Religious fanaticism. Ultra-religious people are insane.

Religious fanaticism seems to be related to the hippocampus. That is a lot of what I have seen is the idea of rituals as cause and effect things. That is people tend to think "I did this ritual and thus and thus happened afterwards." So they are connected.

Pigeons have the same thing. If you randomly reward pigeons they will on their own come up with a superstitious belief  system.  They think, "Since I did thus and thus before the food appeared therefore that must have been the cause of the food appearing." You thus can get a whole room full of superstitious pigeons doing all kinds of nonsense because they think that that is the thing that caused the food to appear because it was the thing that they did one time before it appeared.

But if the hippocampus is damaged the effect is much stronger. There is much less of an ability to tell the difference between cause and effect random correlation.

That is religious fanaticism is biological.

Lithuanian yeshivas are obviously aware of this and therefore discourage religious fanaticism. Learning Torah and keeping Torah are one thing. Religious fanaticism is something entirely different.

Thus you get a situation where most Ultra-religious people are insane as we see in reality and in biology..
So while there are some drawbacks to the average Litvak yeshiva, (because it is an human institution like all others  that has failings.) still it is a huge advantage to the other kinds of insanity out there in the ultra religious world.

Nationalism seems to be related to Hegel. I noticed this before but did not write  a comment because I felt I did not know Hegel at all. Still the connection is there. And for some reason I think Allen Bloom might have been thinking along the same lines when he said that "Hegel was the greatest university man that ever lived." So while not recommending a Hegelian State he still obviously saw lot of potential in Hegel. From my perspective this is awkward since my own intellectual framework is close to Kant.

Zionism is certainly related to Hegel. And scholars have said that clearly Rav Kook's ideas were influenced and sometime borrowed from Hegel.

The Alt Right seems pretty much to have the idea of patriotism and nationalism in mind.


You could justify Hegel in this way: he is referring to a plane of existence in which objective idealism is true. The relation between Hegel and Kant is the same as the relation between Quantum Mechanics and relativity. Both are true but refer to two separate planes of existence. We know both are true. GPS proves both Special Relativity and General Relativity every day. The double slit experiment proves quantum mechanics. [GR says the clock on the satellite will go faster since it is further out from earth. SR says it goes slower because it is moving. So you adjust its rate by about 38 micro seconds per day slower.]

Christianity.But in its modern forms Christianity looks pretty bad.

But in its modern forms Christianity looks pretty bad. Still my major complaints are that it is not very convincing. A good deal of the premises seem to be founded on very strained readings of the New Testament. Still for Christian saints of the past I am willing to cut a lot of slack because of the pureness of their intentions.

What I mean is the divinity of Jesus is not supported by the text. Doing miracles has nothing to do with divinity. Answering a question "Are you so and so?" and answering  "I am" also has nothing to do with it. [If someone would ask me, "Are you  Avraham?" I would say "I am".] It is just the common way to answer a question. And if Jesus had meant to use the name of God אהיה (as God said his name is in the burning bush), then he would have had to have said, "I will be."
For the way the English Bible translates it is  a mistake. אהיה אשר אהיה means "I will be that which I will be." Not "I Am."

For a comparison you can look at writings where someone was claiming to be G-d and they make it clear that that is what they mean like in Bhagavad Gita.

Similarly nullification of the mizvot is not supported by the text. [That is nothing that Jesus said would support such a conclusion.]

What Christianity is based on  is mainly Paul's interpretation of Jesus. It is clear that James disagreed with him.

[In other words as far as Christians follow the example of Jesus they do well. But then some people throw in Paul who is the direct opposite of everything that Jesus said. And then they have to change the simple meaning of everything the Jesus said and did to make it correspond to Paul.]


[Wasp’s tend to take their social meme from Luther [even though in theory they come from Calvin]. I am not happy with Luther. The social meme of WASP's does not even come from the NT but rather Luther and Calvin.]

capricious divorce

Children who experience pointless, capricious divorce (I.e., 90% of divorces) simply never recover. Divorcing destroys childhood. It’s hard to survive with so-called adults stealing one’s childhood. You don’t go to work and get married if your primary life lesson is that a woman can take your home, children, money and freedom with a single phone call.
Women tend to look at divorce as a solution to all their unhappiness. And Beta Males only encourage this.   [See this site RedPillGirl]

Divorce fantasy is the many movies, books, TV shows, talk programs, websites, etc. (an entire industry, really), that sell divorce to women as something noble, necessary, and vital for their future growth and happiness in life.  They show women like Julia Roberts in Eat, Pray, Love abandoning her family and leading an exciting life bedding exotic men in exotic locales.  But for large numbers of divorced, male or female, the reality is far different: they are middle aged, well past their prime, and generally wind up much lonelier, must less happy, and much more materially poor than before.  Like all things satanically inspired, the fantasy is swank and sexy, the reality is frequently miserable.

We are still sold an image of the divorced woman as having been abandoned by her husband.  But women now instigate divorce 80% of the time in the United States.  No fault divorce laws make it impossible for many distressed and abandoned fathers to stop the process.  And of course the children are the ones who pay the ultimate price for this process of female marriage abandonment.  Of course there are men who step out, it happens all the time, but the statistics do not lie – over the past 35 years, women have filed the overwhelming number of divorce claims in this country.  Many of those have been filed for frivolous or entirely self-serving reasons.

s14

Visions

Visions. When I was part of the Mir yeshiva and also Shar Yashuv [another yeshiva in NY] the question of visions was treated thus -if the visionary is part of our group [or an associated group] then the visions are from the realm of holiness. If the guy having the visions is not part of our group, then the visions are from the Dark Side--the Sitra Achra.  This is an enormously relevant question because all human groups have the need for a shaman--an inspired individual.
The best criteria are; (1) Humility. (2) If the visions predict something that does not come about.

The test of Humility will cancel out most visions and visionaries. The next test of predicting an event that does not come to pass will cancel out most of the rest. [Like the Zohar.]

