The most serious sin in regard to Torah is to attempt to redefine Torah according to one's preference.
It matters if one keeps Torah also. But even if one does not keep all or any of the commandments, the worst sin to to try to change Torah according to ones tastes. This was the reason that Gra  signed the  excommunication.
This also makes clear what is so wrong with the the insane religious world  today which consists of many groups that have subverted the Torah to their own whims and have now tried to represent themselves as traditional.

Since it is hard to get a good idea of what Torah is about nowadays I recommend going into what is called "Rishonim." Rishonim  are people that lived in a period before all the falsification of Torah began and spent their time and efforts in trying to verify and clarify what the actual approach of Torah is.

You could start also with the Geonim.

But in any case what I suggest to begin is what is called Musar. That is a generic term for medieval books of classical Jewish ethics. What makes them interesting is not the time period they were written in but the fact that their efforts were to understand what the ethics of the Written and Oral Law is without trying to falsify the subject to make it conform to their own tastes.

Where Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and Rav Isaac Zev Soloveitchik disagree about the seventh year in Israel seems to be in this: Rav Soloveitchik  holds land that was conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt but left by Jews coming back from Babylonia is obligated in all obligations of the land of Israel. And when it says They did not sanctify the land that means so the poor could have the fruits and vegetables that grow by themselves on the seventh year. Rav Shach does not like this. To him those lands are obligated also in tithes to the poor --not just ספיחים things that grow wild.

The way he gets to this  like this: We have a Halacha to Moshe from Mount Sinai that Amon and Moav have to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year. This Rav Shach understands to be relevant to a time that those lands will be part of Israel from the Torah. That means to say that even in the future when that land will be part of Israel  and obligated in all obligations that Israel is obligated in Trumah and Maasar etc still they will be required to give tithes to the poor in the seventh year. And also when such land is not part of Israel, still they have to give tithes to the poor because of a decree. From this we can understand the Gemara in Yevamot 16a. עמון ומואב מעשרים מעשר עני   בשביעית דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא כבשו עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה לא קדשה לעתיד לבא והניחום כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית

Amon and Moav gives tithes to the poor on the seventh year because many cities were conquered by those coming up from Egypt, but not by those coming up from Babylonia, and they left them so the poor would be able to depend on them in the seventh year.

That is the areas of עולי מצרים are  required to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year. That is a proof that Amon and Moav also do so.




I wanted to point out that according to this way of understanding the Rambam Trumah I:5 you don't need the land to be obligated from the Torah. And we know that that is good because if we would need that that would conflict with what the Rambam says in the end of the  chapter. This way we have the basic step of a halacha le'Moshe MiSinai and then a decree כעין התורה like the Torah that just like Amon and Moav would be liable in all obligation but added to that would be tithes to the poor so land of Israel proper but not conquered by עולי בבל  has the same law because of a decree.




The main point that Rav Soloveitchik has I think is the fact that in מתנות עניים  we doing find that the land of עולי מצרים is obligated in tithes to the poor. He only mentions Amon and Moav. On the other hand there are a few points that bring support to Rav Shach. One is the Gemara itself in Yevamot 16a. If we read it like Rav Soloveitchik it is a bit strained: "Amon and Moav give the tithe of the poor. How do we know this? Because the Jews coming up from Babylonia did not sanctify many cities so the poor would have support from them on the seventh year." According to Rav Soloveitchik what support do the poor have on the seventh year? Only the ספיחים what grows by itself. And when they returned there was no decree on the ספיחים anyway!
The wording of the Rambam is ולא פטרום.  The idea in itself seems to be relevant to the next Halacha in the Rambam where we have that Beit Sh'an and Ashkelon were פטרed- left to be not obligated. So here the Rambam is saying in opposition to that that the area of עולי מצרים  they did  not פטר.

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It is hard to create a place of Torah. I have gained a certain amount of respect for people that were able to make authentic yeshivas after seeing how the whole concept of a yeshiva is so easily derailed and most of them are cults. I can see also why Rav Chaim Solveitchik  was against the Musar Movement after seeing how easily Musar itself can be sidetracked into all kinds of lunacies.
 I certainly can't create a place of Torah where I am. But I think if there are people that can get together to make something real like this it is  good idea to do so.


What is a place of Torah? Mainly it looks like Brisk.  That is you are learning the Babylonian Talmud in the morning from around 10 A.M. until 1:30 P.M. in depth. Then from 4 P.M. until 8 P.M. fast.

There was a considerable debate whether to introduce Musar [Jewish Ethics] into this. Reb Chaim said not to. But others did so. Today most Lithuanian yeshivas have introduced a very small amount of Musar into the program. But one way of the other, the day is spent on the Talmud.

Something so simple should be relatively simple to make. Why it is hard? It is that people prefer to make money of the back of the Torah. Their major effort is to look as if they are learning Torah and use that image to scam and defraud secular Jews into giving money. The amount of scammers makes doing the real thing very difficult.

In order to be able to tell the difference between the frauds and the real thing you almost have to be a Torah scholar yourself.

What you mainly need to start with is someone who has learned how to learn by spending the proper amount of time in Ponovitch, Brisk, or the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah Vedaath. That is the foundation stone.  And it is in this first step that most yeshivas fail. The rosh yeshiva is usually a charismatic Am Haartz [ignorant fraud] who simply know how to act the part of the real thing.

