Honor of parents

Honor of parents goes on even when they have left this world. At least you can see that with Yonadav ben Recab. He was a friend of Yehu and he helped Yehu in wiping out the house of Ahab--which was at the time the son of Ahab and Ahaziahu the king of Judah. Ahazia was the grandson of Jehoshaphat.
So when Jeremiah came to his descendants and asked them to drink wine that was a long time after he was gone--and still they listening to their great grandfather rather than to  a prophet. --and they were praised for that and received an astounding promise from God for that.

So just for the record I wanted to state that my parents raised me in a more or less secular fashion. My brothers and I went to public school. [Though public school in those days was completely different than nowadays. Nowadays there is no question they would have found some private school at all and any cost.] Torah was considered very important in our family but not to make a public show out of. Nor to make money off of it.
The values of Torah were more or less summed up in these few simple instructions: Be a Mensch. [That is always to the right and moral thing.] Marry a Nice Jewish Girl.
Though Torah was encouraged, my decision to go to yeshiva was frowned upon, because they thought that yeshiva's even the best of them do really represent accurately what Torah is about. They thought in spite of the hype, that yeshivas are there to make money.

This leaves me now as it did then in a kind of quandary. For the great Litvak yeshivas I went to were clearly learning Torah for its own sake--that is Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. But I never succeeded in convincing them of that fact. And subsequent events showed that in fact they probably saw more clearly than me. Still it is hard for me to imagine how I ever could have gotten into authentic Torah with being at least for some time in an authentic Litvak Yeshiva.

"a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world

In the Torah nothing really compares to the problem of idolatry. And the religious world is so full of that, that I avoid them to  a great extent. I still can not understand why the Gra is ignored in this regard. It is--after all- not as if he did not understand the issues.

Not just him, but they ignore Rav Shach also.

Since the verse says "a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world because there is obviously no hope they will ever wake up.

sexual immorality. The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.

NICE COMMENT ON A BLOG "All that really had to be said was that almost everyone at some point in their life is tempted to sexual immorality. It is a common temptation and a common sin. In fact, it fills the world with sinners. If it fills the world with sinners, then it must also fill Hell with the condemned. That form of sin is tremendously displeasing to God who, for the reason of impurity only and none other, destroyed cities in Old Testament times. Now that is some talk worthy of any traditional outlook."

 I would agree but also add that idolatry is also on the top of the list of things that God is unhappy with. And the religious world is full of it.

In any case just for information's sake, generally in the Old Testament: the forbidden relations in Leviticus are on a whole different plane than other kinds of relations. For example the prohibition of a mamzer bastard marrying into the congregation of God is a prohibition, not a כרת [being "cut off from one's people"] 

Moav and Ammon are along the same lines. Just prohibitions. Sex with an unmarried girl is required to marry the girl unless she or her father object. If they object, then he pays the normal amount of a Ketubah 200 zuz. 

Most of what people consider sinful in terms of sex is very different from the view of God. For example the menstruating woman problem is right in there in Leviticus 18 and 20 among the עריות. Homosexuality is also right there among the prohibitions one has to give up his life rather than transgress.

People also get confused about the betrothed unmarried girl in Deuteronomy and why is she any different than the unmarried girl in Exodus? The reason is this betrothal is not what people think nowadays. It is marriage. That is marriage always has two parts. קידושין ונישואין. Kidushin and Nisuin (or what is called Hupa). The Kidushin [betrothal] makes her already married, but they do not live together until Nisuin.
I hope this makes things clear. I ought to add that Rav Nahman brings problem of spilling seed in vain from mystic books and brings his own correction for that [to dip in the ocean -total immersion.] and ten psalms. But that is not a prohibition anywhere near the scale of things actually forbidden in the Torah.  The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.  


[The so called sex change is not a change in sex. It is extending skin to make it seem something it is not or the opposite.]

comments about homosexuality just for the sake of clarity

I thought to add a few comments about homosexuality just for the sake of clarity. However I have to repeat that I really learned these issues long ago and I have forgotten almost everything. Even when I started looking at the Talmud again, it was with David Bronson and we were doing Nezikim [Civil Damages] not Nashim [Women].
So just to be clear, any and all homosexual acts come under the set of Idolatry, Murder, and Forbidden relations in Leviticus 18 and 20. [When threatened with the choice of transgressing one of them or being killed one has to choose being killed.]
The things that people can get mixed up about these things are many.
 One thing is a homosexual act with a minor under three is also gets the death penalty. The reason is sex with a minor is also sex.
Also I wanted to add that not all sexual relations in the Torah get the death penalty. The reason is there are plenty of things that are brought down in Exodus and Deuteronomy that are simply prohibitions. --Not prohibitions with death attached to them. [The general rule is in Torah if it does not say any particular punishment then it is just a prohibition. For it to be anything more severe, it has to say so.]
And in fact there is one exception in the forbidden relations in Leviticus that does not get death that is sex with a nida [menstruating woman who has not gone to the ocean or a river after seven days]. [She needs to check also! If after 7 days she bleeds up to three days then she needs 7 clean days. But that is rare. The three days in a row thing I think goes up to the 18th day of the cycle. If she sees on day 19 that is the start of a new nida cycle and is not related to the previous cycle.]

I really have no idea why these things are unclear to people. The only reason I can possibly think of is that perhaps people do not learn enough Gemara. Or perhaps if they are learning Gemara maybe they do not spend enough time of the tractates that are from Seder Nashim like Ketuboth or Yevamoth.
I admit I also have not leaned these either for along time. But I am grateful to Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv that the few years I was in his great Lithuanian yeshiva, the yeshiva was learning these tractates (those years).
So perhaps that is the answer to all these modern day problems? Everybody ought to sit down and learn Ketuboth and Yevamoth. Then all the confusion will disappear!

In answer to the issue of faith-I can only say that I go with the idea of Leonard Nelson of Immediate Non Intuitive Knowledge (Faith). This is the only way that see that knowledge about moral values is possible. But once you accept the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, then these facts are provable and can be derived rigorously from the verses.

recent issues of homosexuality

The reason I have not commented on the the recent issues of homosexuality is that I learned the tractates on "Women" too long ago to remember much that could add any clarity. I would think that anyone who wants to understand the issues ought to open up any of the major tractates on Women (note 2) like Ketuboth or Yevamoth?

I thought it should be needless to say that it is a יהרג ואל יעבור (Do not do it even at the cost of your own life) kind of prohibition.(note 2) But for some reason it seems a lot of people have forgotten this. (That is it is in the category of the three kinds of things one must not do even at the expense of losing one's life.) גילוי עריות שפיכות דמים עבודה זרה. they are idolatry, murder, and the sexual relations brought down in Leviticus 18 and 20. [the reason for two chapters on sexual sin is you need a verse for prohibition and another for punishment. most of the sexual sins there are about close relatives and all those get the death penalty including homosexuality. an exception is sex with a  woman during her period up until even days and then she goes into a natural body of water. the punishment there is not death but 39 lashes. ]
Perhaps the confusion about these issues is a result of people not learning enough Gemara [Talmud].

But to some degree I can understand why people avoid the religious world where Talmud is learned. There is simply too much idolatry there.
_________________________________________________________________________________
note 1 a sixth of the Mishna deals with marriage and sexual issues and it is called "Women".

note 2. An example of this kind of prohibition is murder. That means that if someone tells you to murder someone else, or else be killed yourself, you must not murder -even if it costs you your own life. This applies also to idolatry. If you are being forced to do idolatry, or sacrifice your own life, you must not do idolatry even at that ultimate cost. This applies also to the sexual relations of Leviticus 18 and 20. So in our example if someone says to you, "You must have homosexual sex or we will kill you," you must allow yourself to be killed because that is in the category of  עריות.

weed

"There are numerous active ingredients in marijuana, the primary being the psychoactive molecules tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), which have not well-understood cascading physiological and psychological effects, but amongst them are a deleterious influence on behavior, memory loss, diminution of will-power, mood changes, paranoia, hallucinations, raised heart rate and blood pressure, as well as a strong link to psychosis, especially schizophrenia, primarily amongst younger users.

There is its alleged gateway effect to other “harder” drugs, while no one quite knows how long it resides in the body, where it accumulates in the fatty (lipid) tissue of the brain. And the stuff nowadays is significantly more potent than what was available a half-century ago, and is increasingly so. The “munchies” are the least of our worries."

"Come out here; I'm being killed out here," he screams.

Timothy Treadwell is a good lesson about how it happens that I and others can do stupid things for a long time and somehow things seems OK. Then one day the whole thing explodes in your face.

He thought he had a good working friendship with bears. And for a long time it seemed he did. He got away with it for an unusual amount of time. But when one does dumb things, eventually it catches up with him.

