Trust in God to help the way it was understood in the Mir in NY was to learn Torah and believe that God will take care of things like getting married and having a living. So the idea of sitting and learning even after marriage was along the lines of trusting in God. In Israel however the approach is to make political parties whose sole purpose is to extract money from secular Jews. That is not trust in God at all. But I should add that my idea of learning Torah since then has been expanded to include Physics and Metaphysics because of Saadia Gaon and people that followed his lead in this subject like Ibn Pakuda of the Obligations of the Heart.

But the basic structure of belief I still hold that the Mir was right. Trust in God and do not worry because God will take care of those that trust in Him. That is to say help and salvation is not at all assumed. Rather it is assumed according to the degree that one trusts in God.
The problem however can be that of self delusion. People can imagine that they are trusting in God while in fact being blind to the fact that they are trusting in their political parties to extract money from secular Jews.

My own impression is that God has often helped me whether I trusted or not. So I am not saying what will happen if they think they trust in God. I think people can fool themselves thinking they are trusting in God. But I can say that is one really does trust in God, God definitely helps.  

My learning partner David Bronson sent to me a video about the virus that I have not seen yet. But I think to put it up here since I have a great deal of confidence in my learning partner's common sense because almost always when we disagree about Tosphot, he ends up being right

I wanted to bring a subject for the sake of background information. It is about marriage and slavery. Allan Bloom's introduction to Kojeve's lectures on Hegel. Plus the incident of a virus spread in Soth America in Bolivia as a result of a civil war when they got rid of the land owners and divided the land equally. The peasants offered the land owners to sell back to them their land and sheep and cows. The landowners said, "We will not buy back what belonged to us," and left to start life elsewhere. The peasants cleared the jungle to make way for planting corn and upset the ecology in the area, and the rats came to settle in their village. So not just because society in organized in a way with some people on top does not mean they are exploiting. Every army knows letting the troops fight-the way they want is a disaster and recipe for defeat.

So in short for right now let me just bring the Gemara in Kidushin page 3. The Mishna says, "A woman is acquired in three ways: money, a document, or sex." The Gemara says this is to exclude exchange, because you might have thought just like a field is acquired by exchange so a woman. So we learn not so because exchange exists even less than a penny and a woman does not allow herself to be bought for less than a penny. The Tosphot Rid asks " If the handkerchief [for the exchange] is in fact worth more than a penny, she is bought."

The issue here is this. If you have ever sat at a marriage ceremony, you have seen this acquisition made by a handkerchief. And maybe you wondered "What kind of  acquisition it is?" It is not exactly a gift on condition to give back--but like it in some ways.
The answer is based on a verse in Ruth where a person takes off his shoe and gives it to another to seal a deal. It is a kind of mode of acquisition in which at that point the acquisition is made, It is in modern terms like signing a document.

So just to wrap this up for now I want to bring an idea of Rav Shach that will help to resolve these issues. It is that there are two kinds of קניין סודר ("kinyan sudar") exchange by handkerchief. One is where the act of exchange of the handkerchief [or any kind of vessel] finishes a deal--as a kind of way of making an acquisition as you see at marriages. Another kind is the normal act of exchange-barter. This for that.

I would like to go into this more but just quickly I want to add that the relation to slavery is that one can not let go of a slave  by this means exchange by handkerchief. It is to be by one of the three ways a slave is let go. Money, document or by injury to one of his external limbs. And the issue itself I just want to mention that slavery is not all that different from having to get up every day and go to school and then go to work. There are lots of things you are forced to do and if you do not then force is used against you. Slavery is  different in degree, not in kind. So why is it thought to be wrong? Where is the dividing line? A master does not own him? Do you own yourself? Can you do anything you want to yourself? No. Can you do anything you want? No. Everyone has his place and his job in society. Or you could live in the wilderness with no knife produced by society--- and see how you manage.


[The fact is that Hegel's politics does not seem so great. On the other hand "back to Kant" does not seem so great either. Nor "Analytic" vacuous philosophy of the Anglo Saxon world of the 20th century  nor Continental philosophy. Some synthesis of Hegel, Kant, Leonard Nelson seem to me the most promising. A "back to Plato" or "back to Kant" seems a bit difficult. Hegel does seem to hold a lot of promise. But lacking clarity about these issues what I would like to do would be to get through the three critiques of Kant, the four books published by Hegel and the writings of Leonard Nelson before I could draw a conclusion or see a direction forward.]


At any rate, I just wanted to say the basic point of Rav Shach [but not in his words]. Th Gemara is pretty clear that קניין חליפין [exchange by barter] does not apply to acquiring a wife. So to explain the Tospfot Rid is the question. The Tospfot Rid says if the handkerchief is worth more than a "pruta" penny then she is acquired. This is in spite of the fact that usually this acquisition by a handkerchief which is handed back is a kind of acquisition by barter not by money. So to explain this Rav Shach has to go into a  long explanation.

I think to get through these difficulties nowadays the best idea is to trust in God and learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. [But I do not think one should be paid for teaching or learning Torah.]
How to go about this I am not sure. Since God has granted to me a few of the volumes I finding it helpful to do a little review.   

In the Musar movement

In the Musar movement that began with Rav Israel Salanter you see that each one of his disciples had a different emphasis. [Musar means Morals. It is an approach that emphasizes learning four basic medieval books on Ethics.]
Trust in God was the thing by Navardok. "Seder" [Order] for Rav Simha Zisel. Fear of God for Rav Isaac Blasser. Good Character "midot tovot"  was clearly the beginning and probably was the thing emphasized by Rav Salanter himself.

I have to say I was mostly effected by Navardok and Rav Isaac Blasser's approach.

One thing is that you see Rav Israel himself wanted just that people should learn Musar and find for themselves what is necessary for their souls.

There is a remarkable insight in the Musar Movement in itself -the essential aspect of good character as being the main thrust of what the Law of God asks from you.

One thing about Musar is that it got to be used for money as learning Torah did also. It seems to me that it makes no sense to use to the Torah to make money. [My basic sympathy goes along with the idea that some have already said that Torah should not be used as a means to be making a living. And that people that give just encourage this kind of abuse of Torah. One ought to learn Torah but not do so for money, nor be paid.] Paying people to learn Torah just encourages the Torah scholars that are already demons just to get more power.]

Alexander Pruss on Godel

http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/search/label/Goedel

"Famously, Goedel’s incompleteness theorems refuted (naive) logicism, the view that mathematical truth is just provability.

But one doesn’t need all of the technical machinery of the incompleteness theorems to refute that. All one needs is Goedel’s simple but powerful insight that proofs are themselves mathematical objects—sequence of symbols (an insight emphasized by Goedel numbering). For once we see that, then the logicist view is that what makes a mathematical proposition true is that a certain kind of mathematical object—a proof—exists. But the latter claim is itself a mathematical claim, and so we are off on a vicious regress."

However I want to add that the idea of David Hilbert was to get to the basic axioms that Mathematics and Physics. Not that he was saying that those axioms could be proved. Leonard Nelson applied this idea to philosophy also. That is the point that Dr. Kelley Ross makes that to avoid a regress of reason one needs to start with immediate non-intuitive knowledge. However Dr Michael Huemer has a way of getting out of this problem by means of the idea that reason is just a faculty that recognizes universals. Not that reason is infallible. And the way it recognizes universals in by probability--not infallibility. [See his treatment of these issue.]  

"God created evil." Isaiah 45:7

The verse in Isaiah was pointed out where it says that "God created evil." But just to answer the issue I should add that when it comes to things beyond my understanding I defer to Kant about the things in themselves. That would be everything beyond the possibility of experience.
However, I am not saying 100% like Kant, because I think the limit that Kant places on Reason can be pushed back. This is the way I understood Hegel based on my reading of McTaggart on his Logic.

