Translate

Powered By Blogger

2.7.20

The area of value that the Middle Ages were good at was content with less form. Later in what was called the Ages of Reason, there was a forte of Reason that recognizes form. [Universals].

So it makes sense that the natural sciences would be what would have started from Galileo and Newton. But the deep thinkers of the Middle Ages had their specialty in the area of content.

[I mean to be bringing an idea of Dr Kelley Ross  that Logic is all form not content. If A implies B and B implies C then if A is true the C is true. But the sentences can stand for anything.
Math has more content than logic since it can not be reduced to logic as per Godel. Physics has more content since it already physical, not just universals. Music even more content since than reducible to math. People have been trying to figure of the formulas of Bach for ages with no success. Then Justice and Right even less form. There are no algorithms to figure out what is moral. Then the realm of spirit is more content and less form. Then God is all content and no form. כי לא ראיתם כל תמונה ביום עמדכם בהר סיני

1.7.20

Image

Hitbodadut [private conversation with God]

 Rav Nahman says there are "Torah scholars that are demons" {LeM I:12}. That does not mean all. The problem is to know the difference.
The idea of Rav Nahman about private prayer I think works here. That is something that a disciple of Rav Nahman , Rav Natan, in fact says: Hitbodadut [private conversation with God] is a help for all things that one needs to come to in spiritual affairs.
Hitbodadut, Rav Nahman in fact said that one who wants to accept on himself the yoke of the service of God ought to spend the whole day in Hitbodadut. [Not just an hour as people think.]

  Rav Nahman did this all of his life. He would take a boat and row out into the middle of a river and spend the whole day praying and talking with God.

[The best approach to Hitbodadut I think is like Rav Nahman in fact emphasized that is to take a day off and go into a forest and spend the whole day talking and pleading with God for guidance and salvation.]]

The values of the Left are predictable. They are thus: "What ever the USA stands for, whatever it has done, is always wrong."

Self Esteem (Pride) in the Torah is a major sin. [In books of Musar it is explained that it is the root of all sin.]] Even though by  Hezekiah the king it does say, "his heart was raised up in the ways of God" in the verses there the implication is that since he had done well beforehand, then his heart was raised and he fell.
However to stand up against enemies does not require pride. It requires belief and trust in God.


The legacy of the USA has been trashed for years. The values of the Left are predictable. They are thus: "What ever the USA stands for, whatever it has done, is always wrong."
So to stand up for the USA does not require pride. It requires trust in God and to stand up for truth and justice and the American way in spite of obstacles and enemies.

From what I can tell this is the third WWIII. But being waged in a different way than previous wars.
Gog and Magog are predicted in the Old Testament to come three times. But here i seems to be more internal than the previous world wars. This is more along the line of war after the Sitra Achra has already entered the gates. This applies in the Jewish world where the dark Side has made its nest. and also in the larger world where the enemies of civilization are already inside the gates. So what seems to be the thing to do is to learn more Torah. That is to try to at least get through the two talmuds even without any commentary at all. [the first time.]

30.6.20

I am very fond of the Middle Ages.

I am very fond of the Middle Ages. In fact, in high school I used to carry around with me Dante. And I recall even trying to go through Bewolf in Ancient English.
So in Shar Yashuv and seeing the greatness of the Rishonim was right up my alley. [That is the general rule in Litvak yeshivas is after you have gotten the Tosphot down, you go to the three major rishonim, Rashba, Ramban [Nahmanides], and the Ritva. 

This idea that the middle ages had grains of truth and intensity that are entirely lacking nowadays.

And so my first gut reaction when I see Christians I think to myself, "These people need Thomas Aquinas." Same with Muslims. I think to myself, "If only they would be studying Ibn Rushd, Al Kindi and Al Farabi how much better the world would be."


But not to deny the importance of Physics and Math and advances in natural sciences. Nor to deny the greatness of Kant, and Leonard Nelson. But I just wonder why people nowadays seem to always look on the Middle Ages as some kind of quaint period that has nothing to teach us.

Though I admit the Rishonim  for me were hard to get into. I spent most of my time with the Maharsha and even commentaries on the Maharsha. I saw some of the amazing depth of Rishonim with Naphtali Yegeer in Shar Yashuv, and Rav Shemuel Berenbaum at the Mir. But it was hard for me to get to see that depth on my own until I started looking at the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

A lot of effort is going into the destruction of Christianity.

