Sanhedrin 61

Abyee goes to the case of a high priest to prove his point that if one serves idols from love or fear, not because he accepts the idol as his god (מקבל עליה כאלוה), then he is liable.
That is he goes to a teaching which says that if you have a high priest that served an idol  by accident then he brings a sin offering only if he depended on his own legal decision or the legal decision of the Sanhedrin. (שגגת מעשה עם העלם דבר) Yehuda the Prince says you only need that he did the act by accident.שגגת מעשה What type of accident is this?
Abyee goes through the logical possibilities and arrives at the conclusion it can only be he know it was an idol but he served it from fear or love.
I wrote about this on the other blog wine women and transcendence but for now I wanted to focus on some thought I had today about this.
First I should mention that the proof of Abyee depends on Yehuda the prince. He can't go to the sages because they have an obvious case of mistake--the priest depended on a faulty legal decision.
At first, I thought to myself that this might explain why we don't go with Abyee in this case. After all the Gemara says openly that we only go with Abyee in six decisions, and this case is not one of them. So I thought "OK this is good to the Gemara [Talmud] and to the Rambam (who decided like Rava here as we all know has to be the case anyway.) [But not to Rava in the Gemara who disagrees even with the idea that Abyee proved his point from R. Yehuda. He says R. Yehuda means by "accidental" that he says "It is  allowed.] That is because Abyee only proved his point to Yehuda, not the sages. The sages could easily say there is not such case as serving idols by accident and the only time someone brings a sin offering for idolatry by accident is when they depended on a faulty decision.

I brought this up with my learning partner and he said my idea is wrong. He focused on the fact that an individual also brings a sin offering for idolatry (Numbers 15) even without depending on a faulty legal decision. [It does not say anything there about a mistaken decision]
[So the sages have to agree that there is such a thing.]

So I asked, "Then why focus on the high priest? Let Abyee go to the simple case of an individual?"

He suggested,  "The Sages might say the individual might bring a sin offering if he depended on a faulty legal decision but not all the conditions were fulfilled for example there was lacking one of the 71 elders."

  But I am confused at this point. It seems to me the sages hold that a individual that depends on a decision of the Sanhedrin even with full conditions is liable. That is what you have in Tractate Horayot page 2 side b.



 So the way I see things [and this is the point I was trying to get to throughout this essay] is that the sages cant be useful for Abyee for they have a simple way for the individual to be liable and the high priest also. It is specifically R. Yehuda the Prince that says an individual that depends on a legal decision is not liable.

Appendix:

1. Rava hold one who serves an idol is only liable if he accepts the idol as his god.
2. The sin offering here is a she goat whether for the high priest or for an individual. The Sanhedrin would have to bring 12 oxen and 12 goats if they made  faulty legal  decision that some idolatry is allowed and the people acted on it.
It is this fact that makes the high priest unique. Because the verse in Leviticus compares him to the people "to cause the people to sin" לאשמת העם. And when the people sin we need two things. One is they depend on a faulty legal decision. the next is that there be an act. And so when the Torah compares the priest to the people we also need these two things

Sleep-walking into World War. Russia and Ukraine

Avoiding  war with Russia is a good idea. I have several reason for saying this. Besides the fact that war between Russia and NATO and the USA would simply morph into WWIII. But there is another reason also.  Donesk  is already part of Russia at least in spirit. And why would anyone think that borders that have been fluid throughout the centuries be worth starting a war for?
 Besides that the USA and Europe already have enough enemies inside them (Muslims).  Who needs more enemies? I think that Europe and the USA have their heart in the right place wanting to stick up for the Ukraine. And that is admirable. But I think the situation on the ground calls for people to step back and let Donsek decide its own fate. And it has already done so.

