I want to suggest that people think too much about understanding what they learn.
In school this can come across in a powerful way. Your whole grade depends on how well you know the material. And this gets transferred to some degree in the yeshiva world in Israel. Tests to see if you know the material are a part of the story there.

But what I want to suggest is that this is the wrong approach to learning.

Certainly we know that when it comes to learning Torah--that that is an obligation on every male Jew from young to old sick or well, and it makes no difference if they are smart as Einstein or a dumb as a door knob.

Not only that but there is a specific obligation to go through the entire Written and Oral Law. This we find in a few places and I don't remember where. But the basic thing that is brought is this:
When one gets to heaven and has to give an account of his deeds the first thing God asks him is on his learning and then after that on his deeds. [This is because deeds flow from what one thinks is right. If you learn Torah your deeds will get better. Rav Shach and Shmuel Berenbaum said today there is no advice but to sit and learn Torah.  Nothing else can help--and nothing else is necessary. If you learn everything thing else will fall into place.]

Did you learn the Old Testament?

Did you learn Mishna?

Did you learn Gemara?

Dito the Work of Creation (which the Rambam says is Physics)

Dito the Divine Chariot (which the Rambam says is Metaphysics)
[Nowadays people are inclined to say the last two mean Kabbalah. I would say that it is true that one should learn all the Ari [Isaac Luria] and Moshe Cordovero, the Rashash and the Ramchal and Yaakov Abuchatzeira. But I don't think that cancels what the Rambam says.

But here I want to bring the idea that in learning all one needs is simplicity and to say the words in order and go on.

And there souls from realms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil. And there are four worlds of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

Divinity of human beings. I have heard that this is a subject brought up concerning converts to Judaism. They ask if the convert thinks that Jesus was divine. If they answer "Yes," this is supposed to imply that they are not worthy converts.
That seems to be not the issue. See Avraham Abulafia and Professor Moshe Idel's academic treatment of his philosophy. The issue seems to be more along these lines, "Is one is allowed to worship any human being even if they are divine?" And the answer there is "No."
Sanhedrin 62.






According to Isaac Luria  any soul from Emanation of the side of holiness is Divine.
אלקות.


Divinity of human beings.
This is something you find a lot by Isaac Luria.

The entire Shaar HaGilgulim שער הגלגולים is devoted to the discussion the Ari had with Reb Chaim Vital about how important his soul is. It goes into great detail about the root of different souls and their source and in what spiritual world they are embedded in.
The whole subject really depends on knowledge of the book the Tree of Life of Isaac Luria.
The basic idea is that you have got four worlds, Emanation, Creation, Formation and the Physical world. And each soul is from some place in one of these worlds. And there souls from  realms  of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil.
And there are four would of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

I recommend learning the tree of Life of the Ari and then the Shaar Hagilgulim to get a basic idea of what this is all about.

And this is not something that the Gra would disagree with. The Gra not just has a commentary on Sifra Deztniuta of the Zohar, but goes clearly with the system of the Ari.

Appendix: Emanation is Divine. That means the Divine light which entered into the Empty space came don undifferentiated until it reached the floor of Emanation. That is stated openly in the Zohar and the Ari. So anything lower than Emanation is not Divine.

It can happen that souls of evil get mixed up in the soul of a righteous person and visa versa.
Saying over your good desires to God in fact creates a kind of small soul that goes around in the world until it accomplishes that good desire. It might even enter into a bad person and cause him to think thought so repentance.

Islam is= Killing unbelievers and having sex with their women.

Islam is: Killing unbelievers; Fighting unbelievers; Beheading unbelievers; Terrorizing unbelievers; Extorting money from unbelievers: and Crucifying unbelievers if they criticize Islam.

Being anti-Islam is a good thing. Anti-Islam people are anti-killing, anti-fighting, anti-beheading, anti-terrorizing, anti-stealing, and anti-crucifying, anti rape.

No wonder Duke University Professor, David Schanzer thinks being against Islam is so hateful. Apparently we should all be pro-Islam and promote killing, fighting, beheading, terrorizing, stealing, and crucifying. So much more peaceful.

