There was another time I was having a problem understanding some drasha (explanation) of the Sages about a verse about returning lost objects. [I know a lot of people have questions understanding how the Sages derive things from verses.] This was an usually difficult problem because it seemed to me very much not like the verse in question. And he showed to me how the verse in question was impossible to understand simply. It was about a lost object that some had been hired to watch (in Exodus 22). And the verse then goes on to say כי הוא זה, "A person loses an object like this." Where is the this if the object was lost? After that I began to notice things myself of why or how the Sages make a drasha (explanation). The book that deals with this is the Torah Temima by the son of the Aruch Hashulchan. But the things that I noticed were in cases where the verse changes the way it treat a noun as male or feminine.  Or leaves out a necessary "את" "Et." Without the sages saying so they will see in these cases a reason to look at why the verse changes the gender of something.

The redemption of the wise son

Self- Reliance is a value to that at first glance might seem different than trust in God.
But it is not. Trust in God  means you do your obligations and trust in God that as long as you are doing your part, he will do his part.
And there is an element of doing nothing for ones own needs, but simply sitting and learning, and God will take care of the rest.

But I want to claim that this approach is predicated on the idea that the highest ideal one should strive for is to be learning Torah all the time. A very Gra type of idea. And I don't disagree with it. But I do say  that learning self reliance and survival skills is one of the things that is in the category of a mitzvah that can't be done by others. חמירא סכנתא מאיסורא. One must be more strict about things that could potentially cause harm more that things that are forbidden. [Gemara Chulin]. (תיקון הגוף קודם תיקון נמפש) And trusting in the "system" must definitely be the greatest source of harm I can imagine. Don't let trusting in the system you live in  be confused with trusting in God.


  Thus, to make a long story short. Prepare a survival kit. Get off grid. Send your kids to the Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts to learn outdoor skills, beside their regular Torah education. And as the Sages said--teach them  a hard core skill that people will pay cold, hard cash for.
Teach your boys to be men. And what is a man? Is it someone who know a lot of Talmud? No. Learning Torah is very important. But it does not define what a man is. A man is someone you want to have next to you while you are in a WWI trench or in the heat of battle. Someone you can rely on. Some whose honesty and integrity and competence is beyond question. Not someone simply using the group for their own benefit.
And these qualities depend on trust in God. For without trust in God people lie and cheat and are not trustworthy because they think by that they can get ahead or gain advantage. When you trust in God you are not afraid to keep your word.



What trust in God is. It  means doing your job --doing what the Torah requires of you and then trusting that God will make things work in the way he knows is right.

When Hezekiah (חזקיה) the King prayed to God when Sennacherib came to destroy Jerusalem. He said, "King David could trust in you with sword in hand. Solomon could trust in you in prayer. But I can do any off that. I have to trust in you will I go to sleep."
That is King David could do effort but that did not reduce his trust in God. Hezekiah  was saying that if he himself would do any effort that could possibly take his focus of the main idea that everything depends on Gods will. So he did no effort. Even the effort of praying he was afraid could cause him to think his salvation came from his prayers. So he went to sleep and in the middle of the night God destroyed the entire army of Sennacherib.

Appendix:
(1) Self reliance was probably the most important value to my father. Or at least it was the one value that he strove to put into us kids--his boys. But obviously there were other unspoken values in our family like family values, and above all "being a mensch"--(that means in all situations acting like a decent moral human being).
(2) Now being off grid does not mean not to use a computer. There is lots of important work that can be done only on computers. At least for me that is how things are. But what off grid means is have your own solar power source.
(3) Belief  in God is rational.
 Everything has a cause. So unless there is a first cause, then you would have an infinite regress. And then nothing could exist. Therefore there must be a first cause. Therefore God, the first cause, exists. QED. (You could prove the second step that everything has a cause by noting that nothing can come from nothing.) (I mean to say you you take the level of the second step up from an empirical observation to an a priori fact.)
(4)There is a story from Nachman from Uman that taught me something about trust in God, the story about the simple son and the smart son. I could not relate much to the simple son because I just do not share many traits with him. But the smart one really rang a bell in me. In the story he was always asking, "Maybe there is someplace better for me than here."

The story in short: A father had two sons. One smart and one simple. when they were in their teens the father told the that they should go and find some kind of work because he could not support them both any more. The smart one thought what is the main thing? To get married and have children--but there is time for that. Fist I have to see the world. He got a wagon going to Warsaw. He had no money but he offered to work on the way for the owners. He got there and though they were good employers he decided t to drop them and look for better paying work and more honorable. Maybe there are better employers than them. Maybe there is a better place than here. That was his constant refrain. See the end of the story.  But in short the idea of Nachman was that this is a wrong attitude. And it comes from being too smart for ones own good. One should trust that the situation one is in is for some reason unknown to himself, and accept it.

