The Golden Calf and Joining something to God.

R. Meir said that if not for the vav in "These are your gods Israel which brought you out of Egypt," the Jewish people would have been destroyed. The vav meant they were not denying that God brought them out, but rather God and the Golden calf. ["These are your gods," not "this is your god"].
R. Shimon Ben Yochai said joining (שיתוף) is liable destruction. So rather it means they desired many gods.
 How is R Shimon answering R Meir?
I think he is claiming "joining" is worse than regular idolatry.
At least that is how Rashi explains this saying that they in fact accepted other gods.
In any case, I think we can see clearly from this Gemara what the problem with the Golden Calf was. It was either adding something to god [that is R Meir's opinion] or it was worshiping another god in which case joining would have been worse.

Now once I was connected with Moharosh's group in Safed and I think they were giving hell to the local rav. [I am not sure of all the details but I think they had tried to take over a local building under building 7, to make it a Breslov shul. That is a law in Israel that once a building has been made into a synagogue you can't do anything with it after that.] In any case the Rav was bothered and so made  a speech that was critical of Breslov. The idea of the speech was that the problem with the golden calf was not that they denied God but they said the God is everywhere and in everything and so it was the part of God in the Golden Calf that brought them out of Egypt. I felt he was being critical of me, but later I decided that I was mistaken in that notion. [Later he invited me back to the community after I had left so clearly he was not mad at me. ] Rather I think he was just being critical of that group. But was that in fact the problem with the Golden Calf?  Not according to our Gemara here in Sanhedrin 63. Here in Sanhedrin 63, the Gemara is thinking God  made the world and he is not the world. The trouble with the Golden Calf was adding something onto God. "Joining."
But what that rav said might be true anyway. It is just that you don't see it in our Gemara. They were not subtracting but rather they were adding. 

)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים בלי רב? שכרת כתובה רק אצל גידוף. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. זה הגמרא. השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על מעשה, וכרת נכתב רק על דיבור במצב של מזיד."כי השם הוא מגדף". מה שהגמרא מכוונת כאן היא שע''ז חייב קרבן בגלל שקרבן נכתב הפירוש אצלה ויש היקש מ"אלה אלהיך ישראל" ל מעשה ע''ז. ומה היתה ההווא אמינא? שאין חיוב ע''ז אלא אם כן נכתב כרת אצלה. וכרת נכתב רק בפרשת שלח לגבי ע''ז במזיד


The Talmud in Sanhedrin wants to find a way of getting saying "You are my god" to a false god to be liable a sin offering. It can't do this except to R Akiva who says bowing is liable, and bowing is not considered a pure act. [I think because it does not act on anything.] But if we had R Akiva alone we might not know that saying you are my god to a false god would also be liable because cutting off is written only by cursing. So Rav informs us that saying "You are my god" is also liable a sin offering because of a juxtaposition "They bowed and sacrificed and said these are your gods O Israel."

The question was how does this work? We have a juxtaposition היקש from "You are my god" to idolatry but there is no cutting off written by regular accidental idolatry  only for idolatry done on purpose and for that there is no sacrifice.


The important thing to realize here is that cutting off is not written by accidental idolatry. So what the Talmud means is we know regular idolatry is liable a sin offering because a sin offering is written by it explicitly, at the end of Parshat Shelach  Number 16. So we have a היקש from saying "You are my god" to regular idolatry.

In any case, the way the Talmud puts this is difficult. We have R. Akiva saying bowing is liable a sacrifice. Then the Talmud says If we had had only this statement of R Akiva I might have thought that is liable because it is גידוף blasphemy and for blasphemy there is a כרת that is openly written. So now with Rav we know saying you are my god is also liable because of our היקשץ

This last paragraph I am just saying over what the Gemara says. But what is difficult here is this: In the parshah where we have a sacrifice for doing idolatry Numbers 16 גידוף blasphemy is not mentioned at all.  And right after that when it does mention גידוף it is talking about doing idolatry on purpose for which there is no sacrifice. There is something going on here I just can't figure out.











Appendix;

Introduction: In the Talmud we have a statement of Rav that one who says to an idol "You are my god" is liable.

The Talmud asks liable for what? If the death penalty when he does it knowingly, then that is anyway what is says in the  Mishna. [Rav has told us nothing new and that is not good. He would not have just repeated the Mishna unless he would say that that is what he is doing.]

So he must have meant he is liable to bring a she goat [a sin offering]--the sacrifice prescribed by the Torah for doing idolatry by accident.
The Talmud asks that this does not seem to be like the Sages but only like Rabbi Akiva. [And that is not very good. We already know the law is not like Rabbi Akiva against more than one sage. If he would be arguing with only one other person that would be different.]
Where do you have this argument? In a Braita [teaching] that says:  One is liable to bring  a sin offering only for an act, e.g. bowing, pouring, burning, and sacrifice.

Reish Lakish said, "That is coming to Rabbi Akiva who said the law is one can be liable even when there is not a perfect act, but even just a small act like bowing."
The Gemara concludes that you have to say that the statement of Rav is coming only like Rabbi Akiva. (Even though the Talmud is obviously not happy with this.)