While there may be moderate Muslims, Islam is Islam. There is no moderate Islam. To be pro-Islam is to be pro-savage. To be anti-Islam is to be pro-civilization.

A very nice note from Joyce Willis ·


I detest Islam, NOT Muslims, just like I detest Nazism, NOT Germans and I detest Stalinism, NOT Russians.

In Islam, *all* non-Muslims are called *unbelievers*, *infidels* or *kafir*(derogatory).

The world is divided into the House of Islam and the House of War, the *Dar al-Islam* and the *Dar al-harb*. The Dar al-Islam is all those lands in which a Muslim government rules and the Holy Law of Islam prevails. Non-Muslims may live there on Muslim sufferance. *The outside world (non-Muslim), which has not yet been subjugated, is called the "House of War," and strictly speaking a perpetual state of *jihad*, or holy war, is imposed by the law*.

The treatment of the infidels in Islam is divided into two categories. The polytheists, pagans, idolaters and heathens have the choice of converting to Islam or suffer death. The Jews and Christians, whom the Koran calls people of the book, can retain their religion but on the sufferance of accepting humiliation and subjugation to Islam and payment of *Jizyah* (poll-tax/extortion) to the Islamic rulers [For more detail read this article: Unfettered Religious Freedom in Islam – A Fact or Fiction? - by Alamgir Hussain].

Now, let us have a closer look at what the Koran says about the infidels:

_Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them_ (2:191).

_Make war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood_ (9:123).

_When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them_ (9:5).

_Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax_ (9:29).

_Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable_ (3:85).

_The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them_ (9:30).

_Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam._ (5:33).

_The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque_ (9:28).

_Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies_ (22:19).

_Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them_(47:4).

_The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them_ (8:65).

_Muslims must not take the infidels as friends_ (3:28).

_Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an_ (8:12).

_Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels_ (8:60).

The Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course). A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes the peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an.

I would like to go through the entire Oral and Written Law along with the basic Rishonim and Achronim. But that takes a lot of time. So I thought to share the burden. That is if people would oblige me, I would like them to build a house that would be devoted just to learning Torah and Ethics.
Take for example Tennessee. Just simply put in town a simple building that would have only the Oral and written Torah and books of straight Torah Ethics.
That means the Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds. Torah ethics is what is called Musar, and it is a well known cannon.


There are so  many cults that use Torah to hide their devious and highly destructive intentions that makes this hard to understand why it is a good thing. But I know that it is possible to base a  good and wholesome community solely around this basic building that is devoted to learning Torah.

In Sanhedrin 63, the Talmud considered that "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדםis a general prohibition that includes lots of subcategories. One of the things is the rebellious son בן סורה ומורהץ.
[The reasoning here is that the rebellious son has a few conditions he has to fulfill  and one is a large amount of eating raw meat and drinking something like a gallon of wine.]
But the Talmud right there says we don't give lashes for any prohibition that includes more than one subcategory.

So the question my learning partner asked was. "Then what is the prohibition?"
I answered without thinking "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדם. But that is obviously wrong.
He said there is no prohibition. It is just one of those things that the Torah gives a punishment for without telling you why what he did is wrong or what warning to give to him.

But Tosphot does seem to think the prohibition does come from that verse and then asks on it but we don't give lashes for a prohibition that might lead to the death penalty.  So I was not going to write about this today because it is still unclear. In any case I changed my mind and thought that this still might be interesting to people.


appendix
the general rule is even if there is a verse in the torah which gives a punishment, yo cant punush unless it also says a verse to forbid.

I have thought for a long time if you are learning, you don't need to interrupt for kadish and Kedusha.
This was because I learned in (Tur טור ארח חיים laws of Suka תר''ם) the Beit Yosef who brings down this idea that one who is involved in one mitzvah does not have to interpret for another mitzvah even when he can easily do both.
I found some support for this idea in the Gra that when one is learning Torah he can interrupt to do a mitzvah that no one else can do--but he does not have to. [See the Mishna in Peah]


For the general public I want to explain what I mean here:
In general, a person that is involved in one mitzvah is not required to do another mitzvah.
For example if a person gets married, then he and the groups of friends that are there to make merry are not required to sit in a suka for the whole seven days of marriage festivity [according to the Rambam.]
Another principle is learning Torah is a mitzvah. Torah in this context means the Old Testament or the Talmud.When one is learning Torah, he is allowed to stop to do another mitzvah, but he does not have to.{Gra}. Thus in a synagogue when people get up to say kaddish or kedusha if you are learning, you don't have to answer. All the more so since this usually happens after the time for prayer which is from dawn until 4 hours later.  After that only if one had an unforeseen emergency can he pray until noon. Other than that the pray (blessings in vain) and one is not even allowed to answer Amen.

