the religious world

I  can not look it up, but I recall that the beginning of the book of Isaiah  starts on rather a negative note. It is just the opposite of what you would normally expect from Isaiah. You would think it would start on some positive theme  But instead he sounds like Jeremiah. His point is Jerusalem which ought to be a faithful city had become full of pus. From this we can see a parallel to the world of the religious today. That is the name "Jerusalem" is made up of two words. יראה שלמה. Perfect Fear of God. So when a person joins the religious world and expects to find encouragement to fear God and serve him faith fully instead he finds it is "full of pus" and is "infected from foot to head," as Isaiah puts it.
Thus there is no choise but to avoid the religious world as much as possible and buy oneself a Gemara, a few books of Ethics {Musar}, and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach [which is as deep, but more self explanatory than the חידושי הרמב''ם ] and to learn Torah at home.
The problem is the religious world seems to have some kind of infectious disease that one picks up just by being around them.  
Unless one is in the vicinity of an authentic Litvak yeshiva, then there is nothing to gain by association with the insane religious. The idea that problems with the religious world is infectious can be understood in light of Toxo-plasmosis. This is juts the first of its kind to be discovered, but it is probable there are millions of such parasites that can jump from person to person to infect others with bad thoughts and false idea. This is like the parasite that can make  a male crab believe it is female and then it goes about digging a place in the sand to bury its eggs. One can go a step further and postulate that a social meme has this same characteristic as the ToxoPlasmosis parasite. It face the same challenge-- it can only reproduce in humans and thus faces a challenge how to get inside of humans? (I know this is a stretch-to say the super-organism ha a mind of its own but this seems to be the way Howard Bloom look at it in hi book the Lucifer Principle)






[Though the groups that follow Reb Nachman are in the same boat, still it is refreshing to see that Reb Nachman himself brought attention to this problem as the Na Nach groups points out. The drawback is that as much as one gains from Reb Nahman's good advice, the eventual outcome is to leave off learning Torah.]

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essence of Torah

I do not have enough spiritual sense to be able to claim the absolute truth. Truth as in TRUTH. But I do have enough of that kind of sense to be able to tell quality when I see it and to be able to discern fraud.So I do want to share some of the valuable ideas I have see around.
One thing is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. More than any other book I have seen that is the one set that contains the essence of Torah in crystallized form. I saw in my parents the path of Torah of balance-- i.e. Torah with Derech Erertz [That is "to be a mensch"decent human being--with good character and being self sufficient].  Their path as more or less the way of the Rambam with his four fold program of learning the Oral Law, the written Law, Physics and Metaphysics. In Reb Nachman I saw a wealth of great ideas --that is: particular pieces of advice, but all a vision of Torah that makes full use of his predecessors to create tapestry or a vast fresco of Torah. That is he weaves together the Tenach and Talmud with the Ari to create an amazing vision of what Torah is suppose to be about. That is not to give any kind of agreement with the group that supposedly go by his teachings. {Visionary would be a good word for Reb Nachman.}

[Among his good ideas are: (1) talking with God in one's own language. That is the real essence of prayer. (2) Avoidance of doctors. (3) Making an importance issue out of the kind of fast learning mentioned in Gemara and later books of Musar.]

Reb Israel Salanter had two disciples Isaac Blazzer, and the Madragat HaAdam. Both have written really amazing Musar books. The Madragat HaAdam is mainly about trust in God with no effort. If only I could come to that! But at least I am happy to be reminded about that. [A second book by Isaac Blazzer came out recently of his writings after he wrote the אור ישראל.]

Something strange is going on.

I seem to have trouble when it comes to learning Torah. It is as if there is some hidden obstacle(s).
The last day of Pesach was when a rosh yeshiva was having the last meal before the end of Pesach and I did not attend. That blew my chance of marrying his daughter. . Then getting back to Israel finding myself thrown out of every yeshiva that I attempted to sit and learn in got me to wonder if it is החרב המתהפכת לשמור דרך עץ החיים the fiery sword that guards the path to the Tree of Life. The truth is the obstacles to Torah for me are from so many directions that tend to wonder what is it all about?

