I have to mention that this little booklet was not edited as much as booklet on Bava Metzia.Which I think is obvious but still I think I should mention it because I hope that God will grant to me to go over it and do whatever corrections it probably needs
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.
10.5.15
Here is a link to some ideas called חידושי הש''ס
I have to mention that this little booklet was not edited as much as booklet on Bava Metzia.Which I think is obvious but still I think I should mention it because I hope that God will grant to me to go over it and do whatever corrections it probably needs
But one thing hit home for me--the idea of finding the good in the bad days. He says that it is possible to find God everywhere. But what covers up the presence of God? Kelipot and evil. So how can one find God. By the Torah and by tzadikim.
But he mentions that that the Torah itself can be covered in kelipot.
He mentions a lot of themes in that chapter only briefly.
But this idea that the Torah itself can be covered in kelipot seems to me to make a lot of sense. Just because people are learning Torah one should not take that as proof that they are learning Torah. They might be learning the kelipot that the Torah has fallen into. Also there is the Torah of the Dark Side that I think might be confused with the real Torah.
The reason I say this is I have noticed a good number of people that
have I think problems with דתיים--religious Jews. I think you could say I have had my own share of difficulties with them but I try to keep that to myself but when I hear or see others that seem to have had similar problems it strikes a chord in me. I think at one point to me everything was simple. Torah is Torah. The Oral and the Written Law and everyone should keep Torah and that is that. Now I think things are as simple. And it does not seem to me to be a matter of tweaking the variables. I know some people would like to do that, and say well you need to emphasis this thing or that etc. They come up with pat answers to what I think does not have pat answers.
But he mentions that that the Torah itself can be covered in kelipot.
He mentions a lot of themes in that chapter only briefly.
But this idea that the Torah itself can be covered in kelipot seems to me to make a lot of sense. Just because people are learning Torah one should not take that as proof that they are learning Torah. They might be learning the kelipot that the Torah has fallen into. Also there is the Torah of the Dark Side that I think might be confused with the real Torah.
The reason I say this is I have noticed a good number of people that
have I think problems with דתיים--religious Jews. I think you could say I have had my own share of difficulties with them but I try to keep that to myself but when I hear or see others that seem to have had similar problems it strikes a chord in me. I think at one point to me everything was simple. Torah is Torah. The Oral and the Written Law and everyone should keep Torah and that is that. Now I think things are as simple. And it does not seem to me to be a matter of tweaking the variables. I know some people would like to do that, and say well you need to emphasis this thing or that etc. They come up with pat answers to what I think does not have pat answers.
The Muslim Dilemma.
The Muslim Dilemma. When good people are born into an evil religion what can they do?
I see this problem manifested in other ways. Sometimes it is not a religion as a whole that is bad but some aspects of it. Or political beliefs. The Democrats and Communists are not bad hearted, but simply in their collage years got infatuated with Rousseau and Marx and after that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
http://www.owl232.net/irrationality.htm
I see this problem manifested in other ways. Sometimes it is not a religion as a whole that is bad but some aspects of it. Or political beliefs. The Democrats and Communists are not bad hearted, but simply in their collage years got infatuated with Rousseau and Marx and after that you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
http://www.owl232.net/irrationality.htm
God's Divinity is in everything. That is it is possible to find God everywhere.
This is subtle and some people get confused and think that this is pantheism. It is not that everything is Divine. Rather it is that God's Divinity is in everything. It like if I say, "This cup contains water." That is not the same as, "This cup is water."
So to find the divinity in things is by subduing ones evil inclination.
And when one does that, the Divinity in things and in ones own life start to shine.
The reason for this is that usually the Divinity in things is hidden. There are good days and bad days. And the evil in bad days covers up the good. But by subduing ones evil inclination that good that is hidden in the bad days becomes revealed.
And what is the evil inclination? Delusions. The evil inclination used to be in physical desires. and then there was a time it was not physical but manifested itself in anti Torah thoughts. Nowadays the evil inclination has abandoned those fields and is wholly in delusions.
http://www.offthegridnews.com/current-events/update-kentucky-10-mom-fights-back-against-bullies-criticizing-her-off-grid-life/
In home schooling I suggest in each subject to have a fast session--just read the words and go on. And then an "in depth" session.