This came up because of my learning partner who often has to interrupt to answer, and I told him he does not have to answer.

The truth be told there is a much better support for this idea. It is in the Talmud Shavuot pg 43 and 43b with the whole idea there of the "penny of Rav Joseph". [Pruta shel Rav Joseph]. That is when one is in possession of  a lost object, he is not obligated to give a penny to a poor person because he has to watch the object. And Tosphot explains there that even Raba does not disagree with this. Rather he says that just because a poor person might come, we do not say that he is a guard that is paid. The reason is a poor person might not come. So we see everyone agrees העוסק המצווה פטור מן המצווה one involved in one mitzvah does not have to stop in order to do another mitzvah even if the second mitzvah is much more important and even if not doing it involves a prohibition of לא תתעלם

 Now I am Jewish and prefer the Oral and Written Law [the Old Testament and the Talmud] as a working system.

I should mention that a lot of the  work that goes into the Talmud is because we assume the Law of God is meant to be obeyed and that it is self consistent. So ironing out the difficulties is important--it is not just an intellectual exercise but it comes from the fact that we Jews are interested in obeying the word of God.

So what I have suggested is an idea based on Hobbes. You a  government that is allotted only certain powers [as the US Constitution was originally conceived] and within that context there is a voluntary  area of people that accept on themselves to keep the Law of God.]

Is "Don"t serve false gods" a prohibition that includes many sub categories? I mean take the verse לא תעבדם "Don't serve other gods." That seems very specific.

"Don't eat on the blood"לא תאכל על הדם is used for everything except the kitchen sink.
For example the rebellious son. We know the punishment is stoning but where is the prohibition? We use, "Don't eat on the blood." Prohibition on blood from a living animal? Dito. You have a whole list.

So the question raised by my learning partner is why in Sanhedrin 63 is "Don't serve idols" considered to contain many sub categories? It does not seem similar at all.



One thing to consider here is that Rashi says this particular "Don't serve" is not the same one as for regular idolatry. The regular one is in the Ten Commandments. The one the Talmud here is dealing with is in Mishpatim [circa Exodus 30] talking about when the Jewish people enter the Land of Canaan not to serve the gods they find there. This might help someway, but I am not sure of how.

The thing which makes it hard to stick up for the Talmud is Talmudic scholars that are demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים The Talmud itself deals with this problem and it in fact even comes up in the Mishna. But after that it is largely forgotten. I imagine because it was not much of a problem during the Middle Ages. During the Middle Ages  to get to be called a Talmudic scholar was so difficult that the process automatically weeded out the bad apples [sorry for the mixed metaphor.]


The best way around this problem is thus to go to any one of the basic set of straight Lithuanian  yeshivas--the three in Brooklyn, NY. (Mirrer, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat), or the ones in Israel Ponovitch, Brisk {and many others in Israel built along the same lines, e.g., Tifrach, Silverman's Yeshivat HaGra in the Old City, etc.}


One reason why it is important to avoid the Dark Side teachers of Torah is because they teach Torah  from the Dark Side.
In summary:  avoid Talmudic scholars that are demons and also the Torah of the Sitra Achra [Dark Side].

Power, money, politics should  to be considered as meaningless. And the more people get into his teachings the more these things lose their significance.

So what to take out of all this is that there is nothing wrong with loving heroes. Everyone love heroes and Jewish people are no different in this regard. The point is to choose your heroes wisely.