Just to bring the point a little closer to home let me mention the smart son keep on piling up academic qualifications and also learned several professions. then  decided it was time to start making a family and started to travel back home.
the simple son stayed in his home village and learned to make shoes and took a wife and stayed put. and since he was simple or rather dumb he knew the business only partially. So he  made very little money. But his custom was to be happy always. he would get home on Friday night and ask for the Sabbath meal. his wife would cut off a piece of black bread for him. He would ask for the fish. his wife would cut off another piece of black bread. and he would ask for the soup and she would cut off another piece of black bread. and he would go wild over the supreme taste of the bread as if it contained all the wonderful flavors in the world. In the meantime the smart son got back to town and there was no place for him to stay so he stayed with his old friend the simple son. and he was never happy. and he always was complaining about his situation.
One day the czar was going over the records and saw in one of his towns there a census listing someone simply as the smart one and another as the simple one. And he sent for them out of curiosity. The simple one came and the king discovered than he really was not dumb but he was simple by choice and had made an early decision in life not to think about things [that is not to double think anything] but to accept the world the way it is and to depend on God. The smart son decided not to go to the czar because he thought it was a trick. He thought, why should the czar send for just a nobody?" At some point he convinced himself that there really was no czar at all and the county was just ruled by a senate. And he used to go around with a friend trying to convince people that there was no czar. [Rachmana Litzlan, Heaven save us!]
He fell lower and lower because of his smartness and the simple one rose higher and higher because of his simplicity.
The simple one became the prime minister because the czar was so impressed with his simplicity. and the smart son go involved in law suits.His case eventually came before the prime minister--the simple son. And right about that time a Jewish saint [tzadik, a Baal Shem Tov kind of person] came to town. The simple son went to him for a blessing and the wise son just ridiculed the Baal Shem Tov.] This kind of personality shows up sometimes among the Jewish people. No one really knows what makes them tick. But they seem to have amazingly deep insights into the world and miracles pop up around them like jelly beans.



The smart son fell into hell. And the asked the tzadik to help him. And he eventually was redeemed.
So this story could be called the redemption of the wise son.
(5) Go into a forest and talk all day to God while being alone. It is not a public event.

The Lithuanian world and trust in God

I wanted to discuss in a practical way the idea of trust in God. It is not like I have any great revelations about it but I wanted to go a bit more into detail than I did the other times I talked about Navardok.

One very important introduction to the subject involves an argument between the Duties of the Heart Chovot Levavot and the Gra about effort. The main idea of the Chovot Levavot is to trust with doing effort. The Gra says no effort.
  But no effort still means to be doing your obligations between yourself and God and between yourself and Man. So no effort still means you are doing something. But not to get anywhere in life. But rather to be doing your obligations.
And for people that might not be aware of it, one obligations according to the Torah are well rounded. They are more than rituals. Obligations of the Torah involve a lot of things that most people would considered just good character. For example not to hurt people in money we know is from the Torah. But also not to hurt them in words is also from the Torah. [See Sefer HaChinuch for all the obligations of the Torah.]
Trust with no effort was the way of Navardok. It was based on the Gra, the Ramban [quoted by Israel Salanter but no one has ever been able to find.] Trust in God is not exclusively a Jewish doctrine. And you would expect that anyway just by the fact that it is an a priori value. So it has to apply across the board.

Mainly trust in God means to do what you know in your heart is right and trust that God will not let you down if you do. It means taking your moral obligations seriously. And this is not necessarily a private or individual matter.

If possible get the two books that deal with it  in detail ---Chovot Levavot [Duties of the Heart by Bachyee Ben Pekuda], and Madragat HaAdam by Joseph Horwitz

Tractate Sanhedrin 62a

There are 42 sins for which one is required to bring a goat or a sheep to the temple in Jerusalem. [Leviticus 4] [The sexual relationships in Leviticus 22, (e.g. sleeping with ones sister, aunt, a male, an animal, etc.) work on Shabat, and a few more.] [You don't get to have a barbecue as you do if you bring regular sacrifices like peace offerings.] The sin offering can only be eaten by priests. There is a 43rd sin that one brings a sin offering for--that is idolatry. But its sin offering is only a she goat. [See this in the middle of the Book of Numbers.]
That is only if one does idolatry by accident. Now I have to say that there are five things one can't do for an idol. The regular four services [offering a sacrifice, burning a sacrifice, pouring wine, bowing,] and the service that is specified for that idol.
So what if one does several services by accident? Does he bring one sin offering or more?
R. Zakai said he brings one sacrifice. R. Yochanan said to bring one for each service.
R. Aba wanted to say this argument is really an argument among the people of the Mishna.
R Josi said why is fire specified on Shabat? To tell us it is only  a prohibition that is all. It is out of the category of the other 39 types of forbidden work. [R. Natan says fire comes to divide.] R. Aba is thinking at this point one doing all the 39 types of work is obligated only one sin offering (goat or sheep).
Rav Joseph said R. Josi might also divide the types of work from the verse when a soul sins נפש כי תחטא [Leviticus 4]   בשגגה מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תעשינה ועשה אחת מהנה
"When a soul sins in one of the commandments of God which should not be done and he does one of them."
This is all introduction. to a small point. The actual way this verse is understood is אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת. That is the Gemara is thinking about the last three words of this verse there is something extra that is not necessary. So what is it coming to tell us?
My comment here is that there is no way the verse could have said ועשה הנה. And does them. That makes no sense in Hebrew. So while I can agree to the opposite side of things that it could have written ועשה אחת instead of ועשה מאחת. That is fine.And that would be to tell sometimes one is obligated for one forgetting many offerings--like if he forgets that it is the Sabbath day and does many works.
But you can't write ועשה הנה. If you write anything it has to be אחת מהנה. "and does one of them." So what I am suggesting is that the Gemara means you could have left out the whole word!מהנה
And the verse would have read "and does one." And then by the fact that the extra word them is written now we know there is a time one forgets each individual type of work and does many and then he has to bring  a sin offering for each type of work.

