Saadia Gaon was the first to write specifically on Jewish philosophy and set the stage forever after for Jewish philosophy to be neo Platonic.

  Saadia Gaon was the first to write specifically on Jewish philosophy and set the stage forever after for Jewish philosophy to be neo Platonic. Even though the Rambam did move into the orbit of Aristotle still the later people like Crescas and Albo try to move the pendulum back to Plato. [Even  mystic people like Avraham Abulafia and the Ari were building on a Neo Platonic framework.]

This is relevant for me because out of my own reading of philosophy I came out with a  Kantian (of Kelley Ross) which is really a modification of Platonic thought.   I wrote in some essay what brought me to this approach. Mainly it was experience plus seeing some of the problems in other approaches.  [There was a lot of time that I spent on Hegel and Spinoza and the Intuitionists, and some time on John Locke. ] I am not saying I am any kind of philosopher myself. Rather I was just looking for a coherent world view to be able to deal with reality.

I mean that even though I have a neo Platonic point of view there are significant modifications and improvements that this needs. That is I don't think everything in Kant and Kelley Ross is automatically included in the Jewsih Philosophers of the Middle Ages. This is unlike Dr. Feser who I believe holds that all true insights of later people were included in the Scholastics. 

The Sidur of Saadia Gaon tells us some things that we might not know. I thought for a long time the basic blessing in the morning before the Shema was  elongated. But I was not sure about what part. The reason is that it seemed to me there was something in it that was essential besides the first sentence and last. That is I did not think it was like a simple Bore nefashot with a חתימה
[ending]. Someone showed me that in the sidur of Saadia Gaon, the first blessing is, in fact, just the first sentence, then the one sentence after that, and then the last חתימה [ending].

At any rate, my opinion is that the writings of Saadia Gaon are important because Yidishkeit has gone way off the path already for too long.

I see the attempts to undermine the Constitution of the USA to be the rise of the Dark Side.

Democracy was criticized by Herodotus. He said in it the wicked make strong alliances to destroy society, but the good simple people are suspicious of each other. Thus it is destroyed from within. This is clearly what is going on in the USA. This is a reason that the founding fathers of the USA said it can not survive unless the people are moral. \
Though the type of system that Herodotus critiqued was a pure democracy, still the same applies to a republic as we can see from Rome.

 Just so my opinion should be clear--I see the attempts to undermine the Constitution of the USA  to be  the rise of the Dark Side. 

My learning partner is allergic to Musar. [Books of Medieval Ethics and of Israel Salanter's disciples] He thinks it is painting by the numbers.To some degree you can see this in things like the small Musar book of the Rosh "(1)To go away from pride as much as possible (2) Also from lying (3) also from ... (4) also from ..."



My opinion is Musar is important and I think that I can see the results of not learning it.  You certainly do not see anything like the moral standards of places that do learn Musar. This is a s clear as the sun at high noon. 

Once you walk away from some aspect of holiness you can never return. You can try to go through the motions but the inner essence never returns.
 I walked out of the Mir in order to go to Israel. Though I succeed and even did well in some ways--still  the essence of the Mir --the light of inner holiness of learning Talmud in depth I was never able to catch up with again.  Even the fact that God granted to me a few ideas in Talmud here and there only came about because of my learning partner. Same thing when I left Israel. Though I tried to return but I never could and that light and holiness that was part of my first stay there also never returned. The lesson is: if you have something good, hold onto it with all your might. Don't think it will follow you around. [That is at least the lesson for my kind of soul. There are several different types --so my advice here might only apply to me and similar kinds of people.]

Avraham Abulafia [a mystic who wrote many mystic books in the Middle Ages] held Jesus was Messiah ben Joseph.

Avraham Abulafia [a mystic who wrote many kabalistic books in the Middle Ages] held Jesus was Messiah ben Joseph.  The issue of Messiah son of Joseph is a totally different issue than Messiah son of David as we see in the end of the Talmud Tractate Suka, the Ramchal and many other sources.

The main idea is that messiah son of Joseph is a kind of preparation for the redemption in which there will be the Temple in Jerusalem rebuilt and the sacrifices of the Torah will be brought again. This later stage has not happened.
Still being Messiah son of Joseph according to Rav Abulafia is not a bad thing. In theory it is good to believe in a great person and bad to follow or believe in wicked people. So if some people believe in a tzadik --even if they overdo it--why complain?

Merry Christmas

So for one day I suggest we all lay down our hatreds and animosity. Let's have the equivalent of the 1914 Christmas truce between the allies and the Germans. Sure we all have good reasons to hate each other. Christians have doctrines and beliefs we can't accept. Many Christians have beliefs about Jews that makes them think us bad people. Let's for one day forget all this. We all believe in One God, the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob,  though we worship Him differently. We all believe in the Ten Commandments. So for one day, let's aspire for peace on earth and good will unto men. If we can manage that for one day, who knows? Maybe we will be able to manage it for two? Or three?






Post script: This is not to imply anything in terms of theology. Just it is information for the record.
Clearly Rav Abulafia disagreed with Catholic theology. He went to debate the pope. The pope ordered him arrested when he reached the gates of Rome. The story is mysterious but it seems that no one could touch him.

Plus I might add that Chaim Vital borrowed the unifications of Avraham Abulfia in the last vol of Shaari HaKedusha. And his works were translated completely for the first time in history the 1990's until 2005. [Before that I read some of the microfilm copies in the basement of HU]

 I must add than none of this has anything to do with our basic obligations in the Oral or Written Law. Nor does it have anything to do with theology.] That is because of reasons I have not understood some people think that there is no reason to keep mitzvot plus  they think a messiah must have something to do with theology. None of that makes sense to me. Mitzvot are still mitzvot and Monotheism is still monotheism.


The whole issue is a Midrashic kind of thing. Still the basic sources for the messiah son of Joseph type of issue are in the Talmud at the end of Suka, the Tikunim Chadashim of the Ramchal. the Kol HaTor of the Gra.]

