The religious world is a mess as is well known and yet it came as a shock to me to realize this.
I was really in love heads over heels in love with Torah in the most powerful way possible. But it was like getting a bucket of ice cold water poured over my head to realize how corrupt and dishonest and unholy and unclean the religious world is. The world that claims to be keeping the Torah is not the same as the people that actually keep the Torah. 

If the authentic Lithuanian yeshivas are overly cautious about whom they let in their doors it is because they have been burnt too many times and thus err on the side of caution.  [Of course the trouble is they end up most often throwing out the sincere people and leaving the hypocrites that have rich parents.  Still I think it is obvious that the religious world needs a thorough Chametz cleaning. Throw out every single last bit of chametz leaven is my recommendation.

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Musar movement and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik

I think you can see from the coolness of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and the Chazon Ish towards the Musar movement (Ethics) a kind of unvoiced criticism towards the whole thing. People are eager to jump on any kind of positive statement they or anyone else made about Musar (Ethics) but no one really knows what was the reason for their coolness.

   We know from all the books of Musar from the Rishonim, and especially from the Guide for the Perplexed about the importance of good character traits. So no one is doubting that. Rather their question was, "How effective is learning lots of Musar every day in terms of correcting bad character traits?"
  I am pretty sure they were not the only ones to question this. Almost anyone who has had any experience with any modern day mashgiach [spiritual adviser] always walks away wondering, "If that is the result of Musar, then what good is it?'' (I can at least say that I have asked myself this question many times.)

  For the last few days, I have been wondering about a kind of combination between learning Musar and outdoor skills and survival skills. We already know the entire purpose of the creation of the Boy Scouts was to teach young men good character. And to a large degree it was effective (in the distant past).
   I suggest to combine both approaches, Reb Israel Salanter and the Boy Scouts. [My parents encouraged me and my younger brother to go to the Boy Scouts, but we never got very far. I was anyway in those days dealing with school work and other kinds of extra curricular activities and studies. And I had to walk home after school which was a long hike every day. I simply did not have the energy for everything. And I have heard that nowadays teachers assign a lot more homework that they did in my days.
In any case, for health my feeling is there is nothing quite as good as fresh air, sunshine and lots of hiking. And basic thing about camping and survival skills and learning to work with other as team is important for character building--not just learning about good character from books.

Western Civilization

To my mind it is clear the the basis is the Bible, Plato, Aristotle -as the basic bricks but the cement was Maimonides, Anselm, Aquinas. The reason I say this is that it is not at all trivial how the put the first three together, or even if it is possible at all. You can see the enormous amount of confusion in involved in this in history.

I should add that I do not think Christians have the right kind of understanding about what was going on with Jesus. However I do think they are right about the emphasis that they place on him.

I must have written about all this sometime in the past but I might as well repeat it just for information's sake.

Mainly after having studied the Ari {Isaac Luria} for a year or so in NY and then seeing and studying the writings of Reb Nachman the whole issue looks different to me than it does to Christians.
I never share my opinion because everyone is already set in their mind pro or con.
Son of Man is rather basic name for זעיר אנפין (Zeir Anpin the sephirah of Tiferet) and another possibility is it refers to יסוד יוסף (Sepherah of Foundation). There is no reason to assume anything more about it. Other people were considered to be unified with some sepherah of Aztilut (Emanation). For example, Avraham is considered to be unified with the sephirah of Kindness. And since the sephirot of Emanation are pure Godliness according to the Zohar thus all the seven shepards are one with G-d. [Avraham, Isaac, Yaakov, Moshe, Aaron, Joseph, David.][This however does not have anything to do with Divine Simplicity. God is not a composite and has no ingredients.] (Bava Sali said his son, Rav Meir Abuchatzeira,  was a soul of Emanation.)

[The sephirot of the lower worlds  the Zohar says are not Godliness.]






Picking wheat from standing sheaves that no longer need the soil is not forbidden on Shabat. Mixing ground also is not the same as kneading wheat--see the Rosh in Shabat. Washing hands before  a meal is according to the Gemara in Chulin a good thing. מים ראשונים מצווה מים אמצעים רשות מים אחרונים חובה. "First water is  a mitzvah, water in the middle of the meal is allowed, water after the meal is an obligation." Thus the idea that Jesus violated any mitzvah is not supported except by people that do not know the laws.


See the Recognitions and Homilies of Clement to see that Paul [code name Simon Magnus] was against Peter's and James's understanding of Jesus. And Paul's letters have become the consensus even though they are clearly not accurate, nor were they counted as Scripture by any of the early church fathers. (I do not remember the dates involved, but for anyone who wants this is easy to look up.)

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Bava Metzia 97B

Without the actual Gemara in front of me it is hard to write about this from memory. Still I think it is important to bring up the subject at least to remind myself and maybe others.

Tosphot in Bava Metzia brings up that famous phrase that I spilled tons of mega-bites on in my little booklet: "Even without Abyee, we have to say what Abyee said." That is,- that the law of Rav Yehuda in Bava Metzia 97b ברי עדיף (certainty is better) is of Shmuel. [In its own context in Ketuboth that means the law of Rav Yehuda comes from Shmuel. Eventually I settled on the idea that Tosphot means only it is the same law, not that it comes from Shmuel.]