Something strange is going on. So to some degree I found a kind of compromise by going with the opinion of the Rambam who advocates a four fold path of learning Torah (Oral and Written), Physics and Metaphysics. [The Polytechnic Institute of NYU I went to and majored in Physics]
Still something strange is going on. It is almost as if, even when I manage to get my hands on a book of Torah, that it does not take long until I lose it, or something happens in some way that I can not use it. Maybe I just do not have the merit to learn. Something always happens. So to cherish and love every word of Torah that I can manage to learn is my goal. To at least appreciate it from afar like a long lost love, and being aware that it can easily be taken away from me in the blink of an eye.

Maybe it is just some kind of test? But who knows? Or perhaps it is just a simple way of getting me to pay attention to the Rambam about the importance of Physics and Metaphysics along with learning the Oral Law (Two Talmuds) and the Written Law. If that was the idea, I would have to say that it was effective. Eventually I began to see the importance of the Rambam's four fold path.

The simplest way of understanding this is that it is the battle of the memes, units of social information. Every set tries to get a hold of as many people as possible in order to promulgate itself.

Even specific sins do this.

a problem with Islam

I think there is a problem with Islam in itself. What I have thought until now is that it makes a whole lot of difference whom you admire. That is even if their theology would be OK (I am not saying it is), then there would still be the trouble that they emulate a dark and evil person. Christianity seems to have trouble in the area of theology but has the redeeming value of whom they admire and strive to emulate.

Some people prefer to see only bad things Christians have done, and refuse to see any good. This seems to me to be intellectually dishonest. I have to say that it is an eye opener when you find yourself in a fix and not one of your supposed friends wants to help you or even admit he knows you and it always seems to be  a Christian that comes along to offer a helping hand

Berkeley

 Berkeley people are not dumb. I had a learning partner who had a degree in computer science from Berkeley who is light years smarter than me. The problem is that Leftism and Socialism in various shades from strong RED to Pink were simply the accepted academic university norms and still are until today. [I was horrified to see this in NYU.] Philosophers today are not visionaries and tend to be quite superficial thinkers. [With the exception of Kelley Ross.]  I think it was easier in the USSR to see the problems with the system of communism more than in the USA where people could dream about a socialist paradise without having to feel the jackboots on their necks.

Easter.

Rome at the time was not a democracy. The issue I think was that Pontus Pilate was afraid the people would send a message to Rome that he was a bad governor. That kind of report I vaguely recall would get a governor dismissed and I think sometimes executed. Also religious fanatics (as the super religious people I think were) are not representative of all the Jewish people. I have not thought about the relation of the life and death of Jesus to the question of Democracy but it seems to me that a good deal of American Democracy is based on a long history of thinking about Jesus and natural law and freedom from Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Aquinas, John Locke, and the history of the rise and fall of Athens, and the Roman Republic. It is by no means obvious to me that the story of Jesus tells us something against the kind of Republic that the USA is.

Musar movement

Even though the Musar movement in the sense of Reb Israel Salanter is not all that possible--as a mass movement, still it seems to me important  to try to get through the major works of Musar. That is the basic set of books of Ethics from the Rishonim (medival authorities), mainly because of the need to work on one's character. Tikun HaMidot [self correction of bad character traits]. The Musar movement itself seems to have drifted off into religious fanaticism,- in spite of its original idea being to come to good character traits.

The Musar movement has become part of the fanatic religions world which has set itself against the State of Israel as a primary focus. So there is not much in the way of good character one can gain from it today.
Today in terms of gaining good character, it makes more sense to go to Israel and serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and  learn Torah in some Mizrachi [Religious Zionist Yeshiva like Merkaz HaRav], rather than join groups that are have more in common with Mein Kamp rather than true authentic Torah.
[In terms of Torah learning it is hard to say that the super religious have much of an advantage over the Religious Zionist yeshivas. The religious Zionist yeshivas learn pretty much the same material. The difference in learning seems to be evenly distributed. I have met great learners that were part of the Religious Zionist yeshivas.]


