Enlightenment

The problems with the Enlightenment were noted almost as soon as it began. The solution is not clear because the weakening of faith in the Catholic Church seems to have been a major factor(or The Major Factor). Yet the Catholic Church does not seem so great today.
What the Middle Ages had that we lack is the synthesis between Faith and Reason. 




What Lithuanian yeshivas have done is to not reject the Middle Ages nor that unique approach that existed then of combining faith with reason.


Modernity has either fanatical faith without reason, or fanatical reason without faith.

In the Litvak [Lithuanian] Yeshiva world, two things stand as foundations: Rishonim [Mediaeval authorities] and Musar [books of ethics written by Mediaeval Authorities]. 

[I should admit, I have trouble understanding Rishonim. I always find it much better for myself to see what later people (Achronim) wrote about the Rishonim. This began for me right away as soon as I came to learn in yeshivat Shar Yashuv. I find, I never understand Tosphot until I look at the Maharsha, Rav Shach, or  Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's school and then look at Tosphot. Same with Musar. I found traditional books of Musar to be incomprehensible until I looked at the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. In fact, whenever God grants to me the privilege of opening up a Gemara, usually the first thing I do is to look at the Maharsha and Maharam from Lublin before anything else.]

s42 D major newly edited   s42 in midi

Musar (Books of Ethics). Reb Israel Salanter's idea of making a movement that would concentrate of learning Books of Ethics.

The curious thing about the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter is not just that they came out with different approaches all based on Musar but that each presented their approach as The Right One. In the newer Musar approach most of the aspects that were unique to the Musar movement all got forgotten.

I can not tell what to think of this. After all Musar represents different points of view.

That is even if you go back to the original set of Medieval books some go more with the Rambam Saadia Gaon approach and others with the Ramban [Nachmanides].  Later when Kabalah got thrown in, all the more so the approaches begin to differ,
Once you get to the great Musar yeshivas, Mir, Slobadka, Navardok, Kelm, it gets even more diverse.

What seems to have happened is people settled on one basic approach that they found was workable--Musar and Gemara. And with that every individual will find in Musar what he or she needs to learn from it. That is about the best I could figure out from what I saw. This Musar and Gemara approach also makes sense to me.

Or at least it is the approach that I hope to stick with. [My own approach is more or less this: Gemara Musar, Rav Shach's Avi Ezri, Physics, Math. That is based on the more rational Rambam Saadia Gaon approach to Torah.]

In a nut shell it is hard to explain why Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is so important but basically it is the need to understand Torah beyond extra forms. One needs to get to the essence of Torah.

 But the place for Torah learning from what I can tell is  in  a Litvak yeshiva where you find the spirit of Torah. Maybe Torah VeDaat or Chaim Berlin or some authentic yeshiva. But no fakes. The fake and phony yeshivas destroy the spirit of Torah and one must run from them.

Muslims- right around the 15% mark that the violence begins

I am not thrilled with Muslims and that is that. I see them as a threat to the very survival of the human race, and perhaps all life on earth. There is, as far as I can see, nothing else to discuss. They can convert to the Law of Moses, or Christianity or anything else. Just not Islam. Period.

From what I remember in history is it is in fact right around the 15% mark that the violence begins. Up until that mark, Muslims are the most exemplary of citizens. Then at the 15% the violence begins with the teenagers and  and children that one is reluctant to blame. Then there is a later mark when they take over, and Christians and Jews are expelled and murdered or convert.

The historical pattern seems to always follow the same model. You can see this in their takeover of Christian Spain and Syria and Byzantium.

I believe in freedom of religion. Muslims can convert to any religion they please. Just not Islam.

I am not thrilled with Muslims and that is that. I see them as a threat to the very survival of the human race, and perhaps all life on earth. There is, as far as I can see, nothing else to discuss. They can convert to the Law of Moses, or Christianity or anything else. Just not Islam. Period.

From what I remember in history is it is in fact right around the 15% mark that the violence begins. Up until that mark, Muslims are the most exemplary of citizens. Then at the 15% the violence begins with the teenagers and  and children that one is reluctant to blame. Then there is a later mark when they take over, and Christians and Jews are expelled and murdered or convert.

The historical pattern seems to always follow the same model. You can see this in their takeover of Christian Spain and Syria and Byzantium. 

See this ytube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Axyy2RZ7RoA.

She in a powerful way describes this as coming from from the Frankfurt school. The idea was to delete American Values and in a vacuum of values they could impose their own values–i.e. Socialism and communism and one world government. This video seems to me to be the most intellectual rigorous approach to this problem that I have seen.

