is more or less like Allan Bloom [Closing of the American Mind] said in so many words. The political question is settled. The Constitution of the USA is the best you can get. That does not mean it can not be perverted. But it is the best anyone can get.And countries that follow that basic English British model have done extremely well.  Just take a look at all former colonies of the British. The amount of success and respect for human rights is astonishing.--as compared with any other system that has ever existed in human history.

The issue with the USSR was that sometimes there is such a thing as exploitation. That does not make it right to steal someone else's money. Stealing is still stealing. To exploit was more or less the basic reason that the revolution happened in Russia. But that was not a good reason to go in the opposite direction. You need a kind of balance between private property and government protection of workers. 

Villagers in New Guinea. Should you full their request to send "a satellite phone, a flashlight, and the equivalent of about $20,000 in cash."

Villagers in New Guinea. Should you full their request to send  "a satellite phone, a flashlight, and the equivalent of about $20,000 in cash."

A comment by Dr Kelley Ross on

A Death in the Rainforest, by Don Kulick

A fascinating update to the story of the Cargo Cult, and its reception by a Western liberal, is A Death in the Rainforest, How a Language and a Way of Life Came to an End in Papua New Guinea by Don Kulick [Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 2019]. Kulick is a scholar in linguistics and anthropology.
Kulick is apparoached by a villager, and is asked him to send various goods, like a satellite phone, a flashlight, and the equivalent of about $20,000 in cash. Oh, and don't forget to let him know his mobile phone number. Kulick can only tell him that "I'll do my best".
This occasions painful reflections on the part of Kulick for the tragedy of life in the village of Gapun:

"I read Luke's letter as an entreaty to white-skinned people everywhere. I see it as an appeal. I think it is a guileless call to acknowledge the privilege that white skin has acquired, and a gentle request that white people recognize that vast inequalities that we have begotten around the world. Most of all, it seems to me that Luke's letter is a heartfelt plea to begin to redress those inequalities by giving something back. "[p.238]

From this, we might wonder what Kulick expects "white" outsiders to do -- forgetting that globalization and development in the Third World now often involve the Chinese, if not the Japanese, Koreans, Indians, and other people arguably not "white." And we get the cliché about "giving something back," which ought to raise the question exactly what has been "taken" from Gapun. No one has come in to loot their limited possessions, certainly not white people. Arguably, they have been "robbed" of their traditional culture; but then their way of life, daily farming, hunting, and eating, actually have not been changed that much (contrary to the "a Way of Life Came to an End" in the book subtitle). What has changed are their expectations. They know that a better life exists, and they would like to be part of it. But giving them these ideas is part and parcel of "robbing" them of their traditional culture. Does Kulick think that they should have been kept in ignorance of the outer world? Does he believe, as the saying goes, that "the Wogs should stay Wogs"? But this is otherwise regarded as one of the worst, most condescending, colonialist attitudes.

Thus, the "rainforest" is a wonderful place, the "lungs of the planet," with marvelous diversity of life, etc. Nature at her best. On the other hand, a "jungle" is a threatening, dangerous place, probably populated with head hunters. Obviously this is the result of some kind of racist smear. However, Kulick points out, the environment of Gapun is much more like the dangerous "jungle" than like the romanticized "rainforest." The people of Gapun suffer from endemic malaria and rarely live to old age. Their environment is on land that is largely mud, frequently flooded, with leeches, snakes ("Death Adders"), and crocodiles all over the place. And the villagers used to be actually be head hunters, in a culture of constant warfare with neighboring villages. The villagers know that there is a better life elsewhere, but their isolation, many hours up small rivers and through swamps, prevents their full participation in the modern world. Nevertheless, they benefit from artifacts like cooking pots, steel knives, mosquito nets, and even flashlights -- but replacing batteries can be a problem.

Western Civilization as opposed to religious fanaticism

The issue of religious fanaticism is best addressed by Kelley Ross. [That is the Kant-Fries school of thought based on Leonard Nelson]. That is simply this: you have an array of positive values from one end of the half circle of no value but all form [logic] going through various middle stages of partly adding value but lessening form until you get to the peak of all infinite value and zero form [God].


But so you have to have a hand in all the areas of positive value. But you just as much and even more so need to avoid every equal and opposite area of negative value.

