Musar and the Rambam

Books of mediaeval ethics (Musar) say that if one has sinned the best thing to do is to bring merit to the public.
They base this on the statement in the Mishna, כל המזכה את הרבים אין חטא בא על ידו( A sin does not come to anyone that brings merit to many people). That is supposed to counter [oppose] the effect of כל המחטיא את הרבים אין מספיקים בידו לעשות תשובה ( One who has caused sin to many people is prevented from repentance.)

But you can see the effects are not opposed. Let's say that, for example, one has been מחטיא את הרבים (caused many to sin) up until today, and now he wants to start being מזכה את הרבים (bringing merit to many). Then he would  be prevented from future sin, but still be unable to repent on past sin.

But what the books of Musar are suggesting is still valid. The effects of bringing many to sin and bring merit to many are still opposed in their effects. So it is still a good idea to stop bringing people to sin, and to begin to bring merit to people. 

One still might not be able to repent, but still even a little bit of good is also good.


[The idea of bringing merit to many is brought in the books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter and that is no surprise.  But you also find it in the classical mediaeval  books of Musar.]

You can learn what ever books of Musar you like, but my own tastes have changed during the years. If I could I would try to get all the books of the son and grandsons of the Rambam, Reb Avraham and later descendants of the Rambam.  [They were printed recently in Israel].

I saw one time in Uman someone had a copy of volume that had a lot of the books of the descendants of the Rambam in it. Interesting also to note another fellow had the entire Mishne Torah in one volume (no commentary)!!  That I thought was really neat. I think it was based on the Yemenite manuscript. [That makes it easy to do the program of the Rambam of learning the Mishne Torah and then the Physics of Aristotle and then the Metaphysics of Aristotle.]
What I suggest is to have one session in the Mishne Torah of the Rambam straight and another in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach (Elazar Menachem Shach from Ponovitch) straight through from beginning to end. 

[This is just for a first reading of the Mishne Torah. The second time around I recommend doing with with the Keseph Mishna. I mean this for the 45 minute halacha session in the morning. This should not take the place of learning the Gemara Rashi Tosphot Maharsha Maharam from Lublin. ]

Dear Dr Ross. You wrote here http://www.friesian.com/universl.htm : However, a stricter empiricism again creates the difficulty that the apparent "form" of an object cannot provide knowledge of an end (an entelechy) that is only implicit in the present object, and so hidden to present knowledge.

This seems to be the only statement in that essay about the problems with Aristotle.

I thought there were more serious problems with Aristotle like this: from Stanford: Some maintain that Aristotle’s theory is ultimately inconsistent, on the grounds that it is committed to all three of the following propositions:

(i)	Substance is form.
(ii)	Form is universal.
(iii)	No universal is a substance.

(eio. No U (universal) is S (substance). Some F (form) is S. Some F are  U, but some  are not.)
That is F is not a subset of U. But F and S intersect. There are some forms that are substances.

This seems important because the  Maimonides is considered to be going with Aristotle. It does not seem that he would have missed these problems. Is there perhaps ways to answer these things? Or Perhaps Maimonides was aware of these problems and therefore took a kind of Middle Path between Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists. Sincerely Avraham Rosenblum

Dear Mr. Rosenblum,

Aristotle’s forms must be hidden in part, for we cannot tell from the inspection of an acorn what the grown tree will look like.  The Aristotelian “form” thus becomes separate from its obvious meaning in Greek, i.e. eidos as image.  Since Aristotle wants to be a kind of Empiricist, with the “form” derived in some way from the perception of the object, the universal that is mentally abstracted from the image carries with it things that are not actually visible.

In a Kantian theory,  what we know about universals will only apply to phenomenal objects.  The status of abstract (universal) objects among things-in-themselves is left open, as with other matters of transcendence.  At the same time, hidden features of universals obviously cannot be abstracted directly from perception.  Thus, what the oak will look like is a matter of speculation, scientific investigation, or just waiting around for the tree to grow from the acorn.  What scientific investigation has learned, of course, is that the form of the oak is determined by the DNA in the acorn.  The “entelechy” has a physical basis, but this could be not gathered from the mere inspection of the acorn.  Aristotle’s “entelechy” was thus for real, but not in the way he thought.

