learning Musar

The idea of Reb Israel Salanter about learning Musar is in my mind a great idea even though the whole thing got off track to feed into a kind of fanaticism. Still the original idea seems important to me.

The original idea was an emphasis on several points as I think is clear from the writings of his disciples.  Clearly the importance of "Midot Tovot" [good traits: honesty, kindness, not to speak lashon hara (slander)] was foremost in his mind as you can see from his own statements about his motivation to begin the Musar Movement. Fear of God also I think you have to say was  apart of it as you can see in the writings of Isaac Blazzer.
 The trust in God aspect of it really I think was from Rav Joseph Horwitz of Navardok because you do not see that much in the other disciples.


The problem is the basic idea of Musar is not to be a fanatic, but rather to keep the Law of Moses in the most simple basic way possible. Not to add and not to subtract.

[The Middle Ages got a bad name that is not justified. In fact in certain areas of thought, the Middle Ages far surpasses later ages. You can see this when you learn Rishonim [medieval sages] on the Gemara. However for me personally I found Rishonim hard to get into without the help of people like Rav Shach in his Avi Ezri, or  a good learning partner.]

The world according to Torah is dualistic.

The world according to Torah is dualistic. There are two different things. The Creator and the created. They are not the same thing.


"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."


However you can see the same ideas in the אמונות ודעות of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides in his Guide for the Perplexed.

The son of Maimonides also goes into this in his book  of Musar. מספיק לעובד השם   Enough for a servant of God.

Why in fact Rav Saada Gaon and the Rambam are ignored in matters of the view-point of Torah seems odd to me. You would imagine that they have some understanding of what Torah is all about, wouldn't you? I, for one,  certainly assume it as a simple thing

u53 music files

U-53 F Major [Edited]

repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps

The basic areas I am aware of for myself that need repentance are my essentially not following in my parents foot steps. It has been a trend in Western society to make fathers look like fools and this trend started with trying to make parents look evil. So there was a good deal of peer pressure to discount the good example of my parents. Still to me today it looks like that was a serious mistake. They were doing everything just about as well as any human being could be expected to do. [As a reference, I suggest looking at Jeremiah 35, and also the חידושי הגרנ''ט which is from one of the great Lithuanian sages Rav Naftali Troup concerning the issue of honor of one's parents. ]

On the other hand it is hard for me to imagine that I could have learned Gemara in any real sense  except by going to the authentic Litvak yeshivas of NY.

And that path would in fact have made it hard to do university along with Torah since the subway ride to Brooklyn College was very long from Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway.

In any case, that is one area. Another important area is the State of Israel which I have to say is very important. I was sadlly set into the mentality of people that had made a mistake in this regard. Today to be against the State of Israel looks to me to be on the moral scale of treason.
[To some degree I confess ignorance because at the Mir Yeshiva in NY nothing was ever discussed about any politics what so ever. People were simply too involved in learning Torah to care. And the very positive opinions about Israel of Reb Moshe Feinstein and Reb Aaron Kotler were completely unknown.]

I want to mention the building boats is still not as well understood as people imagine. See Catastrophe Theory books. If the variables would be few that is one thing, but with lots of variables flying around you get higher dimensional critical points--i.e catastrophes. [Catastrophes are a particular kind of critical point.]

private conversation with God.

One of the major ideas of the Ran from Breslov I think is worth some discussion: what he calls התבודדות or literally "being alone". The idea is explained by him as private conversation with God.

The point I wanted to make about this is that it goes pretty much along the regular lines of thought of the Ran: that is to make hard things easy. That is a theme running throughout his writings.
So when look at the Old Testament I see a lot of emphasis on the Law of Moses and the need to repent on not doing the Law of Moses. Now repentance is well defined as change of action. But in the Old Testament we see that along with it goes fasting and prayer. [Mainly I am thinking of Ahab and Ninve.]
But to get to the kind of prayer that you see in the Old Testament is hard. Even when one realizes the  need for repentance, it is hard to get on one's knees for a few hours and beg forgiveness from God and help to change one's deeds.

So the Ran from Breslov proposes a more simple way of going about this. Simply going to  a place where one is alone and no one else is around and talking with God from the deepest part of one's heart. That is simple conversation. That is far from  prayers of repentance that the Old Testament is talking about--but close enough to have a similar essence.

Things are good

USA history

While I am only mildly interested in history. Still I feel there are valuable lessons to be learned from it and furthermore I even have a suggestion on how USA history ought to be learned in schools.

I think English history is an integral part of American history and much more relevant to the American experience than most of what is actually learned as part of American History courses.

Furthermore I feel this learning is important not just to Americans, but to all peoples who have need of just government.

My first point is based mainly on the Federalist Papers where we see a big emphasis on the Peloponnesian War which in one way you could say was won by Sparta--but in another way really ruined Ancient Greece in a way that could never be repaired again.
I think there is little doubt that the devastating Civil Wars of England [War of the Roses] must have also been foremost in the minds of the founding fathers of the USA--in the sense that even a powerful Parliament and Christian values could not prevent chaos. To me it seems that the fathers of the USA were thinking deeply about the problem of good government and rejected many solutions that they knew from history were not effective.

The other point I have is really from Allan Bloom. In his Closing of the American Mind, in spite of the title,  he clearly considered the USA Constitution to be the best answer for the question of government for all peoples in all times and places.

The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy.

The Ran from Breslov [author of five basic books but mainly known for שיחות הר''ן]{Informal talks} brings the idea of Torah scholars that are demons in one place in his major work, the ליקוטי מוהר''ן. But that is not the only place he brings up the problem with scam artists that pretend to know Torah. The thing is his warnings usually go unheeded except for the Na Nah groups that take it more to heart.
This kind of warning you can see in the Talmud and Zohar also and other places. For one example I notice recently: "Anyone who wears clothing in order to look like a Torah scholar who is not a Torah scholar--אין מכניסים אותו במחיצתו של הקב''ה is not let to come into the Divine Presence."
That seems a bit of a let down from the drama that the Ran from Breslov brings to the subject.
Still the message seems clear. So what my solution to this problem is to emphasize the legitimate Litvak yeshivas. But I mean this as a double exclusion. That is first they have to be Litvak to be considered valid at all. But next I add "legitimate" or "authentic," because most Litvak yeshivas are far from authentic.--I mean with the real spirit of Torah. The best are clearly Ponoviz in Bnei Brak and the great NY yeshivas.