Certain people were able to hold onto one particular area well and open up a path through that area into ultimate holiness.
Those are individual great people that hand a hand in perfecting some area of value.And there are people that Allan Bloom calls "civilization founding people" that go beyond one or two specific areas but are able to hold the entire superstructure in the first place like the basic foundations stones of Western Civilization.

Hegel also has the same kind of array of value, [http://autio.github.io/projects/scienceoflogic/] but connects them through a process of dialectic. Hegel is quite interested in fact in doing the same kind of defense of Christianity that Aquinas was doing, but somehow or other his ideas got to be used in the exact opposite ways he was intending them to be used. [Incidentally the opinion of Rav Avraham Abulafia, a mediaeval mystic was also very positive towards Jesus himself but not toward the actual functioning Catholic Church. In that way he was very similar to Hegel.]] But if in fact he is all that different than Leonard Nelson, I am not so sure of. [McTaggart answers a lot of the question son Hegel. Some he admits openly are a problem. Some he adjusts Hegel. Some he shows the questions are based on misunderstandings.] 

religious fanaticism.

My parents were very much against any kind of path that reeked of religious fanaticism. While having great respect for Torah. but anything that would take a person out of a path of balance and sanity was totally off the radar for them.
So with due respect for the Gra and Rav Shach, and Rav Nahman,-- they would not have agreed with elements of fanaticism that one might find in their writings. And the result of this kind of thinking would mean [at least in our present day and age] to stay away from the religious world as far as possible.

Their path was to send their children to public school, and emphasize getting a good education. Going for weekend excursions to the ocean etc. I.e., a normal, wholesome American home (in those days when there was such a thing). I am not so sure any such thing exists anymore. But it once did.

[Nowadays the secular world seems to be a kind of secular fanaticism. I am sure  my parents would never send me to public school today. They would find some private school. In fact, I almost went to a private school. My parents were willing to send me there. But in the end I backed out and continued in my regular high school which in those days was also excellent.]

 My basic orientation is not to follow any religion as a belief system, but rather to follow Reason. Sometimes Reason points out that some points are valid. Sometimes there are in other questions not. So the standard ought to be the question what does reason require? Not what does any particular religion require. There are no package deals. 

 However reason is a hard. But that only means that to reason well is hard. It does not mean that there is any better standard.

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w23 Allegro and Rondo F Major for Orchestra   w23 in midi  w23 nwc

to get to authentic Torah in any sense whatsoever the only way is through the path of the Gra.

The importance of the signature of the Gra on the famous letter of excommunication is that often one without knowledge or experience can not tell what is authentic Torah or not. It is the same reason a mother warns her children not to put their hands on a hot stove.

It is somewhat of a shock that though "faith in the wise" is one of the most important principles of how Torah is acquired, still the Gra who was on the top of the list of the top ten, still is ignored.

I only saw one place alone that goes by the Gra with no compromise the yeshiva of Rav Silverman in the Old City of Jerusalem. [pronounced "Zilverman"]

I can only recommend such a kind of yeshiva. To me it seems of ultimate importance this one basic fact about the Gra. To me it seem clear that to get to authentic Torah in any sense whatsoever the only way is through the path of the Gra.

[So even if I do not have the merit to stick with the path of the Gra in ever detail, at least I can try to stick with it in areas that are within my control.]

F Major Winds and Violin w22

The greatness of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri

The greatness of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is that it combines an aspect of simplicity along with the basic meaning of what it means to "be able to learn". Even though I have not been able to finish it myself, still I want to recommend a way of finishing it. That is to read each chapter a few times until it is fairly clear, and then move on. So you do not have to get every single detail, but you also do not move on until you have gotten some basic idea. This is in fact how I used to learn Gemara.
 [This did not seem to work when it came to Physics in which it seemed better just to do straight "Girsa" (saying the words and going on with no review at all) a few times through the whole book from cover to cover until I could get the basic idea, and even be up to any level in which review would be helpful.]



Even though I am not much of a Litvak, I still want to leave the name of this blog as it is since I wish I would have the merit of learning Torah and walking in the path of Musar.
 Even if I can not be as good as I ought to be, at least I can want to help and encourage my friend to be as good as he can be.(This idea is from Rav Nahman.)


As for myself, I have to admit I did not appreciate the straight Litvak approach of the Gra and Rav Shach as much as I should have. But today I have begun to see what is special and important about the straight Lithuanian yeshiva approach, and also to see that as much as modeled on the authentic approach of the Gra, the better it is.

