The Rambam combined Torah with Aristotle. This leaves open the question what would he do today?
I do not ask what he would think of 20th century philosophy? That is clear. But the question I ask is more along the lines of what he would do with Kant? [Or the different schools based on Kant--or stemming from Kant?]
I have suggested that he would continue in his approach. That is his way is really a kind of synthesis between Plato and Aristotle. So what I have thought is he would simply continue this process.
Mainly I think he would accept  Kant's structure of the mind but he would justify knowledge by a kind of third kind of knowledge that is not reason and not sensed--but known. [The Rambam was not in the habit of denying the truth based on criteria like, "Who said it?' ]

I wish I could show this more clearly but you can see this idea in this essay on Kelley Ross's site.

See also this article in the this  Philosophy magazine from Cornell.


Here is

my picture of Kant's idea of the way the Mind works.


If you go with the Rambam (Maimonides)  you have to add another kind of knowledge that is known not by sensory perception and not by reason, i.e. immediate non-intuitive knowledge.

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I have seen a good deal of cults. Maybe it is just human nature to be curious about exotic religions. But what people involve in these cults don't seem to get is how it affects their children. Maybe that is in other religions also.  I have heard that Muslims like to train their children as suicide bombers. So apparently the problem of cults is not confined.

The best remedy for this is common sense reason.

The Rambam understood Torah as intending to bring to natural law. Common sense morality. 

The more reason is divorced from belief,  the more problems with cults we get.  When cultural relativism started in the USA, this provided the model for people to look for true values in all kinds of exotic places.

So what I suggest is to reunite Reason and Faith, Natural Law with Torah Law, This was certainly the approach of the Rambam. At any rate you can see why Lithuanian yeshivas are so strict to keep out cults and cult members. They would not have to be so careful if Torah was a secular discipline. It is because Torah is holy that the flies are attracted as to honey.

Every value has an opposite value. And when the positive value loses its purity it decays into it opposite. So when people use the Torah for personal motives, it causes the holiness of the Torah to leave it and in its place is unholiness.

I have heard that Germany is especially concerned with the problem of cults, but I doubt if they made much progress in understanding or dealing with the problem. And I myself only became aware of my own weakness in this area recently. It is a hard problem. I have suggested before the idea of Rishonim. That is if you are Jewish then the best place to learn about it is books from the Middle Ages before cults became a problem and the emphasis was to combine reason with revelation. I suggest that this applies to Christians also. That is to go back to the Middle Ages and read the source material from that time --like Aquinas etc would be the best approach. I got this idea in my first yeshiva and I think it is  the cure for cults. [That is go back to medieaval sources.]

Ideas in Bava Metzia Ideas on the Talmud

In Bava Metzia page 110 we have  a case of נכייתו or משכנתא דסורא. You have a lender and borrower that come to court. Just to make this concrete lets say it is  a case of משכנתא דסורא. That is when a person borrows money and as a guarantee for the loan he lets the lender use his field for some period and after that time the field returns to the borrower even if he did not pay back the loan.
The lender says the period was five years (and has been there three years) and the borrower says it was only for three years. Rav Yehuda says we believe the lender. To Ravina we believe the borrower. (I am saying this according to Tosphot.) Rav Yehuda says we believe the lender because he could have said "I bought this field."
The normal way of a migo is one person could have said a plea and be believed so we believe him when he says a weaker plea. So at first glance this looks like Rav Yehuda and Ravina are agreeing that if the lender would in fact say "I bought it he would be believed". But Tosphot asks on this and says that Ravina disagrees with very premise in itself. He would hold if the מלווה said "I bought it" and the other says it is משכנתא דסורא the borrower would be believed.
On this Tosphot asks according to this way that we understand Ravina then in the normal case in Bava Batra 28 side a of one person says I bought it and the other says you stole it that we would believe the one who says you stole it because he has  amigo and he could have said it was aמשכנתא דסורא.

This question of Tosphot is going only to Ravina. To Rav Yehuda in fact the one that says "You stole it" does not have any option of saying it was a משכנתא דסורא.

