Leviticus 4

Just a drop of background information. We want there to be separate penalties of doing any of the four services for idolatry. That is if one sacrificed an animal and then bowed to it, he would bring two goats instead of one to the Temple in Jerusalem. R. Aba  suggested in the Gemara that this might depend on the argument between Rabbi Jose and R. Natan. R.Josi says why does it say on Shabat not to light a fire--to tell us it is a prohibition. [Not Karet,cutting off from ones people. That is is only a prohibition.] R. Natan says to divide the works.
so in idolatry. "Bowing" [Deuteronomy 17] comes to tell us it is only a prohibition to R Josi, and R Natan would say to divide.






Rav Joseph said no to this idea. He said everyone agrees in idolatry that the four types of service are divided. And he learns it  the same way even in Shabat people learn the division of work.







 אם נפש אחת תחטא בשגגה  מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תיעשנה ועשה אחת מהנה  "If a soul sins by doing one of the commandments of God that are not allowed to be done and sins by doing one of them."

(from Leviticus 4:1)

We have got a whole different issue in Sanhedrin 62A about the words  אחת מהנה.
This seemed to me to be a little familiar from tractate Shabat 70, but I saw something unusual today.

The major issue here is if a person has any of the forbidden sexual relations brought in Leviticus 22 and 23 by accident [like having sex with his sister, or a male, or an animal, etc.] or eats a sacrifice outside of the specified area of the Temple or walks into the Temple before going to the a natural body of water [river or pond] and getting sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, then he has to bring a sacrifice.
But just to be a short as possible I wanted to concentrate on doing "one of them."
The basic idea here is this:
אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת
"One from one, them from them, one that is them, and them that is one."
The most obvious question here is the second drasha [extrapolation]. That is, we understand the first  extrapolation [drasha] perfectly well. It could have written "one" and instead it wrote "from one." That is obviously coming to tell us something. But what is the second extrapolation ? "Them from them." How, I ask, could it have written only "them." בעשותה הנה? That makes no sense! In Hebrew you would have to write אתהן! [Object form, not subject form!]


I think is this Rashi  thinks the whole word ''מהנה'' (from them) could have been dropped. That is at first glance it looks like the idea is it could have written הנה ''them'' and instead wrote ''from them'' מהנה. But that clearly is wrong because them הנה is not an object. This is what I think Rashi is pointing to in Tractate Shabat 70a  and also  Sanhedrin 62a; that it is the whole word that could have been left out.
That means that we understand sometimes he forgets one thing אחת "when a souls sins and does one"  and for that one he is obligated  several sin offerings "One that is a 'them'". and sometimes he does many acts and is obligated only one--"them that is 'one'"
That is just like in Shabat if one forgets that it is shabat and does many different types of work he is obligated only one sacrifice. If he knows it is shabat, but forgets  that certain type of work are forbidden, then he is obligated for every single type of work. So is the same for idolatry.


'

There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.

 There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.
If God would always bring plenty into the world people could learn Torah with no work. And this he sees as being the best option. But sometimes the flow of blessing is held up at one end, so people have to work. And that work itself is serve of God. It is however outer service. And it is considered inferior.
But it still brings blessing because the 39 types of labor awaken the 39 types of work that went into creating the universe. The dew of light-טל אורות טליך
this  clears up for me  the idea of Trust in God.


 And I had been reading the Madragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם by  Joseph Horowitz. And it was confusing to me how he could emphasize trust in God without doing any effort on one hand, and my seeing lots of statements in the Talmud about the importance of work.


In fact, for a couple of years I had been reading the ethical works of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius], and Israel Salanter also, and I could not make sense of it all. On one hand I knew the decision  of the Rambam/Maimonides and the general approach of the Talmud about combining work with Torah. On the other hand with the Gra the emphasis is with learning Torah.


Appendix:
1) The Madragat HaAdam says that:
מכאן שאין האדם צריך לשום השתדלות, אלא מה שנגזר על האדם יבוא ממילא, בלי שום סיבה כלל
"From here we learn that a person does not need to do anything, but what is decreed on him will come automatically without any effort on his part at all."

  That means--that one can learn Torah and does not have to work--because (1) you are trusting in God and when one trusts in God God will fulfill that trust,   and (2) one is doing what is obligatory on him by learning Torah.

  But this does not leave room for times when ones prayers are not answered. . There are times when God simply does not answer, and then one does have to work.The blessings can be held up because of all kinds of different reasons.


