7.7.15
If you want to be in Israel it seems to me that it is best to be in Israel that was settled by the Jews that returned from Babylonian captivity. That is a smaller area than the area that was conquered by the Jews that came out of Egypt.
And I also think that someone ought to make these borders clear.
There are still a lot of issues to figure out here. For example the Talmud in Megilah brings the statement of Rav Isaac that one can sacrifice in Beit Chonio nowadays. And it relates that to the fact that קדושה ראשונה קידשה לשעתה ולא קידשה לעתיד לבא. The first sanctification sanctified it for it time and not for the future. The second sanctification sanctified it for its time and the future.
And then the Gemara relates this to the argument between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua about the curtains. How that is parallel I don't know.
In any case, we have that that areas like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed, Ber Sheva are all Israel proper.
Areas like Netivot were definitely not settled by the Jews coming back from Babylon. But from what I can see in the Rambam they are still Israel, but just are lacking some ingredient. That is because in the seventh year they are not worked but one can eat what grows wild--. The Rash (Rabainu Shimshon) holds those areas are holy only from rabbinical decree.
You can see why people coming back to Israel from Europe would have made a point in settling in areas like Bnei Brak, or Jerusalem in order to avoid this problem.
In any case for people that want to learn Torah --I think only Israelis can really excel in Torah in Israel. They can go to great Litvak Yeshivas like Ponovitch or Beer Yaakov or Tifrach. American places in Israel seem to me to be exceptionally weak in Torah. Americans I think would be best advised to go to NY and learn in the great Litvak yeshivas there until they know how to learn, and then go to Israel.
Americans yeshivas in Israel typically can't learn and that includes the teachers. I don't know why this but it is the case. That means even the Mir where people can't learn and think that they can because of their address. Brisk I am not sure about because they only take in the best of all students in the world but how much they actually learn in Brisk I am not sure. So what you have in Israel is basically Ponovitch and its many branches and offshoots that do learn on a very high level. But those places are not for Americans unless there are people there that I have not heard of.
Why are American teachers in Israel no good? Because their knowledge of Talmud is on the level of Barnes and Nobles. Let's say a person is on the operating table for open heart surgery. Just because they sedate him he asks the surgeon how good are his chances to make it. The surgeon tell him he has nothing to worry about because he was just at Barnes and Nobles yesterday and read a book called Open Heart Surgery for Dummies. That is the level of knowledge of American teachers in Israel.
Attempts to make American yeshivas of the caliber of the NY ones has been an abysmal failure.
And I also think that someone ought to make these borders clear.
There are still a lot of issues to figure out here. For example the Talmud in Megilah brings the statement of Rav Isaac that one can sacrifice in Beit Chonio nowadays. And it relates that to the fact that קדושה ראשונה קידשה לשעתה ולא קידשה לעתיד לבא. The first sanctification sanctified it for it time and not for the future. The second sanctification sanctified it for its time and the future.
And then the Gemara relates this to the argument between Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Joshua about the curtains. How that is parallel I don't know.
In any case, we have that that areas like Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Safed, Ber Sheva are all Israel proper.
Areas like Netivot were definitely not settled by the Jews coming back from Babylon. But from what I can see in the Rambam they are still Israel, but just are lacking some ingredient. That is because in the seventh year they are not worked but one can eat what grows wild--. The Rash (Rabainu Shimshon) holds those areas are holy only from rabbinical decree.
You can see why people coming back to Israel from Europe would have made a point in settling in areas like Bnei Brak, or Jerusalem in order to avoid this problem.
In any case for people that want to learn Torah --I think only Israelis can really excel in Torah in Israel. They can go to great Litvak Yeshivas like Ponovitch or Beer Yaakov or Tifrach. American places in Israel seem to me to be exceptionally weak in Torah. Americans I think would be best advised to go to NY and learn in the great Litvak yeshivas there until they know how to learn, and then go to Israel.
