Philosophy seems less interesting to me nowadays because I am upset about what is going on in the USA and I do not see philosophy as ever getting issues of government correct.

For some reason Plato, Kant, Leonard Nelson, Hegel may have been great and deep thinkers, but when it comes to political issues they did not seem to have that same degree of insight or talent.

The people that got politics right the founding fathers of the USA Constitution were not philosophers and they did not base their thought on philosophy. Rather they based their ideas on England and especially the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

It is not that the issues were all that different. Rather that the philosophers got the issues wrong. Hegel saw the terrible mess of the French Revolution but his solution seems to involve too much government. Kant also was dealing with the crisis of modernity of Germany after the old structures of society were changing. But his solutions also do not seem accurate--too much world government and or too much individual.

What ever Thomas Jefferson and James Madison got right, it was not based on philosophy. 

 Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school of thought has commented on the idea that Kant must have been onto something since we see his idea  in Quantum Mechanics.

The basic ideas that between two states the electron is really not doing anything. It has no classical values of position and momentum. So it really does seem very similar to Kant's Dinge An Sich. The thing in itself which Reason has no access into.

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The advantage of the Litvak yeshiva is  authenticity. It is not that Litvaks are very nice or that the Litvak world is so great. It is not that even all the doctrines are right.

Rather it is simply that it is the one address you can go to  to find out what the Torah actually says. Not what people want it to say.

[In fact I had a pretty great experience in both of the Litvak yeshivas [Mir and Shar Yashuv] I attended, but the point I want to bring out here is that one's experience should not make any difference in evaluating the value. The fact in itself that all yeshivas based on the Gra and Rav Shach more or less apply the same principle that says basically that we simply want to learn and understand keep Torah. There is basically no alternative agendas.

The destroyed cities that were destroyed because by the Emancipation Proclamation. If Lincoln had learned Torah, and especially the books of Ethics [Musar], then the whole issue would have been resolved without war.

 The destroyed cities ruined by the Emancipation Proclamation are proof the South was right.

Besides that I just want to add for the sake of information, there is slavery in Torah. And Jesus also said that every word of Torah is true and will never be nullified right in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

So to say that slavery is evil, one has to repudiate a both the Torah and Jesus.

Portland has shown once and for all that the South was right. The Proclamation of Emancipation was a ticking time bomb and now it has come time to explode.

I might add that the tzars also discovered this truth with freeing the serfs. [It did not take long for them to destroy the Russian Empire after that. ]

Legally anyway, the slaves were never freed because you would need the Southern States to agree to a Constitutional amendment by their own free will.

From a Torah point of view also there are only a few ways that a slave can be freed. But I am not sure that is applicable here since I think a government proclamation can free slaves but only if the proclamation is legally valid. Lincoln's was not.

So today what is possible? I suggest Rav Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar (Ethics). This is in order to understand the basic principles of Torah. If Lincoln had learned Torah and especially the books of Ethics [Musar] then the whole issue would have been resolved without war.

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learning Torah with energy

 I have thought for a long time that Rav Israel Abuchatzeira found a sort of "grace" with God in so far as whenever people came to him to get a blessing, it always [or most always] worked. I do not think he always knew how. He would have bottles of water that people would take home, and usually be saved from whatever problem they were facing. But if he knew how? I doubt it. [He was not all knowing as some people suggest.] 

To me this seems to tie in with the very first lesson in Rav Nahman's LeM Vol I. Chapter 1. That when a person has grace with God his prayers are answered and even his requests --what he asks a favor from people-those are answered too. So how does one gain "grace". In that lesson Rav Nahman says is is by learning Torah with energy. 

This brings the question is there anyone of the Bava Sali family around nowadays that is similar or worthwhile going to for a blessing? Probably. I would venture to say Shimon Buso, [a son of a daughter of Bava Sali] who lives in Jerusalem but learns in Netivot.

[But I ought to add that I think that any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira is worth going to to get advice and a blessing.]

That particular lesson of Rav Nahman says that learning Torah with energy bring together reason with faith. [The ח and נ ] but in the beginning of that section Rav Nahman says learning Torah combines the Nun and the Cheit. In the he says to merit to reason in the first place one needs to learn Torah with energy. 

 There is some cultist aspect to the religious world. This is even though as far as possible to tell, all they are doing is trying to follow Torah. Still there is a definite aspect of the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] that has taken hold of the religious world. It is almost as if there is  a "for the sake of money" or other aspects there. While that is true, still it does not explain the issue. At any rate , in spite of the frum (religious world) making a song and dance of how they alone keep Torah (and so everyone ought to give them money), still there is some reason to avoid them if you value your family and life. For there is a aspect of the Dark Side that has taken hold of the religious world.

The problem is obviously that Torah is positive value and the most positive value. So זה לעומת זה עשה האלהים [the good side and evil side are parallel.] for every positive value there is  a whole circle of negative value surrounding it. So what is going on is that the Dark Side is buried deep inside the religious world.

Kyle Rittenhouse. The second video. [That is the person accused of murder.]

Kyle Rittenhouse. I want to go over the second video. The first thing that happens is is running away and then he is hit on the head with a skateboard. He does not shoot back. Then he is knocked on the ground and kicked in the head. [You can not see who hit him the second time that caused him to fall. That is blocked from view.] Then someone tries to jump on top of him, and that is when the first shot happens. Then again someone attacks him, and he shoots again. Then a person with a pistol [that is hard to see in the video] has turned around  and almost has his pistol ready to shoot Rittenhouse; and that is when Rittenhouse gets off the third shot. Literally an instant before he is almost killed.   

It is hard to see this as anything but self defense in a dire emergency.