[This issue came up in http://alexanderpruss.blogspot.com/ who is a philosopher who I think is from the Analytic school. So I just added my comment there and thought also to post it here.]

I want to add that Steven Dutch was asked this and he answered that a lot of people have thought about this problem called the problem of evil.
Steven Dutch:

"How Can a Good God Permit Evil in the World?

An iceberg is a floating mountain of ice with most of its mass hidden below the surface. This question is more like a floating mountain of Styrofoam, with a tiny portion deep and hidden, and the vast majority on the surface and mostly made of air.

Lots of good, even great, books have been written on the deep and hidden aspects of this question. (One respondent asked me for references on this subject. The Library of Congress category for philosophy and theology is call letter B. The technical term for the question of good and evil is theodicy. I just searched it on Google and got 393,000 hits. Happy reading.) But if you are reading those books, you don't ask this question the way it is so often casually asked. Most people, when they ask this question, really mean something like:How could a good God disturb my comfort by confronting me with the existence of evil?How could a good God permit my sense of security to be violated by allowing evil to happen to others?Understanding this issue is really difficult. How could a good God create a world in which I have to think?

Dr Kelley Ross also treats this issue where he goes along with Schopenhauer. 

Some areas where critique on the Christian point of view makes sense.

There are some areas where critique on the Christian point of view makes sense. You never see anywhere that Jesus claims to be God. [He refers to the coming of the "son of man." [no capital letters in Greek.] Not the "son of God."] You never see him nullify the commandments. However there is a point about him even if some people get things wrong.  Some err on the side of over-doing. Others err on the side of under-doing.  It is hard to hold a middle point of view.
But even those that err on the side of under-doing accept his basic points. For some reason, he was able to embed in the human psyche the idea that the perfect person is the good and kind person. So when people ask, "How can Jesus be okay when such and such of his followers act not nicely?" they are implicitly accepting what he said.




He was to borrow a phrase from Allan Bloom a "civilization founding person."

[Critique on Jesus almost always means critique on Paul.]

On the critical side I want to say that אהיה אשר אהיה "I will be that which I will be" the name of God, is not the same as "I am". So even if the phrase of Jesus "I am" is hard to understand, still it is not the same as the name of God. ["I am before Abraham" in the Ancient Greek.]

The positive side is easy to see based on the idea of Rav Nahman about the importance of belief in a "true saint". [That is a theme in the book of Rav Nahman, the LeM.]

w63 A major

Girsa" [saying the words and going on]

The way of learning of "Girsa" [saying the words and going on] is very different from what people experience in school. The reason is that in school there is an emphasis on tests.

There is aspects of tests that are good. They show to oneself what he or she is good at and thus spend effort in that direction.

On the other hand the emphasis on tests does not take into account the idea that some things are important to learn whether one is good at them or not.

So when I say that people ought to learn Physics and Mathematics in this way of "Girsa" [just say the words from the beginning to the end of the book], I am not saying that everyone will become geniuses because of this. 

But I still think after doing this with any text of Physics four times, from beginning to end, the effect will be such that even people that imagine that they are not talented will discover that they are a lot more talented than they thought.

[I am going here with the idea that the Ten Commandments are contained in the Ten Statements of Creation [See the commentary of the Gra on Pirkei Avot V.]. So the Law of Moses in contained in a hidden way in the Work of Creation. In some way, you can see this in the Gemara itself. "R. Yohanan ben Zacai knew the Work of Creation and the Divine Chariot." You can see this theme a lot in Rav Nahman of Breslov' s LeM.]
טבעו בארץ ששעריה "The gates of Torah are sunken into the Earth". That is towards the end of volume I of the LeM. But there are plenty of hints to this all throughout the LeM--if one is willing to see them.


[I am not saying to stop learning in depth or doing review. But for some reason this kind of fast learning was mentioned by Rav Nahman in is Conversations number 76 as being the main way of learning. He almost seems to de-emphasize learning in depth on purpose. he says to have every day a session in learning with "slight iyun" [lit.,  a small amount of in depth learning.] To me that seems to imply that in fact learning fast was his preferred method for everyone.

[I think you have to say that Torah hidden in the work of Creation is more powerful to help a person come to good character traits than open Torah. In the LeM of Rav Nahman he brings an idea that telling open Torah to a wicked person causes them to become more evil. So the tzadik [saint] has to tell them Torah in a hidden way. There the idea is a about the "secular conversation" of a tzadik, but to me it seems the same principle applies here. The hidden Torah inside of the Work of Creation is what causes people to become better people.]
You can see in Rav Nahman's LeM also that there is not a proportional relationship between learning Torah and good character. So this idea of learning the Hidden Torah in the Work of Creation makes more sense to spend time and energy on.

w62 E Flat Major

It is usually understood that when there is an argument among Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] it does not make sense to say one or the other was right. You might do like the Beit Yoseph that you go by three only. That is the Rif, Rambam and Rosh. When two of these three agree to anything, that is the law. Still that does not make the other wrong. And when you can not find a consensus among these three, then you go by the majority of Rishonim.

So in the case where many of the Rishonim that hold Physics is a part of learning Torah, how would you decide that? Some hold yes, and some hold not. Since the Rambam is clear, and the Rosh and Rif do not openly discuss this, it seems clear the law is like the Rambam--especially after many rishonim go with the Rambam in this point.
[You might add the fact that both the Rif and Rosh say that "outside books" in Sanhedrin are not what people often think are "outside books". They are not books of Math and Physics. "Outside" means giving explanations not from the sages of the Mishna or Gemara or Midrash.]


There is an aspect here of experience also. It does not to me seem that learning Torah alone with these two added things Physics and Metaphysics [as the Rambam phrases it in the Guide] really leads to human perfection.  

Learning Torah and the Wisdom of God as it is contained in the work of Creation

You see in the Nefesh HaChaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin the importance of learning Torah.
I agree with this. The only thing is that I add the learning the Wisdom of God as it is contained in the work of Creation as being also a part of God's Law.

You see this in Rishonim [authorities from the Middle Ages. That is everyone that wrote either commentary or law from Rav Hai Geon until Rav Yoseph Karo. Not inclusive] based on Saadia Gaon. I mean Saadia Gaon opened this understanding that many later Rishonim accepted. Among them the Obligations of the Hearts, Maimonides/Rambam, Benjamin the author of Maalat HaMidot and others.
In later Musar books you a distinct backing away from this. The Ramban [Nahmanides] would be one that disagreed and stated the tradition that would refer to Aristotle as "may his name be blotted out". That opinion of the Ramban got to be accepted but is not the opinion of the above mentioned Rishonim that went with the approach of Saadia Gaon.

I feel that Maimonides was right in this subject that the Wisdom of God as contained in Creation is on a higher level than the laws about human interactions --which is also Torah but still seems to be on a lesser level.

You see this in the story brought in the Guide about the King. Outside the palace of the King are the people that learn Talmud. Inside the palace are the Physicists. [This analogy certainly shocked people. You can see why there were a few attempts to exclude the Rambam/Maimonides from acceptance.]

And I might add that if personal experience means anything, I would have to side with the Rambam/Maimonides in this issue.

But not to learn layman's Physics books. Do it right, or do not do it at all.
Doing it right means, you do not need to be a genius. Just like learning regular Torah does not depend on how smart one is. It is a mitzvah in itself. [The way to go about it is the path of learning of Rav Nahman of saying the words until you finish the book. But also review.]