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In בבא מציעא page ק''י we have  a case of נכייתו or משכנתא דסורא. You have a לווה and מלווה that come to court. Just to make this concrete lets say it is  a case of משכנתא דסורא. That is when a person borrows money and as a guarantee for the loan he lets the lender use his field for some period and after that time the field returns to the לווה even if he did not pay back the loan.
The lender says the period was five years and has been there three years and the borrower says it was only for three years. רבי יהודה says we believe the lender. To רבינא we believe the lender. I am saying this according to תוספות. In this case רבי יהודה says we believe the לווה because he could have said לקוחה היא בידי.
The normal way of a מיגו is one person could have said a plea and be believed so we believe him when he says a weaker plea. So at first glance this looks like רבי יהודה and רבינא are agreeing that if the lender would in fact say I bought it he would be believed. But תוספות asks on this and says that רבינא disagrees with very premise in itself. He would hold if the lender said לקוחה היא בידי and the other says it is משכנתא דסורא the borrower would be believed.
On this תוספות asks according to this way that we understand רבינא then in the normal case in בבא בתרא כ''ח ע''א   of one person says I bought it and the other says you stole it that we would believe the one who says you stole it because he has  a מיגו and he could have said it was aמשכנתא דסורא.

This question of תוספות is going only to רבינא. To רבי יהודה in fact the one that says you stole it does not have any option of saying it was a משכנתא דסורא

בבא מציעא דף ק''י יש לנו מקרה של נכייתא או משכנתא דסורא. יש לך לווה ומלווה שמגיעים לבית המשפט.  מקרה של משכנתא דסורא הוא  כאשר אדם לווה כסף וכערובה להלוואה הוא מאפשר למלווה להשתמש בשדה שלו לתקופה מסוימת ולאחר שהזמן חוזר השדה ללווה בלי כסף.וזה נחשב כמו ששילם את החוב. המלווה אומר התקופה הייתה חמש שנים והיה שם שלוש שנים. והלווה אומר שהתקופה הייתה רק לשלוש שנים. רבי יהודה אומר שאנחנו מאמינים המלווה. לרבינא אנו מאמינים המלווה. [אני אומר את זה על פי תוספות.] במקרה זה רבי יהודה אומר שאנחנו מאמינים המלווה כי הוא יכול לומר לקוחה היא בידי. הדרך הרגילה של מיגו היא אדם אחד היה יכול לומר טיעון ולהאמין. ולכן נאמין לו כשהוא אומר טיעון חלש. אז במבט ראשון זה נראה כמו שרבי יהודה ורבינא מסכימים שאם המלווה היה למעשה אומר שקניתי אותו הוא היה נאמן. אבל תוספות אומר שרבינא לא מסכים עם הנחה  בעצמה. הוא יחזיק אם המלווה אמר לקוח הוא בידי והלווה אומר שזה משכנתא דסורא הלווה יהיה נאמן. תוספות  שואל שעל פי דרך זו שאנו מבינים רבינא, אז במקרה הרגיל בבא בתרא כ''ח ע ' "א של אדם אחד אומר שקניתי אותו והשני אומר שאתה גנבת אותו כי עלינו להאמין האומר "גנבת אותו" כי יש לו מיגו והוא היה יכול לומר שזה היה משכנתא דסורא. שאלה זו של תוספות היא רק הולכת רבינא. לרבי יהודה זה שאומר "אתה גנבת אותו" אין לו שום אפשרות לומר שזה היה משכנתא דסורא .

Education

How to teach children? What subjects should they learn? In particular Jewish children? I have not thought about this much. From what I can tell the Mir yeshiva in New York had the right idea. [I did not go to the high school there but I saw what they were doing.]

In the high school they were learning secular subjects in the afternoon. The morning was devoted to Talmud. And from what I could tell the secular aspect was just as strong as the Talmud aspect. I had friend there in the Mir, Shelomo Berger, and his son was going to the high school there and he got amazingly high scores on the State examinations that they give in NY for each subject desperately.

What it also seems to me is that parents nowadays are kind of messed up. They can't help that. But at least I would say they must to give their children a good education like I saw at the Mir.

In New York I assume there is not much choice about what they teach the kids. But as far as secular subjects go I would stick with natural sciences and the arts. That is things that have value in themselves besides the "parnash" (making a living) issue. If a kid wants to college they could pursue a law degree or go to a technical school. I don't think people should be taught to use Torah for money. Nor should that be held up as a proper example of how to live.
 [In fact in NY you don't see that much, but in Israel, it is considered the highest ideal. That never sat very well with me.]

I see today parents are interested in all kinds of nonsense that it will take them years to see that it is nonsense. At least I suggest to them not to subject their children to that. And some of the know just what I mean--because they  were subject to crazy stuff when they were young and now they know the damage this causes.

Maybe a better way of putting is: Don't go to cults, and don't put your children in one.

But I can understand parents that are confused about education for their children. What sometimes happens is people get sore at the the the religious world for good reasons and so they don't feel there is any worth in teaching their children Talmud. I admit I fell into this trap myself. That is what happens when you have nasty people pretending to keep Torah. It gives Torah a bad name and makes it hard even for simple Jews to give their children a proper Torah background.

