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The idea that leaning Physics and Metaphysics as being even more important than learning Torah per se is an opinion that I had to depend on since "sitting and learning Torah" somehow or other was not working out for me. 

Perhaps for lack of trying hard enough. Perhaps reasons that are still unknown or not understood by me. Still if I had had enough commitment I think I would have just sat and learned Torah.

Part of the reason is that while seeing the importance of Physics and Metaphysics (that many Rishonim hold), still there is the numinous aspect of Torah that apparently you do not find in these subjects where the holiness is hidden.

The word "Numinous" comes from Otto based on the the idea of non intuitive immediate knowledge. The idea is the is an perception of holiness that does not depend on reason. [See the Kant Fries school.]

it is important to have a good idea of what real authentic Torah is

There is a kind of continuity of groups or super-organisms {as Howard Bloom would call them}. In the recent world wars, no one from England would say they are fighting for Englishmen. No. Rather they would say they are, "Fighting for England." 

Similarly you can notice  a kind of continuity of the Mir Yeshiva over generations. A kind of DNA of an institution- rather that of the individuals that are a part of it. A kind of modesty, a commitment to whatever the Torah says -not to any doctrines per se, strictness about laws of money  and not to speak lashon hara (slander).

But this, I think, can apply to almost all yeshivas built on the vision of the Gaon of Villna -the Gra.

Even for those of us that are not as strict in every detail that we ought to be , still it is important to have a good idea of what real, authentic Torah is-- as opposed to Torah of the Sitra Acha [Dark Side] which too often poses as the real thing.

 Dr Kelley Ross suggested that the reason the Left is rioting and burning American cities is the same kind of reasoning that led to the Tet Offense in the Vietnam War. That is, the Left feels if they can bring enough violence and chaos to American cities then people will vote for them just in order to stop the violence.

But my question is if this can work in the USA in the same way that it worked in Vietnam? After all Americans might resent being used in that kind of way. They might vote for President Trump just to show they are not afraid of the riots. This has happened before. People have sometimes attacked the USA thinking people would just give up. But after being attacked that American DNA was awakened that holds freedom dear. 

[The Tet Offensive was an attack on South  Vietnam that was meant to weaken support of American troops and the S. Vietnam government. And this strategy worked in the USA also. Immediately after the rioting stated, support for President Trump went down to  ziltch. But the question is that now American might  be getting tired of the violence and want to return to stability. So support for Trump has risen again. That is in the hope that he can bring stability and prosperity.]

 

 Ketuboth page 9. A priest comes to court and says he found his newly wed wife was not a virgin. She is not saying anything. She is forbidden to him because of a doubt when were the relations before or after kidushin? Since there is only one doubt she is forbidden. Tosphot says there are two hazakot [prior state] here. Hezkat she is OK and hezkat of the body. That is she is assumed to have stayed  a virgin until you know otherwise. That puts the act of sex later. R Akiva Eigger says hezkat hashta [the state of things now] does not help her here because you would need it to join with hezkat OK and it can not because it says something different than hezkat OK.  Hezkat OK says there was no sex. Hezkat hashta says you push the act of sex back in time as far as possible and that means the sex was before kidushin.

I have two questions here. One is Hezzkat OK can say either the sex was before kidushin or there was no sex. That that has an intersection with hezkat hashata which says the sex was before kidushin. The other question is no one has even brought up the possibility she did not have sex. So all that hezkat OK says is that the sex was before kidushin. And therefore both hazakot are saying the exact same thing.

Rav Shach asks that Shmuel holds there is no state of now that pushes things back in time (Hezkat Hashta) and Rav who does hold from it holds hazakot [status plural] do not need to join. He answers that is only to tell us a state of being. But in a case like in Nida page 2 where an event happened to change the status, there you need the two hazakot to join.

[There is a time period between betrothal [kidushin] and the marriage. But she is a married woman after the betrothal. [In ancient times, the betrothal was done in the way that makes it actually marriage. Nowadays it is just a promise to marry so it is not the same thing.]] So if she had sex after, then she is forbidden to her husband who is a priest even if it was rape. That not the case of a Israeli, only a priest. This is clear in the verses in the Torah that a Kohen priest can not marry a "zona" that is a woman who has had sex that was forbidden].

The whole idea of  

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 כתובות page 9. A כהן comes to court and says he found his newly wed wife was not a virgin. She is not saying anything. She is forbidden to him because of a doubt when were the relations before or after קידושין? Since there is only one doubt she is forbidden. תוספות says there are two חזקות  here. חזקת כשרות and חזקת הגוף. That is she is assumed to have stayed  a virgin until you know otherwise. That puts the act of sex later. ר' עקיבא איגר says חזקת השתא does not help her here because you would need it to join with חזקת כשרות and it can not because it says something different than חזקת כושר. That is חזקת כשרות says there was no sex. חזקת השתא says you push the act of sex back in time as far as possible and that means the sex was before קידושין. I have two questions here. One is חזקת כשרות can say either the sex was before קידושין or there was no sex. That that has an intersection with חזקת השתא which says the sex was before קידושין. The other question is no one has even brought up the possibility she did not have sex. So all that חזקת כשרות says is that the sex was before קידושין. And therefore both hazakot are saying the exact same thing. רב שך asks that שמואל holds there is no חזקת השתא and רב who does hold from it holds חזקות do not need to join. He answers that is only to tell us a state of being. But in a case like in נידה page 2 where an event happened to change the status, there you need the two חזקות to join.