[The trouble that the Ran is dealing with is not just Torah scholars that are unworthy. The issue is the Sitra Ahra. The issue is the Dark Side that pretends to be holy. ]

Appendix: Just for reference's sake, you might look at Jeremiah 23. But a more  dramatic example would be the events of the fall of Ahab at Ramot Gilead. There he went into battle because of the advice of prophets of the Baal. The true prophet of God told him that he had seen a lying spirit come before God  and offer his services to trick Ahab. So tricks of the Dark Side are not unheard of. Just the opposite. They seem to be the standard modus operandi of the Dark Side.

You can ask what good is is philosophy? And a possible answer for Kant.

You can ask what good is  philosophy?  In an essay the person that discovered the connection between the weak force and EM [S. Weinberg] he says that the major use of philosophy is like the use of states. That is to save one from other states. But in fact that is a great use. The difference between the subject in a state and a slave or dead in another is a big difference.[Without a state we all would be subject to the lowest denominator-the lowest of criminals. Without a state, nothing good is possible. ]

So getting a world view to corresponds with reality--the way things really are-can be of great service.
Like getting an accurate idea of your place in the big picture. This can be helpful in cases like if one is a policeman, not walking out with a loaded gun in front of a speeding car in Times Square. I mean getting too big for one's shoe size can be dangerous.





In terms of the Kant Friesian system, the major spokesman for the system is Dr Kelley Ross in CA.
In his PhD thesis he brings out a few criticisms on Kant which forces the conclusions of Ontological Undecidability. One problem he noted in Kant is causality between things in themselves is necessary for Kant. And yet seems to have no justification. [http://www.friesian.com/origin/chap-3.htm#sect-5]
To me it seems possible to argue for Kant that there is causality between things in themselves in that the collapse of the wave function does not depend on there being an observer, but rather on interaction between particles.
I mean to say that: in general an electron is a sum of linear states; but after it is observed, it is only in one state. But for it to interact with any other particles, it also needs to have its wave function collapsed.


 I was thinking also of adding that the electron does not have any space time location until interaction also just as a support to Kant. 

[ I should mention that it seems to me to be the same basic set of problems in Kant that leads off into three different directions: (1) Kelly Ross and the Kant Fries School. (2) Michael Huemer  and the Intuitionists (3) Hegel and all the subsequent schools based on Hegel.  I have not studied this all well enough to be sure, but I think a close look at each one will show they all had a similar set of problems in Kant. (I would also wonder if it comes down to it if their answers are all that different. I mean for sure Hegel's vast structure looks very different from Huemer's direct intellectual perception. But are they really that different? It is in any case the same process of "dialectics" that give further levels of certainty. And is that all that different from Popper's falsification process?!)

words of encouragement from a custom in Japan

The Age of Disappointment

There is in each age a particular test. This is the Age of Disappointment. People were promised big things from different kinds of idolatry-promises that never came to pass. This along with clear ethical violations in each system gave rise to people leaving and then wondering where they went wrong.

Some examples would be obviously Communism, Socialism that held great promises of workers paradise and the New Man. Other things were in the social pseudo sciences of the mind [in universities] that promised cures. Instead they cause great agony and insanity. In Hinduism, there was a fellow called Adi Da who was a good example of this kind of idolatry.

Some made it a point to expose the idols, [often at great risk]  Others tried simply to get away and go back to semi normal lives.


So this kind of disappointment seems the biggest test today. --that is how to deal with it. And also in fact how to heal from the scars?

There do not seem to be easy answers, but rather lessons that one can learn from previous generations from how they dealt with  the particular kinds of tests that they faced.

Clear guidelines seem hard to find since the problem is almost universally ignored.

Bava Batra 36b ממטע עשרה

In answer to the question I asked yesterday evening about Tosphot

It occurred to me that Tosphot understands the area around the tree when the Gemara says it holds from 4 to 16 not in the way I had thought. Rather Tosphot is being exact with the language of the Gemara [Bava Batra page 82b] "How much is there between them?" So  each tree only gets up until 8 yards. In that way in a field that each tree gets 8 yards there will be 16 between each one.
So Tosphot holds that when Abyee said a proof of ownership exists for a field with 10 trees per 50*50 that comes out 250 for each and that is 9 per tree which is too much.


I am grateful to God for granting to me to understand Tosphot when I had pretty much given up on it.

[I should mention that the משנה says קנה שלשה קנה קרקע and the גמרא asks כמה ר' חייא בר אבא אמר כמלא אורה וסלו דק אמות is how much around those trees is נקנה. The later question of the גמרא כמה יהא ביניהן is not the same thing. It is asking how much distance can there be between these trees so that the law of קנה שלשה קנה קרקע should apply.]

אני צריך להזכיר כי המשנה אומרת קנה שלשה קנה קרקע והגמרא שואלת כמה ר' חייא בר אבא אמר כמלא אורה וסלו (ארבע אמות) היא כמה סביב עצים אלה הוא נקנה. השאלה המאוחרת של הגמרא היא כמה יהא ביניהן אינה אותו הדבר. היא שואלת כמה המרחק יכול להיות בין העצים האלה, כך שהחוק של קנה שלשה קנה קרקע צריך להחיל


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It occurred to me that תוספות understands the area around the tree when the גמרא says it holds from ארבע עד שש עשרה אמות  not in the way I had thought. Rather תוספות is being exact with the language of רב חייא בר אבא "how much is there between them". So thus תוספות holds each tree only gets up until שמנה אמות yards. In that way in a field that each tree gets שמנה אמות there will be שש עשרה between each one.
So תוספות asks that when אביי said a proof of ownership (חזקה) exists for a field with עשרה אילנות trees per חמישים על חמישים that comes out 250 for each and that is תשעה אמות per tree which is too much.