(1) The Sitra Achra [the Dark Side ] can be and often is dressed  what looks like mitzvot. The Sitra Achra dresses and hides itself in Sitra DeKedusha the side of holiness. And holiness is hidden everywhere--even in secular things. Even in bad stuff.
(2) Reb Chaim from Voloshin thought that the only Divine service is learning Torah and everything else is to bring to the level of numinosity that comes into the world by means of learning Torah.
He thought that before the giving of the Torah one could serve God through and with anything. But after the giving of the Torah it is upon us simply to keep the Torah to the best of our ability.
But in the Rambam we see the mitzvot themselves are dependent on their reasons. This indicates that the reasons for the mitzvot are the things to aim for and the mitzvot themselves are to bring to these hidden purposes. (Also Reb Chaim is not taken seriously. Before you give money to a yeshiva ask what they would do if you would show up at their door and all you would want would be to sit and learn Torah and not ask for a penny what would they do? You know what they would do. They would throw you out on your nose. They don't believe in learning Torah. They believe in using Torah to get your money. )
(3)  the Torah is hidden in everything and one can serve God though and with everything.
(4) But the Sitra Achra is dressed and hidden in the side of holiness. When you walk into a synagogue you are going to encounter the Dark Side.
(5) There is such a thing as Torah of the Sitra Achra. Torah of the Dark Side. You go to hear a Torah lesson from a rabbi. The probability is you will be hearing the Torah of the Sitra Achra.
(6) So we see the idea is to find the purpose of your life from the side of holiness. And to avoid the purpose that the dark side has in mind for you.
(7) So we have that in your life there is a meaning that comes from the side of holiness. But there is danger of finding and cleaving to the meaning that comes from the side of evil.
To give a few examples might be helpful. Shmuel Berenbaum you would have no trouble in discerning what was the meaning of his life. Right. Learning and teaching Torah. We don't expect that it would have been better of had becomes a mechanical engineer. As far as we can see in this case he found the meaning and numinous aspect of his life from teh side of holiness.
Albert Einstein would be another example of a person that found the proper meaning and purpose of his life--also from the side of holiness--but in a different way than Reb Shmuel.
(8) On the surface they look like two disparate purposes. But they are not. They both found the aspect of numinous aspect that applies to them from the side of holiness. Just in Physics the numinous aspect of holiness is hidden
(9) Last but not least I might mention my parents. They were not like Reb Shmuel. They did not see learning Torah as the one purpose of life though they had great faith in Torah. My Dad though a scientist was not like Albert Einstein either --not just the genius part but also he did not see science as his one and only purpose. His major meaning and the meaning of life for my mother also was in being good parents. That might not be so obvious to many people what that means. And I would have a hard time explaining it.

Man searches for meaning. Sometimes he finds it in some kind of numinous value [some religious value]. Sometimes he finds it in politics or global warming, or some kind of vendetta he or she has towards someone. I have seen all kinds of varieties. The existentialists  borrowing from Thomas Aquinas thought existence comes before essence. That left them free to find their own values or to deny the existence of value.

Liberal Arts colleges are to some degree appealing to this aspect. They are hoping to find meaning in Shakespeare or more modern novels.

During the Middle Ages it value was for Jews in Torah [the Oral and Written Law--not in Jewish identity nor in Jewish nationalism.] For Christians it was in the church.

The Rambam in the Middle Ages and Saadia Gaon in the early Middle Ages wanted to expand the area of numinosity in Torah to include Physics and Metaphysics or Aristotle.



I think there is such a thing as bad numinous value; the Sitra Achra. The Dark Side. And I think all good values receive their values from Torah. But all good values can be subverted into the Sitra Achra.  The point is how to avoid that difficulty? And how to detect if a group that is on the face of it supporting Torah values but in fact has become  tool of the Sitra Achra?
True holy numinous value is deeply hidden in everything ---even in the Sitra Achra. הסתרה שבתוך הסתרה. He brings that from a verse in Deuteronomy ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא That is where God says to the Jews that after they will turn from him he will hide his face. But in the Hebrew you have the infinitive and then the verb. That means He is saying he will hide the hiding. That means people will be so far from God that they will not even know that he is hidden.

Then what can one do in such a case?

My advice is to talk with God as you talk with your father and mother . That is not just to pray to God, but to talk with Him in an informal way. Prayer tends to be formal. And when prayer is formal, then it loses its energy.  It is best to find time with God alone. The best place is a forest, but any place will do as long as there are no people around. Even your own room before you go to sleep at night. Under your covers is a good place to talk with God.
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I would suggest other things, but almost anything I would suggest could be subverted into a tool of the Sitra Achra. Learning Torah, Kabalah. Nothing is immune. But if you talk with God sincerely and ask to be saved from the Dark Side, I think nothing can subvert a sincere prayer.
In fact, it is a rule that what ever organisation claims to be able to save one from the Sitra Achra is itself a tool of the Sitra Achra. That is money in the bank. You can count on this.

There is such a thing as a parallel to Ivy League/MIT/Stanford in the world of yeshivas.

But it is hard to know what are the parallels because without standards of testing, every yeshiva claims to be Ivy League. And in every yeshiva you walk into they will point to this "yougerman" and that one and claim that he is a genius. It is sad because it puts big dent on the whole idea of yeshiva in the first place when downright lies are sold as Divine truth. The same used car salesman that sold to you a lemon is unlikely to be able to regain your confidence a second time.

If you want my observations I can tell you easily what is Ivy League. Ponovitch [Bnei Brak], Brisk [Jerusalem], and the three big names in N.Y. the Mirrer, Chaim Berlin and Torah Vedaath.

Do you give truma from cherries?

Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and Rav Isaac Zev Soloveitchik seem to be having an argument about the Rambam in Laws of Truma ch 1 halacha 5.
[That Soloveitchik was the son of Reb Chaim. I think he is the one who founded the Yeshivat Brisk in Jerusalem.]

I have mentioned before today some of the main points in this subject and I might try to go over them again. But right now I wanted just to focus on this argument. I am not sure how to organize this also so bear with me.
The basic Gemara from where this all starts is in Yevamot 16 side a. עמון ומואב מעשרים מעשר עני בשביעית. (Amon and Moav give tithes to the poor on the seventh year.) And down a few lines is says דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית (for the master said many cities were conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but were not settled by the exiles returning from Babylonia because the First sanctification sanctified the land only for the time when Jews would be living there, but the second sanctification sanctified the land permanently, and they left those cities in order that the poor would have access to the tithes for the poor on the seventh year.)

Rashi is perfectly clear. The areas of עולי מצרים are not sanctified at all and there is simply a rabbinical decree to give the tithes to the poor and לקט שכחה ופאה. No Truma or any other maasar.

The Rambam writes this same thing as the Gemara but adds a few words. הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כשהיו ולא פטרום מן התרומה ומעשרות כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית

"They did not פטר (absolve) them." There is only one way to understand these words as far as I can see. That those areas were obligated and when people returned from the exile in Babylonia they left them in their original state of obligation. And that is exactly how Rav Shach understands this Rambam [I think.] That that land is obligated in Truma and Maasar from the Torah and the whole idea of קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד ךבא is relevant only to sheviit.

That is as far as I can get right now.