A lot of effort is going into the destruction of Christianity. And that I see in a tragic sense since even if I do not agree with all principles of Christianity, still I see that is an essential component of Western Civilization.

So while I can see the tremendous importance of the great Litvak yeshivas, like Ponovitch or Brisk, I also can see that there is a need for a new direction.

The issue with Litvak yeshivas is that they can become kind of cult like. Or at least borderline. They can (and in some cases do) get the idea that they are the centre of the universe, and everyone was created merely to give them money.
So while I can see the tremendous importance of the great Litvak yeshivas, like Ponovitch or Brisk, I also can see that there is a need for a new direction. That is a study hall [beit midrash] on the name of the Gra. In that way there would not be any ambiguity about the fact that learning Torah is not a means to be making money. and that the rest of us plebeians were not created to serve the needs of the elite. Torah was given to all Israel  and all are required to learn it. There is no special elite class that everyone else is supposed to serve. 
As for the issue with taking down the USA and Western civilization, my impression is that a lot starts with school. The Frankfurt school of philosophy seems to have penetrated in the USA Schools. I mean teaching dumb half baked philosophy is not illegal. But like Ayn Rand says it world views trickle down in the modern world from the philosophers. So when philosophy gets everything wrong no wonder the USA is going haywire.
Of all the schools of thought of the twentieth century it is hard to find anything of worth. Or as John Seale says: "Most of twentieth century philosophy is obviously false."
But to get a detailed critique refuting at least the side of the Analytic philosophy the best is Robert Hanna. [Thankfully thrown out of the University of Colorado just to show the state of universities nowadays!]
   

about the virus

My idea of what to do about the virus is that one ought to go to the ocean or nearby sea or river every day. Dip in and then do some exercise and the dip in again. [And by going to the sea I mean to walk.]]
The reason is that in the blood there are little things that seek out viruses. But for them to be active one needs to boost one's system by fresh air, exercise, and a dip in fresh water.

Beit Midrash HaGra

The beginning of yeshivas was unpaid. But they were not simply the local prayer hall. So the two words "yeshiva" and "beit midrash" are somewhat close to each other. But even before a yeshiva was a money making institution as they are today, still it was not simply unorganized. You could go through the history of these kinds of places. Still the modern history starts with Rav Chaim of Voloshin. Before him, they were under the control of the local rav who himself was hired by the home owners.
But after that, they became independent institutions. Students were still not paid. They paid the teachers. Now in Israel, the students get paid by the State of Israel.

The idea of Rav Haim was a kind of needs of the hour עת לעשות להשם time (to do something improper because of the needs of the hour.)
And the great Litvak yeshivas in fact came to represent Torah in its purist authentic form and essence.  And they were all based more or less on the path of the Gra. [The ideas and approach of the Gra became the official world view.]

Nowadays, what I suggest is to also have a place that would be a Beit Midrash HaGra. A place which would be more along the lines of how yeshiva used to be. That is: open to anyone who wants to study Torah.  But the idea would be that it would be directed openly along the path of the Gra.
The advantage of this is that it would take into account the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. Ignoring that has let the Dark Side [Sitra Achra] into the religious world. So with the name of the Gra on the building makes that less of possibility.

the evils of pride.

The religious world has a kind of problem of pride. [See all the books of Musar about the evils of pride.][The opposite of secular ideology.] That is a sort of collective pride. That is a sort of belief of moral and intellectual superiority. Neither of these accurate. But the only possible justification would be if  fact they would be more honest or smarter than anyone else. Clearly these claims are false.  If anything just the opposite.

29.6.20

Money and Torah just do not mix. When Torah gets to be a business, it turns sour.

I would like to suggest a new beginning. Something like a yeshiva based on the Gra. But not a yeshiva in the modern sense where people get paid. The is just too much a temptation to use yeshivas as ways of getting money from state of Israel .Money and Torah just do not mix. So what one ought to start is a Beit Midrash HaGra. The reason is that the term implies a place where people can come to study Torah but do not get paid for doing so.
In fact the whole yeshiva thing has really worn out its welcome. It started out without the sanction of the Gra because he knew that it would deteriorate into a money making enterprise.

