There are moral propositions. From Michael Huemer

ETHICS IS A PRIORI

That knowledge of moral principles is also a priori follows from the following two theses:

(1) Moral principles are not observations. The content of every observation is descriptive.

That is, you do not literally see, touch, hear, etc. moral value.

(2) Moral principles can not be inferred from descriptive premises. This principle is just an instance of the general fact that you cannot derive a conclusion within one subject matter from premises in a different subject matter. Just as you cannot expect to derive a geometrical conclusion from premises in economics, or derive a conclusion about birds from premises that don't say anything about birds, you should not expect to derive a conclusion about morality from non-moral premises.

(3) Therefore, moral knowledge requires an a priori basis.

(1) There are moral propositions.
(2) So they are each either true or false. (by law of excluded middle) (3) And it's not that they're all false. Surely it is true, rather than false, that Josef Stalin's activities were bad. (Although some communists would disagree, we needn't take their view seriously, and moreover, even they would admit some moral judgement, such as, "Stalin was good.")
(4) So some moral judgements correspond to reality. (from 2,3, and the correspondence theory of truth)
(5) So moral values are part of reality. (which is objectivism)

And we have some knowedge of moral propositions

As far as I can tell, this claim follows from the proposition that there is moral knowledge, just as some analogous, more general claim follows from the premise that there is any knowledge at all. For if we know some particular thing, then there are only three possibilities as regards its justification:

(a) it is infinitely regressive. That is, there is a reason for it, and a reason for the reason, and then a reason for that, and so on indefinitely.
(b) it is circular. That is, it is based on some chain of reasoning in which something ultimately is supposed to (directly or indirectly) justify itself.
(c) it is foundational. That is, the item of knowledge itself is, or is based upon, a fact that is known directly and without any argument or reason given.

We know moral principles not based on Empiricism. Empiricism--roughly, the idea that all 'informative' knowledge, or knowledge of the mind-independent, language-independent world, must derive from sense perception--has been fashionable for the last century, though less so, I think, in the past decade. I cannot do justice to this subject here; nevertheless, I will briefly report how things seem to me. First, it is so easy to enumerate what appear on their face to be counter-examples to the thesis of empiricism, and at the same time so difficult to find arguments for the thesis, that the underlying motivation for the doctrine can only be assumed to be a prejudice. Second, I think that in the last several years, if not earlier, the doctrine has been shown to be untenable.⁽²⁹⁾ Here, I will give two of the better-known counter-examples to empiricism.

First example: Nothing can be both entirely red and entirely green.⁽³⁰⁾ How do I know that? Note that the question is not how I came upon the concepts 'red' and 'green', nor how I came to understand this proposition. The question is why, having understood it, I am justified in affirming it, rather than denying it or withholding judgment. It seems to be justified intuitively, that is, simply because it seems obvious on reflection. How else might it be justified?

A naive empiricist might appeal to my experiences with colored objects: I have seen many colored objects, and none of them have ever been both red and green. One thing that makes this implausible as an explanation of how I know that nothing can be both red and green is the necessity of the judgment. Contrast the following two statements:

Nothing is both green and red.
Nothing is both green and a million miles long.

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The way I wrote about this before is this: There are universals. Morals are universals. Function of reason is to recognize universals. How do we know there are universals. Prime facie. E.g. There are trees.

I did not have a chance to look at the sugia [subject] in depth, but I did look briefly at Nedarim around pages 5-6 and saw that a neder can forbid speaking to someone. You see this towards the end of the sugia about Shmuel. He says if one says מודרני ממך אסור I am forbidden to you by a neder [vow] he is forbidden. The Gemara there concludes that he would be forbidden if Shmuel holds ידיים שאינן מוכיחות הווין ידיים. [An indication or hint of a neder/vow even if not perfectly clear is  still a neder/vow.] So we see if he would say openly, "I am forbidden to you to talk or do business or sit in your four yards," these all would be forbidden.

So since the laws of herem [excommunication] derive their power from laws of vows, we see that all these things can be forbidden by means of a herem.
So why is the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication ignored? Even to the degree that it is thought to be totally irrelevant.

[And you can see in laws of vows that it makes no difference why one person might say to another: "I am forbidden to you under a vow." Since the Gra was qualified to make a decree of excommunication then it is valid for whatever reason he saw to do so.
Furthermore, it seems unlikely to me that it was a mistake.

Musar refers to books on morality of the Middle Ages

Musar originally was not supposed to be part of the Yeshiva thing. [Musar is a movement begun by Rav Israel Salanter that holds that people ought to learn much Musar --hours in fact--every day. Musar refers to books on morality of the Middle Ages. There are about four canonical ones and after that about 30 in the penumbra.]

[The yeshiva as an independent institution was begun by a disciple of the Gra. [in the beginning of the 1800's]. [It is not known what the Gra's reaction to it was. There are different versions of the events.] Before that, there was no such thing. The local place where people prayed in the morning simply stayed open during the day and whoever wanted to learn did so. If it was more organized, then it was the rav who was hired by the home owners who was in charge.
Kollel as such was begun by Rav Israel Salanter much later around 1860.
But Musar was eventually absorbed into the Litvak Yeshiva.

I had a very good time in two excellent places--Shar Yashuv and the Mir. So the "Litvak yeshiva thing" I know can be an amazing experience and also a good way to gain objective morality.

Impeachment

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind explains the situation well. He traces it back to a basic contradiction in the Enlightenment itself.

He sees the conflict left vs right as rooted in the Enlightenment coming into some kind of blocked alley.
The main theme in his book is that we find a way out of this dead end or else civilization is doomed.

Torah with Derech Eretz. [Torah with Work].

