My father was a good Jew

 My father was a good Jew, a good father, a good husband and a good son to his parents and  a good brother. He was able to instill family values in his children in  way I have never seen anywhere else. He was an amazing husband to his wife, my mother. They never argued. He never raised his voice. He could solve differential equations, do integral Calculus, design laser satellite communications for NASA, he could fight with honor  in World War II as a captain in the USA Air Force. [ His squadron consisted of a squadron of B- 29 heavy bombers.] He  built a base in France that would take a damaged airplane and fix it and get it off the ground within hours. When he suffered the devastating loss of my mother, his wife he  got up again and started life again. He never asked for help and never complained even when down and out. He would always pick himself up and start again.  He  invented the infrared camera that was the forerunner of night vision goggles for the USA Army and now used in the James Webb Space Telescope. He invented an x ray copy machine and build the camera for the U-2. He was a patron of the Los Angeles Opera and gave generously to Israel. I should mention that none of this would have been possible without my mother. They were one in heart and spirit. And he could die standing on his two feet. Philip Rosten (Rosenblum). When the USA wanted infra red satellites they hired TRW. TRW found out my dad was the creator of the Infra Red telescope. So they hired him. When the last Infra red satellite was launched then he went to work on Laser communication between satellites. He took me to see his lab at TRW where I saw the laser.
That is my role model.




Here is a picture of the B-29.

I should mention. He never lied, he never said lashon hara [gossip or slander] and he never bragged.
Whether he was designing laser communication for NASA or what he did in WWII, I had to drag the information out of him. And he always had time for his family. He took us on many family vacations skiing on the winter break and every weekend we went on a family outing either to the beach or the mountains. [Not on Shabbat when I had to go to Hebrew School at Temple Israel. Our outings were always on Sunday.] And he always had time to spend with each one of us brother individually. and he had plenty of time to listen to me and guide me and hear my complaints and problems and doubts. I always wanted to take walks with him and he always came with me whenever I wanted, and he listened to me with amazing patience and love.
He was an expert marksman, because he was raised in a home that spoke only Yiddish he transferred that easily to German (Deutch) and after WWII was  in charge interviewing  German civilians and signing their release papers when he was convinced they were not Nazis. He was I think close to an expert skier. But I am not sure. There are three levels and I know he was close to the top level. That is either at the third level or at least close to it. He was a good sailor. He knew how to handle a sail boat. But as far as things are with me, the main thing was he knew how to be a good father. He knew when to be firm and when to be lenient. I should mention my Dad's parents were dirt poor immigrants on the Lower East Side and could not speak a word of English when they got off the boat.

All that being said what this all means is that my Dad had balance. He could balance between different areas of value well. I don't claim he could do Physics like Einstein or compose like Mozart.  But within him was contained many aspects of values that he directed and guided his children to continue on.  For learning Torah I try to learn from and emulate the Gra and my teacher at the Mir Yeshiva Reb Shmuel Berenbaum. When it comes to Music I try to study and learn from Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven.
THE sad thing is you never hear his name in connection with the Infra Red Telescope nor laser communication between satellites which is just now being used by Musk to create a array in space.

Our beliefs about morality are guided by the social group we want to fit into, the self-image we want to maintain, the desire to avoid admitting to having been wrong in the past, and so on. It is pure accident if we actually form correct beliefs. An analogy: suppose you go to the doctor, complaining of an illness. The doctor picks a medical procedure to perform on you from a hat. You would be lucky if the procedure didn’t worsen your condition.

Whom one follows is the main question in life. People are such that they need an Alpha male.
Whom one chooses to model his or her lives on is the most important question in life.

 I think what religion or politics or world view one follows is trivial and in fact makes no difference.

Therefore one ought to be extra careful about whom he or she follows since everything depends on this one question.
And it does no good to say one will be his or her's own person. Everyone gets their values from somewhere. Even people that claim to have no rules like the hippies are the most intolerant of any deviation from the norms of behavior of their communities. Values come from one's peers, parents, T.V., Movies, Religion, etc. But rarely (if ever) does one come up with his own values from scratch.



This idea is why I see people that follow a false prophet in a negative light even if their general world views are OK. And this is why I think well people following a true prophet but who may have some ideas that are mixed up. To me whom they follow is everything.


