the idea of Rav Nahman that there are Torah scholars that are demons. [

 the idea of Rav Nahman that there are Torah scholars that are demons. [תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים].
The way Rav Nahman understands this is based on a few statements of the sages about the problem of using Torah to make money or gain power.

This idea can be expanded to groups that use the appearance of Torah also to gain power or money.


The idea of Rav Nahman has a few sources in the Gemara. One being the gemaras about demons that were in fact knowledgeable in Torah--and could take over people's souls. So it really is no surprise to find Torah scholars that are in internally demons. 

There is a kind of evil inclination that causes people involved in some kind of religious delusion to try and spread their poison.

There is a kind of evil inclination that causes people involved in some kind of religious delusion to try and spread their poison. It might be in part because of the super organism idea of Howard Bloom.

In fact this kind of behavior I have seen a lot. This was in fact one of the causes that the Gra put his signature on the letter of excommunication. In order to stop that type of action on the part of people that were deeply into religious delusions.

You can see that people that are involved in the good side of Torah like in the Mir or Brisk, never try to go out and change others or make mass movements.

Torah scholars that are demons תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים

The basic idea of Torah scholars that are demons [Le"M vol I chapter 12]. [The Gemara itself brings the idea  that demons can be knowledgeable in Torah and  also that they can possess a person. Therefore the logical deduction is that a person possessed by a demon that is knowledgeable in  Torah will be knowledgeable in Torah. [The note on the bottom of the page in the Le.M brings the source of Rav Nahman from the Zohar, but I do not see why since Rav Nachman also had a source in the Gemara itself. 

 [It is brought in expanded form in the Ari also. ] This seems to me to be one of Rav Nahman's most important ideas. It provides a warning to people that could be too easily taken in.

Is there any test, to know the difference between good and evil in this regard? There is, but I can not tell what it is exactly. 

However I did want to add a comment. First that David Bronson did point out to me that even Rav Yaakov Emden did hold that some parts of the Zohar are authentic. (Large portions of it were added to.)
Furthermore there are plenty of warnings about religious leaders in the Talmud and the Prophets also.

Ari [Isaac Luria]- The way the Ari understands the creation of the universe

The way the Ari [Isaac Luria] understands the creation of the universe is by a process of צמצום of the Divine Presence of God from an empty space within his Infinite Light and then sending down first the light of the divine name 52 or Adam Kadmon of the Circles. Then the name 45 which became Adam Kadmon of the form of Man.

This explains to some degree why Buddha would have seen Nirvana as the peak of things and that perfection means to be self-annihilated.  Buddha [and Schopenhauer] would be seeing the level of the empty space as being the bringing. Thus forgetting that there was one level before that.

However Hegel did incorporate the level of Adam kadmon and the previous levels in his system. [Though I do not know how he learned the Ari or even heard about him. But he certainly brings him in his books. And his system is a kind of commentary on the Ari.]

immigrants into the USA

The problem with inviting immigrants into the USA is אין אורח מזמין אורח a guest can not invite a guest. Besides that there is a problem with using immigration to change the demographics of the USA which intends to change the basic nature of the WASP society. If anywhere else had managed to pull together a decent wholesome society like the USA in its first 200 years then there might be some reason to try and change the USA towards some better model. But since no such society has ever existed with the degree of freedom and justice of the USA it makes no sense to try and change it. And if such a great society elsewhere exist now then why do people still try to get into the USA? Why do they not stay in their utopias?

decrees of the sages

In terms of decrees of the sages, I brought the issue up with my learning partner David Bronson and we went through the commentary of the Rambam and Ramban on the Mitzvot--about the issue.

At the time I was satified that there is some kind of justification. However it does seem weak.
[I might add here the importnat fact that the verse in the Torah "לא תתורו" do not go away from what they say refers to the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem that had legitamate ordination from Sinai that ceased to exist during the period of the Talmud.]
One thing I noticed today was that on the Mishna in Shabat, the Yerushalmi compares the day that the 18 decrees were made into law to the day of the making of the Golden Calf.--Which does not sound like a positive thing. [The 18 decrees were the begging of all decrees that were made during the time of the Mishna.]

My original question on this whole thing stemed froman Avot DeRav Natan. Rav Natahn was a person from the time of the Mishna and Gemara and he wrote a commentary on Pirkei Avot which has the status of a Braita. There in the beginning of Pirkei Avot he brings the statement of R Yose that the sages had no permission to make extra laws to put upon the laws of the Torah.

[My own approach to this has varied over time. At one point I just assumed that all decrees "Derabanan" [of the sages during the time of the Mishna] were obligatory. Then at the point when the religious world stated showing its ugly face, and my life was plugged into chaos I realized that keeping everything was not going to be possible. So I decided to pick one basic principle to stick with and as for everything else to depend on the opinions of the lenient authorities.

[This was an idea I got from reading Rav Nahman's books. In his major book the Le''M in two places he brings the idea of not to be strict about anything. And when Rav Natan his disciple asked him about a position of being the rav in some city that was offered to him Rav Nahman said "Why not?" Rav Natan answered, "I am afraid of having to make a legal decision (that might be wrong)."
Rav Nahman said, "As long as there is one authority ("posek") to depend on, you can depend on him."
[Which might refer to a rishon [mediaeval authority] but also might refer to the commentaries on the Shulchan Aruch itself.]
Based on that I usually was able to find some lenient opinion in a lot of cases that came up in my chaotic life. But even further--the Raavad and others hold once the reason for a decree is nullified the the decree itself is nullified.

In terms of the arrow of thought from Being into Logos (of Hegel), that is the opposite of the direction of Plotinus.

In terms of German Idealism, my feeling is there is a lot there that is important. But I do not feel committed to any one particular thesis.
But I did want to mention just a few thoughts. One is that the way it is presented is usually wrong. The way it is usually understood is that it is some version of Berkeley.
The way I see it is that it is a version of Neo-Platonism.

In terms of the arrow of thought from Being into Logos (of Hegel), that is the opposite of the direction of Plotinus. But that is just the direction of deriving things. The actual Creation I see as being from Logos until Being. like Plotinus.

As for Shopenhaur I see him as just related to the חלל הפנוי [the Empty Space] of the Ari [Isaac Luria] before the actual sending down of the Infinite Divine Light.--So I do not see him at all in disagreement with Hegel anywhere near the degree he thought he was.

Musar itself is great but tends to be kind of mediaeval in philosophy.

There is a great of good ideas in the Gra and Rav Nachman and Musar [the Musar movement of Rav Israel Salanter.] The thing is you need some kind of measuring stick to decide what is applicable to you and what is not. There are lots of false ideas out there and common sense and reason are needed to sort things out. This was the general approach in the Middle Ages. Reason and Faith. For after all if you would take everything in Torah literally, it would be problematic. So you need some common sense. Even to choice who you think is valid also requires common sense.

As Rav Nahman pointed out, there are plenty Torah scholars that are demons. And they have a Torah of the Sitra Achra. The realm of evil. So it does take a certain amount of caution to discern whom to listen to.

Some of the great ideas of the Gra are well known--learning Torah, trust in God, and his signature on the letter of excommunication. [Which did not apply to Rav Nahman as you can see if you look at the original documents that were later collected in a few famous books. I saw a book that had the original documents in a small public library in Jerusalem in the old city.]

Some of Rav Nahman's ideas were talking with God in one's own language as one talks with a friend. But lots of other great ideas and insights--too many to go into.


[Musar itself is great but tends to be kind of mediaeval in philosophy. It seems to ignore the concerns of the Enlightenment philosophers. Is there some way out of that? Maybe. Kant came along to some degree to answer the rationalistic empiricist problem--mind body. In tend to see Hegel as being a good approach to this issue. But with in mind the kinds of concerns of McTaggart.]