The path of my parents was that of balance. That is Torah with Derech Eretz. [Torah with Work]. They would not have agreed to the idea of accepting money to learn Torah, but they would agree to the idea of trust in God in order to learn Torah.
These are two different concepts that are confused nowadays very often. They are not the same thing.
One thing is to trust in God that somehow he will make ends meet when you devote yourself to learning Torah.

E Flat Major for violin and winds. file name w15

The Litvak yeshiva is largely based on the Gra--at least in its world view. But also to some degree in its actual workings.

That it is looks upon Torah as being a 24 hour per day, seven days a week as being the goal.

But it does this with a high degree of keeping Torah and creating good character also.

The reason or reason I do not exactly walk on that path are more or less because something it seems I lacked the merit needed for it to work for me. [That is my considerations were mainly practical. If something does not work for me, even if it is in theory the best approach, it still does not change the fact that there is something that I simply can not change about my situation.]

So I have had to depend on the rishonim like Ibn Pakuda and Saadia Gaon that saw Physics as a part of Torah. 

C Major Allegro file name w13    w13 in midi

violin and winds

Aristotle was considered well by the author of the Obligations of the Heart [Ibn Pakuda]

Aristotle was considered well by the author of the Obligations of the Heart, Saadia Gaon and most rishonim that followed Saadia Gaon. So I have a tendency to want to justify Aristotle when possible.
[Nahmanides however had a very negative opinion of Aristotle and you see that in all those who followed his lead. That is in fact a lot of the later rishonim. So you see this even in the commentary of the Mishna by the Rav from Bartenura. However the Rambam certainly held quite differently and you can see that in everything from his commentary on the Mishna to the Guide. He held Metaphysics is a part of learning Torah and he certainly meant the books of Aristotle called Metaphysics. But he probably meant to include the later commentaries on Aristotle]


Telos [goals] in Aristotle is not as far as people think from the way the world works.
Dr Michael Huemer brings that it is refuted. However at least in the way physics is usually understood nowadays is that things tend towards a minimum energy level. [i do not mean to be critical of dr huemer. Rather just to raise one point. But his essay on this or on most other subjects is usually amazingly insightful and shockingly so.]
[An example of this comes to mind in terms of atoms and electrons. They try to go towards a state where the action disappears.]




Dr Kelley Ross [of the school of Kant and Leonard Nelson] also mentions that telos [goals] is something we see in biology.

[I forget offhand the way telos fits into Aristotle's system. Mainly I think the idea is  for things to some to their essence--from potential to action. That is how he modifies the universals of Plato]

Rav Nahman does bring an interesting idea: that מסיטרא דימינא מוחא חיוורא ככספא which means from the side of kindness one's mind is made  white as silver.

He expands on the idea but you can see that he understands the simple explanation to be that by doing acts of kindness, one mind is made pure.

(I do not recall which chapter in his LeM brings this).

So it seems to me that he is suggesting a good strategy to gain mental health. When an act of kindness presents itself, do it.

But he would not be advocating socialism: i.e. the idea of taking from the rich and giving to the poor.
[Or "government control of industry" which is just a fancy way of saying the same thing.]
 The reason would be that taking people's money from them even with a good motive is theft. So you do not do theft even in order to do good with the money later. Another reason is that socialism means to take away people's freedom. If you take people's money you take away their freedom because without money you are automatically a slave. You have to do what the boss says or you don't eat.

Also I should add that the idea of Torah about what one should be doing with his time is to learn Torah, and that is the biggest kindness for oneself and all others. You see this in the Yerushalmi where the incident is brought that one person sent his son to Tiberias to learn Torah and heard that he was burying the dead. He sent to him, "Did I send you to learn Torah or to bury the dead?" The Yerushalmi concludes that if there is some kind of mitzva that can not be done by others then one can interrupt learning Torah and do the mitzva but otherwise not.
[I saw in the Even Shelema which brings quotations for the Gra that the meaning of the Yerushalmi is that one can interrupt one's studies for a mitzva that can not be done by others. Not that one must. The reason the Gra says this seems clear to me to be העוסק בבמצווה פטור מן המצווה One who is doing one commandment is not obligated to interrupt in order to do another.

I think that the idea of a "herem" [excommunication] is more of a serious  issue than most people are aware of. I was looking at the first chapter of Nedarim and I noticed there where the subject is brought.

The short and sweet of the subject is this. One under a  Nidui can learn Torah. But one under a "herem" can not learn nor teach. [That actual law is from Moed Katan]. So even if one would think the herem was based on a mistake it would not matter in terms of its validity.

So I try to avoid the religious world which seem to ignore the herem. And I can not figure out why the signature of the Gra seems to count for nothing for most people. [He who ignores a herem is under the same herem.]

Rondo for violin and winds

D Major Rondo  w14 file name mp3.  w14 in midi format  w14 in nwc format

Hegel thought somewhat as Dr Huemer said that just knowing what people thought [history of Philosophy courses] is not worth anything. But Hegel also thought that philosophy makes progress. This he thought happens by a "give and take" kind of conversation along the lines you would see Socrates do. Except Hegel expanded Socrates to say that that same process happens even after Socrates.

The fact is it is hard to get a good idea of the world view of the Torah even if one would know the whole Gemara. The reason is there was an aspect of things that the Rishonim [mediaeval people] were good at and that is to get at what the actual world view of Torah is in a general sense and then also to work out the details so that you iron out any seeming contradictions.
So to get an idea of the working world view of Torah--what it actually holds is right and wrong you really need the Musar Movement of Rav Israel Salanter who emphasized that aspect of the Rishonim.

There is no crisis in Physics.

There is no crisis in Physics. Physics is doing well, thank you. The crisis is in the minds some people who do not get the idea. The reason for this is that it has gotten hard and takes longer to get the idea.
QM works as well as when it was started. So does Relativity. There were problems with QM in terms of interactions so Q field theory was worked out by Feynman and Schwinger. There were strange kinds of relations between mass and spin so strings were suggested. [Spin seems to increase with mass squared. Regge trajectories.] Gravity was  a problem and it turned out that strings have answer to the problem of gravity.