But this is not a new idea. I wrote this down here a few day ago--in short hand fashion.
After all this I wanted to think about this whole Gemara from a broader perspective. Just think about it. At first it starts off trying to make an argument between two Talmudic sages into an argument between two sages of the Mishna. That is just plain classical Gemara thinking. But then things start happening I don't understand. It gets to a point where the two sages of the Mishna agree about division of work on Shabat.
So should that all by itself not be a proof for Rabbi Yochanan? I mean is that not what you would expect?Why does the Gemara not jump at the first opportunity it gets to help out Rabbi Yochanan? It instead runs to bowing [Deuteronomy 17].
I want to suggest that it is interested in helped Rabbi Yochanan and that that accounts for the fact that after it takes care of the argument between Abyee and Rava about serving idols from fear of love that it jumps back to division of work to suggest from this same verse it used for Sabbath and tries to use it for idolatry.
And that is my idea for today.This not what you would call ''lumdut.'' [in depth learning]. In a way it is completely and utterly trivial. Still it is just something that I am trying to understand in this Gemara.


Appendix
It is Rabbi Josi who learns from the verse. and later R Yonatan explains how. He said it is from אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת/
It seems he is learning thus--it could have said one but instead said from one. so we learn even if one does not do a complete work like "shem" from "shimon." And it could have said them, but instead said from them to tell us not just from the 39 types of work but also the generations--subcategories of work.
And then from the fact that both words could have been skipped entirely we learn "one that is many" he knows it is shabat but forget many kinds of work, he is obligated many sacrifices. And many that are one--if he forgets it is shabat but knows all the types of work then he is obligated only one sacrifice.

How to learn Physics and Mathematics.

1) How to learn Physics and Mathematics. My suggestion is to have one session right when you wake up in the morning. 20 minutes minimum, but it should be an hour. It should be in the way that the Talmud  Shabat 63a says-- always one should  גורס say the words  and then review even though he forgets and even though he does nit know what he is saying." Don't review. But the next day you can review if you want. And in fact if you want to review the same material a lot of days in a row (e.g. forty days in a row), then that session will count as an in-depth session.
In any case, you need one in-depth session and one fast session. That fast one is also like the first, except you take a text of math or physics, and just say it from the beginning until the end, and you do that again until you have finished it four times.
The idea is that when you say the words a kind of outer light אור מקיף is formed around you. But you don't understand because the outer light has not come into you yet. So you have to say the whole textbook at least four times for the light to come in.




2)This should be learned with books of ethics and fear of God - before and after. Because the entire purpose of this is to bring one to see the wisdom of God as revealed in his creation. But for that to work, ones vector has to be towards God. And words don't have a lasting effect without fear of God.

 3) This is really the exact same thing as Talmud learning. Except for the Talmud if possible you need to get yourself a learning partner. But if that is impossible, then you do the same as I wrote here. You take one page of Talmud with the Tosphot and Maharsha and do the whole page--just saying the words. And the next day you go back and do it again for about forty days. Or until things start becoming clear. [That is the in depth session. The fast one is the same except the  next day you go to the next page. I mean here what is called an half page.עמוד. A whole  two sides is a lot to do with Tosphot. So I am asking only for one side of a page.] [Don't go to any synagogue to do this. Do it at home.]

4) In the morning I used to have a coffee or tea until I heard of the idea of Bava Sali (Israel Abuchatzaira) to have coffee and tea in the same cup.- [I mean to say the first twenty minutes after you wake up are critical. You can take a few minutes to get the coffee and tea and learn Musar/ (books of ethics and fear of God). But this hard core Mathematics learning has to be the first thing. Before breakfast, before school, before davening (prayers). But obviously you say the "Shema Israel" right when you wake up.]

5) The most important thing to remember, a little bit is also good. Even if you do not learn a lot of you are not great at it doing a little Physics is also good.

 And not to be stubborn about it. Don't worry if you don't understand at first because eventually you will understand.

Especially I hold from the forty days in a row thing. I would sometime stake one chapter or a few chapters and read them word for word forty day in a row and often not understand anything until the day day when it would instantly all become clear.

That is if you do this you will certainly know a lot more Physics than you do by giving up on it, or learning second hand trivial stuff.