I myself do not have a commitment towards any system of beliefs but rather I am committed to seek the truth in all issues.  This is kind of personal but also it was the atmosphere of S California where I grew up. But I also recognize the opinion of people that know more than me.

free stuff in order to get elected

The strategy of promising free stuff in order to get elected is really not all that different from communism. So in order to evaluate if this is a legitimate approach one could look at the history of communism to see if it is workable policy. Well no. It is not workable. It destroys the economy. But what it does do is to get people's votes to put the one that promises into power.

The general way of Torah used to be such that one got married and continued to learn for number of years but the idea was never to use Torah as a means to make money.

What happens in the Mir in NY is that a person is learning Torah for its own sake a few years and then gets married. Then his father and or father in law support him and her a few years. But there was never any intention of using the holy Torah to make money. So he never bothered to learn Yora Deah and get the phony kind of ordination we have nowadays. In Ketuboth page 109 there is a case related to this that is brought in Shulchan Aruch of Rav Yoseph Karo. In the Gemara the case is a person went away and someone else gave money to his wife to support her. The husband does not have to pay it back. But if she borrowed to support herself then he does. [But not anything that she spent, but only the amount that he was obligated that is two meals per day or about a quart of flour per week.]

The casein Shulchan Aruch is the father in law supported the couple for the two years that was stipulated in the marriage contract but then kept on supporting the couple after that. Then he decides to ask his son in law to pay him back.

The Trumat HaDeshen is brought in the Rema [Moshe Isarles] that the son in law does not have to pay back for the wife but only for himself. The achronim over there disagree.

So what happens if someone gives you a present and then later asks you to pay for it?

[The general way of Torah used to be such that one got married and continued to learn for  number of years but the idea was never to use Torah as a means to make money. This is what I myself was doing for the years after I got married. And then we got to Israel. In Israel I did not join the kollel in Meor Haim because I thought it was along the lines of using Torah for money. But the State of Israel itself made things easy to settle in. Rent was very low and so were the bills. As for the kollel thing itself I am not sure what to think. Mainly it seems to me to be forbidden and yet still I admit there are those who allow it.]

young men angry? https://nypost.com/2019/07/31/readers-sound-off-on-why-young-american-men-are-so-angry/

Why are we angry?

Let me share my story.

I work a corporate job that routinely demands 70-plus hours a week. I barely have time to think, much less take care of myself mentally and physically. I am so burned out I can barely handle life anymore. I am 43.

I am constantly told how I am wrong at work.

I am seeing on the Internet that white men are toxic. It’s in the popular culture.

I’m a Democrat, and frankly the anti-white rhetoric has gotten ME angry.

I’ve been passed up for several promotions for applicants who were less qualified but met race and gender preference criteria — also known as, not a white male.

It’s not a good time to be one. I can only imagine what a young man who hasn’t established himself yet is going through.

The hidden Torah and Physics.

The hidden Torah [that is enclosed in the Work of Creation] is mentioned a lot in the Le"M of Rav Nahman in different ways.

One place I noticed this is in the book of Rav Natan his disciple that is brought on the subject of the Red Heifer. That is the sacrifice that is brought outside the Temple and which purifies from the kind of uncleanliness associated with the dead.

For a long time I have thought that this hidden Torah inside of Creation refers to Physics. My reasoning originally was based on the Obligations of the Heart. [Chovot Levavot] where he says both to learn the spirituality inside of creation and also the wisdom inside of creation--two different things [Shar HaBehina chapter 3 I think.]

You can see this idea also in the Rambam in his Guide and the Mishne Torah.

[In terms of the Ari--Rav Isaac Luria you do see a lot of Divine names that are contained in the physical Universe. --at least in the Eitz Chaim. But also in the Reshash [Rav Shalom Sharabi] there is an expanded version in the forth volume of his Sidur. (I mean that there are two sidurs of the Reshash. One is the smaller red one. The other is the large one which is considered more accurate. The smaller one was put together by the grandson of the Reshash. The smaller red one is thought to be a compilation done in Syria. Though I used the smaller one for years until I found the larger one, still Rav Mordechai Sharabi said the smaller one is not all that reliable.]

At any rate, this refers to the spirituality inside of Creation.--not to the laws of Physics which is what the Chovot Levavot  and the Rambam are referring to.

Rav Nahman: You can serve God with everything. אפשר לעבוד השם בכל דבר.

So how can you learn Physics. Say the words and go on. This is called "Girsa" learning in that way was already mentioned in the Gemara in Shabat 63.

If the Gemara would have wanted to say that music is forbidden period. It is hard to imagine how it could have said it any clearer.

Music is mentioned in the book of Rav Nahman (Le''M 72) as being a great thing -- rids one of illusions and delusions. The way to understand this is not simple since in the gemara in Gitin [I forget the page number but it is towards the beginning] "How do we know that music is forbidden?" And then it brings some verse. And then it goes on to explain that music is forbidden whether by voice or by instrument.
The answer on one hand is like Tosphot that it is referring to music at a wine party. Another answer is that even if you do not hold with the answer of Tosphot but go with the Rambam that all music is forbidden, still he adds that singing praises of God is allowed and praiseworthy.

But again the comes up the more well known question that using verses of the Torah as words for songs is forbidden. It specifically refers to psalms and the Sir Hashirim but the prohibition is for all verses of Torah. "When people use the words of Torah for a song the Torah dresses in garments of mourning and complains before God ';They have made a song out of me'".[That is a quotation from the Gemara.]

[If the Gemara would have wanted to say that music is forbidden period. It is hard to imagine how it could have said it any clearer. So is there any answer for all this? Mainly I have to say that I depend on Tosphot.]

Faith in the wise is one of the great principles

Faith in the wise is one of the great principles I found in Rav Nahman's Le''M vol I chapter 61.

And it is the reason why I will often quote different wise people --for example Rav Nahman himself, and the Gra, and Kant and Hegel. The reason is this principle of faith in the wise. So it can happen that people that are wise can contradict each other. Sometimes that is in order לגרש את הסיטרין אוחרנין to expel the forces of evil. That is often one is no worthy to learn from a truly wise person or a tzadik. So it comes about that different tzadikim disagree with each other in order to sow confusion in minds of people that then go away from them.

This applies to truly wise and great people. So this is  test to see who is worthy. On the other hand there is such a thing as the Torah of the Realm of Evil. And there are Torah scholars that are in fact demons of the Sitra Achra as Rav Nahman brings in Le''M vol I chapter 12 and 28. So it is necessary to develop some kind of common sense to be able to tell the difference between authentic and inauthentic.

"Faith in the wise" is as is well known a principle from the Mishna in Avot [Pirkay Avot] but the reason this stuck in my mind was that Rav Nahman ties it into the problem that I had at the time. He says על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא את משפטינו לאור "by means of faith in the wise one is able to bring his judgment into the light." That is to merit to the right piece of advice that will help him in his troubles." i.e. to merit to the right advice. I was not sure what to do at that time. So I simply learned that particular Torah lesson every day--saying it from beginning to end, until some kind of clarity would come to me. So I was learning that lesson for a different reason --not to come to faith in the wise. But the idea of faith in the wise did stick with me.

Authentic Torah

The major thing which I found compelling about the Litvak yeshiva world was its authenticity.

That is more or less if you put the Gra, together with Rav Israel Salanter, and Rav Shach and Rav Haim of Brisk, you come out with a kind of path that struck me as being "the real thing."

Why was this important to me? I really do not recall very well. Mainly, I think it was that in those days, finding the Truth was the big thing. And to find to Truth was perhaps for me more than intellectual interest.

But you do need a certain kind of common sense to be able to tell in any area of value what is the real thing,-- and what is not. As Steven Dutch says for every area of knowledge there is a pseudo science that corresponds to it. [Authenticity was not mentioned a lot in those days, but it was implicit that in the search for the truth, you did not what to settle for half baked measures.]

The aspect of Rav Israel Salanter is an important aspect of this, since without that, it is easy to get sidetracked about what Torah is really about. His emphasis on Musar [Ethical books] of Torah brings out what is really important in Torah (character, fear of God, trust in God), and what are just side issues.

