1) I wanted to bring the argument between Rashi and Tosphot about "learning Torah lishma."
(Let me just clarify. "Learning Torah lishma" means not for an side purpose. It is learning Torah for its own sake. It is opposed to learning Torah either for money or honor.)

The issue that comes up between Rashi and Tosphot is the statement, "Forever one should do a mitzvah even not for its own sake, because from that one will come to do it for its own sake." That is opposed to the other statement, "When one learns Torah not for its own sake, it is better he should have been aborted. "
Rashi makes a difference between learning for honor and learning to argue.

Tosphot (and clearly the Rambam and the son of the Rambam in his Musar book) reject this distinction.
But I wanted to say that just because someone is accepting charity to learn Torah does not mean they are learning for money.
They might very well love the Torah, and not be able to find any way of learning it without that context.

Tosphot in Brachot accepts the distinction of Rashi, and then rejects it later in Pesachim. Tosphot hold that leaning Torah for honor, money or to argue is all the same. And one who learns Torah in such a fashion it is better they had been aborted. The Gra hold with this second answer of Tosphot. He holds that when it says, "It is better to learn not lishmah, because then one will come to lishma" it means  not everything in  set of "not lishma." Rather it means, one who learns not lishma--that is he lacks the lishma. So the case is he is learning "stam," with no intention.
That is to the Gra with no intention at all  is OK, but if it is for money it is better he had not been created.




It makes sense to put the Rambam here together with the Gra because then what the Rambam says  in Pirkei Avot chapter 4 Mishna 5  will go together well with this. [Not that the Rambam brings this for a proof, but rather it seems to parallel his opinion there.] [See the book of musar written by the son of the Rambam where he actually says exactly like Tosphot in Pesachim]

I sometimes see things in Hegel that impress me and sometimes not.

  I sometimes see things in Hegel that impress me and sometimes not. One of the things that I noticed recently was his triadic system. Normally I would just dismiss this as mere speculation. Then it occurred to me that he assumes this triadic system as being a part of the metaphysical nature of the world. And that is what we see in triangulated categories.

  You get one triangle of categories--the normal result of diagram chasing- and then you bring it to the next level up. It is a system remarkably like Hegel.


  You have to understand Hegel, Schopenhauer in relation to Kant as people understand Aristotle in the context of Plato.


  Schopenhauer also had an insight that becomes clear in the light of physics.
In the world as will and representation he considered the will as the cause of everything--the thing in itself. this is inaccessible to us. but the world is the representation of this will, the dinge an sich. we do find the world as a hologram. I am sure Plato would be pleased .
[The holographic  aspect of the world is what Plato meant by the story of the cave.
See String Theory--in which a black hole and the universe is a hologram.
The idea comes from the idea that information is not lost. Information is turning out to be the most fundamental unit of Physics. And where is that information? It is in the Divine mind [see Plotinus]. The universe is expanding in a way that indicates it is being fed space, and that the event horizon of the universe beyond is is not possible to observe. And that that horizon itself is a holographic projection of what lies beyond it.]


[I don't mean this literally. The string theory hologram is horizontal. Plato's is vertical]

talking with God--as opposed to praying to God.


Serving God is to pack a lunch and get oneself hiking gear and go off into the wildness for an entire day and talk with God the whole day.

 And this has nothing to do with meditation.

The question on this comes from Tana Deve Eliyahu vol. I chapter 9.  Hezekiah the king prayed to God that his capital city Jerusalem should be saved from Sennacherib.The prophet got a message from God. and went to the king. he said it is the custom of the world that when one talks to someone greater than himself that he is filled with fear and you talk with God like he was your friend?





דביקות and devekut is the purpose of the mitzvot. [See Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20] Even though it is also counted as one of the number of mitzvahs, but also it is explicit in the Torah that it is the purpose of the mitzvot. Same as the Rambam did not count living in Israel as a mitzvah because it is the teleological purpose of the mitzvot. And the mitzvah of attachment is different from the actual emotion of being attached to God. The mitzvah is to be attached to a Torah scholar. To patronize his store, and to marry to him your daughter. etc. That is not the same thing as when the Torah says to do the mitzvahs in order to be attached to God.
Talking with God as you go about your daily business is better after all than not talking with him. Talking with him is being attached with Him, and not talking with him is not being attached with Him. Deuteronomy chapter 10 verse 20  says do the mitzvahs in order to get to Deveikut (Attachment with God).