Appendix the problem with all this is this gives to Jews for Jesus or any of their different varieties an excuse to try to convert Jews to Christianity. And that is not my intent. The reason is that Jews for Jesus exaggerate the importance of  the issue of the messiah. They think that if one accept a particular person as their "lord and messiah" that that means they are going to heaven. They accept the Trinity. These doctrines are mistaken. But not necessarily bad. The best thing is to be a simple Jew and learn the Oral and Written law and not follow any person but God alone. Judaism is not about worship of any person but worship of God according to the Written and Oral Law, {Old Testament, and two Talmuds}

The positive side is that everyone needs some picture of human perfection to aspire to. If they don't have Jesus, they  find often someone that is evil, or a mixture of good and evil. So following Jesus as Christians do is a lot better option than what the vast majority of what people do and whom they follow. Still in my opinion it is best to sit and learn Talmud and have  a kosher vocation and be a simple Jew. If I have any ideal of human perfection, it is my two parents

I mentioned the basic idea of the above essay to my learning partner and he opened up the Rambam in the 13 principles of faith and after that the last two halachot in Mishne Torah. On most of the above he wrote the exact same thing that I wrote. That is even if one would believe in Jesus as a Messiah son of Joseph   that would not be any reason to worship him nor would it have anything to do with keeping the commandments of the Torah. However he does have  negative opinion about Jesus himself. And I am sure most rishonim would agree with the Rambam. However on the opposite side there is Rav Abulfia and Yaakov Emden.
There is a practical side to all this. I often find that when I need help, Believing Christians are the only ones that will help me. Others of my own people ignore me or throw me from the top of the staircase and then there are Muslims who try to kill me.  I am certainly not the only one with these kinds of experiences.

Music for the glory of the God of Israel

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Concerning an idea of Isaac Luria.

See the beginning of the Eitz Chaim and the ארבע מאות שקל כסף of Rabbainu the Ari.







The tzimtzum (condensation of the infinite light) was in all the traits.

That can help understand the problem of evil, and the existence of free will.
Thus: the problem of evil to some degree can be understood as Mark Friedman said that for there to exist a moral realm at all there must be free will.
So what we have is this: the traits of God, each one was infinite before the condensation. Then he condensed his light and removed his presence from a certain area in order to create all the worlds.
So he also contracted his compassion and his knowledge. One he contacted his compassion evil and cruelty can exist. But evil could not exist unless there is free will. For there to be free will he also contacted his knowledge.


This relates to Kant's idea of the critique of pure reason. There are unconditioned realities where reason can't go.  God contracted pure reason. The Gra said a similar thing that everything has a hidden and an open aspect where reason can not penetrate.

Anaximenes

The tzimtzum is really a modified idea of Anaximenes and comes with a basic Neo Platonic background. I personally have no trouble in fitting the Ari into the regular kind of neo Platonic approach Saadia Gaon, Ibn Gavirol,  Abravenal, and Joseph Albo.

And I believe there is a close connection between the way a person acts in this world and where they end up in the next world.

Feser thinks that everything good about Kant and later people can all be found in scholastic philosophers. This is true to some degree. [Especially with Scotus]. The trouble for Jewish people is that they were defending Christianity . What has been my suggestion  is to take the Jewish equivalent of the Scholastic philosophers. That is Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Aberbnal, Albo. Ibn Gavirol.  [But not that alone. I say to learn both Musar (Ethics) and the Jewish Scholastics. That is I do not think to separate Jewish Philosophy from action. One needs both Musar (Ethics) and also the great Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages. There is no substitution for Musar, Everyone who has tried to substitute something else in place of Musar fell flat on their face.
There are people that think one does not need to learn Ethics. If one has great parents like I had that might be true. But in general I think it is an  error. Maybe Musar itself has gone off in fanatical directions but the basic idea of Israel Salanter is still valid.




This might even have the advantage that  you don't have to defend the Trinity.

To make a synthesis of the Jewish scholastics and Kant is a worthwhile endeavor in any case.





You might say that this is the equivalent of identity politics. That is a true critique, but in any case the Jewish scholastics have  a lot to teach us anyway (as the Christian scholastics noticed anyway).

To Feser philosophy after the Middle Ages has been devoted to repeating mistakes. That much is true. But I think to make an exception for Kant and Kelley Ross.


Philosophically, the Yeshiva approach is the equivalent of hiding one's head in the sand to save oneself from danger. If it would work, then by all means, do it. But it is an illusion. Philosophically what happens is that by not engaging with philosophy people pick up their world view from post modernism and think that they see it in Torah.  Joseph Soloveitchik picked up existentialism from Kierkegaard and Sartre..Most of the people that we were expecting would teach us Torah values instead taught us false gods and idols.  But they were doing lots of  important rituals and dressing in black coats so they must have been OK.

Appendix: 1) I am not sure that everything in Kant was in the scholastics. Individual autonomy  seems to me to be new, and even an improvement. But this is based on my first impressions. I have sadly not had the time to do a thorough study of Kant,  Aquinas or Scotus. Not that I would not like to. It is just I have not yet merited to do so. I after all have to do my regular Talmud and natural science studies. After that, I just can't seem to find the energy or time.
 2) My idea about Musar {Jewish Ethics} from the Middle Ages is based on the idea that in the next world what matters is a person's actions in this world.  And I believe there is a close connection between the way a person acts in this world and where they end up in the next world. So building up political movements or religious movements I see as the work of the Devil that is meant to distract a person from what really matters--menchlichkeit.--being a decent human being. Not lying or cheating and working honestly for a living and not depending on charity. If a person's actions in this world are not decent, then I do not think that they are going anywhere but to hell surrounded by demons created by his actions, no matter what his beliefs were.

Feser thinks that everything good about Kant and later people can all be found in scholastic philosophers. This is true to some degree. [Especially with Scotus]. The trouble for Jewish people is that they were defending Christianity . What has been my suggestion  is to take the Jewish equivalent of the Scholastic philosophers. That is Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Aberbnal, Albo. Ibn Gavirol.  [But not that alone. I say to learn both Musar (Ethics) and the Jewish Scholastics. That is I do not think to separate Jewish Philosophy from action. One needs both Musar (Ethics) and also the great Jewish thinkers of the Middle Ages. There is no substitution for Musar, Everyone who has tried to substitute something else in place of Musar fell flat on their face.
There are people that think one does not need to learn Ethics. If one has great parents like I had that might be true. But in general I think it is an  error. Maybe Musar itself has gone off in fanatical directions but the basic idea of Israel Salanter is still valid.




This might even have the advantage that  you don't have to defend the Trinity.

To make a synthesis of the Jewish scholastics and Kant is a worthwhile endeavor in any case.





You might say that this is the equivalent of identity politics. That is a true critique, but in any case the Jewish scholastics have  a lot to teach us anyway (as the Christian scholastics noticed anyway).

To Feser philosophy after the Middle Ages has been devoted to repeating mistakes. That much is true. 

Philosophically, the Yeshiva approach is the equivalent of hiding one's head in the sand to save oneself from danger. If it would work, then by all means, do it. But it is an illusion. Philosophically what happens is that by not engaging with philosophy people pick up their world view from post modernism and think that they see it in Torah.  Joseph Soloveitchik picked up existentialism from Kierkegaard and Sartre.. Rav Shick picked up Pantheism from the Bahavagad Gita. Most of the people that we were expecting would teach us Torah values instead taught us false gods and idols.  But they were doing lots of  important rituals and dressing in black coats so they must have been OK.