And if Slavery (forced work without compensation) is so wrong, then why do black people not mind forcing white people to work for their free welfare checks?

Once you agree that slavery was some terrible evil then you have already lost the argument. Better to go along with what is open in the Bible--that Slavery is OK as long as the slave is not abused. Just forced to work. All England were more or less slaves under William the Conqueror. So were all Europeans under their lords in the feudal system.


The South was right. After all in the Bible there are Hebrew slaves and Gentile slaves. This is OK. The laws however are different for each one. [Hebrew slaves are let go after seven years automatically. A Gentile slave is never free until his master accepts money to free him, or gives the slave a document that says he is freed or there is injury of limb.] But it really goes against the Bible to say that a law of God was wrong.

[However slavery is an important issue because the simple claim that it is unjust mean automatically that one does not believe in the Bible.] 

And if Slavery (forced work without compensation) is so wrong, then why do black people not mind forcing white people to work for their free welfare checks?

If you look at the effect of England on the world you can not help but be astonished. Whatever it touched became prosperous and flourished. The USA, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Africa etc.

If you look at the effect of England on the world you can not help but be astonished. Whatever it touched became prosperous and flourished. The USA, Australia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, South Africa etc. Count the USA as an extension of England and the effect goes further. [Japan after accepting an English kind of government.] [But take away the effect of England then things fall apart quickly.]]

One thing that is so astonishing about this is that there was nothing in the development of England that had anything to do with being planned. Not philosophy nor any political theory. [John Locke simply came to explain what had happened before him.]


x1 music file

x1     [x1 in midi]

28.6.20

Some of the concepts of the Ari come from verses of the Torah  and the Sefer Yetzira, not necessarily from the book of the Zohar. The first three seferot from Mishlei 3 and the seven lower sepherot from Chronicles. ["God by his wisdom founded the earth by his understanding etc."].To you Lord is the greatness and the power and the beauty etc.
However the basic scheme comes from Plotinus. Nothing is wrong with that, but that does not mean that the basic concepts were found in Torah. 
You can wonder about mixing belief systems. When the Rambam combined Aristotle with Torah, that must have seemed at the time like mixing apples and oranges. However you would not ask that if one would apply that principle to Torah and Medicine. It seems like they deal with two different areas. But Aristotle's Metaphysics must have seemed to some people as not really a different area than Torah but rather a conflicting area.
It is hard to come up with a good rule of thumb about this.

"מחאה" (to object to wrong doing)

It was pointed out to me once by Leibel [the son of the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir Rav Shmuel Berenbaum] that there is an obligation of "מחאה" (to object to wrong doing--even when it seems you will not be listened to.]
In fact you see that in the Gemara in the events about Kamza and Bar Kamza. There was some wrong act that was done. But that act was not the cause of the fate of the Temple to be destroyed. Rather the fact that the sages of the time did not object to that act.
You see this also in the Old Testament with the tribe of Benjamin that did not object to the treatment of the concubine at Giva. And in that case God himself revealed to Israel to continue wiping out that tribe because of the fact that they did not object to wrong doing.

Similarly you can see why the Gra would have signed the letter of excommunication. Same reason. To object to evil--even if you know you will not be listened to.

two great Litvak yeshivas

There was a certain degree of grace that I merited to go to two great Litvak yeshivas. Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. Only later did I come to Israel to learn in kollel. But the kollel thing in Israel seemed to be structured in a way that I though was not really proper and so I dropped out of it and learned Torah on my own and said to my wife that we would trust in God to help with making a living.

[That is the short and sweet of my yeshiva career. The beginning of it was a meeting with Shmuel Glazer who was going to a different Litvak yeshiva in Baltimore (I think of Rav Rudderman).
I was in Asbury Park at the time, and met him through an old man at a hotel that my family was running. [The Hamilton Hotel]. 

What is great about Litvak yeshivas is basically the fact that they learn Torah in the straight and narrow path. They do not add nor subtract. What is Torah is Torah,- and what is not is not.
So in the few years I spent there I got a basic idea of what Torah is all about. That is on one hand the most obvious advantage of the Litvak yeshiva world. Another hidden advantage is that if you get into it, you can really get touched with "the spirit of Torah", but that is a little harder to put my finger on.