There was another time I was having a problem understanding some drasha (explanation) of the Sages about a verse about returning lost objects. [I know a lot of people have questions understanding how the Sages derive things from verses.] This was an usually difficult problem because it seemed to me very much not like the verse in question. And he showed to me how the verse in question was impossible to understand simply. It was about a lost object that some had been hired to watch (in Exodus 22). And the verse then goes on to say כי הוא זה, "A person loses an object like this." Where is the this if the object was lost? After that I began to notice things myself of why or how the Sages make a drasha (explanation). The book that deals with this is the Torah Temima by the son of the Aruch Hashulchan. But the things that I noticed were in cases where the verse changes the way it treat a noun as male or feminine.  Or leaves out a necessary "את" "Et." Without the sages saying so they will see in these cases a reason to look at why the verse changes the gender of something.

The redemption of the wise son

Self- Reliance is a value to that at first glance might seem different than trust in God.
But it is not. Trust in God  means you do your obligations and trust in God that as long as you are doing your part, he will do his part.
And there is an element of doing nothing for ones own needs, but simply sitting and learning, and God will take care of the rest.

But I want to claim that this approach is predicated on the idea that the highest ideal one should strive for is to be learning Torah all the time. A very Gra type of idea. And I don't disagree with it. But I do say  that learning self reliance and survival skills is one of the things that is in the category of a mitzvah that can't be done by others. חמירא סכנתא מאיסורא. One must be more strict about things that could potentially cause harm more that things that are forbidden. [Gemara Chulin]. (תיקון הגוף קודם תיקון נמפש) And trusting in the "system" must definitely be the greatest source of harm I can imagine. Don't let trusting in the system you live in  be confused with trusting in God.


  Thus, to make a long story short. Prepare a survival kit. Get off grid. Send your kids to the Boy Scouts and Girls Scouts to learn outdoor skills, beside their regular Torah education. And as the Sages said--teach them  a hard core skill that people will pay cold, hard cash for.
Teach your boys to be men. And what is a man? Is it someone who know a lot of Talmud? No. Learning Torah is very important. But it does not define what a man is. A man is someone you want to have next to you while you are in a WWI trench or in the heat of battle. Someone you can rely on. Some whose honesty and integrity and competence is beyond question. Not someone simply using the group for their own benefit.
And these qualities depend on trust in God. For without trust in God people lie and cheat and are not trustworthy because they think by that they can get ahead or gain advantage. When you trust in God you are not afraid to keep your word.



What trust in God is. It  means doing your job --doing what the Torah requires of you and then trusting that God will make things work in the way he knows is right.

When Hezekiah (חזקיה) the King prayed to God when Sennacherib came to destroy Jerusalem. He said, "King David could trust in you with sword in hand. Solomon could trust in you in prayer. But I can do any off that. I have to trust in you will I go to sleep."
That is King David could do effort but that did not reduce his trust in God. Hezekiah  was saying that if he himself would do any effort that could possibly take his focus of the main idea that everything depends on Gods will. So he did no effort. Even the effort of praying he was afraid could cause him to think his salvation came from his prayers. So he went to sleep and in the middle of the night God destroyed the entire army of Sennacherib.

Appendix:
(1) Self reliance was probably the most important value to my father. Or at least it was the one value that he strove to put into us kids--his boys. But obviously there were other unspoken values in our family like family values, and above all "being a mensch"--(that means in all situations acting like a decent moral human being).
(2) Now being off grid does not mean not to use a computer. There is lots of important work that can be done only on computers. At least for me that is how things are. But what off grid means is have your own solar power source.
(3) Belief  in God is rational.
 Everything has a cause. So unless there is a first cause, then you would have an infinite regress. And then nothing could exist. Therefore there must be a first cause. Therefore God, the first cause, exists. QED. (You could prove the second step that everything has a cause by noting that nothing can come from nothing.) (I mean to say you you take the level of the second step up from an empirical observation to an a priori fact.)
(4)There is a story from Nachman from Uman that taught me something about trust in God, the story about the simple son and the smart son. I could not relate much to the simple son because I just do not share many traits with him. But the smart one really rang a bell in me. In the story he was always asking, "Maybe there is someplace better for me than here."