To start exploring other galaxies at this point makes sense. However you can not go faster than light. Anyway it would take lots of energy to accelerate and decelerate. You would need to find a way to make a worm hole. That is the only possible plan. [The energy problem might not be too hard if you had a way of converting gravity waves into energy or anti gravity.]


I can see a few possibilities. One is that in String Theory, the Branes that strings live on are also strings. [That is they are the same stuff, but just more dimensions.] They are higher dimensional --so the string has somewhere to be. So these branes should not be all that harder to deal with any more than ordinary matter. [They are not just "space-time". I mean space-time is hard to deal with. It takes something big like the sun to do something noticeable to space-time. But branes are just another form of strings.]

What did Jesus mean when He told his followers to heed those who sat on the Chair of Moses in Matthew 23:2?
It must be he held from keeping the Oral and Written Law of Moses.

[Another reference would be the story of the poor man and rich man that both died. The poor man saw the rich man in Hell. He asked the poor man who was in Heaven to give him a drink of water. But there was a gap between heaven and hell that was not possible to pass. So the rich man asked at least to go back to earth to warn others about the problems that he was encountering in Hell that resulted from his not sharing. But the answer was : They have the Law and the prophets. Let them go and study and keep them. So the rich man said, "They would listen if one would rise from teh dead and warm them." And he was answered, if they will not listen to the law of Moses and teh prophets then even if one would rise from the dead and warn them they also would not listen."
So there is no indication that the Law is no longer invalid.

I also noticed that Dr. Michael Huemer wrote some critique about Communism [which to me does that where the Democrats want to go] https://spot.colorado.edu/~... His point is that not just that Communism leads to many unfortunate results like Venezuela,--but that it has a false assumption in its very core. [The Labor Theory of Value that how much value something has is because of how much work went into making it. Clearly it is absurd. If someone works twenty hours making a pin needle, not one will but it for $50. Yet the LTV is the source of teh idea that the owner of the factory extracts extra value from the workers.]
Huemer is basing himself to a large degree on G.E. Moore. That is a school called the Intuitionists that hold the reason recognizes Moral Values

The Kant Fries School of Dr Kelley Ross has a different kind of critique based on Kant's idea that people have self autonomy. That is authority ought not be imposed on people except for the bare minimum of getting a working state.

My own complain against communism and socialism has always stemmed from one basic starting axiom. "Thou Shalt not Steal". Stealing from the rich to give to the poor, has never seemed to me to be any different from stealing period. 

I must say that there is a lot going on in the world that if you look closely seem to cast doubt on the core concepts of mass and forces.

For instance the four forces (Gravity, Electro-Magnetism, Strong, Weak) do not seem basic, but rather seem to stem from Quantum Mechanics. What I mean is in Quantum Field Theory if you solve things like electrons going around a Helium atom you have a phase inside the equation which has to disappear before you get to an actual physical solution. But the fact that it is still there forces there to be three of the four forces,-- and maybe even Gravity.

Another thing I mentioned a few days ago is the infinite mass that always shows up in any particle. [I mean the bare particle by itself is a whirling conglomerate of infinite waves. The particle that is measure in the lab is not the bare particle. [I mentioned there that this seem to show a kind of Kant kind of idea that the actual "thing in itself" is hard to understand. At least it is not so simple. Hegel thought there is access to the "thing in itself" by means of a dialectical process.] 

w61 G Minor

Corona 19

Corona 19 tends to spread to two people. [i.e. 1 2 4 8 16 32 ...] That kind of expansion  grows fast. So the rate of spreading is like atomic fission. That is why governments are shutting down. It is serious, but not in the same way that people understand. Also it has incubation up until 14 days.

In any case this gives one a good chance to stay home and get through Shas [the Two Talmuds], Rav Shach's Avi Ezri,  Quantum Mechanics, String Theory, and Algebraic Topology which most people are behind schedule in any case. This certainly gives one a chance to catch up.

A major goal in Hegel was to come to freedom. Not all that different from Leonard Nelson.

Kant and Hegel. See Walter Kaufman on Hegel which shows that a major goal in Hegel was to come to freedom. That is not how his system was used later by Marxists.
One thing you always know about Socialism is that it is always trying get to "equality" by means of force.

Analytic Philosophy came about more or less as a response to the many unhappy movements that seem to have based themselves on Hegel. [WWI also got a lot of people to doubt Hegel].

Leonard Nelson took a Kantian direction. Somewhat like Hegel in building on his predecessors [Kant and Fries] but went beyond.

Nelson sought axioms on which to base philosophy and morality. Somewhat like David Hilbert thought to do with Math and Physics.

Sometimes axioms disagree with what Reason recognizes as objective moral principles. [E.g. It is wrong to torture people for the fun of it.] So finding true axioms is important, but should not be used against facts.
To me it seems the starting axioms ought to be the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.
That is certainly how the sages understood the Ten Commandments as being the core principles behind  many other laws.

In any case it is clear that both Hegel and Nelson saw Philosophy as something that is built up over time and reaches definite conclusions. But Axioms did not place any role in Hegel. Rather his building blocks were the dialectic.

In any case, I tend to see both Hegel and Nelson as having things important to help me shape my world view. [CAN these three things work together? I.e. Common sense reason that recognizes moral principles, axioms and the dialectic?]
It is harder to see how Hegel got to be used by so many pernicious movements being basically a traditional Christian and Capitalist. [However I did find it odd that in former USSR areas when I asked people how things had been under the USSR as compared to now the answer was always "It was better then." And sometimes they went into details. It seemed to me that the Russian experience was different than the WASP [White Anglo Saxon Protestant] that founded the USA.

The odd thing is philosophers generally have a very high IQ. The highest IQ in universities are the people in Physics. (The lowest are the one is psychology departments. If you ever wondered why are psychologists so stupid and malicious, this might help answer your question.)
So it is curious that philosophers get so much wrong in subjects like time and space. Either they want to take down natural science since "we can not know anything" [according to their theories of post modernism]. Or they want to "help science."
People in Physics might naturally say, "Thanks anyway for your help. We would rather do without it."[i.e. "Leave us alone."]
Okay, so why is this? Most of the professors are very smart. It can not be they are missing this.
I would like to suggest the path of learning of  "saying the words and going on." [Called" girsa".]
If people would do this with Physics and Math--even if their major is in philosophy, they would surely not be ignorant about physics. There would be less confusion about Relativity and QM.

  Objective morality does not depend on axioms. As Dr Michael Huemer pointed out, there might be no algorithm to figure things out what is moral and what is not.
But even so you do what to have basic starting points so you do not end up with a regress of reasons or reasons that are self contradictory  or have axioms that make no sense.
  

  So I can see why trust in God was thought in Navardok [and in the teachings of Rav Nahman also to some degree] as your starting axiom.And to a great degree this was carried over into the entire Lithuanian yeshiva world--to a lesser degree than it had been in Navardok but still thought to be a major first principle.
  
  [So at the Mir when I was there,  there were few basic assumptions. The actual first one was learning Torah. No surprise there. And that is quite valid. See the Nedesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin for details. But also where a few other axioms. Trust in God [that means in that sense -to learn Torah and not worry about making a living. When it comes time to make a living God will help.]; not to speak Lason Hara (that was a big principle); kindness when others need help; being extremely careful about monetary issues--that is to be scrupulous/ careful to the nth degree. In general a major emphasis on good character traits.] [I can not say how much of that wore off on me, but I hope some did.]

[In terms of how I started out, it was Leonard Nelson that was building on axioms trying to develop the intent of David Hilbert of putting Philosophy on axioms--as Hilbert wanted for Mathematics and Physics]

Secular Morality usually starts with highly doubtful axioms. They find some slogan which sounds good and then base everything on that. And those slogans change with the tides.

