Lemaitre discovered the big bang before that in 1927 but in his article in Nature wrote that time and space could only begin to exist after their were already enough quanta around to justify their existence.

Space is an odd kind of thing as Kant noticed. And Lemaitre also in 1931. Lemaitre discovered the big bang before that in 1927 but in his article in Nature wrote that time and space could only begin to exist after their were already enough quanta around to justify their existence.

You can see this in the EPR experiment that shows that time and space do not exist for particles until they are measured. [Some people think it shows non locality. But that is wrong. It might show that or that time and space do not exist before measured. But we know locality is right because of GPS satellites which are a dramatic proof of relativity.]

You can also see this in protons. Protons must know that they travel in space since they originate at some point and when they collide with something they cease. So they know they are going somewhere. But they also know they travel at the speed of light so time for them does not pass. So from their point of view they get from here to there instantly. But they also know they can not travel instantly anywhere. Even at the speed of light they still do not get anywhere instantly. Therefore from the point of view of  a proton, space does not exist. There is some sub-layer underneath space that space is superimposed on.

[ In String theory you have extra dimensions. But these dimensions are all directions of space and time. They are all coming out of a deeper level  that comes before space and time.

Rav Maasud Abuchazeira and his son Rav David.

You can see the fact that honor of one's parents is more severe than is commonly known from the rebellious son.
It is a lot easier to incur the death penalty for disobeying one's parents than people are aware of. It does not need a lot of conditions. That is you need the rebellious son to take something of his father's without permission. [That is stealing]. And then you need him to buy wine and meat. [To go shopping with the money]. Then the parents bring him to a small court of three judges and they give the son lashes. If the son does it again, they take him to the larger city court of 23 judges and they give the death penalty to the son. [Every city had a court of 23].

You can see the severity of this also in the events in the life of Rav Maasud Abuchazeira and his son David. Rav David was in fact a very great tzadik. But one day his father said something that sounded like a complaint to Rav David. Rav David asked, "Why does my father complain?" Rav Maasud, Looked at him and said "I had a great diamond, and now I have lost it." [Meaning that David had lost his great spiritual level]. Then David realized what he had done and went into exile. Then after some time he returned home and when he got to the edge of the city he began cawing on his knees until he got to his father and begged forgiveness.

However parents that are wicked are an exception. Even in the strict legal sense. Rav Shach has a section about this issue in his Avi Ezri. 

This is the Age of Disappointment. People get involved in some political or spiritual group with the best of intentions. Then discover the group is based of fraud or some kind of scam.
The good people will leave the group and spend the rest of their lives wondering what went wrong.
   Some might spend their time fighting the group after realizing it was based on lies. Other might just try to pick up the pieces of their broken lives and get on with things.

  This is different than previous generations when there were plenty of all kinds of groups with all types of strange ideas,-but (and this is a big "but") they did not lie about their basic beliefs in order to entice people.

It seems more noble to warn others and to remove the evil. But not everyone is up to that.

[I am thinking about the warning of the Gra. That is the signature on the letter of excommunication. The fact is that was ignored. But now that it is clear that he was 100% right, people ought to themselves repent, and heed his warning and even warn others.]

I am wondering during the Black Plague  in the Middle Ages, did people need to get tested to see if they had it? How can something be a deadly virus, if one needs to be tested to even see if he has it?

the values that the USA was founded on --the Bible and the Enlightenment can and will survive.

So when people go insane what does that mean? I think that it is two things. One is Hegel's dialectics. where God [Absolute Spirit] is working in the world by a kind of thesis anti thesis synthesis process. And combine that with Heidegger that Being is coming into the clearing.

"racism" and categories of sins

I have never been very impressed with the "racism" charge. I have not seen anywhere in the Bible that that is considered a sin.
If it means feeling superior to others because you belong to some racial group or some other group , well why not? Let's say one is an American, and feels superior to others because of the great things America has accomplished. And then someone insults him, "You are an American" or, "You are a patriot," as a slur. Well so what?
Besides that there is no such sin. There are lots of categories of sins. The Gates of Repentance goes into them in detail. [By R Yona of Gerondi]. But racism is not there. Besides that, people ought to welcome it. It is a compliment to feel that your group has accomplished great things.
So if you are a Wasp, White Anglo Saxon Protestant, then feel racist, and proud of your race. When other races have invented anything even a trillion light years away from this then they will also have reason to feel proud of their race. 

People do not usually put the Gra and Rav Shach in the same category as Rav Nahman of Breslov. But to me that seems like a mistaken approach. True the Gra did sign the letter of excommunication the herem which certainly has halachic validity and ought to be heeded to at all cost. Still Rav Nahman certainly was not in the category of the herem.

