I have been looking at the news and I feel a lot of issues would be clearer to people if they would know about faith and reason.. Since the Enlightenment, some philosophers have sought to find morality in reason alone with no input from the Bible.  Of course not all philosophers have gone this path. Hegel for one sought to justify faith by means of reason. He was to Protestantism what Aquinas was to the Catholics. [Though I hesitate to state this so openly, since Left Hegelians saw him differently. I admit my understanding Hegel is mainly based on just one thing--the Logic as printed in his Encyclopedia. I think most people's understanding of Hegel comes from their reading of the Phenomenology. ]

A different approach  to faith comes from the Friesian School which I think is just as great as Hegel even though the principles are quite different. There you find a sort of knowledge which is not based on the senses and not based on reason. ["Reason" in this context means to derive one thing from another. It is not the same thing as when Prichard, G.E. Moore or Huemer think of reason as that which recognizes universals. This is an expanded idea of reason.]

 

 I find Physics is easier to understand in the equations rather than the verbal expressions. Time travel to me would be ok if that would fit the equations; that is, if there would be negative mass. But we do not find negative mass, and so that is that. The same thing goes for a lot of the interesting things in Physics. The equations seem to me to express things a lot clearer than when the idea is stated in words.

However in math, I find the opposite. If I hear a lecture in math, that almost always makes things more clear to me than if I just read the material.

to justify faith

 If you want to justify faith, I think you do not have much choice but the Kant Friesian School. I mean to say that Hegel gets to principles of faith, but he does so by reason alone. But if (like me) you believe that faith is a different source of knowledge than reason, then the Friesian School seems the only choice. But this school is not one block. It has developed from Fries to Leonard Nelson until Kelley Ross. 

There are others that have noticed and written on this school, but they all seem to get one point wrong-psychologism. To Nelson this was a thing a fought against his whole life-- [mainly against Husserl].

To the Friesian way, one does get to knowledge of the categories of Kant [which are roughly answers to the basic questions--how? where? when? what? etc.] by looking into ones mind--empirically,--but they are not known by the structure of the mind. Rather by non-intuitive immediate knowledge [which is close to the way Michael Huemer and the original intuitionists thought. It is close because to Huemer we know these things by reason, but in a wider understanding of what reason can tell us. But it is not like Huemer because pure reason is limited as Locke and Hume saw. Rather what Huemer thinks is reason is rather reasonable, but not reason.]

Non-intuitive immediate knowledge  means knowledge that is known not by reason nor by sense perception.

Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Loans. Rambam 13 halacha 4. Tractate Shavuot page 44 side B

רב שך באבי עזקי הלכות מלווה ולווה. פרק י''ג הלכה ד A lender has an object as a משכון for a loan of 100  and loses it בלי אונס. He says it was worth 50 and the borrower says 75. The lender  takes an oath it is not in his possession and the borrower takes an oath on how much it was worth and pays the 25 besides that that he owes. We have an argument between the רמב''ן and the ר''ן if the borrower has to take an oath on how much the object was worth. This is all clear.  But what has been bothering me is  this. Even though the lender has to take an oath on how much the object was worth, but let's say he does not take an oath. Then what? Anyway the borrower is taking an oath on how much he says it was worth and pays the rest. But the lender without the oath maybe would not get even that? Or maybe the borrower has to pay anyway what he admits he owes. Or gets 25 and pays 100? But then the borrower is taking an oath and getting money which is the opposite of an oath of the תורה which is when one takes an oath and does not pay and it is also not in the category of things that one takes an oath and gets paid which is a hired worker. 

