12.11.15
The major concern of the Torah is in commandments between man and his fellow man. I get this idea from a few places. The Chafetz Chaim, Rav Shalom Sharabi, and some of the disciple of Israel Salanter like the Alter of Slobadka, and Rabbainu Yerucham of the Mir.
In the Alter of Slobadka you can see this in I think the first or second chapter of the book of his collected writings.
The Chafetz Chaim said this on the verse והלכת בדרכיו ותשמור מצוותיו. First walk in his ways (which we know that means "Just like he compassionate so too must you be compassionate.") and then keep his mitzvot.
Shalom Sharabi gives a deep explanation of this in his book the נהר שלום: We know the Torah and mitzvot are compared to clothing and bread and wine. The Torah is drink and food of the soul. The mitzvot are the clothing of the soul. So then what is the soul? It is one character traits--the מידות. And that is the meaning of the verse חסרון לא יוכל להמנות what is lacking can't be filled. We can do repentance on lack of Torah and miztvot. But we can't repent on the lack of a good character trait because that is like the soul is lacking a limb. It can't be replaced.
This was the idea of Israel Salanter [the Musar Movement]--that Torah has these two aspects and I think he saw that too many people sacrifice one aspect for the sake of the other.
I think that my father and mother were better at the between man and one's fellow man than anyone I have heard of. But they did not talk about it. And they did did not advertise it. Nor did they preach it. They just did it and by their actions showed me an example of human greatness that I have not seen surpassed or even heard of anyone that has done better. Thought when it comes to other aspects of Torah I have great respect for people that were able to learn and and pray. But as far as keeping the Torah as a whole--not just some parts and ignore the rest-I think my parents were beyond anything I have heard of or seen.
In the Alter of Slobadka you can see this in I think the first or second chapter of the book of his collected writings.
The Chafetz Chaim said this on the verse והלכת בדרכיו ותשמור מצוותיו. First walk in his ways (which we know that means "Just like he compassionate so too must you be compassionate.") and then keep his mitzvot.
Shalom Sharabi gives a deep explanation of this in his book the נהר שלום: We know the Torah and mitzvot are compared to clothing and bread and wine. The Torah is drink and food of the soul. The mitzvot are the clothing of the soul. So then what is the soul? It is one character traits--the מידות. And that is the meaning of the verse חסרון לא יוכל להמנות what is lacking can't be filled. We can do repentance on lack of Torah and miztvot. But we can't repent on the lack of a good character trait because that is like the soul is lacking a limb. It can't be replaced.
This was the idea of Israel Salanter [the Musar Movement]--that Torah has these two aspects and I think he saw that too many people sacrifice one aspect for the sake of the other.
I think that my father and mother were better at the between man and one's fellow man than anyone I have heard of. But they did not talk about it. And they did did not advertise it. Nor did they preach it. They just did it and by their actions showed me an example of human greatness that I have not seen surpassed or even heard of anyone that has done better. Thought when it comes to other aspects of Torah I have great respect for people that were able to learn and and pray. But as far as keeping the Torah as a whole--not just some parts and ignore the rest-I think my parents were beyond anything I have heard of or seen.
The Rambam and Creation Ex Nihilo This is a good essay about this important topic and I thought to bring it to others since I have mentioned a few times the basic characteristics of Monotheism as understood by Maimonides and never brought my sources. So here for those interested is the essay from which I based my views. See the son of the Rambam for more details about this.
11.11.15
Ideas in Bava Metzia-I made new corrections--in grammar etc.
Ideas in Talmud This has a new section at the end where I had a debate with my learning partner about a Rambam
Ideas in Talmud This has a new section at the end where I had a debate with my learning partner about a Rambam
There are two aspects of Torah--the between man and his fellow man part and the between man and God. My parents excelled at the former. And I admit this is hard balance to keep. Some people - mainly Reform and conservative Jews are mainly interested in the aspect of Torah that is between man and his fellow man. And they are right about that. That is the most essential aspect of Torah.
The problem is that part does not cancel the other part. And that is where the troubles begin. Some people notice that in fact there are plenty of things that the Torah requires of us that are strictly between man and God. E.g. the whole Temple service which takes up a good part of the book of Leviticus, Shabat, etc.
The trouble is that when people start to notice these other parts of Torah, the between man and his fellow man parts tend to disappear.
I don't think there is any good solution to this problem because men are programmed to be able to concentrate of only a very small set of principles in their daily lives. 613 principles are just too much.
So people try to distill the essence of Torah and package it. And they don't usually get it right at all.
