(Sanhedrin 62a)

R. Natan said the reason fire is mentioned specifically about Sabbath is to divide between the kinds of work. That is, it is to tell us that one is liable a sin offering for each individual type of principle work. (There are 39 types. We know them because the Torah says don't work on building the tabernacle on the Sabbath day therefore we know the different types of work that went into building the tabernacle are forbidden on Sabbath. Playing cards would not be forbidden since it was not a necessary type of work in building the tabernacle.)

R. Josi says it is coming to tell us it is only a prohibition.

(Sanhedrin 62a)

The Rambam in laws of sin offerings tells us if one turns over coals on the Sabath day he is liable two sin offerings, one for burning and one for putting out. The reason he says is that the halacha is that one is liable for מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה work done not for its own sake. [This comes from the Talmud in Kritot page 20b]
What that means is that  in the desert they needed coals to make the tabernacle.. I forget why but take my word for it.

The Rambam also says if one lights a fire in order to get warm he also in liable because it is a work that is not needed for it own sake.

(For some reason, I should mention, the Tur and Shulchan Aruch  and most Rishonim do not follow the Rambam here, but say work done not for its own sake is not liable.)

So what comes out from all this is that Rabbi Nathan has to be saying that the only case of the verse לא תבערו אש בכל מושבותיכם ביום השבת you shall not light a fire in all your dwellings on the Sabbath Day is talking about making coals. This is hard to swallow. The idea here is that when the Torah  makes fire forbidden it comes to be forbidden from the Torah and the only case for that here is making coals.
To Rabbi Josi things look easier, because to him making fire in any case is forbidden and that is fine.
By normal prohibitions we don't find any differences between work done for it own sake or not.

This whole essay is really not a big deal. It is just one small observation I had today between giving a violin lesson and other such stuff.

Just one thing that might make this more relevant to people is the fact that this idea of fire has nothing to do with electricity. Even if electricity was fire it still would only be liable if you needed to make coals. One way you can see that not every heating process is fire is by the fact that if you cook food with a magnifying glass on Sabbath that is not liable. תולדות החמה derivatives of the sun are forbidden only by rabbinical decree. And there is no rabbinical decree on electricity because  after the time of the Talmud no one has the authority to make a rabbinical decree (that is a גזירה דרבנן). However local beit dins could make decrees for their communities, but not for the whole Jewish people. This is an obvious principle in Halacha and I don't need to belabor the point.

One thing I noticed is that when I leave a certain area of value it is almost impossible to regain it.

One thing I noticed is that when I leave a certain area of value it is almost impossible to regain it.
For instance at one point in my life I was very enthusiastic about Musar. (That is the movement started by Israel Salanter that was geared to getting people to learn classical books of Musar, or Ethics from the Middle Ages. This is very small set of about five books.) When one sees his days are shrinking--that is he finds his days being taken up with nonsense, then he should know that fear of God can cure this problem. And for sure I have that problem, but to get back to Musar I find is impossible. I try to get some Musar book and learn it but something always happens to prevent this.

The main approach to Torah is to have the oral law at home and to go through it page after page without skipping a single word. That is the Babylonian Talmud with Rashi and Tosphot and the Maharsha, the Jerusalem Talmud, Sifri, Sifra, Tosephta. That is the main body of the Oral Law. Besides that one should have a set of the basic school of Brisk. That is Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, Reb Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop, and Rav Eleizer Menachem Shach's Aviezri. These last one are important in order to understand the Rambam.
But what I am referring to here is mainly the fast session where you say the words and go on.
The original idea to learn that way comes from the Talmud (ליגמור והדר ליסבר)   But since it is fast it should not take much time. A simple half hour per day will get you through all the above in a few years.
And in this way you will understand a lot more than if you got stuck on every small detail.
And what you did not understand here, you will be reminded of up above. The main thing is for when you get to the next world you will have finished once completely the entire Written and Oral Law.

Doing this at home is better than in  any synagogue where people will definitely try to stop you from learning, and come up with all kinds of other so called mitzvot to try and stop you. 'the evil inclination is dressed up in mitzvahs. Be assured if you are learning and someone comes up to offer you another mitzah, that they are from the Sitra Achra,

The Gra says the main thing about the Erev Rav is Bitul Torah. They will do anything to get a person to stop learning Torah. He says the kelipot that the two messiahs have to take down are Esav and Ishmael, but the Erev Rav is the worst.

You should have an in depth session also and that is best with a learning partner. And that should be a hour per day. That gives time for work, and collage, and to volunteer for your local  Boy Scouts.

We can't say that everything is made of God's substance because he has no substance.