This means there is some kind of problem to work out with the Rambam who hold the major prohibition of idolatry to to serve an intermediate in order to come close to God.You could simply say serving an intermediate is forbidden but following a teacher is ok.


In any I am generally unhappy with the results I see in people following almost any charismatic leader. That includes even people I would consider to be tzadikim. You might say I am not happy with any tzadikim. Though people do follow their particular charismatic leader still, I think following God alone and  to learn and keep Torah is best. When people follow any leader they tend to fall into idolatry as fast as a speeding bullet.

Breslov I have to admit is kind of a mixture of idolatrous cults--each one with their own demigod.  their leaders are always the major object of worship of their followers.

My approach for those that are curious  is to follow the path of my father and mother as closely as I can get to it.  To me the commandment of "Honor thy father and mother" is  real and immediate and I think to myself often how many problems I would have been saved from if only I had paid attention to them. But I realize some people have bad parents and the sages of the Talmud were also aware of this fact.  So as a general rule I suggest people use common sense reason.

But common sense is not common.  Our beliefs about morality are guided by the social group we want to fit into, the self-image we want to maintain, the desire to avoid admitting to having been wrong in the past, and so on. It is pure accident if we actually form correct beliefs. An analogy: suppose you go to the doctor, complaining of an illness. The doctor picks a medical procedure to perform on you from a hat. You would be lucky if the procedure didn’t worsen your condition.

Songs for the Glory of the God of Israel

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Philip and Leila Rosten

I come from a family of ordinary Jews. My Dad was a working guy and never asked for handouts. [link] And so was all my family from as far back as there are any records. We were what you could call Goldilocks Jews--not too hot, and not too cold, but just right. We had great respect for Torah--the Oral and Written Law.
If I had decided to learn Talmud along with my regular studies in high school and university my parents would have been thrilled.  But instead I decided to spend all my time on Talmud and not prepare for any career. I certainly was not planning on using the Torah as a means of making a living.

Why I bring this up is part of my reasoning at the time was I simply found my abilities to be limited in subjects that I was interested in. And there were other subjects that I was interested in but I thought they had little value.

So what I suggest today is in fact to learn Talmud Torah but not to use them as a means to make money. And in spite of the excuses people make to use Torah for a livelihood I have found that it usually leads to the dark side.--but not always. Clearly there were great roshei yeshiva like Reb Shmuel Berenbaum-the Rosh yeshiva of the Mir Yeshiva in NY who was the genuine article--a real gaon. So to be a Rosh Yeshiva  was apparently considered as a kosher thing just like in Europe there was a job to be a rav. That was not being paid to learn or teach but give advice and take care of religious matters in town or in the yeshiva.

And as for subjects where it is allowed to make a livelihood I recommend the path of learning of  "Say the words and go on." [From the Talmud 63. לעולם לגרס איניש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר Forever one should say the words and go on even though he forgets and even though he does not know what he is saying.]


I think that if I had known of this simple advice when I was younger I might have in fact been able to balance between Talmud learning and the other subjects I was interested in.

And if I had known the Rambam' opinions about learning the seven wisdoms that might have made a difference in my career choices. The Rambam holds learning Talmud is just to prepare a person to be able to learn Physics and Metaphysics. And it is by the later two that  a person comes to human perfection.

the religious world

There is a certain amount of Sitra Achra (Dark forces) that has weaseled itself into the religious world

This seems to me to be similar to something that happened with Muslims after their golden age of philosophers like Al Kindi.

חבלים נפלו לי בנעינים destroyers have fallen upon me in pleasant places.

Whenever the Sitra Achra sees something precious and wholesome, it strives to get close into it and make it unclean.
This happens when you try to go to Israel. Right when you get there something happens to take away the good flavour. Or you are learning Torah in a good authentic Lithuanian yeshiva and then the Sitra achra sens its human demons to make it uncomfortable for good people.
And once the dark forces get in, then they spread everywhere and there is no place safe. This is my reasoning why I never venture near any the religious synagogue and will pray only with Reform or Conservative Jews.

Bringing secular Jews into the religious world has been a major movement in the religious world. I think its main purpose is to create a slave class. That is to make people that are slightly religious but will never be accepted in the the religious world. The reason for this movement is that the religious world always make their living only by using the Torah to make money. And without a slave class to support them they would be out of business.

A song for the glory of the God of Israel

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A song for the glory of the God of Israel

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