 כתובות עמוד 9. כהן מגיע לבית המשפט ואומר שמצא שאשתו הטרייה לא הייתה בתולה. היא לא אומרת כלום. היא אסורה עליו בגלל ספק מתי היו היחסים לפני קידושין או אחריהם? מכיוון שיש רק ספק אחד היא אסורה. תוספות אומר שיש כאן שתי חזקות. חזקת כשרות וחזקת הגוף. משערים שהיא נשארה בתולה עד שתדע אחרת. זה מציב את מעשה המין מאוחר יותר. ר 'עקיבא איגר אומר חזקת השתא לא עוזר לה כאן כי היית צריך את זה כדי להצטרף עם חזקת כשרות וזה לא יכול כי זה אומר משהו אחר מאשר חזקת כושר. היינו חזקת כשרות אומרת שלא היה שום יחסי מין. חזקת השתא אומרת שאתה דוחף את מעשה המין לאחור בזמן ככל האפשר וזה אומר שהמין היה לפני קידושין. יש לי שתי שאלות כאן. האחת היא חזקת כשרות יכולה לומר שהמין היה לפני קידושין או שלא היה יחסי מין. זה שיש לו צומת עם חזקת השתא שאומרת שהמין היה לפני קידושין. השאלה השנייה היא שאף אחד אפילו לא העלה את האפשרות שהיא לא קיימה יחסי מין. אז כל מה שאומר חזקת כשרות הוא שהמין היה לפני קידושין. ולכן שתי החזקות אומרות את אותו הדבר בדיוק. רב שך שאל ששמואל מחזיק שאין חזקת השתא ורב שאוחז ממנו מחזיק חזקות לא צריכות להצטרף. הוא עונה שזה רק כדי לומר לנו מצב של הוויה. אבל במקרה כמו בנידה עמוד 2 שבו אירוע קרה כדי לשנות את הסטטוס, שם אתה זקוק לשני החזקות כדי להצטרף

 Communism actually had its beginning in the French Revolution with Babeuf and it is at least indicative of where things are going in the USA. It might even be helpful to learn about the source and history of Communism before recommending it. It is like if a doctor prescribes some compound, and for the last two hundred years it has killed every person that tried it. Before recommending it to others, you might take a few minutes to see if it has ever tried before, and what the results were.

Marx did not simply copy Babeuf, but used ideas of Adam Smith and Hegel to make a more unified structure.

I was aware of Marx when I was much younger, and read the Communist Manifesto and other works by Leftists. The reason none of it impressed me was I had ingrained in me from my earliest youth the idea that no matter how rigorously, logical and scientific and ingenious a theory is, if experiment shows its predictions are wrong, then it is wrong. 

The constant attempts of East Germans to get to West Germany or to West Berlin was plenty of evidence for me to show not all was well in Communist East Germany. That same story has been repeated ad infinitum: the USSR, Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, all African countries--anywhere that takes a socialistic model the result is always mass murder, mass starvation, zero freedom. etc.

War is not necessarily a good thing. Why do people think that starting a civil war in the USA is desirable.

It reminds me of what General Sherman before the war between the states [North and South] began: "You people have no idea what you are getting yourselves into."

 Rav Avraham Abulafia's approach to Jesus is important because it establishes a certain amount of legitimacy to him within the context of Torah.

I mean, people can think of lots of things, but those things are not necessarily with the context or borders of Authentic Torah.  In fact, most of what passes today as authentic Torah is anything but that. 

For something to be within the context of authentic Torah, it needs to be accepted by the Rishonim. Without that condition, nothing can even start.

[Rishonim means "first ones" [After Rav Hai Gaon until Rav Joseph Karo as opposed to Ahronim ["later ones"--after Rav Joseph Karo.]

 Slander is a prohibition in the Torah. There are exceptions like when you need to warn someone about a dangerous person. But as a starting point, one needs very urgent and good reason to be able to disparage another person. [I mean the starting position is never to say something negative about another person. Then based on circumstances, there might be a need and even a requirement to say something.]

One of the secrets of success I always thought that the Mir Yeshiva in NY had was the morning session where people would learn the laws of slander after the morning prayers. So there was a great awareness of the issues involved in speaking slander.

Just for clarity:

Lashon Hara can be just saying something negative --but is worse if it is with intention to cause damage or even can cause damage.  It is divided into בין אדם למקום ובין אדם לחבירו and the laws are different. For between man and God issues it is enough if the person is on that path in a constant way. Just just an accidental sin. Then one can say lashon hara and warn others. For issues between man and his fellow man, that is where you need some conditions to be able to say anything negative: for benefit, to see it oneself, rebuke, no other way to get that benefit, to be clear that what one think happened really did happen, it will not cause more damage that would come to the person if he was tried in court, that it really is clear according to the laws of the Torah.

Some examples: it would be forbidden for a woman to lie about her husband in court in order to get more money out of an alimony case. There are lot of reasons for that. One is that Lashon Hara even on true things still needs lots of conditions. All the more so lying about something is worse. And here it is with intention to cause damage.