One advantage of the Musar movement is that it calls attention to what is really important in Torah--good character מידות טובות and this ironically the very area where the religious fail miserably.

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cults inside of the religious (Jewish) world

Based on my extensive  interactions with cults inside of the religious (Jewish) world I have concluded that such organizations  are terrible groups, like the mafia, that merit social censure. Thus scholars who cover up the horrific criminal activities and other unfavorable aspects of such groups are comparable to a tobacco company scientist who asserts that smoking is not really harmful to one's health.
The problem is not just the cults but also the regular Roshei Yeshiva and Torah scholars who take a passive attitude towards  highly destructive groups as long as they parade and display outer `signs of religiosity. 

At least Reb Shmuel Berenbaum [the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir in NY] was adamant not to give any open agreements in writing or otherwise to any religious organizations. His "thing" was to learn and keep Torah.

Reb Shmuel had high confidence in "learning Torah". He considered this practice as being a cure all for every kind of aliment in mind body and spirit. [That is obviously the same approach as the Gra and the Nefesh HaChaim]. [I to some degree agree with this, but I add also Physics and Metaphysics based on the Rambam who puts these two subjects into the category of the Oral Law, as you can see in הלכות תלמוד תורה in the law where he says to divide one' learning into three parts. One is Talmud. And he adds '' העניינים הנקראים פרדס הם בכלל הגמרא. And he already defined פרדס In the first four chapters of Mishne Torah.]
I also add these two subjects because as the Gra said to the degree one lacks knowledge of the seven wisdoms [Trivium and Quadrivium] to that degree he will be lacking in knowledge of the Torah,  and I by experience have come to see the truth of that observation.

[One side benefit of math, I noticed, is that it tends to weed out pseudo intellectuals. That is-- there are people that think they are smart because they learned some Torah. This they assume means they are super geniuses in everything. Just a drop of math tends to put a damper onto such illusions. Math is an amazing filter. The pseudo intellectuals can get by every other filter, but not this one. This is the one thing that really separates the really talented people from the fakers that pretend to be smart because they give each other credentials.    
In fact , come to think of it, why not give every person in kollel a math test? That would take them down a few notches from "We are the elite of  Israel and so everyone should give us money" to "We are the most stupid and incapable in  Israel and can not do anything productive and so please give us money." It does irk me that people that are really stupid can pretend to be geniuses and by that have caused infinite damage to Israel

I have been around the block a few times and so I have seen  groups claiming that some practice or other will bring one ultimate  salvation in this world and then next, and also seen enough counter examples to falsify all their claims. The only thing left standing in my opinion is learning Torah as the Gra held and  heard from Reb Shmuel Berenbaum.
How do you have a counter examples for a claim about salvation? Mainly things that indicate otherwise. For example a claim if you come to such and such a place and do such a such a ritual you will be saved and have your whole life changed for the better and someone comes there and does that after fasting  for forty days and saying the whole psalms forty days in a row and then comes and dies right then and there, I would say we have a good counter example.  
It is the kind of process you us to falsify a philosophical claim. You find a plausible counter example as e.g.empiricism. Or the same way you falsify a theory in physics. You find one counter example.

And this same process works for spiritual claims. 

[The main groups to avoid are those censured by the Gra for being cults. Reb Nachman I should make an exception for since he was a great tzadik and not within the category of the cherem [excommunication.] Still the groups that supposedly follow his path are problematic. It is not worth leaving a legitimate Litvak yeshiva to run after false leaders.]

The obvious thing to do here is to say the רמב''ם does not hold from the idea that a מיגו can take out from a חזקה. and that opinion in תוספות might very well hold that we do not believe him when he says פתח פתוח מצאתי. But if that תוספות does not hold from that, then we are left with the question on the first משנה. Why make a תקנה for a virgin to be married on Wednesday if we do not believe him when he says פ''פ מצאתי.  What could that תוספות ב''מ ק''י answer for this?