But it is not as if they are going with the path of the Gra exactly. Rather that they get about as close to the real thing as possible. But it would be nice if they would stick with the Gra more than they do.  The way I see it is that if they would take the Gra and Rav Shach a bit more seriously, that would help to bring clarity to what really is Torah and help people avoid the Dark Side and pseudo Torah.
 [Just for clarity let me just mention that basic set of the great Litvak yeshivas is Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat in NY and Ponovitch, and Brisk in Israel. [But Ponovitch has branches and also non-official branches of people that learned at Ponovitch and started yeshivas along the lines of Ponovitch. Shar Yashuv is known as a beginner's kind of place --which is true for the first year. But my impression was that after the first year they get rapidly into deep Torah waters in a way that falls nowhere behind the other great Litvak yeshivas.

[I did not learn Musar in Shar Yashuv because that is a Litvak yeshiva, but not a Musar Yeshiva. The idea really comes from Rav Haim of Brisk that Musar can be and often is a distraction. So Shar Yashuv was based on that model. They want the time in yeshiva to be for getting to the "real thing" as deep and fast as possible. Yet later at the Mir I did learn Musar. And I still am not sure which model of  Litvak yeshiva is better. With or without Musar.] 



27.6.20

Is China behind it? To me it seems unclear. I was convinced for years that the KGB at least had a hand in the riots of the 1960's. And later that became clear with the defection of Bezmenov [See Bezmenov utube]

I can imagine China is doing the same thing about trying to bring down the USA. But I highly doubt if they are doing it in the same ways.
[If Russia has to get a sample of sand from an American beach they would send in a commando Spetsnaz unit by submarine and commandeer the beach while gathering some sand. The China would send in a thousand tourists and each one would pick up one grain of sand and bring it back to China. That is probably how China is now dealing with the USA. But just like a friend of mine who was a KGB agent told me, (according to him at any rate) the KGB simply did not have the resources that would have been needed to subvert the entire USA in the 1960's/ It had to be Americans doing it to Americans. It seems the same nowadays. People have been so indoctrinated in Communists values in American public schools and colleges that they are simply taking the next logical step.

What Americans do right now I think has a lot to do with how the future will look. For one thing American might stand up to the mob. They might get armed and packing. They might refuse the Tyranny of Antifa. Or they might go down as sheep. Wear the masks. Obey the tyranny. I think a lot will depend if Americans are willing to accept tyranny.




You can't say, "I can't breath" without breathing. Just try it. It is a physical impossibility. Air must be going through the vocal chords for them to work.

Floyd  did not suffocate, he was talking (you can't say "I can't breath" without breathing) up until the moment his damaged heart, further impacted by massive doses of meth and fentanyl, gave out from stress, likely the stress of his resisting arrest.

26.6.20

The Middle Ages had one main problem to solve. The relation between faith and reason. And a sub area was free will. [There also was the issue of the relation between religion and government.]
The free will issue comes up in the Rambam and Raavad in Laws of Repentance.

Though Kant, Hegel and Leonard Nelson do not deal with this directly, their insights can shed light on the issue of free will.

One thing that I noted is that knowledge does not cause events. Rather knowledge is a result of something. [At least in my naive way of looking at things.] I see a blue desk so then I know there is a blue desk. [Someone must have painted it blue.] So the fact that God knows if one will be righteous or not does not cause the person to be righteous. Knowledge is different than being. It is a result of being. But with God, with "logos" the order is different. His knowledge comes first and then being. But still that knowledge --in order to be knowledge, in any sense of the word, can not force a thing to be so. It has to be a result of the thing being so.


25.6.20

Blue Lives Matter. [I.e the police.]

These attacks on the police are not peaceful. They are attempts at provoking violence. And they ought to be persecuted under obstruction of a policeman in the fulfillment of his job.

General Lee

As for General Lee, I think he ought to be honored because the South and North were fighting for truth and justice, but disagreeing about how that would be applied at that time. . The South had a right to leave the union since nothing in the Constitution says that once signed no state could leave. There could have been a clause like that but there was not.
[If it had gone to the Supreme Court, there would have been no war. And in fact the president of the Confederacy asked to be tried as a traitor. He knew that the courts could decide one way, or the other; and then everyone would simply have to abide by their ruling.


Dr. Kelley Ross also wrote that clearly the South had a right to leave the Union, but that they choose the worst possible issue to do it over.

