Thus if a woman or man would go into the sea or a river with clothing that does not prevent the water from getting in that is a valid immersion.

The issue of a woman seeing blood once a month is called "Nida". If she sees after 7 days from the start then she is a "Zava".

I had a few thoughts about this today.

One is just that i wanted to share some information that I have had to share with others after it came up already  few times, [even though I have nothing new to add to the subject].

The basic way to go to a natural body of water after seeing blood is even with clothing. I mean to say that according to the law of the Torah only רוב ומקפיד הוא חציצה. That is the only time when going into the water can be invalid is if one is wearing clothing that stops the water from getting to most of the body and also that one does not want the water to get to the body. That is for a "division" between one and the water one would mean  deep sea diving gear. However there is a decree from the time of the Scribes that also מיעוט ומקפיד או רוב ואינו מקפיד חוצץ that is if there is something like a band-aid that one does not want the water to get through would also be a division between one and the water. Or clothing that would prevent the water from getting in even if one would not care if the water would get in. But there is no decree on a case where מיעוט ואינו מקפיד. Thus if a woman or man would go into the sea or a river with clothing that does not prevent the water from getting in that is  a valid immersion. [This is from the first part of tractate Eruvin, but it is also brought in tractate Nida. I have not added anything new here.]

[A nida goes into a natural body of water after seven days even if she saw blood for the entire seven days. (Which anyway almost never happens. A woman usually sees for 3, 4 or five days). The situation with a Zava is more complicated. Let's says she saw on day 8. She is a small zava. Then she waits one day and goes into a natural body of water. Same for two days. But if three days she is a regular Zava and needs seven clean days.  That is she needs to wait for an entire period of seven days without seeing any blood and then go to a river or sea and immerse and then she is clean.

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Henry Kissinger held the peace of Westphalia was the political. It established the sovereign states of Europe. But from the point of view of the people at the time it was religious. Protestant versus Catholic. The Enlightenment thought as political [as the idea of getting rid of kings and priests and putting intellectuals in charge.] did not play a role as far as I can see.
The modern world with limited [or no] monarchs, and little role for religion from what I can see is a result of the English Glorious Revolution.

[Not that I think to go back to the way things were.]

From my point of view I think that one of the great benefits of trust in God is you stop worrying about politics or thinking you or "the people" control it.

It is well known that the main emphasis of Navardok was on trust in God. But he did not settle for the idea that he would sit and learn and God would take care of the rest. Rather he encouraged others also to learn Torah and trust in God.

That was from the advice of Rav Israel Salanter that he ought to concern himself with the needs of others. [He said in that generation that the troubles were so great that this was needed.]

But no school of Musar thought using Torah to make money was the proper approach. People certainly gave to Navardok but he never asked.

So it is a good question what one [let's say] wants to sit and learn Torah [not learn a profession] today? And I do not know a good answer to this question. I heard that Rav Shach said one should sit and learn and then when he gets married then to do something [anything] for making a living.

But none of the above are the reasons I bring up bitachon [trust] now.
The reasons I bring up the subject have nothing to do with when and how to make a living.
Rather I am thinking of a short note in Rav Nahman's book Sefer HaMidot that by trust in God good thoughts are drawn to one. על ידי בטחון נמשכים לאדם מחשבות טובות which to me seems to be a tremendous idea. [Of course it is well known that everything in the sefer hamidot has some source in the Gemara but simply Rav Nahman collected them in a short simple way].
It is common with Rav Nahman that he connects things in such a way that if you have a particular problem and you do not know how to deal with it, then you can find in his writings some connection to some other thing. So when you work on the other thing you get the first thing solved.

{I was also thinking of Rav Nahman's idea of how to learn what is known as "bekiut" which usually means going through a lot of material in the second half of the day. [That was how it was understood in the Mir and Shar Yashuv.] But Rav Nahman's idea of bekiut was not the usual type. For him it meant to go very fast. As fast as possible. [In the Conversations of Rav Nahman 76]. I think there is a element of trust in God to learn in such a way. [Also I am thinking that the idea was another idea mention in the major nook of Rav Nahman the LeM. There is intellect in potential and intellect in actuality. [I for get the actual chapter. I think it was around Vol I:25 or 24 or around there]. I think learning fast and getting through the book you are doing many times is learning in such a way that you get intellect in potential. Then by in depth learning, it becomes actual.

In terms of the argument between Hai Gaon and the Rosh [R Asher] [In Rav Shach Laws of Marriage 19: law 19.] it seems to me that Hai Gaon must have been thinking about the fact that in the Gemara the law is Lots of land נכסים מרבים the boys inherit and they support the girls. A small amount of land all the profits [rent or fruit in farm land] goes to support the girls but if they sell, then the girls lose. The ambiguous thing here is what happens if they sell when there is lots of land?  The Rosh thought obviously it is the same thing. The girls lose. But Hai Gaon may have thought that the girls would get the proceeds of the sell even in the law of the Gemara--before we even get to the decree of the geonim that the Ketubah can be collected from movable property.