[In truth, however I find this path hard to stick with, and hard to keep, and hard to understand. There is some kind of aspect of the whole thing that became institutionalized. So for this to work at all you need to be part of a place that really is authentic.--Something like Ponovitch, or Brisk, or the Mir--or along those lines.]

Tikun HaKlali of Rav Nahman. Correction for sexual sin

Rav Nahman of Breslov emphasis on sexual purity makes a lot of sense to me. Even though it is hard to maintain any kind of purity nowadays he did search for a solution for after the fact sins. To some degree you can see this in books of Musar and also the Ari [Isaac Luria]. But Rav Nahman's idea seems best to me. That is to say these ten psalms, 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150. that same day and also to go to a natural body of water like the sea or a river.

In the book of Rav Natan [one of his disciples] he also brings the idea of being married is a Tikun HaBrit [correction for sexual sin]. But nowadays this is hard to do.

The basic idea of Rav Nahman is that sexual sin  causes damage in spiritual realms. And so by saying thiose ten psalms which corrospond to the ten kinds of song that David said the psalms in would bring total correction.

[It should be noted that this saying of teh psalms has the ability to correct even more than sexual sin as you can see in the major book of Rav Nahman the LE"M vol I chapter 19.]

German Idealism

Idealism is the idea that we are only aware of our own minds. what is outside our own heads we have no idea of and have no reason to think it is real.

Idealism of Berkeley is false but has great and rigorous proofs. So Thomas Reid spent a good deal of effort refuting it.

Kant accepted idealism to the degree that he holds there is an outside world but that it must conform to conditions of possibility of experience.

And our own knowledge must conform to the limits of reason. As Kelley Ross puts it: a bathtub full of computer chips is not a computer and cannot process information.

Shopenhaur accepts that Kant proved his point but modifies it. [Shopenaur starts his book with "The world is my representation. So now that he is not here, why is the world still here?]

To me it seems that idealism is simply wrong. I am pretty sure that most people reading this have seen rigorous proofs of absurd things. Like: there can be no motion of Zeno. Or that pi = 3.


That does not mean the idea is true. That is how I look at idealism.

So as Michael Huemer says--the Mind Body problem [which is behind all this] is not solved. What seems true to me is that Hegel got the right idea that any knowledge combines synthesizes both empirical impute and a priori impute. [Michael Huemer says basically the same thing in one essay where he shows all empirical knowledge depends on a priori assumptions.] His way to solve then issue is by probability. Every assumption starts out with a beginning amount of how much sense it makes. So even when you throw out one assumption that at first made sense it is because it disagrees with another assumption that makes more sense. That is for example how Einstein decided to modify Newton instead of Maxwell. To him , electrodynamics was more basic than Classical dynamics.

A major premise of the religious world is that if they would be in charge of things, then everything would be all right. Once you find out that this assumption is wildly wrong, you usually do not have the ability to back out.

A major premise of the religious world is that if they would be in charge of things, then everything would be all right. Once you find out that this assumption is wildly wrong, you usually do not have the ability to back out.

So I see a lot of value in then book of Allan Bloom where he goes into the Enlightenment. There he shows that it was largely a political movement to take power from priests and princes and give it to the educated people.like scientists. I am in full sympathy with this idea after living in a society that was largely based on Enlightenment ideals --especially John Locke--i.e the USA during the period when it was mainly WASP.[White Anglo Saxon Protestant].

However as he points out, the Enlightenment and the USA itself is at a crossroads. It is not just the many people that are American citizens that hate the USA that will stop at nothing to destroy it. It is a focus of lots of forces. But more important it is an epiphenomenon from the problems in the Enlightenment itself.

The best idea would be to answer the question how to move forward. Not simply to give up and go back to the rule of priests and princes.

So what is needed I think is some kind of Hegel synthesis.--to see what is right in Enlightenment philosophy and what is right in the counter enlightenment and to create a synthesis of both and to then discard what was not right in either.

My own feeling is to divide ones time between these two methods. As was done in the Mir yeshiva in NY. The morning for intense in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning.

In the Conversations of Rav Nahman 76 there is the famous few paragraphs about learning fast.
This certainly helped me a lot when I was trying to get up to speed in Physics and Math. After high school I concentrated on Torah learning --which is great in itself. But  that meant that I skipped Physics. [Not being aware of the opinion of Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam. Nor were their opinions well known in the Litvak yeshiva world at the time. ]
But besides learning fast Rav Nahman does talk about review in his sefer hamidot.
So how to combine these two opposites?

In books of Musar before Rav Nahman like the אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righeous there seem to be both things.

[ My own feeling is to divide ones time between these two methods. As was done in the Mir yeshiva in NY. The morning for intense in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning.

American life before things got weird

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind goes into the conflict between the Enlightenment vision of people as improvable by means of education and the anti enlightenment philosophers.
In that book he traces the conflict to be a question between John Locke and Rousseau about what is the state of nature of man before you would have any education or civilization.

It occurred to me a long time ago that he leaves out the treatment of these question of Kant and Hegel. And I am not sure why. Maybe he did not think that there has been any kind of solution.

Why would not the Hegel kind of synthesis work here?


In any case-my own view is based on basic experience. I had the opportunity to experience average American life before things got weird. The regular experience was  is the regular schooling up until university and family outings every weekend. It was Freedom combined with responsibility. There were no free rides. the Welfare state had not been expanded yet.
Of course all that changed. But that is how things once were and it was great.
So all the arguments against capitalism and the American way just fall off me like water on a duck.

But I see the USA in a deep crisis. And I am not sure why people want to make it into a socialist society. However i also can see why Russia had to become the USSR. It was not just the end of the effects in the Ukraine now that the thawing out period is over and the criminal elements in the Ukraine are raising their heads again. But even before that--I saw all the working infra structure was from the communists. So as far as Russia goes I can see the point of the USSR. But not in the USA. So what is the difference? I could take  a guess and say that the USA used to be WASP. But there might be lots of other explanations. The point is that my views are not based on idealism but experience and just seeing how things are and how the used to be.

So based on my experience I do not see the religious world as any kind of noble ideal.  My experience in the religious world shows me clearly that it is no where near as nice as the just average day experience in the USA only just a few years ago. In fact, the very concept of the religious gaining power gives me horrible nightmares.

Rav Nahman's Sefer haMidot-- "If you want to repent be sure not to be in debt."

Dr Kelley Ross has a nice section dealing with Kenyan economics on his Kant Fries site.http://www.friesian.com/.. Michael Huemer also I kind of recall. The basic idea is that the driving force of economies is demand, not supply.

My opinion about economies is based on a statement in Rav Nahman's Sefer haMidot-- "If you want to repent be sure not to be in debt." And since I got the idea from Musar books I had read before I discovered Rav Nahman about the importance of repentance, I decided to not be in debt even for a minute.

This related since  the way the government works nowadays is based on Kenyan economics. Which is the idea that going into debt is a good thing and it is what drives the economy forward. [They use weasel words to disguise what they mean. They call it the "supply side". But that simply means the more debt you go into, the richer you will be.

ideas of Rav Nahman of Breslov

There are a few basic ideas of Rav Nahman of Breslov that i think are very important. Clearly the talking with God  in one's own language as personal friend has to take the top of the list. But there is also his way of learning of just saying the words. Though this is mentioned in Sihot Haran 76, there are other hints to it in the LM. I forget exactly where But one lessons starts out "על ידי אמצעות הדיבור יכולים לבא לתבונות התורה לעומקה".[By means of saying the words one comes to understanding of the Torah in its depth.']

However in Shar Yashuv review was emphasized by Rav Freifeld. The Mir clearly was into learning in depth. In fact the classes of Rav Shmuel Berenaum had the reputation in those days of being the deepest in the world.--And that might have been true. That is what students of Lithuanian yeshivot were all saying all over. To me it is hard to compare. All the great Litvak gedolim seemed to have very great depth--especially Rav Shach.

