G. Lemaitre: "If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time."

Lemaitre writes in his article in Nature May 9, 1931: "Now, in atomic processes, the notions of space and time are no more than statistical notions ; they fade out when applied to individual phenomena involving but a small number of quanta. If the world has begun with a single quantum, the notions of space and time would altogether fail to have any meaning at the beginning; they would only begin to have a sensible meaning when the original quantum had been divided into a sufficient number of quanta. If this suggestion is correct, the beginning of the world happened a little before the beginning of space and time."

That was the article in which he proposed an expanding universe.
But the interesting thing is this goes along with the idea that the fact that Nature violates Bell's Inequality does not violate Special Relativity. Rather [like I mentioned before this] that things simply do not have values of space and time until they interact with something else.


It is not that there are hidden variables. The Aspect Experiment cancels out all hidden variable theories. But I am not thinking of branes of String Theory either because these are themselves just higher dimensional strings. (You need them so an open string can attach itself to something,) Rather what I am thinking of is some sub-layer that  exists underneath space and time.

w84 C minor mp3   [w84  midi]  [same piece in nwc format]

W85 mp3 w85 midi  [w85 nwc]

W83 mp3 f major w83 midi  w83 nwc

The Sages said, "The Torah is poison for those that use it to make money." But the entire religious world uses Torah to get money and power.

There are tremendous lessons for life in Torah. The problem is Torah scholars that are demons as Rav Nahman brings in his LeM vol. I, chapter 12 and 28. [There are plenty more references there to this subject, but those two places are the most open about it.]
The idea here is that Torah is perfect, however ושמתם אותם וחז''ל אומרים שסם חיים למימינים בה וסם מוות למשמאילים בה ("The Sages said, 'the Torah is poison for those that use it to make money.'") But the entire religious world uses Torah to get money and power. So you can see right away the trouble.

Since the religious world uses Torah to make money, it is by definition poison. So what ever one might gain from some of the great and important lessons he might learn, the benefits would be suffocated in the poison that saturates it. So to keep Torah, one must stay as far from the religious as possible.

One problem with the religious world stated simply is the idea of "consciousness traps".


I am aware that no one in the religious world cares to hear about the prohibition of using Torah to make money. Still that does not change the fact.


The excuse that the government of Israel needs the religious is false. It is only because the religious vote that they are needed to make a 60 person coalition. If they would not vote, then there would be 60 without them. The way it works is the total votes go for 120 members of the parliament. And why do they vote if not for power and money?

"Thing in itself" is not open to reason to Kant. [God, the soul, space, time]  That provides and answer for faith. However then to what does reason work for? Things in the area of conditions of possibility of experience. [That will include the synthetic a priori.]
With Fries and Leonard Nelson however, there is knowledge by means of faith, not senses nor reason. [That would have started from Jacobi's critique on Kant.] Hegel would not agree, but rather we can know about God by His own revelation, not by our reason.

But to me it seems back to Kant and Hegel is the way to nowadays and forget about obsolete twentieth century philosophy. [See Robert Hanna about "Analytic philosophy". Searle noted how most of twentieth century philosophy is "obviously false". Kelley Ross clearly simply holds to get to Kant with Fries. But in spite of the value of his amazing approach, still I think that does snot cancel the value of Hegel.]

The welfare system is just slavery of white people in a different name.

It seems to me that the Civil War was not justified. One major reason for this is that slavery is not addressed in the Constitution. And what powers are not granted to the federal government by the Constitution go to the states or to individuals.
There is however an issue of how slaves are treated. But instead of going to war, it simply would make more sense to treat slaves well.

In any case I do not see much difference between having to get up and go to work or to school and slavery. Slavery only means that people have to work that would not otherwise work as we see nowadays. Baltimore and Detroit show fine examples.

Even Hegel who held that freedom is the reason for the state, still it has to be a kind of freedom, that you do not see when people are on welfare.  

Besides that, it seems to me that blacks have been enslaving whites for a long time in forcing white people to work for them without compensation.  If black people would really be against slavery they would vote against the welfare state. [The welfare system is just slavery of white people in a different name.]] 

In terms of how to divide one's learning into two sessions; one the fast one, and the in-depth one.
How to do this in Gemara? I found the in depth session for me is best in the  way of repeating that page of gemara with Tosphot many days in a row. But when it comes to Physics, I wanted to bring here a suggestion I heard once from a undergraduate student of Physics. His idea was: ''from the beginning to end; from the end to the beginning; and from the middle outwards.''
Whatever he might have meant, I have found that in terms of review it is helpful to just take where I already am in the middle of the book,- and go towards the beginning. This is is the same idea as just saying the words and going on that Rav Nahman brings in his Conversations of Rav Nahman 76 except the direction is towards the beginning instead of towards the end.

[I did this with a book on Quantum Mechanics by Freeman Dyson. and I found this method helpful for myself, so I decided to share this idea with others that may also benefit from it.]

Daniel Defoe explained that the evil inclination changes form in every generation. He wrote a whole book on that subject. So it does little to combat an old form of evil, when evil itself has changed form. Rather what is needed is the ability to discern.

Certainly religious forms are useful for the evil inclination to use to disguise itself. Yet that does not mean to go to the opposite extreme either. 

Dr Michael Huemer brings up this issue: Suppose that all the knowledge of our civilization was about to be destroyed in some great cataclysm, but we have the opportunity to pass on just one sentence to future generations of people.

I thought instead of one sentence I would just say: The Constitution of the USA.

The reason is that even though a lot depends on the DNA of the people in question, still the basic answer to how to create a just and decent society is there. And once you have that, then you can have everything else that people can achieve. [NOTE 1]


[I have thought also about the minimum to transfer: In Math-Algebraic Topology; in Physics -String Theory; Biology- DNA and evolution,: in philosophy- Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, in morality- the Law of Moses and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.]

 [NOTE 1] What I mean here is that the Constitution of the USA, probably would differ in details when applied to different sorts of people with different DNA and different values; still the basic structure of government with three branches would still be there. That is you would not have all the power in a Parliamentary system. Rather you would have a string judiciary and strong executive. Plus a bill of rights.

B Flat Major index number w83   [w83 midi]
w83 in nwc format

You can notice i made a jump of a whole fifth downwards at one point. This is influenced by the middle ages where I recently noticed there is even special notation for jumps of fifths.
Also as usual you can see I have the same scheme of theme and then secondary theme that is in everyone from Vivaldi until Brahms.

Philosophy does not provide anything in the way of answers for the questions that matter. So it is possible to see how people would look into spiritual systems for answers. But in doing so they assume that there is  a kind of source of information -- faith. And even if faith would be a different source of information than reason, still it is just pure chance that one would be born into anything that even remotely approaches truth.