The Mishna says תעשה ולא מן העשוי ["'Make a thread on the four corners of your garment', do not make from what is already made"]  and the gemara in Menakot [40b] asks on this from R. Zira who said: "If one puts tzitzit on a four cornered garment that already has four blue threads, then it is valid."
Rava said: "He transgresses 'thou shalt not add to these commandments,' and so the act is invalid." Rav Papa said: "The difference between the Mishna and R Zira is if one intends to add or to nullify."

Rava is hard to understand. If you would have only Rav Papa things would seem clear.

Rav Shach in Laws of Tzitzit I:15, brings that the explanation of Rava is an argument between most other Rishonim that say he is agreeing with R Zira. The Rambam says he is disagreeing.

I have some thoughts about this sugia.
But first let me try to make it clear.
First the case is where you have four and then one more is added. Then you take off the forth and leave the fifth.
Mishna: invalid.
R. Zira: Valid.
Rav Papa. Intending to add is the Mishna. Intending to nullify the forth is valid.

If you understand Rava as disagreeing with Rav Zira [that is Rambam] that means he thinks adding a fifth  means even after taking off the forth it is still invalid. That means Rava would be disagreeing with Rav Papa also and saying that it makes no difference what his intention was.

But if Rava is coming to agree with R Zira it seems odd to say that it is valid because the deed of adding was not a "act" and so taking off the forth would be the beginning of putting on the fifth. This seems hard to understand for me.\\\\
There are here so many variables flying around that this is the exact type of thing that it is helpful to have  a learning partner with  high IQ.
You can place Rava (against Rav Papa) as saying the side of transgression is when the garment is OK because the act is not an act [Raavad] ;or with Rav Papa in the opposite sense-- that the side of transgression is when the act is not an act, and so only when he intends to nullify the previous thread is it OK (That is like the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo and the Rambam).
And you still do not know of perhaps the meaning is even to take off the forth thread or the extra fifth that the other is null also because of the same principle, "Make, but not from what is made", since even the forth was null while the 5th was on. So taking off the fifth should not make the 4th valid because it is a case of "make not from what is made".
 In any case, my learning  partner, David Bronson with whom I was learning in Uman was perfect for this kind of thing-- where just off hand I can count at least 20 or more permutations of how to fit this sugia together. But on my own I think this will take a long time to get to any clarity.

A side note here is that it is important to not that adding "extra" makes the whole thing null. This is why you would have in the world of Lithuanian types of yeshivot that "adding extra" of more than what the Law requires is looked at negatively. You see that principle here. The Law requires four tzitziot [blue threads] on a garment with four corners. Putting on a fifth one does not get one extra credit. It nulifies all the other four. So from this one can learn the lesson that what the Law requires it requires, not less and not more. Adding more than that nullifies everything.

"locality". There are time and space, but things just do not take any values in these things until measured.

With Bell's inequality we would have to give up one of two things. Either locality [local action], or that things have values in time and space before measured. We can not give up the first so it is the second that must be given up. [The reason people think that because of Bell that we must give up the first is based on this ambiguity. Bell did show something but not what he thought nor what people think he showed.]  I should add that with Bell there still are time and space, but things just do not take any values in these things until measured.

See lectures by Gell Mann at Caltech and Coleman at Harvard for information about this. On occasion you might find this issue addressed in a QM book. I recall one from the Weitzman Institute in Beer Sheva. But the fact that locality is true is well known in the Physics world. See also the Reference Frame blog on "locality".

The thing that I find curious is the infinite mass and charge of bare particles. When interacting particles are fine it is the bare particle that always has this infinite mass and charge.

Though the way this is dealt with is by re-normalization, still that is a way of dealing with a problem, but which does not make the problem go away. 

So what this looks like to me is somewhat like Kant. Not that space and time are subjective but rather dinge an sich [things in themselves that we do not have access to.] And then mass and charge also. 

[Besides that most things seem to be at the core a kind of thing going back and forth [A WAVE]-a harmonic oscillator --makes me wonder, "what is doing the oscillating?"]

W60 A Major

everything that goes on in the religious world is invalid. So while on one hand, there is a point about Fear of God and Learning Torah and Musar. But you do not want your efforts side tracked.

When one adds to a commandment that has an amount then the fulfillment commandment  is nullified. That is to everyone. But lets say one takes of the addition? Then does the first one remain valid?
See Rav Shach in the start of Laws of the Blue Thread [Tzitzit]. [That comes from a paragraph in the Book of Numbers].
To Rashi and Tosphot and the Raavad -if one has added another blue thread to his four cornered garment (which transgresses the command, "Do not add nor subtract from these commandments") Then obviously he can not wear the garment. However what happens if he cuts off the extra one? To Rashi and Tosphot it is OK. To the Rambam the adding makes it all invalid.

This shows that pretty much everything that goes on in the religious world is invalid. because of the constant adding to the commandments, the result is that nothing they do is valid. The adding nullifying even what might have otherwise been acceptable. 

So what I do is to avoid the religious completely. I figure I can not tell who really is a Torah scholar that is  a demon as Rav Nahman warned us about. So I simply avoid them all. 

What counts as metaphysics?

What counts as metaphysics that the rishonim [mediaeval authorities] emphasized learning?

At least we can see right on the first page of the important and first book of Musar, The Obligations of the Heart. He is referring to Aristotle and the Muslim commentaries. Al Kindi and Al Farabi. But we can also see his actual system of metaphysics in the first section which is Neo-Platonic. [So he is including the Neo Platonic, Plotinus]

This approach is certainly based on Saadia Gaon.

So the question is what about Kant? After all these same rishonim also emphasis learning Physics. So we would not say everyone ought to learn the Physics of Aristotle. We understand the discipline has made advancement. So can we say the same about philosophy?  Well on one hand  Philosophy has not made linear advancement since Aristotle. And so Aristotle and Plato would still be necessary to learn. But on the other hand there has been some progress. But other issues have come up. So I would add Kant, Leonard Nelson, Hegel, Thomas Reid [the philosopher of common sense]. 

 In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Tzitzit chapter 1, law 15 is brought this fact that if one has a garment with four corners and puts in the four blue threads but then adds another then the previous four are also nullified. That is when the Torah gives a commandment that has a certain amount and one adds to that amount then the entire fulfillment of that command is nullified.

[This would tend to show that religious fanaticism does not help in terms of keeping Torah. ]

 There are on the other hand certain commandments that have no upper or lower limit as is brought in the mishna in Peah  אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור הפאה והביכורים וגמילות חסדים וכו' ותלמוד תורה כנגד בולם
These things have no given amount peah, the first fruits, kindness, honor of parents, visiting the sick etc., and learning Torah is equal to all of them together.

That is you can add as much to learning Torah or doing kindness and that is not a sin because the commandment has not given amount. But other commandments that have an amount, if one adds extra, he or she loses the fulfillment.

See Rav Shach there that there is an argument how to explain the Gemara in Menakot [page 40  side b and also page 41 side a] that is the source of this whole issue. But to all the different opinions, putting on another thread makes the whole fulfillment null and void.
The issue there in Menakot is  "to make" not make from "what is already made", and the gemara asks on this from R. Zeira. Then Rava makes an statement that seems hard to understand and that is the source of the difficulty.

pseudo commandments

The issue of adding to the commandments seems to me to be serious. It is just like the Torah says "Do not add and do not subtract to these commandments that I have commanded you this day". You can see what happens when lots of things are added "to make a fence" around the law that then automatically changes the whole structure of the law itself and certainly detracts from the actual fulfillment of real commandments when all people's energy is devoted to keeping pseudo commandments.