The approach that was tried by Israel Salanter seem was intended to address this problem. That is he looked at the books from the Middle Ages that addressed both of these aspects of Torah and he saw that they were in fact very effective in helping a very great tzadik, Shmuel from Salant, to reach the kind of balance that the Torah intends.
So the Musar approach I think I would have to agree with.--with one addition. That is books of השקפה also from the Middle Ages. That is the Rambam, and the other thinkers that were interested in defining the basic world view of Torah. But if there is much today that reflects this I doubt. To some degree the Religious Zionists have this approach but only approximately. While they do try to find this balanced approach still, I am not sure if they have reached it. The Mir Yeshiva and the normal straight Lithuanian yeshivas where I learned also seemed to be close to it, but not exactly. But these last two approaches seem to be about the closest I can imagine to striking this balance.
[The Religious Zionists are right that the Torah is very interested in getting Jews to Israel. That is the reason the Red Sea was split and it also is the subject of prophecies of all the prophets. The normal Litvak yeshivas however are lot better when it comes to learning Torah. But the fact that one group emphasizes one good trait and the other emphasizes another good trait is no reason to complain about either group.
The problem is that part does not cancel the other part. And that is where the troubles begin. Some people notice that in fact there are plenty of things that the Torah requires of us that are strictly between man and God. E.g. the whole Temple service which takes up a good part of the book of Leviticus, Shabat, etc.
The trouble is that when people start to notice these other parts of Torah, the between man and his fellow man parts tend to disappear.
I don't think there is any good solution to this problem because men are programmed to be able to concentrate of only a very small set of principles in their daily lives. 613 principles are just too much.
So people try to distill the essence of Torah and package it. And they don't usually get it right at all.
The approach that was tried by Israel Salanter seem was intended to address this problem. That is he looked at the books from the Middle Ages that addressed both of these aspects of Torah and he saw that they were in fact very effective in helping a very great tzadik, Shmuel from Salant, to reach the kind of balance that the Torah intends.
So the Musar approach I think I would have to agree with.--with one addition. That is books of השקפה also from the Middle Ages. That is the Rambam, and the other thinkers that were interested in defining the basic world view of Torah. But if there is much today that reflects this I doubt. To some degree the Religious Zionists have this approach but only approximately. While they do try to find this balanced approach still, I am not sure if they have reached it. The Mir Yeshiva and the normal straight Lithuanian yeshivas where I learned also seemed to be close to it, but not exactly. But these last two approaches seem to be about the closest I can imagine to striking this balance.
[The Religious Zionists are right that the Torah is very interested in getting Jews to Israel. That is the reason the Red Sea was split and it also is the subject of prophecies of all the prophets. The normal Litvak yeshivas however are lot better when it comes to learning Torah. But the fact that one group emphasizes one good trait and the other emphasizes another good trait is no reason to complain about either group.
In Kant we find a kind of "apperception" perception that sees oneself . From this we know the unity of consciousness. It is the same faculty of synthesis by which we know universals {synthetic a priori.} This forms the basis of the transcendental deduction. (note 1) So now we can understand the Rambam about knowing God, who is the thing in itself, the ding an sich. That is knowing God is a kind of knowing that we know things in themselves. That is why it is called knowing. It is the faculty by which we know unconditioned realities.
Let's call this apperception. It can't be the thing which recognizes universals as we know the Rambam holds God has no universals. So it is the kind of knowledge by which we know our inner self. And that implies a strong connection. We have more than an emotional connection with ourselves; we are ourselves. So this connection with God is more than an emotional connection. It means a kind of oneness with God, as if we and God were one.
[I know I am borrowing from Schopenhauer. ]
In any case what we have here is good use of the faculty that Kant says gives us direct knowledge of the existence of the ding an sich, but not its characteristics. So when Maimonides tells us we can know that God exists he can be understood in this Kantian type of way.
And this resolves a conflict about Maimonides. There are people that think the Rambam limited reason. {"Rather in the Guide and elsewhere in his ethical writings, Maimonides goes to great pains to deny that human beings have any innate metaphysical, and especially, moral intuitions." Mark R. Sunwall.} There are others who pointed out the proofs of God's existence as showing that the Rambam did not limit reason. Well as far as God's existence is concerned we can use Kant's idea of a perception to show he did think reason puts us in direct contact with the ding an sich.