[And I even wonder if the Union had a right to outlaw slavery. That is, even if it had been legitimate as a constitutional amendment approved with the willing vote of the states. The reason is that the federal government had enumerated powers.  Taxes, yes. But not simply to declare law and certainly not to declare war  without Congress. [To preserve the Union might be a worthy ideal, but where in the Constitution is that given to the Federal government  in any sense? The idea itself is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Can a husband murder his wife if she demands to leave their union?


So clearly Jesus was what you would call Caucasian.

I do not recall which book off hand, but I recall reading in some book of ancient history that the peoples around the Mediterranean sea were white and blue eyes. Specially the Greeks.
[I do not recall if it was Herodotus or Thucydides's Peloponnese War. Or maybe some general history written by some Romans. It was so long ago I do not recall where I saw this.] In the Mishna it says openly that Israel are not dark nor albino, but medium. I.e probably along the lines of what your see in Iranians today. [I also don't recall where in the Mishna. Maybe it was in Nedarim.] And that makes sense, since after all Israel did originally come from Iraq [Mesopotamia]. So clearly Jesus was what you would call Caucasian.
[In the movie Alexander the Great you see the ancient Greeks shown as white Caucasian. Thought that is no proof, still it in fact is exactly what was recorded in ancient history. But my reading of ancient history was a long time ago. So where I saw this could have been almost any ancient source.]
[Besides this there are plenty of murals that show Romans as white. And in the Egyptian pyramids all the pictures there showing the ancient Egyptians show them as being white. Later invasions changed things, but that is how people are the Mediterranean Sea looked then.

So I see this loose alliance of the Litvak yeshivas

Ever since learning about the war between Sparta and Athens I have been aware of the importance of alliances. [Sparta only conquered Athens between it had the rest of the Greek city states on its side.]
In any case, because of this I tend to look at Lithuanian yeshivas in a positive light, even though I would prefer if they would be going more by the Gra.
I mean, clearly the top is Ponovitch, with Brisk a close second. But all the Litvak yeshivas are very good as much as they are going with the straight Torah approach if the Gra.
So I see this loose alliance of the Litvak yeshivas as great thing as being the one and only source of accurate information as to what the Torah actually holds and says.
[My own approach, is simply is to try to learn Physics Math and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach as much as possible. I never managed to last very long in the amazing world of straight, unadulterated Torah of the Litvak yeshivas. But for the short time I was there, I got a taste of the "Real Thing" which was nice. More than nice. Awesome you could say.]



The white race is hell bent on suicide,

The white race is hell bent on suicide, and woe to anyone that stands in their way. The worst sin, of course, is to have white children. The least a white person can do is to have mulatto children. Even better is not to have children at all,-- in order not to perpetuate the sin of beauty and grace. [Ah, who can fail to see the glories of mud? Oh muses, give to me the gift of song of the glories of mud. Oh wondrous mud. Beautiful mud. Mud,O mud, beautiful beyond compare! Who can extol the wonders of mud. Mush with mud, and mud with mush, the breakfast cereal of champions.

With John Locke and the American Constitution there is a basic principle that all men are created equal. . People are born with different DNA. And the humans have never been equal and never will be.

 With John Locke and the American Constitution there is a basic principle that all men are created equal. . People are born with different DNA. And the humans have never been equal and never will be.
The way to resolve this conflict is the original idea of equality in the French Revolution is that people should be equal under the law. That is there should not be one set of law that applies to one class and a different-set that applies to a different class. But not that all people are born with equal talents or traits.

But if the French Revolution contributed any original idea of good idea that already was not contained in the American Constitution is hard to know. To me it seems all based on Rousseau which is really half baked place to start from. [The General Will as opposed to objective morality and objective rights of individuals.]

24.6.20

Leonard Nelson wanted to have a new beginning of the Socratic approach. But that would be hard to duplicate. Especially because of so many levels and sub levels in the Socratic dialogues.

The main question about Socrates is how did he know what line of questioning would lead the person he was addressing to the exact opposite conclusion what he started out with?

How can you learn a method that seems to depend on intuition?

However on the other hand Hegel thought that any concept, if one thinks deeply enough about it has to lead to some opposite place from where it starts out from until by force it is lead to a higher level. And then that same process starts again until one reaches Absolute Spirit.
So perhaps it was more than intuition of Socrates but an ability to probe into the facts.
Police Lives Matter.

