My question is that we have according to Kant and area where reason can't go. That is uncondioned realities. And yet we also have knowledge of things that are not empirical.  And we know there is more to a priori knowledge more than definitions. So my question to Dr Kelly Ross in California is how to decide how far reason can go.







I wrote :Kant held that Reason applied to unconditioned realities would produce contradictions..

K.R.: In theoretical Reason, that is.

I wrote: "But that it is valid in the realm of a priori synthetic knowledge.The question is if these are really all that different? How do you tell the difference between unconditioned realities and  just plain regular a priori things?"

KR: " With unconditioned realities, we cannot determine between freedom and determinism.  However, practical Reason does determine, for freedom.

You tell the difference between unconditioned and conditioned realities where the series of applications of the categories (particularly causality and substance) has termination points or does not.  Thus, freedom is the beginning of an unconditioned causal series, and God (or, to an extent, the soul) is an unconditioned substance.  There is a similar idea in Buddhism, where all reality is conditioned but for certain "unconditioned dharmas," such as Nirvana.  This would fit in nicely with Kant.

These principles result in a nice meeting between physics and metaphysics.  Phenomenal space is all conditioned, but the whole of space is unconditioned, which is why physics cannot decide whether the universe if finite or infinite.  This problem is currently dishonestly evaded in discussions of physics.

Best wishes,
Kelley Ross"



After note: Kant really requires  a lot of work. And I admit to have not spent enough time on him.
At any rate we  here a classic example of Kelly Ross writing. It is jam packed with sub-layers, It is like each word requires a few semesters of study.

Rav Shach says that the fruit of the seventh year is not automatically הפקר [abandoned].

He is weaving together a complicated picture in order to solve a difficult Rambam. This Rambam is in the Laws of Maasar Sheni I: 5-6
For the general audience here let me just preface my remarks with the fact that years 1,2, 4,6 of the sabbatical cycle one gives the second Maasar. That is you give Truma to the priest every year. Then you take a tenth of your crop and give it to a Levi. Then you take another tenth and bring it to Jerusalem to the Temple. You give a basket there and the rest you eat in Jerusalem.  But in years 3 and 6 instead of the second tenth you give a tenth to the poor.

The Etrog [a  kind of fruit] you count the year by the time of picking. But still the Rambam says if it ripened in the 6th year you give truma and the tenth.

The Beit Yoseph says the Rambam is doubtful and so goes both ways to be strict. This is nonsense. The Rambam would have said so if he was doubtful. And also what about other years besides the seventh? Why not bring two tenths in the fourth year if he was doubtful?
The Gra says he is going by R. Yochanan that even though we go by the time of picking still in terms of the seventh year, if it ripened in the 6th we give truma.

The picture Rav Shach is painting  is built of several components. One is the question the Minchas Chinuch brings if the Torah makes the fruit abandoned of if one is required to abandon it. The other is the point the Or Sameach brings up of the fruit is the fruit of the seventh year even while attached or only after it is picked. The other is the point I started with that the Torah does not say it is abandoned rather the Torah gives it to all Israel.
 But I am still fumbling around trying to figure out how these points can answer the Rambam.
I mean if the fruit is not הפקר  then truma could apply. But why should it? We still have a verse that fruit of the seventh year is not obligated in Truma.

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In terms of Trump, let me just say that not all menstrual blood is unclean.
First of all  there are five shades of red that are unclean and five that are clean.--And in spite of what you may think--these are possible to verify. And that is strict דין תורה--the law of the Bible.
When the question of blood comes up nowadays, what happens id  that any shade of red or black is considered unclean. But that is not because of the Torah. That is because people are too lazy to find out example what wavelengths constitute unclean and which ones constitute clean blood.

Another astounding fact is that nowadays there is almost never any kind of הרגשה [feeling] that the Talmud considers a problem. [Unless there is feeling there is nothing unclean.] I have not made a big deal about this because the Noda BeYehuda did in fact say that the feeling of some liquid moving inside is considered "feeling." So even if the Chatam Sofer and Natan Adler disagreed still I would rather not be the one be lenient in this matter.

In any case the comment of Trump was in no way demeaning unless people specifically want to take it that way. And then they are just being immature.