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]

My learning partner thinks conversion to Torah is mainly dependent on the will of the person..
And Rav Shach [Elazar Menachem Shach] says it is mainly dependent on the will of the court. Just that they can't do it if the convert objects. This subject comes up in Reb Chaim of Brisk [Chidushei HaRambam] where my partner  and I spent some time.

[1] I did not realize it before, but now I understand  that Tosphot  [Sanhedrin 63a] is not concerned with explaining what is not right about Rabbi Zakai. That was already explained on page 62a. Rather Tosphot wants to explain what is right about Rabbi Ami. [Because we see R. Yochanan  did not ask on Rabbi Ami.]
[2] R. Yochanan says to R. Ami, "I can understand you because you are basing yourself on the drasha 'Don't serve.' If not for that, you would have used 'bowing' to divide everything. But now you use it only for itself. That is fine. But Rabbi Zakai is not basing himself on that drasha [explanation]. He would say 'bowing' comes for a mere prohibition even if we did not have 'Don't serve' --that is even if the services were in fact divided for some other reason."
[3] The Maharsha understands that the reasoning of R. Ami is that there is one verse to tell us serving idols is prohibited. So why is there another verse? [There are three verses total.] It is to limit something. That is it limits the three services [inner services that were done in the Temple]that if one does them in one span of forgetting he is liable only one sin offering.
[4] The basic reason why the opinion of R Zakai was rejected was explained on pg 62. R Aba thought it was a parallel case to Rabbi Yose. But it turned out that it was not because R. Yose would have used fire to teach about the whole category if he was able. But there was nothing to teach so he used fire for  a prohibition. [work on Shabat was already divided by  אחת מהנה]
But R Ami uses "Don't serve" for something, so "Don't bow" comes to teach on what is left-- which is just itself and perhaps also service according to its way.
[5] The question I have here is why is it in fact so clear that R. Zakai is not using "Dont serve?"  Could he use it to put the three together maybe and "Don't bow" for a mere prohibition?
It seems the answer is that if was doing that it would violate the principle whatever was in a category and came out to be mentioned by itself has to teach something about the whole category.
But does this seem all that different from R Ami to you? To R. Ami also bowing is coming out for itself alone. Just what it is saying about itself is what it would have said about the whole category if it had been able. So maybe the same goes for if it comes for a mere prohibition? Maybe I could say bowing wanted to tell you the whole category was only a prohibition but it could not do that because the verse already tells us idolatry brings a sin offering. so then it teaches about itself alone.!!! In other words I am not so sure that there is all that much difference between R. Ami and Rabbi Zakai.
Of course this last suggestion does seem ridiculous after all the Torah itself tells us there is a sin offering one must bring for idolatry. Maybe after all that is what Rabbi Yochanan thought was not right about the opinion of R. Zakai.


[6] The braita on 61b said that bowing comes to teach about itself  which is different from Abyee who is explaining r  ami and says it comes to divide. There might not be any question here.

My learning partner thinks that the braita on page 61 is no contradiction to our "sugia" [subject] here on page 63a. It is just dealing with a different subject--that is how to derive the different services. Not if they are divided.


[7] Anyway at this point we seem to have gotten the idea of what Tosphot is saying--more or less. There might be now a thousand unanswered questions but so what. We are not trying to answer all the questions. we are trying sipy to understand what tsophot is saying which means how do we understand the verse of the Bible "Don't bow and don't serve idols."

