I hope everyone is truly shocked. Yes there is slavery in the Torah. And the Torah does mean what it says. And the commandments are not good advice, they are laws. When the Torah says for example to honor your parents it does not mean to be nice to them. It means something much more radical. Homosexually is also the same. Slavery come to think of it might be a great idea. If there would be slavery in the USA maybe you would not have a Muslim Brotherhood president in the White House.

There is a reason to learn the Rambam with Reb Chaim Soloveitchik.

So far it looks like the score is even between the Beit Joseph and Reb Chaim.
If you look at the Rambam about slavery after you have looked at the Talmud it seems like he is saying that if  Jew buys a gentile from another gentile that if the gentile is smart he will jump into the Mikvah [any natural body of water] and shout out "Leshem Ben Chorin" [For the sake Freedom!!] before the owner has a chance to dip him in he becomes Jewish and is free. [But also he is required to keep all the mitzvot.]
The way it looks to me is that this does not refer to a case in which the gentile sold himself. [In a case where he had a lots of debts and wants to pay them off.]

The reason is that after looking at the Talmud itself this is the opinion of Rav Awyia. However so far we do not know if the Rambam decides like Rav Awyia. But is is significant that the Rambam says he buys him from a gentile. It seems implied that if the gentile sold himself that this would not work.

Reb Chaim disagrees with this.He says in any case the gentile can  jump into the mikvah and becomes free. and he has a good argument for this. And in this we will see if I can get a chance to write about it that he is disagreeing with the Beit Yoseph.


First of all both to Reb Chaim and the Beit Yosph the Rambam is deciding not like Rav Awyia but rather Rav Achai is opponent in the Talmud. and though to Rav Awyia there are two kinds of acquiring Reb Chaim holds that to Rav Achei there is only one--that is a type of acquiring that only gives the owner the right to dip the gentile in the mikvah , and until then no slavery exists.

I hope everyone is truly shocked. Yes there is slavery in the Torah. And the Torah does mean what it says. And the commandments are not good advice, they are laws. When the Torah says for example to honor your parents it does not mean to be nice to them. It means something much more radical. Homosexually is also the same. Slavery come to think of it might be a great idea. If there would be slavery in the USA maybe you would not have a Muslim Brotherhood president in the White House.

The fact that the charedi world has been using the Torah as a tool for making money has to stop.

 This is connected to another phenomenon in the Charedi world. It has the characteristics of the Eastern cults. Every small Charedi groups seems to have it s own Guru that they attribute Divine powers to.

I am willing to admit that every city should have a  a class in the Talmud in the local Beit Midrash. I have been an advocate of Beit Midrash Judaism for a long time. That is every city should have  a place for Jews to get together an learn Torah- but not for money.

I have been doing plenty of thinking about cults and sadly I have way too much experience with them.

But most of the time I look at them from a mystical point of view.  I try to understand if their powers are true at all and if they are they are they from the Side of Good or the Dark Side? Recently I have been looking at this question from the standpoint of Sociology. After all in spite of my distance for the profession I admit that Max Weber and the originators of the profession has good insights.

The day of the philosopher as isolated thinker--the talented amateur with an idiosyncratic message--is effectively gone. ” —Nicholas Rescher, "American Philosophy Today," 'Review of Metaphysics' 46 (4)

Campbell, James: " No longer could the [philosophy] professor function as a defender of the faith or an expounder of Truth. The new philosopher had to be a leader of inquires and a publicizer of results. This shift was made obvious when certified (often German-certified) philosophy Ph.D.'s replaced theology graduates and ministers in the philosophy classroom. The period between the time when almost no one had a Ph.D. to when almost everyone did was very brief. [...] The doctorate, moreover, was more than a license to teach: it was a certificate that the prospective philosophy instructor was well, if narrowly, trained and ready to undertake independent work in the now specializing and restricted field of academic philosophy. These new philosophers functioned in independent departments of philosophy [...] They were making real gains in their research, creating a body of philosophic work that remains central to our study even now. These new philosophers also set their own standards for success, publishing in the recognized organs of philosophy that were being founded at the time"

This seems to me to be the reason that philosophers with a message like Hegel are ignored and marginalized.
This is sad because it means that people with a message are never trained in philosophy an could not tell you the difference between an a priori and an a posteriori if it hit them in the face.
People with a message nowadays are in general cult leaders and charismatic idiots  the assorted Eastern cults



And it also means that professional philosophers in general have no idea of what they are talking about when they venture outside of trivial philosophical word puzzles.
Certain professions do not take well to become professions.
Some people  think that professionals know what they are talking about, and talented amateurs are just plain ignorant. It does not matter what profession it is.  What ever the professionals say is true. Period. 
I, on the other hand, am a pure bred Californian. To me anything any professional says is suspect until proven true. I would rather the talented amateur over the professional; the very word "professional" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Using Torah as a profession is by definition against the Torah. 