 I used to think it came from the KGB as mentioned by Bezmenov in his ytube video but it was pointed out to me that the KGB was too limited in resources to accomplish this by itself. Thus there has to have been inside help –as with the Frankfurt school.

A friend of mine who worked for the KGB thought the KGB did not have the ability to accomplish this vast project of deleting American traditional values all by itself. Later, he might have changed his mind. If after all, the KGB devoted a large percent of its budget for this purpose, it might have been possible.

In any case we see why the left coming from the Frankfurt school sides strongly with Islam. All its sins are a nothing to the Left. The reason is simple. To the Left Islam is the greatest ally in the destruction of Jewish and Christian Ethics. The left will side with anything they see as conducive towards the destruction of traditional Jewish Christian values.

Joan of Arch's trial

I have been troubled by Joan of Arch's trial for a number of years. Most of the trial you do not hear what the judges are thinking. Only at the end they state their condemnation but give no support for their conclusions.. In some areas things became more clear to me because other books written at the same time. [Mainly they were thinking of her voices as coming from the Sitra Achra to be a blunt as possible.]




But in the  area of dress I still can not figure out what the big deal was. Christians we know do not as a rule follow the law of Moses. So picking out one rule to condemn someone with makes little sense unless they were thinking like Thomas Aquinas about some laws still being binding because they are Natural Law.
 In any case the dressing thing does not seem to me to be as bad as the problems that arise in Leviticus chapters 18 and 20.

My own take on this is this: Thomas Aquinas was in need of getting the Old Testament and New Testament to not conflict. So he used the idea of Natural Law that Saadia Gaon came up with.

The disparagement of Divine Law has gotten deep within Western thought ever since then. To me Divine Law is on a higher level than Natural Law.
To me it seems you do not need to justify the laws of Moses by means of natural law.  Divine Law can stand by itself.

As for Joan of Arc my basic feeling is הוראת שעה. [A prophet can get a revelation to break a rule for a time for the needs of the hour and also a beit din can do the same thing--according to the needs of the time.]  She got a revelation that she needed to dress like a man and wear battle armor and go into battle and bring all France under the rule of Charles the rightful king of France. Why is that any different that Eliyahu [Elijah] on Mount Carmel or any of the prophets that had a specific prophecy to accomplish some mission and part of the prophecy involved doing things not according to the Law of Moses.

But what are the needs of the time? That is where the idea of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides becomes important. For we know the Mitzvot are given with certain goals in mind. שלום המדינה,להתרחק מעבודה זרה לתקן את המידות וכולי[Peace of the country, to get as far from idolatry as possible, to correct ones character traits etc.]

I am being short here because I did not want to get into the argument between R. Shimon Ben Yochai and the Sages in the end of chapter 10 on Bava Metzia that I dealt with in another blog entry. Mainly I recall that my idea was there is instrumental value and numnious value. To the Sages they are not connected. To R.Shimon they are. But in any case we know the Rambam is a bit ambiguous about this. He poskins in opposite ways in Mishna Torah and see his commentary in Bava Metzia about that Mishna. The commentary משנה למלך in Mishna Torah tries to solve this. [The trouble is in Bava Metzia the Rambam goes like the sages and in Yevamot [seven nations] he goes like R. Shimon.  דורשין טעמה דקרא]
God granted to me to write about this in my little booklet on Shas and the other one on Bava Metzia. But I never started out to answer questions in the Rambam--only questions in Tosphot. Along the way it happened that God granted to me answers in the Rambam also. But to answer this kind of problem I think you would have to look up  the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach or any of the people of the school of thought of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik who make it their business to answer questions of this sort.

I do not think people need my advice about Quantum Mechanics but I just wanted to share this link to what I think is the best book on QM that I have seen. I am not sure what made it so special to me but I think it is how the author goes through the calculations step by step in a way that even I can understand him.

However at the end I found the parts about super conductivity to be way beyond me.

graves of tzadikim [righteous people]

I do not hold much with the idea of graves of tzadikim [righteous people] . I was  thinking along the lines of Reb Nachman for some time that this is  a good thing but now I am thinking that it is a variation of the idea that Reb Chaim of Volsohin says about worship of tzadikim.  I mean to say that he is critical of the idea of worship of tzadikim[]
In the Nefesh HaChaim he says that the intention to attach one's soul to the soul of the tzadik is a form of idolaty. And the fact that a lot of people go to graves of tzadikim for that exact purpose seems to me to be suspicious.
I was hoping in learning the Talmud in Sanhedrin from page 60b to about 64 would help clarify this issue --which it did. But it took a long time for the message to be absorbed.

