Tractate Sanhedrin 62a

There are 42 sins for which one is required to bring a goat or a sheep to the temple in Jerusalem. [Leviticus 4] [The sexual relationships in Leviticus 22, (e.g. sleeping with ones sister, aunt, a male, an animal, etc.) work on Shabat, and a few more.] [You don't get to have a barbecue as you do if you bring regular sacrifices like peace offerings.] The sin offering can only be eaten by priests. There is a 43rd sin that one brings a sin offering for--that is idolatry. But its sin offering is only a she goat. [See this in the middle of the Book of Numbers.]
That is only if one does idolatry by accident. Now I have to say that there are five things one can't do for an idol. The regular four services [offering a sacrifice, burning a sacrifice, pouring wine, bowing,] and the service that is specified for that idol.
So what if one does several services by accident? Does he bring one sin offering or more?
R. Zakai said he brings one sacrifice. R. Yochanan said to bring one for each service.
R. Aba wanted to say this argument is really an argument among the people of the Mishna.
R Josi said why is fire specified on Shabat? To tell us it is only  a prohibition that is all. It is out of the category of the other 39 types of forbidden work. [R. Natan says fire comes to divide.] R. Aba is thinking at this point one doing all the 39 types of work is obligated only one sin offering (goat or sheep).
Rav Joseph said R. Josi might also divide the types of work from the verse when a soul sins נפש כי תחטא [Leviticus 4]   בשגגה מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תעשינה ועשה אחת מהנה
"When a soul sins in one of the commandments of God which should not be done and he does one of them."
This is all introduction. to a small point. The actual way this verse is understood is אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת. That is the Gemara is thinking about the last three words of this verse there is something extra that is not necessary. So what is it coming to tell us?
My comment here is that there is no way the verse could have said ועשה הנה. And does them. That makes no sense in Hebrew. So while I can agree to the opposite side of things that it could have written ועשה אחת instead of ועשה מאחת. That is fine.And that would be to tell sometimes one is obligated for one forgetting many offerings--like if he forgets that it is the Sabbath day and does many works.
But you can't write ועשה הנה. If you write anything it has to be אחת מהנה. "and does one of them." So what I am suggesting is that the Gemara means you could have left out the whole word!מהנה
And the verse would have read "and does one." And then by the fact that the extra word them is written now we know there is a time one forgets each individual type of work and does many and then he has to bring  a sin offering for each type of work.

But this is not a new idea. I wrote this down here a few day ago--in short hand fashion.
After all this I wanted to think about this whole Gemara from a broader perspective. Just think about it. At first it starts off trying to make an argument between two Talmudic sages into an argument between two sages of the Mishna. That is just plain classical Gemara thinking. But then things start happening I don't understand. It gets to a point where the two sages of the Mishna agree about division of work on Shabat.
So should that all by itself not be a proof for Rabbi Yochanan? I mean is that not what you would expect?Why does the Gemara not jump at the first opportunity it gets to help out Rabbi Yochanan? It instead runs to bowing [Deuteronomy 17].
I want to suggest that it is interested in helped Rabbi Yochanan and that that accounts for the fact that after it takes care of the argument between Abyee and Rava about serving idols from fear of love that it jumps back to division of work to suggest from this same verse it used for Sabbath and tries to use it for idolatry.
And that is my idea for today.This not what you would call ''lumdut.'' [in depth learning]. In a way it is completely and utterly trivial. Still it is just something that I am trying to understand in this Gemara.


Appendix
It is Rabbi Josi who learns from the verse. and later R Yonatan explains how. He said it is from אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת/
It seems he is learning thus--it could have said one but instead said from one. so we learn even if one does not do a complete work like "shem" from "shimon." And it could have said them, but instead said from them to tell us not just from the 39 types of work but also the generations--subcategories of work.
And then from the fact that both words could have been skipped entirely we learn "one that is many" he knows it is shabat but forget many kinds of work, he is obligated many sacrifices. And many that are one--if he forgets it is shabat but knows all the types of work then he is obligated only one sacrifice.

How to learn Physics and Mathematics.

1) How to learn Physics and Mathematics. My suggestion is to have one session right when you wake up in the morning. 20 minutes minimum, but it should be an hour. It should be in the way that the Talmud  Shabat 63a says-- always one should  גורס say the words  and then review even though he forgets and even though he does nit know what he is saying." Don't review. But the next day you can review if you want. And in fact if you want to review the same material a lot of days in a row (e.g. forty days in a row), then that session will count as an in-depth session.
In any case, you need one in-depth session and one fast session. That fast one is also like the first, except you take a text of math or physics, and just say it from the beginning until the end, and you do that again until you have finished it four times.
The idea is that when you say the words a kind of outer light אור מקיף is formed around you. But you don't understand because the outer light has not come into you yet. So you have to say the whole textbook at least four times for the light to come in.




2)This should be learned with books of ethics and fear of God - before and after. Because the entire purpose of this is to bring one to see the wisdom of God as revealed in his creation. But for that to work, ones vector has to be towards God. And words don't have a lasting effect without fear of God.

 3) This is really the exact same thing as Talmud learning. Except for the Talmud if possible you need to get yourself a learning partner. But if that is impossible, then you do the same as I wrote here. You take one page of Talmud with the Tosphot and Maharsha and do the whole page--just saying the words. And the next day you go back and do it again for about forty days. Or until things start becoming clear. [That is the in depth session. The fast one is the same except the  next day you go to the next page. I mean here what is called an half page.עמוד. A whole  two sides is a lot to do with Tosphot. So I am asking only for one side of a page.] [Don't go to any synagogue to do this. Do it at home.]

4) In the morning I used to have a coffee or tea until I heard of the idea of Bava Sali (Israel Abuchatzaira) to have coffee and tea in the same cup.- [I mean to say the first twenty minutes after you wake up are critical. You can take a few minutes to get the coffee and tea and learn Musar/ (books of ethics and fear of God). But this hard core Mathematics learning has to be the first thing. Before breakfast, before school, before davening (prayers). But obviously you say the "Shema Israel" right when you wake up.]

5) The most important thing to remember, a little bit is also good. Even if you do not learn a lot of you are not great at it doing a little Physics is also good.

 And not to be stubborn about it. Don't worry if you don't understand at first because eventually you will understand.

Especially I hold from the forty days in a row thing. I would sometime stake one chapter or a few chapters and read them word for word forty day in a row and often not understand anything until the day day when it would instantly all become clear.

That is if you do this you will certainly know a lot more Physics than you do by giving up on it, or learning second hand trivial stuff.


6) And as for the desirability of this I defer to Maimonides in his Mishna Torah and More Nevuchim and my parents.
Though some people disagree with the Rambam in this, I feel they can't override him. In minor things or individual laws  I do admit one should take the Rambam in the context of all the Rishonim [medieval authorities]. But an area that was a major thesis of his, I feel no one can override him. It is a heavily weighted variable for him.
I did not say anything about solving  problems because I am addressing the need for general knowledge. As for individual problems, that is a whole other ball game.
Even for people that learn Torah all day,  Physics and Mathematics are essential. See the introduction to the translation of Euclid by Baruch from Shkolov-the disciple of the Gra (Elijah from Vilnius). And the Rambam הלכות תלמוד תורה פרק א הלכה י''ב

7) I wanted to add that you don't have the right to claim you don't understand a physics or math textbook until you have read it--word by word, cover to cover, four times.

 8) The way to understand this is to see that there are hidden levels of the human soul. And "makifim." מקיפים "surrounding light". . But I would rather take an idea from the Ari and  The idea is that when you say over the textbook--even if you don't understand it, you have one makif מקיף. a surrounding light that has gotten close to you by your saying the words. When you say the whole text again the outer light gets close  to you. And when you do this in an environment where there are others also engaged in this the effect is stronger.

American judges are a serious problem. Many problems that people have in their individual lives to corrupt judges. I don't intend to go in detail into this, but let me say that I have seen this a lot. My impression is that Constitutional Law is mostly involved in Supreme Court decisions. As if that has anything to do with the Constitution. You don't encounter many judges that have actual read the Federalist Papers that explain what the Constitution is all about. This might seem like something you can ignore if you are not actually in court. corrupt judges destroy the entire society. See the last of the thirteen stories.

The basic idea of that Torah lesson is about faith in God and that when people  have a lack of faith, they fall into problems that nothing can cure not medicine, or merit of ones parents, or even calling to God in prayer. It is a long lesson but the basic idea is that if people try to get back to faith it is the corrupt judges of a a society that make it impossible.  And I definitely saw this in NY.



Now to some it is easy to critique any religious leader because you always know you have secular society to fall back on.
But what would you do if secular society itself would break apart?

This problem is similar to utilitarians that can rely on the fact that they live an a Judaic Christian society to assume everyone has a common sense idea of morality that they can safely attribute to common sense.
[The assumption of higher and lower pleasures is fundamental to Mill. And he uses this distinction to come out with a Society that looks suspiciously like one based on Torah values. ]

This is of course obviously wrong. We only think it is common sense because we grew  up in a society founded on Judaic Christian values. A society based on utilitarianism without Torah would be a society of pigs--even in theory it has to come out that way--to the LCD lowest common denominator..