Let me just add that Rav Soloveitchik holds that the land conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt but left by the exiles returning from Babylonia has all the regular laws of the land of Israel according to the Rambam. This is from what I can see what Rav Shach is about to disagree with. To me it seems at this minute that he is going to say that it has all the laws of the land of Israel only in reference to the laws of truma and maasar but not sheviit.

You can see already where all this is going. Rav Shach is probably going to be saying that those lands were not obligated in Sheviit--but the Chazal [sages] could have made those lands obligated in shevviit if they had wanted to. But they decided not to, and so the only obligation they have is truma and maasar. That explains the language of the Rambam here. And I am guessing that even without reading further that this will end up explains a good many of the other questions that this subject has in it.
I mean what is the most obvious question here. It is the fact that the Rambam holds קדושה ראשונה לא קדשה לעתיד לבא  and yet still holds from  כזיב until Amon is נאכל אינו נעבד and he explains in that very halacha that נאכל  refers to the ספיחים which means he hold the land has the holiness of  שביעית. So that would probably mean it has a law of Sheviit by decree of the Sages until the people of Israel return a third time at which time the full holiness of teh Torah will apply.

 I think you should learn Musar and Torah. Musar means classical books of Jewish Ethics and also books from the disciples of Israel Salanter like Isaac Blazzer. His book Or Israel is very good if you can find it.  Also there is a book חובות לבבות   and the אורחות צדיקים.

That is when you learn Torah, people like you more.
And from doing it not for the sake of Heaven one will come to do it for the sake of Heaven.

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Israel Salanter was not the person that started the path of Musar. {medieval Books of Jewish Ethics} Rather it was Shmuel from Salant.

Israel was a young kid that saw that Shmuel was a tzadik, and he also saw how he became a tzadik-- by learning Musar. Israel Salanter put two and two together to conclude the way to become a tzadik is by learning Musar.

There were yeshivas and synagogues in those days, but his idea was to create what he called a "Beit Musar" a building devoted only to one thing alone the study of Musar. What I suggest here is to rekindle this idea. Instead of wasting money on things the Torah says not to, why not build a house of Musar in every city and hamlet?


Kollels are country clubs so it is  a waste of time and money to donate anything to them. Besides the  fact that the very existence of any kollel is against halacha. [See the Rambam in Hilchot Talmud Torah.]
Synagogues are generally sectarian, and so not worth giving money to. The best synagogues are Reform and Conservative, but they have not enough emphasis on learning Musar and Torah. [And from ignorance of Torah, they sometimes choose values that are highly destructive towards Jews and the USA. They tend to embrace people that want to eliminate the Jewish people and the State of Israel.] the insane religious world  are satanic cults as a rule. The idea of keeping Torah is right, but that is just the cloak they hide under. They generally follow some satanic leader who pretends to be a tzadik.

So it seems to me that making a house of Musar is the best idea.



I should mention in a way of התנצלות apology that Rav Shach was once asked about the fact that he was critical. But he stuck with his guns. And my impression is everyone word he said was accurate.

Part of the problem is there is no where to go to learn the Ari.  Every place which advertises Kabalah is a cult. And they certainly don't teach the Ari anyway, except a couple of Kabalah yeshivas in Jerusalem which do teach straight authentic Ari and the Mechon HaKabalah or Kabalah Center which in fact do teach the authentic Ari.

In any case, my idea of how to go about learning the Ari is based on two separate periods in my own life. One period I concentrated a lot of the Ari--specifically the Eitz Chaim. That period was at the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY and I was married at the time and  devoted every spare second to learning the Ari. That is one approach. And I think it was effective because I was at the time in a place of serous Torah study.
The other approach was when I was in Israel in Safed. There I was not able to concentrate of the Ari as much as I had been doing in NY and instead I was doing what is called "שיעורים כסדרם" sessions in order.

The great thing about homosexual-ism is you know who to avoid.
No longer is it any option to send your children to public school where you know that they are being homosexuals have launched an evangelical movement to turn your children into sick people.



The only option I see is something like the Mirrer Yeshiva High school in NY, or something similar.

[For Christians, one could send his children to a Jesuit school. But if possible a Mirrer Yeshiva kind of thing is preferable. [Because at the Mir you get the Oral and Written Torah - both.]


If the mother is at home, then the best of all worlds is home schooling.
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Universities at this point are also no much to look at unless you are in a STEM program. [STEM is the modern way of describing what used to be called natural sciences.]


And race also tells you who to avoid.
Race makes  some difference. At least as far as I can see. I heard from one fellow in Ukraine about a mutual acquaintance   that he had married unknowingly a gypsy woman. There are white Gypsies that you would not be able to tell that they are Gypsies. She only told him after they were married. And low and behold his children with her turned out to be thieves. I have seen this same theme played out many times. Race determines a lot. And even though any person can rise above the fate of his or her genes but that does not necessarily apply to their children.

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The way to go about learning and keeping Torah--really depends on your level of education.
In my first year in yeshiva they were doing Chulin and the basic approach was to take a small section of the Gemara and show how you go from the Gemara to the Tur Beit Yoseph and then the Shulchan Aruch with the Taz. This was the beginning level and at the second year and after that we started getting more into Tosphot. Personally I did a lot of Maharsha  and Shita Mekubetzet also but that was because I was really not sure how to do "Iyun." [study in depth.] Ever since then I had a tendency to look up achronim.
And that fault of mine stayed with me for all my days in yeshiva. Getting to "how to learn" beyond just freshman looking up achronim took me  a very long time and I never would have graduated to real learning if not for having a learning partner that has the kind of analytical mind required for this kind of work.

My recommendation is to find a  person that knows how to learn. But this is very rare. A rule of thumb is don't bother looking outside of NY Lithuanian Yeshivas or Ponovitch in Israel. Jerusalem has lots of yeshivas but they can't learn worth a dime.
To get a big picture approach to learning it is good to study Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam and  Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. The Avi Ezri is in fact much better than Reb Chaim. Reb Chaim opened up the door to that kind of deep understanding of the Rambam but his book has flaws.  Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is much more  deep and clear and as far as I can see is without any flaws. There is no fault in this. Even the first attempt to build a bridge with no previous example is likely to fail. Rav Shach saw farther and clearer than Reb Chaim. But his book is ignored for the simple reason that he was not politically correct. He insulted everyone. And on purpose also. There would be fault in this if not for the fact that everything he said was right.