Litvak Yeshiva path

The Litvak Yeshiva path is not exactly the path of Musar. There is a certain amount of discrepancy. What would be called secular studies is one area. Another is Torah for money.
However the areas of agreement are more that the areas of discrepancy.

The secular studies area is easily divided into two parts. One part is where in fact secular studies are ridiculous.  Obviously pseudo science. And anything with the word "studies" attached to it.
On the other hand, there are areas in which the Rambam and other rishonim held they are even higher than traditional "learning Torah" i.e. Physics and Metaphysics.
But this is clearly an area of disagreement among rishonim. The Ramban/Nahmanides clearly was no fan of Aristotle. Even in his defence of the Rambam, he did not go so far as to advocate the Guide for the Perplexed itself. [I.e. I mean to say that there is a letter from the Ramban/Nahmanides defending the Rambam, but in spite of his impassioned plea for the defense of the Rambam, he did not actually defend the Guide as being "right."]



The nice thing about being in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY was the fact that almost no one was there in order to be using Torah to make money. In both places the clear intention for everyone was "Lishma" (i.e., Torah for its own sake). And besides that, there was also a kind of feeling of, "if everyone would be doing this the whole world would be a better place." There was a feeling of doing something for all mankind just by sitting and learning Torah. [You can actually see this stated as such in the Nefesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra.] [I ought to add the fact that in both Shar Yashuv and the Mir I was very happy. There is a kind of "synergy" when you are learning Torah in the path of the Gra that everything seems to fall into place. Just like the sages said, "One who receives the yoke of Torah on himself the yoke of government and work is removed from him."]


I have really no good ideas about the Metaphysics. Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School looks pretty great to me  --but ironically enough I also think Hegel has some great ideas. Nowadays, there are some really great people like Kelley Ross, Huemer, Ed Feser. Steven Dutch I think is gone, but his web site is still up--thank God.
The way to put that all together is basically this. Moral principles are universals. And the function of reason is to recognize universals. But to start reason, you need some kind of starting point that is not itself based on reason. So you have to know your starting points, or at least accept them as prima facie unless something even more clear overthrows it.
 But reason without faith is empty. It can easily come up with all kinds on nonsense. So you need a kind of immediate non intuitive perception [faith].


[Mainly I believe that the Leonard Nelson approach makes the most sense because the transcendental deduction of Kant never really worked to be able to combine reason and perception. As Kelley Ross put it both must  have a deeper source  That is non intuitive immediate knowledge. But as Michael Huemer pointed out, that there is no reason to believe implanted knowledge has any relation to reality.  Therefore that immediate non intuitive knowledge-the axioms by which knowledge starts must be open to correction. It is not infallible. And if one asks-- that empirical facts ought not to be able to correct a priori knowledge that is where Hegel comes in handy. There is a point where knowledge itself gets to a plateau and gets above it by contrasting two points where separate series of reasoning led to and end up in a contradiction by which one starts the whole process again. Something like electromagnetism and newton that contradicted until you got special relativity,-- and relativity and quantum mechanics contradicted until you got quantum field theory and to sew up gravity you get string theory.

Winds, Brass, Violin, Organ in F Major [index name w21]  w21 midi   w21 nwc

Johann du Toit • 7 hours ago

People seem to think that the State can solve all fulfill all their desires and solve all their problems by simply issuing a diktat. Want free stuff? The state will provide it/ Want to end Global Warming? The state will pass a law to end Global Warming (yes, it sounds ridiculous but this is exactly what the "Extinction Rebellion" and Climate Change Alarmists seem to think will solve the problem.....along with shutting down our economies, banning private cars and air conditioners,

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2020/the-politics-of-sorrow

Modern intellectuals

Ed Feser:"Modern intellectuals tend to be spoiled and ungracious creatures, whose inclination to bitch and moan seems only to increase the better things get, and who seem to occupy themselves concocting ever more recherché reasons for badmouthing their society and their forebears. "

Gemara Kidushin A poor person is looking over a cake to buy it

A poor person is looking over a cake to buy it. One that comes over and grabs it and buys it himself is called "wicked."

