People have heard of Kant's question, "How is synthetic a priori possible?"


First we know that when Kant says "synthetic" he is referring to Leibniz's division of knowledge into analytic and synthetic. But he also means it in a deeper way. He is thinking that some objects are given to the mind. and he is thinking some a priori cognitions are also given to the mind. But then he thinks that the mind does something with them. It combines them into one cognition. [That he calls the metaphysical deduction.]
 This seems to me to just what the Rambam was thinking about acquired understanding שכל הנקנה in LM vol I ch. 25

 That is we have "sechel hanikne" acquired understanding from the Guide for the Perplexed of the Ramabm as meaning knowledge metaphysics- -the unchanging realities in reference to Plato's forms. And to the Rambam it is this acquired knowledge that last for eternity in the next world.

 He modifies this to knowing many things with one knowing. Then he brings the idea that this is what is left of a person in the next world. and then he expands it to knowing everything a human being can know.

My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia.

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My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia. True they are sending troops into the Ukraine. And that is not nice. But for this we want to go to nuclear war? I mean that is how wars start. They start with some small incident. And then one party replies. And then other party replies. etc. and tempers grow short. And before you know it bombs are falling all over the place. We don't need a war between NATO and Russia.
Plus consider the Russian position. True the two provinces are on Ukrainian territory. But the people consider themselves Russian.  And in fact most of them probably are Russian. And so Russia sees itself as simply protecting its own people. But even if this were not so, I still think that under no circumstances is a war with Russia justified.

Let us say that Kiev would let these two provinces go to Russia. What would anyone lose?

I might mention that sending military aid is not usually considered a declaration of war. There are lots of levels between sending equipment and advisors as the USA did in Vietnam and  higher levels called small wars. When the USA sends equipment and military aid to different nations, the opposing nations do not usually think that they are justified in attacking the USA. And if they would, the people in the USA would be outraged. There is also such a thing called small wars in which American troops are sent in surgical strikes. You should read about this in the manual of the USA Marine corp, The Small Wars Manual. In any case, I think Russia and Europe and the USA should get along. We are not enemies. And under our noses is growing the most serious enemy to the continued existence of the Human Race- Islam.


This blog is really supposed to be about Torah issues. But as we know human life comes first in Torah law so I thought I should transfer this small essay I wrote on my other blog, Ideas in Torah, and put it here.
I hope this essay does something to reduce tempers and get people to start thinking straight.

The USA has been decommissioning its arsenal steadily for twenty five years. The Russians have been up grading their arsenals. They have underground cities of weapons grade plutonium.

So far the Russians have done nothing except what their policy has always been even in the time of the czars--they consider it their obligation to protect Russians even on foreign soil--exactly like the policy of the USA

The school of Navardok

 But I just wanted to say something about Navardok. That was the school of thought coming after Israel Salanter that was basically about trust in God בטחון without doing anything to get ones needs.
That at least was their official approach. The idea was to sit and learn Torah and do nothing to get ones needs met, and to believe that God would provide. It was just one of the several schools that came from Israel Salanter. So I don't want to make it seem that this is the official Ethics (Jewish) doctrine.
But Navardok is definitely the most colorful of all the schools of Musar.





People would share what ever they had believing that they would get more from somehow and lo and beyond it always worked.
My feeling about this is that it works only if you accept it when you hear it and then you don't ever leave it. But when one goes out of it and says, "Well I can do some effort also as the Torah itself says, and that will not hurt anything"--then it stops working. And then even if one tries to get back inside, the door remains closed.
The problem is  hypocrisy is what you get when you mix Torah with money. It starts out for the sake of heaven but once money gets into the mix it loses it numinous aspect. This is a conundrum that the Jewish people have tried to deal with for ages. On one hand we want to support people that are learning Torah Lishma--for its own sake and not for money. But once we give them money it starts rapidly to decay into being all about the money. The Rambam tried to solve this problem simply. Don't give them money. Tell them "Get a job" and he made it clear you cant accept money for learning Torah. It is not a business. That is how the Rambam was. He has his perfect system all worked out the the zillionth detail and he did not see any questions.

