But now that I come to objective morality, I have a hierarchy of values. Natural Law takes precedence. That is the Torah is beyond natural law, however it does not override it. It is based on coming to it.

 I learn Torah to come to understand objective morality. And I think many other do so also. But that does not mean I give  a blank approval of the religious world. The best is of course the Litvaks that go by the Gra and Sefardim that keep the Torah plainly and simply. But no one group is ever OK all and in itself. Especially  we know from Rav Nahman that many  religious leaders are demons, and I have experienced much of this.  That probably means I guess that their human souls have been exchanged for demonic souls. But who knows? Maybe Rav Nahman meant it literally?

[It seems that at least one major [problem in the religious world is that they can not feel good about themselves except by pitting down others. No from any accomplishment. They are not astronauts, even though they try to convince fry yidden [secular Jews] that they are.

So what is objective morality? I would have to go with the intuitionists as far as that goes that reason recognizes objective morality [Prichard, G.E. Moore, Huemer.] But the idea that reason recognizes objective morality goes back to Fichte and Hegel. That is not all that far from Kelley Ross and Leonard Nelson except that these being faithful Kantians, hold that while morality is objective, not structures in the mind, but they can only be known by immediate non intuitive knowledge and that seems a bit too much for me to swallow. I see no reason that implanted knowledge ought to be knowledge at all.

But now that I come to objective morality, I have a hierarchy of values. Natural Law takes precedence. That is the Torah is beyond natural law, however it does not override it. It is based on coming to it.

 In order to learn Torah, what I think is the best idea is to concentrate on the basic achronim [authorities after the middle ages] that show how to get into the depths of Torah, i.e. R. Haim of Brisk and those from that school up until Rav Shach.

The reason is that maybe in first generations it was clear to them, but nowadays it is hard to get into the depths of Torah without those that showed the way. 

Now if one is in a Litvak yeshiva like Brisk or Ponovitch, one could simply learn the Gemara with Tosphot and the rishonim, and then go to the class of the rosh yeshiva. But if you are like me in so far that Ponovitch and the other great Litvak yeshivas are not within walking distance, then the best idea is to have your own copy of the Hidushei Rav Chaim and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

[In my own time at the Mir in NY I learned a lot of the early achronim R Akiva Eiger, the Pnei Yehoshua etc, They were more understandable to me  I was not really ready for the depths of Rav Shach.] 

I have had a great deal of trouble trying to figure out the argument between Hegel and Jacob Fries. One one hand I can see valid points in each. If the whole issue is immediate knowledge,-- well that question seems to have been taken care of by Michael Huemer when he writes about reason having direct awareness of things. It might need to understand what is a line in the first place, but after that it can see immediately that two lines can not make  a closed figure but three lines can.   

I think that the major problem is when philosophy slides into politics.  So I can see that a visceral reaction against totalitarian regimes  would give people a pause about Hegel's concept of the State. [Maybe more than a pause.]]

[And the odd thing is that nothing of the Constitution of the USA had anything to do with  almost any philosophy at all. Even though Thomas Jefferson was a great admirer of John Locke, but he had little of nothing to do with the Constitution which was more of less the product of James Madison.]

My basic impression is that the train of thought of Fries , Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross [called the Kant Fries school] is about the best thing. Still I can see a lot of valid points in Hegel. So the extent of the disagreement seems to be over done. 

 The Gemara in Bava Batra page 106 brings this idea that brothers that inherited property, since if they cast lots, then the lot determines who receives what. It is hard to know what kind of "kinyan" [method of acquiring] a "goral" [drawing lots is].

In fact, the Tur brings [from his father the Rosh] openly [Hoshen Mishpat 177] that drawing lots in fact causes not acquisition to occur. It only verifies which part of a property goes to whom.

Yet at the same time he also bring down that Gemara from Bava Batra.

Rav Shach explains  that there is a debate here between the Rosh and the Rambam. With the Rambam there is a difference between a courtyard that is 4*8 amot [yards] where there is a law that either of two partners can force the other to divide; and one that is smaller in which case the goral [lot. i.e. dividing by lots] does not cause a acquisition. In the large courtyard since it is large and one can force the other to divide, then it is as if he already owns his part and the goral can verify which part.

To the Rosh there is a difference between inheritance where the inheritors never made a partnership in the first place, and in that case the goral can verify what part goes to whom, and in a sense causes the acquisition. [That is the acquisition is already there, but the goral verifies to whom is what.] 

But, in the case of partners, since they made an act of joining together and a goral can not cause a acquisition, there it only verifies.

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The Litvak yeshiva. If one would want to improve the situation, I would recommend that the Litvak yeshivas should go with the Gra totally since, after all, it is that path of the Gra that endows them with the spirit of Torah in the first place.

There was I have to say, an amazing spirit of Torah in Shar Yashuv and in the Mir. But it is pretty much in almost any Litvak yeshiva I have walked into. It is almost as if there is a kind of Divine presence in a place where people learn Torah for its own sake.

[My basic story was my first year in Shar Yashuv was fraught with difficulty. But the second years I started getting more into the learning. That is pretty much when I was what you might call addicted to Torah. I had to get my "Torah high". If that sounds like a drug addict, well maybe it was. After all Aristotle said that "virtue is habit."

 That is, you have to choose as to what kind of habits you want to get yourself accustomed to. I made a choice to get into the Torah addiction instead of other kinds of things which I might have chosen.

Later on, the Mir in NY was my second destination. And then Israel. The second I got off the plane in Israel, that  "spirit Torah" came  in a more intense way.

Nowadays, I would say that the Litvak yeshivas [that go by the Gra and Rav Shach] are the citadels of Torah, though I myself am far off from them. Probably the best is Ponovitch. Also the yeshivas based on the Gra (founded by the father of Rav Eliyahu Silverman) in Jerusalem are great.

[But as I have said before, nowadays I would go with the idea of many Rishonim that learning Physics and Metaphysics ought to be supplementary to the  basic structure of learning Torah.] 

If one would want to improve the situation, I would recommend that the Litvak yeshivas should go with the Gra totally since after all, it is that path of the Gra that endows them with the spirit of Torah in the first place.

when one starts out in the service of God, it is the general rule that he is pushed away.

 I did have a lot in mind when I first went to Shar Yashuv and later to the Mir. [I had a great desire to learn Torah, and was not thinking about parnasa/making a living or getting married.] But the Mir in NY is a Musar yeshiva, and so I started getting the idea of what it is all about. That is: trust in God. So I more or less gained this mind set that all I need to do is to learn Torah and trust in God and then not worry about anything else. God will take care of things if you trust in Him.

You might see this in books of Musar like the Chovot Levavot, but I mainly got this idea from the later Musar book of Navardok.  

So you can ask what do you do when things are falling apart? Well, one can fall from trust in God or trust more in God. I elected the idea that I needed to trust more.

But I admit that is not simple to do. Still I can see in the Torah there is this idea of "tests". Abraham was tested 10 times. So you can extrapolate from this that you or me might have other kinds of tests. And what we do in time of trial makes all the the difference of how things go later after that.

[You can see this in the events surrounding the kings of Israel. The major theme is always this: When king so and so trusted in God, things went well for him. When he turned to other gods, things stopped going well for him. That in a nut shell is the entire major theme of the entire Old Testament. So you can see the importance of trusting in God alone and not in your own ideas and efforts.]

[I ought to add here that my idea of learning Torah has expanded to include Physics and Metaphysics as the Rambam says openly in the Guide and in Mishna Torah and this is hinted at in the Chovot Levavot. I might have thought in this more expanded way just from theory itself and seeing the rishonim that hold this way. But experience brought home the idea to me. That is when my world was shaken up I had to rethink my basic principles. Few people rethink things when everything is going well. And that includes me. Only when I had to, that is when I stated to rethink things.]

[I might add here the LeM of Rav Nahman vol II. # 48 where he brings this idea that  when one starts out in the service of God, it is the general rule that he is pushed away.  Heaven is making obstacles. However this does not happen unless one is really intending to serve God. So if you see that you are having enormous obstacles in trying to learn Torah and serve God sincerely, that simply shows that you are doing it for the sake of God and that is good.]

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On to list the great qualities that R. Yohanan ben Zacai possessed are: "He knew the speech of the birds,.. and even ... and the great thing and the small thing."

The Gemara brings down that Hillel had a certain number of disciples. The greatest was Yonatan ben Uziel. The least was R Yohanan ben Zazai. And it goes on to list the great qualities that  R. Yohanan ben Zacai possessed. "He knew the speech of the birds,.. and even ... and the great thing and the small thing." [דבר גדול ודבר קטן]." Then the Gemara asks what is "the great thing"? The work of the Divine Chariot and the work of Creation. What is the "small thing"? The discussion of Abyee and Rava. [And that later is a major content of the two Talmuds.]