Substance is what the essence acts on to make it actual and to make it what it is. Such a concept does not apply to God. Essence is something that does apply to him. Essence is what makes something what it is.
We can't say that everything is made of God's substance because he has no substance. He is not made of anything.  He is not a composite.
Pantheism  is not the  belief of the Torah. Nor is Panetheism.

I thought after that short introduction to mention that the fundamental point of view of Torah is Monotheism.  That is that there is a first cause that made everything and he is not what he made.  And he did not weave the world out of his substance like a spider weaves a web.
Though you can see this point of view in the first verse of the Torah it is not addressed explicitly until you reach the books of Maimonides and Saadai Geon.

In spite of the great inspiration you can find in Eastern religions and especially Hinduism their pantheism should not be presented as the view point of the Torah. The Upanishads and the Bhavagad Gita are very inspiring but they are not Torah.
I don't know why pantheism became a part of Orthodox Judaism, but it has. For that reason if I could go to a Reform Temple or Conservative synagogue I would.

Before Reb Chaim from Brisk people were worried about "How?" After Reb Chaim people became worried about "Why?

Before Reb Chaim from Brisk people were worried about "How?" After Reb Chaim people became worried about "Why?"[Why does the gemara say what it says and on what kind  reasoning do the Rambam and Raavad disagree?]
Now today lots of people go into "yesodot"  (foundational reasons) for the arguments in the Talmud or between the rishonim in ways that are similar to Reb Chaim, but without rigorous logic.
And while I can see why people do not think this is important, because after all we have the books of Rav Shach and the disciples of Chaim from Brisk. We have the recently published books of Reb Moshe the Dibrot Moshe and Reb Aaron Kotler. But Reb Aaron was not doing what Brisk is doing. Nor is Reb Moshe. They are not dealing with "Why?"
For the general public let me try to make it clear what I am saying here.
When we look at the Rambam we generally see the first problem is to find from where he brings his laws. That can help to understand what he is saying. Without that his laws are often understood in ways opposite to what they mean in the Gemara itself as has been noted by the Beit Yoseph.
So now we know from where the law comes and we have some idea of why he might decide the law in that way. Though there could be dozens of ways. The first person to bring some logical rigor to the study of the Rambam was the Mishna Lamelch. And later the Or Sameach. But Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam is his Pieta, his 9th symphony. it is the first time the Jewish people were able to see the logical rigor inside Maimonides instead of just believing it is there. and that process was left incomplete so Shimon Shkop and Baruch Ber and Rav  Shach continued this process. It is this reason that Reb Shmuel Berenbaum is much more important to the Jewish people than is known. because he was not just a continuation of this brisk approach but also was very exacting in its application.

In the thirteen principles of faith of the Rambam there is a mitzvah to believe that there will come a  messiah who will usher in a period of peace and good will, and there will be rebuilt the holy temple and the Jewish people will be able to live in peace.

He has a job to do, and if he does his job, well fine. No one needs to believe in a him or any person. In the Torah there is no mitzvah to believe in people. There is mitzvah to believe in God--that he exists and he is not a composite, he is not made of parts, and he is not the world. Rather he made the world out of nothing. He is not space or time and he is not in space or time. Space and time are his creations.
We have in the Torah many commandments from God. The major ones are in the Ten Commandments. But there are many more that deal with laws of the Temple in Jerusalem and civil law. But none of them say to believe in a tzadik. There is no mitzvah from the Torah or words of the scribes or any  decree of later sages to believe in any tzadik. [That is in Hebrew: there is no such Mitzvah דאורייתא from the Torah nor a Mitzvah דרבנן ] And you can't add such a mitzvah because the Torah itself says you must not add or subtract from the Mitvahs of the Torah.

4) There was a king that was ruling over the Jews and he set up an image and asked the Jews to worship this idol. Some Jews went along with it and some refused. Yochanan killed a priest that was worshiping that idol and started a war that he could scarcely have thought he could win. Five Jews against the Greek Empire. Not an even fight. But he won. And they went into the Temple and found a jar of oil that had not be desecrated and lit the menorah; and it stayed lit--for eight days.

5) Jews are asked by God not to worship any beings besides God. And that includes tzadikim.

6) We are asked to keep the Torah and its פירוש המקובלת [its accepted explanation] which is the Oral Torah; that is two Talmuds, one Tosephta and the Sifri and Sifra. (That is from Maimonides)
And many  sages tell us that we are not to read "outside books (ספרים חיצוניים)." People think "outside books" are philosophy  and science, but that is not how the Talmud uses this term. In the Talmud  (right smack at the beginning of chapter "Chelek" in Sanhedrin) the Talmud says (according to the Rif} "outside books" are books that explain the Torah in a way other than the Oral Law has already explained it. And this would include books that say it is a mitzvah to believe in a tzadik.


7) But tzadik worship should be rejected.