רב שך באבי עזרי הלכות מלווה ולווה. פרק י''ג הלכה ד' למלווה יש חפץ כמשכון להלוואה של 100 ומפסיד אותו בלי אונס. הוא אומר שהיה שווה 50 והלווה אומר 75. המלווה נשבע שבועה זה לא ברשותו והלווה נדר כמה זה שווה ומשלם את ה-25  שהוא חייב. יש לנו ויכוח בין הרמב''ן לר''ן אם הלווה צריך להישבע כמה היה שווה החפץ. כל זה ברור. אבל מה שהפריע לי זה. אף על פי שהמלווה צריך להישבע כמה היה שווה החפץ, אבל נניח שאינו נשבע. ואז מה? בכל מקרה הלווה נשבע כמה הוא אומר שזה שווה ומשלם את השאר. אבל המלווה בלי השבועה אולי לא יקבל אפילו את זה? או אולי הלווה צריך לשלם בכל מקרה את מה שהוא מודה שהוא חייב. או מקבל 25 ומשלם 100? אבל אז הלווה שבועה ומקבל כסף שזה ההפך משבועת התורה שהיא נשבע ולא משלם וגם זה לא בקטגוריית הדברים נשבעים ומשלמים. שהוא שכיר.

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Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Loans. A lender has an object as a guarantee for a loan of 100  and loses it. He says it was worth 50 and the borrower says 75. The lender  takes an oath it is not in his possession and the borrower takes an oath on how much it was worth and pays the 25 besides that that he owes.

 I know I have not been blogging and also not learning Torah. However  there is one small thing that I have been thinking  and puzzling about. It is in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Loans 13:4. You have a lender who has an object as a guarantee and he loses it in such a  way that he is obligated. [There are ways in which he would not be obligated for example: robbers.] So we have an argument between the Ramban {Nachmanides} and the Ran {Rabbainu Nisim}if the borrower has to take an oath on how much the object was worth. This is all clear. 

  But what has been bothering me is  this. Even though the lender has to take an oath on how much the object was worth, but let's say he does not take an oath. Then what? Anyway the borrower is taking an oath on how much he says it was worth and pays the rest. But the lender without the oath maybe would not get even that? Or maybe the borrower has to pay anyway what he admits he owes. Or gets25 and pays 100? But then the borrower is taking an oath and getting money which is the opposite of an oath of the Torah which is when one takes an oath and does not pay and it is also not in the category of things that one takes an oath and gets paid which is a hired worker. So this case seems confusing to me.

 

 

Those inside the palace are the physicists.

 I have not been blogging in part because my mental energy I have been trying to direct towards Physics and Mathematics which I find needs a lot more energy and effort than I originally thought. The major emphasis in this direction comes from the Guide for the Perplexed. It is mentioned off hand there and in other places in the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities.], but the one place that makes it clearer is the parable of the King in his palace [end of vol III] There is a king who rules of a vast country. And there are many levels of closeness with the King. Those outside the country are barbarians. Those inside are ruled by Divine Law. Those around the Palace are those that learn and keep the Talmud. Those inside the palace are the physicists. Those with the king himself are the prophets and philosophers.

Though this message is in many other places in the medieval authorities, here  it is without ambiguity.

However there are also many Rishonim that do not hold from this at all. To them learning Torah means Gemara and the other books of the sages of the Talmud-not science. 

However I was forced out of the yeshiva world, and found that I had no choice but to learn to make a living with no help from anyone. So I decided to take up Physics at NYU. Since then, I am not longer at NYU and do not even do Physics for the sake of making a living. But I wanted to make clear that if I had not found this opinion in the Rishonim, I probably would have chosen a different path. The fact that Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam hold from this path, made it make more sense to do the Physics thing rather than hang out where I was not wanted.

 

 

 

 

 Rav Nahman of Breslov makes a distinction between learning halacha and reading ["שונה" {Shone}] halacha.

Learning means you go to the source in the Gemara and see how the law is derived. "Reading" means to read it and go on. 

And this later category he says is what makes Torah Scholars the are demons in the Lekutai Moharan [LeM] vol. I chapter 54. [Learning halacha means learning it with its sources in depth. That is in Lekutai Moharan vol I chapter 62 paragraph 6 and chapter 286]

There he says that the "כוח המדמה" power of delusion is always looking for a place to settle upon. And when that power of delusion finds someone who reads halacha, it settles there. And so it is important to never hear words of Torah from these demonic Torah scholars since their ideas in Torahh contain more evil than good. That is to say that even though their words are about Torah so they contain some good, still that good is less than 50% so the evil is the majority and cancels the good.