In The Guide for the Perplexed, Maimonides [the Rambam] explains the "Work of Creation" is what was known to the ancient  Greeks as "Physics" and the "Work of the Divine Chariot" is what was known to the ancient Greeks as "Metaphysics."

[So neither refers to any kind of mysticism.]

So, we learn that there is some aspect of these two disciplines that help to bring a person to human perfection more readily than learning Gemara. That is not however meant to diminish the importance of learning Gemara. Rather that Gemara is the first step up the ladder. [The Rambam states this clearly at the end of the first four chapters of the Mishna Torah. That is,-- even though Physics and Metaphysics are greater, still one first must learn "the forbidden and the allowed."

[The way I see this is that there is an area of value in Gemara ("numinous value"),-- but that area of value can easily be subverted. For an example the more powerful an energy source, the more careful one has to be. A mistake in handling an electric battery would not cause the same kind of damage as the mishandling of a nuclear reactor. And since Gemara  and learning Torah is in this area of numinous value, a mishandling of it, causes untold damage. We can see this clearly in the religious world. Something is clearly off there.

[Rav Nahman of Breslov says [LeM II:91] the importance of combing the wisdom of Torah with the lower wisdoms of this world and by that all the judgments are sweetened.]

Rav Nahman warns against philosophy. Most Americans are not thrilled with all the crazy ideas emerging from philosophy departments that have infected all society.

I see a little philosophy as importan.t--but not a lot. It seems important because there are legitimate question in faith. It seems to me that Dr. Kelley Ross helps to provide a decent justification for faith by the use of non intuitive knowledge. But you can ask why not just go with G.E. Moore that reason has direct awareness of universals. [To me that does not seem possible since there are enough problems in G.E. Moore  as Robert Hanna pointed out.] 

[However, rightfully Rav Nahman warns against philosophy, and it is clear that people that go into philosophy generally lose any resemblance of common sense. However, a little bit is needed in order to cancel out all the false ideas that are floating around.]

I think most Americans are not thrilled with all the crazy ideas emerging from philosophy departments that have infected all society. At some point Americans will take back their republic based on faith, not modernism. It is like when James II in England, tried to impose the Catholic religion on Protestants. That led to his fleeing England and William and Mary being crowned King and Queen. That is,-- the people will accept a certain amount of imposition. But only up to a certain point. And their patience with sour faced liberals has grown short.

 If you go by the actual molad [conjunction of Sun and Moon] the Tues night should be the start of Hanuka.

But the calendar everyone else goes by is usually different because they are basing it on the average new moon. However it seems to me that the date of should be by the actual time of the molad, and that ought to count as the first day of the month.

The basic reason I say this is because of the Gemara in Sanhedrin page 10 where the time for the new moon does not depend on the court of law establishing it, but rather on the right time. As R. Elazar puts it: "If the court sanctifies it in the right time, then fine; if not, then the higher court in heaven establishes it."

So what matters is the right time. Is that when it can be seen, or when the actual molad is in fact? That seem to be a debate between the Gemara in Sanhedrin and the Gemara in Rosh Hashana [I seem to recall that is on page 19.] 

So why choose one Gemara over the other? Well as David Bronson told me once that what makes my idea interesting is the fact that there is no court of law to in fact establish the date. And I would have to add the fact that the calendar that everyone is going by is not mentioned in the Gemara. [If Hillel II in fact established the calendar you would imagine that somewhere in the Gemara someone should have mentioned it. So we have to say it got to be the custom to use it during the time of the geonim. [There was readily available a calendar in use at the time that got the solar year and lunar year to correspond more or less that had been in use for about a thousand years from the time of Meton in Athens.]

A certain problem exists on the religious world that refers back to the verse in the Torah: "Do not add or subtract from these commandments which I command you this day."

Once my learning partner David Bronson pointed out that some people just delight in adding restriction for others. So you find in the LeM of Rav Nahman that he warns against "חומרות יתירות"  extra restrictions. Once there is a "posek" to depend on, one can depend on him. "posek" means a medieval authority in Halacah like the Rif or Rosh or other rishonim when they write about halacha.

And Rav Nahman adds to that that it is possible to serve God with everything.

I tend to depend on this. However I realize there is higher service of God which is to sit and learn Torah. However I found myself not really up to doing so. So I tend to depend on this idea of Rav Nahman that it is possible to serve God through everything. 

In the LeM vol II ch 4 there is explained  there is  higher service of straight Torah. However there is also a service of God that is the 39 types of work that bring light into the work of creation.

Another problem is idolatry, which is related to the first. I think the reason for adding restrictions is to take attention away from the real problem of idol worship.  [Not of statues. But in Torah though all worship is towards God, not people.]

 

The argument to say the South [i.e. the Southern States] was right is דין חלוקה the law of dividing.

 The argument to say the South [i.e. the Southern States] was right is דין חלוקה the law of dividing.

That is, if you have a courtyard that is owned by two people and it is big enough to divide [about 4 yards by 8 yards], then either one can say to the other, "Buy my portion, or I will buy yours".  They are not forced to stay together.

However, you can also say that a political union is not the same thing as a business arrangement.

After all, let's say one is living under a king, and he decides he no longer is subject to that king. That is treason.

 So we see that politics and business are separate subjects although related. See for example Danny Frederick's critique on Dr. Michael Huemer. [Dr. Huemer holds no government is legitimate.

Frederick shows the flaws in his arguments. There was a debate in NY with Dr Huemer and a law professor of NYU  that basically brought out these same point.

 When in Quantum Mechanics you hear about the collapse of the wave function when it is measured that can mean a physicist in a lab but it also can mean simply an interaction with a macroscopic body. It is not saying that everything depends on who is looking at it. It is not an argument for subjective morality as some people think.

 I was listening to the hearings of the State Legislature of Arizona yesterday. The part I caught was of a computer expert showing the ways the computers were rigged. So I would imagine that since the Constitution gives the right to the state legislature to appoint the electors, they ought to do that.   

[Besides being at the sea most of the day so that is why I was not blogging.]

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Torah as monotheism is opposed to idolatry and pantheism.

The issue of idolatry you can see mainly in the Books of Kings and Chronicles. There almost all commandments of the Torah are hardly mentioned. The issue is always centered on idolatry. The idea is simple. One who does idolatry will be punished. One who does not and instead directs his heart towards God alone will be rewarded. Kings and the people of Israel were constantly warned abut this one issue. It is the issue where the religious have failed because they worship people.

Also the belief system of the Torah is Monotheism, not pantheism. [Pantheism makes everything into idolatry.\] You can see this clearly in Rav Saadia Gaon and the later rishonim who clarify the subject of the faith of the Torah. 

You can also see this in the Ari'zal [start of the Eitz Chaim] and Rav Nahman [LeM vol I chapter 4 and vol II chapter 4]. 

However at this point I would like to defend the idea of Monotheism. One, not a composite and that God is an infinite Conscious Being. And completely "other". Not the same as the universe He made. 

But he is also the Absolute Reality outside of which there is nothing.

So what does consciousness mean?

 (1) Consciousness always has a content. There is always something other than the consciousness itself, which exists as the object of it. It is thinking about something. If it is not thinking about something, then it is not thinking.

(2) But consciousness  includes its thoughts  and content as something essentially its own. The content is not received by consciousness as if it were a stranger to be momentarily entertained and then lost forever: on the contrary, the content is the very life of the consciousness that possesses it. There is a unity that exists between consciousness and its content - a unity that is absolutely fundamental to the integrity of each. (3) Consciousness is never identical with, but is always something more than, its content. Notwithstanding the fact that the content is always received by consciousness as its very own, as its other self in fact, still there is a distinction between the two that never disappears; consciousness and its content never fall together in an undifferentiated identity.