6) And as for the desirability of this I defer to Maimonides in his Mishna Torah and More Nevuchim and my parents.
Though some people disagree with the Rambam in this, I feel they can't override him. In minor things or individual laws  I do admit one should take the Rambam in the context of all the Rishonim [medieval authorities]. But an area that was a major thesis of his, I feel no one can override him. It is a heavily weighted variable for him.
I did not say anything about solving  problems because I am addressing the need for general knowledge. As for individual problems, that is a whole other ball game.
Even for people that learn Torah all day,  Physics and Mathematics are essential. See the introduction to the translation of Euclid by Baruch from Shkolov-the disciple of the Gra (Elijah from Vilnius). And the Rambam הלכות תלמוד תורה פרק א הלכה י''ב

7) I wanted to add that you don't have the right to claim you don't understand a physics or math textbook until you have read it--word by word, cover to cover, four times.

 8) The way to understand this is to see that there are hidden levels of the human soul. And "makifim." מקיפים "surrounding light". . But I would rather take an idea from the Ari and  The idea is that when you say over the textbook--even if you don't understand it, you have one makif מקיף. a surrounding light that has gotten close to you by your saying the words. When you say the whole text again the outer light gets close  to you. And when you do this in an environment where there are others also engaged in this the effect is stronger.

American judges are a serious problem. Many problems that people have in their individual lives to corrupt judges. I don't intend to go in detail into this, but let me say that I have seen this a lot. My impression is that Constitutional Law is mostly involved in Supreme Court decisions. As if that has anything to do with the Constitution. You don't encounter many judges that have actual read the Federalist Papers that explain what the Constitution is all about. This might seem like something you can ignore if you are not actually in court. corrupt judges destroy the entire society. See the last of the thirteen stories.

The basic idea of that Torah lesson is about faith in God and that when people  have a lack of faith, they fall into problems that nothing can cure not medicine, or merit of ones parents, or even calling to God in prayer. It is a long lesson but the basic idea is that if people try to get back to faith it is the corrupt judges of a a society that make it impossible.  And I definitely saw this in NY.



Now to some it is easy to critique any religious leader because you always know you have secular society to fall back on.
But what would you do if secular society itself would break apart?

This problem is similar to utilitarians that can rely on the fact that they live an a Judaic Christian society to assume everyone has a common sense idea of morality that they can safely attribute to common sense.
[The assumption of higher and lower pleasures is fundamental to Mill. And he uses this distinction to come out with a Society that looks suspiciously like one based on Torah values. ]

This is of course obviously wrong. We only think it is common sense because we grew  up in a society founded on Judaic Christian values. A society based on utilitarianism without Torah would be a society of pigs--even in theory it has to come out that way--to the LCD lowest common denominator..

So we need Torah and we need teachers of Torah.. And this applies even to the larger American society as much as to the Jewish society.

But authentic teachers of Torah? They are hard to find because in the first place anyone with ordination already has by definition a little bit of fraud mixed up with them. Maybe some more than others. But in any case true ordination died out 2000 years ago. The last people to have it were rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Yehuda ben Levi, early amoraim. Anyone that allows themselves to be called  rabbi after that is by definition a fraud.
So this is a little different from the Catholic church or Zen Buddhism where you need ordination fir anything you do or say to have validity.
[Just as one cannot become a Catholic priest without a bishop putting hands on a head, one cannot become a Zen teacher without having been authorized by a Zen teacher. And almost always that authorization is “vertical,” teacher to student.
If someone wants to be a Zen teacher, they must be made one. And that ceremony is public or has a major public aspect to it. And for the most part there are written documents involved. And on those rare occasions if there aren’t documents, there are witnesses.
If you ask someone who claims to be a Zen teacher who authorized them and they throw you out, you may safely assume that person has made it up. If that person says the question proves you’re not enlightened, then this suggests that person has made their credentials up. If they say it is none of your business, they are probably a fraud.]

In Torah things are just the opposite. The word Rabbi has a very very specified definition according to absolute objective standards. And the Talmud itself says those standards no longer exist for anyone. So according to the strict definition of Halacha anyone called a rabbi is a fraud.
The Sefardim never had this problem until recently. Their teachers were always "the sage" the Chacham חכם
And for a long time Ashkenazim never had such a problem either.. Who ever was the most learned was the one who gave the class in Mishna between Mincha [afternoon prayer] and Maariv [evening prayer].

Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

NATO does not understand Russia. The reason is that Russia does not play by the rules. They have plausible deniability. They can send in soldiers into anywhere they want and say the soldiers were on vacation. They can show their military might all over the world and say they are simply doing training exercises.
The can't understand Russian because Russia has a whole different set of rules. In the West you want to destroy a scientist you simply print an article in a newspaper that accuse him of racism or hating women. And he loses his job and wife and children and things are back to normal. Russia has simply been sitting back an watching the West consume itself in a piranhic frenzy about  blacks, women, gays, etc. Russia does not care about any of these things. You can criticize them all day long in Russia and no one will blink an eyelash.
Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

I usually don't use this space for politics. And I might just delete this whole essay. But for now that I am on a role let me just say I can see the position of Russia concerning eastern Ukraine. The Russian point of view is simple. People in the East of the Ukraine  want to be Russians, so let them be Russians. They also think they the Russians civilized the Ukraine, and without them the Ukraine would be everything they say they are. And they are 100% right. Two very valid points.
What I was thinking is anyone in the East of the Ukraine that wants to be Russian, perhaps they should be given a certain sizable sum of money to go live in Russia? It is not the best idea but it is certainly better than war.

