A legal measure adopted by a later בית דין when the reason for the law is gone is well known to be the subject of a debate between the רמב''ם and ראב''ד. It stems from the כמרא in ביצה דף ה' ע''א.

The interesting thing about it is the רמב''ם in the introduction to the משנה תורה where he deals with a different issue about a local בית דין. There he brings down that no one has the authority to nullify a law of the גמרא. And we have in the  גמרא a set of rules how to decide any הלכה. In any case the רמב''ם had no doubt about that. But among ראשונים there are different opinions on which of those rules takes precedence. The odd thing בהלכות ממרים ב' הלכה ב' does not seem to refer to a בית דין  without the authentic סמיכה from Sinai which no longer exists . In the introduction he seems to refer to the kind of בית דין of three that can judge a very limited  set of things. So in משנה תורה why does he not go into the subject of a בית דין with no true סמיכה. Obviously because  as we can see he felt they had no authority to make  decrees.


 גזירות או תקנות שאומצו על ידי בית דין מאוחר יותר כאשר סיבת החוק היא בטלה, זה נושא לדיון בין רמב''ם וראב''ד. זה נובע מגמרא בביצת דף ה' ע''א . הדבר המעניין הוא הרמב''ם במבוא למשנה התורה, שם הוא עוסק בנושא אחר על בית הדין מקומי . שם הוא אומר כי לאף אחד אין  הסמכות לבטל חוק של הגמרא. ועל שבגמרא יש מערכת הכללים כיצד להחליט  הלכה. בכל מקרה לרמב''ם לא היה ספק בכך. אבל בין הראשונים יש דעות שונות על  כללים אלה. הדבר המוזר בהלכות ממרים ב' הלכה ב' לא נראה שהוא מתייחס לבית דין ללא  סמיכה אותנטי מסיני אשר אינו קיים עוד. בהקדמה למשנה תורה הוא מתייחס לסוג של  בית  דין של שלושה שיכולים לשפוט קבוצה מאוד מוגבלת של דברים.  ברור כי כפי שאנו רואים שהיתה להם סמכות לעשות גזירות רק  בזמן הגמרא

[That is the Rambam was dealing with  the issue of  local beit dins after the Talmud in the Introduction. There is openly refutes the idea of פוסק בתרא saying the later beit din can decide any way it sees. That is a different subject than the subject in Mishne Torah.]


So what you have in the Rambam are three relevant things. The first three Halachot in chapter two of law of ממרים, the introduction to Mishne Torah, the פירוש על המשנה in מסכת עדויות פרק א' משנה ה.
I see Rav Shach has an essay on this subject in the Avi Ezri.

In any case, it seems the main trust of the religious world is to be adding restrictions upon restrictions in such a way that no one can do anything. There is little attention paid to the fact of the Raavad and Tosphot holding that when the reason for the גזירה או תקנה is null then the law itself is null and void.
This applies through wide variety of laws where the reasons are in fact stated as in the case with most decrees.

The problem in the religious world is they relish in making up restrictions (that are neither from the Oral nor Written Law) that limit everyone but themselves. And the restrictions that do apply to them they always manage to find some way out of.
The religious world is really an epi phenomenon  of the Shatz. It is just a different kin of manifestation of the same evil spirit that in infected the Jewish religious world in circa 1668.\
The same spirit in different forms.

The Lechem Mishna asks on the Raavad what about the statement אין בית דין יכול לבטל דברי בית  דין אחר עד שיהיה גדול ממנו בחכמה ובמניין. One beit din can not  nullify the decision of another beit din until it is great in wisdom and numbers. To that Rav Shach answers that the way to understand the Raava is on his explanation  of the Mishna in עדויות א' משנה ה where it says מכיוון שהלכה כדברי המרובין למה כותבים דברי היחיד? Answer: in case a later beit din sees the words of the previous beit din and disagrees. If the later beit din depends on the words of the minority, that is OK.

The Rambam in the beginning of Mishna Torah and in that place in ממרים is saying roughly the same thing. That in terms of  פסק הלכה a later beit din is not obligated to go by a former beit din. That is Halacha 1. But when it comes to תקנות גזירות ומנהגים a later beit din can not disagree with a previous beit din unless it is greater in wisdom and numbers. However a law made as a סייג לתורה a later beit din can not nullify if it has expanded to all Israel. That is the basic law in the Rambam and it is also how Rav Shach understands him.

The way you see that this is how Rav Shach understands the Rambam is the fact that in עדויות he says the Rambam has to be talking about גזירות ותקנות. Why not understand the Rambam simply that he means a פסק הלכה? Because the Rambam ties it in with the idea that a later beit din can depend on a minority opinion if it has רוב חכמה ורוב מניין. We already know from משנה תורה the Rambam does not require a later beit to need more numbers and more wisdom when it comes to  פסק הלכה. So in עדויות he must means גזירות ותקנות
[That is in that Mishna ch 1 mishna 5 it says why write the minority opinion? The Rambam says there it means a later beit din can go with it even if it is a minority if it has רוב חכמה ורוב מניין]

I think Pesach is April 11 --This would be like Tosphot in Sanhedrin page 10b.