The trouble then is to find reliable guidance. For that I suggest not going to visionaries and simply to learn and keep the Law of God. [That is the Law of Moses. For understanding the Law of Moses it is helpful to learn Musar the books of Ethics written  during the Middle Ages which do the best job of making it clear. My idea of the best ones are the Obligation of the Heart and also the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter.]

You might notice this in all groups. They always assume visionaries that are part of their group or closely related groups are OK and everyone else is not.

This seems to me to be a serious problem from both sides. Especially accepting visionaries who just because they seem to have lifestyle which pleases us and seems to come from good sources that does not mean the vision is true.

Ideas in Bava Metzia  Ideas in Shas

The idea here is mainly that the Torah--the Law of God-is not temporary. That is the laws of God in the Five Books of Moses are meant to apply for all generations. And that makes it necessary to keep them and to do that we need to work out what each law requires.
That is the basic job of the Talmud. The Talmud does not claim divinity but it does depend on the idea of the "Background." That is that the laws of God are not dependent on individual interpretation but that they  have an objective meaning.

[The trouble is those that claim to represent the Law. They tend to be liars and to be using the Law to get Money. The best thing is the separate the Law from Money. People that ask for money to learn Torah should be told to get a job and not use Torah to make money. Or they pretend to be doing some kind of public service.] Nowadays Torah has become a huge business and everyone keeps on lying about it as if this is permitted or desirable. And one that dares say that Torah and Money should be separate is considered a traitor to all those that want to use it for money.

The trouble is schizoid personalities that made rituals to be the one thing that could help when situations were troublesome. These half insane people got to define what Torah is about because of their extreme adherence to rituals

Dalrock : I recommend taking any prospective wife hiking and time how long until she complains, feigns an injury, or quits. If she continues her great attitude, the second test is to repeat after engagement. Doing so, of course, will rule out any ladies of larger carriage, which of course is a bonus.

s16 G Major

seeking for money and sex and power through the guise of holiness

One of the causes of the Enlightenment  was people knew that there will always be people that hide their seeking for money and sex and power through the guise of holiness. That is how the church was in those days. The Enlightenment wanted to put a stop to using religion as a means for worldly power.

There is a similar problem in the Torah world. My recommendation is to separate Torah and Money. As we know anyway, true ordination stopped during the time of the Talmud. So anyone who claims to have ordination nowadays is by definition a fraud. The only person however that I know  that spoke about this was Reb Nachman. For some reason, other religious leaders never brought this up, and in fact many were part of the scam. It is not my custom to bring up Reb Nachman here because that many make him into  a deity. Still, that does not detract from the good things he said.

[People do associate him with the movement that the Gra put into excommunication even though he was really his own man.]

Though I have been recommending Litvak yeshivas on this blog, I am still aware of the drawbacks. One person mentioned to me a better idea of having a "Beit Midrash,(study hall)" not  a yeshiva. A Beit Midrash is what it sounds like. A "study hall" for learning Gemara. No one gets paid to learn Gemara. And no one gets thrown out if they are learning Gemara. Simple. Just the opposite of modern day yeshivas where no one is there unless they are getting paid, and it is a private club for the rosh yeshiva and his friends, No real study of Gemara is allowed. [If you don't believe me just try to learn Gemara in any yeshiva that comes to ask you for money. You will see the reality behind the fiction.]



[A word of caution about Lithuanian yeshivas I think is in order even though the great ones like Ponovitch and Brisk and Merkaz HaRav are admirable. They learn Torah well and keep it well.

Mudsharking

black man, white woman

The ultimate and irreversible repudiation of one’s identity is to have children with someone of another race. This is a particularly stinging repudiation when done by a woman, and it is especially true in the context of the state-engineered genocidal assault on White nations, from aggressive desegregation in the United States to the massive importing of immigrants into European homelands. Fifty years ago in homogeneous places, a White woman who crossed racial lines may have been benevolently dismissed as a rare curiosity. Today, she is an unwitting tool in a global war on our people.

[The unspoken idea of Russia, is that the assaults on the white race is an attack on them.] 

There is no spoon. There is no wife.

There is no spoon. There is no wife.
 If you do decide to marry, you need her be ready to serve her needs by law, culture by command of religious leaders. You are not getting a wife. You are getting a legal, and financial and now religious liability. She knows and is proud of it. 

 Most young men looking to marry are looking first of all to lock down a woman for permanent, steady access to sex (they’re in for a MAJOR disappointment) and perhaps secondarily for a helpmeet (gonna get let down there too) or to have kids (which both the wife and the State will waste no time in reminding him constantly are theirs, NOT his).


 The modern Western women brings a large wardrobe, shoe, handbag and accessory collection to the marriage, as well as an expensive, difficult-to-fix-car. She has a well-stamped passport and can tell you what restaurants in town provide the best cuisine, if she doesn’t come with an eating disorder that makes her look down on you. I refer specifically to the various schools of vegetarianism / ovo-/lacto-/pesco-/vegan, “dark vegan”/ fruitarian. Billy will be doing his own cooking in his own pots and pans, because those “will be contaminated with meat”. Needless to say too, she comes with that greatest of assets, a pre-stretched vagina, thinking that her “experience” makes for great bonding because “she knows herself”.

We live in a strange world where any young man who is responsible, industrious, saves money, morally upright, compassionate and caring is MARKED by female predators as a man to marry/ have a kid with/ divorce and strip him of everything he ever did in his life 
[And to raise the kid she had with some Alpha Male. Cucked for life. That is forced to raise  and support the offspring of some other man. ]


I was perfectly aware of this problem many years ago. My solution was to marry the daughter of the Lithuanian Rosh Yeshiva. בת תלמיד חכם. But that did not work very well. 
[Reb Freifeld decided I was no good. And at the Mir I simply was out of my league. ] 

It does not work though if the Rosh yeshiva is a fraud as many are nowadays. In Israel especially being the head of  a yeshiva has noting to do wit Torah and everything to do wit money and power. 

