Lesson: the powers of charm and persuasion do not make up for incompetence.

Toward the end of World War I, a charming but eccentric man by the name of Dr. William Wallace Whitney Christmas founded an aircraft manufacturing company in Washington, DC. This was perhaps a bit of an odd thing to expect him to do, as there exists no evidence that Dr. Christmas, who was a physician by training, had any background or practical experience in aeronautical engineering, or in fact in any kind of engineering at all. He claimed to have built airplanes before that point, but no record has ever been found to support this other than his own word. Despite his complete apparent lack of qualifications in the field he was entering, he nevertheless managed to find a pair of wealthy brothers – Alfred and Henry McCorry – who he was able to talk into providing him with financial backing while he worked on his projects. Since he did not actually own a factory at which airplanes could be built, he traveled to Long Island to visit the Continental Aircraft Company, where, trading both on his remarkable powers of persuasion and on the still-palpable war fever in which the nation had been gripped, he was able to convince its corporate leadership that his newest design, which he had named the “Bullet”, would be the key to the success of a daring plan he had developed to bring an end to the war by secretly landing an airplane behind German lines, kidnapping Kaiser Wilhelm II, flying him to Britain, and forcing him to sign a surrender. Having secured Continental Aircraft’s agreement to build his airplane for him, Dr. Christmas next needed an aeronautical engine, which in those days (and especially with all available production going toward the war effort) were both expensive and not easy to come by. Undaunted by this, Dr. Christmas visited Army headquarters in Washington, on a mission to get them to loan him an example of the most powerful engine they had. Here once again a combination of his personal charm and wartime desperation worked to his advantage, and he was able to talk his way into possession of an experimental Liberty VI engine, which developed a then-incredible 215 horsepower. To the Army’s credit, they were sufficiently skeptical of the entire matter that the loan came with the proviso that their engine was to be used only for ground testing of the prototype Bullet; he was not to take it into the air until the Army had gotten a chance to inspect and do a full evaluation on the new aircraft. Eager to get his hands on a Liberty VI, Dr. Christmas agreed.

As for the actual design of the Bullet, what Dr. Christmas called “innovative”, others would call “ludicrous”. He claimed that its weird-looking, flattened-egg-shaped fuselage – made of veneered wood – was  going to provide unprecedented reductions in aerodynamic drag, and that its flimsy wings, which he said that he had deliberately designed to flex and bend, were more than strong enough to support its weight. In an article about the Bullet in the British Flight magazine (which still publishes today, as Flight Global), Dr. Christmas even went so far as to declare that the Bullet had “a safety factor of seven throughout”, despite the magazine’s observation that “it would seem that such construction would result in a low factor of safety”. The editors of Flight were not, however, the only people who knew a lot about airplanes and who began to voice serious misgivings about the Bullet. When Dr. Christmas finally submitted his blueprints to Continental Aircraft, the company’s in-house head of engineering (Vincent Burnelli – who would go on to make some genuine innovations in the area of “flying wing” type aircraft, of which the modern B-2 bomber is perhaps the most famous example) came up with a long list of changes that needed to be made before the Bullet would be airworthy. Not least among Burnelli’s concerns was Dr. Christmas’s insistence that the Bullet be made out of cheap scrap wood and metal, which the Doctor claimed would minimize both the cost of building it and the strain that its construction would place on supplies of critically-needed resources during wartime. Once again, Dr. Christmas was able to convince others that his plans were sound; Continental’s management sided with him over Burnelli’s objections, and the Bullet was constructed exactly the way that Dr. Christmas wanted.

And then, suddenly, the war ended.

While the rest of the world celebrated, Dr. Christmas found himself with serious reason to worry. The end of the Great War meant that generous wartime contracts for new weapons would quickly evaporate, along with the willingness of the Army, industry, and investors to try just about anything, no matter how strange it might seem, as long as there was the slightest chance that it might contribute to victory. At this point, the first prototype had been finished and a second, for which an engine had not yet been found, was under construction. Dr. Christmas knew that he had finally had to show what the Bullet could do, and show it fast, before both the interest and the money that his supporters had been giving to him began to dry up. Of course, Dr. Christmas had never actually flown an airplane himself, so personally test-flying his airplane was out of the question. Fortunately for him, thousands of freshly-demobilized Army aviators were coming home from the war. The airline industry was not yet even in its infancy, and jobs flying the mail were scarce, so many of them found themselves unemployed and without any prospects for flying for a living. Dr. Christmas put out an offer of generous pay for any who would become test pilot for the Bullet. Man after man turned up, took one look at the Bullet, spun around on their heels, and left, declaring that no amount of money was worth their lives. Finally, Dr. Christmas found one pilot – one Cuthbert Mills – who was either brave or desperate enough to try.

And so one cold day in January of 1919, the first Christmas Bullet took to the air from the Continental Aircraft factory’s airfield. It climbed a few hundred feet in the air, at which point Dr. Christmas’s innovative thin and flexible wings broke off. What was left of the Bullet plunged to the ground, killing Cuthbert Mills instantly.

Vincent Burnelli was livid. Continental Aircraft was deeply embarrassed. The Army, which Dr. Christmas neglected to tell about the crash and the destruction of their expensive loaner engine, was beginning to get impatient. Dr. Christmas, however, was undaunted. Next time, he promised, would be a complete success – all he needed to do was make a few minor adjustments to what was an essentially flawless design. He turned on the charm again. Somehow, he managed to convince Continental Aircraft to finish the second prototype. Somehow, he managed to scrounge up an engine for it (this time, a much less powerful Hall-Scott model L-6). Somehow, he managed to find someone – this time, an Army pilot named Lt. Allington Jolly – to fly it. Somehow, he managed to talk his way into having the second Bullet displayed at Madison Square Garden as a way to gain publicity and public support. The display claimed that the Bullet had been demonstrated to achieve speeds of nearly 200 miles per hour – the fact that it had done so going straight down after its wings had fallen off was a detail that Dr. Christmas felt it unnecessary to mention to the gathered crowds.

And so one warm day in April of 1919, the second Christmas Bullet took to the air. It climbed a few hundred feet, at which point its wings broke off, and it plunged to the ground, killing Allington Jolly instantly.

Continental Aircraft walked away. The McCorry brothers walked away. The Army, which had thousands of now-unneeded surplus airplanes on its hands and no war to fight, and which probably wouldn’t have put any more money into the Bullet even if it had turned out to be everything that Dr. Christmas had promised, walked away without even bothering to sue Dr. Christmas for the lost engine. The world moved on; only two minor pieces of the story remained.

One was the grieving families of Cuthbert Mills and Allington Jolly. The other was Dr. William Wallace Whitney Christmas.

Dr. Christmas never stopped telling anyone who would listen that the Bullet was just one minor alteration away from being a historic, world-changing success. When, in 1930, Flight published an article giving a full account of the affair, Dr. Christmas had his lawyer send an angry letter denouncing them, calling their report “false and scurrilous”, stating that the Bullet had been a tremendous success and that it had only crashed due to careless flying on the part of Cuthbert Mills (the letter made no mention at all of Allington Jolly or the second Bullet), claiming that mountains of evidence (none of which he actually bothered to provide) attested to all of this, and vaguely but unmistakably threatening legal action if any further “injurious and libellous” articles about the Bullet appeared in their pages. In fact, to his dying day, Dr. Christmas continued to insist that he had hundreds of patents to his name (of which no record exists or ever has existed), that he had designed dozens if successful airplanes (the Bullet is the only one that there is any real evidence for), and that he was on the brink of revolutionizing aviation. A New York Times article from 1950 records the 85-year-old Dr. Christmas still darkening the doorstep of the military, this time trying to sell the newly-created U.S. Air Force on his design for a massive “flying battleship” (the Pentagon, in an unusual bout of sanity, passed on the idea).

Dr. Christmas died in the spring of 1960, at the ripe old age of 94, forty-one years after he had killed Cuthbert Mills and Allington Jolly and well into a jet age that had materialized despite him rather than because of him.