I mean the Rosh has a point that proceeds of a sell of an object is not usually thought to be in place of an object unless we would be talking about maasar Sheni or some kind of חלות קדושה


What I think here is that Hai Gaon must have thought that when the Gemara says if the boys sell when there is not much property that the sell is anyway valid that that does not exclude the girls from getting the proceeds of the sell--even from teh law of the Gemara itself

The way I see learning is that it ought to be divided half time for Physics and half for Gemara. And the way I see doing both is both "Iyun" [in depth and lots of review] and "Bekiut" [to say the words as fast as possible and to finish that book many times. At least four times.
Gemara we already know why to learn. It is a commandment. Learning Torah is not just a positive commandment but to not learn when one can is "bitul Torah" which is a sin. That means to say that even though one fulfills the command by a small amount of learning, but that does not allow one to stop learning if he is not required to do so for "parnasa" [making a living] of other reasons doing commandments that can not be done by others.
If fact Bitul Torah is a concept which is almost unknown.
The Physics is because of the Rishonim that hold it is part of learning Torah. [Ibn Pakuda [author of the Obligations of the Heart, the first Musar book] and others. This is an argument among Rishonim. However I think those that hold this way were the way to go in this subject.]





So my approach is not to emphasize Metaphysics even though the Rambam highly recommended the Metaphysics of Aristotle.  Nor is my approach to recommend learning Rav Avraham Abulafia, or the Ari [Isaac Luria]. Not even the books of the Gra, or Rav Nahman. All these have great ideas, but I do not consider them as something to spend time and effort on.
So I see them as what you would call "reading". That is: they are informative. But not something to be spending time and effort on. Rather,-- they are more for one's "down time." Not exactly to relax--but close.
Some things I just do not see as being all that informative or valuable.

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conditions by which natural science can flourish

You see in most rishonim that learning natural science is a part of Torah. You see this in the Chovot Levavot and the Mishna Torah in the very first chapter that by learning the works of God one fulfills the first commandment to love God.

There are certain conditions by which natural science can flourish. There have been plenty of societies that had the exact same intelligence as Western European. But no where else did natural science flourish because the conditions for it to come into its own did not exist. 

Most societies never developed conditions where science was possible. And all human societies started at the same starting line.

My point about trust in God --since I did not make it clear before is that it is not the same thing as depending in the Divine Decree. For even if you hold by the Gra that you do not need any effort. And Like the מדריגת האדם madragat Haadam says  מכאן שאין אדם צריך לשום סיבה אלא מה שנגזר בשבילו יבוא בעצמו בלי שום סיבה כלל [from here we see that a person needs no cause, but rather what is decreed for him will come automatically without any cause whatsoever] still something happens with trust that does not happen without trust as many verses make clear.

There is a law brought in tractate Ketuboth concerning the support given to daughters in a Ketubah.
The argument is between Rav Hai Gaon and the Rosh.
You have the basic law brought in the  Mishna which is this. Girls do not inherit. However they do get support until a certain age. (i.e. 12.5). Boys inherit. But since one of the added things on the Ketubah is support for the girls, if the property is too small for both the boys to inherit and the girls, then the girls have a "shibud" [hold] in the property and it goes for their support. But if the boys sell it anyway the girls lose their rights. [That is to say the boys anyway owned it.]
Rav Hai Gaon [the last gaon] said after the decree of the geonim that a ketubah is also collected from movable property then in our case here the girls would also get support--even if the boys sold it.
The Rosh [Rabbainu Asher] says no. The reason Rav Shach explains is that the money is not "grabbed" or "Nitfas" as money that is exchange for Masar Sheni.  [Rav Shach in Laws of Marriage. Chapter 19. Law 19]

What the Rosh brings as a proof against Hai Geon is that Rav Asi said you know the boys also have a hand in the property even when it is too little for both because if they sell it is is valid. [That is the law in Rav Shach Laws of Marriage 19:19]. So there is no "התפסה" [the money is in place of the land]. The question the achronim bring on the Rosh is how is that Gemara about Rav Asi any proof about the law of the geonim? Rav Shach explains that law shows that there is no "התפסה" [the money is in place of the land].

That is you have a rule that money now is thought to be like land. So like the Ketuba could be collected from land and also the support of the daughters until 12 years old, so after the law of the geonim now all that can be collected from movable property. But you still do not get to the idea that  land that is sold that the money paid for the land would be in place of that land. That is what the Rosh means and the proof is even in the law of the Gemara when the girls get land, if that land is sold, that money is not in place of the land.

The basic decree was thus: In the Gemara only land can be used to pay a Ketubah. The Geonim established that movable objects or money.
 According to the law of the Gemara,  if the boys sold land that they inherited, the girls do not get support from the money of that transaction. And in fact they could even from the first sell that land because it is not in any way held by the girls. All that the Ketubah says is that the rents or fruit of the land they get, from that the girls must be supported until after the age of 12.5. But if they sell the land that money does not go to the girls. Also if there is only enough property to support the girls, and so the profits of the  property at that point should go to the girls, still if the boys sell the land the sell is valid and that money from the sell does not go to the girls. That is the straight law of the Gemara. But then after that the geonim said the ketubah and things mentioned in it can be collected not just from land but also movable property. So Rav Hai Gaon says that in that case if the boys sell the property they inherited the girls get supported from the proceeds of the sell.