When I saw in the Rambam this remarkable statement לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו I was struck with it power. {It is not the one who prays and fasts who is desirable to God but rather the one that knows God.}
To understand this statement I think one needs the anonymous commentary on the first four chapters of the Rambam's משנה תורה Mishne Torah. He asks one verse says do the mizvot in order to love and fear God. Another one says love and fear God in order to do the mitzvot. This is a contradiction. Answer: There are two kinds of Love and Fear. For example there is fear of God's punishment and there is awe of God's greatness. So one verse tells us to have the lower love and fear in order to do the mitzvot and the other verse tells us do the mitzvot in order to come to the higher love and fear.
Thu the mitzvot have a purpose. They are not the goals in themselves. And the purpose is this kind of love and fear.
So it seems to me that what we call דביקות "devekut" [attachment with God] is at least some component of what The Torah requires of us.
(note 1) Synthesis is required to explain the mineness and togetherness of one’s mental states, and by linking synthesis to the application of the categories, Kant argues we could not have the experience of the mineness and togetherness of our mental states without applying the categories. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Let's call this apperception. It can't be the thing which recognizes universals as we know the Rambam holds God has no universals. So it is the kind of knowledge by which we know our inner self. And that implies a strong connection. We have more than an emotional connection with ourselves; we are ourselves. So this connection with God is more than an emotional connection. It means a kind of oneness with God, as if we and God were one.
[I know I am borrowing from Schopenhauer. ]
In any case what we have here is good use of the faculty that Kant says gives us direct knowledge of the existence of the ding an sich, but not its characteristics. So when Maimonides tells us we can know that God exists he can be understood in this Kantian type of way.
And this resolves a conflict about Maimonides. There are people that think the Rambam limited reason. {"Rather in the Guide and elsewhere in his ethical writings, Maimonides goes to great pains to deny that human beings have any innate metaphysical, and especially, moral intuitions." Mark R. Sunwall.} There are others who pointed out the proofs of God's existence as showing that the Rambam did not limit reason. Well as far as God's existence is concerned we can use Kant's idea of a perception to show he did think reason puts us in direct contact with the ding an sich.
When I saw in the Rambam this remarkable statement לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו I was struck with it power. {It is not the one who prays and fasts who is desirable to God but rather the one that knows God.}
To understand this statement I think one needs the anonymous commentary on the first four chapters of the Rambam's משנה תורה Mishne Torah. He asks one verse says do the mizvot in order to love and fear God. Another one says love and fear God in order to do the mitzvot. This is a contradiction. Answer: There are two kinds of Love and Fear. For example there is fear of God's punishment and there is awe of God's greatness. So one verse tells us to have the lower love and fear in order to do the mitzvot and the other verse tells us do the mitzvot in order to come to the higher love and fear.
Thu the mitzvot have a purpose. They are not the goals in themselves. And the purpose is this kind of love and fear.
So it seems to me that what we call דביקות "devekut" [attachment with God] is at least some component of what The Torah requires of us.
(note 1) Synthesis is required to explain the mineness and togetherness of one’s mental states, and by linking synthesis to the application of the categories, Kant argues we could not have the experience of the mineness and togetherness of our mental states without applying the categories. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
10.11.15
The problem I generally see is too much confidence in mystical knowledge.
Rationalism vs. Empiricism vs. Mysticism
While I think that there is a kind of knowledge that is not from reason and not from empirical observation, still that does not seem to be carte blanche permission to assume all mystic experiences are a valid source of information. And even if it was, it would only apply to ones own experience. You would not be able to depend on someone else mystical experiences as a source of information for yourself on how to live your life.
There is a kind of sneaky attempt to get people to believe in the mystic experiences of other people by calling it אמונת חכמים faith in the wise. They pick some charismatic insane teacher with mystic delusions and decide to call him wise.
We don't have prophecy anymore. And in any case prophecy seems to be a source of information separate of mystical experience. Furthermore there is such a thing as סוף הוראה the end of the period when it is possible to make a halachic decision.
This may not seem like a big deal to most people. But from where I come from what I see a lot is people that are depending of the mystic experiences of some loving, lunatic leader deny the other areas of information. To them the only source of valid knowledge is the mystical experiences of their beloved leader.
Though they will use pragmatic reasoning in their daily lives but as for any major decision they will go only with the mystical experiences of their leader.
Why this came up is that I don't think knowledge of morality comes from mystic experience. There are some principles of morality that I think we know by reason. דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה. Others we need Torah to reveal to us. And to understand Torah we depend on the Sages of the Mishna. We no longer have prophecy and mystic experiences can't cancel the Law of Moses, nor alter its meaning.
Sadly by means of Kabalah learning that is exactly what people do do. Yet people are looking for spiritual wholeness. Where can you find that except by mystical experience?
