Yoke of Torah

The whole idea of the yoke of Torah in the way I understand it is if one accepts it then other kinds of problems do not come to one. That is I think the actual idea of the Chapters of the Fathers: "From one who accepts on himself the yoke of Torah, there is removed the yoke of government and work."

That is [in the way I understand it] sometimes people have problems that stem from work or the government. And they try to solve these problems in different ways that are related to the problem at hand. But what is being suggested here in the Mishna is that there is a better approach to solving one's problems. That is to accept the yoke of Torah.

I am not saying I know how to accomplish this in a practical sense.
But this idea resonates with me from another thing I learned once when I was at the Mir in NY.
When I was there they had a "Musar Seder"--a set time for learning books on ethics. And it was in one of those books that I saw quoted a Gemara in Shabat "there are no troubles without sin."
The actual Gemara there in tractate Shabat has an argument if there is death without sin and if there are problems without sin. I forget the whole discussion, but the conclusion of the Gemara is, "There is death without sin, but there are no problems without sin."

This statement made a profound effect on me. Ever since I saw that I have assumed as a basic premise that any problem I am going through is always my own fault because of some character flaw in me.

Putting this all together is this: when I go through problems like I am today, one thing I can do is seek a direct solution. But sometimes no direct solution presents itself- because that is the nature of things that I and most other people go through. We find ourselves in some kind of problem that if we turn right we make things worse, -and if we turn left, we make them doubly worse. What to do in such a case, I think at least for myself, is to begin to accept the yoke of Torah.

And this is not just in theory. In fact there was a period of my life that things were going well and it just so happens --perhaps not by coincidence that that was a period that I was in fact learning and keeping the Torah as well as humanly possible according to my own level at the time.

That is the end of this essay, but just for some background to explain what this means: Yoke of Torah mainly means to be learning Torah and keeping it. That is the basic idea but how this applies to each person in practice is a very hard question for me. The most basic starting place is the Ten Commandments. Next step is the basic works of Ethics that are well known: Duties of the Heart, Paths of the Righteous, etc. That is the basic Musar collection.

One thing you see in books of Musar is the main thing the Torah is strict about is obligations between man and his fellow man. So when I see things going wrong in my life my first reaction is to look and see what I am doing wrong in my interactions with people. Have I said a lie? Have I taken something that does not belong to me? Are there things I should have done to help someone in need that I did not do? These are the types of questions I ask myself.

Reb Yaakov Abuchatzeira and his more well known grandson Bava Sali

Reb Yaakov Abuchatzeira  and his more well known grandson Bava Sali pretty well defined by their lives the basic approach of Torah. That is they were themselves fasting a lot and spending all their  days in Torah study. But they were not expecting the people in their cities to be doing the same. That is they were expecting nothing more or less than keeping the Torah in the most simple basic way possible without adding or subtracting any doctrines of beliefs or tikunim.  It is hard to explain the simplicity of their way when in the modern world often people pick up on some basic doctrine or practice to emphasize and forget everything else.
In Morocco every city had one חכם-wise man that was the religious leader and there the religious leader was usually in fact a פרוש  a person that  separated himself from this world and spent his time in learning and prayer and fasting.

I discovered myself the existence of Bava Sali a drop too late. But I did get to know his family to some extent. This family is still populated by very special individuals. And if you have one nearby I recommend going to any one of them and getting a blessing. It is worth the time and effort even if you do not see instant results.

Litvak {Lithuanian} yeshivas are important

The main reason that Litvak {Lithuanian} yeshivas are important is to improve character. They  are as far as intention goes doing the same thing that boy scouts were supposed to be doing before they fell into the dark side. That is it they are not just for learning Torah. This in part is connected with learning Musar. But that is not all it is. It is because there is an awareness that people are not automatically good. They need to be taught good character.

It occurred to me that there is a whole list of problems that are removed from one when he or she accepts the yoke of Torah

כל המקבל על עצמו עול תורה מעבירים ממנו עול מלכות ועול דרך ארץ from anyone who accepts on himself the yoke of Torah there is taken the yoke of the government and the yoke of the way of the world.