הדבר הברור לעשות כאן הוא לומר שהרמב''ם אינו מחזיק מן הרעיון כי מיגו יכול להוציא מן חזקה. וכי לדעת תוספות אפשר להחזיק שאנחנו לא מאמינים לו כשהוא אומר פתח פתוח מצא. אבל אם תוספות אינו מחזיק מזה, אז נותרנו עם השאלה על המשנה הראשונה. למה לעשות תקנה עבור בתולה להינשא ביום רביעי אם אנחנו לא מאמינים לו כשהוא אומר פ''פ מצאתי. מה יכול תוספות ב''מ ק''י לענות תשובה לכך?

It occurred to me  a question in the  רמב''ם. The wife in הלכות אישות י''א הלכה י''א -י''ד  is not going מפטור לפטור. She is saying one thing alone, that she was a virgin. That has nothing to do with the subject  מפטור לפטור. It is a simple case of a מיגו. My  question is simple. Let's believe her when she says she was a virgin because she could have said משארסתני נאנסתי.  So why do we not believe her? She has a חזקה, חזקת הגוף שבתולה הייתה and a מיגו. He has two חזקות, חזקת ממון וחזקה אין אדם טורח הסעודה ומפסידה. So one חזקה cancels the other. And we are left with a מיגו against a חזקה, ואין אומרים מיגו להוציא מחזקת ממון. So the only question here is to תוספות in בבא מציעא ק''י ע''א to one מאן דאמר that a מיגו can take out from a חזקה.


 שאלה של רמב''ם. האשה בהלכות אישות י''א הלכה י''א -י''ד  היא אומרת  כי היא הייתה בתולה. זהו מקרה פשוט של מיגו. השאלה שלי היא פשוטה. בואו להאמין לה כשהיא אומרת שהיא הייתה בתולה כי היא יכלה לומר משארסתני נאנסתי. אז למה אנחנו לא מאמינים לה? יש לה חזקה, חזקת גוף שבתולה הייתה וכן מיגו. יש לו שני חזקות, חזקת ממון וחזקה אין אדם טורח בסעודה ומפסידה. אז חזקה אחת מבטלת את השניה. ואנחנו נשארים עם מיגו נגד חזקה, ואין אומרים מיגו להוציא מחזקת ממון. אז השאלה היחידה כאן היא תוספות בבבא מציעא ק''י ע''א לדעה אחת כי מיגו יכול להוציא מן החזקה.

The obvious thing to do here is to say the רמב''ם does not hold from the idea that a מיגו can take out from a חזקה. and that opinion in תוספות might very well hold that we do not believe him when he says פתח פתוח מצאתי. But if that תוספות does not hold from that, then we are left with the question on the first משנה. Why make a תקנה for a virgin to be married on Wednesday if we do not believe him when he says פ''פ מצאתי.  What could that תוספות ב''מ ק''י answer for this?

[In short, we have a question on Tosphot in Bava Metzia page 110. What could he answer for the first mishna in Ketubot? It is almost the time for Shabat to Rabbainu Tam so I have to stop.

There are a least a few good reasons to learn Musar

There are a least a few good reasons to learn Musar [books of Ethics from the Middle Ages and early Renaissance]. 
[There are about 6 classical books that come under this title Musar. It is not an open cannon but already fixed.] [חובות לבבות, שערי תשובה, מסילת ישרים, ספר היראה מיוחס לרבינו תם, אורחות צדיקים, מעלות המידות]/
One argument is given by one disciple of Israel Salanter, Isaac Blazzer. He brings down from the Rambam that Musar is a cure for all mental spiritual and physical illnesses. 
Reb Nachman brings down that fear of God is beneficial for length of days. [That is--to have long days in which you do not have to waste your time doing meaningless stuff. After all, the best way to spend one's life is to find the objective meaning and purpose that is already inherent in it. Not to put meaning into it. And to find the purpose of your life and to do it, is usually so hard that it takes almost one's entire life to find out what that purpose is.  

The point of learning Musar is not to find out what good character is. It is a tool to try to work on oneself in order to develop good character.

The whole idea of Reb Salanter was to use learning Musar as a kind of service in itself. Not as a way of acquiring information. 

