בבא קמא ג ע''א One פסוק deals with damages caused by שן.  Another פסוק deals with damages caused by רגל.
We have other  to tell us each verse means as we say it does. We need those extra verses because without them we would say there are two kinds of רגל or two kinds of שן. If he sent the animal there is more reason to make him pay. So we need some reason to say he is liable even if the animal walked by itself. Similarly if the animal ate in a field, there is more reason to make one liable if the roots were eaten. How do we know רביע שלישי ורביעי? Because of a היקש. We compare רגל with שן. In שן we make no distinction between when the owner sent it and when it walked by itself, so also with רגל. And visa versa for שן.

Then a ברייתא uses one פסוק for both רגל and שן, and as for רביע שלישי  we have another פסוק. So what about רביע רביעי? And here we can't use the way the תלמוד accounted for רביע רביעי על ידי היקש because here there is no separate verse for שן. There is one word for both. And to expand רגל into רביע שלישי we needed an extra verse. There is no היקש to tell us to expand into רביע רביעי. The last section of the מהרש''א answers this for the statement that רגל and שן are שקולים in the sense that if you exclude one you have to exclude the other, and if you include one you must include the other.  I am not sure how this helps us. We still know nothing about רביע רביעי.
 Let's go back. We have no היקש between שן ורגל because we are deriving both from the same verse. The only way we got to רביע שלישי was by a special verse. That leaves רביע רביעי empty. There is no היקש between שן ורגל.

On the other hand maybe this works. after all the same logic applies. We don't make any distinction between when the roots were eaten or not by foot. So also with tooth.


5.7.15
בבא קמא ג ע''א אחת פסוק אחד עוסק בנזקים שנגרמו על ידי שן. אחר פסוק אחר עוסק בנזקים שנגרמו על ידי רגל
.
יש לנו אחרים כדי לומר לנו כל פסוק עושה כפי שאנו אומרים שהוא עושה. אנחנו צריכים אותם פסוקים נוספים משום שבלעדיהם היינו אומרים שיש שני סוגים של רגל או שני סוגים של שן. אם הוא שלח את בעלי החיים יש יותר מסיבה לחייב לו לשלם. אז אנחנו צריכים סיבה לומר שהוא עלול אפילו אם בעל החיים הלך בכוחות עצמו. באופן דומה, אם  החיה אכלה בשדה, יש עוד סיבה לעשות אחד חייב אם השורשים נאכלו. איך אנחנו יודעים רביע שלישי ורביעי? בגלל היקש. אנו משווים רגל עם שן. בשן אנחנו לא עושים שום הבחנה בין כאשר הבעלים שלחו אותו וכאשר הוא הלך בעצמו, כך גם עם רגל. ולהיפך לשן.

אז ברייתא משתמשת עם פסוק אחד לשניהם, רגל ושן, וכמו לרביע השלישי יש לנו פסוק אחר. אז מה לגבי רביע רביעי? וכאן אנחנו לא יכולים להשתמש בדרך התלמוד  על ידי היקש, כי כאן אין פסוק נפרד לשן. יש מילה אחת לשניהם. ולהרחיב את הרגל לרביע שלישי שהיינו צריכים פסוק נוסף. אין היקש לספר לנו להתרחב לרביע רביעי. החלק האחרון של מהרש''א מתרץ שרגל ושן הם שקולים במובן זה שאם אתה מוציא אחד אתה צריך להוציא את השני, ואם אתה כולל אחד אתה חייב לכלול את אחר. אני לא בטוח איך זה עוזר לנו. אנחנו עדיין לא יודעים כלום על רביע רביעי
 בואו נחזור. אין לנו היקש בין שן והרגל, כי שן ורגל נובעים מאותו הפסוק. הדרך היחידה שהגענו לרביע שלישי הייתה בפסוק מיוחד. זה משאיר רביע רביעי ריק. אין היקש בין שן ורגל


מצד השני, אולי זה עובד.כל אותו ההיגיון חל. אנחנו לא עושים שום הבחנה בין כאשר השורשים נאכלו או לא ברגל. אז גם עם שן.




Here is a link to my little booklet on subjects like thisIdeas in Shas

 Rambam:  the five difference between the Reason of God and the Reason of Man. [Here "Reason of Man" means  the reason a man would have if he had perfect human reason.] This is not the exact same thing as Kant. With Kant you have limit to perfect reason. And it seems to be a bit different than the Rambam's limits. .




The problem that Kant is addressing is that of Hume. Empirical things we can reason about because we have some way of checking our homework against a background. Physical reality. When we reason about a triangle what background is there to check our work? 


And this seem to me to be a close as one can expect to Kant. For Kant while accepting we have knowledge of a priori things --not based on observation and also not dependent on definitions. But with Kant you have a large area of antimonies where even this kind of reason fails.

So what I am suggesting is a close comparison between the Rambam's five things and Kant's antimonies.


