Talmud Sanhedrin 61b. I want to mention something that seems curious to me. The Gemara asks why don't we learn from bowing that all of quadrant II is forbidden? [That is idolatry not according to its usual way but in a way of honor.] As things are we use bowing for ללאו אצאת. So if we would use it for quadrant II then quadrant II would only be forbidden by a לאות not by כרת. Well clearly the answer to this question is obvious. The only reason we say השתחוויה  is ללאו יצאת is because there was nothing else to do with it. So if we would use it for all of quadrant II, Then all quadrant II would be כרת. So why mention this? Because now the more powerful question comes up. When the Gemara asks if we would learn from bowing then what would we use איכה יעבדו for? Why do we not ask if we would use לא תשתחחוה for quadrant II then what would זביחה come to tell us? And the answer would have to be just like in the teaching that זביחה would come for ללאו יצאת. That would end up meaning all three עבודות פנים would only be a לאו and not כרת. And that is curious. This might not seem like a big deal but to me making all three עבודת פנים to be only לאוים seems curious.


Appendix: The actual teaching goes like this: We use "How do they serve" {Deuteronomy 16}to tell us service to an idol according to its way is forbidden. We use "And so not sacrifice to them" to forbid the three kinds of service done in the Temple to God. That is sacrifice, pouring  wine, offering incense. Do not bow comes for itself. Rashi says it is just a לאו. I was thinking that perhaps our Gemara does not agree with Rashi because our Gemara treats bowing as a כרת.

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 The actual teaching goes like this. We use איכה יעבדו  to tell us service to an idol according to its way is forbidden. We use זובח לאלהים יחרם  to forbid the three kinds of service done in the Temple to an idol. That is sacrifice, pouring  wine, offering incense. לא תשתחווה comes for itself. רש''י says it is just a לאו. I was thinking that perhaps our גמרא does not agree with רש''י because our גמרא considers bowing as a כרת



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סנהדרין ס''א ע''ב ס''ב ע''א. I want to mention something that seems curious to me. The גמרא asks why don't we learn from bowing that all of the second quadrant  is forbidden?  Idolatry not according to its usual way but in a way of honor.  As things are we use bowing for ללאו אצאת. So if we would use it for the second quadrant  then the second quadrant  would only be forbidden by a לאות not by כרת. Well clearly the answer to this question is obvious. The only reason we say השתחוויה  is ללאו יצאת is because there was nothing else to do with it. So if we would use it for all of the second quadrant, then all the second quadrant  would be כרת. So why mention this? Because now the more powerful question comes up. When the גמרא asks if we would learn from לא תשתחווה then what would we use איכה יעבדו for? Why do we not ask if we would use לא תשתחחוה for  the second quadrant  then what would זביחה come to tell us? And the answer would have to be just like in the Braita that זביחה would come for ללאו יצאת. That would end up meaning all three עבודות פנים would only be a לאו and not כרת. And that is curious.

סנהדרין ס''א ע''ב ס''ב ע''א. הגמרא שואלת למה אנחנו לא לומדים שכל רביע השני אסור מהשתחוויה? (עבודה זרה לא על פי דרכה הרגילה אבל בדרך של כבוד). כפי הדברים הם משתמשים עם השתחוויה עבור "ללאו אצאת." אז אם היינו משתמשים בו עבור רביע השני אז רביע השני יהיה אסור רק  על ידי לאו ולא כרת. אבל ברורה התשובה לשאלה זו. הסיבה היחידה שאנחנו אומרים ההשתחוויה  ללאו יצאת היא כי לא היה משהו אחר לעשות עם זו. אז אם היינו משתמשים בו עבור כל רביע השני, אז כל רביע השני יהיה כרת. אז למה להזכיר את זה? כי עכשיו השאלה חזקה יותר עולה. כאשר הגמרא שואלת אם היינו לומדים עם לא תשתחווה אז מה היה "איכה יעבדו" אומר? למה אנחנו לא שואלים: אם היינו משתמשים עם "לא תשתחחוה" עבור ברביע השני, אז מה היה זביחה בא לספר לנו? והתשובה תצטרך להיות בדיוק כמו הזביחה: יצאת ללאו. זה היה בסופו של דבר כלומר כל שלוש עבודות פנים היו רק להיות לאוים ולא כרת.

the importance of learning Mediaeval books of Ethics

So we can defend Musar [that is the importance of learning Mediaeval books of Ethics] According to my last blog entry because it shows the underlying meaning of the Oral and Written Law. Plus it gives a good idea of the actual world view of Torah without distorting it to promote some agenda.

There are other reasons and I am not sure this minute how to state them.

I need I think a bouncing board like when you play tennis by yourself you have something to knock the balls against back to you.

The bouncing board I want to use is the book Plato not Prozac.

In the first chapters, Lou Marinoff, (the president of the American Philosophical Practitioners Association)  mercilessly attacks, for good reason, the dominating establishment of psychiatric therapy and counseling -- its premises, views and accomplishments. He rightly believes that this pseudo-scientific occupation has no reasonable credibility left for anyone, not even its self-serving practitioners who have become so influential in our society.

But his answer of paying for philosophical counseling seems to be exact thing that Socrates was complains about with the sophists.

But a dubious trivialization of Torah to use it in the same way or as a substitute for psychology has disturbing resemblance to modern day cults.

So what I suggest is this idea that became the modern day Lithuanian yeshiva. In spite of the problems you have with all institutions there are some institutions that have an overall good effect. The fact that by the Bell Curve most of them will be mediocre does not provide an argument against any institution.You have rather to look at the basic values and see if they correspond to Reason--that is objective morality.

Philosophy in the way mentioned by Plato not Prozac is not a good approach. But still the author has a very good idea about the fact that philosophy helps to bring to truth by  helping us separate fiction from non fiction. The approach which I think is best would combine Musar [Ethics] with the Philosophy of the Middle Ages [like the Guide of the Rambam of the book of Saadia Gaon the אמונות ודעות, Cresca, Albo, Aberbenal, etc.]

The idea of Socrates was in good measure continued by Plato and Aristotle. And Socrates wanted to find out what is right living--not happy living. And he demolished all attempts define right living in pseudo intellectual ways. This gives us a good hint to what the Rambam was thinking. He thought that Torah tells us what right living is and that the idea of the Torah could be defended even in a debate with Socrates himself in person. But he also knew Socrates would be able to demolish any attempts to justify Torah by pseudo intellectual means. And he knew the philosophy is important in order to discern what the actual message of Torah is. He was aware on the attempts of delusional people to redefine Torah in accord with their delusions.

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The issue of Ethics and Musar

The issue of Ethics and Musar was never emphasized in either yeshiva. Mainly yeshiva was for learning Talmud. Period. Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway was not a Musar Yeshiva at all. Reb Freifeld did give talks once a week about world view issues. The Mir however was a Musar yeshiva but in a practical sense that meant learning Ethics 35 minutes per day. 20 minutes before the afternoon prayer and 15 minutes before the evening prayer.