"So what might have we thought?", the Talmud continues. That being cut off from ones people is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by means of a hekeih היקש -אתקושי אתקש-juxtaposition that God told Moses, "Go down from this mountain because the people gave sacrificed and bowed down and said these are your gods Oh Israel."

End of introduction.

So what is the obvious question here? It is that we start out not being happy with a obligation to bring a sin offering for speech. In the middle of the discussion we discovered that R.Akiva makes one liable even for bowing which is an act with no object.  So we decided that for speech also R Akiva would say one can be liable even though it is an act with no object.
But then look what happened. "We might have thought that כרת cutting off is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by this juxtaposition. for idolatry.
We know you need an act to bring a sin offering because of Leviticus 4. ועשה אחת מהנה. And we know כרת  is written by idolatry in Numbers 16 where it gives the rules for the high priest,  the king, the congregation, and an individual to bring a sacrifice for idolatry. But there it is speech that is singled out. The verse says "This is the law for one who does by accident, but one who acts on purpose will be cut off from his people, he has blasphemed God." So what do we learn from the  היקש juxtaposition? That acts are also liable! Not just words.
So we learn from speech to acts. What the Talmud is trying to do is to learn from acts to speech. So what is going on? Could it be the Talmud is trying to answer for R. Akiva, and not Rav as it seems? Any suggestions?


)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים? שכרת אינו כתוב אצל עבודה זרה. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. סוף ההקדמה.השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על דיבור

Can one be liable to bring  a sin offering if he accepts a false god in his heart without saying anything?
This would be practical if it were the case. He could come to the the court of law and say he accepted some god like Allah or Brahman, and asks if he must bring a female goat. And they say "Yes." I could go further, but I think clearly you can't be liable for thoughts of idolatry.
If you were, then why does the Talmud in Sanhedrin bend over backwards to find a way to make liable  someone who said to a false god, "You are my god?" And it has to conclude it is only like R. Akiva, and it obviously is not happy with that fact, because that would push it out of the realm of Jewish Law. [The law we know goes by the majority. But there are many exceptions. Still in this case it is an established principle: The law is like R. Akiva against his friend, but not against his friends.    הלכה כרבי עקיבה כנגד חבירו ולא כנגד חבריו]

Now I have to mention that the Gemara is not involved in the issue of the death penalty for when one does idolatry on purpose. It knows that there is an open verse that one who bows to a false god gets the death penalty. It is only bothered by the question of-- if the guy does it by accident, does he bring a sin offering? And that is where the Talmud is bothered because for a sin offering we need some act with an object. [See the discussion of Prichard of the British school of Intuitionists about what constitutes an act. But in our case here we see the Talmud considers an act to be only something that has an object.- not bowing, and not words.]

Of course, you can imagine this got me thinking about דברים שבלב אינם דברים - קידושין דף מט
ב words in the heart are not words [Kidushin 49 Ketubot 75 and see the Rashba  Shelomo ben Aderet on that Gemara in Kidushin  who has the idea that this is only when the words in the heart contradict some act. (That is his idea. You won't find it in Tosphot.) [Not the same as the Rashba of Tosphot who is Shimshon ben Avraham]  [What I mean is that the thought can make him obligated in a sin offering even if he say nothing. The court can't make him obligated but he knows himself that he is obligated.]

And Rav Elazar  Shach [author of the Avi Ezri] says that applies specifically where one makes an act by means of his words.

In any case, you are obviously thinking about the Gemara at the end of Hulin about guy who was sending off the mother bird from the eggs and fell and got killed, and the Gemara suggest that it was because he might have been thinking thoughts about idolatry.  For thoughts one does have to bring a burnt offering, which can be brought  just like a peace offering. It does not have any conditions attached to it. You get get up in the morning and say "There is  upon me to bring a peace offering" or "a burnt offering." But you can't do this with a sin offering which can be brought only for very specific things.

The main engine of yeshivas in NY is the idea ביטול תורה כנגד כולם. Lack of learning Torah is equal to all the other sins put together.
It is not the idea that learning Torah is equal to all the mitzvot put together. If learning Torah was just a nice mitzvah there would be little reason for yeshiva.
But this idea that lack of learning Torah is equal to all the other sins together means that Torah is an obligation on every person.
And the idea that lack of learning torah when one is able to learn is a sin has a good source in the gemara in Sanhedrin כי דבר השם בזה הכרת תכרת הנפש ההיא מקרב עמה זה מי שאפשר לו ללמוד ואינו לומד.
This would be the reason why I myself went against my parents wishes and went to yeshiva instead of to university. I felt learning Torah was that important. Still in hindsight I  see that my parents were right and if I could go back, I would have learned half a day in the yeshiva, and spent the other half in Brooklyn Collage.