Appendix:
(1)  Aspects of God's knowledge beyond pure reason:
There is no division in his knowledge even when he knows different things. His knowledge does not take something out of the realm of the possible. His knowledge encompasses things that have no end There is no difference in his knowledge before the thing exists and after it comes into being.
Brisk has done very good work in the Rambam and that work is continuing.
The major players in that school are Chaim Soloveitchik, and his direct disciples Baruch Ber  Shimon Shkop. The great book of them all is the master piece of Rav Shach the Avi Ezri.  This I consider to be greater than even the חידושי הרמב''ם. Why? Because even though it was Reb Chaim that opened the door to the Rambam but Rav Shach went in in away that even Reb Chaim could not. Rav Shach  is deeper and clearer. But none of these deal with the Guide for the Perplexed. And I think there is no excuse for that. None whatsoever. If anything the Guide is as deep as the Mishna Torah. Once You have someone of the stature of Rav Abraham Abulfia witting a mystic commentary of the Guide you know something deep is going on there.

Music for the glory of God,

l98


Mathematics

If you have suffered from a certain person the tendency is to find blame in that person's world view. One tends to think that if the system was different evil would be eradicated.

People that have suffered from people that are theists tend to say theism is the problem. If one has suffered from people that believe in a different system, the tendency will be to blame that system. Another example is if people have suffered under the Nazis, then the tendency is to say the belief system of Nazism is the trouble. And this kind of thinking is sometimes justified. After all blaming Nazism for the Holocaust does not seem like much of a stretch. But there are other times that it seems to me that building ones world view on what he sees as negative influences is a dumb way of going about thinking about these things.

Human evil is the type of thing that even people believing in a good system will get the virus of evil. No system is immune. But that does not mean all systems are alike. Nor are all social memes alike. You find one social meme  you think is bad and try to eradicate it you will probably find two that have grown in its stead.

But like Nazism there are certain social memes which are pernicious.

Sometimes one has just found a bad group inside a decent system.
 Personally I go with my parents system, Judaism, but I modify that with a good dose of traditional learning Talmud and keeping Jewish Law. But the basic structure of belief--the world view of my parents of what makes a man into a "mensch" I think they knew more about that than anyone I have ever met.

But their beliefs were not really in accord with Reform  even though we went to a Reform Shul in Hollywood.--a great place--Temple Israel of Hollywood. But teh belif system of my parents was a lot more traditional that official Reform.

To get an idea of what my parents thought and what I think is the proper approach to life I recommend learning Musar. That is the  basic set of medieval books חובות לבבות אורחות צדיקים מסילת ישרים  etc. there are about thirty in all. This is hard reading. The ideas are not hard. It is rather that by reading these books and saying them out loud as you read you get fear of God. And that is hard work. It is not supposed to be light reading.

Music for the glory of God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and of my parents.

b105 

I am upset by the attacks against the USA. Mainly because the USA, the country that I grew up in, was  wholesome and wonderful, and so unrecognizable from what there is today I simply can't comment on it. It is like the first Temple that Solomon built. I am sad it is gone, but there is not much I can do about restoring it.
Mainly I think it was a communist plot. The idea was to undermine American values in universities, and then Americans themselves would destroy it from within. Most people I know don't think the KGB had that kind of influence. But first of all the KGB was highly compartmentalized. And the part of it devoted to disinformation in the USA would not have been known to other department people. Also, I should mention the budget of the KGB for these kind of operations was enormous. And once you have gotten to people in collage and convinced them of the "truths" of socialism, then even when they becomes senators or judges or even the president, they continue with those same policies.
Today the KGB is gone, and I doubt if Russia has the same goals as the USSR. They might want an expanded Russian empire, but I highly doubt if they are interested in the downfall of the USA.
Today the main threat against the USA are Muslims, but they are not the only ones. The Democrats are hard at work undermining the basis of the USA in other ways.

Music for the glory of God,

b98 mp3

b98  [midi] I think I  posted this before some time ago. I am just doing so again just in case. b98 nwc

Music,

q3  [q3 in midi]  q3 nwc

l87  [l87 in midi]  l87 nwc

I might at the end of this blog put down the basic idea but for now I wanted to say over what I think describes עבודת השם the service of God.  The only place I ever saw what could be described as the service of God was at the two Litvak yeshivas I went to in NY.  It was not just that people were learning Torah for its own sake without thought of compensation. It was a kind luminous numinosity.


לנחמן מאומן יש פרק בליקוטי מוהר''ן שנראה שמתייחס אליי בדרכים רבות. זה לווה מהמורה נבוכים של רמב''ם. והוא מדבר על היתרונות  בהבאת אנשים לעבודת השם.
אני יכול בסופו של הבלוג הזה לסכם את הרעיון הבסיסי אבל עכשיו אני רוצה להגיד על מה שאני חושב שמתאר עבודת השם. המקום היחיד שאי פעם ראיתי מה יכול להיות תואר אמיתי של עבודת  אלוהים היה בשתי ישיבות ליטאיות שהלכתי בניו יורק. זה לא היה רק שאנשים לומדים תורה לשמה ללא מחשבה על הפיצוי. זה היה סוג זוהר


It is my observation that learning Torah for its own sake only happens in Lithuanian type of yeshivas. And so I consider that path alone to be in the category of service of God.

 Kelly Ross who I think is the deepest of all philosopher and the widest.