Americans yeshivas in Israel typically can't learn and that includes the teachers. I don't know why this but it is the case. That means even the Mir where people can't learn and think that they can because of their address. Brisk I am not sure about because they only take in the best of all students in the world but how much they actually learn in Brisk I am not sure. So what you have in Israel is basically Ponovitch and its many branches and offshoots that do learn on a very high level. But those places are not for Americans unless there are people there that I have not heard of.
Why are American teachers in Israel no good? Because their knowledge of Talmud is on the level of Barnes and Nobles. Let's say a person is on the operating table for open heart surgery. Just because they sedate him he asks the surgeon how good are his chances to make it. The surgeon tell him he has nothing to worry about because he was just at Barnes and Nobles yesterday and read a book called Open Heart Surgery for Dummies. That is the level of knowledge of American teachers in Israel.
Attempts to make American yeshivas of the caliber of the NY ones has been an abysmal failure.
Half truths are known to be lies. Leaving out some significant detail that changes the whole picture is in fact liable to prosecution in courts of law. [That is liable under the law of not to lie under oath.]
When people teach half of the Torah--the parts that appeal to the desires of people, that is in effect lying about Torah. It is not authentic Torah.
This is the reason people don't learn Musar. It is like scratching your itch with sandpaper. It hurts. And it does not appeal to sensual desires. No wonder it is not popular.
I admit I am as guilty of this as anyone. At the Mirrer yeshiva which took me a tremendous amount of effort to get to when I found that the Musar book s were saying without exception that one must work and learn and not use the Torah as means to making a living nor to be accepting charity for learning Torah it was a message you can bet I did not want to hear. If I had thought that originally I would have stayed in Los Angeles and gone to UCLA. And it hardly made sense to me at that time either. Cognitive dissonance. So I found the books that told me what I wanted to hear. I was wrong for thinking I found some some excuse not to listen to the very basic and simple message of Torah to learn a profession and not to use Torah as "a shovel to dig with." I tried to remedy this later by going to NYU. But to learn physics I found out is better to start young.
My parents were telling me things I did not want to hear so I turned away from them. I thought I knew more.
Musar nowadays has been tailored to tell people what they want to hear.
In Musar from the Middle Ages secular knowledge is considered important. So that message has been edited out since it is not what people want to hear. [Duties of the Heart, Guide for the Perplexed, Maalot Hamidot which has two separate chapters one for the importance of learning Torah and the other the importance of learning "wisdom"].
The anti-Zionism of the insane religious world today you can bet goes against traditional Musar. They are grasping at straws to try to make sense of their evil and lunatic beliefs. the insane religious world cover up their lies with lots of rituals thinking that that excuses them. While they have a point that we all should learn and keep Torah but the Conservative and Reform are much closer to the Torah ideal than the the insane religious world .
When people teach half of the Torah--the parts that appeal to the desires of people, that is in effect lying about Torah. It is not authentic Torah.
This is the reason people don't learn Musar. It is like scratching your itch with sandpaper. It hurts. And it does not appeal to sensual desires. No wonder it is not popular.
I admit I am as guilty of this as anyone. At the Mirrer yeshiva which took me a tremendous amount of effort to get to when I found that the Musar book s were saying without exception that one must work and learn and not use the Torah as means to making a living nor to be accepting charity for learning Torah it was a message you can bet I did not want to hear. If I had thought that originally I would have stayed in Los Angeles and gone to UCLA. And it hardly made sense to me at that time either. Cognitive dissonance. So I found the books that told me what I wanted to hear. I was wrong for thinking I found some some excuse not to listen to the very basic and simple message of Torah to learn a profession and not to use Torah as "a shovel to dig with." I tried to remedy this later by going to NYU. But to learn physics I found out is better to start young.
My parents were telling me things I did not want to hear so I turned away from them. I thought I knew more.
Musar nowadays has been tailored to tell people what they want to hear.
