We know Saadia Gaon was aware of mysticism. He wrote a commentary on Sefer Yezira. But did not think of it as authoritative. He did not borrow or use any idea from there when it came to understanding spiritual issues in his Emunot VeDeot.

Not did Ibn Pakuda [Author of the Obligations of the Hearts] nor the Rambam think of mysticism as a source or reliable knowledge, nor  a part of the commandment of learning Torah. When both of them expand the definition of learning Torah to include Physics and Metaphysics they do not include mysticism.

When the Rambam refers to Metaphysics he says quite openly in the Intro to the Guide  that he is referring to this subject as written down by the ancient Greeks. [Same with the Obligations of the Hearts on the first page of his introduction. And see later in Shar Ha'Behina 3.]

[I find great insights in the works of mystics like Rav Avraham Abulafia of the Middle Ages, but I do not consider that to be  a part of the written or oral law. Those are his personal revelations. Similarly to Rav Nahman of Breslov. In fact, if someone would be claiming that their personal insights come from Moses at Sinai, that would be  a problem. An example would be the Zohar. Insightful, but presented as being a part of the oral tradition. There is a kind of dishonesty in that.]

[Isaac of Acco met the author who exclaimed, may God strike him dead if he does not have a original copy in his house,-- and he would show him. But before Isaac got to his house, the author in fact died. [How inconvenient.] His wife swore there was no such original. (She said he sat there with nothing in front of him, and wrote it from his head.) But to me, the sure give away is "עם כל דא" a way of saying "although" invented by the Ibn Tibon family. I just can not force myself to read what is obviously a forgery, no matter how inspiring it might be.]


[Just for the record, I did learn a lot of the Ari/Rav Isaac Luria however I understand him as being like Rav Nahman in that he is just saying over his personal revelations, and not claiming that they are from Sinai. I never saw anything in the Ari that was claiming that these were oral traditions going back in time. ]

Instead of fiction I suggest Physics and Math. Why is it that people gravitate towards fiction? Because it is relaxing. However that does not mean not to do Physics at all. People have an idea that if they do not understand then what is the point? But there is a point. To be connected with the Wisdom of God.
So what people need is to first have the idea that they are not wasting their time by doing so and rather that they are fulfilling a commandment of God.

[As the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] explain that to fulfill the commandment of love and fear of God is by learning Physics and Metaphysics. (When Rishonim like Ibn Pakuda or the Rambam refer to Metaphysics they explain exactly what they mean: the subject as defined by the ancient Greeks. Not mysticism. See the very introduction to the Guide of the Rambam and the very first page of the Obligations of the Hearts.]

Also people need the idea of doing this first thing in the morning after a cup of coffee.
If school is out, this is all the better. You get a chance to do this before having to run out and get to school or to work. After all, it is the first hour after you wake up that is the proper time to do this learning.

[Also I would suggest to have coffee and tea in the same cup. The reason the kind of lift that you get from coffee is a short burst. The lift from tea is more drawn out over a longer period.]

As Allan Bloom said the political question is solved once and for all: the Constitution of the USA

There is an intersection between philosophy and politics. But what is it exactly and why is it? And why does it always seem to get politics in a way that seems contrary to sense?
Politics should be the art of creating a prosperous and happy society. As Allan Bloom said the political question is solved once and for all: the Constitution of the USA. But that came about with almost zero input from philosophy. Few had even heard of John Locke.  They simply did not want Parliament interfering with their internal affairs. And when the King refused to back up the colonists, then that was the end of their loyalty towards George III.
The Constitution had mainly to do with the evolution of English Law.

Philosophy on the other hand seems to build these castles in the sky that have nothing to do with reality.

When I was in high school I saw  a film about the black plague. And from my reading about history I have an idea of what plagues were like. This seems to be different.
It might not be made by Communist China in order to cripple the economy of the USA, but it might have been a convenient chance to do so.

I mean to say that I grew up during a time when there was a kind of rivalry between the USSR and the USA. And in spite of attempts, and even many people of good will on both sides, still there was still the reality of each side hoping the other would go down.

I would not be surprised if China was thinking along the same lines--to see the end of the capitalistic West. 

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Robert Hanna suggested a way to differentiate between different Kantian  and Husserl approaches. Strong and weak. So in terms of "dinge an sich" (things in themselves) there might be the strong transcendental,-- we can not know not even if they exist. The weak approach might be: They exist, but we do not know anything about them.  Hegel would say to this we do not know now,- but we will in the future.

You actually see this in Rav Nahman [Breslov] in the left out parts of the LeM {Hashmatot} where he says that when Reason was first created it was expanding without limit. And then God set a boundary for it. So that boundary can be itself expanding.

[Robert Hanna was not the first to notice the problems with 20th century philosophy. It might have been Allan Bloom. In any case I saw this first in the blog of Dr. Kelley Ross, who is also suggesting a kind if "forward to Kant" but in particular the brand of Leonard Nelson and Fries. However I can see that Hegel and other people after Kant had some good points. And a further confusing issue is how does anything in philosophy relate political structures?]

[Kant had a few people after him and Fries was one of the least popular. However he does have a justification for faith that makes sense to me.]

Laws of Slaves. Section 5. law 3 in the Rambam. Letting a slave go free in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri

The basic idea of letting a slave go free comes from a Gemara and is brought in Laws of Slaves. Section 5. law 3 in  the Rambam. Kinyan Sudar [handkerchief] does not work to the Rambam. but it does to the Raavad. [Normally letting a slave go free is by a document, or money, or injury. So what about exchange? or Handkerchief?  The handkerchief might work if it has a penny's worth.  This seems to be an argument between the Rambam and Raavad. But neither makes a distinction if the handkerchief is worth more than a penny!]
This comes directly from a Gemara where in fact someone tried to let his maid servant go by throwing a vessel at her. He threw it and said "by this you are let go". Rav Nahman [of the Gemara, not of Breslov] said that does not work. And the Gemara concludes the reason is because the vessel belonged to the owner.
So if it had belonged to the maid servant she would have been freed. So this looks like a straightforward proof to the Tosphot Ri''d that marrying by means of a handkerchief would work of the handkerchief is worth more than a pruta/penny.

What makes this hard to understand is that barter itself ("halifin") does seem to be in the category of money since it works only if each object is worth more than a penny. And that is not the same as with acquisition by handkerchief.

So could Lincoln legally free the slaves? It seems to me that it was not legal simply because the Constitution granted to Federal government only specific powers.  If he had powers granted by the Constitution that however would have been Okay. But it seems that that was not one of the powers granted to a president. As for the war itself, that I guess has been argued about but it also seems almost as clear as the first point--but not as clear. After all it seems not to be within the right of the Federal government to force the states to stay within the Union. It also seems like over stepping the bounds of the powers granted by the Constitution. 

I see that Robert Hanna brings down a whole long list of many people in philosophy departments that have noticed the bareness  and irrelevance of philosophy today. However I have to say that the first to bring this issue up was the Allan Bloom in the Closing of the American Mind.

I would like to suggest is that people in philosophy got too hung up on "making progress". What was wrong with learning philosophy as Socrates understood it--as effort to understand the world.

Not get academic "browny points".

 Rav Nahman [Breslov] said a correction for for sexual sin is to say the ten psalms 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.
This was said mainly for the case of "nocturnal pollution" however it applies to all kind of sexual sin and in fact to all other types of sin also as you can see in the LeM of Rav Nahman vol I section 19.
[That is the reason for the name "Tikun Klali"--general correction].


Also especially nowadays when people have more free time I want to bring up the issue of private conversation with God that he suggested. [This was not meant in place of formal prayer, but this was something that he himself spent a lot of time doing.] He even said that one that really wishes to serve God ought to go out to some private place in the woods of wilderness and spend the whole day talking with God in one's own language.

In terms of learning he suggested saying the words and going on. This was not meant to replace learning in depth. But sometimes learning in depth is not possible until one gets the general idea in the first place. This he meant to be done for learning the two Talmuds and Midrashim and Rif, and Rosh and Tur. But I also think it applies to Physics and Mathematics as per the Rishonim that held these too are a part of the commandment to learn Torah.