Around noon on Sunday, October 5, 2003, Treadwell spoke with an associate in Malibu, California, by satellite phone; Treadwell mentioned no problems with any bears. The next day, October 6, Willy Fulton, a Kodiak air taxi pilot, arrived at Treadwell and Huguenard's campsite to pick them up but found the area abandoned, except for a bear, and contacted the local park rangers. The couple's mangled remains were discovered quickly upon investigation. Treadwell's disfigured head, partial spine, and right forearm and hand, with his wristwatch still on, were recovered a short distance from the camp. Huguenard's partial remains were found next to the torn and collapsed tents, partially buried in a mound of twigs and dirt. A large male grizzly (tagged Bear 141) protecting the campsite was killed by park rangers during their attempt to retrieve the bodies. A second adolescent bear was also killed a short time later, when it charged the park rangers. An on-site necropsy of Bear 141 revealed human body parts such as fingers and limbs. The younger bear was consumed by other animals before it could be necropsied.^{[citation needed]} In the 85-year history of Katmai National Park, this was the first known incident of a person being killed by a bear.^[12]

A video camera was recovered at the site that proved to have been operating during the attack, but police said that the six-minute tape contained only voices and cries as a brown bear mauled Treadwell to death The tape begins with Treadwell yelling that he is being attacked. "Come out here; I'm being killed out here," he screams. ^[13]That the tape contained only sound led troopers to believe the attack might have happened while the camera was stuffed in a duffel bag or during the dark of night. In Grizzly Man,^[2] filmmaker Herzog claims that the lens cap of the camera was left on, suggesting that Treadwell and Huguenard were in the process of setting up for another video sequence when the attack happened. The camera had been turned on just before the attack, presumably by sound activation, but the camera recorded only six minutes of audio before running out of tape. This, however, was enough time to record the bear's initial attack on Treadwell and his agonized screams, its retreat after Huguenard tells Treadwell to play dead and when she attacked it and its return to carry Treadwell off into the forest.^[5][12]

fine line of keeping Torah and learning Torah but avoiding the insane religious world.

It is hard to know how to walk to fine line of keeping Torah and learning Torah but avoiding the insane religious world. Probably the best thing is to learn Torah at home. There is something quite definitely "off" in the religious world.

What is exactly the issue I am not sure of. I was discussing this with David Bronson in Uman after he first got there. We discussed this exact issue for about an hour for a few days in a row and came to no conclusion. At that point he made a suggestion that instead of wasting our time on seems to be an unsolvable problem let's sit and learn gemara. [Talmud]

And that is what we did for a few years until I returned to Israel for a year and a half. That is from where my book on Bava Metzia came from.  Then I went back to Uman for Rosh Hashanah and stayed again for an extended period --and that is from where the second book on Shas came from.

But that does not mean the original problem has been solved. The religious world is still just as insane and in fact getting much worse at an exponential rate.

The issue is hard for me even to attempt to approach. But my basic thinking is that it is a matter of  balance. That is to learn and keep Torah is important but with balance.  Not the insane way the religious world does it.

There is something nowadays that is odd when it comes to marriage.

I wish some marriages were stronger nowadays. But to get to that point it is important to keep definitions accurate.

Adultery ניאוף is sex with a married woman. See Leviticus 20:10 when it defines adultery as sex with a married woman.


 Sex outside of marriage is mentioned in Exodus where it says if one has sex with a unmarried girl he must marry her unless her father objects. If it would be adultery then both would get the death penalty as it says in Leviticus.  זנות prostitution is a different issue. It is sex for money. However there is the case of a woman who is specifically for one man but not married . That is a girl friend. This is allowed in the Old Testament. That is פלגש Concubine.
The Patriarchs had girl friends. And also Caleb Ben Yephuna the friend of Joshua also[Chronicles I 2:46] [The Gra brings the example of Caleb.]
To argue that all sex outside marriage is adultery is not accurate.

In the Shulhan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo is brought the debate between the Rambam against most other Rishonim. The Rambam says what you find in the Old Testament refers to kings. But that is hard to defend in the case of Caleb ben Yephuna. The Ramban wrote that more authentic copies of the Rambam have that the girl friend is allowed.

There is something nowadays that is odd when it comes to marriage. Fragile, yet like being in an oven. For previous generations I can see it was the basis of everything. But nowadays it is like soggy toast.

I think it is fine to depend on the opinions of the vast majority of Rishonim that hold a girl friend is permissible, But I admit I never did any deep learning in this subject.

the philosophers I think are the most important

Even though I mentioned a few days ago the philosophers I think are the most important I wanted to add a few that I have had great benefit from.
The important ones: Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Reid, Kant, L. Nelson.

But to add to that list I want to mention Rav Nahman from Uman who does a very good job in defending faith (not saying I agree with everything there, but his insights are amazing). Also Steven Dutch, Kelley Ross (Friesian School), Michael Huemer, the Rambam's Guide and also David Hartman's book on the Rambam, The Madragat HaAdam by Joseph Horvitz from Navardok, and Isaac Blazer's the Light of Israel, the Nefesh HaHaim by Rav Haim from Voloshin.

These are not all exactly philosophy but more like books that deal with world view issues.


[My basic world view orientation you can see is Neo Platonic. That should  clear from the top list. But also the bottom list. Jewish thought --especially Musar of the Middle Ages and also Rav Nahman are all thoroughly Neo Platonic--even when they are not aware of it.

My philosophical bent was apparent even to my peers in high school. But to repeat what I have said before, my interest is in finding the Truth, not in philosophy per se. Thus after I found the school of though called the Kant Fries School, I am basically satisfied and feel free to learn Gemara, the Avi Ezri and and Math. I do feel a need to keep searching for philosophical problems.

[If at least Leonard Nelson was in English I might spend more time of him.]

Progress in Math and Physics by just saying the words

It is known that the way to learn Torah in the Talmud is by saying the words. Not just reading them. They bring this from a verse חיים הם למוצאיהם אל תקרי למוצאיהם אלא למוציאיהם That is for the sages to discover this idea they add a yod to the word "to them that find them" To make it into to them that say them with their mouths.
[The verse is "It is  life to those that find it" in proverbs." The hint is "It is life to them that say it"

Once I discovered the opinion of the Rambam about Physics and Metaphysics being part of the mitzvah to learn Torah, I simply applied the idea of saying the words to Math and Physics also. [In terms of Metaphysics however I never really found a text that I could use in the same way.]

[I had seen this opinion of the Rambam hinted at plenty of times in Medieval Musar but I never really accepted it for a few reasons-. One was I was involved in Torah learning at the Mir in NY and I really did not want to hear anything about "secular subjects". But after some time, I began to see the point of the Rambam.]
I am not saying this will make you a genius in math, but I have found it to be very helpful. I certainly made more progress in math and Physics by just saying the words a in order and going on than I would have by my previous approach which was "This is too hard for me so I might as well drop it and try something else." Needless to say this later approach did not get me very far. So before you ridicule this approach of (1) saying the words approach and going on in order until you finish the book,--just think of how much progress people make in the other way (2)"This is too hard so I might as well drop it".


In the "Guide" itself the benefit the Rambam see in both Physics and Metaphysics is Love and Fear of God.  Knowledge in these areas creates a different kind of person.

Furthermore if you look at the Musar book אור צפון Hidden Light by a disciple of Rav Israel Salanter you will see that Love and Fear of God internally are not always visible or perhaps never viable externally,

Rav Nahman of Breslov and Uman also mentioned this important approach--saying the words and going on.--along with a lot of other great advice.

“If it suffices to accuse, what will become of the innocent?

Ammianus Marcellinus relates an anecdote of the Emperor Julian which illustrates the enforcement of this principle in the Roman law. Numerius, the Governor of Narbonensis, was on trial before the emperor, and, contrary to the usage in criminal cases, the trial was public. Numerius contented himself with denying his guilt, and there was not sufficient proof against him. His adversary, Delphidius, “a passionate man,” seeing that the failure of the accusation was inevitable, could not restrain himself, and exclaimed, “Oh, illustrious Caesar, if it is sufficient to deny, what hereafter will become of the guilty?” to which Julian replied, “If it suffices to accuse, what will become of the innocent?”²


I saw recently a story about the Gra that two witnesses came to him about a certain case. I forget the case but it was about something sexual. And it must have been significant enough for the Gra to agree to listen. He told one witness to stand outside while he listened to the other. Then they brought in the other witness. He said the exact same testimony. As soon as he finished speaking the Gra said "They are liars."
The people that had brought them did not understand how he was so sure. Afterwards he explained.
 The Mishna says when two witness come you examine them and if their testimony is found to correspond then they are believed. The Gra asked why does the mishna add that about being found to correspond?Why not just say the testimony corresponded? He said because it has to be "found." It can not be the same exact thing. No two people seeing the same event or hearing the same person talk will report the same details.

Foundationalists like Michael Huemer.

Non Intuitive Immediate Knowledge-- has a lot of support from people not in the world of the Kant Fries School at all. Rather what are known as foundationalists like Michael Huemer.  In the world of foundationalism there are considered foundational ideas. It is not all that different from Leonard Nelson.

The thing about Michael Huemer and that general school is that they are not really addressing the problems that began with Berkeley and Hume.

So to address the actual issues you really need Leonard Nelson. But it still ends up that a lot of the arguments from the foundationalists work well to support L. Nelson.

For a simple example. Let's take Hegel's argument against immediate knowledge. He goes into the true fact that you have to know something about what you are believing in the first place, and thus it is not really immediate. Well Dr. Huemer says a good answer to that. He says that Reason recognizes universals, but that perception comes only after you understand the concepts that are involved. So to apply that to Immediate Knowledge is simple. It is is immediate even though one has to understand what is being discussed before one can know it to be true.