The sages in the Gemara say: הקם להרגך, השכם ותהרוג אותו. "If one is coming to kill you, get up early in the morning and kill him."

He should be awarded a a medal for helping to protect his community.

So why arrest him? It is not as if there is no one out there rioting. So the one person that does the right thing--that is whom they arrest?

The first video is hard to see. But the basic train of events is this. Rittenhouse is running away. The person with the red around his head attacks Rittenhouse, and then throws something at  him, and then that is when you hear the shoot. Also self defense. In all these cases, Rittenhouse was the one running from trouble. But when trouble came to get him, he turned around and protected himself.

The South wanted freedom. I can not see that the states had no right to secede. It is like a marriage. If one partner wants out, would you say the other has a right to use force to coerce him or her to stay? Of course not. So why would you say the North could use force on the South to make them stay? What is the difference?

And nowadays there is evidence that the South was right. E.g. Portland, Detroit, Chicago, Newark, etc.  

The importance of Robert E Lee.

 

 What is going on in the USA is not hard to understand. When the human race was young and let's say you are in a village where the last horse has been eaten. But the next village over you can smell the roast beef they are having every night. And when you go to trade, you see their pretty girls. So someone comes up with a brilliant idea. Lets go over there, kill all the men and take the women and children and Take Their Stuff. TTS.

That is what is going on in the USA. It is not-that young teenagers have been convinced about Communism by deep study. It is rather a way to ease one's conscience about the basic element of human DNA: Let's take their stuff.

 The area of review in the thought of Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov is ambiguous. We know exactly how he held one ought to learn as in saying the words and going on. But that is the "Bekiut" aspect of learning. The fast learning. But what about "Iyun". He clearly held from its importance as you can see in the LeM volume I chapter 78.  

One suggestion I have and I have tried  a few times myself is that once you get to the end of the book [whether Gemara or midrash or the natural sciences] to go back page by page from the end towards the beginning. This has the advantage that you are doing review before you have had a chance to start forgetting. And forgetting is almost inevitable if you go right back to the beginning once you have gotten to the end. But in this way of review page by page from the end towards the start --that way you are doing review with a short time from when you first learned the material.

We need to rethink the Civil War.

 

How is it possible to know the South the right? There is some evidence. E.g., Baltimore, Portland, Newark, Detroit. etc. That is you see the results or Emancipation and then you have evidence that it was not right. 

DO HOME OWNERS HAVE A RIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR HOMES?

I cannot see the question. In the Torah there is  a law הבא המחתרת in Exodus. That is the verse about one who breaks into into the home of someone else -- the owner has a right to shoot them. Self defense does not need Miranda warnings.

So when BLM come into a neighborhood, we know they are not there to sit down and have a chat.

 There is a "Yeshu" mentioned in the Talmud who is criticized.

The Rosh [Asher] wrote that that does not refer to Jesus. [The Rosh was a Rishon]. The "Yeshu" mentioned in the Talmud was a disciple of one of the middle "zuggot' pairs mention in Pirkei Avot. [Yehoshua ben Perachia] So that is right in the middle of the second Temple. That is about 150 years before Jesus. Yeshu was not an uncommon name. [Where the Rosh wrote this? I seem to recall seeing it at the end of Gitten but maybe it was somewhere else.]

I mean to say the Talmud says openly exactly who it is referring to--that is the disciple of Yehushua ben Perachia. That means it can not be referring to the Yeshua of the NT.

I might just add the point that "Hagada" even in the Talmud itself is not binding. The idea of the Talmud is to get to the laws of Torah, not stories. That is not to say that the stories are not interesting. Interesting yes but fundamental and binding? No. As the Ramban and other Rishonim already made this point long ago.

I know people think Torah is all about interesting stories. But in fact it is not. It is about laws.

to learn Torah. That is the Oral and Written Law. But the difference is that I add to that also Physics based on the Rishonim that did include that in learning Torah.

The truth is that I am a bit pessimistic about the USA. "Whom the gods want to destroy first they make insane." So the trans-sex thing is the insane part. What comes next is what we are seeing in Portland. The communists trying to destroy the USA. But not like the Cold War. For the Communists to attack the USA they needed to be able to get through 7500 miles from Moscow to the USA. Now the war is at our doorstep. Literally. But how to fight such a thing? The falsification of the history of the USA has been going on for a long time. And people swallow it hook line and sinker.

Will no real Americans stand up anymore?

But this does not seem exactly like an attack on the USA. Rather it seems like an attack on Western Civilization.

As for what to do. My basic approach is based on what I learned at the Mir in NY--that the cure for almost any problem is to learn Torah. That is the Oral and Written Law. But the difference is that I add to that also Physics based on the Rishonim that did include that in learning Torah. 

[I noticed this idea also in the beginning of the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach where he says that nowadays there is nothing one can do but simply to increase learning Torah.]

However I wanted also to add that "learning Torah" does have a limited definition. Mainly it means the actual books written by the Tenaim and Amoraim which contain the actual record of the Oral Law. But these can include some commentary. So for example I would learn a lot of the Maharsha and Tosphot in order to understand the Gemara.

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to learn the Federalist Papers to gain an appreciation for the unique gift of the Constitution of the USA.

 It might sound lame, but my recommendation for the USA is for people to learn the Federalist Papers by James Madison, Alexander  Hamilton, and John Jay in order to gain an appreciation for the unique gift of the Constitution of the USA. I mean go through the Federalist Papers from start to finish.

I MEAN INSTEAD OF "AMERICAN HISTORY", LEARN WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. History is so easily distorted according to what ones agenda is. After all, it would be like reporting on N.Y. City. To show your agenda is right, you do not even have to lie. All you need to do is selectively report the incidents  that fit your narrative. [I mean lots of things happen every day in  a city with millions of people. What you report on, depends on what you want to show.]