The fundamental importance of these three characteristics of consciousness, as well as their vital interconnectedness, may be emphasized by a brief analysis of self-consciousness. It is evident that as a self-conscious being I am of a two-fold nature. In the first place, I am a bundle of sensations, feelings, impulses, desires, volitions, and ideas. And from this point of view I am eternally changing. At any moment of my existence I am never what I have been, or shall be, at any other moment. At one instant I am a center of impulses and passions; at another, a center of ideas and ideals. Today I am a self of pleasures; tomorrow, a self of pains.  But there is another fact about this self-consciousness that must be taken into account. It is true that I am eternally changing, that I am not what I have been heretofore, and that I shall never be again just what I am now. And yet, paradoxical as it may sound, what I have been I am, and what I am I shall be. Underlying the panorama of change, deeper than the self that is in a never-ceasing process of transformation, is another self that gives unity and coherence to the process. This is the subject-self. And this it is that makes education, spiritual development in general, possible; without it our experience would be at best but a chaos of meaningless sensations and incoherent desires. These two aspects or phases seem to be present in all self-consciousness. Take a cross-section of consciousness at any moment, and you will discover that it is of this two-fold nature. Even in our moments of most intense introspection, when we enter as intimately as possible into ourselves, we find that this duality is present; indeed, one is inclined to say, it is then that its presence is most strongly impressed upon us.

It is to be noticed, moreover, that the duality is absolutely essential to self-consciousness. Not only do we find it actually present in self-consciousness; the implication of experience is that it must exist so long as consciousness itself exists. For self-consciousness is just this duality: the subject-self and the object-self exist only as they co-exist. 

And from this follows immediately a further result. Since this duality is essential to consciousness, these two phases of subject and object cannot fall into identity with each other. Take any case of consciousness that you please, whether it be consciousness of objects in the mental or in the physical world. Do you find there a coincidence between subject and object? Certainly not. The object is never its own consciousness; there is, and can be, no identity between them. It is inconsistent with the very nature of consciousness that these two phases collapse into identity. The presupposition of consciousness is that there shall be something, an object in the physical world, an object in the mental world, something other than the consciousness itself, of which the consciousness shall  not be identical with each other. 

So concerning an Absolute Consciousness. In the first place, such a Consciousness would necessarily have a content; that is, there would have to be an Other of which the Absolute is conscious. In the second place, this Other would not be regarded by the Absolute as something foreign or external, in the sense that it lay genuinely outside of the Absolute; rather would it be possessed as an essential element within the Absolute. And, lastly, the Absolute would necessarily differentiate this Other from itself in such a way as to preserve the duality that we have found to be essential to the conscious life. And our justification for making these assertions concerning an Absolute Consciousness is simply that these characteristics which we have attributed to the Absolute are those that experience shows us to be fundamental to all consciousness as we know it; and unless we are to reduce our discussions to meaningless talk, we must test them by concrete experience. Certainly it seems that we must assume that the conditions prerequisite to finite consciousness must be fulfilled in an Absolute Consciousness.

What now must be our answer to the dilemma with which we began our discussion? In the first place, it would seem that we have found a way of escape from pantheism in our doctrine of the Absolute. For so long as we maintain the self-consciousness of the Absolute, we are forced to maintain also that the Absolute and the world are differentiated from each other. Really, pantheism is logically possible only to the metaphysician who denies the self-consciousness of the Absolute. For pantheism, if it means anything, means identity between the Absolute and the world of finite existence; whatever form the theory may take, it ultimately reduces everything in the universe to an undifferentiated unity with the all-inclusive One. But, if the Absolute be regarded as a self conscious Individual, this abstract identity becomes impossible; because, as our analysis of the category has disclosed, consciousness always demands a content from which it is differentiated. Destruction of this duality is the destruction of the possibility of consciousness. Therefore no theory that maintains that the Absolute is Self-Consciousness can legitimately be accused of pantheism so long as it is consistent. But have we escaped the other horn of our dilemma? Our own argument has forced us to admit that an Other to the Absolute is essential; indeed, it is this fact that relieves us from any fears concerning pantheism as the outcome of our doctrine. And have we not virtually limited the Absolute by positing this Other, which our analysis of consciousness has compelled us to assume is necessary? The answer to this objection is involved in what we have just been saying about the fact that the two extremes of the equation of consciousness are not foreign to each other; and it might perhaps be sufficient simply to point to this fact in meeting the objection. 

 

Bezmenov: how to subvert.

 

Some say that he disappeared on purpose. Others think the KGB got to him after he got to be too public. Sadly, I knew the agent that discovered the whereabout of Bezmenov and I must accept that led to the  demise of Bezmenov. The KGB did not like him much.

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here is a link to Kelley Ross's PhD thesis on Kant, Fries, and Leonard Nelson. To me it looks like  masterpiece.

[Dr. Ross is building his system, and does not spend much time showing the problems with other Neo Kantian schools. Nor with other problems with "Analytic philosophy". [Robert Hanna does a great job in that area.] 

But I still have trouble with the arguments on Hegel that tend to be part and parcel of the Kant-Friesian approach.

I just can not see what the problem is. Non intuitive immediate knowledge was a part of Kant's approach as Dr Ross points in Kant's CPR pg 65. ["Immediate" means not through anything. Non intuitive means not through the senses.]

And though Hegel disagrees with this, this disagreement is not a major part of his points.

The problem that people have with Hegel is that the Marxists use his ideal state as a justification for their failed socialist experiments.  Might as well attack Plato for the same reasons. Or Leonard Nelson also! [But of all people, Hegel ought not to be used for justification for socialism. He was a capitalist.]

Because I have been influenced by Plotinus [the beginning of Neo Platonism],  I tend to see all mentions of pure reason in Kant as being the Logos in the heavens. [The order is the One, who emanates Logos which brings forth Being.] And I do the same when I read Hegel. So I just do not see much conflict between Kant and Hegel. Just that they are addressing different issues.  

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בבבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א Bava Batra 63 Rav Shach on the Rambam in Laws of Selling. 23:4

In the case of selling a tree and leaving the fruit for oneself [Laws of Selling. 23:4] Rav Shach suggests that even though the Rambam leaves out the question if the children inherit that right, it seems probable that they would. But to me it seems hard to imagine that a law that the Rambam does not mention one way or the other would be so different from the Gra, the Rashbam and the Ramban. I mean after all, how much can you derive from something that the Rambam does not even mention? I have seen that plenty of times--like in laws of  "tzarat" where in the case of clothes he leaves out plenty of details that are openly important in the Gemara itself!

My point here is that in Bava Batra [63] we have the case of the Levi that sells his field on condition that he gets the first tithe every year. He does get that, but that right does not go on to his inheritors. That we know from the Gemara itself. But what about the case of selling a house and keeping the the roof and extending a walkway from the roof to the walls of the courtyard? There the Ramban says that right does go on to his children, but that is only because it is a "definite thing"-- not like fruit that has not yet come into the world. So the Ramban right here is openly making a distinction between the  extensions and the fruit of  a tree. 

[I should mention that I am not thinking of this question as being final. Rather, it is just a question that I hope eventually to find some answer for. In our case, there might be some reason and a way to answer for Rav Shach. After all, the cases of the roof extensions and the fruit seem different that the first tithe that is not exactly some thing owned by the Levi. And that seem overly obvious. So that very well might be the reason for Rav Shach. After all, even when the Levi owned his field, he did not exactly "own" the first tithe. It still had to be taken and given to some Levi -- which could be himself. So he did not "own it".

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There is an argument of one can give or gain possession of something that has not come into the world. ר' מאיר said one can. However the sages said "no", and so throughout Shas, you see it is a given that one can not. There is a certain order among the  authors of the Mishna with whom is the law. R Jose, R Yehuda, etc. according to order. ר' מאיר is near that bottom unless it is a stam mishna" [no authorship is attributed] in which case the law is like ר' מאיר. [That is how R Yehuda the Prince arranged the Mishna]. In the case of a fruit tree, if one sells it to one person and sells its fruit to another, the other has acquired nothing except fruit which is on it right now. Not anything that will grow in the future. But in a case where he sells the tree to one person and he says, "I am selling to you the tree, but keeping the fruit for me," he keeps the fruit --for it is considered as if he kept the place where the fruit is growing for himself. Same with a sell of a house where he says "I am keeping the upper porch to be able to build upper extensions into the courtyard." But in both cases, there is an argument among ראשונים if he can pass that right along to the people that inherit him. The גר''א and רשב''ם say "no." The רמב''ן says yes. The issue is that the right to build an extension is thought to be a thing that has no substance. The גמרא there in בבא בתרא ס''ג ע''א says the case of the לוי who sells his land on condition that the first tithe he מקבל. That arrangement does not continue with his יורשיו that inherit him. The idea is he keeps in theory the actual ground that the tithe grows on. From there ריש לקיש learns from there about a person that sells his house on condition he keeps the roof space. But he keeps it anyway in the ancient usage of Iraq when if one sells a house the seller keeps top of the roof unless that is specified. To the רשב''ם  saying openly "I sell you the house on condition the גג space is mine" היינו דיוטא העליונה means he added a condition that was implicit anyway. So it comes to include הזכות to extend the גג to the other side of the courtyard and to make  a walkway there. זיזין, To the  רמב''ן that is not because of the language, but part of the actual arrangement in any case. The גר''א holds like the רשב''ם that the case of a לוי and roof are similar in that the children do not inherit the right, but the case of the roof is because of owning a thing that has no substance, not because of the language used in the deal.