Leonard Nelson for some reason is a minor footnote in the world of philosophy;- but that says more about the lack of substance in the world of philosophy than it does about Nelson. Judging by the general stupidity of philosophy in the 20th century, it is a compliment to Nelson that he was never accepted.


[Personally I found the importance of Leonard Nelson to be that it helped me with faith--non intuitive immediate knowledge. But later I found a lot of other reasons go with that school of thought.]

Suppose you are sitting in class...Defense of Faith.

What makes the school of thought of Leonard Nelson based on Kant and Fries interesting is this. Suppose you are sitting in class and the teacher asks a hard question in a subject you know fairly well. You are about to raise your hand to give your answer, but a second before you do the two smartest kids in the class raise their hands and the teacher calls on them. They both give the same answer and it is in completely different from your answer. So my question to you is this. Are you now going to raise your hand and give your different answer?

That is the situation with the Kant Friesian school of thought. I am sitting in class and looking at Hegel and he looks pretty good to me, or some other philosopher. But then Gauss raises his hand and says Jacob Fries has got the right idea. Then I am getting nervous. So I hesitant to raise my hand. The David Hilbert raises his hand and says Leonard Nelson who founded the Kant Friesian School got it right. Essentially the same answer as Gauss. Now I am for sure--not going to raise my hand. No force on earth could get me to raise my hand at that point.

The point is  actually close to the actual events. My interest to to find a coherent self consistent [not self contradictions] world view that makes sense and has external consistency with the actual world we live in. It is not to be learning philosophy. So once I settle on a point of view that works for me, I am satisfied and think that I can now go to the beach or to the local study hall to learn Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. I do not have to be doing philosophy all the time.[I am also contemplating starting a session in the Shach in the book of Rav Joseph Karo. That is the commentary of the Shach on Hoshen Mishpath and Yore Deah.]

A major point I gained from the Kant Fries School is the faith is a kind of perception unlike reason and unlike the senses, and it is valid. This  more or less coincides with what Rav Nahman was saying about faith--that it is a kind of perception unlike other faculties.

This makes sense also from the standpoint of Thomas Reid that we have faculties of mind more than just pure logical reasoning and sensation.  This point was raised by Michael Huemer also that Hume assumed all that reason can do is perceive contradictions. Hume learned a little Euclid and  got convinced that all the type of reasoning he found there is all the mind can do. He never shoed this to be true. He simply asserts it as a given fact--over and over and over again. I don't know. Maybe reason does more than that? maybe it perceives universals?

You can ask why not simply go back to the scholastics like Ed Fesser suggests. The reason is that there do seems to be issues in the Middle Ages. The main issue is that the beginning axioms do not seem accurate. But after the Enlightenment when beginning principles seem better, but then the logic falls apart.

"Immediate non intuitive knowledge."

Rav Nahman praises faith a lot in his magnum opus. [His main work]. But at some point I had a crisis in faith realizing a great deal of problems in Torah. There were some problems that I could answer by reference to the Ari/ Isaac Luria. But the need to answer too many questions was troubling. I discovered on the Internet a letter called a letter of an Apikoros which raised some of the issues.
Then a few days later I was looking for information on Spinoza, and discovered on the web site of Kelley Ross the idea of "Immediate non intuitive knowledge." [What one knows not by the senses and not through thinking or through anything.] This is the Kant school of thought that was specific to Leonard Nelson.
That helped solve a lot of my difficulties. But it was more than the fact of my own faith that I wanted to defend or at least justify to myself. There was also my own experience of attachment with God that I had had in Safed that I knew was not by sense perception nor by reason

What makes it interesting in particular is the fact that David Hilbert was very supportive of Nelson. The fact is the the beginning of that approach was Fries,- and in an similar way we find that Gauss was very positive about Fries. However the Fries approach was just the beginning. Nelson is a lot more rigorous.
Just because it helped answer a lot of my questions does not make it right; however it does look right to me except my quibble that reason does not know immediate non intuitive stuff; rather it recognizes it.
The basic reason this school of thought of Leonard Nelson makes the most sense to me is hard to explain. I think the reason is that it answers most difficulties in the best way that I can see.
[The problems raised by earlier philosophers that do not seem well answered by them or by any others, seem best answered either by Nelson himself, or Kelley Ross. If I would be thinking more about this issues nowadays maybe I would go into this in detail. But now I am just not worrying that much about world view issues. If I would be I would go through Kant and Nelson in German. But once I got their basic idea, I do not concern myself with it much more.]
Most philosophers have some really great important point but then it gets obscured by the tremendous amount of nonsense they write after   that.

Mainly my reasoning is this: the Middle Ages were best at logical thinking, but the axioms were not very strong. Later on people were more creative but fell into circular reasoning. Hume and all the others. Steven Dutch made a whole long study on Hume showing this. Locke also has circle reasoning, besides the fact that pure empirical has strong counter examples.  Spinoza has a one problem of an\ prime axiom that seems untrue. But as Reid noted they all made some progress. Kant was pretty good but probably Reid was better. But Thomas Reid still does not answer the questions. That seems to have been left to Leonard Nelson based by the insight of Fries.  Much of 20th century philosophy is beyond despair. So after Nelson, I just can not see any further improvements.
[So the best people to learn (in terms of philosophy) I would say would be Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Reid, Kant and Leonard Nelson.]




Some of the most obvious questions that people have on the Torah have not seemed to me to be any problem. The reason is that I started learning the writings of  Rav Isaac Luria in my 20's and that gave me a different kind of orientation. I mean to saw if you look at Rav Luria you will see the literal explanation of the verses is nothing like what most people mean by literal explanation.

The Gaon of Villna

The Gaon of Villna [the Gra] said the ten  sections (פרשיות) of the book of Deuteronomy are parallel to the 1000 year period starting from 1240 until 2240. That is called the אלף הששי the sixth thousand year year. That puts the 100 year period of כי תבוא in 1940. So it comes out that the Holocaust would have started in 1939 corresponding to the last section of  that section of the Torah--the section of curses.

It also come out that the thousand years before that were parallel to the book of Numbers. And the thousand years before that parallel to the book of Leviticus. So Leviticus would have ended around 240. Then two sections before that would have been in 40 AD. That would correspond to the curses in Leviticus and that comes out to be the exact time of the destruction of the second Temple.
  [There are only two sections of curses in the Torah and it is remarkable that both come out on the exact dates of tragedies. The Holocaust in particular.]
  You can learn a few more things from that insight of the Gra. For example the verse in כי תצא where he said his name is hinted at: אבן שלמה יהיה לך Eliyahu ben Shelomo. What you can learn from that is the full verse "Perfect weights and  a perfect measure should be to you so that you will have length of days." Meaning if you stick with the teachings of the Gra, you will have length of days.
The basic teachings of the Gra are actually simple. Learn Torah and trust in God.

Sihon who was conquered by Moses was the king of the Emorites.

Sihon who was conquered by Moses was the king of the Emorites. That means his area was part of the region promised to Israel--the region of seven Canaanite nations. So why was it considered חוץ לארץ? [Outside of the promised land?]
Now on one hand it is true that the borders of Israel are defined and the Jordan river is one of them. So from that aspect that region is outside of Israel. Still it seems odd. This is not a "kashe" a question. It is more like a comment about an odd fact.

My own feeling about philosophy is that I gained the most by learning Musar [Medieval Ethics]. If I would have to recommend a philosophy book it would not be a book of philosophy at all but rather the basic canon of Musar books from the Middle Ages.

To me it looks like the world is divided into secularism and religious-ism. [That is not religion, but religious-ism-- the idea that salvation lays within religion.  Secularism is similar in thinking salvation lays in socialism and stealing money from the rich  in order to make the poor rich and the rich poor. ]

I do not like either alternative very much. Growing up in a more or less secular world, it seemed to me less and less that any kind of secular approach had "the answers" for the big questions. At the time there were lots of alternatives. Existentialism, Socialism, "shrink"-ism. All claiming the Truth.And able to convince millions of their claims. To me it all seemed ridiculous--and still does.

BUT the solutions of the religious world seem ridiculous from other directions. But at the time I thought I had found absolute truth in religion.  I needed a few knocks to burst that bubble.

Now I think my parents had it right from the start--balance, menschlichkeit--being a decent human being before anything else. The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

In terms of a world view that includes more than that however, I would have to say that the medieval scholastics did what I think is the best job--that is to combine Reason and Faith. This started mainly with Saadia Gaon but it was a general approach of the middle ages, (e.g. Rambam, Aquinas, Anslem,...)
But then Reason itself came under attack by the school of idealism. That started with Descartes that divides Mind from Body. No one had an answer to this and Hume just pushed the knife in deeper. Because of this problem, Kant is important. 

My own feeling about philosophy is that I gained the most by learning Musar--especially the book of Navardok the Madragat HaAdam which talks about trust in God.
It is hard to get over the feeling that there is little or nothing in philosophy that is very insightful. The best of them all clearly is still Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus.
I found a lot of common sense and benefit from three modern day thinkers: Kelley Ross, Steven Dutch, Michael Huemer.

A great king of Judah went on a seek and destroy mission to destroy idolatry and idolaters.