You see in the Mir in NY and all Lithuanian yeshivas based on the Gra that the morning is spent on in depth learning and the afternoon on learning fast. I recall walking by the place where Rav Shmuel Berenbaum [One of the teachers at the Mir] was learning in the afternoon and saw that through the course of one afternoon, he would go through at least ten or more pages.
[That means according to the way of learning fast in the afternoon at the Mir. That was Gemara with Tosphot--but just fast. That was not same as the in depth learning in the morning. But the morning in depth really just meant preparing fir the class of one of the four teachers depending on whose class you were in.  And their classes were a mix of Rishonim and later authorities. That is why it is hard to explain. The best I can do to give you an idea of what that means is to learning Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. That will give you an idea of what the average class at teh Mir was like.

Rule of the stupid. When respect for reason falls, monsters are born (teachers and students of Psychology).

 The IQ of people in universities  is not the same among different departments. The highest IQ people are the  Physics students and teachers. The lowest are the teachers and students of Psychology. But the latter are the one that determine the curriculum of schools and even who is considered sane in the larger society. So what we have is the rule of the stupid.  That is that the most stupid are the one who control the direction of society.

When respect for reason falls, monsters are born.

Faith and Reason was  not exactly a new idea in the Middle Ages. To combine Torah with Plato was already around from Philo. But to get the way they fit together was a Middle Ages invention. It was not to interpret the Bible as an allegory.

But faith with reason underwent a change because of Descartes's Mind-Body problem. Where is mind and reason valid? What do they measure. To get to the original synthesis of the Middle ages of Revelation with Reason you need to understand to extent and validity of reason.

How far can you trust spiritual experiences to tell you accurate data? Maybe a lot? Maybe not where it disagrees with Reason? But then where is the realm of Reason? 

To my way of thinking Kant and Hegel are helpful to answer these questions. Yet Hegel has been significantly mangled up by people wishing to use his rich wealth of ideas for their political purposes. And Kant is not so much behind that in terms of  misuse.

My opinion is that both the school of thought of Leonard Nelson based on Fries and Kant is helpful along with Hegel. I do not see them as much in conflict as is  thought.

With Fries you have faith-i.e. immediate non intuitive knowledge. That is knowledge not based on reason or senses for areas outside of "conditions of experience." But with Hegel you find that reason can get through the veil of perception by means of dialectic. So while reason is to some degree  a negative force limiting what you can know, it also makes progress towards the Absolute Spirit.

https://www.infowars.com/watch-alex-jones-message-to-the-new-world-order/

They are saying that Dr Fauci has not seen a patient for 20 years. He is an academic in an ivory tower. He based his conclusions on models which were wildly wrong.  Now that actual data is in we can see the difference between what was predicted by models as opposed to actual facts.
However I think this is  a great opportunity to catch up on figuring out how to building star ships.

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people can believe a lot of stuff

You can see that people can believe a lot of stuff. And often it is a mixed bag. So you can also see why after clarity was brought into nature and gravity by Isaac Newton, that people thought they could extend that same process to bring clarity into things like politics, or spiritual issues.

But the attempts of philosophy, nor of political science actually succeed. Still there has been some progress. Though it can not be proven, still it looks that Kant was right about the limits of reason. So that also places limits on what you can talk about in terms of spiritual matters. [I mean that logic has limits and also limits about what you can say about spiritual things.] And Politics also made great progress in the creation of the Constitution of the USA.

Some people noted that philosophy after Kant and Hegel [especially 20th century] went seriously off the wires, crash dived,  wiped out. But as Robert Hanna made note of, much of the effort to get things back on track was ignored. John Searle made a famous comment about most of twentieth century philosophy, "It is obviously false."
[I am not sure why Robert Hanna does not mention Leonard Nelson or Hegel.]



[Robert Hanna came up with the idea "Forward To Kant" but does not hold from the Neo-Kant School of thought-- Marburg. So what about Leonard Nelson? Or Hegel? Now Hegel tends to be a bit obscure, however he becomes clear with McTaggart. [I only learned McTaggart a little bit but mainly I saw his commentary on Hegel's Logic--that is the part of his Encyclopedia.] So I think after you would throw out twentieth century philosophy, you would still end up with having to get back to Nelson and McTaggart. 

Rav Shach brings the Tosphot Bava Metzia page 47 [in the beginning of Laws of Marriage in the Rambam]

Rav Shach brings the Tosphot Bava Metzia page 47 [in the beginning of Laws of Marriage in the Rambam] that says there are two kinds of exchange: (1) barter and (2) handkerchief. [It does not have to be a  handkerchief. It could be any vessel.] The buyer takes a handkerchief and gives it to the seller and by that acquires the vessels or whatever the seller is selling. Now actual barter only works for vessels. Not fruit for fruit. But barter has to be for least a penny on both sides. The "kinyan sudar" does not need to be worth a pruta (penny).
But the barter does not have a law of overcharging, because this one wants a  needle and that one wants a coat of armor. [In that way barter is not like monetary exchange. But kinyan Sudar is  not like monetary exchange from the side of its own worth, but what about overcharging if it is used to seal a deal? There are so many questions here about the opinions and reasons for the Rambam I can see why Rav Shach just wrote this piece in short form.]

So barter  has this odd kind of  state. It is on the first way like a deal made with money. But the other side of things it is not like money. Deals made with money have  a law of overcharging. [Up to 1/5 the money is returned. More than 1/5 the deal is nullified.] 
So we know what the Tosphot R''id holds in terms of marriage. He spells it out. If the handkerchief is more than a penny's worth it is a deal made by money [so valid].

But the Rambam? Would he agree? I think not. After all the whole difference about the barter is not really relevant to the handkerchief. There seems to be no reason to think the Rambam would agree with the Ri''d.

Remember Lot's Wife: Diabolical Narcissism, the Overarching Global Pathology

American history

 But I believe American history is not taught well.  My eyes opened when I read Daniel Defoe's pamphlets from the 1700's and I began to see where all the issues that were facing the founding fathers all stemmed from: England. The powers of the King as opposed to Parliament.
I believe that without thorough knowledge of English history that American history is impossible to understand. In particular the years from 1700 until 1776.
[It is a lot easier to understand the Bill of Rights if you see the same issues in England.]



I think to understand the USA at all, one needs to start from Edward I and in fact even William the Conqueror.


I should add that I got real criticism from the teacher of AP History. And he was right. I had no feeling or concept of USA history. But what was I lacking? I realized what I was lacking recently when I read Daniel Defoe. [I recall that I passed the class, but still what was lacking in my understanding? It now know it was the background of the issues back into English history.] 

Yuri Bezmenov, KGB Defector,

From Info Wars: Yuri Bezmenov, KGB Defector, warned Americans of the scientific demoralization campaigns waged in media decades ago. Learn to identify these techniques aimed at subverting American culture.

His basic point was that most of the funds that the KGB had were being used on disinformation and specifically directed to subvert the USA into Socialism.

To me it seems that until the files can be reopened it would be impossible to understand the exact involvement of the KGB in turning the USA towards Socialism. Obvious there has been a tremendous success in that direction. Even though Democrats do not use the word "socialism", still a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Socialism by any other name would still be socialism.  

I discussed this once with a friend that used to work for the KGB and his opinion was that the KGB did not have the resources that could have subverted  the USA. And now I can see his point. Still what exactly were their activities? And how much of the turn was because of the KGB and how much was simply the fact that many intellectuals believed in socialism. It does not have to be a plot. Still the whole history of this affair is curious. You have got to wonder if Russia would ever be willing to let research again into the KGB archives?

I ought to be upfront about my own beliefs just for the record. I do not hold at all from socialism. The reason is mainly that I think people have a right to their hard earned money. That is I believe in the Ten Commandments. Specifically:  "Thou shalt not steal". So I see no merit in stealing from the rich based on some ideology that says that they themselves must have stolen it or other excuses.

Rav Avraham Abulafia went to debate with the pope.

It is well known that Rav Avraham Abulafia went to debate with the pope. The way the events are related is that people were sent to arrest him as he reached the gates of Rome. But somehow or other they could not stop him. At that point the pope ran away to another city.

Now on one hand hand Rav Abulafia had a high opinion about Jesus. So that probably was not the issue of what he wanted to debate. But he had a low opinion of the Catholic church. So maybe that was one of the issues?

[Maybe the Trinity? It seems impossible on one hand, however Hegel seems to have an approach that to me seems reminiscent of the Neo Platonic school of Plotinus.]