What Hegel thought was this. He thought reason does get to the truth by a process of dialectics, but only gets resolved once it gets to absolute spirit [God]. But that would not be  by  a process of faith, but rather reason itself. 

The idea of Hegel I think is that reason does more than resolve contradictions in definitions. It tells you more than bachelors  are not married. It also tells you the synthetic a priori. 

But he would be disagreeing that that depends on faith. Rather his point is that reason recognizes universals.


Dr. Michael Huemer also has this idea stated more clearly about what reason actually recognizes. But he says it a bit more clearly than Hegel. The basic idea is that Hume limited reason to detecting internal contradictions. And Hume states this point many times --based on his limited understanding of Geometry. You would think that somewhere or other Hume might have done us a favor by explaining why he thinks that that is all reason can do. But in fact he never favors us with a reason for that assumption. So Huemer just passes it by. As says Reason recognizes universals which are characteristics that things have in common. Hegel never says this so openly but the idea taken as a given that reason recognizes the "synthetic a priori" universals. [Dr Brian Caplan also brings up this issue about Hume.] However this is not to cancel the different between different kinds of knowledge that Kants brings. A Priori based on reason, not observation and posteriori based on observation. Analytic based on the meaning of the concept and synthetic that is not. It was noted by Robert Hanna that almost all twentieth century philosophy is an attempt to get away from Kant. But not one can escape his gravitational field. Most people that try burn up and crash like existentialism. Others fall into some black hole. In any case, my thought about this is that when the Rambam says to learn Physics and Metaphysics and he specifically means Aristotle and Plato I would have to add Kant and Hegel and also the in between people [Fichte, Reinhold, Jacobi.]


[Here is an essay by Brian Caplan showing the point about Hume:

 
 
 
An Enquiry Concerning Hume's Misunderstanding 
 
 
 Bryan Caplan 
 Tu 3-4 
 Phil 122 
 Question #1 

1. Introduction 
Remarkably, it is possible to sum up David Hume's vital  
assumptions about reasoning in a single proposition: Reason does  
NOTHING except locate the presence or absence of contradictions.   
This paper will attempt three tasks: first, to show the textual  
support for my interpretation; second, to explain how Hume's  
skepticism about induction depends on this assumption; and third, to  
briefly argue that Hume's basic assumption is wrong. 

2. Textual Support 

Whenever Hume wants to show that reasoning cannot support  
something, he uses the same argument: the alternative is not a  
contradiction.  "The contrary of every matter of fact is still  
possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is  
conceived by the mind with the same facility and distinctness, as if  
ever so conformable to reality.  We should in vain, therefore,  
attempt to demonstrate its falsehood.  Were it demonstratively  
false, it would imply a contradiction, and could never be distinctly  
conceived by the mind."1  Suppose that we try to use reason to  
establish any matter of fact.  Hume says that our effort is futile,  
because the alternative is conceivable.  But if the alternative is  
conceivable, then it is not a contradiction, because contradictions  
are inconceivable.  But reason can refute something only if it is a  
contradiction.  Hence, reason can never establish any matter of fact. 
Hume liberally repeats this argument throughout his works on  
epistemology.  When he denies that reason justifies the law of  
cause-and-effect, he says, "That there are no demonstrative  
arguments in this case, seems evident; since it implies no  
contradiction, that the course of nature may change."2  The  
argument is the same as above: An alternative is conceivable;  
contradictions are not conceivable; and reason can only demonstrate  
that something is false if it is a contradiction.  Hence, reason cannot  
establish the law of cause-and-effect. 

Hume uses the same argument in A Treatise of Human Nature.   
"There is no object, which implies the existence of any other if we  
consider the objects in themselves.  Such an inference wou'd amount  
to knowledge, and wou'd imply the absolute contradiction and  
impossibility of conceiving any thing different."3  Once again, Hume  
notes that he can conceive of one object without a second object.   
Since no contradictions are conceivable, this is not a contradiction.   
And since reason does nothing but locate the presence or absence of  
contradictions, reason cannot establish a connection between any  
two things.  Later in the Treatise, Hume makes the argument still  
more explicit: "To form a clear idea of any thing, is an undeniable  
argument for its possibility, and is alone a refutation of any  
pretended demonstration against it."4  Conceivability implies the  
absence of a contradiction, and the absence of a contradiction  
implies that reason has nothing to say on the matter. 

To cement my interpretation, let us turn to Hume's Abstract of  
a Treatise of Human Nature, where he repeats the argument.  "The  
mind can always conceive any effect to follow from any cause, and  
indeed any event to follow upon another: whatever we conceive is  
possible, at least in a metaphysical sense: but wherever a  
demonstration takes place, the contrary is impossible, and implies a  
contradiction.  There is no demonstration, therefore, for any  
conjunction of cause and effect."5  As always, his argument flows  
from the conceivability of an alternative, to the absence of a  
contradiction, to the forced silence of reason on the question.  "What  
is demonstratively false implies a contradiction; and what implies a  
contradiction cannot be conceived."6 

Hume could hardly be more explicit.  In all three works, he uses  
precisely the same argument.  And this argument rests on a crucial  
assumption about reason and reasoning: namely, that reason does  
nothing except locate the presence or absence of contradictions.   
While Hume may be open to interpretation on some points, the  
textual support for my claim is quite solid: it spans at least three of  
his epistemological works, and appears repeatedly in each.  The next  
section explains in detail why this assumption about reasoning  
matters. 

3. The Crucial Assumption
 
Let us formally state the argument that Hume uses above in  
order to see why his assumption crucially supports his view that we  
never have any reason to believe any matter of fact. 

1. The alternative to any matter of fact is conceivable. 

2. If something is conceivable, then it is not a contradiction. 

3. Reason does nothing except locate the presence or absence  
of contradictions. 

Therefore, reason has nothing to say about any matter of fact;  
if a proposition concerns matters of fact, reason can neither support  
nor refute it. 

It is hard to doubt premises #1 and #2.  We can indeed  
conceive of alternatives to any matter of fact.  And it seems like a  
basic feature of a contradiction that it is inconceivable.  (Try to  
conceive of a circular square.  Now try to conceive that gremlins  
exist.  Notice the difference?)  Premise #3 is therefore the crucial  
step in the argument -- and Hume's most central assumption about  
reasoning. 

How does the above argument relate to Hume's argument that  
we never have any reason to believe any unobserved matter of fact?   
I shall briefly but formally state Hume's argument against induction,  
then see how it relates to his central assumption about reasoning. 

1. All knowledge comes either from observation or reason. 

2. Knowledge of unobserved matters of fact can't come from  
reason, because the alternative to any matter of fact is conceivable  
and therefore implies no contradiction. 