This should not be taken as disparaging Reb Nachman. Rather the problem seems to be with the people that make him into an idol. He is of course not the only example but just one example that comes to mind. And perhaps the fact that he was  a great tzadik makes it a little easier to discuss this problem in his context.

The trouble seems to be that there is a difference between what the Torah actually says and what religious leaders tell us it says, This has been a problem in the religious world ever since Jeremiah cursed the Jewish people that since we have not listened to true prophets that God will from then on give us false prophets and to them we will listen.

S40 D Minor mp3  same piece in midi format same piece in nwc

Communism and Socialism

Dr Michael Huemer has a very nice refutation of Communism.http://www.owl232.net/economics.pdf

The idea is that Communism is based the the labor theory of value and he shows that that theory is incorrect.

I myself never saw much value in Communism since private property is a prime value in Torah. It is even encoded in the Ten Commandments, "Thou shalt not  steal."

AS for general leftist polices Steven Dutch has a very nice new essay: http://stevedutch.blogspot.com/2016/08/why-do-some-conservatives-hate-liberals.html
The left have never seen a regulation or tax they didn’t like.
Gun control. Again, fixing a social problem by stripping rights from the law abiding.
They side with criminals instead of civilization. Want to reduce wrongful convictions? Reform the justice system to focus solely on guilt or innocence instead of procedure.
They backed corrupt labor unions that threatened workers, killed reformers, and pushed rules that defended the laziest and most incompetent workers. Just read up on the futile efforts of the NYC school system to get rid of bad teachers.

s39 A Minor

The idea of the Bell Curve is that the average intelligence of whites is very much higher than the average intelligence of blacks.

Many species of mammals  have variance in many characteristics, including quickness of perception. That does not mean that we are gorillas. The idea of The Bell Curve is that the average intelligence of whites is very much higher than the average intelligence of blacks. That is not surprising since whites and blacks are separate subspecies of humans.

I can not understand why people confuse average value with variance. Amoebas vary in abilities. gorillas also. Even in intelligence. That is quickness of perception and understanding. The variance is obvious to anyone who has had pets. So if you have amoebas that vary in quickness of perception by about 15% variance and humans also vary by that amount does that mean we are amoebas or as smart an amoeba? No. It is average intelligence which is the key factor, not variance.

Thus it is proper to say that blacks are more stupid than whites. There is nothing wrong with that. It is a simple fact of biology. However a smart black might very well be smarter or perhaps be better in other ways than some white person.

And he or she might, in fact, use their free will in ways more noble than a white person.

Marriage

 My experience is things are better when the rules are known. That was workable and in fact great until religious people started sticking their noses into our businesses.

I mean to say marriage in the context of  a Litvak yeshiva is usually pretty good. Everyone knows what to expect and what their obligation are. Everything is either already spelled out in excruciating detail or else discussed before hand and accepted by all parties.

What makes this work is not the society they live in, but the fact that both parties are loyal to the Law of Moses and want to keep it to the ultimate extent of their abilities.

This works perfectly well unless neighbors or  insane religious leaders begin to stick their noses into where they are not wanted.  And the trouble is almost all religious leaders are insane. It is the particular Achilles heel of the religious world. It comes from a curse of Jeremiah the prophet. When the Jewish people did not listen to Yermiyahu [Jeremiah] and other true prophets, God gave us a curse that he would send to us evil leaders and to them we would listen.

The truth is the laws of marriage are too much to learn before marriage. I have never heard of anyone that could go thorough Ketuboth, Kidushin, Gitin, Yevamot, etc plus the Tur, Beit Joseph [Even Ezer].

What I did, and which is I think a good idea is to do the Tur, Beit Joseph on Nida plus the sidur of Yaakov Emden. Plus Shelomo Berger at the Mir learned the Tur, Beit Yoseph with me, plus there was a rav at Torah VeDaat in NY that gave a series of classes based in his book which was a great introduction to the subject.

If one does not have a marriage based on loyalty to Torah, then you end up with modern day marriages which are slavery and nightmares.

The general Litvak marriage is founded on a mutual goal of having the husband learn Torah all his life. That is it is a marriage based on a transcendent goal.