I wrote about the high priest כהן גדול the other blog Wine Women and Transcendence.
I might try to bring some of the information here. But for now I wanted to concentrate on the fact that the sages of the Talmud use the verse ''to cause the people to sin" (לאשמת העם) to make the high priest equal in status to the people in terms of his needing to have not just sinned accidentally but also he needs to have made a mistaken decision in order for him to bring a sin offering. שגגת מעשה עם העלם דבר. עיין מסכת הוריות דף ז ע''ב וסנהדרין סא ע''ב I hope this is clear. That is we have an normal individual. If he sins accidentally he brings a sin offering. That is simple. We have the representatives of the people -the Sanhedrin. If they make a faulty legal decision and the people act on it  the need to bring a sin offering. So in the case of the whole people we have two separate things. A sin and a faulty legal decision. If we compare the high priest to the people then he will also need both these things. And according to the sages of the Talmud he in fact needs both things.

They way they learn this is that we could logically think he is like a king because he brings a guilt offering on doubt  like a king. We could also compare him to the Sanhedrin because he brings a ox for  like the Sanhedrin. And so the verse in the Bible Leviticus 4 tells us he is like the people in order to solve this conundrum.

Now I asked on my other blog what do they do with idolatry? [In Numbers 15 there is a sin offering  for idolatry.] By idolatry there is no mention of  a high priest. and there the sages still say he is like the people that need both conditions in order to bring a sin offering. My learning partner suggested that there is no where to put such a verse. That is, there is no mention of a high priest, so where could the Torah have written "to cause the people to sin?"לאשמת העם.

  I said "So what? The Torah makes him like an individual by idolatry in that he also brings a single she goat. So why no make the comparison complete?"

  He answered: "Because as far as the Torah is concerned,  it already told you everything you need to know about the high priest. That fact that he brings a she goat is just one particular thing. As far as the Torah in concerned everything else about the high priest stays the same."
 This brings me to the subject of sin and guilt. I would like to suggest there is natural moral order. That is a Platonic plane of existence where there are moral laws. And this plane of existence intersects this physical world. To go into reason why I think this plane exist you have to go to the essay of Michael Huemer (defending objective morality). But bear with me for arguments sake. So I ask what happens if one has sinned against this moral plane? I claim that there is guilt. And I believe this guilt is real. And I think nature uses this guilt to propagate the species, just like she uses anything at her disposal to gain her ends. It is why guys prefer to have sex rather than masturbate. It is because of this guilt that nature makes sure guys feel if they don't listen to her. And I claim that nature uses guilt is lots of ways -in ant colonies and in bee colonies. But what happens if one has guilt?




 But if one has already sinned and has guilt what then? Nachman from Uman devoted his life to answering this question. He worked to find ways of absolution for sin after it has been done. He discovered ten psalms that he said take away the guilt of sin after it has been done. Not that one is allowed to sin. But after the fact he said these ten psalms take away objective guilt They are: 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 79, 90, 105, 137, 150. But you have to know that if you are a Russian and you want to say them, the numbering of the Russians is different. The reason is because they put psalm 9 and 10 together. But then at the very end the numbers begin to match again. 

When I asked Reb Shmuel Berenabum [of the Mir in NY] about learning Kabalah he did not seem very enthusiastic.
This was after I had returned from Israel to NY. By that time I had been learning kabalah anyway fro some time.
His answer was finish Shas first. I said I already did. He said do it again.
[Finishing Shas means to have completed the Babylonian Talmud once].
My point is that whether it was Kabalah or even Hashkafa (world view) issues the Mir was interested only in Talmud.


Rav Hutner wrote the well known book the Fear of Isaac on world view issues. And Rav Freifed also had a lot of interest in those subjects. The closest you got at the Mir to anyone with some knowledge in those areas was Don Segel the mashgiach of Ponovitch who was brought over to the Mir during the years that I was there. It is not like they were against the Kabalah. They had the entire set of the writings of the Ari in the library. But the considered kabalah "hoiche zachin" high things not for everyone.

