I would say that learning Torah has a quality of being a guaranteed cure for most physical mental and spiritual problems as long as it is not being paid for.

That would go along with what the sages said זכה נעשית לו סם חיים לא זכה נעשית לו סם מוות.
Concerning the words of Torah,if one has merit it becomes for him an elixir of life and if he does merit then it becomes poison.



This idea I saw in the Musar book  of the son of the Rambam, Reb Avraham. מספיק לעובדי השם

Ideas in Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia ch 8 and 9.

Ideas in Talmud Tractate Bava Metzia ch 8 and 9.

I have to admit there is something odd about Sefardim that I had not put together before.
But because of the great Sefardi Chachamim [wise men] I am reluctant to put anything down in writing.
The Jews that were under Muslim rule in the first generation were intermarried with Muslims as a rule, not as an exception. There is something, a drop, violent about them. Some ancient taint. Not that that has anything to do with being Jewish. Jewish is just belief in Torah and keeping the laws of Torah. But everyone has some kind of evil inclination to overcome and it seems to me for the first time I am connecting the dots.

Are you an Ashkenazi Jew that has found himself subject to this strange kind of  vibe. You are approached all the time for money by Sefadim, and they make  a song and dance about how "We are all brothers." But then if you move into some area where there is a Sefardi, somehow they always on the sly manage to get rid of you? You think you are alone?

I  can't even begin to count how many times I have seen this  exact scenario played out but I never could imagine what was really going on. I always though there was some reason that I did not understand, until one day it dawned on me the one common factor.
An Ashkenazic Jew in a Sefardi area. They will always find some excuse to get rid of him.

This would not be necessary to say if not for people like Rav Shick that tried to make Sefardim to be super Jews. Everyone that wanted to start a yeshiva would go and flatter Sefardim to get to to come.  

Constitution of the USA and Brett Stevens

amerika is saying as a few other people that democracy has not worked very well in the USA.
This is an opinion I have seen on Return Of Kings. Herodotus said there was one fellow who suggested Democracy for Persia before Darius became king.  And we see Aristotle going through a very large number of possible constitutions

I have had this kind of discussion with my learning partner and he is as so many other in the USA upset the way the USA is today.

My own feeling about this is first to look at people older and wiser than myself. The deepest philosopher I have seen in this generation is Kelley Ross. Edward Fesser and  few others are also up there in the stratosphere but Dr Ross is the deepest. I also remember a time when the USA was different and decent and frankly amazing. I have heard ad talked with many people that have lived under various systems. Muslims in the Middle East and people under the USSR.

People that wish other systems outside of the Constitutional Republic  you used to have in the USA are not aware of what it is like to live in other kinds of systems.

Any system can be abused.


And my first basic approach is to look at the Talmud. The Talmud does not deal with politics but it does deal at great length with laws of contracts and the Constitution is  a contract. Since the Federal government does not respect the contract any more that is no reason to say it is not a good approach.
I think I would have to agree with my learning partner that the monkey in the wrench is what wreaked up everything. Before that the Constitution of the USA was working very well.

The rule of דינא דמלכותא דינא is from the power of  a messenger according to the Rashbam. That means when representatives do not do what they were empowered to do by the people their power is void. So again I think if the Constitution would be enforced things would be different. Plus it can only work for people with a core set of values based on the law of God as expressed in the Torah. The founding fathers made it in such a way that it would work only for people from a Jewish or Christian background.

cults of worship of tzadikim

The most important thing in the Torah is not to do idolatry.  How things are in the wider world others will have to answer for. But in the Jewish world the cults of worship of tzadikim are great and many.
And we know from the sages of the Talmud, כל הכופר בעבודה זרה כאילו שהוא מודה בכל התורה כולה Anyone who denies idolatry is as if he admitted the truth of the entire Torah

The way this was brought home to me originally was by reading the Old Testament when I was in Tzefat (Safed) in Israel.That is if you just start at the beginning and go through the whole thing you will see the one thing the prophets are always upset about is idolatry.

At a later date, I was going through the book of Daniel, and there it was clear that Daniel and this friends were praying to God directly. Not through anyone, nor in the merit of anyone.

 But furthermore, I would like to ask people to be careful about this. With every ounce of my being, with every bone in my body, I ask you to stay away from the cults at all cost. This will certainly be accounted to you as a great merit of listening to the Torah.

After that we have come to this, then I was thinking about the next step of learning the whole Torah in order to keep it. But first things first.

That is I was thinking of a small program of learning through the entire Oral Law  by just devoting a 40 min. to it daily.

Because that is all it takes in order to get though a 1/2 page of Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot, Mahrasha and Maharam from Lublin. Then you could continue through the Jerusalem Talmud, etc. until you have finished all the sefarim of the Chazal. [Bavli Yerushalmi, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri,  Mechita, Torah Cohanim, Midrash Raba, Midrash Tanchuma.]

I have thought about learning for sometime. How to learn? Does it depend on what one is learning?

Does every subject need a different approach? And what is worthwhile to learn?

I mentioned here a there a few ideas that I heard from different sources over the years.Maybe it would be a good idea to put it all together in one essay. But just for now I will just say over some random ideas and maybe organize it all later.
(1) Whatever is the hardest-do it first thing when you wake up for the first hour.
(2) I also heard about the last 20 minutes before bed but I have not been able to do that myself.
(3) Saying the words and going on as it says in the Talmud Shabat and Avodah Zara. This is also brought down in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים.
(4) The main things I think to learn are the 1. The Written and Oral Torah, 2. Physics, 3. Survival skills, 4. A Vocation.
(5) Because of the difficulty of Physics I find that for myself it is best to do the Physics session right when I wake up. But others might prefer a different schedule.
(6) The desirability of Physics I based on the Rambam and the Musar book the חובות לבבות
(7) I have found doing Physics in Hebrew, Russian and German to be helpful. Often there is some missing piece that you find in the Hebrew, Russian or German that the English does not cover.
(8) Gemara learning. Besides the basic need to go through the whole Oral Law word for word, I have found it helpful to stay on one Tosphot for a long time and an essay from Rav Elazar Menachem Shach or Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. ["Long time" can mean a week or a month or more.]

[9] The Rambam does say Metaphysics and Physics. He is referring to Aristotle. But what that would mean today? It means I think a whole vast realm of learning that I do not feel up to. But the way I see it it would mean Aristotle's Metaphysics , the Guide, Crescas, Joseph Albo, Ibn Gavirol, Abravenal, Kant. Hegel.

Trump's Foreign policy is not to start WWIII.

Trump's Foreign policy is not to start WWIII.

I do not see much reason to start WWIII. And besides that I do not see anything Russia doing that is anything different than their usual policy of protecting their own people and interests. In the Ukraine they sent support for people that either were actual Russians that happen to live in the Ukraine [moved there during the time of the USSR] or people that wanted an alliance with Russia, and we know anyway Russian does not want NATO expansion.
If the Ukraine had not taken the first steps towards NATO by trying to be part of the economic union of the EU, then nothing would have happened. 

In the ME [Middle East], Russia is also just protecting its own interests as usual. What is the surprise?


Trump's is the best foreign policy I have seen so far.
Trump is not encouraging the creation of a vast Islamic Caliphate as the USA has been doing for the last eight years. (And this would by definition mean WWIII.) Nor is he backing down from any real confrontation. But to start up with Russia when Russia is not doing anything wrong to the USA or to anyone else makes no sense.

You might think this is just common sense. But I have heard people that are more or less perfectly happy with the idea of war with Russia. They might not put it in that way, but that is what it amounts to. Personally, I can not think of a worse idea.