Therefore: there is no wife.

Religious leaders are the worst in this regard. They advice to men to be cuckold.

[A cuckold is the husband of an adulterous wife. In evolutionary biology, the term is also applied to males who are unwittingly investing parental effort in offspring that are not genetically their own.]

The cuckoo is famous for being brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species, 

Thus the cuckold husband is raising the children of  some Alpha Male.


Feminism nurtures every grievance, no matter how impossibly small, to ensure that feminists spend every day consumed with misery and anger. Moments of joyfulness are fleeting, and usually involve celebrating the harms done to men 

the religious are crazy

My opinion about Israel is that it is important, but hard to make it there. I don't write about it because I have nothing new to say. I cherish every minute I merited to be there. The people that are against the State of Israel are  insane.


I had a great time when I was there and I felt what I could only describe as a tremendous spiritual light while there.

But what makes it so hard? I am really not sure. I think there was a kind of period of awakening when Bava Sali was alive. After that the עת רצון "time of grace" disappeared.

The best advice now is to learn the Oral and Written Law, and wait for God's grace to return.

We actually see in the Torah the major concern of God is to keep the Torah. Issues about Jewish identity or nationality do not come up there.

My major opinion about Israel is not based on Rav Kook. I never got into his books, though I briefly saw a few paragraphs on an I-phone my learning partner showed me.

My opinion is based on Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Aaron Kotler. Both said the same thing. דינא דמדינה דינא "the law of the country is the law." [Tractate Bava Batra chapter 3 חזקת הבתים]

That is neither saw it as some grand metaphysical goal to have  a state. But neither did they consider it bad as Reb Joel did. That is it has the status of any legitimate country.They did not think nationalism is a substitute for keeping the Oral and Written Law.
But they did not see it as a bad thing. That is: the religious are crazy. The make a mitzvah out of being dirty anti-Semites. No better than Nazis. Rather it is  a mitzvah to stay away from them.

The גמרא does give rules to how to decide a law. The trouble is these rules often conflict. Going by the majority is one rule in rare places.

The גמרא does give rules to how to decide a law. The trouble is these rules often conflict. Going by the majority is one rule in rare places.

I have mentioned some of these rules before in other essays. For example the list of sages of the משנה has an order. רבי יוסי comes first then רבי יהודה etc. A משנה with no name סתם משנה is considered the law. The trouble is often this conflicts. For example money in a doubt חולקים is  of the סתם משנה  with no name. Therefore it should be the law. But in a ברייתא it is said in the name of סומכוס against the חכמים so it is not the law except in one case where the רמב''ם brings in  a certain case.

Therefore it is best to have a session in the טור בית יוסף get a good idea in each place how the law is decided. 


The main thing is not to ask anyone's opinion but to do the learning yourself so you know what the Torah requires of you. Or to go to a legitimate Litvak yeshiva and ask the Rosh Yeshiva

Reb Chaim Chidushei HaRambam

I do not have a Reb Chaim Chidushei HaRambam  But it occurred to me that Bava Metzia pg 14 would be  a good place to use his idea of "zvei dinim." Two laws.

That is you have a lender borrower and one who bought one field from the borrower and then a later person. To Tosphot in the second answer he holds the lender would have to go after the second field. The reason would be because of zvei dinim. That is we know the lender can't go after sold property when free property is viable {bnei horin} So when the second field is sold and becomes the second sold property does ten lender collect from it because the power of collecting from free or sold property is one law. Just that there is an order to which one. Or is it two laws? If it is two laws then a new law now applies to the second property and the lender would have to go after the first field which preceded in its obligation.

It seems like a perfect place for this idea to apply! Anyone have a Reb Chaim to see if in fact he says something like this?

_________________________________________________________________

בבא מציעא י''ד ע''ב would be  a good place to use the idea of שני דינים של רב חיים הלווי

That is you have a מלווה לווה and one who bought one field from the borrower and then a second buyer . To תוספות in the second answer of אפותיקי he holds the lender would have to go after the second field. The only reason he goes after the first is because it has been made an אפותיקי. The other answer of תוספות that he goes after the first field because כבר חל שיעבודו עליו means he has collect his debt from the first field


The reason would be because of שני דינים. We know the lender can't go after sold property משועבדים when free property בני חורין is available.  So when the second field is sold and becomes the second sold property, does the lender collect from it because the power of collecting from בני חורין or משועבדים is one law. Just that there is an order to which one. Or is it two laws? If it is two laws, then a new law a new חלות now applies to the second property and the lender would have to go after the first field which preceded in its obligation.

בבא מציעא י''ד ע''ב יהיה מקום טוב להשתמש ברעיון של שני דינים של רב חיים הלווי


כלומר יש לך מלווה לווה ואחד שרכש שדה אחד מהלווה ולאחר מכן קונה שני. תוספות בתשובה השנייה של אפותיקי הוא מחזיק שהמלווה יצטרך ללכת אחרי השדה השני. הסיבה היחידה שהוא הולך אחרי הראשון היא כי זה כבר נעשה אפותיקי. התשובה האחרת של תוספות כי הוא  גובה מן השדה הראשון כי כבר חל שיעבודו עליו  לכן הוא גובה את חובו מן שדה הראשון. הסיבה תהיה בגלל שני דינים. אנחנו יודעים המלווה לא יכול לגבות נכס שנמכר (משועבדים) כאשר נכס  חפשי (בני חורין) זמין. לכן, כאשר השדה השני נמכר לרוכש השני , המלווה מחויב  לגבות ממנו בגלל הכוח של איסוף מבני חורין או משועבדים דין אחד. רק שיש סדר. או שזה שני חוקים? אם זה שני חוקים, אז דין החדש חל  כעת חל על הנכס השני, והמלווה יצטרך לגבות משדה הראשון שקדם בחובה.

