I want to mention a serious problem with package deals.

I want to mention serious problems with package deals. One major problem with package deals is that one rejects things that are good because they are part of some package that has some flaw. A good example of this is the Talmud. The Talmud can be taken as one package, and then rejected because it has some areas which it is flawed in. Or it can be accepted as one package and then one accepts doctrines which are in fact "not very good" as my dad would have put it. The usual example of a part of the Talmud which is not so great is the attitude towards gentiles. However if we look at the Muslims that are devolving, we can see at least a little of the point of the Talmud. Clearly the human race is breaking up into two distant parts--Western civilization (the Judeao-Christian West) and the Muslims on the other side (with some nations like China and Japan being part of the Western part because of their orientation.)
The problem is that obviously gentiles from Christian nations are not the worshipers of the stars [Akum] of the Talmud. They are not idol worshipers in any sense of the word because to be qualified as an idolater, one has to be worship a different god than the God of the Old Testament. Christians simply do not qualify because their God is the God of the Old Testament, even if they worship him in a different way than we would consider kosher.


Further examples are numerous. Christians also taking the New Testament as a package deal get bogged down in the quagmire of internal contradictions.

However there are times that one should take a package deal and just try to sort out stuff after he has bought the product. I got born into a great package deal--the home of my parents. This was--it is true a Jewish home-but it was also much more. It was a home that had too much love that is possible to describe. The powerful principles that was there are not possible to put now on paper. They can not be described. Torah was a part of our home' and so was Physics and the other natural sciences. Classical music was important there even though my brothers listened to modern stuff that shall remain nameless. But all this was external. There was something about the very essence of our family which made it one package deal that I can not describe.

At any rate, some package deals are pretty good.

()  Let me just say that the Talmud is great package deal if you decide to just accept the good things which are three basic things. One is rigorous evaluation of individual laws of the Torah, second is the structure of the laws--how they all fit together; third is the rigorous evaluation of verses.
Of course people that say they are taking one whole book as a package deal are never really doing so. They are taking some issue- usually a completely trivial issue that has little of nothing to do with the basic message of the book and elevating this trivial issue to Divine status. [However it does seem to me that some people in fact do get close to the basic message]

Of course sometimes Talmudic scholars are not very good examples of  Jews. In fact often they do not provide good examples. This is to be expected as the prophets themselves cursed the Jewish people with the curse of having bad leaders. When we did not accept true prophets we were cursed with accepting false prophets and following them.

Even today the the group known as Na Nach  assume that any famous teacher of Torah is a phony. They can be a little extreme in this but it is often quite true. ("Arrogance of office" as Shakespeare put it.)




() Another example of a package deal is racism. Sometimes based on game theory this can be justified.
I quote: Geoff's Blog (Geoffrey Falk):" For example: Kirsten Brydum was traveling across the country with an Amtrak pass and an old bicycle. She was meeting with fellow Marxists around the country and campaigning for Obama. Fresh from protesting the RNC National Convention, she arrived in New Orleans by train. While bicycling around New Orleans’ all black 9th ward ghetto to campaign for Obama, she was shot in the head. Residents would not even call the police to notify them that a dead white girl was laying on the sidewalk. Her body laid in the streets for hours until a construction crew drove by and noticed her.

Even the New Orleans police issued a statement saying “robbery does not appear to be the motivation.” All evidence suggests that she was murdered simply because she was white.

That girl would still be alive today, if only she had believed the “racist” stereotypes about black violence.

We have no qualms about being treated as “numbers in actuarial tables” when it comes to paying for health insurance, split down by [the different life-expectancy of] men vs. women, or by smokers vs. non-smokers … and we certainly don’t consider the (actuarial tables) practice itself to be the least bit immoral … yet if you judge others by their membership in, say, a high-crime group (e.g., poor blacks), you’re guilty not merely of judging individuals based on the characteristics of their group, but of a moral fallacy (and a moral failing).

If racism and sexism are morally wrong (for judging people by the characteristics of their group), then group-characteristic-based insurance must be equally morally wrong. And so are all other forms of mechanical prediction, even though they work better (i.e., “as well as or better,” which on average is better) than the “clinical method” of treating people as individuals.

That is, the most-efficient way of doing things, which causes the least total suffering, and the greatest benefit for the greatest number, is also morally wrong.

Actuarial tables are “formal, statistical stereotypes,” based on simple things like sex, smoking, diet, race, etc. They provide more-accurate (and thus more fair) judgments about the individuals they represent, on average, than do one-on-one, individual evaluations of the same people. What makes you think the same thing wouldn’t be true for other characteristics, outside of life expectancy? And if it would, what makes you think that that superficially unfair approach wouldn’t be the best way we have available to minimize suffering (or alternatively, create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people)?"