But the one flaw in the Constitution is the desire of people to get other people's stuff. If you bring into the USA enough people that hate the rich, and do not want to work to better themselves, but rather to take away from those that have worked, then nothing can save the situation. 

That would be the time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah

September 17 at 2:00 PM is the new moon. That would be the time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah according to the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 10 that the new moon does not depend on the court sanctifying it.

the "Seder haLimud" [learning in the way of just saying the words and going on]

 I noted a few days ago and again today that Rav Natan, the disciple of Rav Nahman, faced a great deal of opposition. But not from Litvaks. See the "Sefer ha'Telaot". It was not at all people that were following the path of the Gra that were against him or against Rav Nahman.  

Which does bring the question to my mind what are the major great points of Rav Nahman that the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] was trying so hard to hide.

Well clearly the Tikun Klali [the Ten Psalms] and Hitbodadut [talking with God as one would talk with a good friend] would have to stand foremost. But I also think the "Seder haLimud" [learning in the way of just saying the words and going on] . Which presents a way of going through the entire oral and written law plus the natural sciences at least once during one's lifetime. And as Rav Nahman says in Sefer Ha'Midot what one does not understand or remember in this world. he will be reminded and made to understand in the world to come.

[Natural sciences I see as important but philosophy is more doubtful to me. It seems there is a lack of clarity about what is really valuable there.]

learning fast and also review and learning in depth. [

Even though Rav Nahman of Breslov emphasized learning fast there are also a few places where he does bring the idea of review and learning in depth. [Sefer Hamidot and LeM I:78] It does not seem that there is much of  question of which to emphasize since you can see in Conversations of Rav Nahman that the learning fast thing was his major emphasis. [section 76],

If you apply this to learning the natural sciences, Math, Physics, Chem, Biology, then the rule is clear. Learn fast with no review. Say the words in order from the beginning to end.

[Many Rishonim held from learning the natural sciences. That started from Rav Saadia Gaon and Ibn Pakuda.] 

So review is less well defined when and how to go about it.

I suggest in one of the regular sessions to have one session where review is done in the way of starting sta some middle point and working a few pages forward and also a few pages backwards.

[But one should avoid pseudo sciences and pseudo Torah. In fact outside of STEM, anything with the word "studies" attached to it is pseudo science. As for Torah, only the actual written and Oral Law are Torah. That is the actual Old Testament and the two Talmuds and midrashim. Everything else is false Torah or fake Torah.

natural science is pretty clear is most rishonim. However philosophy seems to be an area of contention. The Ramban [Moshe ben Nahman] did not like Aristotle at all. And that means all that followed his approach. But Ibn Pakuda [Obligations of the Hearts] differs as you can see on page one of his intro to his book.

x13 A Minor.

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Music from a few years ago b100. [B files were written in Israel around 2001.]

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b101 mp3

b101 note worthy composer

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b104

b105

b98 mp3,   b98 [noteworthy composer file. That is a company that has software by which one can write music.

mathematics mp3 mathematics nwc file

[This was written in Uman but put together in NY.]

orchestra mp3 orchestra nwc file This was written when I was in high school. [Influenced by Beethoven an Brahmans and my teachers like Mr Smart.] The B files were much later in Israel. I think this was when I was a sophomore. It was before there was noteworthy software so it was just on paper until many years later I used nwc software to see how it actually sounds.

[Mr Smart was the conductor of the high school orchestra and  a genius that was able to whip up the high school orchestra  into a an almost semi professional level]

All of this music was written in notebooks and then I would develop the themes later.

 

In NY I started writing down some of the music that my brother had saved. There also was some music that was in notebooks. [That is where the piece mathematics came from. I had been in Hebrew University where  a very nice girl introduced me to Mathematics. Michal. So that piece was written from that inspiration..]

Litvak Yeshiva world. It is really better not to have anything to do with the religious world as long as one is not able to discern between real Torah and the phony Torah of the Sitra Achra.

 It is hard to figure out the Litvak Yeshiva world.  The best way I can see is based on Howard Bloom's idea about a super-organisms and the social "meme". In other words it is not just a place to learn Torah but rather a place to absorb Torah. The trouble is that in any area of value there is always the pseudo areas that surround it. That is not only in Torah, but in Music, and almost any discipline.

For every authentic science there are surrounding it pseudo sciences. [Something gone into by Steven Dutch but his blog is gone.]

So it is really better not to have anything to do with the religious world as long as one is not able to discern between real Torah and the phony Torah of the Sitra Achra. That is one reason certainly the Gra signed the herem [letter of excommunication.] The reason is like it says by Esau that when he saw his wives were not pleasing to his parents Isaac and Rivka he married two more wives that would be pleasing to them.--But he did not get rid of the first two. So the first thing is flee from evil סור מרע and only then  can one do good עשה טוב. That is a verse in Psalms 34 "Flee from evil and do good".--in that order סור מרע ועשה טוב.

People generally associate the Gra and Rav Shach with the religious world but that is not accurate. They followed Torah. The religious world on the contrary follow their interests and the appearance of Torah to trick fry secular yidden [secular Jews] into giving them money. That is a big difference.

 

peaceful protest

 peaceful protest

Ketuboth 9 side B. If someone marries a girl, and then says he found she was not a virgin, whom do you believe?

 If someone marries a girl, and then says he found she was not a virgin, whom do you believe? [She says she was a virgin.] That is easy. The Gemara in Ketuboth says on page 9b that you believe him since, "No one makes a wedding celebration just to ruin it the next day." But the Gemara says that is only because the Ketuba is not from the Torah, but rather a decree of the sages. ["They require a ketuba and they believe him if he says he did not find her a virgin."]