What seems to be the problem with the religious world? (*Besides the fact that they are all crazy.)

What seems to be the problem with the religious world? (*Besides the fact that they are all crazy.) The answer seems to be staring me in the face, though I could not see it for a long time. It is a Midrash that brings the statement of R. Meir about learning Torah for its own sake brings one to great things? They ask "But how can that be? For R Yohanan said, 'One ought to learn Torah even not for its own sake because by that one will come to learn Torah for its own sake.' And the Midrash answers (that question of the contradiction between R. Yochanan and R Meir) that R Meir was saying like R Akiva that one who learns Torah not for its own sake, it is better of he had never been born. (I.e. the Gemara concludes that this is an argument between Tenaim, not between R Yochana and Amora and R Meir. That is an argument between an amora of the Gemara and a tana of the mishna is not possible.])
Now if there had been any distinctions between kinds of  "not for its own sake," then that would have been the obvious answer. So clearly the sages did not see any distinctions. Whether it so for money or whatever the reasons maybe, it is all the same to them. To R Yohanan it is OK and to R Meir and R Akiva it is not.
So of the law is like R Meir and R Akiva, that would seem to explain the issue.
The custom is to make differences between types of "not for its own sake" in order to excuse the custom of extortion of the state to make the state pay for yeshivas. That seems to be a problem 
It got to be that even among people that went along with the approach of the Gra that secular studies were not accepted unless in order to make money. But this does not distinguish among different kinds of secular studies. Most of what is taught in universities is in fact quite worthless. However the many Rishonim including the Gra did hold that the natural sciences are important. But since not everyone is really up to the level of being a physicist so they go into the pseudo sciences. And then try to convince others that what they are doing in in fact some deep wisdom. [Go check up among all students in universities who has the lowest IQ. That ought to tell you something.]

[The Gra said that lack of knowledge in any of the seven wisdoms would result in a lack of understanding of Torah a hundred fold.]

Man made pseudo wisdoms are not the same thing as the wisdom of God as revealed in the work of Creation.

23.6.20

I wanted to express the greatness and importance of following the path of the Gra. That is mainly the idea of straight Torah with no additions nor subtractions. But even though the Gra is known, the whole "spirit of Torah" that you find in Litvak yeshivas is not known. Even after it is known , it  is hidden.

I am not saying I had the merit to follow the straight path of the Gra for more than a few sweet years in Shar Yashuv and later at the Mir. [Both great Litvak yeshivas.] But I go with this idea that even if I can not be what I ought to be, at least I can help others by showing them the path of authentic Torah.

People that protest against the police in the USA, truly love and believe in the police.

People that protest against the police in the USA believe in the kindness and upright moral character of the police. They truly love and believe in the police. How do you know this? Because they know if they would have walked to a militzia officer in a Communist Russia and insulted him, they would have left without any of their teeth. Only in America do the police show constraint and understanding and moral responsibility.
One way to deal with the attempt to take down the USA by China and Antifa would be to learn the basic values that the USA was founded on. That is not just the Federalist Papers. But also the history of England and the Magna Carta. [Why these are no longer taught in schools is baffling]

Another suggestion is to arrest one person working for Antifa. I mean, even if you can not arrest an entire mob, you can arrest one [or more people] and charge them with incitement of rioting, and treason, and felony assault on a police officer.

If the white race is committing mass suicide by siding with their enemies, that does not mean that every single one has to go down without a fight.
If white people have no pride about creating the most magnificent civilization in all history, I can not give it to them.

[When Somalia can do something like this then let me know.Launch of shuttle Columbia on STS-1 mission.

22.6.20

There is a lot of resistance to the idea that Jesus was  a regular "Jewish Tzadik." Part of the reason is group identity. In order to be Jewish one must not have a good opinion of Jesus. The slightest positive statement about Jesus is enough to nullify one's credibility once and for all and to be labeled the worst of all terms "a missionary".

Another reason is the history of the crusades. That is in fact a good reason even if not sufficient.