תורה עם דרך ארץ (Torah with work)

In almost all yeshivas, Torah becomes a way of making money. That is it becomes a mode of life to figure out how to get people to give charity. And this is only one problem. But it is not in all yeshivas. It is just one pitfall in the system. If at all possible it is best as one goes to yeshiva to also on the side to be leaning an honest profession. This is how they did it in Chaim Berlin in the time of Rav Hutner. And it also was how they did it in the Mirrer yeshiva during the time of Avraham Kalmonovitch. Later at the Mirrer it became policy to have only full day students for the four year program. In any case, this is  a balancing act that is hard to follow. But I think it is the path of Torah. It is what is known as תורה עם דרך ארץ (Torah with work) and to me it seems to make the most sense. The eventual result of the  "Torah alone" approach [or "Torah in order to collect charity" approach] is dismal. You get a whole litany of different kinds of insanity and very little real, authentic Torah.

Mainly what seems to happen is that people find it hard to learn Talmud all day, so they attach themselves to some מפורסם של שקר charismatic lunatic and run around trying to convert the whole world to their particular schizo manic leader. I don't know why this is, but I think it is because they find learning real Torah too hard and so look for some diversion.

כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה. All Torah that is not coupled with work is a waste of time and brings sin. [Pirkei Avot]. See the Rambam in his commentary to the Mishna on Pirkei Avot chaper 4 where on the mishna דאשתמש בתגא חלף. Don't get mixed up when trying to find the Rambam. His long comment is  not in chapter one where the original statement of Hillel is found. And not in chapter two where you would expect to find it. Instead he put it in a later chapter.

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Catch 22.  There is an absurdity in the the insane religious world . One needs Torah but as soon as one enters the frum world, the basic insanity of that world becomes apparent. And that insanity is catching--it is infectious. And you can't find a nice balance because that balance means in practical terms to be incompetent in both Torah and in secular things.[I can only write decent ideas in Torah though because I am writing down conversations between my learning partner and myself in Torah. And he is totally involved in Torah]

The Talmud mentions this concept as the idea of pulling the donkey from both ends. But the modern way of putting it is catch 22.

It is not just the frum world. Dostoevsky wrote, "If the world would be rational, then nothing would happen." And according to Schopenhauer the "Will" the true reality of this world is essentially irrational--or insane.

The only solution is to learn Torah and keep it the best you can. Joining any organization, not only will not help but will hurt. Not only that but support of organizations that are claiming to be learning Torah is just throwing away money to support private county clubs. They are not helping the poor, nor people that want to learn Torah, but just their buddies. As the Rambam said, there is no mitzvah to give charity to a person that could work if he wanted to.

That got me to be thinking about the pros and cons of yeshivas. They can be misused. Many are made for the personal benefit of the people in charge. And though they claim to be for the benefit of the community they are actually geared towards the benefit of the leaders.
Sometimes however they are made for the sake of the holy Torah. And everything depends on what the original intentions are.
Torah is not happy when people use it for personal benefit.

And the main benefit that people seek from Torah is power. It gives people a tremendous ego trip and a power trip,  The ability to control others and tell them what to do --all supposedly for the sake of heaven. This is why I am cautious about which particular Litvak yeshiva I recommend and which ones I disparage and which yeshivas I saw are evil idolatrous cults. It is impossible to put a stamp of approval on all or even most.

The best thing is to get yourself the Horev of Shimshon Refael Hirsh  as an introduction and after that the whole Talmud and spend about two hours a day on your own learning Torah.

There are people that know God is hidden from them and they can search for him. But there are other people that don't know God is hidden. The hidden-ness is hidden. They think they are already close to God. Or they think everything is allowed. The world is not God and is not godliness, but that it can't exist without God.

 But any kind of rulership is a responsibility that is dangerous.  המלכות מקברת את בעליה. So you have to draw life into it. That is by Torah. And this happens in a few ways. One is  by Torah people learn themselves what they are doing wrong and correct themselves. So you don't have to rebuke anyone. You just teach Torah, and the Torah itself corrects everyone. The other way is the Torah is the representative of God. It is his name. And with God is life. So by Torah you are calling to God and that brings life into the rulership.

The hidden-ness is this. There are people that know God is hidden from them and they can search for him. But there are other people that don't know God is hidden. The hidden-ness is hidden. They think they are already close to God. Or they think everything is allowed. They don't recognize that some things are forbidden.  But when one knows that without God, nothing can exist, and that he is even in the darkest of places that one has fallen to, by that the hiddeness is revealed. [Note this is not the same thing as pantheism. The faith of Torah is Monotheism. The world is not God and is not godliness, but that it can't exist without God. Saadia Gaon and the Rambam go into this in great detail in order to clarify the basic belief structure of the Torah.

And God made sure that only the highest level of Torah was contained in the hidden-ness in the hidden-ness. Because if open Torah was contained there, the kelipot would be able to receive nourishment from it.

So what I am suggesting is that this Torah lesson is connected in this way, that the Torah one needs to draw into the hidden rulership is the hidden Torah. That means in English to learn the writings of Isaac Luria.
But to learn Luria's stuff you need  also to learn the Talmud. Or at least to have finished the Talmud once with Rashi and Tosphot. [Not every Rashi is an obligation, but every Tosphot is.]

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 Rav Elazar Menachem Shach heard an idea from Isaac Zev Soloveitchik that I wanted to present here

The preliminaries are these: A mishna  says land conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt  but not settled by Jews returning to Israel from Babylonia is נאכל ואינו נעבד eaten but not worked on the seventh year. Another Mishna says עבר הירדן is obligated in ביעור. Fruits from lands beyond the Jordan river is not allowed to be eaten if there is nothing left of it in the fields. The Gemara in Yevamot 16b says אמון ומואב מעשרין מעשר עני בשביעית. Amon and Moav give tithes to the poor in the seventh year.
A few lines later the Talmud explains the reason: דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים והינחום עולי בבל שקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא קדשה לעתיד לבא כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית



Those are three facts from the Talmud.