In the case of selling a tree and leaving the fruit for oneself Laws of Selling 23:4 רב שך suggests that even though the רמב''ם leaves out the question if the children inherit that right, it seems probable that they would. But to me it seems hard to imagine that a law that the רמב''ם does not mention one way or the other would be so different from the גר''א, the רשב''ם and the רמב''ן. 

My point here is that in בבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א we have the case of the לוי that sells his field on condition that he gets the first tithe every year. He does get that, but that right does not go on to his inheritors. That we know from the גמרא itself. But what about the case of selling a house and keeping the the roof and extending a walkway from the roof to the walls of the courtyard? There the רמב''ן says that right does go on to his children, but that is only because it is a definite thing, not like fruit that has not yet come into the world. So the רמב''ן right here is openly making a distinction between the  extensions and the fruit of  a tree.תירוץ: After all, the cases of the roof extensions and the fruit seem different that the first tithe that is not exactly some thing owned by the לוי.  So that might be the reason for רב שך. After all, even when the לוי owned his field, he did not own the first tithe. It still had to be taken and given to some לוי,  which could be himself. So he did not own it.

יש ויכוח על כך אם אפשר לתת או להשיג רכוש שלא הגיע לעולם. ר' מאיר אמר שאפשר. עם זאת, החכמים אמרו "לא", ולכן בכל הש"ס אתה רואה שזה נתון שאי אפשר לעשות זאת. יש סדר מסוים בקרב מחברי המשנה בשל מי החוק? ר' יוסי, ר' יהודה וכו' לפי הסדר. ר' מאיר נמצא קרוב לתחתית הסדר, אלא אם כן מדובר בסתם משנה "[לא מיוחסת לאיזה מחבר] ובמקרה של סתם משנה, החוק הוא כמו ר' מאיר. [כך ר 'יהודה הנסיך סידר את המשנה]. במקרה של פרי עץ, אם אחד מוכר אותו לאדם אחד ומוכר את פריו לאחר, האחר לא רכש דבר מלבד פירות שנמצאים עליו כרגע. לא שום דבר שיגדל בעתיד. אבל במקרה שהוא מוכר את העץ לאחד והוא אומר, "אני מוכר לך את העץ, אבל שומר לי את הפירות", הוא שומר את הפירות - שכן זה נחשב כאילו שמר לעצמו את המקום שבו הגידול גדל. בדין של בית בו הוא אומר "אני שומר על המרפסת העליונה כדי שאוכל לבנות הרחבות עליונות לחצר." אבל בשני המקרים, יש ויכוח בקרב ראשונים אם הוא יכול להעביר את זה לאנשים שירשו אותו. הגר"א ורשב"ם אומרים "לא." הרמב''ן אומר כן. העניין הוא שהזכות לבנות הרחבה נחשבת לדבר שבו אין חומר. הגמרא שם בבא בתרא ס''ג ע''א אומר המקרה של לוי שמוכר את אדמתו בתנאי שמעשר הראשון הוא יקבל. ההסדר הזה לא ממשיך עם יורשיו שלו שירש אותו. הרעיון הוא שהוא שומר בתיאוריה את הקרקע שעליה צומח המעשר. ריש לקיש לומד משם על אדם שמוכר את ביתו בתנאי שהוא שומר על שטח הגג. אבל הוא שומר את זה בכל מקרה בשימוש העתיק בעיראק, אם מוכרים בית, המוכר שומר על הגג אלא אם כן צוין. הרשב''ם אומר "אני מוכר לך את הבית בתנאי שמרחב הגג הוא שלי" היינו דיוטא העליונה פירושו שהוא הוסיף תנאי שהיה ממילא מרומז. אז זה מכווין לכלול הזכות להאריך את הגג לצד השני של החצר ולעשות שם שביל. זיזין, לרמב''ן זה לא בגלל השפה, אלא חלק מההסדר בפועל בכל מקרה. הגר"א גורס כמו הרשב"ם כי המקרה של לוי וגג דומים בכך שהיורשים אינם יורשים את הזכות, אך המקרה של הגג הוא בגלל בעלות על דבר שאין לו חומר, ולא בגלל השפה בה משתמשים בעסקה. 

בדין של מכירת עץ והשארת פרי עבור במוכר הלכות מכירה פרק כ’’ג הלכה ד’ רב שך מציע שלמרות שהרמב''ם משאיר את השאלה אם היורשים יורשים זכות זו, נראה סביר שהם יורשים זאת. אבל קשה לדמיין שחוק שהרמב''ם אינו מזכיר כך או אחרת יהיה שונה כל כך מהגר''א, הרשב''ם והרמב''ן. הנקודה שלי כאן היא שבבבא בתרא דף ס''ג ע''א יש לנו את המקרה של לוי שמוכר את השדה שלו בתנאי שהוא יקבל את המעשר הראשון בכל שנה. הוא אכן משיג זאת, אך זכות זו אינה עוברת ליורשיו. זה אנחנו יודעים מהגמרא עצמה. אך מה לגבי המקרה של מכירת בית והשארת הגג למוכר והארכת שביל מהגג לקירות החצר? שם אומר הרמב''ן שהזכות אכן עוברת ליורשיו, אבל זה רק בגלל שזה דבר מסויים, לא כמו פרי שטרם הגיע לעולם. אז הרמב''ן כאן מבחן באופן גלוי בין הרחבות הגג לפרי עץ. תירוץ: אחרי הכל, המקרים של הארכת הגג והפרי נראים שונים מהמעשר הראשון שהוא לא בדיוק איזה דבר בבעלות מהלוי. אז זו עשויה להיות הסיבה לרב שך. הרי גם כאשר לוי היה בעל השדה שלו, הוא לא היה הבעלים של המעשר הראשון. עדיין היה צריך לקחת את זה ולתת לאיזה לוי שיכול להיות הוא עצמו. אז הוא לא היה הבעלים של זה  

The reason the religious world is so messed up

 The first time in the LeM of R. Nahman of Breslov that he brings the problem with religious teachers is the the LeM volume I, chapter 8. רברבי עשיו The princes of Esau. This Rav Nahman says refers to religious leaders of the Dark Side.

The basic idea in that chapter is that the spirit of life comes from Torah. So to be attached to Torah is the source of the spirit of life. But from where do evil people get their spirit of life? From the religious leaders of the Dark Side. The princes of Esau. רב דקליפה The Rav of the Dark Side.

Pretty scary. How do you tell who is who? I say listening to the Gra is the way to go about that. That is: the Gra made clear exactly who are the religious leaders of the Dark Side,--- and the fact that he is ignored is the reason the religious world is so messed up. 

One way you can see that the Gra was right is the who are the people that are in fact attached to Torah?--the obvious answer is: the Litvak yeshivas.

Eliyahu on Mount Carmel

 Eliyahu on Mount Carmel asked the People of Israel, "How long will you jump between two extremes? If the Lord is God then serve him, but if the Baal is God then serve him."

Why did they not just answer "Both?" After all that was the ancient Canaanite religion: that the Lord [Yod he vav he] is the ruler of the heavens and the Baal was the ruler of the Earth. I think that the point of Eliyahu was that there can be only one First Cause. [There can only be one first of any series.] This is the same point that the Chovot Levavot brings in answer to this same question. [That is the first book of Musar The Obligations of the Hearts by Ibn Pakuda

I was reading that whole incident and I had  a few observations. One is the Eliyahu was eating bread and meat in the morning and bread and meat at night. That was from what the ravens were bringing to him. That seems odd in itself in terms of tractate Hulin. [The sages said the meat was coming from the table of Ahav. So the only problem was בשר הנעלם מן העין. Meat that was hidden and then found. But there is an answer to that.]

Another thing is that even after the People of Israel had repented, still the later prophecy when Eliyahu was at Mount Horev said to anoint a king on Aram, then one of Israel and then Elisha who would kill all those who had bowed before the Baal. And you see later that in fact only 7000 people were left of all Israel. That is another thing that is hard to understand.

Another point is that the way the Canaanite religion was, was that the Lord is the God of the heavens which means he has final and absolute control over the heavens. The same with the Baal on the Earth. So the point of Eliyahu was that God has the final and absolute control of both heaven and earth. But we do find in the Torah that people did ask prophets to pray for them. Like Hezekiah asking Isaiah to pray for him. So the idea that there can be an intermediary between one and God is possible. But "asking" is not the same thing as "praying." "Praying" is when one knows there one he is praying to is the final court of appeals and has absolute power over the subject one is asking about. "Asking" is not the same thing. And one does not worship the intermediary. Only askes to pray for one.  