Also Ukraine and Russia are brothers. Tempers are high right now. this is family feud which if left alone will just work itself out. For other people to get involve dis not polite and could cost the live of millions more.
Maybe I could put this in a different way. I can't stress strongly enough how important it is for all mankind for Russia, Europe and the USA to work together. Not just for the sake of Western Civilization but the very future of humanity

For example lets say you have a p group where every element of the group eventually gets to 1 if you multiply it by itself enough times. This is called a "p to the n" if n is the number of times you are doing this.
Did you know that every subgroup of this p^n that is all the p^n-1, p^n-2, etc are all normal? (normal means gx=xg) I did not know that until I read about p groups in Russian. I also I wanted to share  a way to show how this is true. We will call all the elements of the big group g (i.e. g1 g2 g3 etc) and all the elements of the small group x (i.e. x1 x2 x3  etc.) So what you have is a long string of gx's all lined up with xg's on the opposite side of your equation.
and they all cancel because if you take that many gs with that many x's you get e*e=e*e. What is left on the left side is just one g. and what is left on the right side? Also just one g.

People have heard of Kant's question, "How is synthetic a priori possible?"


First we know that when Kant says "synthetic" he is referring to Leibniz's division of knowledge into analytic and synthetic. But he also means it in a deeper way. He is thinking that some objects are given to the mind. and he is thinking some a priori cognitions are also given to the mind. But then he thinks that the mind does something with them. It combines them into one cognition. [That he calls the metaphysical deduction.]
 This seems to me to just what the Rambam was thinking about acquired understanding שכל הנקנה in LM vol I ch. 25

 That is we have "sechel hanikne" acquired understanding from the Guide for the Perplexed of the Ramabm as meaning knowledge metaphysics- -the unchanging realities in reference to Plato's forms. And to the Rambam it is this acquired knowledge that last for eternity in the next world.

 He modifies this to knowing many things with one knowing. Then he brings the idea that this is what is left of a person in the next world. and then he expands it to knowing everything a human being can know.

My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia.

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My feeling is that it is urgent not to go to war with Russia. True they are sending troops into the Ukraine. And that is not nice. But for this we want to go to nuclear war? I mean that is how wars start. They start with some small incident. And then one party replies. And then other party replies. etc. and tempers grow short. And before you know it bombs are falling all over the place. We don't need a war between NATO and Russia.
Plus consider the Russian position. True the two provinces are on Ukrainian territory. But the people consider themselves Russian.  And in fact most of them probably are Russian. And so Russia sees itself as simply protecting its own people. But even if this were not so, I still think that under no circumstances is a war with Russia justified.

Let us say that Kiev would let these two provinces go to Russia. What would anyone lose?

I might mention that sending military aid is not usually considered a declaration of war. There are lots of levels between sending equipment and advisors as the USA did in Vietnam and  higher levels called small wars. When the USA sends equipment and military aid to different nations, the opposing nations do not usually think that they are justified in attacking the USA. And if they would, the people in the USA would be outraged. There is also such a thing called small wars in which American troops are sent in surgical strikes. You should read about this in the manual of the USA Marine corp, The Small Wars Manual. In any case, I think Russia and Europe and the USA should get along. We are not enemies. And under our noses is growing the most serious enemy to the continued existence of the Human Race- Islam.


This blog is really supposed to be about Torah issues. But as we know human life comes first in Torah law so I thought I should transfer this small essay I wrote on my other blog, Ideas in Torah, and put it here.
I hope this essay does something to reduce tempers and get people to start thinking straight.

The USA has been decommissioning its arsenal steadily for twenty five years. The Russians have been up grading their arsenals. They have underground cities of weapons grade plutonium.

So far the Russians have done nothing except what their policy has always been even in the time of the czars--they consider it their obligation to protect Russians even on foreign soil--exactly like the policy of the USA

The school of Navardok

 But I just wanted to say something about Navardok. That was the school of thought coming after Israel Salanter that was basically about trust in God בטחון without doing anything to get ones needs.
That at least was their official approach. The idea was to sit and learn Torah and do nothing to get ones needs met, and to believe that God would provide. It was just one of the several schools that came from Israel Salanter. So I don't want to make it seem that this is the official Ethics (Jewish) doctrine.
But Navardok is definitely the most colorful of all the schools of Musar.