 סנהדרין סג.תוספות בראש הדף. ר. אמי אמר שמי שזבח קיטר וניסך בהעלם אחד חייב אחת. אביי פירשו שטעמו בא מן הפסוק "לא תעבדם". הכתוב עשה כולן עבודה אחת. בדף סב. רבי זכי אמר אותו דבר אלא שהוסיף השתטחות. רבינו תם אמר שמילת השתטחות מופיע במשפטו של רבי זכי לא במשפטו של רבי אמי. הסיבה לכך היא שיש פסוק בעשרת הדברות "לא תשתחווה להם ולא תעבדם."  הפסוק אסר כל מין עבודה  והוציא השתטחות להיזכר בפני עצמה. ולכן כל עבודות פנימיות נחשבות עבודה אחת, והשתטחות נחשבת בפני עצמה ואם עשה כולן בהעלם אחד חייב שתיים. אחת בשביל השלש, ואחת בשביל השתטחות. ועכשיו למה ר' יוחנן אמר לר' זכאי "פוק תני לברא" שיש סברה לומר שלשת עבודות הפנימיות נחשבות אחת אבל לא השתטחות.לא מעניין לתוספות להסביר מה שאינו נכון בשיטת ר' זכאי בגלל שזה כבר מוסבר למעלה בדף סב.. מעניין לתוספות להסביר מה נכון בשיטת רבי אמי. צריך להיות חילוק בגלל שרבי יוחנן שאל על ר' זכאי ולא על רבי אמי. הסיבה ששיטת ר' זכאי נדחה לעיל היא מוסברת בדף סב. רבי אבא רצה להשוות בין רבי יוסי ורבי זכאי. והתברר שזה אינו יכול להיות בגלל שרבי יוסי היה משתמש בפסוק לא תבערו אש בכל מושבותיכם ביום השבת לחלק את המלאכות אם היה יכול. אבל לא היה יכול בגלל שהמלאכות כבר מוחלקות על ידי הפסוק אחת מהנה. ולכן הוא משתמש עם אש בשביל "ללאו יצאה". אבל רבי אמי משתמש עם לא תעבוד הכתוב עשה כולן עבודה אחת ולכן לא תשתחווה לא יכולה לחלק את כולן אלא באה לחלק על עצמה.רבי יוחנן  הוא בסדר עם רבי אמי בגלל שר' אמי היה משתמש עם השתחוייה לחלק את כל העבודות אם היה יכול, אבל אינו יכול בגלל לא תעבדם עשה כולן עבודה אחת. ולכן נשאר רק להשתמש אתו לחלק על עצמה (ואולי גם עבודה כדרכה). אבל ר' זכאי אינו דורש לא תעבדם לעשות כולן עבודה אחת. והמהר''ם הסביר שאינו צריך לא תעבדם לזה שאין סיבה מראש לחלק אותן.אבל איך יודעים שר' זכאי אינו משתמש עם לא תעבדם? הלא אפשר שיגיד לא תעבדם עשה כולן עבודה אחת ולא תשתחווה ללאו אצאה?תירוץ: אם זה הוא מה שהוא עושה  זה הולך כנגד הכלל כל מה שהוא בכלל ויצא מן הכלל ללמד לא על עצמו בא ללמד אלא על בכלל כולו יצא ללמד
אגב המברש''א סובר שלא תעבדם הוא מיעוט בגלל שיש שלשה פסוקים  לא תעבדם, ולכן אחד הוא הכלל ואחד בא למעט.
עוד הערה: הברייתא בדף סא: אומרת שהשתחוויה באה ללמד על עצמה באופון אחר מן אביי שאמר שהיא באה לחלק על עצמה. יכול להיות שאין כאן סתירה משום שהברייתא דנה בשאלה אחרת--איך ללמוד את העבודות האסורות. ואביי דן בשאלה אם לחלק את העבודות

I am skipping here the fact that the Maharsha thinks it is Ok to use "bowing" for itself alone and that is still called teaching on the whole category and my idea that bowing also teaches on service according to its way.-which just makes things better.

The thing that I don't understand in the Maharsha is this: Why does he need don't serve to be a מיעוט  and exclusionary principle? I am not arguing that it is not possible. There is another verse for the general principle dont serve idols. So clearly the next verse has to be telling us something different and it has nothing it can expand into so it must contract. Clear. But why does the Maharsha need this?
I thought everything was hunky dory before that. We had "Don't serve" for a principle that puts all three services [inner services that were done in the Temple]. And then we have bowing to come out to divide for itself [that if done with the others still requires its own sin offering]. I mean to say that it is still teaching about the whole category--whatever was left in it after you excluded the big three. Or is it possible that the Maharsha is just saying what  I am saying? After all it does occur to me I just used the idea that don't serve does exclude the big three. David thought the words "the exclusionary principle of 'Don't serve'"was the key to the Maharsha.

The thing about Israel is it very much group based. It is almost impossible to make it there unless one is part of some group. I am not sure why this is but experience shows it to be the case. My own experience was such that the first time I went there I was part of a group. Rav Ernster was staring the place in Safed called Meor Chaim and he invited me from the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY to be part of his Kollel. So in fact without my being aware of its importance I was in fact part of a group. Later on I tried to go there on my own and it always ended in failure.


It is easy to ignore what you have when you don't realize how important it is. My first trip to Israel the road was paved by the State of Israel itself and the community in Meor Chaim. Later on I made several attempts at just showing up and paying rent in any old place and someone found that it was impossible to survive.
So I do think living in Israel is a Mitzvah, but it must be done in the context of some "misgeret" group.
I should mention that it is a positive command [one of the 613 mitzvot] according to the Ramban (Nachmanides). But not to the Rambam [Maimonides]. But it still is a mitzvah to the opinion of the Rambam.

If you grew up in a time in the USA when individuality was the primary principle, and to shoot straight from the hip (speak your mind straight), then this idea of the need to be part of a group is almost impossible to accept. But in a practical sense it is impossible to avoid if one wants to succeed in making Aliyah.
 Israel however even as a short stop over is an amazing place. Though it is hard there , still ever time I went there I had some kind of breakthrough in different subjects. Torah Music, Math etc.

Before going to Israel I recommend getting an appreciation for the place perhaps from the books of Avraham Kook or the books of the Gra like the Kol HaTor

I have been dealing with the Tosphot on the top of the page in Sanhedrin 63a.

