סור מרע [turn way from evil] comes before עשה טוב [do good].

סור מרע [turn way from evil] comes before עשה טוב [do good]. The implication is that it is more important to identify actions to avoid, and only then to concentrate on figuring out what actions to hold onto.

I think this is probably not hard if one can think about his or her mistakes in life. If one can figure out what one's mistakes were, and then try to find the common denominator, that already gives a good idea of what kinds of actions one needs to avoid.


In my own life, I have found more or less a set of basic principles some of which came from my parents, some from the Mir in NY and Reb Shmuel Berenbaum. Some from Shar Yashuv. And others from experience. But they are like a ship and rudder and compass and other navigational aids in a stormy sea in which I really have no idea of what is coming.

Time exists.

I thought it was Kant who thought that  time only exists on the level of phenomenon, not dinge an sich? In any case, I recall vaguely that thefact that Nature violates  Bell's inequality shows that either locality is not true, or that things have no classical values until they interact with other things or are measured. Since locality is true as shown by GPS satellites, therefore things have no absolute values in space or time until they interact. But they have probabilistic values. That is the way I tend to look at this. But then if this is true, then time exists. Locality implies causes must come before effects.
I think also Dr Kelley Ross has an essay on time in which he mentions McTaggart.

[This was my thought after I saw an essay by Edward Fesser]


[I ought to mention that not just observation but also simple interaction with other stuff can cause a collapse of the wave function.]

the universe might be a stretched membrane

Just off hand it seems to me that the universe might be  a stretched membrane. It could be that that is what String Theory is saying anyway. But to me it occurred that if the universe is a stretched membrane, that is space time continuum, that would account for the form of some partial differential equations that describe physical phenomenon that have variable coefficients.

This you can see in the stretched membrane over a drum. The PDE's that occur also have variable coefficients. 

Learning what to avoid seems to be just as important as learning what to emphasize.

I think people have a general condition that precedes each  sin. And another kind of precondition that is necessary before they do some good. It is not the same for each person.
This may sound speculative but to a large degree this can be seen in large groups where some particular kind of evil exits.

Thinking in analogies always has a kind of danger.  We see this in Freud who took the analogy of  a steam engine and applied it to people with sublimation of energy and letting off steam etc.

Still this idea of a person having a particular kind of stumbling block seems accurate to me.

We see also  in good and great people that at some point they became aware of what areas they needed to concentrate on and what areas to avoid.


My thoughts on this are based somewhat on Thomas Reid, Hobhouse and also noticing in 2-d waves that every wave has a kind of equation in which there is a single coefficient for each terms.


So how can you tell  what particular areas you need to concentrate on on?

You might have noticed that certain saints concentrated on not speaking slander, or lies, and the Gra concentrated on learning Torah. Navardok on trust. It is hard to know the areas one is weak in and what are one's strong points.

I have tried to develop an approach based somewhat on my parents and on principles I gained from being in the Mir in NY and also experience.

Learning what to avoid seems to be just as important as learning what to emphasize.

I think the best approach to Israel is a combination of learning the Avi Ezri of Rav Shakh along with Physics and Math and a vocation. I mean to say that we can see that Israel is highly connected to the idea of Torah with Derek Ererz.[the way of the earth is the way matter acts by forces acting on it. This is the "hidden Torah" the Torah that is hidden in the world of Creation.]
Israel [as is well known from Rav Moshe ben Nahman [Nahmanides]] is very important. But there is a certain kind of combination of Torah along with the "way of the Earth" that staying in Israel seems to depend on..

[First blog entry in Israel]

I really do not mean just the Avi Ezri. Rather I am thinking of the whole approach starting with Reb Haim Solovietchik. That is basically the Litvak Yeshiva approach. However, I think along with that  one ought to go serve in the IDF and learn a vocation so as not to be using Torah as a mode of making cash which to be forbidden according to the Torah itself.

Still, in terms of learning and understanding Torah ,I think Rav Shakh's Avi Ezri is the best thing out there. [However it does require a certain amount of background in Gemara.]

In Torah, people are not gods nor become gods.

In the religious world there's a confusion of the boundary between the divine and the human that's common.  [For this reason it is important not to go anywhere near religious areas.] It is also  common in pagan religion.  The confusion of the divine and human realm is at the basis of the pagan belief in apotheosis -- humans becoming gods; perhaps after death for example becoming immortal, or very often  to  become gods.


In Torah, people are not gods nor become gods.

This is in itself a good reason to pay heed to the warnings of the Gra.

A second version of what Reb Israel Salanter started.

I suggest starting  Musar Movement 2.01. [Musar means books of Ethics of certain sages of the Middle Ages.] That is a second version of what Reb Israel Salanter had started. Even though in many Litvak Yeshivas, Musar is learned in two short sessions, I feel they are too short and also do not take into account the world view issues that those same sages had written on.

For example one well known Musar book is the שמנה פרקים of the Rambam on Pirkei Avot. But for some reason his Guide for the Perplexed and the Musar books of his son and grandchildren are not learned--and not considered a part of Musar.

But I am not thinking about what books people want to learn as the big issue. The big issue is this: the original Musar yeshivas were really into it. They really spent a great deal of time and effort on correcting their traits and coming to Fear of God. It was (24/7) 24 hour seven days a week project.


[I do not have an opinion about the different schools of thought however. They all seem worthy of respect. However I had a particular like for the Musar approach of Navardok  which emphasizes trust in God. Maybe the reason is that that is one area I am deficient in. ]

But even the very short time I was involved in learning Musar I must say it gave me encouragement  in great directions. Correcting my own traits, getting to Israel, personal prayer, speaking the truth. I must say the amount that I gained from it in that short time was immeasurable.

[I mean to say it gave me motivation to not make excuses. Thus when I saw the commandment to get to Israel I took it seriously. "Israel or Bust" was the idea. ]

Musar also has a close connection with Rav Joseph Karo. The best way to learn Rav Karo's books on law I have generally found to be to learn the actual Gemara that the law is based on. Without that it is hard to get any clear idea of what he is saying.

A good example comes up in חושן משפט [circa 155] where Rav Karo goes with the opinion of the Ri MiGash and the Rambam and Ramban that placing something that can cause damage to a neighbor's wall can put put on the borer before there is  a wall. But still this does not apply to היזק ריאה In terms of opening a window into a "חורבה" empty broken down building because of "maybe you will fight with me in court" . To see why both decisions are right you need to see the Gemara and Rav Shakh's Avi Ezri. Rav Shakh says that maybe you will fight with me in court is a good plea and a good reason to stop the fellow from opening a window because היזק ראיה already has a category of being a מזיק. But things that you can put next to a boundary when there is no wall do not have a category of being causes of damage until there is a wall built. Rav Shakh is saying that is the opinion of Rav Joseph Karo-. He suggest that Rav Karo derived this from the Ramban [M. Ben Nahman].
From that it looks like that to Rav Karo there would be חזקה for היזק ראיה. This actually came up once in my experience when one neighbor asked  another to put up a wall even though the area had been open for years. . But I guess that the expenses would be shared in that case.


But in any case without learning the Gemara, I think it is impossible to understand what is going on there.[Rav Shakh answers that היזק ראיה is already a היזק before the place is rebuilt.]