The thing is to know Physics today takes a lot of time and effort. Lots of "Girsa" [saying the words and going on] and lots of Iyun (Review of one section many many times.]

Just for the sake of information, there is in Vayikra [Leviticus] a death penalty for sex between two males. It does not matter if one of the males cuts off his penis and makes a hole. He is still a male.

I recall this from a few places which I have not been able to review for years. [Of course I still hope to do review God willing].

One place is the subject of the person born with two sex organs. This is in the Mishna itself, not just the Gemara.
And that Mishna is brought in plenty of places that I ran into when in Shar Yashuv and also in the Mir in NY. And just take a look and you will see that cutting off the male organ would not make the person into a female even with a natural vagina. He is still half male.[So even way back in the time of the Gemara it was crystal clear to people that the difference between male and female is in every single cell of the body.]
[I ran into this when I was doing Hulin about the subject of a "Kvi" an animal that is between two species. I also recall this in Yevamot. But Sanhedrin where the main subject of the death penalty for sex between males comes up I simply did not learn in those few years I was in NY. Sanhedrin is a not a "yeshivishe tracate"]

Germany tends towards to extremes.

Germany tends towards to extremes. This is different from the way the USA used to be in that people tended towards to Middle. The differences between the political parties was usually confined to a ten yard line somewhere in the middle. Not the extreme Left or Right.
The fact that Germany tends toward extremes is on one hand the secret of their excellence. They take a axiom or build a car or a rocket and take the idea or build the car to the ultimate degree. In that they can find what is wrong with an axiom or find the weakness in the car and fix them.

But going towards the extremes has a defect also in that the truth never is in the extreme but somewhere in the middle.
Perhaps the best idea is to be extreme about being in the middle and having balance.

I am referring here to two reports from Germany. One about "sex" between two males is thought to be "natural". My answer to that on a Catholic blog was this: "The natural world includes not only green grass, bright flowers, and blue sky, but also fleas, lice, cholera, malaria, diphtheria, yellow fever, typhoid and smallpox." [Steven Dutch.] They are all a "normal" part of nature.

The other was on Reference frame about "climate science".

My feeling about philosophy is that Leonard Neslon [the Kant/Fries school] and Hegel both have important points. It seems to me the differences between them are less than the similarities.

And both seem a lot better than almost anything that came after them.

[Most of 20th century philosophy after Kant and Hegel is simply trying to come up with anything significant by people afflicted with Physics envy.]

My feeling is that people would not be so prone to believe in pseudo science or flaky philosophies if they had more background in actual Physics.

A lot of people that went into the hard sciences did so as they were fed up with politics and politicians. They were looking for a bit of certainty in life. That is certainty that did not depend on what other people were saying. This is a good strategy for smart people. But what about us average?
For that there is the path of "Girsa"--say the words and go on. See the Musar book ארחות צדיקים [Ways of the Righteous.]

After you have finished the book four time and still do not get it, then review becomes important.

The question about saying that learning math and physics is a part of learning Torah [according to those rishonim [Mediaeval  authorities] that hold that way] is where is the numinous [holy] aspect of it? Answer is that there are paths towards holiness that have been revealed only after great tzadikim opened them up. They were not just hidden before that but in accessible. Sometimes you need a tzadik to go into the jungle and carve out a path before others can follow.



At least I can depend on the Gra who held "One who lacks knowledge in any degree in any of the 7 wisdoms will lack in Torah knowledge a hundred times more." So at least to that degree math and physics are important. [That quotation is from the translation of Euclid done by a disciple of the Gra in his introduction.]

[You can see this opinion in the Obligations of the Heart [shar habehina chapter 3 where he makes a distinction between learning about the spiritual aspect of things and the actual learning of their physical workings. And both are necessary to learn.]

Any of the Musar books of ethics and morality makes sense to learn for many reasons. One reason is that after the Middle Ages thinking in philosophy and or religious matters lost rigorous logic. That is,- even if the axioms that are assumed in the Middle Ages you might question, but almost always the results are exact. After the Middle Ages thinking in philosophy became mostly circular. Even by people you would have thought would be above that kind of mistake like John Locke or Kant.

The circular reasoning in Kant and Locke was pointed out by Dr. Kelley Ross. That is why he adopted the more rigorous approach of Leonard Nelson.

Allan Dershowitz wrote against impeachment

Allan Dershowitz wrote against impeachment a nice book that I read a bit of and it seemed to me to well reasoned. I recall the basic idea was that there needs to be some crime done in order for there to be impeachment. I think that is a good point.

Besides that there is a point of Steven Dutch that one's faith is the source of one's values. So it makes sense whether one is Catholic or Muslim--as long as one's faith holds that there is objective morality,--that the whole issue ought to be thought of from an objective standard--from from identity politics

The problem is that the Constitution gives Congress the power to impeach in two specific cases. The Congress does not get to define its own powers. Or at least it should not as long as the Constitution is the Constitution.

Are there evaluative facts? i.e. is there such a thing as objective good or evil? If there is, then there is free will. For what what is forced to do can not be termed good or evil. If one has free will then he can choose good.

You can not reduce questions of good and evil to ignorance because ignorance has to be ignorance of some fact. Ignorance of what? is the essential question.


See Dr. Michael Huemer for more information about objective morality. I  guess you could go to the intuitionist school of thought or to Hegel or Prichard and G.E. Moore for the same reason, but with limited time I found it easier to look at Dr Huemer than having to take  a few years to go through these other philosophers`.

"To finish Shas"

"To finish Shas" I recall was one theme that was mentioned often in Shar Yashuv. That was intended to say that no one has a right to an uninformed opinion. And to have an informed opinion means to have finished the two Talmuds at least once. [I.e. the one that is famous written in Iraq [Babylonia] and the other called the Yerushalmi.