There is a book by professor Moshe Idel Sonship which goes into the issue of being a son of God as understood by mystics like Rav Abulafia in the Middle Ages.

 

The "seal of the sixth day" is how Jesus is referred to elsewhere inRav Abulafia That seems to be a reference to the idea in the Talmud about a of a messiah son of yoseph

I noted that most people have no idea of what sexual sin is. So just to make it clear the first category are the things mentioned in Leviticus 18 which are called עריות "revealing the nakedness". That is mostly with the same family but includes a menstruating woman and a married woman and sodomy.
But all those are the most serious as you can see by the punishment "Karet" being cut off from one's people and in most of them there is a death penalty.
But there are plenty of lesser categories in Deuteronomy which are all just plain prohibitions "Lavin".

[Like when it says an Egyptian should not come into the congregation for three generations. That is an example of a regular "Lav" prohibition. 


I mean to say that all sins in the Law of Moses are all plain prohibitions unless something like karet is specified.

 Rav Nahman  said that a kind of correction for sexual sin [what is called "Tikun HaKlali"] is to say ten psalms in order. [16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150]. But that is along the lines of repentance on sin.
Also he mentions going to [and into -totally] a natural body of water like an ocean or river. [That is anyway a good idea.]

[As the Gates of Repentance [Rav Yona of Gerondi] brings right in the beginning of his book that you can not repent until you have an accurate idea of what really is a sin and what is not.

One problem is that people make no distinctions in levels of sin. There are some sins that have "karet" as a spiritual cutting off from the next world or even the death penalty. Now a death penalty is only for things done on purpose.  But for lots of things like that that are done by accident there is a sacrifice. That is the sin offering. [Nowadays we do not bring that anymore since there is no Temple.] But for things that are just prohibitions there is no sacrifice nor any death penalty.

The basic idea of learning Physics that I have mentioned is to some degree based on the Rishonim like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam. But I have seen statements in the books of Rav Nahman of Breslov which also indicate as much.

However what is it that stops people from doing so?

One is lack of desire. I have tried to cure that by showing that it is in fact included in the commandment to learn Torah - according to some rishonim.

Another obstacle is lack of energy. I have mentioned a way to solve this by combining coffee and tea in the same drink. [That was something that Israel Abussera  used to have when he got up for the midnight prayer. I heard that from one of his grandchildren (Moshe Buso) that used to prepare that for him].
Another obstacle is method. For that I have mentioned Rav Nahman's way of saying the words as fast as possible and going on with no repeats until one finishes the books, and then doing the whole over from the beginning.

[I ought to add that the same group of Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] that held this way also help from learning Aristotle's Metaphysics. Yet when it comes to that side I am not sure what exactly to include in that subject. On one hand you have the four greats Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel. But those last two seem to be in need of commentary. So as far as that goes I think Leonard Nelson is the best approach to Kant, and McTaggart the best approach to Hegel. [But people that hold with Kant are often at odds with those that go with Hegel and visa versa.]

[One of the best of this generation is Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school. But there are also some other really great people like Ed Feser, and Huemer. There are also some others that maybe are not as great but have really hit some home runs like Habermas and Robert Hanna.]

In the beginning of laws of marriage in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.

In the beginning of laws of marriage in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.
There is the subject of  "kinyan Sudar" [buying by means of handkerchief]. That is is a way of buying as we see in the book of Ruth where at the end of the book it says there is a way to acquire or sell by means of taking off one's shoe and giving it to the party. Is it the category of barter, or buying by money?

So when Rav Shach writes at the end the Rambam holds kinyan sudar [buying by handkercheif] is  a kind of buying by money This is hard to understand. [note 2]

We know the Raavad and the R''id [Rav Yeshaya of Trani]] hold that way.
But the Rambam?


For after all the Rambam is pretty consistent that kinyan sudar [barter] does not work to marry a woman. [note 1] So that means barter is not any kind of buying by money. And that also goes along with the fact that exchange of a needle with a coat of armor has no law of overcharging [that is the normal law that overcharge by 1/5 is not valid]. And Rav Shach right before that explained how the Rambam explains barter as being an exchange in which there is no object causing the deal to be valid. Rather when one person picks up the object he is getting --that is when he acquires it. And when the other picks up his object that is when he acquires it.

It is the the Tosphot Ri''d and the Raavad that hold if the handkerchief is worth more than a pruta penny, then the buying is because of a buying by money. You see that in the Tosphot Ri''d who actually says so openly. That is -that Kinya Sudar will not work to acquire a woman unless the handkerchief has more than the value of a penny. And the Raavad also says that kinyan sudar will work to let a slave go free. [So he also holds kinyan sudar works as money]
So someone ought to go to the original handwritten notes of Rav Shach and see what he actually wrote there. I am sure that the names Raavad and Rambam got mixed up.

[[note 1]]. I mean to say that the normal way of marrying a woman is by money, sex or a document. But something "worth money" also works. So you could give a woman a ring for example in order to marry her, and she says "yes", and this takes place in front of two witnesses, then the marriage is valid. Same with sex or a document. However a handkerchief would not work. So what does exchange by handkerchief usually mean? It is a kind of barter. I give you a handkerchief and by that I buy from you let's say a violin. That works. The deal is sealed by that, and neither party can go back,
However the Tosphot HaRi''d holds if the handkerchief is worth more than a pruta penny that works to marry the woman. However it looks clear to me the Rambam does not hold that way.

[note 2] It looks like the Rambam would disagree with the Tosphot R''id. To the Rambam there are two kinds of exchange, barter and handkerchief [or any vessel]. You see this in laws of selling perek 5. There is exchange by barter and then in law 5 the Rambam introduces the handkerchief and there says it does not have to be worth a pruta. So the laws of exchange up until then, [e.g. vessel for vessel, but not fruit for fruit] do need to be worth at least a prura penny. And that is because barter would be as a kind of money exchange.

we have lost the idea of repentance.

The modern world is too modern. You can not imagine Eisenhower going into a church and asking to get whipped by the monks for the  deaths of D-day as repentance. But you can understand Henry II doing that for the death of  his vassal who was rebelling.
Why ? Because we have lost the idea of repentance.

So what Allan Bloom saw as a crisis of the enlightenment as opposed to the anti enlightenment as reaching a kind of peak of the wave in American universities--I see something else. The crisis of Western Civilization losing our foundations.


So you can see something important about the whole idea of Israel Salanter in the idea of the Musar movement. That was not just about any old Musar. The major idea was the Musar of the Rishonim.

Robert Hanna and "Forward to Kant"

Robert Hanna has a very nice book explaining in a detailed way the problems with the "Analytic philosophy". [That is what you might hear called "British-American," as opposed to Continental. ] He says more or less "good riddance" and the sooner the better.
He coined the phrase "Forward to Kant".

But I did not see so far his approach to Hegel or what he thinks about the Friesian School of Leonard Nelson that has a different approach to Kant that the well known Neo Kant School of Herman Cohen.

[Also I can not imagine that Michael Huemer would totally dismiss Analytic philosophy altogether since it does have a nice tendency to look at things with logical rigor.
[It occurs to me that Leonard Nelson and Hegel are not as different as all that. The world is rational. It is understandable by reason and built in reason as we see in Physics. And Reason has limits. And as Fries and Leonard Nelson argue that reason itself needs to have a starting point of premises you know but do not have an explanation for. That is non intuitive immediate knowledge. These principles all seem fine to me and I can not understand why make a conflict where there is no conflict?]


You might ask by bother? The reason is that the conflict of Jerusalem with Athens Reason and Revelation was more or less solved during the Middle Ages thus: you need both.

Trust in God with no effort was brought by Rav Israel Salanter as being mentioned in Nahmanides/(Ramban). But I have not heard where that statement of the Ramban is.

However clearly it is in the Gra in Mishlei/Proverbs.

IN the Obligations of the Hearts [Chovot Levavot] by Ibn Pakuda it is brought in a slightly different way that when one trusts in God and places all his effort towards teh serve of God then God takes away the yoke of things of this world and in particular the money issues.

However in the Mir in NY where I learned about this idea, it was understood that service of God means to learn Torah. [i.e. Gemara in depth with Rav Haim of Brisk and the other sages of Lithuania like Rav Shach.]
The only difference is that I would like to add learning Physics and Metaphysics to what is in the category of serving God.
[That is quite clear in the Rambam in the Guide and also in the Mishne Torah in a slightly round about way. But it is not his particular new idea as you see it is most of the sages of Sefarad that followed Rav Saadia Gaon.