In any case if your children are gong to a cult, then get them out now.

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Sometimes people get involved in books that are pseudo Torah and this slowly draws them away from Torah. And then they get to be experts in pseudo Torah and then get called תלמידי חכמים Torah scholars, though they can't learn legitimate Torah.

The Gra I think was advocating a kind of system in which people would learn Torah all day. And in his commentary on Pirkei Avot he says that learning Torah is a mitzvah in itself even if one does not keep anything at all--zilch of what it says. This is on the Mishna  [ch. 5] that one who goes to the Beit Midrash to learn but does not keep Torah gets the reward for learning.

In the Lithuanian yeshivas today that are built on the model of the Gra you can see this attitude played out in life.


The Gra did not write Musar, rather he wrote commentaries on every part of Torah. So you can't really find direct statements of what he holds on lots of issues. But you can see something of what he must have been thinking in the writings of his disciple Chaim of Voloshin. And in his writings you find this statement דבר מנוסה כשישכים אדם בבוקר ויקבל על עצמו עול תורה באמת היינו שיגמור בליבו שלא ישמע לשום אדם, ולא יבטלנו שום טירדה, אזי יצליח ביום ההוא בתורה. וכפי גודל ההסכמה ותוקף הקבלה כן יסירו הטרדות
והביטולים ממנו

The literal translation of this is this: It is a tested fact that when one gets up in the morning and accepts on himself the yoke of Torah in truth, that is, he decides in his heart that he will not listen to any person and he will not allow anything to distract him, then he will succeed in Torah that day. And according to how strong his conviction is and the power of his commitment, to that same degree there will be removed from him the distractions and everything that is wasting his time.





Personally I have found an enormous amount of obstacles in reaching this goal. I still spend practically all my day not learning Torah. And I don't have much of an excuse either.
There is very minor part of my day that I try to do things that might be considered as reasonable excuses for not learning Torah. But if you add them all up they would amount to minuscule amounts of time. Most of all the obstacles are mental and physical.

There are in my mind lots of reasonable things that would require me or others to stop  learning Torah for  a few minutes in order to attend to these matters, and then return to  learning Torah. But what seems to happen is the entire idea of  ביטול תורה (wasting time from Torah) gets thrown to the winds.

While I agree that one should learn an honest profession, get a real job, and not depend on charity. But what happens is that Torah is thrown out completely. Guys are  capable only of concentrating on one thing at a time. If it is Torah, then it's Torah. If you try to combine that with something else, the "something else" becomes primary, and the Torah get shoved to a very secondary place. [I think the Gra was defining Torah in  a limited sense. We find the Rambam also saying this remarkable statement, "Just as anything that one adds to the Written law is not Torah so anything that one adds to the Oral Law is not Torah." Today it is common to teach things that are not a part of the written Law or the Talmud and to say that one is teaching Torah.

Part of the problem is mental. I have  a hard time along with many other people in seeing the point. It takes a large degree of faith to believe  that one is accomplishing anything at all by learning Talmud which at first glance is about as interesting as the New York Phone Book.
It is tempting to learn other things and call them "Torah" --even if for no other reason that they are more fun.

But there are many other reason to not learn Torah. It does happen that just when one starts to learn that the obstacles gain in strength. And people come up to him and say, " Let's go and do some mitzvah." You can't see the effect of learning Torah until a lot of time has passed.

It is funny that there are so many distractions that seem  perfectly legitimate. Sometimes people get involved in books that are pseudo Torah,  and this slowly draws them away from Torah.  I see this all the time. Then they get to be experts in pseudo Torah, and then get called תלמידי חכמים Torah scholars, though they can't learn legitimate Torah.

So what I suggest is this: learn Torah. I can agree with an hour a day of learning a profession in order not to have to use the Torah for money as is so common. And a certain amount of Physics and Metaphysics is also important to the Rambam. But that is not an all encompassing excuse to spend the whole day in extracurricular activities. And drop all pseudo Torah. You know exactly what I mean. I don't have to spell it out.


The justification for this is this learning Torah produces a type of consciousness. And this consciousness is the source of one's deeds.
In any case I got involved in extra curricular activities a long time ago and so it makes plenty of sense to me that I have found so many problems in my life. I think it all flows from ביטול תורה--wasting time from learning Torah.

Trust in God according to the Gra means not to do effort and not to depend on one's own thinking.