Though there are substitutes, they do not seem numinous unless you endow them with numinous meaning and content.
I any case I had a few issues to bring up about this. One is the Rambam. לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו. "Not he who fasts and prays is acceptable to God, but rather one who knows Him." The kind of knowledge of God that the Rambam is talking about is explained in other places in the Guide. It is a kind of knowledge that comes by learning Torah Physics and Metaphysics. He is not talking about mystic knowledge.
The problem I generally see is too much confidence in mystical knowledge. This leads members of cults to all kinds of terrible sins.
It is not that there is no mystical knowledge. Just that there seems to be too much confidence in other people's mystical knowledge and that one is supposed to be convinced that they are "tzadikim" and that is supposed to overrule the basic common sense explanation of the Torah and common sense in other areas.
The idea of authority is something we all use. We believe our Physics textbooks without doing every experiment and calculation ourselves. But mystic knowledge can't override the basic explanation of the Written and Oral Law. When people think their leader has mystical knowledge that can override common sense morality that is when they get into problems.
And I think this was the problem the Gra was addressing when he signed the excommunication. I think he thought that over confidence in mystic knowledge was held to override the Oral and Written Law and he wanted to put a stop to this phenomenon (with zero success as far as I can tell).
I should write a whole new essay on this because I have not even gotten to the issues that are bothering me which are the Rambam's idea of knowledge of God. What can this means?
Does it mean the Infinite Light? That seems unlikely. After all the Sefer Yetzira itself calls it אור נברא Created Light. This is because the Sefer Yetzira is trying as it should to preserve Divine simplicity.
Or is it Devekut? Or mystical experience of God's light? I clearly need to deal with this at some future date.
There is a kind of sneaky attempt to get people to believe in the mystic experiences of other people by calling it אמונת חכמים faith in the wise. They pick some charismatic insane teacher with mystic delusions and decide to call him wise.
We don't have prophecy anymore. And in any case prophecy seems to be a source of information separate of mystical experience. Furthermore there is such a thing as סוף הוראה the end of the period when it is possible to make a halachic decision.
This may not seem like a big deal to most people. But from where I come from what I see a lot is people that are depending of the mystic experiences of some loving, lunatic leader deny the other areas of information. To them the only source of valid knowledge is the mystical experiences of their beloved leader.
Though they will use pragmatic reasoning in their daily lives but as for any major decision they will go only with the mystical experiences of their leader.
Why this came up is that I don't think knowledge of morality comes from mystic experience. There are some principles of morality that I think we know by reason. דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה. Others we need Torah to reveal to us. And to understand Torah we depend on the Sages of the Mishna. We no longer have prophecy and mystic experiences can't cancel the Law of Moses, nor alter its meaning.
Sadly by means of Kabalah learning that is exactly what people do do. Yet people are looking for spiritual wholeness. Where can you find that except by mystical experience?
Though there are substitutes, they do not seem numinous unless you endow them with numinous meaning and content.
I any case I had a few issues to bring up about this. One is the Rambam. לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו. "Not he who fasts and prays is acceptable to God, but rather one who knows Him." The kind of knowledge of God that the Rambam is talking about is explained in other places in the Guide. It is a kind of knowledge that comes by learning Torah Physics and Metaphysics. He is not talking about mystic knowledge.
The problem I generally see is too much confidence in mystical knowledge. This leads members of cults to all kinds of terrible sins.
It is not that there is no mystical knowledge. Just that there seems to be too much confidence in other people's mystical knowledge and that one is supposed to be convinced that they are "tzadikim" and that is supposed to overrule the basic common sense explanation of the Torah and common sense in other areas.
The idea of authority is something we all use. We believe our Physics textbooks without doing every experiment and calculation ourselves. But mystic knowledge can't override the basic explanation of the Written and Oral Law. When people think their leader has mystical knowledge that can override common sense morality that is when they get into problems.
And I think this was the problem the Gra was addressing when he signed the excommunication. I think he thought that over confidence in mystic knowledge was held to override the Oral and Written Law and he wanted to put a stop to this phenomenon (with zero success as far as I can tell).
I should write a whole new essay on this because I have not even gotten to the issues that are bothering me which are the Rambam's idea of knowledge of God. What can this means?
Does it mean the Infinite Light? That seems unlikely. After all the Sefer Yetzira itself calls it אור נברא Created Light. This is because the Sefer Yetzira is trying as it should to preserve Divine simplicity.
Or is it Devekut? Or mystical experience of God's light? I clearly need to deal with this at some future date.
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