The point of Hai Gaon is that the girls have no shibud but the boys support them by what is inherited. So the proceeds of the sell is considered to be in the category of what they inherited. The Rosh says that can not be so for there is no special decree that proceeds of a sell is thought to be in place of the object--in any case. As you see in the law about an oral loan that would be paid by by the orphans if the land is still in their possession  but not if they sold it. Also in the case of little property that normally would be used to support the girls but if sold the sell is valid and the girls lose. So in terms of the Gemara there is clearly no law that the money goes in place of a thing sold. It is gone and that is that. So if the Geonim would have made a special decree to change that well fine. But that was not the decree. It simply was movable objects also get collected in need be to pay for the Ketuba or its conditions like support for the girls. But that is what was inherited. Not proceeds of a sell of what they inherited.
[In short, Hai Gaon agreed there is no shibud. If there was then the girls could nullify the sell. But what he says is that even without shibud there is the idea that money is in place of the object. The Rosh says there would have had to be a express decree to that effect if it were so. For we see no such concept in the Gemara.

It is an odd thing about philosophy today that it seems to set itself against science.[See the Alan Sokol affair.]  As a philosophy student (Sandra Lehman) at Hebrew University once told me: "There is something about philosophy that deprives people of common sense."

Leonard Nelson [based on Kant ] was one of the very few philosophers that made it their business to respect their boundaries, and had a healthy respect for straight science. And in fact his program in philosophy was parallel to David Hilbert.


In Gottingen, the whole philosophy department was against the math and physics. Now on one hand Husserl was  smart. But that did not put him on the level of a David Hilbert.  Smart is one thing and genius is something else.

[I on the other hand have to add that this critique should not be applied to Hegel. Some have said about Hegel that he wanted to derive all science out of his dialectic, but as you can see in John Mctaggart that this is a misunderstanding of Hegel.]
[Or Modern Philosophy is all about words--as if that tells you anything!!]

The issue of trust in God is not as clear as I would like it to be.There does not seem to be any formula that you can plug in the question "In this situation should I do action or trust in God to take care of it?" The reason why there is no formula I think is that there are levels of trust. If one trust with more strength, then things work out better.
That seems to be what the Gra means in his commentary on Proverbs 3. וסוד העניין שתהפוך לבך לבטוח בה' בכל ואז יברך ה' אותך בכל.

The issue of Rav Avraham Abulafia seems to me to be important. [He was a well known medieval mystic who was quoted extensively by Rav Haim Vital and the Remak [Rav Moshe of Cardoba known as RavMoshe Cordovaro".]
I discovered him originally in the microfilms in the basement of Hebrew University, but since then all his books were printed.
Obviously his major thesis about the importance of unifications [thinking and saying of the Divine names] is known but there are many other very interesting side issues he brings up that are worthy of attention.

The thinking and "intending" of Divine Names for me was a very major issue at one time since I was praying with the Sidur of Sar Shalom Sharabi and his grandson. That is the small three volume Sidur HaReshash [in red] and the large Sidur HaReshash.[The large one five volumes was written by the grandson.]  [That is usually not around but I found someone who lived at the very edge of Mea Shearim who sold it to me.]

The smaller Red Sidur Hareshash as far as i know was printed in Aram Zova [Syria] and is not the same as his grandson. Rav Mordehei Sharabi said the small one has mistakes. [None of which I found but after he said so I assume I must have missed them.] In any case, the larger one is much more reliable.  [There are major differences, but as for mistakes? I have no idea what Rav Mordehei Sharabi meant.]]

Rav Nahman of Breslov

  The fact that Rav Nahman of Breslov had some statements about Torah scholars who are demons certainly was not just an abstract idea with no relevance to action. Rather he certainly meant this to be a starting point assumption until you know differently. That is, in order to be safe, you assume this as your starting point. And then if after careful investigation you discover differently, then OK.

But there are plenty of other important principles in the works of Rav Nahman.

The main ones are private conversation with God constantly, learning by saying the words as fast as possible and going on, and the well known Tikun HaKlali. [That is a correction of sexual sin by saying ten psalms 16,32,41,42,59,77,90,105,137,150]. But other good advice does not diminish from the value of even one piece of good information about the problem of Torah scholars that are demons which one ought to assume from the start until proven otherwise. I mean to say that his suggestion here is that one ought to assume all to be guilty until proven otherwise.


[It is constant in Rav Nahman's writings these points. However to my own satisfaction, I have seen the importance of the Gra, Rav Israel Salanter and Rav Shach. In fact, I would highly recommend that basic straight Torah path to others also. That is more or less what is called the "Litvak Yeshiva Path"]

And idea of Rav Nahman of Breslov

The difficulty that Rav Nahman points out about תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים ל''מ חלק א' סימן י''ב [Torah scholars that are demons\] is hard to understand because from the general approach in the LeM [his major work] it does not seem that he is warning about any other group so severely. It must be he saw more danger in this group than any other group.

And this warning comes up in many other contexts in his LeM. [But not in his other books. I.e he has four all together. The LeM, the Conversations of the Ran, the Hayee Moharan, and the 13 Stories.]
The reason this does not come up in the less formal "conversations" is that it was too politically incorrect. They were deleted. However in the Hashmatot ("left out parts") that were collected by Rav Shmuel Horwitz they can be found. [They were printed just once and were in the Breslov book store on Rehov Salant for a short time.] 

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D Major w51  [mp3]   w51 in midi format

group think is automatically is invalid and an indication of falsehood.

In Southern California it was generally thought that the fact that everyone thinks one way is more of an indication that they are wrong. That is to say that group-think is automatically assumed to be invalid and an indication of falsehood.

This goes with a general American trait of distrust of experts.

So what Americans do with questions in which that come up that they have no experience in?   They would look at the type of credentials if relevant to the question at hand.