I think Pesach is April 11 [starting the night of April 10] since  there is no Beit Din to sanctify the new moon, and Hillel II never set up the present day calendar. It is the calendar of Meton from Athens not from Halacha LeMoshe MiSinai. It was adopted in the middle of the geonic period. Thus it makes sense to go by the Gemara in Sanhedrin  and the Mishna in Rosh Hashanah that when the Beit Din on earth do not sanctify it, the new moon is sanctified from heaven. 
The idea of April 11 is the the new moon was March 28 Universal Time in Greenwich at night time 2:57 AM. That is the night after Monday. That is the new moon was Monday night after midnight. So Tuesday March 28 was Rosh Hodesh. So next Monday night is the 15th of Nisan.

There is a kind of satanic element in the religious world

One of the reasons it is hard to come to Torah is that the people that set themselves up as teachers of Torah are extremely stupid and yet wear the religious clothing which is supposed to signify that they are smart and righteous. ["Torah scholars that are demons"  תלמידי חכמים שדיין יהודאיים as mentioned in the Zohar and the Ari.] The further trouble is they give each other credentials as if they are experts in anything but defrauding the public. But the damage they do is really infinite because naive people are taken in by their fraud. And it is almost impossible to be guarded from them because they are sneaky.  [I have learned that people can be stupid but sneaky. People can actually be clinically insane and still be sneaky.]
In normal times  the simple thing to do would be to stick with authentic Lithuanian yeshivas where no funny business is allowed.
But that no longer works because of sneaky people finding out they can use the camouflage of being a legitimate yeshiva.

Yeshivas were made because of the situation of the times by Reb Chaim from Volloshin. [Before that they had no independent status but were simply the local synagogue where the youth gathered to learn during the day until the time they got married.] But what was once made  because of time of need has become a scandal.
And then Reb Israel Salanter invented the idea of kollel, which also was a great thing at the time but now has become a nightmare. The best idea that I can see is to identify the authentic places like Ponovitch and the great NY yeshivas Chaim Berlin Torah VeDaat, Mir and simply throw out all the rest. Separate the good from the bad.
Are there any other authentic places? Maybe. [Los Angeles is a magnet for the worst of the worst. There is nothing of the religious community there that is not from the Satan. People there should stick with Reform or Conservative.
There is a kind of satanic element in the religious world in enticing naive secular Jews in and then  turning them in to human sacrifices on their idolatrous altars. No all are like that but certainly the group the Gra put into excommunication are.

Pigeons, it turns out, are highly superstitious. If you give them a few times food after some type of action they did, they almost immediately they learn to associate the coming of the food with that action. They will dance that same dance over and over again thinking that that is the action that caused the food to come.
To some degree this seems to be in accord with  what Rabbainu Yona says in Shaari Teshuva אין יסורים בלי עוון ''There are no troubles without sin.'' However as this train of thought goes on I will try to show there is a better approach.  But just for now I want to make a note that different people will emphasize one particular action just like the pigeons.
They will choose one particular action they will say that all of one's happiness in this world and the next depends on. שמירת הברית to Reb Nachman. Learning Torah to the Litvaks. Every cult will say it depends on service to their cult.
To some degree, I can agree with the Litvaks that a lot depends on learning Torah.
But the way I see things, a lot of these approaches promise much and deliver little.  Often they are consciousness traps to get one into some Sitra Achra cult.

To me it seems the Torah itself deals with this mentality. It says, "This is the mitzvah I have commanded to you when you enter the land God has promised to you, burn down and destroy all the places the nations have served idols in." In other words, don't worry about everything I have commanded. Just concentrate your focus on this one thing. Destroy the cults at all cost.
Causality while true tends to be too difficult to work with. There are too many factors to deal with. Physicists have found the Hamiltonian to be an easier method. That is to find the total energy of the system and find its minimum. The Lagrangian works better for Quantum Field theory where you look at the difference between the KE and potential energy and look for a maximum or minimum.
You look rather for the right balance of values. This explains a lot. It shows that even though the Litvaks are clearly right about learning Torah, my approach shows why it is of limited effect. While a good amount of exercise every day is good for your heath, that does not mean an insane amount of exercise is insanely good for your health.

Going beyond the point of  balance detracts from the Torah. Just like water is good for you but one can overdose. But I do not mean one can overdose on Torah. Rather I mean that when starts to use Torah for money that immediately turns it to poison.