 Or one can become conservative by learning the Bible. Reason and Faith was the approach of the Middle Ages. To come to objective morality by Reason alone does not work. You need faith also. [Even though some moral principles might be reasonable, but can not be derived by reason. You need to start with some moral principle that is a beginning, not derived from any where. You can not get an "ought" from an "is". And you can not get a tuna fish  sandwich without tuna. You need to start somewhere. []Though Hegel would disagree, I am mainly saying what I understand by the Kant-Fries Approach.

 In Israel the minister of finance wants that there should be in schools regular studies [Mathematics English, Citizenship. Or such similar things.] And to me this makes sense. After in in the Mir in N.Y.  the high school has secular studies. Besides that I think that there is some hidden dynamics going on that is unstated. After all in the Sefardi world, you do not get the sort of division between Frum from birth and baal teshuva. It is only in the Ashkenazi world that this comes up. The Patricians against the Plebeians. This class difference is reinforced by the firm exclusion of secular studies.

This division I think is sad and in truth while I was at the Mir I did not see any of it. I was accepted as part of the regular Kollel-lite. But this division is sad. And serious. For each group looses out on something.  Especially because it is important for  everyone to learn Torah all the time. It is not a practice that is exclusive to the ruling class of the Patricians while us plebeians are supposed to support them. 

 But in fact many of us are not able to be sitting and learning Torah all day and night. So for that reason I see Musar as being of great importance since it gives over the essence of what Torah is all about--good character traits and fear of God.

 Cure of Cancer in New England Journal of Medicine: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2201445

I used to review each paragraph twice and to go on. Now I am thinking learning in depth is better.

 I thought the best idea in learning was to review each paragraph twice and to go on. This was the compromise that I made for myself in the great Litvak yeshivas Shar Yashuv and the Mir when there was this tension between intense deep learning and the path of Rav Nahman of just saying the words and going on.

Each of these two ways just did not work for me. If I just said the words and went on, I understood nothing. And if I sat on the same page doing lots of review, I also had no idea of what was going on.

So I found this sort of compromise to be the most sensible thing. With review twice, I more or less got the idea, but I did not linger on the same page in such a way that I made no progress.

Anyway that is how I learned in Shar Yashuv and the Mir. After that I did the "Say the words and go on" approach. And that is how I learned most of the time. [ After that I needed to find some way of making a living,  I majored in Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. To do that I needed a lot of review.

[I knew one fellow in Breslov who in fact took this advice of Rav Nahman very much literally, He used to finish Shas every month. (The entire Talmud.) He pointed out to me that this is not hard if you just come in in the morning and start going through page after page. Thus by the end of the day, you have gone through about 100 pages.] But that is only for  the fast bekiut sessions. Nowadays I think one should emphasize the Litvak approach of deep iyun [Deep learning] because I think that is the only way to get to the light of Torah; and in math and Physics also I think deep learning with tons of review on the same chapter is the best approach. But is agree that fast learning is good in the afternoon [as was done at the Mir.]

[Here are two books I wrote which show how I learn gemara chidushei hashas  [ideas in talmud ] iyunei bava meztia studies in Bava Metzia

 It is hard to know why people obsess  on certain things. During the Middle Ages, one fate in the next world was the major issue. And since the right doctrine determined that fate, nations would go to war for that. In the Victorian Age in England , death was the major issue. One tomb or grave stone was just one aspect of this. Mainly people were obsessive about their legacy. But sex could not even be mentioned. Nowadays all that seems ridiculous. Nowadays people obsess about sex and bring it up all the time, --it is on the news constantly. But ones' legacy on the news? Or one's fate in the next world? You will not hear these issues on the news. And besides sex, there is race.  

Why do people obsess about it? Who knows? 

z48 Music file in midi format 

All music files were labeled by "a" through "z" generally going to 100. But this was not done systematically. So a lot of work would be needed to go through old files to see what is worth while to save, or what is worthwhile to edit.