This is what it actually says in the commentary on Pirkei Avot by an amora R. Natan. [It is printed in the Vilna Shas after the end of seder Nezikim which is where Pirkei Avot itself is. אבות דר' נתן על פרקי אבות על המשנה לעשות סייג לתורה

 There are examples of being strict about addition stuff results in open violation of actual commandments of the Torah. This is not just in theory. 

Do not add to the commandments [Deuteronomy: "Thou shalt not add nor subtract from these commandments which I command you this day."]

I was wondering about the prohibition in the Torah of not adding to the commandments.
There is obviously a question about a lot of stuff.
One area you see this is with the blue thread on the corner of ones garments.
See Rav Shach on this issue in the Avi Ezri. [The very first law in the laws about the blue thread on the four corners on one's garment]. There he brings this issue concerning putting on a fifth thread which makes all the previous four threads "pasul"[null] . That is putting on an extra thread--just to be extra strict makes the fulfillment of the commandment null and void.

I never really got a satisfying answer to this question. My learning partner brought this idea that if you add;-- but you do not say it is an obligation from the Torah, but rather from your own volition or some decree of the scribes, that makes it OK. (?)The problem with this answer seems to be right here in this law that Rav Shach brings. Here we see that it makes no difference if one says he is adding another thread because of what ever reason there may be. The very fact of adding it makes the entire fulfillment of the commandment null and void.

Rav Shach brings this issue in a few other places in the Avi Ezri, but this is the most recent place that I noticed.]


Not adding to the commandments is a large issue. There are things that are considered a need for the times. Like you would have in norms like when to cross the street. Not to cross on a red light etc.

But to claim these are obligations of the Torah would be a problem. On the other hand there are commandments of the Torah that do not have upper or lower limits--like learning Torah or all the things mentioned in the beginning of tractate Peah. [These are the things that have no size... and learning Torah is equal to all.]

trust in God and learning fast

The way of learning of  just saying the words in order and going on is not directly related to trust in God. Yet it does provide an opportunity to exercise trust in God.
And having a chance to do something positive about acting on trust is a way to help trust in God grow.

I mean to say any good character trait grows in general by how much you exercise that trait. Whether by kindness or telling the truth. But trust in God seems different. How do you exercise it expect by "not doing". So since in any case one is required to learn, this gives a chance to do something positive to help your trust--and faith- in God grow.

[The idea of learning I want to add is not for everything.  Pseudo wisdoms are not in the category of things that it is a commandment to learn. So what is in the category of "teach them to your children and speak of them" is highly limited. To the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] the command is only on the Oral or Written Torah. Only some Rishonim include Physics and Metaphysics in the command. [Those Rishonim based on Saadia Gaon]]


So my idea of what to study [especially now when you have a chance --finally out of the rat race. Quarantine.] Is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and  Physics. As for Metaphysics I am not sure what to recommend.

It is not clear how to reason about time because of Bell's inequality. The idea is that things do not have actual classical values of time or position in space until measured. [That was based on the Einstein Rosen thought experiment about polarization of light that shows either one of two things. Either action at a distance or things have no classical values of time until measured. [The experiment was done in the 1960's.] We know there is no action at a distance from GPS which depends on Relativity, so the second is true.]

Was the connection between the Philosopher Leonard Nelson and David Hilbert deeper that just Hilbert well known kindness and help for people in need? Leonard Nelson could definitely not get anywhere because all the philosopher in Germany were against him. [Not just in the university where David Hilbert was, but even in all Germany.]

But my point is that Hilbert saw a great importance in axioms, and getting to a basic set of axioms that all mathematics depends on. He wanted to expand that to physics. So the fact that Leonard Nelson wanted to expand that to philosophy would fit right in!
[It was not just the beauty aspects of having a small set of axioms, but also to make progress. And even though Godel showed that if you axioms are consistent then the system you derive from them can never be complete still David Hilbert's idea of the importance of the axioms is valid.

Socialism and eating pets.

“You would think that when your economy gets to the point where people are eating their pets, people might have second thoughts about what system they’ve chosen.”
 [Senator Rand Paul, contemplating the quick descent of once-rich Venezuela].

It occurred to me the main problem with socialism is equality. That is the idea that everyone has to be equal in the amount of goods. The problem with that is there is nothing in it to create goods. Only to divide what there already is. And add to that the further problem that there is no motivation for anyone to create anything. The only motivation to go and work is that the police arrest you after three months of you have a blank in your "work book" and send you to a gulag. That is a motivation but not a motivation do do anything constructive. 

Marx himself had noticed the tremendous potential of capitalism to create goods needed and wanted by people. But he thought that the age of the new man, the "idealistic socialist man" had arrived such that people would happily work for others and the state with no thought of their own needs.

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It was common in the Middle Ages that lots of things in the Torah are allegorical. Maybe they did not use that for the flood, but it was used. You have to say it in lots of cases. King David  wrote in Psalms, "I am a worm, and not a man." That surely has to be an allegory (I think).

There is sometimes an intersection between a law that is from the words of the scribes and a law of the Torah. Usually this is rare and in theory almost impossible. Still it does happen sometimes.

An example is a woman gets married by the testimony of one witness [who says her husband died]. The two witnesses that are not accepted because of a decree of the scribes come, and say he is still alive. She can say married to her new husband. [See Rav Shach law of Divorce.. chapter 22.]

[What i mean is that one witness against two is always nothing. So here you have her getting married on the belief that he husband died in war or somewhere else. But there was only one witness to testify to that. So even if she can get remarried still it is not really valid testimony. Then come two witnesses that are OK from the law of the Torah  [that is they are not women, nor relatives, nor have received money for their testimony]. Yet these last two are not accepted by a decree from the scribes--for example they gamble or play the lottery. So they are not good witnesses from the words of the scribes but are OK from the Torah.  So from the law of the Torah she would have to leave her second "husband" since two witnesses say her real husband is still alive. Yet she is still allowed to remain married to the second one because the later testimony was from two that are not accepted from the words of the scribes.


[The idea is usually a decree from the scribes can forbid something that is permitted from the Torah because of making a "fence" a safeguard around the Law. But they can not permit something the Torah forbids. Yet here for some reason these two witnesses which are OK from the Torah are not accepted even to forbid. (I might add that even the ability to forbid what the Torah allows is subject to a debate. [See the Mishna "To make a fence" in Avot DeR. Natan. There you see the very concept in itself is subject to a debate. After all, why add to what the Torah says? Is it not enough?] Usually the Gemara is interested in what is forbidden or permitted from the Torah.

[When this comes up in money issues the answer is הפקר בית דין הפקר but here there is a different reason.]

Torah scholars that are demons.

Rav Nahman was not the first one to point out the trouble with Torah scholars that are demons.
I only brought this from Rav Nahman's LeM because it was one of the most striking features  of his teaching that I saw when I first started looking at his books. [LeM vol I: 8 I:12, I:28 I:61 II:1 II:8 and many other places I have forgotten off hand.]

The statements of the Gemara itself I forget the page numbers. One is from tractate Shabat.
"All the troubles that come into the world come only because of the religious leaders of Israel as it says in the verse in Isaiah, 'Your judges judge for the sake of getting bribes...'"

So already there was this connection from the start. It was not a new phenomenon in the time of Rav Nahman.

The question is why Rav Nahman would have picked out this particular point among thousands of possible great ideas from the sages he might have chosen to emphasize?

In any case, from the emphasis itself of Rav Nahman it seems these kinds of Torah scholars are not uncommon. Rather if anyone has trouble finding them they probably could not find a snowflake in a blizzard.