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the kind of wisdom that Rav Nahman says comes from the Empty Space is Philosophy.

 I would assume that the kind of wisdom that Rav Nahman says comes from the Empty Space is Philosophy. I mean to say that there is something odd about philosophy in the first place that seems to retract common sense away from people, and yet does not qualify as simply  a false or man made wisdom with no connection to reality. What I mean is that something like psychology is simply pseudo science and a result of its practitioners delusions and their own childhood experiences. There is nothing real or objective about psychology in the first place. But philosophy is not like that. It deal with real questions, but questions that seem to have contradictory answers and which leads into some kind of mental traps. 

Psychology is insane people pretending to be doctors. But philosophy takes sane people and makes them insane.

[That is in its effect. On the other hand, it does appear that philosophy can help to limit or cancel other kinds of delusions. Particularity religious delusions. So is it possible to find some kind of balance? We see Robert Hanna in fact demolished 20th century analytic philosophy in its entirety--simply by pointing out its circular reasoning and other logical fallacies. But his suggestion of "Forward to Kant" seems difficult  to accept since Kant him is open to many schools of thought, particularity Neo-Kant [Marburg], Leonard Nelson, Hegel. 

 The main magic of the Litvak yeshiva is based on trust in God. When Torah is learned for its own sake, and not for the sake of making  a living, there is a sort of settling of the Divine presence.

But that magic disappears when the intention becomes for the sake of making money.

But ordination programs got introduced (even in the Mir yeshiva of NY itself). That seems to have been a mistake.

 But not the only one. Even the idea of  "kollel" itself to me seems to be a problem. I just do not think people ought to be paid for learning Torah. Religions just to be too much of a business. 

 

Slave revenge

 Slave revenge has nothing to do with bettering the living conditions of the slave as in the incident with the Nat Turner rebellion. It is simply a way of  "getting back"at former masters.

This is what is going on in the USA right now. Slave Revenge. An attempt to destroy the whites. Not better the blacks.

 The lesson to learn from the civil war is rhetoric. 20 years of rhetoric created the situation when young teenagers of both the North and South were anxious to kill the other. This same situation has existed in the USA from the 1960's until today when colleges  and high schools have been overwhelmed by teachers all too ready to demonize the USA, and lionize Communism and Socialism.

And now, as back then in 1861, this can not end peacefully. 

 In America the basic argument between the Right and the Marxists is from tractate Ketuboth page 9. That is do you go by חזקת השתא או חזקה מעיקרא the state of things now or the state of things before. That is do you assume conditions now always existed until you reach the point where you know they did not. I.e. prosperity, freedom, etc all the markers of Western Civilization. Until you reach the point of despair and poverty when you know these conditions did not apply.  

Or do you assume the state of mankind was poor and desperate short and brutal until something like the USA came along to make it different. [Even the age of Mozart does not count since it was only capitalism that made conditions of prosperity and freedom apply to everyone, not just the monarch.] 

Well clearly the Gemara holds that we go by the state of things before and you push that forwards as far as possible until something you know changed it. That is the Constitution of the USA.

Certainly Marxism did not make things prosperous or make people free in any country that has ever tried it. The long lines in Russia just to get a few groceries shows that.

So we know it was capitalism that changed the original conditions of mankind.

[The basic issue in Ketuboth is that a priest marries and then comes to court and says he found his new bride not to be a virgin. [i.e. no hymen]. So she is forbidden to him. But if a Israeli comes and says the same thing she is permitted to him because it is a ספק ספקא doubt of a doubt. Maybe she had sexual relations before Kidushin. Then she is permitted. But even if she had relations after Kidushin, it might have been against her will. So she is still permitted. 

Tosphot asks why not go by חזקת כשרות that every person starts out with. That is--they are Ok util you know otherwise. Tosphot answers because of חזקה מעיקרא the original state of things. That is..you assume she was a virgin until the very second you found out otherwise. That means after the Kidushin and so she is forbidden to the Koken,

So we see we go by the original state of things even when there is a present state of things against it.

[That is from Rav Akiva Eigger and Rav Shach.]

 

 Philosophy seems less interesting to me nowadays because I am upset about what is going on in the USA and I do not see philosophy as ever getting issues of government correct.

For some reason Plato, Kant, Leonard Nelson, Hegel may have been great and deep thinkers, but when it comes to political issues they did not seem to have that same degree of insight or talent.

The people that got politics right the founding fathers of the USA Constitution were not philosophers and they did not base their thought on philosophy. Rather they based their ideas on England and especially the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

It is not that the issues were all that different. Rather that the philosophers got the issues wrong. Hegel saw the terrible mess of the French Revolution but his solution seems to involve too much government. Kant also was dealing with the crisis of modernity of Germany after the old structures of society were changing. But his solutions also do not seem accurate--too much world government and or too much individual.

What ever Thomas Jefferson and James Madison got right, it was not based on philosophy. 

 Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school of thought has commented on the idea that Kant must have been onto something since we see his idea  in Quantum Mechanics.

The basic ideas that between two states the electron is really not doing anything. It has no classical values of position and momentum. So it really does seem very similar to Kant's Dinge An Sich. The thing in itself which Reason has no access into.