In terms of the importance of good character a being one of the most essential goals of the Torah, there is the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi from Yemen and then from Yerushalaim, the Rambam in the Guide concerning the reasons for the mitzvot, the Chafetz Chaim, and other sources. They are all unanimous in the ultimate importance of good "midot" good character. [This is one good reason to avoid the religious world-- as they parade good character, but in action do the opposite. ] 

The Ari [Isaac Luria]

Some people take a negative view towards the Ari for different reasons. If it is the fact that all the cults put into excommunication by the Gra claim to be going by the Ari then that would make sense. But my feeling is that abusus non tollit usum, abuse does not cancel use.And if you look into the writings of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzaira you will see he always refers to the Ari as "Rabainu" our teacher. Still there is the problem noticed by many that getting into the Ari before having finished Shas a least a few times seem to cause major delusions.

One thing I think is obvious, that when people learn the Ari for the sake of the מדרגות or רוח הקודש [miracles or Divine spirit ] that definitely leads them down the path to the dark side. And then even when it seems they have powers, it is always powers from the dark side.

My own experience with this was doing Gemara for a few years in NY and then during the last year there getting involved with the writings of the Ari and then coming to Israel and getting a blast of the Divine light, and then at some point feeling I was getting ריבוי אור sunburn I was trying to turn off the bulb. That would have been the end of the story, except after that I got the impression that turning off the bulb was not the right thing to do, and also the daughter of Bava Sali indicated to me as much. So to make up for the mistake involved in that, I try to make up for it to some degree by blogging and I hope that somewhere maybe from my words someone will be inspired to  pick up a Gemara or a book of Musar or Rav Shach's Avi Ezri and by that perhaps I too will eventually merit to learn Torah.

[This idea come from a few books of Musar. I saw the idea of זיכוי הרבים bringing  merit to others in  אגרת המוסר, חובות לבבות, ומדרגת האדם at least three sources.]
[Added note. The only book of the Ari I did in NY before I got to Israel was the Eitz Chaim.]]

People and groups are more characterized by books they do not read than by books they do read.

People and groups are more characterized by books they do not read than by books they do read.The books they do read, or at least want to read represent the aspirations of the group. They books they avoid are represent the social memes they try to avoid. 

In the modern which is characterized by  intellectual and spiritual chaos the books one avoids are more essential than what one does read.
How can one tell what to avoid? The essence of any system is never revealed except by time. [The cult that the Gra put into excommunication is a good example of that. However I think Reb Nachman was not included in that Cherem [excommunication] and if you look closely at the language of that document you will see why.]

This is the one and most essential issue of this age. For every age has some major issue. When kings ruled, politics was non existent. But with the Enlightenment the concept of a State began as an entity in and of itself  and group politics began to take on a life of it own. Everyone had to be part of some "system" in order to be anyone at all. Then the age of cults began as an offshoot  of that energy. Now the issue is how to get rid of the cults--i.e. what books to avoid and throw out.
My own path is mainly based on the Rambam which emphasizes  four areas of study, the Oral Law (the two Talmuds), the Written Law (the Five Books of Moses), Physics, Metaphysics (by which the Rambam was referring to Aristotle set of books called the Metaphysics). [The Rambam was definitely  not referring to any mystic type of learning nor any other book besides Aristotle because he said Physics and Metaphysics as the ancient Greeks understood these subjects. Plus he had to be referring to Aristotle alone because there is in fact no such subject Metaphysics. Aristotle did not write down his lectures. That was left to his disciples. After they collected everything that they could about Physical sciences everything else they put into series of book they made up a name for "Everything after Physics"i.e. metaphysics] A Short Version of the Oral Law is the Rambam's own Mishne Torah. [The best way to do this learning is to go as fast as possible. Say the words and go on. By harping on every detail one usually loses the big picture. I saw a printed Mishne Torah with no commentary at all which is a good way to do it. But the second time around I recommend doing with with the כסף משנה ומגיד משנה, and as a separate session the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. The book of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik on the Rambam is also great but I found it hard to understand. Rav Shach's is a lot more self explanatory. Perhaps today if I had another copy I might appropriate Reb Chaim more.] 
But as I said, the main thing is what to avoid. And that is not everything outside of that list. After all we do have the Gra's emphasis on the "seven wisdoms" as the Trivium and Quadrivium were called during the Middle Ages. But most books of the religious world I find highly objectionable, and they seem  to have a hidden agenda to destroy the Jewish family, and build up their cult in its place.
[The 1800's was the age of throwing out monarchs and making mass movements. Even the Musar movement and yeshiva movement were part of this process. Now the age of movements has come and gone. It is time to get back to personal responsibility and to learn Torah.]