But I found a wealth of great ideas besides these in the books of Rav Nahman. But these two things seems to be the most important. (1) Learning fast and (2) talking with God as a friend talks with another.
As for learning in depth (of the Mir) this to me sometimes seems important, and sometimes it seems to just get me weighed down.

I found for example that learning fast helped me in Physics - since the kind of nitty gritty calculations that one need to do take me a very long time. To get an idea of physics beyond the surface level I think the fast learning is right thing. [As for Rav Nahman's discussions against science, I think he was referring to the pseudo science that was in his days.] 

It seems to me that Kant is going like Aristotle. That is that he agrees there are universals but that they depend on particulars.

That is to say (to take an example from Dr Huemer) lets say I have two pieces of paper in front of me. Do they have anything in common? Yes. They are both white. Whiteness is a universal. It is something that particulars have in common. How do you recognize particulars is by the fact that you see and feel them. But a universal you can not actually feel of see. You recognize it by a different faculty. Reason.

It was a point of Kant to limit the validity of reason to conditions of possible experience. That is particulars.

To be able to get to faith beyond the realm of possible experience it seems to me you would need either Leonard Nelson's Kant Fries School of non intuitive immediate knowledge, or Hegel.

For even though Kant did limit the realm of reason, there were enough problems in understanding Kant that leave room for a Friesian Development or a Hegelian one. [Maybe Shopenhaur also but I am not sure about that.] In any case, I have to say that I am just offering this a a suggestion but have really not do the homework to be any kind of expert. Still Americans have a good and health suspicion of experts as they ought. So I feel somewhat at ease in offering my opinion about areas of value that are more content and less formal. [Going in this like Dr Kelley Ross who divides areas of value along curve of all form and no content like logic and going up to more content like math but less formal. Then justice and art and music which have more content and less form. In those areas it seems the more expert one is the more they lose common sense.]

Kelley Ross has spent a good deal of effort to try and bring attention to Leonard Nelson. At least some of those efforts are gaining success.The  Socratic Method and Critical Philosophy by Nelson seems to have been published in English by Yale University Press.

Shulhan Aruch Even HaEzer 93

That section deals with laws of a widow. The basic law is that a widow gets mezonot [food] from the land of her husband until she asks for her Ketubah [marriage document which gives 200 zuz to a virgin if the husband divorces her or if he dies. But in it are included mentions of other obligations. 200 zuz  I figured might be a few thousand dollars based ona Rosh I saw once.]] or until she gets married again. But the Geonim who came after the Gemara made a tekana [law from teh scribes, not from the Torah] that she can receive food also from movable property. [This does not apply to a divorced woman who gets her ketubah right away but there is no obligation of "alimony".
But what happens if there are a few wives. Since they all got married to the same guy at different times so the obligation of the ketubah stars at different times. So the first one married gets her ketubah first. Then if there is any property left over the second one collects etc. [Just like would be the case if he owed money on loans he took out.]


I only had a few minutes to look at it but it seems to me that one way to understand the Rambam is that the obligation of mezonot starts at the marriage. [If there is the word therefore].

The Raavad understand that the obligation of mezonot starts at the time the husband dies, not when they got married. And that is how I think most of the people on the page over there in the Shulchan Aruch  like the Beit Shmuel and Helkat Mehokek understand the Rambam also.
[The simple way to understand this is that clearly the actual obligation of mezonot stars when the husband dies but the tekana stated at the marriage. The thing here is I actually recall Rav Shach mentioning this issue and that he took it as a simple thing that the obligation starts at the death of the husband. But then you can ask why would the ketubah be any different? There also there is no obligation until she is divorced or until she dies! What is the difference?]

When I saw the importance of  learning metaphysics and physics in Ibn Pakuda's חובות הלבבות it did not click with me right away. I was at the Mir in NY and was not looking for distractions from learning Gemara. still something of what he was saying must have stuck with me because later when I saw the same thing in the Guide of the Rambam, it started making sense that maybe that was the aspect of learning Torah that I had been lacking. However I really was not sure what to do with the metaphysics aspect of the whole thing.  On one hand the Ibn Pakuda and rambam were clear they were not talking about mysticism. [No offence intended towards the Remak (Moshe Cordovaro) and the Ari (Isaac Luria). It is just that that is not what the Rambam was talking about.] But what can one do with Metaphysics? What could be considered the be fulfilling what the Rambam was saying? Aristotle and Plato for sure. I guess Plotinus also. But what about later on people?


To make this short I should just say that I found the neo Kantian people to be pretty important, though I can not say who is better. Leonard Nelson and his Kant Fries School of thought look to me to be very great, but not to the degree of being the only ones that added or improved on things.
I mean to say that when Kant wants to limit the realm in which reason is justified he goes to conditions of experience. But a group pf people noticed some inner contradictions with that in Kant himself. That is the circularity that experience itself depends on a priori assumptions. So Reinhold came up with the Representation. That answers the issue since it is neither just a priori nor posteriori. Shopenhaur made good use of this in his The World as will and Representation. Still it seems that each one of these people fills in pieces of  a big puzzle. Hegel pointed out how the dialectic brings to truth and knowledge From Being to Logos]. And that is an accurate description of how in fact knowledge progresses.[You see this in Rav Nahman also in his claim that talking with God brings one to truth.].

Pantheism

It is not the belief system of Jews , Muslims nor Christians.[See Volume II of the Guide where a similar issue is the focus. If creation was from an eternal substance. The Rambam rejects this and says that if it would be true then the Torah would not be valid.

This all came up because the pope has been in South America recently and the announcement from the Vatican seems to indicate a kind of pantheism that leaves Catholics wondering what is going on with the pope.

The Rishonim held that creation is ex nihilo. Or in Hebrew "Yesh Mei'ain" "יש מאין".[Something from Nothing.--not from any pre-existing substance.]
[You can see this mentioned in all the medieval sages, and even the Ari himself right smack in the beginning of the Eitz Chaim.]


In spite of this being the belief of Spinoza, it does not seem to have a lot of evidence or support even from reason. --Because the basic assumption of Spinoza that one substance can not effect another substance is not at all obvious. [And the reasonableness of axioms is important. For example in mathematics you do not start out with wildly unreasonable assumptions. You start with things that are almost too simple to state. Like the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Or if A =B and B=C then A =C. So for Spinoza to build his system on shaky foundations does not add a lot of credibility to it.


So when Rav Nahman emphasizes the importance of faith, I have to assume he is not talking about pantheism. In fact, in the context of the L''M of Rav Nahman, it seems he is simply talking about straight and simple faith in God,--not pantheism nor even facts about God, but simple faith and trust.

[He never mentions the 13 principles of faith of the Rambam and might well be thinking along the lines of Rav Joseph Albo that the actual principles are 6 or like the Abravanel that they are 3 principles.]

The meals that a husband owes his wife. [Shulhan aruch of Rav Joseph Karo Even HaEzer 70 sif 8]

Lets us say a husband has gone off to work in a foreign country and his wife borrows money to feed herself. Then of course the husband is obligated to pay back the debt when he returns [Shulhan aruch of Rav Joseph Karo Even HaEzer 70 sif 8] But what happens if she forgives the loan?  Normally I would think that once one is obligated in some debt then that is that. But that is the odd thing about loans in general. A lender can always forgive a debt even after it has been incurred.

So I just happened tp stop by the Breslov place of learning today and noticed this issue comes up in the Shulchan Aruch. The Halkat Mehokeke says in fact she can not forgive the loan.[[opposite of what the Rema writes there from the Mordecei in in the end of Ketuboth. I saw that the Beit Shmuel does in fact defend the Rema and the Mordechei but I did not get a chance to see his reasoning. It might be what I am saying here. That the loan the debt does not go directly from the husband to the lender but rather it goes through the wife. But if that is the case then this whole issue certainly depends on that exact issue that i recall came of in Shas and I recall seeing that Rav Shach brings it in his book the Avi Ezri.