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The advantage of the Litvak yeshiva is  authenticity. It is not that Litvaks are very nice or that the Litvak world is so great. It is not that even all the doctrines are right.

Rather it is simply that it is the one address you can go to  to find out what the Torah actually says. Not what people want it to say.

[In fact I had a pretty great experience in both of the Litvak yeshivas [Mir and Shar Yashuv] I attended, but the point I want to bring out here is that one's experience should not make any difference in evaluating the value. The fact in itself that all yeshivas based on the Gra and Rav Shach more or less apply the same principle that says basically that we simply want to learn and understand keep Torah. There is basically no alternative agendas.

The destroyed cities that were destroyed because by the Emancipation Proclamation. If Lincoln had learned Torah, and especially the books of Ethics [Musar], then the whole issue would have been resolved without war.

 The destroyed cities ruined by the Emancipation Proclamation are proof the South was right.

Besides that I just want to add for the sake of information, there is slavery in Torah. And Jesus also said that every word of Torah is true and will never be nullified right in the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount.

So to say that slavery is evil, one has to repudiate a both the Torah and Jesus.

Portland has shown once and for all that the South was right. The Proclamation of Emancipation was a ticking time bomb and now it has come time to explode.

I might add that the tzars also discovered this truth with freeing the serfs. [It did not take long for them to destroy the Russian Empire after that. ]

Legally anyway, the slaves were never freed because you would need the Southern States to agree to a Constitutional amendment by their own free will.

From a Torah point of view also there are only a few ways that a slave can be freed. But I am not sure that is applicable here since I think a government proclamation can free slaves but only if the proclamation is legally valid. Lincoln's was not.

So today what is possible? I suggest Rav Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar (Ethics). This is in order to understand the basic principles of Torah. If Lincoln had learned Torah and especially the books of Ethics [Musar] then the whole issue would have been resolved without war.

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learning Torah with energy

 I have thought for a long time that Rav Israel Abuchatzeira found a sort of "grace" with God in so far as whenever people came to him to get a blessing, it always [or most always] worked. I do not think he always knew how. He would have bottles of water that people would take home, and usually be saved from whatever problem they were facing. But if he knew how? I doubt it. [He was not all knowing as some people suggest.] 

To me this seems to tie in with the very first lesson in Rav Nahman's LeM Vol I. Chapter 1. That when a person has grace with God his prayers are answered and even his requests --what he asks a favor from people-those are answered too. So how does one gain "grace". In that lesson Rav Nahman says is is by learning Torah with energy. 

This brings the question is there anyone of the Bava Sali family around nowadays that is similar or worthwhile going to for a blessing? Probably. I would venture to say Shimon Buso, [a son of a daughter of Bava Sali] who lives in Jerusalem but learns in Netivot.

[But I ought to add that I think that any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira is worth going to to get advice and a blessing.]

That particular lesson of Rav Nahman says that learning Torah with energy bring together reason with faith. [The ח and נ ] but in the beginning of that section Rav Nahman says learning Torah combines the Nun and the Cheit. In the he says to merit to reason in the first place one needs to learn Torah with energy. 

 There is some cultist aspect to the religious world. This is even though as far as possible to tell, all they are doing is trying to follow Torah. Still there is a definite aspect of the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] that has taken hold of the religious world. It is almost as if there is  a "for the sake of money" or other aspects there. While that is true, still it does not explain the issue. At any rate , in spite of the frum (religious world) making a song and dance of how they alone keep Torah (and so everyone ought to give them money), still there is some reason to avoid them if you value your family and life. For there is a aspect of the Dark Side that has taken hold of the religious world.

The problem is obviously that Torah is positive value and the most positive value. So זה לעומת זה עשה האלהים [the good side and evil side are parallel.] for every positive value there is  a whole circle of negative value surrounding it. So what is going on is that the Dark Side is buried deep inside the religious world.

Kyle Rittenhouse. The second video. [That is the person accused of murder.]

Kyle Rittenhouse. I want to go over the second video. The first thing that happens is is running away and then he is hit on the head with a skateboard. He does not shoot back. Then he is knocked on the ground and kicked in the head. [You can not see who hit him the second time that caused him to fall. That is blocked from view.] Then someone tries to jump on top of him, and that is when the first shot happens. Then again someone attacks him, and he shoots again. Then a person with a pistol [that is hard to see in the video] has turned around  and almost has his pistol ready to shoot Rittenhouse; and that is when Rittenhouse gets off the third shot. Literally an instant before he is almost killed.   

It is hard to see this as anything but self defense in a dire emergency.

The sages in the Gemara say: הקם להרגך, השכם ותהרוג אותו. "If one is coming to kill you, get up early in the morning and kill him."

He should be awarded a a medal for helping to protect his community.

So why arrest him? It is not as if there is no one out there rioting. So the one person that does the right thing--that is whom they arrest?

The first video is hard to see. But the basic train of events is this. Rittenhouse is running away. The person with the red around his head attacks Rittenhouse, and then throws something at  him, and then that is when you hear the shoot. Also self defense. In all these cases, Rittenhouse was the one running from trouble. But when trouble came to get him, he turned around and protected himself.