עלה בדעתי כי תוספות מבין ששטח שהעץ  תופס כאשר גמרא אומרת שהוא  מארבע עד שש עשרה אמות לא בדרך שחשבתי. תוספות הוא  מדייק עם השפה של רב חייא בר אבא "כמה שטח יש ביניהם". אז  תוספות מחזיק לכל עץ יש רק עד שמנה אמות. ככה בשדה שכל עץ מקבל שמנה אמות תהיינה שש עשרה בין כל אחד. אז תוספות שואל שכאשר אביי אמר הוכחת הבעלות (חזקה) קיימת בשדה עם עשרה אילנות לכל חמישים על חמישים שיוצאים מאתיים וחמישים עבור כל אחד כי זה תשע אמות לכל עץ אשר הוא יותר מדי.

בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב

Ula in the Gemara says that a tree within 16 yards of a neighbor's boundary is guilty of stealing because of the roots that go 16 yards. The Gemara tries to find where this comes from. If the Mishna about 10 saplings with a 50* 50 that leaves each tree with only 9 yards [200=pi*r^2 for each sapling]
So they try another mishna with 3 grown trees for the same 50*50, and that turns out to be close.
Later the Gemara says the area one tree takes up for purposes of acquisition is 4-16. [Buying three trees gets the land between them. Two trees not.]

Now some background. Let's say one person has worked on a field for three years but has no document and the previous owner did not object, then if the owner was near enough to be aware of the situation, we believe the fellow that worked the land and says it was sold to him.
Abyee says let's say a field has 30 trees according to the division of ten to 50* 50 and the fellow worked and ate from each set of ten, that is called a חזקה proof of ownership.


The question Tosphot asks is based on Abyee: What is the difference between acquisition and proof of acquisition. [Tosphot Bava Batra 36B]

I am not at all sure I understand Tosphot. If Abyee actually means 10 per 50*50 that is well within the limits of 4-16. So it must be he is asking on the three trees per 50*50.


בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב תוספות
עולא says is a person owns  a tree that is  within י''ו אמות of a neighbor's boundary is can not bring ביכורים from that tree because of the roots that go שש עשרה אמות. The גמרא tries to find where this comes from. If the משנה about עשר  נטיעות saplings with a חמישים על חמישים that leaves each אילן with only תשעה אמות. So they try another משנה with שלשה grown trees for the same חמישים על חמישים, and that turns out to be close.
Later the גמרא says the area on אילן takes up is ארבה עד שש עשרה אמות. When one buy three trees, he receives the קרקע between them. Two trees not. Now some background. Let's say one person has worked on a field for three years but has no document and the previous owner did not object, then if the owner was near enough to be aware of the situation we we believe the fellow that worked the land and says it was sold to him. אביי says let's say a field has  אילנות שלשים according to the division of ten to חמישים על חמישים and the fellow worked and ate from each set of ten, that is called a חזקה היינו proof of ownership. The question תוספות asks is based on אביי what is the difference between acquisition and proof of acquisition בין מכר וחזקה.  I am not at all sure I understand תוספות. If he actually means עשרה אילנות per חמישים על חמישים that is well within the limits of ד-י''ו. So it must be he is asking on the three trees per חמישים על חמישים.

I wish I had an Avi Ezri to see what he has to say about this.
I have no doubt if I had been learning with David Bronson, he would have figured this out a long time ago. It must be something simple but I just can not seem to figure out what Tosphot means to ask.
If Abyee had said like the Gemara on page 16 that for saplings we go by 10 saplings for a 50*50 space and for grown trees we go by 3 for the 50*50 then everything in Tosphot would be clear. The trouble is that Abyee said "10 trees" not 10 saplings.  I imagine Tosphot is thinking that Abyee meant 10 trees according to the division of עשר נטיעות לבית סאה  ten saplings for a 50*50 space which gives three big trees the same space.




בבא בתרא ל''ו ע''ב תוספות. עולא אומר הוא עץ בבעלותו של אדם שהוא בתוך י''ו אמות של גבול של שכן אינו יכול להביא ביכורים מהעץ בגלל השורשים שהולכים שש עשרה אמות. הגמרא מנסה למצוא מאיפה זה נובע. אם משנת עשר נטיעות (שתילים) בשדה חמישים על חמישים זה משאיר לכל אילן עם רק תשע אמות. אז הם מנסים עוד משנה עם שלשת עצים הגדלים באותה חמישים על חמישים, וכי מיתברר שזה קרוב. מאוחר יותר הגמרא אומרת האזור שאילן תופס הוא ארבע עד שש עשרה אמות. כאשר אחד קונה שלושה עצים, הוא מקבל את הקרקע ביניהם. שני עצים לא. עכשיו קצת רקע. נניח אדם אחד עבד בשדה במשך שלוש שנים אך אין מסמכים והבעלים הקודמים לא התנגדו במשך השלש שנים, אז אם הבעלים היו קרובים מספיק כדי להיות מודע למצב  שאנו מאמינים האדם שעבד את האדמה ואומר שזו נמכרה לו .אביי אומר תניח בשדה יש שלשים אילנות  לפי חלוקה של עשרה בשדה חמישים על חמישים ואדם עבד ואכל מכל קבוצה של עשרה,(עשרה בכל שנה שלש שנים) כי זה נקרא הוכחה של בעלות (חזקה).  תוספות שואל שאלה מבוססת על אביי מה הבדל בין רכישה והוכחת רכישה (בין מכר וחזקה). אני  לא בטוח שאני מבין את התוספות. אם אביי כיוון עשרה אילנות לכל חמישים על חמישים, זה הוא גם בגבול ד-י''ו. אז זה חייב להיות הוא שואל על שלושה עצים לכל חמישים על חמישים. אבל זה כנראה לא מה שאמר אביי.