Space and Time

My own feeling about these things is kind of like Kant  mentioned. That is I think as Kant did there are two levels. One is which space and time are real and that is clear in the kind of experiments we have that test General Relativity like GPS things that you find in taxis. The other level is Quantum Mechanics in which space and time do not exist until they are measured. This in fact seems like something Kant was aware of as noted by Dr Kelley Ross in California.

What is being measured in the two slit experiment does exist. If it did not there would be nothing to measure. But its character as a wave or particle depends on how you measure it-with one slit or two.
This is exactly how Kant described things in themselves-they exist but their existence is unconditioned reality. Their character is however half dependent on them and half dependent on the mind

These two levels of reality are helpful for me in my religious point of view based on the Old Testament (the Oral and Written Law). Often, I have to say some statement in the Old Testament is referring to this hidden level of reality, --not the phenomenal world.  That is this world is conditioned reality while the hidden world is unconditioned reality.

I have on my own understood the Old Testament along these lines for years but did not write about it.

That is what you measure in Quantum Mechanics is expectation values just like you do when learning Probability Theory. That is the bracket notation in Quantum Mechanics is exactly the same thing as the expectation value in Probability. The ket vector is the original state and the bra vector is the final state and the observable is in the middle.

But don't talk to philosophers about any of this. They don't understand this stuff at all and either ignore it and think it is not relevant for metaphysics which they deny exists. Or they get it wrong.

[In plain English you have to have with QM either independent reality or locality. Since we know Locality because of Relativity therefore independent reality has to be thrown out. Simple as pie.]See this talk by Murray Gell-Mann 

Temple Israel in Hollywood

 I should mention that I had a Jewish education from about 5 years old and onward. The only interruption was after my bar mitzvah in Temple Israel in Hollywood. The pressures from school were building up, and there also was some kind of pressure about paying more money monthly to the Temple, and some kind of commitment in order to have my brother Keith "Bar Mitzvahed" there.  So we quit the Temple, and when it came time for Keith's bar mitzvah we found a person from the Re-constructionist movement (Roth). [Kind of like Reform. In some ways more open, and in other ways more interested in tradition.] My parents also were undergoing, as usual, financial strain. My Dad was pretty sure after his project at TRW with satellites and lasers was finished- that he would be laid off so he quit before that.

He did not know it at the time but there was a person in the company that was stealing the secrets of American Technology and selling them to the KGB. That became a book and later a motion picture.

After High School it made sense to me to learn Gemara, so I went to NY to Shar Yashuv of Reb Freifeld, and after that to the Mir in NY. Both amazing yeshivas. The Mir was more interested in Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's kind of learning, and Shar Yashuv was more interested in the type of learning you can see in my two little books on Talmud--"calculating the sugia"

 and delving  into depth about what Tosphot means in his place. 
[I should also mention that I was very interested at the time in learning the Tur, Beit Joseph. I mean the way law is derived from the Gemara. That was in fact my major motivation in going to yeshiva.]


Here are a few ideas I had in learning Talmud [Gemara] for those who might be interested.

Ideas in Talmud

Ideas in Bava Metzia

[These books mainly reflect the kind of learning I was doing in Shar Yashuv.]

PS The only good yeshivas in those days were the Litvak yeshivas in NY (Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat) and Ponovitch in  Bnei Brak and that still seems to be the case. [I have not seen or heard of any exception except perhaps Brisk in Jerusalem.]

Albert Einsten. Why people put him down when they have no idea of what he said or did is beyond me.

The papers in 1905 for Special Relativity and the one laying part of the foundations of Quantum Mechanics are well known.

But I wanted to add, that Einstein's greatness did not end there. 


General Relativity was in around 1916 I think. And although he was criticized for later work still he had an effect on considering implications of Quantum Mechanics which no famous philosophers then or now did. Dr Kelly Ross puts it thus:

"In philosophy, failure to address the implications of Copenhagen Quantum Mechanics amounts to ... professional incompetence. At first, there was enthusiasm that Quantum Mechanics violated causality and thus refuted both Aristotelian and Kantian views of causality. This went along with a grave misreading and misunderstanding of Hume's evaluation of causality. Since causality as the laws of nature (as Hume understood it) is not in the least undermined, but only reinforced, by Quantum Mechanics, this particular fashion has rather died out. 
Meanwhile, ..., most of Bohr's colleagues in physics, like Einstein, Schrödinger, and de Broglie, who, like Roger Penrose, viewed Realism as presupposed by all proper science, were horrified at this metaphysical implication of the Copenhagen Interpretation -- at a time when philosophers, like the Positivists, were busy eschewing metaphysics as beneath serious attention. The first reaction of the philosophers, then, was to pass over the whole business as of no concern. So, as I have noted elsewhere, while Einstein and Kurt Gödel were walking down to the Institute for Advanced Study arguing about Kant, Bertrand Russell found the whole business ridiculous. Philosophy has not done much better, or improved its attitude much, since then. "

Also Einstein's dream finding a way of connecting the four forces did result in combining three forces in the 1960's and later in String Theory in combining all four forces.

Why people put him down when they have no idea of what he said or did is beyond me.

Gra, Reb Israel Salanter and Rav Shach (I.e. Rav Elazar Menachem Shach)

The most important three people in the Torah world that did the best job of explaining the Torah for simple people were the Gra, Reb Israel Salanter and Rav Shach (I.e. Rav Elazar Menachem Shach).

I am not talking in terms of what baali teshva are looking for "spiritual trips." Rather I am referring to the basic need to explain what the Torah asks from us as simple plain Jews that need its set of values and hierarchy of values explained. Without these three people one could take the Torah to mean anything at all, and in fact that is exactly what baali teshuva do.

What each did was reveal an important aspect of Torah, The Gra: learning Torah. Reb Salanter: Midot good character traits. Rav Shach: How to learn.

In plain English what I am saying is that you learn from these three people three important things about Torah: (1) It is very important to learn Torah and avoid Bitul Torah. (2) To be a "mench" good character traits. (3) To learn Rav Shach's, Avi Ezri shows how to learn Torah.

s11

Western women -what is wrong with them?