But I would rather not concentrate on the Litvak world which is at least of the good side. It is highly disappointing to me that the Lithuanian yeshiva world is no where near as great as I would have hoped based on the fact they have most things rights in terms of world view. It is rather the aspect of the cult the Gra put into Cherem that is more of a problem because it apparently has a connection with the Dark Side that causes insanity to anyone that gets near. It is like  a fish hook. To the fish swallowing the worm on the hook, everything is fine. It is getting a free meal. And it is tasty. The trouble begins when it tries to break away. And the harder it tries to get away the worse things get.
That is the same with cults. Getting in is fun and exciting. The trouble is to break away means death.
My basic feeling is that I can not learn Torah and there is some kind of force from the Sitra Achra stopping me. And what makes it hard is internal and external. It is like the Sitra Achra plants its agents in the yeshiva world to make things hard for anyone that wants to learn Torah for ts own sake
I am not saying this is not my own fault. I fully believe if I had been steady to "remain in learning" that things would have worked out as we already know that real trust in God tears down all obstacles.

The basic structure of reality as we know from the Ari is the ten sepherot. But Rav Shalom Sharabi [from Yemen and then Jerusalem] showed how that boils down to five Partzufim [פרצופים] and from there down to three.

I had a few thoughts--but nothing really worked out.

Hegel's triadic (three fold) structure which he acknowledged came from Plato and obviously Kant. To me it is seems certain that to some degree he was inspired by Isaac Luria. [at least we know Hegel quoted the Ari and so he must have known about him to some degree.] 
To some degree it is possible to see the importance of the triads of Hegel by means of the Cantor set. In the Cantor set you keep taking out the middle third and if you go to infinity it turns out that the Lebesque measure intersection of all the subsets is zero. 

Which simply means if you take out the middle term you get no connection between the first and third.

trust in God

I know I have not been clear about trust in God. I am sorry about that but the ambiguity comes from experience. That is,-- the ambiguity of experience creates ambiguity in my thoughts. I am not even sure is there is any lesson that can be learned.
The major events were that I decided to go and learn Torah in NY somehow trusting that God would take care of "parnasa" [making a living]. And that attitude basically paid off with dividends until at some point it stopped (or more accurately I stopped trusting).  One way or the other the whole thing collapsed. So, while I agree in principle, I can also see it is a delicate principle. But it is a terrible mistake to associate trust in God with the religious world which puts on a facade of righteousness to bilk naive secular Jews out of their money. 
While trust in God is  a great thing, it is an error to think it has anything to do with kollel. Most kollel people are enemies of Torah and of Israel. They use Torah as a disguise. I have therefore tried to be very picky about which yeshivas to recommend which I believe learn Torah for its own sake

To get to Torah requires getting through the major obstacle--the pseudo religious world. As soon as one can get over the illusion that thy have anything to do with Torah at all, that is when one can begin to come to true Torah.
In terms of funding, I think it is the best approach to not punish the innocent with the guilty. Thus the vast majority of religious organizations which are scams should be cut off from all funding. Especially those in Israel. And the clearly honest places like Ponovitch  and the great NY yeshivas should continue to get even more funding. But with proper care taken to insure the good institutions, the rest of the 99% of the religiosity parasites and institutions should be cut off from all funding, private and government.
[Even though the pure Litvak Yeshivas that keep out all nonsense are pretty good, there are enough there also that are just playing games. As a rule the religious world has pitted itself against the State of Israel and thus should be thrown out. Getting the massive amounts of funding they get from the state is ridiculous. I never saw such insane hypocrisy in my life as this. And then they go to the USA to beg for charity from rich American Jews that they stab in the back if they dare to come to Israel.
[The good places are not just Ponovitch but also branches of Ponovitch. Same with the great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. Rav Montag's yeshiva in Netivot I think is also very good/

The major issue is to direct funding to the proper places that are doing good work and to cut off all funding to the cults that pretend to be learning Torah. That type of knowledge is hard to come by except by experience. The main guidelines should be whatever comes under the category of the חרם of the Gra should be eliminated. Nowadays appearance counts for ore than substance.  So these cults make a lot of effort to appear Torah'dik [of the Torah] while in fact being agents of the Devil.

You fun these cults in Israel or in the USA, you give them power to seduce ore and more innocent Jews into their insanity.
I should mention also the Merkaz HaRav of Rav Kook at teh general Mizrachi yeshivas which are very good. 

the decline in the Armed forces in the USA.

I have heard about the decline in the Armed forces in the USA. A lot of the trouble seems to be in the kind of people enlisting. But I have seen plenty of cause for optimism. One is the election of Trump. Another is the fact that there still are good people in the armed forces. Not everyone has been affected.

In Israel, also I see good reason to support the armed forces. 

Mainly the idea comes from Hegel-that not every state deserves support. But some do. Those that maximize human freedom.
This is roughly based on Howard Bloom and his book on the super-organism and the social meme.[The Lucifer Principle]
That is Hegel saw the importance of the State, but not every state. Only the ones that are committed towards what he considered to be true justice. And justice in Hegel is not ill defined. It means a maximum of freedom within the limits of responsibility and moral law.

This is more or less of what Richard Epstein (in law at NYU) means with his limited kind of government. [Though he would not put it in terms of Hegel. And he is in any case not looking for philosophical justification for his limited government approach anyway. But that ignoring of the philosophical issue seems to  me to be  a weakness in his thought rather than a strength