U54 U52 music files

U-54mp3 U-54 midi U-54 nwc

   U-52 Music for the Glory of God  [U-52  midi]  [U-52 nwc]

If the entire profession starts off with false axioms, how much good can they possibly do?

It is astonishing how much money every year goes into pseudo science especially in areas that deal with the human mind.

The problem I think stems from that fact that they are starting out with obviously false axioms.
(1) "That whatever anyone does not socially acceptable (to people in society at that time) is  a mental disease caused by their parents." Later this fundamental axiom they altered to "caused by their father"
(2) Whatever anyone does that is not done by 99% of all other people is a mental disease.

If the entire profession starts off with false axioms, how much good can they possibly do?
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Frankly, I blame this on the prestige that science got after the Enlightenment. So stupid people that can not do real science just had to get into the act by this fraud and scam.
But further I would have to say it is I think part of  a general phenomenon of the war between powers of good and evil in the world. In this global battle  Evil tries to wiggle itself into people minds.

good traits and fear of God, --a lot depends of getting them when one is young.

In terms of gaining good traits and fear of God, a lot depends of getting them when one is young. As Howard Bloom points out in The Lucifer Principle one's thought patterns at a certain point get hardened into one mind like a circuit board that after one places the connections in the right places, then heats it up to retain the connections.
That book is I think one of the great books to come out from the twentieth century [along with The Closing of the American Mind by Allan Bloom. It is a wake up call that I think fell  mainly on deaf ears. Still I think some people got the idea.]

The whole issue of needing to work consciously one one traits was certainly a motivating factor of Reb Israel Salanter in creating the Musar Movement--that is the idea of learning medieval books on ethics. [The advantage of the Middle Ages in terms of this kind of study is that it was the period when the scholastic thinkers were at their peak in finding the balance between Faith and Reason. ]

The idea really did not end with the Middle Ages. A lot of good work was done later by the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. They also wrote a few Musar books--some of which are remarkable [Navardok and the אור צפון and אור ישראל come to mind]

Orion

NGC 4676: when mice collide These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart.

NGC 4676: when mice collide

These two mighty galaxies are pulling each other apart. Known as the “Mice” because they have such long tails, each spiral galaxy has likely already passed through the other. The long tails are created by the relative difference between gravitational pulls on the near and far parts of each galaxy. Because the distances are so large, the cosmic interaction takes place in slow motion – over hundreds of millions of years. NGC 4676 lies about 300 million light-years away toward the constellation of Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) and are likely members of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies. The above picture was taken with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Advanced Camera for Surveys in 2002. These galactic mice will probably collide again and again over the next billion years until they coalesce to form a single galaxy.

Liftoff of the Apollo 17 Saturn V Moon Rocket from Pad A, Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, Florida, at 12:33 a.m., December 7, 1972. Apollo 17, the final lunar landing mission, was the first night launch of a Saturn V rocket." height="480"

questions about German Idealism

The two unstated questions about German Idealism I mentioned before were two world wars. These seems to me to be serious enough even if there were no more questions. But a further question is the fact that communists and socialists did in fact learn and study Hegel with extreme intensity [though they certainly disagreed with major points] and communism as shown clearly by Venezuela is pretty much a tragedy.

What makes this curious is that is hard to find any philosophers of the stature of Kant and Hegel unless you go back to Plato.
So where did things go wrong?

Karl Popper really went full steam ahead in his attack on Hegel, and yet seems to have missed the fact that communists were not implementing Hegel's system.
Still you have to ask: what is it about the USA Constitution that seems to get things right? (And even more startling is that the USA Constitution was a product of long experience in England. It was ad hoc.

Parliament was established not for any higher motives but because Edward I needed money. The Magna Carta was because the lords did not want King John lording it over them. Every single paragraph of the USA Constitution was made because in England that provision was found to be necessary,--not from any kind of philosophy.] 

 

[More or less. It is funny the major point of  Leftists is that whatever the USA does is wrong;-- when Leftist systems seems to be infinitely worse.]

[I should mention that the USA Constitution was not made up out of thin air but did have basis  on pretty good thinkers. I guess that would have to be the Natural Law people like Aquinas and John Locke.]

Sandra Lehman [a philosopher] once suggested to me that there is something about philosophy that takes away common sense. But I think she was touching on a larger issue. That in almost any subject one can get into it to the degree of losing all perspective.

In any case, I have mentioned before that the USA Constitution seems to work best with WASPs [White Anglo Saxon Protestants]. It could be suggested that for populations with some high percent of criminal DNA that it simply would not work. [Thus the USSR might very well have been necessary for that area.]

space x picture

space shuttle

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American Constitution

The unstated question on German Idealism is two world wars. This tens to lessen the credibility of anything that has the word German tacked onto it. That includes Kant and Hegel.
And the unstated support for John Locke is the success of the USA.

If the political systems supported by each would be irrelevant to their philosophy, then one could ignore the politics and simply look at the world views.

[My own feeling is that the success of the American  Constitution can be best explained by the Kant Fries School which more or less is represented by Dr Kelley Ross. That gives the weight of authority on individual, not the State.

music file U50

U-50 in A Major mp3  u-50 midi  u-50 nwc

the path of the Gra definitely includes Astronomy, Mathematics and Music

I wanted to mention that the path of the Gra definitely includes what in the Middle Ages was called the Seven Wisdoms. That includes Astronomy, Mathematics and Music.

And once I asked Rav Eliyahu Silverman (who was the head of the Yeshiva on the Path of the Gra) if that included Engineering. [I was referring to a book that] given to me from Hebrew University on Electrical Engineering. And he said yes.