But today I would have to agree that the balanced approach is best. I regret not doing more work on the Gemara in the years I was in Israel. It does seem to me today that not just in order to understand the Kabalah but even to get into the essence of it one does in fact need to have learned Shas well a couple of times. Without that it does seem to create delusions in people that learn it without proper preparation

Communism says property is theft. I say communism is theft. The anti establishment hippies were out to take down the system. Until they became the system.

 And in spite of the USA being built on the John Locke idea, still the idea of loving mother nature was definitely in the air in the 60's and people wanted to get away from the rat race to nature. and what American family did not have its weekend camping trips and vacations? And part of this back to Nature ideal is the mysticism of the 60's. The idea that there is more to man than rational man. And this hippie back to nature and love of mysticism is what drove the 60's and it is what drives people today to get involved with Breslov


This tension. Locke versus Rousseau. The hippies versus the establishment. Ultimately was the same as the USSR (the system built of the revolutionary ideas and the General Will of the people )  against the USA (the system built on John Locke and individual rights). Yet in American home everyone became a back to nature freak on the weekends and a John Locke working guy on Monday morning. I just could not make the transfer to Monday mornings very well. . Ultimately Rousseau was not right. Nature is not benign. But John Locke was wrong also about some important matters. "Tabla raca"-give me a break! Neither were right but both were right about some things.

Appendix:
The difference between a John Locke society and a Rousseau type is the first is a set and the later is a group with some type of group operation between the members. But if that was all there was to it then the John Locke approach does not seem to have anything going for it. Just a bunch of isolated members? What is is so great about that? Well nothing on its own. But one thing we do get in a John Locke society is "ought" not "must." Morality and human relationship boil down to their true essence--"ought" not "must." In a society based on Rousseau all there is is "must." And this is not just in theory but in practice also.
So I have to side with John Locke all the same. Since the essence of morality is "ought" and the attempted forcing of people to give to others is not moral.
And with Rousseau the individual has no rights. The only authority is the collective will of the masses. And the collective will of the masses is a monster, not a pleasant puppy.

Communism says property is theft. I say communism is theft.
The anti establishment hippies were out to take down the system. Until they became the system.

An amazing amount of ideas from Natan the false prophet of Shabatai Tzvi found their way into Orthodox Judaism. Rav Ovadia Joseph was aware of this and tried to protect the Sephardi world from the most pernicious aspects of it. But for the most part people reading mystical Ashenazic books from Orthodox Judaism get enough and too much of it.  The best advice is anything that smacks of mysticism in Ashkenazic books written after Reb Chaim Vital--don't go anywhere near them. [The exceptions to this would be the Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius and his disciple Reb Chaim) and the Ramchal (Moshe Chaim Lutzato),]
But if you want verification you could check out some of the research into this being done at Hebrew University. I discovered this independently but apparently the professors over there have written a few papers on this subject. I think Joseph Dan, but I forget.
The new book of collected writings of Gershom Sholem has some references to these newer papers in the back.
This is a sensitive problem because there are saints/tzadikim that might borrow unknowingly some motifs, but still be actual tzadikim. It is not an accusation you want to be throwing around when ever something looks a little weird. In fact, the more normal some group seems on the outside, the more suspicious I am. An extra emphasis on rituals make me wonder what are they hiding underneath the facade.
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 Talking with God where ever you are. Not in any formal way but as one talks with his friend.
) Learning fast. To have short sessions every day in Torah in this manner. That is to take the Old Testament and read it word for word -a few pages in one session- out loud.  Then take a Mishna and start from Brachot and say it word for word -also a few pages. And then take the Gemara and say it also word for word a few pages. And the same with the writings of the Ari. Then [based on the ideas of Maimonides] i say to learn then the work of creation -Physics, Mathematics,  Chemistry (What the Rambam calls  Physics includes Chemistry).