The next three facts you need are these. Three Rambams. הלכות שביעית ויובל ד:כו. Land up until Kaziv is עולי בבל. After Kaziv is עולי מצרים. And is נאכל ואינו נעבד eaten but not worked on the seventh year.
The Rambam models his law here on the Mishna but adds ספיחים are eaten. [Not like ר' שמשון].
In the first chapter of Trumah the Rambam decides the law קדושה ראשונה the first sanctification did not sanctify the land permanently. Only the second sanctification did that.
In הלכות ביכורים ו:ה The Rambam says Amon and Moav and Egypt give tithes to the poor in the seventh year and Babylon gives the second tithe.

These are the six facts you need. Three from the Rambam and three from the Talmud.

Zev Soloveitchik told Rav Shach that land conquered by Jews coming from Egypt is obligated in all obligations that the land of Israel is obligated in.
One idea explains and clarifies everything in one simple sentence. I do have I think a very good question on this idea but I will save that for desert.

The shock value here lies starts when you notice the Gemara in Yevamot never said anything about land conquered by Jews returning from Egypt as being obligated in tithes to the poor. All it says is so that the poor will depend on them in the seventh year. That means it has all the obligations of the land of Israel. Seventh year, Truma, the forgotten sheaf etc., and etc.

The question I have is the fact that the Talmud says "they left them so the poor can depend on them in the seventh year." But all the more so if they had not left them then the land would have the holiness of the land of Israel and the poor would depend on them in the seventh year. My learning partner answered it is referring to ספיחים. But I think that is not a good answer because they left those lands before there was an decree against  ספיחים

 Clearly עולי מצרים is considered the land of Israel to the Rambam. And just like  Isaac Soloveitchik suggested it is obligated in all obligated of the land of Israel

A key fact here is הלכות תרומות א:כו that even the second sanctification did not sanctify any part of Israel until all Israel returns. Until then all obligations are by rabbinical decree.



 This explains the Rambam in laws of Trumot ch. 1 halacha 5, ולא פטרום כדי שיסמו כו עליהם עניים בשביעית. Logically that means if they had not left them poor people could not depend on them. At first glance this sounds senseless. But what I suggest it means is this : if they had not left them they would be obligated in the seventh year laws.


Still  what is hard to understand here is this way the Rambam puts it. He could have written that  עולי מצרים have an obligation of Trumah but not the seventh year and that is from the sages.

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To me this seems like a very good thing--as long as one does not break his ties to the Litvak world and become officially "Breslov." When that line is crossed something changes and the person loses something I cant exactly place my finger on how to call it.
v

Yevamot 16b

What it looks like to me is that the Rambam is like the second answer in Tosphot.
I am still in the middle of Rav Elazar Menachem Shach's essay on this Rambam.
[In laws of the seventh year in the Rambam.]  But just off hand it looks to me that the area of Amon and Moav that the Gemara says is obligated in tithes to the poor on the seventh year is talking about the areas that were not conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt.

That seems fine. But what that would mean for some city in side of Israel proper that was conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but not by the Jews coming back from Babylonia is that a city like Beit Shan in the Galil  would have to give tithes to the poor on the seventh year and also be obligated in the laws of the seventh year. And that seems contradictory.


I mean to say that the laws of the seventh year  would be obligatory from the Torah   just by the fact of it being the land of Israel even though it was not sanctified in  by the Jews coming back from Babylonia. But on top of that it would have a rabbinical obligation to give מעשר עני tithes to the poor. What is wrong with this is tithes to the poor is dependent on the order of the years. It is given on the third and sixth year. And even if there would be some rabbinical decree to give on the seventh year but the fruits are open for all to take anyway!


Appendix: Land that was conquered by Jews coming  from Egypt but not by Jews coming back from Babylonian is not worked but the fruits growing by themselves can be eaten after the ביעור. That seems to imply it is obligated in the seventh year laws from the Torah itself.--Even though it was not sanctified! OK that is unexpected, but reasonable. But what makes it hard to understand it that the very same land would be obligated in tithes to the poor! What could that mean? The fruit is anyway open for anyone to take.


That is land that is עולי מצרים but not עולי בבל is נאכל but not נעבד. The Rambam might have explained that like the Rabainu Shimshon. But he did not. He said it means ספיחים. So we have שביעית from the Torah even though קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא קידשה לעתיד לבא. And in spite of that, it still in obligated in מעשר עני! How does this fit?
I think  Rav Shach might be asking the same thing. For what I remember when learning this with my learning partner is the Rav Shach focuses on the fact the land is not worked so how is מעשר עני applicable?  Maybe that is the same thing I am asking?

Murder of white farmers in South Africa. 1554 murders.

A nice film about this problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=37&v=SKG72AviEFw


There are people that say there have been 3000.

There are about 44 murders per day.

The point is that there is no question that whites are being targeted.

Welcome to the future of Baltimore

[I know this not really a Jewish issue but it seems to me that injustice anywhere affects me also.]
I know there were many people in the international community that were horrified that white farmers in South Africa were defending themselves. They called the system of government there unjust even though they had never even been there and seen up close what the situation was. And pressure was kept up until the government fell,]


The way this could have been prevented is if people would learn The Five Books of Moses along with the Oral Law. That is called "learning Torah." Then it would have been clear to people that farmers had a right  of self defense. But people were too busy working for "social justice" than to care about real justice. 

My feeling about learning Torah is based to some degree  on the approach that I was introduced to when I first got to my first yeshiva in Far Rockaway, NY. That approach was uniform among all NY yeshivas and it was this: the main thing in life is to serve God, and the main way of serving God  learning Torah.

But we also know that the way of Torah is not to use Torah to make money. Nor to accept charity to be able to learn Torah. Nor to force the Israeli government to give you money so that you can learn. Nor to talk to secular Jews as if they are your brothers when you are asking them for money. and then to turn around when they are not looking and curse them.

These later approaches are clearly not the path of Torah. but they are a result of the the insane religious world  life style. For this reason in my previous post I mentioned Rav Kook and Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsh because the later one emphasizes Torah with working for a living and Rav Kook empathizes the settlement in the Land of Israel also. So they both give a balanced introduction to Torah thought and at the same time have a kind of balanced approach that is closer to true Torah than anything else I have seen,  

Reform Jews do not learn much Torah. That is the reason they often support movements that are inimical to Torah.
People that have to work for a living or go to school have little time to learn Torah themselves so they have to depend on people that present themselves as understanding Torah in order to form their world view.