3. Knowledge of unobserved matters of fact can be derived  
from knowledge of observed matters of fact only if the law of  
cause-and-effect is known. 

3a. Reason cannot establish the law of cause-and-effect,  
because the alternative is conceivable and therefore implies no  
contradiction. 

3b. Observation alone cannot establish the law of cause-and- 
effect, because this is itself an unobserved matter of fact, so the  
argument would be circular. 

Therefore, we never have any reason to believe any unobserved  
matter of fact. 

Let us now cross-examine these two formal arguments, and  
see why Hume's assumption about reason (premise#3 in the first  
argument) is crucial for his second argument to work.  Interestingly,  
it is actually used twice in the second argument - in premises#2 and  
3a.  Premise #2 claims that we cannot come to know about  
unobserved matters of fact just by reasoning about them.  Why?   
Because the contrary to every matter of fact is conceivable,  
conceivable things are not contradictions, and reason does nothing  
except locate the presence or absence of contradictions.  Premise  
#3a claims that we cannot come to know the law of cause-and- 
effect just by reasoning about it.  Why?  Because the contrary of the  
law of cause-and-effect is conceivable, conceivable things are not  
contradictions, and reason does nothing except locate the presence  
or absence of contradictions. 

So Hume's basic assumption about reasoning is absolutely  
crucial at both steps.  Suppose someone had a different theory of  
reasoning. Hume's argument would fall apart.  A critic could accept  
everything else that Hume says, but claim that reason does more  
than merely locate the presence or absence of contradictions.   
Perhaps we use reason to directly justify our beliefs about  
unobserved matters of fact.  Or perhaps we use reason to justify the  
law of cause-and-effect (major premise), coupled with our  
knowledge of observed matters of fact (minor premise), to justify  
our beliefs about unobserved matters of fact (conclusion).  In either  
case, Hume's problem of induction dissolves. 

Only if reason is as weak as Hume says would his skepticism  
about induction follow.  But Hume never proves the weakness of  
reason.  Instead, he accepts the weakness as a basic premise,  
claiming that no one denies it:  "[W]hatever we conceive is possible,  
at least in a metaphysical sense: but wherever a demonstration  
takes place, the contrary is impossible, and implies a  
contradiction.  And this is a principle, which is generally allowed by  
philosophers."7  Since his conclusions differ so radically from those  
of earlier philosophers, Hume should have considered that they might  
not accept the same conception of reason.  At the very least, he  
should have argued for his position, instead of just asserting that,  
"To form a clear idea of any thing, is an undeniable argument for its  
possibility, and is alone a refutation of any pretended demonstration  
against it."8  But is it?  Only if we accept Hume's view of reason in  
the first place, according to which reason does nothing except locate  
the presence or absence of contradictions.  How would Hume  
convince someone who didn't already agree?  I don't think that he  
could. 

4. An Alternative Conception of Reason 

Consider the claim: Circular arguments are invalid.  Think  
about it for a while.  You can see that it is true -- but how?  Even  
though Hume himself uses this principle in his argument, we could  
never justify it on his principles.  The denial is not a contradiction.   
We can at least conceive that "Some circular arguments are valid" is  
true.  But at the same time, this principle is not a mere matter of  
fact.  Once we grasp the principle, we see that it is true always and  
everywhere; moreover, we grasp it by the mere operation of thought.   
Or consider the claim: The argument ad hominem is a fallacy.  Again,  
the denial is not a contradiction; yet we grasp that it is universally  
true with the mere operation of thought. 
I think that these two claims are convincing counter- 
arguments to Hume's conception of reason.  Reason does more than  
merely discover the presence of absence of contradictions.   
Frequently, we justify necessary truths just by thinking about them;  
and sometimes, the opposite of these necessary truths is still  
conceivable and hence not a contradiction.  What is so amazing about  
this claim?  It just turns out that Hume underestimates the power  
of reason when he limits it to locating the presence or absence of  
contradictions. 

I probably won't convince anyone in so brief a presentation.   
But at least let me raise some doubts in the minds of convinced  
Humeans.  Hume claims that reason cannot justify the law of cause- 
and-effect.  I think that it plainly does.  We grasp that "Circular  
arguments are invalid" and "The argument ad hominem is false" by  
the pure operation of thought, even though their opposites are  
conceivable and hence not contradictions.  I say that we justify the  
claim "Every effect has a cause; the same cause always produces the  
same effect"  in exactly the same manner. Namely, we think about  
the claim; and if we are sufficiently intelligent, open-minded, and  
intellectually honest, we immediately see its truth. 

5. Conclusion 

Hume assumes that reasoning can do nothing except locate the  
presence or absence of contradictions.  Moreover, his argument that  
we never have any reason to believe any unobserved matter of fact  
crucially depends on this unproven assumption.  For if reason could  
do something more than locate the presence or absence of  
contradictions, we could use reason to justify our claims about  
unobserved matters of fact.  Reason might directly give us a reason  
to believe unobserved matters of fact; or, reason might give us a  
reason to believe the law of cause-and-effect, which coupled with  
immediate observations would give us a reason to believe  
unobserved matters of fact.   

I have not proved that this alternative conception of reason is  
correct.  But we should at least consider it.  Not only do the  
examples in the section four tend to support it; but it is also the  
most likely escape route from the long list of absurd conclusions  
Hume's premises imply.  No one accepts Hume's conclusions in  
practice; it is time to question his theory as well. 
 
Notes 

1: David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding,  
pp.15-16. 
2: ibid, p.22. 
3: David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, pp.86-87. 
4: ibid, p.89. 
5: David Hume, Abstract of a Treatise of Human Nature, pp.13- 
14. 
6: ibid, p.17. 
7: ibid, p.14. 
8: A Treatise of Human Nature, op. cit., p.89. 

One session of leaning : learn as fast as possible--that is to say the words in order with no review until the end of the book. A different session should be in depth with review of each paragraph ten times.]

  I wanted to mention Rav Nahman  said to learn as fast as possible--that is to say the words in order with no review until the end of the book and then review. This method I have found helpful in all branches of learning. The Oral and Written Law.  [One session of learning should be this fast type. A different session should be in depth with review of each paragraph ten times.]

  His advice applies just as well to Physics and Math. That is based on my idea that these are just as much as a part of Torah learning based on my understanding of the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda. [The first time I became aware of this was in fact learning the Musar book of Benjamin the Doctor, Maalat HaMidot where he discusses the greatness of learning Torah and in another different section he discuses the greatness of learning Wisdom. Having  two separate chapters means that he understood that these are not the same thing.]

w82 D Major   w82 midi   w82 nwc  [w82 mp3]

Principles of Torah as opposed to principles of the religious world.