So we need Torah and we need teachers of Torah.. And this applies even to the larger American society as much as to the Jewish society.

But authentic teachers of Torah? They are hard to find because in the first place anyone with ordination already has by definition a little bit of fraud mixed up with them. Maybe some more than others. But in any case true ordination died out 2000 years ago. The last people to have it were rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Yehuda ben Levi, early amoraim. Anyone that allows themselves to be called  rabbi after that is by definition a fraud.
So this is a little different from the Catholic church or Zen Buddhism where you need ordination fir anything you do or say to have validity.
[Just as one cannot become a Catholic priest without a bishop putting hands on a head, one cannot become a Zen teacher without having been authorized by a Zen teacher. And almost always that authorization is “vertical,” teacher to student.
If someone wants to be a Zen teacher, they must be made one. And that ceremony is public or has a major public aspect to it. And for the most part there are written documents involved. And on those rare occasions if there aren’t documents, there are witnesses.
If you ask someone who claims to be a Zen teacher who authorized them and they throw you out, you may safely assume that person has made it up. If that person says the question proves you’re not enlightened, then this suggests that person has made their credentials up. If they say it is none of your business, they are probably a fraud.]

In Torah things are just the opposite. The word Rabbi has a very very specified definition according to absolute objective standards. And the Talmud itself says those standards no longer exist for anyone. So according to the strict definition of Halacha anyone called a rabbi is a fraud.
The Sefardim never had this problem until recently. Their teachers were always "the sage" the Chacham חכם
And for a long time Ashkenazim never had such a problem either.. Who ever was the most learned was the one who gave the class in Mishna between Mincha [afternoon prayer] and Maariv [evening prayer].

Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

NATO does not understand Russia. The reason is that Russia does not play by the rules. They have plausible deniability. They can send in soldiers into anywhere they want and say the soldiers were on vacation. They can show their military might all over the world and say they are simply doing training exercises.
The can't understand Russian because Russia has a whole different set of rules. In the West you want to destroy a scientist you simply print an article in a newspaper that accuse him of racism or hating women. And he loses his job and wife and children and things are back to normal. Russia has simply been sitting back an watching the West consume itself in a piranhic frenzy about  blacks, women, gays, etc. Russia does not care about any of these things. You can criticize them all day long in Russia and no one will blink an eyelash.
Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

I usually don't use this space for politics. And I might just delete this whole essay. But for now that I am on a role let me just say I can see the position of Russia concerning eastern Ukraine. The Russian point of view is simple. People in the East of the Ukraine  want to be Russians, so let them be Russians. They also think they the Russians civilized the Ukraine, and without them the Ukraine would be everything they say they are. And they are 100% right. Two very valid points.
What I was thinking is anyone in the East of the Ukraine that wants to be Russian, perhaps they should be given a certain sizable sum of money to go live in Russia? It is not the best idea but it is certainly better than war.

Trust in God

The opinion of God in the book of Job that it was blasphemy to accuse God of being just. Then what exactly is the idea of trust?

Job was saying that he was guiltless. And his friends were saying that God never punishes anyone unless they are guilty. And God in the end came and said that his friends were wrong. Though you could explain it differently but we know from the narrator's perspective that the simple explanation is correct. So then what does it mean to trust in God?

Answer: Trust in God is an independent variable than whether one is doing good or not.
Joseph Horvitz [The author of the מדרגת האדם] (student of  Israel Salanter ) brings the statement of the Sages on the verse, "One who trust in God kindness will surround him." (Psalms 16) They say: "Even a wicked person that trusts in God, kindness will surround him."
  The way this is understood is one should be doing God's will.  And using his or her reason to understand what God's will is. But even if one fails and misunderstands Gods will, then still trust alone will save him.
In theory it applies even to people that knew they were transgressing God's will. Because trust is an independent variable.
  The Geon from Vilnius (Elijah) also said in a similar vein one who trust in God even though  transgresses major sins, is better than one who keep all the Torah and mitzvot. [In the book אבן שלמה]

   I discovered this book called the Level of Man (Madgragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם). [This is known today by the name Navardok]
And this book has trust as  central theme. And what makes it all the more interesting is the fact that the author did practice what he preached. But also after I left the Mir to go to Israel there was something about this approach that stuck with me. Maybe even until this very day.
So the fact that there was a time I actively tried to walk in that path and for a time it worked and for a time it seems to have puttered out makes wish I could figure out the proper approach.
People of course know the argument between the Chovot Levavaot [Duties of the Heart] and the Gra about effort--השתדלות.
The former says one should do effort, and the later says not.
The proper approach is to do what God asks of you. [But even this how do yo know? It was assumed you use your faculty of reason to try to understand as best as you can God's will for you, and then if you do that then it is understood that everything else would be taken care of from Heaven.] [Or to be as explicit as possible: learn Torah and everything will work out.]

But to get back to my story, there was a time that I decided --also based on my understanding of Torah that I ought to work for a living and stop the trusting in God approach. That not only did not work, but it seemed to me that I was being shown a lesson from heaven of what happens to a person when he trusts in his own efforts and abandons trust in God.--Everything not just falls apart, but it falls apart with a vengeance.
Of course this probably was because of the vector involved, and probably has little to do with whether the actual law (Halacha) was like I was thinking. If ones vector is to God and then he turns away, that is probably worse than if the vector was never pointing in that direction in the first place.
[Trust is not just a principle to do what is right and assume God will help you. It is also a key decision making tool. It helps to decide what to do.]

How this applies in the larger world I am not sure. I am only trying to give people an idea of how it applies in my world in my realm of decisions that I have to make. People in different situation might find this principle applies in different ways according to their present problems.
For the general public that are interested in this  recommend the book Madragat Hadam which give the best presentation I have seen on this subject.

My learning partner today discovered Handel, and was very impressed. He said to me that Beethoven said that Handel was the greatest composer who ever lived. I mentioned to him that some time after Handel there was in the USA some composer who people said would be a second Handel. I was saying this implying that such a thing is ridiculous. It is like people today list the great composers and put Beethoven and Mozart together with some pop jerk.
And he made an interesting observation--that they all lived under nobility. It was an age when everyone believed in God, and everyone worked, and everyone believed in Torah, and there were kings and princes.
[It is like him to see this. When ever I bring up the idea of democracy and the Constitution of the USA, he is never impressed. From what he can see, the USA only worked well until it was invaded by the 3rd world.]
I once came into the home of the daughter of Bava Sali and they were playing on the stereo the Messiah of Handel.
I have not seen her nor her family for a few years, but every minute I spent with them was precious.
One thing I learned from her and her son Shimon Buso was the world view of Bava Sali and his general approach.
It was basically in a nut shell the approach of the Gra (Eliyahu fromVilnius) and Israel Salanter. That is it was a limited idea of what Torah is. Torah is Torah, and everything else is not Torah. And we are all obligated to keep the commandments from the Torah and the "fences" made by the Sages. A no nonsense approach.
Musar (Ethics) was the main thing to learn. [You ask them yourself, but believe me, Musar was foremost to this family. That is they really say the idea of Israel Salanter that everyone should learn Ethics/ Musar as being the truth and the way.]


Navardok means to learn Torah  with a lot of Musar, and a lot of emphasis on trust in God with no effort (that is no השתדלות).
But let me say I can't endorse everything about Navardok. Though I agree the major learning has to be in Talmud and Musar, I still feel (based on the Rambam and the many Musar books based on his approach from the Old Sefardi school of thought) that Physics and Metaphysics are also important. Plus a Boy Scouts type of program --to teach character and self reliance and morality..
Appendix
Here is my how and why to learn Physics program:
My  idea about learning Physics is this.
The first twenty minutes in the morning are essential. Also the last twenty minutes in the day before you go asleep. When you wake up get a coffee or tea or both and learn  some work of fear of God [Musar] and then  Physics/Math before anything else.
[Then during the day of course one should learn Torah.]

And the desirability of this, I base on Maimonides alone. You will not find many tzadikim that agree with this. But I still feel that in this case the Rambam was right.
And the way to learn it I have found is not that different from learning Talmud. You need a fast session and an in-depth session.  The in-depth one for me has varied over time. One thing I try to do is to concentrate on one small subject for forty days straight. The fast session is like it sounds--say the words in order and go on.

To the Rambam, Physics is the key to fear of God. So I don't consider it a waste of time from Torah. The other opinion along these lines is the Geon (Eliyahu) from Vilnius, who considered all of the seven wisdoms to be essential for understanding the Torah.

Besides the basic ideas of the Gra and the Rambam about the desirability of this, it makes sense to have a means of living without using the Torah for making money.