The story in short: A father had two sons. One smart and one simple. when they were in their teens the father told the that they should go and find some kind of work because he could not support them both any more. The smart one thought what is the main thing? To get married and have children--but there is time for that. Fist I have to see the world. He got a wagon going to Warsaw. He had no money but he offered to work on the way for the owners. He got there and though they were good employers he decided t to drop them and look for better paying work and more honorable. Maybe there are better employers than them. Maybe there is a better place than here. That was his constant refrain. See the end of the story.  But in short the idea of Nachman was that this is a wrong attitude. And it comes from being too smart for ones own good. One should trust that the situation one is in is for some reason unknown to himself, and accept it.

Just to bring the point a little closer to home let me mention the smart son keep on piling up academic qualifications and also learned several professions. then  decided it was time to start making a family and started to travel back home.
the simple son stayed in his home village and learned to make shoes and took a wife and stayed put. and since he was simple or rather dumb he knew the business only partially. So he  made very little money. But his custom was to be happy always. he would get home on Friday night and ask for the Sabbath meal. his wife would cut off a piece of black bread for him. He would ask for the fish. his wife would cut off another piece of black bread. and he would ask for the soup and she would cut off another piece of black bread. and he would go wild over the supreme taste of the bread as if it contained all the wonderful flavors in the world. In the meantime the smart son got back to town and there was no place for him to stay so he stayed with his old friend the simple son. and he was never happy. and he always was complaining about his situation.
One day the czar was going over the records and saw in one of his towns there a census listing someone simply as the smart one and another as the simple one. And he sent for them out of curiosity. The simple one came and the king discovered than he really was not dumb but he was simple by choice and had made an early decision in life not to think about things [that is not to double think anything] but to accept the world the way it is and to depend on God. The smart son decided not to go to the czar because he thought it was a trick. He thought, why should the czar send for just a nobody?" At some point he convinced himself that there really was no czar at all and the county was just ruled by a senate. And he used to go around with a friend trying to convince people that there was no czar. [Rachmana Litzlan, Heaven save us!]
He fell lower and lower because of his smartness and the simple one rose higher and higher because of his simplicity.
The simple one became the prime minister because the czar was so impressed with his simplicity. and the smart son go involved in law suits.His case eventually came before the prime minister--the simple son. And right about that time a Jewish saint [tzadik, a Baal Shem Tov kind of person] came to town. The simple son went to him for a blessing and the wise son just ridiculed the Baal Shem Tov.] This kind of personality shows up sometimes among the Jewish people. No one really knows what makes them tick. But they seem to have amazingly deep insights into the world and miracles pop up around them like jelly beans.



The smart son fell into hell. And the asked the tzadik to help him. And he eventually was redeemed.
So this story could be called the redemption of the wise son.
(5) Go into a forest and talk all day to God while being alone. It is not a public event.

The Lithuanian world and trust in God

I wanted to discuss in a practical way the idea of trust in God. It is not like I have any great revelations about it but I wanted to go a bit more into detail than I did the other times I talked about Navardok.

One very important introduction to the subject involves an argument between the Duties of the Heart Chovot Levavot and the Gra about effort. The main idea of the Chovot Levavot is to trust with doing effort. The Gra says no effort.
  But no effort still means to be doing your obligations between yourself and God and between yourself and Man. So no effort still means you are doing something. But not to get anywhere in life. But rather to be doing your obligations.
And for people that might not be aware of it, one obligations according to the Torah are well rounded. They are more than rituals. Obligations of the Torah involve a lot of things that most people would considered just good character. For example not to hurt people in money we know is from the Torah. But also not to hurt them in words is also from the Torah. [See Sefer HaChinuch for all the obligations of the Torah.]
Trust with no effort was the way of Navardok. It was based on the Gra, the Ramban [quoted by Israel Salanter but no one has ever been able to find.] Trust in God is not exclusively a Jewish doctrine. And you would expect that anyway just by the fact that it is an a priori value. So it has to apply across the board.

Mainly trust in God means to do what you know in your heart is right and trust that God will not let you down if you do. It means taking your moral obligations seriously. And this is not necessarily a private or individual matter.