But there certain professions where in fact the professionals are better than the talented amateurs. Math and Physics and the other natural sciences come to mind. 

 But in the field of Philosophy the professionals seems to be fairly good at word puzzles and that is all. When they start to talk about Physics I run the other way. They repeat clichés they think are true because they sound good.

In order to print my booklet on Bava Metzia--- open gmail.Download file table top. Then push on the right mouse button. You will see "help" in Russian.. Push on Help. Choose program. To "observe" To "local disk". Go to"Soft" then to  "Portable". Go to "Microsoft Office Word 2007." Then "save as" "Document Word." Then send tomy computer then to HDD disk. then to popka polzavit
Otherwise the letters all come out in Russian script.

The problem with women is not that they care too much. It is that they don't care at all.

I figure that a young woman who flirts with me would be considered flattening to most men of my age.
But personally I am finding it annoying. While it is true I have no wife, that still does not mean my time or attention is free.
I know young attractive women can command center stage when they want to. I am just trying to figure out in my own case how to say "No" politely.
The problem with women is not that they are too emotional. It is that they are not emotional enough. They think men are at their becking and command. The problem is not that they care too much. it is that they don't care at all.

The Trouble is that Islam as a group has declared war on Israel and use daily any and all means to destroy it.

Americans' news feeds are overflowing with images of domestic scandals, protests in Turkey, and war in Syria. But the real story is Iran. By year's end, we may be confronted with a choice: Accept a nuclear-armed Iran, or support a military action to delay the program.



President Obama's policy on Iran has failed. Diplomacy has fizzled. And even The New York Times' news page and Obama's former advisors agree that sanctions aren’t working. And this is why Obama’s reaction to the recent Iranian election is so troubling.


My own feeling about Iran is I admit the hard line. It is not that i am in principle against Muslims.. I have known many fine and upright Muslims. Especially in the North of Israel. But also in the areas around Jerusalem i have had know many fine Muslims. I have nothing against them as people. And even as a religion my only complain against Mohammad as a highly immoral person. But i admit there were many great philosophers in th Islamic tradition. The Trouble is that Islam a s a group has declared war on Israel and use daily any and all means to destroy it.And their war on America is undeclared but real nevertheless.They will not launch a nuclear device against the USA At first. thy will try other means of stealth. Biological weapons, chemical weapons, forest fires, random attacks by knifes. Then when the timing is right they will go in for the kill..

Also I need to put together some kind of essay for the Internet about Musar of Israel Salanter and the problem that faced the Musar movement--There is no no second order ethics (I.e. no justification for ethics).  So they could have gone to the Medieval sources themselves for the issue of second order Ethics--like the Guide for the Perplexed. But instead went to the Kabalah of the Ari'zal. The Ari'zal's system is a powerful and amazing system but it is has two problems. No argument. No justification for statement that are laid down by Fiat-decree. Also I have another problem with the Ari'zal. He is based on the Zohar. I dislike the Zohar so much that yesterday as i was walking to the local synagogue I walked by a Zohar that was in the trash on the street and i did not even pick it up. It is not that I don't like what it says. But I dislike the fact that it is a forgery.

Also ethics is a big deal. The Musar movement approach to ethics is this: no one has had anything to say about ethics besides Jewish orthodox people. Muslims barely count and Christians are of course much worse as being idolaters. So the movement automatically cuts itself off from the basis of Musar: the books that were written during the Middle Ages by Muslim and Christian scholars.

In the view of the Musar movement (and Chasidut also) there has not been any legitimate thinking about morality outside the Jewish world. It is all just convention.

It would be difficult to support this contention by attention to the history of ethics.

Perhaps this will help:  Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, Hegel, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, Prichard.(4)

 I do not think anyone  with them would argue that Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Aquinas, Butler, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, or Prichard--any one of them--thought that ethics was  convention.


On the other hand Musar is important. People need some sort of a moral guide through life. Many may think that they can get by without one but chances are that they are egoists and do have a principle which is guiding them. "If it makes me feel good, if it makes me happy, if I like it and can live with it then it is all right for me to do it." That may seem like an attractive principle by which we can make decisions until one starts to think about it. As a guide for all people that principle would lead and does lead to many conflicts.