The Gra and Rav Nahman have different areas of emphasis. Rav Nahman with prayer, and the Gra with Torah. Happy is one that can combine both.

I have thought about an idea of Rav Nahman [of Uman and Breslov] that there is always some piece of advice for any problem. He never says this in so many words but it is implicit in all of his writings.
Not just the Sefer HaMidot where in fact you have about a thousand individual bits of advice for a whole assortment of problems. But you can see in events reported about him that he was always looking for some kind of advice that would help people in some way or another.
It usually has mostly to do with some positive commandment. So in terms of "sweetening of judgements" [that is for cases where a person feels everything is going wrong with his life]]

But most of these pieces of advice I think have to be done over a period of forty days in a row or more.
Still the idea seems powerful to me and it has stuck with me for a few years.

Now I think there is one major piece of advice I believe has saved me from countless problems and enemies. To speak the truth always at all cost.
But there are other bits of advice I have not seen so much in Rav Nahman but more in the Gra that struck me at also being extremely powerful. Learning Torah along with trust in God.
This I saw in practice while at the Mir in NY. people would learn Torah and put their trust in God to help with making a living and somehow that always worked out. No one ever starved. They all got married and had good children --all the while doing nothing but learning Torah and as for making a living the attitude was "God will help"
I feel this is true and great. But I would like to say that I think Physics and Mathematics are part of learning Torah in terms of this advice. That is also to learn Physics and no worry if you will understand or not or if will help in terms of making a living. Just for its own sake,

I would like to also mention  coming to Israel can be a great help based on a few statements of Rav Nahman about Israel being the place of miracles. And start a Beit Midrash HaGra and Rav Shach. --so that people learn authentic legitimate Torah.[There is no patent on teh name of the Gra and Rav Shach.\]

In the Torah, there is a general rule that when one is extra strict about any commandment, that brings him to afterward nullify the commandment completely. [

In the Torah, there is a general rule that when one is extra strict about any commandment, that brings him to afterward nullify the commandment completely. [This is from the sages and brought in many books of Musar.]
In Torah the rule is "Do not add nor subtract from the commandments." [Deuteronomy 6] This is one of the reasons why the religious world is kind of "off." By adding restrictions, they end up transgressing everything in such a way that all the religiosity is paper thin. From the clothing and outwards. Not the inside.

battle and war for the soul of the USA

What is going on in the USA is that there is already a change of regime. You might be confused when the Left demands there be no police. That sounds like no law and order. But that is not it at all. The Left does have a police, that is the mobs destroying white people and business. The mob is their police. But not just the mob. Already they own the judges and courts and even the Supreme Court. So in essence the battle and war for the soul of the USA is lost. If a white person defends his or her life, they are guilty of assault. Anything any white person  says is easily dismissed instantly with four words "You are a racist."

In terms of a plan of action, my recommendation is to learn Torah [especially the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach] and to trust in God.

I think things would never have gotten this far if people had learned Torah. Marxism could never have even gotten started if people had been aware of the commandments "Thou shalt not steal" and "Thou shalt not covet." [And if you learn even one page of Bava Metzia it is impossible to miss this.]

People would never have made an issue of slavery in the first place.
And there never would have been adopted all the principles of the Left that go directly against the laws of Moses.

[ The fact that a lot of Americans are Christians is not the issue. Just because people are Christian does not make the commandments null. No Christians held that way until recently.
Rather there was a distinction made between ritual law and natural law that was stated by Saadia Gaon and Aquinas. From the Pilgrims down until around 1920 the USA was going with biblical principles. \

[I might add here that Russia already knows about the insanity of Marxism. It would be nice if there would be some kind of alliance between Russia and the USA. ]

 I just wanted to jot down my basic interpretation of Hegel, Heidegger, and Leonard Nelson.

It is not very academic but it is way I see them. It is all contained in one word: Plotinus. That is his neo Platonic system. (1) The One, (2) Logos, Reason, (3) Being.

So to me when ever I look at Hegel I see a modification of Plotinus. That is a modification that had to happen after Kant's three critiques. Hegel gets from Being up back to the One. And he does this by means of the Dialectic.

Heidegger is a bit different. He gets from Being to Logos. That is most clear in his debate with Ernst Cassirer. He sees Kant as dealing with the question of life, not knowledge as one aspect of life. [AS you can see also in his Being and Time.] He like Schopenhauer put the main emphasis on the first Critique before the revised edition. His answer  is that Being uses time to manifest itself, to come into the meadow. And the Transcendental Deduction of Kant is to get from Logos to Life [Logos to Being]. That is how Heidegger understands the synthetic a priori. [See that debate with Cassirer.]

