Reb Nachman however was a great tzadik and had some amazing insights. So, in spite of some people making some mistakes, it is still very worthwhile to listen to his great lessons. For example, what he suggested about constant private prayer with God, and his way of learning quickly. And his advice about length of days which come from fear of God, which I understand to refer to learning Musar.
Even when people make mistakes, still the simple belief in a true tzadik has great value in itself. 

 The Evil One never comes and tries to seduce a person by saying, "Come and do a sin".

Rather the Devil comes and asks a person, "Come and do a mitzvah."
[See the Gra at the beginning of Proverbs on the verse "זבחי שלמים עלי"]

The idea is that often  a person tries to convince himself that something he is doing is a mitzvah, when in fact he knows deep inside that it is no such thing.
.
 But this never happens with learning Torah.  The Devil never comes and tells a person, "Come and learn Torah."[The main approach of Navardok, Joseph Yozel a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter was Trust and Torah, i.e. to learn Torah and trust God would take care of everything else.]

It was a well known critique on the group the Gra out into excommunicattion until it became a saying: "Anything but Torah." "Abi nisht Torah." I actually heard people use this expression in Israel when they saw some people doing some kind of "shtick" (games).


What I suggest is two hours a day of Torah for everyone. One hour of in depth learning, and one hour of fast learning. If you have no idea of what Torah is about in the first place, the best thing is just to plow through the whole Old Testament in English and Hebrew and the Mishna  of Yehuda HaNasi.
[When I did the Mishna I used the Rav from Bartenura and that might be the best idea, but also I found the commentary of the Rambam to be short and sweet and I could make more progress that way. I should mention the Tisferet Israel is great but time consuming.] 


The main principle to keep in mind when coming to learn Torah is to avoid cults at all cost. Many groups will present themselves as teaching Torah, but it is only a facade to get you involved in their cult worship of their leader. Events similar to this are repeated ad nauseam in the history of 
Jewish cults"-a charismatic (in the generic sense) leader, claiming a special calling, and extraordinary powers, will, little by little, gain control over people’s hearts, minds, and (significantly) their property and family.

Better to join Hari Krishna's who do not lie about what they are doing. Or the Buddhists for that matter.

[The best way to get a good idea of what Torah is about is to take one Tosphot and to work on it until it becomes clear. By doing this you will have a good idea of what is going on in many other places in the Torah.]


What you ought to notice is that people that you encounter in a movement that have no taste, no trace of good character, and no Torah pretend to be tzadikim in order to get your money. And they use a good sounding motto to make what they are doing sound kosher. 

Breslov as a group is based on Reb Nathan's understanding of Reb Nachman. It tends to have great insanity problems. All the groups under the excommunication of the Gra tend to have a problem with demonic possession for some reason I have not understood. But obviously the Gra saw something that everyone else has missed. 


I have written about this before in some essays, most of which I deleted because I did not want people to think I was critical of Reb Nachman. Reb Nachman was a very great tzadik with a tremendous vision. Reb Natan however made a cult out of him, and wrote innumerable mistakes. For example: there are times he attacks the Rambam for things the Rambam never said. He attacks the ancient Greek philosophers for questions they asked, and then proceeds to use their answers!
A general observation is that Breslov is sex craved and mainly consists of lunatics which seems to indicate some kind of problem that is not readily obvious or observable. All the young breslovers come to Uman for sex while claiming it is for the mitzvah of being by Reb Nachman on Rosh Hashanah. It is an amazing scam. And the sad part is that these types of scams are part and parcel of it. Thus as a rule, I think the best thing is to follow the advice of the Gra. When he put his signature of the document of excommunication that was not the same thing as a שמתא (legal form of rebuke) but rather a חרם (a halachic category of excommunication) which is much more severe. And it applies to the entire world of of the religious today. Maybe in his days it was limited, but today the poison has spread through the entire religious world except for the few Authentic Litvak yeshivas (Ponovitch, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat, Mir in NY.)
[The general tendency of the cult that the Gra put into "Cherem" (excommunication) seems to be to take people away from sanity.]
Still research into the cherem will show that it did not apply to Reb Nachman. I would rather not dwell on this here but the books about the Cherem along with the original documents are available.

And I never saw or heard of any great rosh yeshiva or authentic Torah scholar that had a problem with Reb Nachman. It was always understood that Breslov is a problem, not Reb Nachman.
My own feeling about Reb Nachman is that he dared greatly. His vision of seeing the whole Torah along with the Ari Isaac Luria is as an organic whole and to show how it applies today is inspiring.
But is the exact opposite of Reb Nachman. What ever he said to do they do the opposite. Breslov uses Reb Nachman to trap and bait people's minds but in terms of conduct has nothing to do with Reb Nachman.