[The problems with the yeshiva movement became clear to me when yeshivas began to  throw out sincere people. So many have become obstacles to Torah. The best thing is thus to have in your own home a place to learn Torah. ]

[I should mention that in terms of halacha my feeling is the best thing out there is the Tur Beit Yoseph and the Shulchan Aruch with the Beer Heiteiv. ]

To depend on any yeshiva tor  a place to learn is to invite destruction into one's Torah life. The religious world excels in destroying faith in Torah. It is almost as if they are trying to give the holy Torah a bad name.

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Just to defend myself, let me, mention that the present day calendar has no basis in the Gemara so we have to go by the actual molad, the time when the moon and sun are at the same longitude. Second day of Yom Tov is more complicated. My feeling about it is that the the reason for it is a debate in the gemara. One holds it is  a law derabanan. Rav Asi holds it is a custom [and that is the law]. But it is not a custom dreamt out of thin air. It has a reason. That is perhaps we might forget the actual time and have to go back to witnesses. So I say, fine, let's go back to witnesses. Once the supreme court in Jerusalem determines the date let them send witnesses by airplane. That is the original custom was not based on there not being a court. Rather it was based on not knowing the right time, and thus having to depend on the court.
Now if it would be a custom established by the Supreme Court, then it would have to be nullified by  a supreme court that is accepted by more חכמי ישראל. But the Supreme Court in Jerusalem did not establish it. It was a custom started in Babylon by the local people  because of the worry of forgetting how to calculate the molad and having to go back to going by the Supreme Court which would have to send witnesses. That is why even outside of Israel any place where witnesses can reach in time never has two days of Yom Tov. For example in Mitzraim. Therefore this law has nothing to do with being outside of Israel. It always depends on where witnesses can reach.

The point here is that the reason the religious world ignores these simple facts is not because they are hard to understand. Rather they simply do not care what the Torah says. Their religiosity is all smoke and mirrors. It is the same reason the Supreme Court thinks it can regulate what you grow in your backyard under the interstate commerce clause. It is not that they are so dense as not to understand the Constitution. It is rather that they do not care what it says.

I wanted to answer a question on the הרמב''ם

 I wanted to answer a question on the הרמב''ם. In the אבי עזרי על  הרמב''ם in הלכות טוען ונטען פרק ו' הלכה ג we see that רב שך defends the רמב''ם by means of several factors. כל factor by itself would not be enough. The הרמב''ם writes that we believe the husband when he says the wife he just married was not a virgin. The reason is simple. We can not say she was not מדקדק (she was careful in her words) when she is coming to ask for money. But we can say that a person that is getting out of  a debt is not careful in his words. But just to make myself a little more clear let me just add some background. The רמב''ם chapter ו law ג of טוען ונטען says: "A person comes to court and says you owe me מנה. The other says in court להד''ם, (I did not borrow). Then two witnesses come and say he borrowed and paid back. He must pay the מנה because כל האומר לא לוויתי כאומר לא פרעתי "Anyone who says 'I dd not borrow' is as if he said 'I did not pay back.'" And the other needs no oath because the borrower is already considered a liar." To defend this law רב שך needs  ר. עקיבא אייגר, the קצות, the נתיבות, the ר''י מיגאש.
 But to be as short as possible, let me just say he needs that "Anyone who says 'I did not borrow' is as if he said 'I did not pay back.'" is not an open confession. It is simply a statement that implies the result. That is like the רשב''ם says about a different case in בבא בתרא ל''ד. But in order to say that it does not imply the result automatically, it is necessary to say he was not careful in his words as the נתיבות says about the law one can go מפטור לפטור. That is the exact same law as the one in chapter ו law ג except that the borrower changed his plea before the witnesses came]. But we can only say that he was not careful when he is trying to get out of an obligation, not when he is asking for money. How do we know this? Because of the fact that the רמב''ם הלכות מלווה ולווה when the מלווה is not believed by a מיגו when he changes his plea from "It is a good document" to "The document was forged (שטר מזוייך) but I had a real document and it was lost."  So when he comes and says פ''פ (פתח פתוח) מצאתי, he is believed even though she has a מיגו that she could have said משאירסתני נאנסתי. But why should we not believe her. Do we not say a מיגו?  And a person can go from פטור לפטור. The reason is she is not going from פטור לפטור, but asking for the whole כתובה מאתיים.