Aliens. My dad used to work in area 51.

 I would like to mention that my dad used to work in area 51. That was when the USA government asked him to develop an extreme long distance camera to mount on the U-2 in order to see what was going on on the ground in the USSR. [There were two teams to develop a camera so in history you do not see my Dad's name (Rosenblum) since he was in charge of the second team.] And he never mentioned anything about aliens to me. OK, (you might say), it was after all Top Secret. However he never hid from my brothers and me (when we were just kids) his work on SDI - Star Wars in making Infra Red spy satellites and later laser communication between satellites;-- and even with him and his friends discussing how far advanced or behind the USSR was from us. [As far as that goes, he and his buddies at TRW explained that the USSR was actually more advanced than the USA in developing the tech and math needed for a SDI program, but then towards the end of the 1960's the USA caught up, and out stripped them. That was even before either government admitted that they had such a project.]

To be up front with you all, I think there probably are aliens, and they probably have been around here looking at earth. [But I am not afraid of them. It from the humans down here that I am afraid of.]

 However as for Area 51, I doubt if anything is going on there with that. 

 x49 AMajor 

Sorry I put this on before checking it. [I forgot to change the key back into A Major at the end. ] Now it seems to be OK. 

sexual purity

 Rav Nahman said for the sake of Tikun HaBrit/sexual purity to go a natural body of water. [That is if one has accidently spilled seed in vain  to go a dip into a natural body of water and say the ten psalms called the Tikun Klali 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 77, 90, 105, 137, 150.

Bit I have noticed that going into a natural body of water seems to help me get my equilibrium back. (I usually go in with my clothing on and just change into dry clothes when I return to where I am staying.) That is: whenever I am upset or taken off balance for some reason, I run to the nearest body of natural water like a sea or a river.  [If you go in a sea with clothing, then rise them when you get home because the salt eats away at the material unless thoroughly washed out.]  ]Sometimes I have been in area where there is a spring. That is when I was in Safed and also in Jerusalem by the site of Shmuel the prophet. [It can not be man made like a pool.]  This helps purify my spirit. And at the same time, I do some exercise to help me regain physical health also.

Still even though the great ideas of Rav Nahman are important, one needs to be careful that one's focus should be on God, not on the tzadik.

Eliyahu  said to Klal Israel, "How long will you skip between the two ends. If the Lord is God  then serve Him; if the Baal is god, then serve him."  This seems to be ignored by religious people who tend to take some middle agent to serve.

Rav Shach in the Rambam's Laws of Buying and selling, Chapter 23. Bava Batra 63.

There is an argument of one can give or gain possession of something that has not come into the world.

R Meir said one can. However the sages said "no", and so throughout Shas, you see it is a given that one can not.

[There is a certain order among the tenaim/ authors of the Mishna with whom is the law. R Jose, R Yehuda, etc. according to order. R. Meir is near that bottom unless it is a "stam mishna" [no authorship is attributed] in which case the law is like R. Meir. [That is how R Yehuda the Prince arranged the Mishna]

In the case of a fruit tree, if one sells it to one person and sells its fruit to another, the other has acquired nothing except fruit which is on it right now. Not anything that will grow in the future. But in a case where he sells the tree to one person and he says, "I am selling to you the tree, but keeping the fruit for me," he keeps the fruit --for it is considered as if he kept the place where the fruit is growing for himself.

Same with a sell of a house where he says I am keeping the upper porch to be able to build upper extensions into the courtyard. But in both cases, there is an argument among rishonim if he can pass that right along to the people that inherit him. The Gra and Rashbam say no. The Ramban [Nachmanides] says yes. The issue is that the right to build an extension is thought to be a thing that has no substance.

The Gemara there in Bava Batra says the case of the Levi who sells his land "on condition" that the first tithe he gets. That arrangement does not continue with his children that inherit him. The idea is he keeps in theory the actual ground that the tithe grows on.

From there Reish Lakish learns from there about a person that sells his house on condition he keeps the roof space. But he keeps it anyway in the ancient usage of Iraq when if one sells a house the seller keeps top of the roof unless that is specified. To the Rashbam  saying openly "I sell you the house on condition the rood space is mine" means he added a condition that was implicit anyway. So it comes to include teh right to extend the rood to the other side of the courtyard and to make  a walk way there.

To the Ramban [Nachmanides] that is not because of the language but part of the actual arrangement in any case

The Gra holds like the Rashbam that the case of a Levite and roof are similar in that the children do not inherit the right, but the case of the roof is because of owning a thing that has no substance, not because of the language used in the deal.

 x48 F Major

My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum]

 My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum] had a way of downplaying anything good or great that he did. When he volunteered for the USA Air Force, he could have said it was for patriotic motives. But instead he said, "Well, everyone was getting drafted."  I realized that joining the Air Force had a significant effect on his life. For he had just got his master's degree from Cal Tech. So when he got to the Air Force, they must have seen that had someone they could use. So they put him into the development of the top secret B-29.  Then he was sent to fight for the war in Europe. But after the war, he developed the first Infra Red telescope. The the army base where he made that the focus of Senator McCarthy who had noticed that there were hidden communists in the USA government [like nowadays.] So when my Dad came to work on Monday morning, the whole place was empty, except for Berny Marcus, his friend. All the others were fired. So even though it was just window dressing because all the workers were back at work in a couple of days, still my dad and Marcus had been offered to work on a new government project--the top secret U-2 airplane. So he and Berny came to California. [They were flown out every Monday morning to Area 51, and came back home on Friday. [That is how it came about that I was born in California.] Then that was finished and there was apparently some other project at Hycon Corporation. But after that was finished, my dad invented a new kind of xerox machine called the "copymate machine." But that was the first time he was working in a private capacity. That lasted for five years, and then the USA government came calling again. They wanted him to put his infra-red kind telescope onto satellites that would spy on the USSR.  So they got a constellation of satellites into space for that, and then asked my dad to work on laser communication between satellites for SDI (Star Wars).

And that is when the whole incident when the KGB started stealing the documents from  TRW corporation where my dad was working. [That was made into a movie.] But my dad quit there, and started working for himself. He sold our house, and made a tidy sum, and started investing with that. 

[I am not saying he stopped because of the KGB. Rather it seemed to me, that he was going to quit even before that was revealed. He told me that better experts were up and coming from the universities and that his areas of experience were no longer needed.] 

When my dad was making his invention, the copymate machine in Newport Beach, we went to Temple Sharon in a nearby city. Then we moved when he started work on SDI, and I started going to Temple Israel in Hollywood. Then when I graduated from high school, I decided to go to a very great Litvak yeshiva, Shar Yashuv in NY. [My motivation was mainly philosophical. I had spent a lot of time studying Plato, Dante, Spinoza, and Chinese philosophy. To go and learn Torah seemed to me to be the natural next step.] Shar Yashuv had a beginners program, but rapidly advanced to deep "Lumdus" learning. [So my first year there was sort of confusing, but the second year in when we started on Hulin and the third year was for Ketuboth. In the middle of the fourth year, I decided to go to the Mir in NY. That is where I discovered a second kind of deep learning that you see in books of Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach. It is very different from the type done in Shar Yashuv which was more analytic. [Kind of like G.E. Moore in philosophy.] The type of Rav Shach is more "global". [Sort of like Hegel.]

So my education in Physics was delayed by some years and I am finding it hard to catch up.

 x47

 In the introduction to the Chovot Levavot you find he divides wisdom into knowledge of nature, knowledge of how to use nature, and knowledge of Godliness. But within that discussion he says the Arabic names. You can see there he is referring in this last to the subject known in the Muslim world as metaphysics. [He actually says that is what is talking about and then continues that this last subject is necessary to know for the sake of Torah. (So they are not the same thing.) So while he is referring to the actual book of Aristotle of that name he also clearly means the Muslim commentaries on that books which comprised that subject. [I assume he must have meant Al Farabi and Al Kindi.]

The thing about Metaphysics as a subject of study is that it seems to have its ups and downs. In fact I might have gone into philosophy myself if not for the fact that I felt that something was "off" about twentieth century philosophy. But some people did go into it anyway and retained their own common sense Like Dr Kelley Ross of the Kant Friesian School. Dr Ross, Huemer, Robert Hanna and a few others have also noticed this and suggested more or less just skipping twentieth century philosophy. [Dr. Ross wants to start with Leonard Nelson and Fries, Hanna wants to go straight back to Kant and skip everyone in-between, Humer goes back to Prichard and G.E. Moore.]