If possible get the two books that deal with it  in detail ---Chovot Levavot [Duties of the Heart by Bachyee Ben Pekuda], and Madragat HaAdam by Joseph Horwitz

Tractate Sanhedrin 62a

There are 42 sins for which one is required to bring a goat or a sheep to the temple in Jerusalem. [Leviticus 4] [The sexual relationships in Leviticus 22, (e.g. sleeping with ones sister, aunt, a male, an animal, etc.) work on Shabat, and a few more.] [You don't get to have a barbecue as you do if you bring regular sacrifices like peace offerings.] The sin offering can only be eaten by priests. There is a 43rd sin that one brings a sin offering for--that is idolatry. But its sin offering is only a she goat. [See this in the middle of the Book of Numbers.]
That is only if one does idolatry by accident. Now I have to say that there are five things one can't do for an idol. The regular four services [offering a sacrifice, burning a sacrifice, pouring wine, bowing,] and the service that is specified for that idol.
So what if one does several services by accident? Does he bring one sin offering or more?
R. Zakai said he brings one sacrifice. R. Yochanan said to bring one for each service.
R. Aba wanted to say this argument is really an argument among the people of the Mishna.
R Josi said why is fire specified on Shabat? To tell us it is only  a prohibition that is all. It is out of the category of the other 39 types of forbidden work. [R. Natan says fire comes to divide.] R. Aba is thinking at this point one doing all the 39 types of work is obligated only one sin offering (goat or sheep).
Rav Joseph said R. Josi might also divide the types of work from the verse when a soul sins נפש כי תחטא [Leviticus 4]   בשגגה מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תעשינה ועשה אחת מהנה
"When a soul sins in one of the commandments of God which should not be done and he does one of them."
This is all introduction. to a small point. The actual way this verse is understood is אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת. That is the Gemara is thinking about the last three words of this verse there is something extra that is not necessary. So what is it coming to tell us?
My comment here is that there is no way the verse could have said ועשה הנה. And does them. That makes no sense in Hebrew. So while I can agree to the opposite side of things that it could have written ועשה אחת instead of ועשה מאחת. That is fine.And that would be to tell sometimes one is obligated for one forgetting many offerings--like if he forgets that it is the Sabbath day and does many works.
But you can't write ועשה הנה. If you write anything it has to be אחת מהנה. "and does one of them." So what I am suggesting is that the Gemara means you could have left out the whole word!מהנה
And the verse would have read "and does one." And then by the fact that the extra word them is written now we know there is a time one forgets each individual type of work and does many and then he has to bring  a sin offering for each type of work.

But this is not a new idea. I wrote this down here a few day ago--in short hand fashion.
After all this I wanted to think about this whole Gemara from a broader perspective. Just think about it. At first it starts off trying to make an argument between two Talmudic sages into an argument between two sages of the Mishna. That is just plain classical Gemara thinking. But then things start happening I don't understand. It gets to a point where the two sages of the Mishna agree about division of work on Shabat.
So should that all by itself not be a proof for Rabbi Yochanan? I mean is that not what you would expect?Why does the Gemara not jump at the first opportunity it gets to help out Rabbi Yochanan? It instead runs to bowing [Deuteronomy 17].
I want to suggest that it is interested in helped Rabbi Yochanan and that that accounts for the fact that after it takes care of the argument between Abyee and Rava about serving idols from fear of love that it jumps back to division of work to suggest from this same verse it used for Sabbath and tries to use it for idolatry.
And that is my idea for today.This not what you would call ''lumdut.'' [in depth learning]. In a way it is completely and utterly trivial. Still it is just something that I am trying to understand in this Gemara.


Appendix
It is Rabbi Josi who learns from the verse. and later R Yonatan explains how. He said it is from אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת/
It seems he is learning thus--it could have said one but instead said from one. so we learn even if one does not do a complete work like "shem" from "shimon." And it could have said them, but instead said from them to tell us not just from the 39 types of work but also the generations--subcategories of work.
And then from the fact that both words could have been skipped entirely we learn "one that is many" he knows it is shabat but forget many kinds of work, he is obligated many sacrifices. And many that are one--if he forgets it is shabat but knows all the types of work then he is obligated only one sacrifice.