But if I recall this issue was decided already in the Gemara itself and in the Rambam that the middle man can be excluded and we can consider the debt as going directly from A to C without B.[In the case of loans]. That is all I have to say about this issue for now except that I did get a second or two to notice the Taz over there does bring up this issue that it is like a a regular loan.


I ought just to add that over there you also see what I mentioned a few days ago that the husband does not owe a lot of מזונות [meals] to his wife. Just two a day plus one me'ah of money per week. Which is just a few dollars. And you can see right there in shulchan aruch that a divorced woman get zero support. --which just goes to show how the religious nowadays are liars as they claim the Torah gives alimony to a divorced woman.

In any case we do see also in the Shulchan Aruch at the end of 69 that the wife can forgive the meals.- Just like you see when people get married on condition that the husband keeps on learning Torah. This is clearly a great thing --as long as the husband is not using Torah to make money.

כנגד מדינת הלכה A state of halacha is against halacha.

I claim that a state of halacha [Jewish Law] is against halacha. [There is no such thing as ordination. Authentic ordination stopped during the time of the Talmud. After that there is only pseudo ordination. And even if there would be the authentic thing no one today were qualify.]  It is merely an attempt to use the appearance of ordination to gain power and money.  The whole religious world is just one big scam. [There is no legitimate excuse to use Torah to make money or to be excused from military service. But the problems are much deeper than these two issues.]
  One one hand there is much to learn in Torah about values and morality. But the attempt of the religious world to impose their power and authority on others would result in the worst kind of nightmare I can imagine.
   The main support for this idea is experience, not theory. That is to say I can pick out things in which the religious world is obviously against the Torah.  But these would be after the facts that I and anyone who has lived under the authority of the religious leaders knows about.
  There is a kind of cult mentality in the religious world that you would expect more in Adi Da or Scientology.
  There are better places and worse but the major emphasis of getting the fry to be frum has hidden agenda. It is no as innocent as they try to make it look.
  Netanyahu [The Prime Minister of Israel] was actually asked a few days ago about this exact question and he said a state of halacha. that is just a sick joke. I will not give any support to such a thing.
  I do not know how he knows this. But it is clear that he is as aware of the evil and sickness of life under Jewish religious authorities as I am. It is no accident that anyone who has lived under that kind of authority leaves it as soon as they are able.
  However on the positive side of things --if I could I would try to learn a and keep Torah as much as I could. But that has nothing to do with the sick frum world.
The basic idea is that part of the Torah בין אדם לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man. In these areas as is well known the frum religious world is a nightmare.

[ Rav Nahman was aware of these problems. Especially you can see this in LM vol I chapter 61 where he warns about allowing religious leaders to claim ordination.]

I thought the USA was doing well when it was basically WASP. There is a principle --a guest can not invite a guest. So WASPs graciously allowed people in need to come. But that does not mean they the guests ought to invite others. The change in the USA is such that a swamp of people in the USA are hostile to America. Also the Socialist Left made the USA seem a lot different than the period that I recall.


A similar thing seems to apply to Israel. The religious did everything they could to stop its foundation. But now want all the benefits.

religious leaders

Even though Rav Nahman made it clear that religious leaders in the Jewish world tend to be demons (note 1)--that is from the realm of Evil. Still I think the problem is not the people but the system.

That is that the system is not really based on Torah at all but is rather based on a group dynamics that rewards fraud.


I noticed that the religious world tends to believe they are smarter and better morally than anyone else.
These two claims do not hold up to scrutiny. And they are not minor issues. The whole  raison d'être (reason to be) depends on these claims being factual. (note 2) As you can see in the Rambam in his reason for the commandments in the Guide for the Perplexed.


(note 1) For example in L''M I: 12. I:28  and many other places were he refers to Torah scholars that are demons. "The reason that some Torah scholars are against those who fear God is because they receive their Torah lessons form the demons" (LM I:12).  Another quote is" Torah scholars that are demons receive their Torah lessons from the "alfin hanefulin" [the fallen letters A"]

(note 2) See Talmud Bava Mezia 119 the argument between R Shimon Ben Yohai and the sages. The Rambam in Mishne Torah seem to decide the halacha in opposite ways. Once like R. Shimon and in another place not. But Rav Shach pointed out there is a third opinion R Yehuda and that the Rambam in consistant in deciding like him in all cases.

I was in Uman

 I was in Uman and needed an operation on my foot and the doctor there did a fantastic job.[Though as you can imagine that same hospital had a dreadful reputation from the time of the USSR.

Not to say I have any desire to go back. Ukraine was getting to be  a nightmare. I would be attacked in the middle of the day just randomly by people that recognized I was not a Ukrainian. There are too many criminals over there. 

A lot of the yeshiva world is about using Torah to gain power and money. Otherwise it would be more or less simple to simply stay home and learn Torah.
[You can simply buy a Shas and Rishonim and even Rav Chaim Solovietchik's Hidushei HaRambam and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.] [I do not mean this critique to apply to the yeshivot where Torah is learned for its own sake, for example the yeshivot I was in the Mir of NY and Shar Yashuv. Certainly there are places like that in Israel --like Ponovitch. Torah for its own sake I agree with. Torah for the sake of making money I do not agree with.\ 




 But the religious world is kind of like a parasite that needs the secular world to survive. The religious are about as healthy for Klal Israel and  sores are necessary for the human body.

Not that it was always that way. But that is the present day situation. Probably you can understand from this why the Rambam wanted to make an iron wall between Torah and money.

Hints that come from Above.

There are hints in what happens to one that come from Above. This is something in the book of Rav Nahman that comes up in a few places.

[In one place Rav Nahman says that "God condenses himself from infinity to the place where one is and gives him hints about how he can return to Him." That is to say:  God is above logic and comprehension. But still he gives hints to every person --even one who has fallen from holiness completely and is totally absorbed into the evil realm, still He gives him hints how to return to Him in repentance. קול קורא במדבר.


So even though learning Torah is a great thing, still there is a higher level that I believe I was getting hints about that I should spend time and effort on.

It is kind of like the gemara brings about Rav Zeira [an Amora from the time of the Talmud] who fasted forty days in a row in order to forget the Talmud that was being written in Iraq [Babylon] in order to come to the higher level of understanding on the Jerusalem Talmud

From the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda I would have to say that Metaphysics and Physics are a part of Torah

It is not that I am unconcerned about Bitul Torah. It is more along the lines that the Gra said--that according to lack of knowledge in any one of the seven wisdoms, one will lack 100 times more in Torah. [As brought in to Introduction to Euclid by a disciple of the Gra, i.e. Rav Baruch of Shkolev].
There seems to be some kind of Achilles heel in the world of Torah when this aspect of things is lacking.

The actual opinion of the Rambam you have to get to in a more round about way. But it is hinted to in the commentary of the Mishna, in the Mishne Torah and in the Guide.

It seems that however the Ramban [Nachmanides and other rishonim would have disagreed. But still from what I can tell, the Rambam was right. The Ramban has some choice words for Aristotle!  But perhaps it is not so much that the Rambam was right as this is an are of the dinge an sich [things in themselves] where reason can not enter. For on one hand, I wished I would be able to sit and learn Torah all day every day for every second all my life. I was that attached to Torah. [] But then circumstances tore me from that and I have had to discover that point of Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam.

you have to take all the Neo Kantian as a collective whole.

Even in high school I had a lot of interest in Philosophy. But what philosophy was in those days did not seem very inspiring.  mainly it consisted of word analysis and the claim that there are no values nor truth. [The Eastern religions that were popular did not seem to have much going for them. That is how it seemed to me.] So I gravitated towards more ancient philosophies like Plato, Spinoza, and Chinese philosophy. Kant and Hegel were no where to be found. Not in the public library nor in the high school library nor even in book stores! Those were the  days of existentialism. It all seemed vacant of any content or meaning. [John Searle said rightly about most of twentieth century philosophy "It is obviously false". I could not agree more.]