Reform people certainly have their hearts in the right place but they also often are not very well knowledgeable in Torah.

The trouble is that many of the people that present themselves as knowledgeable in Torah have very evil hearts. And Reform Jews know this fact and so are very wary of these evil people. [Or they should be very wary of them.]

 The best advice is to learn Torah yourself or if possible to go to a straight and normal Lithuanian kind of yeshiva where the Oral and written law are learning with no propaganda added. Of course for people in NY or Bnai Brak this is easy. But Jerusalem has a problem of animosity. Religious Jews there might like the money of secular Jews, but of one actually tries to settle in their neighborhood they will stop at nothing to get rid of him.


Obviously the the insane religious world  haג nothing to do with Torah.



What one can do is to learn on one's own. The books of Rav Kook I think are very excellent.

This is a nice comment I saw on some news item about junior high students being taught about how to become perverts

Public Schools Teaching Children to be Perverts This is the comment

This is what hath been wrought from your passive support of homosexuality. This is the fruit you purchased with every "not all gay people". Every excuse you made for them, every time you felt sorry for them. This is the beginning of unchecked perversion influencing our children. Congratulations, Christians. Your misguided "love thy neighbor" philosophy has you opening your doors to perverts. Those perverts are going to great lengths to corrupt the youth. If they can corrupt our youth, how much easier will it be for them to corrupt the subsequent generation? They are NOT "just like everyone else". The LGBT community must be met with formidable resistance. Not violence (unless you are attacked, then defend yourself until they can't attack you anymore) but they should be shouted down. They should be silenced. They should feel the shame of defying nature. They should be reminded of the fact that they are nothing more than an evolutionary dead end. They are not "special", they are freaks, perverts, molesters, and degenerates. Being friends with homosexuals, even being friendly towards them, does NOT make you a "good person" or "modern" or whatever p.c. term de jour "ally" or other such nonsense. It makes you a traitor. When you tried to overcome that feeling of disgust you had in the pit of your stomach when you first found out what homosexuality was...that moment you spit in the face of nature. Look around you. Was it worth it?

I have had a hard time trying to convince people about the importance of learning Torah. One thing that is often thrown back at me is, "what about keeping Torah?"  To that I say the only places I ever saw people that kept the Torah was in places that were devoted to learning  Torah.
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That being said I want to tell you how to start your own yeshiva in several easy steps.
First you need raw material--that is a person that knows "how to learn." Knowing how to learn means knowing that you can't know a halacha without knowing the Gemara, Rashi and Tosphot that it is based on. And it means knowing the actual Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot on the basic seven tractates.[the three bavas and the four on nashim.]
Second  you need Musar. That is ethics, not just Talmud.
After that you need to learn yourself about an hour or more a day and then things will just happen.

Yeshiva has nothing to do with money. If people ask you for money to support their yeshiva be assured they are not learning Torah. 99% of all places that call themselves yeshivas are scams.

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Sex in the Five books of Moses is not symmetrical. A woman can be married to only one man. A man can be married to many women.  ניאוף  adultery is when a man has sex with a woman who is married to another man. That gets the death penalty. It is in two lists in Leviticus  that go though the עריות.
Sex outside of marriage is  not ניאוף-adultery. It comes under the category of פילגש concubinage.

עריות in Leviticus are generally close family relations. But adultery gets thrown in also in both lists.




There were a good number of people in the Old Testament that had concubines. One well known such person was the friend of Joshua the disciple of Moses. [כלב בן יפונה ] He was not considered a sinner because he has a few wives and few concubines. In the Five Books of Moses he is praised with a kind of praise that is not applied to anyone  else in the Torah, וימלא אחרי השם "He was filled with God."

I am not saying this is the best option. And we do have the Rambam who says a concubine is forbidden to anyone but a king. All I am saying is that there are plenty of opinions to depend on here that allow a girl friend.
Still if you can get married in the traditional way that is best. But for some people it is hard to find such a  situation.

The issue of the borders of Israel is difficult.
For one thing we have the Tosphot in Tractate Yevamot 16a.To Tosphot you have either full holiness or nothing. There is no "in between" state.

The first answer of Tosphot is OK as far as I can see but how can we explain the second answer?
The basic Gemara there says that Amon and Moav are obligated in the tithe for the poor. Later on that same page the Gemara explains the reason being: הרבה כרכים כיבשו עולי מצרים והניחום עולי בבל כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית. "Many cities were conquered by the Jews that came up from Egypt but were left by the Jews that came up from Babylonia in order that the poor will be able to depend on them in the seventh year."
 Tosphot asks from, "There are three lands concerning ביעור." One of those lands in עבר הירדן. So the land beyond the Jordan River is obligated in the seventh year laws.  The first answer of Tosphot seems OK. There was an area of Sichon and Og that was originally of Sichon and Og [lets call it Area I] and there was an area that these two kings had conquered from Amon and Moav. Area II. Tosphot suggests that Area I was settled by Jews returning from Babylonia, --not area II. The next answer of Tosphot is the one I can't understand right now. There Tosphot says the area that is obligated in tithes to the poor in the seventh year was not even part of the area settled by Jews coming out of Egypt. Or at least that is how I understand Tosphot. But if that is so then how does it fit with the Gemara?

This is only the tip of the iceberg. There are many more questions. For example the Rambam in the beginning of the laws of Truma seems to make no sense. In one Halacha he says everything on the right from Aco until Kaziv is outside of Israel. and then in the next halacha he seems to contradict this. And in the end of that chapter he says the whole area even of עולי בבל is obligated in tithes only by rabbinical decree. But this last question I might have a kind of half way decent answer for. Maybe--I am suggesting- the Jews returning from Babylonia sanctified the land but the sanctification does not set in until all the Jewish people return to Israel.

The so called leaders of Breslov are all dangerous con men. The only group I like is the Na Nach group that rightfully suspect any religious leader of nefarious motives. They may go a little too far in that direction but their approach lends a healthy balance to the playing field. I never met a religious teacher  who did not lie all the time and the Na Nach people are aware of that. They lie because they have contempt for everyone outside of their group. That makes them incapable of telling the truth ever.
[I mention this because recently I was looking at the Musar book אורחות צדיקים and that book warns not to flatter. I am afraid if I discuss the greatness of Torah but don't warn people about the con men then I would be guilty of flattery.