The Ramban [Nahmanides] asks: So if it was from the Torah, why would she be believed? Anyone coming to court with a document that has  a condition in it has to prove that the condition was fulfilled.

Rav Shach explains the question  and answer of the Ramban based on the gemara in Ketuboth page 76. Two people exchange animals,  It comes out that you have two "hazakot"חזקות [ conditions or state of things]. One "hekat hashta" חזקת השתא [the way things are now you infer that that is the way they were in the past--and extend it as fr as possible] and the other hazaka חזקה from the start. [That is the way things were in the past you assume they keep on going until you know otherwise]  If they work against each other, then you need some other kind of proof. [You see this also in the beginning of Nida]. 

So the Ramban answers that she has a hazaka חזקה and also a majority רוב. That is why she would be believed.

[The Gemara that Rav Shach brings says: Two people exchanged animal A with animal B. The owner of A took possession of B. But when the owner of B went to take A he found it dead. Rav Yehuda said the owner of A has to prove that A was alive at the time of the deal. Rami said no. The owner of B has to show it had died before.]

So now we understand the Ramban. If the Ketuba would be from the Torah, then you would believe her that she was a virgin because the is no Hezkat  hashta [status now]against her original "hazaka meikara" [original status] . Plus a "rov" majority (Most girls get married as virgins). But without that, you would need her to show that she fulfilled the condition of the marriage --that she was  a virgin when she got married. That would be like Rav Yehuda in Ketuboth 76.

So in simple English, the cases with exchange of two animals and the case of the marriage are different. In the case of the animal case, there is חזקת השתא [present status] that works against the חזקה מעיקרא [prior status]. Animal A is not alive so we push that back in time. So to Rav Yehuda, we ask the owner of animal A to show that the animal was alive at the time of the deal. But in the case of the marriage, there is no חזקת השתא [present status],  since she is now anyway not a virgin. So all there is is חזקה מעיקרא --and that is exactly what the Ramban [Nahmanides] says: since there is a חזקה מעיקרא [prior status] we would believe her.

,,

the Litvak world comes out a million times better than anyone else.

 At the two Litvak yeshivas I was in in NY --Shar Yashuv and the Mir, I was aware of Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov to some degree. And found his teachings to be helpful and inspiring.  The odd thing is later I got much more serious about following Rav Nahman's path and was involved in the group of Rav Shick in Safed.The funny thing is that I would have expected the moral level of people involved in Rav Nahman [Breslov] to be so much higher than anything else that there would be  a clear advantage to following this "Breslov path."

But based on my experience I have to say that the Litvak world of the Musar Yeshivas is hands down a million times more moral and decent than anything I have seen elsewhere. However I do also see the great advantage in the teachings of Rav Nahman. But more on a personal level than as a group. 

I know I have no data on this but my impression is that of you would take the most minimal measures of morality --not to lie, and not to cheat, or scam I would say this is how the test would come out. You measure the times a person has the opportunity to lie and does not lie even to his advantage, and divide that by how many times he has the opportunity. Same with cheating. Same with lying and and same with scamming. You would get a mathematical ratio. So based on my experience (and I think everyone would have to agree) there is no question, the Litvak world comes out a million times better than anyone else. That makes a difference because you can not have holiness without good character traits. Being a "mensch" is the minimum starting level towards holiness.

Without that nothing can start.  

There was a lot of "Hizuk" encouragement I gained from Rva Nahman's books, but to jump ship off the Litvak world was a mistake. I was thinking I was going to find a group on some kind of higher spiritual plane and that was a miscalculation.]

X12 E flat major

 X12 mp3 E flat major  x12 midi   x12 nwc  As you can see in the second part I have done a different kind of variation on the main theme that I have not done before. That is I take the main theme and do a symmetric transformation on it.. But if that really works--I am not sure. 

There is a difference between keeping Torah as opposed to being part of the religious world.

 There is a difference between keeping Torah as opposed to being part of the religious world. In fact, there is a kind of fraud in the religious world in that the major effort and drive is to get converts. But the hidden message is that the converts will then be the servants of those that are already religious.

The trouble is that the religious world keeps external rituals, but gains evil character. So trying to get people to join is really not in the category of  a good deed.

It might be that the religious think they are righteous. But they are not. They are religious, not righteous.

[ The closest to pure Torah is the Litvak yeshivas, but there the Sitra Achra also has some hold.]

To understand the issue it might be helpful to take note that just simply "being religious" in itself tends to be  a problem. It is to easy to get it wrong and fall into fanaticism.

You can understand this based on the idea of Dr Kelley Ross [of the Kant-Friesian school of thought] that there is an array of "value".So the values of knowledge and beauty are not along the same lines as value of attachment with God. But  that area of spiritual value --can  fall into its opposite. That is the case with every positive value. When it decays it becomes its opposite.

Millie Weaver from InfoWars Arrested

Knowing a bit about Trotsky, nothing the Left does surprises me.

That is anyone against the Marxists at this point is subject to arrest.

 Infowars reporter Millie Weaver. Infowars 

But I ought to add here that nothing that is going on in the USA is a surprise because Americans do not believe even their own eyes until they see it on the Internet or CNN. So truth and facts matter--but only the truth and facts that are reported on CNN and being taught in high schools and "Gender Studies." 

So to see the USA turn into a Marxists State is expected.  

My letters to Warren Siegel [Physics] about the 26 simple groups and the possibility that they represent symmetries of the 26 curled up dimensions. [This exchange was in 2016]

Dear Professor Siegel,

I am just a beginner but still I just wanted to ask a question.