Here is a nice comment on Dalrock which seems to be pretty clear about the major difficulties that one finds with Western women. Just some background the beginning of his comment he is quoting another comment:

"If you take a shot with the wrong woman, your life could be over….

Your life will be over either way. You will lose the game if you never shoot in basketball.

Yeah, you may miss and turn it over. So what?

I tell you what.

– you’ll get thrown into jail for failing to pay court-ordered child support after losing your job; you’ll get anally raped while your wife gets railed by some alpha lout she found on Tinder, getting his rancid sperm shot into her various orifices

– you’ll be prevented from seeing your children; your slut of a wife will decide to cohabit with some alpha lout, who ends up molesting your children, and that bitch does nothing to stop it

– your passport will be revoked

– your gun permit will be revoked

– you’ll get registered as a sex offender due to a false accusation

– you’ll never find a decent job again

– your house and car will get taken away

But yeah, “so what”, right?"

[link to dalrock]

This seems to be a good argument to marry the rosh yeshiva's daughter if you ask me.

Therefore the best piety is home piety. To learn at home Gemara and Musar and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. Institution based piety seems to have major flaws.

I was in Shar Yashuv in NY and then in the Mir and in neither place was it very easy to get to meet women. In the Mir there were no official channels for dating. On one hand it was kind of frustrating. But on the other hand it made for a kind of environment where one is motivated to get married.
To meet a girl one usually had to wait until some shiduch was offered by the girl's parents. It was nothing like what is usual in Western Society. But who can say? I generally approve of places for opposites sexes to meet. The more strict approach seems to be too heavy handed to me.

That is I think the real reason for the enlightenment. I think at some-point, people got tired of religious leaders telling them what to do. Especially when it seemed clear those leaders themselves had no idea of the difference between right and wrong. And that situation I think has remained in place. 

Recently I was looking at the trial of Joan of Arc, and it seems to me to reflect very well on exactly why the Enlightenment happened. People got sick and tired of religious authorities and princes acting in ways that were heavy handed, and unjust. 

Therefore the best piety is home piety. To learn at home Gemara and Musar and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. "Institution based piety" seems to have major flaws. 

NASA projects

My learning partner said the NASA projects like the moon etc were scaled back because they were forced to hire blacks and Muslims that were incompetent and causing disasters. Diversity killed the Mars project.

medicine

My parents said not to take medicine unless it has been on the market for 50 years.
I should mention that modern medicine has two aspects. One is proved and tried techniques. The other is speculative and presented as true and tied but it is not. It is important to discern the difference.

Gemara, Musar, Physics, Math, Music and Survival

The reason my idea of a yeshiva having Gemara, Musar, Physics, Math, Music and Survival Skills, is to some degree based on the Rambam but also experience. [The Rambam's opinion about the importance of Physics is well known but ignored. So to bring it up would make no difference. If they ignore the Rambam already then why what I say make any difference.]
But the experience I have shows me the Torah alone approach rarely results in any kind of decent person. Sometimes you will have elevated people like Bava Sali, but that is rare. The general result of Torah alone is not very good. Religious fanaticism at the cost of being decent human beings seems like a bad trade off.

Plus the religious fanaticism does not result in Torah anyway, rather in fetishes like "zniut" and obsession with sex of other kinds of religious obsessions which have nothing to do with Torah.  And then they expect to get paid for their religious fetish and idiotic behavior. And then condemn anyone that does not conform their their confused sick ideas of what Torah is about.
Ultra-religious does not equal righteousness nor holiness. It just results in sanctimonious jerks.
I am not saying one should interrupt his Torah study to make money. Rather if one is in a situation where he can sit and learn Torah, then he should do so and trust in God to take care of his needs. [However I do consider the above six subjects to be a part of a Torah education as the Rambam also held.] 

excommunication that the Gra signed was valid.

In terms of getting ahead of the curve ball, I went to two yeshivas. [It was clear to me the secular world lacked numinous value]. It was not to get a living or anything but for the sake of Torah. But I thought also that it was important to be part of the Torah world. 

For all I knew this would have remained the case as long as I was part of the Torah world. That is the social context made a big difference. Somehow we left the Lithuanian yeshiva world and then the context changed. The world we joined was low in IQ and character. And certainly not moral. That caused everything to fall apart. And then all my ex wife could think about all the time was how to get revenge on me and hurt me and talk about how all that matters is money to the children. So the children grew up in a kind of low environment--very different than the kind of world I had hoped to raise them in. What to do about it now? 

Of course all the trouble could have been avoided if I had simply assumed the excommunication that the Gra signed  was valid. Problem solved. Don't associate yourself with lowlifes and criminal scum that pretend to be holy.

Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife.

Someone noticed that Deuteronomy 22 in fact seems to imply that simple sex with an unmarried girl makes her one's wife. If you read it with no thought in mind about the gezera Shava "devar Erva" al kal devar."

That is you have the guy coming to court saying he did not find his bride a virgin. If the parents can't produce the sheet with blood, then she is stoned. We have the Sages that depend on a drasha that she can't be married without two witnesses, but still the simple explanation of the verses seems clear. Add to that the end of the Parsha when a girl is raped and she thus has to be the wife of the person that rapped her. It does not say he has to marry her because she is thus already married. Rather it says he can not divorce her. Looking at the simple Peshat of the verses clearly indicates that there is no reason to stone the poor girl simply because she was not a virgin. Rather the stoning is because she is considered married to the first gut that had sex with her. Thus a married woman that intentionally had sex with someone else later.

Thus question: is there someone else in the Old Testament that would seem to contradict this?

The girl friend thing we find might mean no ketubah. There is a hekish between marriage and divorce so like one needs two witnesses so the other. still I wonder about a drasha that seems to be contradicted by the simple explanation of the verses.


(Of course even of it would mean she is married he still could be required to give a divorce document that would set her free.)

The idea of a זונה would seem to contradict the whole idea also.