I would not say this except that I have found that when I do effort and or depend on my own thinking --either things don't work out or they get worse. To some degree I imagine that some people have a kind of ability to put their minds to something and it gets done. They have success embedded into their fates. But that does not seem to be the case for me. Rather I have found that when I in fact put my trust in God, and do no effort, things work out.

Moving from place to place seems to be an example of this. Once  I went to yeshiva with the idea in mind that God would take care of me. And  that is exactly what happened. God granted to me a wife and children and a living also. Other times I moved from one place to another --not based on trust, but based on the fact that I felt the first place was intolerable and the second seemed to be great.
This type of thinking just got me from the frying pan into the fire.

[See Proverbs chapter 3 at the Gra's comments. Also check  out the Alter of Navardok's book the מדרגת האדם ]. Don't take this the wrong way. I am not giving advice here because I have never managed to walk this fine line very well. Usually when I was trusting in God I was not doing so consciously. I simply did what I believed was God's will -and  I could have been mistaken- but still for some reason God still blessed me.  When I went to Israel I also was doing what I felt was God's will, I certainly was not thinking of how I would be making a living. Yet that was either the peak of my whole life or at least one of the major great periods.

What I suggest from all this is highly personal for each person according to their best understanding. It is not like a kind of thing that you can define well.

connection between Kant and the Ari

Just to give an idea of why I think there is a connection between Kant and the Ari I think it wise to show what Kant is thinking by these simple diagrams. And to mention some aspects of the Ari that reflect this system. The most obvious thing is the תשעה היכלין. The nine palaces. This is clearly here in which each power of the mind creates a representation in the order I have presented here.  [that is 1 to 1; 2 to 2; but reason leads to knowing  synthesis of representations-a kind of perception that does not come from sensibility. ]

. [This is a long subject in the Ari .]

At this point Kant does not stop, and nor does rabbainu the Ari. The mind has this further power of synthesis or Daat that acts on the representations that are given by the male aspect of the Mind.

Kant is going to make a difference upon what kind of representation the Daat {synthesis is going to work on.} This is what produces universals. The Ari himself does not put it in this way but it still is fascinating to see the connection between the Ari and Kant.

Synthesis/Daat is known to have two aspects דעת עליון and דעת תחתון. There is a essay by Reb Chaim Vital about this subject that formed the basis of the Reshash's interpretation of the Ari. But the interesting thing here is that Kant also sees two aspects of Daat. This forms the most fundamental idea in Kant; the Transcendental deduction. That is this synthesis perceives the self and also perceives  and combines universals. This forms the idea of Kant that we can trust synthesis because it gives us our own sense of identity.

[I might mention here that Hegel is most definitely basing himself on the structure of the Ari. He was quite aware of the Ari and even brings down the idea of Adam Kadmon. But he sees a dynamic aspect in the Ari  where each category [sephera] is unfolded. [This is the same as a logical progression of Aristotle's  logic where there is an unfolding - but not in time.] 

See here 

A Map of Hegel's Science of Logic

 http://autio.github.io/projects/scienceoflogic/     

Gra was going with Aristotle.

I have known for a long time that the Gra was going with Aristotle.  You can see hints of it here and there. But it is clearest when he says Genesis chapter one is all potential until the last word  לעשות.
That is God created everything in potential during the six days of creation. The everything in its proper time came into actual existence. A better way of putting this is there is  a ground of existence and there are existing things. When things that are only existing in potential hit the ground of existence they become actually existing things.
Clearly this is how he understood the Ari also. And you can see a hint of this in Shalom Sharabi.
[That is the רש''ש has the sephirot conforming to an Aristotelian pattern in the future after the final correction of all the worlds. He writes about this very little so it is not well known.]


In any case this gives us an idea of what the Rambam must have meant when he said Genesis chapter one is an allegory. We can be fairly sure he did not mean the sephirot like the Arizal. I suggest he meant it like this statement of the Gra.
So when it comes to explain Genesis we now have two ways. The Gra. This would mean that 15 billion years would just be the natural unfolding of potential that was put into place during the six days of creation. The other way is the Arizal.
I should mention that the Ari seems at first glance to be neo Platonic. He builds on concepts of the pre-Soctratics and  then adopts the answers of Plato to the problems they raised and then uses the Neo Platonic interpretation of Plato of Plotinus and then based on that framework he builds his vast and complete system. But the Gra held that the Ari in fact on a deeper level was going with Aristotle and the surface level was just allegorical.

I should mention that to me the Gra presents the path of Torah in an  authentic way. That is in a way that is faithful to original sources. He has no interest to pervert or change the message of Torah to his own liking. And that is rare. This is why I have recommended Lithuanian yeshivas from time to time on because I see them as presenting authentic Torah.