They lie mainly to fill in the gap between what they want to think about themselves and the reality and also to make their institutions seem to be about charity. But then they get so used to lying they do it out of habit. And eventually the habit gets to be malicious. They lie about people not part of their group that they don't like in order to hurt them.

Without any idea of obligation  at this point, let's just try to think of what a Maimonides kind of program of living Torah would be like. If we try to mix obligation with it at first, that might damage the clarity.

We might not want to do want the Rambam says, and that might cause us to not recognize or admit to ourselves that he is saying certain things.

We want to separate the variables.

The Rambam's idea of an education is the Oral and Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics. He is not describing Kabalah because he openly says he means Physics and Metaphysics as understood by the ancient Greeks. Physics and Metaphysics have both made some progress since Aristotle, so a Rambam kind of program would have to include modern Theoretical Physics and Kant' Critique of Pure Reason.

But you see right away what happens when we think about the Rambam. Immediately there is resistance to anything he says that one's social group does not approve of.  That is why I say it is easiest to think of what he actually said, and only later to think about how to accomplish it.



The advantage of this approach is if we can get a clear idea of what Torah is, then we might be able to keep it. But without a clear idea of what it is, it is hopeless to imagine we can fulfill it.

Also we need a certain degree of confidence that he understood the Torah fairly well. Faith in the wise.

This approach to Torah cancels out a lot of things that present themselves as Torah true concepts.
Because of the Rambam's clarity many issues become clear in this way.

I would like to suggest to make a Lithuanian yeshiva in every town.  The idea would be that you would have a regular normal Litvak yeshiva program for four years but it would be open house for people to come in and learn just like in the great Lithuanian yeshivas in NY.  The basic program would be an in depth session in the morning and a faster session in the afternoon. Plus it would have the regular Musar Jewish ethics books. That is it would be following the basic orientation of the Gra.

This would not be teaching people to use Torah for money. It is not a kollel. Nor would it be to get people to repent. It is rather to teach people to get to the level of proficiency that an average guy needs in order to be able to learn Torah on his own.  And that takes about four years about 10 hours a day.

And it is clear that Christian civilization can't survive without yeshivas. They lose track of what the law is.

The borders of Israel as defined in the Torah are further north than what most people are aware of. That is in Parshat Masei you have areas that are described by various names that some of which are ambiguous. Antioch however is known to be one of those names because of a "Targum" {Translation of Onklus} and a few open Gemaras. Those areas, however, were not conquered by the Jews that came of of Egypt. In the book of Joshua that land  is called ארץ הנשארת "the land left over." That is it was promised but the children of Israel at the time, but they did not have the where with all to be able to conquer it from the Canaanites. And what makes things worse is that when the Jews returned to Israel from Babylon, they left even more land unsettled. And only the second sanctification sanctified it. קדושה ראשונה קידשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא, קדושה שנייה קידשה לשעתה וקידשה לעתיד לבא

See the Gemara in Yevamot 16a and the two mishnas in Sheviit שלש ארצות לביעור and one of those three lands is עבר הירדן. So beyond the Jordan river was conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but not by the Jews returning from the exile in Babylon.  And the other Mishna I don't remember but the way the Rambam brings it it comes out that from Akko and north up to a certain city is Israel on the left but not on the right and after that is all land conquered by the Jews coming of of Egypt but not by the Jews returning from Babylon. In any case the actual land promised in the Torah extends much further north that either of these two areas.

Most of the time I was in Israel this was not an issue, but the last time I was in the southern city of Netivot which clearly was under כיבוש עולי מצריים  but not כיבוש עולי בבל.  So what was its status? Well to Rashi and Tosphot probably nothing. With them you have either כיבוש עולי בבל or nothing at all. However it seems that to the Rambam something can be part of Israel even if it has not been sanctified.  That seems to be the only way to understand how he can say on one hand  קדושה ראשונה קידשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא, קדושה שנייה קידשה לשעתה וקידשה לעתיד לבא and on the other hand say that areas conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt is נאכל ואינו נעבד the fruits are eaten in the seventh year but the land is not worked and he says the fruits in this context means  ספיחים

Sometimes God is hidden from  me. But I know he is hidden. But sometimes the fact of His being hidden is also hidden. That is he is so hidden from me that I think he is not hidden at all and I imagine myself close to him. This is not just me but you find this with people that are convinced they are on the right path. They don't have a sense of ontological uncertainty. They think everything is permitted. They are convinced that God loves them,-- no matter what they do. That is: the fact of God being hidden from them is hidden from them.   ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא {See Deuteronomy in the Song of Moses in which Moses prophesies  that God says, "I will hide my hiding on that day."}

But even when God is hidden in הסתרה שבתוך הסתרה "hidden-ness that is hidden," it is still possible to reveal the presence of God when one  seeks Him. You seek God by Torah. Torah is the interface between God and his creation. This inserts an intermediate step that you don't have in Schopenhauer.
With Schopenhauer there is only the Will (the thing in itself, the dinge an sich) and the entire creation is the representation of that Will (i.e. conditioned reality).

Torah is the Representative of God and the creation being the representation of Torah. . For it is the open aspects of Torah that are represented in the world. But it is the hidden aspect of the Torah  that is contained in the hiding of the hiding.

The idea here is that God has an interface with the world.  Torah is that interface. That is the Written Torah and its explanation that was written down by the Tenaim and Amoraim. [That is like how you interact with your hard drive. You need some interface in order to do so.]


What I suggest then is a yeshiva in which the Oral and Written Torah are learned and practiced. But the Torah learned has to be authentic. Way too many pseudo yeshivas exist. I can count the real yeshivas in the entire world on five fingers. Three in NY: Mirrer, Chaim Berlin, Torah Vedaat. And two in Israel: Ponovitch and Brisk. Most so called "yeshivas" are actually evil cults.

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q13 q13 midi I do not see a nwc file for this,  but if one wants the notes, he can get them from the midi file; just not the instruments.

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It is on the Jewish calendar the yarzeit of the Ari. And in a kind of environment in which Talmud is learned all day long I think the Ari is important. But from my point of view the reason the Ari is important is more as  good explanation of Torah. The Ari helps me at least to deal with problems of interpretation.  Arguments from authority aside I should mention to that Yaakov Abuchaztira the ari was simply "rabbainu". That is if you find in the writings of Yaakov Abuchatzaira simply "our teacher" that always refers to the Ari.