The basic context in this: 

Two people come to court. One says you owe me 200 zuz and the other says I do not know. Rav Yehuda says "Certainty wins"

In Bava Kama פרה שנגח an ox gored a cow that was pregnant and its calf is found next to it. We do not know what happened. Did the calf die from the goring or not? If memory serves me I think the owners of the ox were not there but the owner of the cow was and he says it was because of the goring. Shmuel said המוציא החבירו עליו הראיה One who takes money from another needs proof.

In Ketuboth a woman  was found not be be virgin after she got married. She says she was raped  after Kidushin but before the Chupa so she gets the full ketubah. The husband says it happened before the kidushin. Raban Gamliel says we believe her and Shmuel said the law is like Raban Gamliel.

Abyee said the law of Rav Yehuda comes from Shmuel.

Tosphot says even without Abyee we have to say what Abyee is saying.

Tosphot before that said Shmuel in Bava Kama does not believe the owner of the cow because his certainty is weak. He knows the owner was not there and so is not in a position to deny the events. 

What I wanted to bring up about all this is the Tospot Rid (Isaiah from Trani) in Ketuboth 12b, He says the the events of Ketoboth and Bava Kama are almost identical. The certainty is weak and in both cases there is חזקת הגוף. חזקה מעיקראת חזקת בתולה וחזקת מעוברת
My question here is if the Tosphot Rid helps in any way to understand our Toshot in Bava Metzia 97?He is after all saying you can not learn from the case in Ketuboth because there is something different there. He does not say what is different. But perhaps what he means is that if we ignore all other factors and simply look at the plea of the woman who is certain perhaps that is what Abyee and Tosphot mean. ברי עדיף (certainty is better).
So what might be possible to say is that תוספות  means that even without אביי we look at the fact that ברי עדיף (certainty is better) is the case in כתובות. That is, that ברי עדיף (certainty is better) has some strength as a טענה and that is all that תוספות means here also. That even without אביי we should say the law of רב יהודה is derived from שמואל

What I mean is if we take the תוספות רי''ד into account then we have to say that ברי עדיף over there in כתובות is not because of a חזקה but rather has strength on its own merits. We have to say this because in בבא קמא there is also a חזקה. So there is something about the ברי in כתובות that helps even if we do not know what other factors are involved.

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I think what you have to do here is to look at תוספות נדה ב' ע''ב. There on the דף we have a מקווה that is lacking the ארבעים סאה volume. The גמרא uses חזקה דהשתא to push back חזקה מעיקרא but only with  a צירוף of another חזקה. On the page תוספות there says either one could push back the  time למפרע at least to make a doubt. Therefore in  כתובות we believe her even though the חזקה דהשתא pushes back the time frame to before the קידושין. Therefore she is believed only because of ברי עדיף. There are other cases where we do go by חזקה מעיקרא like in בבא מציעא ק' ע''א where the גמרא says let give the calf to מרא קמא but that is because there is no חזקה דהשתא working against it.
Also in בבא קמא the fact of the cow having חזקת מעוברת has against  it a חזקה דהשתא  so it makes sense to say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה since there is חזקת ממון  of the נתבע. Therefore , I think that our תוספות in בבא מציעא makes sense if we look at it in the light of תוספות in נדה  That is the law of רב יהודה comes from שמאול even if we do not look at חזקות

אני חושב מה שאתה צריך לעשות כאן הוא להסתכל על תוספות נדה ב' ע''ב. יש  יש לנו מקווה  שחסר הנפח של ארבעים סאה. הגמרא משתמשת עם חזקה דהשתא להדוף חזקה מעיקרא, אבל רק עם צירוף של עוד חזקה. בדף הזה תוספות אומרים אפילו אחת מן החזקות  יכולה להדוף את הזמן למפרע לפחות לעשות ספק. לכן בכתובות אנו מאמינים לה בגלל שחזקה דהשתא דוחפת בחזרה את מסגרת הזמן לפני הקידושין. לכן היא נאמנת רק בגלל ברי עדיף. ישנם מקרים אחרים שבהם אנחנו הולכים על ידי חזקה מעיקרא כמו בבא מציעא ק' ע''א שבו גמרא אומרת בואו לתת העגל למרא קמא אבל זה בגלל שאין חזקה דהשתא פועלת נגדה.גם בבא קמא בעובדה של הפרה יש חזקת מעוברת אבל יש נגדה חזקה דהשתא כך שזה הגיוני לומר המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה שכן יש חזקת ממון של נתבע. לכן, אני חושב שלנו תוספות שלנו בבבא מציעא צ''ז ע''ב הגיוני אם נסתכל על זה לאור תוספות בנדה. כך שהחוק של רב יהודה מגיע משמאול גם אם אנחנו לא מסתכלים חזקות.

California

California used to be different. My Dad was there at Cal Tech for his master's degree and then joined the Air Force, the USAF (i.e. WWII). After the war  he moved back to join  aerospace stuff going on there. The USA was way behind the Soviets in everything related to space including Star Wars (Strategic Defense Initiative, SDI). So my Dad was asked to create a kind of laser communication device between satellites so the Soviets could not eavesdrop on our communications like they could with radio waves. There was a lot of good stuff going on in those days. It was a magnet for talent. The problem is that once it was successful it became a magnet for the wrong types.  I knew some really talented people there and I think there still are some great things going on there in Stanford and Cal Tech.