Ashkenazim more or less rejected that approach. However you do see it somewhat in the Gra in the Translation of Euclid done by a disciple of the Gra who quotes the Gra thus: "One who lacks any knowledge in any one of the seven wisdoms will be lacking in understanding of Torah 100 times in proportion".

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It is odd that the deepest thinkers of this generation in philosophy are not really on the same page. Dr Kelley Ross is with Kant, Fries and Leonard Nelson. [Friesian School]. Michael Huemer with the reaction against Kant: i.e. G.E. Moore. [Intuitionists]. Ed Fesser totally with Aristotle and Aquinas! And it seems unlikely that even getting them into a room to discuss the issues would change much. [But who knows?]
[Also you might notice that Hegel does not have any really bright advocate. Even the best Hegel site is specifically communist!] I feel sorry for poor Hegel who really did not deserve all the misuse and abuse he got.][Hegel once had a great advocate--McTaggart who is still important.] But  nowadays mainstream  philosophy (swamp philosophy) ignores all three.

Rav Moshe Haim Lutzato (author of the great Musar book מסילת ישרים) brings in Path of God [I think] and also in the other of his more philosophical books that the purpose of Creation is the revelation of God's Oneness and that the way that happens is by "the measure one measures out to others is the measure that is measured back to him."

This I think is actually close to Hegel. Though I have not read much however I noticed in his Lectures on History is that at the very beginning he sees history as a revealing of the Wisdom of God.
Or as he puts it the revelation of Reason as the Absolute Spirit makes it known.

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"Forward To Kant"

 "Forward To Kant" is the slogan of Robert Hanna [who was at the University of Colorado]. And that makes a lot of sense to me.

Anyway given that I have  a great liking for Kant, and that particular stream of Kant that was Leonard Nelson I have to agree with that.
And that goes along well with the idea of the Rishonim that held from learning Metaphysics as presented by Aristotle.
Why not just go straight then with Aristotle? Because of Berkeley. To some degree you really can not ignore the problems in Aristotle. And you do not get much of an answer until Kant and Hegel. But then twentieth century philosophy fell into a ditch. So the best idea is to retrace our steps forward to Kant and Hegel. 

But I would like to add that philosophy without Physics seems to be not grounded. Sometimes they are so smart they come up with really dumb conclusions. So I would suggest first getting through Physics up until String Theory and then doing Kant and Hegel

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Language is subjective. That is the sounds emanating from my mouth to your ears have zero intrinsic meaning except for how I understand them and how you understand them. There is nothing that is independent of the speaker and the listener.
Reality on the other hand is objective. For example the ocean is blue. That fact has nothing to do with how anyone observes the ocean. It is just the fact that it absorbs all frequencies of light except blue.
So language tells you nothing about reality.

So when Wittgenstein said after reading his Tractatus no one could be the same he was quite right. People began to think that language defines reality. They fell into that trap.

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What is education?

 STEM and Survival Skills, The Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. [Without that it is hard to know how to learn. I mean that knowing "how to learn" is a skill which needs to be acquired by just like playing the violin.
So even with study of the two Talmuds, people usually have no idea of the depths without something like the Avi Ezri or the hidushim of Rav Haim of Brisk]


However moral education is imparted by example. Not by books.

[Rishonim  held one ought also to learn Metaphysics.  When the Rambam says so openly in the Guide he says specifically he is referring to the Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks. So that is clear. Plato and Aristotle. But when the Obligations of the Hearts also brings this same idea on the first page of his book, he is referring to that study as learned and understood by the Muslims. So what does that mean? So that has to refer to later commentaries on Aristotle.
So at least to these Rishonim, some philosophy is important. Others held the exact opposite. Yet as philosophy developed I feel Kant and Hegel are important. But I can see the problems in philosophy also. But I found Dr Kelley Ross [based on Fries and Leonard Nelson] and his approach to be a great defense of faith. More than Hegel. Hegel has some areas where he is great. But he does not really recognize the existence of a kind of non intuitive immediate knowledge--faith.]

I think punishment is personal. While certainly the point about whole peoples and nations getting punished seem valid to some degree, however my feeling is that nothing happens to any individual that comes without there being a specific judgment. That is even if you see it happening to a whole people- nothing happens to me that has to do with others being punished. It always is about Me. Some evil deed I did, or some good deed I neglected.

You certainly see this in the Gates of Repentance which brings it from the Gemara Shabat "אין יסוריים בלי עוון" There are no trouble without sin.

[That is a debate in the Gemara. The Gemara concludes that death can come without sin but troubles always have some sin that is their cause. You can see this in Deuteronomy also אל אמונה ואין עוול צדיק וישר הוא God is a just God--with no perversion of judgement. He is righteous and straight.

The debate between Kant and Hegel

To me the issue in philosophy is still the debate between Kant and Hegel. But the issue seems to boil down to the differences between McTaggart and Leonard Nelson.
Besides that I just do not see that much or any of twentieth century philosophy has any worth or merit. Not the British American Analytic, nor the Continental versions.
Not that McTaggart was perfect when it comes to understanding Hegel. There were blind spots. See Cunningham on Hegel. Leo Nelson is clearly not straight with Kant, but seems to be about the best understanding of his system with proper modifications. See the blog of Dr Kelley Ross for information abut that.


Why I bring this up is that Dr. Kelley Ross shows how Kant fit in well with Quantum Mechanics. [He has an essay on a Kantian approach to QM based on Fries and Leonard Nelson.] But what I am wondering is would not Hegel also work? After all with Hegel the whole point of the dialectic is not just how knowledge proceeds. It is in the very fabric of reality itself. So this duality between the particles or wave seem to be exactly what Hegel was talking about. Each is some aspect of  a deeper reality just like Hegel always says about opposites- that you get to a higher level and the apparent contradiction disappears of becomes sublimated in the higher level. That is kind of what happens with Quantum Field Theory and String Theory. 






So when people start realizing how dumb 20th century philosophy, then was Kant and Hegel will start to matter more. And then so will the debate between Leonard Nelson and Herman Cohen and the Marburg school and McTaggart. [But I think the Marburg School is obsolete. The only approach to Kant that makes sense to me is Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross.]

The silliness of 20th century philosophy was noted by Allan Bloom, Robert Hanna, Kelley Ross, and Steven Dutch.

Russian Revolution and justified anger. But the anger needs to be directed towards legitimate targets.

I wanted to bring a few ideas and then to tie them in.
[1] One is that to some degree I can see the point of the Russian Revolution. People feel hurt.  And sometimes that is justified. So from one aspect I can that there is such a thing as justified anger.

You can see this in the אורחות צדיקים [Paths of the Righteous] in the Gate of Anger.

The problem is that often the anger is directed towards the wrong targets. Capitalists, kulaks etc. Though it must have been that in tzarist Russia these powerful kulaks and capitalists were abusing people to the degree that their anger spilled over.

But also people were angry at religion. And that is also often justified. Not that in the Law of Moses, there is anything wrong. Not the Oral or Written Law. However people use that as a cover to hide their evil. This Rav Nahman pointed out often. So what people did was to reject all religion.

That was because people did not have the ability to be able to discern what is right and what is wrong. So they just said all religion is wrong. They did not have the insight and understanding of the Gra and Rav Shach to be able to tell the difference between the holy  and the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side.]
What they could have done was to have "faith in the wise" and just trust that the Gra and Rav Shach knew what they were talking about.

But furthermore, sometimes there is a point to the secular. It is not to say that if if just have the right religious values everything is OK. Not really. Often religion opens the door towards other things. People might start out with faith in a true tzadik like Rav Nahman but then get side tracked. That is in fact almost guaranteed. That is because it is in the very nature of things, that religion gets side tracked
all too quickly and easily.

I think this whole situation gives to me and others a chance to finally get to sit down and get through the Oral Law [that is the two Talmuds with Tosphot and Maharsha], the basic set of Ethics (Musar) books of Rav Israel Salanter, and Physics and Mathematics.
[Many Rishonim said also Metaphysics referring to besides Plato and Aristotle's Metaphysics as the Rambam stated openly in the beginning of the Guide for the Perplexed.