But I was turned on by Musar. To me it answered some basic questions and issues. E.g what am I doing here? The reason is some people go to yeshiva for various reasons that did not apply in my case. I had a happy home. I was accepted into UCLA before I had gone to NY. There was no reason for me to be in yeshiva at all except one thing alone --the search for Truth.

So learning Gemara (i.e.Talmud) all day you can understand was a good and great thing --but it needed a context.

Why is it relevant?

Some yeshivas did not introduce Musar because I think they were afraid of spin. That is people going off into some wild tangent, as did happen with me.
But eventually the general consensus got to be to be  a kind of compromise--not too much Musar and not too little. And that is the basic approach of good yeshivas today.

And this is the approach I think is right.

What makes this difficult to advocate is the same problem you have with all institutions. Only the top ten percent will have any real quality. Everything under that will be pure bureaucracy of no value what so ever.

The Rambam  holds by R. Natan in Bava Kama page 53a.
[A ox knocks a person into  a pit. The person that dug the pit and the owner of the ox each pays half. But we do not know if that means each is obligated in the full damages or only half. The difference is if let's say the ox had no owner. Would the person that dug the pit pay full damages?

But what was unclear if if one page 19a if the string and the chicken both have an owner if both pay 1/2.

But  the Rambam does not fit the Gemara there at all on page 19.
What I had to do to get the Rambam to fit was to say he changed the order of the questions of the Gemara so that Rav Huna was coming to answer the question איש בור ולא שור בורץ, [This might have been the actual version of the Rambam or that he himself because of some questions that I mentioned at the and of my essay he might have decided to change the version on his own.]


But there are two possibilities for Rabbi Natan. One is  when זה וזה גורם then each one is liable for all the damages. The other is that each one is liable to half the damages. So now we know that the Rambam holds the later way. Because in the case on page 19 if the string has no owner, the owner of the chicken pays only half, not full damages.
All I am saying here is just that if we say the Rambam was thinking of the law of Rabbi Natan and the sugia on page 19 as being related we come out with lots of nice results. Too many to go into here. But without this idea then  our sugia on page 19 is not what the Rambam was saying.

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I admit we do not have to say this. We could say the whole סוגיה on page י''ט is talking about דרך שינוי and then the two סוגיות will be unrelated. Fine. And that is clearly how the רא''ש understood it. But that will leave u in a position of not understanding the רמב''ם nor having any way to get him to click with our גמרא. Or we could say like I wrote and live happily ever after.





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What we know to the רמב''ם is he holds by רבי נתן in בבא קמא page נ''ג. But what was unclear was on page י''ט ע''א if the חוט and the chicken both have an owner if both pay a half.
From the language of the Rambam alone it could be that if there is an owner of the חוט Then only he pays damages at all. The reason is the only time the Rambam says the owner of the chicken pays is when there is no owner to the string.


But  the רמב''ם does not fit the גמרא there at all on page י''ט.
What I had to do to get the רמב''ם to fit was to say he changed the order of the questions of the גמרא so that רב הונא was coming to answer the question איש בור ולא שור בורץ. This might have been the actual version of the רמב''ם or that he himself because of some questions that I mentioned t the and of my essay he might have decided to change the version on his own.


But there are two possibilities for רבי נתן. One is  when זה וזה גורם then each one is liable for all the damages. The other is that each one is liable for half the damages. So now we know that the רמב''ם holds the last way. Because in the case on page י''ט if the string has no owner, the owner of the chicken pays only half, not full damages.

_________________________________________________________________________________ מה שאנחנו יודעים על הרמב''ם הוא שהוא מחזיק  בשיטת רבי נתן בבבא קמא דף נ''ג. אבל מה שלא היה ברור היה בעמוד י''ט ע''א אם החוט והתרנגולת  יש להן בעלים אם שניהם משלמים חצי. מלשון הרמב"ם לבד זה יכול להיות שאם יש בעלים של חוט ואז רק הוא משלם פיצויים בכלל. הסיבה לכך היא שהפעם היחידה שהרמב"ם אומר בעלים של העוף משלמים הוא כשאין בעלים לחוט
 הרמב''ם אינו תואם עם הגמרא  בעמוד י''ט. מה שהייתי צריך לעשות כדי להתאים את הרמב''ם היה לומר שהוא שינה את סדר השאלות של גמרא כך שרב הונא בא לענות על השאלה של "איש בור ולא שור בור". ייתכן שזו היתה הגירסה בפועל של רמב''ם או שהוא עצמו בגלל כמה שאלות שהזכרתי אולי החליט לשנות את הגרסה. אבל יש שתי אפשרויות עבור רבי נתן . אחת היא כאשר זה וזה גורם אז כל אחד מהם הוא אחראי לכל הנזקים. השני הוא שכל אחד עלול לחצי הנזקים. אז עכשיו אנחנו יודעים כי רמב''ם מחזיק הדרך האחרונה. כי במקרה בעמוד י''ט אם לחוט אין בעלים, הבעלים של העוף משלמים רק חצי, לא מלוא הנזקים

I was thinking of writing about my yeshiva years. 


 The yeshiva high school experience tends to be different from the Beit Midrash  type of experience. 
I only went to yeshiva during the Beit Midrash [18-26] years. Not high school. But I went to Reb Simcha Wassermann's yeshiva in the afternoon after school (during my high school years).

 The main thing about yeshiva is it is a powerful all encompassing experience. It is when I really got into the Torah in a way that was different than just intellectual. 
[The intellectual aspect I must admit must seem dry to people. But there is a deep energy inside the Oral and Written Law that you need to dig into in order to find.]





The basic information is that I was at Shar Yashuv for 3.5 years. 


After my first year, I was home during the summer, and that was the time I called my future wife that renewed the friendship we had had during high school. My telling her about the amazing world of yeshiva definitely lit a fuse under her. She really like hearing about how great learning Torah is. 

But Far Rockaway was  not considered in those days an Ivy League school. So I set my sights on the yeshiva that in those day had the reputation of having the deepest Torah giant in the world and that was the Reb Shmuel Berenabum at the Mir. 

Rav Shach [author of the Avi Ezri] was considered the greatest Torah scholar along with Rav Kinevsky [the author of the Kehilat Yaakov] But Reb Shmuel had the reputation of being the deepest thinker. People said about him "If you can understand his classes you can understand anything." I can not say what the difference is but I am just saying over how people thought about Rav Shach as compared to Rav Berenabum.

The was definitely a kind of atmosphere in both yeshiva that was what you would expect to find in the Garden of Eden. Some unearthly beauty. But it had a kind of numinous property which would not be the same kind of thing would feel when listening to Mozart. 


The first yeshiva learned only Gemara. It was not a Musar Yeshiva. The Mir however was a Musar yeshiva and learned about 35 minutes of Musar per day. 