It occurred to me that this includes a whole list of problems that are removed from one when he or she accepts the yoke of Torah. And thinking about my divided thoughts about what course of action to take in my very bad situation would be included in the list.
But how does one go about ''accepting the yoke of Torah'' seems like a very difficult question. Most yeshivas that I am aware of do not let in people after the age of 24. So in any case, I would have to figure out how to increase my own learning time of Talmud. Plus there are the basic laws of the Torah related to being married. That clearly is not an area dependent on myself alone.
So I decided even this very simple thing--accepting the yoke of Torah requires prayer to merit to do it.

[The way yeshivas are run is problematic, but that reflects on the nature of people, not the nature of Torah. It takes a special kind of person to run a yeshiva in a kosher way. But that is not my problem. My problem is regardless of how any institutions are run, how can I accept the yoke of Torah?]

The only kind of yeshiva that is directed towards character improvement are Lithuanian types where Musar is learned. The other types have the opposite effect.


The truth be told even at yeshiva age this is not an easy question. Does accepting the yoke of Torah mean only learning Torah and forgetting about learning a vocation? Even though I decided to concentrate on Torah alone it seems to me today that learning a vocation is a part of accepting the yoke of Torah.

Next besides learning Torah is how to keep the Torah. This is even more confusing than the first question. I could say over my basic approach to halacha but that might not be much help for some people. My own approach to halacha is to learn the subject in the Talmud itself.

Isaac Luria

In the Torah every ''vav''in front of a verb is a ואו מהפך. It turns the tense from future to past and visa versa. This usage stopped by the time psalms and Ecclesiastes were written.  The reason modern Hebrew does not use the reversing vav is because it goes by later sources. That is they assume the Torah was written in a special way because it was given by inspiration from God, and does not tell us about the normal usage.
So what I think is the Torah means it both ways. Everything that did happen will happen. So when it says ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור it means just like the literal meaning-- and God will say let there be light.  And so on for the whole Torah. When it says ייוצא השם ישראל ממצרים It means in the future God will save Israel from every troubling  times.

 What I am getting at is the idea that you have in the Isaiah "את השמים החדשים ואת הארץ החדשה אשר אני עושה the new heavens and the new earth that I am making."  and the idea that Israel goes through lots of periods of trouble. and you see in the book of Judges that God often sends some kind of person to help. So I think that these kinds of events in the Torah were not one time types of things but rather things that will continue to be repeated.

If you read Isaac Luria  this kind of idea might resonate a little more with you. It is kind of mystical. I don't mean that I am expecting a new earth. Rather a kind of spiritual light  and understanding that I think will come.

inspiration in Torah.

I found a lot of life and inspiration  in Torah. The way I see Torah is it teaches how to connect to the Life and the Good. That is after all what its says in Deuteronomy. "Behold I have put before you the Life and the Good (i.e. the Torah)." There is a deal you can't turn down. And to some degree I can justify this. But I do not deny there are people of the highest caliber that can defend other paths]

There have been only a few times in my life I was desperate enough to spend time begging God for help

There have been only a few times in  my life I was desperate enough to spend time begging God for help. This is one of them. I am in a situation in which I do not know whether to move or not.. What makes this difficult is that usually when I have moved in the past I was making things worse rather than better. So even though this situation has been going on like this for two years still I have tried to depend on God in this way: I say to myself if He wanted me to move then he would make it happen. If He does not force the issue then He does not want it.


There have been other time when I was absolutely in need of some kind of salvation and I was answered. And sometimes not. When I was growing up there was a time of great turmoil in the USA. The idea of seeking the truth was in the air. This was in Southern California. And once on a vacation with a friend of my mothers we were up in the mountains [maybe Big Bear]. I asked God then while alone in some forest area to guide me towards Truth. [With a Capital "T"]. I think to some degree this prayer was answered. Afterwards I began to study Torah more what we were doing our home. After  a few years  I believe God guided my steps to two very great yeshivas --Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY.

And the marriage aspect if the yeshiva world is a major factor.

I meant to explain the social aspect of the yeshiva world a few essays back.

And the marriage aspect if the yeshiva world is a major factor.