Then Leonard Nelson [based on Fries but going beyond him], shows that not only is there non intuitive immediate knowledge [faith], but that has to come before reason and before empirical knowledge.

So maybe it is just me, but I see Western Philosophy after Kant to be foot notes to Plotinus.

Apparently it takes a certain amount of spiritual awareness to be able to tell who is  a true Torah scholar from the realm of holiness and who is a Torah scholar demon as Rav Nahman of Breslov points out. In those two sections LeM I:12 and I:28 he in fact does not give any hints about how to tell the difference. But I recall that in LeM II:1 he in fact does point out traits that one can hold onto that give one the ability to discern.

I might hold that the Lithuanian yeshiva world would be clear from this kind of problem, but the problem is that by ignoring the cherem signed by the Gra the Sitra Achra got into the Litvak world also.  So what one can do? Well clearly the best idea is to learn Torah at home. Go through the two Talmuds and the Midrashim. Another suggestion would be to start a Beit Midrash on the name of the Gra.  [With of course, Rav Nahman's books would be allowed. That would be different from for example the Yeshiva of Rav Silverman in the old city of Jerusalem.]

But the main point I want to bring out is that trusting any religious authorities at all is tied by too much danger. As far as I can tell the majority might be Torah scholars that are demons. Who knows? And once there is a majority then how can you trust any? Frankly the whole religious world seems a bit creepy. So it is better to simply learn Torah and Musar of Rav Israel Salanter at home and teach your own kids at home.

[In any case there is an obligation to get through the oral law which means the two Talmuds, the halachic midrashim and the agadic midrashim. So the best way to do that without distractions is at home.

There is a difference between keeping Torah in truth and the false appearance of Torah of the religious world. Not that this always was the case. But that was the point of the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication.  That is to make this difference clear.

The result of his signature being universally  ignored created the situation that the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] got inside and took over the religious world.

[However I think that Rav Nahman was not included in the excommunication since one day I was walking around the old city of Jerusalem and happened into a small library that had the very famous book that printed all the different letters of excommunication plus and the word for word testimonies that were collected in Vilna. So I saw the actual wording if the letter that the Gra signed. Rav Nahman  would not have come under that heading. See for yourself if you are interested.]

At any rate, the actual result is that in order to keep Torah one has to run away from the religious as far as possible,

Lemaitre already back in 1932 said that time and space come into existence only after there were plenty of quanta.
This goes well with Bell's inequality which nature violates. [the Aspect experiment of 1982].

So not that nature is non local. Rather particles do not have classical values in space and time before measured. [That is before they interact with the macroscopic world. It is not as if they need to be seen by a physicist in  order for their wave function to collapse.] [As Kant already indicated that space and time is how we measure things. But with Kant they also exist, but we do not really know what they are. i.e. with Kant the dinge an sich exist, but we do not have access to what they really are.] 

Dr Kelley Ross shows that QM corresponds to Kant's approach. This is a relief from other "philosophers" that imagine they can refute QM before understanding it.

See the Green talk with De'hooft. 

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Can an IOU serve as money?

Can an IOU serve as money?
Let's say two people own a slave, and one lets him go. So now he is 1/2 slave and 1/2 free. According to Beit Hillel [Tractate Bava Batra page 13] he works for himself one day, and for his master on every other day.
Beit Shamai said but then he can not get married. That is, a gentile slave can not marry a Israelite woman. And a freed slave can. So as a slave he could have his slave wife and not an Israelite. As a freed slave he can only marry a Israelite. So he would be stuck. So Beit Shamai says the owner must let him go and the slave writes  a document (an IOU) for the money that is owed.

But we know a slave only goes freed in one of three ways; (1) A document letting him go, (2) money or (3) injury [24 types].

So here there is no document letting the slave go. Just an IOU. So that must be considered  as worth money  שווה כסף

[I am being short here as this comes up in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri in the beginning of Laws of Selling. In other contexts clearly an IOU is not money. In Tractate Kidushin [see pages 5 and 8 and 47], the Rashba and Ramban that marrying a women by an IOU does not work.]




[Just as a side issue, it does look to me that Abraham Lincoln, really could not free the slaves by means of a proclamation. Certainty he did not expect that the slaves would then turn around and become the masters of the whites. -forcing whites to work for them by the welfare state. And now becoming the ipso facto masters of white people. It is unlikely that Lincoln would have agreed to this.] [The 14 Amendment signed by the southern states under force can not be thought to be valid.]  