Since I have concluded that math and physics and Aristotle's Metaphysics are in the category of Torah, it makes sense to me to suggest a daily schedule in which one finishes the two Talmuds plus the basic set of math and physics plus the books of Aristotle named Metaphysics.

[This is more or less based on authorities that came after Saadia Gaon and took his lead. However I do admit there were great rishonim would did not think these subjects would be included in Torah learning. Obviously the Ramban [Nachmanides] would not include Aristotle and probably not math or Physics either. This was a subject that was never much discussed at the Mir in NY. But once I returned there and discussed this a little bit with Rav Shmuel Berenbaum. And he said for parnasa [making a living] it is OK. I tried to argue and claim that to some rishonim learning physics is in itself a part of learning Torah. But he did not accept that. And he repeated again the statement if it is for parnasa it is ok.


Maimonides himself does take this approach of Saadia Gaon as you can see in the Guide. But contrary to what most people think, he includes his opinion also in the Mishne Torah in the law about dividing one's learning into three parts. One part is Gemara. And there he says that "the subjects called pardes are in the category of Gemara" and he defined what is included in pardes in the first four chapters of mishne torah.

Winds and Violin in C major.

Music file w12. mp3 w12 in midi format  w12nwc

My suggestion--learn mediaeval books on morality and ethics right at the start of every day-- even if only for a few minutes. This is from the Musar Movement of Rav Israel Salanter

One of the main idea of Musar was to help people develop good character traits. Is it effective? I think so. From my own experience in the Mir in NY and in Shar Yashuv I would have to say that learning books of ethics actually helps one develop good character to some degree. But it is not fool-proof. [It is like Steven Dutch wrote: "I am completely unable to conceive of any system that can not be abused and used for personal power and profit."
So the fact that a system can be abused does not count against it in the larger picture. [This idea is an ancient Roman proverb: "Abusus non tollit usum." (Abuse does not cancel use.)] The real questions are if it is true and does it bring people to a higher level of objective morality at least to some degree? Since both these conditions are certainly fulfilled by Musar and the general Litvak yeshiva approach I have to put in my two cents worth of approval.

[Rav Shach also wrote as much in the introduction to one of the volumes of the Avi Ezri.]

Especially at the start of every day right when you wake up--learn Musar. Or if you know there is some particular area you need to work on then find the parts of Musar that deal with that area and  especially some short paragraphs and say them right when you wake up before you say anything else.

In the Guide of Maimonides there is the parable

In the Guide of Maimonides there is the story about a king and the levels of closeness to him in his country. [1.] People outside the country. [2.] People inside the country.  [3.] People around the palace. [4.] People on the inside of the palace in the outer areas. [5.] People with the kind in the inside area of the palace. The allegory refers to God. People outside the country are barbarians. People inside are people with morality of reason (the Rambam calls this level the "laws of the ancient Greeks"). People around the palace are those who learn and do the Talmud ("the Talmudiim"). The people inside the palace are the physicists. People on the very inside are the prophets and the philosophers.

The putting of philosophers on the inside with the king does not seem to be applicable nowadays.

See how i got fired by the ryerson philosophy department.

See also Michael Huemer. [Dr Kelley Ross also. Plus Allan Bloom]
Basically I have an idea that philosophy comes in stages. The Ancient Greek Philosophy started with the question how is change possible? Then Plato answered it and from then until Plotinus was tying up loose ends.
Then the problem of Faith and Reason began with  St. Augustine and Philo. That went until Descartes. With Descartes began the Mind Body Problem. That went until Kant made his sort of synthesis.  Now the reason philosophy is  a mess is that the next problem has not been found.

I myself think the argument between Hegel and Fries [as represented in the writings of Kelley Ross, and Leonard Nelson] is the most important issue today. How do you deal with it?

One way I have thought of is along the lines of Michael Huemer. [I assume he gets this from the school of the intuitionists like G.E. Moore]. That reason recognizes universals. But even with that knowledge tends to be as things appear prima facie unless further evidence is forthcoming. He holds there is no such thing as pure empirical knowledge. Even what we thing is empirical always has a element of a priori.

"iyun" learning in depth

The best way to understand what Torah is about is by "iyun" learning in depth. Though there is something to be said for "bekiut" [fast learning], still unless one learns in beiyun/in depth, it is impossible to ever come to authentic Torah. But what is "Iyun"? The way I managed to do this was by simply repeating a Tosphot or a section of the Avi Ezri or Rav Haim of Brisk every day over a long period of time until it started making sense. [This sometimes could take me more than a month.]

This seemed to work in a situation when I did not have my learning partner around and was forced to do the learning on my own.

I mentioned this once to my learning partner in Uman [David Bronson]. I mentioned to him how I was frustrated during my first years in Shar Yashuv [a Litvak/Lithuanian type yeshiva in NY] that the whole emphasis was on "Iyun" learning in depth. I thought how can you do in depth learning before you have the big picture [having finished that tractate at least a few times]? Later I began to see an interesting phenomenon. That is this: that people that do not get the "Iyun thing" immediately at their first couple of years in yeshiva--never get it.

[So my first years were spent with a lot of Maharasha, the long Maharsha [commentaters on the Maharsha]Pnei Yehoshua. That was because I was trying to make progress along with iyun.

The way I see things today is that it is best what they do in Litvak yeshivas. The morning for in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning. "Fast learning" means going through a lot of pages of Gemara with some Tosphot. [with fast learning one ought to get through the two Talmuds, midrashim, and the Ari.] As for the even wisdoms that the Gra emphasized  i try to have a few sessions in which i get through one chapter and hold my place with a place marker and then go back through all previous chapters. I have four major sessions in depth that i try to do for the sake of my son izhak--algebraic topology, Emmey Nother's invariance principle [i have a book on that], quantum field theory, and the avi ezri. 