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Trust in God draws good things. That is not the same as trusting in the Divine decree. Rather it is trust in itself which God answers. והבוטח בה' חסד יסובבנו  Kindness surrounds one who trusts in God. Not that kindness surrounds everyone. [I am just picking one verse, but there are many more all over.]

On one hand you do not hear about trust in God outside the Litvak Yeshiva World. And even there not so much. I heard about it at the Mir, but in Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway not so much.

The interesting thing about trust in God as understood at the Mir in NY was that it was active, not passive. That is to say--it was trust in God in such a way that one was left free to learn Torah. It was a kind of way of being freed from constraints.--Constraints that would normally prevent one from learning Torah.

קניין סודר acquiring by means of handkerchief  as far as I can tell in the Raavad  and the R''id (Yeshaya of Trany) seems to work because of a kind of acquiring by means of money.
With the Rambam it seems a different kind.

The Tosfot Ha'Rid right at the beginning of kidushin says if the handkerchief is worth more than a penny then the kidushin is valid.
[That must be how he understands the gemara there that "exchange'' would not work because it is valid even for less than a penny.]
However the Rambam understands that that type of acquiring would not work for kidushin nor for letting a slave go free.

That is based on the Gemara in Kidushin i think around pg 79. One fellow had a Hebrew maid servant and threw at her a vessel and said, "With this vessel you go free." That the Gemara there says is not valid. At first the thought it is not valid because of acquiring by means of a  handkerchief. And in they end they decided it was because the vessel was owned by the owner.
So the Raavad in fact says that letting a slave go free by means of acquiring by handkerchief is valid. The Rambam says not.

So what I see here is the an argument about the handkerchief.

I admit this is the way it looks to me. From what I can see in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri, he seems to understand this sugia differently and I can not figure out what he is saying.

Capitalism

Capitalism causes prosperity, e.g. USA, England, Europe. Communism causes mass starvation (USSR in the 1920-'s and 1930's ) and mass murder. Example Venezuela.
Steven Dutch: Correlation, in and of itself, doesn't prove causation. But correlation, coupled with a reasonable causal explanation, does constitute strong evidence of causation.


Working class people work, and they worked hard to get what they have. So they don't want it threatened. They don't want criminals in their neighborhoods and they don't want the value of their homes threatened. And they're smart enough to realize that if you can take down the wealthy and the powerful, you can squash working class people like a bug. So many of them don't buy into the "soak the rich" philosophy because they know perfectly well who will be next to get soaked.


Leftists: buy a clue. We are not going to seize the wealth of the top 10% of the population and pass it out among everybody else. First, it wouldn't go all that far. Second, once it was spent, there would be no more. See Chile, 1974 for additional information, or take notes during Zimbabwe 2007-. We are not going to cure poverty by printing a million dollars for everybody. See Germany, 1923 for details. 

Politics and Philosophy seem to have a dividing line between them. If you take the top philosophers their ideas about politics seem not so great. Hegel, Kant, Leonard Nelson. Even John Locke came after the Glorious Revolution in order to justify it.

While the system of the USA Constitution and the Limited Monarchy in England seem to be the results of circumstances and not any well thought out system. The whole idea of having a Parliament was because Edward I needed money from the lords. Money that he did not have a right to under the  feudal system. So he had to come up with Parliament so he could get their money with representation. And later the  reason for the House of Commons was the same. The Magna Carta same as just being a way to stop the king from getting as much as he wanted from the nobles.
I could go on, but the idea seems the same. Whatever really works in politics is never the result of some well thought out policy but the result of circumstances and later is found to be working well.

I noticed Leonard Nelson on the Friesian web site of Dr Kelley Ross. But for some reason it was ignored by most of academia. My learning partner David Bronson asked me about that. I said well it makes sense because the top philosophers are not at the Ivy League places, Ed Feser after all is in Pasadena. Michael Huemer in Colorado.
For some odd reason the people of philosophy at the Ivy League schools are mediocre or less.

[it is like Allan Bloom said about the drastic decline and fall of the universities--but specifically pointing out the-social studies and humanities as being less than worthless but of actual negative value.] 

If you take the Gra at his word, then the main problem that people have is lack of trust in God. After all, take the principle "as much as you trust in God, that is how much he helps you" then the problem is not how to get help. It is rather to get trust.

Sometimes you notice that people that are against the path of learning fast of Rav Nahman of Uman are not in fact doing so much learning. On one hand the idea of learning in depth is important. But often the same people that learn the deepest are also the same ones that learn very fast as separate sessions.

As if you consider what the Gra said that one has an obligation to get through the Oral and Written Law [the two Talmuds, Sifra, Sifrei, Michilta, the Midrash Raba, Tosephta.] at least once it seems that that would be difficult without this idea of Rav Nahman of learning as  fast as possible [i.e saying the words in order and going on until the end of the book and then review.].
And if you take into account the obligation of doing Physics and Metaphysics also as  the rishonim [medieval authorities] that went along with this basic approach of Saadia Gaon, then all the more so that the path of learning fast is the only possible way. [That is Ibn Pakuda of the Obligations of the Heart, Benjamin the Doctor, and the Rambam and others.]
[The most open about Metaphysics and Physics was Ibn Pakuda right on the first page of the Obligations of the Hearts. Later in the third chapter of Shaar HaBehina for Physics]


[It is not that in depth is not important. It is just that I am saying that experience showed that 1/2 of learning time ought to be in depth and the other half for going fast. This is in every Litvak yeshiva. The morning is for in depth. The afternoon for fast learning.]

It is the same with coffee. Those against it you notice are not anything like super-achievers. Rather it is just they do not want anyone else to be an achiever and thus to show them up. 