The world is being taken over by Lucifer.

The world is being taken over by Lucifer. The question is what to do about it. Learn Torah was the basic advice of the Gra except that I would like to expand his definition of learning Torah to include Physics. {This is based on a few authorities but not all. Clearly Ibn Pakuda חובות הלבבות is on one side. Ramban (Nahmanides), Rashba on the other. Still I have good reason to think Ibn Pakuda was right.]

It might make sense for the USA Catholics and Evangelicals and Russia to join up to fight the forces that are trying to destroy Western Civilization.
I say this because when I was reading Thucydides I began to get an appreciation for the idea of of alliances. --even among people that are not exactly on the same page in everything.

[Russia is a part of Western Civilization since Peter the Great. So the USA and Russia ought to be natural allies.]

Most people in the USA are not Americans. While they might be American citizens but by the very fact that they hate America and are doing everything they can to destroy it means that they are in fact not Americans.
To be an American means to have a minimal degree of loyalty. The teachers unions, the welfare moms, the fem-nazis, the socialists are not Americans in any authentic sense.
Therefore real Americans ought to be aware that they are at war with an enemy that is already in the gates. 

Each true tzadik has some important lesson to tell us all

the problem with identity politics in terms of religion is that one can not believe  what is true based on the religious group one wants to belong to. A good example is Jesus. To believe anything good about Jesus in the slightest way takes one out of  some religious groups. I never thought much of identity politics. I thought it is more important to believe what is true and let the cards fall where they may. Jesus merited to certain aspects of holiness. People that believe in him  receive something of that holiness into their souls.

For every real authentic tzadik merits to some aspect of holiness, but not all aspects.

Rav Nahman merited to reveal the tikun Haklali the ten psalms that one says in order to correct sexual sin. 16, 32,41,42,59, 77,90,105, 137, 150.
That also does not mean that he got everything. He did also merit to show the importance of learning fast by saying the words and going on.
But clearly that is not all there is to it. The Litvak yeshiva that emphasize learning in depth by depth iyun clearly get to a depth and understanding of Torah that people that just learn fast do not even imagine can exist.

Each true tzadik has some important lesson to tell us all. But just as it is important to find the true tzadikim it is much more important to run away from the false pretenders.And to recognize who they are. That is why I keep on emphasizing the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication.  To believe in that, can save one from much evil.
Rav Nahman also makes a point of the importance of identifying whom is really an authentic tzaik and to avoid the Torah scholars that are demons.

So in terms of coming to true Torah, clearly the only way is through the path of the great Litvak yeshiva that go according to the Gra. However one must be careful not to disagree with Rav Nahman.


[This idea actually comes up in the 13 stories of Rav Nahman about the king and his servants that all got dispersed by a whirlwind. The tikun come when they all come together.]

spiritual issues

Almost all discussion of spiritual issues is bitul Torah [waste of time from learning Torah]. As Aristotle said it is the mark of a wise person not to ask for more precision in any subject than teh subject merits. It is like asking if a person is a 89.0012% tzadik or perhaps 90.000% tzadik.
Almost all discussions are along the same lines. speculation about what no one knows anything about. and besides that adds nothing to help one be  a better person.
[The trouble with spiritual issues is that they are in an area that is beyond reason. That is an area of value that leads to internal contradictions.]

[You can see this idea in Rav Nahman in the very end of the LeM in the left out portions. There he brings the idea that at the beginning of creation the midot [sepherot] were spreading out without limit.
That includes Wisdom [Reason]. Then God  set a limit for reason --where it could not go past. So when people think to use their reason to understand spiritual issues they are going into an area where reason can not enter and just ends up with self contradictions.]

[This is an essential part of the thesis of Kant also.]

Bitul Torah. [That is the idea that when one can learn Torah he must do so.]
Bitul Torah is a very different idea than the California idea of the supreme importance of having fun.

So is learning Math and Physics Bitul Torah? Well obviously not if it is for the purpose of making a living. But the question is if they are included in "learning Torah". [But I am not very happy with this approach since not everything one can do to make  a living is OK. It has to worthwhile in itself.]
The accepted answer among many rishonim would be that they are not. Nahmanides [Ramban] and his whole school of thought would have said no. This shows up in later books of Musar also.
However there were some rishonim that said yes. Rambam, Benjamin the Doctor author of Maalot HaMidot}, and Ibn Pakuda.

I have thought about then the question that comes up often abut the fact that Math and Physics are hard. On one hand you have "derech Girsa" saying the words in order from the beginning to the end and then review. That is however only one part of learning. Learning I think always has two parts, bekiut and Iyun. [(1) fast, (2) in depth].