Another reason is misunderstanding. Even though Paul did have this idea of nullification of the commandments that is clearly the exact opposite of open statements of Jesus himself.
There is also the mistaken idea that people worship Jesus and identify him with God which is all one big misunderstanding of what he was saying. The Trinity is not anything that he would subscribe to as gone into detail in the Trinities blog    


The white race is on a race towards mass suicide. Sometimes self defense is the only defense.

It occurred to me that WWII was also a kind of attempt to stamp out the USA and Democracy. I mean to say that the USA was smack in the middle between Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. So I am thinking that Japan and Germany must have been planning on coming in from both sides and taking over.

So now it seems there is a similar attempt to take over. But this time the enemies are in the gates, not at the gates.
How did the situation get so dire? One one hand there seems to be the lemming effect, the white race is on a race towards mass suicide.

While on one hand I was always profoundly grateful for being born in the USA. Yet right in the USA itself I noticed there were lots of people that had a profound hatred of everything American. Whatever the USA has done in history or today to them was always wrong. And they will side with any enemy of the USA.

So what is a possibility?

The answer I think can be seen in the American War of Independence, when Americans took up arms to protect themselves and their homes. Sometimes self defense is the only defense. [Especially now that the police simply find a place to park outside the local donut shop and wait out their shift.]

So if Antifa stand in front of your car to stop you, step on the gas and accelerate.  
Link to Kelley Ross's ideas about the present day situation in the USA

So let me ask why is he the only modern day philosopher that has an inkling on common sense? Is it like Sandra Lehman told me that Philosophy removes common sense from people?
Or like Elon Musk that it is simply German philosophy? Who knows?
In any case, at one point when I realized I was going to have to spend some time in university and try to do something about making a living I decided to go into Physics,-- and not Philosophy.
The actual reason was the Rav Nahman actually warned against philosophy I I took that to heart and choose something else.
An employee has no law of getting less that what his labor is worth. [Rambam Laws of Acquisition 13]. That is on most things you buy, if they are marked up from their market value there is a law of אונאה That is if a 1/5 the money goes back to the buyer. If more than 1/5 the whole deal is off.
 But with an employee there is no such law because an employee is bought for the time. [That is he is a slave for the time period that he is being hired for.
This goes to show that there is nothing particularly different from being a slave and being an employee. The only difference is the employee when the term of his employment is over he is no longer owned.

So was the Civil War really worth going into for this. Any employee has a similar dilemma as a slave. work or do not eat. Children are also in a similar situation. They must listen to their parents. They have no choice in the matter.

21.6.20

I saw something interesting about Elon Musk --that a good deal of his motivation for making Space X and the Tesla car was his question in college when he asked himself what can I do to help humanity.
Well that sort of lit a light for me in that I also have a few ideas that I believe would be great for humanity. 
One is learning fast. That is too many people shy away from Math and Physics because they think they are too hard. They lack the confidence that by just saying the words and going on that they will understand. So I want to bring this idea to the attention of people. [That would also have a side benefit that when people would know what real science is they will throw out all the pseudo sciences like the Social Studies and humanities departments of the universities.
This idea is from the gemara Shabat  [I think around page 63] and brought in books of Musar. [e.g. אורחות צדיקים]

Another great idea is talking with God in one's own language. 

Another idea is saying the truth always which also people do not know how this provides a kind of protective shield around one.



[As for the political situation I have little to say but Trust in God.] 

I should add that I see the coming civil war as the end of civilization so I have to explain that Trust in God does not mean to do nothing. Rather it means not to do "over efforts" "ריבוי השתדלות". It simply mean to trust and God and take the basic necessary steps to protect yourself. So for example if Antifa stand in the way of your car to stop you, step on the gas and accelerate. That is a simple basic logical step of self preservation. Also get gun skills.













w99 G Minor edited   It usually takes me a lot of time to get the instruments right, after I have gotten the basic music line down. Plus corrections as to the music line often come only after I have thought about it for a while. So there still might be more corrections that need to be done.  [w99 in midi format]

The implication is that to worship only God, and no other being is the essential point of the whole Torah.

Idolatry is worship of some being other than the one First Cause [סיבה ראשונה]. And that includes people. It even includes people who have souls from Emanation [אצילות]. So for example when we say that Abraham the Patriarch's soul was from Kindness of Emanation [חסד של אצילות] we do not worship Abraham. Nor do we pray to him. That is in spite of the fact that souls from Emanation are Divine אלקות.