In most of the kings of Judah and Israel the issue of idolatry comes to the front. Yoshiyahu יאשיהו was one king that went on a seek and destroy mission through all Israel to find and destroy any and every drop of idolatry and or idolaters that he could find. Not just in Judah. [At that point the ten tribes had been exiled, but he went anyway all through Israel to get rid of all idols and idolaters that he could find.
[Go and check the verse.מלכים ב' כ''ג You will see that he went personally on this mission and he went all through the land of Israel.Chronicles II 34:7 וינתץ את המזבחות ואת האשרים והפסילים כתת להדק וכל החמנים גדע בכל ארץ ישראל וישב לירושלים ] You can ask why did he feel the need to go out on this seek and destroy mission? Maybe he could have stayed in his palace in Jerusalem and sat and learned? But as I mentioned above the issue of idolatry was then and is now too great to ignore.
[He was the great grandson of חיזקיה][In verse 19 it says he went also to Shomron and did this thought that is not in a area of Judah. Also in verse 20 it says he sacrificed the priests of idolatry on their own altars. Kings II 23:19-20. See also Chronicles II 34:33 referring to the same seek and destroy mission.




The trouble with this is that "idolatry" is today almost a useless label. It can mean anything to anyone. It can simply be used as a way to insult.
So I did spend a great deal of time with David Bronson learning the exact meaning of idolatry in tractate Sanhedrin.

My basic conclusion is that the the religious world is deeply into idolatry, and now I try to avoid them.

The issue really was addressed in the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed. But since that letter is universally ignored, there does not seem to be much one can do. Rav Shach also is more or less ignored. So if these two Torah giants are ignored, then what can a little nobody like me do?
[I ought to add that neither the Baal Shem Tov himself, nor Rav Nahman from Breslov were included in the excommunication. It was directly  towards the disciples of the Magid of Mezritch. In fact the fact Shem Tov himself is mentioned in a praiseworthy fashion in the sidur of the Gra.]



But it does occur to me what regular people like me can do. We can insist on it. Even though others think it is a small point, but those like me that know--can insist. We can refuse to have anything to do with idolatry what so ever. What seems like a small difference can be a big difference if one insists.

world of Litvak yeshivas

Learning Torah in an authentic way refers to the the intensity of learning. It might have some relation to learning in depth or perhaps learning fast like I have been saying. But the thing that makes the Litvak yeshiva special is the intensity--the feeling that every word of Torah is more precious than diamonds. On one's own I think it is hard to get the idea of what this is about. But once one has been in an authentic Litvak yeshiva for a couple of years, then even later the feeling and sweetness of Torah never really leaves one.

My own experience in the world of Litvak yeshivas was quite amazing. I believe that my future wife only came to me because of that context. She must have felt that I was involved in something outstanding and I guess she wanted to be a part of it. [She began writing to me when I was still in Far Rockaway in Shar Yashuv and then came to NY herself when I was at the Mir.

I mean to say that there is something "holistic" about the Lithuanian learning Torah world--that is that encompasses everything--all aspects of life. It is far from being just about learning Torah. It is about being a mensch, good morals, being  scrupulous in honesty in money matters. But learning Torah is the focal point that everything turns on.

Most of my efforts to get back into real authentic learning Torah were foiled. WHAT DOES IT MEAN "REAL LEARNING"? It is the intensity of learning

I noticed that Rav Shach in one of his talks says the main thing one can do for Klal Israel [The people of Israel] is to learn Torah.  The issue is not how much territory does Israel control. This idea of Rav Shach as is well known finds support in the books of the sages and a lot of the source material is found in the Musar book the Nefesh HaHaim.
But what I wanted to add is that in the book of Kings I. 9 verse 11 it says that Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the Galil (Galilee) . So again we see this idea that the safety of Israel is not a matter of territory. [The Galil is divided into three parts, lower, middle, and upper where Safed is. So it was definitely Israel proper that Solomon was giving away.]

Though I do not learn much Torah anymore, I can see the point of Rav Shach.
It was a point that I first encountered in Shar Yashuv and later in the Mir. But I did not see much support for that point of view until I discovered the Nefesh HaHaim.

Part of the reason I do not learn much is that most of my efforts to get back in real authentic learning Torah were foiled and even backfired.
The Nefesh Haim [Rav Haim from Voloshin a disciple of the Gra] brings out this point about the importance of learning Torah and I am pretty sure that I was not so aware of it. After I graduated from high school I did want to learn Torah more seriously so I came to NY to Shar Yashuv. That is a yeshiva mainly known for being for beginners. But while there I was befriended by the later rosh yeshiva Naphtali Yeager and he showed me the depths of learning. That is the way you can see in my little booklets that I wrote on Gemara. Only later when I came to the Mir Yeshiva did I become aware of the path of Rav Haim Solovietchik.


WHAT DOES IT MEAN "REAL LEARNING"? It is hard to define. Mainly it is what you experience in a Litvak yeshiva. It is not just learning the gemara in depth as Litvaks do. It is the intensity of learning

mystic system of Sar Shalom Sharabi and R. Isaac Luria

The main system of Rav Sharabi you can learn in his book the Nahar Shalom. However I found for myself that simply praying with the sidur HaReshash for a few years helped me get a clearer idea of his system.[I ought to mention that I was praying with the sidur of the Reshash for the unification--not to gain better knowledge of his system.]
[There are two sidurs of Rav Sharabi I ought to mention. For a long time I prayed with the small one even though I knew that Rav Mordechei Sharabi said there were mistakes in it. And in any case I felt, it was less accurate than I needed. Then one great day I was in Mea Shearim in Jerusalem and discovered that in some private home there, the family was selling the actual large sidur of the Reshash.]

It is known that the Gra said that the Ari is speaking in terms of an analogy, not literal like he sounds.

The only one that got support from any world class mathematician was Leonard Nelson. That was the famous Nelson Affair file that David Hilbert kept in his office.

I do not understand why but the school of Kantian thought of Leonard Nelson was well known in the USSR, but almost completely ignored in the West.

[It is an odd fact that the only one of these that got support from any world class mathematician was Nelson. That was the famous Nelson Affair file that David Hilbert kept in his office.
An besides that we know Gauss was impressed with Fries and praised a book of Fries to a student that asked about it.


[I might mention that the correspondence of Godel indicates a kind of two tier structure of the world like the Neo Platonic school. To me it seems very close to Nelson.


[There are people who simply ignore the whole thing and want to go back to Aquinas like Ed Feser. The idea of finding in Medieval scholastic philosophers all the answers is perhaps a true point. There is something amazing about medieval thought. I have no idea what to say about that though.]

Also all of this just refers to philosophy. They all had something to say about politics but that does not seem to be where their insights were very great. On the Contrary--it was English thought [John Locke, De Foe] that seemed to reach the greatest heights when it comes to political thought. 

Michal the daughter of Saul

Michal the daughter of Saul was a kind of tragic figure. Clearly David was in love with her, and visa versa. When Avner ben Ner came to David, David had just one request to make of him, "Bring me back my wife Michal bat Saul." And she saved his life at least one time that we know about against her own father's wishes.

So the fact that she did not have children is sad. But furthermore --who were the descendants of Saul and the Givonim hung? It says in Kings II that five of them were the kids of Michal and then it names the father --the person that was the husband of Merav--her older sister! The Ralbag says that they were raised by Michal, but were not actually her kids. And that makes sense to me. And I can not think of any other possible explanation.

King David told Solomon to execute Yaov.

I am pretty sure that King David was upset with Yoav for killing Absalom. He could not tell his son Solomon to kill Yoav for that however,--- since it was justified. So he said it was for Avner ben Ner and Amasa.[Why did King David not send Yoav out to get the guy that rebelled after Absalom? I think David never really forgave him.]

The events with Yoav are sad. I think  King David would have not been able to do anything without Yoav. That makes Yoav's end particularly tragic.[King David told Solomon to execute Yaov-and he did.

there were no kings in Edom until Yoram

I asked a certain person in the Litvak study hall about the Gra's comment that the kings of Edom were around the time of Moses. He answered this question very well in pointing out that the verse about the kings of Edom says they reigned before there were kings in Israel. [I was asking about the fact that the book of Kings says there were no kings in Edom until Yoram the son of Jehoshaphat.]
But then he noted the odd fact that I had not seen. --The verse in the Torah says there were kings in Edom before there was a king in Israel. The verse in kings says there were no kings in Edom until Yoram --and that was long after there had already been kings in Israel for a more than a hundred years.

What occurs to me is this. King David as is well known conquered Edom. So the kings of the book of genesis refer to the kings of Edom before Moses and the last one at the time of Moses. After that we have no information. But then when David conquered Edom, they by definition stopped having kings. So the verse in the book of kings is referring to the time that Edom came out from under the yoke of Israel and began having their own kings again.I think this makes sense because at that point the book of Kings does not name the kings of Edom. So it is safe to assume they were not the ones mentioned in Genesis.

[A woman that rebels against her husband for no valid reason.

I was learning in the local study hall and for some reason the issue of מורדת came up. [A woman that rebels against her husband for no valid reason.] This was a surprise to me since the usual public lectures over there have do do with everyday minutia in law. That these bigger issues.  To me is is a difficult issue because once I has occasion to be talking with a granddaughter of  Bava Sali who was in fact thinking of asking her husband for a divorce. I advised against it but today I believe I was wrong.  It is never a simple issue. Sometimes there does seems to be a good reason for woman to leave.