In the book of Rav Nahman of Uman he deals with the issue of Torah scholars that are themselves demons in the LeM vol I ch 12. Later in vol I chapter 28 he deals with a slightly different issue of people that hear Torah lessons from Torah scholars who themselves receive their Torah lessons from the Dark Side.

 

The basic idea there is that there are the "alef"s in the higher worlds. But often what some higher spiritual essence comes down into this world , it gets physicalized  in such a way that the dark forces have a hold on it. So when Torah scholars who receive their lessons from teh demons, when they see someone who is serving God with simplicity and with no "wisdoms", they try to stop them.

This I can imagine was the case in the days of Rav Nahman himself who had a lot of enemies and certainly his students. And this Torah lesson was probably said in relation to that fact. But I think it applies all the more so nowadays. When there is someone who just wants to sit and learn Torah for its own sake and not work and just trust in God to provide his needs, often the very enemies of that person are Tora scholars who are demons.

the beginning of בבא מציעא also page 7 and the end of that chapter.

  It occurred to me as I was at the sea thinking about the issue that רב שך laws of שאלה ופיקדון bring about a person that finds a document among his documents and he does not know whether the lender or borrower gave it to him to guard, [at the end of the first chapter of בבא מציעא]. Now רב שך answers that it reverts to a verbal loan in which the borrower can say "I paid". But I was thinking that exactly the same answers that רב שך had been giving before that in other cases like the third hundred might work. So in the case of the third hundred he is guarding the 300 hundred for both, so both have a חזקה. [The word "hazaka" means holding onto the object.] But רב שך [Rav Shach] himself says about a lost object that it stays by the finder because he is not guarding it for both, but only the real owner. So I was wondering why not use that same exact answer here with finding a document among his documents. It could be that both people gave it to him to guard. But we do not know that. It is possible that only one person gave it to him. Since it is doubtful, we should not say "divide" but leave it as in fact is the law. Apparently רב שך did not want to use this as an answer, and I am not sure why. [I think it is proper to add here that this is the very issue which is at the center of רב שך's approach in that entire section, the fact that a person that is guarding something for someone else means that person for whom he is guarding it for is considered to have a חזקה in the object. If this was not the case, then you would always say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. That is the only reason that in the beginning of בבא מציעא that the law is to divide, because there is a חזקה for both people.]

עלה בדעתי כשהייתי בים וחשבתי על הנושא שרב שך מביא בהלכות שאלה ופיקדון. אדם מוצא מסמך בין המסמכים שלו והוא לא יודע אם המלווה או הלווה מסרו לו אותו לשמירה, [ בסוף הפרק הראשון של בבא מציעא]. כעת רב שך עונה שזה חוזר להלוואה מילולית בה הלווה יכול לומר "שילמתי". אבל חשבתי שאותן תשובות שרב שך נתן לפני כן במקרים אחרים כמו המאה השלישית עשויים לעבוד גם פה. אז במקרה של המאה השלישית הוא שומר על 300 המאות לשניהם כך שלשתיהן יש חזקה. אבל רב שך עצמו אומר על אובייקט אבוד שהוא נשאר על ידי המוצא כי הוא לא שומר עליו לשניהם, אלא רק לבעלים האמיתי. אז תהיתי מדוע לא להשתמש באותה תשובה מדויקת כאן במציאת מסמך בין המסמכים שלו. יכול להיות ששני האנשים נתנו לו את זה לשמירה. אך איננו יודעים זאת. יתכן שרק אדם אחד נתן לו את זה. מכיוון שזה ספק, אנחנו לא צריכים לומר "לחלק" אלא להשאיר את זה כמו שהחוק למעשה. כנראה שרב שך לא רוצה להשתמש בזה כתשובה, ואני לא בטוח למה. [אני חושב שנכון להוסיף כאן שזה הנושא שעומד במרכז הגישה של רב שך באותו סעיף, העובדה שאדם ששומר על משהו עבור מישהו אחר פירושו אותו אדם שהוא שומר עליו נחשב כבעל חזקה באובייקט. אם זה לא היה כך, תמיד היית אומר המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. זו הסיבה היחידה שבתחילת בבא מציעא שהחוק הוא חלוקה, כי יש חזקה לשני האנשים.  

 It occurred to me as I was at the sea thinking about the issue that Rav Shach [laws of שאלה ופיקדון] bring about a person that finds a document among his documents and he does not know whether the lender or borrower gave it to him to guard, [at the end of the first chapter of Bava Metzia] Now Rav Shach answers that it reverts to a verbal loan in which the borrower can say I paid. But I was thinking that exactly the same answers that Rav Shach had been giving before that in other cases like the third hundred might work. So in the case of the third hundred he is guarding the 300 hundred for both so both have a "Hazaka". But Rav Shach himself says about a lost object that it stays by the finder because he is not guarding it for both but only the real owner. So I was wondering why not use that same exact answer here with finding a document among his documents. It could be that both people gave it to him to guard. But we do not know that. It is possible that only one person gave it to him. Since it is doubtful we should not say divide but leave it as in fact is the law. Apparently Rav Shach did not want to use this as an answer, and I am not sure why.

[I think it is proper to add here that this is the very issue which is at the center of Rav Shach's approach in that entire section--the fact that a person that is guarding something for someone else means that person for whom he is guarding it for is considered to have a hazaka in the object. If this was not the case then you would always say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. That is the only reason that in the beginning of Bava Metzia that the law is to divide--because there is a hazaka for both people.

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Jesus was what is called in the Gemara Suka "messiah son of Joseph"

 Rav Avraham Abulafia held that Jesus was what is called in the Gemara Suka "messiah son of Joseph"

I asked Professor Moshe Idel about this since he brings it up in his first book which was actually his PhD thesis. But this does not imply what Christians are usually thinking about this issue.

But it is also not the same things as just a saint.

Rather if you look in the LeM of Rav Nahman of Breslov, vol I chapter 65 you can see what the idea of the "Baal Hasade" [lord of the meadow].

The idea there is that there is a meadow which has beautiful grasses and flowers and trees and fruit. And these trees and plants are all souls. And they need watering and taking care of. There can be weeds and diseases that try to attack these beautiful souls. So there has to be someone to do that work. That is a true tzadik. But even to get to that level to do the slightest smallest work  in meadow requires a very great saint.  

[There is a lot of animosity towards Jesus, but that is because people are not aware of Avraham Abulafia. Even among Christians people are ambivalent towards Abulafia, even if they hear about his insights. This seems sad to me. Now while he was not at all positive towards the catholic church that is clearly because of the problem of worshiping Jesus which  can not be correct. But that does not mean to go to the opposite extreme and start speaking slander about who was really a very great tzadik and even more. For most tzadikim do not have a soul from azilut/emanation. ] 

The sugia of messiah son of Joseph is brought at length in the Gra's Kol HaTor.

[It does seem that Rav Nahman himself was not careful about the signature  of the Gra. However he was not in that category himself.]

There are three cases that Rav Shach brings in the beginning of laws of שאלה ופיקדון in which you say, "Let it be". [Let it stay where it is until proof can be brought.] (1) The case of the third hundred, (2) signs and signs, [He found an object and two different people give signs that the object is theirs. So he does not know to who to return it.] (3) he found a document of  a loan among his documents. [The lender and borrower each claim that he alone was the one that gave it to him to guard.] 

These cases are like an unpaid guard who lost the object he was supposed to guard. But in a case of transgressing, he is somewhat similar to the borrower. The borrower pays for everything. But in the case of the third hundred he is not borrowing anything. Still the fact that he should have written down the names of each one, he is thought to have trespassed and so he pays both. That is like a borrower. 

In the cases above the fellow is somewhat like an unpaid guard since you just leave the found object where it is. He does not know to who to return it. But he does not take an oath because one never takes an oath of  "I do not know."

So  all three cases the lost object or monies are not considered lost at all since they are in fact not lost. They are simply still in the possession of the person that given to guard. But he does not know to who to return the objects.

 For if they were anything like lost objects, we would say שומר חינם נשבע על הכל. The un-paid guard swears on everything.