This is the official and established routine of every Lithuanian yeshiva from the day they were founded by Reb Chaim from Voloshin (the disciple of the Gra). It is not just my personal opinion.
The morning at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn was devoted to in depth learning from 10 A.M. until the Rosh yeshiva's class which was an hour before the afternoon prayer. And then the afternoon was devoted to fast learning--Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot,-- not to spend too much time on any one thing, but just to read and go on.
Now every subject seems to have its own set of rules.When I was starting out in Talmud I read the paragraph of Talmud and Rashi.--I just said the words without understanding a thing. Then I read the exact same paragraph in English with the Soncino translation. Again I understood nothing. And then I read again the same passage in the Talmud with Rashi and it all became clear.
This three step method when one is beginning seems to be helpful also in Mathematics. I would read the whole page forwards. And again I would understand nothing. Then I would read the page backwards. And again understand nothing. But then the third time I would read it again from the beginning and it would become clear.
So I think home schooling could be modeled on this method. And at least on Shabat I think people should stay home and learn Torah--if not the whole week. [There are two reasons to learn Torah at home on Shabbat. One is driving is forbidden on Shabat. The other is that often synagogues present more problems than they solve.]
Also I think home schooling is important in the USA where the schools have value until university.
I mean when I went to school in the USA things were different. The teachers were great and the system was great. But today home schooling is to be preferred.
[In the Ukraine and Russia I think thing are just the opposite. The schools up until collage seem to me to be excellent. Then at the university levels things go haywire. Even when you try to fight corruption it seems to make things worse. They send in from the capital some inspector who does not know anything but looks at paper trails. And the most corrupt professor that openly takes bribes is the one professor who has taken the trouble to make sure his paper trail is clean. So the good professors get thrown out and the corrupt one becomes the director.
!
9.5.15
In the Holy Bible you sometimes have a punishment that is stated openly but it is hard to find the prohibition. One place this comes up is the case of the rebellious son.
The law of the rebellious son [age 13 until 13 and three months] is a little vague to me right now but mainly the idea is that he is not listening to his parents and he eats a specified amount of raw meat and wine. He is given a warning. "If you do that, you will get lashes." And he says, "I understand and even so I do it." He gets the lashes.
Then later he does not listen, and before he eats the same amount of meat and wine he is given the same warning, but this time it is said, "If you do that, you will get the death penalty." And he says, "I understands and even so I do this". Then he is taken out and stoned.
The question is here, "Where is the prohibition?" We have a general principle, "There is no punishment without a prohibition." The 'Rambam says that principle does not apply when the punishment is stated explicitly. [I don't remember the actual proper usage of this principle. I think it came up in Ketubot and Yevamot ]which I learned long time ago and completely forgot.. The Ramban' disagrees and says even here we need an open verse to forbid.
And this idea of the Ramban seem to be the basis for the Tosphot I am about to discuss here.
The Talmud brings a baraita that gives different things for which the verse that forbids them is ''Don't eat on the blood.'' לא תאכלו על הדם R. Yochanan says it also forbids the rebellious son. Then some person [Rav Avin bar Kahana] says one does not get lashes for them because there are no lashes for anything in which the same verse forbids several different things.
Tosphot [Sanhedrin 63 the second to the bottom Tosphot.] asks: "But it can't get lashes anyway because it is a prohibition that could lead to the death penalty. And also in fact it does have lashes."
The law of the rebellious son [age 13 until 13 and three months] is a little vague to me right now but mainly the idea is that he is not listening to his parents and he eats a specified amount of raw meat and wine. He is given a warning. "If you do that, you will get lashes." And he says, "I understand and even so I do it." He gets the lashes.
Then later he does not listen, and before he eats the same amount of meat and wine he is given the same warning, but this time it is said, "If you do that, you will get the death penalty." And he says, "I understands and even so I do this". Then he is taken out and stoned.
The question is here, "Where is the prohibition?" We have a general principle, "There is no punishment without a prohibition." The 'Rambam says that principle does not apply when the punishment is stated explicitly. [I don't remember the actual proper usage of this principle. I think it came up in Ketubot and Yevamot ]which I learned long time ago and completely forgot.. The Ramban' disagrees and says even here we need an open verse to forbid.