This was the basic cause of the Renaissance. While on one hand the Feudal system was necessary for civilization to start over after the fall of Rome, still at some point the system seemed useless in dealing with the issues of the 1200's and 1300's. So people started thinking in terms of the value of extremism. Not a synthesis of faith and reason.  Not the value of fitting in. Rather the opposite. The value of thinking differently.
 The problem in the USA today is group-think.

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind says there is some kind of impasse that is inherent in the very foundations of the USA itself. Some problem that started at the very core of the Enlightenment. Throwing out Kings and Princes and Priests and placing "the people" or intellectuals had its own cause of different kinds of problems. Not the same kinds. The only way forward is not by "group think".

[He does mention Kant and Hegel, but from what I can see he thought both were on the side of the Enlightenment, and not exactly the way forward.]

If Allan Bloom is right then this time period is that of a great opportunity of going further or going backwards into the cave of Plato and extinction. Mad Max. What I think is a remnant of people will go forward, while many (and maybe even most) will fall back into darkness.

[It is curious why after going through all the contradiction of Enlightenment versus Anti Enlightenment that Allan Bloom stops right at Kant and Hegel. Why did he not go on?]

I do however have a few suggestions for going forward.
(1) Learning Math and Physics according to two principles. Saying the words as fast as possible and going on until one finishes the book. Then go back and do it again 4 times.
Also learning in depth which means review.
This does not depend on IQ, since it is a part of simply learning Torah which.
In terms of learning Torah the best idea is to go the same thing with Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.
(2) In terms of Political Theory I think the founding fathers of the USA got it right --as well as can be done.
(3) But one's focus ought to be on personal improvement. The Ten Commandments. Not correcting the world.
(4). Trust in God. Even if one goes with trust with effort still not to overdo the effort thing.
(5) Self sufficiency. Not to depend on handouts.
(6) Rav Avraham Abulafia's books [from the Middle Ages] I think are important.

Freeman Dyson's book on Advanced Quantum Mechanics I tried getting through twice. But there is a second half in which he derives the results of Schwinger which I found very hard. [He was in the news because he died yesterday so I was reminded that I probably need to get through his book a few more times.]

Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind the the problem in USA universities [in the humanities and social studies] as being a basic problem that he traces back to the very core of the problems that were raised by Hobbes and the other Enlightenment philosophers. So the problem now is not just universities but it graduated into politics. But the issues have not gone away of been resolved. He was not advocating a return the the faith and reason approach of the Middle Ages and barely mentions Kant or Hegel. He simply says we have met a road block and how we deal with it will determine the future.

He certainly saw the reasons why the newer approach of the Renaissance had to begin. There were enough problems with kings and priests to warrant a new approach. But that new approach has approached a road block.

So what is "Bitachon" [trust in God]?

Navardok, the Chazon Ish and the very first Musar book the Obligations of the Heart and the Gra [the Gaon of Vilna] all deal with this question. But what is the conclusion?
At least we get some clarity when at least we define things as a מחלוקת ראשונים [an argument between the medieval authorities]. When at least you have come to that point where you can say "it is an argument among first authorities" you have reached a conclusion.[Because after that no matter how many argument you will bring to one side, teh fact remains that the other side is also valid and that you simply have not thought of the arguments on that side --yet.\
So the issue of trust with effort or without effort [בטחון עם השתדלות או ביטחון בלי השתדלות] is simple and clear. It is an argument among rishonim [first authorities].
But that still leaves the question what it actually is? Is it that you will get your needs? That does not seem to always be the case. but you can answer that most people that do not get their needs met simply do not have trust. Or enough trust.
However to me it seems that the basic idea is that one thinks and feels that God will make things work out in the way that is right in his eyes.

In particular that is the way it looks like the Chazon Ish explains the issue.

This all may sound all just in the air, but when I was at the Mir in NY, the basic approach of trust in God was very practical. People simply learned Torah and hoped and expected that God would take care of everything else. So they were not learning Torah for the sake making money. Rather they were learning for its own sake. And so if in fact at one point they needed to go out to find some "making a  living" activity, that was thought to not be a contradiction to teh idea of trust. It was simply trust with effort. However using Torah as a  means to make money was definitely looked down upon.  [It was almost thought of as a kind of defilement]. No one in that category had teh slightest respect from anyone.

But there is no obligation to give anything to a divorced woman

The obligation to feed one's wife is one kind of obligation. To  the Rif and most Rishonim it is from the sages, not the Torah. To the Rambam, it is from the Torah. There is also an obligation for a widow to be feed until she remarries. But there is no obligation to give anything to a divorced woman except the Ketubah itself. There is nothing called "Mezonot" "Food". This fact has always bothered me about courts that do not see the difference between divorced women and widows.

In any case, I wanted to introduce the subject of a case where you have a few widows. [I.e. the same husband married them all at different times.]

[Rambam laws of marriage 18 law 14] They all get the ketubah according to the time they were married but mezonot/food they all get at the same time.
The Ravvad says the reason is the obligation of the Ketubah is because they were married. The obligation of Mezonot is because he died. So it is like "borrowed and borrowed and then bought" [at the end of Bava Batra] where all get the same.
Rav Shach I see deals with this issue.

I would like to go into some of the problems of the Middle Ages in order to show that sometimes going to the extreme is the proper thing to do. What I mean is that the Middle Ages was basically exemplified by the focus on Reason and Faith which more or less meant authority belonged to kings and priests.

These lost a great deal of their authority when they seemed incapable of solving problems. The Black Plague would be the best example, but there were  more.  