But just in case this is in doubt--I want to make sure no one thinks I am on this path. For reasons unknown to me I have not been able to stick with the path of Torah and my efforts to get back to it have always backfired and made things even worse. I simply do not have the merit needed to be able to stick with Torah. And my life style is completely contradictory to everything the Torah says from the first to the last words. But God has at least granted to me the privilege of recognizance the greatness of Torah and also of knowing what the Torah says. So at least I know how far I am from it. But not just that--I can see when others are far from it also but make a show about how they are keeping it.

I should mention that there is no reason to assume Kant would disagree with the Ari. For example: "In the Transcendental Aesthetic, Kant is primarily concerned with “pure” [rein] intuition, or intuition absent any sensation, and often only speaks in passing of the sense perception of physical bodies (for example A20–1/B35)." [From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.] That is Kant's anschauung is not the same as sensory perception.

And I should mention also: "All of the mental faculties produce representations." [From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.] That means even what Kant calls intuition produces representations.
We see Kant could easily be with parallel the Ari. And in fact it was my experience with learning the Ari and being in Israel that convinced me that Kant was better than Hegel. 

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Kant and Hegel

It used to be that the world was divided between people that were unconsciously thinking like Plato and others that were thinking like Aristotle.This expressed itself in Religion and Politics from the time of Plato and Aristotle until Kant and Hegel. Since that time the world has been divided in this new way.


The old division was like you had some mystics like Rav Avraham Abulafia who were going with Plato and Neo Platonic thought as opposed to the Rationalists like the Rambam.
And this original division was based on the ancient question how is change possible? To Plato the forms were unchanging and this imperfect world changes. To Aristotle change is from potential to action.And action is the perfect thing. Aristotle  changed the old paradigm in which change was considered imperfect.


This expressed itself in Christianity also staring from Augustine (Plato)-and going largely towards the Russian Church.The west went with Aquinas (Aristotle) and based on his theory of natural law evolved societies of based on natural rights.


Since Descartes however the major question has been the mind body problem and this found its major type of solution in Kant and Hegel.
Before Kant the question was between the rationalist and empiricists which was a natural division considering the mind body problem. But both thought the mind perceives. To Kant the mind has a
 active part in the representation (that is the way Schopenhauer understands Kant). At any rate, Hegel did not think the mind had any limitations, but progress by a kind of dialectal process.



Since then the world has been divided between these two.

Where things are going to go from here is therefore simple. This same process will simply continue. There will be periods in which individual autonomy seems to be the dominant view. There will be other periods in which the State is the key factor.

I don't know why this is that after two great thinkers, that everyone after that seems to automatically adopt either one or the other's way of thinking,  and considers it totally natural and simple common sense. Clearly Rav Kook was thinking about the State as some kind of Divine goal.


To some degree it is true that Kant opened the door to faith by limiting reason , but he also unwittingly opened it for people to believe in noise and fury.


The ancient question on which all philosophy was based how is change possible seems silly to us today. But the "Mind-Body" question is at the center of all philosophy, and you can't ignore the question of the "State-as opposed to the Individual" either.

I believe this thesis  here is central to understanding the world we live in today and it is likely to be the key for the next thousand years of history. Then at some point some other question will arise and there again will be two thinkers that tackle it in two dramatically different way and they will determine the next thousand years of history etc.

That is the first question was how is change possible? That question had slow beginnings until it reached its peak in Plato and Aristotle. Then had a slow winding down process--resulting in the synthesis of Plotinus. Then the Mind Body Mind Soul problem came to its peak in Kant and Hegel and since then there also has been a kind of winding down process --trying to create synthesis of the approaches of both.  At some point some other unforeseen question will arise and the same process will begin again.

It is important to listen to the Rambam about the importance of learning the Written Law תנ''ך the Oral Law גמרא Physics and Metaphysics. Though the Rambam was referring openly to Plato and Aristotle and Plotinus, still I think Kant and Hegel should be added.

Hegel has been treated unfairly. In my mind, he excels and goes beyond Kant. He was not a statist in the sense that Popper accused him being. In fact Popper's critique on him is mainly false as Walter Kaufman pointed out.

Songs for the glory of the God of Israel

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My parents had a polynomic theory of value. But not being philosophers they did  not put it in that way.

For me that means there is a continuum of positive value and an opposing continuum of negative value.

 Bu my parents added one value-balance. And the general scheme was called by one name "to be a mensch" i.e.  decent human being.

