Moses [Moshe] received the Torah from Sinai

Moses [Moshe] received the Torah from Sinai and gave it to Joshua. That is how Pirkei Avot begins.

The Gra explains "he gave it to Joshua" comes from the verse ונתת מהודך עליו and you will place from your glory upon him.  This is because it never says anywhere in the Torah that Moses gave the Torah to Joshua. [Rather it says he wrote the Torah and gave it to the priests.] Rather the Mishna has to be referring to the אור אין סוף the Divine light.

The idea here is this. The way I explained this a few years ago was in reference to the First Temple.
In the period of the First Temple, the Divine light was shinning without differentiation. When the Temple was destroyed most of it went to Athens and only מלכות שבמלכות royalty of royalty remained in Israel. This is how I used to explain this idea of how the light can shine on a person or a people but it not becoming differentiated until later.

This is also how to understand how the Torah was given to Moshe. It means the undifferentiated light.

Irrelevant variables. These are variables that when the size of the population is increased vanish in effect. Relevant variables are variables that increase in importance when the sample size is increased. I have tried to isolate variables that I think help me over long periods of time. Part of the way I do this is to look at large populations that follow some particular doctrine and see the long range effect of those doctrines. {This is a subject that comes up in Atomic Physics regarding the renormalization group.}

Though you could say this is a subjective process but still it makes sense to me.
Learning Torah [i.e. the Old Testament and Talmud.] I think are relevant variables based on effect on  large population sizes.

Some other variables seem to approach zero in significance as the population size grows. That is most cults say if you just do such and such a practice or believe in such and such a doctrine or such and such a person that your whole life will change for the better. Without this process of evaluation it would be impossible to measure the success of these claims.

I should mention that this is not a simple process. There are aspects of Lithuanian yeshivas that do learn Torah that are questionable. Problems do arise that seems to be relevant to the actual system more than to the individuals involved. You do find that when the system does not work for one person or another that the individual is blamed, not the system. And to me that seems intellectually dishonest. I say rather the fault is with the system, not the individual because there are too many people that are disenfranchised by the system for it to be their fault.
 That is the reason I focus of Torah with a honest vocation instead of Torah alone. That is I think the system needs modification.

There are variables that are relevant on the individual level and approach irrelevance on the large scale. A person's parents are like that. As a rule they are worthy of gratitude and respect but there are some that are downright destructive.



Some variables work in moderate sizes. Talmud seems to work best in small populations--yeshivas or communities built around a yeshiva. And that is a good thing. Take away the Talmud and the social glue disintegrates. People without Talmud find some charismatic leader to follow who makes them into his groupies and zombies.

But you can't expect a large society to be like that. First of all one of the most precious values is missing--freedom.

And some variables work only on a large scale. On a small scale they vanish into insignificance. It is rather a whole large society built on some great ideals can display amazing compassion which each  member would not do.

Ideas in Talmud Updated  Ideas in Bava Metzia Chapters 8 and 9 Updated  Title page for Ideas in Bava Metzia


Title page for Ideas in Talmud



I added a few ideas in the Ideas on Talmud and made some minor corrections in spelling in Ideas in Bava Metzia.

I added an old idea in Sukka and also added a comment to make one of the essays in Bava Metzia a little more clear.

I added the comment that a שוכר כשמומר שכר so that in the Mishna on page 97 the renter and owner agree that it was a big אונס --otherwise the renter would have to take an oath. Actually I did not put all that into my note but it might be that I should


The truth is if I could I would put an introduction to the essays to lay out the whole subject before I start my comments--but that would be the same thing as just opening up the Gemara and learning it from scratch for anyone and everyone can do that just as well as I can and even better. In my experience, most people can learn Gemara a lot faster and better than me. It usually takes me a few weeks until even the basic ideas get absorbed into me.


There is a lot to think about in terms of the relationships between what I wrote on BM page 104 and BM pages 81 and 82. I wrote  a drop, but there are questions. For example. The way Tosphot looks at Rabbi Akiva and Rabbi Eliezer on page 81 it seems like Tosphot is thinking that the משכון guarantee is owned completely--not just as a משכון. The reason seems to be that we have קנין for regular acquisitions and קנין for guards. Maybe there is no separate  category for acquisition of משכונות?
I later looked at Tosphot on page 82 {BM} and I saw I had to revise my note. Tosphot holds a guarantee is not completely owned. Does that change anything on page 104? I don't know.