Men in the USA have trouble with women. on the site Dalrock I saw someone mention about the Ukraine [and Russia] and that seems right to me. [My impression of women in China and Japan is also very positive but I have no experience in that area. On the other hand with Ukraine and Russia, there is no question.]






Here is a comment  that I think is 100% correct:

"Eastern Europe: I first went to Ukraine, to see for myself if the marketing hype from the various “foreign bride” service companies had any truth to it. Although many/most of those companies are in fact primarily interested in your money rather than helping you, they can be successful because the claim that many women there are vastly superior to western women is in fact true.

Learning Russian is fine, but it will probably be a long time before you are proficient enough to not need a translator. So learn 3 to 5 hundred words, and consider that good enough to make a good impression, and to be able to navigate (find the bus, buy food, etc.). Translators are $15 an hour, so not a big deal.
I would advise you to focus on getting debt free so that you can afford to take 3 months to go there. Slavery to money/debt is SO bad for us.
You cannot expect to start a decent relationship in a couple weeks, so having at least 6 weeks there would be good. Especially since the first woman you pick to pursue may not be appropriate/serious anyway.

When I was there, women actually made an effort, or gave openings, to spend time with me. And these were women upon whom I had spent very little money, not even dinner, so there was not an immediate gold-digger motivation. For example, one woman went for a walk with me through her city. The only monetary benefit she received was the rose I gave her. And she wanted to get together again.
Another met me, and I paid only for a few flowers, a salad, water bottle, and a couple games of ping-pong. After that, she really wanted to get together again.

If you are really interested, just go. Trying to find/communicate with a woman before you get there is just a way to line the pockets of unethical companies. As a guy who will get no financial benefit from you regardless, I can tell you: Many women there ARE in fact vastly superior. It is not just marketing hype.
I am thinking of going next spring, so if you want company/help, maybe we can arrange to go at the same time. Most companies that offer to help are massively overcharging, or are outright frauds.

One problem you will have that you do not have in North America is that the women are very feminine/beautiful, so this will be very distracting for you unless you firmly hold to your reason/mind. (At least, it was a problem for me.)
Have a short list of what is important to you, and then you can run through the list and pass on the women that, while strongly emotionally/sexually appealing, are not appropriate for marriage with you. E.g., I want:
– woman not married to her career; if she’s not prepared to ditch school/career so she can invest her time in our children, I don’t want her. Similarly, she must have investing time in her marriage as a life priority.
– she accepts that we will read the Bible together almost daily and obey it. (As opposed to churchians who say the right “Christian” words, but do not live it out — read Matt 21:28-32. I am not too concerned about her past “religious” experience, just her obedience.)
– 2 mandatory physical characteristics that are important to me. Tough beans to the feminists/churchians who claim that we are all equal and the outside should not matter
– feminine in the areas of her appearance that she can control (clothes (deut 22:5), hair length (1 Cor 11), not fat (Titus 2:3-5))
– easy to talk with and pleasant. Able to have fun with me.
– under 29, preferably about 25, give or take a few years. I want kids from my new wife, not menopause. Plus the “wife goggles” would be a benefit to the marriage.

Oh, and living costs there are very low. A private apartment is about $33 US a day, less if you pay by the month. A week’s worth of groceries is maybe $26, if you plan to eat “high on the hog”. Six games of bowling, with shoe rentals, is about $5 US."

 Human relations are in God's hands as far as I can see and rules that apply in one case change for another. No two people are alike. Still as far as the general nature of that comment about the Ukraine and Russia I have to agree. The women are far, far, superior to anything one can find in the USA in character and looks. Just avoid those dating sites at all cost. Learn Russian and go there. Period.

I mentioned before this the various reasons why this is allowed even if not preferable. The basic reasons are: the incident with Rav Asi in Avoda Zara. There was a woman that people were saying that she was not Jewish. Rav Asi said did not she go to the Mikvah? Rashi says it is enough to go to the mikva for the sake of marriage to become Jewish.

My other reason is the Raavad (and most of the Baali HaTosphot) that a girl friend is permitted. See Chronicles II 2:46.

I have been looking at the trial of Joan of Arc for the second time. And I think it is perhaps the most disturbing document I have ever seen outside of the Guide of the Rambam. It is hard to know which one bothers me more and for what reasons.

The Rambam I have not looked at for some time so for now perhaps I will limit myself to a few random thoughts on the trial.
I think the most disturbing part of it is that some of the approach of the church authorities seems true.
If it would be all cut and dry--a righteous girl sentenced by evil judges, then there would be nothing more to contemplate.
The worries about schismatics seems that she herself agreed with. Of everything that they said to her there seems to be little that she herself would not agree to--except the point that the judges did not accurately represent the way things are in heaven.

The way Western Civilization has gone down the tubes since then seems to indicate at lot of what they were saying is true. Visions can come from the Sitra Achra.[The dark realm].  The worry about the weakening of faith in the church has led to an  atheistic Europe and USA and a protestant church that seems to be problematic- to say the least. At least one can say that nothing Luther did led anyone to be a better human being. If anything it led to a complete destruction of faith. And Joan would be the first person to jump up and agree with me.

From a strictly halachic point of view, it is clear that the Catholics preserved Divine Simplicity. The schism that produced the Protestants clearly is uninterested in that. [That is Catholics believe like us that God is simple and not a composite and has no material aspect or substance. They have  a hard time defending this but they still try to.]



{I am not saying the Catholics got everything right. Rather they are the closest to belief in the Torah. The better approach is of course the Litvak yeshiva.}

I mentioned in passing to someone about my connection with the Bava Sali family and they asked me for more details. It is perturbing to me to be reminded about Bava Sali because it reminds me of my responsibilities that I have not fulfilled and can't fulfill. Learning and keeping Torah and helping others also to do so.
Litvak yeshivas seem to me to be the best way to go about getting close to God.
I think that it was by spending a few years in two Lithuanian yeshivas  that helped me that when I got to Israel that I gained a kind of spiritual light that helped those years be really amazing.It is not that I had any kind of "Ruach Hakodesh" [holy spirit] or anything like that. It was simply a kind of feeling of attachment with God that was really intense.