And he also is not much of an authoritarian. 

I call him deepest because he seems to be always able to zero in on the flaws of philosophies that are considered rigorous and logically exact . For some reason he always finds the major flaw. And he is politically a libertarian or more exactly he goes with the American Constitution.

The other thinkers that are important are Karl Popper (The Open Society and its Enemies), Michael Huemer (The essay which destroyed Marxism.). I mind include Allen Bloom (The Closing of the American Mind) (Closing of the American Mind) and Harold Bloom (The Lucifer Principle) (howard_bloom___the_lucifer_principle).

The thing about all these people are they are not authoritarians. But they are different in many ways.

The most encompassing and systematic is  Kelly Ross.

The question that comes up then is how to reconcile this with Torah. If Torah was solely a issue of personal morality then there would not be  any question. But it is public law also in the sense that the only authority anyone has in Torah is to enforce the laws of the Torah. The Torah gives some legitimacy to a Sanhedrin and to a king  and even to prophets but not one of these can change or modify or reinterpret a single law. They can only deal with the questions what is the law and how does it apply and also to solve contradictions based on the 13 principles.

The best interface between Torah and libertarian ideas I think is Kelly Ross. At least he was reading his material that helped me organize my own ideas into a cohesive system.

Music

j27 mp3 [j27 midi j27 nwc]   j15 mp3[j15 midi  j15 nwc]

Even though we find a lot of good points by the Religious Zionists, still if  you want to come to the service of God you have to have something along the lines of a Lithuanian Yeshiva. That is for a least four years you need to concentrate of Torah  in order to get anywhere in it. And that needs to be done with Musar. That is you need a straight Litvak Yeshiva or you need to do this on your own. And if you can't do it on your own you can at least help others to try to do this. The idea here is that a Litvak yeshiva is a kind of incubator for good Jews.

And you cant get the same kind of effect when you dilute the Torah. That is why traditional Litvak yeshivas learned only Torah.--though at Chaim Berlin people did go to Brooklyn collage in the afternoon. [Rav Hutner was going to introduce secular studies even beyond high school but Reb Aaron Kotler begged him not to do so.]

So you can either learn Torah at home or try to start your own Litvak yeshiva.
But how to start such a thing? If you are learning at home I have already written about how to go about learning Torah. Mainly you need to stay on one page for as long as it takes until you can start to see the depths of the Talmud. You keep at that same page day after day with the Maharsha and Maharam until it starts to open up. And you need  a fast session also.
That is for you alone. at most it is two hours per day. But as for making your own yeshiva you need someone that has fit to teach. That is need to impossible to find. One who knows "how to learn" is very rare. The main places you can find someone like this are in the basic set of Litvak yeshivas in Bnei Brak Jerusalem or NY. That is Ponovitch, Brisk, and in NY the Mirrer, Chaim Berlin, and Torah VeDaat. Anyone who has not learned in one of those place you can be guaranteed can't learn.
Don't be fooled by the frauds.

The issue is that the Rambam says that the land of Israel was divided among the tribes by Joshua so that when they would go and conquer it would not have the status of the conquest of an individual. [I think that is in Hilchot Trumah.]

You can see why this is important. Jerusalem was never conquered by any of the tribes until the time of King David. So we have now that the land of Reuben and Gad had the status of Israel along with all the rest of Israel. So far everything seems good. But what about Syria? Syria was conquered by the general of Kind David. But it did not gain the status of Israel because Jerusalem had not been conquered at that point. [or at least not all of the seven Canaanite nations had not be conquered.]

But if Joshua had already divided up the land so that no conquest of any area would be conquest of an individual then it should not matter if Jerusalem was in the hands of Israel at that point!!!


  The idea that there are times that the holiness of the land of Israel is not revealed. That is--even though the holiness is always there still it can't be revealed until Israel comes and conquers. That would apparently have to refer to כיבוש בבל when the exiles returned from Babylon. That is because the Talmud says openly that the first conquest did not sanctify the land except at that time alone.


This might help on on the point of joy also. There are lots of kinds of happiness that are evil. E.g happiness at the sorrow of another person. Good traits can becomes bad if misused. Certainly we don't consider compassion on the same level as cruelty. Yet compassion in the wrong time and place is cruel. That does not mean that compassion is bad. Not at all. Rather it can be misused. We find holy things can become profane. E.g. sacrifices that have not been eaten in the proper time period  etc.

It is mainly in Religious Zionist places that you find a combination of learning Torah and natural sciences. In the insane religious world  places you don't see this much. And when the the insane religious world  engage in secular activity it is never in the natural sciences. If they go into science at all, it is always pseudo science. And pseudo sciences are attractive, compelling, and false.
It is hard to balance natural sciences with learning Torah. The tendency is to lose the balance between the two. Or to denigrate one at the expense of the other.
But to ignore one or the other requires a enormous hubris.

Does the collective wisdom of the ages in the Old Testament and Talmud and books of Musar have nothing to tell us today? It requires a large degree of stupidity to think so. But on the other hand can you dismiss the natural sciences as false inventions of man? That seems to require even a greater degree of lunacy and stupidity than the first type.

