And there souls from realms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil. And there are four worlds of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

Divinity of human beings. I have heard that this is a subject brought up concerning converts to Judaism. They ask if the convert thinks that Jesus was divine. If they answer "Yes," this is supposed to imply that they are not worthy converts.
That seems to be not the issue. See Avraham Abulafia and Professor Moshe Idel's academic treatment of his philosophy. The issue seems to be more along these lines, "Is one is allowed to worship any human being even if they are divine?" And the answer there is "No."
Sanhedrin 62.






According to Isaac Luria  any soul from Emanation of the side of holiness is Divine.
אלקות.


Divinity of human beings.
This is something you find a lot by Isaac Luria.

The entire Shaar HaGilgulim שער הגלגולים is devoted to the discussion the Ari had with Reb Chaim Vital about how important his soul is. It goes into great detail about the root of different souls and their source and in what spiritual world they are embedded in.
The whole subject really depends on knowledge of the book the Tree of Life of Isaac Luria.
The basic idea is that you have got four worlds, Emanation, Creation, Formation and the Physical world. And each soul is from some place in one of these worlds. And there souls from  realms  of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil.
And there are four would of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

I recommend learning the tree of Life of the Ari and then the Shaar Hagilgulim to get a basic idea of what this is all about.

And this is not something that the Gra would disagree with. The Gra not just has a commentary on Sifra Deztniuta of the Zohar, but goes clearly with the system of the Ari.

Appendix: Emanation is Divine. That means the Divine light which entered into the Empty space came don undifferentiated until it reached the floor of Emanation. That is stated openly in the Zohar and the Ari. So anything lower than Emanation is not Divine.

It can happen that souls of evil get mixed up in the soul of a righteous person and visa versa.
Saying over your good desires to God in fact creates a kind of small soul that goes around in the world until it accomplishes that good desire. It might even enter into a bad person and cause him to think thought so repentance.

Islam is= Killing unbelievers and having sex with their women.

Islam is: Killing unbelievers; Fighting unbelievers; Beheading unbelievers; Terrorizing unbelievers; Extorting money from unbelievers: and Crucifying unbelievers if they criticize Islam.

Being anti-Islam is a good thing. Anti-Islam people are anti-killing, anti-fighting, anti-beheading, anti-terrorizing, anti-stealing, and anti-crucifying, anti rape.

No wonder Duke University Professor, David Schanzer thinks being against Islam is so hateful. Apparently we should all be pro-Islam and promote killing, fighting, beheading, terrorizing, stealing, and crucifying. So much more peaceful.

While there may be moderate Muslims, Islam is Islam. There is no moderate Islam. To be pro-Islam is to be pro-savage. To be anti-Islam is to be pro-civilization.

A very nice note from Joyce Willis ·


I detest Islam, NOT Muslims, just like I detest Nazism, NOT Germans and I detest Stalinism, NOT Russians.

In Islam, *all* non-Muslims are called *unbelievers*, *infidels* or *kafir*(derogatory).

The world is divided into the House of Islam and the House of War, the *Dar al-Islam* and the *Dar al-harb*. The Dar al-Islam is all those lands in which a Muslim government rules and the Holy Law of Islam prevails. Non-Muslims may live there on Muslim sufferance. *The outside world (non-Muslim), which has not yet been subjugated, is called the "House of War," and strictly speaking a perpetual state of *jihad*, or holy war, is imposed by the law*.

The treatment of the infidels in Islam is divided into two categories. The polytheists, pagans, idolaters and heathens have the choice of converting to Islam or suffer death. The Jews and Christians, whom the Koran calls people of the book, can retain their religion but on the sufferance of accepting humiliation and subjugation to Islam and payment of *Jizyah* (poll-tax/extortion) to the Islamic rulers [For more detail read this article: Unfettered Religious Freedom in Islam – A Fact or Fiction? - by Alamgir Hussain].

Now, let us have a closer look at what the Koran says about the infidels:

_Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them_ (2:191).

_Make war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood_ (9:123).

_When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them_ (9:5).

_Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax_ (9:29).

_Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable_ (3:85).

_The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them_ (9:30).

_Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam._ (5:33).

_The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque_ (9:28).

_Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies_ (22:19).

_Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them_(47:4).

_The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them_ (8:65).

_Muslims must not take the infidels as friends_ (3:28).

_Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an_ (8:12).

_Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels_ (8:60).

The Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course). A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes the peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an.

I would like to go through the entire Oral and Written Law along with the basic Rishonim and Achronim. But that takes a lot of time. So I thought to share the burden. That is if people would oblige me, I would like them to build a house that would be devoted just to learning Torah and Ethics.
Take for example Tennessee. Just simply put in town a simple building that would have only the Oral and written Torah and books of straight Torah Ethics.
That means the Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds. Torah ethics is what is called Musar, and it is a well known cannon.


