The Geon from Vilnius has a few ideas which I wanted to share. that God runs the world with a different trait from time to time.

1) The Geon from Vilnius has a few ideas which I wanted to share.

that God runs the world with a different trait from time to time.

Now I shared this with someone and they thought I meant in cycles. Now cycles might be an idea but it is not what the Gra meant from what I can tell. The cycle idea might help us understand the rise of civilization. The Sumerians [cities and infrastructure], the the Jewish people [the Ten Commandments and the Law], the the Greeks (science, art, music, philosophy, politics), then the Romans, and then the Renaissance.

2) The Torah portion of the week corresponds to every hundred years. That is why the Gra found himself mentioned in Tetze. And also we find the Holocaust in Ki Tavo with the curses. That put us in a parsha that mentions the verse "Moshe called to Joshua" {VaYelech}.

The idea of infinity is in itself kind of paradoxical.

The idea of infinity is in itself kind of paradoxical. It is not a limited thing and it does not keep going. The strange nature of infinity was what led Kant to conclude that space itself can't be finite nor can it be infinite.  It is the way we conceive of things in themselves (dinge an sich).


) The thing that is difficult to understand here is where is the primary emphasis? The mind or external reality? With Kant external reality contains the dinge an sich (the thing in itself). In this way he is like Plato. We humans are down here in the cave of non reality. On the other hand with Kant sometimes the mind seems to take precedence. As when we say the mind makes external reality possible.
 To answer this  Schopenhauer-that the subject and the object each contribute a half to the final representation.
Frankly I like this. It gives us two levels of reality which is "just right" from my point of view. [Plato]
But these two levels of Kant  are not empirical and interior. They are phenomenon, and dinge an sich.
And the understanding is applied to both.



2) To show morality is objective  
\\All we have with Kant and Schopenhauer is that the representation is made half by the subject and half by the object. But what is that representation? It is a universal. It is not the dinge an sich! The dinge an sich exists independently from the subject as Kant says openly! The dinge an sich or a moral principle exist independently from the subject.  It's character--how it applies in any situation --part of the moral principle that is a representation is dependent on the  subject.
hink it is right.

"Anything but Torah." (That is the motto of the Satan)

I am looking on the news about difficulties involving Russia and the Ukraine. Also a set of problems involved with Muslims not very happy with Western Civilization. That along with race issues in the USA. Plenty of problems with no apparent answer.
My answer to these difficulties is to learn Torah. That is my feeling is that learning the Oral and Written Law would be a help. But for Torah to be it is also important to learn Musar along with it. Musar referring to books which deal with the ethical and world view issues of Torah.

This basic idea you can find in the book Nefesh Hachaim by Chaim from Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius]. But it makes sense also. We know we humans are prone to mistakes especially in moral decisions. Ask yourself how many of your actions just ten years ago you think today were right? Probably very few. You have in the meantime probably changed your world view about major issues. The result is actions you did ten years ago you think were wrong. So we humans are flawed and need extra help to connect with the moral realm.

The written law is concerned mainly with revelation and the Oral Law is mainly concerned with how human reason can understand and interpret the Written Law. Together this is powerful way to come to connect with the space of moral facts.
Human reason on its own I should mention is not able to get to any solid conclusion about morality. What human think is moral today is utterly outrageous tomorrow.


So what I am suggesting is this: to get a Gemara Brachot and say it word by word. The first page with Rashi Tosphot and the Maharsha, and then the next page and so on until you have finished Shas. Same with the Jerusalem Talmud, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra. Learn at home. (Don't bother with synagogues.)  It does not take more than a few minutes in a synagogue for someone to come up to you with some way to get you to stop learning Torah. They will always have some other mitzvah in mind that is "very important." "Anything but Torah." (That is the motto of the Satan)

For that reason, I tend to think the best thing is for people to get their own complete set of the Written and Oral Law: Gemara (Talmud), Bavli and Yerushalmi, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra, and to learn them at home.

 For right now suffice it to say that the best approach to Torah that I know is a balance between Derech Eretz (work) and learning. What I think people should do is to balance between learning Torah and work or going to collage.

But this is just a symptom. What I think is something more internal is a problem in the charedi world. Some spiritual problem that I just can't identify.

For that reason, I tend to think the best thing is for people to get their own complete set of the Written and Oral Law: Gemara (Talmud), Bavli and Yerushalmi, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra, and to learn them at home. 
Start learning Torah yourself. Open a Gemara Brachot and just say the words page after page until you have finished the whole Shas. Then do the same with the Yerushalmi, and then the Tosphta, Sifri and Sifra. Then all the writings of Isaac Luria. And have also an in depth class.
The best way for in depth learning is to get the basic set of Brisk--Chaim Soloveitchik, Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop, and the Avi Ezri from Eliezer Menachem Shach, and learn them on one  sugia.
[Shmuel Berenabum's classes would be a good addition to the Brisk school of thought if they were available. They were taped but never printed.]





Appendix
1) In spite of my emphasis here on the Oral Torah, I hope it is clear that one needs also to finish the Old Testament in Hebrew. The Oral and Written Torah are both a part of what is called simply "Torah."
And it should be understood that one should also finish the basis set of Mathematics and Physics as the Rambam made clear in several places in his writings. I in fact had a Handbook of Mathematics printed by Springer. It was a translation of something in Russian and its style was very Russian--that is dense. But it was the only thing out there available that I could afford.
Nowadays I think it would be better to just get a few basic textbooks. One for Algebra like that three volume set from Nathan Jacobson., and one for topology like that one from Allen Hatcher (Algebraic Topology. Also I only left out the writings of Isaac Luria because I think the Oral law comes first. But after one has finished once through the whole Oral and written law then certainly it is important to get the set of the writings of Isaac Luria and go through them word by word until he has finished the whole set.]
2) Also in spite of my emphasis on balance, Torah with Work and college, that does not mean to learn non kosher subjects in college, like psychology. What makes it non kosher is its world view about what human beings are is not like the world view of the Torah in these matters. There are people that believe in psychology and still outwardly do Jewish rituals, but they are pigs that show themselves to split the hoof and so outwardly have one sigh of kashrut but inwardly they are traif not kosher.
3) Post Modern Philosophy  would have to be considered to be not kosher. In spite of the Rambam's emphasis on learning Physics and Metaphysics still philosophy today is not along the lines he was thinking.
4) Most every academic discipline has a kosher core and a pseudo science exterior. This includes Torah and kabalah also. In fact I have a theory that most institutions are made to stop people from doing what they profess to be helping them to accomplish. This is because the pseudo exterior is most often the main thing that is being taught. Psychology for example really intends to make people mentally ill. It accomplishes this by getting them to talk about sex and to make them think they are getting cured of some problem by doing so. And people love to talk about sex. psychologist just found a way to make money off of this perverse desire.

(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.