It occurred to me  today that that is nothing like the law of the third hundred. There a person is given three hundred dollars to keep safe for two people. One gave 100 and the other 200. When they come to get it each says the 200 is his. There we say the third person has to pay 200 to each since it was his fault. The thing here is that he seems to be simply a unpaid guard who takes an oath that he does not know where the object is and then pays nothing. So it seems this case is simply not thought to be anything like a guard of a lost object. The reason is the object last hundred was not lost. He simply does not know to who to give it. And for that he is thought to have transgressed. And so he pays like a borrower, שואל משלם את הכל

The basic steps to get to this conclusion are these: We have the third hundred. There two people give him three hundred dollars in one envelope and tell him to whom is the 200 and whom is the 100. But they gave it in one package. So he did not write it down. He forgot which one was whose. He gives 100 to each and the last hundred stays where it is. But if they were given in two envelopes then he gives each 200.

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There are three cases that רב שך brings in the הלכות פיקדון ואבדה in which you say, יהיה מונח. The case of the מנה שלישית, סימנים סימנים, ומצא שטר בין שטרותיו. It is clear that these cases are not considered to be like an שומר חינם who lost the object he was supposed to guard. But he is somewhat similar to the שואל. The borrower pays for everything. שואל משלם את הכל. But in the case of the מנה שלישית he is not borrowing anything. So it seems that in all three cases the lost object or monies are not considered lost at all since they are in fact not lost. They are in the possession of the person that given to guard. But he does not know to who to return the objects. For if they were anything like lost objects, we would say שומר חינם נשבע על הכל. The שומר חינם נשבע על הכל guard swears on everything.

It occurred to me  today that that is nothing like the law of the מנה שלישית. There a person is given three שלש מאות שקלים to keep safe for two people. One gave מאה and the other מאתיים. When they come to get it each says the מאתיים is his. There we say the third person has to pay מאתיים to each since it was his fault. The thing here is that he seems to be simply a שומר חינם who takes an oath that he does not know where the object is and then pays nothing. So it seems this case is simply not thought to be anything like a guard of a lost object. The reason is the object last hundred was not lost. He simply does not know to who to give it. And for that he is thought to have transgressed. And so he pays like a borrower, שואל משלם את הכל. The basic steps to get to this conclusion are these: We have the מנה שלישית. There two people give him three hundred dollars in one envelope and tell him to whom is the מאתיים and whom is the מאה. But they gave it in one package. So he did not write it down. He forgot which one was whose. He gives מאה to each and the last hundred stays where it is. But if they were given in two envelopes then he gives each מאתיים בגלל שהוא פושע שלא כתב שם כל אחד על הכסף שלו

ישנם שלושה מקרים שרב שך מביא בהלכות פיקדון בהם אתה אומר, יהיה מונח. המקרה של מנה שלישית, סימנים סימנים, ומצא שטר בין שטרותיו. המקרים אלה כמו שומר חינם שאיבד את החפץ עליו היה אמור לשמור. אלא שאינו נשבע שלא לוקחים שבוע על איני יודע. אבל אם הוא פושע זה דומה לשואל. שואל משלם את הכל. כך בשלושת המקרים החפץ האבוד או הכספים אינם נחשבים לאבודים כלל מכיוון שהם למעשה לא אבודים. הם נמצאים ברשות האדם שנתן לשמור. אבל הוא לא יודע למי להחזיר את החפצים. כי אם הם היו משהו כמו חפצים אבודים, היינו אומרים שומר חינם נשבע על הכל. שומר חנם נשבע על הכל השומר נשבע על הכל. היום עלה בדעתי שזה לא דומה לחוק מנהלת השלישית. שם נותנים לאדם שלושה שלש מאות שקלים כדי לשמור על בטיחותם של שני אנשים. אחד נתן את מאה ולשני מאתיים. כשבאים לקחת את זה כל אחד אומר המאתיים הוא שלו. שם אנו אומרים שהאדם השלישי צריך לשלם מאתיים לכל אחד מכיוון שזו הייתה אשמתו. העניין כאן הוא גם נראה שזה קצת שונה ששומר חינם נשבע שהוא לא יודע איפה החפץ ואז לא משלם כלום. לכן נראה שמקרה זה פשוט לא נחשב לשומר של אובייקט אבוד. הסיבה היא שהאובייקט [המאה] לא אבד. הוא לא יודע למי לתת את זה. ולשם כך חושבים שהוא פושע. וכך הוא משלם כמו לווה, שואל משלם את הכל. [הצעדים הבסיסיים להגיע למסקנה זו הם אלה: יש לנו את מנה שלישית. שם שני אנשים נותנים לו שלוש מאות שקלים במעטפה אחת ואומרים לו למי הוא שתי מאות ומי המאה. אבל הם נתנו את זה בחבילה אחת, והוא לא כתב את זה. הוא שכח מי מהם. הוא נותן מאה לכל אחד, והמאה האחרונה נשאר במקום שהוא נמצא. אבל אם הכסף ניתן בשתי מעטפות, אז הוא נותן לכל אחד מאתיים בגלל שהוא פושע שלא כתב שם כל אחד על מעטפה שלו]

 In the subject of the third mana [the third hundred] (מנה השלישית). [ note 1] The law is to leave it as long as the middleman was not negligent. [If he was, then he has to pay.] The question that come up in the gemara in Bava Metzia is why is this not divided? They answer division happens only when it could be true. [note 2] Rav Akiva Eigger askes from page 28 what about the case of signs and signs that is left. That is, there is  a lost object. two people give signs to show that it belongs to them. It is left by the finder until some absolute proof can be brought. But it could be of both so why not divide? Answers Rav Shach: division only happens when there is derara demomona [דררא דממונא] a doubt about the money and both have some prior "hazaka" ( "חזקא" holding", that is a reason to say the object is theirs.) But here the finder is not holding the object for both but only for the true owner-even if we do not know who that is.  

[I am being a bit short here because Rav Shach brings up a second question about the last mishna in the first chapter of Bava Metzia where also you leave the document even though the middleman is in fact holding the document for two people.

And I have not worked out how the argument between Sumchos and the sages fits in here--o if it is relevant at all.

[note 1] Two people give three hundred zuz  to a middleman to take care of. When they return each claims 200. If it was given together in one envelope, it stays with the middleman.

[note 2] Two people might pick up an object in the street at the same time. But the third mana belongs to one or the other, Not both. 

Rav Nahman of Breslov and Uman actually has two places in the LeM where he seems to contradict himself. In one place he says to learn "Poskim" [the medieval authorities that wrote on law. This is different than medieval authorities that wrote commentaries.] separates the good from evil--since that is the whole purpose of the poskim --to come to clarification of the law. [However I should add that in the terminology of Rav Nahman, the word "poskim" means basically the actual Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo (who was not a Rishon). He was the beginning of the period of the Achronim. However, it is clear throughout his writings that "poskim" to Rav Nahman means especially the actual Shulchan Aruch with its commentaries , the Shach, Taz, Magen Avraham, etc. 

But in Le.M vol. I, chapter 54, he says the "כוח הדמיון שורה על שונה הלכות" ["Delusions rest upon those that learn halacha."] And there is no mistaking his intension there as he goes into great detail explaining this.

But I think that a simple answer is that he uses the word "shone halachot" שונה הלכות not "lomed halachot." לומד הלכות [To be "Shone" is  meant to to say the words and go on. The word "lomed" means to learn in depth.

So the best idea in terms of Halacha according to this would be not to be "shone halachot",  but rather to learn in depth starting from the Gemara and going through the Rosh, Rif, Tur, Shulchan Aruch with the basic commentaries on the Shuclan Aruch. [Later note, actually I think the best of all halacha books, the Tur with the Beit Yoseph is the best.] 

Incidentally, this is how I was taught in my second year in Shar Yashuv (the yeshiva of Rav Friefeld). Only in the third year there did they start with deep "lumdus" [learning] as you can see examples in Rav Shach and Rav Chaim of Brisk.

[There is a way of learning in depth which is to review the paragraph 10 times, and  that helps me to learn Physics and Math.] 

 "Social Justice Warrior"s advocate theft. They call it "redistribution" but changing the words that describe something still does not change the actual act.

This last so called "election" was not an election at all. There was was an astounding amount of open fraud. It was just a test of how much Democrats could get away with cheating. And if the voices that object would make any difference. It takes about two minutes to open any computer that count the votes and program it to count all the votes for Bidden or simply put in as many votes for Bidden as you want. This was already demonstrated in the Conference in Los Vegas at a computer conference.

The Gemara and Tosphot in the beginning of Bava Metzia

When there is a doubt about money the law is in some cases to divide, in other cases to let the money or object remain where it is until Elisha the prophet comes. The Gemara and Tosphot in the beginning of Bava Metzia deal with this.