And thus ended the story of the Christmas Bullet.

Lesson: the powers of charm and persuasion do not make up for incompetence.

 רמב''ם מלווה ולווה פרק כ''א הלכה א' והלכה י There is a  case of a מלווה a לווה and someone that bought a field from the לווה after the הלוואה. If the שדה is regular, not a אפותיקי for the loan, the מלווה gets it in case of default and חצי the שבח and in 'הלכה א he does not even pay for the הוצאות. In 'פרק כ'א הלכה י when the field is אפותיקי collateral for the הלוואה, the way the מגיד משנה explains it is if the הוצאות are more than the שבח he gets חצי השבח and pays nothing.  If the שבח is  more than the הוצאות, he can take all the שבח and pay for the הוצאות and then the buyer gets paid back for the rest of the שבח from the seller. The first part of the הלכה is clear. The שבח is more than the הוצאה so the בעל חוב says שדה שלי עשה את השבח so he is claiming all the שבח and pays the הוצאה. But then if the שבח is less than the הוצאה, he collects חצי from the בעל חוב and חצי from the מוכר.  At that point the בעל חוב  comes with the claim of normal שיעבוד (not אפותיקי) by which he has  a right to only half the שבח as it says in בבא בתרא. Still the בעל חוב gets the field with all the שבח,  but he has to pay only for a חצי and the other חצי he has a right to. So the lender does not pay anything for that half of the שבח. So for that part  the לוקח has to collect from the according to their agreement where the מוכר wrote, "What I buy will be משועבד to this חוב." In any case, the part the part that the בעל חוב is collecting because of "מה שאקנה יהיה משועבד לחוב הזה" he is not paying for. The only part he pays for is that which comes because it is part of the field. So with regards to 'כ''א הלכה י where the רמב''ם brings two opinions if the בעל חוב pays for the הוצאה in the normal case that the field is not אפותיקי he is going like the opinion he does not have to pay.



The thing is here the Rambam is clearly fitting this Halacha of half שבח with Bava Metzia 101 הנכנס לשדה חבירו ונטע אילנות ידו על התחתונה היינו או הוא מקבל את השבח או ההוצאה

There is a lot to think about here because of the relation between Bava Metzia page 101 an 14b that Tosphot sees here. But as I wrote before the Rambam sees these two Gemarot as dealing with different situations. Which leads me to wonder  why here we see the Rambam is apparently seeing them as related. Plus I wonder why 1/2 improvement only comes up with collateral אפותיקי. So I realize this whole subject still needs a lot of work and I have only just begun to scratch the surface.

[However until God grants to me a Gemara or a copy of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri there is little progress I can make here. I am pretty sure that I saw both Rav Shach and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik dealing with these issues in Bava Metzia page 14 and 15, but without being able to look up what they say, I feel limited in ability to make progress here.]

 רמב''ם מלווה ולווה פרק כ''א הלכה א' והלכה י' קיים מקרה של מלווה לווה ומישהו שקנה שדה מן הלווה לאחר ההלוואה. אם השדה הוא רגיל, לא אפותיקי עבור ההלוואה, המלווה מקבל את זה במקרה של ברירת מחדל וחצי השבח ובהלכה א' הוא אפילו אינו משלם עבור ההוצאות. בפרק כ''א הלכה י' כאשר השדה הוא אפותיקי עבור הלוואה, את הדרך שבה מגיד משנה מסביר שזה היא שאם הוצאות יתרות מאשר השבח הוא מקבל חצי השבח ומשלם כלום. אם השבח הוא יותר מאשר ההוצאות, הוא יכול לקחת את כל השבח ולשלם עבור ההוצאות ואז הקונה מקבל תשלום בחזרה עבור שאר השבח מהמוכר. חלק הראשון של ההלכה ברור. השבח הוא יותר מאשר הוצאה ולכן בעל החוב אומר שדה שלי עשה את השבח ולכן הוא תובע את כל השבח ומשלם ההוצאה. אבל אז אם השבח הוא פחות ההוצאה, שהוא אוסף חצי מן בעל החוב וחצי מן מוכר.  כי בעל החוב מגיע עם הטענה  נורמלית של שיעבוד (לא אפותיקי) שבאמצעותה יש לו זכות רק לחצי השבח כפי שכתוב בבבא בתרא. ועדיין בעל החוב מקבל את השדה עם כל השבח, אבל הוא צריך לשלם רק עבור חצי והחצי השני יש לו זכות בו. אז המלווה אינו משלם כלום עבור חצי שבח הזה. אז בשביל זה הלוקח אוסף מן פי הסכמתם שבו מוכר כתב, "מה אני קונה יהיה משועבד אל חוב זה." בכל מקרה, החלק שבעל החוב אוסף בגלל "מה שאקנה יהיה משועבד לחוב הזה" הוא לא משלם עבורו. החלק היחיד שהוא משלם עבורו הוא אשר מגיע כי הוא חלק מהשדה.


What I think I going on here is this: [In my hand written notes I go into a lot of the problems that this halacha presents to us. However for right now I want just to write down my thoughts about what I think it means.] I think the main issue here is the difference between a regular loan and a אפותיקי pledge for a loan. In the case of a regular pledge the lender has no choice. He simply gets half of the improvements  for free and if he takes the whole field with all the improvements then he pays for the other half of the improvements. In that case the buyer would collect from the borrower the other half.
But in the case of an אפותיקי I think the Rambam is saying that the lender has a choice. He can take the option in which he pays the least amount. Either he can go with the same option as in the above case where he gets half the improvements for free. The other choice is he can say שדה שלי השביח and then we treat the field as if it was already his field and the borrower is like the case on page 101 היורד לתוך שדה חבירו ונטע שתילים. In that case the lender pays the least amount either the שבח or the הוצאה. But if he pays for the  שבח he would pay only half the שבח.


מה שאני חושב שהולך כאן הוא זה: אני חושב שהנושא העיקרי כאן הוא ההבדל בין הלוואה רגילה לבין הלוואה עם משכון או אפותיקי. במקרה של שעבוד רגיל למלווה אין ברירה. הוא פשוט מקבל מחצית השיפורים בחינם, ואם הוא רוצמ לקחת את כל השדה עם כל השיפורים אז הוא משלם עבור החצי השני של השיפורים. במקרה כזה הקונה  יאסוף מהלווה את החצי השני. אבל במקרה של אפותיקי אני חושב שהרמב''ם אומר כי יש למלווה בחירה. הוא יכול לקחת את האופציה שבה הוא משלם את הסכום הנמוך ביותר. היינו שהוא יכול ללכת לפי האפשרות כמו במקרה הנ"ל, ששם הוא מקבל חצי שיפורים בחינם. הבחירה השנייה היא שהוא יכול לומר "השדה שלי השביח" ולאחר מכן אנו מטפלים השדה כאילו  היה כבר ברשותו של המלווה הוא כמו המקרה בעמוד ק''א היורד לתוך שדה חבירו וניטע שתילים. במקרה כזה המלווה משלם את הסכום .
.הנמוך ביותר או את השבח או ההוצאה. אבל אם הוא משלם עבור השבח הוא ישלם רק חצי השבח


It is tempting  to suggest that perhaps if the lender pays the הוצאה that he would pay only half, but it does not seem to make much sense either. After all half the improvement we can understand the lender already owns. But half the expenses? It seems not.

אבל אם כשהוא משלם עבור השבח הוא משלם רק חצי השבח, מפתה להציע שאולי אם כשהמלווה משלם על ההוצאה שישלם רק חצי, אבל זה לא נראה הגיוני. אחרי הכל חצי השיפור נוכל להבין ששייך למלווה כבר אחרי שהקרקע נחשבת שלו אבל מחצית ההוצאות? כנראה שלא.

 One idea I have hoped to bring into the world is the idea that really is stated most clearly in the Rambam but is mentioned by way of hint in most other Musar books from the Middle Ages--and that is including Physics and Metaphysics along with learning Torah.