The South wanted freedom. I can not see that the states had no right to secede. It is like a marriage. If one partner wants out, would you say the other has a right to use force to coerce him or her to stay? Of course not. So why would you say the North could use force on the South to make them stay? What is the difference?

And nowadays there is evidence that the South was right. E.g. Portland, Detroit, Chicago, Newark, etc.  

The importance of Robert E Lee.

 

 What is going on in the USA is not hard to understand. When the human race was young and let's say you are in a village where the last horse has been eaten. But the next village over you can smell the roast beef they are having every night. And when you go to trade, you see their pretty girls. So someone comes up with a brilliant idea. Lets go over there, kill all the men and take the women and children and Take Their Stuff. TTS.

That is what is going on in the USA. It is not-that young teenagers have been convinced about Communism by deep study. It is rather a way to ease one's conscience about the basic element of human DNA: Let's take their stuff.

 The area of review in the thought of Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov is ambiguous. We know exactly how he held one ought to learn as in saying the words and going on. But that is the "Bekiut" aspect of learning. The fast learning. But what about "Iyun". He clearly held from its importance as you can see in the LeM volume I chapter 78.  

One suggestion I have and I have tried  a few times myself is that once you get to the end of the book [whether Gemara or midrash or the natural sciences] to go back page by page from the end towards the beginning. This has the advantage that you are doing review before you have had a chance to start forgetting. And forgetting is almost inevitable if you go right back to the beginning once you have gotten to the end. But in this way of review page by page from the end towards the start --that way you are doing review with a short time from when you first learned the material.

We need to rethink the Civil War.

 

How is it possible to know the South the right? There is some evidence. E.g., Baltimore, Portland, Newark, Detroit. etc. That is you see the results or Emancipation and then you have evidence that it was not right. 

DO HOME OWNERS HAVE A RIGHT TO PROTECT THEIR HOMES?

I cannot see the question. In the Torah there is  a law הבא המחתרת in Exodus. That is the verse about one who breaks into into the home of someone else -- the owner has a right to shoot them. Self defense does not need Miranda warnings.

So when BLM come into a neighborhood, we know they are not there to sit down and have a chat.

 There is a "Yeshu" mentioned in the Talmud who is criticized.

The Rosh [Asher] wrote that that does not refer to Jesus. [The Rosh was a Rishon]. The "Yeshu" mentioned in the Talmud was a disciple of one of the middle "zuggot' pairs mention in Pirkei Avot. [Yehoshua ben Perachia] So that is right in the middle of the second Temple. That is about 150 years before Jesus. Yeshu was not an uncommon name. [Where the Rosh wrote this? I seem to recall seeing it at the end of Gitten but maybe it was somewhere else.]

I mean to say the Talmud says openly exactly who it is referring to--that is the disciple of Yehushua ben Perachia. That means it can not be referring to the Yeshua of the NT.

I might just add the point that "Hagada" even in the Talmud itself is not binding. The idea of the Talmud is to get to the laws of Torah, not stories. That is not to say that the stories are not interesting. Interesting yes but fundamental and binding? No. As the Ramban and other Rishonim already made this point long ago.

I know people think Torah is all about interesting stories. But in fact it is not. It is about laws.

to learn Torah. That is the Oral and Written Law. But the difference is that I add to that also Physics based on the Rishonim that did include that in learning Torah.

The truth is that I am a bit pessimistic about the USA. "Whom the gods want to destroy first they make insane." So the trans-sex thing is the insane part. What comes next is what we are seeing in Portland. The communists trying to destroy the USA. But not like the Cold War. For the Communists to attack the USA they needed to be able to get through 7500 miles from Moscow to the USA. Now the war is at our doorstep. Literally. But how to fight such a thing? The falsification of the history of the USA has been going on for a long time. And people swallow it hook line and sinker.

Will no real Americans stand up anymore?

But this does not seem exactly like an attack on the USA. Rather it seems like an attack on Western Civilization.

As for what to do. My basic approach is based on what I learned at the Mir in NY--that the cure for almost any problem is to learn Torah. That is the Oral and Written Law. But the difference is that I add to that also Physics based on the Rishonim that did include that in learning Torah. 

[I noticed this idea also in the beginning of the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach where he says that nowadays there is nothing one can do but simply to increase learning Torah.]

However I wanted also to add that "learning Torah" does have a limited definition. Mainly it means the actual books written by the Tenaim and Amoraim which contain the actual record of the Oral Law. But these can include some commentary. So for example I would learn a lot of the Maharsha and Tosphot in order to understand the Gemara.

x14 E Minor

 x14 E Minor mp3  x14 midi  x14 nwc

to learn the Federalist Papers to gain an appreciation for the unique gift of the Constitution of the USA.

 It might sound lame, but my recommendation for the USA is for people to learn the Federalist Papers by James Madison, Alexander  Hamilton, and John Jay in order to gain an appreciation for the unique gift of the Constitution of the USA. I mean go through the Federalist Papers from start to finish.

I MEAN INSTEAD OF "AMERICAN HISTORY", LEARN WHAT AMERICA IS ALL ABOUT IN THE FIRST PLACE. History is so easily distorted according to what ones agenda is. After all, it would be like reporting on N.Y. City. To show your agenda is right, you do not even have to lie. All you need to do is selectively report the incidents  that fit your narrative. [I mean lots of things happen every day in  a city with millions of people. What you report on, depends on what you want to show.]

