The basic way to blow the shofar is actually an argument. The Tekia is one long blast. the sevarim is three shorter ones that would fill up the tekia. The truah is 18 short ones that each set of three would fill up one of the three sevarim. But some say 9 short ones.(The Gemara itself is on the last two pages of Rosh Hashana and brought own by Rav Joseph Karo.)

Also the way to do the shevarim is the starting low and going high as brought in הגהות מיימוניות

It is rare to hear anyone doing this right. The best idea is to get your own shofar.

Concerning lashon hara [slander] some questions and one answer to an old question I heard at the Mir.

Ketuboth page 46 as brought in the Hafetz Haim says מוציא שם רע (One who brings a evil name on his bride.) (Note 1) gets lashes because of לא תלך רכיל (Thou shalt not go about as a tale bearer among your people.). I wonder why. Is not לאו שבכללות (a prohibition that includes more than one thing.)?(note 2) Also a לאו שאין בו מעשה (a prohibition that is not an act but rather a word.)? In my little booklet on Shas I remember I wrote something about לאו שבכללות (a prohibition that includes more than one thing) that also over there in Sanhedrin was not clear when you say it and when you don't.
The person that noticed that is my learning partner but I did mention his name because he said not to bring up his name

The gemara over there gives the exceptions and certainly lashon hara is not one of them!

I also wanted to mention that in the Mir Yeshiva in NY they asked about באפי תלתא this question: who is asking? One of the three! So just tell him not to spread the lashon hara any further and then there will not be three that are making it known. I think the Hafetz Haim himself meant to avoid this problem when he brings the idea that the whole permission of באפי תלתא does not apply if any one of the three are a ירא שמים

(Note 1 ) One who brings a evil name on his bride. He thinks she was not a virgin.
(Note 2) a prohibition that includes more than one thing does not get lashes. And לא תלך רכיל includes lashon hara and rekilut.

straight Torah

There is not enough awareness in the religious world that revelations can be products of the Sitra Achra [the dark side.] People assume that if they have some dreams or visions that they must come from the Realm of Holiness.  And they assume that about famous people also. For that reason I feel that the signature of the Gra on that letter of excommunication   is simply ignored way too much-because of this exact problem. But because it was ignored that gave the Sitra Achra an entry pass into the religious world. So nowadays it is almost impossible to find anywhere in the religious world that has not be taken over by the Dark Side.
[One basic issue that I think the Gra meant to bring up is that any object or even a person can be made an object of idol worship. And when that happens the object is forbidden to be used. It is clear to me that Rav Shach was also thinking along these lines.]



There is almost no longer any concept of what straight Torah means anymore.
 But if anyone would listen to me I would suggest to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach to get an idea of what straight unadulterated Torah from the real of Holiness really means.
[You can get this also from Rav Haim of Brisk's חידושי הרמב''ם also to some degree but I have found Rav Shach explains things a lot more simply an understandably.]

There are a few references to Aristotle in the Musar book Obligations of the Hearts חובות לבבות. Sometimes they are hidden inside hints. One such place is in the Gate of Wholehearted Devotion Towards God. פרק ה section five.There he warns that for people that are knowledgeable in Torah can be tricked by the evil inclination if they do not know Aristotelian Logic because the evil inclination can come and use faulty logic to try to mess up one's understanding of straight Torah.
This idea of the Obligations of the Hearts shows me how and why the religious world got so messed up. They use faulty logic to misinterpret Torah.

Now it is possible to see how important it is to learn Tosphot, and the books of Rav Haim Halevi from Brisk and Rav Shach in order to get to straight Torah.

The first place in the Obligations of the Heart חובות הלבבות  where he says to learn the Meta-Physics of Aristotle in in his introduction. [That would have been well known in Muslim Spain where Rav Behaye ben Joseph Ibn Pakuda was writing but also in Christian Spain where they had the basic works of Aristotle.

The problem of insanity and delusions

In relation to the idea I brought in the previous blog I should add that LM vol I: 25 [ליקוטי מוהר''ן חלק א' סימן כ''ה] [in Rav Nahman's book] deals with the problem of insanity and delusions and I feel it is good to say that section every day for people that are afflicted with these problems.