The most severe mistakes is walking away from the yeshiva world.

See the story about Adam and Eve. There after they ate and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden there were set there fiery angles with swords to guard the pass so that Adam and Eve would not be able to get to the Tree of Life.

 But one of the most severe mistakes is walking away from the yeshiva world. That is what you would call the Lithuanian kind of yeshiva world. That is not to say all these yeshivas are perfect. But more or less when one is a part of them I was walking in the way of the Torah in the most simple basic way that was understood by the rishonim. Walking away from that even to join what one thinks were better groups is the result of the power given to the devil to make things glittery and seem full of light when they are in fact full of darkness.

But the Devil never tries the tactic of telling people "Come and let's do a sin." It is always "Let's do a mitzvah." The Devil tries to get one to walk away from Torah by telling him that some other alternative group is keeping Torah so much better. They have so much more life and and so much more strict etc.  And they are doing it so much more faithfully.   In spite of this knowledge, after one leaves he  can't get back to  the straight and simple path of learning and keeping Torah.

I wrote once a whole book of memoirs. It has thankfully been lost with time. Still my memories contain a good deal of facts that relate to modern issues. For example my experiences with Shelomo Freifeld. It would take a whole new book to go into that. But mainly my point would be this. There are no simple answers.  They write books today about him. And they say he was a tzadik. And that might very well be true. But he was more of  a rosh yeshiva than a tzadik. And there is  avast difference. But I do remember that in his yeshiva there was an amazing spirit of Torah that swept me off my feet. I was so involved in Torah that every second away was like torture.
And that was when I met his son in law Naphtali Yeager. Naphtali had a deep way of learning that I have never seen afterwards. Later I went to the Mir in NY and I was not disappointed. But there was something missing in the Mir that I had felt in Reb Freideld's yeshiva.
But that is all I can really say about this because it all just raises questions in my mind about what was really going on. These are questions I have had ever after and never found any kind of satisfactory answer.
I should mention that Reb Freifeld did not think much of me. Nor did any of my teachers--ever. And their critiques of me were always justified. This is a subject not for now, but I am no tzadik--never was and never will be. But I do love the Torah. And I still think that learning and keeping Torah is the greatest thing on earth. --Even if I can't do it myself.


Some facts about Shar Yashuv, the yeshiva of Rav Freifeld. It was geared to bring people up to speed in learning the Talmud. And it was mainly about "עיון" learning in depth. The idea of בקיאות learning fast was frowned upon. Nor was  there any Musar סדר period of time devoted to Musar. השקפה the world view that was advocated was derived from Rav Isaac Hutner.
There was a  a Breslov fellow that used to come into the place. David Dun.This person I could never figure out. He would invite me over for Shabat (Friday night) and when I would come to his home after the regular prayers on Friday night no one would be home. There was one bachur there who was connected with Breslov (i.e. Rav Shick). It was from him I got the book of prayers of Reb Natan. But Rav Freifeld did not allow any evangelizing of Breslov in his yeshiva.

When you need a miracle you should go to the source of miracles directly -to God.

I wanted to say that just before I saw part of it I had been thinking of the problem of simony. That is money for miracles. This is the Jewish world is called a "pideon", that is money you give to  a tzadik in hope for a miracle.



When you need a miracle you should go to the source of miracles directly -to God.  But the idea of Talking with God in ones's own words is much more important than saying psalms or written prayers.
He said it is impossible to be a kosher person without this kind of approach--that is talking with God in a private place every day. One should go to a forest or someplace in the wilderness and spend the whole day just talking with God in ones own words.given a limited amount of time to talk with God,  it is best to go to place where you can be alone and talk with God from your own heart in your own words rather than go to any kind of religious setting.

For the glory of God here is a waltz

q74 [q74 in midi] I am not sure if a waltz has certain rules or not. I can see a minuet does. So this can't be a minuet.

q71 [q71 in midi]  q72 6-8 time [q72 in midi]   q75 [q75 in midi]  n56 [n56 in midi] q73

 [q73 in midi] q3 [q3 in midi] q4 [q4 in midi]  q5 [q5 in midi] e72  [e72 in midi]