What is happening in Renaissance Music is you have the basic song. But what the author does is change the chord of as many notes as he can from what you would think the chord is supposed to be to something else. This is different from Bach. Bach many times makes it a point to change the actual key as often as possible and as soon as possible. That is why it is hard to sing along with Bach. But in the Renaissance, the author leaves the song intact, and changes only the chords. This idea started during the Middle Ages. The Middle Ages also had a few characteristic chords but that is a different topic.
Bach had a few ways to change the chord. Mainly to go to the dominant of the next key he is trying to get to. E.g. he is in C major and wants to go to D major. He will thus go  to A major and then to D.
[This does not work for half steps. But it does work for major or minor keys. I.e. in this way if he is in C major he can go to D Major or D minor.(But not D flat major or minor.)]

 He will also revolve around a certain note like they did in the Renaissance.
I have not really been able to use these ideas for myself, but I thought in case there are talented people out there that might find this useful I thought I should let them know.

[If I could I would share my own music with people, but I have not been very successful in finding a way to do that.]

The only proper sex is between a man and a woman. and that sex in that way is a good and holy thing. And in any other way is bad.

It is in some sense based on Isaac Luria. The idea is that there are letters of the Torah in everything. For the Torah is what gives life to everything that exists. So in the seed of a man is a high concentration of holy letters. And these letters need to be brought to the place that is right for them that can bring new life into the world. So when one brings these letters and holy sparks to the wrong place of an empty space that gives power to the dark side.
And then the Dark Side has power to cause terrible things in the world, death and destruction and war. So this needs to be corrected by the mikveh and the ten psalms.

 That when that happens one should go to the mikveh and say ten psalms. In particular if possible one should say the specific psalms that he said were a correction for this sin. 16,32,41,42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.

You can see this in Leviticus 18:22 in which homosexuals are said to be the cause of the destruction of the Canaanites nations and that the Jewish people should be careful to stay away from such practices so that they also do not get destroyed. You can see that in this area of values the Torah is not making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles. If the Torah would make a distinction then what it says would make no sense. Rather it is saying that the Cannaties will be wiped out because of such practices --so obviously the Torah thinks there is some kind of inherent guilt in such actions. Nor does the Torah preach tolerance about such things.


 source material  Eitz Chaim of the Ari. the Mavo Shearim .Then the basic place in the Ari that talks about sins and corrections for sin is Shaar Ruach HaKodesh which gives a lot of unifications and a number of fasts for sins.

Is "joining" שיתוף (Joining something to G-d) more serious than idolatry or less?
This is an argument between R Meir of the Mishna and R Shimon Ben Yochai

But the Rambam says one must not join the name of God and something else in an oath because one who does this is uprooted from the world.[Thus going with R Shimon and confining the law of joining to oaths. Two things that need answers.]


The argument is in Sanhedrin 63.
R Meir said, "If not for the letter vav in 'These are your gods,'
(which was said to the Golden Calf) Israel would have been liable to be destroyed."

R. Shimon said, "But anyone who joins the name of God with something else is uprooted from this world as it says 'to God alone.' Rather the vav is to tell us they desired many gods." [In Avoda Zara it is explained that that means they accepted the Golden Calf but were open to accepting other god also. But they did not join God with the Golden Calf. And if they had that would have been worse.  ]

The Maharsha says that joining is what the Rambam describes at the beginning of the Laws of Idolatry. And there the Rambam says the main idea of idolatry was they saw that God put the stars in Heaven so it is his will that we should honor them just like he honors them, and by that they will be advocates for us. [The Rambam  goes into detail about this also in his commentary on the Mishna. This is known in the  as the problem of the אמצעי intermediate. That is people know God is the creator but they feel they can't approach Him directly so they go through a middle step like a person or anything else to serve as a middle step.]
Then the Rambam says  the actual idolatry that we know came after that. It seems the Rambam is saying the later step was worse. That is the אמצעי (emtzai) (using an  intermediate) is less serious.

But then when you look at the Rambam about actual שיתוף joining --in the only place he actual brings up our Gemara-he says one who swears by God and something else will be uprooted--that is the opinion of R Shimon. Not like R Meir!

So what we have here is what seems like a contradiction in the Rambam.

Joining is not necessarily the same problem as an intermediate. But it might be.