Appendix: 1) I am not sure that everything in Kant was in the scholastics. Individual autonomy  and the whole Kant  approach seems to me to be new, and even an improvement. But this is based on my first impressions. I have sadly not had the time to do a thorough study of Kant, Fries, Aquinas or Scotus. Not that I would not like to. It is just I have not yet merited to do so. I after all have to do my regular Talmud and natural science studies. After that, I just can't seem to find the energy or time.
 2) My idea about Musar {Jewish Ethics} from the Middle Ages is based on the idea that in the next world what matters is a person's actions in this world.  And I believe there is a close connection between the way a person acts in this world and where they end up in the next world. So building up political movements or religious movements I see as the work of the Devil that is meant to distract a person from what really matters--menchlichkeit.--being a decent human being. Not lying or cheating and working honestly for a living and not depending on charity. If a person's actions in this world are not decent, then I do not think that they are going anywhere but to hell surrounded by demons created by his actions, no matter what his beliefs were.

One of the main ways I have learned about life is by making mistakes.
This you might think is not terribly efficient. After all would it not be better not to sin at all in the first place? You are probably right. But I have found this method to be more effective.
The reason I am not sure of. Maybe I just do not have enough Daat [common sense] without experience.
But also you can say that with just pure reasoning one can justify anything. And in physics we know the only way to decide between a infinite number of possible theories is by testing and falsifying the opposing theories. This was after all the only way to decide between newton and Einstein.

Thus I was not sure what t think about the State of Israel until I was there and then by going with the Satmer opinion I left it in order not to have anything to do with it. Then the Moral Realm opposed me. That is I discovered that the results of my opposition were so disastrous that i had to rethink my position.

The same applies to my parents who advocated Torah with a vocation. That is they held not to learn Torah in such a way that you end up having to depend on a kollel check which is charity and which is against the Torah. I learned again by experience that my parents were right. This is in spite of the fact that arguing from pure reason you can justify the kollel check.



I am not saying this is the best way to go about making life decisions. But what else is there? How else will you make life decisions? By Reason? By T.V.? By what your "friends" tell you? Is not experience the best thing after all? But once we come to this realization is it not also a good idea to learn from one's parents? To learn from their experience? After all they are not  suspected of lying to you for their own benefit. They may be flawed people but they will not lie to you on purpose in order to get some benefit out of you are your "friends" will do. Even your teachers will lie to you for the benefit of some mass movement they are promoting. But not your parents.

There are I admit bad parents--especially parents that have become involved in some lunatic cult. And there are many like that nowadays which is why we do not think parents can override commandments of God.

I think you have to consider the Gra as a revolution.

1) I think you have to consider the Gra as a revolution. And I mean this only in the most positive way.

2) The two questions I want to ask are was he original and did his ideas effect things that came later.

3) Even though it was of great importance to Reb Chaim from Voloshin to downplay the revolutionary aspect of the Gra I think you have to say it was  revolution in Jewish thought.
In the religious world it is not considered a plus to come up with new ideas. You have to show your ideas have a basis in what came before for your ideas to be accepted. Still the way the Gra considered learning Torah as the prime service towards God has to be unique.

4) Furthermore he did effect everything that came later. Not just the yeshivas built on his path. But also defining what it means to be a kosher Yid. That the essence of a kosher yid is the oral law.



6) I am trying to evaluate the Gra without reference to whether I think any particular yeshiva or group is great or not. I am just looking at the aspect of originality and the general effect he had.
You might not think much of any particular yeshiva. But Brisk, Mir, Ponovitch, and all the other great yeshivas in Europe were all following the path he blazed.

7) The Gra : "Learn Torah." I have seen plenty of people base their lives chasidic ideas. They don't usually come out very good.
As a part of a regimen of Torah learning they are good. But outside of that context they are disastrous.  

I hold a lot from the approach of learning fast, (except for the time when I am learning in depth on purpose) this is the way I learn and recommend to others.  But in the book Binyan Olam and Orchot Tzadikim I saw that this is in fact the Talmudic approach. [לעולם ליגרס אינש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג ולא ידע מאי קאמר] So when it comes to Torah learning and also natural sciences that is how I go about it.
That is one should go through the Talmud Bavli once straight  page by page. If possible with every Rashi and Tosphot on the page. Just say the words and go on. [If at first you don't understand you will after rereading  the book again.] A lot of information is absorbed subliminally. And the same goes for Halacha. Read the Rambam with as many of the commentaries on teh page as you can. every day one page [1/2 a daf]. Then do the Tur in the same way. And then the Shulchan Aruch, page by page. This is how I learned for years and it was only recently that I started doing a bit more in depth learning.
Also this is how I did Physics and Math. Stefan Forest, a Professor of Physics, in Munich told me this is also how he knew another very great physicist used to learn.
{

 Talmud Torah outweighs all the other commandments. תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם}. Sometimes good ideas are used by some groups as consciousness traps and that seems to be the case here. So what I recommend is to learn Torah in a regular Lithuanian yeshiva environment

The Devil has a hard time doing all the dirty work on his own so he set up two groups as his messengers and agents. Doctors to kill people physically and religious teachers to kill people spiritually.  Obviously he was not talking about responsible doctors or people that learn and teach the Oral and Written Law exactly as it says.But I think we can still learn a lot by what he said.


 [I saw similar ideas in the Even Shelema which is quotes from the Gra but I forget where and I don't have the book anymore.]
[In other words,-- the Gra was aware that the Sitra Achra the Dark Side had penetrated into the world of Torah and tried to warn people before the disease spread into teh highest echelons but his warnings have gone unheeded until this very day.]


But so as not to dwell on the negative, let me just say for the record that there were a few people that were religious people  that I have  a great deal of respect for. The Reconstructionist religious teacher,  Roth in Los Angeles that was always there when my family needed him. He bar mitzvaed my brother Keith. And on many other occasions he was there for us. He never tried to cause family problems as the entire religious community did in Los Angeles and in NY.
There were and still are good ones: There is was Reb Shmuel Berenbaum of the Mir in NY and there is Shimon Buso in Netivot. That is to say there are religious teachers that are good and sincere. Pretty much the run of the mill average Litvak who is sitting and learning Torah is good. Just the ones in L.A. are particularly evil for some reason.

The bad religious teachers in general are leaders of cults. Their main targets are young people with middle class parents so they have access to money. They make a song and dance around  young people and make this show about how we are all one happy family. That is how they build their cults. It is supposedly all for Torah, but in the end whom is it that gets all the benefit? It is the religious teachers. These types of religious teachers are all too common and the problem is there is no outcry against them. Anyone who has suffered from them is always blamed. Never the real villains.

There is no good answer for these problems that I am aware of. But we can see why people opt out. All they are looking for is a little love. A little compassion. And can't find it anywhere. The approach of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum when encountering these kinds of problems had only one piece of advice: "Learn Torah." And that seems to me to be the best idea. After all it is the pretense of keeping Torah that is the problem. The psudo Torah. But the authentic Torah is still available for whom ever wants it.