But the one flaw in the Constitution is the desire of people to get other people's stuff. If you bring into the USA enough people that hate the rich, and do not want to work to better themselves, but rather to take away from those that have worked, then nothing can save the situation. 

That would be the time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah

September 17 at 2:00 PM is the new moon. That would be the time to celebrate Rosh Hashanah according to the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 10 that the new moon does not depend on the court sanctifying it.

the "Seder haLimud" [learning in the way of just saying the words and going on]

 I noted a few days ago and again today that Rav Natan, the disciple of Rav Nahman, faced a great deal of opposition. But not from Litvaks. See the "Sefer ha'Telaot". It was not at all people that were following the path of the Gra that were against him or against Rav Nahman.  

Which does bring the question to my mind what are the major great points of Rav Nahman that the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] was trying so hard to hide.

Well clearly the Tikun Klali [the Ten Psalms] and Hitbodadut [talking with God as one would talk with a good friend] would have to stand foremost. But I also think the "Seder haLimud" [learning in the way of just saying the words and going on] . Which presents a way of going through the entire oral and written law plus the natural sciences at least once during one's lifetime. And as Rav Nahman says in Sefer Ha'Midot what one does not understand or remember in this world. he will be reminded and made to understand in the world to come.

[Natural sciences I see as important but philosophy is more doubtful to me. It seems there is a lack of clarity about what is really valuable there.]

learning fast and also review and learning in depth. [

Even though Rav Nahman of Breslov emphasized learning fast there are also a few places where he does bring the idea of review and learning in depth. [Sefer Hamidot and LeM I:78] It does not seem that there is much of  question of which to emphasize since you can see in Conversations of Rav Nahman that the learning fast thing was his major emphasis. [section 76],

If you apply this to learning the natural sciences, Math, Physics, Chem, Biology, then the rule is clear. Learn fast with no review. Say the words in order from the beginning to end.

[Many Rishonim held from learning the natural sciences. That started from Rav Saadia Gaon and Ibn Pakuda.] 

So review is less well defined when and how to go about it.

I suggest in one of the regular sessions to have one session where review is done in the way of starting sta some middle point and working a few pages forward and also a few pages backwards.

[But one should avoid pseudo sciences and pseudo Torah. In fact outside of STEM, anything with the word "studies" attached to it is pseudo science. As for Torah, only the actual written and Oral Law are Torah. That is the actual Old Testament and the two Talmuds and midrashim. Everything else is false Torah or fake Torah.

natural science is pretty clear is most rishonim. However philosophy seems to be an area of contention. The Ramban [Moshe ben Nahman] did not like Aristotle at all. And that means all that followed his approach. But Ibn Pakuda [Obligations of the Hearts] differs as you can see on page one of his intro to his book.

x13 A Minor.

 x13 A Minor mp3.   x16 midi x16 nwc

Music from a few years ago b100. [B files were written in Israel around 2001.]

 b100 mp3 b100 nwc file

b100 Midi file

b101 mp3

b101 note worthy composer

b101 Midi

b104

b105

b98 mp3,   b98 [noteworthy composer file. That is a company that has software by which one can write music.

mathematics mp3 mathematics nwc file

[This was written in Uman but put together in NY.]

orchestra mp3 orchestra nwc file This was written when I was in high school. [Influenced by Beethoven an Brahmans and my teachers like Mr Smart.] The B files were much later in Israel. I think this was when I was a sophomore. It was before there was noteworthy software so it was just on paper until many years later I used nwc software to see how it actually sounds.

[Mr Smart was the conductor of the high school orchestra and  a genius that was able to whip up the high school orchestra  into a an almost semi professional level]

All of this music was written in notebooks and then I would develop the themes later.

 

In NY I started writing down some of the music that my brother had saved. There also was some music that was in notebooks. [That is where the piece mathematics came from. I had been in Hebrew University where  a very nice girl introduced me to Mathematics. Michal. So that piece was written from that inspiration..]

Litvak Yeshiva world. It is really better not to have anything to do with the religious world as long as one is not able to discern between real Torah and the phony Torah of the Sitra Achra.

 It is hard to figure out the Litvak Yeshiva world.  The best way I can see is based on Howard Bloom's idea about a super-organisms and the social "meme". In other words it is not just a place to learn Torah but rather a place to absorb Torah. The trouble is that in any area of value there is always the pseudo areas that surround it. That is not only in Torah, but in Music, and almost any discipline.

For every authentic science there are surrounding it pseudo sciences. [Something gone into by Steven Dutch but his blog is gone.]

So it is really better not to have anything to do with the religious world as long as one is not able to discern between real Torah and the phony Torah of the Sitra Achra. That is one reason certainly the Gra signed the herem [letter of excommunication.] The reason is like it says by Esau that when he saw his wives were not pleasing to his parents Isaac and Rivka he married two more wives that would be pleasing to them.--But he did not get rid of the first two. So the first thing is flee from evil סור מרע and only then  can one do good עשה טוב. That is a verse in Psalms 34 "Flee from evil and do good".--in that order סור מרע ועשה טוב.