But since not everyone is very good at that my suggestion is based on the Musar Book אורחות צדיקים  which brings the idea of learning fast. He has a long essay there in the Gate of Torah about learning fast--saying the words and going on  that is called דרך גירסה

the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed is legally valid

Even though  the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed is legally valid,  and in fact people that ignore it come under the curses that are listed for anyone is transgresses a oath (or in this case a חרם); still I do not feel that Breslov comes under that category. The reason is while I was wandering around the Old City of Jerusalem I stumbled upon a book that brought the original documents  word for word. [That included the other letters of excommunication, and also the statements of the witnesses that were collected in Villna and written down.]
But as the actual issues of Breslov, I think that there should be made a distinction between ideas that the Ran held strongly with and ideas that were less sure [or more doubtful what he actually meant]. I.e. there were things he held very strongly were correct like the saying the ten psalms.    

The idea that transgressing a חרם [excommunication] is the same kind of thing as transgressing an oath I got from the regular commentaries of the Rambam right on the page in Laws of Oaths. And the general warnings about transgressing an oath are pretty explicit.

A cure for one's spirit and body.

Faith in the wise gives good advice for all human problems. Some wise men were expert in certain areas but not all areas. Other wise men were good in different areas. Therefore faith in all the wise gives good advice for all problems.

Why I bring this up is that it occurred to me concerning a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter, that is Isaac Blazer. In the beginning of his book אור ישראל (Light of Israel). Over there he brings the idea that learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] is a cure for one's spirit and body. [It is easy to miss this but if you look there you will see that is what he says.] (He brings the idea from Maimonides.)


Musar itself as a movement seems to have lost its momentum. Still the basic idea is sound --that the medieval sages had the best idea of what the actual requirements of Torah are.

The best idea today I think to get a good idea of what Torah requires from one is to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and the books of the Gra and the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter like Navardok etc.

Closing of the American Mind

Philosophy has relevance for politics as noted by this article [Abbeville Institute]

There they are criticizing a South [Southern States] bashing book based on sloppy research and sloppy ideas about natural law.

Getting world view issues straight has seemed to me to be important for a long time, but academic philosophy I began to notice even while in high school was a dead end.--and as John Searle put it so well about 20th century philosophy "it is obviously false."[Both British and Continental.] Allan Bloom also noticed the same thing in his Closing of the American Mind.

[I think John Searle might have been referring to a good suggestion made by Frege to expand the category of a priori. That was a good idea, but sadly led to idiotic post modern philosophy.  Dr. Kelley Ross noticed this, and it might be what John Searle also is thinking. ]


In any case to be short I think the best thing in Philosophy is the Kant-Friesian school which I think in Germany is called "the Critical School" because of being based on Kant. [Leonard Nelson's books were apparently printed in Germany which is the beginning of the Kant Fries school]

But I have a lot of respect for Hegel also, and the Intuitionists like Dr Michael Huemer. To me each one seems to be making some great points.



My own feeling about Philosophy is the best idea is the suggestion of the Rambam to learn the Metaphysics of Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus. After that, I think Kant and Hegel are important.

In terms of how philosophy relates to politics, the best thing out there are the Federalist Papers by Madison and Hamilton and others. [They were written to convince NY to accept the USA Constitution.]


[The reason I think philosophy got to be so awful is that mainly idiots go into it and teach it. The best idea is of Allan Bloom. Simply throw out the social studies and humanities departments of  all universities.]

Torah with balance.

To me it occurred the thought that the path of my parents {Philip Rosten and Leila} is not that hard to define. One thing that I thought made it hard to define is that it was never expressed openly. But then I realized that there were certain well defined components of it.
It might be hard for me to defend each point, but still the essence was six major points.
(1) Math (2) Physics, (3) Music (4) straight Torah (Litvak) (5) an honest upright vocation (6) outdoor and survival skills.

The reason this was hard for me to realize is that generally they expressed approval of good  wholesome things, and disapproval of unwholesome stuff. There was almost never a "you must do" or "must not do such and such."


So to be brief how can I defend each point? Well to start out with Math and Physics. This was something they expressed great approval of in countless ways. But this approval was mainly directed towards me because of my inherent interest. So that aspect of my parents I think was not so much noticed by my brothers;---even though it definitely was very much present.
Music was important to a lesser degree. Even though our home was mainly Reform, still Torah was very important to my parents--the Oral and Written Law. The vocation aspect was something my brothers noticed more than I. The outdoor skills aspect was there, but again not discussed. It would take a longer essay to each with each point.

You could argue on each point because little was said openly. Rather it was just approval or disapproval. To give an example. My father sent my younger brother and me to the Boy Scouts and also always emphasized self reliance, and as a family we went up to the mountains often. Music and the violin was something my father did, but again only showed approval towards me because I  showed interest. His main career was as an inventor. That is the first night vision device, and much more  stuff plus laser communication for NASA satellites for SDI (more well known as "Star Wars"). So his interest in Math and Physics was quite present but not necessarily expressed openly.

[It goes without saying that family values and being a decent human being were the highest priorities but taught more by example than by words.]

[He had volunteered for the US Air Force and became a captain but did not pursue that as a career. ]

Rav Avraham Abulafia

Though I would not say anything about it without the authority of Rav Avraham Abulafia about Jesus after the fact it is possible to discuss the issue. For one thing the Gemara in Sanhedrin about the fact that God had come down from Heaven and became a physical body in order to give the king of Assyria a haircut.

We also find that saints and Jerusalem and angels are called by  the Name of God. [As is brought n Bava Batra פרק הספינהs  page 75 side B]

In any case, the Gra said that all the deep secrets of Torah are contained in the midrash [That is the non legal parts of Gemara and the actual midrah. That is Midrash Raba and  few other neglected books. The trouble seems to be that there is no place to put Midrash. It is not exactly Musar. Nor is it exactly Gemara.  One learning partner I had at the Mir found an elegant solution to this problem - he used to learn Midrash at night after the two regular day time sessions.