Music for the glory of God

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e55  s7 G major

How to learn Poskim [legal authorities] --to do the whole Tur with the Beit Yoseph.

How to learn Poskim [legal authorities] --to do the whole Tur with the Beit Yoseph. And after that the Shulchan Aruch of Joseph Karo with the Beer Heiteiv. [There are very few achronim that I think are any good when it comes to almost anything and especially Halacha. The best is the Aruch HaShulchan and the basic school of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop and Rav Shach. ]


A shiur in the Avi Ezri.   The way to do the Avi Ezri is straight from cover to cover.

If you have only an hour to learn, I think the Avi Ezri is the best thing. It is Halacha, and deep learning and shows how to learn in an amazing simple way all together.


[After I wrote the above last night, it occurred to me that I needed to make clear I am talking about learning fast. Just say the words and go on. See Sichot HaRan chapter 76. And also Biyan Olam [a book about learning Torah, that used to be around in yeshivas but I doubt of it is in print anymore.]

The same goes for Rav Shach's book the Avi Ezri. I think the first time around just to say the words and go on. However I am nowadays learning it with my learning partner and we are going slow, but that is because we are using it as a kind of tool for learning in depth.

Lashon Hara about true things. This is an argument between the Rambam and Rabbainu Yona.

So what I wanted to deal with is Lashon Hara about true things.  This is an argument between the Rambam and Rabbainu Yona. To R.Y. it is forbidden only because of the things that will result from it. To the Rambam it is forbidden from its own self except in Beit Din.

The places and people I saw that were successful in learning Torah were always the places that keep this idea of Lashon Hara foremost in their minds.

But I admit I was not able to do this. At some point I saw that my whole world had turned upside down and my very existence was a statement of Lashon Hara about people I thought were good and turned out to be horribly evil. It was not that I did not want to be careful about this. But instead I decided to stick to just one thing--to speak the truth at all costs. I figured that the power of truth would help me through the mess I had gotten myself in.

[I should mention that the worship of tzadikim has gone over the line already. So while we should learn from them, but not worship them. Even if these people would be perfect, still idolatry is idolatry. And all the more so when in fact even a true tzadik has something negative in them. And when one worships him he gets attached to the negative side of the tzadik.]

Edward Witten's brief essay about String Theory

Edward Witten's brief essay about String Theory


I am no one to comment about this. But if you like me find this essay difficult  would like to suggest learning in chronological order. This was not always possible for me. But I found it helpful when it came to Physics and Math. That is I would start out with Calculus. Then I would work up into the 1700's with Laplace and Fourier and Lagrange. Then I would go on to Galois and the Sophus Lie.
I had done a good deal of work in Physics before I had done all this, but that was more because of lack of resources and lack of options. So I read books in Physics also, but all the time I kept in mind that I would only understand them after completing the above mentioned material.


I don't know if this is how they teach these things today but this method I found helpful for myself.

Religious extremism is not the problem. It is what kind of religious extremism  .

In any case see this interesting Utube from Pragger University

It is not religious fanaticism that is the problem. Bach was a religious fanatic. Moses was a religious fanatic.
 The Gra was a religious fanatic. Catholic nuns are religious fanatics. Mir Yeshiva students are religious fanatics. These people are not the problem. The problem is Islamic religion. Period.

I could go further. The problem is זה לעומת זה. For every true tzadik there is an equal and opposite anti Tzadik.

That is for every area of value there is an opposing area of value. And usually each area has one person that represented that area to the fullest human capacity. [Thus it is necessary to identify the people that were connected to the realm of goodness and holiness and to identify the opposite. This is because people need some guide in each realm. ]

This diagram from Dr. Kelley Ross's site might help to show what I mean

Music for the uncovering of the glory of God.

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These are in mp3 format. Next I am putting here  the same files in midi format.

[q1 in midi] [q3 in midi] [q4 in midi] [q5 midi]  q6 midi  q7 in midi  [q8 in midi] q9 midi

exodus 4 in midi  q12 in midi q84 in midi  q82 in midi   q13 midi  q14 midi  e72 in midi format

I wanted to explain in a simple way how to learn Talmud. This I how will be more simple than the other essay I wrote on this a long time ago.

1) Bekiut. בקיאות. That is to learn fast. What I suggest is not a Daf [a whole leaf.] Rather what is called in the USA "a page." That in Hebrew would be an עמוד a column. You start at the top of the page and just say the words in order until you get to the bottom. Then you do every Rashi and every Tosphot Maharsha and Maharam on the page. The next day to go to the next page. And you keep on going until you have finished the two Talmuds and the Sifra Sifri and Tosephta.
That is the fast session. It should not take any more than 40 min. and if you don't want to do the maharasha and maharam the first time around then it should be about 25 minutes.

2) The next session is the in depth one. עיון. For this I found the best thing is to stay on one page of Gemara for a long time. That is to do every single commentary I can get my hands on on that page and do as much as I can in one day. Then the next day I do the same. This should go on for about 40 days at least. It is what people dislike about Lithuanian yeshivas.But the Litvak yeshivas are right about this. People that think they can get the depths of the Gemara without this are usually mistaken.
[The basic commentaries  are the regular rishonim and if you can get them the best achronim are the ones coming from the school of thought of Reb Chaim Soloveitick and Rav Shach.]

Also if you are in NY then you ought to make every possible effort to get to one of the authentic Litvak yeshivas. That is if you are going to learn Torah from anyone you have to make sure it is from people that in fact know how to learn. And those kind of people are very rare. The authentic places in NY are  the Mir in Brooklyn, Chaim Berlin, and Torah VeDaat, and Shar Yashuv.
[In Israel there are  a few more. Ponovitch seems to be the best but Brisk is a close second.]

Why to go to a yeshiva? Maybe you think it is better to spend $30,000 to get a degree in gender studies? The Talmud will still be around when gender studies have been consigned to the garbage bin of history.

Appendix: I used this method for Mathematics and Physics also. But I cant talk about this since I have not made the kind of progress I had hoped. Part of the problem is that my time was limited in how much effort I could spend on these two subjects. Starting at a time when physically I was weak and there were enormous demands on my time and also the terrible problems I was going through I think limited how effective my learning method could have been. Learning Physics 20 minutes in the morning is not means I could not expect teh same results as when I spent 11 hours a day on Talmud.And learning when one is young is not the same as learning as one gets older.

What I recommend today to anyone that will listen is to divide ones time half and half between Talmud and natural science.

I wanted to mention that electricity on Shabat I dealt with along time ago in some essay. It is true that Reb Chaim Ozer did say it is forbidden when it came out. But he could not have known what it is. The electron was only discovered  later. So it was a simple case of people saying something is forbidden when they had no idea of what it was that they were talking about.

