Family history in California

The idea of my Dad in moving to California was to work for a company called Ford Aerospace. He had gotten there after work in NJ at an US Army base in Monmouth NJ where he was the head of the team that made the first Infra Red Camera. That got him into Life Magazine. Then McCarthy came there and started his anti communistic thing right there at that base  on Friday. The next Monday My Dad came in with Bernard Marcus and they were the only two people left on the team. Everyone else had been fired. That was about fifty engineers who were all Jewish plus one German fellow whose wife was Jewish. 

They were all rehired after the heat was off. But my Dad and Marcus were put off by the whole thing, and so accepted a job offer in CA. 

At that time he also worked on the U-2 camera.

  

After three years he invented in the garage a kind of copy machine that was super sharp based on x-rays and marketed it. After some time he sold the company and moved to Beverly Hills and worked on Laser Satellite Communication for Star Wars [SDI] at TRW.
That was the same time the KGB had a mole there. My Dad left that after about 5 years and right after that the mole was discovered and the company went under, and a major motion picture was made about the incident. [''The Falcon and the Snowman'' named after the two criminals that stole and old man Dad's inventions and other technology at TRW to the KGB.]

[After that I went to two great Litvak yeshivot in NY, Shar Yashuv and the Mir.--Both great but their approach to learning differed. shar Yashuv was more into in depth understanding of Tosphot and the depths on the page--like you can see in the Pnei Yehoshua. The Mir was definitely along the lines of Rav Chaim of Brisk--global issues like between Tosphot, Rambam and how the subject on the page relates to related issues throughout the Talmud.   

"No excuses."

There was a great comment on Dalrock one fellow describing father and his his experience in Medical school. His father had been a DI (drill instructor) and his favorite motto was, "No excuses."
So this guy in Medical school aced his first test. Then the professor decided grade on a bell curve and the next test he got was graded 30 out of 100. He called home expecting his mother to pick up the phone and give him some word of comfort. Instead his father picked up the phone. He said, ''I am never going to be a M.D. at this rate,'' and sobbed on for a minute of two; and then his father told him to buckle down and do the work and stop making excuses.

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Religious and secular cults

Going Clear was a book that my brother brought to the breakfast table and that reminded me of  a great thing about Scientology--that it is a secular cult.  So by study of Scientology one can come to grasp the characteristics of  cult without any religious overtones. But to get a clear view of what a cult is, I also found a certain Hindu religious cult to be helpful - that was Adi Da. 

I have mentioned before that to see what a cult is (and especially to see if the religious group one is involved with is really a cult), the best thing is to study these two groups, and the writings of people that were brave enough to leave the cult after being enslaved for many years.

[An important factor for me is that I can stomach them to some degree. Other cults are so bad that I simply can't read about them. Other cults also have religious overtones for me that are too close to my own beliefs, so I can't look at them objectively.]


 In Torah. there is  are  some mystic things going on. The best parts of that aspect also seem to be in the Middle Ages with  Avraham Abulafia. and later  on around the 1500's with Isaac Luria. Those two seem the best. There were two pretty great people after Isaac Luria which developed that tradition Shalom Sharabi and Yaakov Abuchatzaira. That is the basic outline of the best parts of those two traditions. 

The trouble with the mystic tradition is it fell into the Dark Side; and thus the world of Orthodox has a great deal of trouble because it mainly consists of cults that are claiming some exclusive access and knowledge of Isaac Luria. 

I do not know how to deal with these problems except by private prayer towards God--to pray and ask help in one's on language t be save from what one needs to be saved from. And to learn Musar. That is Torah books from the Middle Ages before the Dark Side gt to be  a part and almost the whole of Orthodox. 
 
I have to mention that God does not seem to answer prayer unless it comes with a change in deeds. Therefore I believe if you see God is far, then you need to try to determine what it is in your life not as God wills it, and to make a commitment to change.  

Not to take some good thing and accept it, but rather something that you already have good reason to believe is Gods will for you personally.
Personal failings you think you need to correct-the best thing is to make a commitment (without an oath) to correct.