Bach

There is a subject I want to introduce. It is in Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam Laws of Marriage. 18. law 10. The subject itself is well known but since the public might not know I bring it here. Let's say a priest כהן marries a girl גדולה או קטנה [she could be before 12 years old, but even after 12 she still would be forbidden. That is to say,-- we do not say that since she is after 12 maybe the signs of virginity fell off automatically as sometime happens with girls after twelve.] and finds she is not a virgin. [That is we assume she is not a virgin because of sex, not because of the hymen falling off by itself, or because of playing rough at skiing or as such.] ] She is forbidden because even if she was raped, she still is a "halala" חללה which is forbidden to a priest. [that is one of the few categories that are forbidden to a priest bur allowed to a Israeli] But if a Israel marries a girl and she is not a virgin she still is allowed to him. Why? Because it is a case of a ספק ספיקא doubt of a doubt. Maybe she had sex before engagement. Then she is allowed to him. Or maybe the sex was after the engagement, but it might have been rape. So she is still allowed. [Only if she had sex after engagement willingly with someone else is she forbidden. That is to say a married woman who has sex with anyone besides her husband willingly becomes forbidden to her husband. That is learned from Sota סוטה והיא נטמאה אחד לבעל אחד לבועל  So what makes the woman forbidden to a priest? It is the fact that even rape makes her forbidden. So Tosphot in Ketuboth pg 9 asks why not say she is allowed because we put her on her original status חזקת כשרות. That is to say there is only one doubt. One doubt might make her forbidden, however here we have a case where there is a original status [hazaka   חזקת כשרות] which ought to solve the doubt. Tosphot answers that there is a another status working against that status חזקת כשרות.  That is status that she was a virgin and so continues to be assumed to be so until the second we know it is not so. חזקא מעיקרא That is we push the act of sex up until the last minute until it was found out that she was not a virgin. So it had to be during the time of engagement ["Arusin" אירוסין]Rav Akiva Eigger askes what about חזקת השתא that is a status of the way we know things are now. And so we push that back in time as far as possible. So חזקת השתא [hazaka of now] ought to work with חזקת כשרות to allow her to her husband. [This is like the case in Nida page 2 where  חזקת השתא [hazaka of now] would not work against חזקא מעיקרא unless there is another חזקא working together with it. I.e. by itself it would not hold but with another it would.]R Akiva Eigger answers in Nida page two the two hazakot חזקות work together and can be joined since they both indicate the same thing. However in our case with the wife of the priest חזקת השתא does not help.  חזקת כשרות since they indicate different things.  One is that the sex was before the engagement. The other indicates there was no sex at all. So the two   חזקות do not join. So on this Rav Shach asks from other places in Rav Akiva Eigger himself which indicate that we would joining two hazakot even when they do not indicate the same thing. The only thing I want to mention here is just something odd about the answer of Rav Akiva Eigger even before we get into Rav Shach. I want to ask a simple question. Why do the two hazakot not indicate the same thing? One says she is OK, that means that either there was no sex before engagement or there was. It makes no difference. All it says is there was no sex after engagement. That is all. It is hezkat A.O.K. That is all. The other pushes the sex back in time before the engagement. So the two hazakot do not contradict. Nor do they have to be indicating different things. It is like a case if "this or that" along with "that". So you know "that". So the answer of R Akiva Eigger is hard to understand even before we could get into Rav Shach's questions.
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רב שך הלכות אישות י''ח: הלכה י'  כהן marries a girl גדולה או קטנה ומוציא שהיא בתולה.  She is forbidden because even if she was raped, she still is a חללה which is forbidden to a כהן. But if a ישראלי marries a girl and she is not a virgin, she still is allowed to him. Why? Because it is a case of a ספק ספלקא. Maybe she had ביאה before אירוסין. Then she is allowed to him. Or maybe the ביאה was after the engagement, but it might have been באונס. So she is still allowed. Only if she had ביאה after אירוסין willingly with someone else.  She forbidden. That is to say a married woman who has ביאה with anyone besides her husband willingly becomes forbidden to her husband. That is learned from  סוטה והיא נטמאה אחד לבעל אחד לבועל  So what makes the woman forbidden to a כהן? It is the fact that even rape makes her forbidden. So תוספות in כתובות דף ט' ע''ב  asks why not say she is allowed because we put her on her  חזקת כשרות. That is to say there is only one doubt. One doubt might make her forbidden, however here we have a case where there is a חזקת כשרות which ought to solve the doubt. תוספות answers that there is a another חזקה working against חזקת כשרות.  That is חזקת הגוף that she was a virgin and so continues to be assumed to be so until the second we know it is not so. חזקא מעיקרא That is we push the act of ביאה up until the last minute until it was found out that she was not a virgin. So it had to be during the time of אירוסין רב אקיבא איגר asks what about חזקת השתא that is a status of the way we know things are now. And so we push that back in time as far as possible. So חזקת השתא ought to work with חזקת כשרות to allow her to her בעל. This is like the case in נידה ב' ע''ב  where  חזקת השתא  would not work against חזקא מעיקרא unless there is another חזקא working together with it. היינו by itself it would not hold, but with another it would. רב אקיבא איגר answers in נידה דף ב' ע''ב the  החזקות work together, and can be joined since they both indicate the same thing. However in our case with the wife of the כהן חזקת השתא does not help חזקת כשרות since they indicate different things.  One is that the ביאה was before the אירוסין. The other indicates there was no sex at all. So the two   חזקות do not join. So on this רב שך asks from other places in רב אקיבא איגר himself which indicate that we would joining two  החזקות even when they do not indicate the same thing. The only thing I want to mention here is about the answer of רב אקיבא איגר. I want to ask a simple question. Why do the two  החזקות not indicate the same thing? One says she is OK. That means that either there was no ביאה before אירוסין, or there was. It makes no difference. All it says is there was no ביאה after אירוסין. That is all. It is חזקת כשרות. That is all. The other pushes the ביאה back in time before the אירוסין. So the two חזקות do not contradict. Nor do they have to be indicating different things. It is like a case  "this or that" along with that. So you know that.

רב שך בהלכות אישות י''ח: הלכה י 'כהן מתחתן עם אישה ומוציא שאינה בתולה. אסורה לו כי גם אם נאנסה, היא עדיין חללה שאסורה לכהן. אבל אם ישראלי מתחתן עם בחורה והיא לא בתולה, היא עדיין מורשית לו. למה? כי זה מקרה של ספק ספיקה. אולי הייתה לה ביאה לפני אירוסין. ואז מותרת לו. ואולי הביאה הייתה אחרי האירוסין, אבל יכול להיות שזו באונס. אז היא עדיין מותרת. רק אם הייתה לה ביאה אחרי אירוסין ברצון עם מישהו אחר. היא אסרה. כלומר, אישה נשואה שיש לה ביאה עם מישהו ברצון מלבד בעלה, נאסרת על בעלה. זה נלמד מסוטה  "והיא נטמאה" אחד לבעל אחד לבועל אז מה הופך את האישה לאסורה על כהן? העובדה שאונס אף גורם לה להיות אסורה. אז תוספות בכתובות דף ט' ע''ב שואל למה לא לומר שמותרת לו בגלל חזקת כשרות שלה. כלומר יש רק ספק אחד. ספק אחד עשוי לאסור אותה, אולם כאן יש לנו מקרה שיש חזקת כשרות שצריכה לפתור את הספק. תוספות עונה שיש חזקה אחרת הפועלת נגד חזקת כשרות. זה חזקת הגוף שהיא הייתה בתולה ולכן ממשיכים להניח שהיא כזו עד השנייה שאנחנו יודעים שזה לא כך. חזקא מעיקרא. כלומר אנו דוחפים את מעשה הביאה עד לרגע האחרון עד שהתברר שהיא לא בתולה. אז זה היה צריך להיות בתקופת אירוסין. רב אקיבא איגר שואל מה לגבי חזקת השתא שזה מעמד של הדברים של עכשיו. וכך אנו דוחפים את זה אחורה בזמן ככל האפשר. אז חזקת השתא צריכה לעבוד עם חזקת כשרות כדי להתיר לה. זה כמו המקרה בנידה ב' ע''ב. שם חזקת השתא לא הייתה עובדת נגד חזקא מעיקרא אלא אם כן יש חזקה אחרת שעובדת יחד איתה. היינו כשלעצמו זה לא יחזיק, אבל עם אחר זה היה כן. רב אקיבא איגר עונה בנידה דף ב' ע''ב החזקות עובדות יחד, וניתן לחבר אותם מאחר ושניהם מציינים את אותו הדבר. אולם במקרה שלנו עם אשתו של כהן חזקת השתא לא עוזרת לחזקת כשרות שכן הם מצביעים על דברים שונים. האחת היא שהביאה הייתה לפני אירוסין. האחרת מעידה על שלא היה קיום יחסי מין כלל. כך ששני החזקות לא מצטרפים. הדבר היחיד שאני רוצה לציין כאן הוא על תשובתו של רב אקיבא איגר. אני רוצה לשאול שאלה פשוטה. מדוע שני החזקות אינם מציינות את אותו הדבר? אחת אומרת שהיא בסדר. זה אומר שלא היה ביאה לפני אירוסין, או שהיה. זה לא משנה. כל מה שמשנה הוא שלא הייתה ביאה אחרי אירוסין. זה הכול. זה חזקת כשרות. השנייה דוחפת את הביאה אחורה בזמן לפני האירוסין. כך ששני החזקות אינן סותרות. הן גם לא צריכות להיות מציינות דברים שונים. זה כמו מקרה "זה או אחר" יחד עם "זה". אז אתה יודע את זה

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I have gained a lot by the idea's Kant, Fries, and Leonard Nelson.  That is a branch of Kant's thought that answers Kant's question about, "How is synthetic a prior knowledge possible?" [That means adjectives that can apply to many things.[Synthetic means knowledge that is so but it might not be so like "there is a continent between Europe and Asia. A priori means not based on observations nor dependent on such. ] And in a different way can apply to laws. [As Danny Frederick points out.]

Fries and Leonard Nelson answered this by a kind of knowing that is not by reason and not by sense perception. [immediate non intuitive.] Kant's answers was different. It is that we know the synthetic a priori by logic and reason but that reason has to fit within the confines of conditions of possible experience. [Hegel thought that this imposes conditions of reason that really do not exist. It all starts with Hume saying all that Reason can do is show contradictions. That was based on his being a teacher of Euclidean Geometry. But in fact Reason can do a lot more. It recognizes the synthetic a priori. It was up to Hume to prove his point before assuming it, and then messing up Western Philosophy ever since then.]

Yet I do not see the way that this is thought to be totally different than Hegel.

To me it seems both Hegel and Kant have lots of important points.

[I am no expert in this, but still I find these issues to be of great importance.]
One area that I think this is important is faith. That seems to be a kind of synthetic a priori knowledge that is different that logic or sensory evidence.

However when you try to apply these great thinkers to politics things seems to fall apart. But is that all that different from Plato himself! When he gets into politics, that is where things to go haywire. [In the Republic and the Laws.]