So the Renaissance began-- which meant more or less, "Let's go to extremes, and then see maybe that will get us somewhere." [Take your pick of many examples of such thinking.]

To some degree you see this in Rav Nahman [Uman and Breslov] in his idea that Torah scholars tend to have a problem of "תלמידי חכמים שדיים והודאיים" (Torah scholars which are demons) which his brings directly from the Zohar [Pinhas]. [See Rav Nahman's LeM I:8, I:12, I:28, I:61, II:1, II:8.]
I have tried to soften the blow of Rav Nahman by explaining this in terms of Jung's archetypes. But it occurred to me that Rav Nahman did not want anyone to soften the blow. He wanted his point to be open and explicit.
That means he did not intend it to be a nice idea revolving in some "mind space". He meant his statement to cause  actions. Sp what kind of actions was he thinking?

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The Middle Ages had some great points. Civilization could not have risen without the Feudal system. Also there were amazing thinkers. Aquinas, Anselm, Tosphot, Saadia Gaon, the authors of Musar.
But the drawbacks were real. They were not just made up by later generations.

One of the many great ideas of the Middle Ages was faith with reason. But at some point when people were seeing the limits of that they decided the middle of the road approach was not getting anywhere. They decided extremes was the only way. Some choice extremes in one direction and others in other directions.
I think the basic general approach is the middle of the road, but there does come a time and place when extreme action or thought is called for. The Renaissance was mostly about seeking the extreme. As x goes to infinity.
One example of the advantage of extremism is what I mentioned before about two kinds of learning. One going fast--saying the words and going on until you finish the book many times. The other is in depth learning. I think both are necessary.

There is some debate today about universities and some say they do not teach much. You can see this in Michael Huemer. But the problem was already seen by Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind and he saw the issue in a wider context--an issue about the Enlightenment itself.
For there were people from the very beginning of the Enlightenment that were against the whole movement. [Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels where he saw the rule of the intellectuals as them siting on some floating Island and ruling over us plebeians.]

I myself do not see much of an answer. However I can see that even in the Middle Ages before any of that started there already was this issue about Faith and Reason. But the Middle Ages had more or less come to the conclusion that you need both and some kind of synthesis between them.
I would point out that Hegel came closest to defending faith and reason in the most rigorous possible system--if not for the fact that he has been used ever since then for the exact opposite.
Faith with reason in the middle ages was the idea that both are compatible, but no one made the whole into a organic whole.

Leonard Nelson also has a clear defense of faith [That is the Kant Friesian School] but I can not tell if the difference between him and Hegel is all that significant. [The dinge an sich with Nelson is detected by a third faculty of the mind immediate non intuitive knowledge.  It does not seem all that different than Hegel'e getting to God through the dialectic.]
[I think that in terms of STEM universities are doing great. Allan Bloom was talking about the other insane departments.]

So you have in Rav Nahman [of Uman] [Sicha 76] a clear emphasis on learning as fast as possible. Not just say the words but say the words with "Great speed".  But you also see in his Sefer HaMidot an emphasis on review.
So one way to deal with this is like I was doing in Shar Yashuv--learn each paragraph twice and then go on. Even when I started to learn in depth I also tended to do this same thing.

But that was not really like the general way of learning at the Mir. In the Mir [New York] the morning was devoted to getting as deep as possible. [It was famous for that with Rav Shmuel Berenbaum's classes being considered the deepest in the world.] The afternoon was for fast learning. And that aspect of either part of the Mir I never got to. I was really not on the intellectual level to get as deep into the Sugia/subject as the classes of Rav Shmuel were. But nor was I on the level of doing the fast kind of learning that people were doing in the afternoon.
So I had my middle of the road approach. I would learn the Gemara with Tosphot and the Maharasha and maybe the Pnei Yehushua sometimes and then just go on. I never got into the deep aspects of learning that you can see for yourself in books like the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and the chidushim of Rav Haim of Brisk.

So now it seems to me that if possible the way of having two different kinds of sessions is the best idea--like they were doing in the Mir. One in depth with lots of review and the other fast. And later I in began to apply both methods to learning Math and Physics. And I can see that both are necessary.
[It took me some time to find the rishonim that held that Physics is part of Torah. That was not well known at the Mir at the time.]

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To me it seems clear that trust in God is not just depending that whatever God wants, that is what will happen.  You can see this in verses. והבוטח בהשם חסד יסובבנו Psalms 16. he who trusts in God, kindness will surround him. So it is not just depending on the Divine Decree. Nor is it saying whatever God wants will happen. Rather the idea is that it is like a filter for polarized light. It lets in only kindness and keeps out the other stuff.
But it also is not trust in order to get things. It is rather indirect. One trusts in God and thus God helps. But it is not trust so that God will help.

Just to be clear. The basic issues about trust come originally from the Obligations of the Hearts by Ibn Pakuda.  חובות לבבות. Later the major sources are the books of Navardok, the Chazon Ish. Rav Nahman does not spend a lot of time on the issue,- but brings a lot of clarity to the issue.
Those four are the basic sources. For some reason the Gra says a remarkable statement about Bitachon. He says the entire purpose of giving the Torah is so that people will trust in God.
he also has that famous statement in his commentary on Proverbs 3 that one should trust in God with no effort. [This seems to be an argument between Ibn Pakuda and the Gra].