I know there are different opinions about this issue. Some people think that one should learn Torah all the time and that is that. That is in fact the general approach of Lithuanian yeshivas in Israel. In fact, in Israel if one works and learns he is considered a second class citizen in the Charedi world. Forget about decent shidduchim for his children. People won't touch him with a ten foot pole.
And based on the statement in the Talmud about the importance of learning all the time it is hard to argue with the Israeli approach.
I don't have a clear resolution to this matter, but I think that a possible solution goes like this: If you are learning Torah and you don't let go for any reason, then there will be help from heaven that you can continue to learn. But if you let go, even a little bit, then you will not be able to get back to it. And if you try to get back to it after you gave it up --it will blow up in your face. It won't be real Torah you will get back to, but some false pseudo Torah. [I can't explain this. It is just what I think I see happens.]
I can' answer this contradiction and I don't minimize its importance. But I can minimize the area of conflict.
I claim there is much less of a controversy here than people think. Litvaks traditionally had a side learning project. And we know the Rambam held that one must learn Physics and Metaphysics. I think that areas outside STEM subjects in fact should be shut down in universities. I can't see any good in any of the social or humanities departments  in most colleges.

Sanhedrin 63

Introduction: In the Talmud we have a statement of Rav that one who says to an idol "You are my god" is liable.

The Talmud asks liable for what? If the death penalty when he does it knowingly, then that is anyway what is says in the  Mishna. [Rav has told us nothing new and that is not good. He would not have just repeated the Mishna unless he would say that that is what he is doing.]

So he must have meant he is liable to bring a she goat [a sin offering]--the sacrifice prescribed by the Torah for doing idolatry by accident.
The Talmud asks that this does not seem to be like the Sages but only like Rabbi Akiva. [And that is not very good. We already know the law is not like Rabbi Akiva against more than one sage. If he would be arguing with only one other person that would be different.]
Where do you have this argument? In a Braita [teaching] that says:  One is liable to bring  a sin offering only for an act, e.g. bowing, pouring, burning, and sacrifice.

Reish Lakish said, "That is coming to Rabbi Akiva who said the law is one can be liable even when there is not a perfect act, but even just a small act like bowing."
The Gemara concludes that you have to say that the statement of Rav is coming only like Rabbi Akiva. (Even though the Talmud is obviously not happy with this.)

"So what might have we thought?", the Talmud continues. That being cut off from ones people is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by means of a hekeih היקש -אתקושי אתקש-juxtaposition that God told Moses, "Go down from this mountain because the people gave sacrificed and bowed down and said these are your gods Oh Israel."

End of introduction.

So what is the obvious question here? It is that we start out not being happy with a obligation to bring a sin offering for speech. In the middle of the discussion we discovered that R.Akiva makes one liable even for bowing which is an act with no object.  So we decided that for speech also R Akiva would say one can be liable even though it is an act with no object.
But then look what happened. "We might have thought that כרת cutting off is not written by idolatry. So now we know it is by this juxtaposition. for idolatry.
We know you need an act to bring a sin offering because of Leviticus 4. ועשה אחת מהנה. And we know כרת  is written by idolatry in Numbers 16 where it gives the rules for the high priest,  the king, the congregation, and an individual to bring a sacrifice for idolatry. But there it is speech that is singled out. The verse says "This is the law for one who does by accident, but one who acts on purpose will be cut off from his people, he has blasphemed God." So what do we learn from the  היקש juxtaposition? That acts are also liable! Not just words.
So we learn from speech to acts. What the Talmud is trying to do is to learn from acts to speech. So what is going on? Could it be the Talmud is trying to answer for R. Akiva, and not Rav as it seems? Any suggestions?

 
)סנהדרין סג. הקדמה. רב אמר האומר לעבודה זרה אלי אתה חייב. התלמוד שואל חייב במה? אם מיתה זה כבר כתוב במשנה. אלא להביא קרבן חטאת. אבל אם זה נכון אז רב אמר משפטו רק לפי דעת רבי עקיבה שאמר בן אדם חייב גם על מעשה קטן למשל השתטחות. ומה היינו חושבים? שכרת אינו כתוב אצל עבודה זרה. קא משמע לן שיש היקש ויזבחו וישתחוו ויאמרו אלה אלהיך ישראל. סוף ההקדמה.השאלה כאן היא שהגמרא התחילה לשאול על דיבור. מפריע לגמרא שבן אדן יהיה חייב קרבן על דיבור. ואז היא מביאה פסוק שיש בו היקש בין דיבור ומעשה. זה אמור להורות שיש חיוב על דיבור. אבל קרבן ע''ז נכתב דווקא על דיבור

I am not so upset about "yes" means "yes." Mainly my feeling is that people should marry young. That is right after high school I think people should spend about 4 years in yeshiva learning Talmud and girls should be in seminary. During that time they should get married. Then after that work or collage. And this aspect that collages in the USA are becoming more puritan is I think a good sign.

And what starts in California inevitably goes east and more east and west. Though I suffered greatly in yeshiva but now I can see that the whole thing was good for me. I know there are people that have legitimate complaints about yeshiva but it is after a human institution with human failings. Still it is the best thing out there.

But the  yeshiva can't be a cult yeshiva. Those are easy to spot. What you need is a place like Ponovitch or Mercaz HaRav. It is usually very clear the distinction between an authentic yeshiva  and a cult yeshiva.

Guns and the 2nd amendment just saved a whole crowd in Chicago.