In any case, there were always cults around trying to get recruits. I myself fell for their tactics. They were using the Trojan horse strategy. They would use some kind of bait to convince people that by joining their cult everything would be so much better. To me today, it seems very Satanic, but in those days there were very few warning signs. Just like in Eastern cults, like Adi Da. They had a very respectable public image that hid the deep dirt inside them.
 Only now I know the truth. But if I try to tell people no one listens because cults always work on their public image to seem respectable.

I mentioned trust in God a few times in connection with the idea of learning Torah. That was in fact the foundation stone of the Navardok yeshivas. But if you actually read the חובות לבבות [Chovot Lavavot Duties of the Heart] you can see that he expands the idea of trust in God much wider.
I mean to say that there was an idea in yeshiva "Learn Torah and God will do the rest," (but there was also the idea of השתדלות doing some effort.) But this was a more narrow than the actual idea of trust in the books of Musar. Musar expanded the idea of trust to this world and the next. That is even in terms of the next world the idea was to do your best here and to be confident that things will go OK up there. I was thinking that you could even expand the idea to learning Torah itself. You just do the learning as best as you can and accept that what you understand, you understand and what you do not, then you just go on.

[This would be like you see in the Gemara in Shabat 63 and also in tractate Avoda Zara לעולם לגרס אדם אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר forever one should just say the words of his learning  even though he forgets and even though he does not know what he is saying. I had seen this idea in a secular context but at some point I got to know Reb Simcha Wasserman [the son of Reb Elchanan Wasserman] and he gave to me the Musar book אורחות צדיקים The English title I am not sure of. It might be Paths of the Righteous--maybe. (That book goes into this in great length in שער התורה).]

 Part of the reason Americans feel betrayed by the Establishment is that many Americans went to high school and know the  basic principles upon which the USA was founded.  And they know these principles have been betrayed.

The Constitution of the USA is a good argument for Trump.

That means protection of your life and family and property is the only job of government. To protect the plain old working guy from crime from within society and from foreign invaders. Certainly it is not to bring in foreign invaders and to take your taxes to pay welfare. Nor is it the job of government to take your money and give it to people that refuse to work. [Nor is it the job of government to force people to pay for the queer choices of others. If they want to get Aids and die that is their choice. The government has no business forcing to to pay for it.]



The establishment has violated these principles.  That is both the Democrats and the G.O.P., in a way that the average working class American can feel extremely betrayed.

And the Constitution has halachic validity as it is a contract. Contracts are valid documents and have legal force in Torah law.

And outside of that it can be shown that the Constitution has philosophical validity as it embodies principles that are defensible by means of reason. That is it takes the best from Pericles's Athens, John Lock and Montesquieu and combines them in a way that bring these principles into action.

Part of the reason Americans feel betrayed by the Establishment is that many Americans went to high school and know the  basic principles upon which the USA was founded.  And they know these principles have been betrayed.

And for the general public I should mention that the basic principles of the USA are actually well founded philosophical principles. But more Americans are aware of them because many people learned about thee ideas that got incorporated into the Constitution when in high school. Just for  a fast refresher that means limited government, private property, civil space of private affairs where government has no business [Hobbes], rights to your own stuff and family. Even the USSR never had free stuff. If a person did not work in the USSR he did not collect an unemployment check. He went straight to jail.  [Check it out. I ought to know.]
Everyone was required to have a workbook that showed his present employer. A month that nothing was written there was enough to send  a person to a soviet work camp. And believe me when people had to find work they found all kinds of creative ways to do so.

I was looking at my notes on Bava Kama [in the little booklet that God granted to me to write on the Talmud] and I noticed that there was some points about the Rambam I had not made clear. I might try right now to clarify them but without any Gemara I can not check my work. In any case what I wanted to say was this.

Talmud Bava Kama 19b.
The case is a chicken with a string attached to its foot. A vessel gets caught in the string and breaks.
The Rambam deals with two cases. One is when the string has an owner in which case the owner pays half if someone tied the string on purpose. The other case is when the string has no owner. Then the owner of the chicken pays half if someone tied the string on purpose.



What if the string and the chicken both have owners?
There are several possible meanings of the Rambam. One is both pay half. (This would be like Rabi Natan on Bava Kama page 59.) One is that the owner of the string alone pays half.

The problem that I addressed in my notes was that the Rambam does not correspond to our Gemara at all. I did not even bring up the issue of these last two possibilities because there is nothing in that Rambam which fits with our Gemara. The way I dealt with that was at first to try tofind some way to get them to fit together. Then I saw the Gra wrote about this Rambam "it is not understandable" I realized there was no way to get them to fit. [The Gra wrote that in his commentary on the Shulchan Aruch which brings the words of the Rambam word for word.]

So what I wanted to say now was the I thought either the Rambam had a different version or that because of the question I wrote at the end of my notes that he decided himself the true version was different than what was in front of him. Based on that I reconstructed what I thought was the Rambam's version.

This is all old hat. I wrote all of this before. But what I wanted to add was two points. The first I already added to my notes. It is that according the version I think was the Rambam' version it does come out that both would pay half so full damages would be paid. [But this is still debatable. Even in my version it could be that since it is a Not common thing the total amount would be half damages.]
But furthermore if both pay half then this comes out like Rabi Natan on page 59 and that is a good result.
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The רמב''ם deals with two cases. One is when the string has an owner in which case the owner pays half if someone tied the חוט on purpose. The other case is when the חוט has no owner. Then the owner of the chicken pays half if someone tied the חוט on purpose.

What if the string and the chicken both have owners?
There are several possible meanings of the רמב''ם. One is both pay half. This would be like רבי נתן on בבא קמא דף נ''ט . One is that the owner of the string alone pays half.

But furthermore if both pay half then this comes out like רבי נתן on דף נ''ג and that is a good result.


הרמב''ם עוסק בשני מקרים. האחד הוא כאשר לחוט יש בעלים ובמקרה הזה הבעלים משלמים חצי אם מישהו קשר את החוט בכוונה. המקרה השני הוא כאשר לחוט אין בעלים. ואז בעלים של העוף משלמים חצי אם מישהו קשר את החוט בכוונה. מה אם החוט ואת העוף לשניהם יש בעלים? ישנן מספר משמעויות אפשריות של הרמב''ם. אחת הוא שכל אחד משלם חצי. זה יהיה כמו רבי נתן על בבא קמא דף נ''ג. האחרת היא כי הבעלים של החוט לבד משלמים חצי. לפי מה שכתבתי שהיא גירסת הרמב''ם יוצא כמו רבי נתן.

Musar/Ethics

Israel Salanter's Musar Movement was to get people to learn Musar which means a basic set of medieval books on ethics. That is about just four books. Then in the penumbra a larger set of about 30 books. written during the Renaissance. Then a even wider penumbra of books that got added to that original set by his disciples. Isaac Blasser. Joseph Yosel Horwitz [the Alter of Navardok], Simcha Zissel from Kelm and the Alter of Slobadka.