The Gra hold trust with no effort. Ibn Pakuda holds with effort. The way of the Gra seems to be that you do only what is required by the Torah and God will do the rest. [That was also how trust/bitachon was understand at the Mir in NY. There the idea was understood that you learn Torah and expect God to take care of your needs. This was in fact very practical. And it was never used as a reason not to do kindness. ]

There is an argument between the "Rishonim" [mediaeval authorities] about the usual law that money that someone has stays where it is unless another party brings a proof. המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. The question is what happens if the other party grabs it after there is already raised a doubt.
See Bava Mezia page 6b and 7a.
There is a "teaching" that raises the question if a sheep or goat or cow has given birth before.  Then it gives birth. If it would be known that the calf was first born then it is given to a priest. And sacrificed.
But if there is a doubt then it stays with the owner but it can not be used for work or sheared for wool. So one one hand it is like a first born in that shearing and work are forbidden. But it is like a non first born in that the owners keep it.
The Gemara says the reason it stays with the owner is that money that someone has stays where it is unless another party brings a proof. המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. So if a priest would grab it it would stay by the priest. Raba says we would take it away.
[Actually what Raba meant is the very issue at hand. Rav Shach says what he actually said was that even if we would say you take it away from the priest even so it would be forbidden in work and shearing.

I was in a store that sells "Felafel" (which is a kind of national food in Israel which was originally an Arabic dish) and the owner was asking me about my background. And in the conversation came up his observation that: "The Torah is holy and good but the religious people are f...ked  up."

The point he was making about someone else that works in that store. He said that the religious not only are messed up but that they mess up others.
There is a kind of mental force I think he was implying.

The idea is the more holy the Torah is, the easier it is to get off track. I mean that when you have a numinous area of value [holy and great], if not taken exactly right, it turns into the opposite.
That is why the authentic approach of the Gra, Rav Israel Salanter and Rav Shach is important. Authenticity is the issue.

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There are a few basic principles of action. But to combine them into a cohesive whole seems hard to do. Like Michael Huemer said there does not seem to be an algorithm  of morality. Even though he holds bu objective morality he doubts that there is a formula how to figure out the right thing in any given situation.

You might try to pick on one basic principle, and that makes sense to some degree.
Still what I think is that morality is an organic whole. There are principles that fit together like parts of a human body. Each part has its own function.

Rav Haim Kinyevsky, [one of the great Litvak sages] said that when any group  emphasizes any one basic principle, always the result is the exact opposite. Rather you need balance

To me this issue seems to be something like what Hegel was doing. Thinking that he could make sense of the big picture and showing the inner connections of everything with everything else and by a process of dialectic to get from Being to God [the absolute Idea]. [I imagine he did not want to use the word God to identify the Absolute Idea.]


The possibility to have some kind of algorithm of action seem to be along the lines of Kelley Ross building on Leonard Nelson.[That is the Kant Fries School of thought] [That is Kelley Ross has an array of values that looks like the half circle of angular momentum.] That is you start with all form and no content --formal logic. Then work up towards more numinous content but less form. That is Math proper since it can not be reduced to pure logic. And you work up until more numinous content like Music and Justice. until you get to God--all numinous but no form

Rav Shach brings in Laws of Acquisition a debate between almost all other Rishonim against the Rambam. The issue is תופס אחר שנולד הספק אם מוציאים מידו.

The Gemara this is based on is Bava Metzia 6b.
Rav Hanania said to Raba there is a outside teaching [a teaching that is legitimate, but not part of the Mishna] הספיקות נכנסים לדיר להתעשר [doubtful animals go into the barn to be counted for maasar the tithe of animals.]
That is to say, if you have an ass that has given birth. If it is the first born, you take a sheep and redeem it, and give the sheep to a priest. But if you do not know if your ass has given birth before. So it is a doubt. But you redeem it anyway. And the sheep now is counted as regular property of the Israeli. [So it counts when you need to take every tenth animal and give as tithe.]

The gemara asks  what happens if a priest grabs a doubtful case of a regular sheep that has given birth and there also you do not know if it has given birth before. It is forbidden to use as if we knew it is holy. So you learn that if  priest grabs it you do not take it away.
But Raba disagrees. And that is where Rav Hanania comes in.
Most Rishonim understand that Rav Hanaia is bringing a proof that if one grabs something of value after there has already been known that the case is a doubt, then you take it away.
Rav Shach however says it is possible to understand that Gemara as supporting the idea that the fact of the animal being forbidden to use is not because the priest has a hand in it. For even if the law would be that you take it away of the priest it, still it would be holy because it is holiness that comes by itself. And that is the case Rav Hanania is  coming to support.

trust in God [Bitachon]

The idea of trust in God is only for the sake of getting stuff. It is a value in itself.
I think one ought to pray to merit to trust.
That is just like you do not see belief in God as being for the sake of something or for getting something. Rather you see it as a belief in a fact. So I see trust as being even more or a positive value.



But how to go about it seems hard to know. I do not think the issue is as is usually thought to be that of trust as opposed to effort. But if you think about people that did trust in God, you do not see the issue of trust with effort ever coming up. Ever. It rather is always they do what they must do and trust in God to help. If they do not absolutely have to then they do not. Like the Pilgrims coming to Plymouth Rock and beginning the stream of people coming to America. They were not thinking about trust in God and effort. They were thinking they needed to live with their beliefs and to raise their children right-so they had no choice but to come to America. England was always impossible. It was either prison or conform. Amsterdam was impossible because of the negative free thinking influences on their children. So they has no choise. But within that doing what they had to do they trusted that God would help.