In Musar from the Middle Ages secular knowledge is considered important. So that message has been edited out since it is not what people want to hear. [Duties of the Heart, Guide for the Perplexed, Maalot Hamidot which has two separate chapters one for the importance of learning Torah and the other the importance of learning "wisdom"].
The anti-Zionism of the insane religious world today you can bet goes against traditional Musar. They are grasping at straws to try to make sense of their evil and lunatic beliefs. the insane religious world cover up their lies with lots of rituals thinking that that excuses them. While they have a point that we all should learn and keep Torah but the Conservative and Reform are much closer to the Torah ideal than the the insane religious world .
Put psychology into the religious studies department of the university.
Psychology is pure pseudo science with all the classic characteristic of pseudo science.
It is not falsifiable. There is no conceivable experiment to you could point to that would falsify it.
It is just pure religion. And if that is one's religion, then fine. But the claim to being a science is pure fraud. and there is no religion that is as pure a fraud as psychology.
People can still study it. I find pseudo science to be fascinating. Put psychology into the religious studies department of the university.
Mainly psychology arose because religious insights into what a human being is proved to be false.
But that is a good thing about religion. It can be falsified. You can follow a doctrine an then see that the leaders or the group itself is highly immoral and if morality and human decency is taken as a mark of holiness then you have falsified the religion. You might not be able to leave it but at least you know the facts. And you might also try to make some adjustments to the system.
Or you might look at the original doctrine and notice how the group itself strayed from it.
Appendix: This is really no surprise to a person that has learned a bit of Kant. To Kant the subject and the object are both in the category of the dinge an sich. That is the essence of what a person is is transcendent. We can know how we act. But we can't know what we are.
.
It is not falsifiable. There is no conceivable experiment to you could point to that would falsify it.
It is just pure religion. And if that is one's religion, then fine. But the claim to being a science is pure fraud. and there is no religion that is as pure a fraud as psychology.
People can still study it. I find pseudo science to be fascinating. Put psychology into the religious studies department of the university.
Mainly psychology arose because religious insights into what a human being is proved to be false.
But that is a good thing about religion. It can be falsified. You can follow a doctrine an then see that the leaders or the group itself is highly immoral and if morality and human decency is taken as a mark of holiness then you have falsified the religion. You might not be able to leave it but at least you know the facts. And you might also try to make some adjustments to the system.
Or you might look at the original doctrine and notice how the group itself strayed from it.
Appendix: This is really no surprise to a person that has learned a bit of Kant. To Kant the subject and the object are both in the category of the dinge an sich. That is the essence of what a person is is transcendent. We can know how we act. But we can't know what we are.
.
6.7.15
5.7.15
Here is a link to my little book on ShasIdeas in Shas
Bava Kama 3.
I wanted to add a clarity to the last section of the Maharsha. and also to Tosphot אצטריך
Let's start with the Maharsha. The Talmud asks let's use "he sent"(Exodus 23) for both damages of foot and tooth. That means it is asking that we don't need וביער. Then we conclude that if we had only "he sent" we would know only quadrant I and II.
So now we need וביער for quadrant III.
What I wanted to say today is that I asked a day ago about the מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. I wanted to answer my question. For let us think did not the gemara say that we know וביער comes for tooth!! How can we say now that it comes for foot? I think this is the exact point of the מהדורא בתרא. That is it in fact comes for tooth exactly like the Gemara said before. But we now expand it into quadrant III also because שקולים הם.
This I think is an amazing way of understanding the son in law of the Mahrasha. And it answers what I was asking before on a few blogs back.
The thing you have to do to get this is to see the contradiction between what this gemara is using וביער for what the previous Gemara was saying that it has to mean tooth. Not that it can mean tooth but it has to.
This is amazing and I am frankly surprised why the son in law of the Maharsha did not spend more time explaining this.