I would agree that Aristotle affirms (i) and (ii), but I don’t really see (iii).  Universals are forms, and forms are substance.  I think that Maimonides is actually a Neoplatonist, where the chain of Being is grades of form, and universality, from the four elements up to the One.

So I am curious why you, or anyone, would say that “No universal is a substance” in Aristotle.

Best wishes,

KR

Dear Dr Ross. I thank you for your detailed reply. My basic idea that Aristotle hold no universal is a form comes from Marc Cohen  in the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia Aristotle's Metaphysics. where he traces this idea to  book Z chapter 13 of the Metaphysics.Sincerely Avraham Rosenblum

Dear Mr. Rosenblum,

I’m not entirely sure what this means.   in Aristotle can only be a universal, since it can only be general.  Individual things are combinations of form and matter, with the matter accounting for individuality and spatial extension.  Are  you saying that Marc Cohen traces the idea that form is not a universal to Metaphysics Z?  This would be very strange.  Forms can be individual things if they are sui generis, unique of their kind.  But only God, and then the Intelligences that drive the planets, are of this kind – although St. Thomas, naturally, added human souls.

KR

Appendix:

(i)	Substance is form.
(ii)	Form is universal.
(iii)	No universal is a substance.

"Substance" is the major term. "Form" is the middle term. "Universal" is the minor term.

[I have trouble understanding this. Either (i) means "All substance is form." All substances are in the category of form, [A]. Or perhaps it means, "Some substance is form." [I].

Same with (ii) either: "All form is in the category of universals." [A] or "Some forms are in the category of universals." [I]
(iii) seems to mean:  "There is no intersection between  the set of universals and the set of all substance." [E]

So we have a lot of possibilities to go through. Let's start with AAE. The middle is distributed. But there is the illicit process of the minor term..
Perhaps it is rather IIE. Then that would be the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Neither premise refers to every member of the middle term.

Perhaps it is AIE. Same problem. The middle term is not distributed.

Perhaps it is IAE.  Form is distributed in the second premise but not universal. That seems to be a fallacy of the minor term. You say something in the conclusion about every member of the minor term but not in the second premise.

So that is what Marc Cohen means. That there is no way to make sense of all three propositions.

Perhaps Aristotle means this:

(EIO-4. No U (universal) is S (substance). Some F (form) is S. Some F are not U but some might be?)

Proverbs. 27:6, "The kisses of an enemy may be profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend,"

Accountability relationships in the Torah  include that of Saul the king to Samuel the prophet, Nathan holding king David accountable for moral failure, Nehemiah wanting to travel to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls but being accountable to King Artaxerxes, Daniel to  God,

How do we choose someone to be accountable to?

An unhealthy choice would be to choose someone you know will tell you just what you want to hear, or someone who has the same weak areas you do. Far better to choose someone who can encourage you-add courage to your life and struggle, someone who is making a success of his/her own life, someone further down the road than you in life stage or experience. Mutual accountability between equals (either two individuals or a small group) can be non-threatening and growth-producing, as well as protective.

The whole trouble in the Jewish world is the religious teachers that set themselves up as authorities. People go to them for advice and by that are drawn into more evil than they would do on their own. While having someone to discuss your spiritual problems with is a great thing, there is a terrible fact that the religious teachers themselves are  demons. This is brought in the LM [Lekutai Moharan] of Reb Nachman in many places. {This book of Reb Nachman was studied by Bava Sali and Rav Hutner.} He asks, "Why are people making disagreement with those who fear God? It is because they hear Torah lessons from תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים." (literal translation: "Torah scholars that are demons.") [I bring this from Reb Nachman, but the same idea you can find in the Talmud and Mishna and the Ari.]

The way to deal with this is simple. Pray for them and pray to find charity in your heart for them. But be wary and stay as far from them as possible.