And this idea of the Ramban seem to be the basis for the Tosphot I am about to discuss here.
The Talmud brings a baraita that gives different things for which the verse that forbids them is ''Don't eat on the blood.'' לא תאכלו על הדם R. Yochanan says it also forbids the rebellious son. Then some person [Rav Avin bar Kahana] says one does not get lashes for them because there are no lashes for anything in which the same verse forbids several different things.
Tosphot [Sanhedrin 63 the second to the bottom Tosphot.] asks: "But it can't get lashes anyway because it is a prohibition that could lead to the death penalty. And also in fact it does have lashes."
You can ask on the first question: The verse, "Don't eat on the blood"לא תאכלו על הדם does not exempt the rebellious son from lashes, so it can't exempt anyone from lashes. So to find an exemption is only by what the לאו שבכללות a prohibition that includes many things.
But you could defend the question of Tosphot in this way:
It does exempt from lashes because the rebellious son does not get lashes from that verse, but from the verse that is said in its own place. ויסרו אותו. The point of Tosphot is the reason not to get ashes from our verse is from two reasons and the Talmud only mentions one.
But then we moved on to the second question of Tosphot where it looks like he is in fact saying that the lashes do come from that verse.
So Tosphot is asking on our Gemara from two sides. He is saying if you assume thus and thus, this Gemara makes no sense. And if you make this other set of assumptions, the Gemara still is hard to understand.
I think the entire Tosphot is going like the Ramban'.
The 'Rambam would deny that either question is valid. Let us think. the first question says that yes we agree with the Gemara that forbidding lots of things would be a reason not to get lashes for that prohibition. but there is a further reason not to get lashes for it--because it leads to the death penalty.
The 'Rambam would say, "No it does not. Once you know there is a penalty, you don't bother looking for the prohibition. The reason for the death penalty might have been that verse "Don't eat on the blood," but we don't need it to be, and now we know it can't be."
The second question of Tosphot does not even begin if one holds by the Rambam. To the Rambam the reason for the lashes of the rebellious son is not from that verse because it is a verse that includes other prohibitions.
In any case the Rambam would have to answer the problem of what does Rabbi Yochanan means then and he would say it is just a general hint but it is in fact that the reason for either the lashes or the death penalty.
I am not done thinking about the first question of Tosphot. I am not sure if what I wrote here is really satisfactory or not.
But you could defend the question of Tosphot in this way:
It does exempt from lashes because the rebellious son does not get lashes from that verse, but from the verse that is said in its own place. ויסרו אותו. The point of Tosphot is the reason not to get ashes from our verse is from two reasons and the Talmud only mentions one.
But then we moved on to the second question of Tosphot where it looks like he is in fact saying that the lashes do come from that verse.
So Tosphot is asking on our Gemara from two sides. He is saying if you assume thus and thus, this Gemara makes no sense. And if you make this other set of assumptions, the Gemara still is hard to understand.
I think the entire Tosphot is going like the Ramban'.
The 'Rambam would deny that either question is valid. Let us think. the first question says that yes we agree with the Gemara that forbidding lots of things would be a reason not to get lashes for that prohibition. but there is a further reason not to get lashes for it--because it leads to the death penalty.
The 'Rambam would say, "No it does not. Once you know there is a penalty, you don't bother looking for the prohibition. The reason for the death penalty might have been that verse "Don't eat on the blood," but we don't need it to be, and now we know it can't be."
The second question of Tosphot does not even begin if one holds by the Rambam. To the Rambam the reason for the lashes of the rebellious son is not from that verse because it is a verse that includes other prohibitions.
In any case the Rambam would have to answer the problem of what does Rabbi Yochanan means then and he would say it is just a general hint but it is in fact that the reason for either the lashes or the death penalty.
I am not done thinking about the first question of Tosphot. I am not sure if what I wrote here is really satisfactory or not.
The off-grid, home-school mother of the 10 children who were seized has spoken out on Facebook in defense of her family’s self-sufficient life – and she’s receiving plenty of support.
A note on that article:
I gave up on the USA when they did this to me and placed my children in the homes of child abusers that sexually assaulted my children.
see http://www.offthegridnews.com/
I gave up on the USA when they did this to me and placed my children in the homes of child abusers that sexually assaulted my children.
see http://www.offthegridnews.com/
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