But this does not mean this works without belief in the importance of learning Torah.

You cant recreate the yeshiva environment without this basic belief. The attempt to do so is why there are so many cults out there.

While is true that just a drop of learning Torah does not seem to help,  still  if  I had been part of the yeshiva world, then I would  be happily married today. I took myself out of the yeshiva world.  But that does not mean to door back is open.  I can't rejoin the yeshiva world in any realistic way. 

Rejoining the yeshiva world is impossible,  I myself try to learn a little Torah every day and I also pray a little asking God for his help in my own words. And this is about all I can advice others also. Learn a little Torah every day, and try to tell God in your own words how sad you are that you have fallen and you can't find  help anywhere and everyone you know has rejected you. Tell this to God every day and ask him for forgiveness and guidance every day for as long as you live. I believe someday you will start to see things change for the better.

The great thing about Musar is it does not claim to be divinely revealed. It is simply telling over in the basic path of Torah.

I have no idea why you are going through your problems. My best suggestion is to learn Torah and Musar and go to a Litvak yeshiva in order to learn in a Litvak yeshiva environment. The Torah I believe can take you out of your problems 

I do not do this much I admit. But still every word of Torah I manage to learn I consider to be worth more that all the gold in the Federal Reserve.
Yeshivas that are legitimate have no reason to be friendly because they are not trying to make a cult. In order to learn Torah, you do have to overcome the initial ignition obstacles.

An added related idea to the above idea:

My reasoning about the Musar (Ethics) aspect of Lithuanian yeshivas is based on a few things. First Reasoning from the Old Testament and the Talmud I think Musar [Ethics written during the Middle Ages] gives an accurate description of Torah Morality more than any other writings.
This is you might think a weak justification. But for myself when I think of how to repent on my sins I think automatically about Musar. I don't think about any alternatives because all the alternatives seem to me to be intellectually dishonest.  The great thing about Musar is it does not claim to be divinely revealed. It is simply telling over in the basic path of Torah. People that learn it for other reasons than fining out what the Torah tells us will not be good people. Musar is mainly just information. And people can do with information whatever they want and in fact often use it in bad ways.  Still for those who want to know what the Torah tells us there is nothing as accurate as Musar.

Later movements like the one the Gra put into excommunication have the outer form of Torah with lots of rituals but they change the inner essence to be worship of human beings. So it can't be used as a source of information about what the Torah requires of us.


Christians often help others in time of need with no thought of personal reward but rather because of their belief that this is what God requires. This is certainly a major tenet of Torah law which believing Christians certainly put into practice. The trouble is the ביטול המצוות (nullification of the commandments) and the problem of worship of  a person. So that does not seem like much of an option.

 So to know what the Torah [Old Testament] requires of me I feel I need to go to books of Jewish Ethics of the Middle Ages. I should mention my older brother David agreed with me on this issue. I had seen in a book that Fear of God is good for length of days. I understood that to mean Musar. And so when my older brother had a health issue recently I told him this. I mentioned specifically the book Duties of the Heart. I said to him that this book I had seen my friends of our parents as being a basic introduction to what Torah requires of us. And I said that I thought learning it would help him. He said he agrees 100%. (I should mention that all Jewish homes in those days had a least one book explaining the basic ideas of the Torah. In our home was the Old Testament in English and Hebrew plus This is my God  by Herman Wouk

Talmud Bava Metzia Shavuot

In the Talmud in Shavuot [page 44a]

 The question is that the Gemara concludes like Rav  Joseph and that is how the Rambam decides. The question is what does the Rambam do with the Gemara in Bava Metzia in which Rav Nachman says about a משכון [collateral for  a loan] that even though one can use it he is not liable in אונסים [armed robbers].