[My warning here does not refer to the great Lithuanian yeshivas Ponovitch, Brisk, Mirrer Yeshiva  in NY, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat.]

There is a famous place in the Mishna which deals with this subject I think in Nazir about the pharisees being those that destroy the world. That is the only place I recall off hand. In the Gemara itself there are few places. One is the end of Shabat where is says literally "If you see a generation that troubles have come upon it, go out and check the judges of Israel;-- for all the troubles that come into the world only come because of the judges of Israel. "And then the Gemara brings a verse. Then there are few places from the Old Testament itself. And I do not mean the famous verses from Jeremiah. Someplace else which few know about.. You have to read the verse very carefully to see it. It says something like this: "Since Israel will not listen to the true shepherds I have given to  them, I will give them other shepherds that will lead them astray. ""וירעום" The reason no one knows this verse is because it is easy to miss. It says "וירעום" as a pun meaning "they will be shepards to them" and also it means "they will do damage to them." It is hard to see in the verse itself until you read it very carefully.

The Gaon from Villna

The Gaon from Villna as is well known went into "Galut" exile. That is a kind of repentance that people no longer do anymore.

The idea is to go from city to city where no one knows who you are and not sleep in the same spot for two nights in a row. I think it also involves not taking any money with you. What it used to involve was to sleep in the local Beit Midrash [study hall].

What this kind of repentance was supposed to do I imagine was to open one' person to insults.

But I think it also opens up ones mind to "reality" the way the world really is as opposed to they way we are taught that it is.

You learn by how people treat you as an unwanted stranger much more about them than when they treat you as someone they know has something they want like money etc.

To some degree I have lived like this for some time, and it is an amazing way of opening your eyes to how people really are --- as opposed to how they want you to think of them, and the act they put on to impress others.

The inevitable oblivion which must be the fate of the pseudo miraculous and the falsely sacred will be the fate of those that opposed the Gra and Rav Shach.

s82 B flat Major  mp3 s82 midi format    s82 in nwc

Everything depends on getting to the right kind of yeshiva and avoiding the cult yeshivas.

When I consider the actual need to repent on my sins, it seems the place my thoughts go to automatically is the Musar books (Ethic books) of the Middle Ages.  I got the idea a long time ago that my troubles are the direct result of sin. Therefore when I see things not going the way I would like the to I think about "What is it that I am doing wrong?" 
Now in yeshiva I learned  a certain amount of Gemara and Tenach (Old Testament). But to get a good idea of what the Torah actually requires of me I found  I was not really understanding at all until I learned Musar.

The thing I gained from Musar was to get a good idea of the basic worldview of Torah--that is: what the Torah considers important.[Also the ספר החינוך [Sefer HaChinuch by a disciple of the Ramban] was a great help in that direction.]  

There is however a question on this system because sometimes people that are "משגיחים" "mashgichim" (מנהלים רוחניים "the spiritual adviser in the yeshiva") are not people that represent the ideals of Musar very well. Often it is those people that specifically give Musar and all yeshivas a bad name.

I wish I had an answer for this dilemma. But at least for myself I consider Musar to be the way and the path to the Tree of Life because through it I can understand at least more or less what is is that God requires of me.


Just for the record the actual Musar (Ethics) books that I liked the most were the Mediaeval Books: חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart, שערי תשובה. אורחות צדיקים, נפש החיים ספר היראה המתיחס לרבינו תם, אור ישראל ע''י רב יצחק בלזר תלמיד רב ישראל סלנטר
(Musar tends to emphasize fear and love of God and good character which it sees as the most essential and important aspects of the Torah. )

Once I discovered Musar I tried to get my actions to fit. Part of the problem for me was the message was not always clear. That is the yeshiva path seemed different to some degree. A later problem for me was the religious world really did not seem kosher at all. For some reason I encountered "love bombing" when I was younger and and later an amazing amount of animosity when I did not seem to present a source of income to yeshivas. [Young yeshiva students with rich American parents are highly sought after  in yeshivas.] For this reason I have tried to make it a point to recommend only the best of the yeshivas that I have known are doing their job sincerely like the great NY yeshivas: Mir, Chaim Berlin Torah VeDaat and Shaar Yashuv and the Israeli Brisk and Ponovitch.
Everything depends on getting to the right kind of yeshiva and avoiding the cult yeshivas.