There is some kind of spiritual awakening of the higher world when one is doing the 39 types of work in this world that correspond to the 39 of טל אורות אוריך (dew of light) and the 39 types of work by which the work was created. He saw in nature and in the study of nature a higher purpose. And if not for people that were making a religion of science, he would have shown how science and Torah are connected are one.
[Sometimes he hints to this like in the above example where he brings the idea that the tabernacle in the wilderness was like heaven and earth so work-i.e. doing any one of the 39 types of labor waken the corresponding component in the work of Creation]

Leviticus 4

Just a drop of background information. We want there to be separate penalties of doing any of the four services for idolatry. That is if one sacrificed an animal and then bowed to it, he would bring two goats instead of one to the Temple in Jerusalem. R. Aba  suggested in the Gemara that this might depend on the argument between Rabbi Jose and R. Natan. R.Josi says why does it say on Shabat not to light a fire--to tell us it is a prohibition. [Not Karet,cutting off from ones people. That is is only a prohibition.] R. Natan says to divide the works.
so in idolatry. "Bowing" [Deuteronomy 17] comes to tell us it is only a prohibition to R Josi, and R Natan would say to divide.






Rav Joseph said no to this idea. He said everyone agrees in idolatry that the four types of service are divided. And he learns it  the same way even in Shabat people learn the division of work.







 אם נפש אחת תחטא בשגגה  מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תיעשנה ועשה אחת מהנה  "If a soul sins by doing one of the commandments of God that are not allowed to be done and sins by doing one of them."

(from Leviticus 4:1)

We have got a whole different issue in Sanhedrin 62A about the words  אחת מהנה.
This seemed to me to be a little familiar from tractate Shabat 70, but I saw something unusual today.

The major issue here is if a person has any of the forbidden sexual relations brought in Leviticus 22 and 23 by accident [like having sex with his sister, or a male, or an animal, etc.] or eats a sacrifice outside of the specified area of the Temple or walks into the Temple before going to the a natural body of water [river or pond] and getting sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, then he has to bring a sacrifice.
But just to be a short as possible I wanted to concentrate on doing "one of them."
The basic idea here is this:
אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת
"One from one, them from them, one that is them, and them that is one."
The most obvious question here is the second drasha [extrapolation]. That is, we understand the first  extrapolation [drasha] perfectly well. It could have written "one" and instead it wrote "from one." That is obviously coming to tell us something. But what is the second extrapolation ? "Them from them." How, I ask, could it have written only "them." בעשותה הנה? That makes no sense! In Hebrew you would have to write אתהן! [Object form, not subject form!]


I think is this Rashi  thinks the whole word ''מהנה'' (from them) could have been dropped. That is at first glance it looks like the idea is it could have written הנה ''them'' and instead wrote ''from them'' מהנה. But that clearly is wrong because them הנה is not an object. This is what I think Rashi is pointing to in Tractate Shabat 70a  and also  Sanhedrin 62a; that it is the whole word that could have been left out.
That means that we understand sometimes he forgets one thing אחת "when a souls sins and does one"  and for that one he is obligated  several sin offerings "One that is a 'them'". and sometimes he does many acts and is obligated only one--"them that is 'one'"
That is just like in Shabat if one forgets that it is shabat and does many different types of work he is obligated only one sacrifice. If he knows it is shabat, but forgets  that certain type of work are forbidden, then he is obligated for every single type of work. So is the same for idolatry.


'

There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.

 There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.
If God would always bring plenty into the world people could learn Torah with no work. And this he sees as being the best option. But sometimes the flow of blessing is held up at one end, so people have to work. And that work itself is serve of God. It is however outer service. And it is considered inferior.
But it still brings blessing because the 39 types of labor awaken the 39 types of work that went into creating the universe. The dew of light-טל אורות טליך
this  clears up for me  the idea of Trust in God.


 And I had been reading the Madragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם by  Joseph Horowitz. And it was confusing to me how he could emphasize trust in God without doing any effort on one hand, and my seeing lots of statements in the Talmud about the importance of work.


In fact, for a couple of years I had been reading the ethical works of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius], and Israel Salanter also, and I could not make sense of it all. On one hand I knew the decision  of the Rambam/Maimonides and the general approach of the Talmud about combining work with Torah. On the other hand with the Gra the emphasis is with learning Torah.


Appendix:
1) The Madragat HaAdam says that:
מכאן שאין האדם צריך לשום השתדלות, אלא מה שנגזר על האדם יבוא ממילא, בלי שום סיבה כלל
"From here we learn that a person does not need to do anything, but what is decreed on him will come automatically without any effort on his part at all."

  That means--that one can learn Torah and does not have to work--because (1) you are trusting in God and when one trusts in God God will fulfill that trust,   and (2) one is doing what is obligatory on him by learning Torah.

  But this does not leave room for times when ones prayers are not answered. . There are times when God simply does not answer, and then one does have to work.The blessings can be held up because of all kinds of different reasons.


) The story about  Joseph Horwitz was that he was a student of Israel Salanter [the founder of the movement geared to tell people to learn Musar/Ethics]. He practiced this idea of trust in God  in Russia and his son in law was in Ponovitch (before Rav Menachem Shach) The Stipler. [Author of the Kehilat Yaakov ]

 I hope it is clear I am not implying in any way I have succeeded in reaching anything like these high levels. I am merely discussing goals which I wish I would have. I am the scum of the universe.
On the other hand there was a time I was trying to do this trust thing. And it did in fact work. It is just I think that once one has left the door closes behind him. But if someone could start out fresh, just learning Torah straight and not using it for money in any way but only to trust in Divine providence I think that things would work out.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need to learn Torah and do what it says

. But embedded in the very nature of things are solutions to these problems. For we find that a lot of times of Torah refers to the idea that a judgment is made in heaven against some person of group of persons. For example we have Sodom where there was a decree to destroy it. And yet a discussion God had with Abraham weakened the decree and in fact resulted in the coming into the world of Ruth [from the book of Ruth]-- the grandmother of King David.
Naaman the Syrian general had leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet. Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan river.
  He laughed at that and said "Are not the rivers of Ashur greater the little stream of the Jordan?"
  But his servant said, "What would you lose to try it?"
  He went and tried it and was cured.

The idea is sometimes there is a little thing one can do to turn around his whole life. One small mitzvah. Something that seems insignificant.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) also refers to this idea in a few places. But he concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need tolearn Torah and do what it says


But the idea that one can lessen judgments by doing some right action is a powerful idea. Especially if you think there actually is such a thing as a way to lessen judgments.
Sometimes in older books you find similar things. The Ari has a certain number of fasts one should do for certain sins. and he would also tell people to concentrate on certain Divine names during those fasts.
To some degree you might think this is an idea that can be abused and you are right.  But chemistry also can be misused, and auto repair manuals also.

My basic feeling is that the best way of lessening judgment is to learn Torah for its own sake. [That is the Oral Law and the Written Law.


Learning Torah in this sense does not mean you have to be doing it all day. What I am asking for is an hour every day of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot with a learning partner. After that, go to school, or go to work, or go to the beach and pray for waves and surf. [But don't speak Lashon Hara, gosip]
I do not think that God is automatically interested in human good. [See Schopenhauer.] I think that most of the time it is just the moral laws embedded in nature that act to reward and punish people. And there is no reason to think the First Cause has to be concerned with humans. But I also think that when humans decide to turn to Him in truth, then he is concerned.
So the logical thing to do would be to turn to Him, by Torah, prayer, and marriage

 But there was a time that my idea of service towards God was really that of the Gra-. That anything you do beside learning Torah is step down. It was understood that there are lots of mitzvahs one must do in situations when no one else can do them like the law is decide din the Talmud, but still mitzvahs are not considered as precious as learning Torah. And I can't disagree with this because to  a large degree I think it did help me in quite amazing ways. When I learned Torah in such a fashion and with that type of commitment, I got married, had children, had a kosher means of living, went to Israel etc. Everything was working just like it was supposed to in theory. Theory and experiment matched perfectly. I did my end of the bargain-- I learned Torah and God kept his end of the bargain. "Anyone who accepts on themselves the yoke of Torah they take away from him the yoke of government and the yoke of making a living." [Mishna in Pirkei Avot.]

If you have more than an hour to learn, the my feeling is  to learn the Mishna, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Tosephta and Sifri and Sifra and all the writings of the Ari. ''a little is also good.'' and learn every day a little bit of each book. and just open a Talmud and learn a page of Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and put in a place marker and the next day go to the next page. etc. and similarly with all the above sessions. And also all the books of Musar/ethics in the same way.
Don't worry if you do not understand at first. Just say the words in order and you will automatically understand. And if you don't understand right away you will eventually understand. And even if eventually you do not understand--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else.

The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, and have destroyed once and for all the American family the enemies of morality, and decency, and the Bible.

