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10.11.17

To me Communism is just a sophisticated way of stealing from the poor and giving to the rich while claiming to do the opposite as the history of Communism shows clearly.
The Left in the USA is predictable. They believe whatever weakens or hurts the USA or Christianity is good. They will come up with all kinds of sophisticated sounding slogans to make it seem intellectually respectable, but the bottom line is simple and predicable. Just new ways of theft and coveting that which is of their neighbor's.

The trouble with Islam

The trouble with Islam is the entire movement began as the enterprise of crazed robbers of caravans and ruthless killers and sexual perverts. In the USA there was  period in which getting back to one's roots was emphasized but this seems to have back fired.
Tolerance towards other religious faiths I think would not apply to a faith that makes the destruction of your home and property  and all all infidels as its major goal.

[The whole thing about tolerance is just overcooked. It is OK to be tolerant but there is a line that you can not allow to be stepped over.]

Of course the Sepharadim had to deal with this problem. As history shows the Jewish women in Arab lands were taken as sex slaves for Muslim men and this created a problem with DNA that shows up today. The way that pure blooded Sefardim [like Bava Sali and Shalom Sharabi] dealt with this problem was simple. They looked at the Rambam who says in Mishne Torah that who ever wants to keep Torah can do so. The door is open for all to keep God's Law. Therefore they never mentioned this problem since all people have free will, and whoever wants to be good can do so-- no matter what their genetic code says. Still, the problem  has resurfaced. Sefardim today are divided into two camps. Pro-Ashkenaz and Anti-Ashkenaz. And the Anti-Ashkenaz show all the violent tendencies of their Arab DNA.

The argument that race does not exist because it does not depend on just one gene is ridiculous.There is not one gene for eye sight. Eye sight is complicated operation that depends on many separate DNA molecules. Even so eye sight exists-- and it is genetically transmitted. For example trees do not have eye sight and therefore their offspring also do not have it.

[The whole thing about tolerance needs to be re-thought. It should not be a door that allows all behavior and refuses to recognize evil when it sees it..].

[There are another problems with John Locke's "blank slate" and empirical-ism as Dr Kelley Ross and Dr Michael Huemer have noticed. ]

9.11.17

In the writings of Reb Nachman.

תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים  is a phrase that comes up in the writings of Reb Nachman. It means literally "Torah scholars that are demons." In fact it does not seem to be hard to figure out what Reb Nachman meant by this because the idea of שד יהודי comes up in the Ari [Isaac Luria].
It is borrowed from the Zohar itself and the Ari goes into some detail about it. But the prominence that Reb Nachman places on this concept is unusual. The issue comes up very often in his major book and even in the last Torah lesson he ever said n his lifetime.
But the issue is more than meets the eye. The reason is that every Torah lesson of Reb Nachman is highly structured. And every lesson is a closed unit. I mean he intends every lesson to be able to be taken as a life guide. So only a very few basic הנהגות are mentioned in any given lesson. The idea is to have a small number of basic principles that one can walk in and be assured of coming to that which one must come to.

[In fact, this seems to have been a major concern of Reb Nachman--to find one or more simple basic practices that anyone could hold onto --and then be assured of coming to what he must come to.
For example התבודדות--speaking with God constantly in one's own language as one talks with a close friend.
So then why would this concept of  תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים play such a major role in  Reb Nachman's thought? I mean to say- apparently from what I can tell, he thought that avoiding Torah scholars that are demons is a prime directive so powerful that if one would just hold on to this one simple principle, then he would be assured of having a good portion in the next world.

I can tell that he was definitely hinting to a major  warning,  but it is hard to know what are the criteria involved. Who can really tell the good one from the bad ones? Surely Reb Nachman himself was aware of this problem.

Since no one can really tell the difference, the conclusion seems to be simple; to avoid all of them. That way one is safe, and does not have to worry about losing his or her portion in the next world because of associating with a Torah scholar who's a  demon. Better safe than sorry.

Apparently Reb Nachman was thinking along the lines of the Rambam who also did not want learning or teaching Torah to be a paid profession.

