21.3.16
20.3.16
I have had a fascination with Halacha [Jewish Law] for a long time. I know that in one previous essay I must have sounded like I was knocking it. But I really meant to knock the misuse of the concept of Halacha and the pretense of people that pretend to know and keep it.
But now I wanted to deal with this subject in the correct way. And this is not hard to present. In fact my very first year in yeshiva I was shown right away the correct approach towards halacah.
[Yeshiva has in general four years. The first year is for beginners.] The yeshiva [Shar Yashuv] was doing Chulin which deals with ritual slaughter and things like that. It was perfect to show how to learn Halacha. For every law was more or less a self contained unit. So we would learn the law in the Talmud itself--the source of the law. Then we would trace it down through the Tur, Beit Joseph (by Joseph Karo) and Shulchan Aruch. (The Shulchan Aruch was also written by Joseph Karo and meant to be a short version of the Beit Joseph so people could do fast review.)
But that is really just to provide an introduction to the subject. To get a general idea that takes in the big picture what I recommend is this: To get Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's book, Chidushai HaRambam, and the books of his two disciples, Baruch Ber and Shimon Shkop. But even more important I would run out immediately and buy the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.
If you have just one Tractate at home and just one of the above mentioned books, now you are prepared to learn Halachah.
What to do is to take one essay from and of the above mentioned books and learn it with the subject matter in the Gemara. Do not worry of you do not understand it at first. Just keep going over the same essay every day until it sinks in.
This small blog entry is not supposed to be exhaustive. It is rather just an introduction. I should go into the fact of the Maharaha, and Maharshal, and the Gra and the Beit Joseph that all shouted and yelled about people that decide halachah from short versions of Halacha without knowing the actual Gemara.
But now I wanted to deal with this subject in the correct way. And this is not hard to present. In fact my very first year in yeshiva I was shown right away the correct approach towards halacah.
[Yeshiva has in general four years. The first year is for beginners.] The yeshiva [Shar Yashuv] was doing Chulin which deals with ritual slaughter and things like that. It was perfect to show how to learn Halacha. For every law was more or less a self contained unit. So we would learn the law in the Talmud itself--the source of the law. Then we would trace it down through the Tur, Beit Joseph (by Joseph Karo) and Shulchan Aruch. (The Shulchan Aruch was also written by Joseph Karo and meant to be a short version of the Beit Joseph so people could do fast review.)
But that is really just to provide an introduction to the subject. To get a general idea that takes in the big picture what I recommend is this: To get Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's book, Chidushai HaRambam, and the books of his two disciples, Baruch Ber and Shimon Shkop. But even more important I would run out immediately and buy the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.
If you have just one Tractate at home and just one of the above mentioned books, now you are prepared to learn Halachah.
What to do is to take one essay from and of the above mentioned books and learn it with the subject matter in the Gemara. Do not worry of you do not understand it at first. Just keep going over the same essay every day until it sinks in.
This small blog entry is not supposed to be exhaustive. It is rather just an introduction. I should go into the fact of the Maharaha, and Maharshal, and the Gra and the Beit Joseph that all shouted and yelled about people that decide halachah from short versions of Halacha without knowing the actual Gemara.
Then to actually decide any particular Halacha what I do is to get to know the relevant sources. The first step is to know the subject in the Gemara itself with Tosphot. Then you need to see the Geonim. Often their opinions were not known, so this takes some digging. Then the Rishonim, Rambam, Rif Tur, Shulchan Aruch. After that there is usually no issue that does not become clear.
But if you need an immediate idea, then the best bet is to go directly to the Tur Beit Joseph.
If only more people would learn Halacah properly, a lot of issues would be resolved. Knowing what idolatry is or how to act in many situations would be clear.
If only more people would learn Halacah properly, a lot of issues would be resolved. Knowing what idolatry is or how to act in many situations would be clear.
19.3.16
Learning fast. Say the words in order and go on is the way to learn Torah, Physics and Math.
Learning fast was an idea that for me had a lot of support. There were the popular speed reading books around in those days. Then there was a collage I applied to that was all about reading fast and going through a few book every week. Then Reb Simcha Wassermann gave me the Musar book אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righteous that had a whole chapter about going through Shas lots of times fast. Even in violin I saw that when I prepared by just going through the piece straight lots of times I did a lot better at my violin lesson, than if I spend time on the single parts that were giving me trouble.
So in terms of Torah learning this is what I tried to do. At some point however it seemed to me that by just concentrating on a single Tosphot that I would make more progress than if I just read on. So my feeling is that for every subject one does he or she should combine both methods fast and in depth.