I was thinking of finding an argument to prove the point of Reb Israel Salanter that learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] is important. It occurred to me that we can not know our "self." We can know our "self" exists but not what is going on deep inside. Our motivations--what causes us to act or think things is hidden from us. Not only that when we think we know our motivations we come up with contradictions.. One motivation is wrapped up inside of another. One day we think our motivation is one thing and then next day we find ourselves acting in ways that completely and directly contradict what we thought was motivating us the day before. We know the self exists but we do not know what is going on down there. We however know its surface. It is like an ocean. The depths are hidden but the surface we can see plainly. We know if we feel hot or cold, happy or sad, etc. Reb Israel thought the way to penetrate and effect the self is by learning Medieval  Ethics.

Not by prayer or talking with God as in a conversation. Conversing with God is not that different than talking to yourself. You are only reaching the surface level. You know what you are thinking and feeling an that is what you are commuting to God. There is nothing there that penetrates into the hidden levels of the self to change one from evil to good.

We can know one thing about our "self" we know our commitments. We know of we are committed to the Ten Commandments or not. We know if we are committed to keeping the Moral Law. And this commitment is strengthened by learning Musar.


I am borrowing ideas of Kant here.

On a side note Kant thought the ontological proof was not valid. And this goes along with his idea that pure reason can't penetrate into unconditioned realities. But he did write that as far existence goes of the the dinge an sich--we can know it exists. But we cant know it character. Thus a proof of the existence of God is possible. But he did not think the ontological one was very good. And this to some degree shows why I wrote the above proof at the top of my blog  the first cause idea. [Which I really borrowed from Aristotle. Not his first mover idea but rather this very basic idea itself which I saw one a long time ago at the beginning of his set of books called Physics.]

Music for the glory of God

n18  n40 n41 n44   n47 n51 n52 mathematics  r1  q96 E flat major  q96 F major   q1

n90 n89 n87
 n85  n83 n82 n81 n80 n51 r14

a nice utube about counter jihad

Trump on utube  another utube from Judge Jeanine [This last one is very impressive]



I am thinking of what kind of argument can I put forward to support Trump.
I think I would have to approach this from several directions. First the Constitution of the USA. But I do not mean the actual document. I mean this more as what you learn in high school about the principles that went into making the Constitution. But then I would have to  draw on the previous thinkers that their works provided the basis for the Constitution. --Pericles, Locke, Montesquieu, Hobbes.

Then I would also have to show that the establishment has violated these principles.  That is both the Democrats and the G.O.P. in a way that the average working class American can feel extremely betrayed.

Jewish worldview issues are not divorced from Plato and Aristotle. Most of Jewish Philosophy in the Middle Ages was highly linked to  Platonic and Aristotelian ideas. Thus it is not possible to understand  what the Rambam and Saddia Gaon and the  Rishonim were saying about the world view of Torah without background in Aristotle and Plato. But I have not done enough work in this area I admit. I am only suggesting this as a proper point of investigation.


The problem is the time issue. How much time can you really spend on this and  learning Talmud and a vocation both? Yet without this knowledge of the world view of Torah, what happens is people unconscionably absorb the world view of their surrounding culture.

It must be remembered that someone can inherit social scripts without being self-aware that they are doing so. Everyone can learn a language simply by exposure, knowledge of grammar is secondary and hard won. Unfortunately, this only makes it even more insidious.

And then when they learn the Rambam or Saadia Gaon it sounds foreign because they themselves have absorbed a false world view that they think is Torah.

It is a sign of enormous self delusion if one thinks he understands the world view of the Torah so perfectly so as to dismiss the Rambam and Saadia Gaon as irrelevant and even outright wrong.

Even though it is a hard book probably the best thing in terms of world view issues is the Rambam's Guide with the commentary of Joseph Albo. [That is the regular traditional one that you used to see around in yeshivas.] But it has that quality that I find in many books that the surface layer is outrageous but if you can peel away the surface the inner core is astounding and relevant. [But you need a lot of confidence ("faith in the wise") to believe that sub-level is there in order to find it.]

For the public: Jewish thought was neo-Platonic up until the Rambam. The Rambam people think went radically in the direction of Aristotle. But I am not so sure. He also seems neo-Platonic to me. He had great respect for Aristotle but that was anyway the approach of the Neo Platonics. Plotinus had used Aristotle to get a better idea of what Plato was saying.

It is my thinking that if one could manage to put all his efforts into learning a vocation and learning Torah that things will turn out well. But that  takes much effort. 


 Without the will to do the work, not much can turn out right.. One need drive and a vision and to put your drive and vision in the right direction. Torah with a vocation.

Or if one can manage to put all his trust in God, and then to learn Torah all day, that is an even better option. But it means to actually trust in God, not a kollel paycheck. Most people in kollel think that learning Torah is a valid means to make money. This results in the type of cults that are common.
But if one in fact is trusting in God and accepting a kollel check as what it is (charity) then the kollel option seems good to me.


Where do cults come from?

I believe charismatic leaders correctly note that most people are neither skeptics nor self-motivated, and that many are easily duped by gurus because they want someone to show them the way to live a meaningful life and to get support and  a sex life [shiduch] by being attached to their institution. They offer to show their followers the way to true wakefulness, a state of awareness and vitality which transcends ordinary consciousness. The leader attracts  writers, artists, wealthy widows and other questing souls to work  for him in exchange for sharing his wisdom. They offer numerous claims and explanations for everything under the moon, rooted in little more than his own imagination and never tempered with concern for what science might have to say about his musings.

r13 a minor r13 in midi format  r13 in nwc format

But I got some idea of the world view of Torah by hanging out with my parents and grandparents, Simcha Wasserman [Elchanan Wassermann's son], Reb Shelomo Freifeld the Rosh Yeshiva of Shar Yashuv and Shmuel Berenbaum the rosh yeshiva of the Mir.

The rebuke thing is in fact a difficult subject. It was only recently that I saw in a Musar book called "Even Shelma" אבן שלמה that one should say rebuke even if it will not be accepted. But in any case I have mentioned things to people over many years. So I think I have fulfilled the obligation.

It was in the Shelah [שני לחות הברית] that I first saw this idea of rebuke being an obligation even of you know the person will not accept. 
But to know when or how to rebuke you need to know the Oral and Written Law pretty well to know if something is really right or wrong. And that includes issues of "world view." Because major points of halachah depend on world view. For example when is something idolatry?