In the Rema's [R. Moshe Iserless] correspondence there is a letter about this issue.

The basic issue issue is that marriage is more than a contract--but not less than a contract. So just like when you sign an agreement in business, that is binding even if one day you wake up and do not feel like fulfilling it. Still there are valid reasons that a woman can leave.

The daughter of Bava Sali asked me to agree with her daughter's feels that she ought to leave her husband. I did not agree and probably I should have listened.

So I ask how can you tell if some thought or urge come from the side of holiness or not? Or even if you adopt certain principles how can you tell if they are accurate or at least always accurate?

It seems to be the in thing nowadays for woman to accuse men of sexual crimes.

It seems to be the "in thing" nowadays for woman to accuse men of sexual crimes. It has gotten to be almost like a modern fashion. It is the "In Thing" to do. It gets the woman attention  and sympathy she could never get in any other way--especially for ugly, fat women. Even one of the founders of Category Theory had to go through this. Also John Searle. There just does not seem to be any down side of making false accusations.

[When was the last time you heard about an attractive female making accusations? Can't remember? Neither can I. Making false accusations is what ugly women do nowadays instead of raising cats.]

For women, there seems to be nothing to lose. They either are believed and gain money, power sympathy. Or else they don't. But there is (in their view) no loss involved. Their reputation never gets tainted. And the person they accuse, never really gets free of it because in the back of people's mind there is always that sneaking suspicion ""Just maybe.." [I should add that there is a down side to making false accusations that they are not aware of. יש דין ויש דיין. There will be a day of judgement.]

In  England there is a down side to be making false accusations-- for then the lawyer fees are reversed. It seems to me that this would be a good policy to implement in the USA and Israel also.
[This is not my original idea. I saw this a few years ago on the internet that someone suggested this remedy.]

I think a lot of this has to do with the general mentality. Women thought they could do this because in the USA, there used to be an implicit assumption that women are righteous and men are jerks. So women felt all they needed to do was to say a false statement about some guy they did not like, and that would be accepted as evidence. And in fact in the USA, that is exactly what happened. Nowadays this phenomenon is less common since police are looking for actual evidence--not simply accusations by  fat, stupid, hysterical women.

small sessions.A lot of people that think they can not do math would discover that in fact they can do math. It just gets absorbed in a different kind of fashion.

The idea of small sessions seems to be important to mention. I mean that besides learning fast, there is also an important idea to divide the sessions small digestible bits. That is like doing a few pages in one book and putting in a place marker and then closing it and going on to a different book. This idea seems to work best for me in terms of most areas of learning.

Sometimes for me doing a lot of pages in one book does not seem to add much. I find for me small sessions works better.


[My own small sessions are mainly in Physics and Math. As for Torah, on the few occasions I manage to get to the local Litvak study hall I try to find just one or two pieces in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri to go over every day until I feel I have got the basic idea.]

I think this idea of learning fast by saying the words and going on ought to be more widely known. The person that made the most effort to emphasize this approach was Rav Nahman of Breslov but he would not have been using it for math and Physics, but for the several divisions of Torah learning. In any case, I think it is an amazing piece of advice. A lot of people that think they can not do math would discover that in fact they can do math. It just gets absorbed in a different kind of fashion.

learning Math and Physics is a tikun

I thought it relevant to mention that from an early age I had a great interest in Physics and Chemistry. In part it was just my own curiosity about how the world works and in part from love and admiration for my Dad. But neither of my parents actually indicated that they wanted me to go into those fields. They definitely let my own interests guide me.

But I also think that they saw a numinous kind of value [holy value] in those fields along the same lines that you see in early Rishonim like  Ibn Pakuda (Obligations of the Heart) and Maimonides/ Rambam.

In the Rambam, Physics and Metaphysics takes on a dimension that you do not see much. To him, learning these two subjects are a fulfillment of the commands to love and fear God.

But as he points out in the Guide, the intention of learning these subjects has to be directed towards the goal of coming close to God.[That is in the parable of the king at the end of volume 3.]

If I may, I would like to suggest that I also see something in these subjects that one could call "tikunim"(corrections). Tikunim is an idea mainly associated with Rav Nahman of Breslov. With Rav Nahman saying certain parts of Torah have a corrective power for various problems.[The list is too long to go into here. In short,  for almost any problem you can think of, he has some verses or sections of Torah that are a correction for it. But I think he means to say them daily for 40 days in a row of more until the problem is solved. Not just to say them once.]

The most famous example is the ten psalms (16,32,41,42,59,77,90,105,137,150). But there are lots of other examples in his writings.
So what I am thinking is that the very act of learning Math and Physics is a tikun. [Though there is support for this idea in the very beginning of Rav Nahman's major book and in other places inside it, I am not depending on those places since people can argue that that is not what those place imply. But in the Rishonim the issue is much more clear.]

approach of my parents to make the most sense: balance.

I find the basic approach of my parents to make the most sense: balance. What I mean by that is that found a lot of good and important ideas in the books of Rav Nahman of Breslov but I think I took things too far. I could have stayed with the basic Litvak approach of the Gra and not gone overboard.
After all there are some major points the Gra pointed out that one does not really get in the framework of Breslov, that is the learning Torah thing and trust in God.

It seems to me the point is like that Thomas Reid made about Isaac Newton. If Newton had tried to come up with a theory about everything, he would have failed miserably and would not have benefited anyone. But he confined himself to one question. How to understand gravity, And from that people have benefited. So when you learn from a tzadik like Rav Nahman, it best to limit yourself to what he actually says and take it as answering the basic issues that he brings up.
I mean it is human nature to want a general world view that makes sense of the whole picture. But that world view ought to include balance and certain amount of awareness of one's limitations on how much do we really know?


The approach of balance was also emphasized by Rav Freifeld my first rosh yeshiva, and also Rav Shmuel Berenbaum of the Mir--but that is not really part of my nature. I tend to take things to their outer limits. But anyway I found the path of balance to be hard since I realized to excel in anything I needed to concentrate on that one thing.


The point of balance however is not to have just a collection of good values. If lay out all the parts of a car --that is still not a car. It is car when all the parts are put together and working together in harmony.

So just to be clear, I see an ideal schedule daily as including Rav Shach's Avi Ezri (the essence of the Oral Law, Math, Physics, Music, outdoor activity exercise.

some links to some of the older music

Link to music files mp3

I might try to make some links to some of the older music since I do not see any of it in this folder.
That would be mainly things that were written in NY.
But after I moved from NY most of what I wrote was a waste of time. But then in Israel started the b files some of which I think are good.  Then later files were written in Uman. Some of the older pieces were also inspired when I was in Uman but only put together in NY. The V files are the most recent files.  [e files were all written in Uman and everything after that except for the V files. The V files were written in Israel. [I do not know why Uman got to be a problem. People would just simply attack on on the street in broad daylight. It got to be insane to stay there. Maybe God just wanted me back in Israel for some reasons I understand not.] V files were only Midi so they are not included in this folder. God willing I will try to make a link for people that are interested in listening.

That has been since Sept 27. I hope God grants to me to start writing music again--but in the meantime I think that to share what there already is is a good idea.

If I would have energy right now I would probably rather be learning Physics or the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, but I am too tired now to do either.

Here is a link to that pieces i named mathematics  black hole p120 exodus4 great title Orchestra organ
piano[put for organ in mp3 but written on piano]

Orchestra is one of the oldest pieces. It was written when I was in high school.



Here is a  link to the folder that has the nwc files and some midi

That still does not include the older classics 

Yonadav ben Recav was a friend of Yehu

יונדב בן רכב Yonadav ben Recav was a friend of Yehu. [See Chronicles where the events surrounding Yehu at brought] Yehu was the one who wiped out the house of Ahav. So when Jeremiah asked his descendants to drink wine that was a few hundred years later and still they were keeping his word.

So honor your father and your mother still applies hundreds of years later.

The incident was that Jeremiah told them to drink wine and they refused because of the command of their great grandfather and for that they were granted a reward from God that their house would stand forever.

I can not say I have fulfilled this because my Mom and Dad clearly were interested in my keeping up my studies in Physics and Math, and yet I absolutely disobeyed them. Now some time later I find it is hard to make up for lost ground.

בבא מציעא ל''ה

Ideas in Shas

Ideas in Bava Metzia
In terms of   רב שך idea in laws of ה' שכירות א' הלכה ו. The idea is in short that in בבא מציעא לה: רב אידי בר אבין and אביי disagree about the sages of the משנה.  Then רב שך brings an idea not look that it fits well with אביי and רב אידי בר אבין. The basic idea is this. Two people come to the court of law and one claims payment for a loan.  The other says "You forgave the loan." If it is during the period before the loan is due to be paid the לווה is not believed, but if after that period, he is believed because he could say "I already paid you back".  Then why not during the time of the loan also? He answers it is a "טענה גרועה" since no loan is standing to be forgiven, It is standing to be paid,
Now רב שך applies this idea to when a work animal dies during the time it is being hired out. The Torah does believe the one that hired the animal with an oath but the actual plea itself seems weak. The animal is not standing in order to die. And רב שך in fact says that was the argument between אביי and רב אידי בר אבין. What bothers me here is that neither אביי nor רב אידי בר אבין say that that is what they are arguing about. They say they are arguing about when does possession pass to the one that hired the animal, the time of the oath or the time the animal died? That to me sounds like the whole argument between them is this: They agree that קניין פירות לאו כקניין הגוף of the object, And that שכירות אינה קניין הגוף. But in a case when the animal dies then that changes. Then the קניין פירות כקניין הגוף in the object itself. And there is a simple proof of this idea. A thief that damages the object he stole, he has to give back double the price or whole objects, and he keeps the vessel he broke. See what I wrote about אין שמין לגנב. So damage can confer possession in the case of hiring also.