That is in part because I see the path of religious addicts to emphasize some ritual   or even something great like learning Torah just makes self righteous ass-holes. The religious world is a frightfully wicked horrifying place. Clearly there is some aspect of Torah they have gotten completely wrong. 
My feeling is it is this very aspect of the combining Torah with Reason.
There is probably much more that that that is wrong but this at least seems to be an essential part.

Incidentally the distinction between between the world of religious Judaism which is a cult, and the world of Jews that observe the Torah is well known in Israel. This is because the religious there horrify  everyone, and no one in their right mind wants to be associated with them. So Jewish people that love the Torah and strive to keep it sincerely, try to distance themselves from being associated with the lunatic world of the religious.

Religious Judaism as opposed to Torah

The fundamental distinction between the religious worldview and the  monotheistic worldview of the Torah.
The characterization of  Pagan  Religious Judaism. The fundamental idea of Pagan Religious Judaism is the idea of pantheism.

In Pagan Religious  Judaism, the will of God ultimately can be countered by the decrees of the tzadik.  The God of the Torah is limited in power because of supreme gods which are the tzadikim of the cult who can decree and the God of the Torah must obey.


In Pagan Religious  Judaism, there's very  a fluid boundary between the Divine, the human, and the natural worlds. They blur into one another because they all emerge ultimately from the same primordial Divine stuff. These distinctions between them are soft.  So there's no real distinction between the worship of God and the worship of a tzadik (i.e."saint") and even graves of tzadikim. Second,  because humans also emerge ultimately from this primordial stuff, there's a confusion of the boundary between the Divine and the human  that's common in Pagan Religious  Judaism,

 Pagan Religious  Judaism, is a system of rites.  Pagan Religious  Judaism cult, is a system of rites that involves a manipulation of objects that are believed to have some kind of inherent power, again, because of their connection to whatever the primordial Divine stuff may be in that tradition. So there's always an element of magic in the Pagan Religious Judaism,. It's seeking through these rituals and manipulations of certain substances to, again, let loose certain powers, set into motion certain forces, that will coerce G-d to be propitiated, for example, or calmed or to act favorably or to vindicate the devotees, and so on. Some of those cultic acts might be defensive or protective. Many of the cultic festivals are keyed in to mythology, the stories of the lives of the tzadikim. Many of the cultic festivals will be reenactments of events in the life of the god/tzadik: a battle that the god had…the death of the god.

One final and very important point, in the polytheistic worldview of Pagan Religious  Judaism,, the primordial realm contains the seeds of all being: everything is generated from that realm, good and bad.

On the other hand, the fundamental idea of the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law, which receives no systematic formulation but permeates the entire Torah, is a radically new idea of a God who is himself the source of all being- not subject to a tzadik, a God whose will is absolute and sovereign.
.
 He's not identifiable as  Nature or identified with a force of nature. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Torah. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the Divine.  So there's no process by which humans become gods and certainly no process of the reverse as well.

As we know honor of one's parents has certain limits. The way Naphtali Troup in his חידושי הגרנ''ט is simple--it is a מצוות עשה. -a positive command. Thus it does not override a negative command that has karet [being cut off from one's people] attached to it. But as people get  more and more religious this command of honor of ones parents and also most of the commands of בין אדם לחבירו [obligations between man  and his fellow man] get thrown out. This is no secret, and it it fact was one of the primary motivations of Reb Israel Salanter in creating the Musar Movement.

The Litvak Yeshiva world -thank Heavens is aware of this- and in fact tries to walk the middle path of emphasis on both sets of obligations-between man and God and between man and man. It is also tries to avoid the Intermediate Zone by simple concentration of learning Gemara.

Still in the USA, parents as such were despised. And the USA and the West was very anti-parent until the 1990's when instead the USA became anti-father. So I had both from inside and from outside the yeshiva world little motivation to follow in my fathers foot steps. If I would have, I would have learned Torah mainly on Shabat and during the gone to Cal Tech and volunteered for the USA Air Force. All in all I would have to say my father was a hard act to follow.--Besides just being a great father and husband.

Still the wisdom of Time has shown me how right he was and I have tried for some time to make up for my lack of balance. Going to school and majoring in Physics was part of that trying to make up for lost time.

[It might have been helpful if I had found a method for learning Physics which I only discovered later in the writings of the Ari {Isaac Luria} and in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים. The Ari brings the idea of saying the words forwards and backwards in his שער רוח הקודש and that certainly helped me in my few years at NYU. The other thing was what is called דרך גירסה--saying the words and going on with no concern whether I understand or not. That is from the Musar book ארחות צדיקים and that I found helpful more recently.]

Dark Zone, the Intermediate Zone and the secular world.

There is an aspect of value which one gets from the Law of Moses (learning and keeping Torah). The easiest way to see this is in the Kant-Fries school of Dr Kelley Ross. The term that Otto coined for it is numinous value. The West seems to lack that value.
But in this need to get beyond this secular world is the danger of the Intermediate Zone which gives great visions and powers from the Dark Side. 

So which is worse? The Dark Zone, which give no hint of holiness, or the Intermediate Zone which mimics holiness? Or simply the secular world with no hint of transcendence?

Abuse leaders have no compassion, they reveal your secrets, they are constantly at war, they have an entitlement complex they feel they are entitled to other people's money, They use Torah for their own aggrandizement. No wonder Reb Nachman called them Torah scholars that are demons. But that does not mean the Dark Side. It mean the intermediate zone as the Ari goes into detail.

So what can you do? Admit to yourself that you were part of an abusive group and know it is true. Do not listen to stupid religious people that deny that it happened. 
You also should know that the religious world is one gigantic fraud. They have nothing to do with Torah. They use rituals to make it seem as if they do and to keep the money rolling in.
Another problem with the teachers of Torah today is that they simply found a way of using Torah to make money but do not believe any of the basic principles. An asking them usually does no good because they simply will lie about their beliefs. But of all the religious teachers of Torah I would say fewer than 1% actually believe in Torah in the 13 principles of faith.

t54 g major mp3  t54 midi   t54 nwc

T51 A minor mp3  T51 midi  T51 nwc

Spiritual abuse

Spiritual abuse rarely occurs on purpose, as those involved generally start out with the best of intentions. That does not make it harmless.

Unlike physical abuse that often results in bruised bodies, spiritual and  abuse leaves scars on the psyche and soul. It is inflicted by persons who are accorded respect and honor in the Torah world by virtue of their role as  models of spiritual authority. They base that authority on the Holy Torah, the Written and Oral Law,  and see themselves as endowed  with a holy trust. But when they violate that trust, when they abuse their authority, and when they misuse  power to control and manipulate other Jews, the results can be catastrophic.

The perversion of power that we see all the time in the religious world disrupts and divides families, fosters an unhealthy dependence of members on the leadership, and creates, ultimately, spiritual confusion in the lives of victims.
Just like former cult members, people who have suffered spiritual abuse often describe their experience in terms of “psychological abuse” and “spiritual trauma.”

This theme comes up in Tenach with the false prophets and in the Mishna and Gemara also. Reb Nachman however goes into some detail about the problem basing himself on the Zohar and the Ari. The main idea of Reb Nachman is that a large majority of pseudo teachers of Torah are in fact demons. [That is to say they have spiritual powers and even miracles but those powers come from Satan.]
Which brings us to the basic question of spiritual authority. Who has the authority to teach Torah? How does one go about avoiding the false leaders.
Obviously, the simplest way is to avoid the entire religious world;- lock, stock and barrel. But a slightly better alternative solution is to confine oneself to authentic Lithuanian kinds of yeshiva which go solely by the path of the Gra. That alternative solution has the advantage of being able to learn and keep Torah and be relatively safe from the cults.

One aspect of spiritual abuse goes along with the idea of false trust. --an idea also mentioned by Reb Nachman which he brings from the book of Job "מבטח בוגד". That is most of the Litvak world is really pretty great. But there are people whose entire message to the public is: "We are so great that everyone should give us money." And at the same time seek to enslave baali teshuva to create  a kind of slave population of working class to support themselves. They create this image that all people need to do is join up with them and all their needs will be taken care of. Thus comes the trouble that the main characteristic of the religious world is based on the question, "How can we get secular Jews to give us money?"