Navardok I should add was based on teh idea of trust [Bitachon] in God. That is just learn Torah and God will do the rest.

The question is the base line. Would everything be perfect if not for some oppressing group. So everyone would rise to prosperity and happiness if not for the group keeping them down. Or is the natural state of people being down and so when one group rise you see something unusual that must be due to some kind of inner strength.

That is my thought about different forms of Marxism that attribute the idea that all people are not prosperous to discrimination. 

Wherever England has touched, you find economic prosperity, higher standards of living than anywhere else

Wherever England has touched, any place that was a colony of England, you find economic prosperity, higher standards of living than anywhere else;- civilization, tall building, clean streets, people cooperation.

The USA, Australia, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Israel. You can not see that with anyone else.
What is it about the English?

You can possibly say it is one clause in the Magna Carta. No free man shall be fined, imprisoned or ruined in any way without a due process. That is, --the due process was not the judgment of the king or even the Parliament, but of a jury.

98% of the population were English. But were free. So even though the barons and lords were Norman, this was for the people, not just the rulers.

The strange thing about this is that you find the exact opposite effect with Socialism. Any place it touches, where there was once prosperity, high standards of living you then find everything falling apart.  

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Foundational-ism is something that Hegel goes against. That there are some ideas that one starts with that are beyond reproach or correction. That is not the same kind of foundational kind of belief that Michael Huemer starts with.  With Huemer, you start with prima facie evidence. And if afterwards new evidence comes to light that shows you have to bring corrections to your beginning belief, then you do so. And how do you know which is more likely? That is by probability.
I do not see that Hegel would have disagreed with this.
Hegel never went into the question rationalism as opposed to empiricism in the first place.
Nor did he think he could derive all science by pure reason with no empirical input. [You gave to see John McTaggart to see these points. It is hard to see them in Hegel himself.]

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There is a verse that is often taken to mean something it does not say. אתה הראתה לדעת כי השם הוא האלהים אין עוד מלבדו. "You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is none other besides Him." Which means: There is no other god besides God, the First Cause. The reason I say this is two fold. One is simple grammar. If the words "אין עוד מלבדו" would be by themselves in the verse, then that would perhaps be different. However in the context of the verse, the meaning is the Lord is God, there is no other god besides Him.

The other reason I say this is in the actual meaning of the verse. In that verse in Deuteronomy Moses is talking to Klal Israel and telling them you were shown at Mount Sinai to see and to know something. What was that? That was that the Lord is the true God and there is no other gods besides Him. That is the simple explanation of what Israel saw at Mount Sinai. Not that there were shown that there is nothing. 

The basic idea of the Torah is that God created the world from nothing. Ex Nihilo. And all Rishonim agree that that is the point of Torah.

There is an argument between almost all other Rishonim and the Rambam concerning the question if one grabs a doubt.  The Rashba is usually in the side of the other rishonim in this kind of argument but in this case he brings a case for the Rambam and the Gra also.
The issue comes from a Gemara in Bava Metzia . R. Hanania said to Raba: there is a braita that supports your view that says the doubts go into the stall to be taken for the tithe. So if a kohen would grab a doubt and we would not take it out of his hand then one would be taking tithe by the money of a kohen.
The Rashba says that  that is only in the case of the first born of an ass which is at first owned by the Israeli. That is the status of the first owner causes us to say we would take it out of the hand of the kohen.

This comes up in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach in laws of acquisition 3 law 9. I mean to go into this in a little more detail.

Hegel I think goes in reputation up and down

Hegel I think goes in reputation up and down sky high for about ten years and then sinks to the basement for another ten years,-- and then back up again etc. He has been doing this for the last two hundred years. It all started right after he was gone. For the first ten years after that he was the king of the mountain. Then the Prussian government brought in Schelling to knock him of his pedestal. Then back and forth it went with all kinds of permutations.
I can not figure this out. At least once Plato and Aristotle were accepted, they more or less stayed that way.

One odd thing about Hegel was the use that Marx made of him to turn his approach into its opposite. That does not invalidate him but it is one odd thing. And then you get the English enthusiastic people all heads over heels about Hegel until WWI. And then suddenly Hegel is responsible for WWI. [Not that people in Germany were even reading him at that point. When WWI started Nietzsche was the big thing in Germany, not Hegel.  With WWII it became even easier to blame everything on Hegel.

Now one one hand you have Leonard Nelson and the Kant Fries School and the Intuitionists like GE Moore which have great value, but that does not  seem to diminish Hegel just because they have other good points.

E.g. Hobhouse has a whole book against the Metaphysical view of the State which is against ideas about the state that some people were basing on Hegel.
In any case, One thing he knocks is the statement of Hegel that "matter is gravity" and Hegel compares that with people in their essence are free. So Hobhouse knocks [among other things] this idea that matter is gravity. This was certainly hard to see in the time of Hobhouse but now that we know that matter is made of strings the same as gravity it is harder to see what the complaint about Hegel is.  [I ought to add while that Leonard Nelson had a different view than Hegel about a lot of things still his main argument was against the Neo-Kantians of the Marburg school. And Husserl,]

[I think it is best to think of Hegel kind of neo Kantian thought. Not the peak and top, but nor the bottom.