I think this works a lot better that the pseudo sciences that were created to supposedly help people out of delusions but in fact reinforce them.

What Freud did was to model the human mind on the pattern of the steam engine and to claim that taking about sex helps people out of their mental problems. [Plus the important idea of blaming people's parents for all their mental problems.] Thus he could make a lot of money by doing nothing helpful. And this fraud continues today as a multi billion dollar industry.

At least saying over that short Torah Lesson in Rav Nahman's book does not cost a billion dollars nor much time. And from what i can tell, it actually works. Plus doing what he says there as a cure for delusions--to give charity to good recipients. [Or as the Boy Scouts have it--to do a good deed every day.] [Charity means not to give to any institution but to people you know are deserving.]

Rav Isaac Luria , to find one's proper spouse.

In the Ari, [Rav Isaac Luria] there are intentions which refer to each month. That means for each month of the year different names of God shine forth and are revealed. The names for Elul are אלף הי יוד הי יוד הי יוד הי. [with vowels thus: Eh Le  Fe - He Ye- Ye We De- He Ye.  Yi Wi Di Hi Yi Wi Ei Yi Hi Yi. (The "i" here is to be said in a way that rhymes with "me". )

These names are usually called by their numerical value 161 and 63.

To intend these names, Rav Nahman says is a correction for sexual sin and also helps to find one's proper spouse.

While the four letter name of God is not allowed to be said and it is a terrible sin to say the four letter name, still I think these expansions are OK to utter or even to sing. That seems to be the approach of Rav Avraham Abulafia when he brings his unifications of the name 72

When I did not have my proper spouse, I said over the two parts of Rav Nahman's book that discusses to intentions of Elul every day [ל''ם חלק א' סימן ו' חלק ב' סימן פ''ז] (LM vol I:6 an vol II:87) plus the two sections of the Torah that he also said were good for that same purpose שירת הים וקרבנות הנשיאים [Song at the Red Sea and the Sacrifices of the Princes in Numbers].
That in fact helped me to find my proper spouse but only after I had been doing that daily for almost a year.



In the Ari also there happens to be a long section on the intentions of the Song at the Sea which I would have gone over every day if I had the time. But since my time was limited I simply said over those four things daily. [That did not start in Elul. In fact I think it was around Hanuka that I began that. I figured that not only could I not find my spouse, but also there seems to be obstacles places in that direction that were not natural. So I figured the whole subject needed some kind of spiritual correction.]

[This idea was based on the idea of finding in Rav Nahman's book the section that deals with one's particular problem and saying that section over every day.]

Genesis and the Big Bang

There is a book Genesis and the Big Bang which did a nice job of showing how Genesis and the Big Bang do not contradict. However I generally think of Genesis more in terms of how Rav Isaac Luria looked at it in which case it is not meant כפשוטו in the literal sense at all. [Most people think Genesis is meant literally but certainly not the Ari nor the Rambam. The Rambam said the whole thing is an allegory.And he used that specific word. It is not just not literal but also it is like Aesops stories. They do not refer to the things in the story at all. [No lion or a fox or a horse,  nor even the tortoise can talk — but through them children may learn the business of life.]

There is  on one hand certain difficulties with Genesis and the Big Bang, so I tend to think that the approach of the Ari makes more sense. [If you are well versed in Torah, the book looks great in physics but weak in Torah. If you are a physicist, the book looks great in Torah and weak in Physics. Still it has done a tremendous service in the task of reconciling Torah with Reason.]

Obviously the Ari [Rav Isaac Luria] is not saying the same thing as the Rambam, but in any case he understands the entire Torah in a mystical fashion. That mystical way of understanding the Torah is the Ari's פשוט פשט (simple and literal understanding of the text.)
In his view the literal sense refers to the sepherot of Creation, but I can imagine that there is a sense of the verses that applies in each of worlds of Emanation, Creation, Formation, and the Physical universe.  In fact , come to think of it, would it not be simpler to say the very first verses of genesis refer to the Condensation צמצום and then to God's saying "Let there be light", referring to the קו וחוט דאור אין סוף?