\




9) The truth be told I was years ago that I was reading the book of Daniel that some of these ideas occurred to me. And it has taken a long  time for me to be able to formulate my thoughts about this difficult topic. Also the previous essay about finishing Shas (the whole Oral Law) took me a very long time to be able to articulate.

10) Now most of the ideas here are not dealing with what is a tzadik. Maybe he is a soul from Atzilut. Maybe he is a Divine Incarnation. Maybe he is a deified being.  Maybe there are lots of variations of this that I have not heard of. And there is nothing wrong with any of that.  But don't claim there is a mitzvah to believe in him, and don't worship him with any of the four services nor in the way he is usually worshiped. All these are considered idolatry in the Torah. And that includes tzadikim that are in fact tzadikim.


12) There are different ways that people try to entice you into idolatry. I tend to think that it is hard not to fall into some kind of cult. Everyone wants to be part of some group. and the closer knit it is the better. Who cares if they are doing idolatry as long as one is accepted and loved. Right? I can't really answer that. It would be nice if keeping the Torah was lovey dovey, and people around were really sincere. But if they aren't, so what? Even if you were alone in the world, you still should keep Torah. And even if everyone hated you for doing so, you would still have to keep Torah. No now you have people that pretend to keep Torah around. All that is is another test of your faith. Why is it any different from the other times when people try to stop you from Torah more directly? All this is is that the Satan has found another way of enticing people away from Torah.

13) Sorry if this sounds a bit excited. You really have to start out with confidence in the Torah in the first place for this essay to make sense. And to defend the Torah I have tried to do on other occasions. This essay is just starting after one has confidence in Torah. And at that point I try to show what the basic idea of the Torah concerning this issue.

14) On a different issue I should mention that everyone needs some example of human excellence to look up to and to model themselves upon. And it is better that that model should be  a tzadik and not a rasha{wicked}. It is not just that it is human nature to need to find some model or perfection but also this model provides a social meme to form a society upon. And every group does this and every group has this one person or model that they consider perfect and try to model themselves upon. Some people take this model of human perfection beyond kosher limits and start to worship that person. That is not good and it is idolatry. But independently of that it is clearly better that people should have a true model of perfection than a wicked person. And that is why it is OK and even good to have  a model of how to learn Torah and to pray

Some people just can't stand to see someone learning Torah with energy and joy. It annoys the hell out of them. Literally.

When I say that it is easy to go through Shas and the entire Oral Law I mean you need a  decent idea of what the Oral Law is. I mean the actual texts that compromise that actual Oral law. That is only five texts--(1) The Babylonian Talmud, (2) the Jerusalem Talmud,  (3) Tosephta, (4) Sifri and (5) Sifra. It is possible to do this only if you have a clear idea of what you are doing. Also you need  certain degree of confidence in the idea of saying the words and going on. It is in fact something stated already in the Talmud--לגמור והדר ליסבר. shabat 63a But even this simple knowledge is easy to get distracted from.  And many people make fun of this kind of learning and it is easy to lose confidence in it.
. But I saw a lot of great people learned this way in the book Binyan Olam. And Reb Shmuel Berenbaum (of the Mir in New York) definitely did this. I would walk by his shtender on the way to my seat in the afternoon seder session. I remember he was doing tractate Chulin that year. I would walk by and he would be on page 60. A few hours  later I would walk by again and he would be on page 76. He was packing it away at a rate much faster than what I am describing here.
In this way you can easily go through the entire Talmud with Rashi, Tosphot, and the Maharsha. Every single last word. And the entire Jerusalem Talmud with the Pnei Moshe, and the two other commentaries on the page. And the entire Tosephta with the Chazon Yechekeil and the entire Sifri and Sifra. And all you need to 20 minutes per day. That simple easy twenty minutes is enough to get you through one whole page of Gemara with Rashi and Tosphot and the Maharsha. And the same goes with the other books I mentioned above. But it is best to do this at home where people will not distract you. People are more of a  hindrance than the evil inclination. People will definitely try to stop you from doing this.
Some people just can't stand to see someone learning Torah with energy and joy. It annoys the hell out of them. Literally.


You still have plenty of time to get your Ph.D in Physics and Mathematics and your Eagle Scout badge. And also you can do the "talking to God" thing (Hitbodadut) on the weekends. Go on a camping trip with your family and while up in the woods take some time to go and talk to God alone.


Appendix:
learn very fast.  when one starts to learn it often happens that he gets discouraged because he does not understand right away so he or she drop the subject completely.
But if one gets used to learning fast then he will merit to finish these books he needs to be doing and to learn them again and again three and four and more times and everything that he did not understand at first he or he will eventually understand. And even if there remain a few things one still does not get--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else. And eventually he will know a lot more than if he got stuck on ever little thing.