To get out of "they".--Heidegger

Heidegger for some reason gets classified with the existentialists --and Kierkegaard also. But I think that is unfair. Neither deny that Reason perceives universals and moral values and laws of nature. Rather they both focused on the need of the individual to find his own way. To find the Dasein authentic Being inside of his and the bring that into reality. That is how Heidegger understands the call of conscious. To get out of "they" and to get Being itself to come into the light--from potential into actuality.

But how or why both got to be put together with post modern philosophy is beyond me.

I can not really recall what I was thinking at the time I went to Shar Yashuv and the Mir Yeshiva in NY, but I think that what motivated me was this exact issue. the way of "being" in the world.

I mean I had a rational point of view so eastern religions did not grab me as much as others. Most people that were searching for the meaning of life went into eastern groups. But that did not appeal to me. My side reading in high school was Plato, Dante, etc. More of less things that held reason can penetrate into the truth of things, So to me a Lithuanian type of Yeshiva seemed to best idea how to get in touch with reality.
To answer the call of Being.
Though I admit that if I had known about the way of learning of Girsa [Rav Nahman's idea of just saying the words and going on]--I might anyway have gone into Physics as my original intention was.
For I recognized something great in my dad and his career in the aerospace industry. But without any kind of method of learning that would work for me, I had no way i knew of how to get into it..]

In laws of buying and selling 22: 15 and 22:16 the Rambam brings that a person that  a person who says a calf that will be born from his cow is sanctified for the Temple is required to fulfill his words even though holiness does not come on the calf since it is considered a thing that has not yet come into the world. Then he says about one dying that if he says the fruit that his tree will bring forth is to go to the poor that the people that inherit his money must fulfill his words. Rav Yoseph Karo asks on this that they are not required to fulfill his vow.
Rav Shach answers [based on a certain Tosphot] that obligations on one's body imply obligation on one's property. This was an issue that came up in my book on Bava Metzia but I was not aware at the time that Rav Shach had written anything on this.

I would try to add a note now but as I mentioned I can not do any writing of music nor ideas in Torah unless I get my old computer back or get a new one. Anyway I am very happy I am not in prison--because there also I think I would not be writing much music or ideas in Torah


The actual answer that David Bronson said in Bava Metzia was a little different than Rav Shach but it was related. The idea there was that there is a certain amount of obligation that is implied when one agrees to lend or to rent one's property to another. But David also there in Bava Metzia did not like the idea of the Netivot HaMishpat that the difference between lending and object and renting it is the difference between obligation on one's body and obligation on one's property. And that certain goes along with Rav Shach.

In any case Rav Shach was not coming to answer the problems in Bava Metzia so anyway I think we need to depend on the answer of David Bronson as I wrote over there.


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For some reason in the Litvak study hall my book on Bava Metzia is still around and being looked at but not the one on Shas. I gave both to the Rav there and he left one out on the table. So why not the one on Shas? I think because I might have gone into law issues too much for his taste. So I am thinking if I want to write about law, it ought to be in a separate book, not the one on Shas.

a nice answer that Rav Shach gives for the Rambam in laws of selling

I have not had time to go into this in detail but I wanted to mention a nice answer that Rav Shach gives for the Rambam in laws of selling. This question has some answer from R Akiva Eiger and a different one from R Haim Soloveitchik.
The question is one can not sell something that is not in one's domain even though he owns it. --That is if he can not get to it then he can not sell it. But in terms of the shemita [seventh] year the Rambam brings that people that had נטע רבעי a tree that had grown for only 4 years, left money in a private area and said "If the fruit of this tree is picked  then its holiness is put onto this money." In that way, the people that picked it by accident would not be doing anything wrong by eating it -- since its holiness was transferred elsewhere.

Rav Shach answers for the Rambam that there is a difference between transferring ownership and causing holiness to settle on something.

The Rashba wanted to say something similar in the Gemara but somehow that idea Rav Shach noted does not fit well with the Gemara in Bava Metzia where the Rashba wanted to use this idea. But it very well might help for the Rambam. I however have not been able to investigate this issue very thoroughly yet.

Does the very act of sex makes a woman a wife?

A Catholic blogger held that in the Torah the very act of sex makes a woman, the wife of the man.[That might have been the Zippy Catholic].

If you look at the verses in Deuteronomy it is hard to argue with him. But In Exodus we find that if one seduces a virgin and the father refuses to give her in marriage, then he simply has to pay the regular 200 zuz. This seems to go directly against what the Zippy Catholic was saying. So that is a good proof that marriage can only happen in front of two witnesses and with intention to marry as the Gemara says.

However there is a point about what he is saying in Deuteronomy that goes along with Rav Isaac Luria that אין אישה כורתת ברית אלא עם מי שעשהה כליץ A woman makes a covenant only with him that made her into a vessel. Or as the Ari explains the first act of sex leaves a spirit inside of her forever.
So not in a legal sense but in a spiritual sense what the Zippy Catholic said makes sense.

Heidegger and Kierkegaard

Heidegger and Kierkegaard make a point that philosophy became too interested in  what faculties people  have in common. How the Mind works? How do we know a priori knowledge? But what is really interesting is not what a great saint and an evil criminal have in common, but rather what makes them different?


The answer is to Heidegger--Dasein. Being. That is there is something inside the great saint that strives to be revealed--to come out from darkness into the light. That is not the same as Kierkegaard who focused on how one is. To Heidegger what is essential is "who one is", not what one is or how one is.

The insight that this gives to me is that it helps me understand a bit of my decisions in life. I think I was not at all interested in the secular life style. Something in the Shar Yashuv yeshiva resonated with me.--the idea of sitting and learning Torah a way--as the way--of serving God.

This still resonates inside-but the actual religious world for some reason seems to have gotten out of sync with authentic Torah.

I am still trying to get back into authentic Torah by learning Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. But this goes only with great difficulty. Once I left the authentic Torah world of the Litvak's  it seems impossible to get back in.

USA system

One person who has a link to my blog said a few years ago that the USA system was indebted to John Calvin --in terms of representative government. In Geneva Calvin had set up representative government. There was a large group (200) that was voted in directly and they voted for two smaller consuls(60 and 20). But I am wondering was there not already a House of Commons in England?

In fact I have been looking at the government of England during the period from 1688 --the glorious revolution -and it seems to me the entire English system was more or less simply transplanted into the USA Constitution.--with some significant differences--for example separation of church and state.


[The fellow that links to my blog might have been thinking that the House of Commons was not actually elected when it first started in the 1200's. And I am not sure when it got to be elected. But with John Calvin we know the consul of 600 was elected by every church member in Geneva..

Rav Nahman of Breslov

There are a few things Rav Nahman of Breslov said that I think are related to how one goes about learning. He said them as general principles in life but to me they seem to apply very much to the way he said to learn-. That is to say the words fast and go on.

For example he said one does not need "hard services." That is to make things hard. 

Also he said as אין להתעקש על שום דבר--not to be stubborn about anything in the world.

The way this applies to learning seem to me to be that one should learn learn simply by saying the words and go on and not be overly concerned if you understand everything.



The way i do this is even with the Avi Ezri I just go over the whole piece one day and the next time I can get to the study hall to so the same thing again.
But I ought to add that my learning partner learns in that slow and tedious way, and it seems by that he comes to great insights that I do not get to.