At some point, I rebelled against it, so I do not expect it to return. But I can at least recommend to others the amazing path that helped me --that is the basic simple straight Torah approach you find in almost any Litvak Yeshiva. [The best one are obviously Ponovitch and the regular Litvak NY yeshivas.]

I know my concept of including Physics, Math Music and survival skills into a yeshiva is radical departure of the approach of those that think all secular studies are  bad.  There is on the other hand those that think all secular studies is a great thing and that is obviously quite terrible as we can see.
My approach is that that having some secular studies is a good thing, but most of it is bad. The fact that people pursue secular studies for the sake of a vocation does not turn bad into good.

I asked Rav Zilverman [Old City of Jerusalem] once about electrical engineering  and he thought that it is in the category of natural sciences that the Rambam recommended.

Litvak approach

I think the Litvak approach can be contrasted with the approach of the "pursuit of happiness."
I think the Gra's approach that forms the foundation of Litvak yeshivas is the "pursuit of morality."

The fact that limiting the amount of time spent on Musar in from the European Musar Yeshiva which spent enormous amounts of time on Musar to the American version which spends much less time is more based on the fact that the amount of time does not seem to increase the effect. It is the law of limited returns. That is there is a limit of how much you can learn it per day that increases any good effect. In fact there might be a maximum point. After that perhaps learning more Musar begins to detract  and start to create immorality? I think there is plenty of evidence to that fact. We all know Mashgichim [teachers of Musar in Litvak Yeshivas] are pretty poor examples of human beings. Therefore the best idea is the 20 minutes and the 15 minutes of Musar in the afternoon and evening and the ret of the day Talmud [Gemara] Tosphot Maharsha and after that the basic achronim Pnei Yehoshua, Reb Chaim of Brisk, Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.

   

It is possible to understand the idea of idolatry in a Kantian sense.  I might try to give some background about what I mean but the basic idea is simple. God is one, not two or three and he is not a composite. According to the Torah he is not the world nor is the world him. He is the First Cause that caused everything that exist to exist. That is to say he is transcendent and one and ideas of form and substance do not apply  to him.
With Schopenhauer we get further that he is the only unconditioned reality, though that is not like Kant.
What you get from this is a kind of clarity about God but also you get the idea of a limit how far human understanding can go about him. That is the apt title of the Critique of Pure Reason.

This helps to understand the idea of idolatry--which I found very difficult to understand. The major help I found about idolatry was reading the book of Daniel and later learning pages 62b in Sanhedrin and on-ward. [ie 62b -circa 64]. Of course the Nefesh HaChaim was helpful to some degree in the place where he deals with the problem of worship of people.[That is the chapter where he explains the idea of service of God as intending to get attached to God through prayer (I think.) I don't have t to be able to look it up.]


So in short unconditioned reality is unconditioned reality and thus idolatry is simply trying to make it concrete.

s13 G major

Litvak Yeshiva

I have been trying to think of a good argument why a Lithuanian Navardok Musar yeshiva is a good idea. But the whole day I have not been able to come up with any argument.

My major motivation for trying to argue my point is I already know that a Litvak yeshiva is an amazing experience. I would in fact call it perhaps the peak experience of my life if not for later on being in Israel and raising a family there.
But that in itself is not an argument because there are people I have encountered who had less than happy experiences in yeshiva, and not all yeshivas are created equal. But I also have not even wanted to argue for the great two yeshivas that I was in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY.

What motivates me to argue for Navardok is the idea of a Litvak yeshiva that places emphasis on trust in God. My reason is that I see myself in my own life that when I trusted in God everything went my way. When I stopped trusting in God and started doing השתדלות human effort, everything fell apart.

Many years later I was doing some review of some books of Ethics [Musar of Reb Israel Salanter] and I was surprised to see the that Reb Israel, and his disciples and the Musar Book Obligations of the Heart all preached the idea that if one can not make it with God, then the best advice is to help others get close to God's service.

What occurred to me was this new idea. That maybe this works for individual things. That is- if I am lacking some good character trait, and I can't seem to get it no matter how hard I try, then perhaps helping others get to that trait might help me by way of reflection?

The only modification I would make would be to add Physics and Math to the regular Musar and Gemara approach. And of course Music and survival skills.

These six things I see as pretty essential. Most of the other stuff I learned in High School today seems to have been a waste of time. And even then it did.

Not everyone is equal nor should be treated equally.

The problems with the Enlightenment were noted by Allen Bloom and he also said that the problems that arose were inevitable outcomes. His only stated solution was in regard to university education and it was specifically to get people to read Plato's Republic. That is the only solution that he proposes in his entire book. Needless to say, Plato was thinking about Sparta. [Though Allen Bloom did not mention this.] [See The Closing Of The American Mind.]

[Allen Bloom I think must have walked a middle line between the Kind of Republic in the USA based on Enlightenment principles and respect for Plato and Sparta and Hegel. He must have thought the contradictions were too great to come up with any solution and yet saw good in both systems.
 I grew up in the USA when it was a highly decent and wholesome and moral society. And it was based on the Constitution. So I accepted the basic ideas of the Constitution as being right. Plus I did not like tyranny when I saw it in other places.

It was only recently my learning partner expressed some reservations about the basic principles of the USA that I started to wonder.

In any case I would have to agree that the whole French revolution was a very terrible thing.

My basic approach used to be this: The French Revolution was based on Rousseau and the General Will--no individual rights. Therefore it was bad. The American Revolution was based on John Locke and individual rights, Therefore good.

My idea for London and Germany. Porked Earth Policy. [Instead of Scorched Earth Policy invented by General Sherman] "weaponized lard''

I think pork is a great idea. Someone should come up with creative ways to use it. Have pork spray. And Pork paved streets. Make perhaps pork dust and go up in an airplane and spread it all over Los Angeles [as in crop dusting] . And while you are at it get a Catholic priest up there with you to spread holy water all over LA and California. And especially one should porkify Muslim graveyards with pork dust.
In particular San Bernardino County.



