I wanted to suggest the importance of learning in a Lithuanian kind of yeshiva. The main reason is that Torah is something that one needs to learn from people that know it well. It is kind of like in Middle Ages when you had apprentices  that needed to learn the ins and outs of some kind of skill over a very long period before they could be accepted as members of the guild or "Masters."  Torah is very much like that. The difference is it has its own kind of rules. Just like in the Middle Ages the rules of one guild did not apply to another. So in Torah there is no reason for the arena to be a free for all in which anyone who puts on the right kind of clothing is considered learned. My suggestion is to accept at legitimate only those who have put in the work; and the frauds that present themselves as experts to dispose of.

I think there are a few good yeshivas around especially in NY. Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat, Mir. In Israel it is harder to spot a real yeshiva and tell the difference between it and the phonies. The reason is money got mixed into the system. No you can't tell in Israel who is learning because they love Torah and who is doing it because it is good business. It is not just hard to tell. It is nearly impossible.
The ones that you can be sure of are Ponovitch, and Brisk.

Songs to the God of Israel in mp3 and midi.

n30 [n30 in midi] k16 [k16 in midi] n31  [n31 in midi] n33 [n33 in midi] n35  [n35 in midi] n36 [n36 in midi]  n38  [n38 in midi] n39 [n39 in midi] n40 [n40 in midi] n41 [n41 in midi] [I think n31 and n33 are different even though they start with the same theme] n44 [n44 in midi] n47 [n47 in midi] n5 [n5 in midi] n51[n51 in midi] n52 [n52 in midi] n53 [edited][n53 in midi]  g2 [g2 in midi] q91 [q91in midi] p129 [p129 in midi]  p120 in mp3[p120 in midi]

People that are called tzadikim have powers from the Sitra Achra

The tzadik (righteous person) is a theme that is mentioned by the Gra  on the verse "and a river came out of Eden [Genesis 2] and was divided into four main rivers" the Gra says just two words '' זו הצדיק'' ''this is the tzadik'' The the Gra is simply drawing on the Ari. The basic idea is what we normally call the sepherah of foundation he is calling the tzadik since it is the sepherah that Joseph ben Yaakov became connected with.

Closeness to a true tzadik is important. The problem is this gets mixed up with the point of the Torah which is to serve God.

There is positive benefit one can gain by being connected with a true tzadik.
The opposite side of this is the damage one can incur by being close to a phony tzadik or one who seems to be righteous, but gets his powers from the sitra achra (the dark side).


 The two major problems with the concept of the tzadik is when people have a true tzadik, they can go overboard and cross the line into making him an object of worship. The other problem is when people have imagined they have found the real thing, but are not aware they have found a person who knows how to play the part.
The problems are so great in this area that I recommend not going to people that are called tzadikim. They have powers from the Sitra Achra {the Dark Side}. The Gra certainly saw this. 

The world of strict Judaism seems to have a problem with false messiahs. The way this works is they use consciousness traps.

The world of strict Judaism seems to have a problem with false messiahs. Sometimes they admit to following some false messiah and sometimes they do not admit that that is what they believe. This started mainly at the time of the Shatz (Shabatai Tzvi).  After he converted to Islam  his followers continued believing in him but they would deny this publicly. They would even print books against the Shatz and in private be holding meetings in his name.. This goes on today also except the name of the false messiah is changed.  This usually goes way beyond believing in some false messiah. It is almost always a form of worship towards that false messiah. And it would not be so bad except that the there is usually some kind of deeper hidden uncleanliness inside these false messiahs. This is frustrating for me to see this and be powerless to stop it. Rav Shach tried and failed. The Gra tried and failed.  What can I do?

My basic approach to this is simply to try to learn and keep Torah, but when I see this evil spreading rapidly throughout Judaism I am getting worried.

The way this works is they use consciousness traps. That it they have nice slogans and present some kind of polished public picture that makes one think they are all about good and worthy goals. Or the false messiah is given miracles from the Dark Side so he seems to be from the side of holiness. He gives good advice a few times. And  once one has decided  follow this powerful figure, then he is given some kind of directive that he ought to know is from the Dark Side. He still has free will but he chooses the darkness because of the miracles he has already seen from the false messiah.


The best way I think to avoid these problems is by avoiding cults around false messiahs. I may not be the one to organize this, but it would be  a good idea to start an anti false messiah movement.

An idea in Quantum Field Theory

It is probably just a ridiculous suggestion but here goes anyway. I am wondering if we start with Emmy Noether's theorem and put groups of fractional symmetry in the Lagrangian of QFT (Quantum Field Theory). I mean to say I have been fascinated by the idea of fractional derivatives and higher order symmetries for  awhile. So we have from Noether that for every symmetry you can put into the Lagrangian a conservation law why not just postulate symmetries and thus higher conservation laws up to any order?  What I am thinking of is not the same as translational symmetry or fractional charges like quarks.