 Every person should have some ideas about his own limits. Forbidding electricity before anyone even knew what an electron is [or that it even existed] is a good example of having an uninformed opinion.
That is not the only example, but it is a good one.

Having fear of God, learning and keeping Torah is a good idea. But you can't get there by making up prohibitions. If you want fear of God you have to start out accepting what the Torah says, not trying to fit it into what some people want it to say.

A new song for the glory of God

q80 mp3 q80 midi  q80 nwc

Uncovering of the Will. Here I want to present the idea that there is not a window to to the Ding an Sich (the thing in itself, the Will) but from the Ding an Sich.

I should start with an apology or an excuse why I am not going with G.E. Moore, Michael Huemer, and Prichard.[The Intuitionist.] The reason is that Hume's critique of a priori involved more that just limiting pure reason to find things that can be derived from definitions. The idea was also that there is nothing to check a priori knowledge against.-No way of checking your homework. No measuring stick.

This essay is probably the only real new idea I have ever come up with in philosophy.
But to present it properly I would in fact have to do more background work in Schopenhauer and show why he rejected Kant's dinge an sich (things in themselves) for his ding an sich (the thing in itself)--the Will. Also I would have to present an argument to show it can be revealed-and  that is all too much for a single essay.



Kant and Ross
.
Here is Ross's treatment of Kant's Ethics.




My own feeling about all this really starts from Schopenhauer. That is the dinge an sich (the Thing in Itself) is the Will (that is the First Cause). Then the world is a representation of this Will. That is Schopenhauer in a nut shell. What I think to add to this is that the Dinge an Sich needs to be uncovered.  But I also see graduations of Being [note 1.]. And the good self is a representation of the Dinge an Sich. [Not the bad self which is a representation of the opposite.] And that good self needs to be uncovered. [note 2]





[note 1.] I am building here on Aristotle and also on an idea I had a few years ago that goes like this. modes are things that apply to substances.  That is the substance is the unchanging layer underneath that does not change. Water can be hot or cold. But water itself can go out of existence. I can boil it. What is water a mode of? What underlying substance is it a mode of?

[note 2] I am not going exactly with Kant here. I agree the Ding an Sich (the thing in itself) is covered.  We can only tell that it exists but its characteristics are only phenomena.  But I think the ding can be uncovered.

This is  different than Heidegger. What I am saying is that though to Kant there is no window to the ding an sich ((the thing in itself)) still I hold the Will reveals itself. And that we can participate in its revelation by morality. That is the the representation or emanation of the will is half subject and half object.


Appendix

1)  איה מקום כבודו. "Where is the place of his glory?"  The graduations of being are from Aristotle.  [I relate very much to this idea of searching for God. Where is the place of his glory? מלא כל הארץ גבודו.

2) And this is a teleological approach to morality. But also deontological ethics -the rules are what brings to revelation of the Will. This I am basing on Maimonides {Rambam}. That is natural law was the first revelation to Abraham. Then came the later revelation of Mount Sinai that was not independent of natural law but built on it and also is in fact deontogical. We can see this in the Talmud itself. דורשין טעמה דקרא. We go by the reason for the law--not by the law according to Rabbi Shimon ben Yochai. The Sages disagree -and say we go by the law, not by its reason. But they agree there are reasons and that they are known. As we see in the end of chapter 9 in Bava Metzia,.
The Rambam goes into all this in the Guide and here I am giving just a quick sketch of my ideas based on the Rambam. Dr Ross also has an essay on his site which goes into the Rambam and gives some details I have left out here.

3) What I left out from the above essay is that both natural law and Mount Sinai Law needed and need revelation. They are both uncovering of the Will. To Maimonides neither is accessible to human reason.

 the whole creation is to reveal the glory of God based on the verse כל הנקרא בשמי ולכבודי בראתיו יצרתיו אף עשיתיו everything that is called by my name I have created for my glory and also formed it and made it. And it was all made by ten statements and so every part of creation reveals some different aspect of the ten statements. Now even though "the whole world is full of his glory" still there are places where his glory can't spread to--that is bad places. So how do they exist? By the hidden statement. That is the highest of all the statements. So when a person seeks God from there he returns to the highest level.

4) The self is to Kant also what we call the ding an sich. This is important for his transcendental deduction.  the self can be connected with the Will by speaking truth always the truth which is the light of God is contained inside of one.

5) The dinge an sich of Schopenhauer and Kant are not the same thing. What I meant to show up above is that they are related. The Dinge an sich is contained in the smaller dinge an sichs

I saw and experienced something unique and amazing at the Mir yeshiva in NY. That was a combination of character development along with fear of God. But this was not in words. I have heard people that can talk the talk about having good character but do not walk the walk. The Mir was different. It was like the basic combination of learning Torah along with Musar accomplished something that each one could not do on it own.

Where things go wrong in the religious world is when rituals become primary or group identity instead of character. It is when activism to make movements takes the place of character development.

So within the context of the Jewish world I can see clearly what can help- because I was a part of something very special. {That is the Mir Yeshiva}. And I can see all the cults that claim to have this special energy of Torah how much in delusion they are.  But outside this horizon, I can't see very far. That is, I can't really tell what could be a tikun [correction] for all mankind, because my vision simply does not extend that far out. I can only report on the things that I saw that were amazing and good and helpful for everyone that got involved in them, and I can warn people to stay away from everything else that I saw is evil and corrupts everyone that touches it. But outside the Jewish world I can't see very well. Mainly, I can tell  that Christians have some very good and important points, but I can see that some of the doctrines are a bit off. But of what is out there, I can definitely say they are better than anyone else. [It is common with me to have one view point but to see the merits in an opposing view. I have a Kantian world view but I can still see the good points of the intuitionists like G.E. Moore, and Prichard]

Appendix: Musar refers to two very short sessions at the Mir of learning books about character improvement and Fear of God. The idea is very similar to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts before the boy scouts fell into the trash. In fact before the downfall of the boy-scouts they even had a few points that were not contained in Musar like outdoor skills and teamwork ethics.

I should mention that neither the Mir nor Shar Yashuv my first yeshiva was into group identity as a form of worship. They were into Torah. But not oblivious to the great minds of history. There was a time I was frequent by Reb Freifeld  and played there my repertoire of Mozart, Bach, and other  music geniuses. I did this also in Reb Shmuel Berenbaum's home.  And Reb Freifeld made sure I continued my philosophy studies on my own and it was while I was there that I rounded out my education with a good deal of western literature,

Talking with God as one talks with a friend.



This is I think very important advice because without it one loses his center. It is not just that one can get caught up with secular activities.  Even learning Torah can put layers and layers of ideas between oneself and his own center--(the dinge an sich - the self in itself).

