24.5.15
I tend to do better in discernment by means of negative results. That is by making mistakes I tend to learn more than by any kind of inherent intuition. That is the reason that I hold by a small set of things that I concentrate on. I tend to see that by deviating from this set that things go haywire.
Not everyone I know is like that. My learning partner seems to have an inherent compass. He tends to see fallacies in different groups even before getting involved in them. Not me. I need to jump into the boiling water to find out how hot it is.
So this explains why my priorities are things that my parents told me and I did not listen to. I learned eventually that they knew a lot more about the world and the way things are that I ever could.
This also makes me see the importance of the State of Israel, and also learning Torah. It is not that I have such great appreciation for any of the above. It is just that when I see when either I or others abandon any of these things that highly negative results follow.
My parents were very much into the idea of being a mensch--a decent moral person with all that implies.The Ten commandments. Working for a living and never asking for and never accepting charity. Going to university [and not to be a rabbi under any circumstance]. Never to use the Torah for money. But to learn Torah and keep it in every last detail. Learning Physics and Math also was very high on their list of priorities. And also Mozart. and general classical music.
Not everyone I know is like that. My learning partner seems to have an inherent compass. He tends to see fallacies in different groups even before getting involved in them. Not me. I need to jump into the boiling water to find out how hot it is.
So this explains why my priorities are things that my parents told me and I did not listen to. I learned eventually that they knew a lot more about the world and the way things are that I ever could.
This also makes me see the importance of the State of Israel, and also learning Torah. It is not that I have such great appreciation for any of the above. It is just that when I see when either I or others abandon any of these things that highly negative results follow.
My parents were very much into the idea of being a mensch--a decent moral person with all that implies.The Ten commandments. Working for a living and never asking for and never accepting charity. Going to university [and not to be a rabbi under any circumstance]. Never to use the Torah for money. But to learn Torah and keep it in every last detail. Learning Physics and Math also was very high on their list of priorities. And also Mozart. and general classical music.
The path of Torah is hard to figure out. I have a basic approach that is this learn and do the whole Written Torah and the whole Oral tradition. Now the Oral tradition is admitted not the same level as prophecy. But it is a vigorous and rigorous attempt at understanding the Torah. The oral tradition it something that is a kind of grey area. But at least we know what was actually given in tradition.
There is no doubt about what the Talmud is or how it came to be written. It was written by flawed men but contains the basic tradition of how the Jewish people understood the word of God, It is not some mysterious book that some person claimed was revealed to him.
So while it can be hard to figure out how to apply the Talmud to our daily lives still we know what it is and basically what it says.
The Zohar is not that. But that does not mean I think there is no validity in Isaac Luria. It is just that the Zohar I see as problematic.
Musar I think got way too much influenced by Kabalah. I would suggest a modification of the Musar movement based on the school of thought of the son of the Rambam and the whole geonic school. before kabalah confused everything.
All books of Jewish Ethics after the the Zohar accept the paradigm of the Zohar. This I am not happy about. Kabalah is a mixed bag. On one hand you have Isaac Luria, Shalom Sharabi, and Yaakov Abuchatzeira , who were amazing and great people that served God and received true revelations.
On the hand (--and what makes it all confusing) is that the Zohar is not what it claims to be. It is not from Shimon Bar Yochai as Rav Yaakov Emden made all too clear in his book showing that the Zohar cant be from the Rashbi.
On one hand you can have mystics. That is a kind of personal revelation type of thing. On the other hand you have text based mysticism--based on Zohar. And in the later I see very little good. I think it is what caused the insane religious world to fall into the Sitra Achra.
There is no doubt about what the Talmud is or how it came to be written. It was written by flawed men but contains the basic tradition of how the Jewish people understood the word of God, It is not some mysterious book that some person claimed was revealed to him.
So while it can be hard to figure out how to apply the Talmud to our daily lives still we know what it is and basically what it says.
The Zohar is not that. But that does not mean I think there is no validity in Isaac Luria. It is just that the Zohar I see as problematic.
Musar I think got way too much influenced by Kabalah. I would suggest a modification of the Musar movement based on the school of thought of the son of the Rambam and the whole geonic school. before kabalah confused everything.