Clearly he saw this issue as sine qua non--[without which nothing good can even begin.]

Chloroquine and Hydro-chloroquine reportedly have been used both in China and South Korea to successfully treat the Wuhan Coronavirus and thus limit deaths. Both drugs have been traditionally used to treat malaria. Quinine is an active ingredient.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTi-g18ftNZUMRAj2SwRPodtscFio7bJ7GdNgbJAGbdfF67WuRJB3ZsidgpidB2eocFHAVjIL-7deJ7/pub?fbclid=IwAR3HXmAaRvsKQwtD4mT0W6NU4bTJvZnR6f3KLRcsWkXSOGn33dbdR1KyS0Q

Leonard Nelson: A Theory of Philosophical Fallacies

I guess I am surprised that Leonard Nelson was actually published a few years ago and I simply did not take notice.

A Theory of Philosophical Fallacies published by Springer Verlag [the most prestigious publishing house in the world.

[I can not get over the fact that I missed this. It must be that people finally started noticing Leonard Nelson!! How do you like that?] [Dr. Kelley Ross had noticed Nelson all the way in the 1960's, but he was alone. He devotes his whole web site to expand on the ideas of Nelson.]

[I again want to mention I not want to take a side between his more Kantian approach, and John McTaggart's approach to Hegel]. I have learned, and gained a lot by both. I am not trying to be a philosopher. I simply wanted to gain some insight into the world and I found both to be of great benefit.


What I found amazing in Nelson was the idea of non-intuitive immediate knowledge [faith].
[The issue is can you have faith that is justified? It seems it can not be from empirical evidence. But also a priori seems limited as John Locke pointed out. To see what the problem is you might take a look at Descartes and Berkeley. Kant and Hegel come to answer the problems, but Kant's answers have seemed unsatisfying ever since he proposed them. [Fries came up with non-intuitive immediate knowledge, but his approach had problems also --that I forgot about off hand. If I can recall, I will try to put it up on this blog. But I know at least that Nelson was a great improvement on Kant and Fries both.] Nelson seems to have the best modification of Kant that does answer problems. 

[Michael Huemer has an approach different from Nelson. He goes with the idea that Reason tells you more than just how to detect contradictions (as Hume thought). Starting with that he goes further with prima facie the way things seem unless proven otherwise. So what Nelson calls immediate Huemer would also say reason sees things not exactly as immediate, but rather that after you understand the concept then it has prima facie credibility. So to Nelson can a priori knowledge be mistaken? I guess that is the issue. Kelly Ross answered this in connection with non Euclidean Geometry. I forget the whole issue right now.]
[The way I see this is thus: That knowledge and opinion --the question of Plato-is not a difference in kind but a difference of degree. And the whole difference between empirical and a priori is not the issue. As Dr Huemer pointed out there is no such thing as pure empirical knowledge.]



[The odd thing is that Hegel was the exact opposite of Socialism and yet used for that very purpose constantly. The strange thing about that is this. The goal of socialism is to make sure you have nothing more than your neighbor. That is the literal meaning of "equality." That does not mean making more goods. It means taking what there is and making sure that no one has anything more than anyone else. Do you really think that is right?]

Saadia Gaon on some problems in Christianity and some possible answers.

Saadia Gaon dealt with the two basic issues of Christianity of cancellation of the commandments and the Trinity.
But for some reason his book אמונות ודעות [Faiths and World Views] is rarely learned. The reason is that is is not on Gemara nor Musar. Still it sets the stage for all later Musar. [See the Introduction to the Obligations of the Hearts.]

In any case I wanted to mention that certainly he was correct that cancellation of the commandments is wrong. The trouble with this is it is not from Jesus himself but rather from Paul. And Paul was referring to gentiles. So while Saadia Gaon was right to criticize the doctrine, the point is that the doctrine is itself not even in the NT. note 1 [see http://www.anthonyflood.com/bahnsentheonomicposition.htm]
However, I ought to add that there is the point of R Shimon Ben Yochai-- that the commandments have a purpose. And when the purpose does not apply to a situation, the commandment itself is not applicable. For instance: it is not allowed to take a pledge from a rich widow. R. Shimon Ben Yochai said one can take  a pledge from a rich widow. [BM 119] [See Rav Shach where he brings up this argument between R Shimon and the Sages.]

The Trinity is also apparently a difficulty except if one takes into account that all mystics generally held the souls of the patriarchs from from Emanation. [I mean all mystics. See Sefer Yezira, Sefer HaBahir, Rav Avraham Abulafia etc.]


[note 1] "Do not begin to think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things have happened, not one jot or tittle shall by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:17-19).

Several points about the interpretation of this passage should be rather clear. (1) Christ twice denied that His advent had the purpose of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. (2) Until the expiration of the physical universe, not even a letter or stroke of the law will pass away. And (3) therefore God’s disapprobation rests upon anyone who teaches that even the least of the Old Testament laws may be broken.

Attempts are sometimes made to evade the thrust of this text by editing out its reference to the moral demands of the Old Testament—contrary to what is obvious from its context (5:16, 20, 21-48; 6:1, 10, 33; 7:12, 20-21, 26) and semantics (“the law” in v. 18, “commandment” in v. 19). Other attempts are made to extract an abrogating of the law’s moral demands from the word “fulfill” (v. 17) or the phrase “until all things have happened” (v. 18). This, however, renders the verses self-contradictory in what they assert.

In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29

Introduction. A wife can have three different kinds of property. Money or property that she brings into the marriage is divided into two types. If it is written in the marriage contract נכסי צאן ברזל then the husband gets the use of it and rent or fruit it produces. But it remains her's and if there is a divorce the property goes back to her and if the value is lessened he has to make up for that. Then there is money that is not written in the Ketubah. [נכסי מלוג] That also he gets the profits and use. But does not make up for the loss if the property is damaged. In any case, the money or property belongs to her.
But money or property that comes to her during the marriage belongs to the husband. That is money she makes in her job, or she finds, or is given to her. However, if given to her on condition that her husband has no part of it, then it belongs to her. But still [as all property that belongs to her], her husband still gets the profits. There is an exception, i.e. if the condition it was given to her stipulated that even all profits would not go to the husband.

[If that sounds confusing, the way to simplify it is to remember the basic difference if whether the money or property was brought into the marriage, then it belongs to the wife. If it was acquired by the wife after they got married, then it automatically belongs to her husband. These are all in Tractate Ketuboth chapters 6 to 9. [These are not well known facts because when people learn Ketuboth it often revolves around the the first parts way before you get to 6-9.]





In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29 is brought the idea that there is a difference between when a wife loans money to her husband to when she buys something from him. This comes from the Gemara in Bava Batra chapter 3 [חזקת הבתים] page 51. In the case of buying and selling if the money was known to the husband the deal is valid. The money is thought to belong to the woman. In the case she loans him money the money is considered to really have belonged anyway to him.

The way Rav Shach explains this is that money given in a loan if not anymore thought to be in the possession of the wife since the actual physical money of a  loan is always meant to be spent. It no longer is in the physical possession of the wife. But the money of a deal of buying and selling is thought to have been in the physical possession of the wife. 

In the Gemara itself the difference between buying and  a loan is brought and asked. The Gemara itself answers the husband did not want to be "a borrower is a slave to the lender" [that is a verse in Proverbs.] The idea is that if he could have gotten the money from her with having to arrange that it should be  loan he would have done so. But with buying and selling it is assumed that the deal makes both parties happy. The seller gets more utility from the money and the buyer gets more utility from the field. Rav Shach is just going into the deeper reason why the money in the case of selling in the first place is conspired in fact to have belonged to the wife.