בבא מציעא ל''ה ע''ב. רב שך בה' שכירות א' הלכה ו. הרעיון הוא בקיצור כי בבא מציעא לה: רב אידי בר אבין ואביי חולקים בדעת החכמים של המשנה.  רב שך מביא רעיון שקשה להבין בעניין אביי ואת רב אידי בר אבין. הרעיון הבסיסי הוא זה. שני אנשים מגיעים לבית המשפט  ואחד טוען תשלום עבור הלוואה. השני אומר "אתה סלחת את ההלוואה." אם זה בתקופה שלפני ההלוואה צריכה להיות משולמת הלווה לא נאמן, אבל אם אחרי תקופה זו, הוא נאמן כי הוא יכול לומר "כבר שילמתי לך בחזרה". אז למה לא בזמן של ההלוואה גם? הוא עונה זו  "טענה גרועה" מאז הלוואה אינה עומדת להיות נסלחת, זו עומדת להיות משולמת. עכשיו רב שך מביא את הרעיון הזה כאשר חי עבודה מת במהלך הזמן שהעבודה מתבצעת, התורה  מאמינה  השוכר עם שבועה, אך הטיעון בפועל עצמו נראה חלש. החיה אינה עומדת למות. וזה רב שך למעשה אומר כי היה ויכוח בין אביי ואת רב אידי בר אבין. מה קשה לי כאן הוא שלא אביי ולא רב אידי בר אבין מזכירים כי זה הם מתווכחים. הם מתווכחים בעניין הזמן שקניין עובר לשוכר את החיה, הזמן של השבועה או הזמן שהחיה מתה? זה נשמע לי כמו כל הטיעון ביניהם הוא זה: הם מסכימים כי קניין פירות לאו כקניין הגוף [של האובייקט], ושכירות אינה קניין הגוף. אבל במקרה כאשר החי מת אז יש שינוי. ואז קניין פירות כקניין הגוף בתוך האובייקט עצמו. ויש הוכחה פשוטה של ​​הרעיון הזה. גנב שהזיק את האובייקט שהוא גנב, הוא צריך להחזיר כפל המחיר או אובייקטים שלמים, והוא קונה  כלי שהוא שיבר. ראה מה שכתבתי על אין שמין לגנב. אז נזק יכול להעניק קניין במקרה של שכירות גם.

Bava Metzia page 35 - Rav Shach's idea.

In terms of  Rav Shach's idea in laws of hiring I:6 I do not have a lot to add to what God granted to me to write yesterday. The only thing is that I am not so sure if the actual approach really works.

The idea is in short that in Bava Metzia page 35b Rav Aidi bar Abin and Abyee disagree about the sages of the Mishna. Rav Shach brings a good idea from Rav Aaron Kotler that fits well in the place his brings it. But to me it does not look that it fits well with Abyee and Rav Aidi.
\
The basic idea of Rav Aaron Kotler makes a lot of sense. It is this. Two people come to the court of law and one claims payment for a loan and the other says you forgave the loan.If it is during the period before the loan is due to be paid the borrower is not believed but if after that period he is believed because he could say I already paid you back. Rav Aaron asks then why not during the time of the loan also? He answers it is a "weak plea." since no loan is standing to be forgiven, It is standing to be paid,
Now Rav Shach applies this idea to when a work animal dies during the time it is being hired out. The Torah does believe the one that hired the animal with an oath but the actual plea itself seems weak. The animal is not standing in order to die. And Rav Shach in fact says that was the argument between Abyee and Rav Aidi.

What bothers me here is that neither Abyee nor Rav Aidi say that that is what they are arguing about. They say they are arguing about when does possession pass to the one that hired the animal--the time of the oath of the time the animal died? That to me sounds like the whole argument between them is this: They agree that possession of the fruits in not like possession of the object, And that hiring does not give possession of the object. But in a case when the animal dies then that changes. Then the possession or hiring does mean there is a possession in the object itself. And there is a simple proof of this idea. A thief that damages the object he stole, he has to give back double the price or whole objects, and he keeps the vessel he broke. [See what I wrote about אין שמין לגנב] So damage can confer possession in the case of hiring also. Maybe this counts as a new idea?


I ought to mention that when I was learning with my learning partner David Bronson-we found ways of answering difficult issues in Rav Shach and if I would be learning with him now perhaps I also could find an answer. However right now I think that my approach here makes more sense.

Why do the righteous suffer? Is a question asked in the prophets Havakook, not just in the book of Job. But in the book of Job you get what to me looks like the answer. The three friends of Job were all rebuked by God himself there.

Why do the righteous suffer? Is a question asked in the prophets Havakook, not just in the book of Job. But in the book of Job you get what to me looks like the answer. The three friends of Job were all rebuked by God himself there. Job himself is not exactly rebuked, but God "tells him off". He asks "Who are you to judge?" But one person in the whole book gets off the hook,-- Elyihu. So what did Elyihu say different from the other three?
That one good deed outweighs a thousand sins.  Add to that sincere repentance and that seems to be enough to get a person into the Divine Light.[ Job 33]



Schopenhauer seems to have an approach in terms of the Will. Though he generally delights in the fact that we do not understand the workings of the Will, still in a late letter he indicates that there is a dimension of the Will's workings in the world that it all goes towards the good. That seems to be the approach of King David in psalms around #73


[Schopenhauer provides the metaphysics for Kelley Ross's  Kant Fries School of thought. That is largely based on Leonard Nelson for the part that is meant to answer how do we know stuff? It is known as the Friesian School or Critical school but Dr Ross really has made it into a larger structure. He uses the bricks to build his own structure.]

בבא מציעא ל''ה ע''ב

בבא מציעא ל''ה ע''ב. The רמב''ם הלכות שכירות א' ה''ו in that case of the שוכר animal and then משאיל it goes like ר' יוסי that the שואל pays the owner. So that goes well with the general rule of ריש לקיש possession of the fruit is not like possession of the object itself. קנין פירות לאו כקנין הגוף And that goes well with what רב שך writes in laws of hire ו' ה''ה. So then why does  רב שך not say that that in itself is the debate with the sages and ר' יוסי? Because of a few good reasons. The most obvious one is this. When רב אידי בר אבין asks on the sages and אביי answers him they do not say the reason for the sages is because the possession of the fruit is like possession of the object. Neither do they say that the fact that שוכר the animal gets possession by the fact of hiring. Instead רב אידי  asks when does possession start? From the oath. He then asks why does the owner not say he does not need the oath of the שוכר and instead wants to talk with the שואל. And אביי answers him possession does not start from the oath. Rather it starts from the time the animal dies. But both are talking only according to the sages, and they are both agreeing that possession did not start from the time of hiring. Also we do not want a debate among sages of the משנה to depend on a debate among sages of the Talmud. So now  רב שך is crystal clear. He knows the reason for the רמב''ם is that the possession of the fruit is not like possession of the object. But then he is wondering then what is the reason for the sages that hold the שואל pays the שוכר? And then he comes with this idea the argument between אביי and רב אידי depends on whether a plea of accident is a strong plea. [I still think that Rav Shach should have mentioned this aspect of things openly, even though it is clear that he was thinking along these lines.]


link to Ideas in Shas

בבא מציעא ל''ה ע''ב. רמב''ם הלכות שכירות א' ה''ו במקרה של שוכר חיה, ואז משאיל אותה (ואז קרה אונס שהחיה מתה) הולך כמו ר' יוסי כי שואל משלם לבעלים. אז זה הולך טוב עם הכלל של ריש לקיש קנין של הפרי הוא לא כמו קנין של האובייקט עצמו. קנין פירות לאו כקנין הגוף וזה הולך טוב עם מה רב שך כותב ה' שכירות ו" ה''ה. אז מדוע רב שך לא לומר כי זה בעצמו הוויכוח של החכמים עם ר' יוסי? בגלל כמה סיבות טובות. התוצאה הברורה ביותר היא זו. כאשר רב אידי בר אבין שואל על החכמים אביי עונה לו שהם לא אומרים שסיבת החכמים משום קנין של הפרי כמו קנין של האובייקט. גם הם לא אומרים כי העובדה של השכירות של החיה גורמת קנין.  רב אידי שואל מתי הקניין מתחיל? מן השבועה. ואז הוא שואל מדוע הבעלים לא אומרים שהם לא צריכים את השבועה של השוכר ובמקום זה רוצים לדבר עם השואל. וזה אביי עונה לו קנין אינו מתחיל מן השבועה. במקום זאת הוא מתחיל מרגע החיה מתה. אבל שניהם מדברים לפי דעת החכמים, ושניהם מסכימים כי קניין לא התחיל מהרגע של השכירות. כמו כן אנחנו לא רוצים ויכוח בין חכמי המשנה תסמוך על ויכוח בין חכמי התלמוד. אז עכשיו דעת  רב שך היא ברורה כשמש. הוא יודע את הסיבת הרמב''ם היא כי קנייןו של הפרי הוא לא קניין של האובייקט. אבל אז הוא תוהה אז מהי הסיבה שחכמים שמחזיקים שהשואל משלם לשוכר? ואז הוא מגיע עם רעיון זה הטיעון בין אביי ואת רב אידי תלוי אם לא  טענת התאונה היא טיעון חזק.