There are groups  of people that are dedicated to the overthrow of the USA. Many are in the USA itself. This is not remarkable to see. You can ask them yourself and they will tell you as much straight out. I did that in the 1970's and people said to me openly and exactly what their plans were.' 'We are going to take down America." Quote, unquote.
I claim that this was predicted in 1800 by a  short story about the seven beggars in which there was a  utopia (like the USA used to be), and there was an evil king that wanted to destroy it. But he could not destroy it from without, so he sent in his slaves. The taste and flavor of everything was ruined.  Then a person came along to correct it, and discovered how the slaves had managed to destroy it. By lewd speech, by making a vocation of bringing law suits and one other thing I forget. [Maybe I will look up the story.] [Later note: I might be wrong, but it occurs to me the third thing was dealing with non kosher sexual relations.] The only solution in the story was to send the evil king's slaves away. And when the slaves left, everything returned to normal.

Note: The short stories come in a volume of 13 stories that he said and Reb Natan wrote down. If you only read English I think the "Na Nach" people have a good translation.-- The story I refer to here is the last one.
But here, I think, it makes sense to say over who these slaves are. The present occupant of the White House would be one example.  In a nut shell the evil king's slaves today are the Democrats. The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, that turned NASA into an outreach program for Muslims instead of getting to space, and have destroyed once and for all the American family, the enemies of morality and decency and the Bible. They are also people that pretend to be keeping the Torah, but using it in fact to destroy Jewish families.



I think there is some support from the Geon Eliyahu from Vilnius concerning this idea also. \" They are (the Zohar says) the "Erev Rav/the mixed multitude" that penetrated the Jewish people from the inside to try to destroy us.



I am not happy to be using the word rabbi for them because rabbi is in fact a legitimate idea. It is the term the Talmud uses for people that had ordination by an unbroken link from Moses and onward. this position ceased to exist pretty soon after the beginning of  the Talmudic period. We say for example Rabbi Yochanan to indicate he had this ordination. He may have been one of the last to get it. Also we have Rabbi Yehuda Ben Levi. Both sages that were right at the beginning of the Talmud period.
People of the Talmud that did not have it are called Rav. A kind of fake ordination was started during the Middle ages and this fraud has continued until this very day among Ashkenazim.  Sefardim on the other hand always called their scholars "Chacham."{wise man or sage} This has the great advantage of not being  a scam.

The best approach to Torah as far as I can tell is that of my father Philip Rosten (and mother, Leila). [Rosenbloom was the original family name.] That would be Torah with the Way of Men.  In Hebrew that is תורה עם דרך ארץ. This might be hard for me to describe because I don't think I ever got the lesson down pat. But because there could be people out there that might understand it better than me so I will give the idea over as well as I can.
If you know Yiddish the best way of expressing this is "to be a mensch." [He was an US Air-force captain, a scientist, and inventor of laser communication between satellites for NASA, etc.]
To be a mensch is actually on one one hand is not hard to describe. It really means going to school learning an honest profession, learning Torah after school. And not using Torah to make money. It means being self sufficient. It is being honest, reliable, loyal and never telling a lie except under extreme circumstances. In fact the Boy Scout motto pretty much covers it.

It is a highly balanced approach. So on one hand we see the Geon from Vilnius emphasizing learning Torah and Reb Israel Salanter emphasizing learning the books of ethics that were written to explain the moral aspects of Torah. And we have  the path of Navardok of Trusting in God with no effort. And all this would be considered important aspects of Torah to my Dad. But it would just be aspects of Torah. Not Torah itself. And it should all be taken with balance and equilibrium.
On the other hand he would see lots of aspects of Torah not covered by the aforementioned approaches.
Truth, Honor, Justice, self reliance, never letting down and friend. Never lying. Working for a living with an honest and clean profession. These are all parts and aspects of Torah. I can't say I followed this very well.

The world was created and sustained by the ten statements of Creation [chapter one of Genesis]. That is the Torah is the essence of everything. So it is possible to serve God through everything. This would go with the Rambam that hold the mitzvas have a purpose, and they are not ends in themselves. And to reach that end Rabbi Shimon holds the actual halacha itself changes. Rabbi Yehuda holds it does not. But all agree that the is a knowable purpose to the mitzvot except for the red heifer.

Learning Torah was considered as a primary value by Eliyahu (Elijah) from Vilnius.


There is no mitzvah to support anyone for learning Torah that learns it for money or who says so. If they say they are learning for money, I think we can trust them. But there is a mitzvah to support those who learn Torah not for money  but for its own sake.
This might seem like a small difference but people are always conservative and strict about things they know well. To me sitting at a baseball game in the stands, the difference between a curve ball and the other many varieties of pitches seems imperceptible. But to the person up to bat, the difference is like day and night.

What I wanted to say was how the idea of the primary value learning Torah comes from the Torah and Talmud.



In the USA, public school used to be a decent option for people. But sadly it has become propaganda  indoctrination centers for politically correct thinking. This is what makes me think the  approach is best where teenagers go to the high school in the afternoon and do their Torah studies in the morning. But normal private schools are probably not that different from public schools nowadays. What people need according to my way of thinking is Torah. An where there is Torah, then everything else becomes right.
What people need to do that have no choice but to send their children to public school is at least after school to give them a religious education. That should be short, but sweet. That would be Torah [the Five Books of Moses in Hebrew], Mishna, Talmud, and Tosphot. [Learning Torah is not to make people religious but to give people Torah values.] That is for week days. For weekends I suggest "Talk with God" camping trips.
That is to go to a forest with supplies. Set up base camp. And then to have to whole day available to wander by yourself and  talk with God. The idea of talking with God is to talk with Him as one talks with a friend or  parents and tell him all ones problems and all that is happening to him or her and ask for help. And also not to forget to thank him for all the good.

How does one go about thanking God?

 How does one go about thanking God? The best way that I can see is to go to a place where no one else is, and to talk with God as one talks with a close friend and to thank him for the good one has in life.  This can be hard to do in a big city. If one is walking alone in the street and talking to God it looks like one is talking to himself. And to get out into the wildness is not always practical. For this reason I suggest a kind of  camping trips that would include time for solitary  prayer and individual connection with God.
 Even though learning Torah was an amazing thing, and something I am very grateful to God that he granted to me to do for the several years I was there, I definitely needed time alone.

Left wing politics has an element of emotion. Just think of the word "Marx." It gets your blood rushing as you clench your fists and scream out: "Let's take down the exploiters! All power to the Proletariat!"
Just think of the word "John Locke." It calms you down. It is not war cry, but a lullaby.
My feeling about this is that capitalism has lost its "punch."
The way I would look at this would be to go back to the intellectual sources of left wing politics in support of the collective (Rousseau,  Hegel) and the sources of right wing politics in support of the individual and individual rights (John Locke). But because all these sources have problems (note 1) I thought to myself to take a Kantian approach. (Kant is similar to John Locke in terms of individual rights. And he lacks the flaws of the pure empiricism of John Locke.)
But Kant is more like a puzzle than a solution. So you do need some kind of modification. The sad thing about Kant is much of the modification that was done became the neo-Kant schools. A pretty miserable lot they are. (I mean here that they deny the existence of the "dinge an sich" the thing in itself.-unlike Kant) Some people simply went straight out against Kant--the intuitionists. [Prichard] Ann Rand apparently thought that Kant said what she learned about him in school (which was not Kant at all, but neo Kant). So she is not much of an authority.


20th century philosophy is usually divided into the British/USA and Continental areas.
"Indeed, to cop a line from John Searle, one he applied to Jacques Derrida, Continental philosophy gives bullshit a bad name. " (Maverick Philosopher)



 (note 1) Rousseau has the problem that his idea of natural man being noble  by nature and it is just civilization which has made him savage is wrong.  The other thing that is wrong is that nature is loving. And his system depends on these two axioms.  And not even left wing people believe in them, or they would go some country where people live close to nature like the Sudan or Somalia. Ever try to manage one day in nature with no tools?
  Hegel is very impressive when it comes to metaphysics. That seems to be his forte. But when he gets into politics he gets into problems. [At least that is how he looks to me. Some people like Schopenhauer had a negative opinion of Hegel even concerning his metaphysics.]
John Locke also has a few problems but in general is impressive. But not rigorous enough for my taste.

A return  Plato in some important ways.--. And that works well with Maimonides. [I should mention  that the Rambam/Maimonides is not at all as radical an Aristotelean as people think. He does have an approach somewhere between Aristotle and Plato and so in that respect looks like Plotinus. But it is different than regular Neo-Platonic thought.]

 (note 2) Transcendental in Kant means beyond the limits of experience. But Torah does not assume God is beyond the limits of experience. And in another point Hegel and the intuitionists are right that reason does a lot more than perceive contradictions. But it would be enough that they perceive self contradictions in Hume

Torah is everywhere and is the life-force of everything in the universe

 Torah is everywhere and is the life-force of everything in the universe.
There are different levels of the revelation of Torah. And he also means not everyone can accept it like it is.
His idea  is mystical. But it has the advantage being able to serve God through everything. When people becomes religious they often join some cult. But one can stay home and serve God where ever one is and with ones own family and friends.