Principles of Torah as opposed to principles of the religious world.
The religious world can be understood as a kind of super-organism that is discussed in Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle.

Jewish identity is a major principle in the religious world because only with that superficial appearance of Jewishness is it possible to make money and gain power over others.

Needless to say this is not a principle of Torah in which Jewish identity means nothing. What matters in Torah is to keep the commandments of God.

In the religious world there is  a basic attempt to build a power structure than appears Jewish, but in fact is quite different than Torah. The religious world takes it as a beginning assumption,-- not just that they are better than others and smarter. But that is not it at all. If that was the case, then others might be thought to be good, and the religious world would be better. But that is not the difference. Rather, the religious world assumes that all others are evil, and only they themselves are good.

However, this principle is covered and concealed, since they need money from secular Jews. So there is a kind of pretense that "We are all one happy family."❤

On the other hand the basic guiding principle  of the Litvak world used to be based on the Gra and Rav Shach; that is to keep the Torah. The opposite is the "meme" [unit of social information] of the religious world which is how to seem like keeping the Torah. "Looks" is everything.

Since these are so contrary,  prefer to be separate from the religious world which is anti-Torah. Do not look religious. Do not lend support in any way to this terrible evil. 
What is the reason to to be separate from the religious world? The same reason why one keeps away from a virus so as not to become infected.

[It seems to me to add that the Litvak world itself seems to have fallen from the high ideals of the Gra and Rav Shach. I can not be sure. People in the Litvak yeshivas might be able to be in a better position than I to be able to tell.]

We find in the Gemara that R. Yohanan ben Zakai  knew דבר גדול ודבר קטן מהוא דבר גדול מעשה בראשית ומעשה מרכבה ומהוא דבר קטן הוייות באביי ורבא. [Translation: "He knew great things and a small things. What are great things? The Divine Chariot of Ezekiel and the work of Creation. What are small things? The discussions of Abyee and Rava (which are a major part of the Talmud)"] So what are these מעשה בראשית ומעשה מרכבה? The Rambam says quite openly that these refer to Physics and Metaphysics as studied by the ancient Greeks. You see this same approach in the first and most important book of Musar, Obligations of the Heart [Hovot Levavot by Ibn Pakuda.]

So this same idea that you see in the parable of the king in his palace in the Guide of the Rambam.
There you have a king in his country. The closer you get to the king, the higher the level of the person is. Those in the capital city are those that keep the Law of Moses. Those around the palace are those that learn Talmud. Those inside the palace in the outer chambers are the physicists. In the inner chamber are the prophets.

Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom thought very poorly of the Humanities departments and Social Studies in universities. Not that he thought to shut their doors once and for all. Rather he thought they face a crisis that had been developing since around around 1600. What is the natural man? Noble, blank, or evil? What is the self? But unless there would be an answer, he surely thought these two parts of universities ought to be closed. [But he would have agreed with STEM and Technical schools].

But he like other great thinkers thought that the USA was great. The only question was how to keep up that degree of excellence.

You see in the deepest philosophers nowadays this one constant factor belief in the greatness of America. Hegel called the USA "the State of the future" as Walter Kaufman brings and I vaguely recall seeing that myself in Hegel--I think.]. Even Howard Bloom [the Lucifer Principle.]

[This would bring a question why Hegel has been used for everything except to support the idea of the Constitution of USA. This clearly ties in to the fact that most people that major in philosophy lose their common sense [or start out without much ]. So they find rich ideas in Hegel, and use them in destructive ways. For some reason Hegel is used a lot by Marxists in exactly the opposite way he intended.]

Torah of the Dark Side.

What exactly was the reason or the issue that Rav Nahman of Breslov brings up in his LeM I:12 and I:28 about Torah scholars that are demons? I do not pretend to  reach the depth of Rav Nahman's thoughts. However I would suggest that the issue is that there is such a thing as straight Torah--that is the kind of Torah that I would learn in Litvak Yeshivas that is the basic attitude that, "we have only one doctrine: to learn what the Torah says, and to keep it."
That is the basic approach of the Gra, Rav Israel Salanter  and Rav Shach.
But there is also Torah of the Dark Side. Rav Nahman actually warns us in the   LeM ["hashmatot" printed in the back in most recent editions.]

video for String Theory

I ought to add here that to really get to String Theory, one ought to get through Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory first. [ Even though QFT is different than String Theory still, it is hard to understand Strings without first having a background in QFT.]

Brian Greene for Quantum Mechanics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFrBr8oUVXU

The Infra Red Telescope of NASA will be looking for planets that are possible for humans to live in.
When was the Infrared telescope invented?





Photo in Life Magazine about the first infra-red telescope.

July, 1954; page 24

This would be the first of its kind invented by Philip  Rosenblum.


The question however is even after finding a new world, how to get there? For that we need to study String Theory. This is to be able to find some crack in spacetime=some way of making a worm hole. After all, we can not go faster than light. So to get anywhere in our galaxy, we need to skip over [or under] space time, not go through it.

Now there is some kind of fundamental existence that is not space or time. This is actually stated in Lemaitre who discovered that the universe is expanding. [Friedman discovered that Einstein equations do have solution than can expand or contract.] 

Anti Enlightenment started almost at the same time as the Enlightenment. And Allan Bloom claims that this difficulty is what is at the root of the malice and sickness in the universities.

But he leaves out Kant and Hegel. Why? [I think that he must have thought they did not solve the problem-- even though clearly both meant to.]

I wrote all this before so why am I repeating this? Because of an added thought that Friedrich Jacobi  was on the opposite side of the Enlightenment and it was his idea of faith [or immediate knowledge [not through reason] and not through the senses] that was a target of Hegel.
This is in spite of the fact that both Kant and were trying to get to God--the Absolute Spirit.
But they thought that subjective faith was not the way.

The other interesting thought is that the root of this difficulty in some way I think was even back in the Middle Ages when the conflict between Reason and Faith was a major issue. But in the Middle Ages it was thought that there must be a way to synthesize them.

W81 G minor  [w81 in midi format] [w81 nwc]

w80 in mp3 format   w80 in midi format [w80 nwc format]

Rav Nahman of Breslov had a wealth of great ideas and advice but his main emphasis was on medicine for people's soul's. Medicine is not the same as food. So while Rav Nahman has great advice for particular problems, that does not mean to simple decide "to be Breslov". You might ask what is wrong with that? The problem is it is like a kid walking into a pharmacy, and picking out all the different medicines that have pretty colors.  Is there any question about how long this would last?