F major for violin and winds

Music file mp3 w11 w11 in midi  

  w11 nwc

I thank God greatly for the privilege of writing music. I had thought that I would never be able to do so again until recently He granted to me to write again.

I also want to thank Mr. Smart my high school music teacher.

C Major for English Horn and Flute.

Music File MP3 w10   w10 in midi format

[w10 nwc]

A lot depends on how dedicated to learning Torah one is,

A major attraction of the Litvak path is family values. Does it actually work? I would have to say it does to some degree. A lot  depends on how dedicated to learning Torah one is, and how much one's wife is. If you start out with the basic idea to learn Torah and to trust in God to make ends meet, then certainly the Litvak path works well. But if you start with wavering, then  it is like a top spinning around. You know when it will fall because that is when it starts to waver.

I do include math and Physics in the category of learning Torah however.
But most secular subjects outside of these two I consider Bitul Torah. Some secular subject however I think are OK to learn because of Parnasa/[making a living] like medicine.

The terms "bitul Torah" refer to the fact that one is obligated to learn Torah whenever he has time. It matters not if one is smart or not or even understands what one is learning. ''Bitul'' means literally ''nullification.'' This is a lot more serious than the idea that one is obligated to learn Torah. It makes not learning [when one can] into a sin.

How I encountered this idea was in a small book "Binyn Olam" that I saw in my first year in Shar Yashuv. And I still hold by this idea strongly except that I expand the definition of learning Torah to include Math, Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle.
Not that I am able to learn much myself. Rather my intention here is simply to set the record straight about what the Torah is all about.

The disciple of the Gra, Rav Haim of Voloshin wrote a small book about this important subject also.

So what I suggest is to go through the two Talmuds with Tosphot and Maharsha and the commentaries on the Yerushalmi [Pnei Moshe, Karban HaEda.] Plus Math and Physics. But since neither math nor physics has an official set then you simply have to get through the basic subjects with whatever books most make sense to you. That would be String Theory, and Algebra. [Algebra nowadays is divided into different parts. There is Abstract Algebra, Geometric Algebra and Topological Algebra.

[So I am not thinking of math and physics as just for parnasa [making a living] but rather a regular part of learning Torah. This is not something you see in most Musar books. Rather I mainly got this idea from the very first and most important Musar book the Obligations of the Heart. Part III Behina. where he goes into the different aspects one should study about God's wisdom. There he talks about many aspects of creation. And then goes into the spiritual aspects of creation--so we see they are different. In any case this is more clear in other rishonim.

With Kant and Leonard Nelson there is one answer why discovering the right path is so hard.

With Kant and Leonard Nelson there is one answer why discovering the right path is so hard. It is because any area outside of conditions of experience falls into a category of knowledge that he calls the dinge an sich where reason can not venture into. And when it does it ends up contradicting itself.

This seems to limit any possibility of coming to Truth, However-Hegel and Rav Nahman of Breslov both provide a template why there are diverging paths towards truth and virtue.  To Rav Nahman [who I assume was not under the excommunication of the Gra as you can see if you look up the actual language) said the reason that true tzadikim differ is to make free will possible. See LeM I chapters 4 and 5. To Hegel there is a slow progress through time towards truth, (the absolute idea). He means this: the dialectic of Soctrates was not just a way for him to get to the truth. It is the path towards truth in all human history.

But with Hegel it is not the same as saying you just pick up what is right in one system and what is right in another. Rather there is an organic process inside any one consistent system in the first place that leads towards the other and that process goes on with the other until both come to a higher synthesis.

That does not however refer to the need to fight evil. One should not use either idea as a reason not to fight evil. Rav Nahman specifically talks about "disagreement among tzadikim (saints)".

There is a valid reason to listen to the Gra

There is a valid reason to listen to the Gra in so far as his signature on the Herem (letter of excommunication) was based on facts. It certainly was not mistaken. But even if  a sage makes an excommunication that is because of false assumptions, the herem is still valid.

The reason I say this is because I ask from where does the force of a Herem (excommunication) come from? Nedarim (vows). {I say that because of the regular commentaries on the Rambam.} And what is the law of a vow? It is if one says, "My bread is a sacrifice to you," that is valid, and has legal standing. That bread is in fact forbidden to the other person. It makes no difference why the person said it in the first place. And this is not a decrees from the scribes. It is a Torah law.

[In fact I wish I could follow more of the advice of the Gra-especially about learning Torah and trust in God. But in whatever I can manage to listen to his amazing ideas, I am happy.]

"Spirit of Torah"

 To get the "Spirit of Torah" it is necessary to learn in a Litvak yeshiva. But furthermore. It tends to instill a certain faith in the sages of the Mishna and the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities]. That is: when I was in Shar Yashuv and learning with Naphtali Yeager [the son in law of the rosh yeshiva who eventually became the rosh yeshiva himself], that was when I discovered the depths of Torah.
[Mainly by deep study of Tosphot].
But to my way of thinking this does not exclude some secular subjects. I feel the natural sciences plus metaphysics would have to be included in the category of learning Torah. This is based on Saadia Gaon and the later Rishonim. However when I was in the Mir secular subjects  were more or less frowned upon.

I admire people that do sit and learn Torah all day, but I just was not able to do so myself.

However it is odd that the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication is ignored to a large degree even in Litvak yeshivas were you would expect it to make a difference.

The signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication

The signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication for some reason is ignored.This is curious since it certainly has legal validity. And the fact is the spirit of Torah really resides solely in the Litvak Yeshiva environment. So to come to Torah in an authentic way really requires a walk in the Litvak path based on the Gra. And the peak -the Mount Everest-of the Litvak yeshiva world is Ponovitch -based on Rav Shach. But to some degree, most Litvak yeshivas can impart that authentic Torah experience.