So what would the in depth part be? Clearly review, but what method of review would work? I recall at the Mir I used to try to take every section of what ever I was learning like the Pnei Yehoshua and go over it ten times or more. That seems about the best way to do in depth learning.


The ten times review and go on I heard first in Shar Yashuv of Rav Shelomo Freifeld. Later at the Mir in NY I heard about this concept from others. But I think in stead of going on it makes sense to go back page by page. Then times a page then the previous page and then the previous.

Now it is the Reds (the Marxists) that have already taken over the Congress and the Education and the courts. There is literally no one left to stand for freedom except Americans themselves.

Bunker Hill I think is an important moment in American History because that is when Americans decided they were not going to be slaves to the King nor to Parliament.
That is to say that Parliament was treating the Americans as people they could simply tax. The king, King George refused to intervene.
So they declared independence. Or treason if you look at it in that way. But however you look at it they were not going to be slaves.
Thus, the same issue has come up again. The Congress, the Senate, the courts are all treating Americans as their personal lap dogs. Americans have to go along with every possible insanity. You know the list. And woe to anyone who stands up for what is right and true.
So the issue again has arisen. Stand up to the powers that be, or be free? Which will it be? 

But things are not as simple as they were then. The issue is to identify the enemies. It is not longer the English Parliament. Nor the Red Coats. The soldiers of England. Now it is the Reds (the Marxists)  that have already taken over the Congress and the Education and the courts. There is literally no one left to stand for freedom except  Americans themselves.

[slowly wearing down the USA by a constant small wounds. Never a open fight

The Fabian approach of the communists [slowly wearing down the USA by a constant small wounds. Never a open fight], was revealed in private meeting of Communists in Berkeley in around 1993. [I forget the exact year.] So adoption of standards to wear down and break American resistance to Communism took place by infiltration into all sections of industry, university and government. The plan was to constantly knock down Christian-American traditional values.
I can see that process is finally completed. That is why the next stage of takeover is to take to the streets and start the violent communist revolution. That is stage 2.

[Being aware of this does not really help anything, since values are inside of people. If Americans no longer retain the core Christian values that the USA was founded on, then there is not much one can do.] If they go to church, then all they hear anyway is leftist agenda. Accepting of all the communist points, and rejection of everything of the Bible.

[Not that I agree with everything Christians say. Some things seem right, and other things seem wrong. For example the concept that: "Jesus is the same as God" seems obviously wrong. But also the idea of his being simply a prophet seems wrong also. Prophecy stems from (Victory) Netzah and Hod (Splendor) [two sepherot of Emanation], but that does not mean the soul of a prophet comes from Emanation. However, there are souls of Emanation like the Patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David. The Ari said also the soul of Rav Haim Vital. And a soul of Azilut (Emanation) is "divine". Since between God and Azilut (Emanation) there is no curtain. And based on Rav Avraham Abulafia, my opinion of Jesus he was from Azilut. [Light of Kindness (Hesed) contained in the in the vessel of Foundation (Yesod)].

Another area where I disagree with Christians is events like the disciples in the field picking corn. If the grain no longer needed the soil and was already ripe, then that is not a "work". So it is hard to understand what the complaint might have been. But it would not have been that the disciples were desecrating the Sabbath. What probably happened is you had a bunch of the usual sort of insane religious fanatics (of which there are plenty of examples nowadays) looking for something to complain about, while at the same time not really having any idea of the actual law. Nosey neighbors.

[There are other examples. mixing mud with water is subject to an argument in the Rosh. Some rishonim hold mixing water with dirt is desecration of the Shabat; others hold it is permissible. See the Rosh. Washing the hands is another example. The Sages say מים ראשונים מצוה מים אמצעים רשות מים אחרונים חובה the washing before the meal is a good thing. In the middle of a meal, it is permissible. After the meal it is an obligation.

Fourth of July

To celebrate the Fourth of July I think people ought to start a learning session in the Federalist Papers and get through them --word for word. I do not mean to get through them all on the 4th, but rather to start a daily session of one or more pages. This explains a lot of what the Constitution of the USA is about. And the wisdom there does not just apply to the USA but to all people that want to be free. Not free as in anarchy but free as in a peaceful law abiding country which maximizes freedom.

In defense of Hegel I want to say that I think he was looking for a synthesis between freedom and law after he saw the horrors that the French Revolution produced.

So it not that he was simply a "statist". And even if he was so what. His point was to show how truth logos gets revealed through a process of dialectics.  And that that process shows that any concept has some elements of self contradiction until it come to a higher level. And that by that process of getting to teh higher level one can go higher and higher until one reaches Absolute Spirit. It is a thoroughly Neo Platonic approach.