I wrote about this in a blog entry a few days ago but now I want to add.

The way Tosphot is looking at this according to the Maharsha is that "Don't serve" is a exclusionary principle. [It comes to exclude something] We had before that all kinds of services were forbidden and then "Don't serve"  puts the three inner services into one and comes to exclude the three from the normal category.
And then what is left for "Don't bow" to tell us? Only what is left in the larger category--that is- itself.
That is how the Maharsha is explaining Tosphot. [This is the view of R Ami. And this is good because it allows bowing to tell us about the whole category. And this shows why R Yochanan did not accept R Zakai's approach since it has bowing to teach about itself alone. And that is no good. It goes against the principle what ever was in a category and is mentioned separately goes out to teach about the whole category.]
The Maharam adds an important observation  that R. Zakai never needed "Don't serve" to make  any kinds of idolatry into one category. There was no reason in the first place to divide them.[Not like in Shabat where we have אחת מהנה to divide.] [That is: that bowing did not leave the category of "Don't serve" because don't serve was not a general category.]
But to the Maharsha everyone agrees with Abyee that  "bowing" comes to divide. Only  the fact that "Don't serve" took the three inner services out of the larger category means that they don't get divided.
In any case, both the Maharsha and Maharam explain Tosphot well and differently than I was doing. Because I thought that R. Zakai was in fact using "Don't serve" to include all four services. This is clearly not what Tosphot was saying, and it was a mistake on my part.

In the long run, however, it looks like the fact is that R. Zakai is considering R. Ami's idea that "bowing" can be refering to the whole category when it is in fact only referring to itself as wrong.
But the way I was putting this idea was sloppy and I apologize for that.

In summary:

What is happening is Tosphot says that R Zakai is not using the "drasha" on  "Don't serve." The way the Maharsha explains that is to say "Don't serve" came out of the general category of service, not the opposite in which bowing comes out. So bowing is in the category and never left it and so does not need to teach anything about the general category. The Maharam deals with it by saying R. Zakai never needed "Don't serve."

[I am not saying everything here is fine. This obviously still needs a lot of work. But right now all I am doing is to try and get how the Maharsha and Maharam understand Tosphot. If we can get that down pat, then we can then go and try to figure out the many obvious questions here. ]

Torah has two things neat about it. One is its luminous, numinous aspect that you get to when you learn in a Lithuanian yeshiva. [Other places or synagogues are worthless when it comes to this aspect of Torah. It has to be someplace on the path of the Gra. ] The other neat thing about Torah is it opens a window to the realm of Light and Holiness. And this last function is what I think it was made for. The first aspect I think is secondary. [My reasoning is based on a commentary on the Rambam that was mentioned in the Musar book Or Israel. That is a foundational text about the Musar Movement of Israel Salanter.]

What I suggest is to learn Torah at home.  For beginners that means the Old Testament, and the Soncino Talmud in English and just plow through them.  

The Rambam thinks people are not inherently moral. Even the level of natural law before Mount Sinai had to be revealed in some way.

 When reading the Guide  for the Perplexed of the Rambam straight it is easy to miss this. This is why Reform Jews are right for making a study of the Rambam's Guide. If you don't make it into a serious subject of study, it is easy to miss important points.
Or what often happens is people come up with their own ideas of what Torah ought to say, and then think that that is what is actually says even though their ideas contradict the Rambam. As if they think they understand the Torah better than the Rambam. Now sometimes they depend on Nachmanides, and that is OK.

There is no prohibition baking a cake for sinners.
But if there is a possibility they will listen you should tell them that what they are doing is a sin.
According to the Gra you should tell them even if you are sure they will not listen. At least I think that is what the Gra holds. And I think I saw something like that in the Shelah once.
  any case baking cakes for them is the best possible thing. White flour and vegetable oil and all the other stuff they put into cakes is like feeding them poison.  Delete the "like." It is feeding them poison. The question is are you allowed to bake a cake for hetrosexuals? I doubt it.

I mainly hold from learning Torah. But I don't think doing this in a study hall or beit midrash or yeshiva makes much sense anymore.

One is supposed to learn Torah all the time. And there used to be places where you could go to learn. Like the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn. But no every place is fit because in some places the light of Torah does not enter into the learning. Even though the books are the same the light stays outside.
You can tell where the real Torah is by  signs. In any case, to be on the safe side I recommend learning Torah at home alone and never going near any religious synagogue.

In fact learning at that breslov place I sometimes feel a kind of "help from heaven"  סיעתא דשמיא in my learning. Like just today I walked in and I was already exhausted from running around, but i sat down with a Gemara and looked at a Maharam on a Tosphot in Sanhedrin 63 and it suddenly and instantaneously became clear to me what Tosphot is saying.


David, the fellow I learn with thinks that the best sign of a bad place is when then throw out people that are sincere.