At any rate, I thought by mistake that the Rambam  thinks that an oath is a deed. It is the same as when one exchanges one animal for another in which there is a deed accomplished by his words "this is in place of that."
But my learning partner pointed out that this really does not help. The Rambam does not mention anything about lashes in laws of oaths 11 where her brings this law about "Shituf" שיתוף joining. It matters only in laws of idolatry where one who swears by a false god gets lashes.
And  a person could bring a sacrifice to God and an idol together. For example take a regular sacrifice a person is bringing to God in the Temple and the person bringing it has intention to serve some false god along with God. Either just intention of he could say something, or have originally sanctified the sacrifice to God and to his false god. Hasidim do this all the time. There is nothing unusual about it. Hasidim do everything as a kind of service to their false god. Not just sacrifice.

______________________________________________________________________________

Post Appendix: In any case my idea that the Rambam holds swearing seems to be incorrect. The actual issue is brought up in laws of idolatry.
Rambam: "One who swears by a false god gets lashes."

 Raavad: "Only to R Yehuda who holds lashes are given to one who does a prohibition even if there is no act. But we (and the Rambam) hold lashes are given only when there is an act except for swearing, replacing, and cursing."
And our case of swearing by a false god is not in the list of three exceptions.
_____________________________________________________________________

At any rate, I just wanted to say that my learning partner decided that we should not spend any more time on this Rambam. And I would not have said anything about it if I did not have this idea of an oath being an act which I think is wrong now. but when I had the idea I thought it might provide a hint to understanding the Rambam. [It is a fact that the Minchat Chinuch does say that that is how the Rambam holds but I don't think it could be right.]
See Rav Elazar Menachem Shach's Avi Ezri  on laws of idolatry  about teh halacha where teh rambam says one who swears by an idol gets lashes.

This idea is based on his general concept that the only proper sex is between a man and a woman. and that sex in that way is a good and holy thing. And in any other way is bad.

It is in some sense based on Isaac Luria

. The idea is that there are letters of the Torah in everything. For the Torah is what gives life to everything that exists. So in the seed of a man is a high concentration of holy letters. And these letters need to be brought to the place that is right for them that can bring new life into the world. So when one brings these letters and holy sparks to the wrong place of an empty space that gives power to the dark side.
And then the Dark Side has power to cause terrible things in the world, death and destruction and war. So this needs to be corrected by the mikveh and the ten psalms.


 nocturnal pollution. That when that happens one should go to the mikveh and say ten psalms. In particular if possible one should say teh specific psalms that he said were a correction for this sin. 16,32,41,42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.

You can see this attitude reflected in Leviticus 18:22 in which homosexuals are said to be the cause of the destruction of the Canaanites nations and that the Jewsih people should be careful to stay away from such practices so that they also do not get destroyed. You can see that in this area of values the Torah is not making distinctions between Jews and Gentiles. If the Torah would make a distinction then what it says would make no sense. Rather it is saying that the Cannaties will be wiped out because of such practices --so obviously the Torah thinks there is some kind of inherent guilt in such actions. Nor does the Torah preach tolerance about such things.

What it seems  to me after looking at the Talmud and the Rambam is that worship of a tzadik is a problem.  This you can see in a most direct fashion in the 13 principles of Faith of the Rambam in principle 5. But what the Rambam is saying there seems to be accepted across the board. At least that is what it looks like to me from what I have seen in Sanhedrin 60b until 63a, and from what my learning partner has told me about Nachmanides' idea of what the Golden Calf was about.
And it is this approach of the Rambam, Nachmanides, and the Talmud itself that I think should be considered as the basic Torah approach.  And given the most weight. So when  closeness with a tzadik is important, we will have to take that in the general context of the world view of the Torah,--not as something that can outweigh the 'Rambam, Ramban' and the Gemara itself.

In other words--there is a fine line between closeness to a tzadik and the things above mentioned that one is not allowed to do, like praising him or asking him for help to come close to God.


Appendix :
1) Principle five: It is not proper to praise or ask help from or ask any created thing to bring one close to God.
[The Rambam lists there everything from the angels, constellations and stars to things created from the four elements.] [It is in his commentary on the Mishna. You can also see the the same basic idea in his Yad HaChazaka (Mishna Torah) in the beginning of the laws of idolatry.]