The path that made the most sense to me when I was in yeshiva was that of Musar [learning the books of Medieval ethics] and I heard as much from the daughter of Bava Sali. I became close friends with Shimon Buso, one of the grandchildren of Bava Sali, and one of his daughters told me how in her school she arranged a Chafetz Chaim group. [That is the Chafetz Chaim is the book on the laws of gossip and slander].That is she would sign up everyone that was willing to learn the Chafetz Chaim everyday and made a list of all their names and everyone on that list got prayed for to find their proper Zivug [match]. A lot  of the girls on that list had gotten married last time I checked.

But that is just one example of the force and power of Musar to correct human troubles.

The idea really come from the Gemara in Shabat. אין יסורים בלי עוון. There are no trouble without sin. Thus working on one's own faulty character traits --even when not successful, still shows an effort to be going in the direction of תיקון המידות correction of one's own bad character traits.

I prayed with the sidur of the Reshash for many years. That is the small red one in three volumes, and then around the end of my second time in Israel, I bought the large one from the grandson of the Reshash which was being sold privately in Mea Shearim for some ridiculously low price. I forget offhand what the advantage was in the large sidur except that it was more complete. Vaguely I recall the big one had the intentions of the Omer and the Hagada of Pesach. [Rav Mordechai Sharabi said the one from the grandson of the Reshash is more accurate. and that is probably the reason I preferred it to the red  three volume one.]

The main advantage of using the sidur of the Reshash is mainly if one has already the Divine light shining on himself. It does not bring down the Divine Light, but can only channel it.

In any case, at some point I decided once I had pushed off the Divine Light (for reasons known to me) to stop using it because, after all, what was the point? It just made myself more visible to the Sitra Achra.

I should mention that it is not at all obvious what the Reshash is all about until you read דרוש הדעת and you get to the end of the עץ חיים (Tree Of Life) of the Ari. [That is the last 1/4.] That is where he starts to modify his system. Up until that point, everything looks fairly simple. But that is where he starts to include the worlds one in the other, and that highly modifies the whole system. Still, the more basic ways of understanding the Ari which come from Rav Yaakov Abuchazteira [grandfather of Bava Sali], the Gra, and the Ramchal seem to me to be perfectly fine as far as the simple explanation goes.

I have to issue the usual warning however, that to ignore the signature  of the Gra on the letter of excommunication is to invite the Dark Side. And inviting the Dark Side, is like inviting Hell's Angels into your home. Once they are there, you can not get them out. 

t55 D Minor t55 nwc t55 midi S30 B flat Major edited s30 midi  s30 nwc

In terms of Kabalah I  was pretty impressed with the Kabbalah Institute for a few reasons.
The first is that the only edition of the Eitz Chaim that I understood at all is the edition of the Kabalah Institute. Also when I was in Tzefat {Safed} [In Meor Chaim the kirya of Rav Ernster]  I use to see them by R. Pinchas Ben Yair once every month when they came up from Tel Aviv. They seemed to be a very nice and wholesome group.
They do not have a good reputation in the religious world but as far as I can tell that is in itself one of their best points.The religious I think are jealous of people that have authentic spirituality.

My own experience  was to learn the Ari outside of the yeshiva schedule. I was part of the yeshiva Mir in NY at the time so I was doing Gemara during the regular hours. On the side I learned the Eitz Chaim. But when I got to Israel I did very little kabalah (if at all). Still I think the little I did of the Ari was helpful.[I am sad to say I did very little learning Torah in those days. If I could rewind the tape I would have learned in the kollel of Rav Ernster of gone up to the Litvak Kollel of Rav Fivelson and sat and learned Torah.
The Ari is a good explanation of Torah, but learning the Ari does not take the place of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot.
[The Ari has the problem of all systems--it is liable to abuse. People however will always find a way to abuse any system. Abusus non tolit usum.]

The kabalah as developed later than the Ari is only from the Realm of Holiness from these basic people, Yaakov Abuchatzaira, Rav Shalom Sharabi,  the Ramchal and the Gra. The rest of it is sadly all from the Sitra Achra and very damaging to an astounding degree. The grandson of the Reshash wrote  a very nice sidur base on the Reshash but I think it is only sold in Mea Shearim. At least that was the only place it was available  few years ago.


The advantage of the Ari is that he gives a nice understanding of the Torah. The disadvantage is he is more liable to abuse than almost any other system-to the degree that is amazing. Still without him, I see no way to understand the Torah.

Realm of Holiness-living with balance

With Hegel there is a connection between areas of value. Even in the same area he says"content is itself the Idea as the unity of the Notion and reality."
With the Kant Fries School of Dr Kelley Ross the areas of value are independent.
So with Hegel the living with balance makes more sense. That is devoting let's say one hour of time to Gemara and another hour to Physics, and another to Music, etc until in one day you have covered all the areas of value. But with Dr Kelley Ross, it would make more sense to concentrate on the one area of value you need the most the whole day.

For me it seems better to divide the day into small sections. To concentrate on one area alone for me seems to work against that very area in itself. But I think that is simply a quirk of my own personality. I can see there are people that can concentrate on one area alone and gain great expertise in that area. But that does not seem to work for me.




There is great value in the Kant-Fries School of Thought. Still there are a few problem areas. One is implanted knowledge. There does not seem  to be any reason to believe that implanted knowledge corresponds to truth in any sense. And it does not does not seem to be the approach of the Rambam either. True that even natural law needs to be revealed, but once it is reveled, the veil of perception is taken away and then reason perceives it. Also the whole approach of Kant is absolute based on Hume,  and Hume never showed that reason only can perceive contradictions as Dr. Bryan Caplan makes clear.

To me it seems there is a lot of good in the Hegel approach.
The Ari and Rambam do have as a matter of fact a kind of progression towards the Divine Light anyway. That seems kind of curious because normally we understand the Divine Light --when it is the real thing from the Realm of Holiness-to be a simple gift from God. That is why the Ari and the Rambam seem hard to understand.  They both definitely say the approach towards God goes by stages. The Arizal even warns about jumping the gun in a few places that are relatively unknown. [Which is itself curious because it seems to go against the beginning of the Eitz Chaim. That Introduction to the Eitz Chaim is in fact the reason people learn it without being prepared. Still as I mentioned once I see no contradiction. Rather being prepared simply does not mean what most people imagine it to mean.]

Music for the Glory of God

t53 D major

Human problems

It is hard to erase problems. I am not really sure what to say about in terms of  a solution. My own approach is to do Physics and learn Rav Shach and other parts of Torah and hope that the light of Torah will erase all my problems. That is the best I can figure out. I also try to say over to myself a few statements of Musar in the morning when I get up that deal with issues I need to work on. There is a great Musar book called "Madragat HaAdam" by a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter that has a passage in it about Trust in God that he brings from the Gra's commentary on Proverbs which I try to say over to myself to remind myself about trust in God.  

But that is just for me. 

I am not sure about the issues that other people need to work on. But whatever they are I think the best idea is: learn Muar and when you find something that deals with some problem you are having then to write in down and repeat it to yourself every day when you get up in the morning

Shavuot page 43

R. Akiva says if a lender loses the pledge he has for a loan, then  the lender loses the amount that the pledge was worth. The pledge might very well be worth more than the loan and thus the lender might owe to the borrower money.  However Shmuel says the pledge goes for the entire loan.. Thus even if the pledge is worth more the lender would not owe anything. This seems to me to be  a proof for Rabainu Chananel. For to Rashi Shmuel is when nothing was said and R. Akiva is when the lender said something. But why would the lender say something that results in his losing money? Rabainu Chananel says on the contrary that Shmuel is when something was said and R. Akiva is when nothing was said.