So it is possible to ask what is the meaning of the Midrash in Sanhedrin about G-d giving  the king or Assyria a haircut. The actual events are well known. The previous king of Assyria had already taken Israel, and then the capital city of Samaria. Then his successor took the cities of Judah, and then the King of Judah sent a bribe to him to "lay off". After that instead of laying off, he sent his armies to take Jerusalem. The attempt to take Jerusalem was unsuccessful to say the least. To me it is not clear where the King of Assyria was at the time. He might have joined his forces outside of Jerusalem or maybe not. In any case, he was occupied with a different war near a neighboring state. Then he went back to his capital city and there the incident the Gemara relates took place.  Apparently after two failed wars he was unpopular. He got a haircut to disguise himself. He then was killed by two of his children.

The whole issue of Jesus as understood by Rav Avraham Abulafia really is treated best in the books of Professor Idel at Hebrew University. In those books he concentrates of Rav Avraham Abulafia and gives him a thorough academic treatment--much better than what one could figure out on his own by reading Rav Abulafia. Though in my case it was reading the actual microfilms at HU in around 1992 to got me to see clearly what the approach of Rav Abulafia is. I should mention that even though people nowadays have not heard of him, he is quoted at length in שערי קדושה by רב חיים וויטל the major disciple of the Ari.

[I ought to mention I did not make a major study of Rav Abulafia myself, since at the time his books were published I already had started on other subjects. ]
The place I found his books was in Jerusalem but they might be already in NY.]

הכרת הטוב gratitude

You do see the idea of  הכרת הטוב gratitude coming up in a few places. And this was for me a kind of painful message since  after I got to my first real authentic Litvak yeshiva in NY Shar Yashuv, Rav Freifeld made it clear to me that he thought I did not have gratitude about how hard it was to make an authentic yeshiva. And that certainly was true. It did not occur to me until later how much effort it takes to create "the real thing."

In any case, one place this comes up is with Moses who did not want to hit the Nile River with his staff because it had once before [80 years before that] had saved his life. So when God told him to strike the river with his staff, he gave it instead to Aaron.

Later I saw this idea come up in Musar in the book "Obligations of the Heart" and in a few other places. In the חובות לבבות (Obligations of the Heart), Gratitude takes a central place as being the reason for many of the commandments.
[I saw the concept come up after that in places I forget. But clearly it is essential. It occurs to me now one place might have been the Shelah who I think mentions the reason Joseph did not tax the priests in Egypt because they had acquitted him of the crime he was accused of.]

[To actually learn good character traits {Musar} was not actually a part of the program in Shar Yashuv. It is not a Musar Yeshiva, but it is a Litvak Yeshiva. I only began to learn Musar at the Mir in NY. Still my impression is that to actually learn good traits depends more on things like the Boy Scouts and learning the value of team work and dependability in actions rather than in books.]

letter of excommunication that the Gra signed.

There is an argument to support the idea of being careful about the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed. That is the idea that is brought about a certain disciple of an Amora who heard some amazing claim by R. Yohanan [Bava Batra]. That disciple did not take them seriously until he actually saw the evidence. Then he came back and said over what he had seen. But it was clear that before he had seen he did not really believe. Thus he was considered "to be making fun of the words of the sages." [That disciple had seen angels carving pearls that were 30*30  yards. How great a level he must have been on to be able to see angels. Still his great level did not change  the facts.  ]

Thus even though one has seen evidence to show the Gra was right, that does not take him out of the category of making fun of the words of the Gra.

Nowadays however the Gra is universally ignored even when there is copious evidence to support him. That seems even worse than the event in the Gemara where that disciple believed R. Yohanan after he had seen the evidence..

[There s another argument that I have mentioned once before based on some of the commentaries that bring the idea that a excommunication gets its legal category from the concept of "oath." That is different than what is called a "Shavua". An oath "neder" is the concept that one can forbid his own property to himself or to others. See the beginning of Nedarim where this is explained in detail. So if an excommunication has legal validity then that makes it forbidden to ignore, even if one does not agree with it.]

בבא בתרא דף כ''ז ע''א תוספות

בבא בתרא דף כ''ז ע''א תוספות. The way תוספות explains עולא is this. If you have a circle with radius 16 and wrap a string around it for .66  אמות, you get the length of the inner חוט to be רדיוס הפנימי times שש.  The length of the outer circle רדיוס החיצוני times שש
So then if you flatten out the area between the inner and outer circle, you get a מלבן  with a triangle at the top. The area of a triangle is חצי base times height. That brings up from the 768 square אמות of עולא up until the 833.3 of the משנה. The difference is 65. Does all that work? What would be the regular way of figuring it out? You would take the area of the large circle minus the area of the small circle. Does that come out the same as תוספות? There is a slight discrepancy. But  תוספות is making an approximation.

בבא בתרא דף כ''ז ע''א תוספות. דרך שהתוספות מסביר עולא היא זו. אם יש לך מעגל עם רדיוס 16 ועוטף את חוט סביבו  עבור 0.66 אמות, אתה מקבל את האורך חוט הפנימי להיות רדיוס מעגל הפנימי פעמים שש. אורך החוט על מעגל החיצוני הוא רדיוס החיצוני פעמים שש. אז אם אתה לוקח את השטח בין המעגל הפנימי והחיצוני, אתה מקבל מלבן עם משולש בראש. השטח של המשולש הוא חצי של הבסיס פעמים הגובה. זה מעלה מ 768 האמות המרובעות של עולא עד 833.3 של המשנה. ההבדל הוא 65 בערך. האם כל זה עובד? מה תהיה הדרך הרגילה? היית לוקח את השטח של המעגל הגדול מינוס שטח המעגל הקטן. האם זה יוצא כמו תוספות? יש פער קל. אבל תוספות הוא עושה קירוב.

What is remarkable is that one can be a perfect saint and still have past sins that have not been taken care of. And also that we see from the sages that repentance does not finish the job.