This is brought in Kidushin Rav Gidal wanted to buy a field. R. Aba went and bought it. R. Gidal complained. R. Aba said, "I did not know you were going to buy it."
Rav Aba offered to give it to Rav Gidal as a present. Rav Gidal refused to accept it as a present because "He who hates gifts will live." [Proverbs]
But Rav Gidal would have agreed to buy it. But R Aba sis not want to sell it for money. He said that is is fist purchase of  a field and it is not a good idea to sell your first purchase,.

So neither R Gidal nor R Aba used the field and it was left fallow.

[Rav Moshe Feinstein brings this in his correspondence].

G Minor. Violin and Winds[g20]

[w20 in midi format]

 w20 in nwc

not giving rebuke

I wanted to bring for a second time the vast importance of not giving rebuke in the thought of Rav Nahman of Breslov.
I mentioned this I think once before but probably not with the degree of emphasis that he places on this.
The idea is simple. The last Torah lesson Rav Nahman ever gave starts with this: אף על פי שתוכחה היא דבר גדול ומוטל על כל אחד להוכיח את הבירו כשרואה בו דבר שאינו הגון אף על פי כן לאו כל אחד ראוי להוכיח כמו שאמר ר' עקיבא תמה אני אם יש בדור הזה מי שיכול להוכיח ואם ר' עקיבא אמר זה בדורו כל שכן בדורות אלו.
Even though rebuke is a great thing and it is incumbent on each person to rebuke his fellow man when he sees in him something not proper, still not everyone is fit to give rebuke. As we see that R. Akiva said I would be surprised if there is anyone in this generation that can give rebuke. And if R Akiva said this in his generation all the more so in this generation. Because when one (who is not fit) gives rebuke he can make the person he is rebuking even worse.

So how do you know that this is one of the most essential fetures of the thought of Rav Nahman? Because of how this Torah lesson was given. He held that he was rising from spiritual level to a higher level because of his practice of talking with God as one talks to a friend. No formulae. Also because of his general practice of serving God by learning Torah. But he was rising from level to level at an accelerated rate. So every Torah lesson was on a higher level than the previous ones. So the very last lesson has to be thought of as the peak of all his Torah lessons. The very summit. And since its major theme is not to give rebuke, this you have to say is most important of all his lessons.

Violin French Horn, English Horn, Timpani and Basson in G minor

the Mir in NY some books of Ethics

I learned in the Mir in NY some books of Ethics. That is besides the regular two Gemara sessions which went from 1000 AM until 200 PM and then from 4 PM until  8 PM. Then an evening session for students who were not married went from about 830 until 1100 or 12 AM for the students who were "masmidim" [diligent.]

So the Musar part was almost negligible. [ 35 minutes per day]. Yet, still I was affected deeply by the Musar part of the yeshiva. In particular the Gates of Repentance of Rabbainu Yona.

And in that book I recall was brought a statement of the sages that, "There are no problems without sin."אין יסורים בלי עוון

Thus, the best way to get out of his problems is not to sin. Easier said than done. Thus the disciple of Rav Israel Salanter [Isaac Blazer] brings the idea of encouraging others to learn Musar [mediaeval books of Ethics] as a cure for sin which in its turn is a cure for ones problems.

[How to define "sin" is a hard issue. There always seems to be areas of doubt as to what is the right course of action. Torah gives gernral guide lines but even with that there is always doubt. So to encourage the learning of Musar.]

music file G major

G major Allegro Winds and French Horn  w18  [w18 in midi format]

path of balance

I see the paths of great people often seems to go in opposite directions from each other.
[Rav Nahman refers to this as the argument between tzadikim.]
From what I recall this is one of the questions raised by Socrates. What is virtue "arete" , i.e. human excellence. He meant to ask this: that even though human excellence seems to vary according to the person, still is there some basic essence of "arete" [in ancient Greek] that all these great people share?
Something in common between the Gra,-- (Eliyahu of Vilna), Rav Israel Salanter, Rav Shach, Einstein, Mozart?

In Musar you find two areas of value,- moral virtue, and intellectual virtue. [Kelley Ross postulates a whole spectrum of value, -along a half circle.]

What my parents recommended was a path of balance. That is since there is a whole spectrum of virtues that are all important but each person seems to be able to excel only in one or two areas so the best idea is balance. That way you hold on to all the areas of value to some degree but you find the areas that are specific to your soul.