[1] Shalom Sharabi--the Reshash- holds the Torah is the [pinimiut] inner part of the worlds
But how do you define Torah?
[2] Maimonides held that Torah is only the Written and Oral law. But one of the commandments of the Torah is to love and fear God and this Maimonides held was only possible by learning Physics and Metaphysics. [He was referring to the two sets of books by Aristotle called the Physics and the other called the Metaphysics].
So the actual Torah is only the actual text of the Old Testament and the oral interpretation of it--the Talmud.
And he wrote: "Just like you can't add or subtract from the written law so you can't add or subtract from the oral law." כמו שאין תוספת וגירעון שתורה שבכתב כן אין תוספת וגירעון בתורה שבעל פה
[3] But there are different levels of revelation of Torah.
The world was sustained by the Ten Statements (עשרה מאמרות) before the Torah was given [ten times it says ''And God said'']
But these statements were hidden. then the ten trials of Abraham were a first step towards the revelation of Torah. The ten plagues on Egypt were the next step to make it possible to reveal the Torah. Then the ten commandments were the actual revelation of Torah. [The idea of the plagues was that one has to get rid of evil before the good can be revealed.]
[4] But because the Torah is in everything, it is possible to serve God with everything.
[5] Knowledge of this sub-level comes not by sense perception and not by logical deductions but by non intuitive immediate knowledge.



In the above essay, I am looking at Maimonides's idea and though I realize it has a simple explanation I am trying to find a deeper justification for it. The way it looks from the Rambam is learning Physics and Meta Physics is to inspire one and awaken him to the deepness and beauty of God's creation. What I am looking for here is the idea that the Physics and Metaphysics themselves are a kind of revelation of one aspect of of God's wisdom contained in his creation.
I am also saying that Torah is a sub-level of natural law, not that it is identified with natural law.
At least this is the way I conceive of these things. Other people probably have different ideas, but that is my approach. It is basically Neo-Platonic but I am using it to justify Maimonides more Aristotelian approach.
I want to suggest a balanced approach. That is we can see  from the Rambam that the natural sciences are important to learn and not at all ביטול תורה they are not bitul Torah wasting time from learning Torah.
But this does not take the place of learning Torah. One still has to learn Torah and the Talmud --not for money, but because learning Torah is the greatest mitzvah. כנגד כולם.
It has been common in the religious world to recommend to young people to do teshuva repentance.


If you go into Torah with trust in God, then I believe He helps. If you go to learn Torah with this in mind I have to agree it is the best approach. But depending on the frum religious world is a mistake. This learning Torah alone approach with trusting in charity works for them because of the social network they are plugged into.
So again if you learn Torah with trust in God, then this is best. Trust in the frum world though is a mistake.




 Pirkei Avot: One is not allowed to make the Torah into a shovel to dig with--a means to making  money.
What people should do is to learn skills that people will pay cold hard cash for; and also learn Torah. But not learn Torah for money, nor to turn it into a profession. And as per the Rambam people should learn Physics and metaphysics--not for a profession, but to come to love and fear of God. [Love and fear of God are considered good things in the Torah. ]

On one hand I feel I should talk about some of the amazing things I discovered.
One of the most amazing things was Musar, the movement of Israel Salanter for self improvement.


The problem with the Dark Side I have mentioned before. How it got mixed into Torah thought since the time of Shabati Tzvi. But I don't mean just teachings of the Shabatians that are nowadays presented as straight Torah in the world of Orthodox Judaism by unsuspecting people. I mean actual energies of the Sitra Achra (סיטרא אחרא). Miracles from the Sitra Achara by supposed tzadikim. Orthodox Judaism has become pagan. It has a whole Pantheon of gods called tzadikim (saints).
Some people don't care about that. Why should they care? After all what does it bother me if my neighbor worships one god or twenty? But the Torah does care.  And it is the  most important theme that comes up in the Torah from the beginning until the end of the  last book of Chronicles. This means that Reform and Conservative Judaism are actually more kosher than Orthodox, because no matter what else they may advocate, they do not do idolatry. (note 1)


 But because Reform and Conservative synagogues do not learn Musar (Ethics)  I recommend that they a start to do so, and also I think the original idea of Israel Salanter of making houses of Musar/ethics learning is a good step in the right direction.

  A house of Musar is a place that has only first order ethics in it. It is not for prayers, nor for learning Talmud or Halacha. It is only for learning ethics. There are about thirty classical books of ethics that such a place should have. Like the Duties of the Heart and the Nefesh Hachaim from Reb Chaim from Voloshin [the disciple of the Gra]. It is not for second order ethics--justification of ethics even though I think it should have these there also--like the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam.
If people would want to do something for the benefit of the public, my feeling is they should put their money into building a house of Musar. (בית מוסר)




(note 1) The idea is that there is a gap between monotheism and polytheism that is more than the number of gods. Monotheism  is a concept of God that unlimited in power. And he is not the world and the world is not him. By polytheism there is a real fluid boundary between the divine and human realms. But  in Torah thought God is completely different--completely other. He shares no characteristic with anything in this world at all. He has no substance and no form, and this world is not his form nor his substance. But you can find things in the Torah that seem to point to the need for intersession and tzadikm but that is because the Torah is trying to lead people to pure monotheism as the Rambam points out in the Guide for the Perplexed many times. The Torah has vector towards God. And this is what real tzadikim  were trying to point out.

Balance between Jewish values and the life of a scientist and husband and a father.

My father, Philip Rosten had a remarkable balance between Jewish values and the life of a scientist and husband and a father. He knew he had to make his way on his own with no help from anyone but his own parents to help him get started. The brother of his father and his wife were the first to arrive in the USA from Poland and started a bakery on the lower east side of Manhattan. Next came the younger brother Yaakov. His sister in law told him that she has a sister also in Poland that he would like. He agreed to meet her so they sent for her. When she arrived from Poland they married and thus my father and his brother and sister were born. Yaakov also worked in the bakery and sent his children to public school. Philip was interested in the violin and also science but in the end he decided to go into mechanical engineering. He applied to Cal Tech and the University of Michigan. But in the end decided to go to the university of Michigan because it was $100 cheaper than Cal Tech. He went to Cal Tech later for his masters degree. And then World War Two interrupted, he became a captain in the United States Air Force (USAF). [His uniform was covered in medals, but I never found out what they were for.]
After the war, he invented a telescope that could see through fog and clouds many miles away. It was the first successful attempt to focus infra-red light to make a coherent image, and was the beginning of night vision. He got a whole write up about it in Life Magazine. His sister said just to see his picture in Life, his mother would have given ten years of her life. [Later he invented an x-ray copy machine and after that the government recruited him for some highly secretive work at Hychon and to make the camera for the U-2 project, and then for the SDI project.]
But all  this is just background. What was unique about him and my mother was their home life, and their relationship towards their children. There was some kind of amazing intuition they had about their children.
Jewish values were very important to them and we went every Shabat to Hebrew School.[Temple Israel] But Torah values were more expressed in our home than in the synagogue. There was a kind of peace and love that permeated our home that was unearthly. My brothers and I fought and played like normal kids, but when ever we walked in the front door of our home we felt a kind of peace and light. We never ceased to marvel at it. Not that we were religious at all. It was just a kind of  light and peace and spirit of wholesomeness that permeated everything.

. Being self sufficient and working for an honest living were of foremost importance to him.--especially the magic words "to be self sufficient."


A few years later that I was able to start bringing some balance into things. Because I found a polynomic theory of value   That is even though at the Mir I was involved a lot in the Pnei Yehoshua and the Maharsha, but just being there and talking with  Reb Shmuel Berenbaum   a lot I got by osmosis an idea of his kind of approach.  I was accepted into Reb Shmuel's class which was highest level , and I used to go to him for Shabat also.


Just for background. My parents sent my brothers and me to public school. My Torah education was mainly at Temple Israel in Hollywood on Shabat and at home. Only when I was eighteen did I go to NY Litvak yeshivas, first Shar Yashuv and then the Mir. Though the Mir has the reputation of the most advanced of all yeshivas along with Brisk and Ponovitch, I would have to say that Shar Yashuv was not far behind. They do start at beginning levels but when they get up to higher levels they are as advanced as the Mir.]

[Public school I should mention has changed. (Allan Bloom already made the point about the social studies and humanities departments in universities. The way he put it was more or less to say that they are worthless. And that was already in the 1980's.) To the Rambam a great deal of secular studies are in fact bad. His idea of a proper education was the Oral and Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.]
The best short introduction to Torah is I think the  Musar book from the Middle Ages חובות לבבות
Obligations of the Heart.

What the Torah means when it refers to not doing sin.