For example: this file. It was finished some months ago, but I thought to go back and take a look at it to see if it was worthwhile to do a bit of editing, and then present it. So here  I am presenting it for the first time though it was finished  some time ago.

faith is a source of knowledge

(1) A flaw in enlightenment philosophy is the attempt to get moral principles from pure Reason.

Pure Reason does not tell us much. It does not even tell us what axioms are "reasonable" to start with.. It is more like a tool to constrain. It can tell us when we are making a mistake. This is the point of David Hume that got this idea from his experience as a teacher of Euclid's Elements (Geometry.) The axioms were not derived by reason. But they were reasonable. The only function of reason in the Elements was to show when some idea could be shown to be in contradiction to one of the axioms.

There might be reasonable moral principles, but they are not derivable by mean of pure reason which can tell us they way things are, not how they ought to be. That is the famous rule of Hume: You can not derive an "ought" from an "is"

(2) What I am getting at is that faith is a source of knowledge that is different from reason. [This is a doctrine of the Kant-Friesian School]. But even those that are adherents of this school often seem to miss out that this is not a form of psychologism. While it is true with Fries that one needs to look into one's own mind to see what the beginning axioms are  that does not mean that the mind knows these things by some kind of implanted knowledge. Rather the mind perceives them but not by reason but by a sort of knowledge that is not sensed nor known by reason. It is non intuitive immediate knowledge.

(3) This was of course obvious in the Middle Ages. The need for faith and reason together was obvious to all. This insight was lost until the Kant Friesian School arose.

 z74 music file

 I must admit that it was not any lack in the Litvak Yeshiva World that caused me to leave. As long as I was in the Mir Yeshiva in NY, things were great. And coming to Israel would not have been a problem also because there was a Litvak  kollel in Safed that I could have joined. Rather I got involved in Breslov. And you can understand how that might come about since Rav Nahman was in fact a great tzadik. Still, the effect on me was to get me off track. [And in spite of the greatness of Rav Nahman, on occasion people that get involved in Breslov do tend to lose the way, close the Gemara]. The best idea is to stick with the Gra and straight Torah of the Litvak world while at the same time to benefit from the important advice and ideas of Rav Nahman.

One  of the great things I learned in the Litvak world: the importance of Rishonim Mediaeval thinkers. [This mainly refers to the commentator of the Gemara, Tosphot, Rashba, Ritva, Ramban, Rosh. etc.].But by implication it also refers to the Musar and world view philosophy of the Rishonim.

Also I learned the importance of review. 

However not enough emphasis was placed on the Gra.

=And that is the only thing I see amiss in the Litvak world- not enough emphasis on the Gra. [for example the letter of excommunication that he signed and yet is still ignored. ]

 

 

 Russia has made it clear that sending advanced weapons to Ukraine will be considered as an act of war. Do we really think we can wipe the floor with Russia?  How well did we do in Afghanistan with the Taliban who did not have 4,000 nuclear weapons. 

And the Russian doctrine of war is that even a conventional attack on Russia will evoke a nuclear response.

How much easier it would be to sign an agreement that Ukraine will not join NATO? Would that not be better than WWIII that the USA is not prepared for.. The Military has made it clear that it main priority is getting  homosexuals into positions of  high rank.

Are we ready for this: 

zh b

 There is something profoundly insightful about Kant's idea that we really do no understand "things in themselves" This was originally derived from John Locke that noticed that some traits are in things in themselves and others are how we react to them. E.g. how they feel our touch. Kant noticed that even trait that we think of as being in things in themselves are really what we add to them. So if you abstract these traits then what is the thing in itself? We do not know. You see this in Physics.  One one hand Physics recognizes mass and charge as very well understood and measurable in the lab. But  as Kant would that that is how we interact with the mass and charge of the electron. But the "bare mass"? The mass that you calculate in the sum of the kinetic energy and potential energy? That bare mass in infinity.  It is hard to understand how the electrons mass can be infinity. So Kant was right that we really do not understand things in themselves. [The "bare mass" is one of the many famous infinities that come up in Quantum Field Theory. Richard Feynman sort of solved the problem by what is called normalization but it is more like sweeping the dust under the rug]

 It is helpful that Rav Nahman of Breslov was aware of the problem of Torah scholars that are demons-which is admittedly a problem, [Le.M. I:12, I:28.] and yet was able to see the importance of the Oral and Written Law.