A man marries a woman on condition he is a perfect saint, even if he is a perfect רשע evil person, she is married because of a doubt that he might have been thinking to repent. So we see if in fact he had been thinking of repenting then she is certainly married. From this we learn repentance is accepting on one's self not to repeat one's evil deeds.
But that does not make up for past deeds as the Gemara says repentance on a איסור עשה (positive command) works. Repentance on a לא תעשה [negative command] helps and the Day of Atonement finishes. Repentance on לא תעשה שיש בו כרת [negative command with cutting off] Repentance and the day of Atonement hep and pains and problems finish.But for חילול השם you need and three and then the day of death finishes the atonement.
What is remarkable is that one can be a perfect saint and still have past sins that have not been taken care of. And also that we see from the sages that repentance does not finish the job.

[This I think is not well known and even when I learned the Gates of Repentance of R. Yona I think I did not get the idea.]

One can sit and learn Torah in Israel and one can accept that stipend

Besides that the Madragat Adam [מדרגת האדם] and the Navradok approach emphasizes trust in God, it is clearly an essential part of the aspect of the Gra. For example see the אבן שלמה which brings from the Gra that the purpose of Torah is to bring to Trust in God.
The obvious question is the practical implementation of this. See many verses in Proverbs where preparation for the future is emphasized.

The verse about the ants comes to mind, [מכינה בקיץ לחמה] but there are a lot more over there that indicate the same basic idea.


[My own feeling is that given the situation that one can sit and learn Torah in Israel and one can accept that stipend. That is what I probably should have done myself. That does however not mean not to go and serve in IDF. But rather when one is not working or in the IDF then one can depend on the situation to accept the monthly stipend in order to sit and learn Torah.]
[Mainly the reason I say this is that apparently during the time of the Gaonim we see the Geonim did receive a stipend from the community. Also Rav Joseph Karo does bring from the Tashbatz to allow this.] [Apparently Rav Shach himself did depend on this idea and other great sages.]

Tosphot in Bava Batra page 27A.

I just wanted to share two thoughts I had about Tosphot in Bava Batra page 27A.
One thought is about the "Other path" that Tosphot brings in the middle. The way that "other path" is understanding Ula is this: When Ula say a tree needs 16 yards around it and the Gemra then add that means as a square  is a fourth larger than a circle and that Ula meant 16 2/3, the way Tosphot understands that is that Ula was describing a square with one side being 33 1/3. Thus the whole square is 33.3^2 and a fourth is the size of the ground around the tree that the Mishna gives which is 33.3* 25.
That is the opposite of the way Tosphot was thinking up until  that point that Ula was describing a circle with radius 16.6 

The other thought I had was about the very first way that Tosphot understands Ula which is his winding a string method. The idea I had was that even without looking up the geometric formulas what Tosphot says makes a lot of sense. That is if you have a circle around the tree with radius 16 and wrap a string around it for 2/3 a yard you get the length of the inner string to be 2*r*pi=32*pi and the length of the outer circle 2*r*pi=33.3*pi.
So then if you flatten the whole thing out you get a rectangle pi*2r1*2/3=64 with a triangle at the top. And that from what I recall the area of a triangle is 1/2 base*height,- which is exactly what Tosphot says there 1/2*4*2/3. And all that brings up from the  768 square yards of Ula up until the 833.3 of the Mishna.[difference of 65].

Does all that work?--you might ask. I mean what would be the regular way of figuring it out? Normally you would take the area of the large circle (pi*r^2=pi* 16.67^2)=[833]-the area of the small circle (pi*r^2=pi*16^2). [827-768] Does that come out the same as Tosphot?There is a slight discrepancy. But in any case Tosphot is making an approximation as I mentioned before.

[The Gemara in this section is using an approximation of 3 for pi and the difference between a aquare and a circle to be 4/3]

In any case what looks important here is that in fact the Tosphot string method is not exact.

the path of the Gra as the right path

Repentance I think can encompass a "path" as much as individual deeds.  I myself  used to concentrate on the issue of daily schedule. And in fact I think that is important. That is to get one's daily schedule to include the right kinds of learning sessions and physical exercise etc. So I do not minimize the importance of finding the proper daily schedule. But I think one's "path" is just as much an issue of repentance. In my own case while at the Mir yeshiva in NY  I more or less accepted the path of the Gra as the right path -but it did not take long until I gave that up for what I thought were greener pastures. Though at first, my daily schedule did not change,- but eventually it did,-- and with disastrous consequences for my family. So I think the issue of "path" is just as much an issue of repentance as much [and more so] as any individual actions.

[Just for background information: the path of the Gra is more or less described simply as learning Torah and trust in God. But in more detail it is basically the path of Litvak [Lithuanian kinds of Yeshivas.]


I admit however not everything is so grand in actual Litvak yeshivas. There is a large discrepancy between the ideal and what is actually the situation on the ground. However, I refer above more towards the idea of striving for a certain kind of goal-- though one might fall from the ideal. Getting to the ideal of the Gra might very well mean in practical terms to learn Torah at home and work for a living,-- rather than having to do with any institutions. You might say simply: "Litvak yeshivas ain't what they used to be."

comment on Tosphot in Bava Batra page 27a

 I do not really have a question but rather a kind of comment on Tosphot in Bava Batra page 27a concerning the value of pi. This was noticed by my learning partner David Bronson in a different context where Tosphot was giving his winding a string or rope method where the Maharshal has a diagram showing what Tosphot meant.

My comment is this. That Tosphot is going with an approximation that Pi is 3. And so he defends the idea that a tree really would need 16 2/3 to get up to the value of the Mishna. [That how he explains one Girsa in the Gemara which says "there is lacking 2/3"] On the other hand the Rashbam defends the idea of a tree needing 16.5. But with a more accurate value of pi to be about 3.141 the actual radius around the tree would have to be 16.288. [I.e., (833.3/pi)^1/2. ]
Still it makes no difference in terms of the Gemara which says that Ula was simply being a drop strict in saying a tree with less than 16 amot from a neighbors's field is not allowed to bring Bikurim.


The background information here is this: Ula says a tree needs 16 amot [yards] radius of area areound it. The Gemara asks from where does he get this law? It suggests from the Mishna that gives three trees a space of 2500 square amot/yards. Thus each tree is getting 833.33 square amot.