[In short I should mention that the major difficulty is calculating the ווסת period. Outside of that things are simple. What you have is basically simple. She sees one day then she waits until she stops and then you count seven clean days. That is she checks before sun set on the day she thinks she is clean with a clean white cloth (and she must check inside in the crevices). Preferably a piece of a white linen shirt. Then she checks on days 1, 4, and 7.  Then a natural body of water on the night after day seven. Most women have a period that is slightly longer than 30 days. That means she never sees less than 30 days. If that is the case she does not have to be separate from her husband on the day 30. That means let's say she see any time from day 34 and on. Then forget about day 30. But if she has seen 3 times in a row on day 34 then she must always be separate from her husband on day 34 unless she has established a different day another three times. If  there is nothing that is established after 34 days then she simply is seperate on the same period of separation as the last period.]

I wanted to add an possible answer to a question on Tosphot that my learning partner asked a few years ago.

 סנהדרין ס''ג א' וב'. אפשר לשאול על תוספות סנהדרין סג. בהבנתו מדוע יש הבדל בין "לא תעבדם" ו"לא תעשה מלאכה". לדבריו, "לא יעשה מלאכה" אינה לאו שבכללות, כי הוא אומר לא לעשות כל סוג של עבודה. בעוד "לא תעבדם" אינו אומר לנו איזה מינים נקראים שירות. אבל אם אתה הולך לדף ס''ג עמוד ב' תוספות הופך את סוג ההנחה להפכו הגמור. תוספות מסביר את הברייתא באופן ששלושה דברים נכנסים לחלק הראשון של הפסוק "ושם אלהים אחרים לא תזכירו" ואת החלק האחרון של הפסוק "לא ישמע על פיך" הוא אומר שהוא  אזהרה למסית ומדיח. זה בסדר. אבל אז מה הם שלושה הדברים? אחד נשבע בשם עבודה זרה. ואיך אפשר לקבל מלקות לזה? למה זה לא לאו שבכללות? מכיוון שנשבע בשם עבודה זרה והזכרת שם אלילים ועוד דבר אחד כולם אותו הדבר = להזכיר אל אחר, כך שאפשר  לקבל מלקות. באיזה אופן זה שונה מ"לא תעבדם" שאחד לא מקבל מלקות על כי זה לאו שבכללות?אפשר לומר שהחילוק הוא שכל סוג מלאכה הוא קבוצה סגורה וכל סוג עבודה הוא קבוצה פתוחה בגלל עבודה דרך כבוד היא דבר שיכול להתרחב בלי גבול


Link to book on Shas


The basic idea here is this in the Torah there are punishments for sin. Sometimes the punishment is stated. But sometimes it is not. When it is not stated we assume it is lashes. But lashes can only be given when a verse forbids a particular sin, not when the verse forbids different kinds of things. לאו שבכללות. I forgot the subject but the main idea is that not to bow before an idol has a death penalty attached to it. The other three kinds of service sacrifice, burning, pouring also have a death penalty attached to them. But what about service in the way of honor? It is forbidden but there is no death penalty attached to it. Not only that but one does not even get lashes because it is a לאו שבכללות.


Tosphot says Don't serve idols does not tell us what kinds of things are called service. David asked what is the difference between this and Shabat
On Shabat one does get a penalty even though it only says, "Don't do work."

I answer here Shabat is a closed set. Service is an open set

one American identity

There was a time that what was emphasized was one American identity. But that was altered slowly in the 1960's when what teachers emphasized was to "find your roots." That was the beginning of diversity.  Eventually the very idea of a common American identity began to seem ridiculous since it was just a hodge podge of conflicting groups. (Especially victim groups.)

To me this seems sad, since American identity was founded on very important principles, not on geography.


What was important to the founding fathers of the human experiment called the USA was freedom. To deliver the human race from a condition of tyranny to one of freedom. That is not the same thing as going back to an Athenian form of government. The founding fathers were well aware the major cause of the Peloponnesian war between Sparta and Athens was the fact that Athens was trying to build up its empire much like Rome would do later. That meant basically subjugating all other cities in Hellas. Rather the founding fathers sought to form a government that would guarantee human freedom.


Freedom has been an ideal for thousands of years but it has been notoriously difficult to find a way to accomplish it in a way that does not dissolve into chaos and then tyranny all over again.

For people that seek tyranny over others the American system is a nightmare. The attacks on the basic values of  America came from one school of thought the Fabian school which later became the Frankfurt school. But these utilized different systems of thought to accomplish the goal of tearing down American society and replace it with Socialism (Marxism). One very major and successful tool was Psychology, but it was not the only one. The problem is that no one recognized the problem. The religious authorities were on the front lines to destroy American morality and they still are.