These are not my considerations alone and they are not idea spun out of thin air.

The most compelling argument for what I am saying is a resort to authority, Moshe ben Maimon. The Rambam. He placed the natural sciences on  a plane higher than Talmud,  but required the Oral Law as proper preparation and foundation.

The easiest way to see this is in the son of the Rambam, Avraham. For the Rambam himself is a bit of a mystery. No one can seem to figure out the right kind of interface between the Mishne Torah {the legal book of the Rambam} and his Guide for the Perplexed [his philosophical work.]

The son of the Rambam provided that interface in his Musar book  מספיק לעובדי השם Enough for the servants of God. There you see in the same characteristic clarity of the Rambam the actual practical implication of what it means to live according to the ideas of the Rambam.

Music for the glory of God,

j12   j17   j16

But from the books of Musar we can that there are kinds of joy that are bad. rrect.
As Steven Dutch writes God's Grandchildren : Some will adhere to the established religion out of sincere conviction but will disagree with important tenets. They will attempt to recast the religion in more personally palatable terms, or possibly work to redirect the religion itself into more agreeable lines. The changes may be real reforms or merely redefinition into something more palatable.

That is a recasting to redirect things  is honest in itself as long as the basic principles of the religion are preserved. That is Steven Dutch's opinion and it makes sense to me.

j12

If the  Confederate Flag is a reminder of slavery that ought to be banned, then are not blacks also a If the  Confederate Flag is a reminder of slavery that ought to be banned, then are not blacks also a reminder of slavery?


Nothing is wrong with slavery. It is just how you treat people is the issue. Whether a person is a slave or not everyone deserves a certain amount of respect-- when they act as decent people.
And when people do bad things they don't deserve respect--no matter if they are slaves or not.

And no one thinks slavery is bad. No one objects to making white people work for black people without getting paid. That is white people are forced to give black people free food  [food stamps] and free health care etc. White people in the USA are however not exactly slaves to black people. They are more like serfs that have to work  several days a week for their black bosses. That is if they work a whole years several months are spent working for black people with no compensation.
Some divorced women have no problem in using their children as tools to make their husbands into slaves.
As Steven Dutch put it: The Issue is never the issue.

j10

The Sages of the Talmud said that every group of people has a very specific evil inclination that applies to that group much more than other groups. When you are part of some particular group it is hard to see this in your own group, but it is easy to see in other groups.
These are not stereotypes, but actual patterns of behaviors that are easily predicative. (See the hidden diaries of Karl Jung about the shadow side of women, and you will understand why a woman will chase after you one day, and then when you are down and out, she will dump you like yesterday’s trash.) A certain group I know has theft embedded deep into its DNA. It is not that they don't see anything wrong with theft. It is that they cant have a good day without it. Another group I know of are bullies. They can't think in any other way but that they ought to control everyone else. Another group I am all too familiar with are insane. Everyone has a different kind of insanity but you can't be part of that group unless you have some kind of mental problem. I could go on and on.
The truth is we are all social creatures and need to be part of some group, and then when we join some group the evil inclination of that group invariably affects us.



See review of lucifer principle by bloom

See also Lucifer Principle

I have trouble reading things on line. If you can buy Howard Blooms Lucifer Principle and Allen Bloom's Closing of the American Mind and that is the best option. Both these books are worth their weight in gold.


the-closing-of-the-american-mind


What I am saying here is built upon the idea of Howard Bloom's super organism. I am saying not just that the super-organism is built upon  units of social information [memes] as he says but that in each group there is a hidden יצר הרע evil inclination.
And I agree with him that not all groups are equal in value. some groups have more than a hidden evil inclination. Their basic social meme is founded on some evil principle.
To make this more concrete:
There are yeshivas where people learn Musar [Classical Jewish Ethics]. That is a good social meme. But there is still a hidden evil inclination as I mentioned in other essays. But in itself learning Musar is a great idea. [These yeshivas go by a nickname of "Litvak Yeshivas" or more properly Lithuania Yeshivas.] They are in general good groups and  in fact it is almost impossible to get an idea of what Torah is about without going to one for at least some period.]

On teh other hand there are social groups that are founded on  social meme of murder. That is their core thesis is that it is good to murder infidels. This group might also have hidden evil inclination but it is more likely that the evil is apparent and the good is hidden.

Music for the glory of God,

j6

j2 mp3    j2 midi  j2nwc

i95 in mp3   [i95 in midi format]

Sin is a great subject

Sin is a great subject. But a confusing one also.
When people are careful in minor rituals, it is usually at the expense major law principles.
So even though terms like "sin" are thrown around, it usually has little to do with what the Torah actually consider to be sin.
The insane religious world  are the worst offenders in this regard, but not the only ones. The trouble is they confuse the whole concept of what it means to keep Torah. Because they erase the Ten Commandments, people get the idea that the Ten Commandments are not a part of keeping Torah.
Is there any concept of honor of your parents in the insane religious world? ? Not at all. All the honor goes solely to religious leaders. Stealing? They might not kidnap your wife and children, but they will try to convince your wife to leave you. [But they do kidnap your children.] In short, there is nothing in the Ten Commandments they consider binding.