Shavuot page 43
Here is a link to the book on Shas where I added this idea: Ideas in Shas
______________________________________________________________________________

ר. עקיבא says if a lender loses the pledge he has for a loan, then  the lender loses the amount that the pledge was worth. The pledge might very well be worth more than the loan and thus the lender might owe to the borrower money.  However שמואל says the pledge goes for the entire loan. Thus even if the pledge is worth more the lender would not owe anything. This seems to me to be  a proof for רבינו חננאל. For to רש''י the case of  שמואל is when nothing was said and ר. עקיבא is when the lender said something. But why would the lender say something that results in his losing money? רבינו חננאל says on the contrary that שמואל is when something was said and ר. עקיבא is when nothing was said.
I am not saying that the lender is allowed to take a pledge that is worth more than the loan. I am only addressing the issue of if this happened.


ר. עקיבא אומר אם מלווה מאבד את המשכון שיש לו בגלל הלוואה, אז המלווה מאבד את סכום שהמשכון היה שווה. המשכון יכול מאוד להיות שווה יותר מן ההלוואה, ולכן המלווה עלול להתחייב  כסף ללווה. אולם שמואל אומר המשכון כנגד ההלוואה כולה. לכן גם אם המשכון שווה יותר המלווה לא חייב שום דבר. זה נראה לי להיות הוכחה עבור רבינו חננאל. לפי רש''י המקרה של שמואל הוא כאשר לא שום דבר נאמר ור. עקיבא הוא כאשר המלווה אמר משהו. אבל למה המלווה היה אומר משהו שגורם לאבד כסף שלו? רבינו חננאל אומר להיפך כי שמואל הוא כשנאמר משהו ור. עקיבא הוא כאשר לא שום דבר שנאמר. אני לא אומר כי המלווה רשאי לַעֲבוֹט משכון שהוא שווה יותר מן ההלוואה. אני רק מתייחס למצב אם זה קרה

Is it possible to worship Satan while believing one is worshiping G-d?

The signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication opens an interesting question: Is it possible to worship Satan while believing one is worshiping G-d?  It seems clear that this is true as we know from Sanhedrin page 63 that there is such a thing as idol worship that is not intended.  And we know from the Rambam in the Guide that the Spirit of the World in not the same thing as God. So the issue of the excommunication is more severe and serious than people are aware of. [The Ari also brings this same theme in a few places]. It is no wonder that people joining that cult and thus worshiping the Devil believe they are being good religious Jews.
And this opinion of mine was apparently shared by the Gra and the sages of Musar [Reb Israel Salanter and his disciples] who rigorously excluded any mention of that cult. Clearly Rav Shach was also of this opinion. So I am not a lone voice of reason in the wilderness.  The greatest sages of Israel agreed with me and yet their opinions are ignored.

Some religions encourage really bad behavior. (The Aztec Religion was a scheme how to capture as many people as possible to sacrifice. And most others are variation on this theme.])

Not all religions are created equal. Not all hard work is equal. And not all patriotism is equal.


Some religions encourage really bad behavior. (The Aztec Religion was a scheme how to capture as many people as possible to sacrifice. And most others are variation on this theme.])Others are more on the positive side. Some hard work is useless, some gets results. Not all countries have a positive social meme so patriotism towards one's country has value only in so far as that country in itself has positive value.

My basic idea of  proper Torah approach is to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach [with the relevant Gemaras] and all the writings of the Gra, and Physics and Math and survival skills.

[Though I sometimes mention the idea of learning דרך גירסה just saying the word and going on, I found in doing the Avi Ezri that it is better to do review a few times on each chapter before continuing on.]

t52 music file

T52 F major  t52 midi 

t52 nwc format

My Parents and Social Justice.

 In any case, it took me good and long to recognize the greatness of my parents even though I knew they were very special. Still the world in those days was very much anti-parents, so it took a lot of effort to see through the facade of society. Israel is much more close to traditional family values than the USA  The interesting thing about my parents was they spoke so little about how to live that the few times they ever said anything, it sticks out in my mind very clearly  -for the fact of it being so unusual. They definitely liked my learning Physics,--but only after I anyway showed interest in that direction. 

I was drawn to philosophy on my own, and  they were definitely not into it  at all. Especially my Dad. He was totally and absolutely oblivious to any philosophical questions what-so-ever. My Mom lent me a sympathetic ear to listen to my thoughts when I got home from school, but  it was not up her alley.They sent us to Hebrew school and expected we would grow up good Jews in the sense that they were. It is hard to explain. They were however cold to the idea of "Social Justice," which even back then was being preached in Temple Israel. They had a good idea of what Torah is about, and knew that Social Justice is not it. When I was getting more religious, I was praying the entire morning prayer every day in English which took me until 12 PM in the summer and my Mom came in and told me I needed to get out and get some fresh air. [They were not into religious fanaticism.]

 Social Justice became in the world of Reform to be the entire message of Torah. My Dad never said anything about it, but my Mom did one time when we were in Temple Israel. They knew it is just a code word  for Socialism. They were cold to the idea completely. They had from their own homes a very good idea of what Torah means.

"Why did Jews support communism do you think?" 

I guess it was the "in thing." Anyone who was anyone in the intellectual world thought Socialism as the wave of the future, and thought it had all the weight of evidence on its side.

Here is my Mom.

Torah, The Law of Moses, Physics, Music, Hard work, being self sufficient, being a mensch, marrying a nice Jewish girl. These were all important principle to my parents. Also loyalty towards family and friends.

They certainly believed in Torah and would have been pleased as a peach if I had managed to combine Torah in Ponovitch or some NY Litvak Yeshiva with learning Physics. As it was, I did not get involved in Physics until later. But the straight path of Torah was clearly their view. They were aware the religious world only makes a show of Torah but is really filled with the Dark Side. They knew something is highly wrong with the religious that make a show of Torah but are really from the Sitra Achra.

The cult and anti cult movement in the USA

The cult and anti cult movement in the USA have had a history of bouncing back and forth. I wish I had time to go into this in more detail. Obliviously the period from 1946 -1965 was quiet in this regard. But at the peak of the counter culture movement from 1965 until 1969, the cults had enormous success.  But it did not end there. A California judge decided in one case that there was no such thing as "brain washing".  That was under the influence of the mad professors of sociology  that  received enormous sums of money  for their "expert" testimony that gave clean bills of health to cults. The 1980's saw a rise in the anti-cult movements but the anti cult movement was brought to a dramatic finish in 1990.
 In any case the signature of the Gra on the Cherem [excommunication] had a similar history. It was meant to be the opening salvo against the cults. But the lukewarm reception of his opinion doomed it to oblivion. Still when the Litvak yeshivas arose  and after that the Musar movement, there was some attempt to distance themselves from the cults with little success. Thus most people that saw through the charade of the cults simply wanted nothing to do with Torah at all since the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] had become so tightly bound up with it.

The attitude is embedded deeply in sociology departments-- to defend religious cults and claim there is no such thing as brain washing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Is there such a thing as brainwashing? It seems there is. The academic community has tried to ignore this thesis in spite of the fact that the best scholars like Zimbardo seems to support it. Evidence suggests that new religious cults do use mind control methods   that have proven effective and they do it on purpose.

Some people in the academic community have been given lavish support to protect cults.[The very people that write reports on cults are getting lavish gifts from those cults. No wonder they give them  clean bill of health.] The attitude is embedded deeply in sociology departments-- to defend religious cults and claim there is no such thing as brain washing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The setting is simple. Control of the young persons' environment by the group under the leadership of the charismatic leader. Once you have those two components in place, brain washing becomes amazingly simple.

That is not to imply all religious interest is due to this, but some of it certainly is.  If you can control these factors, you can convince anyone of almost anything, long after the group is gone.

[There is a lot of research that needs to be done here. There is a paper by Benjamin Zablocki that goes into some details, but there is much more insidious history behind it all.]

Still there are legitimate establishments like the authentic Litvak yeshivas which are on the side of good--but they border on cults just by the fact of the cults trying to gain entrance.

All in all I would have to agree with those parents who are wary of all yeshivas unless it is a place that is so well known and established like Ponovitch that there is no doubts about it.