Rav Shach in Laws of Hire I: 6, Bava Metzia 35:b

Bava Metzia 35:b
I am grateful to God that I found a way to explain Rav Shach and also that I can write it on the internet with the computer of a friend.[I still can not write music but still I am happy that God has grated to me to writes a new idea in Torah.]
This is in reference to what I asked yesterday about Rav Shach in laws of hire I: 6
Because I never know how much time I have I will write the idea that I had today in short.

The Rambam in that case of the one that hires the animal and then lends it goes like R. Yose that the borrower pays the owner. So that goes well with the general rule of Reish Lakish possession of the fruit is not like possession of the object itself. And that goes well with what Rav Shach writes in laws of hire VI:5

So then as I asked yesterday does Rav Shach not say that that in itself is the debate with the sages and R Yose? Because of a few good reasons. The most obvious one is this. When Rav Aidi bar Abin asks on the sages and Abyee answers him they do not say the reason for the sages is because the possession of the fruit is like possession of the object. Neither do they say that the fact that one that hired the animal gets possession by the fact of hiring. Instead Rav Aidi asks when does possession start? From the oath. He then asks why does the owner not say he does not need the oath of the one that hires and instead wants to talk with the one that borrowed. And Abyee answers him Do not think possession starts from the oath. Rather it starts from the time the animal dies. But both are talking only according to the sages and they are both agreeing that possession did not start from the time of hiring.

Also we do not want a debate among sages of the mishna to depend on a debate among sages of the Talmud.
So now Rav Shach is crystal clear. He knows the reason for the Rambam is that the possession of the fruit is not like possession of the object. But then he is wondering then what is the reason for the sages that hold the borrower pays the one that hired? And then he comes with this idea the argument between Abyee and Rav Idi depends on whether a plea of accident is a strong plea.

talks by Rav Shach.

I saw in the Litvak study hall a book that has excerpts of talks by Rav Shach. Sometimes they seem very insightful but it seems a little much on the religious side. And the religious side can be for me confusing. After all Kant said that when one tries to apply reason to the realm of the thing in itself, contradictions are inevitable,

So my approach is to try to learn Gemara and to live according to the laws of Moses, but to avoid the religious world which is contrary to that ideal--though they certainly imagine that they are in accord with it.

 Involvement with the religious world is usually disastrous. The reason is though they believe they are keeping Torah, they are in fact doing the opposite.

But to try to understand the reason for this just gets one involved in a realm where reason can not go. (But I venture to say  to the religious, their emphasis on ritual makes them superior in their own minds) The best thing to do is to be  a mensch -a decent human being.

Rav Shach in the Rambam in laws of hire

Rav Shach in the Rambam in laws of hire says an idea to answer the Rambam over there. But I think that Rav Shach himself came up with a better idea a few pages later.


To be as direct and short as I can.[Since I am tired and also worried about my problems.]
Rambam Laws of Hire I: 6 goes like R. Yose. The case is a person hired an animal to do work with and then loaned it to another person. On that person's time the animal dies.
To whom does the borrower pay?[Background: A borrower pays for everything and one that hires pays for small things but not for big accidents that he has no control over. The animal dying is considered a big accident but then he takes an oath that that is in fact what happened.

The Gemara itself brings this:
However the sages of the mishna say the borrower pays the one that hired the animal-if the one that hired the animal takes the required oath.

Rav Adi bar Abin says the owner ought to tell the one that  hired: can talk to the borrower directly. Abyee answered to Rav Adi: the obligation starts when the animal dies, not at the time of the oath.

To me the issue seems clearly based on the argument between R Yochanan and Reish Lakish about אם קנין פירות כקנין הגוף דמי-- if possession of the fruits is like possession of the object itself.
See Rav Shach himself later on in laws of hire where him goes into this in detail and I am thinking that later section must have been written long after this one because I think Rav Shach would have seen that he himself had a better answer than the one he gives, The explanation he gives  to the debate between Abyee and Rav Abin is if a plea of "accident" is a strong plea,

But from my point of view it seems simple that the question is does renting or hiring something give one possession in the physical object or not? If yes, the it is clear why the borrower would have to pay the one that hired. The reason is that for that period of time of the renting, he is in the place of the owner and so when an accident occurred in the possession of the borrower, the money would have to be paid to him, not the owner. And that is how Rav Shach himself explains the debate between R Yochanan and Riesh Lakish.

Sorry if this is not so clear but it is the best I can do right now.

I just added this to my little book on Shas

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רב שך in the רמב''ם הלכות שכירות  says an idea to answer the רמב''ם  over there. But I think that רב שך himself came up with a better idea a few pages later. 'רמב''ם  הלכות שכירות א הלכה ו goes like ר' יוסי. The case is a person hired an animal to do work with and then loaned it to another person. On that person's time the animal dies. To whom does the borrower pay? Background. A שואל pays for everything and שוכר pays for  גניבה ואבידה  ואונסים קטנים but not for אונסים גדולים כגון שוד מזוין או מיתת הבהמה that he has no control over. The animal dying is considered a big accident, but then השוכר takes an oath that that is in fact what happened. The גמרא itself brings this. However the חכמים of the משנה say the borrower pays to the שוכר, if the שוכר takes the required oath. רב אידי בר אבין  says the בעל הבית ought to tell the שוכר I can talk to the borrower directly. אביי answered to רב אידי בר אבין, the obligation starts when the animal dies, not at the time of the oath. I think the debate is based on the argument between ר' יוחנן and ריש לקיש about אם קנין פירות כקנין הגוף דמי. The explanation רב שך gives  to the debate between אביי and רב אידי בר אבין  is if a plea of "accident" is a strong plea. But from my point of view it seems simple that the question is this. Does hiring something give one possession in the physical object or not? If yes, then it is clear why the borrower would have to pay the שוכר. The reason is that for that period of time of the renting, he is in the place of the owner and so when an accident occurred in the possession of the borrower, the money would have to be paid to השוכר, not the owner.



רב שך ברמב''ם הלכות שכירות אומר רעיון לענות על רמב''ם שם. אבל אני חושב כי רב שך עצמו בא עם רעיון טוב יותר לאחר כמה דפים. רמב''ם הלכות שכירות א הלכה ו' הולך כמו ר' יוסי. המקרה הוא אדם שוכר חיה לעשות עבודה ולאחר מכן משאיל אותה לאדם אחר. על הזמן של השואל הבעל חי מת. למי השואל משלם? (רקע כללי. שואל משלם על הכל ועל שוכר לשלם עבור גניבה ואבידה ואונסים קטנים אך לא עבור אונסים גדולים כגון שוד מזוין או מיתת הבהמה שאין לו שליטה עליו). מיתת החיה נחשבת תאונה גדולה, אבל אז השוכר לוקח שבועה כי זה למעשה מה שקרה. הגמרא עצמה מביאה את זה.  לפי דעת החכמים של משנה השואל משלם לשוכר, אם השוכר לוקח את השבועה הנדרשת. רב אידי בר אבין אומר בעל הבית יכוללהגיד לשוכר אני יכול לדבר עם השואל ישירות. אביי ענה לרב אידי בר אבין, החובה מתחיל כאשר החיה מתה, לא בעת השבועה. אני חושב הדיון מתבסס על הטיעון בין ר' יוחנן לבין ריש לקיש על אם קנין פירות כקנין הגוף דמי. ההסבר רב שך נותן לדיון בין אביי ואת רב אידי בר אבין היא אם טענת "תאונה" הוא טיעון חזק. אבל מנקודת המבט שלי זה נראה פשוט כי השאלה היא זו. האם שכירת משהו נותנת בידי אחד האובייקט הפיזי או לא? אם כן, אז ברור מדוע השואל יצטרך לשלם את השוכר. הסיבה היא שבמשך פרק זמן של השכרה, הוא נמצא במקום של הבעלים ולכן כאשר תאונה התרחשה ברשותו של השוכר.

Rav Shach and the Gaon of Vilna were aware of the problem but were ignored.

There is a lot of effort to get the false messiah of the hasidim to be accepted as the true messiah. Even though he died still people are very active in Israel to try and get him to be accepted. His picture is put up where ever one goes. But if you ask them if he is the true messiah they deny that they believe that. It is the same kind of hypocrisy  that occurred after the events of the Shatz--Shabatai Tzvi where people continued in the faith that he was the messiah but denied it if you asked them.

The reason is that that group got to be accepted as legitimate authentic Judaism.

That is even secular Jews have his picture in their stores and homes and it is plastered across every single highway all throughout Israel.


I took down one sign and one of those hasidim came to attack me and was yelling that that picture is holy--but I escaped.