Abuse does not cancel use. Abusus non tollit usum.

In fact in the very first of the 13 stories of Rav Nahman  is an instructive lesson.  The second to the King, was on a search for the kidnapped daughter of the king.  When he got to giants in a desert that told him to turn back. But he was stubborn and pressed on. You can say this is similar. 

 

 

 

 

 

Because the Torah says so

Thee are eleven ingredients of the incense in the holy Temple. The teaching that lists them mentions at the end that if they would had added a drop of honey, no one could resist [it would be so inspiring]. So why did they not add any honey?  כל שאור וכל דבש לא תקטירו No leaven nor any honey shalt you offer to the Lord your God.

This explains the simple path of the Gra. The Litvak yeshivot do not add nor subtract from the Torah because the Torah says so.  [And in fact that is actually a verse in Deuteronomy: Thou shalt not add nor subtract from the Law.]

Two Treaties of Government

To understand the situation in the USA I think the best idea is to learn the Two Treaties of Government of John Locke plus the Declaration of Independence. There you see even though the USA is a republic  (not direct democracy), still it is based on fair elections. Since there was doubt about the validity of the count of the Dominion machines, the election should not have been certified.

[The Two Treaties is all about: when is it moral to rebel against the government?]

Just to be clear: I hold from the Two Treaties and the Constitution of the USA because they are the best in coming to peace of the state which is one f the major goals of Torah. On a small scale a Litvak yeshiva tends to be the best in creating a decent group based on objective morality. But on a larger scale the model based on the American Constitution brings the best results of creating a just society. --I mean to say that how to create such a thig has been a subject of debate ever since Plato wrote the Republic. But his answers seem lacking. Nor do any intellectual answers since then get any better results. The odd fact is the model based on Medieval England (Parliament, the Magna Carta, etc which got translated into the American system  get the best results in terms of a just society.) Kings on occasion were okay but often they were not.

universities ought to simply become technical schools.

 In the time of Kant many thought that the universities ought to simply become technical schools. (What is called today: "STEM fields".) But the "liberal arts" won and so we have the social studies and humanities parts of the university.

{I mean to say that the theological aspect of the universities was already on its way out. So the question arose what should be the nature of the university?}

However I think the original idea was best --of just having universities being technical schools. The liberal arts departments are of negative value.

But not everything in university ought to be for the sake of making a living. So while the socialist departments ought to be disbanded, not everything else should be for making a living. Rather I see certain things in STEM as having ontological value in themselves [like Mathematics and Physics.]

{You see this in Rishonim mediaeval authorities. But how far does this go? [To consider some "secular subjects" has having value to learn just for their own sake?] 

two important lessons to learn from Robert E Lee. Lee was always strongest when he was considered weak.

I noticed that there are two important lessons to learn from Robert E Lee. One of the most astounding facts about him is that he was more dangerous in retreat than in offensive attack. You learn this from the Antietam battle with General McClellan.  G. McClellan was dismissed by Lincoln because of his perceived mistake of not following Lee in his retreat back to Virginia across the Potomac.  I do not know from where Lincoln was getting his information from because in fact McClellan did pursue Lee! At the river crossing where Lee was retreating, there was an eye witness from a Northern newspaper that wrote that when McClellan tried to attack Lee (in this retreat), the air was filled with bullets as thick as rain attacking McClellan.

The other very important fact about Lee is defense. He created a system of breastworks [makeshift fences] after the battle of Mine Run.  The Northern general looked and looked for the slightest opening and found nothing and so retreated. Later Lee was do the same with Grant. [The northern general at that time made his own instant retreat at night knowing that Lee would immediately in the morning pursue him.]

