Ideas in Tracate Bava Metzia  

I need to look over the ideas on page 104. Today it looks to me that what I wrote was sloppy logic on that page concerning an answer to the Rambam. I might just erase it. It is that part where I talk about הפרישה on the Tur. But looking at it again it seems it might make sense. After all if there is no work to be done then the צמית serf ought to just pay according to the amount the field was approximated to yield according to present conditions.  But with no Gemara Bava Metzia or Tur to look it up I can not tell.


 I recall that my learning partner had suggested this and I also saw something like it in the "Prisha." But to be quite honest it seems really funny to me. To me. it seems that if you pay a percent then you pay a percent. If a fixed amount then it is  a fixed amount. I am tempted to throw out that whole paragraph.

Thinking about it today I might leave it in the book. The thing is it is  a proposed answer to the Rambam. But there might be a better solution. Perhaps based on the fact is that I noticed already that the two statements of Rav Papa contradict.

[After the above i think I corrected it and made a link to the new version. Still it would be nice to have a Lithuanian Yeshiva or Beit Midrash where I could go to look this up.]

Music for the glory of God

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 Kant and Hegel are complementary and not in opposition.  I mean if we take the schemata of Kant which are clearly the thing that combines the pure concept with the intuition, it seems like we have a kind of synthesis that would look very familiar from the  standpoint of Hegel. Similar but not the same. For Hegel you have see some kind of conflict in the concept itself and then to find some synthesis. Still it is tantalizing to consider how close Kant and Hegel might really be.
And this one small kernel might have further implications. For example the focus and center of weight of morals to Kant is the individual. To Hegel it the larger group. When you consider the idea of Ontological undecidability where the center of mass is neither the subject nor the object it seems this would apply here also with there being a ground of morals that is not in the individual nor the super-organism.


The way to go about this to make  synthesis is by Dr Kelly Ross.
The thing he noticed is that after space has become something it still needs space to exist in. negative transcendence. [That is we know space is something. Not just because of Einstein but also the Bohm Effect ] Dr Ross build from there is eight modes of necessity. In any case what I would like to do is to see  how Hegel could fit with this.

religious teachers triy to present a face of family values.

Keeping Torah is largely an individual endeavor. The religious teachers  try to present a face of family values. This is largely a farce used to entice people. Thus one usually finds that connection with what he or she thought was a Torah keeping community that the community is at odds with Torah. And it provides dead weight towards any attempt to keep Torah honestly.
The religious world communities are set up for the sake of the reproductive success of the head macho man and his henchmen. Not for Torah.
They can even tend to be quite anti Torah in practice.

The truth is however going to an authentic Litvak yeshiva can be a great help if your commitment is really towards the Torah itself.And if you have something like that around then I highly recommend it.


[The difference is this: religious teachers  typically pretend to know that which they do not know. They re pseudo intellectuals in that sense. Lithuanian kinds of yeshivas are in general based on people that do know what they claim to know.]

Math and Physics as a kind of service towards God

 I see Math and Physics as a kind of service towards God along the lines of how we consider learning the Oral and Written Law. I do it more from the standpoint of a part of the mitvzah of learning Torah rather than as a vocation. There is a lot to go into about this. It is not just that I discovered this in the Rambam. There was a whole history of events leading up to the point that I realized this is important. It started as you can imagine with my admiration for my Dad. I knew he was working as a scientist and so that got my curiosity up about as to what he was involved with. Then I saw this mentioned in books of Musar while at the Mir Yeshiva in NY. But at that time I was on  different track and did not want to listen - even to Musar which I knew was an accurate representation of the Torah approach. Later I saw this more openly expressed in the Rambam's Mishne Torah and the Guide. And at some point in Israel I started to relearn it.

I also think survival skills are important and that idea comes from the Gemara itself but more should be said about that in a different blog entry.


In a nut shell the idea of the Rambam is that learning Physics and Metaphysics are in themselves a fulfillment of the Mitvzahs to love and fear God. To love and fear are emotions and as such can not be commanded. Thus the Rambam basing himself on the Geonim held that learning Physics and Metaphysics which bring one to be inspired with love and awe of God are the actual fulfillment of these mitzvahs.

As Kabalah became more popular the older ideas of what מעשה ברשית מעשב מרכבה (The work of creation and the work of the Divine Chariot) meant were altered to agree with the kabalsistic approach. This was a dramatic shift but it was introduce subtly so that people would not notice it. I have nothing against learning Isaac Luria whose writings I think-are very important. Still that is not what the Rambam was referring to when he was talking about מעשה בראשית מעשה מרכבה The work of creation and the work of the Divine Chariot.

my Dad

This is what my Dad had to face 3 hours per day [California] all so that my brothers and myself could go to a good high school. He could just as easily bought a home near his place of work  at TRW. But instead choose to be in the neighborhood of  a good school so my brothers and I would get a good education.

He was working on SDI at the time, --laser communication between satellites.

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