There is an opposite area of negative value for every area of positive value. [This is like Rav Nahman said about truth. He said there is only one truth but lots of lies. For example, if you have blue paint and someone asks what color is the paint there is only one right answer. Blue. But there are an infinite number of lies one can say. E.g. one could say it is red or green or any of the continuous wave lengths on the color spectrum. So even though in every area of value there is one true path, there are many ways of getting it wrong.

[This gives a good reason why the Gra would sign the letter of excommunication--to give warning to people like me that would not know how to avoid the dark side.]

So when it comes to Torah I would like to suggest for myself and others to be careful you go to an authentic Litvak yeshiva where you can get the real thing. [But I should add that even in the straightest of Litvak yeshivas one needs to avoid fanaticism. And also concentrate on the classes of the roshei yeshiva in order to get to a point where you "know how to learn".]

Rav Israel Salanter

Rav Israel Salanter brings the idea of bringing merit to many as being a way to bring merit to oneself in his "Letter of Musar". ["One who brings a merit to many, no sin comes to him."]

His idea of how to do this was to make a kind of library of Musar [Books on Ethics]. The difference between a regular library and this library of Musar would be that learning Musar of any Torah requires one to say the words. So it would be more like a regular place of learning Torah except that it would be devoted to Musar (books of Ethics).

The thing is this idea never took off at all. Musar was totally absorbed into the Litvak Yeshiva [Lithuanian type of Yeshiva]. And to me this seems right. Musar can get people off track unless connected with the straight Litvak yeshiva approach.

[The reason however it seems that Rav Israel Salanter wanted to keep things seperate was that the Litvak yeshiva approach can also get one off track. ]

G Minor Allegro Violin, French horn, Winds, Timpani. edited version

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Communism was founded on reason, and yet had become a totalitarian regime.

It was thought to be a truism a few years ago in the USA that Communism was founded on reason, and yet had become a totalitarian regime. Thus Reason is not always [or maybe very rarely] a good guide towards morality.

Whether you can find flaws in the system is not so much my point. Rather, that communism was based on the best the intellectual world had to offer, and yet was clearly causing mass murder and poverty wherever it was implemented.

So even though I did study leftist thinkers and philosophers, I was always aware that even pure Reason has limits.` And even if Reason recognizes moral principles, it does not know them automatically. You might take many examples violent tribes that still exist as mentioned in the book by Howard Bloom [The Lucifer Principle], though there are many more examples than the ones he picks.


This suspicion about the limits of human reason can give you an idea why I appreciate Dr Kelley Ross's web site about the Kant Friesian school based on Leonard Nelson. He seems to have an amazing defense of faith, i.e. immediate non-intuitive knowledge.


So on one hand, I can see the point of Dr. Michael Huemer that reason recognizes moral principles. But on the other hand, I also see that for Reason to be awoken, it need Divine revelation as the Rambam wrote in the Guide about Abraham the patriarch. Or you could go about the issue of faith with the idea of a dialectical process. A slow progress towards truth.

In the Guide of the Perplexed of Maimonides you have a allegory which makes the point that Physics and Metaphysics are above learning what we would call "learning Torah" i.e. Gemara.
It is the allegory of the king in his country. And you have there people outside the country, inside, near the palace and inside the palace. And right there the Rambam says people outside the palace are the "Talmudim" those that learn and keep the Oral and Written Law and learn Gemara all day. Inside the palace of the King in the outer sections  are the Physicists. In the inner section you have the prophets and philosophers.

So it does seem that the Rambam is making a value judgment about what is better to be spending your time at. Given a choice he seems to be saying one ought to learn Physics and Metaphysics rather than be sitting a learning Gemara.

However he certainly is not disparaging the importance of Gemara. Rather the idea is one ought to have  certain amount of time in Gemara and allot another larger section of his time to Physics.

And we know what the Rambam means because he defines his terms in the beginning of the Guide. Physics and Metaphysics he says mean the subjects so described by the ancient Greeks.

Philosophy today however I would have to say is probably better to avoid. It is known that Rav Nahman thought ill of philosophers and from what I can see today he had a point. So kind of by default I have gone more into Physics. [But in philosophy, I like Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school, Michael Huemer, and Ed Feser.]

[Hegel to me seems important also although there is some friction between him and the Kant Fries school. See McTagart who answers some of the problems that Dr Kelley Ross raises. See Walter Kaufman on Hegel

The major advantage of the Litvak Yeshiva approach

The major advantage of the Litvak Yeshiva approach as exemplified by Rav Shach is that people do not have automatic access to moral knowledge.