A group of people had been walking in front of the driver around 11:50 p.m. in the 2900 block of North Milwaukee Avenue when Everardo Custodio, 22, began firing into the crowd, Quinn said.

The driver pulled out a handgun and fired six shots at Custodio, hitting him several times, according to court records.  Responding officers found Custodio lying on the ground, bleeding, Quinn said.  No other injuries were reported.

If The Supreme Court hadn’t corrected decades of Progressive attacks on the 2nd amendment, the only person who would’ve been armed in this story is the bad guy. The Uber driver wouldn’t have even been able to stop to help. He’d have been defenseless.

Thanks to conservatives and libertarians, that Uber driver was an armed hero waiting to happen, and everyone lived.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/04/drive-hard-bad-guy-with-a-gun-stopped-by-good-uber-driver-with-a-gun/#ixzz3Xwvl2ryg

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-uber-driver-shoots-gunman-met-0420-20150419-story.html

In the Far East we have pure pantheism and in the West pure materialism. People do not feel God in their daily lives at all. In the Far East all people feel is Brahman . Israel certainly seems to have this ground of Monotheism in which people feel God, but not to the degree of going overboard towards Pantheism nor in the other direction towards materialism.
Now during that time I thought pantheism was normal Yiddishkeit. I had no reason to think otherwise.


Now most of that time I knew that pantheism was at least defensible because of Spinoza. But some questions started popping up about Spinoza. I read a book about Aristotle at Hebrew University and the author made a point to mention that Spinoza puts more constraints on substance than does Aristotle. I realized just take away those constraints and the whole edifice falls. Later in Netivot I saw the critique of Leibniz. Now all this time I knew that pantheism is not mentioned in any traditional authentic book. But the way Rav Shick was presenting it was that it was some deep secret that they were hiding.
The thing that convinced me that Spinoza was not correct was that I discovered the website of Kelly Ross. I discovered that website when doing some research on Spinoza. It was not any particular question Kelly Ross asked, but  the problems between the empiricists and the rationalists and the approach of Kant  that convinced me that Spinoza was just one step towards some proper approach.
Now we know the approach of the Rambam and Saadia Gaon is Monotheism but without the Kant school it is very hard to brings Maimonides down to earth in a concrete easy way to understand.
The Guide of the Rambam is known to be dense and difficult.
Another thing which woke me up was an essay by a person that had been in some Hindu cult in Southern California. The author had some critique along the lines that thinking everything is God doesn't make people better.  (The same author also wrote a book  Saved from the Darkness. His name is  Brad Scott, I think)

In Sanhedrin 63  we have an argument between two Sages of the Mishna about what the problem with the Golden Calf was. They both agree it was  שיתוף [joining] something to God, but to the first sage that is not pure idolatry. To Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai it is pure idolatry. Why not define idolatry as according to the number of gods one worships or the identity of the god? This is the unspoken problem I have been thinking about for a few days that got me to realize what the Talmud is getting at.  In the Talmud God is the Creator and everything else is created. To add anything to God and saying it has "godliness" is what the Talmud calls שיתוף joining.






To understand idolatry it seems you can classify it by  Advaita or pantheism will be on one end of the spectrum in the Far East. Then as you are on the longitude of Jerusalem you have Monotheism (God made the world and he is not the world). Then you go West and You have Monotheism, but with one person besides God also being God. And who you pick seems to be a matter of taste. The further you go West, the more you get materialism. In  the furthest west in Japan you get Buddhism which is zero-theism. And right between Japan and India the two lines meet so we find in fact Buddhism and Advaita being very similar. [Buddhism is atheism according to the Dalai Lama. I figure he must know.]

 Rav Shick [nicknamed "Mohorosh"] printed the books of Reb Nachman  Then started the period of the small pamphlets.


In his books, he would have regular statements of the Sages, but also throw in a statement of the Zohar איהו ממלא כל עלמין וסובב כל עלמין "He fill all worlds, and surrounds all worlds." And then he would add his signature statement אין שום מציאות בלעדיו כלל  "Nothing exists besides him." And sometimes also throw in his second signature statement  הכל אלקות גמור. ["Everything is pure godliness."]


In  letters he wrote "everything is the infinite light" הכל אור אין סוף ב''ה and "everything is the infinite one." הכל אין סוף ב''ה
All this comes from the Remak {Moshe Cordovero.} as quoted by the Shelah Hakadosh. That is probably where the Baal Shem Tov picked up the idea.

From what it is possible to tell this all might be an innocent mistake. We would say that nothing exists without God. Simple.  And this is all the Remak (Moshe Cordovero) meant. But it snowballed all out of proportion. By the time it got to the disciples of the Baal Shem Tov, Pantheism became the official doctrine. And Rav Shick being raised in a Satmar home thought it was traditional Torah thought. [And he never read the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam so there is no reason to think he would ever have become aware of authentic Jewish theology.]
He father was a friend and disciple of the Satmar Rav, Reb Joel.
Later on, this got mixed up with the Tzimtzum [contraction of the infinite light ] as a kind of way of defending pantheism.
With the Ari (Isaac Luria) we have none of this. Everything above Emanation is godliness, and everything below is not.  And that is straight from the Zohar itself. And this is in fact what we see in Nachmanides concerning the Golden Calf and the interface between God and his creation and his creatures. Obviously with the Rambam {Maimonides} only God will have godliness and everything else will not.