2) So Christianity has one good point-- it has a tzadik who said right things. And we know there is a great deal of importance in believing in a tzadik. But that does not mean to believe that that tzadik is divine.  Or to worship that tzadik, or even to praise him. While praise of humans is OK, but when Divinity is attributed to some person - then it becomes a problem.
Or at least that is the way it looks to me from Tosphot [Sanhedrin 63a]. But we find countless of tzadikim to whom divinity is attributed. When Bava Sali said that his son Meir is a soul from Emanation which we know is all Divine, no one objected. The Ari devotes to entire Shaar HaGilgulim to many tzadikim whose souls were from Atzilut. But then no one prays to them. So we seem to have hit a road block.
 It seems to me that the problem that Christianity ought to deal with is this: worship of a tzadik is not good, but belief in a tzadik is good. It seems this distinction ought to be be made, and even sharpened.
3) What I am assuming here is that the Torah has a point  of view. That is maybe a little hard to see. We know that people have points of view, but can you say a certain document has a point of view? I think you can. So when I look at the Talmud or the 'Rambam or the Ramban' I am looking not for their point of view, but I am looking for help in understanding what the Torah itself might be thinking about a certain issue. The worldview of the Torah or Daat of the Torah.
I know this sounds like cheating. When Christians want to understand what the Torah holds, they go to the C.S. Lewis or Chesterton.  Why is my going to the Rambam any different?  Mainly because the Middle Ages were more careful not to indulge in circular reasoning. So any modern author is not  valid as far as I am concerned, because it is just a matter of time until you find fatal flaws in their reasoning. So any debate about the OT or NT can't be based on post medieval authors. So we are left with the Rambam, and Nachmanides verses Aquinas.  Or you could go to the NT and OT yourself to figure out the one rigorous self consistent world view in each. But that is usually beyond the capability of every person. My feeling is that Aquinas is stemmed in by the fact he has to get the OT and NT to correspond.  So I feel free to say that the Rambam was the most accurate and won the debate.
Plus Dr Kelly Ross noticed that Aquinas did not get Aristotle and the NT to fit. Judging by that he would have had to have gone back to the Neo-platonists. And that would have left him in the same soup he was trying to get out of.
4) The Torah worldview is monotheism, not pantheism. But what kind of Monotheism? Rambam's Aristotle's? Or Nachmanides' Neo Platonic? And the Torah does have a world view about commandments. That is that they exist. They are not nullified as soon as someone keeps them. And such an idea seems absurd anyway. For example the Torah says to bring the daily burnt offering in the morning and one in the afternoon. [A male sheep]. Let's say in theory I would keep that commandment perfectly one day. Would that mean I don't have to keep it the next day?  Surely not because the Torah says explicitly to do this every day.

I think I must have written this on my blog before but I wanted to just restate the issue because of some added clarity I gained today.

This came up in Sanhedrin page 62 but the major sugia is in Shabat 69.

I was looking at the Rambam about the 39 types of work on Shabbat and I noticed that there is a lot of discussion about a problem that the son of the Rambam addresses and Rav Shach also.

R. Yochanan holds if one does an act of work on shabbat and knows it is forbidden but forgot the penalty it is considered an accident and so he can bring a sin offering. Reish Lakish holds that is considered that he did it on purpose--and so can't bring a sin offering.
R Yochanan asks why does the Mishna say 39 types of work are forbidden? It listed them all. What is the point of giving us the number? Answer: To tell us if he did all 39 in one span of forgetfulness he brings 39 sin offerings [goats or sheep.]
The Talmud asks, "But what could Reish Lakish do here? If he forgets all thirty nine, then in what way did he remember Shabbat?" [The idea is if he forgot about Shabbat completely, he brings only one, and if he never knew about Shabbat at all then he brings only one for all Shabats.]