So worship of people that is the basic essence of the religious world should not be considered to be OK.  And from this it is easy to see why the Gra would have signed the letter of excommunication to make this point clear. [And the letter of excommunication I believe has halachic validity in spite of its being ignored. In fact it is hard to understand why anyone would imagine that a letter signed and sealed by the Gra would not be valid in Halacha. Such a thing seems absurd on the face of it.]

[And though you can argue on this point, but my looking at a book that collected all the testimonies in Villna  and letters of excommunication I decided that Rav Nahman was OK. This seems to be a gray area.]

I thought to add the fact that once I got to Tenach [Old Testament] I noticed the central issue pf idolatry. I mean when critique of kings comes up it is always about this one issue. The implication is that to worship only God, and no other being is the essential point of the whole Torah.

20.6.20

There is a kind of work that is forbidden on Shabat called בורר seperating. The idea is to separate what you do not want to eat now from what you want to eat now. Or to separate what you want for later.

This process can be understood in a  sense to apply to the fact that there is an array of good values that one ought to hold onto. Good points. These have their root in Divine traits [Sepherot]. And there is also a process of combining these good traits. But they can not be combined until the kelipot are separated from them. This can apply in science also. Newton and Maxwell could not be combined until Einstein came along. Einstein and Heisenberg could not be combined until Dirac and Richard Feynman came along. [Dirac was OK with one or two particles but once you got more it could not work until Feymann showed the way to QFT. Quantum Field Theory.]

Similar to good traits. There are several areas of positive value. To say the truth, trust in God, learning Torah. But they can not be combined until the kelipot are separated from them.
This is a kind of process which you see in Kant and then later Hegel. 

So there is a process of finding the good traits and good points one needs to stick with. And to separate out what is mixed in of the poison of the Sitra Achra (Dark Side). And then to combince the good traits.

Sometimes a tzadik comes into the world to reveal one particular trait or more and sometimes another may come to combine traits.
So for example you will find that Avraham Avinu was united with the Divine Trait of Kindness. That would mean not just that his soul was from Emanation but also that he came to reveal that trait in the world.
Rav Nahman [of Uman] explained what was the problem with a country where the taste and scent and beauty had all gone down. He said the problem was the slaves of a foreign king who had been sent in and ruined everything by means of ugly language, sexual promiscuity, and addiction to bringing lawsuits.
The solution in the story of Rav Nahman was to make a separation.

he did not openly say he was referring to the USA but it seems clearly the implication. That is he was predicting already 200 years ago exactly what is happening today.

19.6.20

The original idea of the Litvak yeshiva was to be  a four year program which would go through the three bava's [Bava Metzia, Bava Kama, Bava Batra] and four nashim [Gitin, Kidushin, Ketuboth, Yevamot]. This I see as very important even though it is not really the same thing as the commandment of learning Torah itself which applies all through life and is required of every man.
So the main greatness of the idea of the Litvak Yeshiva is that those are the ages 18-22 that a world view is formed. One generally accepts at that point the social meme of his environment at those crucial ages,- and this meme becomes hard wired. [So the idea in short is that you learn good morals at those few first years and that sticks.]

[This was the original idea of Rav Haim of Voloshin. Before that there was no such thing as a yeshiva in modern sense, but rather it was the local hall where people would pray in the morning, and then go off to their work. The younger people  stayed there and learned. Then Rav Haim came to his teacher the Gra and suggested creating a yeshiva as an independent institution. It is not clear what the answer of the Gra was. There are different versions of the events. At any rate, I must add that I had a great time at the Mir in N.Y.  And besides the my learning during the regular hours I also was privileged to spend time with Rav Shmuel Berenbaum (the rosh yeshiva that gave the highest class). He was  a very deep and creative thinker along the lines of Rav Shach. But for some reason, he never wrote a word, and so most of his ideas were lost with time. Still you can get the basic approach from Rav Shach's Avi Ezri or Rav Haim of Brisk's books.]

18.6.20

w98   [w98 in midi format] [these were written in a format called nwc but i assume most people do not have that so i post the midi format so that people have access to the notes--which they would not have with only the mp3 version.][I want to add that I do not know why some music files were posted while others not. I just can't recall,  --nor did I think it mattered at the time. [w98 nwc]