 I am wondering if we start with Emmy Noether's theorem and put groups of fractional symmetry in the Lagrangian of QFT (Quantum Field Theory). I mean to say I have been fascinated by the idea of fractional derivatives and higher order symmetries for  awhile. So we have from Noether that for every symmetry you can put into the Lagrangian a conservation law why not just postulate symmetries and thus higher conservation laws up to any order?  What I am thinking of is not the same as translational symmetry of fractional charges like quarks. 

This might sound like a ridiculous suggestion but sometimes this kind of idea gives results. Originally it was Leibniz himself who thought of fractional derivatives but he did not think the results would interesting so he did not pursue the idea. It turned out there are some interesting results. 

I would have liked to have thought of some examples.

I am really sorry if this sounds stupid. I really like learning about QFT but I admit I am just struggling at this point.

Sincerely,

Avraham Rosenblum 

The answer of Dr Siegel quoted the above letter and added :I'm not sure what symmetries you're thinking of, but in general if you impose too much symmetry you find that only a free theory can satisfy it.

Then at the end he added: If by fractional derivative you mean some arbitrary noninteger power of the differential operator, the result is nonlocal (does not depend on just infinitesimally nearby points).  Locality is a basic physical property that field theory requires.  It follows from special relativity & causality.

Then I wrote another letter: Dear Professor Siegel,

What I am thinking is that according to the number of dimensions there are, we would have the same number of conservation laws. So for our little world we have conservation of energy and mass, electric charge, etc. In string theory we get some crumbled up dimensions for the normal 26. So what I would like to find are groups to put into the Lagrangian that will correspond to each conservation law for a different quantity. I still need to think about what kinds of groups I am looking for. But the most obvious would be those 26 simple groups I was reading about when I was studying group theory. 

Does any of this make any sense?

Sincerely, Avraham Rosenblum

Answer of Dr Siegel: I'm not sure what you're saying.

If you compactify some dimensions into a symmetric space, you'll get the symmetry of that space.

E.g., if you compactify some extra N dimensions into a submicroscopic sphere, you'll get the rotational group for those N dimensions, i.e., the orthogonal group O(N+1).

It will appear as an "internal" symmetry with respect to the uncompactified dimensions (i.e., not affecting them directly).

[So I am not thinking of the regular symmetries but some new kinds,[i.e., new kinds of conservation laws].  I do not know how they would be made manifest in our 4 dimensional world.

After all that discussion I thought of another point. That is the Feynman integral what really matters is not all the trajectories but rather just the ones that have no derivative. So even if you have lots of complicated homotopies as you go to higher dimension, still not all the closed circles matter. That is because the smooth ones that have a derivative cancel out in the final result. So what matter is the lines that are continuous but are shaped in the way that every point makes a sharp corner with the next point. Also the last dimension matters because with no other dimension to go into it would lack a derivative. 

 To be מוחה to object to evil even when you will not be listened to I heard from Leibel (the son of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum [the head of the Mir in NY.]). 

He was saying this to me in terms of the Eruv issues that came up then. [What counts as an enclosure for the Sabbath Day.] I had asked something along those lines. He said that there is a point to object.

Now as I think about it I recall that you can see this with the war between Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. פילגש בגבעה. Look at the verses and you will see the main objection was not what was done the the concubine--which was horrible in itself. Rather the major issue was that no one objected. Israel had gone to the town and asked the criminal to be handed over. And that is the point. Everyone in Benjamin went along with it and no one objected.

Also in the incident of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. What was done was evil. But that in itself was not enough to bring about the destruction of the Temple, The main issue was that מדלא מחו שמע מינה דניחא להו--that no one of the sages objected.

This would be the same reason that the Gra put his signature of the letter of excommunication. To object to evil even if one will not be listened to. [Just to be clear the actual "herem" did not include Rav Nahman of Uman]. One could look up the books that contain  all the letters and testimony in Villna to see this.

x11 B Flat major mp3 file

 x11 B Flat major mp3 file

 

I am thinking of putting links to the NWC [Noteworthy Composer] and Midi versions of the music so that people that want to see the notes can do so. 

x11 nwc file

x11 midi file

return to Feudalism.

 I see in the former USSR that people tend to form a village around their place of employment. I mean this is a return to Feudalism. I actually saw this when I was in the hospital in Uman and saw this kind of dynamics. And I heard this from a former KGB agent also.

This is I think also the basic idea around the "Litvak Yeshiva". Even though Litvak yeshivas tend to do a great job in what they were created for--to teach Torah. [Especially the Mir in NY and also Shar Yashuv]. Still the subtle aspect is that it provides a Feudal Castle to protect one from robbers.

After all this is what the whole Feudal system came about from. Rome was collapsing. The roads were no longer safe. People wanted protection from roaming bands of "protesters." So they aggregated around a strong man that could protect them. But in return they had to work and and pledge loyalty. 

This is in fact one of the reasons why people go into Litvak yeshivas--not just to learn Torah but also to be in an environment where they can learn Torah. The secular world used to be able to provide a degree of security. You lived in a safe USA. Jobs were available. Now secular society is falling apart. 

[Does this reciprocal relationship in fact exist? That is if you pledge loyalty and obey all the rules  do you get some kind of protection like in a feudal castle where you get protection by pledging loyalty? I would say it does exist to a degree. Maybe not as much as one might hope, but it still seems to be so to a degree.]

