"Immediate non intuitive knowledge."

Rav Nahman praises faith a lot in his magnum opus. [His main work]. But at some point I had a crisis in faith realizing a great deal of problems in Torah. There were some problems that I could answer by reference to the Ari/ Isaac Luria. But the need to answer too many questions was troubling. I discovered on the Internet a letter called a letter of an Apikoros which raised some of the issues.
Then a few days later I was looking for information on Spinoza, and discovered on the web site of Kelley Ross the idea of "Immediate non intuitive knowledge." [What one knows not by the senses and not through thinking or through anything.] This is the Kant school of thought that was specific to Leonard Nelson.
That helped solve a lot of my difficulties. But it was more than the fact of my own faith that I wanted to defend or at least justify to myself. There was also my own experience of attachment with God that I had had in Safed that I knew was not by sense perception nor by reason

What makes it interesting in particular is the fact that David Hilbert was very supportive of Nelson. The fact is the the beginning of that approach was Fries,- and in an similar way we find that Gauss was very positive about Fries. However the Fries approach was just the beginning. Nelson is a lot more rigorous.
Just because it helped answer a lot of my questions does not make it right; however it does look right to me except my quibble that reason does not know immediate non intuitive stuff; rather it recognizes it.
The basic reason this school of thought of Leonard Nelson makes the most sense to me is hard to explain. I think the reason is that it answers most difficulties in the best way that I can see.
[The problems raised by earlier philosophers that do not seem well answered by them or by any others, seem best answered either by Nelson himself, or Kelley Ross. If I would be thinking more about this issues nowadays maybe I would go into this in detail. But now I am just not worrying that much about world view issues. If I would be I would go through Kant and Nelson in German. But once I got their basic idea, I do not concern myself with it much more.]
Most philosophers have some really great important point but then it gets obscured by the tremendous amount of nonsense they write after   that.

Mainly my reasoning is this: the Middle Ages were best at logical thinking, but the axioms were not very strong. Later on people were more creative but fell into circular reasoning. Hume and all the others. Steven Dutch made a whole long study on Hume showing this. Locke also has circle reasoning, besides the fact that pure empirical has strong counter examples.  Spinoza has a one problem of an\ prime axiom that seems untrue. But as Reid noted they all made some progress. Kant was pretty good but probably Reid was better. But Thomas Reid still does not answer the questions. That seems to have been left to Leonard Nelson based by the insight of Fries.  Much of 20th century philosophy is beyond despair. So after Nelson, I just can not see any further improvements.
[So the best people to learn (in terms of philosophy) I would say would be Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Reid, Kant and Leonard Nelson.]




Some of the most obvious questions that people have on the Torah have not seemed to me to be any problem. The reason is that I started learning the writings of  Rav Isaac Luria in my 20's and that gave me a different kind of orientation. I mean to saw if you look at Rav Luria you will see the literal explanation of the verses is nothing like what most people mean by literal explanation.

The Gaon of Villna

The Gaon of Villna [the Gra] said the ten  sections (פרשיות) of the book of Deuteronomy are parallel to the 1000 year period starting from 1240 until 2240. That is called the אלף הששי the sixth thousand year year. That puts the 100 year period of כי תבוא in 1940. So it comes out that the Holocaust would have started in 1939 corresponding to the last section of  that section of the Torah--the section of curses.

It also come out that the thousand years before that were parallel to the book of Numbers. And the thousand years before that parallel to the book of Leviticus. So Leviticus would have ended around 240. Then two sections before that would have been in 40 AD. That would correspond to the curses in Leviticus and that comes out to be the exact time of the destruction of the second Temple.
  [There are only two sections of curses in the Torah and it is remarkable that both come out on the exact dates of tragedies. The Holocaust in particular.]
  You can learn a few more things from that insight of the Gra. For example the verse in כי תצא where he said his name is hinted at: אבן שלמה יהיה לך Eliyahu ben Shelomo. What you can learn from that is the full verse "Perfect weights and  a perfect measure should be to you so that you will have length of days." Meaning if you stick with the teachings of the Gra, you will have length of days.
The basic teachings of the Gra are actually simple. Learn Torah and trust in God.

Sihon who was conquered by Moses was the king of the Emorites.

Sihon who was conquered by Moses was the king of the Emorites. That means his area was part of the region promised to Israel--the region of seven Canaanite nations. So why was it considered חוץ לארץ? [Outside of the promised land?]
Now on one hand it is true that the borders of Israel are defined and the Jordan river is one of them. So from that aspect that region is outside of Israel. Still it seems odd. This is not a "kashe" a question. It is more like a comment about an odd fact.

My own feeling about philosophy is that I gained the most by learning Musar [Medieval Ethics]. If I would have to recommend a philosophy book it would not be a book of philosophy at all but rather the basic canon of Musar books from the Middle Ages.