 Descartes. When one sees a mountain the mountain is contained in one's mind. The actual mountain that one sees being in one's mind. Descartes said basically the same thing but there are several ways some people interpret him.
Decartes: "There is an ambiguity in the word "idea". "Idea" can be taken materially, as an operation of the intellect, in which case it cannot be said to be more perfect than me. Alternatively, it can be taken objectively, as the thing represented by that operation; and this thing, even if it is not regarded as existing outside the intellect, can still, in virtue of its essence, be more perfect than myself"



Dr. Michael Huemer An essay on Descartes ;-- That the actual mountain is in ones mind. The way Huemer understand this in Descartes is by another idea of Descartes that there are different levels of existence. Existence to Descartes is not an all or nothing proposition. [A good example of this is universals.] [This levels of existence thing I remember seeing in either Plato or Aristotle--I forget which.]
Huemer: "But in Descartes' ontology, things are capable of having different grades of existence (165) (he considers this "completely self-evident" (185)). Further, he makes it clear that the way in which things exist in the intellect is one of the lower grades of existence."




The other way to understand this is by the representation theory of ideas. This is how Thomas Reid understands Descartes.

also had a representation theory of ideas, based on what he says about vision in which he closely rephrases the Aristotelian idea about how vision works, but with subtle differences that make it more in accord with quantum mechanics}. Its seems to me that he would go with the idea of direct perception and not with the neo-Kant idea of representation.
a value creator  like Moses or Socrates; - a civilization founding person. A bringer of new values into the world.  The things that are particularly interesting about him are the seminal ideas-- ideas that he just hints at, but which open new horizons of thought. The originality of his thought also is indicative that we are dealing with a real mystic, not not a good copy cat of other people.



Appendix:

1) In short what Professor Huemer is getting at is that for the rationalists the idea of the mountain is more perfect than the mountain itself and thus  is more real. It is a modified version of Plato.



2) Prof. Michael Huemer is located at
Philosophy Department, CB 232
University of Colorado

3)  The area to think about here is the idea of Kant--the thing in itself-the dinge an sich. And this he applies to objective objects just as much as to objective ideas. Could this dinge an sich be more real than this reality in the cave? Surely Schopenhauer thought so. Schopenhauer wanted the real dinge an sich to apply to the Will--certainly the most real thing to Schopenhauer. 
 [What I mean here is that the dinge an sich can be understood to be on a different plane of existence than phenomenological reality.]

My father served 8 months in the European Theatre of Operations ( France , Germany and Switzerland )

I know I should have posted something about my fathers military record on June 6, D-day. I am sorry I did not so at least for today I am putting it here. The reason I have not mentioned it much is that it always seemed to me that what he accomplished after World War II eclipsed what he did during WWII.

He enlisted on October 12, 1942 when he was 24 years old. He attended the Yale Airplane Maintenance Engineering Class 44-33. According to his enlistment record, he was qualified in arms—carbine and was an expert with a pistol and a sharpshooter. He was an aviation cadet for maintenance engineering. He was discharged so that he could receive a commission as a second lieutenant. This record indicates that he was called to active duty on November 4, 1943.


He entered active duty on July 20, 1944, and was an aircraft engineering officer 4823. His medals were the American Campaign Medal, Army of Occupation Medal and World War II Victory Medal. He served 1 ½ years in the US and almost 8 months in Europe. He left active duty on September 29, 1946. His serial number was 0 872 281. He was promoted to captain just before he left the US Army, and served in the US Army, Headquarters and Base Service Squadron 413th Air Service Group 40th Bomb Wing United States Air Forces European Theater. In the US, he served at Great Bend , Kansas and was in charge of maintaining 6 B-29 aircraft for the unit. He supervised the work of 75 enlisted men. In Europe, he was a civilian personnel officer. He served 8 months in the European Theatre of Operations (France, Germany and Switzerland ) with the 413th Air Service Group and was in charge of 1500 German civilians, supervising 1 officer and 20 civilians. He spoke German fluently at the time.
[He was responsible to decide whether to hold a German for war crimes or not. So besides the specific Germans that he was in charge of, he had to sign the release forms of thousands of Germans. That he why he decided eventually to shorten his name from Rosenbloom to Rosten. I think this was someone's idea of a great joke--to have a Jew sign the release papers of  Germans.


He had a base in France in which damaged aircraft could come in and be repaired within minutes. He trained different personal to how to check and fix only one small part of the plane. So when a plane came in with damage his whole crew swarmed over the ship and fixed it up in minutes and sent it on its way. This was the reason for one of his medals.