So instead of Philosophy I went to Shar Yashuv and then later on the Mir and decided to put philosophy on hold. Eventually I picked up Spinoza again and in Brooklyn public Library I found an edition of the Cambridge Hegel. That is some of his major writings along with rigorous commentary.

At some point after going through the pre_Kantian thinkers I got to the point of realizing that Kant and Hegel are important. And that you can not just go back to business as usual in philosophy as if they were never around.

[This idea of the importance of the Kantians came after seeing a good deal of the pre Kant people that had some great points but also had problems. Just take a look at Leibiniz, Thomas Reid, Hume and you will see what I mean. I got the idea that Kant is important. What school of Kant? Reinhold, Maimon, Shultze, Fries. Or the Shopenhaur or even later Marburg or Leonard Nelson?
For  along time I have had the idea that you have to take all the Neo Kantian as a collective whole. It is hard to point to any one in particular as having all the truth..]


[Even though in the Guide of the Rambam, he does say that the Metaphysics of the Greeks is important, my feeling is that tis would have to apply to Kant also.]

It is not that I am unconserned about Bitul Torah. Rather that from the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda I would have to say that Metaphysics and Physics are a part of Torah

The Rambam held learning Physics and Metaphysics is a part of what one must learn every day

To make a synthesis between faith and reason was a major concern of the Rambam. However in his emphasis on learning Physics and Metaphysics [of the ancient Greeks as he says in the intro to the Guide] was not meant to provide answers for this issue, but rather as things that are in themselves a part of what one must learn every day. That is he saw these as part of the Mitzvah of learning Torah.--a view that was unique to rishonim [medieval people up until about the 1500's] but never comes up in achronim [later on people after the Beit Yoseph].

It is my feeling that the rishonim were right about this issue and I have trouble understanding why Rav Israel Salanter did not mention this in his Musar Movement program.

 Chesterson-- "The trouble with women is not that that they feel too much. It is that they do not feel at all!." That is they have no conscience. If they feel they can lie and get away with it, then they will lie.
 Like King Solomon said " One man among a thousand I have found, but even one women like that I have not found."

This is the opposite of what is thought nowadays that whatever lie  woman says is always believed. And I fear this might even get to Israel someday. It is already the case in the USA.

That is the reason Robert Foster, a state representative in Mississippi decided to refuse to let a woman reporter go along with him on his campaign . The trouble is that instantly that she would claim he had done something wrong she would be believed.

Rav Nahman railed against doctors

Even though sitting and learning Torah [Gemara) all day is a great thing --and I am happy that I merited for a few years to do this at the Mir and Shar Yashuv in NY, at this point I tend to believe that it is best to also learn Physics and Math.

Even though it is thought that Rav Nahman disagreed with this, I noted many places in his major book  that seemed to go in the opposite direction. The first time I saw this was about the issue of vaccination. As is well know Rav Nahman railed against doctors often and warned people to stay away from them. Yet when the first vaccinations arrived in Europe Rav Nahman said you have to take your child even in the middle of winter to whatever city is administering the vaccinations. So I got the idea at that point that Rav Nahman was against false medicine. So from that I decided his being against science was meant against false science pseudo science as almost all science was in his days. They still were going with the "four elements"!!


[Psychology is just plain pseudo science anyway.] But in terms of Rav Nahman, the fact is that medicine in his days was quite primitive. Oxygen had not yet been discovered. Blood letting was still the big cure all. George Washington in those days woke up one day with a sore throat. So what to do? Bloodletting is what the doctors prescribed. Well that did not work. So do it again! And again. and again...!

The actual obligation to support a wife really does not add up to much. In the Mishna in Ketuboth [pg 63 and 64] it comes out to about a quart of wheat flour.

The actual obligation to support a wife really does not add up to much. In the Mishna in Ketuboth [pg 63  and 64] it comes out two kavs of wheat per week or about a quart of wheat flour. That is more or less about what you would need to bake two loaves of bread per day. But the issue that I wanted to bring up is the issue of the wording of the ketubah where it says " I will work for you."

The odd thing about this is the argument between the Rambam and the Raavad brought in the Tur Beit Yoseph in Hoshen Mishpat 176 in paragraph 3. The obligation is of course not to make money in an illegal way. So when people use Torah to make money as in kollel they are certainly not "working for  a living" since it is forbidden to use Torah to make money. But besides that can the document in itself make one obligated in something that he would not be obligated in? Not to the Rambam (and the Ramban). However the Raavad (and the Rashba) both hold that he can make himself obligated by a document that says "I will work". The Raavad brings two proofs. One from a slave. We know a slave is obligated to work. Also from the case יקדשו ידי לעושיהם. [That is: a woman can say to her husband "My hands are holy for Him who made them." And by that what she makes at her job becomes the possession of the Temple--if she also adds איני ניזונת ואיני עושה [I will not need support nor will I work for you)

The Gold Standard in the Torah world is unquestionably the Litvak Yeshiva World. The problem with any gold standard is the people that commit forgery and pretend to be the real thing. That is one good reason for me to warn people that the religious world outside the few straight Lithuanian yeshivas like the Mir or Ponovitch are false Torah, pseudo Torah or as Rav Nahman put it Torah of the Sitra Achra--the realm of evil.

Musar [Movement of Rav Israel Salanter

I was in a synagogue over here that is mainly for Lithuanian types of Yeshiva types. And I noticed a book of letters by Rav Israel Salanter. One letter I opened to was emphasizing the importance of learning Musar [Books teaching Morality]. Some one had apparently written to him about some kind of hilul hashem (note 1) when someone was learning Musar but was not acting very properly.
What's the surprise? Is not that the exact reason most of us do not learn Musar? Too many people that supposedly do and do not seem like very nice people.

The point however of Rav Israel Salanter is that it helps. And that point I have to agree with just from simple observation of the Litvak Yeshiva World. Apparently they manage to raise fine families and are basically in accord with Torah as far as one can tell. (2) So then why is it that you or I apparently encounter not the best exemplars?
I am not sure about others but as for myself it seems the reason is I once walked away from it. I imagine if I had just stuck with the basic Litvak Torah path that things would have been different. But somehow I got sidetracked.





(note 1) "Hilul hashem" means acting in such a way that brings doubt on the value of Torah. That is it gives Torah a reputation as if it is not worth much. That was from the letter what had happened. Someone was known to be  a person that learnt Musar but was not acting nicely.


(2) That is while I was at the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv I did notice  very good family values  and loyalty to Torah. That was pretty inspiring for me. But apparently not inspiring enough for me to stick with it.

I ought to add here that what I see great about the Musar movement is that it advocates true values of Torah--character, menschlickeit, fear of God. And to a large degree seems to accomplish these ends from what I can tell even though I am outside that world. 

Bava Metzia page 99. בב''מ צ''ט ע''א A New Idea based on Rav Shach.

I have a great deal of trouble in getting to learn Torah. Certainly no new ideas are coming to me since I stop learning with David Bronson my learning partner. But for what it is worth I wanted just to mention a few random thoughts I had about Bava Metzia page 99.




