to learn Talmud

The way I found best to learn Talmud was to get the large picture by going through the whole set word for word from beginning to end. But also to be in a Litvak Yeshiva at the same time when you can hear classes on in depth learning to understand how to go into any given subject in depth with Tosphot and Rav Akiva Eigger and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik.
But then after you get the big picture, it is the proper way to concentrate on one Tosphot for as long as it takes.

Similarly in Physics I found this same process. It helps to get the big picture, and also at the same time to hear classes from the professors that know the material well. But then after that, to concentrate on one small subject at a time. When I had only a text I would take one small subject let's say generalized coordinates, or the Beta Function and just keep on going through it word for word for forty days in a row. 

Kabalah as a negative thing

I see some people see Kabalah as a negative thing. They seem to group it together with attempts of things like the New Age cults and such. This was never my impression, but I think this opinion should still be considered.  After all how is it that it got to be so widely and wildly  accepted in the religious world? I am not sure how to answer this? From what I can tell there might be some reason to think the entire acceptance of it as a legitimate part of Judaism might have been a mistake.

In any case it is hard to see any good that comes out of it.

However sometimes it seems  people that were good  did learn the Zohar and the Ari. And that does not seem like a bad thing. After all the Ari is just developing a modification of a neo- platonic system and using it to explain the Torah. Still you have to wonder is there perhaps some kind of bad energy mixed up with the whole thing? Based on what we have seen for the last centuries as Kabalah became popular we certainly did not see people improving in any way because of learning it.

What might be going on is that people are putting anything that smacks of the Dark Side all in one trash basket and throwing it all out without inspecting the particulars of each case. Thus they would be putting the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on and Cabala and new age and Hinduism all together and saying that it is underneath all the same dark side.



In other words, some people are instead of focusing on the positive aspects of their beliefs system are focusing on avoiding the Dark Side in all and every manifestation of it. This is probably a good approach. The reason is that it is easy to be distracted and to swallow the bait. I think people are the most interested in avoiding the Dark Side are probably thinking correctly. The question is how to identify the dark side? But they are not concerned with that. They simply dismiss anything that smells even slightly off.

Now I have never done that myself, and I am probably at fault for this. As I look over things I have read I see I have studied in great depth and detail systems that were pretty obviously from the Dark Side. Maybe I did not care, or maybe I thought it would not effect me. Maybe I thought I was immune?

I have talked about kabalah in particular is some other essay. But just for now let me mention that Im Kal Da  עם כל דא [even though] which comes up all the time in the Zohar is a translation of Im Kal Ze עם כל זה [even though in Hebrew]. It was a phrase invented by the Ibn Tibon family during the Middle Ages.. Therefore not one word of the Zohar can be from R. Shimon Ben Yochai. QED.
In the time of Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai for although one said אף על פי or אף על גב

r80 A Minor 4-4 time   r79 C Minor 6-8 time

Interest on loans

In Bava Metzia there is the היתר עיסקא. I forget the exact arrangement.From what I recall in Bava Metzia ch 8 it is you give  a fellow a certain amount of money to buy goods and to sell at a profit. Half is a loan that must be paid back.The other half is a partnership. if a loss is incurred both share the loss. If profit then both share the profit.

Where there are Muslims. you can expect they will kill infidels pretty much on a continuous basis.

I tend to be not surprised when I hear abut a Muslim killing people. In the USA this was unknown expect in international terror incidents that were in the news.There were not Muslims except for Iranians fleeing  from the Islamic revolution over there. But then I was in a country where there were Muslims. Then it was common to hear about Muslims blowing up buses all the time. At least a few times per week. To I got used to hearing about this. I guess it was  a shock to me the first times I heard about it but eventually i got used to the idea. Where there are Muslims. you can expect they will kill infidels pretty much on a continuous basis. No surprises here. 

Dark Side [the Sitra Achra סטרא אחרא]

There has been a tendency in academia to deny numinous reality.
This can be traced to different sources. I could go through a list, but that would not be helpful.
The problem that I see is that numinous reality has two sides to it. The closer and more seductive Dark Side [the Sitra Achra סטרא אחרא]which mimics holiness. This is what people fall into without being aware of it when they get involved in mystical practices.

The best solution to this problem was decided a long time ago by Lithuanian yeshivas. Learn Ethics and the Oral Law and avoid any and all mystical business. The idea here is that (1) There is numinous reality. (2) The Dark Side is close. (3) Therefore anything beyond learning the Law of Moses,the Oral and written Law is fraught with danger and thus should be avoided.

This is not to say there were no people that by means of their fasting and personal service towards God were able to get a close connection to numinous reality from the side of holiness. Rather it is considered that it is so dangerous as to not be worth it.

In some groups, they think that their sanctioned leader was able to get beyond the danger zone. These are usually the people that are the most deep into the Dark Side.

"Whom the gods would destroy, first they make insane." The first step of the Dark Side is to set up sanctioned accepted leaders that people think are holy.

Mind Body Problem. Beyond the Veil of Perception.

. But my own impression is "empirical realism" excludes a simulation. But your question has lots of different aspects to it. And I am not sure how to condense a simple answer. Mainly we know reality even on the most physical plane is radically different than what we see.  We have intellect that enables us to survive, not to perceive reality. So we have to deduce it. On the quantum level things in fact are just possibilities until perceived. So there is no preferred frame of reference. Schopenhauer put it in the best way: representation is half subject and half object. So the simulation is a bit too simplistic. What is going on is the observer depends for his character on the observed, and the observed depends for its character on how it is observed or measured.


Evolution of the mind came about because of the need for reproduction and survival. The mind is good at that. It would not be good if what it perceived was unrelated to what is really there. In any case your question is along the lines of two things: How do we know things? What is really there?
These are objects of discussion in Plato. And in fact he has two areas of reality like Kant. What are called the "world ideas." To Kant that is called unconditioned reality. Still there is a connection.


I would like to take the liberty of  of quoting the PhD thesis of Dr Ross (ch 3 sec 4):
"Since Descartes it has been a serious dilemma why a representation caused by an external object need bear any resemblance to the object or tell us anything about it. Any cause is only sufficient to its effect, and sensations as effects conceivably could have any number of possible causes, including God, the deceiving demon, etc. Kant sought to circumvent this problem by proposing that the forms of objectivity of external objects are not conveyed to us causally from without but are actually imposed by the subject from within. This "Copernican Revolution"[76] stood the traditional relation on its head. "  He finds this unsatisfactory and thus comes up with a new system.  One great advantage of this is he is quite aware of Quantum Mechanics and yet has not fallen into scientism.  His answer is  knowledge that we know not by thought and not by sensation. 


eruditeknight.


I should admit I am personally involved in the answer to this. I felt deeply in Israel that there was some kind of coming into being of a new level of consciousness into the world. I found the world not ready for it so I pushed it away from my self. Probably a mistake. But i was not able to go back and correct it later.