 In conclusion a taxonomy of idolatry will be how much outside of  God , the God of the Torah, the Five Books of Moses] is considered God. In the East everything.  That is Shankara. Then you move  a bit West and you get Ramanuja where there are gradations. Then on the longitude of Jerusalem you get Monotheism. Then in Europe you add one person. Until you get to Buddhism or zero-theism.

Now we understand the Talmud in Sanhedrin 63 about joining things to God being the problem with the golden calf. And we understand now why the Talmud takes this approach to idolatry and not the more natural thing to discuss the number of gods.
And now we can understand the Geon from Vilna (Vilnius). H could have put any number of groups into excommunication.  There were plenty of Shatz [Shabatai Tzvi] groups around. (Every city had its secret Shatz group especially in the Ukraine) But the Shatz was not claiming pantheism. Nor were his followers.
The Gra saw something more sinister in panentheism. He saw it as a sneaky way to direct worship towards people while pretending to be kosher.

Appendix and notes:

1) Reb Nachman said not to learn the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam nor any books that deal with Jewish Theology written by the Rishonim. And this is good advice from one aspect because those books are about orientation not learning Torah proper. Learning Torah proper means the Oral and written law, not books of theology. On the other hand for Rav Shick, the lack of knowledge about the מורה נבוכים the Guide had the result that he did not know that Judaism is Monotheism, not Pantheism. This was certainly in his case an honest mistake. He thought that when Reb nachman emphasized the importance of Faith that he was talking about pantheism when in fact Reb Nachman was referring to Monotheism. And this error has come to permeate all of Breslov including Na Nach.
[In Breslov looking at The Guide for the Perplexed or any book of authentic Jewish theology by any of the Rishonim (who were by all accounts the only people qualified to write such books) is considered a very great crime. I mean if you don't think the Rambam know what Torah is about then who does? But this creates the perfect storm. You have people intensely interested in what the Torah is about and yet can't open any authentic book of Jewish thought like Saadia Gaon or the Rambam to find out.  And after a few years these same people after spending all their time reading just Breslov books go out and write more Breslov books all in complete utter innocence of what the Torah says or means.
Now of course Reb Nachman himself is perfectly authentic and legitimate. He is simply coming from the school of thought of  Nachmanides and the Arizal. I have no complaints about that. On the contrary I find his books to be very helpful. It is just people that later write what they claim to be books based on Reb Nachman that I find to be problematic since they are always being written in ignorance of Torah






2) Brahman in Advaita is the only thing that exists. See the Bhagavad Gita with the commentary of Sankara for a detailed exposition of this point of view that is coming from a more religious perfective than Spinoza. Brahma the Creator of the Universe is created and exist for only one day of Brahman so this is not the same thing as  the Torah's point of view. (Spinoza is a bit close to Torah with his distinction between "Nature" and Nature naturing.")

Here is a link to a new paper by Michael Huemer

http://studiahumana.com/pliki/wydania/In%20Praise%20of%20Passivity.pdf

or look at http://www.owl232.net/





 Philosophers today (and thus have tended to be except for the notable exceptions of Kant, Descartes, and Leibnitz. ) tend to be innocent when it comes to science.



So when philosophers today make false statements about a field I know something about it tends to turn me off. And if the errors get too dense then I simply stop reading that philosopher. And postmodern philosophy is built on errors so I tend to not look at it at all. See Jerold Katz's book who mentions this problem.

The בן סורר ומורה rebellious son has to fulfill a lot of conditions before he can be liable. Too many for it to be practical.
But this mitzvah does tell us something about honoring ones parents--that it is so serious as for the Torah to give a death penalty to one who does not obey his or her parents.
That means Torah considers this mitzvah to be more than just serious. Now we can understand that this does not apply when a parent is telling one to do something against the Torah. But that is not the usual case  when children or teenagers rebel.

But what I find interesting is the Torah in general does not command openly about respect to anyone. Respect towards kings, or prophets, or even priests is no where commanded in the Torah.
The only human beings the Torah tells to to respect and obey are our two flesh and blood parents. Not spiritual parents. Our actual physical -in this world- parents.
Why is this mitzvah so universally ignored is beyond me.
There is an interesting idea on this subject from the Naphtali Troup [The green book you see in yeshivas]. But I don't have than book with me now but if you can find it I remember he had some good ideas about this subject.

Rav Shach  thought that the kind of Lithuanian yeshivas that were built on the European model were the  sole source of Torah in this generation.And in particular he mentioned the idea that learning Talmud together with Musar was the sole means for Torah to continue. There is a lot to be said for this. But mainly we can see that his intention was that people should learn Torah whatever way that would be possible. And for people beyond the age of yeshiva [18-24] there is not much choice but to learn Torah at home.
 But it is probable that Rav Shach was thinking of the idea of kollels. In Israel I was a part of this system and it is basically geared so that people can learn Torah their whole lives--and it is supported by the State of Israel. In NY this kollel system I think is supported by the State of NY but I am not sure. It might be from the Federal government.--I never asked. The wife of Shmuel Berenbaum was in the office all day long taking care of the business matters of the yeshiva while her husband did the learning and teaching. All the people in the kollel, including myself, just simply were handed a check every month by Rav Handlesman [or his son] who was her assistant.