I have no idea why this is, but I can suggest that these are different areas of value. When it comes to politics, the founding fathers of the USA Constitution got things right.


But come to think about it, you find great thinkers that get just one thing right and everything else wrong. It is just the second level of talented people that see what is right, and see what is wrong.
An example would be Max Plank (the one who discovered that matter is quanta). It was said he wrote so much that eventually he had to hit on one right thing.

[I want to mention Dr Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries field of thought who has a lot more of "system" than either Kant or Fries. Kant is mainly limiting Reason and Fries modifies that. Dr Ross builds on that.]

The virus thing I think is just the flu. When I see the masks I am reminded on the bird masks that people would put on in the Middle Ages. The whole thing is just the king's clothes.
A real plague is like the black death or 1918 Influenza. This is nothing. It is all some kind of agenda.

Rav Nahman wrote that by trust in God, good thoughts are drawn to a person. [In Sefer HaMidot].

This is the usual approach of Rav Nahman --that is to find some human problem that someone is struggling with and to find an indirect solution. He is aware that human problems are is hard that a direct solution is impossible. So he looks and finds some side route approach it from.

For instance in our case, lots of people are struggling with wrong and or crazy thoughts. So instead of just advising "Do not think them." which can not work since the person is struggling anyway. So he finds an effective way that is indirectly related to the problem. 
Same thing with sexual sin. The ten psalms [16, 32,41,42,58,77,90,105,137,150] are a way to correct something that does not have any simple solution.

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Rav Avraham Abulafia, Jesus and Professor Moshe Idel.

The phrase which I noticed in Rav Abulafia in one of his unpublished books while siting in Hebrew University was this "האירו קשריו" [his bonds became light] in relation to his being on the cross.
This to me seemed a world shaking revolution in world view. So after that, I looked up some of Moshe Idel's books on Abulafia  and other mystics from the middle ages,-- and that seemed to confirm the basic positive attitude of Rav Abulafia towards this subject.

Sen. Dr. Jensen's forced to say that anyone that dies has to be because Coronavirus: “Well, fear is a great way to control people.”

https://www.valleynewslive.com/content/misc/Sen-Dr-Jensens-Shocking-Admission-About-Coronavirus-569458361.html


He states that he was sent a seven page document from the Department of Health that he must fill out death certificates saying who ever dies must be because of Covid 19. 

The Closing of the American Mind

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind  has this theses: the problems in the USA are a direct result of a basic conflict between Enlightenment philosophers and Anti Enlightenment Philosophers. To this he adds the question of what the Self is?
The question has not gotten less urgent.
But what I have not understood is why he did not bring Kant and Hegel who both meant to answer that exact question!

Was he dissatisfied with their approaches? It does not sound like that in the one time he mentions in a very positive light Kant's three Critiques and Hegel as the greatest of university philosophers.

After pinpointing the problem it is frustrating not to see him point towards a solution.

One thing about Hegel is he is often used by people against the ideals of the American Constitution. Is it possible that this is why Bloom was did not suggest Hegel? And that just leads to the natural question are the many movements that use Hegel all misusing him? [I think so. Still it is hard to know.]

[The way I suggest understanding Kant would be the approach of Leonard Nelson and to understand Hegel would be by the commentary of McTaggart.]

[But I should add that Kant and Hegel I see as mainly for the philosophical aspects, not the political. When it comes to the political issues, the writers of the Constitution of the USA got it right.]

Media Myths About Trump

Bankrupting America

When asked to justify some viewpoint, people often invoke some lofty general principle. The Issue is Never the Issue

The Issue is Never the Issue

Steven Dutch: "When asked to justify some viewpoint, people often invoke some lofty general principle, only to get tangled up very quickly in contradictions. Conservatives claim to be for personal freedom and against regulation, but then face the question why they don't support freedom for others, and are often willing to impose regulations on others, especially when it comes to sex." 

I have had a feeling like this for a long time but could never could express it.
It was like when I was learning American History. It always seemed superficial since the justifications always seemed hollow to me. Not that the justifications were dishonest. But rather I always felt something deeper was going on. Something under the surface.

Since I discovered Daniel Defoe a light went on in my head. I realized all the issues that were and still are facing the USA are simply continuations of the exact issues that were facing Great Britain in the 1700's. So if you want to understand America, you have to understand England.
And I notice this in other areas as well as Steven Dutch points out.
Another example would be American Independence. Taxation without representation never struck me as being something to make war over.  So what with or without representation? I always felt that could not possibly be what was really going on. 

As for Slavery:  There is no human transaction, either sexual or fiscal, that can be free from coercion.  People have to work or else give something in exchange for something else. No one in the USA is bothered by having forcing the middle class to work to pay for Baltimore or Detroit disaster zones. So making some work to pay for others is not the issue. Rather the issue of Slavery is a way to punish WASP's [White Anglo Saxon Protestants] for not giving others as much as others want.

There is an odd thing about marriage in that it does not sanctify sex. This is I think one area in which people are interested in making marriage to be acceptable as a cover and way of sanctifying sin.
Especially Christians seems to have this idea that marriage automatically sanctifies sex. So that deteriorates into using marriage as a way of sanctifying anything.
And that in itself accounts for the panic about a virus that hurts people that have no previous illness --but they do not count obesity or Sodom as previous conditions since that would show bias against those things.

The thing about marriage is that it is no where near as great a thing nowadays as it once was. At best the length of the best of marriages nowadays is about ten years. [I am not talking about marriages from the previous decades.]
And Christians get the subject of sex outside of marriage wrong also. It is not forbidden. לא תהיה קדשה מבנות ישראל is a "kedesha". That is not the same thing as "zona" which is translated as prostitute but in fact mean something completely different. [It is an argument. Either a woman who strays from her husband. Or to some a woman who has sex with one who is forbidden to her.]
In any case sex outside of marriage is a Pilegesh concubine as in Chronicles I 2:46 where we see one of the greatest of all of the generation that accepted the Torah Caleb ben Yefuna, has a few concubines and wives also. [See the Gra in the Shulchan Aruch of R. Joseph Karo. Even HaEzer who brings  a few more examples.]


And the issue of sex with an idolater is not the same thing as gentile. As we see in the argument between R Shimon ben Yochai that the actual prohibition of the Torah is sex with idolaters. And the sages say only the seven nations that were in in the land of Canaan.

Since the world is going into the Dark Ages, I would like to suggest a path of learning to sustain civilization for the small remnant.
The Written and Oral Law of Moses. [Which means  mainly the two Talmuds but also includes other books that contain the basic oral law it was all written down. That  midrashim of law (Sifrei Sifra etc), and midrash that are agada. The reason I bring Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is that is provides a way to understand how to learn the Oral Law in depth.]
Also Physics and metaphysics.

I hope that the basic idea is clear. I am talking about learning fast--saying the words and going on until you have finished the two Talmuds. That is Gemara with every Tosphot and Maharsha. The Yerushalmi with the two side commentaries Pnei Moshe and Karban Eda.
Plus the same with Physics and Metaphysics.
[That means Physics up until and including String Theory and Math which means mainly Algebraic Geometry and Algebraic Topology.] [Metaphysics means Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Leonard Nelson.]
[Rav Avraham Abulafia, from the Middle Ages seems very important, but I have not had a chance to study his works thoroughly so I am hesitant to recommend what I am not that familiar with. See Moshe Idel's books of Abulafia. One aspect of Rav Abulafia that I find fascinating is his positive approach towards Jesus, and yet I have not really had the chance to go into the issue in detail. The basic idea seems similar to how you consider the Patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David. I.e., souls of Emanation.

Fix bayonets. You will be forcibly removed from your home and family. Negative tests mean nothing.

https://www.barnhardt.biz/2020/04/07/fix-bayonets-you-will-be-forcibly-removed-from-your-home-and-family-negative-tests-mean-nothing/

To approach God is thought to be by spiritual things -not by Physics and Mathematics.

And to some degree you see this in later achronim [authors after Rav Yoseph Karo] like The Paths of the Just. 

However this does not look like the opinion of Ibn Pakuda [author of The Obligations of the Hearts] nor other rishonim [mediaeval authorities] that followed the path of Saadia Gaon.

And the reason seems plain and simple. That Physics and Math deal with the wisdom of God that is at the core of Creation. 

That is where you see the glory and wisdom of God.