For a mediaeval feudal system to work there needs to be a hierarchy. Sometimes there is good reason for that. Like in the case of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum the head of the Mir Yeshiva in NY.  Or Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv. But often, not. 

argument between the Rosh and Rav Hai Gaon

There is an argument between the Rosh  and Rav Hai Gaon. Normally when there is enough land for the males to inherit and the daughters to be feed then that is what happens. [That is to say that daughters and a widow do not inherit, but they do get feed from the proceeds of the land.] If there is not enough land for both the boys and girls then only the girls get feed. But if the sons sell the property the sell is valid. That is straight from the Gemara itself. But what happens  after during the time of the Geonim there was made a decree that movable property is also used to pay for the Ketuba and all the conditions of the Ketubah.

That is where Rav Hai Gaon says after that decree now the girls would get feed from the proceeds of the sell. The Rosh disagrees.. The question that Rav Shach brings is that the proof that the rosh brings is hard to understand. 

The Gemara says that there is  a proof to Rav Asi that the boys have some rights to נכסים מועטים [small amount of land], because if they sell, the sell is valid. The Rosh brings this as a proof that they keep the money of the sell.--even after the decree of the Geonim.

I admit that I have trouble understanding the answer of Rav Shach to this question. It does look that you can not bring a proof from the sell being valid before the decree and the sell being valid after the decree that the boys might in fact have to feed the girls with the proceeds.

Basically Rav Shach is saying that the point of the Rosh is that you  see there is a no "halot" settling of the land on the money, such that the money is in place of the land. We do see that with Maasar Sheni but not here. So while there is a decree to use movable property to pay for the Ketubah, that means money that was actually inherited. Not money that came because something that was inherited was sold. 

When communism is brought up, someone has to blame Hegel.

On one hand almost invariably when ever communism is brought up, someone has to blame Hegel.  Not that he was a communist, but clearly a capitalist. See his Philosophy of Right and his views about private property. But the reason he gets blamed is because the individual gets meaning only by being part of a larger group. However there is no freedom for the individual without the state. 

However I think he was trying to get to freedom for the individual without the craziness  and reign of terror of the French Revolution. And in fact looking at the kings of Prussia during that period do show them on the side of a liberal Constitution.

What the situation in Germany was lacking I think was people like Alexander Hamilton and James Madison whose forte was how to frame a political question and how to answer it with a just Constitution. That simply was not the forte of Hegel nor Kant.

See Walter Kaufman on Hegel.

I would suggest to blame Marx and Communism all you want, but leave Hegel alone. In fact. it could be that allowing the communists to hijack Hegel, is what gave them the small amount of credibility that they had. After all it could not have been simple to convince the average peasant in a Russian village that the success of the more well to do peasants was all because they had stolen it from the less successful.Just the opposite --to anyone living in a village or small Russian town it is clear where the prosperity comes from--the few smart peasants that bring in all the business..It is always just the few who are the big producers. So the Marxists had to use word play to convince the poor peasants to murder the wealthy peasant and steal his property and rape his daughters, and do it in name of social justice.

[Is it possible, I might suggest that communists took a hitch hiked with Hegel on some issues because he was the best thing out there?]

x-9 D Major

 x-9 D Major

to betray those that do the most good to us

 It is not just that people have a evil inclination [yezer hara]. Rather people have a very specific yezer hara--to betray those that do the most good to us and we owe the greatest gratitude. Not just lack of gratitude but even to do positive harm to those that have helped us the most. So while there are all kinds of yezer hara, this one seems to me to be the worst of all

[You can see examples with the hatred of people towards the USA, when according to their enlightened views they might have done better by staying in Somalia. Instead they come to the USA to turn us into another Somalia. [which recently blamed whites for not staying there and teaching them how to run an economy. Or course it is hard to blame the whites for leaving since they were being murdered.]

Another example is fathers who are by default the arch villain in the minds of most people. Again the same reason--to repay good with evil. 

I am no prophet, but I can say with some degree of confidence that this can not end well. There is a Judge and justice. People that betray those that have done the most for them will almost certainly not end well.

Can communists take over America?

To me it seems depend on one thing. If people can believe promises of everything for free without being aware of what is planned to make everything free. I mean there are enough examples of communism to provide evidence whether the promises of utopia becomes real.

Plus there is the slight inconvenient fact that communists think only the "rich" will lose all their money. They are not thinking that they themselves will no longer have private property, but will live where the State assigns them to live, and will work at what the State assigns to them to work at.

But the trouble is Americans believe in something only after seeing it on the internet. Since the main sites are Communist, how is there any chance of correction? 

"You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other besides Him."

 אתה הראתה לדעת כי השם הוא האלוהים אין עוד מלבדו מאי אין עוד מלבדו אפילו כשפים

 "You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other besides Him."

The simple idea of the verse is there are no other gods besides God, -not that nothing exists besides God. 

The sages ask in tractate Shabat "What does it mean 'there is none other besides Him?' Even magic"

You would imagine that if the point of the verse was to tell us that nothing exists besides God, this would have been the perfect place for the sages to tell us this. Instead they explain that there are no other spiritual forces--even magic.

The truth be told, monotheism was always the faith of the Torah. That God created everything something from nothing. (And he is other than the world. He is not the same thing as the world.])That is not to say nothing exists besides God.  

[To all Rishonim [medieval authorities], Monotheism is assumed. That is that God made the world something from nothing, and that he is totally "other" that this world.] 

In tractate Avoda Zara 41:b

Almost anything can be an idol. Even though pictures are permitted to make that does not mean that a picture can not be made into an idol. However baseball cards do not count as idolatry. There has to be the idea that by worship of the object of idolatry that that object can save or help one.

You see this really in the Tosephta on Sanhedrin. [Or at least that is where I first saw this idea.]

But stated clearly you have to see the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach in laws of idolatry 7:1.