There are so  many cults that use Torah to hide their devious and highly destructive intentions that makes this hard to understand why it is a good thing. But I know that it is possible to base a  good and wholesome community solely around this basic building that is devoted to learning Torah.

In Sanhedrin 63, the Talmud considered that "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדםis a general prohibition that includes lots of subcategories. One of the things is the rebellious son בן סורה ומורהץ.
[The reasoning here is that the rebellious son has a few conditions he has to fulfill  and one is a large amount of eating raw meat and drinking something like a gallon of wine.]
But the Talmud right there says we don't give lashes for any prohibition that includes more than one subcategory.

So the question my learning partner asked was. "Then what is the prohibition?"
I answered without thinking "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדם. But that is obviously wrong.
He said there is no prohibition. It is just one of those things that the Torah gives a punishment for without telling you why what he did is wrong or what warning to give to him.

But Tosphot does seem to think the prohibition does come from that verse and then asks on it but we don't give lashes for a prohibition that might lead to the death penalty.  So I was not going to write about this today because it is still unclear. In any case I changed my mind and thought that this still might be interesting to people.


appendix
the general rule is even if there is a verse in the torah which gives a punishment, yo cant punush unless it also says a verse to forbid.

I have thought for a long time if you are learning, you don't need to interrupt for kadish and Kedusha.
This was because I learned in (Tur טור ארח חיים laws of Suka תר''ם) the Beit Yosef who brings down this idea that one who is involved in one mitzvah does not have to interpret for another mitzvah even when he can easily do both.
I found some support for this idea in the Gra that when one is learning Torah he can interrupt to do a mitzvah that no one else can do--but he does not have to. [See the Mishna in Peah]


For the general public I want to explain what I mean here:
In general, a person that is involved in one mitzvah is not required to do another mitzvah.
For example if a person gets married, then he and the groups of friends that are there to make merry are not required to sit in a suka for the whole seven days of marriage festivity [according to the Rambam.]
Another principle is learning Torah is a mitzvah. Torah in this context means the Old Testament or the Talmud.When one is learning Torah, he is allowed to stop to do another mitzvah, but he does not have to.{Gra}. Thus in a synagogue when people get up to say kaddish or kedusha if you are learning, you don't have to answer. All the more so since this usually happens after the time for prayer which is from dawn until 4 hours later.  After that only if one had an unforeseen emergency can he pray until noon. Other than that the pray (blessings in vain) and one is not even allowed to answer Amen.

This came up because of my learning partner who often has to interrupt to answer, and I told him he does not have to answer.

The truth be told there is a much better support for this idea. It is in the Talmud Shavuot pg 43 and 43b with the whole idea there of the "penny of Rav Joseph". [Pruta shel Rav Joseph]. That is when one is in possession of  a lost object, he is not obligated to give a penny to a poor person because he has to watch the object. And Tosphot explains there that even Raba does not disagree with this. Rather he says that just because a poor person might come, we do not say that he is a guard that is paid. The reason is a poor person might not come. So we see everyone agrees העוסק המצווה פטור מן המצווה one involved in one mitzvah does not have to stop in order to do another mitzvah even if the second mitzvah is much more important and even if not doing it involves a prohibition of לא תתעלם

 Now I am Jewish and prefer the Oral and Written Law [the Old Testament and the Talmud] as a working system.

I should mention that a lot of the  work that goes into the Talmud is because we assume the Law of God is meant to be obeyed and that it is self consistent. So ironing out the difficulties is important--it is not just an intellectual exercise but it comes from the fact that we Jews are interested in obeying the word of God.

So what I have suggested is an idea based on Hobbes. You a  government that is allotted only certain powers [as the US Constitution was originally conceived] and within that context there is a voluntary  area of people that accept on themselves to keep the Law of God.]

Is "Don"t serve false gods" a prohibition that includes many sub categories? I mean take the verse לא תעבדם "Don't serve other gods." That seems very specific.

"Don't eat on the blood"לא תאכל על הדם is used for everything except the kitchen sink.
For example the rebellious son. We know the punishment is stoning but where is the prohibition? We use, "Don't eat on the blood." Prohibition on blood from a living animal? Dito. You have a whole list.

So the question raised by my learning partner is why in Sanhedrin 63 is "Don't serve idols" considered to contain many sub categories? It does not seem similar at all.



One thing to consider here is that Rashi says this particular "Don't serve" is not the same one as for regular idolatry. The regular one is in the Ten Commandments. The one the Talmud here is dealing with is in Mishpatim [circa Exodus 30] talking about when the Jewish people enter the Land of Canaan not to serve the gods they find there. This might help someway, but I am not sure of how.