That is there are things which are good to do as a general rule: learning Musar of Reb Israel Salanter, learning the books of the Gra, learning the Av Ezri of Rav Shach. But when I say to make commitments to act right I am referring to things you already know you need to improve but are simply lacking the will power. I believe doing this can make a breakthrough in you life and brings you wishes and needs before God. Commitments have to be possible to keep. The only thing in the way is lack of desire or willpower.
Still there are general things which are important to do even without making a specific commitment. That is to learn Musar. The reason is that Musar [books of Torah ethics written during the Middle Ages] give the most straight and simple way of keeping the holy Torah. That is why all teh cults ignore Musar. They are afraid people will read Musar and discover what the Torah really requires of men and women. And that is not what thy cults say.

I was in Odessa for two days and saw that I can force myself to do more learning on a bus and in a hotel than I do in my normal living situation. God had granted to me  a book on Spectral Theory (from this link) [Richard. Laugesen] [a really great book--It helps understand a lot of what i going on in QM and other areas involving PDEs](It really opened my eyes to a lot of intereting stuff.) which I had been saving up in case I had to take a trip anywhere. And God granted to me to get through the entire book 1.5 times along with lots of review. This reminds me of a story I heard about Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira. He was once asked by the ruler of his area in Morocco to pray for his son who was very sick. Rav Yaakov prayed  and the boy was cured.  When the ruler asked Rav Yaakov, "Why does God hear your prayers?" Rav Yaakov  answered him, "I nullify my desires before the desire of God, and so He listens to me,"
I see in my own situation I do not work on doing God's will. I rather have found a kind of comfort zone. But now I realize I could do a lot more, and a lot better if I really wanted to.

What would that entail? I am not sure. I can see that given the right situation and emphasis I can learn Torah, Physics and Metaphysics as per the course study that the Rambam [Maimonides] prescribed.  But I clearly am not in such a situation, and I also do not know in practical vein how to in fact turn my will to God's will.


How do you know what good character is? [] You go by prima facie the way things seem before you apply reasons. Then if there is overwhelming evidence your original assumption is wrong, then you change it. But morality is not a subject that is so hard to figure out. We know it is not right to torture people for the fun of it, that we should pay our bills, we should be compassionate and honest in our dealings with all people. It would take a lot of evidence to overturn these beliefs. And, in fact, no evidence can ever be brought against them-- since you can not derive an "ought" from an "is."
 Philosophers usually make it their business to make up nice sounding principles that would imply the negative of the above mentioned moral principles. Marx for example decided  "All property is theft," and thus that would imply it is OK to steal. But think how the logic works. If you have a principle A by which B is implied, but B is counter intuitive. Then you have to see if "A" is more likely or "not B." If "not B" is more clear than "A," then "A" must be discarded.

But outside of basic principles, it is often impossible to tell what God's will really is even if one is sincerely interested in doing it. I have had that problem for as long as I remember.  [I could perhaps go into some of the issues but mainly my feeling is that since God's will is so hidden, the best thing I suggest is to learn Musar [books of Ethics from the Middle Ages like the Obligations of the Heart by Rabbainu Bechayee Ben Pakuda.]


The main thing I liked about that book on Spectral theory was the first four chapters but also the clarity it brings to how eigenvalues help solve PDEs. What I mean is if you are into Quantum Mechanics you should see that book. It is a real eye opener.

health

One of the advantages of having a learning partner is Talmud is you get to discuss side issues. I learned a lot about health from my learning partner.
These are some lessons I learned from him.

So you need a good night's rest. Maybe get "Gaba" which is a natural supplement which helps to go to sleep at night. You should be able to find it in heath food stores. They also have something here [Ukraine] called Donormyl which I find helps me go to sleep at night even when there is noise outside my bedroom. Getting enough sleep is important for your health.
[The Donormyl idea I got from a pharmacist  in Uman--not from my learning partner].









 Headaches are probably from lack of good diet. For one thing you need to concentrate mainly on raw vegetables and black bread and try to avoid anything with chemical additives. Also you need fresh air and exercise every day. I feel confident that if you do this you will see your health improve.   Walking is great exercise but you might try jogging also. 


I have no idea who looks at this blog or why. In any case I will be away for a few days. Maybe I will be able to access some computer-I do not know.

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