My grandparents--themselves immigrants to the USA did not even bother to sell their property in Newark, NJ. They saw where the wind blows and donated all their property to the city and hightailed it out of there.
In fact, these were the same grandparents that left Poland when it was still part of the Russian Empire and the tzars. [They had left even before WWI]

Sometimes it just is not worth the effort to fight.
So what I am thinking is that people ought to come to Israel.
The USA is just heating up too fast and things are getting close to the boiling point.
I mean if there are no police then things can get ugly fast.

The only thing I can imagine that might help at this point would be to outlaw protests in the interest of public peace and order. And if people do not want to go home peaceably, then to deal with that with extreme prejudice. And as for the police, to give them double their present salary. To back them to the hilt. Give them medals and public acclaim.

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To me it seems sad that there are some differences between Hegel and the Kant-Friesian school of Leonard Nelson. I can see how each complements the other. But the differences that started between Hegel and Fries have just kept on going. It is not that I see peace in itself as a goal. Rav Nahman said there are two kinds of debate one is between tzadikim and other is when a tzadik is making effort to be rid of the Sitra Achra and the wicked.
He brings this in LeM  I:5 and that and also at the end of LeM vol I about King David. [There the issue was the Saul was persecuting David, even though Saul was in fact a greater tzadik than David. See the Gemara that Saul was asking God "You said You would give my kingdom to my friend who is better than me. Now you say you are giving it to David. God answer when you were in the Physical world, (a world of lies), I told you a lie. Now I am telling you I am giving the kingdom to David." So we see in the Gemara itself that Saul was greater. And this is clear in the later prophets where there is counted 7 shepherds and 8 princes that would protect Israel if they were around. And there Saul is counted not King David. 

[The idea of "arguments between tzadikim (the righteous)" is one very useful bit of information in Rav Nahman. It sort of hints to the idea of Kant of the "dinge an sich" areas where Reason can not enter.]]

רב שך במשנה תורה ערכין פרק ד הלכה ט''ו -י''ח

רב שך  במשנה תורה ערכין פרק ד הלכה ט''ו -י''ח and in chapter 24 law 9  of selling brings an argument between the רשב''ם, תוספות, and רמב''ם. The issue is that the רמב''ם seems to decide  the law in ways that at least the גמרא in ערכין would hold to be contradictory. רב הונא בערכין דף י''ד ע''א says one who מקדיש a field full of trees redeemed the trees according to their value and the field according the חמישים שקלים for a field of standard size. Background: One who sanctifies a field for the הקדש can redeem it himself if he gives to the הקדש 50 shekels. If other kinds of objects, then he redeems them according to their value but adds a 1/4. [what is called 1/5 but means 1/5 from the outside.

The גמרא asks does that not disagree with the ברייתא that one who sanctifies trees redeems them and the field goes along with it. And the גמרא מתרצת that רב הונא was saying like ר' עקיבא that one who sanctifies, sanctifies with a good eye. The הקדש would get more. That ברייתא is like ר' שמעון that one sanctifies with an unkind eye. So that the הקדש would get less if redeemed.

The גמרא here clearly holds these two teachings disagree with each other.

So how is it the רמב''ם decides the law like both?

And in fact the ראב''ד says the law is not like רב הונא but rather like רב פפא on ערכין י''ד ע''ב.

There רב פפא says one who sanctifies trees redeems the trees according to their value.

The גמרא asks Let the קרקע go with them to be sanctified and to go out with them to be  redeemed? Answer: this is where he said openly the קרקע does not go with them. So we see that if it would they would be sanctified together. רב שך answers that  גמראה on ערכין י''ד ע''ב clearly holds רב הונא and רב פפא disagree. But not that they in fact disagree. It could be that the sanctifying a field with trees makes everything go together. But sanctifying the trees alone, even if the field goes along with them, still it is not two separate acts of sanctifying. So redeeming would also be in just one act.

The question is, then where did the רמב''ם see this? There does not seem to be any גמרא anywhere that indicates that רב פפא and רב הונא agree with each other.