The most interesting time of Dad’s professional career was when he returned and was at Fort Monmouth and then his very secret work at Hycon, and created the camera of the U-2, and on the highly secretive SDI Star Wars project.

Much of this information I found out after he was gone. As a father I knew him as a very simple person that loved me, my brothers and my Mother very deeply.
He never talked about his work of his WWII experiences. The peak of living for him was taking us all to the beach on Sunday, and going into the mountains of Southern California skiing once or twice a year. We could not go to the beach on Shabat because I had to spend my time learning Hebrew and Torah.

After seven years working on SDI [star wars] he left TRW and began private business and also he invested in the Stock Market.

His was the general path  Torah with "Derech Eretz", (the path of the world). Torah and work as two sides of the same coin--but not  any work but some work for the benefit of others. I can't explain this but my brother used the word that I think describes it best "Balance."
A word that describes it is Yiddish is to be a "mensch"
He invented a machine called the "copy-mate" which was an extra sharp kind of zerox machine based on focusing of x rays. And he marketed it for about five years until the American military swooped down and recruited him for SDI. So from what I can tell it seems his major contributions to the American Military were night vision and focusing of infra red -- and laser communication between  satellites. He might get honorable mention for the U-2 camera but there apparently were two teams for that and I am not sure whose actual camera was used in the end.

Most people are sensitive to spiritual things to more or less degrees but can't tell when it is real and when it is not.

I have said it a million times. The Torah as it stands with the Talmud is a neat system.


But if we think further into this issue we can see that it is a common feature of cults to have great public faces and hide and a whole string of hurt and broken lives that it leaves in its wake. This has to be at least a warning sign that religious Judaism is has become a cult. It is not just because some people abuse it that it is bad. In what way is it any different from the Divine Light Mission or Adi Da? In what way is it different that any Eastern Cult?

The warning signs are there.

The way  cults work is by a process called Confabulation. This means that there are spiritual phenomena. But even normal sane people can confuse spiritual phenomena with illusion. You don't need to be mentally ill to do this. It is in all people. Because most people are sensitive to spiritual things to more or less degrees but can't tell when it is real and when it is not.
This is where the leader come in. He can create in people the illusion of spirituality. This is a collective venture.
(This was like the type of things that Adi Da would do.) This does not imply holiness. Doing miracles or giving people powerful spiritual experiences does not imply holiness.

Pseudo-Torah

Pseudo-Torah just has a distinctive tone and structure. If there was a debate about something I know nothing at all about, like the metrical structure of Tang Dynasty Chinese poetry, I'd be able to tell in ten minutes who were the real scholars and who were the charlatans. Real scholars look at the totality of the Talmud; charlatans rely on stories and anecdotal evidence. Real Torah scholars know what constitutes being an expert (I will not write that here right now), and rely on the findings of experts. Charlatans cite people with irrelevant credentials, or marginal credentials as if they were on a par with the real Torah scholars on the other side. Charlatans pile on accusations that they were being unfairly treated and complain that important questions are not being addressed, when even a cursory examination of the literature shows that they are.

Since this is a little abstract I should probably give a few examples. The best examples I knew were the Roshei yeshiva of the Mirrer yeshiva in NY. The knew the Talmud inside and out with an amazing level of expertise and depth. Shelomo Haliua the acting Rosh yeshiva of Chaim Berlin also.
I also met a lot of people that were far from that high level but were aspiring towards it and working towards it.

Usually the roshei yeshiva of Litvak yeshivot are very good. Both in character and in Torah knowledge. The Litvaks are the Gold Standard. 

(1)I want to mention what I think are two problems in Kant plus a few other thoughts.

) I want to mention what I think is a problem in Kant. Problems in Kant is a wide subject and has given rise to many schools of thought. Some people because of these problem simply go out a form new schools. At any rate my problem is that the self is for Kant on the level of the "thing in itself" (dinge an sich ). But if this were so then moral obligations could apply to oneself. It is a basic characteristic of morality that it refers to obligations towards others. [Kant's ethics is the categorical imperative.]
[Actually I saw later in the Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) that morality consists of three parts: obligations (1) towards God, (2) towards others (3) towards oneself..]

This question of course depends on the conception of self of the Enlightenment. (See Allan Bloom in his Closing of the American Mind for a thorough treatment of this topic) If we think of the self as the soul as per the Middle Ages this might not be a problem.