This is how the Rambam understands the laws of the Greeks, natural law. He says unless it is revealed people would not know it.

So you might guess that people could guess at morality through their inherent reason, but that does not seem to be the case. Even natural law needs to be revealed.

That is what the Rambam says in regard to Abraham the patriarch--that he knew natural law but only because God revealed it to him.

But the interesting thing about the Litvak yeshiva approach is they did not accept the Musar idea in its entirety. 20 minutes before mincha and 15 minutes before the evening prayer is no where near the hours of Musar learning that Rav Israel Salanter was advocating. Probably the reason was that it can and does distract from Gemara. It shifts the center of gravity. But that would not be a problem if not for the fact that it shifts it in a way that is usually not really accurate in terms of Torah. So to learn some was looked on as a good compromise.

[It is possible that I was sidetracked by Musar, but I am not sure. In any case I did learn some of the books of the Ari [Isaac Luria] and Sar Shalom Sharabi which are commentaries on the Ari. But of all the books of mystics I found Rav Avraham Abulafia of the Middle Ages to be the most interesting.

Another important advantage is that the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication is paid attension to at least a little bit. That tends to save one from the Sitra Achra if one pays attension to it.

F Major Violin, French Horn, Winds

w16 F major Rondo [w16 in midi format] [w16 in nwc format]

Rav Shick [known in Yavneal as one of the great Breslov sages of the last generation] brought an idea of שיעורין כסדרן learning sessions in order. He attached this to the "seder halimud" of Rav Nahman of just saying the words as fast as possible and going on. [No repeats until one has finished the book].
[Rav Nahman of Breslov would not be in the excommunication of the Gra as you can see by the actual language of that letter. So I feel free to quote from him.]

The idea was to take e.g. a Gemara and just go through a lot of pages in one sitting. And then put in a place marker, and take a mishna and do the same. Go through a few chapters. Same with Rav Isaac Luria's Eitz Haim and his Eight Gates.[And the next day to start where you left off. This way you finish a lot and in the end you understand a lot more than if you had stopped on every little problem.]

This method I have used also for a wide array of subjects like math and I have found that combining these two ideas has been very helpful.

I also tried doing this with Rav Haim of Brisk's Hidushei HaRambam and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. However in those last two books I found doing review after going through one section was more satisfying since in one reading alone I would generally not understand anything but then in the next reading it would all become clear.. So I would do review and then go on. In that way I guess I was combining the idea of Iyun [in depth] and Bekiut [fast learning] togther.

[Both idea have previous sources. The saying the words and going on is from the Gemara Shabat page 63 I think. The sessions in order is from Rav Isaac Luria.

I did this also with Hegel in his Greater Logic from his Encyclopedia.

So in short what I am recommending is (1) saying the words and going on (2) sessions in order.
This learning I would say to in such a way that you get through the two talmuds with Tosphot, and the Pnei Moshe and Karban Eda on the Yerushalmi. Also the main texts of math and Physics.
Also if I could I would try to do this with Avraham Abulafia's books [from the Middle Ages]

There are moral propositions. From Michael Huemer

ETHICS IS A PRIORI

That knowledge of moral principles is also a priori follows from the following two theses:

(1) Moral principles are not observations. The content of every observation is descriptive.

That is, you do not literally see, touch, hear, etc. moral value.

(2) Moral principles can not be inferred from descriptive premises. This principle is just an instance of the general fact that you cannot derive a conclusion within one subject matter from premises in a different subject matter. Just as you cannot expect to derive a geometrical conclusion from premises in economics, or derive a conclusion about birds from premises that don't say anything about birds, you should not expect to derive a conclusion about morality from non-moral premises.

(3) Therefore, moral knowledge requires an a priori basis.