That Rav Shach says is a good reason why her husband did not want to borrow. But what is the underlying difference? He says it is the issue of (חזקה) presumed status.

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I might add besides the debt of gratitude I owe my parents introducing me to classical music, I have to mention Mr Smart in my high school whose love of music and contagious enthusiasm for great music definitely encouraged me. [I should add my thanks to my friends in  high school with which we had a string quartet that met every week that also helped me develop my intuition for music. i.e.  Wendy Wilson [not the famous one but one who later became a lawyer in Michigan], Roland Hutchingson, Paula Finn.]

[Here is a link to a piece that I wrote in those days

Wolfgang Wodarg, a German lung doctor on virus.

interesting doctor that has some knowledge about viruses, not speculation.

To repent is always a good idea. The best idea is to find books on the subject from the Middle Ages before the concepts of faith and repentance got watered down during the Renaissance. Many ideas of the Renaissance are important, but do not take the place that the Middle Ages had on the importance of Faith with Reason. (That was the unique contribution of the Middle Ages.)

The issue is really like that of Hegel that there is a kind of dialectical process going on in history in which truth gets steadily clarified. [So even though the Renaissance was an improvement on many things from the Middle Ages, still that does not mean to throw out teh good that was unique to the Medieval period.]

I thought about repentance for some time while I was in Uman and came up with the idea that surely most of my mistakes I am unaware of. Just learning the Gates of Repentance  and other books of Musar of the Middle Ages and Rav Israel Salanter is a help but there can be even after learning Musar many issue that remain unclear. So it occurred to me that at least some of my mistakes I am aware of. I can tell by subsequent events and stemmed directly. So the idea I got was to repent on at least what I know I did wrong. Then with help from above hopefully I might be able to get further. This seemed certainly an advantage to just picking out of  a hat what happens to occur to me what repentance might be.    

The idea of saying the words and going on has a lot to do with trust in God.  It is mentioned in Rav Nahman but goes back all the way to the Gemara itself and brought in the classical medieval  Musar book אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righteous.

To me it seems like a way to learn not just Gemara but also Physics--but again only with trusting God that you do a small amount if effort and then God sends the blessing.

[But then you also need faith that such a path of learning is in itself worthy and needed. This was definitely the way of books of Musar based on Saadia Gaon. חובות לבבות for example. [Obligations of the Hearts.] However this was an argument in Musar itself. Certainly the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter saw no value and even negative value in any secular studies. I would myself make a distinction between exactly what type of secular studies we would be talking about. Any subject in a University which has the name "studies" attached to it is clearly pseudo science.

nice video about viruses being manufactured in labs.

People can get psyched up about anything.The Japanese had shown their preference for death rather than surrender already as early as 1942. At first it startled American generals at Saipan until they started seeing that it was no isolated phenomenon, but repeated itself island after island the closer they got to Japan's Islands--not just their conquered territory. This was not Japanese soldiers. It was not even Japanese civilians women and children that threw themselves off cliffs rather than be caught by Americans. That is how much the Japanese soldiers had psyched them up.

So it is in one's interest to have an accurate idea of the "big picture" aka reality.

It is no mystery if a lot of people believe stuff which to you seems ridiculous. That is just the regular ability of humans and other animals to convince themselves of anything. Take pigeons for another example. No other  species is quite as superstitious. Have them step on a bell before they get food a couple of times. They will believe even against all later evidence that that ringing bells is what causes the food to come. And they will not stop stamping on that bell no matter how much or how long it takes--even if never. 

Trust in God. "Bitachon"

There is no algorithm for when one should make effort to get his needs and when one should sit back and trust in the Divine decree. But the closest I  ever got to some kind of resolution about this was Rav Nahman of Breslov in the LeM vol II. Chapter 4. that one should make  a vessel in which the blessing can flow into.

Even in open miracles in the Bible there is always some physical action attached in the same way. Some action by which the blessing can come into the world. E.g. Elisha the prophet telling Neeman the Syrian general to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times in order to be cured.

[I have to add that the only time that trust in God was a real possibility for me in terms of restraint from action was at the Mir in NY for the short time I was there as a student and married. It seems to me the fact that the general atmosphere was such that trust in God was a possibility. A kind of group dynamics. When everyone else was trusting in God, it made it a greater reality for me. And in fact it worked. The more I ceased from action and chose to sit and learn Torah and trusted that God would do everything for me that I needed, the more it happened just like that.

Rav Elazar Shach laws of marriage ch 22. law 16 and law 17.

I just wanted to introduce a subject and later go into it in more detail.
The issue is in Rav Elazar Shach laws of marriage ch 22. law 16 and law 17.
What I wanted to say is that there is property the wife brings into  a marriage that is not written in the Ketuba. [That is called נכסי מלוג]. [That property the husband receives the fruit but does not own it.] What if he and she sell it? [That is they sell it together, not one or the other.] The issue is in tractate Ketuboth. Ameimar said a husband and wife that sell the property of the wife, the deal is not valid. The first way the Gemara understands this is one without the other. But when together, it is valid. The second way of the Gemara is even together the deal is not valid.
The Gemara brings the reason for the second way is from the law in the Torah of  "a day or two" of a slave. The law there only applies if the slave has one owner, not two. So the idea is that for a sell to be valid there has to be one owner.
Rav Shach goes into this in detail which I would like to continue later if possible.

Off hand it seems like the issue of דבר שלא בא לעולם that one can not buy or sell something that is not in the world now. For example in Torah law one can not sell fruit that will come from a tree. Either the whole tree. Or a kind of hold on the tree אילן לפירותיו. So in our case the wife owns the property but she can not sell it because the fruit has to go to husband. He can not sell it because he does not own the property, only he receives the fruit.

w57 G Major  w57 midi

w57 nwc format

Two major issues in Christianity

Two major issues in Christianity are Christology and the Commandments. These are the two issues that take up a good deal of thought and room. Christology is "Who was Jesus?". The issue about the commandments is about the point of Paul which seems to be nullification.

The issue of Christology I have mentioned before that I think it is along the lines that you usually think of the Patriarchs--souls of Emanation. [Very common in all works of mystics.] In Particular Kindness in Foundation as brought in Rav Nahman of Uman.

As for the nullification issue --to me it seems wrong. I can not see anything that indicates such an idea in Jesus himself. It seems to be a later addition. [See the Theonomic position in Bahnsen Anthony Flood.] He puts it better that I could.

Here is an extract from Banhsen: Listen to His own testimony:

Do not begin to think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things have happened, not one jot or tittle shall by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:17-19).

Several points about the interpretation of this passage should be rather clear. (1) Christ twice denied that His advent had the purpose of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. (2) Until the expiration of the physical universe, not even a letter or stroke of the law will pass away. And (3) therefore God’s disapprobation rests upon anyone who teaches that even the least of the Old Testament laws may be broken.¹⁶

¹⁶ Attempts are sometimes made to evade the thrust of this text by editing out its reference to the moral demands of the Old Testament—contrary to what is obvious from its context (5:16, 20, 21-48; 6:1, 10, 33; 7:12, 20-21, 26) and semantics (“the law” in v. 18, “commandment” in v. 19). Other attempts are made to extract an abrogating of the law’s moral demands from the word “fulfill” (v. 17) or the phrase “until all things have happened” (v. 18). This, however, renders the verses self-contradictory in what they assert.

century of philosophy that is worthless and vacuous [both so called "analytic" and "continental"].