The idea here is that to come to Torah in an authentic way really requires a group. One might learn Torah alone, but to get to that inner spirit requires a Litvak Yeshiva.

 I am myself not in any kind of Litvak environment (that is my fault). But once I found my muse when I was in two: Shar Yashuv and the Mir of NY.

The idea here is rather simple. It is the super-organism that Howard Bloom talks about. What makes a Litvak place unique is the set of values that it is based on --straight Torah.

But further--for the spirit of Torah there is a need for the group or institution to be consciously based on the Gra.


[I might add here that a "Herem" excommunication comes from the law of nederim/oaths in which one can forbid his object to another person. Thus a Herem also has that power. --if it is done by someone who can do it. And there is no doubt that the Gra had sufficient Torah knowledge to give him authority to establish a herem.]

The laws about Herem are not in the Gemara itself directly related to Nedarim. They are simply assumed to be valid. Rather the reason that I say they are connected to Nedarim is the achronim say  that is from where herem gets its legal validity.

One important aspect of the herem is that it is not "Niduy" rebuke. Rebuke is a lesser form of herem. Herem itself is more restricting.

w9 music file

w9 Music file mp3  w9 in midi   w9 in nwc

It seems kind of unfair to Hegel to say that he does not have a place for faith in his system when his whole system is an attempt to justify faith.

Hegel and Leonard Nelson (picking up some concepts from Fries) were rivals about the legacy of Kant. With Nelson there is something like direct justification of faith as a source of knowledge that is not based on reason nor sense perception.

Hegel definitely justifies Faith also but not as a separate source of information outside of reason or the senses. In fact he does not address the Mind Body problem at all. Or in the way it was understood then the difference between the rationalists and the empiricists.
He assumes right from the start that all knowledge needs an immediate source of information [senses] and an a priori element. This he calls "notion".

Hegel sees himself as doing the same thing as Aquinas. Except he thinks he is doing it in a more rigorous fashion and also taking  Kant into account.

My feeling about this is that "Notion" of Hegel is close to the immediate non intuitive knowledge of Fries in the sense that in the first place you have to ask about the limit of reason that Hume came up with --that reason can only discern contradictions.  This was accepted by Kant. But it is not true. Reason recognizes lots of things besides contradictions. But these other functions are different in some sense than pure reason. They have elements from empirical sense and also from a priori sense.

And the non intuitive knowledge of Fries occupies a similar ground--somewhere between sense perception and reason.

It seems kind of unfair to Hegel to say that he does not have a place for faith in his system when his whole system is an attempt to justify faith. But he does so in a different way than Nelson. 

two arrows of time if you combine with two arrows of entropy come to amazing results

There might be two arrows of time that meet to make the now different from the future or past. Feynman had such a paper. It did not produce at the time any great results but if you combine it with two arrows of entropy it does come with amazing results.

A physicist from the USSR did some great work in this direction [Georg Ryazanov] but his work is I think lost.

It was not really formulated in a way that would make it helpful today. Still its results were so astonishing that I spent a lot of time trying to iron out the details with him. But we never got it into publishable form.

The problem with the whole thing was that it was more or less classical physics. But the good things about it were that with two arrows of time and two of entropy with four worlds he got results with the exact mass of the electron and other particles.

Actually the paper might still be in existence in one of the "Way Back When" Internet places that store old data. His son [who I think teaches physics in Princeton or somewhere like that] also might still have his papers.

A few issues regarding the New Testament.

It seems to me worthwhile to mention something I find odd in the New Testament. It is not just that Jesus says to keep the entire Torah including the Oral Law. ["The Pharisees sit on the seat of Moses and therefore all that they say to do that you must do..."] The thing I find curious is that wherever you look there, Jesus is always depending on the authority of the Law of Moses. Not just once or twice. I mean to say Christians may quibble about what it means when he says that the Law is eternal and will never be nullified. But how can you quibble with the fact that he considers the law to be obligatory on himself and all others.

So how can you argue with that? True that Paul does say that gentiles do not have to keep the Law. However that is understood anyway since the most commandments were addressed to Israel.
[Later it does look like Paul wavers on this point. But that does not seem relevant to the basic issue about what Jesus held. Paul was addressing gentiles and so the issue just does not come up at all.]

A few more comments about this might be in order. One is the Sabbath day of rest. Ears of wheat that are not in need of the ground one can pick on Shabat. That is to say if they are totally ripe. So what the disciples of Jesus were doing on Shabat was totally permitted. While it is true that picking unripe wheat is one of the 39 kinds of forbidden work, still picking ripe wheat is not. And unless there is a specific degree from the sages not to pick even ripe fruit or wheat we do not make up our own decrees. [I mean to say that while there are plenty of decrees from the sages but after the time of the sages of the Mishna we can no longer make up our own decrees. This authority lasted only up until the end of the Mishna period. Even amoraim could no longer make decrees.]

To address another problem in the New Testament: The Oral Law. On one hand in Mathew 23 does say to listen to the Oral Law. "The scribes and Prushim [Pharisees] sit on Moses's seat and therefore all that they command you to obey that you must obey."
The Prushim a group that was fanatically religious and not the ancestors of the sages of the Mishna. However the Prushim did accept the Oral Law, but added tons of their own restrictions. [They were not the teachers]] They are well known all throughout the Gemara. For example they ate "חולין על טהרת הקודש" regular food as if it was the remainder of sacrifices. [note 1]That is it can not come into contact with anything "Tamee" unclean.
  Obviously this is not a restriction of the sages of the Mishna and certainly nothing that the sages of the Mishna did or taught as being desirable in any shape or form. So clearly the Prushim are not in any way related to the actual sages.