Trust in God

The opinion of God in the book of Job that it was blasphemy to accuse God of being just. Then what exactly is the idea of trust?

Job was saying that he was guiltless. And his friends were saying that God never punishes anyone unless they are guilty. And God in the end came and said that his friends were wrong. Though you could explain it differently but we know from the narrator's perspective that the simple explanation is correct. So then what does it mean to trust in God?

Answer: Trust in God is an independent variable than whether one is doing good or not.
Joseph Horvitz [The author of the מדרגת האדם] (student of  Israel Salanter ) brings the statement of the Sages on the verse, "One who trust in God kindness will surround him." (Psalms 16) They say: "Even a wicked person that trusts in God, kindness will surround him."
  The way this is understood is one should be doing God's will.  And using his or her reason to understand what God's will is. But even if one fails and misunderstands Gods will, then still trust alone will save him.
In theory it applies even to people that knew they were transgressing God's will. Because trust is an independent variable.
  The Geon from Vilnius (Elijah) also said in a similar vein one who trust in God even though  transgresses major sins, is better than one who keep all the Torah and mitzvot. [In the book אבן שלמה]

   I discovered this book called the Level of Man (Madgragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם). [This is known today by the name Navardok]
And this book has trust as  central theme. And what makes it all the more interesting is the fact that the author did practice what he preached. But also after I left the Mir to go to Israel there was something about this approach that stuck with me. Maybe even until this very day.
So the fact that there was a time I actively tried to walk in that path and for a time it worked and for a time it seems to have puttered out makes wish I could figure out the proper approach.
People of course know the argument between the Chovot Levavaot [Duties of the Heart] and the Gra about effort--השתדלות.
The former says one should do effort, and the later says not.
The proper approach is to do what God asks of you. [But even this how do yo know? It was assumed you use your faculty of reason to try to understand as best as you can God's will for you, and then if you do that then it is understood that everything else would be taken care of from Heaven.] [Or to be as explicit as possible: learn Torah and everything will work out.]

But to get back to my story, there was a time that I decided --also based on my understanding of Torah that I ought to work for a living and stop the trusting in God approach. That not only did not work, but it seemed to me that I was being shown a lesson from heaven of what happens to a person when he trusts in his own efforts and abandons trust in God.--Everything not just falls apart, but it falls apart with a vengeance.
Of course this probably was because of the vector involved, and probably has little to do with whether the actual law (Halacha) was like I was thinking. If ones vector is to God and then he turns away, that is probably worse than if the vector was never pointing in that direction in the first place.
[Trust is not just a principle to do what is right and assume God will help you. It is also a key decision making tool. It helps to decide what to do.]

How this applies in the larger world I am not sure. I am only trying to give people an idea of how it applies in my world in my realm of decisions that I have to make. People in different situation might find this principle applies in different ways according to their present problems.
For the general public that are interested in this  recommend the book Madragat Hadam which give the best presentation I have seen on this subject.

My learning partner today discovered Handel, and was very impressed. He said to me that Beethoven said that Handel was the greatest composer who ever lived. I mentioned to him that some time after Handel there was in the USA some composer who people said would be a second Handel. I was saying this implying that such a thing is ridiculous. It is like people today list the great composers and put Beethoven and Mozart together with some pop jerk.
And he made an interesting observation--that they all lived under nobility. It was an age when everyone believed in God, and everyone worked, and everyone believed in Torah, and there were kings and princes.
[It is like him to see this. When ever I bring up the idea of democracy and the Constitution of the USA, he is never impressed. From what he can see, the USA only worked well until it was invaded by the 3rd world.]
I once came into the home of the daughter of Bava Sali and they were playing on the stereo the Messiah of Handel.
I have not seen her nor her family for a few years, but every minute I spent with them was precious.
One thing I learned from her and her son Shimon Buso was the world view of Bava Sali and his general approach.
It was basically in a nut shell the approach of the Gra (Eliyahu fromVilnius) and Israel Salanter. That is it was a limited idea of what Torah is. Torah is Torah, and everything else is not Torah. And we are all obligated to keep the commandments from the Torah and the "fences" made by the Sages. A no nonsense approach.
Musar (Ethics) was the main thing to learn. [You ask them yourself, but believe me, Musar was foremost to this family. That is they really say the idea of Israel Salanter that everyone should learn Ethics/ Musar as being the truth and the way.]


Navardok means to learn Torah  with a lot of Musar, and a lot of emphasis on trust in God with no effort (that is no השתדלות).
But let me say I can't endorse everything about Navardok. Though I agree the major learning has to be in Talmud and Musar, I still feel (based on the Rambam and the many Musar books based on his approach from the Old Sefardi school of thought) that Physics and Metaphysics are also important. Plus a Boy Scouts type of program --to teach character and self reliance and morality..
Appendix
Here is my how and why to learn Physics program:
My  idea about learning Physics is this.
The first twenty minutes in the morning are essential. Also the last twenty minutes in the day before you go asleep. When you wake up get a coffee or tea or both and learn  some work of fear of God [Musar] and then  Physics/Math before anything else.
[Then during the day of course one should learn Torah.]