My learning partner noticed that the reason the Gemara did not ask the same question on R. Yochanan is because with R.Y. we start with a case he remembered that one act of work is forbidden and forgot the penalty. So all we did was to expand the case to 39. And in that case we are dealing with the case he knew all 39 are forbidden, but forgot the penalty. It is only to R.L. alone that this can't work- because it would be considered doing the work on purpose.

But the Rambam seems to be saying if one forgot all 39 kinds of works and also their penalty, he brings 39 sin offerings. And so what worked for the Gemara, does not  work for the Rambam.
And that is the reason the son of the Rambam, and all the commentaries and even Rav Shach are looking for ways of answering for the Rambam.

That is all I have to say. But in case you are curious I might as well mention what the son of the Rambam answered and also Rav Shach. Reb Avraham [the Rambam's son] said that the Rambam does not mean he forgot both the 39 and their penalties, or he remembered the toldot [non principle types]. Rav Shach said he remembered 12 miles is teh boundary of Shabbat to all opinions from the Torah. [The Talmud answered the boundary of Shabbat  according to the opinion of Rabbi Akiva for Reish Lakish. Why the Talmud needed to do this I am not sure.]

I have a basic set of attitudes about current day issues. But I try to base my attitudes as much as possible on the Written and Oral Law (the Torah and Talmud).

So what I think about Islam, or discrimination or Christianity or personal issues or even the Russian invasion of the Ukraine is going to be predictably based on the Talmud.

So in essence I don't have to write anything. Just open up the Talmud and you will see what I think.

Of course the Talmud can be hard to understand so it is helpful to go to Rishonim medieaval authorities.  [Achronim are a waste of time, except for the few outstanding ones like R. Akiva Eiger and the school of Chaim Soloveitchik and Rav Shach on the Rambam.

But I realize that people are not learning Talmud very much. Especially Christians barely touch the book.  So I might as well say over a few of my opinions based as much as possible on how well I can grasp what the Talmud is saying.

1) Islam. The Talmud says one has aright to self defence.  הקם להרגך הקדם להרגו "When one person is getting up in the morning to kill you, get up earlier and kill him." Israel has a right to self defence. And it does not need to wait until it is attached. It can attack as long as the intentions of its neighbors are clear. And the intentions of the  Arab population living in Israel are clear. Israel does not need to wait until every Arab attempts to murder a Jew.

2) Blacks deserve to be treated with honor and respect as any human being. But when the intentions of whole communities becomes clear, the same above mentioned right to self defense applies to whites. Wasps (White Anglo Saxon Protestants) have a right to self defence.

3) Russia does not have a right to support the separatists. This is based on the Rambam who gets it from some place in the Talmud. In the Rambam there is a concept of a country מדינה, and one country is not allowed to invade another country. If this was just an issue of right and wrong it would be simple to tell the separatists to lay down their weapons and get back to everyday business.

4) Sex changes are not valid.  A woman remains a woman and a man a man.

5) Male Homosexuals. If the act is done in front of two witness. it is liable the death penalty. But you can bake a cake for them.  If the act is not done in front of two witness, but still done on purpose, there is not much anyone can do. If the act is done accidently, they both need to bring a sin offering to the Temple in Jerusalem,--a she goat or a female sheep. If there is no Temple, they need to build it, and then bring the offering. They can't depend on the death of any Tzadik to take their place. The Torah requires a sin offering and that is that.

6) Christianity has two things,  one is right and one is  wrong. One thing right is  a tzadik. One thing wrong is worship of a tzadik. You can look up Avraham Abulafia and Yaakov Emden who have the same opinion. [Professor Moshe Idel made a career of studying Avraham Abulafia, and his first PhD thesis brings this opinion of Avraham Abulafia.] Some people think that it is a mitzvah to fight Christianity and block it and stamp out every last remnant of it in the USA and the whole world. That is not my opinion. And for those that think this way I recommend learning the essay if Yaakov Emden and the books of Moshe Idel and Rav Abulafia. So when I see the Supreme Court and the  homosexuals and   Democrats and Muslims intend to wipe Christianity off the face of the Earth, my feeling is that Christians ought to fight back. Fight evil.  Don't let them win.