The trouble seems to be that you can take even a good set of doctrines that point people in a moral and good direction and still easily turn it into a cult by these two simple mechanisms--a) control of environment b) charismatic leader. Thus even Torah can be turned into  a cult.

The trouble is also that sometimes decent and good groups partake of some of these characteristics. The Marine Corp, or the Shar Yashuv Yeshiva in NY.  Still the goal of the group seems to make the whole project worthwhile.
I have thought to mention that Dr. Zimbardo thought the only solution to the problem of cults is to have a healthy society in which the temptation of cults does not exist.

The idea of trust in God usually worked for me as long as I stuck with it. And I admit I did not stick with it.

You do see in Torah that different people come along and emphasize one particular aspect. This happened in Musar as you can see in Navardok with the idea of trust in God. But it is not confined there. I heard in Israel from a friend that this often leads to that one thing that is emphasized to be the very thing that people mess up. Still it does not seem to always work that way. It seems to be like corporations that sometimes they actually accomplish their goals, and yet in other corporations the accomplishment seems to go n the reverse direction.

No matter how you look at it the very principle in itself seems odd. Why would there be any particular command of the Torah more important than any other unless it is explicit in the Torah itself that that particular command is primary?

In any case the idea of trust in God and learning Torah has enough support to be able to commit to this ideal.
That is it might make some sense to start trusting in God to take care of your needs. The idea of trust in God usually worked for me as long as I stuck with it. It is rather when I deviated from it that it did not seem to work any longer.

In a rather strange way some people emphasize the very opposite of what the Torah requires and yet do so under the guise of Torah  Graves of tzadikm is one minor example see Deuteronomy 18:11. But there are many more strange examples.

וישבות ביום השביעי מכל מלאכתו אשר עשה. And He rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had made. [Genesis] What could this possibly mean? If he stopped working at the beginning of night on Friday night, but then simply did no more work, then it was not on the seventh day alone that he rested by the eight and ninth, and onward. So it must mean He continued working on the eight day in order for the entire seventh day to be one span of an interval of not working.

The Sages ask this and answer since then he makes "Shiduchim," matches-but that does not seem to come under the category of the 39 types of work.

I believe in the "noble savage" without the "noble."

I do not believe in the "noble savage" myth that was popularized by Rousseau.   Nor the Blank Slate of John Locke.  There are genes. Some genes are suggestions. Some genes are dictators. But there is also the social meme that plays a role [Howard Bloom in the Lucifer Principle.] Thus it is clear to me that Western Civilization had  at least these factors: (1) genes and (2) the Law of Moses (3) Plato and Aristotle.

Ellen White of the Seventh Day Adventists was definitely  using information fed to her (by informants) to appear to have the "Divine Spirit." This fact sheds light on the fact that Rav Shick was doing the same thing. It always seemed that way to some degree, but it was never anything I could put my finger on exactly.[I saw this a lot but never wanted to believe it. Clearly Erez was feeding to him information about me and others tat he would afterwards insert into hi public speaking that seemed to people to be "the Divine Spirit". Still there was some kind of trans-personal element about him that went beyond that, You could tell he was not getting his information by Divine Spirit because he made many mistakes. this was so clear to me that I could even tell exactly who had been his informant. But i till did not want to believe it because I really thought of him very highly. And without him  can see people can fall into much worse things.]


Even so Rav Shick had an almost Litvak approach to Reb Nachman that combined the best element of prayer with learning Torah and emphasized the best elements of Reb  Nachman instead of the more flaky aspects. All the better to get people to leave an authentic Litvak yeshiva environment and join his group.

[My general approach to this subject is based on the idea of the Intermediate Zone. People that get caught in that area definitely have some amazing spiritual power and manifestations, but all to give power to the Sitra Achra ( the Dark Realm).

In any case, Rav Shick was a lot better than all the rest of the Sitra Achra cults. He had the sense to emphasize the good aspects of Reb Nachman. Still, it is always regretful any involvement with any group that comes under the Cherem (excommunication) of the Gra.

path of Torah and how to accept "the yoke of Torah"

What makes it hard to recommend the path of Torah is the problem of the cults and kelipot that people automatically get involved with when they think they are coming to Torah. That makes the whole endeavor highly undesirable, and it defeats the whole purpose. After all, what do people learn when they imagine they are coming to Torah? The first lesson is to ignore one's parents. Next is to learn mysticism of the unclean realm as you can see on the faces of the people themselves. They get that Zombie look after a short time. Next is to despise the State of Israel and all secular Jews.
After all that, it is hard to see what possible benefit they could have out of the whole thing-- once they have lost their basic human decency.

So the basic issue is simple. How does one go about accepting the yoke of Torah in a way that does not lead to negative outcomes?   There seem to be only two ways. To learn at home as much as possible, Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot, Avi Ezri. Or to start an authentic Litvak yeshiva where bad influences are terminated with extreme prejudice.

If you are learning at home, I found a great way of doing Gemara, that is a עמוד [half page] per day with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharasha and Maharam. Also if you do get through Shas that way,  then do the Yerushalmi.

[There is a problem with time distribution. Taking the Rambam' four fold path of learning the Oral and Written Law plus Physics and Metaphysics, the question arises about time commitment. Each subject in itself requires a great deal of time.] [That is the 10,000 hours rule. That is: to become even half way decent in any of these subject takes 10,000. That is why Authentic Litvak yeshivas have their four year cycle. That end up being around 10,000 hours. Same goes for Physics.]

It would be the 12th day of the Omer today if you go by the molad. That would make April 11 the first day of peach. This is only to Tosphot in Sanhedrin. Most people think the present day Hebrew calendar was set up when there was real semicha but there i no record of that in the Gemara. And letters of the geonim have dates in them that do not correlate to today's calendar. To me it seems clear it was adopted during the middle of the geonic period. But with no semicha there is nothing to make it valid. 

There is a lot to be learned from the Ari''zal however all the cults that pretend to teach him are in fact teaching the approach of the Shatz and his false prophet Nathan of Gaza. This is how the Sitra Achra the Dark Realm got into the religious world. I

"Around and around go the wicked." [סביב רשעים יתהלכון] (Psalms) You go from one thing to the other. You find Torah and then some group comes along and says, "Yes, keep Torah. But if you join us, you will do it so much better." 
And then one  goes and joins that cult. And then find it to be  a cult and finds some other  group or ideal and around and around he or she goes for years on end.

The way to be saved from this kelipa is by trust in God. To believe where you are --physically and spiritually--is where you are supposed to be. What is is what ought to be.


It is my tendency to be like this by nature--to investigate new things. But I am not alone in this. However the flaw in this is that cult and kelipot and dark side forces are not always obvious at first. They often cloth themselves with clothing of righteousness while the inner essence is evil.  

And in any case Litvak Yeshiva world where authentic true unadulterated Torah is learnt and kept in fact has numerous flaws, which do cause people to seek the Truth elsewhere.

[In any case, at some point I settled on the Gra  to "learn Torah." This makes the most sense to me as the set of paths that contains in it the proper paths that gives the right guidance, but is not too open to allow all things.] [This idea of learning Torah is defended by Reb Chaim from Voloshin in the book Nefesh HaChaim.]]

What it means to learn Torah is basically expressed well in Lithuanian yeshivas, Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot,  and Avi Ezri of Rav Shach but along with that I add Physics and Math mainly because of my parents and the Rambam.  (I admit that if it was only my parents, I might not pay that much attention as I should. [There is that spirit of rebellion against parents which minimizes the authority of parents sadly enough.] But there is the Rambam that puts Physics and Metaphysics into the category of the Oral Law. I know that each these subjects takes time and along with that there I the issue of a vocation. Still I try to set up my day in a way that I  get at least a mall amount of each of these essential vitamins.   Musar I should add gives one the basic practical aspects of the Oral Law

It is hard to explain why the school of thought of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and Rav Shach is so important. The basic reason is that it is hard to actually see what is going on in the Gemara without them.  There is a lot of depth in the Gemara that is easy to miss with them.
[There is a lot to be learned from the Ari''zal however all the cults that pretend to teach him are in fact teaching the approach of the Shatz and his false prophet Nathan of Gaza. This is how the Sitra Achra the Dark Realm got into the religious world. I could document this but it is easy enough to look up if you have the stomach for it. That is the reason the Gra puts that whole cult into excommunication. ]

T50music file

T50 D major [T50 in midi format][  t50 nwc ]

Jewish Cults:They cloak themselves with outer signs of Jewishness in order to hide their moral perversions.