People generally associate the Gra and Rav Shach with the religious world but that is not accurate. They followed Torah. The religious world on the contrary follow their interests and the appearance of Torah to trick fry secular yidden [secular Jews] into giving them money. That is a big difference.

 

peaceful protest

 peaceful protest

Ketuboth 9 side B. If someone marries a girl, and then says he found she was not a virgin, whom do you believe?

 If someone marries a girl, and then says he found she was not a virgin, whom do you believe? [She says she was a virgin.] That is easy. The Gemara in Ketuboth says on page 9b that you believe him since, "No one makes a wedding celebration just to ruin it the next day." But the Gemara says that is only because the Ketuba is not from the Torah, but rather a decree of the sages. ["They require a ketuba and they believe him if he says he did not find her a virgin."]

The Ramban [Nahmanides] asks: So if it was from the Torah, why would she be believed? Anyone coming to court with a document that has  a condition in it has to prove that the condition was fulfilled.

Rav Shach explains the question  and answer of the Ramban based on the gemara in Ketuboth page 76. Two people exchange animals,  It comes out that you have two "hazakot"חזקות [ conditions or state of things]. One "hekat hashta" חזקת השתא [the way things are now you infer that that is the way they were in the past--and extend it as fr as possible] and the other hazaka חזקה from the start. [That is the way things were in the past you assume they keep on going until you know otherwise]  If they work against each other, then you need some other kind of proof. [You see this also in the beginning of Nida]. 

So the Ramban answers that she has a hazaka חזקה and also a majority רוב. That is why she would be believed.

[The Gemara that Rav Shach brings says: Two people exchanged animal A with animal B. The owner of A took possession of B. But when the owner of B went to take A he found it dead. Rav Yehuda said the owner of A has to prove that A was alive at the time of the deal. Rami said no. The owner of B has to show it had died before.]

So now we understand the Ramban. If the Ketuba would be from the Torah, then you would believe her that she was a virgin because the is no Hezkat  hashta [status now]against her original "hazaka meikara" [original status] . Plus a "rov" majority (Most girls get married as virgins). But without that, you would need her to show that she fulfilled the condition of the marriage --that she was  a virgin when she got married. That would be like Rav Yehuda in Ketuboth 76.

So in simple English, the cases with exchange of two animals and the case of the marriage are different. In the case of the animal case, there is חזקת השתא [present status] that works against the חזקה מעיקרא [prior status]. Animal A is not alive so we push that back in time. So to Rav Yehuda, we ask the owner of animal A to show that the animal was alive at the time of the deal. But in the case of the marriage, there is no חזקת השתא [present status],  since she is now anyway not a virgin. So all there is is חזקה מעיקרא --and that is exactly what the Ramban [Nahmanides] says: since there is a חזקה מעיקרא [prior status] we would believe her.

,,

the Litvak world comes out a million times better than anyone else.

 At the two Litvak yeshivas I was in in NY --Shar Yashuv and the Mir, I was aware of Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov to some degree. And found his teachings to be helpful and inspiring.  The odd thing is later I got much more serious about following Rav Nahman's path and was involved in the group of Rav Shick in Safed.The funny thing is that I would have expected the moral level of people involved in Rav Nahman [Breslov] to be so much higher than anything else that there would be  a clear advantage to following this "Breslov path."

But based on my experience I have to say that the Litvak world of the Musar Yeshivas is hands down a million times more moral and decent than anything I have seen elsewhere. However I do also see the great advantage in the teachings of Rav Nahman. But more on a personal level than as a group. 

I know I have no data on this but my impression is that of you would take the most minimal measures of morality --not to lie, and not to cheat, or scam I would say this is how the test would come out. You measure the times a person has the opportunity to lie and does not lie even to his advantage, and divide that by how many times he has the opportunity. Same with cheating. Same with lying and and same with scamming. You would get a mathematical ratio. So based on my experience (and I think everyone would have to agree) there is no question, the Litvak world comes out a million times better than anyone else. That makes a difference because you can not have holiness without good character traits. Being a "mensch" is the minimum starting level towards holiness.

Without that nothing can start.  

There was a lot of "Hizuk" encouragement I gained from Rva Nahman's books, but to jump ship off the Litvak world was a mistake. I was thinking I was going to find a group on some kind of higher spiritual plane and that was a miscalculation.]

X12 E flat major

 X12 mp3 E flat major  x12 midi   x12 nwc  As you can see in the second part I have done a different kind of variation on the main theme that I have not done before. That is I take the main theme and do a symmetric transformation on it.. But if that really works--I am not sure. 

There is a difference between keeping Torah as opposed to being part of the religious world.

 There is a difference between keeping Torah as opposed to being part of the religious world. In fact, there is a kind of fraud in the religious world in that the major effort and drive is to get converts. But the hidden message is that the converts will then be the servants of those that are already religious.

The trouble is that the religious world keeps external rituals, but gains evil character. So trying to get people to join is really not in the category of  a good deed.

It might be that the religious think they are righteous. But they are not. They are religious, not righteous.

[ The closest to pure Torah is the Litvak yeshivas, but there the Sitra Achra also has some hold.]

To understand the issue it might be helpful to take note that just simply "being religious" in itself tends to be  a problem. It is to easy to get it wrong and fall into fanaticism.