In any case, the major idea of Rav Shach was that learning Torah is a requirement for every person from young to old, sick or healthy, etc. and no one is exempt.
This idea I have found is almost impossible to relay to people. And whenever I have tried to express this idea to people I have encountered a lot of resistance.

But the fact is it is this idea of Torah being an obligation on everyone which forms the basis of the idea of Rav Shach that since most people are not learning Torah as much as they ought, therefore the only place where the Torah is found is in Lithuanian yeshivas where at least the ideal is nurtured.

Now the idea that Torah is important you can find in a statement of the Gra

But for right now I want to quote the Gra: "Everything that was, is, and will be is all contained in the Torah from "In the beginning God created.. until in the eyes of all Israel," [the Five Books of Moses]- not just the generalities, but the specifics of every species, and every single person and everything that happened to him from the day he was born until his last breath and everything in between, and also every living creature,--everything that will happen to each one individually. Everything that is said about the Patriarchs and Moses is in every generation. For they and their sparks are in every generation. And all of that is  contained in the first section of the Torah from Genesis until the story of Noah. And also in the first chapter of Genesis. And in the first seven words of the Torah--from the beginning until the end of time."


The letters of the Torah are the life force of everything that exists. On the face of it this idea looks different but you can see that since the Torah is the source of all life and being then it all must be contained in the Torah.
 it is possible to find Torah everywhere and in everything. but the letters of Torah are not always shining. The lights might be turned off. To find the light of God and Torah in things requires a kind of merit. It is not by knowing by means of kabalah what letters are in things. It requires a kind of sexual purity in order for the letters to shine.


Appendix:
I tend to agree with Rav Shach and his was the general yeshiva approach in those days.  The basic idea of Rav Shach is that in every waking moment everyone should be learning Torah except for the time needed to be making  a living. And it is agreed in this approach that Torah is not to be used to make money. And that makes the kollel thing awkward.   In any case the idea of kollel is that they  receive money in order to learn, not learning to receive money. That is at least the theory behind the whole thing. In practice things have evolved so that kollel becomes  a way to make money.

In any case, in this approach it is hard to find time for other areas of value. One can in theory claim he is finding letters of the Torah in other activities when that might be just an excuse. So the great yeshivas in Israel I still think are worthy of support. I can even name a few for those who are interested. Ponovitch, Mercaz HaRav of Rav Cook, Tifrach [I have heard tremendous praises but I have not seen the place, and Rav Montag's Kollel in Netivot which seems more like a full fledged yeshiva rather than a kollel, and Rav Zilverman's Aderet Eliyahu in the Old City of Jerusalem. All these places I think are worthy of support.--though again I have never seen Tifrach but from what I have heard it is off the map.]

Does one have to say something to a false god in order to be liable?
Well clearly not when it comes to the four services or for עבודה כדרכה (service according to the way it is usually served e.g. throwing stones at an idol that that is its way of being served.)
That is five things. But there is a sixth way of being liable for idolatry--and that is to accept it as ones god. Does that need a word?





In tractate Kidushin pg 50 it says דברים שבלב אינם דברים words in the heart are not words.
There is a Tosphot in Ketubot  that deals with the difference between words in the heart are not words and the conditions of the children of Gad and Reuven when they came into the Land of Israel. They had to make a condition that had in it "sic et non" (yes and no). "If we go up and make war with the inhabitants then we will inherit our portion. And if we do not go up and make war then will will not inherit." I forgot that Tosphot.
This is also relevant to what you find that women go up to a certain point in sexual activity and then  do not want to go further. That is very common. Even in cuddling. And now in collages women bring rape charges not because they said "no" but because they did not say "yes." "Yes" means "yes."



But what I wanted to mention here is that Shelomo Ben Aderet [the Rashba] said that words in the heart are not words only when the contradict one actions or spoken words.

Now all this is just preliminary. I have not yet studied the actual Gemara that I am tried to deal with here with my learning partner. That is the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 63 a.
But just off hand we know already that for truma [the tithe given to the priest] and sacrifices to the Temple that words in the heart are words. But that is OK. The Talmud already said in Kidushin that these are derived from two verses and so we don't learn from them a general principle. שני כתובים הבאים כאחד אין מלמדים.
This the Rashba answered in his way that there the actions and words in the heart correspond.
But then why would the Gemara have to learn this from special verses? Rav Shach (Elazar Menachem Shach) said that there is a difference when something is accomplished by the word one speaks. For example getting married. קידושין. We know from verses in the Bible that one has to say something like, "Behold you are married to me by this ring according to the Law of Moses and Israel."

And there are places where we don't need words except to show intention--the words themselves accomplish nothing. In Yeshivish jargon they don't make a "חלות"

According to this in idolatry one would not need words to be liable.