 But I got some idea by hanging out with my parents and grandparents, Simcha Wasserman [Elchanan Wassermann's son], Reb Shelomo Freifeld (the Rosh Yeshiva of Shar Yashuv),  Shmuel Berenbaum the rosh yeshiva of the Mir.
But in any case, I have spent some time trying to understand the basic path of Torah. The "World View of Torah" or what is called "השקפה" "World view" was not learned in yeshiva at all. Not in Shar Yashuv nor in the Mir. But I tried anyway to pick it up. When I realized that a lot of claims were made by groups to be keeping the Torah whose main emphasis was to try to show themselves as more religious than others so as to get more charity it dawned on me that these things should not be taken at face value.

The basic issues of world view were first tackled by Saadia Gaon then the Duties of the Heart, Ibn Gavirol, Maimonides, Crescas, Joseph Albo. Most of their works were rejected that thought they knew better. As if we know better than the Rambam of Saadia Gaon what the Torah is about. That takes gall and self delusion.

Reb Shmuel Berenbaum, I knew partly by his classes at the Mir and his shiur klali and the Musar talks that he gave for  a year and by hanging out with him on Shabat and Motzai Shabat at his home.
The same went for Shelomo Freifeld. But Rav Freilfeld did not give classes. but I still hung out with him at his home. [After some years I went to NYU but that was more for the idea of getting a vocation [Physics]. I did not think using Torah for money was a good idea. And in any case I was out of the Yeshiva World at the time. Not that I would not like to be learning Torah. If only I had the merit to do so!
[I used to go to Simcha Wasserman on Shabat. But when it came time to go to Yeshiva I went to NY where the action was. That is where I met Reb Shmuel Berenabum who had the reputation of being the deepest Torah scholar in the world. From what I could tell that reputation was well deserved.

One problem of hanging out with any kind of hasidic groups is that is that the main objective of these groups is to bring one close to their deity. If they would be straight up and forward about their intentions it would not be so bad. But they use Torah as camouflage  to hide what they are really up to. [Also it is bad for one's sanity to hang out with insane people..]

I would like to back this up with evidence. Years horrible experiences should be enough. Seeing what they do to others also should be enough. But there has been some writing about this kind of thing already and it does not change anyone's mind. Also I can not write about negative experiences since then I lose my frame of mind and get upset and can't function.


Plus the problem with this is אבק לשון הרע. The dust of Lashon Hara. That is even if you know what you are saying is true, but it will not be accepted and that will cause you to be suspected of saying Lashon Hara is also a kind of "dust of Lashon Hara" even if true and even if you fulfilled all seven conditions of the Chafetz Chaim.

While on that note I have to mention that the seven conditions are only for obligations between man and his fellow man as the Chafetz Chaim goes into in chapter 7 [vol 1]. As for obligations between Man and God that is chapter 4 and the conditions are different. I have certainly fulfilled all the conditions including rebuke. For people that will not accept rebuke you have no choice but to make their actions known so as to warn others. I would rather have never been in a position to know the truth about this. But after I know the truth I have no choice but to make it known. [If I would not know this then I could simply learn Torah. But now there is nothing to do because silence about the terrible evils of these groups is not allowed because of the verse לא תעמוד על דם רעיך Do not stand by while the blood of innocents is spilled.]

I should add that I think some effort should made in the direction of showing that the Lithuanian yeshiva world is the exact opposite of all the above. While far from perfect it certainly comes close to a moral, decent, wholesome society--or at least as close to that ideal that I have seen.

A nice utube about the USA Army   Not Afraid. Trump

Bill Whittle

r12 g minor mp3 midi nwc

r12 g minor

ditto midi r12 nwc

Just for the record I am pro Constitution of the USA for a few reasons. Mainly because I see its principles being in accord with the Torah. The Sanctity of Life. Freedom with Responsibility within the limits set by law. There is a command in the Torah "Thou shalt not steal." And the idea behind that command is there is such a thing as private property that no one has the right to touch besides the owner and to whom the owner gives permission. That is even if some group can get the government to do its stealing for them it is still stealing. That is Socialism is ruled out by the Torah. Abortion is ruled out by the Torah. People taking authority at all is ruled out by the Torah. Not just government. The only authority anyone can have by the Torah is what the laws of the Torah already say or by means of contract. And the Constitution is a contract.

This might be a good idea to defend this thesis in more detail. But in short I am against the Democrats and also the Republicans because I do not think either goes by the Constitution. I would rather see someone like Trump that would clean out the Aegean stables of government.

That is from my Jewish point of view. But there is also philosophical justification for this based on Kant and the autonomy of the individual. I have hid myself in the sand in terms of politics the last eight year because was stunned at what was occupying the White House. But it seems like I am not the last American to remember there is a Constitution and a lot of us are angry at the government for taking what does not belong to them.

[In High School we went through USA History and principles very well. . We had to go through the original documents of many parts of USA history. It was probably the most challenging class I ever took. In any case, I gained a great appreciation of the the USA is, and what made it what it is. Seeing it crumble and its founding principles stomped on by the government has been traumatizing.]

I was trying to figure out a good argument for Lithuanian yeshivas. And it occurred to me that that best argument is not a rational argument at all but something that goes much deeper. There is this idea that the soul before it is born into a physical body sees the glory of heaven. It sees Truth, Beauty and Love. Or it sees the virtues. Then it falls and comes into this world. Then it longs to get back to this wondrous vision. But it can't find anything that reminds it of its blessed state before the fall. So it goes around  empty. It is just going through the motions. Then one day it walks into a Lithuanian yeshiva and feels what it has been missing. Truth, Beauty and Love. It can not rationalize what it feels but it knows that this place reminds him of some blessed place before it fell.

But that is not every soul. There are souls that are attracted to ugliness, evil and hate. And there are plenty of  yeshivas that are full of ugliness, hate and gossip. But those places are not Lithuanian. They are counterfeit yeshivas. But there are still many souls attracted to these counterfeit places because their souls are drawn towards the ugliness and gossip

It is a mitzvah to warn people about evil groups. Furthermore even if they do not listen it is still a mitzvah based on the Gra.

The prohibition about slander does not prevent one from warning his children or anyone that will listen about bad groups. The Chafetz Chaim goes into detail about this. In fact the major thing to warn your children about is destructive groups. This is because of the fact that the group one is involved with has the most influence on how one acts and even how one thinks.

The most common defense on any evil group is, "You can't generalize." But that is a false defense. You must generalize.  Group behavior and group tendencies are real things. We tend to think about Nazis that they acted in certain specific ways. We do not say "You can't generalize."

You could go further to say there is such a thing a group merit or group guilt. That is just by being part of  a meritorious group one gains something, and that being part of  an evil group, one loses.



In fact, generalizing is very beneficial and is used quite successfully in many areas of society - such as when the insurance industry analyzes the average frequency of an event (i.e. a house-fire) in order to offer protection to the individual homeowner while still reliably turning a profit. The government generalizes as well when they pass such laws as speed limits with fines for punishment. It is fully understood that not all of the people will reduce their speed, but most of them will and therefore, it works to keep most people driving at a reasonable speed and makes the roads safer - which is the positive result that is being sought.