Dennis Prager has an idea about the difference between left and right.

How do you judge America




My basic idea of how to improve the USA is by learning Torah. That means the Oral and Written Law [Old Testament and Talmud].  For Christians I recommend learning The Torah [Old Testament], plus Augustine and Aquinas.

This was Reb Shmuel Berenbaum's idea. Whenever he was asked a question about almost any issue in society his answer was to learn Torah and not to speak Lashon Hara [slander].

In my first yeshiva I gained two important ideas. Bitul Torah --that is bitul Torah is a bad thing. [That means not learning Torah when one can is a sin. This idea actually comes from the Talmud itself. In the Talmud Yerushalmi it says that Bitul Torah [not learning when one has time to learn] is equal to three   other sins of the Torah that are the most serious. Also I learned there the idea that every word of Torah is a mitzvah in itself.

I have a learning partner that I have been learning the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach with.

I  have a learning partner that I have been learning the Avi Ezri of Rav  Shach with. Sometimes the discussion goes into other areas but in general we have been plowing through Rav Shach's book on the Mishne Torah of the Rambam. This is a little different from the Gemara session we were doing before but at some point it seems natural to go over to Rav Shach because in his essays on the Rambam he is dealing with and bringing clarity to many of the issues that we were dealing with in the Gemara.

You can see that I was dealing with issues in sin offerings when we were doing Sanhedrin and and before that we were doing Shabat and now looking at Rav Shach we are seeing an amazing degree of clarity and depth he brings to these issues.
But I am not sure if someone would see this if they had not done the preliminary homework in the Gemara itself. In any case, the Avi Ezri is in my opinion the most important Torah book to come to print within the last hundred years.
I highly recommend it to anyone that can find it. 

I know people will say but what about the Chidushei HaRambam of Reb Chaim? My answer is that the Chidushei HaRambam is a great book in the it opens up the infinite layers of depth in the Rambam that had previously been hidden, but when I would finish an essay in it I usually came out with the feeling that things were even more confusing than when I had started. I never feel that way with Rav Shach. When I finish an essay by him I feel like the whole subject has been magically been made clear and light.

I was in  position to know Rav Shick {Moharosh} fairly well   But I think he got way too much into his pantheism thing.  This same process happens often with religious leaders. At some point they start getting absorbed into some kind of archetype. [Or they just get too much caught up with themselves.]

 I think I gained a great deal by learning the basic path of Rav Shick.
Still the Intermediate Zone has too many problems, and people that get caught in it seem to lose some aspect of their humanness.
The Gra accurately identified this problem, and thus came to be the basic approach of the Litvaks that tends to be straightforward--learn Torah  --and don't get into spiritual trips.

The best long and involved treatment of this problem was given by Arubindo, a Hindu saint. And his extended treatment of this problem seems to me to be as accurate as one can get. [What often happens is when people hear about the Intermediate zone and powers that come from the Dark Side they think that is only for those other groups but not our group--because we are on the path of truth. This is in it self usually a delusion.]

Litvaks --if anything simply don't have enough faith in the Gra to realize how accurate he was. Philosophy does not seem to have any way of dealing with the problem of delusion nor have any way of discerning between the different zones. Some people simply dismiss all spiritual phenomena as delusions and this seems to me to be based on scientism--a belief that only what science knows can be true--which is a highly non scientific attitude.

How to learn? Fast or slow?

I  remember Reb Freifeld suggesting to learn every chapter of Talmud ten times. I did not do this as I wanted to make progress. I also had seen the musar book The Paths of the Righteous  which said to learn fast.
Still I remember that I did chapter 5 in Ketubot a a bunch of times. But I was learning with the group of Naphtali Yeager at the time and he was concentrating on the first chapter of Ketuboth mainly from page 9 until page 13. He was doing it with the שב שמעתתא and I was just a beginner at the time. Still he was kind enough to show me the ropes and showed to me the depths of Talmud and Tosphot and I have not forgotten that amazing lesson. I think most people that I have encountered are simply unaware of this depth in the Gemara.



This tension between review and fast learning is part and parcel of the yeshiva experience.

Yeshivas began to deal with this issue in this way. The morning hours were spent in preparation of the Rosh yeshiva's class which would be given a hour before Mincha.  The afternoon was meant for fast learning--meaning some Tosphot but not necessarily every single one.

In conclusion I want to suggest to divide ones time equally between in depth learning and review time of learning. This was the eventual conclusion of the great yeshivas and it seems to me that it must have been based on experience.

While I was in Polytechnic Institute of NYU I used to say every chapter of the Math  and Physics forwards and backwards- including the problem sets and that seemed to have helped me pass my courses. This was an idea I had seen in the Ari. when I used this method when I tarted getting back into math, this method helped a lot.     

 Kelley Ross understands rights as being derived from the natural law doctrine. He also mentions the Torah origin of this idea. [See the link.] That is he understands rights to be derived from things like "Thou shalt not steal." Since there are further commandments relating to human affairs that would make rights more extensive.

I think Kelley Ross might not have put all his ideas in one essay. So I might as well say the basic idea as fast as I can. Natural Law had some origin in the Stoics but was articulated clearly by Saadia Gaon חוקים שכליים. That is many of the commandments are simply morality that God already put into the basic fabric of nature. The Torah simply reveals what is already objectively out there. This was developed later by Maimonides and Aquinas. The idea of Rights of John Locke was simply the expression of this in a way that makes it more clear from a legal perceptive. Thou Shalt not Steal is Divine and Natural law. The way this is defined legally is that people have a right to their own property. No one has a right to take from anyone their property no person and no government.
John Locke was simply a natural continuation of the ideas of Aquinas in this regard. But he added the idea that legitimate governments are formed to preserve these rights.

The idea is that people give up a certain amount of their rights that they would have in nature, in order to preserve the government they live under. Otherwise it would be war of all against all. That was John Locke's idea of how it is legitimate to tax. But the idea was that government can't take what it wants. Only what powers given to it under a constitution are legitimate-nothing further.

This is related mainly to the fact that I noticed some people do not have a very clear idea of exactly what John Locke meant by rights the meaning of the American Constitution. So when Donald Trump suggests that the job of government is not to let in Muslims but rather to protect Americans he is absolutely correct. The only job of government is to protect its citizens from foreign invasion and from crime.

Ideas in Bava Metzia chapters 8-9 updated   Title page of Ideas in Bava Metzia


Ideas in Talmud  Title page for Ideas in Talmud


I was reading Bava Metzia page 81 and noticed that Tosphot did not seem to hold by my ideas on Bava Metzia page 104. Then when I read page 82 I realized that Tosphot was definitely against me. So I thought to salvage my ideas with Rashi. Then when I read Shavuot page 43 I realized that Rashi was not going to help me. So I had to correct my ideas on Page 104. While clearly it is true the lender owns the guarantee, but the document does not turn the whole thing into a sale. [You could say I was half right.He does own the guarantee but he cant keep it when the money is repaid.] In any case up above are the corrected versions.