The problem is not Reb Nachman but the whole sick , insane religious world that makes a show of rituals to hide their uncleanliness in spirit and body.  Especially the so called teachers of Torah who are in general agents of the Satan. 

t38 F major edited  t38 in midi format

pseudo yeshivas.[The terrible sin of the religious is they make tremendous effort to show they are your friends when they need your money, but when in positions of power they do as much damage as possible to you]

Learning Torah is important but it is something that can not be relegated  to others. The trouble is that the religious world spends most of its time and efforts to try to get money out of Secular Jews because supposedly they are "learning Torah." Most of the time this is impossible to check up on because pseudo yeshivas are generally in Israel, but they do all their collecting in the USA.
In doing this, they do not often mention their own anti-Israel agenda and anti-Secular Jews agenda. They make a song and dance about  how, "We are all brothers." But when a secular Jew needs help, they always act in the most brotherly fashion possible. [That is the terrible sin of the religious is they make tremendous effort to show they are your friends when they need your money, but when in positions of power they do as much damage as possible to you]
The whole business is a terrible scam and all under the pretense of learning Torah. What a joke.
In doing this they blacken the name and reputation of Torah. For after all, the only reason people learn Torah is to learn how to be a "mensch." When they religious act in such disgusting ways, this reflects on the holy Torah.

The best advice is to learn Torah at home on your own, and forget about the pseudo institutions. 

[That is unless the institutions are legit, like Ponovitch, or the three NY yeshivas, Chaim Berlin Mir, Torah VeDaat]. In any case, any institution that is anti Israel, you can cross off your list of places to donate to. If they are against service in the IDF, all the more so. But also anything under the Cherem [excommunication] of the Gra also should be off the list.  And the main thing is, "No Compromise." 


I should mention my own approach to Torah is more or less based on my parents and the Rambam, which can be summed up in one word "balance." That is to try to have a balanced day, learning Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot,  Avi Ezri, Musar, Math, Music, Exercise, Survival Skills. 


We can go far astray often with practically disastrous consequences, (particularly in medicine and agriculture) when we haughtily ignore taxonomy (calling things by their right name), disregard the small but distinctive differences among real species and things, and falsely assume that all  looking basically alike, and coming from the same broad region, must be the "same" animal.

Rambam laws of pleas in court ch 6 law 3 and ch 7 law 8

I wanted to bring here a debate between different Rishonim and Achronim concerning two laws in the Rambam.

[Just for background I should mention the Keztos HaChohen and the Netivot belong to the category of achronim before Reb Chaim Soloveitchik--the class of achronim that I used to learn all the time.
That is my own education was more or less founded on Achronim starting from the Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua and onward down the line.] (Normal yeshiva education involves this class but also goes on to include Reb Chaim, and Rav Shach.)



I already mentioned the Rambam in in this case: two people come to court. One says you owe me 100. The other says "I never borrowed " Two witnesses comes and say person B borrowed and paid back the sum. The first collects because anyone who says ''I never  borrowed'' implies he never paid back
כל האומר לא לוויתי כאומר לא פרעתי דמי
The issue I wanted to bring out is if person B changed his mind before the two witnesses came, and he says: "I borrowed and paid".--And then the set of witnesses comes.
That is called מפטור לפטור in which case there is no doubt that he does not pay the 100. and the Ri Migash [the teacher of the Rambam and the father of the Rambam] said the reason is מיגו [he could have stuck with the original claim]. The Ketzot HaChoshen [on Chohen Mishpat] asks on the Ri Migash from a woman come to court and says, "I was married and now divorced." Then two witnesses say she was married. We do not believe her that she is divorced,-- until there is proof. He also asks from a document of  a loan that was not ratified by a court, and then the borrower says, "I borrowed but paid back," and the two witnesses come and say, "the document is valid."
In both these later cases the coming of the witnesses take away the strength of the statements of woman and the borrower, so why not in the first case also?


You can see right away what is bothering me. In our original case in the Rambam, the witnesses actually support everything  the borrower is saying, which they are not doing in the later cases. And this might be what Rav Shach is asking on the Ketzot but I have not had time to take  a close look at what he writes there.