The main reason to learn the Talmud and Mishna is to get a decent idea of what the Torah means when it refers to not doing sin. That is to say that one can read the Torah (Old Testament) where it says, "Don't do such and such a  thing" as meaning, "It is not advisable to do such and such." But this is not what it means. It means, "Don't do it," and it gives lists of penalties if one does do it. In fact, it is not all that different from the New York code of  civil and criminal law. It says, "Don't steal, and if you do you will be put into prison." (I am paraphrasing.) You could I imagine interpret that also as saying it is not advisable to steal. But in fact it is a command. "Don't steal" means one must not. This is the meaning of everyplace in the Torah where it says God spoke to Moses saying command the children of Israel to do thus and thus. If someone would interpret such a thing as option if written in a novel and they had to hand in a an assignment analyzing the novel they would get a failing mark.
I think the reason people tend to look at commandments of the Torah as being optional is that many Jews live in Christian societies. And disparagement of the Law is ingrained in Christianity. It is either looked at as a "shadow of things to come" (i.e. not real and not important) or as something no longer relevant since it was fulfilled once, or as a positively bad thing as per the Book of Hebrews.  [note 1]
Another part of the problem is an idea of Martin Luther that the Torah should be understood by each individual as the "spirit" guides him or her. This got to be in places influenced by him to mean ,"If you don't feel like it, don't do it." But it is not an accurate interpretation of what the Torah means when it says, "Thou must not do such and such, or you will be stoned to death." There it means, "Don't do such and such unless you want to be stoned to death."



This is not tolerant. And it is not supposed to be. And I think that tolerance his developed the status of a religion doctrine because I don't think it can be defended by reason. Let say for example we would want  moral values to be subjective and dependent on the observer or the norms of society.
 That implies that if our attitudes were to change in certain ways, then the moral facts would change in ways that are counter-intuitive.  Then it will follow that if we all took an attitude of approval towards Adolf Hitler, then Adolf Hitler would be good.
A similar argument shows that in theory, all the world's problems would be solved if only we could get most people to approve of everything that is presently bad. The bad things would not cease to exist; they would just become good. For example, it is at present bad that there are people starving to death in some parts of the world. But if we could get enough people to approve of famine and the attendant suffering and death, then the world would be improved, since one of the major problems would be solved. Yet this consequence is hard to accept.

The motivation for relativism among  intellectuals is the appeal to the virtue of tolerance. The argument is this: objectivism leads to intolerance because it makes us think that we are right and other people who disagree with us are wrong. This causes conflict, chauvinism, and subjugation of some people by others, which is bad. The only way to ensure a desirable attitude of toleration on our part is to posit relativism as a moral postulate, which will reconcile us to the equal legitimacy (or illegitimacy) of all value systems and thereby enable people with different values to live in harmony, provided they accept the postulate.

 The reply to this political argument is that it is a non sequitur - that is, even if true, all it shows is that it would be advantageous to somehow convince people to believe relativism; but it does not show that relativism is actually true.


 There are both theoretical and empirical grounds for believing that the opposite relation between objectivism and toleration from the one urged would exist - that is to say, it is objectivism that leads to toleration and subjectivism that leads to intolerance,  whereas subjectivism naturally tends towards an unreasoned and arbitrary approach , and it certainly seems that reason would counsel us to avoid destructive conflicts and respect the rights of others, whereas, for example, a purely emotional value system might lead, as it usually has in the past, to fanaticism, xenophobia, etc. If only we could get warring peoples around the world to listen to reason, one is inclined to hope, perhaps they could be convinced to resolve their disputes through negotiation rather than violence - but not if they are convinced that rational argumentation about whatever issues they disagree about is inherently futile.

 The connection is supported by examples: John Locke's political theories, which have probably led more than any others to democracy and respect for universal human rights, are a good example of the kind of conclusions that a serious attempt to identify objective moral values usually leads to. In contrast, the ideologies associated with the two major forms of tyranny of the twentieth century - namely, communism and fascism - have hardly exemplified objectivism. Orthodox Marxism holds that moral values are not objective but are mere fictions invented by the ruling class to further its class interests. The German Nazis held that all values are determined by one's race, that the right was just what accorded with the will of the people, and that moral values thus had no objectivity. It scarcely need be pointed out that the subjectivism that these ideologies embraced did not induce toleration on the part of their followers. Instead, it carried the implication that since reason was inapplicable to moral questions, conflicts of values could not be resolved except by the conflicting groups fighting it out.
_______________________________________________________________________________
 [note 1] Contrary to The Book of Hebrews, Jews do not look at the Torah as an unbearable burden. and we don't consider it  to be from any archangel . We consider the Torah as the greatest gift we have from God. Though we have lots of disagreements about how to go about keeping the Law we still agree that the Law of God is good and life and the light and the truth.
And so anyone who wants the truth and the light and life  and the good ought to learn and keep the Law of God--the Five Books of Moses. And this is repeated constantly throughout the entire Old Testament.
Hey if you don't want the truth and the light just say so, but don't claim the Torah doe snot say what it does say. [If you have even bothered to read it.]

Why do people vote for politicians that are liars? Why does Breslov seem to have a problem with famous people that are liars. מפורסמים של שקר We know there seems to be some kind of trouble when it comes to finding decent leaders. This is such a  sore subject that some people just turn the channel when they hear about it.


 But where do you get fear of God from? Well one thing people complain about the Musar (Ethics) movement of Israel Salanter is that it is all about a highly negative emotion-- fear of God. If you heard everyone complaining about a certain university is it is no fun and all they do all day is math, then you know you are talking about a good university. So if everyone is complain about the ethics books of Israel Salanter and the Musar movement is all they do is give you fear of God, well then you know where to go for fear of God.

So in theory we have a good solution for the USA--make homes of ethics. (בתי מוסר) This would be the same approach to Breslov also. And in fact just about anywhere.
But what is Musar? It is divided into three parts, (1) Medieval books of Ethics, (2) Renaissance books of Ethics that combine Ethics with Kabalah. I am not so thrilled with these but the are a legitimate part of Musar (3) Disciples of Israel Salanter.

Now perhaps I should make clear to people that in secular society there are several  organizations that attempt to do what Musar does. Obviously the Boy Scouts  and Girl Scouts are the first and closest approximation. That is because they deal with one essential part of Musar and that is charter building.
Also  Conservative synagogues and Evangelical Churches try to work on the fear of God aspect. [Reform temples don't work on fear of God much. Other types of churches outside Evangelicals don't seem to work on fear on god much or character improvement. Maybe the Catholics do to some degree]. In any case I think the first and best choice is to build a new Musar movement based on Israel Salantar.

In any case other organizations that already exist and should be teaching fear of God but don't ought to get back on track.
 People worried about the Western world should get a few books of Musar. The books that I liked most were the Stars of Light by Isaac Blazer [disciple of Israel Salanter]. [It is in Hebrew only. Sorry.] Some good books in English: Duties of the Heart,  Paths of the Righteous {Orchot Tzadikim},   Mesilat Yesharim [That is by Moshe Lutzato a Renaissance Mystic]. Don't read them for information. They wont tell you anything new. Read them to work on your character and to build your fear of God.

The main idea here is that people are not automatically moral.There is a two step process that brings people to being decent human beings. One is reason. The other is Torah. That is some Divine inflow from above. With this Divine inflow people recognize what is common sense morality. Without it what is common sense is no longer common sense but highly doubtful.  Musar books from the Middle Ages tend to be very well thought out and combine reason with Torah. It is a powerful mix which helps people become decent human beings which is more of a feat that most people are willing to admit

The Gra however did like the idea of people standing and learning Torah all day. [Not sitting and learning.]] And as far as is possible for me to see he did like the idea of these people being supported.

Pirkei Avot (Chapters of the Fathers) everyone reads. Hillel said right in the first chapter, "Don't make the Torah into a shovel to dig with." And in a later chapter when this saying is repeated, Maimonides has a long comment. That little juicy paragraph won a bitter and stinging crusade against him during his lifetime.

The only people I ever discovered that I could talk to about Trust in God and found that we were on the same wavelength were Reform and Conservative Jews.[ They usually coupled it with working, but the concept was clearly central to their way of thinking. ]


Trust in God was a major theme with the Gra. He said one that trust in God even if he does extremely major sins is better than one who is completely religious and does all the Torah and mitzvot but without trust-- because all his mitzvot are for honor and power.
And it is from the Gra that the idea of trust in God without doing anything gets a clear expression. Later the Madragat HaAdam brings it from him in his commentary on Mishlei. [That is the central position of the school of Navardok]

The Gra however did like the idea of people standing and learning Torah all day. [Not sitting and learning.]]
And as far as is possible for me to see, he did like the idea of these people being supported.  So we have two things from the Gra-one is the learning Torah thing. The other is the trust thing. So what I suggest is to change the paradigm from that of learning Torah being a kosher way of making money [It is not.], to that of trust in God that if one learns Torah, then God will find a way to send to him his means of a living or someone to support him, but not that it is permissible to go out and seek such a thing.

Judge people favorably

Judge people favorably.




  I should  mention that the original idea comes from the Mishna, Tractate Avot, " Judge every person favorably."

  I wanted to point out that Reb Chaim from Voloshin--the prime disciple of the Gra also emphasized this idea.
Reb Chaim said, "It is a tested fact that when one has enemies, and he judges them on the scales of merit, i.e. he thinks of them as absolute saints [tzadikim], immediately their hearts will be turned to love him."