The way I see this is you could take almost any mitzvah and emphasize it. And that would be a good thing to do. Either mitzvahs between God and man  or mitzvot between man and man. Just to give you an idea of what I mean. Take  the importance of talking with God.
The Gra saw the prime value as being learning Torah. I think that no matter how you cut the cake it would be great if a person could spend all day long just talking with God an asking to come close to his service. Or doing some other mitzvah. Or learning Torah. Or doing kindness. Building a hospital or soup kitchen. But I try to strive for some kind of balance between all areas of positive value. And I try to discern in each area of value what its opposing value is --in order to avoid it.

That is there is authentic Torah. And that is holy. And there is pseudo Torah that is unholy. There are the natural  sciences that are good. And there are pseudo sciences that are bad. Same with Music. and Art and literature.

Ideas in Talmud
 Ideas in Talmud Title Page


Ideas in Bava Metzia  [This is a summary of the learning I was doing in Uman with David Bronson up until about page 104 at which point I had to struggle on my own.]



Dear Readers. The Ideas in Talmud book I edited a few times since the last time I printed it. The other one I think is still the same as a month ago. In the meantime I have been trying to learn Rav Shach's book on the Rambam. [I.e the Avi Ezri by Rav Elazar Menachem Shach of Ponovitch] But I don't have a lot to add to his analysis. Mainly I am learning it in order to gain greater clarity in the Rambam. I really don't think I have the merit to learn Torah. The obstacles are so great that even to  to learn one word of Torah is like pulling teeth. But I thank God for even that one word as if I had found a vast fortune.

I also edited the Ideas in Bava Metzia because I think one idea there was a mistake.--on page BM 110. I think when I wrote it I did not understand the idea of Tosphot. Actually I still don't understand what Tosphot is asking but at least I wrote my question properly. --that is that Tosphot wants to ask on Ravina that if he is right the the regular case in Bava Batra about the guy that has  field three years and the other says he stole it the second guy would be believed because he could have said משכנתא דסורא/
I don't get this at all. as far as I can see in our case in Bava Metzia 110 we have two guys that both agree it was  משכנתא דסורא. And there Rav Yehuda holds from a migo for the person that at present still has the field though he is not the owner and Ravina says we believe the owner and does not believe the migo of the other. I might not be writing this right but you get my point. Tosphot question works only to Ravina and Ravina is the one guy that does not hold from a migo. and also in Bava Batra if he would say משכנתא דסורא who says we believe him? We only are believing him here because both agree it is a משכנתא דסורא. I may not be writing this correctly --but I don't have to. I am simply asking two questions. You don't need any standards of rigorous logic to not understand something.

Maybe I should just write this straight in English. Two guys come to court. Both agree the case is that of משכנתא דסורא. A משכנתא דסורא is a case in which one persons loans money to the other. as a guarantee for the loan he gets the filed of the borrower. And he eats the fruits of the field. And after ten years the field goes back to the borrower even if he pays back nothing. But in our case they are arguing if instead of ten years their agreement was for three or five years. Ravina says we believe borrower. That is to say he gets back his field after three years. Rav Yehuda says we believe the lender and he keeps it for five years. The reason is he could have said he bought it.  Tosphot asks if Ravina is right then in the case of two guys coming to court, one says I bought this field and we know it has been in his possession for three years and the other says he stole it the second should be believed because the second could have said משכנתא דסורא. Two questions. Here Ravina does not hold from migo and we have seen that migo is only mentioned by a guard. To learn it elsewhere we need some compelling reason. Maybe Ravina does not hold from it anywhere except by a guard. Another question. Here is a case where both agree it is משכנתא דסורא. Who says in the case in Bava Batra where one says he stole it and the other says he bought it that the accuser would be believed if he saidמשכנתא דסורא?


Now Tosphot answers his question thus: It is  migo to take out. That is a good answer. But I still don't see why Ravina should hold from any migo except the one the Torah says openly.
that is you believe the borrower here because we know he owns the field. the other is just eating teh fruits.We don't believe the other by a migo because it is  migo to take out. and also a migo of the owner would not work after three years in bav batra because it too is  amigo to take out.--i guess? or would you not say here you should believe the migo of the lender because for no the file dis in his temporary possession and the fruit  in any case is in his possession.! If only I had  a Bava Metzia to look this up! But like I said--i was thrown out of almost every yeshiva I ever walked into. And in exile from places of Torah at the best I can only grab a NY minute with Torah from time to time.