In the religious world the main thing is to avoid the cults. And the closer they seem to Torah the more dangerous they are.

Not enough attention is given to the problem of "masit umadiach" one who attempts to seduce another person into worship of an idol.
For  that is what the cults try to do in the disguise of Torah.

In Torah there is no such thing as a  proposition or a mysticism being ninety-nine point nine percent right, and point one percent novelty or error. It is either all or nothing, as the stakes are simply too high for anything else.  Teaching doctrines that are not of Torah in addition to Torah is just as bad and worse as not teaching Torah at all.
These obviously good and well  meaning people  start with half-truths. 
One minor example is that the Torah teaches Monotheism, that God is One and He created the world ex-nihilo something from nothing. That is, He is not the world and the world is not Him. But the problems with the cults only start with perversions of faith. They cloak themselves with outer signs of Jewishness in order to hide their moral perversions. 
And you can not walk into any place or building of their's without being infected. Their power is like that of a barnacle that attaches itself to a male crab and injects a kind of enzyme that makes it think it is  a female, and thus goes and digs a hole in the sand for its eggs. But it has no eggs. But the barnacle sure does.

Better yet. Instead of avoiding the cults, destroy them. Take them out. 

t48 music file

t48 G Minor 6-8 time

Having the English Soncino was a big help and for my first five years I used that as an aid.

I do not have any magic system towards learning. When I was in yeshiva I found  certain people helped me to understand the Gemara. That was the Tosphot HaRosh, the Maharsha and the Pnei Yehoshua. I did not feel in any way ready for the big leagues like Reb Haim Soloveitchik though that was the bread and butter for most people. Having the English Soncino was a big help and for my first five years I used that as an aid. Having a good learning partner is also a great help. But when it came to Physics I did not really have any idea how to get started. It seemed a lot depended on finding the right book for me. But in terms of Physics, one way I managed to get through my courses at Polytechnic Institute of NYU was by a method I had seen mentioned by the Ari (Rav Isaac Luria Ashkenazi) and the Ramchal of saying the words forwards and backwards. This was an amazing help for me, and and I think once a person has gone through a book a few times straight with no review, then it is  a good idea to go back to review it with this method. I think a lot of people give up on it because they are not aware of the method by which they could open the lock.


[For fast learning what I did for a while was to do a half a page per day with Rashi Tosphot, Maharash and Maharam. That was for fast learning and only took about 40 minutes per day. I do not recall if I was learning also with my learning partner at the time. That would have been in a different session and his path was to stay on it until it was clear. We learned only about an hour a day, but he refused to budge until every last detail was clear. I think the average time on one Tosphot with him was about two or three months [sometimes more -up to I think six months.] He used to think up the most amazing questions with seemingly no effort, and sometimes great answers also. Some of the answers on questions in my two books on the Gemara I came up with only after years of thinking about his questions.][e.g. Bava Metzia page 97, the answer to the question there I thought of only after learning Rav Shach's treatment of the Gemara in Nida page 2b. The learning with my learning partner stopped after Bava Metzia page 104 but then picked up again later when we did the Gemara in Sanhedrin 63 and other Gemaras.]

One person said on Breitbart that religion motivates people to evil:
I suggested he look at Dr Kelly Ross and Steven Dutch.

I should mention I have in fact seen religion motivate people towards all kind of things,-- good and bad.


This is what Steven Dutch says:

Given the endless ways religions can be subverted and co-opted, the wonder is less that religions commit evils than that they do any good at all. And given the way Marxism was transformed into an unchallengeable dogma in the 20th century, the simple-minded prescription of John Lennon's Imagine:

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
doesn't seem to offer much prospect of a solution. After all, Khmer Rouge Cambodia, Stalinist Russia and Enver Hoxha's officially atheistic Albania didn't exactly shine as beacons in the darkness. One could readily see, in a world where Lennon's ideals somehow gained supremacy, that a few generations later people who atavistically clung to national identities or religious beliefs would be ostracized and persecuted. Solely because of the threat they posed to peace, harmony, and all-round good vibes, mind you.

In fact, blaming religion for the ills of the world is a wonderful way to avoid taking a hard look at human nature. It's a variation on the "noble savage" myth and suffers from the inevitable failure of believers in the myth to ask how innately benign people could ever be attracted to repression in the first place, and how we can guarantee that eliminating all forms of repression in the present will prevent its returning in the future.

the baali teshuva /newly religious.

The religious world was putting forth great effort to get Jews to be religious. [In the sense of keeping trivial rituals at the expense of the more weighty factors  like honoring one's parents.] [Certainly no religious organization was interested in strengthening one's observance of that mitzvah.] But there was more about it that was odd. No one has documented much of the spiritual abuse and the taking advantage of the baali teshuva [''newly religious'']. Maybe it is the prohibition of ''Lashon Hara'' [slander]?

But the main focus seems to have been to create  a slave caste to support the  supposedly superior "frum [religious] from birth". The whole thing reeked of hypocrisy and fraud until it gave a bad name to the holy Torah.
For themselves they would encourage and parade family values, but for baali teshiva
they would encourage their wives to divorce them, and the sexual abuse of the children from those marriages was rampant in the frum world. While pretending holiness and higher moral standards they would  act like the most depraved of humans.  I have long sought for a reasonable explanation of this phenomenon, and the best I could find was the influence of the Shatz and that whole movement that the Gra put into excommunication.

[It is not to say that the Litvak world [Yeshiva World based on the Gra] is immune. Just the opposite. They allowed elements from those movements to get inside, and thus partake of many of the flaws of fraud and spiritual uncleanliness.

So the solution, I imagine, would be simply to pay attention to the excommunication of the Gra. That would seem to be obvious. But for some reason, this obvious solution is ignored except by Rav Silverman in the Old City of Jerusalem and to some degree Ponovitch.

Appendix:
Rav Zilverman is the Rosh Yeshiva of Aderet Eliayhu which is the first yeshiva to specifically do everything according to the Gra. Since then, others have started. Ponovitch tends towards that approach also much more so than any American Yeshiva.

T47 E flat major  mp3  same piece in MIDI  same piece in nwc format

Nice article on Martin Luther

I had heard of this opinion [that is mentioned in that article--the Holocaust being mainly derived from Luther]  before, but I had not been aware of the evidence behind the thesis. My own opinion is that Pauline Christianity tends to waver between two extremes, abidance with the Law and then nullification of the Law. This is the never ending dilemma of Christianity which comes to full force in Luther.  

"You owe nothing to God except faith and confession. In all other things He lets you do whatever you like. You may do as you please, without any danger of conscience whatsoever." (see Grisar, "Luther", vol. iv, p. 145).
...
"The body has nothing to do with God. In this respect one can never sin against God, but only against one's neighbour" (W12, 131).³

"It does not matter what people do; it only matters what they believe." "God does not need our actions. All He wants is that we pray to Him and thank Him." Even the example of Christ Himself means nothing to him. "It does not matter how Christ behaved--what He taught is all that matters" (E29, 196), is Luther's subtle distinction.