I also wanted to point out why the Rif in our Gemara in Shavuot says the law straightforwards that the lender that loses the pledge is like a שומר שכר paid guard, and in a case of armed robbers, he loses only the amount of the collateral not the whole loan. The reason is quite elegant. It comes out of the steady progression of the Gemara itself to reach that point.
The Mishna says in an argument about a case when the pledge was lost  that the lender loses only the amount the pledge was worth. Shmuel said he loses the whole loan. [he was talking about when the borrower said so openly.] R Eliezer says the lender does not lose anything and R Akiva says he loses the loan. If the pledge is worth the entire amount then why would R Eliezer disagree? So everyone disagrees with Shmuel. Their argument is about R. Isaac that the lender owns the pledge. But if it was taken not at the time of the loan everyone agrees with R Isaac. So it is at the time of the loan and the disagreement is if a guard of a lost object is considered to be paid or not. But that is only if he needs to pledge. If you follow the logic of the Gemara here you can see why the Rif (Isaac Alfasi) says that nothing matters the lender that loses the pledge loses only the amount it was worth. I can't go into it this minute but by following the logic of the Talmud you can see how he was led to this conslution step by step.

The key is to remember that if we don't hold by Shmuel then it does not matter if the borrower said it is against the  loan or not. And if it is at the time of the loan of not also makes no difference since we go by R Akiva against R Eliezer. And even if the lender needs the pledge we still consider he is doing a mitzvah and so gets the coin of Rav Joseph and so is  a שומר שכר

There is one question I have even though I have not even gotten to learn Tosphot properly yet. The Rif does as I say take all the divisions and throws them out, and most of this you can see in the Gemara itself. The last division though I find difficult. If they all hold by R. Isaac that the pledge is owned when it was taken not at the time of the loan, and their argument is at the time of the loan and it goes by the debate between Raba and Rav Joseph, then there is a difference! A pledge taken not at the time of the loan  is owned, and for a pledge taken at the time of the loan, the lender is only a שומר שכר [paid guard]. So why does the Rif say for a pledge taken even not at the time of the loan he is a שומר שכר. He should say if taken not at time of loan he owns it and if taken at time of loan he is a paid guard.

From what I can tell Rashi answers this question in Bava Metzia. [That is he explains the Gemara there in a way that can help us understand the Rif in Shavuot--that is we can say perhaps the Rif was learning like Rashi.] He says on pg 84 that the pledge is owned completely only until the loan is paid. He says openly that what Rabbi Isaac means is that the lender is not a paid nor unpaid guard. He is an owner. But the ownership only exists until the second the borrower comes to pay back the loan. So this is not what I wrote in my ideas in Bava Metzia and I am sad to say I have to go back and correct my mistake. I was thinking around page that the lender owns the object completely.

Does this help us? Maybe. But still it looks like we still end up that for the pledge taken not at the time of the loan he is more than a paid guard--he owns it and thus is liable even in a case it was stolen by force. That is  a case the paid guard would not have to  pay for. So we still are in a mess concerning the Rif.  And we still have to figure out how all this applies to the case of  pledge in chapter 9 of Bava Metzia.

Though learning Torah is important I do not think it is the only area of value.

It is also important to have  good hobbies even if not for the sake of  a vocation.  Start to learn ham radio and computers and also a trade like being a locksmith. 

The main reason I say this is because my parents were against the idea of using Torah as a vocation. This was not their idea alone, but it is in the Torah itself. כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה וגוררת עוון. All Torah that does not have work with it is in the end worthless. 

And though I have heard people make an excuse: the Torah is their vocation. But that is even worse than using Torah for money. It is lying about what the Torah says for the sake of money. It does not get any lower than that.

Someone asked me, "Why do we need society?" I realized right then and there what the cognitive problem is. It is the idea that Nature is loving and benign. Without Society, we would all be living in paradise.

Concerning the presidential debates I don't have a lot to say. Mainly my feeling is that people have  a right to their own money.  I don't see the idea of the Democrats that everyone should have the same amount of money as being a worthy goal. Thus any Republican candidate I am for. It does not matter who it is.
But I realize that I lot of people don't share this view. I encountered this growing up in Southern. California. Then in NY I was there during the time there was a Democratic mayor during which time Jews felt under siege as in a time of the pogroms. Then I was in Israel during the rule of the Left wing Labor party in which I loaned someone 100 shekels and they returned my loan of 100 shekels which at the time [about 6 months later] they returned it to me was worth ten shekels. That is when ever the Left is in Power, they destroy society.