About Sucah

In the first Mishna in Sucah the Rav from Bartenura brings the Gemara which says if the sun and branches are even on top then the shadow is more on the bottom so it is kosher. כדאמרי אינשי כזוזא מלעילא כאסתירא לתתא
If you are in a desert and you are trying to spot a fighter plane in the sky, the way to do it is to look for its shadow. The reason is the shadow is always much larger than the plane itself. What is puzzling about this is the fact that the Gemara seems to consider the shadow on the floor to be the determining factor as to whether the Sucah is kosher or  not. It says that being equal is OK because on the bottom the shadow is more.
According to this reasoning then the top סכך (branches) could be much less than the shadow because of the bottom the shadow of the סכך (branches) will be expanded. That means this Gemara is a puzzle because it says on top the סכך (branches) and sun need to be equal.

[I had a small copy of the  Mishna [on Moed] I carried around with me for years so that I would not forget my learning as I was being thrown out from every yeshiva I stepped foot in. For some reason I was not just unpopular, but literally thrown out (sometimes physically, sometimes it was from the sound of people saying I was there for their hot-dogs and other times I was accused of much more horrendous things. But the main thing seemed to be the intent to get rid of me more than the accuracy of the accusations.) from every yeshiva I walked into. Maybe I am not worthy to learn Torah? And if I happened to be married they made sure to correct that situation as fast as they could also. So for me to hold on to Torah was hard,--and still is.
I still have great problems when it comes to keeping Torah, internal and external. This tells you part of the reason that I think Torah with Derech Eretz . Torah with work =  that is a regular job and not to use Torah to make money. That  is  a better approach than Torah all day. It is mainly because the Torah all day approach seems to have the law of limited returns working against it. It is like drinking water. The Torah is after all compared to water. There is a certain point one can get to that drinking more than his stomach can hold can be dangerous.

  Just to be clear yeshivas should throw out people as many as possible, But not people that are  there to learn Torah for its own sake. There is nothing wrong with throwing out trouble makers. But trouble makers are not usually whom they throw out. Just the opposite. It is usually the sincere people that get thrown out.


   But in any case if yeshivas existed in order to learn Torah, then this would be inexplicable. But if they exist in order to use Torah as a business or as a way to get out of army service, then this makes a lot of sense. They don't want people that learn it for free or for its own sake. The solution to this is not easy. But the general direction I would take would be to separate Torah from Money. Torah should not be paying profession because when it is that attracts the flies.




In any case in that copy of the Mishna I wrote a possible solution to this dilemma. My solution is the fact that there is no exact mathematical solution to the problem of diffraction. I mean to say that every shadow has one area that is dark, and another area that is half dark and half light. That area can extend to infinity. So when you say the shadow on the bottom has to be more than the light, it is not clear what that means. The area of the shadow can be infinite.  Therefore the Gemara held only when the shadow and סכך (branches) on top are equal is it kosher.
You could perhaps also suggest to take the dark area as the key factor. You could call it 100% shade. And then when that gets to be 49% light call it not shade.  I don't know why the Talmud did not choose this approach? Besides I wonder if we could go by just the dark area alone? But again the Talmud does not seem to want to focus on the dark area either. Instead it chooses this path where on top they are even and on the bottom the dark area is larger. Maybe a physicist could come up with an explanation of what the Talmud is saying here and why it choose this path?

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In the first משנה in סוכה the רב from ברטנורה brings the גמרא which says if the  סכך and צל are even on top then the צל is more on the bottom so it is kosher. כדאמרי אינשי כזוזא מלעילא כאסתירא מלבר
If you are in a desert and you are trying to spot a fighter plane in the sky, the way to do it is to look for its shadow. The reason is the צל is always much larger than the plane itself. What is puzzling about this is the fact that the גמרא seems to consider the צל on the floor to be the determining factor as to whether the סוכה is kosher or  not. It says that being equal is OK because on the bottom the צל is more.
According to this reasoning then the top סכך could be much less than the shadow because of the bottom the shadow of the סכך will be expanded. That means this גמרא is a puzzle because it says on top the סכך and shadow need to be equal.