) The story about  Joseph Horwitz was that he was a student of Israel Salanter [the founder of the movement geared to tell people to learn Musar/Ethics]. He practiced this idea of trust in God  in Russia and his son in law was in Ponovitch (before Rav Menachem Shach) The Stipler. [Author of the Kehilat Yaakov ]

 I hope it is clear I am not implying in any way I have succeeded in reaching anything like these high levels. I am merely discussing goals which I wish I would have. I am the scum of the universe.
On the other hand there was a time I was trying to do this trust thing. And it did in fact work. It is just I think that once one has left the door closes behind him. But if someone could start out fresh, just learning Torah straight and not using it for money in any way but only to trust in Divine providence I think that things would work out.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need to learn Torah and do what it says

. But embedded in the very nature of things are solutions to these problems. For we find that a lot of times of Torah refers to the idea that a judgment is made in heaven against some person of group of persons. For example we have Sodom where there was a decree to destroy it. And yet a discussion God had with Abraham weakened the decree and in fact resulted in the coming into the world of Ruth [from the book of Ruth]-- the grandmother of King David.
Naaman the Syrian general had leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet. Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan river.
  He laughed at that and said "Are not the rivers of Ashur greater the little stream of the Jordan?"
  But his servant said, "What would you lose to try it?"
  He went and tried it and was cured.

The idea is sometimes there is a little thing one can do to turn around his whole life. One small mitzvah. Something that seems insignificant.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) also refers to this idea in a few places. But he concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need tolearn Torah and do what it says


But the idea that one can lessen judgments by doing some right action is a powerful idea. Especially if you think there actually is such a thing as a way to lessen judgments.
Sometimes in older books you find similar things. The Ari has a certain number of fasts one should do for certain sins. and he would also tell people to concentrate on certain Divine names during those fasts.
To some degree you might think this is an idea that can be abused and you are right.  But chemistry also can be misused, and auto repair manuals also.

My basic feeling is that the best way of lessening judgment is to learn Torah for its own sake. [That is the Oral Law and the Written Law.


Learning Torah in this sense does not mean you have to be doing it all day. What I am asking for is an hour every day of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot with a learning partner. After that, go to school, or go to work, or go to the beach and pray for waves and surf. [But don't speak Lashon Hara, gosip]
I do not think that God is automatically interested in human good. [See Schopenhauer.] I think that most of the time it is just the moral laws embedded in nature that act to reward and punish people. And there is no reason to think the First Cause has to be concerned with humans. But I also think that when humans decide to turn to Him in truth, then he is concerned.
So the logical thing to do would be to turn to Him, by Torah, prayer, and marriage

 But there was a time that my idea of service towards God was really that of the Gra-. That anything you do beside learning Torah is step down. It was understood that there are lots of mitzvahs one must do in situations when no one else can do them like the law is decide din the Talmud, but still mitzvahs are not considered as precious as learning Torah. And I can't disagree with this because to  a large degree I think it did help me in quite amazing ways. When I learned Torah in such a fashion and with that type of commitment, I got married, had children, had a kosher means of living, went to Israel etc. Everything was working just like it was supposed to in theory. Theory and experiment matched perfectly. I did my end of the bargain-- I learned Torah and God kept his end of the bargain. "Anyone who accepts on themselves the yoke of Torah they take away from him the yoke of government and the yoke of making a living." [Mishna in Pirkei Avot.]

If you have more than an hour to learn, the my feeling is  to learn the Mishna, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Tosephta and Sifri and Sifra and all the writings of the Ari. ''a little is also good.'' and learn every day a little bit of each book. and just open a Talmud and learn a page of Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and put in a place marker and the next day go to the next page. etc. and similarly with all the above sessions. And also all the books of Musar/ethics in the same way.
Don't worry if you do not understand at first. Just say the words in order and you will automatically understand. And if you don't understand right away you will eventually understand. And even if eventually you do not understand--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else.

The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, and have destroyed once and for all the American family the enemies of morality, and decency, and the Bible.

There are groups  of people that are dedicated to the overthrow of the USA. Many are in the USA itself. This is not remarkable to see. You can ask them yourself and they will tell you as much straight out. I did that in the 1970's and people said to me openly and exactly what their plans were.' 'We are going to take down America." Quote, unquote.
I claim that this was predicted in 1800 by a  short story about the seven beggars in which there was a  utopia (like the USA used to be), and there was an evil king that wanted to destroy it. But he could not destroy it from without, so he sent in his slaves. The taste and flavor of everything was ruined.  Then a person came along to correct it, and discovered how the slaves had managed to destroy it. By lewd speech, by making a vocation of bringing law suits and one other thing I forget. [Maybe I will look up the story.] [Later note: I might be wrong, but it occurs to me the third thing was dealing with non kosher sexual relations.] The only solution in the story was to send the evil king's slaves away. And when the slaves left, everything returned to normal.

Note: The short stories come in a volume of 13 stories that he said and Reb Natan wrote down. If you only read English I think the "Na Nach" people have a good translation.-- The story I refer to here is the last one.
But here, I think, it makes sense to say over who these slaves are. The present occupant of the White House would be one example.  In a nut shell the evil king's slaves today are the Democrats. The people determined to keep the Torah away from your children, that turned NASA into an outreach program for Muslims instead of getting to space, and have destroyed once and for all the American family, the enemies of morality and decency and the Bible. They are also people that pretend to be keeping the Torah, but using it in fact to destroy Jewish families.