[note 1]
[I mean to say that there are different degree of "Tuma", an Av (a principle), a 2nd, 3rd or even a forth degree.  Food can be eaten no matter how unclean "tame" it is. even if it has been touched by a dead lizard. Only the food of sacrifices or truma has to be clean. That is let's say you have decided to thank God for some deliverance. So you bring a thanksgiving offering to the Temple. The priests then sacrifice the animal and you get part of the meat. That meat must be kept clean. In fact eating it in a state of tuma is Karet. But eating it when it is tame is not karet but still a prohibition from the Torah.

And since it is derived from a sacrifice it can become tame even to the forth degree. That is a dead lizard touches food. That food is allowed to be eaten--but it is a Rishon. [First degree of Tuma]. Then that food touches other food. That other food becomes a Sheni [2nd degree]. Then that other food touches more food. If that last one is truma then it becomes a 3rd degree. If that truma then touches the leftovers from the thanksgiving offering then those leftovers become a forth degree and can not be eaten. But none of this applies unless one has in fact brought a sacrifice.

There are many more issues. One is "sonship". A soul of Atzilut has the category of son. Souls from the next lower world "creation" do not have that level but rather are called servants. Most people have souls from the lower worlds. Only souls from Emanation are called "son".This is all very well explained in the Ari-Rav Isaac Luria.

many commandments of the Torah have to do with good character.

The Musar movement of Rav Israel Salanter was meant largely to help people improve their character traits. But it has a side advantage to help people become aware that good character is an essential part of Torah. In fact this was a surprise for me. My first year in Shar Yashuv [a Lithuanian type of yeshiva based on the Gra], I spent some time learning the Sefer HaChinuch. There I discovered that many commandments of the Torah have to do with good character.

Music in F major. mp3

Music File mp3 w8 

My only question here was about the song that this starts with. At first I added a measure to make it more symmetric. But then it occurred to me that it makes more musical sense without that extra measure. (But I left in that measure when the song is repeated in C major.) The reason is that I have seen in Mozart that he will not insist on symmetry when the actual song makes sense with an odd number of measures. I was very surprised when I saw this in Mozart but I figure if it is good enough for Mozart, it is good enough for me.
[I think this is common in Mozart but the first time I saw it was when I counted the number of measures he put into one of his pieces and I saw it came out an odd number.--But it seems impossible to tell by just listening since it makes perfect sense with the odd number.]

The Gra signed the decree of excommunication.

I have long thought that the prohibition in the Torah not to do idolatry refers to the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side. The realm of Satan.] So it is clear why the Gra would have signed the decree of excommunication.
But if one asks what obligation does anyone have to listen to the Gra? I would answer that this comes up in the laws of Nedarim and Shavuot. The achronim [authorities after the Beit Yoseph]] in fact discuss what force does any excommunication have? [We know it is valid because the laws concerning excommunication are brought in tractate Moed Katan] But why is it valid? The Achronim say it is derived from the law of a neder [(oath) נדר]. A person can forbid his object to another person by saying: "This object is a "karban" קרבן [an animal dedicated as a sacrifice] to you."

But my point is that the signature of the Gra is not what makes the Sitra Achra [the dark side] to be evil. The Satan is evil anyway. It is just the signature of the Gra that makes it more clear.

[Just to be a bit more clear. A neder [(oath)] is brought down in the baMidbar (The Book of Numbers). It is forbidding an object to oneself or to another. It is not the same thing as a shavua (to swear). Both are laws that come from the Torah. So when we have laws of "Cherem"  (חרם) or "Nidui" (נידוי) these have the force of Torah laws. [But that is only when the court that makes the excommunication has sufficient authority to do so. Not anyone who decides to put another person into cherem can do so.] So when the Gra signed that letter of cherem, it has validity in so far as anyone who violates it is automatically in cherem themselves and that everyone is obligated to listen to it. [I.e., just like a person can forbid his object to another person--even if that other person does not like it or agree--so a cherem brings about an automatic obligation to listen to it even if you do not agree with the premises on which it is based.

Cafeteria type of religion.

Cafeteria type of religion. Too many choices. Some of which are defended well. Some not.
Plus the problem of combining faith with reason. Since faith itself is unclear and also what reason by itself proposes is not clear how can combing two kinds of mud bring to clarity?

The best idea that I have been able to come up with is as my Mom put it: "To be a mensch"
That is a decent human being. To know the difference between right and wrong is not hard as long as one does not lose his common sense. And most of religion and philosophy is directed towards getting people to jettison their common sense.

That is why I have found it helpful to read Michael Huemer web site and his essay why I am not an objectivist where he spells out clearly the idea that Reason recognizes universals. Moral principles are universals.



[However I should add here that I do hold with the basic canon of Torah Law which is the Written Torah, the two Talmuds, plus the basic commentaries of the Rishonim [medieval authorities]. Also Rav Avraham Abulafia, the medieval mystic and Rav Isaac Luria.] But for some reason I never studied Avraham Abulafia very well. When I started looking at his writings those writings had not been printed at all. Tye were only in the ancient medieval Spanish-Hebrew script. So every words took time to discover. Only after that a fellow printed the entire corpus of Rav Abulfia and made it available on line. But by then I had already gone off into other adventures and studies.

the argument of Berkley that is supposed to show we only know what is in our minds.

Michael Huemer apparently does not think much of the argument of Berkley that is supposed to show we only know what is in our minds. It seems to me he must not think much of the argument of Hume that is supposed to show that all that reason knows is what can be derived by definitions. (note 1) Even Kant did not like that much and showed that in fact we know by pure reason things that can not be derived by definitions like the fact that two lines can not enclose a figure while three lines can.

So he expands the role of reason.

This seems to me to be  a lot like Hegel who does not assume any automatic limit to reason except that it needs a kind of back and forth process to make progress towards the Absolute Idea.
That is a bit different than Plotinus who starts with Logos [Divine Reason and comes down to this world. Hegel starts in this world "Being" and works up towards the Divine Idea.