) When one has fallen and wants to come back into wholesomeness, they place a person that  fears G-d in the door to prevent him from coming back into holiness. This applies to Breslov itself which is the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Just when one has discovered some amazing advice and wants to start doing it, there will always be Breslov Hasid there to tell him that he does not really understand or that he should run to some grave of some tzadik --or other things. Like the Litvaks used to say about Breslov "Anything but Torah."

  There was once a  student of Rav Isaac Hutner in Israel.
Rav Isaac Hutner had already started  Chaim Berlin in N.Y.

  This student got involved in Breslov.
Rav Hutner called him into his office and told him it is one or the other,  "If you are going to be Breslov, you can't learn here."
When he was called in Rav Hutner had a Guide For The Perplexed on his desk. In Breslov that is equivalent to having the most offensive book possible in front of your face.

  I have a reason for bringing this story here. It is not what one would think. This student was showing up for the regular two sessions of the --morning and afternoon but he would go to Breslov [Rechov Salant] to pray at night. Rav Hutner did not have a problem with that.
Nor did he have a problem with Nachman from Breslov and Uman. He said if it would happen that someone would find  a book of  Nachman that had been hidden, he would not sleep until he got a copy of it. And for a whole year his main learning besides Gemara was the Lekutai Moharan of  Nachman of Breslov. (In Chaim Berlin it was on his learning shtender [desk] a entire year.)
  The point is rather that Brelsov is a cult. They use the greatness of  Nachman and his advice to draw people into their cult.  And the cult of Breslov has nothing to do with Torah or with  Nachman.
The advice and ideas of  Nachman are used as conscious  traps to lure people in.

   A few months went by a the student was a wandering American student  in Israel in a time when there was no such entity. Lost and forlorn. Eventually Rav Freifeld called Rav Hunter and begged him to let him back in.
  The thing to understand here that you do not see on the surface level of this story is that Rav Hutner was building a kind of Noah's Ark. Not before the flood (the world outside of Torah), but after the flood is already here. And this student was part of the inner circle. He was being groomed for greatness you might say. I can relate to this because I had a similar type of relationship with Rav Freifeld until I too upset the boat.


  There is a lot to discuss here and I have made this essay to short. I hope to fill in some gaps for people but I have had  along day and I had plenty of other things I wanted to discuss on the Internet like the offering the high priest has to bring in he does idolatry by accident. Also the subject of Israel Salanter. Also the Aristotelian approach of the Rambam and the Neo-Platonic of the Ramban (Nachmanides, רמב''ן).The way to differentiate when you are talking is to say "Ramban" with the accent on the last syllable, and Rambam with emphasis on the first.

Belief in a Tzadik

In terms of the status of a tzadik [saint] and how important it is to be close to him or her in order to achieve the Garden of Eden (or be saved from eternal damnation) seems to be an argument among different people. That is not only do they argue about whom is the tzadik that one should believe in, but even if you get a whole group of people that believe in one particular tzadik, it is difficult to get them to agree on how much one should believe in that tzadik. 

Some would suggest a strong position. That believing in chasidut is everything and one who does not believe is damned. Others might take weak position. That it is good to believe, but not so essential as the more radical opinion.

Then,  is the question: "What exactly is it one is supposed to believe about the tzadik?" Or who could be considered a valid line of tradition coming from him? Or who is a valid disciple, and who is a bad disciple?

But if we look at the Torah itself, we do not find that believing in any tzadik is essential.

The Torah itself looks like a very radical kind of Monotheism.