All books of Jewish Ethics after the the Zohar accept the paradigm of the Zohar. This I am not happy about. Kabalah is a mixed bag. On one hand you have Isaac Luria, Shalom Sharabi, and Yaakov Abuchatzeira , who were amazing and great people that served God and received true revelations.
On the hand (--and what makes it all confusing) is that the Zohar is not what it claims to be. It is not from Shimon Bar Yochai as Rav Yaakov Emden made all too clear in his book showing that the Zohar cant be from the Rashbi.
On one hand you can have mystics. That is a kind of personal revelation type of thing. On the other hand you have text based mysticism--based on Zohar. And in the later I see very little good. I think it is what caused the insane religious world to fall into the Sitra Achra.
23.5.15
Music link from the n series
n47 mp3 n47 midi n47 nwc format
mathematics
n54 [n54 midi] [n54 nwc]
black hole [black hole in midi] [black hole nwc]
hs
Written in Borispol Airport [Kiev] while waiting for a plane to NY.
p120
orchestra piece
mathematics
n54 [n54 midi] [n54 nwc]
black hole [black hole in midi] [black hole nwc]
hs
Written in Borispol Airport [Kiev] while waiting for a plane to NY.
p120
orchestra piece
22.5.15
a music link from the l series [i.e. the "L" not capitalized]
all music files go from a to z with about a hundred in each file. Recently a "za" file was started.
Here is an idea on why there must be questions on the Torah.
I think is that there have to be questions on the Torah. Not questions in Torah but questions on the Torah.
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The idea is the the Torah is the wisdom of God and if we would understand the Torah perfectly and there would be no questions on it then His wisdom and our wisdom would be the same.
And what are the questions of Torah? It is this: "I see there are jerks learning Torah, and so how can it be holy?" The answer to this is even if there would not be jerks, they would have to be created in order to make questions on the Torah. The only thing you can do is to learn and keep Torah yourself and don't think about others.
זה מעשה שלו וזה המעשה שלי
That is his business and this is my business.
And the way I see it, all we have is Torah. I don't think there is anything else.
My idea here is that Torah is hard to come to. And after one has come to it it is hard to stick with. And even after one tries to stick with it it is all too easy to get seduced by the Torah of the Dark Side which looks and sounds exactly the same as real Torah.
Real Torah if you want to be as exact as possible is fairly easy to define. It is a closed set, and you can enumerate exactly what are the members if the set. Torah= {The Old Testament, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem Talmud, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, Torat Kohanim, Mechilta, Midrash Raba.} This is a closed set. And things that came later that claim to be part of the set can't be included because they are not the actual Oral Law. But you can have commentary on the Oral Law that can in some way be considered as a "bechina" of the Oral Law,= partaking of the essence in some lesser form.
\
The idea is the the Torah is the wisdom of God and if we would understand the Torah perfectly and there would be no questions on it then His wisdom and our wisdom would be the same.
And what are the questions of Torah? It is this: "I see there are jerks learning Torah, and so how can it be holy?" The answer to this is even if there would not be jerks, they would have to be created in order to make questions on the Torah. The only thing you can do is to learn and keep Torah yourself and don't think about others.
זה מעשה שלו וזה המעשה שלי
That is his business and this is my business.
And the way I see it, all we have is Torah. I don't think there is anything else.
My idea here is that Torah is hard to come to. And after one has come to it it is hard to stick with. And even after one tries to stick with it it is all too easy to get seduced by the Torah of the Dark Side which looks and sounds exactly the same as real Torah.
Real Torah if you want to be as exact as possible is fairly easy to define. It is a closed set, and you can enumerate exactly what are the members if the set. Torah= {The Old Testament, Babylonian Talmud, Jerusalem Talmud, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, Torat Kohanim, Mechilta, Midrash Raba.} This is a closed set. And things that came later that claim to be part of the set can't be included because they are not the actual Oral Law. But you can have commentary on the Oral Law that can in some way be considered as a "bechina" of the Oral Law,= partaking of the essence in some lesser form.