And the desirability of this, I base on Maimonides alone. You will not find many tzadikim that agree with this. But I still feel that in this case the Rambam was right.
And the way to learn it I have found is not that different from learning Talmud. You need a fast session and an in-depth session.  The in-depth one for me has varied over time. One thing I try to do is to concentrate on one small subject for forty days straight. The fast session is like it sounds--say the words in order and go on.

To the Rambam, Physics is the key to fear of God. So I don't consider it a waste of time from Torah. The other opinion along these lines is the Geon (Eliyahu) from Vilnius, who considered all of the seven wisdoms to be essential for understanding the Torah.

Besides the basic ideas of the Gra and the Rambam about the desirability of this, it makes sense to have a means of living without using the Torah for making money.

There is some kind of spiritual awakening of the higher world when one is doing the 39 types of work in this world that correspond to the 39 of טל אורות אוריך (dew of light) and the 39 types of work by which the work was created. He saw in nature and in the study of nature a higher purpose. And if not for people that were making a religion of science, he would have shown how science and Torah are connected are one.
[Sometimes he hints to this like in the above example where he brings the idea that the tabernacle in the wilderness was like heaven and earth so work-i.e. doing any one of the 39 types of labor waken the corresponding component in the work of Creation]

Leviticus 4

Just a drop of background information. We want there to be separate penalties of doing any of the four services for idolatry. That is if one sacrificed an animal and then bowed to it, he would bring two goats instead of one to the Temple in Jerusalem. R. Aba  suggested in the Gemara that this might depend on the argument between Rabbi Jose and R. Natan. R.Josi says why does it say on Shabat not to light a fire--to tell us it is a prohibition. [Not Karet,cutting off from ones people. That is is only a prohibition.] R. Natan says to divide the works.
so in idolatry. "Bowing" [Deuteronomy 17] comes to tell us it is only a prohibition to R Josi, and R Natan would say to divide.






Rav Joseph said no to this idea. He said everyone agrees in idolatry that the four types of service are divided. And he learns it  the same way even in Shabat people learn the division of work.







 אם נפש אחת תחטא בשגגה  מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תיעשנה ועשה אחת מהנה  "If a soul sins by doing one of the commandments of God that are not allowed to be done and sins by doing one of them."

(from Leviticus 4:1)

We have got a whole different issue in Sanhedrin 62A about the words  אחת מהנה.
This seemed to me to be a little familiar from tractate Shabat 70, but I saw something unusual today.

The major issue here is if a person has any of the forbidden sexual relations brought in Leviticus 22 and 23 by accident [like having sex with his sister, or a male, or an animal, etc.] or eats a sacrifice outside of the specified area of the Temple or walks into the Temple before going to the a natural body of water [river or pond] and getting sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, then he has to bring a sacrifice.
But just to be a short as possible I wanted to concentrate on doing "one of them."
The basic idea here is this:
אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת
"One from one, them from them, one that is them, and them that is one."
The most obvious question here is the second drasha [extrapolation]. That is, we understand the first  extrapolation [drasha] perfectly well. It could have written "one" and instead it wrote "from one." That is obviously coming to tell us something. But what is the second extrapolation ? "Them from them." How, I ask, could it have written only "them." בעשותה הנה? That makes no sense! In Hebrew you would have to write אתהן! [Object form, not subject form!]


I think is this Rashi  thinks the whole word ''מהנה'' (from them) could have been dropped. That is at first glance it looks like the idea is it could have written הנה ''them'' and instead wrote ''from them'' מהנה. But that clearly is wrong because them הנה is not an object. This is what I think Rashi is pointing to in Tractate Shabat 70a  and also  Sanhedrin 62a; that it is the whole word that could have been left out.
That means that we understand sometimes he forgets one thing אחת "when a souls sins and does one"  and for that one he is obligated  several sin offerings "One that is a 'them'". and sometimes he does many acts and is obligated only one--"them that is 'one'"
That is just like in Shabat if one forgets that it is shabat and does many different types of work he is obligated only one sacrifice. If he knows it is shabat, but forgets  that certain type of work are forbidden, then he is obligated for every single type of work. So is the same for idolatry.


'

There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.

 There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.
If God would always bring plenty into the world people could learn Torah with no work. And this he sees as being the best option. But sometimes the flow of blessing is held up at one end, so people have to work. And that work itself is serve of God. It is however outer service. And it is considered inferior.
But it still brings blessing because the 39 types of labor awaken the 39 types of work that went into creating the universe. The dew of light-טל אורות טליך
this  clears up for me  the idea of Trust in God.


 And I had been reading the Madragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם by  Joseph Horowitz. And it was confusing to me how he could emphasize trust in God without doing any effort on one hand, and my seeing lots of statements in the Talmud about the importance of work.


In fact, for a couple of years I had been reading the ethical works of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius], and Israel Salanter also, and I could not make sense of it all. On one hand I knew the decision  of the Rambam/Maimonides and the general approach of the Talmud about combining work with Torah. On the other hand with the Gra the emphasis is with learning Torah.