But the problem is that we have a definition of "outside books"  as the Rif defines it. The Rif says those are books that "explain the Oral or Written Torah with new foundations or principles that are not already contained in those books." And most of the ideas in the Ari don't seem to have a source in the Talmud. I think the answer to this is that in fact in the agadic parts of the Talmud, you do find things that hint to the basic principles of the Ari.

At any rate, never learn Kabalah with Ashkenazim. They always get it wrong and it has serious consequences when they do.

The best approach is this: If you have a daily session in Gemara in depth [about a hour] and  one learning quickly [also an hour] then the Ari is a good idea to supplement to your daily routine.

Even though I have  a great deal of respect for Isaac Luria, and I was very inspired by his writings, still I think that it makes more sense to learn Talmud. This is a shift in my thinking. For  a few years back I used to think learning the writings of the Ari  was the most important kind of learning Torah one could do.

That thinking was based on various statements in the introduction of the Eitz Chaim itself and also the Ramchal's Pri Eitz Chaim. At some point I saw the statement of the Rambam that just  as one can't add or subtract from the written Law so with the Oral Law.  So I realized that although the Ari is an important interpretation of the Torah still it does not count as the Oral or Written Law.
That is just as the written law is fixed--the Old Testament, so the writings that constitute the Oral Law  that were complied during the period of the Tenaim and Amoraim constitute the Oral Law.

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Baali Teshuva [Newly religious] in the USA are animated by Torah. The Torah literally gives them a kind of high--but more powerful than a drug high--because the Torah high has numinousity and meaning. It has ontological significance.
Baali Teshuva in Israel are animated by group identity, by animosity towards the State of Israel and by the particular Charismatic leader they happen to be following.

How this sad state came about I don't know. But there is a cure. That is to learn Torah in the straight Lithuanian way--and stop the nonsense. At least the police are looking for the con men that are the leaders of Breslov. But why it took the Israeli Police this long to start an investigation is beyond me.
The rule is anyone under the excommunication of the Gra is a con man.Take it or leave it. But that is a fact.

The basic idea of a  excommunication is subject to a debate between the Beit Yoseph and the Rashbatz. The Rashbatz considers it to be in the category of  איסר which has the law of neder (vow). That means it חל (-it applies) on the object and even in the case of a mitzah.
The Beit Yoseph thinks we should consider it to have the stringency of both a  neder vow and a שבוע
The Magid Mishna brings an open Gemara that it has the law of a neder.

[Thus the excommunication that was signed by the Gaon of Villna is still in force and those that ignore it are in the category of transgressing a vow.]]

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I saw there has come out a book on Jews that were in Berlin during WWII. That is they were hidden  by Germans during the war. This I suppose must apply to the grandparents of my wife, Leah. They were definitely German Jews and were in Berlin during WWII. But how they managed to survive I never inquired about except just to ask once and never got any answer. It was like people that go through some kind of hard experience and afterwards cant talk about it.

My wife's mother herself had been on the kinder transport so she did not have any first hand information about how her parents had survived. 

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Schopenhauer said the "thing in itself" is the Will. I would like to claim that two levels of dinge an sich. That is I want to preserve some of Schopenhauer insights. But I also want to have mundane objects to have this aspect also of ding an sich. So I want two or more levels of this as is clear anyway from Kelly Ross--as his objects of value [which have increasing levels of numinosity] as in fact levels of this ding on sich.
But furthermore, I want to Will to be the observer. In this way, I think we come to a unique understanding of Transcendental Idealism. If the Will is the observer, then this boils down to mundane objects being dependent on the existence (i.e. idealism) of the Will, but independent of his experience (transcendent). After he makes them, they don't depends on his watching them every second in order to exist as the Rambam already said in the Guide. They are not a part of His existence though they depend on his existence.


Appendix:

(1) I forgot to mention: the one kind of ding an sich is hidden from pure reason. That is to say there is human reason which is flawed because of our being prone to reason baldly. But there is human reason that is pure. But even that reason (which is called by Kant) pure reason has a limit. Then there is the reason of the Will which created reason in the first place. That Will will have to have a higher type of reason.

And so one kind of ding an sich is hidden from pure perception and another kind is hidden from pure reason. That is the Creator of pure reason is hidden from pure reason.


(2) I am not claiming to have any knowledge of Kant or Schopenhauer. I wish I would have to the time for that. Here I am only making two suggestions based on my merge understanding of some of their major points. At some point I tried to get into Kant but it takes a tremendous amount of time.

(3) The basic questions on what I wrote up above are these: the third man problem concerning reason. and the fact that observation and experience in the above context are the same.
The that means to say I am saying there is a difference between pure reason and the reason of the First Cause. [This is well known from the Rambam.] But then we would have to have a higher reason beyond that to make the reason of the First Cause into Reason. I tried to answer this question in the above essay by the idea that God created reason itself so we don't need to postulate anything beyond that.
The second question is that Transcendental Idealism postulates the existence of the object is independent of experience [beyond experience] but dependent on the existence of the observer. If we say First Cause is the observer it seems hard to say things are beyond his experience. But for monotheism I think we have to say that.

The truth be told the path of Torah is  highly individualistic.

On one hand learning Talmud has this quality of connecting one with the Will and First Cause if done with that intention. That is for it to really work it has to be done like baali teshuva do it--for itself or "Lishma." And there is such a thing as learning all day. I mean in  the view of Reform Jews making money is either or. Either you go to collage and learn an honest profession, or you will depend on charity. That is why most Reform parents are horrified when their children decide to go to yeshiva.
And to a large degree they are right. However in the Torah we do find a third way--a path in which one learns Torah all day and yet depends that God will send to him his living needs without depending on charity. This not just some  opinion of mine. It is a direct Mishna in Pirkei Avot.

But this seems to depend totally on one motivation for learning. In this case we are not looking at teh question if an action is right or wrong independent of intention. Here the rightness or wrongness depends on intention.
In any case I find it difficult or maybe impossible to recommend learning Torah all day. I  can see that this is justified for some people depending on the pureness of their motive. But what usually see is bad results. And I thin the bad results are because the motives are not pure. But who can tell such a  thing? I can't judge other's motives. But the results are open for all to see. One Torah becomes  means for making money then the results seems to be consistently bad.

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