So you see Lee was always strongest when he was considered weak.

z73 music file

 

 The issue of my core belief system came up today and I wanted to mention that the way I see Torah is that what matters is "to be a mensch" midot tovot. Everything else is secondary. So I really do not care much how one comes to good midot.  This idea is based to some degree on the books of Musar [mediaeval books about morality] but also on the Gemara itself that says the commandments do have known reasons. But the Gemara does not give them. The later rishonim give the reasons for the commandments and they are in short--to be a mensch. But to be a mensch of course means a lot more than being a decent human being. So one does have to learn the basic core books of Musar to understand what being a mensch means.

Being a mensch should be common sense, but I guess that is no longer common.  

כתובות דף י''ט. רמב''ם הלכות מלווה ולווה פרק ב' הלכה ו' Ketuboth 19 Rambam 2:6

כתובות דף י''ט  

לוי borrows from ראובן and ראובן borrows from שמעון. Comes time of payment and ראובן has no money. You take from לוי and give to שמעון. If both לוי and ראובן say the loan was paid you pay no attention to them since they might be conspiring against שמעון. The ר''ן asks: Why not collect the document  שטר of the loan from ראובן and give it to שמעון? He answers because the document itself is not money.  I was wandering around at the sea shore and it occurred to me that there is a very good reason not to collect the document of the loan from ראובן and give it to שמעון as the ר''ן asks. If שמעון would have the שטר then he could collect the משועבדים the property that לוי sold after  he borrowed money  from ראובן. So why does the ר''ן not answer this answer which seems like a better answer?

[Just to make this clear: Just think about it. Giving the document to שמעון would make it seem that the original loan was from לוי to שמעון. And thus all of לוי's property would be obligated in that loan. But that is way too much. The only thing that ר' נתן says in כתובות י''ט  is that if ראובן has no property we take from לוי and give to שמעון, not even property that לוי sold. And even more so. If שמעון could גובה from  property that לוי sold, you would have an infinite regress. No one would buy anything. So on one hand giving the document to שמעון does not give to שמעון any more power than ראובן had. But still שמעון might at some future date borrow from someone else and also have no money to pay back the loan, and so on and so forth forever. The property of לוי would never be safe.

Ketuboth page 19. Rambam Laws of  Loans. 2:6 

Levi borrow from Reuven and Reuven borrows from Shimon. Comes time of payment and Reuven has no money. You take from Levi and give to Shimon. If both Levi and Reuven say the loan was paid you pay no attention to them since they might be conspiring against Shimon.

The Ran asks why not collect the document of the loan from Reuven and give it to Shimon. He answers because the document itself is not money.   

 I was wandering around at the sea shore and it occurred to me that there is a very good reason not to collect the document of a loan from Reuven and give it to Shimon as the Ran asks. If Shimon would have the document then he could collect the Meshuabadim --the property that Levi sold after he borrowed money  from Reuven. So why does the Ran not answer this answer which seems like a better answer?

[Just to make this clear: Just think about it. Giving the document to Shimon would make it seem that the original loan was from Levi to Shimon. And thus all of Levi's property would be obligated in that loan. But that is way too much. The only thing that R. Natan says in Ketuboth 19 is that if Reuven has no property we take from Levi and give to Shimon, not even property that Levi sold. And even more so. If Shimon could collect from even property that Levi sold you would have an infinite regress. No one would buy anything. So on one hand giving the document to Shimon does not give to Shimon any more power than Reuven had. But still Shimon might at some future date borrow from someone else and also have no money to pay back the loan, and so on and so forth forever. The property of Levi would never be safe.

כתובות דף י''ט

לוי לווה מראובן וראובן לווה משמעון. מגיע זמן התשלום ולראובן אין כסף. אתה לוקח מלוי ונותן לשמעון. אם גם לוי וגם ראובן אומרים שההלוואה שולמה, אתה לא שם לב אליהם מכיוון שהם עלולים ליצור קשר נגד שמעון. שואל הר''ן: למה לא לגבות את מסמך שטר ההלוואה מראובן ולתת אותו לשמעון? הוא עונה כי המסמך עצמו אינו כסף. (שטרות לאו בני גוביינא נינהוא). הסתובבתי על שפת הים ועלה בדעתי שיש סיבה טובה מאוד לא לאסוף (לגבות) את מסמך ההלוואה מראובן ולתת אותו לשמעון כפי שהר''ן מבקש. אם לשמעון היה את השטר, אז הוא היה יכול לאסוף את המשועבדים (את הרכוש שמכר לוי לאחר שהוא לווה כסף מראובן). אז למה הר''ן לא עונה על התשובה הזו שנראית כמו תשובה טובה יותר