People would share what ever they had believing that they would get more from somehow and lo and beyond it always worked.
My feeling about this is that it works only if you accept it when you hear it and then you don't ever leave it. But when one goes out of it and says, "Well I can do some effort also as the Torah itself says, and that will not hurt anything"--then it stops working. And then even if one tries to get back inside, the door remains closed.
The problem is  hypocrisy is what you get when you mix Torah with money. It starts out for the sake of heaven but once money gets into the mix it loses it numinous aspect. This is a conundrum that the Jewish people have tried to deal with for ages. On one hand we want to support people that are learning Torah Lishma--for its own sake and not for money. But once we give them money it starts rapidly to decay into being all about the money. The Rambam tried to solve this problem simply. Don't give them money. Tell them "Get a job" and he made it clear you cant accept money for learning Torah. It is not a business. That is how the Rambam was. He has his perfect system all worked out the the zillionth detail and he did not see any questions.

I wrote about the high priest כהן גדול the other blog Wine Women and Transcendence.
I might try to bring some of the information here. But for now I wanted to concentrate on the fact that the sages of the Talmud use the verse ''to cause the people to sin" (לאשמת העם) to make the high priest equal in status to the people in terms of his needing to have not just sinned accidentally but also he needs to have made a mistaken decision in order for him to bring a sin offering. שגגת מעשה עם העלם דבר. עיין מסכת הוריות דף ז ע''ב וסנהדרין סא ע''ב I hope this is clear. That is we have an normal individual. If he sins accidentally he brings a sin offering. That is simple. We have the representatives of the people -the Sanhedrin. If they make a faulty legal decision and the people act on it  the need to bring a sin offering. So in the case of the whole people we have two separate things. A sin and a faulty legal decision. If we compare the high priest to the people then he will also need both these things. And according to the sages of the Talmud he in fact needs both things.

They way they learn this is that we could logically think he is like a king because he brings a guilt offering on doubt  like a king. We could also compare him to the Sanhedrin because he brings a ox for  like the Sanhedrin. And so the verse in the Bible Leviticus 4 tells us he is like the people in order to solve this conundrum.

Now I asked on my other blog what do they do with idolatry? [In Numbers 15 there is a sin offering  for idolatry.] By idolatry there is no mention of  a high priest. and there the sages still say he is like the people that need both conditions in order to bring a sin offering. My learning partner suggested that there is no where to put such a verse. That is, there is no mention of a high priest, so where could the Torah have written "to cause the people to sin?"לאשמת העם.

  I said "So what? The Torah makes him like an individual by idolatry in that he also brings a single she goat. So why no make the comparison complete?"

  He answered: "Because as far as the Torah is concerned,  it already told you everything you need to know about the high priest. That fact that he brings a she goat is just one particular thing. As far as the Torah in concerned everything else about the high priest stays the same."
 This brings me to the subject of sin and guilt. I would like to suggest there is natural moral order. That is a Platonic plane of existence where there are moral laws. And this plane of existence intersects this physical world. To go into reason why I think this plane exist you have to go to the essay of Michael Huemer (defending objective morality). But bear with me for arguments sake. So I ask what happens if one has sinned against this moral plane? I claim that there is guilt. And I believe this guilt is real. And I think nature uses this guilt to propagate the species, just like she uses anything at her disposal to gain her ends. It is why guys prefer to have sex rather than masturbate. It is because of this guilt that nature makes sure guys feel if they don't listen to her. And I claim that nature uses guilt is lots of ways -in ant colonies and in bee colonies. But what happens if one has guilt?




 But if one has already sinned and has guilt what then? Nachman from Uman devoted his life to answering this question. He worked to find ways of absolution for sin after it has been done. He discovered ten psalms that he said take away the guilt of sin after it has been done. Not that one is allowed to sin. But after the fact he said these ten psalms take away objective guilt They are: 16, 32, 41, 42, 59, 79, 90, 105, 137, 150. But you have to know that if you are a Russian and you want to say them, the numbering of the Russians is different. The reason is because they put psalm 9 and 10 together. But then at the very end the numbers begin to match again.