[My point of view is the anti law approach is simply unfounded and mistaken. To me it is of greatest importance to keep the Law, The written Law and its oral explanation {that is the Torah and the two Talmuds}.The best way to understand the Gemara in a straightforward way is to learn the books on Ethics from the Middle Ages which explain the basic emphasis of the Torah on good character and fear of God.] 

the religious world

I  can not look it up, but I recall that the beginning of the book of Isaiah  starts on rather a negative note. It is just the opposite of what you would normally expect from Isaiah. You would think it would start on some positive theme  But instead he sounds like Jeremiah. His point is Jerusalem which ought to be a faithful city had become full of pus. From this we can see a parallel to the world of the religious today. That is the name "Jerusalem" is made up of two words. יראה שלמה. Perfect Fear of God. So when a person joins the religious world and expects to find encouragement to fear God and serve him faith fully instead he finds it is "full of pus" and is "infected from foot to head," as Isaiah puts it.
Thus there is no choise but to avoid the religious world as much as possible and buy oneself a Gemara, a few books of Ethics {Musar}, and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach [which is as deep, but more self explanatory than the חידושי הרמב''ם ] and to learn Torah at home.
The problem is the religious world seems to have some kind of infectious disease that one picks up just by being around them.  
Unless one is in the vicinity of an authentic Litvak yeshiva, then there is nothing to gain by association with the insane religious. The idea that problems with the religious world is infectious can be understood in light of Toxo-plasmosis. This is juts the first of its kind to be discovered, but it is probable there are millions of such parasites that can jump from person to person to infect others with bad thoughts and false idea. This is like the parasite that can make  a male crab believe it is female and then it goes about digging a place in the sand to bury its eggs. One can go a step further and postulate that a social meme has this same characteristic as the ToxoPlasmosis parasite. It face the same challenge-- it can only reproduce in humans and thus faces a challenge how to get inside of humans? (I know this is a stretch-to say the super-organism ha a mind of its own but this seems to be the way Howard Bloom look at it in hi book the Lucifer Principle)






[Though the groups that follow Reb Nachman are in the same boat, still it is refreshing to see that Reb Nachman himself brought attention to this problem as the Na Nach groups points out. The drawback is that as much as one gains from Reb Nahman's good advice, the eventual outcome is to leave off learning Torah.]

T44 C Major  t44 in midi

(ditto in nwc format)

essence of Torah

I do not have enough spiritual sense to be able to claim the absolute truth. Truth as in TRUTH. But I do have enough of that kind of sense to be able to tell quality when I see it and to be able to discern fraud.So I do want to share some of the valuable ideas I have see around.
One thing is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. More than any other book I have seen that is the one set that contains the essence of Torah in crystallized form. I saw in my parents the path of Torah of balance-- i.e. Torah with Derech Erertz [That is "to be a mensch"decent human being--with good character and being self sufficient].  Their path as more or less the way of the Rambam with his four fold program of learning the Oral Law, the written Law, Physics and Metaphysics. In Reb Nachman I saw a wealth of great ideas --that is: particular pieces of advice, but all a vision of Torah that makes full use of his predecessors to create tapestry or a vast fresco of Torah. That is he weaves together the Tenach and Talmud with the Ari to create an amazing vision of what Torah is suppose to be about. That is not to give any kind of agreement with the group that supposedly go by his teachings. {Visionary would be a good word for Reb Nachman.}

[Among his good ideas are: (1) talking with God in one's own language. That is the real essence of prayer. (2) Avoidance of doctors. (3) Making an importance issue out of the kind of fast learning mentioned in Gemara and later books of Musar.]

Reb Israel Salanter had two disciples Isaac Blazzer, and the Madragat HaAdam. Both have written really amazing Musar books. The Madragat HaAdam is mainly about trust in God with no effort. If only I could come to that! But at least I am happy to be reminded about that. [A second book by Isaac Blazzer came out recently of his writings after he wrote the אור ישראל.]

Something strange is going on.

I seem to have trouble when it comes to learning Torah. It is as if there is some hidden obstacle(s).
The last day of Pesach was when a rosh yeshiva was having the last meal before the end of Pesach and I did not attend. That blew my chance of marrying his daughter. . Then getting back to Israel finding myself thrown out of every yeshiva that I attempted to sit and learn in got me to wonder if it is החרב המתהפכת לשמור דרך עץ החיים the fiery sword that guards the path to the Tree of Life. The truth is the obstacles to Torah for me are from so many directions that tend to wonder what is it all about?

Something strange is going on. So to some degree I found a kind of compromise by going with the opinion of the Rambam who advocates a four fold path of learning Torah (Oral and Written), Physics and Metaphysics. [The Polytechnic Institute of NYU I went to and majored in Physics]
Still something strange is going on. It is almost as if, even when I manage to get my hands on a book of Torah, that it does not take long until I lose it, or something happens in some way that I can not use it. Maybe I just do not have the merit to learn. Something always happens. So to cherish and love every word of Torah that I can manage to learn is my goal. To at least appreciate it from afar like a long lost love, and being aware that it can easily be taken away from me in the blink of an eye.

Maybe it is just some kind of test? But who knows? Or perhaps it is just a simple way of getting me to pay attention to the Rambam about the importance of Physics and Metaphysics along with learning the Oral Law (Two Talmuds) and the Written Law. If that was the idea, I would have to say that it was effective. Eventually I began to see the importance of the Rambam's four fold path.

The simplest way of understanding this is that it is the battle of the memes, units of social information. Every set tries to get a hold of as many people as possible in order to promulgate itself.

Even specific sins do this.

a problem with Islam

I think there is a problem with Islam in itself. What I have thought until now is that it makes a whole lot of difference whom you admire. That is even if their theology would be OK (I am not saying it is), then there would still be the trouble that they emulate a dark and evil person. Christianity seems to have trouble in the area of theology but has the redeeming value of whom they admire and strive to emulate.

Some people prefer to see only bad things Christians have done, and refuse to see any good. This seems to me to be intellectually dishonest. I have to say that it is an eye opener when you find yourself in a fix and not one of your supposed friends wants to help you or even admit he knows you and it always seems to be  a Christian that comes along to offer a helping hand

Berkeley

 Berkeley people are not dumb. I had a learning partner who had a degree in computer science from Berkeley who is light years smarter than me. The problem is that Leftism and Socialism in various shades from strong RED to Pink were simply the accepted academic university norms and still are until today. [I was horrified to see this in NYU.] Philosophers today are not visionaries and tend to be quite superficial thinkers. [With the exception of Kelley Ross.]  I think it was easier in the USSR to see the problems with the system of communism more than in the USA where people could dream about a socialist paradise without having to feel the jackboots on their necks.

Easter.

Rome at the time was not a democracy. The issue I think was that Pontus Pilate was afraid the people would send a message to Rome that he was a bad governor. That kind of report I vaguely recall would get a governor dismissed and I think sometimes executed. Also religious fanatics (as the super religious people I think were) are not representative of all the Jewish people. I have not thought about the relation of the life and death of Jesus to the question of Democracy but it seems to me that a good deal of American Democracy is based on a long history of thinking about Jesus and natural law and freedom from Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Aquinas, John Locke, and the history of the rise and fall of Athens, and the Roman Republic. It is by no means obvious to me that the story of Jesus tells us something against the kind of Republic that the USA is.

Musar movement

Even though the Musar movement in the sense of Reb Israel Salanter is not all that possible--as a mass movement, still it seems to me important  to try to get through the major works of Musar. That is the basic set of books of Ethics from the Rishonim (medival authorities), mainly because of the need to work on one's character. Tikun HaMidot [self correction of bad character traits]. The Musar movement itself seems to have drifted off into religious fanaticism,- in spite of its original idea being to come to good character traits.

The Musar movement has become part of the fanatic religions world which has set itself against the State of Israel as a primary focus. So there is not much in the way of good character one can gain from it today.
Today in terms of gaining good character, it makes more sense to go to Israel and serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and  learn Torah in some Mizrachi [Religious Zionist Yeshiva like Merkaz HaRav], rather than join groups that are have more in common with Mein Kamp rather than true authentic Torah.
[In terms of Torah learning it is hard to say that the super religious have much of an advantage over the Religious Zionist yeshivas. The religious Zionist yeshivas learn pretty much the same material. The difference in learning seems to be evenly distributed. I have met great learners that were part of the Religious Zionist yeshivas.]


One advantage of the Musar movement is that it calls attention to what is really important in Torah--good character מידות טובות and this ironically the very area where the religious fail miserably.

T45 C Major   T45midi T45 nwc