Worshipers of Corpses

The major obstacles to keeping Torah are the the insane religious world , those that make a display of keeping Torah..

I will not hide the fact that I consider  the the insane religious world  to be mainly idolaters because of their worship of corpses.

What the the insane religious world  call repentance is horizontal repentance. It is moving over from one group to join their group. It has nothing to do with repentance of the Torah which is vertical repentance.

So to keep Torah I think you can either go to   Reform temple or Conservative one--though that is really not the best option. [Reform and conservative have been hijacked by principles not like the Torah.] The better option I think is Mizrachi or what is called religious Zionist. There is a complaint about the Mizrachi that they got too much into nationalism and have become a part of the establishment, still their basic approach is about as close to Torah as I think is feasible.

Or you could join a Lithuanian yeshiva which is perhaps even better than Mizrachi [religious Zionist] because of the level of Torah study. Mizrachi tends to be a little weaker in that area. Though I have met people that are associated with religious Zionism who do learn Torah on a high level but the Mizrachi just don't have people of the stature of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach or other Litvak Gedolim.

Though I was at two Lithuanian yeshivas both of which were great places, I think the anti Zionist stance is a poison which is like slowly acting acid which decays the foundations. Today there are no Litvak gedolim. Why not? I say it is the antisemitism embedded in their anti Israel stance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1382&v=7y2KsU_dhwI

This is an interesting film about abortion. It has a kind of Christian slant to it, but still I think it deserves a look.
My critique is that the idea of repentance according to the Torah is to stop sinning. And it also has to do with belief and trust in God. But according to the Rambam the Torah is against the idea of an  mediator. That is in the fifth of the 13 principles of faith. Other than that I think this video is very interesting.

Not to quibble but  the Ten Commandments have a more narrow definition than what he was saying on the video. But that is because they are commandments that contain sub commandments. Even so I think he had some good points.

A Great Title  This is a very early piece written when I was about 16.

This may seem a little serious for a 16 year old but I was dumped by my girl friend. That undoubtedly affected me.

Here is another piece from that same period.Orchestra



Exodus4 


Here is a piece during a period I think I was pretty happy that I had found the solution to a Talmudic problem .h32  If you are curious about it the problem was in Tosphot Bava Metzia 97b. I can put here the whole thing in Hebrew for those that might wonder what made me so happy about finding an answer. You can see I went through lots of possible answers and excluded them all one after the other until God granted to me to find the one true answer.