I think there is some support from the Geon Eliyahu from Vilnius concerning this idea also. \" They are (the Zohar says) the "Erev Rav/the mixed multitude" that penetrated the Jewish people from the inside to try to destroy us.



I am not happy to be using the word rabbi for them because rabbi is in fact a legitimate idea. It is the term the Talmud uses for people that had ordination by an unbroken link from Moses and onward. this position ceased to exist pretty soon after the beginning of  the Talmudic period. We say for example Rabbi Yochanan to indicate he had this ordination. He may have been one of the last to get it. Also we have Rabbi Yehuda Ben Levi. Both sages that were right at the beginning of the Talmud period.
People of the Talmud that did not have it are called Rav. A kind of fake ordination was started during the Middle ages and this fraud has continued until this very day among Ashkenazim.  Sefardim on the other hand always called their scholars "Chacham."{wise man or sage} This has the great advantage of not being  a scam.

The best approach to Torah as far as I can tell is that of my father Philip Rosten (and mother, Leila). [Rosenbloom was the original family name.] That would be Torah with the Way of Men.  In Hebrew that is תורה עם דרך ארץ. This might be hard for me to describe because I don't think I ever got the lesson down pat. But because there could be people out there that might understand it better than me so I will give the idea over as well as I can.
If you know Yiddish the best way of expressing this is "to be a mensch." [He was an US Air-force captain, a scientist, and inventor of laser communication between satellites for NASA, etc.]
To be a mensch is actually on one one hand is not hard to describe. It really means going to school learning an honest profession, learning Torah after school. And not using Torah to make money. It means being self sufficient. It is being honest, reliable, loyal and never telling a lie except under extreme circumstances. In fact the Boy Scout motto pretty much covers it.

It is a highly balanced approach. So on one hand we see the Geon from Vilnius emphasizing learning Torah and Reb Israel Salanter emphasizing learning the books of ethics that were written to explain the moral aspects of Torah. And we have  the path of Navardok of Trusting in God with no effort. And all this would be considered important aspects of Torah to my Dad. But it would just be aspects of Torah. Not Torah itself. And it should all be taken with balance and equilibrium.
On the other hand he would see lots of aspects of Torah not covered by the aforementioned approaches.
Truth, Honor, Justice, self reliance, never letting down and friend. Never lying. Working for a living with an honest and clean profession. These are all parts and aspects of Torah. I can't say I followed this very well.

The world was created and sustained by the ten statements of Creation [chapter one of Genesis]. That is the Torah is the essence of everything. So it is possible to serve God through everything. This would go with the Rambam that hold the mitzvas have a purpose, and they are not ends in themselves. And to reach that end Rabbi Shimon holds the actual halacha itself changes. Rabbi Yehuda holds it does not. But all agree that the is a knowable purpose to the mitzvot except for the red heifer.

Learning Torah was considered as a primary value by Eliyahu (Elijah) from Vilnius.


There is no mitzvah to support anyone for learning Torah that learns it for money or who says so. If they say they are learning for money, I think we can trust them. But there is a mitzvah to support those who learn Torah not for money  but for its own sake.
This might seem like a small difference but people are always conservative and strict about things they know well. To me sitting at a baseball game in the stands, the difference between a curve ball and the other many varieties of pitches seems imperceptible. But to the person up to bat, the difference is like day and night.

What I wanted to say was how the idea of the primary value learning Torah comes from the Torah and Talmud.



In the USA, public school used to be a decent option for people. But sadly it has become propaganda  indoctrination centers for politically correct thinking. This is what makes me think the  approach is best where teenagers go to the high school in the afternoon and do their Torah studies in the morning. But normal private schools are probably not that different from public schools nowadays. What people need according to my way of thinking is Torah. An where there is Torah, then everything else becomes right.
What people need to do that have no choice but to send their children to public school is at least after school to give them a religious education. That should be short, but sweet. That would be Torah [the Five Books of Moses in Hebrew], Mishna, Talmud, and Tosphot. [Learning Torah is not to make people religious but to give people Torah values.] That is for week days. For weekends I suggest "Talk with God" camping trips.
That is to go to a forest with supplies. Set up base camp. And then to have to whole day available to wander by yourself and  talk with God. The idea of talking with God is to talk with Him as one talks with a friend or  parents and tell him all ones problems and all that is happening to him or her and ask for help. And also not to forget to thank him for all the good.

How does one go about thanking God?

 How does one go about thanking God? The best way that I can see is to go to a place where no one else is, and to talk with God as one talks with a close friend and to thank him for the good one has in life.  This can be hard to do in a big city. If one is walking alone in the street and talking to God it looks like one is talking to himself. And to get out into the wildness is not always practical. For this reason I suggest a kind of  camping trips that would include time for solitary  prayer and individual connection with God.
 Even though learning Torah was an amazing thing, and something I am very grateful to God that he granted to me to do for the several years I was there, I definitely needed time alone.