So here I want to introduce that subject.

In tractate Avoda Zara 41:b. R.Yochanan said: an  idol that broke by itself [e.g fell down in an earthquake] is still forbidden [to use, as e.g. to sell the pieces]] Reish Lakish said it is permitted. The Gemara asks from the mishna R Yose said a person can take an idol and crush it and throw it to the winds. The sages said "but then one might end up using the dust. and the verse says "So that nothing will stick to your hands from it". So why the gemara asks is this any different from an idol that broke by itself? (and we see the sages forbid it.)

The Gemara answers [for Reish Lakish] from Rava: it is a gezara (decree) because as he is  crushing it he might pick it up and then he owns it an a Israeli can not nullify his own idol.

The Ritva asks the same question applies to R Yochanan since on page 43 we see he makes a distinction between when the idolater gives up from just the monetary worth of the idol or also from the prohibition.

To the Gemara, even R Yochanan would agree that if the idolater gave up on both, then the idol that broke by itself is permitted in use [as e.g. to sell the pieces].

The Ritva [a later rishon after Tosphot] answer the case of the idol that broke by itself is different for the idolater does not know yet that it broke. For it to be permitted there has to be knowledge that it broke and became worthless. [The point is that the question of the gemara on Reish Lakish  would not apply to R Yochanan- Because to R Yochanan for the idol to be permitted in use the idolator has to be aware that it broke.]

Rav Shach in the Avi Ezri asks this same point ought to apply to Reish Lakish also. And his answer is the very point I made up above. To both Reish Lakish and R Yochanan an idol that can not save itself is not an idol. For the very essence of idolatry is the thought that people have of it that it can help. Onnce it is broken it automatically loses that category. But R Yochana requires at least an act of nullification.

[Even though it is still unclear to me where this idea comes from. I mean I have heard of requiring an act of "bitul" nullification but I am not sure where you see this here in R Yochanan. I am sure my learning partner David Bronson would be puzzling about this point maybe for weeks on end-unless an answer could be found.]

X10 A Minor

X10 A Minor    x10 midi   x10 nwc

Too much of religious identity depends on thinking that Jesus was not good.

Too much of religious identity depends on thinking that Jesus was not good. However there are issues which are legitimate. Already pointed out by Saadia Gaon. The most obvious issue is that Jesus does not equal God. And that should be obvious just by reading the NT itself.

But forgotten in this discussion is always the approach of  "Emanation" [Atzilut] -Emanation of the Divine light to create lower worlds is very well accepted in all medieval mystics. So souls that come from Emanation are thought to be "divine" in that they contain the Divine light --with no division between them and God.

[And that is the major character of Atzilut/Emanation].

So being in particular always against Jesus as a general rule has just become too much embedded in one's very identity. 

 

So what I suggest is that religious identity ought to be based on belief in God and the law of Moses, not being against Jesus. I mean to say that religious identity is important, but it ought to be based on true facts

I had a great desire to get into physics when I was young.

I had a great desire to get into physics when I was young. But I had a few obstacles. One was you might say really ridiculous. It was my first year in high school in Algebra. I can not say if I found it hard or not. I really do not recall. But I can recall the a(b+c)= ab+ac which maybe I understood or not. But it did not "click" with me. I decided then and there that I am no genius in math. And if I was no genius then why do it at all? So instead I thought to try to go into doing the violin. There I did better, but I can honesty say that if I had known about the idea of  "girsa" --just saying the words and going on, I think I would have been able to get over the obstacles.

But that was not all. When in elementary school, I walked home from school, and that took 40 minutes. But walking home from high school was an hour plus some, or I could wait for my dad to pick me up at the library. In any case, by the time I got home, I was TIRED. [School from 8:15 to 3:15; then the wait or walk home.

So you can wonder  why I bring this up. The reason is the same obstacles still are before me. Even knowing about "girsa"helps to some degree, but I still find it hard. And the tired aspect is still there. I find it best to do the studying the first thing in the morning, --but when trying to study later after have been running around on different errands, I find I just can not concentrate. 

 

So what I think, (if I can be allowed to extrapolate from myself to others);--I would like to suggest that many people --maybe even most people have an inherent desire to understand the world they live in. They would like to know about atoms and quarks, and strings and galaxies, and all that interesting stuff. But probably find these exact two obstacles. (1) Hard to understand; and (2) hard to sit down and do the learning.

For the first problem, I do want to suggest this idea of "Girsa"--saying the words and going on;-- and believing that even if you do not understand at first, the knowledge still gets absorbed and processed under the surface. The tired aspect, however I do not have any answer for --except that same thing that I said about doing the work right when you get up in the morning. After a strong tea or coffee.

Reason recognizes universals.

I see Kant, Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School and Hegel as very important. But I feel that in philosophy the message of the forest gets lost because of the trees. You get get so involved in the small details that the big message is lost.

So I want to explain something that was well known in the Middle Ages but since then forgotten:that Reason recognizes universals. What is a universals? Lets say I have two blank white pieces of paper in front on me. Do they have something in common? Yes. Whiteness. So Whiteness is  a universal. Something that particulars have in common. Do universals exist? If you think so, then you are a realist. There are two kinds of realists. One that holds universals do not depend on particulars, and the other that hold they do. Plato was the first kind. Aristotle, the second.

What are some examples of universals? Numbers, colors, laws of physics. Moral principles are also examples of universals. They are rules that apply to particular situations. Not rules of "must" but rules of "ought". Never the less they are still rules.

Reason can recognize these rules. For that is the function of reason--to see things in common among particulars.

So we get what was fairly well known in the Middle Ages: that reason recognizes moral principles and that Torah is meant to make us aware of moral principles that are objective.