In any case in that copy of the משנה I wrote a possible solution to this dilemma. My solution is the fact that there is no exact mathematical solution to the problem of diffraction. I mean to say that every shadow has one area that is dark and another area that is half dark and half light. That area can extend to infinity. So when you say the shadow on the bottom has to be more than the light it is not clear what that means. The area of the shadow can be infinite.  Therefore the Gemara held only when the shadow and סכך on top are equal is it kosher.
You could perhaps also suggest to take the dark area as the key factor. You could call it 100% shade. And then when that gets to be 49% light call it not shade.
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 במשנה הראשונה בסוכה הגמרא אומרת שאם הסכך והצל שווים על גבי הסוכה אז הצל הוא יותר בתחתית כך שהיא כשרה, כדאמרי אינשי כזוזא מלעילא כאסתירא מלבר. אם אתה במדבר ואתה מנסה לזהות מטוס קרב בשמיים, הדרך לעשות את זה היא לחפש צלה. הסיבה לכך היא הצל הוא תמיד הרבה יותר גדול מהמטוס עצמו.  התמוה על זה הוא העובדה שנראה שהגמרא שוקלת צל על הרצפה כדי להיות הגורם המכריע בשאלה האם הסוכה כשרה או לא. זה אומר שלהיות שהם שווים למעלה הוא בסדר כי בתחתית הצל הוא יותר. על פי היגיון זה אז סככת העליון יכולה להיות הרבה פחותה מהצל בגלל שבתחתית הצל של הסכך יורחב. זה אומר גמרא זו היא חידה כי זה אומר על גבי סכך והצל צריך להיות שווה. הפתרון שלי הוא העובדה שאין פתרון מתמטי מדויק לבעיה של עקיפה (דיפרקציה). אני מתכוון לומר שלכל צל תחום אחד שהוא כהה ואזור אחר שהוא חצי אור וחצי כהה. האזור הכהה יכול להאריך עד אינסוף. אז כשאתה אומר הצל בתחתית צריך להיות יותר מןמהאור, לא ברור מה זה אומר. האזור של הצל יכול להיות אינסופי. לכן הגמרא מחזיקה שרק כאשר הצל וסכך על גבי סוכה שווים זה כשר. אתה אולי יכול גם להציע לקחת את האזור הכהה כגורם מפתח. אפשר לקרוא לזה מאה אחוז כהה ואז כשזה הופך להיות ארבעים ותשעה אחוזים  לקרא לזה לא צל. אבל הגמרא לא בחרה בדרך הזו.

Religious fervor and fanaticism

The major problem today is a kind of excess of religious fervor in unhealthy directions.

This takes lots of forms but a good deal of the trouble I think is setting religion above reason as if it was immune to critique. I would like to go into this but I am tired and it has been a long day.
But in short what I see is something that has been named religious fanaticism.
What brings me to this issue of היכלי התמורות. This is actually a long subject in the Zohar.   when people discover  מפורסמים של שקר lunatic charismatic leaders this comes from the fact they get caught in the היכלי התמורות the "Intermediate Zone" [as Aurobindo so aptly put it].[That is the see  good ideas and so they get attracted and get involved  and then drop learning Torah and start following any one of the insane leaders of a movement.

So while fervor to keep the Torah is a great thing what happens is people get sidetracked by false teachers. And they teachers are given amazing powers to do miracles and to know future things by the Dark Side --in order to seduce innocent Jews and other people.

So what I suggest is to learn Torah in a authentic Lithuanian yeshiva--at least part of the day, and to avoid cults with tremendous fervor. If you don't have a Litvak yeshiva in your neighborhood then at least try to start one.  That means in essence learning Talmud from 10 A.M. to 2 P.M. And the afternoon one should go to university. [That is the seder of Chaim Berlin and it was also of the Mir.] You could reverse this also and learn Torah half the day in the afternoon and evening. But it has to be authentic Torah that is straight forward Gemara Rashi and Tosphot.

Religious fervor and fanaticism can be directed towards good goals. One could for example be a fanatic about honoring one's parents. That is after all what the Talmud calls חמור שבחמורות the most important of all important mitzvot. But that is not usually on the agenda of insane, charismatic, religious leaders. The last thing they want is people to listen to their parents.

The main good thing about Breslov as a movement is it saves people from worse movements. But it has the problem that when people are on a good path it derails them.

However there are a lot of movements that are cults, but it is less obvious, because they strive for a good image.
There are some that have trans-personal powers. Some with actual powers from the Dark Side. Not one is a Torah scholar. That is none of them "know how to learn." They get called the name of respect, but they can't learn. They get these powers because the Satan gives them miracles in order to deceive people and push them off of decent paths they are already walking on.


Part of what is happening with religious fanaticism is that reason contributes to the representation of the "ding an sich" (Kant's thing in itself). That is reason is only able to reach into unconditioned realities when there is some aspect of them that is empirical. When it tries to reach into regions of unconditioned realities that have no empirical aspect then it creates anti-monies--contradictions. So this is what is happening in people's minds when they reach into these regions-- they create self contradictions  in their minds. Or maybe that is just some people. I think Yaakov Abuchatzaira and his children and Bava Sali did spend a good amount of time learning Isaac Luria and apparently held very highly from him.