The Mordechei the friend of the Rosh and disciple of R Meir of Rotenburg brings up the issue of how is it possible to pay teachers of children after that the Gemara itself says מה אני בחינם אף אתם בחינם God says to the Jewish people: "Just as I taught you Torah for free, so must you teach Torah for free." I forget his answer.  But this is not the issue I want to raise here. The focus of Reb Nachman is not whether Torah scholars are paid or not. It is rather that some significant percentage of them are demons. That is to say they are not בטל ברוב nullified by the majority. That is even if you would say the majority are good people that does not nullify or cancel the effect of these bad ones.












8.11.17

The four fold lines of the Rambam/ Maimonides.


The four fold lines of the Rambam/ Maimonides. That is: (1) The Written Law [the Old Testament] (2) The Oral Law, that is Gemara, Rashi and Tosphot--mainly Tosphot.(3) Physics [up to and including String Theory] (4) Metaphysics (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel.)

The way to do this is simple. Guard the first hour when you get up in the morning for learning alone. That is a Half hour of Gemara and a half hour of Physics and Metaphysics. Just say the words and go on. What you do not understand in this world you will understand in the next world.
[As it says in Avoda Zara and also in Shabat לעלם לגרס אדם אף על גב דמשכח ואף על גב דלא ידע מאי קאמר]
"One should always learn fast [Derek girsa] even though he forgets and even though he does not know what he is saying."]

This brings to attachment with Absolute Spirit as the Rambam makes clear in the Guide.[The Rambam also says the same thing in the Mishne Torah but in such a way that people usually skip over it. That is in the Laws of Learning Torah where the Rambam quotes the Talmud that one should divide the period of one's learning into three parts: The written Law, the Oral Law and Gemara. Then he adds this significant phrase: "and in the category of the Gemara is Pardes" which he defined is the subjects he mentioned in the first four chapters of Mishna Torah.  ]

[When I mention Physics I should add the math needed in order to get to Physics. And that is mainly Topology,  Algebra, PDE, Lie Algebra and few other important things. ]

Education has been turned to Post Modernism

Education has been turned to Post Modernism in the USA and that results in the general Leftist turn in politics. This seems to indicate that a lot depends on how people are educated. Instead of classical education along with STEM, people were fed Leftist propaganda.
To me, this is just one more example of how important it is to educate people in quality things.

To me education ought to be mainly along the four fold lines of the Rambam/ Maimonides. That is: (1) The Written Law [the Old Testament] (2) The Oral Law, that is Gemara, Rashi and Tosphot--mainly Tosphot.(3) Physics [up to and including String Theory] (4) Metaphysics (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel.)

This program does not include any history or pseudo sciences or Shakespeare or any literature. These would all be considered a waste of time to the Rambam. And he specifically pointed out that history is a waste of time. And he was right. Who's history? For every single person today living in NYC there is a completely different history starting from this morning until this afternoon. Whose is more significant? Only the prophets were in a position to tell us the meaning behind the events. And their message was straightforward--all bad things that happen to people are because of worshiping any other being other than the First Cause, God.

[Even though Hegel was misused by the Left he still has valuable points. Even the Kant-Friesian School Dr Kelley Ross brings a point from Hegel in his doctoral thesis. The idea of background where all contractions are resolved.. Being and non Being.] 

7.11.17

I got excited by the major book of Isaac Blazzer, the Light of Israel which more or less is the definitive work of the Musar Movement. After reading it I got into Musar as much as possible.

In Proverbs there is  a list of great things that Wisdom promises to a person that holds onto it. But right before the list starts there is a mention about Fear of God. Proverbs 8:13. To me it seems that that whole list might be in fact referring to Fear of God. יראת השם היא חכמה  (לי עצה ותושייה וגו)' 

In any case the goal of coming to fear of God is  mainly unheard of except in the books of Reb Isaac Blazzer a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter. I got the idea from his book even though in the Torah itself it is pretty explicit: "Do the commandments so that you will come to Fear of God."

[I have to mention that there is a new book by Isaac Blazzer; one that came out recently that was never published before that consists of essays he wrote besides his famous book "The Light of Israel".]

I got excited  by the major book of Isaac Blazzer, the Light of Israel which more or less is the definitive work of the Musar Movement. After reading it I got into Musar as much as possible.

This still seems to me to be a great thing-- even though I have fallen from the ideals of Musar. That is to plow through by yourself the works of Mediaeval Ethics and the books of the disciple of Reb Israel Salanter.