[You can see this more in detail in Professor Michael Huemer's writings.]

[One important point here is that there is no reason to exclude reason from the "synthetic a priori".This original idea came from Hume who held reason can do nothing but locate about contradictions in definitions. He was a teacher of Euclidean Geometry so he got this idea from there. But it is not the case that he showed this to be true. he just asserts it

Gra was right in signing the herem [letter of excommunication]

You can see that the Gra was right in signing the herem [letter of excommunication] in that you see nowadays there is a lot of emphasis on worship of dead people. And also graves of dead people.

That may not be the major reason for the herem, but it certainly is proof that it is correct.

I mean once you see this, there ought to be no question that you are dealing with a cult of idolatry , not Torah.

If you consider that herem to be valid, the result would be vast. For the law of herem is not to have thing to do with the person or people. They can not learn or teach Torah. [Though I consider Rav Nahmna is be OK as he was outside of the strict category that the herem was on.

Furthermore, it is a positive commandment to destroy idolatry and everything that was made for it. So teh fact that the signature of the Gra concerning this issue, means that people are not destroying idolatry when they are able to do so.

[In Israel, it is a positive command to search and destroy. Outside of Israel, only if one encounters it.]

benefits in following the path of the Gra

One of the major benefits in following the path of the Gra is  what you accomplish is "birur" [separation of good from evil]. 

For every area of value there is a equal and opposite area of negative value that mimics true authentic value. And this birur [separation of good from evil]] is hard to accomplish. It is hard to tell the difference between true holiness and what mimics it. So by following the path of the Gra this "birur" is accomplished by simple faith in the wise with needing to go through the difficult process of figuring it out on ones own efforts.

 I am referring to the signature of the Gra on the letter of "Herem". But the issue is not just that the herem has legal validity. It is that it represents an objective reality.

For no one claims the Gra had everything. Rather every person is usually connected to some area of value.  No one thinks the Gra could have written Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, or write the Constitution of the USA. Rather there are people that have a connection with a certain area of value, and a lot of the effort that they need to expend and others is to determine what is the real thing and what is fake. Or sometimes there is a penumbra of positive value area around the center of value that is not evil, but just not as close to the real truth as the center of value.

It is easy to see how it fit into Kelley Ross's theory of value --see "Kant Fries School", but also this can be understood along teh lines of Hegel. [Though to see this in Hegel takes a lot more work. See Cunningham of Hegel who sees the importance of McTaggart,  but also sees how McTaggart missed this part of Hegel.

[Hegel believed in the One true God of Israel and also recognized this process of birur.]

So what ought to be done is to make batei midrash on the name of the Gra. The benefit would be great for those that earn Torah and those that don't. For those that don't the benefit is to know what authentic Torah is even if they find it hard to keep it For those that learn the benefit is all the greater in that just by invoking the name of the Gra, the temptation to look at torah of the dark side is diminished

issue of Jesus

The issue of Jesus is difficult because I think no one gets it right. Or perhaps the Muslims are the closest. But they also I think get it slightly off.

The issue really fits well with the way most sages were thinking in Neo-Platonic terms until the Aristotelian revolution occurred in the 1200's. 

So with all the mystics of the Middle Ages you have this distinction between higher world of Emanation and lower worlds. [Though they will not call it by that name.] 

The problem is loaded vocabulary. Christians say either you believe Jesus equals God; or if not, then you believe he is a "mere man". 

They discount the possibility of someone being not God;-- but also not "mere man".

This comes up in the mystics of the Middle Ages. There are souls of Emanation like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph.

[In short the idea is that of there being higher spiritual worlds. (That would be עולם המלבוש. אדם קדמון, עקודים ,ברודים, נקודים, אצילות, בריאה, יצירה, עשיה.) So souls that have their root in Emanation or above would be thought to be "divine" in that their souls receive from the infinite divine light with no screen. 

And sometimes these souls merit to bring some sort of blessing into the world for the benefit of others as we see with Moses. This kind of approach would apply to Jesus also  being from Foundation [that is the light of Kindness in the vessel of Foundation]

The difference between Emanation [Azilut] is as the name implies the world of Emanation receives the light of God without a screen  ("מסך"). 

And the idea that the sepherot of Azilut (Emanation) are divine is straight from all the mystics of the Middle Ages. And that means that any soul of Azilut (Emanation) would be divine. Not God, but rather an overflow of the light of God.

Learning Torah, not speaking lashon hara, honor of parents

It is good to keep track of what you have done right and wrong. Especially the wrongs. The reason is that help to repent. Personally I have noticed a few areas where I need repentance. But before I mention them I what to say that at first before you have done anything it is hard to know the right path. But after a few years you might noticed that some course of action or path they you choose based on insufficient information is in fact wrong.

So some of the things that I can see I was not sufficiently careful about: (1) learning Torah. [However the meaning of learning Torah is more limited than what most people are aware of.. They think anything written in Hebrew about issues of Torah is Torah. That is not how I define it. To me Torah is limited to the Oral and Written Law. I.e, the two Talmuds and midrashim. [2] Lashon Hara [slander] . [3] Honor of my parents.

Some commentary on this can be considered a part of learning Torah. But nowadays things have gotten way out of hand. [In fact the very definition of Sefarim Hizonim [outside books] is books that explain Torah in ways not directly from the two Talmuds of midrash. That is openly how the Rif and Tosh define it. So math books are not "sefarim hizonim"[outside books] . 

Also it occurs to me that the herem that was signed by the Gra ought to have been heeded just because of "faith in the wise" אמונת חכמים [emunat hachamim]. But also the more so since time has shown him to be 100% correct.