If we look in the Rambam/Maimonides it seems clear that the Torah was willing to make concessions for people in order to bring them to radical monotheism. (E.g, service in the Temple was so people don't go and offer sacrifices to idols instead.) It looks like the opinion of the Torah is pure unadulterated Monotheism and yet she is willing to make allowances for human frailty.
There is a debate in fact about this. Some people hold that the Torah is already radical monotheism. Others hold the Torah is intending to lead people to radical monotheism  but  that she is willing to make allowances for people that need help to get there. You can probably think of plenty of examples on your own but let me just mention one that comes to mind right now. Elimelech was the king of the Philishtim (Phoenicians) and he was visited by God in a dream and told to go to Avraham [Abraham] to ask Avraham to pray for him. You could say that it would have been better for him to pray to God directly but God knew he was not going to do so, so he told him to ask Avraham. Jacob said "The angel that has saved me from all my troubles should bless the children." Who was this angel? And would not this count as praying to a Mediator? [And the Rambam considered praying to a mediator is the very essence of idolatry]

 

When the Sanhedrin makes a mistake and allows idolatry [or any other of the 42 types of sin for which one brings a sin offering] and there is a person תלמיד שהגיע להוראה that knows they made  a mistake and depends on their decision, then he has to bring his own sacrifice.  [That is the first teaching (Mishna משנה) in tractate Horayot הוריות] But if he actually knows it is forbidden is not he doing it on purpose? (You can't bring a sacrifice for doing a sin on  purpose). The Gemara says it means he thought mistakenly that there is mitzvah to listen to the Sanhedrin even when you know they are wrong. But since there is no such mitzvah, he must bring a sin offering. This is not what you hear in Shabat table Judaism.


But also this brings up the interesting subject of what  the Mishna means by a disciple that has reaches the ability to make a decision [תלמיד שהגיע להוראה]. The Gemara explains this means he has finished Shas [Talmud] and understands it (גמיר וסביר).


At any rate to get to the one point I have been trying to get to through this essay. the two points of Reb Chaim from Voloshin. [Disciple of the Gra]. No favoritism  in decision making. And the law of the Gemara.
This came up in a letter he wrote to a famous rabbi who had made a halacha decision Reb Chaim knew was wrong. He points out in the\ letter he is only interested in the law Gemara. And also that he does not care who makes a halacha decision not like the Gemara. They are wrong period. And this relates to what I was saying at the beginning of this essay. Ordination stopped after Yehuda the prince and Ravina and Rav Ashi were the end of horah the end of the period of decision making (סוף הוראה)
The Maharshal quotes the Rambam about this idea that the period of decision making ended with the last amoraim. And this gives this idea extra weight since the Maharshal was no fan of the Mishna Torah of the Rambam. The fact that people today can claim halachic authority going back to Sinai and are not laughed out of town shows how far we have fallen.

Now here is where this essay should have started-on the question of how to determine a  particular law based on the Talmud and poskim. But I have had a long day. In short what responsible people do is  learn the Gemara with the Rosh and then the Tur with the Beit Yoseph. And that seems in fact to the best way in a practical sense. But to go into the whole topic right now is difficult.

 Basically the Gemara gives the rules for how the decision is reached when you are in a Mishna. Also there are a few rules in the Gemara itself to decide between Amoraim. The commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch  almost always disagree with the decision of the Shulchan Aruch ( שלחן ערוך) based on the Gemara itself or what they call the "poskim" which in their terminology means Rishonim [medieval authorities]. The term was misappropriated for Achronim and is now used as a weasel word.

Doing idolatry by accident

Doing idolatry or any of 42 types of sin by accident means one has to bring a sin offering

There are 43 types of sin for which one brings a sin offering. Six of them one brings a offering that goes up and down.[קרבן עולה ויורד] A rich person brings a goat. A poor person brings two turtle doves. a dirt poor person brings a flour offering. The others not so. The others for people like you and me we would have to bring either  a female from goats or  sheep. But idolatry is different. Everyone has to bring a she goat.Even the high priest. and even the king. but there is a difference between a high priest and the average person. The high priest has to have both a mistaken decision about the law and also be accidental.  העלם דבר עם שגגת מעשה
Abyee uses this fact to show that there can be such a thing an accidental idolatry.
 For if idolatry needs intention then how could there ever be such a thing as doing it by accident.? If you do it by accident without intention you did nothing at all!
[To see this in the Torah [the Old Testament] you have to go to the beginning of Leviticus where it talks about sin offerings and divides the subject into the congregation and the high priest and the individual. And then you have to go to the Book of Numbers [ch. 15] where it discuss the sacrifices for transgressing the sin of idolatry for the individual and the entire congregation, and it leaves out the high priest]