) בבא מציעא דף צז: קודם כל בתור הקדמה, אני רוצה להציע  משפט מהמשנה וקצת גמרא, אחר כך קושיא בתוספות. המשנה אומרת איש אחד שאל פרה לחרוש בה ועשה תנאי שחצי יום תהיה שאולה וחצי יום תהיה שכורה. אחר כך באמצע היום הפרה מתה. אם המשאיל אומר "שאולה מתה", והשואל אומר "איני יודע", השואל חייב. ואם השואל אומר "שכורה מתה", והמשאיל אומר "איני יודע", השואל פטור. (היינו השואל אמר בשעה שהייתה שכורה מתה, ולכן יהיה פטור במצב של גזלה באלימות ("אונסים") והמשאיל אמר "איני יודע" - ולכן השואל פטור.) עכשיו המשנה אומרת שהדין הוא שהשואל שאמר "איני יודע" חייב לשלם. הגמרא אומרת שנראה מהמשנה שיש ראיה לרב יהודה בנידון הבא- שני אנשים באים לבית דין. הראשון אומר, "אתה חייב לי מאתים דינרים", והשני אומר "איני יודע". רב יהודה אמר, "ברי עדיף". זאת אומרת הראשון זוכה בדין בגלל שטענתו יותר חזקה, הוא ודאי והשני מסופק.
עכשיו תוספות שואלים מהגמרא בבבא קמא. שם כתוב במשנה "שור שנגח את הפרה ונמצא עוברה  בצדה" (ואפשר שהפילה קודם הנגיחה ובאופן הזה הבעלים של השור פטורים). הבעלים של השור אומרים שאינם יודעים אם הפילה קודם נגיחה, והבעלים של הפרה אומרים שהפילה מחמת הנגיחה. רב יהודה אמר בשם שמואל, "המוציא מחבירו  עליו הראיה", ולכן הבעלים של השור פטורים. ועכשיו התוספות מקשים, "והלא רב יהודה אמר, 'ברי עדיף'"? תוספות מתרצים שיש חילוק בין ברי חזק וברי רפוי. ברי חזק הוא כשהנטען גם היה שם כשקרו הדברים ולכן הוא במצב שיכול להכחיש או לתת גירסה אחרת. ועכשיו תוספות שואלים על התירוץ הזה ממסכת כתובות. שם יש מצב שאישה התחתנה והבעל לא מצא בתולים. באותם זמנים הייתה תקופה ארוכה בין אירוסין וחתונה. אבל למעשה, אחרי אירוסין היא הייתה אשת איש. עכשיו הבעל טוען שהיא נבעלה קודם האירוסין והאירוסין היו מקח טעות והוא אינו חייב כתובת מאתיים. היא טוענת שנבעלה אחרי האירוסין באונס. רבן גמליאל אמר, "היא נאמנת", ורבי יהושע אמר, "לא מפיה אנו חיים." ושמואל אמר שההלכה כמו רבן גמליאל. יכולים להיות הרבה טעמים ששמואל אמר את דינו. אבל שם בגמרא, אביי אמר שהדין של רב יהודה ש"ברי עדיף" הוא הדין של שמואל. זאת אומרת, שהטעם של שמואל הוא משום ברי עדיף, ורב יהודה למד מזה כלל למצבים אחרים. ואחר כך הגמרא דחתה את המשפט של אביי, ואמרה שיכול להיות שבין שמואל ורב יהודה אין קשר. ופה התוספות שואלים שאפילו בלי אביי, אנחנו חייבים להגיד שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל. פה דָּוִד שאל על המשפט הזה של התוספות, "למה"? [היינו למה  בלי אביי, אנחנו חייבים להגיד שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל?] (ועוד יש לשאול הלא הברי שלה רפוי ושמואל אמר בבבא קמא שלא הולכים אחרי ברי חלש. זאת שאלה טובה, אבל זאת לא השאלה של תוספות.) הם שואלים שגם בלי אביי צריכים לקשר בין שמואל לרב יהודה.
  אני עניתי בתחלה שאפשר להבין את קושיית התוספות כך, "המשנה בבבא מציעא היא מצב של ברי רפוי לכן רב יהודה ושמואל שווים בדין הזה!"
דָּוִד אמר: אבל זה אינו מועיל ליישב את השאלה. נלך אחורה קצת. בתחלה אמרנו שאביי הוא קושיא על תוספות בגלל שהוא מקשר בין רב יהודה ושמואל. בלי אביי לא היה שום שאלה משום שיכולים להיות הרבה טעמים לשמואל,- כגון חזקת הגוף (עיין במשנה למלך שם). ואז אביי בא ואמר שטעם שמואל הוא ברי ושמא. זאת הייתה קושיא לשיטת התוספות. אחר כך תירצנו את זאת ואמרנו שיכול להיות שאביי אוחז בשיטה אחרת שאינה שייכת לברי ושמא. ואז תוספות אומרים שבלי אביי, גם אנחנו חייבים לקשר בין רב יהודה ושמואל.
   יש קושיא עם שיטת שמואל, אבל זאת אינה הקושיא פה.
 ורואים את זה על ידי תירוצם, שבתור תירוץ תוספות אומרים שיכול להיות ששמואל מסכים עם השיטה השנייה כאן של רב נחמן ורבי יוחנן שברי ושמא לאו ברי עדיף. רואים שהם מתרצים את השאלה על ידי שמפרידים בין שמואל ורב יהודה, ואומרים הסיבה של שמואל לתת לה כתובה היא לא משום ברי ושמא, אלא מה שהוא אחר. ולכן השאלה תמיד הייתה על רב יהודה. ויותר מזה,- מה תוספות עושים עם אביי? כל הרעיון של תוספות הוא כנגד אביי!"
[אני רוצה לומר שאני מבין שעיקר כוונת תוספות היא לומר ששמואל היה חייב להגיד את דינו כאן שברי עדיף בשביל האפשרות השניה אינה פתוחה לו. בתור תירוץ הם עונים שגם האפשרות השניה (מתוך) כן פתוחה לו. אבל הקושיא שהם אומרים שבלי אביי צריכים עדיין להגיד מה שאביי אמר-- שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל. ומכל מה שאמרו תוספות עד עכשיו אין מקום להגיד את זה.]
בגלל הקושיא הזאת  אולי היה יותר טוב להגיד שכוונת התוספות היא שאפילו בלי אביי אנחנו יכולים לומר שהדין של רב יהודה כן בא משמואל בכתובות על ידי קל וחומר. אם מאמינים ברי חלש קל וחומר ברי חזק. (ובאמת לפי פשטות הענין, תוספות מכוון על המימרא של שמואל בכתובות.) אבל זה עובד רק אם תוספות מכוון להמשפט של שמואל בכתובות  וגם אם הטעם של שמואל הוא משום ברי ושמא. [הקושיא של דָּוִד נבנית על היסוד שתוספות מכוונים להמשפט של שמואל בבא קמא ששמאול אמר שלא מאמינים לברי חלש.] [וכנראה שכוונת תוספות היא שכל זמן שהגמרא בעצמה לא דחתה את הענין של ברי ושמא מהמשפט של שמואל בכתובות, אין לנו לעשות את זה. דהיינו ענין ברי ושמא עדיין יכול להיות שיקול וסיבה. ואם זה נכון אז אפילו בלא אביי, אנחנו יכולים לומר שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל על ידי קל וחומר.]
אבל מצד אחד לא יכול להיות שתוספות מכוונים על המימרא של שמואל בכתובות. הסיבה לכך היא זאת: הגמרא דחתה אביי ואמרה שהטעם ששמואל אמר הלכה כרבן גמליאל הוא משום מיגו. [האשה הייתה יכולה לומר מוכת עץ אני ותהיה נאמנת. ולכן מאמינים אותה כשאומרת נאנסתי.] במבט ראשון נראה שאין זה בהקשר עם הענין של ברי ושמא. אבל יכול להיות שטענת ברי שלה והמיגו שניהם גורמים שמאמינים אותה גם להוציא ממון. ונראה שזה חייב להיות נכון שבלי הברי ושמא לא היינו מוציאים ממון בגלל מיגו. ואם כל זה נכון קל להבין את תוספות. אם מאמינים ברי חלש קל וחומר ברי חזק. אבל זה לא יכול להיות נכון. אם מאמינים אותה בגלל צירוף של ברי ומיגו, אז בדיון של רב יהודה המיגו עובד לכוון ההפוך. הטוען שאומר "איני יודע" היה יכול לומר שהוא יודע שאינו חייב כלום, ויהיה נאמן. לכן יש לו מיגו טוב ועדיין רב יהודה אמר שלא מאמינים אותו בגלל שהוא טוען שמא כנגד ברי. בכתובות צריכים  לומר שטענת וודאי שלה  עוזרת שאם זה היה רק ​​שיש לה מיגו אנחנו אומרים לא אומרים מיגו להוציא כסף.ואפילו לפי השיטה שאומרים מיגו להוציא זו לא אמורה כאן להיות הסיבה היחידה.  אז זה מיגו עם טענת וודאי חלשה שמוציא מחזקת ממון. אין קל וחומר מזה כשיש טענת וודאי חזק אבל נגד מיגו כמו בדיון של רב יהודה עם שני אנשים בבית דין ואחד אומר שאתה חייב ואחר אומר שאני לא יודע.
ואפילו אם היינו אומרים שהייתה לתוספות גירסת תוספות הרי''ד, גם זה לא היה עוזר. תוספות הרי''ד גרס בכתובות שהמיגו עוזר בגלל שיש לה חזקת הגוף [חזקה מעיקרא שהייתה בתולה] כנגד חזקת הממון שלו. ואז היינו אומרים ברי חלש עם חזקת הגוף מספיק להוציא ממון. אבל זה לא עוזר לנו לישב את התוספות. שאין קל וחומר לומר אם ברי חלש עם חזקת הגוף עוזר כל שכן ברי חזק בלי חזקת הגוף כנגד חזקת ממון. ולכן חזרנו לומר שתוספות מכוונים להמשפט של שמואל בבבא קמא. ועדיין לא נראה ברור למה הדין של רב יהודה היה בא מהדין של שמואל.