In fact,- because not everyone has a authentic Lithuanian yeshiva nearby, and it is wise to avoid hasidic cults so one does not lose his sanity, I think the best idea for Torah study is to buy one tractate and a book of Musar and just learn them at home.
[Simcha Wassermann was incidentally the son of Reb Elchanan Wassermann the major disciple of the Chafetz Chaim. He was the one to recommend to me to go to the Shar Yeshuv yeshiva in NY which eventually got me to the Mir. I used to hang out with him and in his yeshiva in those ancient days. I ate with him and his wife on Shabat and went to his yeshiva at the end of classes in high school. But I can see today that to have gotten anywhere in Gemara I really needed to go to NY.]
In yeshiva it was possible for me to have long sessions. The normal yeshiva session was from about 915 until 205 and then Mincha. [5 hours]. The from 330 until 815 and then Maariv. [Also circa 5 hours]. But since I left yeshiva I have found short sessions to be more workable for me.] That is if find I can not do that long stretch, then I try to break up the day into small segments. --Almost teh same way they do in high school.
In any case what I suggest is one session to go through the entire oral and written law words for word from beginning to end. That is Gemara Rashi Tosphot Mahrasha and Maharam about a half a page per day. [That is about 40 minutes per day.] Then when you have gone through the Bavli that way then the Jerusalem Talmud in the same way-with the Pnei Moshe. Then the Tosephta, Mechilta Sifra Sifri and Midrashim.
[This would work well for Physics also I assume. The trouble is that Physics needs a lot of time just like Torah does. It is hard enough to get to any degree of expertise in one area.]
So in terms of Torah learning this is what I tried to do. At some point however it seemed to me that by just concentrating on a single Tosphot that I would make more progress than if I just read on. So my feeling is that for every subject one does he or she should combine both methods fast and in depth.
In fact,- because not everyone has a authentic Lithuanian yeshiva nearby, and it is wise to avoid hasidic cults so one does not lose his sanity, I think the best idea for Torah study is to buy one tractate and a book of Musar and just learn them at home.
[Simcha Wassermann was incidentally the son of Reb Elchanan Wassermann the major disciple of the Chafetz Chaim. He was the one to recommend to me to go to the Shar Yeshuv yeshiva in NY which eventually got me to the Mir. I used to hang out with him and in his yeshiva in those ancient days. I ate with him and his wife on Shabat and went to his yeshiva at the end of classes in high school. But I can see today that to have gotten anywhere in Gemara I really needed to go to NY.]
In yeshiva it was possible for me to have long sessions. The normal yeshiva session was from about 915 until 205 and then Mincha. [5 hours]. The from 330 until 815 and then Maariv. [Also circa 5 hours]. But since I left yeshiva I have found short sessions to be more workable for me.] That is if find I can not do that long stretch, then I try to break up the day into small segments. --Almost teh same way they do in high school.
In any case what I suggest is one session to go through the entire oral and written law words for word from beginning to end. That is Gemara Rashi Tosphot Mahrasha and Maharam about a half a page per day. [That is about 40 minutes per day.] Then when you have gone through the Bavli that way then the Jerusalem Talmud in the same way-with the Pnei Moshe. Then the Tosephta, Mechilta Sifra Sifri and Midrashim.
[This would work well for Physics also I assume. The trouble is that Physics needs a lot of time just like Torah does. It is hard enough to get to any degree of expertise in one area.]
(White Anglo Saxon Protestant).
I grew up in a totally Wasp area. (White Anglo Saxon Protestant). There was only one other Jewish family within the city. For there was something wholesome and precious about the environment.
The story was that most of the property was owned by a Wasp corporation and we needed special, permission in order to buy a home there.
But ever since then I have never been sympathetic towards people that saw Wasps in a bad light. And I did notice a good deal of left wing politics was directly towards destroying communities like the one I grew up in and I have not thought that there was much merit in such an approach.
[In order for me to go to Hebrew school my mother had to drive me to a city that was far away every week.]
After some years we had to move so my Dad could be closer to his place of work at TRW when they had been contracted by NASA to built satellite communication by lasers and that was right up my Dad's area of expertise. So he was put in charge of the team that was doing that project and we moved.
Besides that my studies emphasized the idea of private property. So my feelings were reinforced by the Gemara's approach that property is not owner-less nor does it belong to government nor to the "people." Property is in the possession of the person that owns it.
The story was that most of the property was owned by a Wasp corporation and we needed special, permission in order to buy a home there.