If one does not need a word to be liable then the Mishna in Sanhedrin pg 62 side b is hard to understand. "המקבלו כאלוה והאומר לו אלי אתה" One who accepts it and says to it you are my god. is liable. What does that mean? You need both or either? Et or vel?

In any case the Talmud goes into the question, "Why is saying a word liable?" It seems to take it as a given that that the mishna is all one clause.

Does this apply to people? Can people be idols? Well obviously according to the Rambam in the 13 principles of faith. [Not the redaction the Sidur but in his actual commentary to the Mishna].
But what you see in the Gemara in Sanhedrin 63 is that joining something to God is also a problem. To Rabbi Shimon it is straightforward idolatry. To Rabbi Meir it is not. In any case it seems to be a problem to Rabbi Meir also.

Appendix
In the tithe [truma] to the priest if one puts his mind on one side of the wheat stack to call it the tithe"truma" he is allowed to eat from another side. There is a special verse to show this. So there words in the heart are words. But in a case where one sold something with intention to go to the land of Israel and was stopped from doing so--but he did not say anything about that condition--then words in the heart are not words. The sale goes through.
In marriage if she says, "You are married to me," and gives him a ring, she is not married. Only the man can say, "You are married to me." If she says give money to so and so and I will be married to you by that, she is maybe married. It is a doubt.  Because in marriage we need a word to make an act.

Salaries are a price, just as the price of chocolate is a price. Fast Food Workers: You Don’t Deserve $15 an Hour to Flip Burgers, and That’s OK

 Salaries are a price, just as the price of chocolate is a price. They’re just the price at which someone’s work sells.  This is true no matter what your job is or how much you’re being paid--if your wage is the price at which your labor sells, the salary a CEO gets paid is also the price at which his labor sells. So we shouldn't give a different explanation for the wages/salaries of rich people from the explanation we give for the wages/salaries of poor people. All  salaries are determined by supply and demand for the labor in question.


http://www.owl232.net/economics.pdf



See:


Fast Food Workers: You Don’t Deserve $15 an Hour to Flip Burgers, and That’s OK


http://themattwalshblog.com/2015/04/16/fast-food-workers-you-dont-deserve-15-an-hour-to-flip-burgers-and-thats-ok/

Pantheism and "שיתוף" (Joining).

Pantheism is something I have thought for a while is a problem. But when ever I brought up the subject no one seemed interested.
But then, I  learned something in the Talmud which seems to relate to this issue.
The basic statement in the Talmud in Sanhedrin (page  63) is based on the  Mishna that there is a death penalty for accepting any being besides the Creator as one's god. [And the Talmud reads that mishna without a comma. That is: "One who accepts another being as ones god and says to it 'You are my god' is liable." That is, just accepting in ones mind is not liable. There has to be some words.] (note 2)
The actual discussion I forget, but at the end the Talmud brings an argument between R. Meir and R. Shimon Ben Yochai. R. Meir said: The Jewish people said to the golden calf, "These are your gods, Oh Israel, which brought you up from the land of Egypt.' If they had left out the "Vav" nothing would have been left of them. [There is a letter "Vav" in העלוך which (plural) brought you out. If there would be no "Vav" it would say העלך which (singular) brought you out.] That is the opinion of R. Meir. R. Shimon Ben Yochai said, "One who joins together the Name of God with something else is uprooted from this world."
כל המשתף שם שמים ודבר אחר נעקר מן העולם שנאמר בלתי להשם לבדו
The idea in that verse is that one who sacrifices to other gods gets the death penalty since one is allowed to sacrifice to God alone. R. Shimon learns from this that even joining another being with God is considered idolatry and gets the death penalty. This is not like the opinion of R. Meir.
 This subject comes up on the next page where Tosphot brings the opinion of R Meir. But we see that the Rambam holds by R Shimon.[The Ein Mishpat shows the Rambam goes with R. Shimon.]



What we have from all this is that "joining" God with another being is an argument between sages of the Mishna [tenaim].
Rashi in his explanation of Rabbi Meir makes it a point that the Jewish people by doing "שיתוף" joining were not denying God.
This is relevant to Christianity and Hinduism , etc.
Christianity we know has many of versions of the Trinity.

 The curious thing is that we saw in the Gemara Sanhedrin 61b that when a person is not claiming to be a god it is allowed to bow to them. But not if they claim to be a god. What happens in the case of Jesus where he did not claim, but others claimed for him? At least that is what it seems like in Matthew. When he said, "Don't call me good. Only call God 'good,'" it seems like he was not being modest, but had a perfectly good opportunity to claim that he is a at least a good person. But even that he did not claim. [John however is regular Neoplatonism with "the word" taking the place of the "word" (or shechina, the sephera of Royalty) in Kabalah or Neo-Platonic thought. That does not suggest what Christians later  read into it.] (note 1)
In Matthew there is a claim that Jesus was "the son of a man," not the son of God. And even "the son of God" is not unique. Thus in Exodus, God called the children of Israel, "the children of God." "Send out my son, my first born, out of Egypt." That means that each Jew is the son or daughter of God according to the book of Exodus.

In any case, this seems to be an argument between Rabbi Meir And R. Shimon.

