Psychiatrists. they are intent on psychologizing the men they attacks: they deal not with what they say and do but with their alleged motives.

the-liars-liar

Psychiatrists.  Dr. Frances The person in charge of creating DSM-IV

Long after the DSM-IV had been put into print, Dr. Frances talked to Wired’s Greenberg and said the following:

“There is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.”

BANG.

That’s on the order of the designer of the Hindenburg, looking at the burned rubble on the ground, remarking, “Well, I knew there would be a problem.”



This is doubly serious because they are intent on psychologizing the men thet attacks: they deal not  with what they say and do  but  with their alleged motives.

The way I calculate the Hebrew Calendar is not the same as the traditional method.

The way I calculate the Hebrew Calendar is not the same as the traditional method. To  my way of thinking the first day of the month is on what is called the Molad which is when the sun and moon are on the same longitude.  The basic issue really comes from the Gemara in Sanhedrin 10 and Rosh Hashanah around page 19 which seem to be  differing approaches (סוגיות חלוקות). I do not have a lot to say about this because the time I did this subject with my learning partner  I was not taking notes. I believe the chronological order was- we worked on the long Tosphot in Sanhedrin 10b very  thoroughly, and then the subject in Rosh Hashanah, and then we went to Bava Metzia.
[I apologize to the Jewish people for not taking notes at the time which would have been interesting as a very great learner was my learning partner.]  

Maybe a long essay here would be in order, but it would just be going through the basic subject with no new ideas.

Mainly, the idea is that there is no Sanhedrin to sanctify the new moon, and no record of Hillel the second doing so. So it makes sense to go with the Gemara in Sanhedrin that goes with the idea that when there is no beit din on earth to sanctify the new moon then from heaven it is sanctified. When is that? To the first opinion in Tosphot it is the Molad. But the other opinion that Tosphot defends is that it depends on when the new moon can be seen, which is hard to tell and there are no set rules for that.

The proof that the present day calendar was not in use during the time of the geonim is there are dates in their letters that are not according to the present day calendar. 

I admit, that if there would be authentic ordination סמיכה, then obviously we would go with the Sanhedrin. But there is no Sanhedrin, and you can not make up ordination that is not from Sinai out of thin air and pretend it is real. At that rate, why not just make up your own Rosh Hashanah also. If you want to ignore Torah Law, then, hey, go for it. But if it is Torah law we are interested in, then there is no Semicha and no authority to sanctify the new moon. So we have to go with R. Eleazar ben Azariah and the Gemara in Sanhedrin 10B.

I sadly have no Gemara to look up anything but from what I recall there is never a problem about the leap year because [if memory serves] all you need to Passover to occur in the Spring. [Certainly if you needed the beginning of Nisan to be in Spring, that would cause problems. But from what I know you only need either the 16th or 17th day of the month to be in Spring according to the Jerusalem Talmud. So Passover in fact always falls in the same month everyone else is doing it. The only difference is it will usually be one or two days before everyone else. ]

As Hegel pointed out, the other answers of the German Idealists were not very good, and some were simply nonsense.

I should mention that I prefer Neo Platonic thought myself as that looks to me to be the closest to reality. Not Plato alone nor Aristotle alone. Dr. Kelley Ross definitively goes in the Kant-Plato direction. But most of the great thinkers in history that form the basis of Western Civilization go with the Neo Platonic approach.

To Plotinus, Reason can perceive the forms, not just know them from some kind of implanted knowledge.

In any case, my own viewpoint in this direction I should admit was very much influenced by Rav Isaac Luria. When I was in the Mir in NY I spent a great deal of time between Gemara sessions in learning his Tree of Life [עץ חיים] which is thoroughly Neo Platonic. [The Tree of Life [עץ חיים] was actually written by Reb Haim Vital, but it is the teachings of the Ari.] [The Reshash/ Rav Shalom Sharaby I learned only later.] 
[The רש''ש Shalom Sharaby  made an important move back to Aristotle in saying in putting the order of the world horizontally in the time of תחיית המתים revival of the dead. That means saying the universals depend on particulars.]




 But Reality is also radically objective,--  the Schrodinger equation  is about as objective a law as anything that has ever existed as Dr. Kelley Ross wrote to me. In any case, the contradiction between reality being radically subjective and radically objective is exactly the type of thing that Hegel would have thought validates his system.

[I also want to add that to come up with the kind of Neo Platonic thought that is in the Rambam, the Ari, and Aquinas and Hegel is by no means a trivial feat. If you think that with simple faith in the Holy Torah and in Reason, you would have come up with this synthesis on your own then take a look at Hippolytus and see how hard it was to reconcile reason and faith and how radically different Plato is from the Neo Platonic synthesis of the Rambam.]


(note 1) The electron has no one value [energy or time, momentum or position in space] but rather a superposition of possible values until it is measured. This is proved by the fact that Nature violates Bell's inequality.
[Feynman makes the point even more clear with his path integral approach.] 


As I put this elsewhere: We know from Einstein locality (causality). This we know by GPS (global positioning satellite). And we know from Bell either that reality is subjective, or non local (one or the other but not both). But we already know from Albert Einstein, that reality is local. Therefore putting 2+2=4 together we know reality is local and subjective (the electron or photon is a superposition of possible values in space time and polarization until measured. At that time the wave function collapses to one space time value.)
I also should mention that we might have known this from the two slit experiment, but there might have been ways to explain that away. So it is in fact that Nature violates the Bell's inequality that proves the point.

Plotinus. Neo Platonic thought is the basis for Western Civilization

Avraham Rosenblum says:

Some aspects of Western Civilization are worth preserving and others not. A good deal of the literature and philosophy is worthless. Allen Bloom suggested just throwing out the entire Humanities and Social studies departments of most universities.