This might sound like a ridiculous suggestion but sometimes this kind of idea gives results. Originally it was Leibniz himself who thought of fractional derivatives but he did not think the results would interesting so he did not pursue the idea. It turned out there are some interesting results. The same goes for higher orders of acceleration. The third order came up in [I forget where maybe Lorenz Abraham's theorem. I can't recall off hand.]

Further I would like to suggest the order of symmetry will have some proportionality constant  with the number of dimensions.


I really would not say anything but it is that sometimes some idea pops into my head that even to me sounds silly and then after a few years I find out that it really was a good idea.

Dr. Warren Siegel answered this:

"I'm not sure what symmetries you're thinking of, but in general if you impose too much symmetry you find that only a free theory can satisfy it."

And as for the fractional derivative he answered this:

"If by fractional derivative you mean some arbitrary noninteger power of the differential operator, the result is nonlocal (does not depend on just infinitesimally nearby points).  Locality is a basic physical property that field theory requires.  It follows from special relativity & causality."


What I am thinking is that according to the number of dimensions you have got, you have the same number of conservation laws. So for our little world we have conservation of energy and mass, electric charge, etc. In string theory we get some crumbled up dimensions for the normal 26. So what I would like to find are groups to put into the Lagrangian that will correspond to each conservation law for a different quantity. I still need to think about what kinds of groups I am looking for. But the most obvious would be those 26 simple groups I was reading about when I was studying group theory, [i.e., sporadic groups].

Dr Siegel answered to me:

"If you compactify some dimensions into a symmetric space, you'll get the symmetry of that space.

E.g., if you compactify some extra N dimensions into a submicroscopic sphere, you'll get the rotational group for those N dimensions, i.e., the orthogonal group O(N+1).

It will appear as an "internal" symmetry with respect to the uncompactified dimensions (i.e., not affecting them directly)."

So clearly I need to do some more learning and thinking. What Dr Siegel was saying I think was that all I had gotten to was the regular Orthogonal groups.

[What I am trying to do here is to put any (or all) of the sporadic groups into the Lagrangian. That is all. Nothing more. But by doing so I am hoping to get a new conservation law for each group. Then I am hoping that each law will show up in one of the crunched up dimensions of String Theory.]

Dr Siegel is in at SUNY (State University of NY) at Stony Brook,  and at the time  I wrote this I was trying to learn his book Fields.

Terrorism is in general a method of political control. It started with the Reign of Terror in France. It was used by the Bolsheviks  as a means to establish their authority. The basic idea was explained by Trotsky: if there is a reason for the arrests in the middle of the night and the sending of millions to die in the Gulags, then it is not terror. No one is scared if there are reasons. Thus we have Stalin using this idea to control the USSR. He would send orders to many cities in the USSR ordering the local KGB to arrest a certain number of people, to execute another number of people, to jail such and such a number and to send to the Gulag such and such a sum. So there was no reason for the arrests except simply to fill a quota.
Another example is in Israel where Muslims are blowing up shooting and murdering Jews pretty much on a random basis. There is never any particular reason for it except as a means of political protest. I used walk down Jaffa street every day to go the the Western Wall and one day I changed by usually routine  and it just so happened that the day I changed my route and the very time I usually was on Jaffa some Arab had gotten hold of  a sub-machine Gun and mowed down the Jews walking on the opposite side-of the street.[That was the right hand side of the street when you are walking to the Western Wall.]

That is different than taking over an empty Federal building until some grievances are solved.

Talking with God as one talks with his or her's closest friend

Talking with God as one talks with his or her's closest friend. I am sure a lot of people do this without being told. Once they hear from their parents about God being the creator of everything and that he is compassionate and he desires our being moral human beings it seems natural to automatically go to him directly to ask for guidance and help.

the best time I found for this is before going to sleep at night. but there were people that emphasized doing this more often.  We see King David clearly did this when he was in trouble and also he spent time thanking God. There was a Brother Lawrence in France who did this and wrote a bit about it also in a book called The Presence of God.

The best  idea is to go on a hike for an entire day and spend the whole day talking with God. This idea got to me and I tried doing this for some time when I first got to Israel. But sadly I did not keep up the practice. Still it seems like  a great idea and when on occasion I do this I feel I get answers.

When I was growing up in Beverly Hills we lived on the north side and there was a kind of forest in the area. And I used to do this kind of thing from time to time. There was a kind of  opening in a small groups of trees right near the main street that went up Coldwater Canyon where we lived and I used to go there and say prayers from the Jewish Prayer book and also talk to God in my own way. It is hard to do this in a big city but even at the Mir in NY I managed to find a spot where I could go and say prayers privately to God.  It is best to find a authentic Litvak Yeshiva like Ponovitch or Brisk. Private prayer should be private.