 
אני רוצה לתת תירוץ על הקושיא הזאת. דבר ראשון כל כוונת התוספות כאן היא שהדין של רב יהודה ושמואל אחד הוא, (לא שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל). [בכתובות, הכוונה של אביי היא שהדין של רב יהודה בא משמואל, אבל זאת אינה הכוונה של תוספות פה.] ידענו שרב יהודה אוחז בשיטה של ברי עדיף, וברי חלש לא. וידענו ששמואל אוחז בשיטה שלא מאמינים לברי חלש. רק לא ידענו מה הוא אוחז במצב של ברי חזק. אולי הוא לא אוחז גם מזה. תוספות מביאים ראיה שהוא חייב לאחוז מברי חזק, שיש בשבילו רק אפשרות אחת של ברי חזק לפרש את המשנה, ולא אפשרות של "מתוך שאינו יכול להישבע". רק הקושיא על זה היא שהמשנה נראית כמו ברי חלש, אבל ברור שתוספות אוחזים שהמשנה היא ברי חזק - שאם לא כן, המשנה והגמרא כאן הם כנגד תוספות. רק מה לעשות בדף קטז. ששם ברור שהוא ברי חלש, ועם כל זה הגמרא בעצמה מפרשת את המשנה עם רב יהודה שרב יהודה היה אומר ברי עדיף!



This was written I think in Israel

e71

The more religious they are, the further from the Torah they are.

Let's say there is a Jewish community in Eastern Europe that has a Rav and community leaders .
But its leaders are not religious. Would there be a movement to destroy it? Would there be a  mitzvah to destroy it? Why would thus be any different than the State of Israel today? Why is it that the insane religious world  think there is  mitzvah in destroying it, and work towards that end? [And hypocritically deny that fact.]
I will tell you why. It is because they think by doing so they are keeping the Torah. And if we are not talking about Satmar and least we are referring to all its friends and associate movements. And that means all of the insane religious world  excluding the religious Zionists.

None of this would make any difference if not for that fact that this makes keeping Torah a highly ambiguous endeavor. Those  that seem to keep the Torah with the most fervor and sincerity are rabid anti Semites friends of Ahmadinejad. It is in fact impossible to find any movement within the insane religious world  that does not have some kind of glaring flaw. Most are pure idolatry in religious clothing.

The more religious they are, the further from the Torah they are.