The first thing I think is important is in Tosphot very first question. At first glance it looks hard to understand why Tosphot just does not use the end of the Tosephta that he brings to answer his own question. I mean to say this. Rav Ami in our Gemara on page 99 says one who lends to another person an ax of hekdesh (that was dedicated to the Temple) transgresses the prohibition and the second person can use it.  In the Tosephta it says (as far as I can recall from a few days ago when I had a chance to take a look at that page) that ten people that use an ax one after the other,--they all transgress the prohibition of using hekdesh [an object dedicated to the Temple]. But then it says if one gives it to another, then the first person transgress, and the second is allowed to use it. Tosphot uses the end of the Tosephta to show that we are not talking about vessels used in the sacrifices (which never go out to be secular even if used for a secular purpose).  But why not use that end statement of the Tosephta simply to show that change of domain makes one liable in Meila [using temple goods]?
[התוספתא כותבת שאם עשרה אנשים משתמשים עם קרדום אחד כולם מעלו. זה מיצג קושיה על רב אמי שאומר  שאומר בב''מ צ''ט ע''א המשאיל קרדום לחבירו הוא מעל וחבירו מותר להשתמש בו. תוספות אומר שאי אפשר לומר שהתוספתא מדבר בכלי שרת בגלל שבסוף התוספתא כתוב שאחד נתן את הקרדום לחבירו הוא לבד מעל וחבירו מותר להשתמש בו. אפשר לשאול למה סוף התוספתא בעצמה אינה תירוץ על קושיית התוספות? אני חושב שהתירוץ הוא זה. יש מחלוקת אם מעילה שייכת רק בשוגג או רק במזיד. זאת מחלוקת תנאים במשנה. אני מתכוון לומר שמעילה במצב שהחפץ יוצר לחולין.. ברור שיש איסור בכל מצב. ולכן תוספות רוצים להגיד תירוץ ששייך לשתי הדעות. למשל שהם יודעים שהחפץ הוא הקדש אבל אינם רוצים להוציאו מרשות הקדש. איך זה שייך? רק במצב שהמשתמשים הם גיזברים.





Now I am not really asking a question as much as simply making an observation since it does seem that this is exactly what Tosphot says himself in his answer. That the beginning of the Tosephta is talking about Gizbarim (people appointed to watch and take care of things dedicated to the Temple).
So Tosphot in fact is simply saying the obvious--that the first case of the Tosephta is where each person uses it without intending to change domain.

But what I wanted to bring out which I think is more important is the fact that Tosphot is not making any claims about whether anyone in the Tosphot is doing it on purpose or by accident. That is to say- Tosphot is thinking that his idea applies in either case. If you hold that meila [using a holy object  takes the object out of the catagory of holiness and makes it secular) is only in  case of shogeg (accident) then his idea applies. And if you hold it only applies in a case of Mezid [on purpose] it also applies.
(That is an argument among the tenaim of the Mishna). So in plain English that means that in one case the people that use the ax know that it is hekdesh, but are not intending to take it out of the domain of hekdesh since they are all gizbarim (people appointed over Temple treasury). In the other case they in fact do not know that the ax is hekdesh. And so this answer my first question or observation. Why do the Tosephta have to be talking about Gizbarim? Because that is the only way they can know it is hekdesh and still not intend to take it out of the domain of Hekdesh.[That is to say that Tosphot wants his answer to fit both opinions. Including the one that Meila is only in a case of knowing it is hekdesh.]
I think this is an elegant answer for the observation why Tosphot needs to say the Tosephta is a case of Gizbarim instead of just any group of people.[Incidently I think one of the Tenaim that I mentioned is R Meier.]

The other observation I wanted to make is that perhaps Rav Huna over here can provide some support to the opinion of the Rambam that Meila is only when one actually derives some benefit out of the object. [Since I am not learning Torah, this is all a bit vague --but what I am thinking has to do with Rav Huna here and also on page 43a. That is to say that from what I can recall on page 99 we do not have any proof. But what the Rambam might have noticed is that if Rav Huna on page 43 would hold that meila only applies in a case where one derives benefit then he would have an answer to Rav nahman. So the Rambam decided that in fact that must be the opinion of Rav Huna and decided for some reason to state that that is the law. [I only noticed this opinion of the Rambam after seeing it pointed out in the Even haAzel by Rav Meltzer one of the teachers of Rav Shach.]
[I do not recall what the Even Hazel said about this Rambam. He might have had a different idea of how the Rambam derived his result. I just do not recall.]

עוד דבר. ראיתי באבן האזל שהרמב''ם מחזיק בשיטה שמעילה שייך רק במצב שאחד נהנה מהחפץ. נראה לי שהרמב''ם דייק את זה מרב הונא. היינו שרב הונא בב''מ צט. מחזיק שהמשאיל קרדום לחבירו אם בקע בו קנאו לא בקע בו לא קנאו. אם רב הונא יחזיק בשיטה הזאת גם לגבי מעילה זה יתרץ את קושיית רב נחמן עליו בדף מג ע''א. הרקע כאן הוא שהמשנה שם בדף מ''ג כותבת שהמפקיד כסף אצל שולחני בלא מכסה השולחני יכול להשתמש בו ולכן אם נאבד הוא חייב. רב הונא מחזיק בשיטה שגם אם נאנסו גם הוא חייב. היינו שיש לו דין שואל. רב נחמן מחזיק שרק אם נאבדו המעות  הוא חייב לא אם נאנס. היינו שיש לו דין שומר שכר.
רב נחמן מביא קושייה על רב הונא מהברייתא. גיזבר נתן כסף של הקדש לשולחני-והשולחני השתמש בו ונאבד הכסף,  הגזבר מעל. היינו רק אם השתמש בו הוא מעל אבל היתר השתמשות אינה מחייב אלא כמו שומר שכר. אני לא זוכר את זה בדיוק בגלל שאני לא לומד תורה בעוונותיי הרבים. אבל איך שהוא, אם רב הונא היה מחזיק בשיטה שם שמעילה שייך רק במצב של הנאה אז אין קושיא עליו מן הברייתא. ולכן הרמב''ם הסיק מסקנה שבאמת שה מה שרה הונא חייב להחזיק. וזה יוצא טוב עם שיטתו בדף צ''ט ע''א. ואז בגלל איזו סיבה הוא פסק כרב הונא.

Apollo 11

I had in mind yesterday to mention that the Apollo 11 mission left Earth on July 16. It was powered by the Saturn V that had been developed by Wernher Von Braun. I just wanted to add a few comments. That Von Braun was caught by the Gestapo and put into prison for two weeks. He was accused by the Gestapo of trying to make rockets for space exploration instead of for killing Englishmen. (I think their suspicions were correct) In fact, he was only freed because of an assistant vouching for him.

Another thing is his name is pronounced Von Brown.

Another thing is that there were a few people before him that contributed to the idea of space travel a  Tsiolkovsky (Russian) (The first letter of his name is like the Hebrew letter Tsadi צ) , and Oberth (German) , and of course the famous American, Goddard.

My dad was working at TRW at the time working on laser communication between satellites which was a totally different program than the Apollo Mission. [He had done the work on the infrared satellites an then started on the laser ones.]

[The first words spoken on the Moon were "Contact Light" by Buzz Aldrin--meaning that the sensor on one of the legs of the Lunar module showed contact with the surface.

I ought to mention that the Saturn V rocket was an achievement in itself. it is hard to build a rocket that can withstand the kinds of pressure that were needed to reach orbit.

The subject of Kabalah is a little difficult for me to deal with. Mainly I would say there are people whose judgment I trust as having insight into spiritual affairs like the Arizal [Isaac Luria] and Rav Nahman from Breslov and Rav Avraham Abulafia to name a few. That does not mean that they never made a mistake but rather that they had great insights.

This is to some degree based on Dr. Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school that there is such a thing as non intuitive immediate knowledge.
[Non known by senses but known not through any intermediate step.]

The difficulty that I see is that of the Sitra Achra--the realm of evil that takes a disguise as holiness. And to discern the difference I see is hard. So how can you tell the difference? To me it seems fairly easy since internal rot always appears on the outside. That is you can tell by the fact of a person being overly concerned about outward appearance tells you already that without that concern--something rotten would appear immediately.

But that might seem like a hard thing to discern. There is then another way to judge the situation-- character traits. That is even though character and holiness are two difference areas of value, still they are connected.