רק כדי להבהיר את זה: רק תחשוב על זה. מתן המסמך לשמעון יראה שההלוואה המקורית תהיה מלוי לשמעון. ולפיכך יתחייבו כל רכושו של לוי באותה הלוואה. אבל זה יותר מדי. הדבר היחיד שאומר ר' נתן בכתובות י''ט הוא שאם לראובן אין רכוש, אנחנו לוקחים מלוי ונותנים לשמעון, לא רכוש שמכר לוי. ועוד יותר מכך. אם שמעון היה יכול לגבות מנכס שלוי מכר, הייתה לך נסיגה אינסופית. אף אחד לא היה קונה כלום. אז מצד אחד מתן המסמך לשמעון לא נותן לשמעון יותר כוח ממה שהיה לראובן. אבל בכל זאת שמעון עלול באיזשהו תאריך עתידי ללוות ממישהו אחר וגם לא יהיה לו כסף להחזיר את ההלוואה, וכן הלאה וכן הלאה לנצח. רכושו של לוי לעולם לא יהיה בטוח.

 

Rittenhouse trial: Key state witness admits he pointed a gun at Rittenhouse before he was shot

 KENOSHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- The sixth day of the Kyle Rittenhouse trial shifted focus from the first shooting to the second and third. Witnesses recalled the moments when Anthony Huber was shot in the chest and killed, and Gaige Grosskreutz testified about being shot in the arm and surviving. Grosskreutz was the most anticipated witness called to the stand so far.

The state tried to show Grosskreutz was not a threat and even had his hands up when he approached Rittenhouse in the street. But the defense got Grosskreutz to admit he had a loaded gun in his hand, and that Rittenhouse did not shoot him until Grosskreutz lowered his hands and pointed that gun at him.

Eyewitness video from the scene shows as more people approached Rittenhouse, he was knocked to the ground. Grosskreutz was roughly five feet away, with his Glock pistol in his right hand and his cellphone in his left hand. At first, his hands were raised.

Prosecutor Thomas Binger asked him on the stand, "What was going through your mind at this particular moment?" Grosskreutz replied, "That I was going to die."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

knowing what is an "extra" as opposed to what is essential [really obligated].

There is nothing wrong with trying to be as strict as possible in keeping the holy Torah. The issue is that without having gone through Shas at least once, one does not have any means of knowing what is an "extra" as opposed to what is essential [really obligated]. While at the Mir and Shar Yashuv in NY this distinction did not make much difference to me because I was trying in fact to keep everything, including when there are differences of opinion I would go after the stricter opinion. This is a great thing to do.

However after I got to Israel and was learning the Le.M of Rav Nahman, I noted that he mentioned II:44 and II:86 that to serve God, one does not need any extra restrictions. And later when my world started crumbling around me (note 1), I found this distinction to be of great importance--i.e., to know what is really obligated and what is just an extra.

[I would think this to be obvious, but a few days ago I was talking with a friend on the street and this issue came up. After all I had suggested to him the importance of learning Torah, and so he now goes often to a place where there people are in fact very focused on learning Torah. But he also noticed this same aspect of things: to strive to be extra strict. So he was wondering why and in what ways is my path different, even though I am in total agreement with the importance of learning Torah and striving to keep every detail to the last atom and molecule. 

[But to know what the Torah really requires, it is also mostly enough to learn the Mishna with the Rav of Bartenura who explains things well and also gives the actual way the law is decided. After doing that a few times, then to get through Shas.]  

(note 1) It is hard to keep everything when you have no place to sleep. No place to learn. All your "friends turn out to be fair weather friends.