If we did not have to keep Torah none of this would make the slightest difference. We could all go our merry way and write them off as lost lunatics. The problem is that we do have to keep Torah. And the presence of these poisonous people makes it nigh impossible to figure out how to go about it.
For this reason I have take the approach of recommending that people just plow through the written and Oral Torah on their own without any connection with any organization unless you have to have  religious Zionist shul in your area.{Conservative and Reform are also good except that sometimes they go off in the non-religious direction too far. But  even the most extreme Reform can't touch the insane religious world  when it come to downright pure unadulterated Antisemitism. The the insane religious world  take the pride and prize when it come to that by a long shot right next to Ahmadinejad.}
everything.

Steven Dutch: "What we can call The Fundamental Fallacy of Modern Philosophy might be defined as the idea that it makes sense to study structure divorced from content. This is the idea that has given us businessmen who think they can "manage" without knowing anything about what they manage, critics who claim that only the technical excellence of a work of art matters, not its content, and sociologists of science like the one with whom I corresponded who think you can study the Velikovsky affair without regard to the scientific validity of Velikovsky's ideas."



I would like to add this this insight some thoughts about religious fundamentalism. You must have heard when a Muslim blows up a building with people inside that it is the fault of religious fundamentalism. That is we can blame the fact of someone being over religious, That is we don't blame their being religious but being too religious. How often do you hear the idea that content matters? Maybe it is not whether the guy was overly religious or not is the question. Perhaps it is the content of the book he is reading?

Surely Catholic nuns are also religious and maybe also too religious. Do you blame them also? Perhaps Muslims murdering innocent people is the fault of Catholic nuns who promote religious fervor?

On the other hand certainly American ideas of the 1960's of suggesting people get back to their roots had a predictable effect of getting Muslims back to their roots.

After this introduction I want to say
that in some way everyone is a fundamentalist. Everyone has a short list of basic principles that they operate under in their daily lives--and they stick to those principles. what matters is what those principles are.

The Ten Commandments? Thou shalt not lie, nor cheat, nor steal? 

Music

e15  e19

Learning Torah,

I have been trying to figure out a good argument for learning Torah. And I don't want to go the way of the Nefesh HaChaim to do so.
That is I am starting out with a conclusion and trying to figure out a good argument to bring to that conclusion.  X therefore Y. Y is "It is good to learn Torah." Solve for X.
The arguments against keeping or learning Torah seem infinite  and some seem convincing.

One argument against learning is when people see what happens when people overdo it. It is like eating too much. You can see what happens to people when they eat too much. But no one uses that as an argument not to eat.

One argument against it is to notice that Reform Jews support the State of Israel and clearly have the  benefit of mankind as the major goal. Yet they do not learn very much Torah. Just a drop.

I could try to point out that this good will of reform Jews while a great thing in itself can go over a line into over-tolerance.


What I can say as an argument for Torah is my own parents home which was an island of wholesomeness and decency and holiness and our home was based on Torah even though we were Reform Jews--in name at least. I am sure my parents held from Torah much more strongly than  the Reform Movement.

There is an aspect of numinous of Torah that I think is the best aspect of it. It connects one to the Divine.

For that reason I suggest having two sessions ever day in Torah. One in the Oral Law and the other in Poskim [i.e. people that sifted through the Talmud to come up with one law on each subject instead of  an argument on each subject.] That is to go through the oral law from start to finish Talmud Bavli Yerushalmi, Tosphta Sifra, Sifri, Mechilta, Torat Kohanim. And the Poskim: Rambam, Tur, Shulchan Aruch with the commentaries.

Music file

i8

In the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.

There is a sort of ambiguity when people discuss QM as being subjective. It is not "subjective" in the same way that word is used in general language. There is nothing subjective about the fact that the two slit experiment results in interference. It has nothing to do with who is watching it. It has to do with what happens when a particle interacts with another particle. That creates interference.

The word "subjective" is already ambiguous. A "subject" in Kant is the observer. A "subject" in England is a subject of the king--as in the "king's subjects."

So what is meant by subjective when people use the term in QM? It means probability. You have a state of a system and then you have something that acts on it. Then you get a new state. The probability of the new state occurring is what people mean by the word "subjective."

It is better not to read what philosophers write about Quantum Mechanics. Kelley Ross is right that Kant provided essential insights, but since then there have been very few people that work in philosophy that understand Physics well enough to say anything intelligent about it. And that means that few philosophers are competent to comment about reality. They might be able to give a course in philosophy, but to say anything intelligent about the nature of reality they are far away from.

[I should mention that Quantum Mechanics (Heisenberg) deals nicely with interference and you don't need the Schrodinger picture for that. See this post by Lubos that does the actual calculation To derive interference from the Heisenberg Picture


Here is an important quote from Lubos: http://motls.blogspot.com/2012/11/why-subjective-quantum-mechanics-allows.html?m=1 

Are there many universes? Reference Frame

What this means is amazingly simple if you want Fear of God  then you can't join any organization. Especially one that presents itself as fearing God, [any so called "the  religious world " that is]. They will turn out to be the biggest obstacle that prevent you from fear of god because of their amazing and shocking levels of hypocrisy. That includes Breslov sadly. That is the path to Fear of God is clear learn Torah--that is the Oral and written Torah and Musar--but don't dare venture towards any organization that is claiming to represent that path. The is no possibility that it will not turn out to be false. For that is the state of things today.