(note 1) Actually Hume never gives an argument for this. He just assumes it since he learned Euclid which is based on that idea. You learn things in geometry based on the beginning axioms and you deny what comes out contradictory. But in spite of repeating this often he never gives and argument for it.[As pointed out by Bryan Caplan)

the Litvak Yeshiva approach-- is that it is the most faithful to Torah.

The main thing that I found important about the path of the Gra and Rav Shach -the Litvak Yeshiva approach-- is that it is the most faithful to Torah. There however can be differences how individual places are. I found my experiences in Shar Yashuv and in the Mir in NY to be amazing.
However for some reason or other I did not appreciate what I had sufficiently and therefore walked away from that path --thinking I would find something better elsewhere00and that did not happen, [Even though I did find amazing advise and lessons in Rav Nahman of Breslov[ but nothing really comes close to my experience at the Mir.


 My first year was in Shar Yashuv. That is a yeshiva of Rav Shelomo Friefeld who was a disciple of Rav Hutner the founder of another famous Litvak yeshiva in NY, Chaim Berlin.
My first year I now recall must have been floundering. I think I really only got into learning Gemara intensely in the second year when we started Hulin. The third year was Ketuboth. Then another 1/2 yer Yevamot  and then my Dad helped me to enroll in the Mir. Both Shar Yashuv and the Mir were great but the reputation of the Mir is that of an Ivy league school like Yale or MIT. In those days Shar Yashuv was considered to be a beginners school. However I was learning there with Naftali Yeager who was later the rosh yeshiva and his method of learning was as deep as anything I saw later in the Mir.

w8 Music File MP3

w8 Music File MP3  w8 midi w8 nwc

Just finished now. I am very grateful to God for granting to me to write music again after a whole year that I was not able to.

The history behind the music is that I liked classical music and did not think very well of anything that comes after Beethoven. So when I began to write music, it came out in classical style.
It might be said also that my high school music teacher. Mr. Smart, I believe had a taste for classical music. As an orchestra we used to go on tours [not for pay] [even though we were only a simple high school orchestra--but we had some really talented people in the orchestra like Wendy Wilson who was the first violinist] In any case--on all those tours we played only classical music.
And I simply refused to listen to anything else. So I guess in some way you might say I intended to absorb only classical music. So when I write music myself that is what it sounds like.

One of the advantages of learning in a Litvak Yeshiva is that you get an idea of the importance of learning Torah. You see learning Torah as a goal in itself and in fact as the supreme goal. Not as just another good thing to do.

One of the advantages of learning in a Litvak Yeshiva is that you get an idea of the importance of learning Torah. You see learning Torah as a goal in itself and in fact as the supreme goal. Not as just another good thing to do.

[This you can see in the Nefesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin].

Another great thing about it is that you do not make learning depend on how smart you are. You realize learning Torah is for everyone.

But the question does come up what is included in this commandment? I think it is fair to say the entire Shas with Tosphot and the rishonim counts as "learning Torah."

But once you get past the Beit Yoseph [around 1500] then I am not so sure. After the Beit Yoseph it was just too easy for anyone to write books since the printing press was invented. So most of the achronim are just not up to par.

[I however have to put the Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua into the category of Torah].

[And I add Physics and Metaphysics as I discussed elsewhere.]

The origin of Philosophy in ancient Greece actually started with the question how is change possible?

The origin of Philosophy in ancient Greece actually started with the question how is change possible? So it looks to me almost as if philosophy has come a full circle to the same question. [If there is no time, then nothing can change and therefore nothing can interact with anything else.] That is in Relativity, time and space are laid out in such a way as they are almost interchangeable except with a minus sign in front of time. In that way of looking at time, there is no particular value "the present". And if there is no present, then change is impossible since change can happen only in the present. 

But we also know Quantum Mechanics. And in Quantum Mechanics we have the two slit experiment and also the Bell inequality. [Bell's inequality is based on the Einstein Rosen Podolsky experiment.  ] if we only had Bell's inequality, then we might say that things can have effects far away instantly. Or we might say that nothing has a time or space value until it is measured. Since we know Relativity is true and also we know that Nature violates Bell's inequality so we know the second idea is true. Things have no time value until measured.  And this to some degree shows that Kant was right that time and space us how we measure things. They are dinge an sich--things in themselves that we have no window into. [What Bell's inequality shows is not strictly what Kant held, but it gets close. It shows that things do not have space time values until measured. But there is space time.

The present day calendar was directly adopted from the calendar of Meton in Athens. It is not even mentioned in the Gemara.

The present day calendar was directly adopted from the calendar of Meton in Athens. It is not even mentioned in the Gemara.
So the best idea is to go by the actual molad [conjunction].[As you can see brought in Tosphot in Sanhedrin page 10].
The Gemara does mention that "nowadays we know the time of the new moon" but does not say anything about a calendar. It could be referring to calculations already known in ancient Babylon about what time the "molad" [conjunction of the moon and sun occurs].(not to some hypothetical calendar that was used only in Athens)

Just to be clear --I am not arguing if the court [Sanhedrin] has the right to adjust the date of the new moon. (This can also be argued based on the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 10. But it is not what I am talking about here.) Here I simply mean that the Sanhedrin did not in fact adjust the calendar. If they would have you would except the Gemara to have mentioned it somewhere.

they do not learn enough Gemara.

The Catholic church is now involved in trying to redefine homosexuality in a way that makes it OK.
This just goes to show that they do not learn enough Gemara. After all a short glance at tractate Sanhedrin in the chapter called "Four types of death penalty" should clear up the issue. 

Impeachment

I think the treatment that President Trump has been getting is really disgraceful and that it will all work to undermine the Left. Hitting Trump is like hitting a solid rock with one's bare fist.