Even though I think that learning Torah [Gemara Tosphot Maharsha] is the greatest of all service of God the environment for this activity is a Litvak Yeshiva but for some reason I have never been able to find my place in any such institution.  So as second best, I try to do this at home. But it is hard to match the energy of an authentic Litvak Yeshiva --the energy that one gains by sitting in one and learning.

At some point I realized I was not welcome in the yeshiva world. So just from pure desperation I went to the Polytechnic Institute of NYU and majored there in Physics. After all I needed some way of making a living and had discovered a little before then the opinion of many Rishonim that Physics and Mathematics are a part of learning Torah. This is the opinion of many Rishonim, but you can see it most clearly in the Rambam in Laws of Learning Torah where he says - ''The things called 'Pardes' are in the category of learning gemara.'' And what is 'Pardes' they are defined by the Rambam in the first four chapters of the Mishna Torah and at the end of those chapters he writes the things discussed in these four chapters are in the category of what the Sages called 'Pardes'.'' [Those 4 chapters are Aristotelian physics and metaphysics. The Rambam is even more explicit in the intro to the Guide where he says the things are what the Greeks called physics and metaphysics.]

[I had been at the Mir in NY but then came to Israel. My time at NYU was after all that.