You can understand this based on the idea of Dr Kelley Ross [of the Kant-Friesian school of thought] that there is an array of "value".So the values of knowledge and beauty are not along the same lines as value of attachment with God. But  that area of spiritual value --can  fall into its opposite. That is the case with every positive value. When it decays it becomes its opposite.

Millie Weaver from InfoWars Arrested

Knowing a bit about Trotsky, nothing the Left does surprises me.

That is anyone against the Marxists at this point is subject to arrest.

 Infowars reporter Millie Weaver. Infowars 

But I ought to add here that nothing that is going on in the USA is a surprise because Americans do not believe even their own eyes until they see it on the Internet or CNN. So truth and facts matter--but only the truth and facts that are reported on CNN and being taught in high schools and "Gender Studies." 

So to see the USA turn into a Marxists State is expected.  

My letters to Warren Siegel [Physics] about the 26 simple groups and the possibility that they represent symmetries of the 26 curled up dimensions. [This exchange was in 2016]

Dear Professor Siegel,

I am just a beginner but still I just wanted to ask a question.

 I am wondering if we start with Emmy Noether's theorem and put groups of fractional symmetry in the Lagrangian of QFT (Quantum Field Theory). I mean to say I have been fascinated by the idea of fractional derivatives and higher order symmetries for  awhile. So we have from Noether that for every symmetry you can put into the Lagrangian a conservation law why not just postulate symmetries and thus higher conservation laws up to any order?  What I am thinking of is not the same as translational symmetry of fractional charges like quarks. 

This might sound like a ridiculous suggestion but sometimes this kind of idea gives results. Originally it was Leibniz himself who thought of fractional derivatives but he did not think the results would interesting so he did not pursue the idea. It turned out there are some interesting results. 

I would have liked to have thought of some examples.

I am really sorry if this sounds stupid. I really like learning about QFT but I admit I am just struggling at this point.

Sincerely,

Avraham Rosenblum 

The answer of Dr Siegel quoted the above letter and added :I'm not sure what symmetries you're thinking of, but in general if you impose too much symmetry you find that only a free theory can satisfy it.

Then at the end he added: If by fractional derivative you mean some arbitrary noninteger power of the differential operator, the result is nonlocal (does not depend on just infinitesimally nearby points).  Locality is a basic physical property that field theory requires.  It follows from special relativity & causality.

Then I wrote another letter: Dear Professor Siegel,

What I am thinking is that according to the number of dimensions there are, we would have the same number of conservation laws. So for our little world we have conservation of energy and mass, electric charge, etc. In string theory we get some crumbled up dimensions for the normal 26. So what I would like to find are groups to put into the Lagrangian that will correspond to each conservation law for a different quantity. I still need to think about what kinds of groups I am looking for. But the most obvious would be those 26 simple groups I was reading about when I was studying group theory. 

Does any of this make any sense?

Sincerely, Avraham Rosenblum

Answer of Dr Siegel: I'm not sure what you're saying.

If you compactify some dimensions into a symmetric space, you'll get the symmetry of that space.

E.g., if you compactify some extra N dimensions into a submicroscopic sphere, you'll get the rotational group for those N dimensions, i.e., the orthogonal group O(N+1).

It will appear as an "internal" symmetry with respect to the uncompactified dimensions (i.e., not affecting them directly).

[So I am not thinking of the regular symmetries but some new kinds,[i.e., new kinds of conservation laws].  I do not know how they would be made manifest in our 4 dimensional world.

After all that discussion I thought of another point. That is the Feynman integral what really matters is not all the trajectories but rather just the ones that have no derivative. So even if you have lots of complicated homotopies as you go to higher dimension, still not all the closed circles matter. That is because the smooth ones that have a derivative cancel out in the final result. So what matter is the lines that are continuous but are shaped in the way that every point makes a sharp corner with the next point. Also the last dimension matters because with no other dimension to go into it would lack a derivative. 

 To be מוחה to object to evil even when you will not be listened to I heard from Leibel (the son of Rav Shmuel Berenbaum [the head of the Mir in NY.]). 

He was saying this to me in terms of the Eruv issues that came up then. [What counts as an enclosure for the Sabbath Day.] I had asked something along those lines. He said that there is a point to object.

Now as I think about it I recall that you can see this with the war between Israel and the tribe of Benjamin. פילגש בגבעה. Look at the verses and you will see the main objection was not what was done the the concubine--which was horrible in itself. Rather the major issue was that no one objected. Israel had gone to the town and asked the criminal to be handed over. And that is the point. Everyone in Benjamin went along with it and no one objected.

Also in the incident of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza. What was done was evil. But that in itself was not enough to bring about the destruction of the Temple, The main issue was that מדלא מחו שמע מינה דניחא להו--that no one of the sages objected.

This would be the same reason that the Gra put his signature of the letter of excommunication. To object to evil even if one will not be listened to. [Just to be clear the actual "herem" did not include Rav Nahman of Uman]. One could look up the books that contain  all the letters and testimony in Villna to see this.

x11 B Flat major mp3 file

 x11 B Flat major mp3 file

 

I am thinking of putting links to the NWC [Noteworthy Composer] and Midi versions of the music so that people that want to see the notes can do so. 

x11 nwc file

x11 midi file