Sometimes people believe in a tzadik [righteous person] too much. That is they overdo it. And that I think is a problem.
We know from the Gemara that an intermediate is forbidden according to the Torah. As the Rambam puts it, we must not worship or praise or pray to any being besides God himself in order that that being should be an intercessor between us and God. But that is better than believing in a bad person.


We find people that are not strictly Monotheists in the sense of the Rambam and yet  believe in some tzadik  and that seems to be helpful. And we find other people that are monotheistic and yet believe in some bad person and that seems to affect them also to become wicked.

From what I can tell this idea of belief in  a tzadik [that is that it is important to find a true tzadik] is highly plausible. Even Litvaks try to find the most righteous Rosh Yeshiva to learn from.The truth is it is hard to argue with this premise.
That problem is -as many people already are aware- that once a person gets the idea that belief in a tzadik is important, he or she will most often attach themselves to some charlatan and plays the role of a tzadik with great expertise.

There are groups that I think are on the wrong path, and I am thinking it is usually because of some issue with their leader, rather that how monotheistic they are.
For example Muslims. It seems to me that the issue is that their false prophet was a bad man. Also I see people get involved in some charismatic leader that is teaching values that are highly questionable and that in fact seems to affect them to act in bad ways.

R. Shimon ben Yochai of the Mishna says you go by the reason for a mitzvah to see if the mitzvah applies. דורשים טעמה דקרא

R. Shimon ben Yochai of the Mishna says you go by the reason for a mitzvah to see if the mitzvah applies. דורשים טעמה דקרא

And the Sages say you don't.

It is known that there is a contradiction in the Rambam [Maimonides] if we go by R. Shimon or the Sages.
 And this came up in Bava Metzia but I never got there with my learning partner so I never learned that subject with any depth.
But I thought to at least lay out the basic subject for public information.
In Bava Metzia this comes up about the widow. לא תחבול בגד אלמנה"Thou shalt not take a garment of a widow as a pledge for a loan." R. Shimon] says if she is not poor you can take a pledge [because we go by the reason for the verse. Even though the verse don't take a pledge from a widow still we know the reason for this is because of compassion for her poor state. If she is not poor there is no reason not to take  a pledge.] [Notice we do not say there is any mystical reason for the mitzvah. Even the sages agree that we know the reason for all the mitzvot except for just one. The only argument is if we go by the reason or by what is written.]
Here the Rambam goes with the Sages. But by the prohibition of marrying a woman that serves idols the Rambam goes by the reason and not by what is written.
I thought the Rambam had an idea of the reason modifying how we apply the mitzvah because of what he wrote in the commentary on the Mishna.
But then I saw Rav Shach [of the Ponovitch Yeshiva in Bnei Brak] wrote about the law in the Rambam about a city of idolaters on the border of Israel, that even R. Shimon agrees that the only question is if the mitzvah applies in a certain situation or not. We never use the reason to modify the rules.
The law in the Rambam is Laws of Idolatry 4:4. A עיר הנדחת  If a city of idolaters is on the border of Israel we don't destroy it so that the border should not be left open. That reason is to R Shimon. From this Rav Shach proves his point you don't modify the law based on the reason for the law.
The idea here is how you would apply the law here would be different if we went by the Sages--which we do. So the Rambam bringing the reason of RS is not meant to modify it.

[I have depended on RS even though he is not the halacha, because I consider my situation to be שעת הדחק  emergency. We use the same logic for other things like new produce  חדש. We say We can depend on R Eliezer in an emergency. This is even though clearly the halacha is not like him. This gives rise to the fact that I sometimes take any opinion mentioned in the Gemara as my rule. In fact I have used the Gemara as my personal code of law --ever since my entire situation became a state of extreme emergency. But because the world is messed up I thought I should tell others because there could be other people out there that also find themselves in situations that are hard and can't be as strict in law as perhaps we all should be. What makes my situation to be  what I think is a emergency is the group of people that normally I would try be fit in with--the group that tries to keep the Torah-had been taken over by the Dark Side, the Sitra Achra, as is well known. So if I or anyone else wants to keep the Torah we have to do it on our own and and say as far as possible from those that make a display of keeping Torah. Hasidim work for the exact opposite of what they claim. In this world nothing is what it seems.]