I don't eat pork. The thing about diet is that mainly the problem is with meat products. That is pork is not as serious an issue as regular meat which needs to be slaughtered properly and also the forbidden fats need to be extracted. In any case, pork is fine to use in the above circumstances. If fact, I believe the British used it in exactly that way when they were in the Middle East and were having some trouble with Muslims.  One British captain would take lard and smear it under the grave of any Muslim terrorist and then above it. and then bury a pig with the Muslim, as if to say:  "No more 72 virgins for you"

Answer to me: Well, the commandments in the Pentateuch / Torah are fairly explicit, though, as to what kinds of animals, depending on whether their hooves are cloven, they chew the cud, etc. I forget the specifics, because as a Christian, I am not bound by Jewish dietary law, since the New Testament has indicated that all meats can be lawful, now, for God's people (who include both Jews and Gentiles, the Covenant having been expanded and renewed).

The Brits weren't so wise in dealing with natives and their taboos when they ruled India; you probably are aware of what touched off the Sepoy Rebellion:

My answer: The fats covering the stomach are very very serious. Much more than pork. But as you noted most people are not bound by the dietary laws of the Pentateuch. Right about that. I heard from my learning partner that the Brits at the beginning were very apt in dealing with the natives in India. Maybe later they got sloppy and less careful. I am not sure as I did not get a chance to study the subject in detail.

I should mention here that this is one area that I think people are thinking wrong. The Laws of the Pentateuch are forever. No later revelations can nullify the commandments as Saadia Gaon and the Rambam noted.

I any case I am not sure how easy it would be to convert lard to dust to make crop dusting possible with it.

Socially Extinct 

I imagine the lard would need to be thoroughly dried or desiccated. I imagine the water constitution of lard is pretty high so it would render down to nothing. Not sure how much lard you would need to produce dust in volumes high enough to "weaponize" it.

Porked Earth Policy.


Avraham rosenblum  That sounds about right. They have a lot of lard in the Ukraine. maybe it would make more sense to make a large order and ship it in to the USA instead of producing locally. Then one could do the reduction process in the States.

Also London and Germany are close to the Ukraine. They could make a large order of lard and perhaps even produce weaponized lard in sufficient quantities to spray dust it all over Germany and London and especially all existing Mosques and Muslim grave yards. They could also get a Catholic Priest at the same time to sprinkle holy water over London and Germany as an extra bonus.

Navardok and Trust in God. Start Navardok yeshivas again.

I would like to  apply the dual nature of reality to the idea of trust in God. That is we have going back to the חובות לבבות [Obligations of the Heart by Bachei ben Pekuda] this contradictory thing that we are supposed to have total trust in  God with no measure or limit. Yet we are supposed to do effort.
This was a famous theme in yeshivas. Not just Navardok. This came up all the time in Shar Yashuv and in the Mir in NY in reference to shiduchim [going on dates in order to find a proper marriage partner] and also parnasa (making a living).
This dilemma is also brought up in the מדרגת האדם [The Level of Man] by Joseph Horwitz itself.

What I think is there are two parallel levels of reality, objective and subjective. They are parallel but neither causes the other. Quantum Mechanics  is subjective. Neils Bohr: "Nothing exists until it is measured." If you measure the electron it is a particle with a specific place and time. If you do not measure it, it is a wave.

I think trust works in the same way. If one trusts in God totally then the out reality corresponds to that trust. If one does not, then outer reality corresponds to that level.

Thus what comes out from this is that one can sit and learn Torah and not worry about shiduchim or parnasa and both will come to him. The outer reality will correspond to the inner reality.


[[I am being a little short in this essay. I really meant to say that QM is radically subjective. But some people have wanted to give up on locality instead. That is they want reality to be only objective and give up on locality. And they choose to give up on locality. But we know locality is true from experiments done daily using predictions of Special Relativity and General Relativity. Therefore only one option is left. Locality is true and nature is radically subjective. Just for one small example: GPS depends on both Special Relativity and General Relativity. It would be off by several miles if not for the fact that both SR and GR are true. I mean to say the satellites are moving faster than the observer because they are above his head going around the earth from his perspective. So their clock goes slower. But they are further out from the source of gravitation so their clock goes faster. Combine both effects and you have to adjust the clock in the satellite to compensate for both effects. If you would not adjust the clocks in the satellite they would show ones position to be miles off target every day.]

Modern Jewish Music is not very impressive to me.  To me it sounds like it based on modern styles which I am not fond of.-I prefer Mozart, Vivaldi Renaissance and Medieval.  This was the basic taste of the daughter of Bava Sali and Rav Isaac Hutner

The Nefesh HaChaim is about service of God in a comprehensive way.

The Nefesh HaChaim is about service of God in a comprehensive way. It is about learning Torah and prayer. To avoid modern day idolatry and Monotheism. I do not know if there is translation. But even if there was it would probably be Politically Correct. [This is the Musar book by a disciple of the Gra]

Monotheism is mainly the idea that God is one, not a composite, and He is not the world, and the world is not him. 

I might mention that I think part of the reason the Rambam went with Aristotle was that people had been wrestling with  neo platonic thought and monotheism for a thousand years. Neo Platonic thought was the default position but it was hard to get it to go along with simple Torah Monotheism. So the Rambam just jettisoned a lot of Neo Platonic thought and went straight with Aristotle.
So God would be defined as the First Cause. It makes everything amazingly simple. Nothing is godliness except God.

This is important because knowledge of this fact can save one from idolatry. And that in itself is  great thing because  כל הכופר בעבודה זרה כאילו מודה בכל התורה כולה anyone that denies idolatry is as if he agrees with the whole Torah. That is the Whole Torah can be more or less condensed into that one command do not do idolatry. And when one has fulfilled this then he need not seek for tikunim {other corrections} for things. For the the Torah is life and the good.