That is why I tend to emphasize the Gra and the Musar approach of Rav Israel Salanter in order to have an idea of the basic structure of Torah. Then within that context, Rav Nahman can be very helpful.

I learned a lot from my experiences at Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway and the Mir. And I learned a lot from the great sages, Rav Freifeld, the founder of Shar Yashuv and Rav Shmuel Berenbaum. I mean to say it was not just book learning, but also I stuck around these great sages and thus learned a lot by osmosis.

[However it was not until later when learning with David Bronson, that the basic in depth learning approaches of Shar Yashuv and the Mir began to sink in.]]

[Rav Nahman emphasized learning fast and Litvak yeshivot emphasize learning in depth. So what is best in balance. To have some sessions fast and others in depth.]

you really understand more than you know.

It seems to me that I ought to add one thing about learning whether the Oral or Written Law or Math and Physics. I mentioned already the idea of "Girsa" [saying the words and going on]. But I wanted to add the idea of starting each day where you left off until you finish the book. [That is for the important fast session. The in-depth sessions should be with more review.]
But this depends on the idea that you really understand more than you know. You think that you did not understand. But in fact, it gets absorbed and grows in the secret recesses of your heart and mind and comes to fruition only years later.

Michael Huemer holds that no government is legit. But also he is for capitalism. So for security he would have private firms.
It kind of reminds me of when the Roman Empire fell and who ever could get enough people to back him up made a castle in which people could have protection from the roving bands of robbers that filled the vacuum. And for the security that the lord of the castle provided people worked for him as serfs. I.e the feudal system.

Now I am not being critical of that. After all the feudal system is one stage that led to the Renaissance.
But the  critique that applies is the contained in the Federalist papers. There there is a not a lot of history but they are assuming their readers are familiar with the history of places that bounced back and forth between tyranny and anarchy from the fall of Rome until their days. So they were not happy with the idea of anarchy, or even a weak government.
One point in the Federalist papers was that those who profess to speak for the right of the people always bring about tyranny. Even more recently we have seen plenty of examples--the USSR, Nazi Germany are just two more famous examples of demigods who got power by their constant claim of upholding the right of the people [i.e. Ethnic Germans of the "working class"] against the government.

One thing that might make the American Constitution better than schemes of philosophers is that teh founding fathers were learning from history more than philosophy. The thing is nowadays no one really knows the history that they were learning from except experts in those areas. The warring Italian states ( in Greece) provided plenty of material for the founding fathers of the USA to learn from mistakes of "all power to the people" that goes directly to tyranny; and then that is thrown off again to all power to the people etc.

Tosphot Ri''d right in the beginning of Kidushin

kinyan sudar [acquisition by handkerchief] and kinyan halifin [acquisition by barter] are kind of similar. But there is  a difference according to Tosphot in Bava Metzia 47 and Rav Shach brings in the beginning of laws of marriage that you see the same in the Rambam.

The handkerchief does not need a penny. But for acquisition by barter each thing needs to be at least a penny.
So this provides a simple answer for the Tosphot Ri''d right in the beginning of Kidushin that says if the handkerchief would have a penny's worth the marriage would be valid.
If the handkerchief would be exchanged for the a barter then the marriage would be valid.

This is however a bit awkward. The only thing the gemara actually excludes from being able to marry a woman is halifin/barter. To get this to make sense you would have to say that the Gemara is really referring to kinyan sudar. Now on one hand kinyan sudar is a kind of barter, but still the whole thing is curious.

[For people that are not familiar with these ideas let me just say that the basic idea of the handkerchief is brought in the Book of Ruth and it means the one that is buying something hand over a handkerchief and by that acquires what he is buying. And he can get his handkerchief back. [Or any kind of vessel.] It is like barter in some ways. So for example when I get married at the signing of the Ketubah I would have to hand over a handkerchief and by that acquire the property of my wife for its fruits--not that actual physical property which she still owns. Only the fruit. So when we say מה שקנה אישה קנה בעלה what a woman acquire automatically is acquired to her husband means property that she acquires after she is already married.

if one gets up in the morning and is right away accepting on himself the yoke of Torah, that is that he or she will not listen to anyone and not let anything distract him or her, then on that he he will succeed in Torah;- and according to the degree of commitment, to that same degree there will be removed from him the yoke of the state and the yoke of having to run around for making a living.

Rav Haim of Voloshin [a disciple of the Gra] that it is a well tested thing that if one gets up in the morning and is right away accepting on himself the yoke of Torah, that is that he or she will not listen to anyone and not let anything distract him or her, then on that he he will succeed in Torah;- and according to the degree of commitment, to that same degree there will be removed from him the yoke of the state and the yoke of having to run around for making a living. [note 1]

[This same idea is brought in Avot which is a part of the Mishna]

I want to add to this Physics and Mathematics as brought in some rishonim [but not all.] We know already the opinion of the Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam. However the Ramban [Nahmanides] is less clear."Less clear "means we know he is not thrilled about Aristotle, but what about learning the natural sciences? There the Ramban/Nahmanides  is unclear to me. At least the Rambam we know  what he thinks.

[Few people are aware of this. They think of learning as something you do with a goal in mind of using the learning somehow. They do not see learning in itself as the highest goal. תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם

[note 1] אמר רב חיים מוואלשין דבר מנוסה כשאדם ישכים בבוקר ויקבל על עצמו ביום ההוא  עול תורה באמת  היינו שיגמור בליבו שלא ישמע לשום אדם ולא יבטלנו שום טרדה אזי יצליח ביום ההוא בתורה וכפי גודל הקבלה ותוקף ההסכמה כן יסירו הטרדות והביטולים ממנו 

I must admit I am no where near this great level of service of God, but I just wanted to bring this in the hope of conveying understanding to others and then I hope that like a mirror perhaps a little bit of understanding will enter into me too.

Politics the way it is, as opposed to how intellectuals think it ought to be.

There is an odd kind of dividing line between the way politics really is a the way intellectuals think it ought to be.

Prosperity and freedom  go hand in hand along with the influence of England. The difference between any place that has once been an English colony and anywhere else is striking. The USA Australia, Hong Kong, India etc. [Any place that has once had English law imposed on it by force is now free and prosperous.  Even Japan which had English institutions imposed on it (by the USA) by force is now a first world power. ]

And yet England and its institutions were never founded on deep philosophical ideas.
Even the very existence of Parliament was because Edward I needed money. [Edward I is not my favorite English King.] [Can you imagine if England's institutions had been founded on some philosopher? Right about that. It would be a disaster.]

Is maybe politics is inherently not an exact science. Still how people that analyze it get it so wrong is curious. Why should it be more wrong that other things that are not exact sciences like medicine? Or maybe that is exactly the point? Medicine also tends to be highly subjective.