Appendix:
1) The Madragat HaAdam says that:
מכאן שאין האדם צריך לשום השתדלות, אלא מה שנגזר על האדם יבוא ממילא, בלי שום סיבה כלל
"From here we learn that a person does not need to do anything, but what is decreed on him will come automatically without any effort on his part at all."

  That means--that one can learn Torah and does not have to work--because (1) you are trusting in God and when one trusts in God God will fulfill that trust,   and (2) one is doing what is obligatory on him by learning Torah.

  But this does not leave room for times when ones prayers are not answered. . There are times when God simply does not answer, and then one does have to work.The blessings can be held up because of all kinds of different reasons.


) The story about  Joseph Horwitz was that he was a student of Israel Salanter [the founder of the movement geared to tell people to learn Musar/Ethics]. He practiced this idea of trust in God  in Russia and his son in law was in Ponovitch (before Rav Menachem Shach) The Stipler. [Author of the Kehilat Yaakov ]

 I hope it is clear I am not implying in any way I have succeeded in reaching anything like these high levels. I am merely discussing goals which I wish I would have. I am the scum of the universe.
On the other hand there was a time I was trying to do this trust thing. And it did in fact work. It is just I think that once one has left the door closes behind him. But if someone could start out fresh, just learning Torah straight and not using it for money in any way but only to trust in Divine providence I think that things would work out.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need to learn Torah and do what it says

. But embedded in the very nature of things are solutions to these problems. For we find that a lot of times of Torah refers to the idea that a judgment is made in heaven against some person of group of persons. For example we have Sodom where there was a decree to destroy it. And yet a discussion God had with Abraham weakened the decree and in fact resulted in the coming into the world of Ruth [from the book of Ruth]-- the grandmother of King David.
Naaman the Syrian general had leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet. Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan river.
  He laughed at that and said "Are not the rivers of Ashur greater the little stream of the Jordan?"
  But his servant said, "What would you lose to try it?"
  He went and tried it and was cured.

The idea is sometimes there is a little thing one can do to turn around his whole life. One small mitzvah. Something that seems insignificant.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) also refers to this idea in a few places. But he concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need tolearn Torah and do what it says


But the idea that one can lessen judgments by doing some right action is a powerful idea. Especially if you think there actually is such a thing as a way to lessen judgments.
Sometimes in older books you find similar things. The Ari has a certain number of fasts one should do for certain sins. and he would also tell people to concentrate on certain Divine names during those fasts.
To some degree you might think this is an idea that can be abused and you are right.  But chemistry also can be misused, and auto repair manuals also.

My basic feeling is that the best way of lessening judgment is to learn Torah for its own sake. [That is the Oral Law and the Written Law.


Learning Torah in this sense does not mean you have to be doing it all day. What I am asking for is an hour every day of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot with a learning partner. After that, go to school, or go to work, or go to the beach and pray for waves and surf. [But don't speak Lashon Hara, gosip]
I do not think that God is automatically interested in human good. [See Schopenhauer.] I think that most of the time it is just the moral laws embedded in nature that act to reward and punish people. And there is no reason to think the First Cause has to be concerned with humans. But I also think that when humans decide to turn to Him in truth, then he is concerned.
So the logical thing to do would be to turn to Him, by Torah, prayer, and marriage

 But there was a time that my idea of service towards God was really that of the Gra-. That anything you do beside learning Torah is step down. It was understood that there are lots of mitzvahs one must do in situations when no one else can do them like the law is decide din the Talmud, but still mitzvahs are not considered as precious as learning Torah. And I can't disagree with this because to  a large degree I think it did help me in quite amazing ways. When I learned Torah in such a fashion and with that type of commitment, I got married, had children, had a kosher means of living, went to Israel etc. Everything was working just like it was supposed to in theory. Theory and experiment matched perfectly. I did my end of the bargain-- I learned Torah and God kept his end of the bargain. "Anyone who accepts on themselves the yoke of Torah they take away from him the yoke of government and the yoke of making a living." [Mishna in Pirkei Avot.]

If you have more than an hour to learn, the my feeling is  to learn the Mishna, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Tosephta and Sifri and Sifra and all the writings of the Ari. ''a little is also good.'' and learn every day a little bit of each book. and just open a Talmud and learn a page of Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and put in a place marker and the next day go to the next page. etc. and similarly with all the above sessions. And also all the books of Musar/ethics in the same way.
Don't worry if you do not understand at first. Just say the words in order and you will automatically understand. And if you don't understand right away you will eventually understand. And even if eventually you do not understand--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else.

The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, and have destroyed once and for all the American family the enemies of morality, and decency, and the Bible.

There are groups  of people that are dedicated to the overthrow of the USA. Many are in the USA itself. This is not remarkable to see. You can ask them yourself and they will tell you as much straight out. I did that in the 1970's and people said to me openly and exactly what their plans were.' 'We are going to take down America." Quote, unquote.
I claim that this was predicted in 1800 by a  short story about the seven beggars in which there was a  utopia (like the USA used to be), and there was an evil king that wanted to destroy it. But he could not destroy it from without, so he sent in his slaves. The taste and flavor of everything was ruined.  Then a person came along to correct it, and discovered how the slaves had managed to destroy it. By lewd speech, by making a vocation of bringing law suits and one other thing I forget. [Maybe I will look up the story.] [Later note: I might be wrong, but it occurs to me the third thing was dealing with non kosher sexual relations.] The only solution in the story was to send the evil king's slaves away. And when the slaves left, everything returned to normal.