What I think about this is that there were plenty of times that idolatry was accepted in  Israel and the worship of the true God was forgotten. That is during the reign of the kings of Israel like Yeravam ben Navat [Jeroboam] and Achav [Ahab].

But even then there were a small group of people  that held onto the true faith like Eliyahu [Elijah]  the prophet. All the kings of Israel and some of the kings of Judah and Benjamin were idol worshipers. Go and check and you will see. Many of the kings of the two tribes worshiped the Baal and did so for long periods of their reign and authentic Torah itself was almost completely forgotten


Rav Shach and the Gaon of Vilna were aware of the problem but were ignored. Rav Nahman from Breslov also knew about the problem but all references to this were deleted from his books except in the excerpts of Rav Shmuel Horvitz which was published by the Na Nach group. \



The main reason for this problem I believe is that this was a blind spot for many gedolai Israel [great sages] For example Bava Sali became aware of the problem only at the end of his life.  And thought the whole thing was legitimate.  Many others also. Only Rav Shach realized the problem from the very beginning. [Even the Hafetz Haim brings from that source in the Mishna Brura. Did he not know of the signature of the Gra?] [The way the problem began in Litva  was Rav Haim from Voloshin accepted a young hasid  student into his yeshiva. But the reason was because he was not from the group that the Gra has put into Cherem. If you look at the actual letter it refers only to the disciples of the Magid of Mezritch.]

But as Bava Meir knew that Bava Sali became aware of the problem towards the end of his life. I -----wonder if  perhaps I am the only one that knows about this problem today.
In Uman, I began to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach in part because I was aware that he was the only one with the proper degree of insight to see what is true and what is fake in Judaism. That is why you can see that I started quoting him in the book on Shas. My learning partner and I at that time began simply to learn Rav Shach straight.--But then the hasidim there got rid of me and I had to go and live alone by myself for a few years.

Rav Shach [In the Rambam of Laws of Hiring]

There is an issue in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. the problem comes from the one that hires an animal to do work and then he lends it to a third party and then the animal dies. There is an argument in the Mishna to whom the borrower pays. Rav Shach [Beginning of Laws of Hiring] brings the Gemara: The Sages said the borrower pays the one that hired the animal. Rav Idi bar Abin said the owner ought to be able to say to the one that hired the animal "I do not need you or your oath. I will talk directly to the borrower." Abyee answered:"Who says the ownership begins at the oath? Maybe it begins when the animal dies?

Rav Shach brings the idea that the argument is whether a plea of "It was an accident" is a good plea.

Because of all my problems I have not been able to think about this very much, but from the first time I saw this until now I still can not see the point of Rav Shach. It seems to me the issue is in a case of hiring an animal, where is the assumption of ownership in case it really is an accident?

To get out of "they".--Heidegger

Heidegger for some reason gets classified with the existentialists --and Kierkegaard also. But I think that is unfair. Neither deny that Reason perceives universals and moral values and laws of nature. Rather they both focused on the need of the individual to find his own way. To find the Dasein authentic Being inside of his and the bring that into reality. That is how Heidegger understands the call of conscious. To get out of "they" and to get Being itself to come into the light--from potential into actuality.

But how or why both got to be put together with post modern philosophy is beyond me.

I can not really recall what I was thinking at the time I went to Shar Yashuv and the Mir Yeshiva in NY, but I think that what motivated me was this exact issue. the way of "being" in the world.

I mean I had a rational point of view so eastern religions did not grab me as much as others. Most people that were searching for the meaning of life went into eastern groups. But that did not appeal to me. My side reading in high school was Plato, Dante, etc. More of less things that held reason can penetrate into the truth of things, So to me a Lithuanian type of Yeshiva seemed to best idea how to get in touch with reality.
To answer the call of Being.
Though I admit that if I had known about the way of learning of Girsa [Rav Nahman's idea of just saying the words and going on]--I might anyway have gone into Physics as my original intention was.
For I recognized something great in my dad and his career in the aerospace industry. But without any kind of method of learning that would work for me, I had no way i knew of how to get into it..]

In laws of buying and selling 22: 15 and 22:16 the Rambam brings that a person that  a person who says a calf that will be born from his cow is sanctified for the Temple is required to fulfill his words even though holiness does not come on the calf since it is considered a thing that has not yet come into the world. Then he says about one dying that if he says the fruit that his tree will bring forth is to go to the poor that the people that inherit his money must fulfill his words. Rav Yoseph Karo asks on this that they are not required to fulfill his vow.
Rav Shach answers [based on a certain Tosphot] that obligations on one's body imply obligation on one's property. This was an issue that came up in my book on Bava Metzia but I was not aware at the time that Rav Shach had written anything on this.

I would try to add a note now but as I mentioned I can not do any writing of music nor ideas in Torah unless I get my old computer back or get a new one. Anyway I am very happy I am not in prison--because there also I think I would not be writing much music or ideas in Torah


The actual answer that David Bronson said in Bava Metzia was a little different than Rav Shach but it was related. The idea there was that there is a certain amount of obligation that is implied when one agrees to lend or to rent one's property to another. But David also there in Bava Metzia did not like the idea of the Netivot HaMishpat that the difference between lending and object and renting it is the difference between obligation on one's body and obligation on one's property. And that certain goes along with Rav Shach.

In any case Rav Shach was not coming to answer the problems in Bava Metzia so anyway I think we need to depend on the answer of David Bronson as I wrote over there.


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For some reason in the Litvak study hall my book on Bava Metzia is still around and being looked at but not the one on Shas. I gave both to the Rav there and he left one out on the table. So why not the one on Shas? I think because I might have gone into law issues too much for his taste. So I am thinking if I want to write about law, it ought to be in a separate book, not the one on Shas.

a nice answer that Rav Shach gives for the Rambam in laws of selling

I have not had time to go into this in detail but I wanted to mention a nice answer that Rav Shach gives for the Rambam in laws of selling. This question has some answer from R Akiva Eiger and a different one from R Haim Soloveitchik.
The question is one can not sell something that is not in one's domain even though he owns it. --That is if he can not get to it then he can not sell it. But in terms of the shemita [seventh] year the Rambam brings that people that had נטע רבעי a tree that had grown for only 4 years, left money in a private area and said "If the fruit of this tree is picked  then its holiness is put onto this money." In that way, the people that picked it by accident would not be doing anything wrong by eating it -- since its holiness was transferred elsewhere.

Rav Shach answers for the Rambam that there is a difference between transferring ownership and causing holiness to settle on something.

The Rashba wanted to say something similar in the Gemara but somehow that idea Rav Shach noted does not fit well with the Gemara in Bava Metzia where the Rashba wanted to use this idea. But it very well might help for the Rambam. I however have not been able to investigate this issue very thoroughly yet.

Does the very act of sex makes a woman a wife?

A Catholic blogger held that in the Torah the very act of sex makes a woman, the wife of the man.[That might have been the Zippy Catholic].

If you look at the verses in Deuteronomy it is hard to argue with him. But In Exodus we find that if one seduces a virgin and the father refuses to give her in marriage, then he simply has to pay the regular 200 zuz. This seems to go directly against what the Zippy Catholic was saying. So that is a good proof that marriage can only happen in front of two witnesses and with intention to marry as the Gemara says.

However there is a point about what he is saying in Deuteronomy that goes along with Rav Isaac Luria that אין אישה כורתת ברית אלא עם מי שעשהה כליץ A woman makes a covenant only with him that made her into a vessel. Or as the Ari explains the first act of sex leaves a spirit inside of her forever.
So not in a legal sense but in a spiritual sense what the Zippy Catholic said makes sense.

Heidegger and Kierkegaard

Heidegger and Kierkegaard make a point that philosophy became too interested in  what faculties people  have in common. How the Mind works? How do we know a priori knowledge? But what is really interesting is not what a great saint and an evil criminal have in common, but rather what makes them different?


The answer is to Heidegger--Dasein. Being. That is there is something inside the great saint that strives to be revealed--to come out from darkness into the light. That is not the same as Kierkegaard who focused on how one is. To Heidegger what is essential is "who one is", not what one is or how one is.

The insight that this gives to me is that it helps me understand a bit of my decisions in life. I think I was not at all interested in the secular life style. Something in the Shar Yashuv yeshiva resonated with me.--the idea of sitting and learning Torah a way--as the way--of serving God.

This still resonates inside-but the actual religious world for some reason seems to have gotten out of sync with authentic Torah.

I am still trying to get back into authentic Torah by learning Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. But this goes only with great difficulty. Once I left the authentic Torah world of the Litvak's  it seems impossible to get back in.

USA system

One person who has a link to my blog said a few years ago that the USA system was indebted to John Calvin --in terms of representative government. In Geneva Calvin had set up representative government. There was a large group (200) that was voted in directly and they voted for two smaller consuls(60 and 20). But I am wondering was there not already a House of Commons in England?

In fact I have been looking at the government of England during the period from 1688 --the glorious revolution -and it seems to me the entire English system was more or less simply transplanted into the USA Constitution.--with some significant differences--for example separation of church and state.


[The fellow that links to my blog might have been thinking that the House of Commons was not actually elected when it first started in the 1200's. And I am not sure when it got to be elected. But with John Calvin we know the consul of 600 was elected by every church member in Geneva..