The answer is that רב שך has a different גמרא. It is the one where there is a difference between R Akiva and the sages about the case one sells three trees. The גמרא there agrees that to both the קרקע under between and around  them the width of 4 אמות is sold along with the trees.But if he says he is keeping the קרקע to the חכמים that is valid and to ר' עקיבא still the קרקע under them belongs to the new owner of the trees. The reason is all who sell sell with a good eye. So in our case, the גמרא can hold like ר' עקיבא and that even when he says he is sanctifying the trees without  קרקע still the קרקע under them comes along with them. But there is only one act of sanctification, so they are redeemed together. That is the גמרא that sees a difference between רב פפא and רב הונא hold like the חכמים and ר' שמעון that one who sanctifies does so with a grudge, evil eye. But if a גמרא would hold like ר' עקיבא then the גמרא would say sanctifying three with no mention of ground the ground comes along both in and out of הקדש. But the law of רב הונא is where he mentioned both field and trees so both are redeemed separately

רב שך במשנה תורה ערכין פרק ד הלכה ט'ו -י''ח

רב שך במשנה תורה ערכין פרק ד הלכה ט'ו-י''ח ובפרק 24 הלכה 9 הלכות מכירה מביא ויכוח בין הרשב’'ם, התוספות והרמב'’ם. העניין הוא כי הרמב'’ם מחליט את החוק בדרכים שלפחות הגמרא בערכין היה סותר. רב הונא בערכין דף י''ד ע''א אומר מי שקידש שדה מלא עצים פודה את העצים לפי ערכם והשדה לפי חמישים שקלים לשדה בגודל סטנדרטי. רקע: מי שמקדש שדה עבור הקדש יכול לפדות אותו בעצמו אם ייתן לקדש 50 שקל. אם סוגים אחרים של חפצים, אז הוא פודה אותם לפי ערכם אך מוסיף 1/4. [מה שנקרא 1/5 אבל פירושו 1/5 מבחוץ

הגמרא שואלת האם זה לא מסכים עם הברייתא שמי שמקדש עצים גואל אותם והשדה הולך איתם. והגמרא מתרצת שרב הונא אמר כמו ר' עקיבא שמי שמקדש, מקדש בעין טובה. הקדש היה מקבל יותר. שברייתא זה כמו ר' שמעון שאחד מקדש בעין לא נאה. כך שהקדש היה מקבל פחות אם ייפדה.

הגרמרה כאן מחזיקה בבירור את שתי הדעות הללו חולקות זו את זו.

אז איך זה שהרמב'’ם מחליט את החוק כמו שניהם?ולמעשה הראב''ד אומר שהחוק אינו כמו רב הונא אלא כמו רב פפא על ערכין י''ד ע''ב.

שם אומר רב פפא מי שמקדש עצים גואל את העצים לפי ערכם. הגמרא שואלת שהקרקע תלך איתם להתקדש ולצאת איתם להיגאל? תשובה: זה שהמקדש אמר בגלוי שהקרקע לא הולכת איתם. אז אנו רואים שאם זה היו מקדשים יחד. רב שך עונה שגמרא על ערכין י''ד ע''ב מחזיק בבירור את רב הונא ורב פפא חולקים על כך. אך לא שהם למעשה לא מסכימים. יכול להיות שקידוש שדה עם עצים גורם להכל להתקדם. אך קידוש העצים בלבד, אפילו אם השדה עובר איתם, עדיין אין מדובר בשתי פעולות קידוש נפרדות. אז הגאולה תהיה גם במעשה אחד בלבד.

השאלה היא אם כן איפה הרמב'ם ראה את זה? לא נראה שיש שום גמרא בשום מקום שמצביע על כך שרב פפא ורב הונא מסכימים זה עם זה.

התשובה היא שלרב שך יש גמרא אחרת. זה שיש בו הבדל בין ר עקיבא לחכמים לגבי המקרה שמוכרים שלושה עצים. הגמרא שם מסכים כי לקונה הקרקע מתחתם ולסביבתם ורווח של 4 אמות נמכר יחד עם העצים. אבל אם המוכר אומר שהוא שומר את הקרקע לעצמו לחכמים זה תקף. אבל לר 'עקיבא עדיין הקרקע מתחת וביניהם שייכים לבעלים החדשים של העצים. הסיבה היא שכל מי שמוכר מוכר בעין טובה. כך שבמקרה שלנו, הגמרא יכולה להחזיק כמו ר' עקיבא, וכי אפילו כשהוא אומר שהוא מקדש את העצים בלי קרקה, עדיין הקרקע שתחתם באה איתם. אבל יש רק מעשה אחד של קידוש, ולכן הם נגאלים יחד. זה הגמרא הרואה הבדל בין רב פפא לרב הונא מחזיקה כמו חכמים ור' שמעון שמי שמקדש עושה זאת בעין רעה. אבל אם גמרא היה מחזיק כמו ר' עקיבא, הגמרא הייתה אומרת שקידוש שלושההעצים  ללא אזכור של האדמה האדמה באה ביחד הקדש. אבל החוק של רב הונא הוא שם הוא הזכיר גם שדה וגם עצים ולכן שניהם מתקדשים בנפרד

Three trees. Rav Shach in Mishna Torah in Arachin 4: 15-18 (and in chapter 24 law 9 of selling)

Rav Shach in  Mishna Torah in Arachin 4: 15-18 (and in chapter 24 law 9  of selling) brings an argument between the Rashbam, Tosphot, and Rambam. Rav Shach as is the custom starting from Rav Haim of Brisk is spending most of his efforts to understand the Rambam.