 Reb Chaim said to think of the bad person as a saint.  And it reflects something about the\ Lithuanian Jewish mentality. It is black or white. No shades of gray. But Reb Chaim has a point. I can't count how many times I have heard people judge others not nicely and then when countered said "Well, they have a big evil inclination." That is not called judging favorably. That is judging not nicely and then trying to ind some excuse for doing so. With Reb Chaim that possibility is excluded. He says point blank :"You have an enemy think of them as a saint. Period."


) The ten statements by which the world was created form the life force that makes everything exist
There are actually nine statements "God said there shall be ..." The tenth is the first statement, "In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth." In this statement it does not say "God said..." so it is called  hidden statement. In the Tikunai HaZohar it says it is this statement which corresponds to the highest energy of the Crown of God. And it gives the life force for places where God's open glory can't go. For even though God's glory fills the world, there are places it can't go because God's glory and his honor are hidden there. So how do those places survive? How can they exist without the life force from God's energy? The answer is the get their life force from the Hidden Statement. And that Statement can go there because God's glory is not revealed there openly. And since that statement is the highest holiness--of the crown of God, when it turns towards God it goes to the highest heights. So when one has fallen to dirty places where God's glory is not revealed and from there one seeks God and calls out "where is the place of His Glory?" he turns to the highest holiness.
[See the Eitz Chaim of Isaac Luria in the later chapters where you see this. Also see the Remak [Moshe Cordovaro in his Pardes and Or Areiv.]

"So modern Israel is not supposed to defend itself against those whose serious, deadly, stated goal is to destroy them corporately and individually? Then why were they commanded to fight for it under Joshua?
Why did God help them in the seven wars since their founding to survive? Why shouldn't they use all the land they liberated in these wars they did not start or provoke? Beautiful thoughts about Christ's eventual reign over ALL does nothing to answer today's dilemmas. HE will prevail, and perhaps we in the West should attend to our own house rather than attempt to direct Israel. Certainly we need to make a lot of changes!"


The  blog itself  said  this: "It is for this reason that Paul would have scratched his head over the current Evangelical fascination with the modern secular state of Israel and its supposedly Bible-mandated right to do what it pleases with Palestine and its inhabitants. This way of reading the Bible misses the whole point of the story; it robs the biblical narrative of its climax."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2014/11/what-would-the-apostle-paul-think-about-evangelicals-and-the-conflict-in-palestine/

That is to say since the Torah predicts a future time of peace in the world Jews should let themselves be slaughtered.  The conclusion does not follow from the premise. Unless  people's idea of universal peace is: "No Jews"



In other words when Christians talk about learning the Bible they usually mean not the Old Testament, but the New Testament. And when they talk about the NT they mean Paul. And when they talk about Paul they mean the Book of Hebrews (not by Paul and highly anti-Torah. And being anti-Torah makes it anti-Jew because all we Jews have is Torah. Torah is not a burden to us. It is the greatest gift we have from God). On one hand it is nice they accept the Old Testament, but they get into theological difficulties trying to get Paul and the Torah to correspond. Some people however did a fairly decent job putting it all together like Aquinas and Anselm and a few writers  from the end of the Roman Empire.]
Sometimes I get the impression that some Christians would be happier if Jews all would just disappear. And then they would Gan Eden right here on Earth. And of course with no Palestinian problem then they Muslims would be their best friends.

But this should not be understood to mean they have nothing. They have  a lot. And the way I see it what they have that is good comes from the Torah.  For I think all good comes from the Torah. So when they learn Torah and take to heart the commandments of God they do well. There are no favorites in this respect.
But it is not just reading the Torah. Rather I think the Torah is contained in everything. It is the hidden light of God. This is an idea that makes sense to me from my neo Platonic point of view. That is the real reality is up "there". "Here" is just some imperfect reflection.

And now that I am on a role about the Torah I would like to quote an important subject--the land of Israel.

We all know the disagreement between the Ramban and the Rambam if living in Israel is counted as one of the  613 commandments. But I wanted to point out that in the verse that the Rambam is bring as proof that it is it says, "If you get rid of the inhabitants, then you will be able to be  in the Land of Canaan. And if you don't get rid of them, you will not be able to stay. I am just paraphrasing it. But the idea is fairly simple even though it must offend some people. But since when is the word of God suppose to be politically correct?
_____________________________________________

I am thinking of deleting this essay because I think some people might see it as an attack on Christianity. I might have meant it more as a critique on the Book of Hebrews and to some degree on Paul also. To some people Paul is the very essence of Christianity. So they might be offended.  Now sometimes it is good to criticize people and sometimes not. Sometimes it is effective.  It seems to me it all depends on  a guess if the person one is talking to can accept it.  Since here I think  there are a significant number of Christians who are sincerely trying to be good people as the Torah defines good I might think twice about criticizing them.
 But it is a surprised to me that when the West is systematically being invaded by barbarian hordes from Africa and Muslims-- Christians can't find any problem except for the Jews.
I know Israel treats Muslims very well.  They have complete and equal right as anyone in Israel. But don't think Israel gets any credit for that. And the way I see it, Israel in fact gets no credit.  Why leave these murderous monsters in the midst of Jews. I say ship them all off to the Sudan. And why should the West get upset at Israel? If the West would be smart it would do exactly the same thing. Right now the West is being systematically destroyed by an invasion of Muslims

Abyee holds that one that serves a idol  from fear or love is liable. To the Rambam that means fear the idol might hurt him if he does not serve it. Love means love of its beauty. Rashi says it means fear or love of  a person. In any case the idea is that he is not accepting the idol as his god and still he is liable. Abyee go straight to the case of the high priest that has to bring a she goat if he serves an idol by accident. And Rabbi Yehua the Prince says it even if he serves the idol by accident without relying on a faulty legal decision. Abyee asks what kind of accident is this? If he bowed to a house of idols thinking it was synagogue his heart is towards heaven. If it is a statue then if he he does not know it is an idol and accepted it is he is liable the death penalty--not just a sin offering.
If he did not accept it then it is nothing. So he must have known. So if he knew then why is it an accident? It must be because he served it from fear or love an thought that that was allowed.
Why does Abyee go to Rabbi Yehuda the Prince and not the sages? Because They could say there is no such thing as accidental idolatry except in a case of relying on a faulty legal decision. That is the point I was trying to say yesterday. That is not only do they say the high priest only brings a she goat when he relies on a faulty legal decision but the individual also. I wanted to bring a proof for my idea from the beginning of tracate Horayot. There we have an argument if a individual depends on the decision of the great Sanhedrin [of 71 elders] to serve idols the he is liable to bring a sin offering [also a she goat]. [And the Rambam decided the law like the sages.] It is Rabbi Yehuda Hanasi that says he is not liable.
So what we have in the end of all this is that Abyee can't go to the Sages to get his proof. They could say there is no such thing as accidental idolatry {except relying on a bad legal advice}. What I mean is they probably don't say this. In fact I think it is true they do believe there is such a thing.
But we can't prove it. So Abyee has to go to Rabbi Yehuda.

Since I brought up idols my learning partner mentioned an interesting Meshech Chachmah
משך חכמה

That is the person Meir Simcha Hakohen that wrote the Or Sameiach on the Rambam. This is a book that is the final stage of Jewish thought until Reb Chaim Soloveitchik brought things to a climax in his Magnum Opus Chidushei HaRambam.
Reb Meir Simcha Hakohen  says that with all the miracles that happened because of Moses people might have attributed those miracles to Moses instead of to God. That is how he explains the sin of the spies.
Eldad and Medad had prophesied before that time that Moses would die and Joshua would lead the people to the Land of Israel. [Those were the two people that the spirit of God descended upon when Moshe appointed the Sanhedrin of 70 elders ].  That happened right before the incident of the spies. The spies knew this. They knew that Moses would not take them into the promised land. So they said without Moses it is impossible to enter the land of Israel "because the people there are more might than us." If they thought Moses would be with them this would not have made a difference. They attributed the miracles to Moses

Rabbi Israel Salanter intended there to be a House of Ethics [in every city] that would have books of ethics only, and that people could go into when ever they felt the need for character improvement.


But the books we are talking about here are not Meta Ethics--philosophical ideas about ethics. It is a very specific set of books. It is a two part cannon. Books from the Middle Ages which provide the backbone and intellectual framework. The next part of the set are the books from the direct disciples of Israel Salanter.




The focus of the movement was originally character improvement along with fear of God. [Or perhaps that is just my own interpretation of this movement based on one of the disciples of Rav Israel, Isaac Blazer]. Clearly Navardok thought the main thing is trust in God--along with learning Torah. Slabodka was the "greatness of man." Simcha Zissel had his own take which I never could figure out. [I tried to read his book  Chachma and Musar and could never make out a word.] Ponovicth in Bnei Brak can be considered to some degree to be an offshoot of Navardok ).

The nice thing for me about Musar was in terms of world view issues.

What I am suggesting here is The Musar Movement Act II. Or the Neo Musar Movement. And the idea would in fact be like the original idea of Houses of Ethics that would be open for everyone.
 Now the only time I ever saw an actual House of Ethics was in Netivot in Israel. That was in fact a separate room where people went to learn Musar, and I think in fact it did help people be better that they would otherwise have been.