Edward I needed money. the heads of towns and villages had revenue by not the king. So the king made Parliament so the representative had to give money to the king in order to be able to sit in Parliament. That is no representation without taxation.

[I am not being critical of all people that think of a connection between politics and philosophy.
Kelley Ross of the Kant Friesian school of thought does suggest a connection between Kant idea of individual autonomy and the system of the USA Constitution. That seems to be right.]
Michael Huemer holds from no government but with private property. However this issue was addressed o the Federalist Papers. The idea of separate corporations being in charge of security seems to be destined to be such that alliances are made between them that anyway become a default government based on power and force.

Bell's inequality

Things they just do not have classical values of time or position in space until measured. Because of Bell's inequality it could have been the case that things are simultaneous or that things do not have classical values. Since the first way is not true since we know that Relativity is right so the only thing left is the second.The actual case in hand was thought up by Einstein and it was Bell who showed the predictions of QM are different than classical mechanics. At any rate, we know that time is just this very odd kind of thing. It was already odd with special relativity. It just got even more odd with Bell. Kant thought that reason just can not understand it at all. But with Hegel there is hope since reason can make progress towards understanding.

[How do we know that Relativity is right? By GPS satellites. If Relativity would be off they would be off by a few miles every day.]


The point that lots of people get wrong is they think there is simultaneity.  There was a lecture by Coleman and another by Gell-Mann showing this point that I said up above.

w79 G major   [w79 in midi format]

We know Saadia Gaon was aware of mysticism. He wrote a commentary on Sefer Yezira. But did not think of it as authoritative. He did not borrow or use any idea from there when it came to understanding spiritual issues in his Emunot VeDeot.

Not did Ibn Pakuda [Author of the Obligations of the Hearts] nor the Rambam think of mysticism as a source or reliable knowledge, nor  a part of the commandment of learning Torah. When both of them expand the definition of learning Torah to include Physics and Metaphysics they do not include mysticism.

When the Rambam refers to Metaphysics he says quite openly in the Intro to the Guide  that he is referring to this subject as written down by the ancient Greeks. [Same with the Obligations of the Hearts on the first page of his introduction. And see later in Shar Ha'Behina 3.]

[I find great insights in the works of mystics like Rav Avraham Abulafia of the Middle Ages, but I do not consider that to be  a part of the written or oral law. Those are his personal revelations. Similarly to Rav Nahman of Breslov. In fact, if someone would be claiming that their personal insights come from Moses at Sinai, that would be  a problem. An example would be the Zohar. Insightful, but presented as being a part of the oral tradition. There is a kind of dishonesty in that.]

[Isaac of Acco met the author who exclaimed, may God strike him dead if he does not have a original copy in his house,-- and he would show him. But before Isaac got to his house, the author in fact died. [How inconvenient.] His wife swore there was no such original. (She said he sat there with nothing in front of him, and wrote it from his head.) But to me, the sure give away is "עם כל דא" a way of saying "although" invented by the Ibn Tibon family. I just can not force myself to read what is obviously a forgery, no matter how inspiring it might be.]


[Just for the record, I did learn a lot of the Ari/Rav Isaac Luria however I understand him as being like Rav Nahman in that he is just saying over his personal revelations, and not claiming that they are from Sinai. I never saw anything in the Ari that was claiming that these were oral traditions going back in time. ]

Instead of fiction I suggest Physics and Math. Why is it that people gravitate towards fiction? Because it is relaxing. However that does not mean not to do Physics at all. People have an idea that if they do not understand then what is the point? But there is a point. To be connected with the Wisdom of God.
So what people need is to first have the idea that they are not wasting their time by doing so and rather that they are fulfilling a commandment of God.

[As the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] explain that to fulfill the commandment of love and fear of God is by learning Physics and Metaphysics. (When Rishonim like Ibn Pakuda or the Rambam refer to Metaphysics they explain exactly what they mean: the subject as defined by the ancient Greeks. Not mysticism. See the very introduction to the Guide of the Rambam and the very first page of the Obligations of the Hearts.]

Also people need the idea of doing this first thing in the morning after a cup of coffee.
If school is out, this is all the better. You get a chance to do this before having to run out and get to school or to work. After all, it is the first hour after you wake up that is the proper time to do this learning.

[Also I would suggest to have coffee and tea in the same cup. The reason the kind of lift that you get from coffee is a short burst. The lift from tea is more drawn out over a longer period.]

As Allan Bloom said the political question is solved once and for all: the Constitution of the USA

There is an intersection between philosophy and politics. But what is it exactly and why is it? And why does it always seem to get politics in a way that seems contrary to sense?
Politics should be the art of creating a prosperous and happy society. As Allan Bloom said the political question is solved once and for all: the Constitution of the USA. But that came about with almost zero input from philosophy. Few had even heard of John Locke.  They simply did not want Parliament interfering with their internal affairs. And when the King refused to back up the colonists, then that was the end of their loyalty towards George III.
The Constitution had mainly to do with the evolution of English Law.

Philosophy on the other hand seems to build these castles in the sky that have nothing to do with reality.

When I was in high school I saw  a film about the black plague. And from my reading about history I have an idea of what plagues were like. This seems to be different.
It might not be made by Communist China in order to cripple the economy of the USA, but it might have been a convenient chance to do so.

I mean to say that I grew up during a time when there was a kind of rivalry between the USSR and the USA. And in spite of attempts, and even many people of good will on both sides, still there was still the reality of each side hoping the other would go down.

I would not be surprised if China was thinking along the same lines--to see the end of the capitalistic West. 

w78 G Major  [w78 in midi format]

Robert Hanna suggested a way to differentiate between different Kantian  and Husserl approaches. Strong and weak. So in terms of "dinge an sich" (things in themselves) there might be the strong transcendental,-- we can not know not even if they exist. The weak approach might be: They exist, but we do not know anything about them.  Hegel would say to this we do not know now,- but we will in the future.

You actually see this in Rav Nahman [Breslov] in the left out parts of the LeM {Hashmatot} where he says that when Reason was first created it was expanding without limit. And then God set a boundary for it. So that boundary can be itself expanding.

[Robert Hanna was not the first to notice the problems with 20th century philosophy. It might have been Allan Bloom. In any case I saw this first in the blog of Dr. Kelley Ross, who is also suggesting a kind if "forward to Kant" but in particular the brand of Leonard Nelson and Fries. However I can see that Hegel and other people after Kant had some good points. And a further confusing issue is how does anything in philosophy relate political structures?]

[Kant had a few people after him and Fries was one of the least popular. However he does have a justification for faith that makes sense to me.]

