Gemara Bava Batra 76-A

The Ri has a question on Rabainu Tam that to me seems hard to understand.
The Ri holds handing over is less powerful than pulling.  Rabainu Tam hold handing over is more powerful. [If R. Tam is right then handing over works in an alley.. But the Ri disagrees with that.]
The question of the Ri is based on the following Gemara.
A ship is acquired by pulling and letters by handing over. R.Natan agrees with the ship but with letters he needs to handover and write another document.
The Gemara asks that since the first opinion (the תנא קמא) goes like R. Yehuda Hanasi in letters why doe he not also say like R.Yehuda Hanasi by a ship?  For we learn that a Ship is acquired by handing over these are the words of Yehuda Hanasi. The sages said by pulling. The Gemara answers, "No problem. One is a public domain and the other an alley."
Abyee and Rava said: "Handing over works in a public domain, and pulling in a alley." Could it be there are going like R. Yehuda Hanasi instead of the sages? No. The sages agree in a public domain one acquires by handing over. But here they say one needs pulling because the owner said to the buyer to go acquire the ship by pulling.
The Ri askes if R.Tam would be right why does the Gemara answer the original question by saying one is in a public domain and the other in an alley? Why not say both are in an alley but the argument is if when the owner said go pull that the buyer must acquire by pulling, not handing over or not.

The question I have is this. The reason the Gemara said "one is  a public domain and the other an alley" is so that the opinion of the the תנא קמא of R.Natan would be the same as R. Yehuda Hanasi. That is it would be just one person saying both statements  a ship is acquired by pulling and a ship is acquired by handing over.  The Gemara was trying to get out of the idea that the first opinion the תנא קמא  would be different than R. Yehuda so saying we could say they disagreed would defeat the entire purpose.

U-59 D Minor

One has a certain amount of control on what groups to join. The general nature of those groups ought to be  a factor in such a decision.. Even if a group has nice sounding ideas, the thing to watch for is the general stereotype. If it is well known as having an over abundance of criminal types or insane people, then you ought to assume there is something behind that reputation.
[But if that is going to be the criterion of how to decide which group to join, that would leave relatively few groups that pass the test.]

[Litvak Yeshivas would probably be the top of the list in terms of good character. However this is not a fast and steady rule. My own  experience with Litvak yeshivas was mixed. In any case, there is a need to find and be part of a group that in fact has a bell curve above average in terms of traits like honesty dependability etc.]

When does the suggestion of a parent become a command that is included in כיבוד אב ואם {honor of one's father and mother}?

Is every suggestion to be included?

From Reb Naphtali Troup (חידושי הגרנ''ט) it certainly looks that when they give a command, that comes under the category of a מצוות עשה (positive command). But how far does this go?

One way of looking at this is by the בן סורר ומורה (the rebellious son) which is a subcategory of the general command of honor of one's parents.

Another way is to look at the events with Rav Masud Abuzeira and his eldest son Reb David. Rav David as a rule took honor of his parents very seriously but one day said a very slight word to his father lacking respect. He then went into exile for a month. But at any rate, from that event t is possible to learn that honor of one's parents is a very wide category to include not just things they say.

Even when parents are against things that are supposedly good things one ought to listen. They are against joining some group? Often groups present themselves as great things and parents might very well be right for being suspicious.

Exodus 23 has a few verses that look something like a mediator. That is to say some thing that does not look to be the way one usually understands Torah to be that one goes directly to G-d. There G-d says he will send an angel before Israel to guide them.And the verses go on beyond that to say one should not disobey the angel because G-d's name is in him.

Besides that I should mention there are many verses in Torah which are not exactly PC. Like the whole case of G-d wanting to kill Moses before he did circumcision on his son. The verses over there certainly do not look PC.

There are plenty of things in the Talmud also that are definitely not PC. Like the barber that gave the haircut to the king of Assyria that the Gemara says things about that do not seem very PC.