Someone asked me, "Why do we need society?" I realized right then and there what the cognitive problem is. It is Rousseau. It is the idea that Nature is loving and benign. Without Society, we would all be living in paradise.

This is needless to say not like the picture we have from the Oral and Written Law. In the Torah people are not considered to be automatically good. Rather we have a good inclination and a Yetzer HaRa--an evil inclination. Not all of our desires are good and should be fulfilled. People can do evil. And not just because of not having as much material goods as the next guy.

I should not really have to explain this to anyone who has every learned even one page of Bava Metzia. But sadly Rousseau has gotten into everyone's nonthinking.


I should mention that any Republican has values that are much close to the Torah than the Democratic party. To vote Republican is not just a statement of Torah values. It also can prove to be the first step to get out of the low and terrible place that the USA has come to. The world of family values and wholesome society is so far gone that some people have even forgotten that that was once what the USA was like.

I have good deal of mixed feelings about Musar Lithuanian kind of Yeshivas. In one way they are palaces of Torah. One can go to one of these kind of places and gain the type of thing that people come to expect in a character building environment. [It is not the Jewish equivalent of the Boy Scouts because it concentrates on Talmud and Musar learning.--not outdoor skills.] But it still in very close to the Boy Scouts in its basic goals of creating moral decent people.
But it has a higher objective beyond this. It intends to create  kind of community around it. One of the most essential aspects of a Litvak Yeshiva is the "Shiduch."[The marriage offer].
There is no Constitution but still there is a set of unspoken rules. On one hand I would like to advocate this kind of thing for all peoples. But as all human institution it has flaws and is no better than the people that run it.  So while as a concept it is a worthy thing still everything depends on the men and women in charge of running it.
The first generation after Europe had some very great people--Shmuel Berenbaum, Rav Hutner, Aaron Kotler and Moshe Feinstein. But that just goes to prove my point. It was the presence of great and dedicated people that made the yeshiva world in the USA what it was.

Just for background information. The basic idea is you have a study hall in which people study Talmud in pairs or alone. Then at around 12 PM is one class given by a "rosh yeshiva". If it is good yeshiva it is  a class on his own new ideas developed over about 20 years of studying the same material in depth. A lower level is  a rosh yeshiva that reads the ideas of others [like Reb Chaim or the Ketzot etc.] and says them over.  This later type is not a very high level but it also is legitimate.
Then there is "Musar Seder" for learning ethics. The best student is in general offered the hand of the Rosh Yeshiva's Daughter. And often he becomes the next Rosh Yeshiva. The other students are offered the hands of the daughters of other people in the community. How they would make a living after getting married is usually a difficult issue. This I have written about before. But in spite of the drawbacks this is a workable system and as  a rule it produces people of high moral character.

[I am myself in Uman right now which is not a yeshiva kind of environment. But I do try to hold on to learning Torah by the skin of my teeth. It is not easy. That is why I suggest learning in a yeshiva environment if possible.]

The son of the Rambam against Pantheism.

The son of the Rambam [Rav Avraham ] wrote a short book called מלחמות השם  concerning the  attacks on his father, the Rambam. A large part of the book deals with the problems of pantheism. People were unhappy with the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam because it states clearly that the world was created by God and it is not God. It is not made of His Divine substance and has no pieces of Him inside. A lot of people at the time had pantheistic beliefs about the Torah just as all the religious world does today and they were upset that the Rambam was attacking their beliefs.

Nowadays the strategy has changed from attacking the Rambam to claiming that he agrees with their pantheism.

The Rambam held that God made the world and he is not the world. Instead of the idea "everything is Godliness" the Rambam held that only God is God, and everything else is not God.

There has been an attempt to finagle pantheism into Torah by Rav Shick [Moharosh]. And he was doing this because did not read the Guide of the Rambam. So instead of gaining his ideas about Torah from the Rambam, he got his ideas elsewhere.
[I am not happy about criticizing Rav Shick. But still when he is wrong, he is wrong. If he wanted to present the Bahavagad Gita, the Upanishads or Spinoza, then I would not have anything to complain about. But when he presents pantheism as the faith of the Torah I have to object.]