Laws of Slaves. Section 5. law 3 in the Rambam. Letting a slave go free in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri

The basic idea of letting a slave go free comes from a Gemara and is brought in Laws of Slaves. Section 5. law 3 in  the Rambam. Kinyan Sudar [handkerchief] does not work to the Rambam. but it does to the Raavad. [Normally letting a slave go free is by a document, or money, or injury. So what about exchange? or Handkerchief?  The handkerchief might work if it has a penny's worth.  This seems to be an argument between the Rambam and Raavad. But neither makes a distinction if the handkerchief is worth more than a penny!]
This comes directly from a Gemara where in fact someone tried to let his maid servant go by throwing a vessel at her. He threw it and said "by this you are let go". Rav Nahman [of the Gemara, not of Breslov] said that does not work. And the Gemara concludes the reason is because the vessel belonged to the owner.
So if it had belonged to the maid servant she would have been freed. So this looks like a straightforward proof to the Tosphot Ri''d that marrying by means of a handkerchief would work of the handkerchief is worth more than a pruta/penny.

What makes this hard to understand is that barter itself ("halifin") does seem to be in the category of money since it works only if each object is worth more than a penny. And that is not the same as with acquisition by handkerchief.

So could Lincoln legally free the slaves? It seems to me that it was not legal simply because the Constitution granted to Federal government only specific powers.  If he had powers granted by the Constitution that however would have been Okay. But it seems that that was not one of the powers granted to a president. As for the war itself, that I guess has been argued about but it also seems almost as clear as the first point--but not as clear. After all it seems not to be within the right of the Federal government to force the states to stay within the Union. It also seems like over stepping the bounds of the powers granted by the Constitution. 

I see that Robert Hanna brings down a whole long list of many people in philosophy departments that have noticed the bareness  and irrelevance of philosophy today. However I have to say that the first to bring this issue up was the Allan Bloom in the Closing of the American Mind.

I would like to suggest is that people in philosophy got too hung up on "making progress". What was wrong with learning philosophy as Socrates understood it--as effort to understand the world.

Not get academic "browny points".

 Rav Nahman [Breslov] said a correction for for sexual sin is to say the ten psalms 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.
This was said mainly for the case of "nocturnal pollution" however it applies to all kind of sexual sin and in fact to all other types of sin also as you can see in the LeM of Rav Nahman vol I section 19.
[That is the reason for the name "Tikun Klali"--general correction].


Also especially nowadays when people have more free time I want to bring up the issue of private conversation with God that he suggested. [This was not meant in place of formal prayer, but this was something that he himself spent a lot of time doing.] He even said that one that really wishes to serve God ought to go out to some private place in the woods of wilderness and spend the whole day talking with God in one's own language.

In terms of learning he suggested saying the words and going on. This was not meant to replace learning in depth. But sometimes learning in depth is not possible until one gets the general idea in the first place. This he meant to be done for learning the two Talmuds and Midrashim and Rif, and Rosh and Tur. But I also think it applies to Physics and Mathematics as per the Rishonim that held these too are a part of the commandment to learn Torah.

You see in the Mir in NY and all Lithuanian yeshivas based on the Gra that the morning is spent on in depth learning and the afternoon on learning fast. I recall walking by the place where Rav Shmuel Berenbaum [One of the teachers at the Mir] was learning in the afternoon and saw that through the course of one afternoon, he would go through at least ten or more pages.
[That means according to the way of learning fast in the afternoon at the Mir. That was Gemara with Tosphot--but just fast. That was not same as the in depth learning in the morning. But the morning in depth really just meant preparing fir the class of one of the four teachers depending on whose class you were in.  And their classes were a mix of Rishonim and later authorities. That is why it is hard to explain. The best I can do to give you an idea of what that means is to learning Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. That will give you an idea of what the average class at teh Mir was like.

Rule of the stupid. When respect for reason falls, monsters are born (teachers and students of Psychology).

 The IQ of people in universities  is not the same among different departments. The highest IQ people are the  Physics students and teachers. The lowest are the teachers and students of Psychology. But the latter are the one that determine the curriculum of schools and even who is considered sane in the larger society. So what we have is the rule of the stupid.  That is that the most stupid are the one who control the direction of society.

When respect for reason falls, monsters are born.

Faith and Reason was  not exactly a new idea in the Middle Ages. To combine Torah with Plato was already around from Philo. But to get the way they fit together was a Middle Ages invention. It was not to interpret the Bible as an allegory.

But faith with reason underwent a change because of Descartes's Mind-Body problem. Where is mind and reason valid? What do they measure. To get to the original synthesis of the Middle ages of Revelation with Reason you need to understand to extent and validity of reason.

How far can you trust spiritual experiences to tell you accurate data? Maybe a lot? Maybe not where it disagrees with Reason? But then where is the realm of Reason? 

To my way of thinking Kant and Hegel are helpful to answer these questions. Yet Hegel has been significantly mangled up by people wishing to use his rich wealth of ideas for their political purposes. And Kant is not so much behind that in terms of  misuse.

My opinion is that both the school of thought of Leonard Nelson based on Fries and Kant is helpful along with Hegel. I do not see them as much in conflict as is  thought.

With Fries you have faith-i.e. immediate non intuitive knowledge. That is knowledge not based on reason or senses for areas outside of "conditions of experience." But with Hegel you find that reason can get through the veil of perception by means of dialectic. So while reason is to some degree  a negative force limiting what you can know, it also makes progress towards the Absolute Spirit.

https://www.infowars.com/watch-alex-jones-message-to-the-new-world-order/

They are saying that Dr Fauci has not seen a patient for 20 years. He is an academic in an ivory tower. He based his conclusions on models which were wildly wrong.  Now that actual data is in we can see the difference between what was predicted by models as opposed to actual facts.
However I think this is  a great opportunity to catch up on figuring out how to building star ships.

D Major index number w76

people can believe a lot of stuff

You can see that people can believe a lot of stuff. And often it is a mixed bag. So you can also see why after clarity was brought into nature and gravity by Isaac Newton, that people thought they could extend that same process to bring clarity into things like politics, or spiritual issues.

But the attempts of philosophy, nor of political science actually succeed. Still there has been some progress. Though it can not be proven, still it looks that Kant was right about the limits of reason. So that also places limits on what you can talk about in terms of spiritual matters. [I mean that logic has limits and also limits about what you can say about spiritual things.] And Politics also made great progress in the creation of the Constitution of the USA.

Some people noted that philosophy after Kant and Hegel [especially 20th century] went seriously off the wires, crash dived,  wiped out. But as Robert Hanna made note of, much of the effort to get things back on track was ignored. John Searle made a famous comment about most of twentieth century philosophy, "It is obviously false."
[I am not sure why Robert Hanna does not mention Leonard Nelson or Hegel.]