The next thing is Tosphot. This Tosphot is hard to understand. Tosphot does want to ask why not use ושילח for foot alone. How is this going to work? We said ושילח goes for quadrant I and II because we have two verses telling us that he sent means foot and tooth. I ask how can Tosphot suggest we use ושילח for foot alone?We would have to use the verse telling us foot for itself and then use the verse telling us it means tooth and then transfer that to foot so we would have quadrant II and III. This seems to be something we could not do after that the verse tells us it means tooth.
But then Tosphot to complete his questions says that this question we could not answer the way the previous Gemear answered the question when it was using וביער for tooth.that is because there we had a verse telling us כאשר יבער shows that וביער means tooth. Well as far as that goes Tosphot is right. We cant use כאשר יבער To tell us about ושילח. Those are two completely different words. But what I am asking with due humility is that I don't understand why there should be a question in the first place. I have full confidence that there must be some way to understand Tosphot. But this minute it escapes me.
________________________________________________________________________________
בבא קמא ג' 'ע''א מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. הגמרא שואלת בואו להשתמש ושילח לשני הנזקים של רגל ושן. זה אומר שהגמרא רוצה שאנחנו לא צריכים וביער. אז אנו מגיעים למסקנה שאם היה לנו רק ושילח היינו יודעים רק רביע שלישי ורביעי.
אז עכשיו אנחנו צריכים וביער לרביע שלישי
מה שאני רוצה לומר הוא ששאלתי לפני יום על מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. אני רוצה לענות על השאלה שלי. הגמרא אומרה שאנחנו יודעים וביער הוא שן. איך אנו יכולים לומר עכשיו שזה רגל? אני חושב שזו הנקודה של מהדורא בתרא בדויק. שזה למעשה הוא שן בדיוק כמו הגמרא אמרה לפני כן. אבל עכשיו אנחנו מרחיבים אותו לרביע שלישי גם בגלל ששקולים הם. הדבר שאתה צריך לעשות כדי לקבל את זה הוא לראות את הסתירה בין מה שגמרא זו היא באמצעות וביער למה הגמרא הקודמת אמרה שיש לה משמעות שן.
הדבר הבא הוא תוספות ד''ה אצטריך. תוספות זה קשה להבין. תוספות רוצה לשאול למה לא להשתמש ושילח לרגל לבד. איך זה הולך? יש לנו שני פסוקים שאומרים לנו שלשילח יש משמעות רגל ושן. אני שואל איך יכול להציע תוספות אנו משתמשים ושלחנו לרגל לבד? היינו צריכים להשתמשעם הפסוק שאומר לנו שזה רגל ולאחר מכן להשתמש עם הפסוק שאומר לנו זה שן ולאחר מכן להעביר את זה לרגל כדי למלאות רביע שלישי ורביעי. זה נראה משהו שאנחנו לא יכולים לעשות אחרי שהפסוק אומר לנו זה שן. אבל אז תוספות כדי להשלים את השאלה, אומרים ששאלה זו לא היינו יכולה לענות על דרך הגמרא הקודמת ענה על השאלה כאשר הוא משתמש וביער לשן. זה בגלל שיש לנו פסוק שאומר לנו כאשר תבערו מראה כי וביער פירוש שן.
אנחנו לא יכולים להשתמש כאשר יבער כדי לספר לנו על ושילח. אלה הם שתי מילות שונות לחלוטין.
Bava Kama 3.
I wanted to add a clarity to the last section of the Maharsha. and also to Tosphot אצטריך
Let's start with the Maharsha. The Talmud asks let's use "he sent"(Exodus 23) for both damages of foot and tooth. That means it is asking that we don't need וביער. Then we conclude that if we had only "he sent" we would know only quadrant I and II.
So now we need וביער for quadrant III.
What I wanted to say today is that I asked a day ago about the מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. I wanted to answer my question. For let us think did not the gemara say that we know וביער comes for tooth!! How can we say now that it comes for foot? I think this is the exact point of the מהדורא בתרא. That is it in fact comes for tooth exactly like the Gemara said before. But we now expand it into quadrant III also because שקולים הם.