What is the essence of idolatry?
The essence of idolatry is the ability to save.
This we can see in tractate idolatry [Avoda Zara] 41 side b.
An idol broke by itself. R Yochanan says the worshiper still has to nullify it.
Reish Lakish said it is automatically nullified because its worshiper= says "It could not save itself, so how could it save me?" So he does not even have to nullify it.
And you can see on page 42 that R. Yochanan does not disagree with that basic idea, but he still needs the worshiper to make an act of nullification.
From this we see the entire essence of idolatry is the ability to save. If one thinks the object or person that he is worshiping can save, then that is idolatry. He he thinks it can't save, then it is not idolatry.
Where you see in the Torah that Avimelech was told to go to Abraham and ask him to pray for him, I think is not a question, because I don't think the Torah was meant to be the definition of Monotheism. I think it is meant to take people away from idolatry. [See the Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides who says exactly that.] So allowances are made for human weakness. But these allowances should not be taken as preferable options. You can ask a saint to pray for you. But what you ought to do is pray to God yourself. If that does not work, then take a weekend off, and go up into the mountains and spend a few days wandering in the forest and talking with God about your problem.
This idea that the essence of idolatry is the ability to save is from Rav Shach. [Elazar Menachem Shach the rosh yeshiva of Ponovicth.]
The idea is from the fact that on page 42 the Gemara asks on Reish Lakish from the Mishna that R Yose said one takes the idol and crushes it and scatters it, and the sages asked on him that even that is not enough because the dust is forbidden. From that sugia we see R Yochanan agrees with the basic idea but requires an actual statement of nullification.
This Gemara has serious implications. For we find people attributing to some people they consider to be holy as having the power to save. This is very common nowadays.
I don't mean to be critical of any particular group. Every group has some leader they are getting some kind of inspiration from. It says in the Talmud that there was a conversation between an idolater and a Talmudic sage the idolater asked if God does not like idolatry then why doe he not destroy it? The sage answered they worship sun and the moon and the stars. Should God destroy his world because of idiots?
This we can see in tractate idolatry [Avoda Zara] 41 side b.
An idol broke by itself. R Yochanan says the worshiper still has to nullify it.
Reish Lakish said it is automatically nullified because its worshiper= says "It could not save itself, so how could it save me?" So he does not even have to nullify it.
And you can see on page 42 that R. Yochanan does not disagree with that basic idea, but he still needs the worshiper to make an act of nullification.
From this we see the entire essence of idolatry is the ability to save. If one thinks the object or person that he is worshiping can save, then that is idolatry. He he thinks it can't save, then it is not idolatry.
Where you see in the Torah that Avimelech was told to go to Abraham and ask him to pray for him, I think is not a question, because I don't think the Torah was meant to be the definition of Monotheism. I think it is meant to take people away from idolatry. [See the Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides who says exactly that.] So allowances are made for human weakness. But these allowances should not be taken as preferable options. You can ask a saint to pray for you. But what you ought to do is pray to God yourself. If that does not work, then take a weekend off, and go up into the mountains and spend a few days wandering in the forest and talking with God about your problem.
This idea that the essence of idolatry is the ability to save is from Rav Shach. [Elazar Menachem Shach the rosh yeshiva of Ponovicth.]
The idea is from the fact that on page 42 the Gemara asks on Reish Lakish from the Mishna that R Yose said one takes the idol and crushes it and scatters it, and the sages asked on him that even that is not enough because the dust is forbidden. From that sugia we see R Yochanan agrees with the basic idea but requires an actual statement of nullification.
This Gemara has serious implications. For we find people attributing to some people they consider to be holy as having the power to save. This is very common nowadays.
I don't mean to be critical of any particular group. Every group has some leader they are getting some kind of inspiration from. It says in the Talmud that there was a conversation between an idolater and a Talmudic sage the idolater asked if God does not like idolatry then why doe he not destroy it? The sage answered they worship sun and the moon and the stars. Should God destroy his world because of idiots?
21.5.15
N11
n11 [n11 in midi] n11 in nwc format[When this was written originally the instruments on the score needed some work. The basic piece however is the same. ]
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