• JPW says:

  If you really are down on certain aspects of Western Culture, I strongly encourage you to go forth and develop a better one. Don’t gripe about the problem. Solve it.
  • Avraham Rosenblum: That is a hard challenge –especially after the greatest minds in history have worked on the problem before me.
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  • Brett Stevens says:

    Maybe there is something they have expressed that overlaps, which we have overlooked? Do you think that Platonism (not neo-Platonism) is the basis of Judeo-Christian metaphysical thought?
  • Avraham Rosenblum says:

    That is what I was thinking. But I tend more towards Neo-Platonic as did all the medieval thinkers and up to and including Hegel. Dr. Kelley Ross wants to return to a more pure form of Plato and Kant. But the basis of Western Civilization to me looks to be Plotinus and neo Platonic thought. And the the journal of Medieval Thought from Cornell they mention that even in Aquinas people have proven Neo Platonic influence.     
  • After Thought: The Ari, Shalom Sharabi, Yaakov Abuchatzaira, the Rambam are all clearly straight forward Neo Platonic thought--each one developing it in different directions. Shalom Sharabi in his scheme of things found a way to balance Plato and Aristotle as you can see in his order of the worlds after תחיית המתים which goes like Aristotle in which the universals depend on the particulars.
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the Jewish religious world is that of the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side).

The major problem I see in the Jewish religious world is that of the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side).
That is to say that when people thirst for the spirit of God that is in itself not a bad thing. And I agree there is  a  mystic side to Torah as we see in the Gra and the Ari. Still this thirst for spirituality is hijacked to draw people into the Sitra Achra- to the degree that if there is any part of the religious world that is genuinely kosher I would be surprised. 

Still the side of attachment with God in the Torah is difficult to ignore. But it mainly seems to be connected with a pretty well defined path--that of learning Gemara with great intensity until one knows Shas pretty well and then delving into the writings of the Ari. When this is done right as in rare cases, it does open up a door of attachment and dekekut with God (as with Bava Sali). But as a rule the spiritual thirst seems to just get people involved in the Sitra Achra. It is kind of sad to see.

To the religious world, the main thing is to be religious, but not too religious so that the money keeps flowing from the plebeians to them. 
Obviously Reb Israel Salanter and the Gra saw this problem and suggested what I have to admit is probably the best solution to learn Musar Medieaval Ethics.That is the classical Musar Sefarim of the Middle Ages, and to learn Straight Authentic Torah.

In any case the arguments that forbid electricity on Shabat or cooking with electricity are amazingly flimsy and concocted out of thin air.

I just wanted to jot down a few ideas about electricity on Shabat--not a formal essay that I would have liked to have done.
Mainly the issue really boils down the the Gemara in Shabat chapter 3 about cooking with תולדות חמה or in חמי טבריה. [Heat generated by some derivative of solar energy, not fire]. The relevant sources are the Chazon Ish, and  the book of one of his disciples that disagreed with the Chazon Ish, and the Gemaras from where the Chazon Ish derives his law from. They are the gemaras about putting a bed or a candelabra that are made out of parts together. I was back at the Mir in NY for a sort time and looked at the Chazon Ish and was impressed. I then asked Rav Nelkenbaum about it and he said an אדם גדול told him the essay of the Chazon Ish on this subject is simply and plainly wrong.

That is the sum total of the relevant information I have about this subject. The only thing I might add is the argument between the Rambam and Raavad about a vessel that needs to be put together to be operative in laws of טומאה וטהרה but after thinking that over I did not think it was relevant. In any case the arguments that forbid electricity on Shabat or cooking with electricity are amazingly flimsy and concocted out of  thin air. 
As they say in Israel "If you want to be frum, (extra strict) then do it on your own חשבון (expense). Do not force it down the throats of others."

I was unaware of what was going on in the Christian world for a long time. It only occurred to me to notice something going on with what is known as Pentecostal. I imagine because I tend to look more at doctrinal difference between groups that I  was scarcely aware of their existence. Part of this is really not from lack of awareness, but more from the fact that Pentecostal people and groups do not like the name and so go by the more mild sounding "Evangelical."  It only occurred to me recently what really makes them different from every other group. It is the Pentecostal experience. This is way beyond what it sounds like. To them this is the one and only thing that separates a real christian from a fake.
I really only became aware of this after reading a Catholic critique on it.
I really can not tell exactly what they are thinking however from personal experience.

I was pretty solidly into the Torah point of view when I got to Israel, and when the Divine Light started shining, I thought little of it,  and thought it was just the common experience of everyone in Israel. To me experience of the Divine Light is nothing more or less that fulfilling the verse in Deuteronomy 11: 22 ''to be attached to God'' which is one of the 613  commandments.
At any rate, what I wanted to say today was simply this: To me it seems so hard to get to be a decent human being because people are basically depraved and vicious beyond belief. So in my mind, anything that people do to come to gain good character is praiseworthy. 

In other words my viewpoint is the good character is the center of gravity of the Torah. [Based on the אור צפון, the רש''ש Shalom Sharabi,  the Hafetz Chaim, and Rav Yerucham of the Mir in Europe.] So to my point of view, what ever it takes for anyone to come to good character is a good thing.

That is to say besides that people are depraved, I see most groups and especially most religious groups as adding to their inborn depravity a thousand fold. So anything at all on the side of getting people to be a little more honest, to lie a little less, to have a little more compassion on others, is already a great thing and a rare thing. For most groups encourage just the opposite under nice sounding slogans