The way I generally deal with these kinds of issues is the idea of Kant-that reason  must not venture into the realm of the dinge an sich (things in themselves) as contradictions  inevitably follow.

[There were others who noticed this aspect of Kant and used it to defend faith. In particular you can see this in the Kant=Friesian school.]

To me it seems helpful that faith should be unconcerned with doctrines and more concerned with simply learning Torah and keeping it whether I understand it or not.
In any case, I should mention that non PC stuff comes up all the time in Torah and most of the time there seems to be no good explanation. 

decrees from the sages

There is a debate about decrees from the sages if once the reason for the decree has gone, if the decree itself is automatically null. This is an argument in the Gemara itself [Beiza page 5]. Tosphot takes it as a simple fact that the decree itself is null and so does the Raavad and most other rishonim.

The reason this is relevant is that for most decrees we know the reason for (as they are stated openly in the Gemara itself). In any case, the Rambam disagrees and hold the decree continues until another court of law can be convened to nullify the decree. However that is not the opinion of most Rishonim.

In fact, there is even a debate if there is any authority in the first place to make a decree which is not stated openly in the Torah, the  Law of Moses. This come up in the beginning of אבות דר' נתן which is a commentary on Tractate Avot by an Amora printed in the Vilna Shas at the end of Nezikim.

Besides that there is also the issue of ר' שמעון דורש טעמה דקרא {Shimon ben Yohai goes by the reason for the verse, not the letter of the law. This is actually how the Rambam decided in one place in Mishne Torah. In another place the Rambam decided like the sages that go by the letter of the law. The commentaries on the Rambam are at a loss how to deal with that, however the Avi Ezri answers the question quite well.] In any case I want to point out that Shimon ben Yohai is quite serious about going for the reason for  a verse as you can see in the case of a wealthy widow. He says a lender can take a pledge from her even though the verse openly says one can not do so. The reason is that he goes by the reason for the verse, not the letter of the law.

The Rambam does have an emphasis learning Physics and the Metaphysics. Learning דרך גירסא just saying the words and going on.

Even though the Rambam does have an emphasis learning Physics and the Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks, to me it seems better to learn these two subjects as they are understood today.
Even though the Rambam when he mentions this idea of learning these two things as understood by the ancient Greeks, and that learning these two things are included in what the sages said about מעשה מרכבה and מעשה בראשית [both brought down in the beginning of the book of the prophet יחזקאל Ezekiel], still the actual works of Aristotle on these two subjects look to be not as impressive as the Rambam must have thought they are.

The actual work on Physics of Aristotle seems to be a little antiquated. And besides that here I present a link to a criticism that resounds with sense.
Furthermore the actual Metaphysics of Aristotle also seems a bit antiquated. Not that the moderns have done much better. As for Metaphysics I have already mentioned my basic idea that Leonard Nelson got that basically right basing himself on Kant. [Outside of Nelson I think most of twentieth century Philosophy is unworthy to take up space in a trash can.] [Hegel has some very good points but does not seem all that logical or rigorous as some thought. Once you get past the jargon, it is hard to see much insight. In terms of political thought, I think the founding fathers of the USA were a lot more insightful--see the Federalist Papers.]

As for Physics, the best thing is to get up to String Theory which to me looks about as good as it gets.[That needs a little background in Quantum Field Theory--which in turn needs a drop of background about the harmonic oscillator.]

I ought to add that there is no reason to think the Gra disagreed with the Rambam in this.  His statement about the seven wisdoms shows this."To the degree that one lacks knowledge in the seven wisdom, he will lack knowledge in Torah a hundred fold."

My basic idea of how to do Physics is to say the words in order and no review until you have finished the entire book and then go back over the same book lots of times. This kind of learning is called "Girsa" and to me it makes a lot more sense than getting stuck on every detail and then getting frustrated and then dropping the whole thing. [See the Musar book אררחות צדיקים that goes into this in detail.]