This I think is an amazing way of understanding the son in law of the Mahrasha. And it answers what I was asking before on a few blogs back.
The thing you have to do to get this is to see the contradiction between what this gemara is using וביער for what the previous Gemara was saying that it has to mean tooth. Not that it can mean tooth but it has to.
This is amazing and I am frankly surprised why the son in law of the Maharsha did not spend more time explaining this.
The next thing is Tosphot. This Tosphot is hard to understand. Tosphot does want to ask why not use ושילח for foot alone. How is this going to work? We said ושילח goes for quadrant I and II because we have two verses telling us that he sent means foot and tooth. I ask how can Tosphot suggest we use ושילח for foot alone?We would have to use the verse telling us foot for itself and then use the verse telling us it means tooth and then transfer that to foot so we would have quadrant II and III. This seems to be something we could not do after that the verse tells us it means tooth.
But then Tosphot to complete his questions says that this question we could not answer the way the previous Gemear answered the question when it was using וביער for tooth.that is because there we had a verse telling us כאשר יבער shows that וביער means tooth. Well as far as that goes Tosphot is right. We cant use כאשר יבער To tell us about ושילח. Those are two completely different words. But what I am asking with due humility is that I don't understand why there should be a question in the first place. I have full confidence that there must be some way to understand Tosphot. But this minute it escapes me.
________________________________________________________________________________
בבא קמא ג' 'ע''א מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. הגמרא שואלת בואו להשתמש ושילח לשני הנזקים של רגל ושן. זה אומר שהגמרא רוצה שאנחנו לא צריכים וביער. אז אנו מגיעים למסקנה שאם היה לנו רק ושילח היינו יודעים רק רביע שלישי ורביעי.
אז עכשיו אנחנו צריכים וביער לרביע שלישי
מה שאני רוצה לומר הוא ששאלתי לפני יום על מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א. אני רוצה לענות על השאלה שלי. הגמרא אומרה שאנחנו יודעים וביער הוא שן. איך אנו יכולים לומר עכשיו שזה רגל? אני חושב שזו הנקודה של מהדורא בתרא בדויק. שזה למעשה הוא שן בדיוק כמו הגמרא אמרה לפני כן. אבל עכשיו אנחנו מרחיבים אותו לרביע שלישי גם בגלל ששקולים הם. הדבר שאתה צריך לעשות כדי לקבל את זה הוא לראות את הסתירה בין מה שגמרא זו היא באמצעות וביער למה הגמרא הקודמת אמרה שיש לה משמעות שן.
הדבר הבא הוא תוספות ד''ה אצטריך. תוספות זה קשה להבין. תוספות רוצה לשאול למה לא להשתמש ושילח לרגל לבד. איך זה הולך? יש לנו שני פסוקים שאומרים לנו שלשילח יש משמעות רגל ושן. אני שואל איך יכול להציע תוספות אנו משתמשים ושלחנו לרגל לבד? היינו צריכים להשתמשעם הפסוק שאומר לנו שזה רגל ולאחר מכן להשתמש עם הפסוק שאומר לנו זה שן ולאחר מכן להעביר את זה לרגל כדי למלאות רביע שלישי ורביעי. זה נראה משהו שאנחנו לא יכולים לעשות אחרי שהפסוק אומר לנו זה שן. אבל אז תוספות כדי להשלים את השאלה, אומרים ששאלה זו לא היינו יכולה לענות על דרך הגמרא הקודמת ענה על השאלה כאשר הוא משתמש וביער לשן. זה בגלל שיש לנו פסוק שאומר לנו כאשר תבערו מראה כי וביער פירוש שן.
אנחנו לא יכולים להשתמש כאשר יבער כדי לספר לנו על ושילח. אלה הם שתי מילות שונות לחלוטין.
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