In any case the book goes into the events surrounding the person the Guide was written for, Joseph Aknin. There was a Daniel who had written a lots of questions about the Mishne Torah and the Guide and sent them to Rav Avraham in a respectful manner. And Rav Avraham wrote back answering him. Then after some years this same Daniel wrote a commentary on Kohelet and in a veiled way attacked the Rambam.
At this same time, the people in  France had signed an excommunication against the Guide and the Ramban (Nachmanides) wrote his famous letter pleading with them to rescind their excommunication. Rav Avraham was apparently aware of the events going on in France also.

music files of the q series and exodus 10

New songs for the glory of the God of Israel q86 (q86 midi  q86 nwc)  q84  (q84 midi  q84nwc) q83 (q83 midi  q83 nwc) q82 (q82 midi  q82 nwc) q81 (q81 midi   q81 nwc) q80 (q80 midi q80nwc ) q78 [q78 midi [q79 midi q78 nwc ]  i am not saying any of these are so great. It is just I put on this blog the better pieces from NY and Uman and CA a long time ago. These are just the newer ones and I did not really get them into any kind of decent form. I am sure they all need editing. q77 (q77 midi  q77 nwc)  q76 [q76 midi  q76 nwc]    q75 [q75 midi  q75 nwc  ] e67 [e67 midi  e67 nwc]        exodus10 [exodus 10 midi exodus 10 nwc  q85 (q85 midi) g2 [g2 midi g2 nwc] q74 [q74 midi    q74 nwc]   q73 [q73 midi q73 nwc]   q72 [q72 midi   q72 nwc]

 q71 (q71midi  q71nwc) q70 (q70 midi  q70 nwc)

Islam A nice video from England.

This explains some of the problems that England is facing because of letting in Muslims.

It seems to me to bring out some very important points and I listened to it from start to finish. It seems very relevant to what is happening in the USA and in Europe and it also shows why Muslims in Israel are violent. I highly recommend this video.

What some refugees carried with them.

Someone asked me if I would teach them Talmud. I said "How could I refuse such a question? Even if the Dali Lama would ask me, I would have to oblige." Still, it is best to put yourself in a environment of people that are good at it, and to whom what the Talmud says matters. It is in a way like an apprenticeship. That is: during the Middle Ages, there was a thing as an apprentice that would be given to a guild at the age of five, and all he would do for years would be to sweep and cook and clean. But just by hanging around with experts, something would get absorbed. Then after some time like that, they would start to teach him. After some time, he would become an expert. Talmud is like that. There is something going on inside that you just will not be able to see by just reading the words. You need to learn from an expert. [I was in Caalifornia and I used to go after school to the yeshiva of the son of Rav Elchanan Wasserman (Simcha Wasserman). After high school when it got to be time to go to yeshiva, Reb Shimcha suggested I call Shelomo Friefeld who had a yeshiva in NY, Shar Yashuv. So I was there for 3 and half years, and after that I was in the Mir in NY also for about three years and then I came tto Israel. ]

מדרגת האדם The Levels of Man, by the Alter of Navardok a disciple of Israel Salanter

1) Trust in God I want to decouple from faith in God. That is I want to get to trust in God but when things don't go the way I want them to I do not what my faith weakened. I what to retain faith that there is  a first cause and that he is not the world, but that he made the world something from nothing and he does run it in a way that has a purpose.  I do not want that faith to be weakened even if nothing would go my way.

2) But if I could get to this point in which my faith is secure, I would like to add trust in God to it. This is a more difficult issue than the first. It means to have trust also when things don't go my way. I still would like to believe that even when everything goes wrong this still is his will either as punishment for things I do wrong or as a warning or because of some good that will arise from it.

3) If then I could get to step two I would like to find some kind of aspect of trust where I in fact believe in God enough and strongly in the way that the Madragat Haadam was talking about "from here we learn that one needs no effort at all but what is decreed from Heaven will come to one automatically without any effort at all."

For this kind of thing see מדרגת האדם The Levels of Man, by the Alter of Navardok a disciple of Israel Salanter