I want to go into all these issues. But I also want to go into  a side issue about the idea of a mistaken decision.  No everyone agrees that the high priest has to make a mistaken decision in order to bring a sin offering for idolatry. Yehuda the Prince says all he needs is to do it by accident. But the Sanhedrin definitely needs to make a mistaken decision in order to bring a sacrifice.
That is: for the Sanhedrin to bring a sin offering they have to rule about some aspect of one of the 43 types of sin that it is allowed and the majority of the Jewish people living in Israel have to follow that decision and act on it. Then they bring twelve oxen and twelve goats.
But if there is an individual who knows that the Sanhedrin made  a mistake and he acts on their decision thinking mistakenly that it is a mitzvah to listen to the sages, then he has to bring his own sacrifice.

The first thing you will ask is the Rashi "Even if they tell you left is right and right is left." That Rashi is brought in the subject of Zaken Mamre. There a person goes publicly against the Sanhedrin.
So now everything is clear. When you know the Sanhedrin made  a mistake you are not allowed to listen to them. But also you are not allowed to make a public statement against them.

I admit Musar (Classical ethics from the Middle Ages) is only a first order theory in ethics

I admit Musar מוסר (Classical Ethics from the Middle Ages) is only a first order theory in ethics, and that this fact is what makes it uninteresting, and perhaps even not effective. The very first Musar book,The Duties of the Heart [חובות לבבות] did however put a second order theory in the beginning of his book. It is a modification of neo-Platonism. But Musar was not meant to be second order (Meta-Musar). But there were people that went through the trouble to give a second order theory, e.g, Saadia Geon, Maimonides (the Rambam). . [ But his basic focus is to find justification for the commandments of God.] A kind of preliminary approach can be found for the commandments based on a mystic approach can be found in the writings of Isaac Luria, but he is dealing with connections in higher worlds and has not brought his ideas down to the human level. But to accept any part of the mystic approach you have to get over the hurdle that Kant made.(note 1) Or you could dispense with the mystic approach completely and settle for the Metaphysical Aristotelian approach of the Rambam/Maimonides or the metaphysical Neo Platonic approach of Saadia Geon and the Duties of the Heart.

My suggestion is to learn Musar with its underlying set of justifications. It is the difference between a doctor telling a person, "Don't eat  such and such" and a doctor telling the same person "Don't eat such and such a thing because you will die in three months if you do, and the reason is that you are allergic to it and it has a cumulative effect." The only problem with this idea is that it is time consuming.
(note 1) You could get over this hurdle with Schopenhauer. But if one tries to ignore it I think one will trip and fall. Just imagine you are running a four laps around the field and there are hurdles in front of you. And you decide to think positive :"there is no hurdle".
Hegal  also is a highly metaphysical system

  I tend to think of Hegel as a kind of intuitionist along the lines of Prichard. The reason I tend to trust Kelly Ross is on philosophical issues I have spend some time learning I have found him to be remarkably insightful. So I tend to trust him also on issue like Hegel in which I know little. It is the same reason that when I learn Talmud with my learning partner and we disagree that I tend to think that he is probably right --since after arguing with him I usually find out that in fact he did understand the material better than me. It is called "faith in the wise."
I think everyone can agree that Hegel has some important points. But he falls flat on his face when he discuss social issues. His best work is analysis of other philosophers and also in making his own metaphysical system.

But the world has fallen into ignorance. Many people claim to be experts in Torah without having done the work.

Torah does not mean Jewish history. It means a basic understanding of the Oral and written Law. That means two things. (1) General knowledge of Shas and Poskim (The 60 tractates of the Talmud and Rif Rambam, Rosh, Tur, Beit Yoseph and Shulchan Aruch. and it is desirable also to have knowledge of the writings of the Remak and Isaac Luria and the books of Jewish philosophy by Maimonides and Saadia Geon in order to understand the basic world view of the Torah