[Tosphot has around five different ways of explaining the Gemara, but as far as I have gotten so far, it seems Tosphot is using  a rough approximation for pi.]

[The winding method of Tosphot is to wind a string around a circle of 32 diameter and to keep winding until the diameter is 33.33. So the low circumference is 32*pi. The big one is 33.3*pi. Then you take the area which is 65 and that brings from the area of Ula up to the  area of the Mishna. That works fine. See Tosphot for the exact calculations. But still Tosphot is using a very rough approximation for pi.

[I recall that there are places like in tracate סוכה where the Gemara gives a much more accurate approximation for pi, but I guess here it was thinking that that degree of accuracy was not necessary.]

I should mention that the winding method of Tosphot is quite ingenious. It does not require measuring the all the string but merely the inner string and the outermost string.

political authority.

Danny Fredrick  has a critique on Michael Huemer's idea of political authority. He does go with the Consequential approach. And he as others are critical of contract theories. But I wonder based on historical events. In Herodotus we do find the subject of people getting together and having to decide what type of rules do they want to live under.  This is describe in detail concerning Persia in Herodotus. And it clearly applied to the city states in Greece. And besides that it obviously was a great interest to Herodotus himself. So the fact that the founding fathers had to deal with this kind of situation is not all that easy to dismiss. [I am not disagreeing with Danny Fredrick about the source of political obligation. Just pointing out that the idea of political contract is in order to get to good consequences. ]


[My own impression of this is thus: I have great respect for Dr. Huemer and I think he is  a great thinker. But that does not mean he gets everything right. My own feeling about politics and philosophy is that Dr. Kelley Ross is closer to the mark.]

If you are in a place that needs a Constitution my advice is to learn the Federalist Papers which gives an in depth idea of what the USA Constitution is all about. Though I realize the USA Constitution depends a lot on the kind of people it was written for [WASPs, i.e. White Anglo Saxon Protestants.] The reason is that in the background of WASPs there is a kind of recognition of what constitutes right  and wrong, and based on that kind of foundation the USA Constitution works well. But with a more criminally minded kind of population it can not work. [This is in fact the reason why in the USA itself constitutional government has not been working due to a large influx of criminal populations into the USA.]
That leaves us with the question of what can other peoples do? That is not an easy question to answer and I myself have not thought about it much. But the principles seems clear enough. Strong central government, division of Church and State, etc. See the Federalist papers for more details.

A lot depends on religion.  A major flaw is most political thinking is the assumption that everyone is a WASP at heart. The Golden Rule and  basic standards of compassion and decency. No political system made for WASPs can possibly work for anyone else. The USSR having to deal with a large percent of the populations under the Czar that were mainly criminally minded had to institute  a different kind of system.

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The evil inclination does not come to a person saying to do a sin. Rather it comes saying "Let's go and do some good deed."

Reb Nahman had a whole set of lessons that he said over on the statements of Raba in Bava Batra. The very first lesson of his book deals with the events that Raba said over about how he was once on a sea voyage and the sailors told him about the nature of the kind of wave that sinks ships. "They seem," they said "like a streak of white lightening at the top. But if one hits them with a stick on which the names of God are written,  that causes them to calm down."

From this Reb Nahman derived the idea that the evil inclination usually does not come to a person saying to do a sin. Rather it comes saying "Let's go and do some good deed." That is the evil inclination wants to seem white and pure.

The first time I saw this idea was in the commentary of the Gra on Mishlei on the verse זבחי שלמים עלי היום שילמתי נדרי "Today I sacrificed peace offerings. I fulfilled my vows." That is: the evil inclination starts out asking one to do a good deed.

The exact details however are not clear to me--that is how to go about evaluating the situation. As a general rule, I think the best idea is that of Rav Israel Salanter--to learn the basic set of Musar books to get a clear idea of what the Torah actually requires of one--in a practical day to day sense.

My father [Philip Rosten (Rosenbloom)]

My father [Philip Rosten (Rosenbloom)] was a hard act to follow. As his sister put it, "He was the 'Golden Boy.'" No matter what he did, he was great at it. It did not matter what it was. Being a father, a husband, a scientist working to put satellites with laser communications into orbit, violinist, etc.--Even business and the stock market.
My own interests were more in music and philosophy. But I still had an unconscious desire to do as well as him and/or better.
Now I realize that he had specific talents--not just over-all talents. I mean to say he had two kinds of talent. One kind was a general ability to excel at anything. The other kind was talent in specific areas.

[I realize also that people have made intelligence tests more sophisticated in that they do seem to be able to measure general intelligence better than they used to.]
[So it is likely that they can measure intelligence, but not specific areas of intelligence very well.]


What I mean to bring here is the idea of walking in the path of one's parents is a good idea unless the parents were on a prima facie (obviously)  evil path.


I my own case,following his footsteps  going to Cal Tech did not seem much of a possibility. But there were other areas where he had excelled in that I think I might have tried.

[You however do not see this idea mentioned much in the Gemara I think because the Gemara is thinking that many times one's parents are not very worthy of emulation..]

overwhelming religious interest is the sign of schizoid personality.

Robert Sapolsky {Stanford} brings the idea that overwhelming religious interest is the sign of  schizoid personality.

This seems to account for a common-place observation about the unreliability and general lack of sanity among such groups.

The issue is not the importance of religious value. Let's take it for granted that closeness with God is important. Rather the issue is that for every area of value there is an equal and opposite area of value. And since this world is mostly evil as the Ari (Isaac Luria) says, therefore the tendency is for religious people to fall into the Sitra Achra even if their intentions are pure.

[The idea here I think I did not state clearly.  Let me rephrase this: There is a spectrum of values. When or if they decay, they decay into their opposite. When some area of value is not so great, then it decays into something not so bad. But when a holy area of value decays, it becomes something really horrific.  ]


Thus learning Torah and trust in God are important, however self reliance also is--that is not to be relying on other people's handouts.

People that make their living off of Torah are often of this schizoid type. To add to the problem they also desire power and demand others pay their way.