(1) There are moral propositions.
(2) So they are each either true or false. (by law of excluded middle) (3) And it's not that they're all false. Surely it is true, rather than false, that Josef Stalin's activities were bad. (Although some communists would disagree, we needn't take their view seriously, and moreover, even they would admit some moral judgement, such as, "Stalin was good.")
(4) So some moral judgements correspond to reality. (from 2,3, and the correspondence theory of truth)
(5) So moral values are part of reality. (which is objectivism)

And we have some knowedge of moral propositions

As far as I can tell, this claim follows from the proposition that there is moral knowledge, just as some analogous, more general claim follows from the premise that there is any knowledge at all. For if we know some particular thing, then there are only three possibilities as regards its justification:

(a) it is infinitely regressive. That is, there is a reason for it, and a reason for the reason, and then a reason for that, and so on indefinitely.
(b) it is circular. That is, it is based on some chain of reasoning in which something ultimately is supposed to (directly or indirectly) justify itself.
(c) it is foundational. That is, the item of knowledge itself is, or is based upon, a fact that is known directly and without any argument or reason given.

We know moral principles not based on Empiricism. Empiricism--roughly, the idea that all 'informative' knowledge, or knowledge of the mind-independent, language-independent world, must derive from sense perception--has been fashionable for the last century, though less so, I think, in the past decade. I cannot do justice to this subject here; nevertheless, I will briefly report how things seem to me. First, it is so easy to enumerate what appear on their face to be counter-examples to the thesis of empiricism, and at the same time so difficult to find arguments for the thesis, that the underlying motivation for the doctrine can only be assumed to be a prejudice. Second, I think that in the last several years, if not earlier, the doctrine has been shown to be untenable.⁽²⁹⁾ Here, I will give two of the better-known counter-examples to empiricism.

First example: Nothing can be both entirely red and entirely green.⁽³⁰⁾ How do I know that? Note that the question is not how I came upon the concepts 'red' and 'green', nor how I came to understand this proposition. The question is why, having understood it, I am justified in affirming it, rather than denying it or withholding judgment. It seems to be justified intuitively, that is, simply because it seems obvious on reflection. How else might it be justified?

A naive empiricist might appeal to my experiences with colored objects: I have seen many colored objects, and none of them have ever been both red and green. One thing that makes this implausible as an explanation of how I know that nothing can be both red and green is the necessity of the judgment. Contrast the following two statements:

Nothing is both green and red.
Nothing is both green and a million miles long.

________________________________________________________________


The way I wrote about this before is this: There are universals. Morals are universals. Function of reason is to recognize universals. How do we know there are universals. Prime facie. E.g. There are trees.

I did not have a chance to look at the sugia [subject] in depth, but I did look briefly at Nedarim around pages 5-6 and saw that a neder can forbid speaking to someone. You see this towards the end of the sugia about Shmuel. He says if one says מודרני ממך אסור I am forbidden to you by a neder [vow] he is forbidden. The Gemara there concludes that he would be forbidden if Shmuel holds ידיים שאינן מוכיחות הווין ידיים. [An indication or hint of a neder/vow even if not perfectly clear is  still a neder/vow.] So we see if he would say openly, "I am forbidden to you to talk or do business or sit in your four yards," these all would be forbidden.

So since the laws of herem [excommunication] derive their power from laws of vows, we see that all these things can be forbidden by means of a herem.
So why is the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication ignored? Even to the degree that it is thought to be totally irrelevant.

[And you can see in laws of vows that it makes no difference why one person might say to another: "I am forbidden to you under a vow." Since the Gra was qualified to make a decree of excommunication then it is valid for whatever reason he saw to do so.
Furthermore, it seems unlikely to me that it was a mistake.

Musar refers to books on morality of the Middle Ages

Musar originally was not supposed to be part of the Yeshiva thing. [Musar is a movement begun by Rav Israel Salanter that holds that people ought to learn much Musar --hours in fact--every day. Musar refers to books on morality of the Middle Ages. There are about four canonical ones and after that about 30 in the penumbra.]

[The yeshiva as an independent institution was begun by a disciple of the Gra. [in the beginning of the 1800's]. [It is not known what the Gra's reaction to it was. There are different versions of the events.] Before that, there was no such thing. The local place where people prayed in the morning simply stayed open during the day and whoever wanted to learn did so. If it was more organized, then it was the rav who was hired by the home owners who was in charge.
Kollel as such was begun by Rav Israel Salanter much later around 1860.
But Musar was eventually absorbed into the Litvak Yeshiva.

I had a very good time in two excellent places--Shar Yashuv and the Mir. So the "Litvak yeshiva thing" I know can be an amazing experience and also a good way to gain objective morality.

Impeachment

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind explains the situation well. He traces it back to a basic contradiction in the Enlightenment itself.