The religious world is evil. This is generalization based on many years of experience. Not one or two examples. And knowing this I am obligated to warn others.
[I can not go into details in writing about particular incidents. The reason mainly is based on two things. One is it involves saying bad things. And I would rather not dwell on negative things. I am sensitive to that. I can not function at all when my mood is down. I cant learn, I cant write music. I need to run to a mikveh or a stream or river and sometimes that is not convenient. It takes me hours to relax and get into a kind of decent frame of mind. And thinking about hurtful incidents in the past does terrible damage to my psyche. 

[The other reason is even if I need to say something to warn others, I would rather keep it to a minimum because the idea of Lashon Hara became very ingrained in me.] 

]

religious world

The prohibition to speak slander is popular  by people that speak slander. They feel it gives them a pass for all the evil and damage they cause, but shields them from anyone that would dare speak about them.

However that still does not except one from knowing the laws and knowing when and where one must speak up and when he must not.
The basic conditions are different for בין אדם לחברו and בין אדם למקום. [Between man and his fellow man and between man and God.]

The seven famous conditions of the Hafetz Haim are for the first category. [To see it oneself. To give rebuke, etc.]  In any case, it is precisely because of this that I speak up about the religious world seeing their collective guilt and complicity in great evils.
I have mentioned the excommunication that the Gra signed -but the reason is not because I depend on it, but rather that I have seen in real life how everything he said was correct.

Yet still evil people think they can be shielded by means of the Hafetz Haim.
[Like the chicken in the horse stall that yelled at the horses, "We should all stop moving around so we do not trample on each other.]"]



To understand the Hafetz Haim it is necessary to know his sources.This is because seeing from where he gets the Halacha from sheds light on its application.

One thing you do not see in the Hafetz Haim itself is the difference between the Rambam and Rabainu Yonah. Rabbainu Yona does in fact prohibit Lashon Hara even for true things because he needs certain conditions to be meet. These conditions are the sources for the famous seven conditions of the Hafetz Haim. He does not want damage to be caused to the object more than what would be caused if he was judged in Beit Din according to Din Torah. Reb Elhanan Wassermann noticed that to Rabbainu Yonah, Lashon Hara on truth is not forbidden for itself, but because of collateral damage.

 The Rambam wrote  about the “hidden law.”  He wrote that the Torah forbids actions across the board that which should be forbidden in almost all situations, even though the Torah knows if a dire emergency did arise, good people would act outside the law, do what had to be done. See for example Eliyahu the Prophet on Mount Carmel.

r3 a music file in mp3 and midi. Lashon Hara/Slander לא תלך רכיל העמיך "Thou shalt not go around as a slanderer among your people." Leviticus

Lashon Hara is a very important subject. I was introduced to this at the Mir Yeshiva in NY. And it was a major area of emphasis for the Rosh yeshiva, Reb Shmuel Berenbaum. In fact, there was a time the secular Russian cooks in the kitchen had made some mistake regarding meat and milk, and people went to him to complain. And he was furious about the people that had complained. And the next day at the normal Musar Shmuz (talk) [Thursday] he made a very big deal about incident. [It was not the normal subject of his Musar. The normal subject was to learn Torah. But he was very strict personally about Lashon Hara. And I always noticed that people that were strict about Lashon Hara always were notably more successful in their learning Torah than people who were not. I tried to work hard on the book the Chafetz Chaim (Laws of Lashon Hara). I think I might have gone through it with the commentary at the bottom at least once, word for word. [I think so, but I am not sure]. [I spent a good deal of time on the other Musar books of the Chafetz Chaim. I think I might have gone through most of them. But at the time I was also trying to do the Musar of the Rishonim [Mediaeval Musar] and the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter so I do not think I finished every single book of the Chafetz Chaim. I was trying to get through all the schools of Musar/Navardok, Kelm, Slobodka, Naphtali Amshterndam, Isaac Blasser.  That was besides regular Gemara things I needed to be doing. 

r3 is some music.  [r3 in midi]  r3 in nwc

When the whole world turned against me, I was aware I was not going to be able to be as strict as I wanted to be in Lashon Hara. This is hard to explain in writing this minute. I can explain this but maybe not this second. 

[If I would have to explain this it would be thus: If a group is known to be good, and yet because of personal experience you know they are evil, then it is very hard to be careful in Lashon Hara. You can't agree with people and yet you can't disagree. Even if you would want to go into the sordid details no one will believe you so it ends up you transgress the prohibition anyway. If teh general public was more aware of the laws of Lashon Hara I might be able to explain this better. But in a nut shell that is about teh best I can do.

So at that point I decided the most important thing would be to speak the truth always at all cost. 

Also, I think learning programming is very important. Though I would normally say that getting a full university education is important but nowadays universities are off the right path except for the major ones: Stanford, NYU, Cal Tech, MIT.  For some reason some universities put pseudo science into their curriculum [e.g. social "sciences" and humanities. Now there in one oxymorn and one case of false advertizment.]

[1] I hold that learning Physics is  a kind of service towards God even if you do not understand what you are reading. [I mean this in connection with learning Torah. That is I recommend daily sessions, Some part in Torah, and some part in Physics.]

The idea I borrow from the regular idea that we already know that learning Torah is a mitzvah even if you do not know what you are reading. But I would like to expand this idea to the natural sciences also based on the Rambam.

The places that say learning Torah is a mitzvah even when you do not know the meaning of the words is from the Gemara itself and also the Ari. [The Gemara says לעלם לגרס אדם אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר. The Ari says what one learns in this world but was not able to understand, when he gets to the next world he will understand.

The source for the idea that learning Physics  is a mitzvah  is from the Rambam, the Duties of the Heart and all the many rishonim who brings the words of the Rambam word for word in their Musar books. [The only two original sources are actually the Rambam and the חובות ללבות. After that people just quote the Rambam's first chapter in Mishna Torah about the way to come to love and fear of God is by learning and contemplating his great works. My reasoning is however based on what we know that the Rambam meant by how he explained himself in the Guide. The later Musar books do not actually quote the Guide itself on this issue. And in fact all later Musar  is  against all kind of secular learning. It is only the original Musar that goes along with the Rambam. Personally I was not clear on this issue until at some point I started noticing things that caused me to think the Rambam was right.]
For example  super hyper religiosity does not seem to result in human decency. What brings about human decency seems to be the balanced approach of the Rambam.







[2] But I don't have a large array of promises to make for this. Many times we find charismatic leader of idolatry make promises of what one will gain by surrender to the all holy leader or by some kind of holy practice that he said to do. I don't have any of these kinds of promises. And I think it is not good to make such promises. I.e. I think the promises of "tzadikim" to do such and such a thing and thereby gain this world and the next are not possible to back up with facts.

I think it is best just to keep the Torah like it says and not to look further than that.

[3] Also I think the first step to keeping Torah is to avoid all the cults that pretend to keep Torah.  Mainly Hasidim.