I was looking for a blog post or PDF that discussed why men should not get married. I could not find it but found some substitutes with roughly the same idea

http://www.avoiceformen.com--This might be the original essay that I saw



Important blog about how feminism has ruined marriage.

comments from here


[I should mention a good deal of the problems come from not listening to the holy Torah. But even religious teachers are infamous nowadays for ruining every marriage they get their hands on.]


"American women are selfish self-serving creatures. I use to believe marriage was necessary for having children and raising a family, not so. Marriage is death of manhood thanks to our divorce and family law. That being said there is some good women but it's like trying to find a needle in a haystack."

"Marriage as the worst thing a man can do. I was divorced in 2011. My Ex got the house even though she couldn't make the payments along with utilities. Now that is getting foreclosed on and she never refinanced in her name. The loan was still in our names jointly. I was fortunate to buy a home of my own 2 years ago before the home we lived in became foreclosed on. A major overhaul of divorce laws need to be taken. I should have been given the house due to the fact that I could afford to make payments and could have even sold it to avoid the mess. It's as if she had a certain sense of pride and wouldn't admit she couldn't do it. If there are any women reading this let it be known that i didn't cheat on her or touch her in anger. When she hit her 30's, she snapped. Cut her hair off started getting multiple tattoos right after her father passed away. Then began a facebook page at that point I knew my days were numbered. Talking about how she had never been on her own or independent. I had seen it with other men whose wives hit their 30's and 40's and go through the same thing. These men including myself worked hard, paid the bills but that wasn't good enough. It's when I saw a photo of a guy with sleeve tattoo, hair with frosted tips
she said she saw the photo on line and liked it. Which later turned out to be a Facebook friend that she reunited with that she knew when she was 15. Basically, don't get married it's a three ring circus, the engagement ring, the wedding ring, and the suffer"ring"."


"respect?...sex is very material, its not a thought its physical, and married or not, you have no particular right to it, and if you leave yourself open to blackmail with it, it probably isn't worth having...respect through marriage comes from your "empire" of family, Space is about possession and if you let your spouse keep on taking up the space, then that's your material failure. Being weak will lead to someone, anyone, walking on you...probably as you present no challenge to them and once you have provided all the material she needs, then really, if you don't entertain each other, what is left.

"

One world government under Socialism

 deterioration of USA society.   there was a well known group of people that were determined to delete American morality and values, and replace-them with Marxist-Freudian values.

 the connection between the Fabians and later psychology to eliminate traditional american values.  the connection to the Frankfurt school that got transplanted from Germany to Columbia University in NYC.

Fabians believed in one world government under Socialism and that happiness is the standard by which a society ought to be judged not Law, neither Divine Law nor Natural Law.
They did not believe in private property. They also understood to make these changes would be gradual. 

They drew from Utopians, John Stuart Mill, Karl Marx, Gradualism.

The problem was economic change was not popular [because people were doing well under free markets societies]. So they combined Freud with Marx to create a cultural revolution [that would lead to economic change.] The goal was to detach culture from moral values. The way to do this was by using Psychology and Freud to undermine morals. [Freud tried to show moral values have no objective basis.]
The key strategy was to influence the conscious and unconscious  mind. The academic world welcomed Socialism, Marxism and Psychology.  The problem was Christian and Jewish people in the USA were happy with Free Market society. So the idea was to tear down Western values, father knows best, family and replace it with G-d is dead, fathers are oppressive, tear down the system.
The way to accomplish their goals was to divide the USA by making victim groups 


[Religious teachers pretended and still pretend to be for family values but in fact went along with the Fabians and psychology and socialism because they think they will gain power.]
They played the victim card.
To have a classless society you need to get rid of freedom of choice, property ownership, and to wipe out white supremacy [White, Anglo Saxon Protestants].

The 1990's was when political correctness came into its own. That is obligation to be politically correct, [that is not just tolerate it.] [Disagreement not allowed.] Individual rights were understood to be obstacles to this.


Western Civilization is essentially in its basic essence Throne and Altar. But I admit that Altar (the Catholic faith) seems to have problems. In fact, the entire Christian Faith seems to have a couple of basic difficulties. 

My own approach is a kind of patchwork of ideas from my parents, and the Oral and Written Law, with a kind of paradigm based on Maimonides, the Gra, Reb Israel Salanter, Rav  Shach from Ponovitch.