He sees the conflict left vs right as rooted in the Enlightenment coming into some kind of blocked alley.
The main theme in his book is that we find a way out of this dead end or else civilization is doomed.

Torah with Derech Eretz. [Torah with Work].

The path of my parents was that of balance. That is Torah with Derech Eretz. [Torah with Work]. They would not have agreed to the idea of accepting money to learn Torah, but they would agree to the idea of trust in God in order to learn Torah.
These are two different concepts that are confused nowadays very often. They are not the same thing.
One thing is to trust in God that somehow he will make ends meet when you devote yourself to learning Torah.

E Flat Major for violin and winds. file name w15

The Litvak yeshiva is largely based on the Gra--at least in its world view. But also to some degree in its actual workings.

That it is looks upon Torah as being a 24 hour per day, seven days a week as being the goal.

But it does this with a high degree of keeping Torah and creating good character also.

The reason or reason I do not exactly walk on that path are more or less because something it seems I lacked the merit needed for it to work for me. [That is my considerations were mainly practical. If something does not work for me, even if it is in theory the best approach, it still does not change the fact that there is something that I simply can not change about my situation.]

So I have had to depend on the rishonim like Ibn Pakuda and Saadia Gaon that saw Physics as a part of Torah. 

C Major Allegro file name w13    w13 in midi

violin and winds

Aristotle was considered well by the author of the Obligations of the Heart [Ibn Pakuda]

Aristotle was considered well by the author of the Obligations of the Heart, Saadia Gaon and most rishonim that followed Saadia Gaon. So I have a tendency to want to justify Aristotle when possible.
[Nahmanides however had a very negative opinion of Aristotle and you see that in all those who followed his lead. That is in fact a lot of the later rishonim. So you see this even in the commentary of the Mishna by the Rav from Bartenura. However the Rambam certainly held quite differently and you can see that in everything from his commentary on the Mishna to the Guide. He held Metaphysics is a part of learning Torah and he certainly meant the books of Aristotle called Metaphysics. But he probably meant to include the later commentaries on Aristotle]


Telos [goals] in Aristotle is not as far as people think from the way the world works.
Dr Michael Huemer brings that it is refuted. However at least in the way physics is usually understood nowadays is that things tend towards a minimum energy level. [i do not mean to be critical of dr huemer. Rather just to raise one point. But his essay on this or on most other subjects is usually amazingly insightful and shockingly so.]
[An example of this comes to mind in terms of atoms and electrons. They try to go towards a state where the action disappears.]




Dr Kelley Ross [of the school of Kant and Leonard Nelson] also mentions that telos [goals] is something we see in biology.

[I forget offhand the way telos fits into Aristotle's system. Mainly I think the idea is  for things to some to their essence--from potential to action. That is how he modifies the universals of Plato]

Rav Nahman does bring an interesting idea: that מסיטרא דימינא מוחא חיוורא ככספא which means from the side of kindness one's mind is made  white as silver.

He expands on the idea but you can see that he understands the simple explanation to be that by doing acts of kindness, one mind is made pure.

(I do not recall which chapter in his LeM brings this).

So it seems to me that he is suggesting a good strategy to gain mental health. When an act of kindness presents itself, do it.

But he would not be advocating socialism: i.e. the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
[Or "government control of industry" which is just a fancy way of saying the same thing.]
 The reason would be that taking people's money from them even with a good motive is theft. So you do not do theft even in order to do good with the money later. Another reason is that socialism means to take away people's freedom. If you take people's money you take away their freedom because without money you are automatically a slave. You have to do what the boss says or you don't eat.

Also I should add that the idea of Torah about what one should be doing with his time is to learn Torah, and that is the biggest kindness for oneself and all others. You see this in the Yerushalmi where the incident is brought that one person sent his son to Tiberias to learn Torah and heard that he was burying the dead. He sent to him, "Did I send you to learn Torah or to bury the dead?" The Yerushalmi concludes that if there is some kind of mitzva that can not be done by others then one can interrupt learning Torah and do the mitzva but otherwise not.
[I saw in the Even Shelema which brings quotations for the Gra that the meaning of the Yerushalmi is that one can interrupt one's studies for a mitzva that can not be done by others. Not that one must. The reason the Gra says this seems clear to me to be העוסק בבמצווה פטור מן המצווה One who is doing one commandment is not obligated to interrupt in order to do another.