[Robert Hanna came up with the idea "Forward To Kant" but does not hold from the Neo-Kant School of thought-- Marburg. So what about Leonard Nelson? Or Hegel? Now Hegel tends to be a bit obscure, however he becomes clear with McTaggart. [I only learned McTaggart a little bit but mainly I saw his commentary on Hegel's Logic--that is the part of his Encyclopedia.] So I think after you would throw out twentieth century philosophy, you would still end up with having to get back to Nelson and McTaggart. 

Rav Shach brings the Tosphot Bava Metzia page 47 [in the beginning of Laws of Marriage in the Rambam]

Rav Shach brings the Tosphot Bava Metzia page 47 [in the beginning of Laws of Marriage in the Rambam] that says there are two kinds of exchange: (1) barter and (2) handkerchief. [It does not have to be a  handkerchief. It could be any vessel.] The buyer takes a handkerchief and gives it to the seller and by that acquires the vessels or whatever the seller is selling. Now actual barter only works for vessels. Not fruit for fruit. But barter has to be for least a penny on both sides. The "kinyan sudar" does not need to be worth a pruta (penny).
But the barter does not have a law of overcharging, because this one wants a  needle and that one wants a coat of armor. [In that way barter is not like monetary exchange. But kinyan Sudar is  not like monetary exchange from the side of its own worth, but what about overcharging if it is used to seal a deal? There are so many questions here about the opinions and reasons for the Rambam I can see why Rav Shach just wrote this piece in short form.]

So barter  has this odd kind of  state. It is on the first way like a deal made with money. But the other side of things it is not like money. Deals made with money have  a law of overcharging. [Up to 1/5 the money is returned. More than 1/5 the deal is nullified.] 
So we know what the Tosphot R''id holds in terms of marriage. He spells it out. If the handkerchief is more than a penny's worth it is a deal made by money [so valid].

But the Rambam? Would he agree? I think not. After all the whole difference about the barter is not really relevant to the handkerchief. There seems to be no reason to think the Rambam would agree with the Ri''d.

Remember Lot's Wife: Diabolical Narcissism, the Overarching Global Pathology

American history

 But I believe American history is not taught well.  My eyes opened when I read Daniel Defoe's pamphlets from the 1700's and I began to see where all the issues that were facing the founding fathers all stemmed from: England. The powers of the King as opposed to Parliament.
I believe that without thorough knowledge of English history that American history is impossible to understand. In particular the years from 1700 until 1776.
[It is a lot easier to understand the Bill of Rights if you see the same issues in England.]



I think to understand the USA at all, one needs to start from Edward I and in fact even William the Conqueror.


I should add that I got real criticism from the teacher of AP History. And he was right. I had no feeling or concept of USA history. But what was I lacking? I realized what I was lacking recently when I read Daniel Defoe. [I recall that I passed the class, but still what was lacking in my understanding? It now know it was the background of the issues back into English history.] 

Yuri Bezmenov, KGB Defector,

From Info Wars: Yuri Bezmenov, KGB Defector, warned Americans of the scientific demoralization campaigns waged in media decades ago. Learn to identify these techniques aimed at subverting American culture.

His basic point was that most of the funds that the KGB had were being used on disinformation and specifically directed to subvert the USA into Socialism.

To me it seems that until the files can be reopened it would be impossible to understand the exact involvement of the KGB in turning the USA towards Socialism. Obvious there has been a tremendous success in that direction. Even though Democrats do not use the word "socialism", still a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Socialism by any other name would still be socialism.  

I discussed this once with a friend that used to work for the KGB and his opinion was that the KGB did not have the resources that could have subverted  the USA. And now I can see his point. Still what exactly were their activities? And how much of the turn was because of the KGB and how much was simply the fact that many intellectuals believed in socialism. It does not have to be a plot. Still the whole history of this affair is curious. You have got to wonder if Russia would ever be willing to let research again into the KGB archives?

I ought to be upfront about my own beliefs just for the record. I do not hold at all from socialism. The reason is mainly that I think people have a right to their hard earned money. That is I believe in the Ten Commandments. Specifically:  "Thou shalt not steal". So I see no merit in stealing from the rich based on some ideology that says that they themselves must have stolen it or other excuses.

Rav Avraham Abulafia went to debate with the pope.

It is well known that Rav Avraham Abulafia went to debate with the pope. The way the events are related is that people were sent to arrest him as he reached the gates of Rome. But somehow or other they could not stop him. At that point the pope ran away to another city.

Now on one hand hand Rav Abulafia had a high opinion about Jesus. So that probably was not the issue of what he wanted to debate. But he had a low opinion of the Catholic church. So maybe that was one of the issues?

[Maybe the Trinity? It seems impossible on one hand, however Hegel seems to have an approach that to me seems reminiscent of the Neo Platonic school of Plotinus.]

There is a book by professor Moshe Idel Sonship which goes into the issue of being a son of God as understood by mystics like Rav Abulafia in the Middle Ages.

 

The "seal of the sixth day" is how Jesus is referred to elsewhere inRav Abulafia That seems to be a reference to the idea in the Talmud about a of a messiah son of yoseph

I noted that most people have no idea of what sexual sin is. So just to make it clear the first category are the things mentioned in Leviticus 18 which are called עריות "revealing the nakedness". That is mostly with the same family but includes a menstruating woman and a married woman and sodomy.
But all those are the most serious as you can see by the punishment "Karet" being cut off from one's people and in most of them there is a death penalty.
But there are plenty of lesser categories in Deuteronomy which are all just plain prohibitions "Lavin".

[Like when it says an Egyptian should not come into the congregation for three generations. That is an example of a regular "Lav" prohibition. 


I mean to say that all sins in the Law of Moses are all plain prohibitions unless something like karet is specified.

 Rav Nahman  said that a kind of correction for sexual sin [what is called "Tikun HaKlali"] is to say ten psalms in order. [16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150]. But that is along the lines of repentance on sin.
Also he mentions going to [and into -totally] a natural body of water like an ocean or river. [That is anyway a good idea.]

[As the Gates of Repentance [Rav Yona of Gerondi] brings right in the beginning of his book that you can not repent until you have an accurate idea of what really is a sin and what is not.

One problem is that people make no distinctions in levels of sin. There are some sins that have "karet" as a spiritual cutting off from the next world or even the death penalty. Now a death penalty is only for things done on purpose.  But for lots of things like that that are done by accident there is a sacrifice. That is the sin offering. [Nowadays we do not bring that anymore since there is no Temple.] But for things that are just prohibitions there is no sacrifice nor any death penalty.