I looked a second time and in short I think  Rav Shach is saying something like this:
We know the reason of the Ri Migash is not enough because of the questions of the Ketzot HaChoshen. That is clear. But what Rav Shach I think wants to do is to join the idea of the Netivot Hamishpat of ''לא דק'' the borrower was "not precise" along with the idea that   from לא היו דברים מעולם to לוויתי ופרעתי  is only a implication of  לא פרעתי but not a direct confession--because if it as a direct confession then we would not say he was not precise.
Rav Shach also requires the idea of the ketzot hachoshen in order for the answer of the ri migash to work. the answer of the ketzot on why does מפטור לפטור work even after witnesses have come was that there it is before גמר דין. The Ketzos is saying those cases when one can not change his plea from Ptur to ptur is after גמר דין. Rav Shach needs this for the Rambam to work because of a question a student in his yeshiva asked --that even if in our case in Bava Batra  the borrower said "i considred it like my father's" he should be believed because of a מיגו that he could have said "My fathers but it from your fathers."





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I already mentioned the רמב''ם in  this case two people come to court. One says you owe me מנה The other says "I never borrowed " Two witnesses comes and say the נטען  borrowed and paid back the sum. The first collects because anyone who says, ''I never  borrowed'' implies he never paid back
כל האומר לא לוויתי כאומר לא פרעתי דמי. The issue I wanted to bring out is if הנטען changed his mind before the two witnesses came, and he says: "I borrowed and paid", and then the set of witnesses comes. That is called מפטור לפטור in which case there is no doubt that he does not pay the מנה. and the ר''י מיגש said the reason is מיגו, he could have stuck with the original claim. The קצוות החושן asks on the ר''י מיגש from a woman come to court and says, "I was married and now divorced." Then two witnesses say she was married. We do not believe her that she is divorced,-- until there is proof. He also asks from a document of  a loan that was not ratified by a court, and then the borrower says, "I borrowed but paid back," and the two witnesses come and say, "the document is valid."
In both these later cases the coming of the witnesses take away the strength of the statements of woman and the borrower, so why not in the first case also? You can see right away what is bothering me. In our original case in the רמב''ם, the witnesses actually support everything  the borrower is saying, which they are not doing in the later cases. And this might be what רב שך is asking on the קצוות but I have not had time to take  a close look at what he writes there.


כבר הזכרתי את רמב''ם במקרה של שני אנשים מגיעים לבית המשפט. אחד אומר "אתה חייב לי מנה". השני אומר, "לא לוויתי". שני עדים מגיעים ואומרים "הנטען לווה ושילם את הסכום בחזרה."   הדין הוא מי שאומר, "לא לוויתי מעולם," שהוא לא שילם בחזרה. כל האומר לא לוויתי כאומר לא פרעתי דמי. בסוגיה הזו רציתי להביא את זה: אם הנטען שינה את דעתו לפני  ששני העדים באו, והוא אומר: "אני לוויתי ושלמתי", ולאחר מכן הסט של עדים מגיע. זה נקרא מפטור לפטור ובמקרה הזה אין ספק כי הנטען  לא  משלם את המנה. הר''י מיגש אמר שהסיבה היא מיגו, הוא יכול היה להחזיק עם הטענה המקורית. קצוות החושן שואל על הר''י מיגש מאישה שבאה לבית המשפט ואומרת, "הייתי נשואה ועכשיו גרושה." ואז שני עדים אומרים שהיא נשואה. אנחנו לא מאמינים לה כי היא גרושה,  עד שלא תהיה הוכחה. הוא גם שואל ממסמך של הלוואה שלא אושר על ידי בית משפט, ולאחר מכן הנטען אומר "לוויתי אבל שלמתי בחזרה," ואת שני העדים באים ואומרים, "המסמך תקף. בשני המקרים האלה ביאת העדים לוקחת את הכוח של טענות של האישה והלווה, אז למה לא במקרה הראשון גם? מה מציק לי? במקרה המקורי שלנו הרמב''ם, העדים למעשה תומכים  את הכל  שהלווה אומר ,מה שהם לא עושים במקרים המאוחרים.

n100 edited [E flat major]

n100 edited [E flat major] [n100 in midi format]   

This was left unfinished and I looked at it and was not sure what to do with it, but I figured the way Bach finished the 3rd Brandenburg was to make a straightforward recapitulation, so I thought maybe that would work here also.
[That is,-- Bach finishes the first movement with the same way he begins it--absolutely no change at all.]

n100 nwc

Is it a small world after all?

I should admit, I also absorbed the "It's a small world after all'' mentality until numerous attacks on me  by Muslims made it clear that they do not need any provocation to hate White Westerners. Their desire to murder White people  is either spontaneous, or just a bad habit that they pick up from  from their native environment. Their desire to rape  white girls, and murder Jews and Christians I think for them has a religious motivation based on the Koran (which certainly encourages these bad habits).  And people without religious motivations can not see or understand how intense religious motivations can be.

History brings the ideas or memes to light. It is the incubator which shows what was inside the original egg. It may have been in doubt what Islam was, but history shows its true essence in a way that book learning can never do.