One issue that come up is the מנה שלישית [the third hundred.] That is when two people come to a someone they trust and give him an envelope with three hundred dollars.  Then they return sometime later and each one says the 200 was mine and the hundred was of the other. Then he gives each 100 and the last hundred he keeps until some proof is brought, one way or the other. But if each comes in and separately give him their own envelope. Then he forgets who gave him the $200 and who gave the $100, then he has to give 200 to each and pay from his own pocket.

The question Rav Shach brings from the last Mishna in the first chapter of Bava Metzia מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח a person finds a document of a loan among his documents and does not remember who gave it to him and the lender and borrower both ask for it. There he leaves it. Is this not the same as the above case where he has to pay from his own pocket since he forgot?

Rav Shach answers the case of the loan reverts to a verbal loan in which case the lender is believed to say "I paid". So we leave the document and give it to neither.

The question here is that most of the time in Bava Metzia when issues about money that we do not know to whom it belongs, the Mishnas goes like Sumchos [ממון המוטל בספק חולקים] , not the sages ( המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) [like on page 100 side a]. But sometimes the mishna is a case where even the Sages agree. Sometimes the Gemara deals with this issue, and sometimes leaves it. So that last mishna might be like the sages that you leave the document where it is because it is המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

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One issue that come up is the מנה שלישית . That is when two people come to a someone they trust and give him an envelope with three hundred שקלים.  Then they return sometime later and each one says the 200 was mine and the hundred was of the other. Then he gives each 100 and the last hundred he keeps until some proof is brought, one way or the other. But if each comes in and separately give him their own envelope. Then he forgets who gave him the 200 and who gave the 100, then he has to give 200 to each and משלם from his own pocket.

The question רב שך brings from the last משנה in the first chapter of בבא מציעא מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח a person finds a document of a loan among his documents and does not remember who gave it to him and the lender and borrower both ask for it. There he leaves it. Is this not the same as the above case where he has to pay from his own pocket since he forgot?

רב שך answers the case of the loan reverts to a verbal loan in which case the lender is believed to say: "I paid". So we leave the document and give it to neither.

The question here is that most of the time in בבא מציעא when issues about money that we do not know to whom it belongs, the משנה goes like סומכוס ממון המוטל בספק חולקים, not the sages  המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) like on page 100 side a. But sometimes the משנה is a case where even the Sages agree. Sometimes the גמרא deals with this issue, and sometimes leaves it. So that last משנה might be like the sages that you leave the document where it is because it is המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

נושא אחד שעולה הוא מנה שלישית. זה כאשר שני אנשים מגיעים למישהו שהם סומכים עליו ונותנים לו מעטפה עם שלוש מאות שקלים. ואז הם חוזרים זמן מה אחר כך וכל אחד אומר שה -200 היו שלי והמאה היו של השני. ואז הוא נותן לכל אחד את 100 ואת המאה האחרונה שהוא שומר עד שמביאים הוכחה כלשהי, כך או אחרת. אבל אם כל אחד נכנס ונפרד נותנים לו מעטפה משלהם. ואז הוא שוכח מי נתן לו את ה200 ומי נתן את ה100, ואז הוא צריך לתת 200 לכל אחד ומשלם מכיסו.

השאלה שרב שך מביא מהמשנה האחרון בפרק הראשון בבא מציעא מצא שטר בין שטרותיו ואינו יודע מה טיבו יניח (אדם מוצא מסמך של הלוואה בין מסמכיו ואינו זוכר מי נתן לו המלווה או הלווה. שניהם מבקשים את המסמך. שם הוא משאיר את זה. האם זה אינו זהה למקרה דלעיל בו עליו לשלם מכיסו מאז ששכח?

רב שך עונה על המקרה של ההלוואה חוזר להלוואה מילולית ובמקרה זה מאמינים שהמלווה שאומר: "שילמתי". אז אנחנו עוזבים את המסמך ונותנים אותו לאף אחד מהם.

השאלה כאן היא שרוב הזמן בבבא מציעא כשנושאים על כסף שאיננו יודעים למי הוא שייך, המשנה הולכת כמו סומכוס (ממון המוטל בספק חולקים), ולא החכמים (המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה) כמו בעמוד 100 בצד א. אבל לפעמים זה מקרה שבו אפילו החכמים מסכימים. לפעמים הגמרא עוסקת בנושא זה ולעיתים עוזבת אותה. כך שבמקרה האחרון של שיכחת השטר יכול להיות כמו החכמים שאתה משאיר את המסמך במקום שהוא נמצא בגלל שהוא המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה

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I suggest getting up in the morning and saying right away the Shema [first paragraph], then a bit of Musar/ Ethics. [That is from some few paragraphs of what one feels he needs strength and encouragement in.] Then the Oral Law [in such a way as to get through the oral law, i.e. two Talmuds and Midrashim]. Then what the Rishonim essential Physics and Metaphysics. That approach you can see in Chovot Levavot and More Nevuchim/ the Guide for the Perplexed.  

As for halacha -my approach is that any opinion in the Gemara counts as Halacha unless openly dismissed. רב שלמה לוריא מחבר של החכמת שלמה  Shelomo  Luria writes [in his commentary on the Gemara which is printed with every Gemara at the bottom of the page of the Mahrasha] that it is better to decide the halacha straight from the Gemara even if one is wrong, rather than to decide from the Shulchan Aruch even if that is right. He thought the whole idea of taking away the authority form the Gemara into later on books was a terrible idea.

the problem with USA universities.

 Allan Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind pointed out the problem with USA universities. Maybe it all starts from philosophy as Ayn Rand suggested. If Ayn Rand is right the place to begin would be a different kind of Philosophy program. My suggestion would be the steps leading to the Kant Fries School of thought. That is Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant, Hegel, Leonard Nelson.

But to ignore philosophy does not seem like a good idea. The Mediaeval approach to combine faith and reason seems like to the best idea to me.

I just noticed in the LeM of Rav Nahman vol. I 64 the subject of the limitation of reason which comes up in Kant. The way Rav Nahman deals with this is in relation to the "Halal Hapanui" the empty space.

[You have to say two opposite things about it. One: That God withdrew his presence from within for otherwise there would have been no room for the creation of all the worlds. But it did exist and nothing can exist without God creating it and so God presence was there.] Kant reached his conclusion about the limitation of reason from John Locke that said there   are primary characteristics and secondary. Kant noticed even what Locke thought were primary really also depend on the observer. So what really is the "ding an sich" [thing in itself]? There we have the limit of reason. Now reason is not limited to what can be observed. Nor just what is contained in definition. It can perceive universals. It can figure out synthetic a priori. But the limit is conditions of possible experience.

 Right in the beginning of Bava Metzia in Tosphots and on page 7, there is raised the issue of when the law is to divide, when "who is stronger", when we say it should remain as it is until Eliyahu comes.

So one of the issues is this a document of a loan is in the hands of a middle man and he has forgotten who gave it to him, the lender or the borrower. There we say it should remain where it is until Eliyahu come.

Rav Shach asks why is this any different from an object that was given to a middle man to help until the people that gave it to him come to get it. And he has forgotten who gave it to him and he gives it to one and pays the other since it was his fault for not writing it down or remembering who gave it to him. 

The answer of Rav Shach I admit is a bit  hard to understand. The document he says has a category of a verbal loan and that makes sense since the only difference between a verbal loan and one in a document is the borrower can say "I paid" in a verbal loan. The written loan he can not say that because the lender can ask, "Then why do I still have the document?"  [So in the case the document is in the hands of teh third party the lender can not say that.] Still it is hard to understand why here also we do not say it is the fault of the middle man for not writing down who gave the document to him.

 x44 F minor

I am not sure why there are so many problems in my life or in other peoples' lives. Mainly I think the problems come from sin. But it helps to know which sin so that one can repent. So what I do is to try to think back in my life to see exactly what were my sins so as to know what to repent on. That approach can help others also.

That is to say,-- that when you see things not going well, you ought to think back in your life to try to discover what exact sins triggered the problems.

I can do this fairly well in my life. I can recognize not listening to my parents, leaving the Land of Israel, leaving the good advice of Rav Nahman, and also pushing off a kind of state of inspiration. But clearly others have all kinds of other sorts of sin. And I think that with a little thought most people can discern what sins they need to repent on. But I am not saying that these are my major sins. Also I am not saying that one  can easily discover what their major sins are. Rather I think that if you repent on the things you know you need to repent on, then (in that merit) I believe God reveals to one what further sins he or she needs to repent. on.

[What do I say that problems come from sin? Because in the Musar book Shaarie Teshuva [Gates of Repentance] of R. Yona, he brings from the Gemara that אין ייסורים בלי עוון ("There are no troubles without sin.")