They are attempting to establish a dichotomy that does not exist; one between the spirit of Torah and institution of yeshivas. There is no opposition between the two. One can learn for years in legitimate yeshivas and come to Israel and merit to great attachment with God in a way that can not be described by word.
It is an error in a matter of divine truth, to imagine the Torah is
invisible, intangible, a something merely "pneumatalogical", by
which many Yeshiva communities, though they differ from each other in their many ways, are united by a bond that is invisible to the senses…
If you are not in any yeshiva and nothing is nearby that is authentic then the minimum is the get the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and just plow through it.


[What I assume that if you are in Russia or France or Germany that there must be places that could be considered as authentic branches of the basic authentic Lithuanian yeshivas. That is in Israel you have a yeshiva in Tifrach that is not Ponovitch nor a branch of Ponovitch but is run by someone who was at Ponovitch and along the lines of Ponovitch. That constitutes an authentic Litvak yeshiva. In a similar way they must be places in Russia or Germany that are run along the lines of authentic Litvak yeshivas. Even a local Beit Midrash study hall could be considered authentic if it is run along the same line.]
[Musar yeshivas learn and accept all Musar but I should mention that I am not able to learn Musar that is kabalistically based as most of it is after the Middle Ages. Even to the extent of learning teh Shaarai Teshuva of Rabbainu Yona at this point I would have a hard time with because of his affiliation with the anti Rambam party. The only Musar I can learn and be comfortable with is from the school of thought of Saadia Gaon and the Rambam.

Hyper religiosity

Hyper religiosity actually has a history that is very different from simple keeping of Torah. That is people first think they will adhere to the literal meaning of the text (of the Oral and Written Law). Thus being more loyal to the Torah than normal Jews. Then comes the personal delusions in the form of visions that radically change the meaning of the texts. 
That is.-- first (step one) being supposedly more loyal and faithful to Torah, and then (step two) ending up replacing the Torah with their personal revelation (schizophrenic delusions.)
They hide their secret venom for the holy Torah and Jews that are not part of their cult.
[I should, make it clear that straight Torah is great. It is when the hyper-religiosity comes from schizoid tendencies  that there is a problem. There is also a problem when a normal person is seduced to join a cult and by that partakes of the schizoid delusions of the cult even though he is himself sane--at first. For this reason the Gra signed the excommunication because he did not want normal Jews joining  any schizoid cult and thus slowly losing their own sanity.
The Gra said that to the degree one lacks knowledge of the seven wisdoms he will lack in knowledge of the Torah. That refers to the Trivium and Quadrivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,
Music, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Geometry. [The Hebrew translation of these in the חובות לבבות is not like modern Hebrew. הנדסה today is used to refer to Architecture. In the Obligations of the Heart it refers to Geometry.]
To subvert Torah many people pretend to be religious and replace Torah with religious delusions.
They distract people from real Torah. Anything as long as it is not Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot or the worthwhile seven wisdoms.
I do not agree with redefining Torah to make it correspond to people's supposedly mystic delusion.
The trouble with the religious and their schools is they are on the forefront of every new kind of delusion. They try to hide it, but that is a fact.

 God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so
many religious leaders  and teachers  fell under the spell of Nathan from Gaza  attests
to the fact  he was not a peripheral figure in the mystic circles, but his influence with regards to the movement’s adoption and approach to
the kabalah of the Ari   was  decisive. This taken by itself
represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new
movement, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the
origins of these mystic circles should lead any and all Jewish people desirous of being
led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of
historical Torah. I do not want to go into it in detail. But it is simple to draw the line between the dots.

As time went on, these factors were to produce the
inevitable march from spiritual pride and pseudo-religiosity to down right
diabolical deception and delusion.