[I should mention I am taking a guess here about מפטור לפטור. I have no books to look anything up and even when I read Rav Shach's Avi Ezri,]




 רציתי לענות על השאלה הזאת על הרמב''ם. באבי עזרי על הרמב''ם בהלכות טוען ונטען פרק ו' הלכה ג' אנו רואים כי רב שך מגן על הרמב''ם באמצעות מספר גורמים. כל גורם בפני עצמו לא יהיה מספיק. הרמב''ם כותב כי אנו מאמינים הבעל כשהוא אומר שהאישה שהוא נשא לא הייתה בתולה. הסיבה היא פשוטה. אנחנו לא יכולים להגיד שהיא לא מדקדקת (לא הקפידה במילים שלה) כשהיא מגיעה לבקש כל הכתובה. אבל אנו יכולים לומר כי אדם כשהוא רוצה להפטר מחוב אינו זהיר בדבריו. רק להוסיף קצת רקע. הרמב''ם פרק ו' ה''ג של טוען ונטען אומר: אדם מגיע לבית המשפט ואומר "אתה חייב לי מנה." השני אומר בבית המשפט להד''ם, (לא היו דברים מעולם. אני לא לוויתי.). ואז שני עדים באים ואומרים שהוא לווה ושילם בחזרה. הוא חייב לשלם את המנה כי כל האומר "לא לוויתי" כאומר "לא פרעתי". ולמלווה אין שבועה כי הלווה כבר נחשב שקרן. "כדי להגן על החוק הזה רב שך זקוק לר. עקיבא אייגר, את הקצות, את הנתיבות, ואת הר''י מיגאש. אבל כדי להיות קצר ככל האפשר, תן לי רק לומר שהוא צריך שהדין כל מי שאומר, "אני  לא לוויתי" הוא כאילו אמר "אני לא פרעתי.'" אינו אומר שזו הודאה מפורשת. זה פשוט ההוכחה שמשתמע מכך שלא פרע. (זה כמו הרשב''ם אומר על מקרה שונה בבא בתרא ל''ד). אבל כדי שזו לא תהיה תוצאה אוטומטית, יש צורך לומר שהוא לא היה זהיר בדבריו כמו הנתיבות אומר על החוק שאפשר ללכת מפטור לפטור. החוק הזה זהה לזו בפרק ו' הלכה ג' פרט לכך שהלווה שינה את טענתו לפני שהעדים באו.  אנחנו רק יכולים לומר שהוא לא היה זהיר כשהוא מנסה לצאת ידי חובה, לא כשהוא מבקש כסף. איך אנחנו יודעים את זה? בשל העובדה כי הרמב''ם כותב בהלכות מלווה ולווה שהמלווה לא נאמן ידי מיגו ברגע ששינה את הטיעון שלו ממסמך טוב להמסמך מזויף (שטר מזוייף) אבל אומר היה לו מסמך אמיתי, וזה אבד. אז כשהוא בא ואומר פ''פ (פתח פתוח) מצאתי, הוא נאמן למרות שיש לה מיגו שהיא יכולה לומר משאירסתני נאנסתי. אבל למה אנחנו לא מאמינים לה. האם אנחנו לא אומרים מיגו? ואדם יכול לעבור פטור לפטור. הסיבה היא שהיא לא הולכת מן הפטור לפטור, אלא מבקשת כל הכתובה מאתיים