But in the world of ethics, and morals and spirituality you see things are messy. That even morality is subject to people's opinion seems to be thought to be  a desirable thing. So fine. If so, then fine,-- but that does not make it objective and revealing God's wisdom.

[You see this in the Gemara where God said one thing, and the yeshiva in Heaven said something else; and they said 'a certain amora would decide between them''. And also in the events with R Yehoshua that in Bava Metzia the law goes like the majority opinion because "the Torah is not in Heaven". [However the issue is that to get to God's deeper wisdom in the work of Creation, one needs to learn and keep the Laws as they apply to people in order to get there.]

So you can see why in the parable of the palace in Guide why the Physicts are put into the palace of the King and the people that learn and keep the Oral and Written Law ("talmudiim) outside.

[The parable is in the Guide for the Perplexed. There you have  a king who rules in a country and there are levels of closeness to the king. People outside the country, those inside, those close to teh palace, and those inside the palace. In that parable those who keep the whole Torah perfectly are outside the palace. Those who learn Physics are inside.] 

[The most practical way to do this is to have a few books of Math and Physics and go through them in order from beginning to end--in order. As you see in Rav Nahman's Conversations  section 76. Say the words and go on. But to do this you need faith and trust in God that He will help you understand what you think you do not understand.]

תוספות הר''יד קידושין דף ג Rav Shach explains the Tosphot HaRi''d

The basic idea of the תוספות הר''יד  is that חליפין would work to acquire a wife if the handkerchief has a פרוטה worth. His point is the only thing the גמרא really means to exclude is קניין חליפין when one of the objects being exchanged is less than a פרוטה. This is why רב שך is dividing between two kinds of exchange in order to answer for the תוספות הר''יד. If it has a פרוטה's worth, then it comes under the category of acquiring by means of money. Only when the handkerchief is less is it actually קניין סודר היינו מטפחת which would not acquire a woman. This answers my question I asked yesterday that the גמרא is holds חליפין does not acquire a woman, and does not mention קניין סודר היינו מטפחת. My point today is that קניין סודר  in the view of the תוספות הר''יד is a kind of חליפין, but even חליפין is OK if it is more than a פרוטה. And that is the way רב שך answers the questions on the תוספות הר''יד

רב שך ברמב''ם הלכות אישות פרק א' הלכה ג' מביא את תוספות הרי''ד שקניין סודר תקף אם שווי המטפחת יותר מפרוטה. כמו כן, תקף אם ניתן בתנאי לתת מאוחר יותר מנה כסף, ובהמשך הזמן הוא נותן את זה. רב שך מסביר שיש שני סוגים של קניין סודר, האחד הוא חליפין, והשני הוא סוג מיוחד של חליפין שקיים רק כסוג של דרך להשלים עסקה. כמו בימינו לחיצת יד תהיה בקטגוריה מסוג זה. אז התוספות הרי''ד כולל בקניין כסף קניין סודר כאשר זה נעשה כחליפין ללא שום התחייבות נוספת לתת דבר נוסף. וזה יהיה סוג של חילופי כספים שווה בשווה ולא כשזה נעשה במיוחד כמו קניין סודר שהוא קטגוריה משלו (של סוג חילופין). שאלה, הגמרא מעוניינת בעיקר לסלק את קניין חליפין, ולא מזכירה קניין סודר. רק כדי שיהיה ברור אני אביא את הגמרא הבסיסי. הגמרא קידושין מביא משנה בשלשה דרכים אישה נקנית בכסף שטר ובאיה, וזה נועד להוציא את חליפין. שיכול להיות שהייתה לומד חליפין משדה עפרון, מכיוון שחליפין יכול לקנות שדה. אז אנו יודעים כעת לא, מכיוון שאישה לא תסכים שיקנה אותה בפחות מפרוטה. ומכיוון שחליפין יכולה להיות עבור פחות מפרוטה, לכן כל הסוג של קניית חליפין אינו נכלל, אפילו אם החליפין נעשה יותר מפרוטה .השאלה שלי. הגמרא מעוניין להוציא את סוג הרכישה שהוא חליפין ספציפית, ואפילו לא מזכיר את קניין סודר. זה נראה בדיוק ההפך ממה שאמרנו למעלה. זה נראה כאילו קניין חליפין לא יהיה תקפה, אבל אולי קניין סודר רגיל יהיה תקף.

הרעיון הבסיסי של התוספות הר''יד הוא שחליפין תפעל לרכישת אישה אם ערך המטפחת  יותר מערך פרוטה. הנקודה שלו היא הדבר היחיד שגמרא באמת מתכוון להוציא הוא קניין חליפין כאשר אחד החפצים המוחלפים הוא פחות מפרוטה. זו הסיבה שרב שך מחלק בין שני סוגים של חילופים כדי לענות עבור התוספות הר''יד. אם יש לו ערך פרוטה אז זה נכלל בקטגוריה של רכישה באמצעות כסף. רק כאשר המטפחת פחותה מפרוטה, זה בעצם קניין סודר היינו מטפחת שלא היה קונה אישה. זה עונה על שאלתי שהגמרא מחזיקה חליפין לא רוכש אישה, ולא מזכיר את קניין סודר היינו מטפחת. הנקודה שלי שקניין סודר בתוספות הר''יד הוא סוג של חליפין, אבל אפילו חליפין זה בסדר אם זה יותר מפרוטה. וככה רב שך עונה על שאלות על התוספות הר''יד.

Now Rav Shach explains the Tosphot HaRi''d that if the handkerchief is more than a pruta/penny the acquiring of the wife is valid. But it looks at that that might not be so to the Rambam. On one hand the Rambam says in three ways a woman is acquired, money, sex or a document. The Mishna says the same thing and the Gemara itself says that the Mishna is meaning to exclude a handkerchief. However  after Rav Shach makes clear there are two kinds of acquiring by handkerchief. One is when the handkerchief is meant to accomplish more than just the handkerchief. Like as the Ri''d says along with it he says he will give another amount of money. But by itself it is simple barter.
This opens the possibility if perhaps the Ramabm would agree with the Tosphot HaR''id inthe same case. But why would he? because in laws on Buying and Selling he says barter does not have a law of overcharging. That law says if one overcharges more than a 1/5 the sell is null. The Rambam brings from the Rif that that law does not apply to barter because this one wanted a needle and that one wanted a suit of armor. But the Rambam says that law does apply to fruit with fruit. That means barter would come under the category of  a sell by money.  So that would apply to marrying a woman also. So the handkerchief --if more than a penny-is an act of acquiring by money, not barter.

Rac Shach does not actually say all this but it is clearly what he is implying as raising this possibility. But also he brings the case of letting a slave go tat he says does not work if that was done by handkerchief. . There he makes no difference. So perhaps marriage is the same.

The basic idea of the Tospfot R"id [Rav Isaiah, one of the baali Hatospfot] is that barter would work to acquire a wife if the handkerchief has a penny's worth. His point is: the only thing the Gemara really means to exclude is exchange when one of the objects being exchanged is less than a penny.

This is why Rav Shach is dividing between two kinds of exchange in order to answer for the Tospfot R''id. If it has a penny's worth then it comes under the category of acquiring by means of money. Only when the handkerchief is less is it actually kinyan Sudar which would not acquire a woman.

This answers my question I asked yesterday that the Gemara is interested in eliminating exchange and does not mention kinyan sudar (acquire by exchange of a  handkerchief).

My point today is that kinyan sudar in the view of the Tosfot R''id is in fact a kind of exchange but even exchange is ok if it is more than a penny.
And that is in fact the way Rav Shach answers the questions of the Tospfot R''id

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The known calendar seems to be based on Meton from Athens, and was not mentioned in the gemara. Nor is there anywhere mentioned in the Gemara that Hillel II sanctified the calendar.

I think Passover ought to be on the 15th day after the new moon. That is,- if you think of the day of the "molad" [when the moon and sun are joined at the same longitude], as the new moon, then 15 days from that ought to be Passover. But why think this? Mainly because of Tosphot in Sanhedrin page 10 side b at the top.
The known calendar seems to be based on Meton from Athens, and was not mentioned in the gemara. Nor is there anywhere mentioned in the Gemara that Hillel II sanctified the calendar. That is thought to be the case, but in fact it is no where in Shas.
There are in fact many examples of basic things in the Gemara that people are not aware of.
[One more reason to get through Shas yourself.]