Another nice thing about a House of Ethics is it is non-denominational. It is not Orthodox, Conservative or Reform. It is just plain traditional Jewish ethics. 

Sanhedrin 61

Abyee goes to the case of a high priest to prove his point that if one serves idols from love or fear, not because he accepts the idol as his god (מקבל עליה כאלוה), then he is liable.
That is he goes to a teaching which says that if you have a high priest that served an idol  by accident then he brings a sin offering only if he depended on his own legal decision or the legal decision of the Sanhedrin. (שגגת מעשה עם העלם דבר) Yehuda the Prince says you only need that he did the act by accident.שגגת מעשה What type of accident is this?
Abyee goes through the logical possibilities and arrives at the conclusion it can only be he know it was an idol but he served it from fear or love.
I wrote about this on the other blog wine women and transcendence but for now I wanted to focus on some thought I had today about this.
First I should mention that the proof of Abyee depends on Yehuda the prince. He can't go to the sages because they have an obvious case of mistake--the priest depended on a faulty legal decision.
At first, I thought to myself that this might explain why we don't go with Abyee in this case. After all the Gemara says openly that we only go with Abyee in six decisions, and this case is not one of them. So I thought "OK this is good to the Gemara [Talmud] and to the Rambam (who decided like Rava here as we all know has to be the case anyway.) [But not to Rava in the Gemara who disagrees even with the idea that Abyee proved his point from R. Yehuda. He says R. Yehuda means by "accidental" that he says "It is  allowed.] That is because Abyee only proved his point to Yehuda, not the sages. The sages could easily say there is not such case as serving idols by accident and the only time someone brings a sin offering for idolatry by accident is when they depended on a faulty decision.

I brought this up with my learning partner and he said my idea is wrong. He focused on the fact that an individual also brings a sin offering for idolatry (Numbers 15) even without depending on a faulty legal decision. [It does not say anything there about a mistaken decision]
[So the sages have to agree that there is such a thing.]

So I asked, "Then why focus on the high priest? Let Abyee go to the simple case of an individual?"

He suggested,  "The Sages might say the individual might bring a sin offering if he depended on a faulty legal decision but not all the conditions were fulfilled for example there was lacking one of the 71 elders."

  But I am confused at this point. It seems to me the sages hold that a individual that depends on a decision of the Sanhedrin even with full conditions is liable. That is what you have in Tractate Horayot page 2 side b.



 So the way I see things [and this is the point I was trying to get to throughout this essay] is that the sages cant be useful for Abyee for they have a simple way for the individual to be liable and the high priest also. It is specifically R. Yehuda the Prince that says an individual that depends on a legal decision is not liable.

Appendix:

1. Rava hold one who serves an idol is only liable if he accepts the idol as his god.
2. The sin offering here is a she goat whether for the high priest or for an individual. The Sanhedrin would have to bring 12 oxen and 12 goats if they made  faulty legal  decision that some idolatry is allowed and the people acted on it.
It is this fact that makes the high priest unique. Because the verse in Leviticus compares him to the people "to cause the people to sin" לאשמת העם. And when the people sin we need two things. One is they depend on a faulty legal decision. the next is that there be an act. And so when the Torah compares the priest to the people we also need these two things

Sleep-walking into World War. Russia and Ukraine

Avoiding  war with Russia is a good idea. I have several reason for saying this. Besides the fact that war between Russia and NATO and the USA would simply morph into WWIII. But there is another reason also.  Donesk  is already part of Russia at least in spirit. And why would anyone think that borders that have been fluid throughout the centuries be worth starting a war for?
 Besides that the USA and Europe already have enough enemies inside them (Muslims).  Who needs more enemies? I think that Europe and the USA have their heart in the right place wanting to stick up for the Ukraine. And that is admirable. But I think the situation on the ground calls for people to step back and let Donsek decide its own fate. And it has already done so.

Also Ukraine and Russia are brothers. Tempers are high right now. this is family feud which if left alone will just work itself out. For other people to get involve dis not polite and could cost the live of millions more.
Maybe I could put this in a different way. I can't stress strongly enough how important it is for all mankind for Russia, Europe and the USA to work together. Not just for the sake of Western Civilization but the very future of humanity

For example lets say you have a p group where every element of the group eventually gets to 1 if you multiply it by itself enough times. This is called a "p to the n" if n is the number of times you are doing this.
Did you know that every subgroup of this p^n that is all the p^n-1, p^n-2, etc are all normal? (normal means gx=xg) I did not know that until I read about p groups in Russian. I also I wanted to share  a way to show how this is true. We will call all the elements of the big group g (i.e. g1 g2 g3 etc) and all the elements of the small group x (i.e. x1 x2 x3  etc.) So what you have is a long string of gx's all lined up with xg's on the opposite side of your equation.
and they all cancel because if you take that many gs with that many x's you get e*e=e*e. What is left on the left side is just one g. and what is left on the right side? Also just one g.

People have heard of Kant's question, "How is synthetic a priori possible?"


First we know that when Kant says "synthetic" he is referring to Leibniz's division of knowledge into analytic and synthetic. But he also means it in a deeper way. He is thinking that some objects are given to the mind. and he is thinking some a priori cognitions are also given to the mind. But then he thinks that the mind does something with them. It combines them into one cognition. [That he calls the metaphysical deduction.]
 This seems to me to just what the Rambam was thinking about acquired understanding שכל הנקנה in LM vol I ch. 25

 That is we have "sechel hanikne" acquired understanding from the Guide for the Perplexed of the Ramabm as meaning knowledge metaphysics- -the unchanging realities in reference to Plato's forms. And to the Rambam it is this acquired knowledge that last for eternity in the next world.

 He modifies this to knowing many things with one knowing. Then he brings the idea that this is what is left of a person in the next world. and then he expands it to knowing everything a human being can know.

My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia.

.

My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia. True they are sending troops into the Ukraine. And that is not nice. But for this we want to go to nuclear war? I mean that is how wars start. They start with some small incident. And then one party replies. And then other party replies. etc. and tempers grow short. And before you know it bombs are falling all over the place. We don't need a war between NATO and Russia.
Plus consider the Russian position. True the two provinces are on Ukrainian territory. But the people consider themselves Russian.  And in fact most of them probably are Russian. And so Russia sees itself as simply protecting its own people. But even if this were not so, I still think that under no circumstances is a war with Russia justified.

Let us say that Kiev would let these two provinces go to Russia. What would anyone lose?

I might mention that sending military aid is not usually considered a declaration of war. There are lots of levels between sending equipment and advisors as the USA did in Vietnam and  higher levels called small wars. When the USA sends equipment and military aid to different nations, the opposing nations do not usually think that they are justified in attacking the USA. And if they would, the people in the USA would be outraged. There is also such a thing called small wars in which American troops are sent in surgical strikes. You should read about this in the manual of the USA Marine corp, The Small Wars Manual. In any case, I think Russia and Europe and the USA should get along. We are not enemies. And under our noses is growing the most serious enemy to the continued existence of the Human Race- Islam.


This blog is really supposed to be about Torah issues. But as we know human life comes first in Torah law so I thought I should transfer this small essay I wrote on my other blog, Ideas in Torah, and put it here.
I hope this essay does something to reduce tempers and get people to start thinking straight.

The USA has been decommissioning its arsenal steadily for twenty five years. The Russians have been up grading their arsenals. They have underground cities of weapons grade plutonium.

So far the Russians have done nothing except what their policy has always been even in the time of the czars--they consider it their obligation to protect Russians even on foreign soil--exactly like the policy of the USA

The school of Navardok

 But I just wanted to say something about Navardok. That was the school of thought coming after Israel Salanter that was basically about trust in God בטחון without doing anything to get ones needs.
That at least was their official approach. The idea was to sit and learn Torah and do nothing to get ones needs met, and to believe that God would provide. It was just one of the several schools that came from Israel Salanter. So I don't want to make it seem that this is the official Ethics (Jewish) doctrine.
But Navardok is definitely the most colorful of all the schools of Musar.





People would share what ever they had believing that they would get more from somehow and lo and beyond it always worked.
My feeling about this is that it works only if you accept it when you hear it and then you don't ever leave it. But when one goes out of it and says, "Well I can do some effort also as the Torah itself says, and that will not hurt anything"--then it stops working. And then even if one tries to get back inside, the door remains closed.
The problem is  hypocrisy is what you get when you mix Torah with money. It starts out for the sake of heaven but once money gets into the mix it loses it numinous aspect. This is a conundrum that the Jewish people have tried to deal with for ages. On one hand we want to support people that are learning Torah Lishma--for its own sake and not for money. But once we give them money it starts rapidly to decay into being all about the money. The Rambam tried to solve this problem simply. Don't give them money. Tell them "Get a job" and he made it clear you cant accept money for learning Torah. It is not a business. That is how the Rambam was. He has his perfect system all worked out the the zillionth detail and he did not see any questions.