I also see that the beginning on chap. 9 needs work. One idea was that David noticed the difference between the Rambam and Rashi about what is required on the worker. But that whole idea I think needs to be re written. 

I see that the issue of the Enlightenment in the Jewish world [i.e. the 1700's until the 1800's] was  related to the original Enlightenment. And at least in one issue they were identical--Secular Learning. Allen Bloom makes a good point that the original Enlightenment had a political agenda also. But that was clearly not all there was to it.

My experience is such that I have a good deal of sympathy towards authentic sciences  and have a great deal of antipathy towards pseudo sciences.


For example I have seen that where you find supposedly rigorous application of Torah principles with complete exclusion of  anything secular does anything but help people be moral or decent in any sense. In fact, just the opposite. Yet opening the door to the secular in the Torah world always leads directly to pseudo sciences and never towards the real thing.

So the quandary remains and I have to go and learn Talmud because I am already late, and I don't think this 600 year question is going to be solved on this blog this minute. Or rather I don't think I will solve it any better than my own patents and grandparents who held from  balanced approach--Torah with wisdom.


If we go back further to the argument about the Rambam's Guide we can see the issue of secular learning also was raised.
In any case, I hold learning authentic natural science is important and learning a kosher vocation also. But I also believe that there is something one gains by learning Torah that the secular world has not touched. There was some kind of amazing energy in the Mir Yeshiva in NY and also in Shar Yashuv. But i realize today that that energy can't be harnessed at will. It takes a very special kind of individual to make an authentic yeshiva.  The authentic yeshivas I can count on two hands. Three in NY and two in Israel. [That is in NY: Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VaDaat, Shar Yashuv. Israel: Ponovitch, Brisk.

Due to decrease in cookie sales, The Girls Scouts switch to a more aggressive sales approach.

Songs for the glory of the God of Israel

q77 [q77 in midi]  n64 [n64 in midi] n63  [n63 in midi]

 n62 [n62 in midi]n60 [n60 in midi]n58 [n58 in midi]

n57 [n57 in midi] n56 [n56 in midi] n55 [n55 in midi]

 n54 [n54 in midi] n53 [n53 in midi] 

n51 [n51 in midi] n52 [n52 in midi] q79 [q79 in midi] g4 [g4 in midi]

g1 [g1 in midi] b100 [b100 in midi]

b101 [b101 in midi] b104 [b104 in midi] b105 [b105 in midi]

k16 [k16 in midi]

m  [mathematics in midi]  h4 [h4 in midi]

h7 [h7 in midi] h9 [h9 in midi]  h24  [h24 in midi]  C [chs in midi] bh [bh in midi]

 e33 [e33 in midi]

 e64 [e64 in midi]

e69  [e69 in midi]

I thought Schopenhauer took care of the problem of Evil by simply saying human good is not on the agenda of the "Will." And later he had some kind of second thoughts in which he added that the Will has some kind of higher agenda in which the Good is the goal.
Personally I think the Rambam did the best job by having השגחה פרטית "Divine watching out for" be directed towards higher intellects. It is an elegant solution which is Neo Platonic in showing how gaining the higher intellect is important. (This was the basic idea during the Middle Ages and was abandoned I think for poor reasons.)

God and Job obviously agreed with Schopenhauer as is seen from the end of the book of Job. In fact that is teh whole point of the book. Also I saw this in Psalms. I forget where but one obvious place is Psalm 72 [in the Hebrew and English numbering. In Russian and Ukrainian it would be Psalm 73.]







I wrote about this before but I saw a certain Mark Friedman also wrote what looks like a good treatment of this problem so I thought to mention the issue again.

Mark Friedman says: "Many philosophers, especially those working in the Kantian tradition, hold that persons have dignity as a result of their personal autonomy, and that respect for this attribute is a paramount value. At least for them, a world with free will is “better” than almost any possible world without it."
This seems to me to be  a good answer to this question. I think Leah a friend of mine mentioned this answer once when she was talking with her mother in Safed. At the time I did not think much of it but now it makes a lot more sense to me than it did then.

An interesting essay about Israel  I do not comment on this for many reasons. One is that people's minds are either pro Jewish or anti Jewish before any argument. And immune to argument. This divide has little to do if the person is actually Jewish or not. Being Jewish is perfectly compatible with being anti-Jewish, and being gentile is perfectly compatible with being pro-Jewish. These are independent variables.

Another reason is I am trying not to look at news anymore. It just makes me upset. Also I think it might be forbidden.

I should mention that I try to judge people based on their actions. The groups they are  apart of can provide some initial data, but that is not determinate. 

 against science

And to some degree this was an attitude that was common to yeshivas in NY when I was there. Rav Miller wrote a few books attacking evolution that showed that he felt comfortable attacking science though he certainly did not understand it. And that attitude is still common among philosophers of science.
Other people threw in the towel and developed strong cases of Physics Envy. So they created pseudo science that go by the name of real science like psychology or economics.

I am not comfortable with any of these attitudes. And yet this anti science approach did help me stay in yeshiva and learn Torah. That is this attitude gave me a kind of justification that i needed to concentrate on Talmud and later on Luriac kabalah.

Still at some point I started suspecting that this attitude was not Torah based.

This may have started when I saw the frum world is crummy. I thought then that it must be they are not really keeping the Torah properly. The attitudes of the frum no longer interested me unless they could be shown to be derived from the Torah.
I learned in Israel that this anti science attitude was not a part of the Lithuanian yeshiva world there.

I also became aware that this attitude was not that of the Rambam either. Then as far as I recall I looked at the Duties of the Heart and saw that his attitude also was one with the Rambam. So I decided this attitude of being anti science was mistaken.
One woman,  Chaya Tova told me  that her son (who had diabetes and was learning in kollel) on the side had become expert in all the texts relating to diabetes.  She was from a regular religious home and her father taught Talmud in Bnei Brak. She was no baalat Teshuva. And she said this anti science attitude was not at all accepted in Litvak communities.

However I should mention that the years of concentrating on Talmud were well spent. Even with the time and effort I put into it I never could have come to any kind of basic understanding until many years later. Talmud is not a four year program. It is more like a twenty year program to become even barely proficient.

Concerning the Guide of Maimonides and the letter of the Ramban in defense of it.

My learning partner just received from the USA the book in English of Chaval.

In that book is the letter of the Ramban (Nachmanides) to the sages of France about their ban on the Guide of the Rambam (Maimonides). I don't know what it says but I think it must be very important to see how someone of the stature of the Ramban (Nachmanides) understood the Guide.