[4] I see promises being made for different kinds of things. mediation. certain mantras, certain prayers, etc. I am not impressed with the results I see in people following these practices. Mainly chasidim I have found to be amazingly despicable, though the original founder may have been admirable.

[5] There should be sessions of learning that are more in depth. For this reason for some years I would say every paragraph forwards and backwards  in order to get the ideas more clearly. This method did help me very much when I was at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.

in a case in a case where learning Torah from someone who really knows is not possible, I recommend learning Rav shach's Avi Ezri and the lectures of Rav Nachum of the Mir.

r11 p129 e flat major

Some are more subtle. They seize every possible means of seeming kosher in order to hide the central figurine that they worship. But the rituals only serve as a public distraction. Their idolatry is not Jewish in spite of the protests to the contrary.

religious people need some central figure to concentrate upon, something on which to focus their minds. 

Zen Buddhists  say, "If you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately."  If you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately, otherwise he will kill you. Don't allow him a single chance, otherwise he will possess you and he will become a central figure. 
That is, religious world gets possessed by an graven image.  An arch type. 

The mind of the religious person wraps itself around this central figure. For  certain kinds of mind, a  central object is needed. This is what the Torah is trying to save us from. 

Some  are more subtle. They seize every possible means of seeming kosher in order to hide the central figurine that they worship. But the rituals only serve as a public distraction. Their idolatry is not Jewish in spite of the protests to the contrary. 


One of my reason for not being involved in the Charedi world is that it has been taken over by idolatry and that seems to me to make the whole thing not kosher. In this regard Reform and conservative Judaism are kosher because they are not doing idolatry nor do they acquiesce to it, nor make excuses for it. They might not be keeping everything that a Jew is obligated to do but they at least are not serving other gods. That makes them a lot more kosher than the religious .

The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on- sordid shenanigans are not a good advertisement  for their beliefs. I don't reject this tradition in total , nor deny that there is value in it; and indeed a vital implicit message for people which is that meaningless existence  is probably the main problem of the modern world. 

But for all my interest,  that I found the individuals involved to be off-putting. Indeed, among the scores of teachers and authors I encountered -(set aside group members), there were barely a handful I found tolerable as persons or whose lifestyle seemed admirable (in so far as I could discover this): they were and are not an impressive bunch (at least, not to me).This was confirmed by visits spaced out over  years-  areas being the center of all that is the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on; and a places that  had more hyperbolic praise for their special and wonderful atmosphere than perhaps anywhere else.I  believing the legends and stories was intrigued. However --- I found these places and people as at best underwhelming; and  in fact, mostly somewhat unpleasant - with a seedy, fake and slightly sinister feel about them; and (with a few exceptions) a much higher than usual head count of apparently damaged, emotionally-desperate or exploitative, and manipulative  people.

This contrasts with my experience of real working class people and regular Lithuanian Yeshiva type of people, where (without going over the top about it) there are  some very decent and trust-worthy people, the general atmosphere is considerably more wholesome than average, and there is a fair bit of courage, integrity, beauty and a lot more altruism than I myself am capable of. Something to look up to. 

A lot of this boils down to s-e-x (variously  promiscuous, and rape of children) - I strongly suspect that the usual, mainstream secular and materialist motivation of sex is powerfully at work on or just below the surface of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on spirituality - and there are very few who are exempt. This means that whatever spirituality is on-the-go is - in practice - put into a subordinate place; and the spiritual side really doesn't work as the primary motivator. It would be going too far - but not much too far - to suggest that the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on in real life (as opposed to in theory) seem to operate like a gigantic rationalization for aspiration for sordid shenanigans!  The damage they cause in individual lives is enormous and always denied. They leave trails of broken people and marriages where ever they go. Rape of children is the most common thing that I hear about in every the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on group, but that is not the whole story. It is just a constant underlying factor

It makes sense that exploitation soon follows then. Sex seems to be the most powerful, or most abused, tool in the marketers/profiteers arsenal. The fake  appropriation Torah is a shame. 

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In a university or legitimate Lithuanian yeshivas, the incompetent get weeded  out by competition. It’s only in societies like the ones built by the the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on and other status oriented types that the incompetent become the institution and wind up in positions of unassailable power, locking everyone else down to their piss-poor levels of performance. The main thing for them is the appearance of competence, not actual competence.
The major focus is credentials. The credentials are always given by equally incompetent frauds.
 This is one of the reasons the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on societies QUICKLY become hell on Earth. Because you can’t get rid of everyone who is competent without the rest of society collapsing.  

______________________________________________________________________

The way to get clarity is by study of cults. Once you see the claims and practices of your supposedly enlightened groups are the same you gain insight into what is really going on.

Look up the Chafetz Chaim Vol. I chapter 4 for the reasons why I am obligated to make this information public.  Also see Vol I chapter 7 for the בין אדם לחבירו reasons.

I mean to say that there are two very different aspects of Lashon Hara  and each one needs to be dealt with separately before one can publish a statement like this. Obligations between man and his fellow man is one part and obligation between Man and God is the other part. Since the problems are in both areas I have had to make sure I would fulfill all the conditions necessary before I could write the above essay. 

The super-organism is an argument why starting a Lithuanian yeshiva is a good thing.

See the book by Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle.  But he was not arguing for  Litvak Yeshiva. but rather for an American kind of Democracy. But I think the argument [I mean building on what he was saying] can be used to support the idea of why it is good to have a Litvak yeshiva around even if you do not learn there or even if you are not religious at all.

My reasoning is simple. Why not learn the Oral and Written Law at home? Well, on one hand certainly that is a good idea. I am not objecting to anyone who wants to  avoid all the hassle and simply buy a few books of the Gemara and learn at home. But you know already what the drawback is. The only way it gets into you is by being in a Lithuanian yeshiva. Even if you are a genius and can learn at home and understand it, still the קנין בנפש-acquiring it into one's soul-does not happen outside of a Litvak Yeshiva. Period.   The reason is obviously because of the super-organism.

And what is the advantage of this? Well, at least two things I can think of off hand. One is Midot [character ]and the other is the Heidegger Dilemma. That last thing is that modern life is meaningless.
 Reason has a limit as Kant noted. It can not venture into unconditioned realities.

The idea here is that you get two advantages by a Litvak Yeshiva. One is improvement in character. The other is it gives a connection with the meaning of life from the realm of good. [As we know people can find the meaning of their lives from the Dark Realm. And I would like to avoid that. So instead I recommend something that gives a connection with the bright, and holy  side of things.]

Jews in the U.S. support left-wing causes not for the causes themselves, but because they see those causes as a way to stick it to the Christian majority.