After a century of philosophy that is worthless and vacuous [both so called analytic and continental] it seems the main issue in philosophy is between Leonard Nelson and Hegel. Or more accurately between Nelson and McTaggart-- since Hegel without McTaggart is almost indecipherable] .

Analytic philosophy is worthless because it is all about analyzing language-- which means analysis of fiction; like a deep study in the physics of Tolkien's Rings. Language is 100% subjective; and has zero independent validity except for when you say "dog" that I understand a dog. There is nothing more. It all about the King's clothes--when he has no clothes.]
[Modern philosophy is elaborating endless variations on existing themes
And as Steven Dutch put it:
"Elaborating endless variations on existing themes is creativity in a sense, but not of the same order as coming up with wholly new classes of ideas. This is not a value judgment, it is simply being true to the accurate usage of words."

I see trust in God [Bitachon] as very important. That was ever since I saw the book Madragat HaAdam [of Navardok] at the Mir in NY. But how to implement trust in God in a practical sense has always been an issue for me. The way it worked at the Mir for other and for me was more or less to devote ourselves to learning Torah and taking it as a given that God would take care of everything else.. And that worked--for as long as I was there. But not so much since I left.

To me the issue seems always to be exactly how much effort do you do and how much do you cease efforts and trust in God. That may not tell you much about the inner heart, but it does relate to the practical aspect of trust.

Maimonides was working for Saladin (as a doctor)

If Maimonides was working for Saladin (as a doctor) the last ten years of his life that would mean he started worked for him about 7 years after Saladin conquered Jerusalem. [ But that would have been in 1191 about three years after Saladin lost to Richard I the Lion Heart [at Arsuf]; and thus Saladin lost control of most of Israel especially the coastal regions, but retained Jerusalem]. That also means that during that time Maimonides wrote the Guide for the Perplexed.



[Saladin was actually not an Arab but a Kurd, but was working for the Seluks in Egypt until he killed his employers and took over. His major rivalry was with the Caliph of Baghdad who was Abassid. [The Abassid's  ruled the Muslim world for about 500 years from 750  A.D. and on until 1254 A.D..]



It does not seem to me that the fact he was working for Saladin changed anything in the Guide. He had it all laid out in his mind from the time he was a teenager as he writes in the Commentary on the Mishna. He says openly he is going to write two more books. One collected all the laws and the other explaining the world view of the Torah.  It is somewhat along the lines of Aristotle and Plotinus (neo Plato). That is also the basic world view of the Hovot LeVavot [Obligations of the Heart as you can see in the very first section of that =the most important of all Musar books.] 

The way of learning when I was in public high school was by reading--not saying the words- and taking tests. That did not really click with me. Especially taking tests.

The way of learning in Shar Yashuv [the first Litvak yeshiva I was in after high school] emphasized review.
Rav Freifeld in fat used to recommend learning through each chapter of Gemara ten times.

But I had also heard about the idea of learning fast by saying the words and not looking back. This I heard of even before I had heard of Rav Nahman of Breslov. This later method of learning is brought in one of the classical books of Musar {Mediaeval Musar/Ethics}.

To me it seems there ought to be a combination of this fact time along with the type of review.


The question is what to apply these two methods to. My approach is to emphasize The Law of Moses. That is to learn the Written Law [the Old Testament], Oral Law  (to get through the two Talmuds at least once with every Tosphot and Maharsha), Physics and Metaphysics.

There is an aspect of Torah that has to do with the group. How do you spend your time learning what no one else cares about and which does not relate to you directly?
I am not saying this ought to be the case, but you are learning about laws of what a wife can sell and the whole vast subject of Ketuboth. Let's say for arguments sake that no one else in the world would care about that?
This gives almost by definition the desire to be respected enough when you learn that so that what you say about it should be at least taken into account. But what if not only you but the laws themselves where no at all cared about?

This gives a certainly motivation to be more interested or at least but the centre of gravity of your learning on what is objectively  the part of God's Law that is in Creation itself. Physics. That is objective and can not be ignored.

However Torah even as it relates to people also in not subjective. It is objective morality. However it makes it hard to be all that interested when it seems your efforts go evaporate into thin air.

The idea that the Law of God is what you see in Creation itself is  a theme that comes up a lot in Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov.  [This is one area that is a bit hard to figure out what Rav Nahman held. For it is fairly clear he was  against secular learning. What he calls "outer wisdoms". To me it seems that one has to make a difference between man made wisdoms that are not a part of objective reality and between God's wisdom as contained in Creation.



[What I mean by subjective is like languages. If not for the way the person listening to you understands what you mean by saying dog the "d" with the "g" and the "o" in the middle would mean nothing. Language is 100% subjective. Objective is for example the dog itself. It does not care about what people call it.]

w56 Allegro in F major

Do numbers exist?

Dr. Michael Huemer holds that universals [like numbers] exist, but they depend on the existence of particulars. [The regular idea of Aristotle.] [I see he put up an essay "An Argument against Nominalism"] 
This makes sense to me. But it does not seem to conflict with Divine Simplicity since I also hold with Kant at least to the degree that Reason does not comprehend any area that is outside of conditions of experience. [Things in themselves].

As Huemer puts it: "trees exist". Same with "two." There can be two rocks. Two people. Twos of lots of things. But you do not stub your toe running into a "two" lying on the sidewalk.

[Divine simplicity is the idea that God is simple. Not parts, ingredients. Not a composite. But you might add with Kant that there is nothing that pure reason can comprehend about God, because he is not with "conditions of possible experience". That is he is in the realms of "things in themselves".]

[This is one area that Hegel disagreed with Kant in that he held there can be access to dinge an sich. Incidentally that is also the view of Leonard Nelson in saying that we can access the dinge an sich  by means of immediate non intuitive knowledge.. Huemer goes with prima facie probability.

That is to say it would take a lot of evidence to show that trees do not exists.  That places the burden on the "philosopher" to show trees have nothing in common.

bezmenov had a YouTube video about how the KGB used most of its resources on infiltrating the USA and turning it to communism by means of infiltration subversion, Not the usual kind of activity associated with the KGB and Thrush in Man from Uncle. He was a high ranking officer in the KGB but defected. It could be similar activity might have been going on to subvert the Vatican also.


bezmenov U tube


[On the other hand it would have taken a lot more resources than the KGB actually had in order to do that. Probably it was like a chain. Socialism had a lot of professors  that were teaching it.]

If you have ever been part of even the most healthy and straightest and best of religious groups like the Litvak Yeshiva world you might know that even in the best of groups there is an aspect of cultism. And that leaves you wondered were you part of a decent group or part of a cult.

But I say that these categories can overlap.

Just to give an example. Take Adi Da. Clearly a cult. And yet there probably some aspects of legitimate teachings also. Or Scientology. Same thing.
These are clearly cults and yet probably had some aspects of benefit.
So the question is not whether the group is a cult or legitimate. Nor how much of a percent is each one. Rather the question is that of cyanide. You do not care how much cyanide is in your chocolate pudding. If there is any at all --that is already too much.

So even if you are part of a good group there still can be plenty of things to be wary of.  The Dark Side can get into everything. Especially in the religious world.

The way I see marriage nowadays is in this way. If you would know that after ten years she will take everything from you and poison your children against you would you still go into it?
For some people the answer is yes. It is that important to have children. But many others would say no.
That is why I just do not see marriage as the best idea. It makes no difference how determined you are to make it work since there is another person involved who learned the right words to convince you.

And what about the simple option of פילגש? If it is good enough for Jacob our forefather why should it not be good enough for me? In any case, it is a argument among the rishonim but I see it nowadays as the best approach. To the Ramban [Nachmanides], Raavad and most other rishonim it is perfectly allowed.