But ever since then I have never been sympathetic towards people that saw Wasps in a bad light. And I did notice a good deal of left wing politics was directly towards destroying communities like the one I grew up in and I have not thought that there was much merit in such an approach.
[In order for me to go to Hebrew school my mother had to drive me to a city that was far away every week.]
After some years we had to move so my Dad could be closer to his place of work at TRW when they had been contracted by NASA to built satellite communication by lasers and that was right up my Dad's area of expertise. So he was put in charge of the team that was doing that project and we moved.
Besides that my studies emphasized the idea of private property. So my feelings were reinforced by the Gemara's approach that property is not owner-less nor does it belong to government nor to the "people." Property is in the possession of the person that owns it.
18.3.16
For every area of value there is an equal and opposite area of value that surrounds it and one must go though it to get to the real thing. This explains cults and the reason you encounter some hasid the minute you walk into authentic yeshiva just waiting to snatch you into his cult.
The reason there is no solution for this kind of problem for any area of value is because it is simply the nature of the world.
The reason there is no solution for this kind of problem for any area of value is because it is simply the nature of the world.
17.3.16
Lithuanian kind of yeshiva
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| Please learn Torah! |
The reason I thought a Lithuanian kind of yeshiva was a great place was based on experience and also on reading. [Lithuanian means learning Talmud with along Reb Israel Salanter's Musar approach. That is some time during the day is devoted towards learning ethics.]
The background leading up was something I wrote about in some previous blog entry. I was curious about world view issues from a very early age. So in high school I spent time reading a lot of stuff that was not on the curriculum. Dante, Marx, Spinoza, Plato, Herman Hess, Buddha. Besides that I created a kind of philosophy seminar for my fellow students where we discussed all this, plus philosophers you have never heard of. E.g. many schools of Chinese philosophy.
My point being that I saw the Lithuanian yeshiva as a kind of global answer. That is not just my own searching for answers, but also I saw it as a kind of answer for the Earth. That is I saw it was learning objective morality, and also creating a kind of community that the central meme (unit of social information) was that of an objective moral system. Not person based, but Torah based.
That is I saw a Lithuanian yeshiva as harmonic motion bouncing between two ends--the individual and the community.
[That is I was not just looking at what was being learned, but the whole picture--the community surrounding the yeshiva.]
Whether any particular place lives up to this ideal picture is not the issue right now. The point is this is how I saw it.
I was not aware of Kant's approach at the time. So I was judging things based on a small sample of society that I saw, and a small sample of world view thinkers. (I had to pass my courses and my time was limited by other factors.) Still I think my conclusions were largely correct.
It is hard to go back in time recall exactly what I was thinking. You have to understand the context to some degree. The world was on fire. People were searching for the "Truth." Many found Eastern religions to have some kernel of what they were looking for. There was tremendous turmoil in the air, but also unbelievable optimism. There was no limit to how high Man could go-- if only we found the right System. That is to throw of the present "System," and replace it with some higher vision. The world was nothing like it is now. The world is also on fire, but not from optimism, but pessimism. We have seen how our supposedly better systems turned out. Still I hold with my original conclusion that there is something in legitimate Torah which contains the root and source of the higher reality.
What I think a lot of disappointment comes from is non-authentic Torah. Pseudo-Torah. So my general emphasis is to stress the real thing. The cults should be thrown out. It is not just that they are bad, but they give Torah a bad name.
I have also tried to bring up the Bell Curve for why some yeshivas fail to live up to this high ideal,
Maybe I could go into some of this in more detail. But the main point would be bureaucracy. At some point "yeshiva" got to be big business, and the "for the sake of heaven" got thrown out. And that brings us up to date. What could be done today to rekindle that old flame?
In any case what I found remarkable in yeshiva was a kind of answer to Socrates. What is the right life?
Yeshiva combines several areas of concern to me: numinous reality, community, meaning of life, right living, objective morality. That is it appealed to me because it seemed to combine a proper approach to different areas of metaphysical and human concern. It was not too much up in the clouds, nor was it separate from higher reality.
Learning Torah gave me inspiration to go to the Promised Land. [That was mainly Nachmanides (the Ramban) who counts settling in the Land of Israel as one of the 613 mitzvot.] So I took my family and settled there. It was much more than I could have dreamed of for seven years. But at some point I left it, and since then I have not been able to get back. The door closed. I went back to visit but the window of settling had closed. My learning partner suggested that the reason being was that I had not been learning Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot while there the first time. To me what he said makes sense. I think I needed a kind of merit to be able to stay there and lacking this aspect of learning Torah might very well have been the reason for my exile.
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