) Brian Caplan mentioned an important point--that if we can know things only by deductive reasoning and the information of the senses, then moral values are impossible for the simple reason that the "is- ought" boundary can't be penetrated. [And Kant seems to accept only these two types. If we add immediate non intuitive knowledge to Kant (as we can according to Dr Kelley Ross) then this problem disappears.]

) The realm of nature is the realm of freedom of the will. God created the world in such a way that the rules of nature would unfold by themselves until such a time that a being would evolve that would recognize God and by prayer could reach out to Him and receive help. But this spiritual aspect of things is not a part of nature, but above it. But freewill is an inherent part of nature. So the realm of freedom is not the thing in itself. This is another problem I have with Kant.

) A further problem is that I think you need reason to perceive but not be implanted with structure. One basic answer to Kant's problem how is synthetic a priori possible is immediate non intuitive knowledge.  And this can be falsified in theory which makes it actual knowledge. But how can you falsify it in practice? It perceives unconditioned realities. [I think I asked this question to Kelley Ross and he answered it and I posted the answer on this blog somewhere.]


I hope people don't take this in the wrong way. Kant is the most important Philosopher since Aristotle. The fact that there are problems is similar to the kinds of problems we have in Talmud. It  means we have lots of quality time to spend working out the problems.

I have written a little about Reb Shmuel Berenbaum in some essay long ago. But just to recount in short a little of my experiences at the Mir in Brooklyn.  The Mir was one of the Ivy league in those days. [Other people like Reb Moshe Feinstein were more into halacha [Jewish law].

 One of the best books to come out of the Mir is the Sukkat David which was simply the classes [shiurim] of the first level class in the Mir --for first year students. Yet it is a great book and in fact even in Israel when people what to learn a little about how to learn they go to the Sukkat David.
My first year there I finished up tractate Yevamot which I had started in Far Rockaway. The thing is that for some strange reason I think my own learning fell at the Mir. I may have learned longer hours--but the intensity of learning for me was lacking. While at Shar Yashuv (in Far Rockaway) I could be in the mountains with the Friefeld family in some empty beit midrash, and learn all day long with extreme intensity. Most of my learning during my Far Rockaway years were with the Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot and the Beit Yosef and Tur which I used as commentary on the Gemara. When Tosphot was unclear to me, I learned the Ritva and Rosh and other rishonim (Mediaeval authorities) to help me figure out what Tosphot was saying. Often the other rishonim [first authorities i.e mediaeval commentaries] would say different things than Tosphot, but learning them helped me put the idea of tosphot into context. In Far Rockaway also there was the presence of Reb Naphtali Yeger who had a really great way of learning. It was completely different that the regular way of looking at the Chidushei HaRambam (by Reb Chaim Soloveitchik) or other achronim.

 In fact, the whole idea of finding the yesod ( foundations) was completely wrong in the eyes of Reb Naphtali. (Don't put something into Tosphot that is not there. Don't put outside principles into Tosphot. If you can't understand Tophot without putting in some principle that he does not say there, then that means you don't understand Tosphot.)

Any extra word or idea that you had to put into Tosphot to make it make sense, simply meant that you did not understand Tosphot. What he did was make me repeat the Tosphot--not word for word, but explain what he was saying from beginning to end. And during that process, I would notice some glitch in the reasoning of Tosphot. It was in these glitches that Reb Naphtali used to uncover the infinite layers of depth in Tosphot. The answer to a glitch would seems to make the glitch disappear, but bring another question in its turn; and the answer to that question would bring another answer in its turn. The usual amount of sub-levels that Reb Naphtali discovered in a Tosphot in this way was about twenty. In the Mir this was unknown. And in Israel I discovered to my great disappointment that people were dogmatic believers, but not devotees of the Talmud.





Back to the Mir. I went to Reb Shmuel's class right when I came into the Mir. This was not usual because most people had to start at the first level and work their way up. I don't know why I was accepted for the highest class.(Maybe just kindness to me.) His way of learning was very deep, but it was the Reb Chayim type of approach which I mentioned.  In the hands of Reb Shmuel, this was a great approach. (It can be abused. People can make up yesodot principles all day long and stick them into any given Tosphot or Rambam all day long.  You can always force any given text to say anything you want any time.) But Reb Shmuel had this logically rigorous type of way of going deeper and deeper into the subject but again he was starting with the basic Reb Chayim approach. Personally let me say I was coming from Beverly Hills High School with  zero experience with this Brisk type of learning. I had no way of deciding between Brisk and Naphtali Yeger. To this day both approaches seem to me to be valid. But when I do my own thinking into a Tosphot, I usually take the Naphtali Yeger approach simply.
My second year in Mir they started learning Ketubot which I had just finished in Far Rockaway. So I joined a group doing Shabat instead.-