What I mean to say is that the Sages of France were the people that were still continuing the work of the original Baali Hatosphot. As soon as the Guide came out in Hebrew a cousin of Nachmanides went to the sages in France and asked them to make  a ban on the book. And they obliged. Then Nachmanides wrote to them asking them to rescind the ban.
What makes this interesting is that the Nachmanides has no problem attacking the Rambam constantly in his commentary on the Five Books of Moses.  And he had a very different world view. He was in fact the last of the true mystics until the Ari. So how he understood the Guide and why he defended it must have great significance.
The Ramban {Nachmanides} states in that letter that one who separates himself from the Guide or the Sefer HaMada is as one who separates himself from the Source of Life. So even if on individual points the Ram'ban had no problem disagreeing with the 'Rambam still he is clearly as emotional and upset about the ban on the Rambam as one could possibly be. (Chavel writes there that there is nothing in all of Jewish literature the reflects the depth and intensity of emotion of that letter.)

The Lithuanian yeshivas are afraid of the Trojan horse effect. They are worried that a newly religious person might contain a hidden virus. Often this is correct. But from what I have seen the effect goes the opposite way also. Often people try to attract rich secular Jews  by bearing gifts and seeming nice.
שונא מתנות יחיה It says in Mishlei, "He who hates gifts will live.". It seems to me to be wary of gifts. I also see that the Lithuanian yeshiva world is right for largely ignoring baali teshuva or marginalizing them. The truth is there often is something that is a bit off. Leaving their parents to find the light and the truth and the way seems to by definition indicate something wrong.

Though I am a baal teshuva in the way that I was born into a Reform home and began to learn at Litvak yeshivas. But a  good deal of my troubles came from fanatic baali teshuva. But not all my problem were from that direction. A lot came from sanctimonious religious teachers. {U know what I mean.} But by an large they were also baali teshuva that just sucked up to the system.

In any case, it is difficult to understand how to learn and keep Torah. But you know something is off when people ignore the fifth commandment in order to join some cult.
That is not keeping Torah by any definition.

So what I recommend is for people to learn Torah and keep Torah. But not to support groups that ask for money to make people do teshuva [become religious] because by and large they are doing great evil and harming families and lying about what the Torah says. I think these organizations should frankly be banned as being cults.

____________________________________________________________________________

My idea of a proper learning environment is mainly based on the approach of my own parents plus that of the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY. Torah with Derech Eretz (vocation). But Derech Eretz to me does not include any kind of vocation. What I suggest is from the religious standpoint is to avoid religious cults like the Black Plague and as the Gra already noted. Then from the standpoint o vocation I mainly think learning some kind of manual work is important plus natural sciences and outdoor skills. Most of secular education I am against. Only STEM or basic Blue collar work preparation is OK plus survival skills.

Sometimes an idea is like a seed. You can plant it into someone and it takes root over time. It can be a trap

Sometimes an idea is like a seed. You can plant it into someone and it takes root over time. It can be  a trap or it can be fruitful.



You see this also in philosophy or any of the social pseudo sciences where people hear one idea and that idea acts like a seed that all subsequent ideas gather around to support and provide structure for.
 

 


But  to see why pushing off Devekut in order to learn Torah is a mistake see the anonymous commentary on the first four chapters of the Mishne Torah of the Rambam where he explains that the purpose of the mitzvot is to come to the higher fear and awe of God. Later I learned that people can learn Torah and still be bad. So I realized my mistake, but it was too late to return to Devekut.)


The orbit of different charismatic lunatics:
The basic layout of the religious world is god-kings. That is people that think of themselves as divine  and create a following of groupies  naive people. ]


I did have to figure out a basic approach that would make sense to me and what I found was the basic approach of Maimonides and the general constellation of Jewsih philosophers that agreed or  disagreed with him. That kind of Monotheistic approach --Reason and Revelation made the most sense to me. And this approach seems to encompass all good things .



I should mention that it is not that I figured this all out on my own. Rather I had great parents and teachers who had a kind of balanced world view. In what I saw in my home and at the Mir Yeshiva I saw a kind of approach to life that I think made the approach of Torah with menchlichkeit much more real than I would have been able to figure out on my own.

_______________________________________________________________________________


There is a lot to discuss here. Examples of ideas that are like seeds are a dime a dozen. Every major system is based on one or two basic ideas and then the whole system is made around them.
(Sometimes a system is based on a few conflicting ideas.) Some examples off hand.

(1) Learning Torah. This was the central idea at Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY.
(2) Secular Education is the redemption of Mankind. That is the Enlightenment idea.
(3) The Golden Rule.
(4) Ding an Sich. The modest idea of Kant that there is a difference between what things really are and how they seem to be. This idea gave birth to German Idealism and that contained great things and terrible things.

Songs for Hanuka

q76  q75  b105 m C    b101 b100 n5    n8  B Yochai  Exodus4 n7 bh  q78




What I recommend for Hanuka is to begin a session daily in the Written Law and the Oral Law. That is to start a session going through the two Talmuds page by page.  After that it is possible to start a more in depth kind of session.

Mainly it is best to learn at home unless you have an authentic yeshiva nearby.
The world of Yeshiva is unlike any world that you can imagine. It hearkens back to the world of Eastern Europe.  There is in the great NY yeshivas an amazing atmosphere of Torah. But as a warning to the wise I should mention most places that go by the name of yeshiva are frauds. They might have books and students. But there is a spirit of Torah that they just can't duplicate.

Often yeshivas have a charismatic leader who is the object of worship instead of God. These places should be avoided.


I should mention that I have been looking at blogs on public affairs recently and from what I can tell the problem with the world is that people don't learn the Written and Oral Torah (Talmud). For example I don't think rights for a person to have private property would be an issue after learning Bava Mertzia. I also think that a lot of people's attitudes towards a large variety of topics would be changed for the better by an hour a day of Talmud. [I admit I don't do a fast session anymore. The time I spend is usually on a more in depth kind of learning. But that is because of constraints. If I could I would have a fast session and an in-depth one both. And I would do the same for the natural sciences. But there also my time is constrained. So mainly in the natural sciences I have  fast session. And I hope someday to a more in depth kind of learning there also.

I don't think the Rambam would have agreed with using Hanuka as a reason not to learn Physics or Metaphysics.
He was pretty clear that learning these things is a fulfillment of the commandments to Love and fear God because they bring to an appreciation of God's wisdom that he put into his creation.

One of the lessons however he would have seen in Hanuka was not to do idolatry. That was after all the cause of the original rebellion of the Maccabees. And saying that God is contained in some person in a specific kind of way would be in his view a kind of idolatry. You can hear people saying this and yet they do not think that they are idolaters. I sometimes do not know whether I should speak up or not. While it is true that God made space and time so in one sense there is no place empty of God. But that is simply because space does not apply to him at all. His is מקומו של עולם the place of the world.