The way of learning in depth I have nothing to add to the basic approach of the great Litvak {Lithuanian} type of yeshivas. They have already adopted the two clearly best ways of doing this.
Either the global type of approach pioneered by Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach. The other the sort of kind of detailed learning I heard in Shar Yashuv from Naphtali Yeager and later by David Bronson.
I tried in my two books on Shas to embody both types.
However in terms of learning fast I do think that the basic idea of Rav Nahman of Breslov is something that people ought to do. Say the words and go on. In that way you can finish at least once in your life, the entire Gemara with Tosphot, the Yerushalmi with the Pnei Moshe and Karban HaEdah and get through the entire writings of the Ari and Remak and all the Midrashim and all the books of Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach and the entire body of Mathematics and Physics which is  apart of Torah. Without this method of Rav Nahman, I think getting through this is inconceivable. 

Does a document of a sale count as money? The Rashba, an important Rishon, holds no.

The Rashba (and Ramban [Rav Moshe ben Nahman. Nahmanides]) held a document is not money.
See the nook of the Rashba on Tractate Kidushin page 5 and also page 47.
 You see this in Kidushin and Pidion HaBen. The question that Rav Shach brings is from Bava Batra where the Rashba apparently holds a document of obligation should be considered as an exchange of money. [This Rashba is not the same one called the Rashba in Tospfot.]

The actual subject is famous. You have a cases where a slave is owned by two owners. Then one lets him go. So now he is half slave and half free. Now a slave becomes obligated in all commandments  when he is freed. [As a slave he is only obligated in commandments that a woman is obligated in.]
The question to the House of Hillel seems clear. He works for himself one day and then the next he workers for his owner. It goes back and forth every other day. But the students of Shamai asked but what about getting married? He can not marry a fee woman because he is half slave and he can not marry a woman slave because he is half free. So the owner has to let him go and the slave writes a document that he is obligated in the amount the owner is losing. The Rashba holds this is good. But why if the document is not money?
Rav Shach answers this in this way. The reason you need more than a document to be counted as money in terms of Kidushin and in businesses deals is that you need a buyer and a seller. For example lets says one would give money so that a field should be "hefker", well that would not work for this reason. But freeing of a slave is "pedia" letting go, or redeeming. It is not a business deal. Once the owner lets go, even if the reason is simply that he got a document saying that the slave will eventually pay him back that is enough.

[Actually this subject may not be famous since clearly Abraham Lincoln was unaware of it. Detroit would look different today of only Abe Lincoln had learned the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.]

Why you can ask is this just when freedom is so important? Because everyone has their place and ought to fit into their place. Obligation is part of freedom as Hegel goes into. See his discussion in History.

[The reason this same reasoning does not apply to pidion ha'Ben or Kidushin is clear that in neither of these last two case do you have a חלות state of being that is already here in potential  but just waiting for something to trigger it so that it can become real.]

I have tried to present a case that learning Physics and Mathematics is a part of learning Torah based on an array of Rishonim [mediaeval authorities.] That means it does not depend on whether you are smart or not.
I also added to this the idea of the Gra about trust in God with no effort. That would apply even to learning that you just say the words in order and do not worry if you understand or not. You just believe that God will help you, and that eventually you will understand.
And not just that, but I think this kind of learning strengthens trust in God. I mean that searching for methods of learning is a kind of ריבוי השתדלות "over amount of effort".

[The idea of doing a minimum amount of effort I got from Rav Nahman of Breslov [Sichot HaRan 76]. He explains the idea of trust in God that you make a vessel in which the blessing can enter and then cease. Anything beyond that is ריבוי השתדלות too much effort which implies lack of trust in God.

ideas about trust in God are brought in the major book of Navardok מדריגת האדם "The Level of Man" but I found a lot of help in understanding the subject in the LeM of Rav Nahman.

Tolerance can not be a prime positive value.

Tolerance is not  prime positive value. The reason is that everyone has some out-group that they do not tolerate. The out-group for tolerant people is intolerant people. So tolerant people have a group they do not tolerate, i.e the intolerant. So the tolerant people are intolerant. So tolerant people can not allow themselves to be tolerated,- since they are not tolerant [of the intolerant].

If you hold that people ought to be decent and kind and honest, then you ought to postulate those as primary values.

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The Cold War was easy to figure out. USA values opposed to Communism. Where ever you were on that spectrum it was easy to see what the issues were. Now things seem a lot more hard to see.

When the issue was  about Communism I at least could read the basic books and see where I held on that issue. [I did not think Communism made much sense. However I did not think it was as terrible as some made it out to be either. The oddest thing in Uman was every single person I meet and asked about how things were back then always told me "Things were better then".]


As for myself, I figure my parents had things right. Be a "mensch" (decent human being). Be self reliant. Basic American values. But they taught by doing and almost never by words. I also ought to add that when the USA needed my Dad he volunteered for the USAF,  and afterwards helped with inventing stuff.  [Infrared Camera, the second camera on the U-2 (not the first team but the second team)) and then the satellites that used Infra red and then laser communication.]
 In any case I hope this gives the basic idea. I mean to say that in the USA there was a set of basic values that are not easy to explain now that most of them have been forgotten.

In terms of trust in God, I would like to add this idea of Kant--that you are not aware of what goes on under the surface of consciousness. You can be aware of what you are now thinking. And you can recall what you were thinking before. But under that surface you do not know what is going on. And I would like to add that you have a certain amount of control over what you are thinking about. While you might not have absolute control all teh time but at least some part of the time , you can control what you are thinking about. So you can think to yourself that God will help you. And you can replace negative thoughts with that positive thought.