 Pantheism got to be accepted in the insane religious world  as a kosher form of שיתןף "joining." I had seen  the idea originally in the Shelah  who brings it from the Remak. I was at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn where there was Don Segal who also seems to hold from this opinion. So it was natural for me to think it is as much a part of Torah as the 13 principles of faith of the Rambam. So when I saw this in the books of Rav Shick I did not think it was any problem. And so when I saw the Bhagavad Gita years later in a NY bookstore I thought it is just the same thing as Torah.

So what we have here is the Gemara which deals with it slightly. But the Gemara was in a different world --or zoroastrianism, so they were not thinking about this issue much.  The only time it states to get dealt with is the son of the Rambam, Reb Avraham and to some degree in the general books of Jewish thought from Saadia Geon to the Rambam.
So while the Ari does not hold from pantheism, it did start to slip into Judaism by way of Kabalah. And Israel Baal Shem did say a few statements that were going the direction of pantheism.  Pantheism became firmly embedded in  mystic circles.



With Isaac Luria we get a rather simple combination of the idea of Emanation up until the bottom of the world of Emanation. Also the idea of the vessels coming from the empty space meaning the light emanates and the vessels are something from nothing. In any case this is not pantheism, nor panethism.
It seems the further east one goes, the more pantheistic things become. The Russian Church  goes with Pantheism [or panetheism--same difference] and it seems likely this is where the Baal Shem Tov got the idea. Hinduism --at least the school of Advaita is Pantheistic.
Torah is Monotheistic. which is different. The Torah approach is mainly forgotten, since the insane religious world which hold strongly from Torah have no idea what Torah says about this matter and the Conservative and Reform are not as committed to Torah  as much as they ought to be.
Pantheism can be associated with laziness, --since  everything is good, nothing matters. Also a lack of good manners seems to be joined to pantheism.
Spinoza was pantheistic in a more secular way. The type of Pantheism you see in the insane religious world  is specifically from Hinduism and of a more religious variety. [What I advocate is not the insane religious world but Torah which is very different. {You could call my approach Torah Judaism perhaps. But it is simpler just to call it Torah.}]

Notes

(note 1) To Mark, Jesus is the son of God which does not mean what Christians think. What some and my learning partner is right that the closest thing you get to the Nicene creed in is John. But the proof from John depends on not knowing Hebrew or not knowing Greek. If you know Greek you know it says "Before Abraham I am." Not "I was." If you don't know Hebrew that is a great reference to the Burning Bush. But if you know Hebrew you know אהיה אשר אהיה means "I Will Be," not "I Am." As in "I will be in the store tomorrow," אהיה במכולת מחר  as opposed to "I am in the store" אני במכולת
In any case the Christology of John is not that of any of the other writers at all. And which one Christians take as representing  Christianity is in contradiction to the others.
(note 2) "Things in the heart are not things."  The Gemara does not say this reason here but you can see that the Gemara is looking for a reason why speaking words of acceptance of any being besides god as ones God is idolatry. But it is just I that is bringing in this other principle you find: "things in the heart are not things."דברים שבלב אינם דברים That is why when you sell or buy something you have to say something.
And the Rashba [Shelomo Ben Aderet] says (Kidushin pg 50) this is only when ones heart contradicts ones words or actions. But otherwise things in the  heart are things. So why would this not work here? We find for trumah [the 2% that one takes from his crop to give to the priest] that "things in the heart are things," but that is because of a special verse.
In marriage we do need words. Things in the heart are not things. The guy has to say to the woman "You are married to me by means of this ring (or sex or document)." If she says it she is not married.
See the book of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach the Avi Ezri which goes into this in more detail 

When they learn Jewish mysticism they get messianic delusions.

A pinch  of Kabalah I think is a good idea. I liked the Eitz Chaim of the Ari. But it can be  a trap. The Ari (Isaac Luria) himself warned against learning Kabalah for people that have not finished Shas[Talmud]. There are  a few books of the Ari that deal with verses of Torah and at the end of the Torah you will find a few  paragraphs from the Ari warning that although Kabalah is a good thing but it is very dangerous  for one that is not properly prepared.
I have  seen what happens to most people when they learn Jewish mysticism without some kind of mental and emotional stolidity. They definitely get messianic delusions.

There is one rule: never learn Jewish mysticism from Ashkenazim.  The teachings of the Shatz got mixed up with there. [And the more kosher  they claim and the more "halacha" they keep,  the more you find the Dark Side hidden there..]
Sometimes you can find that people that are against Kabalah have just as many delusions also. They think being against Kabalah makes them better that others. Or they think that makes them qualified to teach it. My approach is to  learn Torah which is a big subject and Kabbalah is side thing. Anyway anything advertised as "Jewish Mysticism" is pretty much guaranteed to be from the Dark Side. A legitimate kabalist will never advertise or teach it in public.

In any case I was impressed by the Bava Sali family. Sometimes people just want a little advice or a blessing from some person  they feel has a little bit of inspiration from the realm of holiness and as far as that goes I think anyone from the Bava Sali family is good. [They don't all have last name Abuzaira, or Abuchatzaeira.  The Buso family is also from Bava Sali--from his daughter Abigail Buso]