An excerpt from an essay from this site
This is critique and perhaps it hurts. But the best thing when you hear critique is the first evaluate if it is true, or even if some small part of it is true. And if it is, then to accept it, and to try to work on correcting the situation

Here is the excerpt:

"Jews in the U.S. support left-wing causes not for the causes themselves, but because they see those causes as a way to stick it to the Christian majority. I don’t think most of them do this consciously. But a lot of them equate “white America” with “oppression” and “conformity” and believe the patriarchal white majority is something that needs to be usurped.

This explains why Jews were the architects of feminism and the backers of the ’60s Civil Rights Movement. What better way to screw up Christian families and majority-Christian neighborhoods? This also explains a lot [about] 20th century art. 

Put it all together, and basically it comes down to “how can we destroy the Christians of America?”. Christians — or people who just think Christianity is what helped make America."


That is the basic idea of the critique. There is much to discuss about this problem. The best way to deal with this that I can see is simply to stop endorsing bad stuff when it seems  the things that make them interesting are that they hurt Christians.

Idolatry does not bother anyone unless it happens to be an idol they don't like.

But many Jews were Democrats because Democrats were like Kennedy. No one saw where it was leading to. Now many Jews are going definite Republican and pro traditional Judaic Christian society values.

The reason for the above essay is to address those that are still part of the Anti American Democratic party.

Ideas in Shas

What I am doing in the Gemara is mainly based on how I learned how to learn in Shar Yashuv. In the Mir in NY, Reb Shmuel Berenbaum was largely dealing with what you could call Global Issues. That is how the Gemara in front of you fits in with the rest of Shas. And he would do this based on the regular achronim, Reb Chaim Baruch Ber, R Akiva Eiger etc.

But what I am doing is more like working on the actual calculating the sugia on the page itself. And sometimes I go into how it relates to other sugiot.
The thing about the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn was that each of the four Roshei Yeshiva knew Shas very well and almost all of their classes had to do with "global issues"- how the subject on teh page related to other areas in Shas. It was in Far Rockaway that I had gotten the idea that the first step is to work on the subject on the page completely before looking into the issue of how it relates elsewhere.

The original idea of Navardok was trust in God as you can see in the book מדרגת האדם which is really a fantastic book. But after Isaac Blasser discussed with the Alter of Navardok [Joseph Horvitz] the importance of public work, the focus became making yeshivas. "Yeshiva" here means places that learn Talmud all day. That has little to do with modern usage of the term. The modern yeshiva is  a chat factory.
But there are a few notable exceptions which hearken back to the original idea.

I would not bring this up if I did not think there is something very special about this kind of institution. But extreme care must be taken that if one starts such a thing, that it not go off course.

My own experience in yeshiva was remarkable. I mean it was luminous. But for some reason my steps were guided towards authentic yeshivas. For all I know, I could have been guided towards very bad places [cults whose main focus is on the worship of their leader]. [It was the son of Elchanan Wassermann who told me about Shar Yashuv.]

 I was guided towards two very great places. Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. Shar Yashuv is more for beginners and the Mir in NY is for more advanced levels. But both places were prime examples of what a yeshiva ought to be.

But to describe what a yeshiva ought to be is not easy. Mainly I would say it is a link between Reason and Revelation. That is one works on the hard details of what the Torah is telling us by reason. But somehow that reason approaches the Divine. It is a kind of symbiosis between numinous reality and the mind. You can't really say what it is-but you know the instant you walk in the door.

I really have no idea what it takes to make such a place. But I was drawn to authentic places. [Then my own stupidity got me involved in insane cults.] [But the nice thing about being in an authentic yeshiva is that you never, ever forget the taste of the "real thing."]
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Maybe I should hide this fact but here it is anyway. I had an emotional connection with both yeshivas. I was in the kind of dilemma that is described by Heidegger. The emptiness of modern life was oppressing me. When I walked into  a place learning Torah in an authentic way I felt like I could breathe. So I admit there was an emotional component to all this. It was not just intellectual curiosity.

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Just for background information for those that might not know. The major authentic yeshivas today are few. The list is short. Ponovitch, Brisk, Mir in NY, Chaim Berlin in NY, Torah VeDaat in NY.
[Tifrach I have heard good things about, but it is mainly a branch of Ponovitch.]

Hasidic so called "yeshivas" are dens of the Dark Side. The sexual abuse of children is already on police record in Israel. I think that this comes from the origins of the movement. And even non hasidic people  that are aware of this are silent because of the power of the movement. They are afraid of taking it on least they lose their jobs. But constant patterns of behavior shows that the child abuse is not accidental but an integral part of the movement.

Possibly the most consistent argument one is faced with when discussing politically incorrect subjects is the knee-jerkingly reflexive, "You can't generalize like that!" This is usually followed with an anecdote about someone's friend 

Any logical person will soon realize that when discussing macro-issues in regard to society and its trends, not only can you generalize but in fact you must generalize. 

Condensed from here  

I take it that when you see consistent behavior in group that it is obligatory to generalize even though you know there are exceptions.

Music

r8 [r8 in midi]   r9 [r9 in midi] mathematics bar yochai [bar yochai in midi] chs [chs in midi] b104 [b104 in midi]   b101 e36 [e36 in midi] e33 [e33 in midi]  b105  b100 b98

i am very sick so if anyone wants to see the mathematics file or the b files in midi format with the notes i think i must have put the links somewhere else on this blog. right now i have no energy.  

פילגש girl friend. Not the same as prostitute.
To the Rambam it is an איסור עשה--a prohibition that is derived from a positive command. To most Rishonim it is permitted.
I have pointed out that כלב בן יפונה had what you would call a few wives and girls friends. Kalev Ben Yefuna was the friend of Joshua. He was righteous and the only person in the entire OT that it says about him וימלא אחרי השם "he went totally after God." You can find the relevant verses in Chronicles.

Christians clearly would not agree with this because of reasons I do not understand. Maybe they think  Paul can override this? Maybe they are not aware? I really am not sure.  I any case it is not my business.

I m not recommending this idea as a first option. It is only in case you find yourself wifeless. Then a girlfriend is a very good and permissible option.  And even if if you have  a wife, it is still a good option.

The reason Christians are against this is mainly Paul. There are two Pauls. One is the marriage is not good but better than worse things. The other Paul is the Acts of Paul and Thecla which hold that marriage is sin. In any case no of this has relevance for the Old Testament. In the Old Testament ניאוף adultery has a very specific definition and it has nothing to do with sex outside of marriage. It is specifically sex with a married woman with one who is not her husband. A man can have many wives and sex with all of them and that is not adultery. And he can even have a girl friend outside of marriage  and that is also not adultery. But as I mentioned it is subject to a debate among Rishonim. The Rambam in fact holds all sex outside of a a marriage  is forbidden. Only a king is allowed a girlfriend. But even to his opinion sex with a girlfriend is not a straight prohibition לאו. It is rather a לאו הבא מכלל עשה a prohibition that is derived from not doing a positive command.

In any case, the Rambam is a minority opinion. All other rishonim allow it.