[In any case in terms of the Ari I recommend the interpretations of the Ramchal, Rav Yaakov Abu-hazeira, and the Reshash. I also ought to add the Remak as being important as David Bronson mentioned to me numerous times.

layman's books in science

When it came to layman's books in science-it depends. In terms of Physics and Math I decided that it was better to learn the actual material. But in other areas like dinosaurs I enjoy the books written by experts for laymen like me.  But the difference I am not sure of. because even in Physics I was looking at books by experts  and yet at some point I got the idea that that was no substitute for the real thing.

Americans have had for  along time a suspicion of experts. and have held highly form self educated people.  When I was young I had a child's biography of Abraham Lincoln where I learnt that he was self educated. And that model served me well in yeshiva where in fact to get anywhere in gemara most of the effort had to be  done on my own. And yet even with that I admit that without the impute of Shar yashuv [Naftali Yegear] and the Mir {Rav Shmuel Berenbaum} in NY --even with all the effort in the world-I would have been a pure am haaretz [ignoramus]. [That is what is called "knowing how to learn." You do not get that by learning. You have to get it from someone who really knows.]
[However for people that do not have the advantage of being in the Mir or Ponovitch I might just add that if you learn Rav Haim from Brisk that is  a good introduction to understanding what it means to know how to learn. Now on one hand he does concentrate on the Rambam but the inner idea is more or less the same whether you apply it to the Rambam or Tosphot.  Mainly knowing how to learn has to do with become able to see the deeper issues inside of Tosphot of the Rambam. Even if you are like me that these issues are not at all obvious. Still being aware of the depth inside of the Tosphot of rambam in itself more or less means that you know how to learn.

Can Morality Be Grounded in Science? [A question I saw mention in https://www.crisismagazine.com/2019/can-morality-be-grounded-in-science

Dr. Michael Huemer deals with that exact question. In one place he mentions Hume's law that you can not derive an ought from an is. But he also adds in another place that even if you can not derive an ought from an is still you can learn. For example it is not a fallacy to ask if communism caused the death of millions then how can it be a just doctrine? That is not a fallacy. Further I might add that he does hold that reason can recognize moral principles but not because they are based on science. But rather because reason recognizes universals.

I think Michael Huemer [Intuitionists based on Prichard and GE Moore] and Dr Kelley Ross [Kant Fries school] disagree about these issues. But still I tend to see them in a similar way. For after all what is "non intuitive immediate knowledge" except for knowledge that reason recognizes right away without any intermediate step. Is that not the same thing as what Michael Huemer saying what reason does? And in terms of things being possibly wrong Dr Huemer goes into that. That one a priori can defeat another a priori. based on a higher degree of credibility and also i think if it is more or less supported by the evidence.

In the world of Lithuanian Yeshivas, learning Physics and Math were not high priorities --at least when I was there. On one hand I can understand this because in fact it takes a long time and a lot of effort to gain any kind of understanding of Gemara. So you really do not want distractions.

On the other hand at some point I noticed that Physics and Metaphysics were considered part of the Gemara by the Rambam. Also Ibn Pakuda [the author of the Obligations of the Heart].


[In the Obligations of the hearts you see this in perek 3 of behina where he says to learn the wisdom in side of creation and also  the spiritually inside of creation. Clearly two different things. The Metaphysics part you see right on the first page where he talks about the wisdom the Arabs call Metaphysics. So he is not talking about something differen than the Rambam.

[Still I admit this is not universal among rishonim. Some take a dim view of Aristotle.]

But in terms of Post Aristotle Philosophy what would the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda hold by?

My own feeling about this issue is that Kant and Hegel would be thought to be legitimate continuations of Metaphysics just as i think modern day Physics would be a legitimate continuation of what the Rambam is calling "Physics".

learning Torah for its own sake. Ketuboth circa page 64.

Let's say  for example you are sitting and learning Torah for its own sake. And your wife is complaining that you are not making enough money.--or any money for that matter. How much money are you required to be making to support her? קביים חיטים או או ארבעה קבים שוערים.

That is the volume of 12 eggs of wheat or 24 eggs of barley per week. That is actually easy to figure out because that is in the USA the way they sell eggs. [12 per package]. So just imagine a package of 12 eggs filled with wheat instead of eggs. That is what a husband is required to support his wife.
[about two cups of flour].

From the document of the Ketubah itself it seems to me there is not much to learn. True that a husband is required to give Io his wife two cups of wheat flour per week` to support her, but the fact that work is written into the ketubah does not in itself make it required. As you can see in laws of partners in Hoshen Mishpat of Rav Joseph Karo. That even if one writes a document "I will work for so and so thus and thus per week." and makes a kinyan [acquisition] the document does not cause him to be required to do anything since אין אדם מקנה דבר שלא בא לעולם (acquisition does not happen to anything that is not already in this world).

Besides that instead of trying to force a guy to divorce his wife on the basis of her complaint that he is not making enough money why not help him find  a job? This is exactly what Rabbainu Tam said in such a situation.


But this is not so common anyway. Most women that want a guy that is sitting and learning Torah are not in fact complaining about that fact. Just the opposite --they are proud and happy their husband is learning Torah.

This is usually what is the case when  girl marries a guy in Mir or Ponovitch. But the arrangement of kollel however seems to be a problematic issue. It is like using the Torah to make money. And even if that is not the intention it looks like it is. So at some point I decided it was best not to accept money for learning Torah and rather find some other way of making a living.

My advice however for people that love to learn Torah is this: before you get married make it clear to your prospective bride that that is what you are going to do --learn Torah for its own sake. Period. and if there is no money then so what. As one amora said to his wife when she was complaining about parnasa, " there are lots of reeds in the marshes". [I mean to say--no one is starving in Israel. But to avoid misunderstanding the best thing to do is right at the beginning of one's marriage to make it clear that you are going to learn Torah period. End of sentence.

Ketuboth page 78

I wanted just to mention a few issues that come up in Ketuboth page 78. One is that the case of when a woman acquires property before she gets married and then gets married. and then she sells it. there is a disagreement if the husband takes back the property in total (Rosh) or that it stays in the possession of the buyers but the husband just keeps the profits (Rambam).Also there is a disagreement if when he takes back the property itself if he pays for it. Even though these are two separate issues its seems to me that it would not do for the husband to pay for the fruits of the property so that opinion of paying for it must be going like the Rosh.

Another issue is the Tosphot on page 78b. There there is an argument between Tosphot and the Ran.

The issue is when the husband writes that the property of the wife that comes into the marriage he has no profits from it. In Ketuboth later on in the 9th perek that works if the note is written when she was just betrothed. But over here on page 78 it says property she has before she gets married she can sell after she gets married [not to Rav and Shmuel--but that is the opinion of the mishna.] To the Ran the writing has to be before she gets married but only applies to property she gets after she is married. To Tosphot the later on Mishna in perek 9 is going like R Hanina ben Akavia.( I.e. Tosphot is thinking now that R Hanina holds in fact that what comes to her when she is betrothed she does not own and can not sell. So if the husband writes he does not own it that is valid-but otherwise he would own it.]


The basic background here is this. property that comes to a woman when she is betrothed and then she gets married. Raban Gamliel says she can sell it and the deal is valid. R Hanina asks him if he has gained a wife should he not also acquire her lands? R Gamliel says we are already embarrassed about the new one [property she gets after she is married] and you want to make problems about the old?
Rav and Shmuel both say property that comes to her before or after she is betrothed and she sells it after she is married the deal is null. 


I should mention that I only saw the Ran after the Maharam Shif said to look him up and I admit the answer of the Ran is pretty good. Still there is a need to understand Tosphot.

I have learned that telling the truth at all cost creates a kind of force field around you that protects you from all evil. However, there is  a down side.

Since you tell the truth, you tend to think that others also tell the truth. That is often a mistake. But there is a principle that can help in this kind of situation. Once you have heard someone tell a lie, then you already know they will tell more lies. This applies to slander also. Once you have heard someone say slander, then you can be sure they will slander you too when you are not around .