Note: The short stories come in a volume of 13 stories that he said and Reb Natan wrote down. If you only read English I think the "Na Nach" people have a good translation.-- The story I refer to here is the last one.
But here, I think, it makes sense to say over who these slaves are. The present occupant of the White House would be one example.  In a nut shell the evil king's slaves today are the Democrats. The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, that turned NASA into an outreach program for Muslims instead of getting to space, and have destroyed once and for all the American family, the enemies of morality and decency and the Bible. They are also people that pretend to be keeping the Torah, but using it in fact to destroy Jewish families.



I think there is some support from the Geon Eliyahu from Vilnius concerning this idea also. \" They are (the Zohar says) the "Erev Rav/the mixed multitude" that penetrated the Jewish people from the inside to try to destroy us.



I am not happy to be using the word rabbi for them because rabbi is in fact a legitimate idea. It is the term the Talmud uses for people that had ordination by an unbroken link from Moses and onward. this position ceased to exist pretty soon after the beginning of  the Talmudic period. We say for example Rabbi Yochanan to indicate he had this ordination. He may have been one of the last to get it. Also we have Rabbi Yehuda Ben Levi. Both sages that were right at the beginning of the Talmud period.
People of the Talmud that did not have it are called Rav. A kind of fake ordination was started during the Middle ages and this fraud has continued until this very day among Ashkenazim.  Sefardim on the other hand always called their scholars "Chacham."{wise man or sage} This has the great advantage of not being  a scam.

The best approach to Torah as far as I can tell is that of my father Philip Rosten (and mother, Leila). [Rosenbloom was the original family name.] That would be Torah with the Way of Men.  In Hebrew that is תורה עם דרך ארץ. This might be hard for me to describe because I don't think I ever got the lesson down pat. But because there could be people out there that might understand it better than me so I will give the idea over as well as I can.
If you know Yiddish the best way of expressing this is "to be a mensch." [He was an US Air-force captain, a scientist, and inventor of laser communication between satellites for NASA, etc.]
To be a mensch is actually on one one hand is not hard to describe. It really means going to school learning an honest profession, learning Torah after school. And not using Torah to make money. It means being self sufficient. It is being honest, reliable, loyal and never telling a lie except under extreme circumstances. In fact the Boy Scout motto pretty much covers it.

It is a highly balanced approach. So on one hand we see the Geon from Vilnius emphasizing learning Torah and Reb Israel Salanter emphasizing learning the books of ethics that were written to explain the moral aspects of Torah. And we have  the path of Navardok of Trusting in God with no effort. And all this would be considered important aspects of Torah to my Dad. But it would just be aspects of Torah. Not Torah itself. And it should all be taken with balance and equilibrium.
On the other hand he would see lots of aspects of Torah not covered by the aforementioned approaches.
Truth, Honor, Justice, self reliance, never letting down and friend. Never lying. Working for a living with an honest and clean profession. These are all parts and aspects of Torah. I can't say I followed this very well.

The world was created and sustained by the ten statements of Creation [chapter one of Genesis]. That is the Torah is the essence of everything. So it is possible to serve God through everything. This would go with the Rambam that hold the mitzvas have a purpose, and they are not ends in themselves. And to reach that end Rabbi Shimon holds the actual halacha itself changes. Rabbi Yehuda holds it does not. But all agree that the is a knowable purpose to the mitzvot except for the red heifer.

Learning Torah was considered as a primary value by Eliyahu (Elijah) from Vilnius.


There is no mitzvah to support anyone for learning Torah that learns it for money or who says so. If they say they are learning for money, I think we can trust them. But there is a mitzvah to support those who learn Torah not for money  but for its own sake.
This might seem like a small difference but people are always conservative and strict about things they know well. To me sitting at a baseball game in the stands, the difference between a curve ball and the other many varieties of pitches seems imperceptible. But to the person up to bat, the difference is like day and night.

What I wanted to say was how the idea of the primary value learning Torah comes from the Torah and Talmud.



In the USA, public school used to be a decent option for people. But sadly it has become propaganda  indoctrination centers for politically correct thinking. This is what makes me think the  approach is best where teenagers go to the high school in the afternoon and do their Torah studies in the morning. But normal private schools are probably not that different from public schools nowadays. What people need according to my way of thinking is Torah. An where there is Torah, then everything else becomes right.
What people need to do that have no choice but to send their children to public school is at least after school to give them a religious education. That should be short, but sweet. That would be Torah [the Five Books of Moses in Hebrew], Mishna, Talmud, and Tosphot. [Learning Torah is not to make people religious but to give people Torah values.] That is for week days. For weekends I suggest "Talk with God" camping trips.
That is to go to a forest with supplies. Set up base camp. And then to have to whole day available to wander by yourself and  talk with God. The idea of talking with God is to talk with Him as one talks with a friend or  parents and tell him all ones problems and all that is happening to him or her and ask for help. And also not to forget to thank him for all the good.