The issue is that the Rambam seems to decide  the law in ways that at least the Gemara in Arachin would hold to be contradictory. 

Rav Huna Arachin page 14a says one who sanctifies a field full of trees redeemed the trees according to their value and the field according the 50 shekels for a field of standard size. [Background: One who sanctifies a field for the Temple can redeem it himself if he gives to the Temple 50 shekels. If other kinds of objects then he redeems them according to their value but adds a 1/4 [what is called 1/5 but means 1/5 from the outside.]  ]

The Gemara asks does that not disagree with the teaching that one who sanctifies trees redeems them and the field goes along with it. and the Gemara answer that Rav Huna was saying like R Akiva that one who sanctifies sanctifies with a good eye. [The Temple would get more]. That teaching is like R Shimon that one sanctifies with an unkind eye. So that the Temple would get less if redeemed.

The Gemara here clearly holds these two teachings disagree with each other.

So how is it the Rambam decides the law like both?

And in fact the Raavad says the law is not like Rav Huna but rather like Rav Papa on Arachin 14b.

There Rav Papa says one who sanctifies trees redeems the trees according to their value.

The Gemara asks Let the ground go with them to be sanctified and to go out with them to be  redeemed? Answer this is where he said openly the ground does not go with them. So we see that if it would they would be sanctified together.

Rav Shach answers that The gemara on Arachin 14b clearly holds Rav Huna and Rav Papa disagree. But not that the in fact disagree. It could be that the sanctifying a field with trees makes everything go together. But sanctifying the trees alone-even if the field goes along with them, still it is not two separate acts of sanctifying. So redeeming would also be in just one act.

The Question is then where did the Rambam see this? There does not seem to be any Gemara anywhere that indicates that Rav Papa and Rav Huna agree with each other.

The answer is that Rav Shach has a different Gemara. It is the one where there is a difference between R Akiva and the sages about the case one sells three trees. The Gemara there agrees that to both the ground under between and around  them the width of 4 yards is sold along with the trees.But if he says he is keeping the ground to the sages that is valid and to R akiva still the ground under them belongs to the new owner of the trees. The reason is all who sell sell with a good eye.


So in our case the Gemara can hold like R Akiva and that even when he says he is sanctifying the trees without teh land still the land under them comes along with them. But there is only one act of sanctification so the y are redeemed together. That is the Gemara that sees a difference between Rav papa and Rav huna hold like the sages and R Shimon that one who sanctifies does so with a grudge. evil eye. But if a Gemara would hold like R Akiva as is in fact teh law then the Gemara would say sanctifying three with no mention of ground the ground comes along both in and out of hekdesh. But the law of Rav Huna is where he mentioned both field and trees so both are redeemed separately 

Mark McCloskey protects his life and the lives of his family. So self defense is not longer a legal defense in the USA? Answer: No it is not. But even so, it does not matter. You defend your life anyway--at all cost.

 So a home owner protects his life and the lives of his family from a violent mob and the District attorney wants to indite him? So self defense is not longer a legal defense in the USA?

The homeowner who defended his St. Louis property from violent Black Lives Matter activists earlier this week slammed CNN’s Chris Cuomo for making assumptions about his case.

“A guy stands in front of me, pulls out two loaded pistol magazines, snaps them in front of my face and says, ‘You’re next.’ If you were there, Chris, I think you’d feel like you had a right to defend yourself, as well,” Mark McCloskey, joined by his legal counsel, explained on Tuesday.

The lesson to be learned is never go on the fake media. 

חכם עדיף מנביא a wise man is better than a prophet. And Rav Nahman brings in the Sefer HaMidot that a prophet only knows what is revealed to him. So there is no question why certain people with great spiritual insight might have been completely  unaware of what should have been obvious.
There is no reason to think that Isaiah the prophet would have known Quantum Physics. The reason is spiritual values are not the same as universals which are recognizable by reason. And if he would have known QM it would only have been through reason, not prophecy--for prophecy deals with a different area of value 

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

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.]

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.

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.]

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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.