To me it looks like the world is divided into secularism and religious-ism. [That is not religion, but religious-ism-- the idea that salvation lays within religion.  Secularism is similar in thinking salvation lays in socialism and stealing money from the rich  in order to make the poor rich and the rich poor. ]

I do not like either alternative very much. Growing up in a more or less secular world, it seemed to me less and less that any kind of secular approach had "the answers" for the big questions. At the time there were lots of alternatives. Existentialism, Socialism, "shrink"-ism. All claiming the Truth.And able to convince millions of their claims. To me it all seemed ridiculous--and still does.

BUT the solutions of the religious world seem ridiculous from other directions. But at the time I thought I had found absolute truth in religion.  I needed a few knocks to burst that bubble.

Now I think my parents had it right from the start--balance, menschlichkeit--being a decent human being before anything else. The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

In terms of a world view that includes more than that however, I would have to say that the medieval scholastics did what I think is the best job--that is to combine Reason and Faith. This started mainly with Saadia Gaon but it was a general approach of the middle ages, (e.g. Rambam, Aquinas, Anslem,...)
But then Reason itself came under attack by the school of idealism. That started with Descartes that divides Mind from Body. No one had an answer to this and Hume just pushed the knife in deeper. Because of this problem, Kant is important. 

My own feeling about philosophy is that I gained the most by learning Musar--especially the book of Navardok the Madragat HaAdam which talks about trust in God.
It is hard to get over the feeling that there is little or nothing in philosophy that is very insightful. The best of them all clearly is still Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus.
I found a lot of common sense and benefit from three modern day thinkers: Kelley Ross, Steven Dutch, Michael Huemer.

A great king of Judah went on a seek and destroy mission to destroy idolatry and idolaters.

In most of the kings of Judah and Israel the issue of idolatry comes to the front. Yoshiyahu יאשיהו was one king that went on a seek and destroy mission through all Israel to find and destroy any and every drop of idolatry and or idolaters that he could find. Not just in Judah. [At that point the ten tribes had been exiled, but he went anyway all through Israel to get rid of all idols and idolaters that he could find.
[Go and check the verse.מלכים ב' כ''ג You will see that he went personally on this mission and he went all through the land of Israel.Chronicles II 34:7 וינתץ את המזבחות ואת האשרים והפסילים כתת להדק וכל החמנים גדע בכל ארץ ישראל וישב לירושלים ] You can ask why did he feel the need to go out on this seek and destroy mission? Maybe he could have stayed in his palace in Jerusalem and sat and learned? But as I mentioned above the issue of idolatry was then and is now too great to ignore.
[He was the great grandson of חיזקיה][In verse 19 it says he went also to Shomron and did this thought that is not in a area of Judah. Also in verse 20 it says he sacrificed the priests of idolatry on their own altars. Kings II 23:19-20. See also Chronicles II 34:33 referring to the same seek and destroy mission.




The trouble with this is that "idolatry" is today almost a useless label. It can mean anything to anyone. It can simply be used as a way to insult.
So I did spend a great deal of time with David Bronson learning the exact meaning of idolatry in tractate Sanhedrin.

My basic conclusion is that the the religious world is deeply into idolatry, and now I try to avoid them.

The issue really was addressed in the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed. But since that letter is universally ignored, there does not seem to be much one can do. Rav Shach also is more or less ignored. So if these two Torah giants are ignored, then what can a little nobody like me do?
[I ought to add that neither the Baal Shem Tov himself, nor Rav Nahman from Breslov were included in the excommunication. It was directly  towards the disciples of the Magid of Mezritch. In fact the fact Shem Tov himself is mentioned in a praiseworthy fashion in the sidur of the Gra.]



But it does occur to me what regular people like me can do. We can insist on it. Even though others think it is a small point, but those like me that know--can insist. We can refuse to have anything to do with idolatry what so ever. What seems like a small difference can be a big difference if one insists.

world of Litvak yeshivas

Learning Torah in an authentic way refers to the the intensity of learning. It might have some relation to learning in depth or perhaps learning fast like I have been saying. But the thing that makes the Litvak yeshiva special is the intensity--the feeling that every word of Torah is more precious than diamonds. On one's own I think it is hard to get the idea of what this is about. But once one has been in an authentic Litvak yeshiva for a couple of years, then even later the feeling and sweetness of Torah never really leaves one.

My own experience in the world of Litvak yeshivas was quite amazing. I believe that my future wife only came to me because of that context. She must have felt that I was involved in something outstanding and I guess she wanted to be a part of it. [She began writing to me when I was still in Far Rockaway in Shar Yashuv and then came to NY herself when I was at the Mir.

I mean to say that there is something "holistic" about the Lithuanian learning Torah world--that is that encompasses everything--all aspects of life. It is far from being just about learning Torah. It is about being a mensch, good morals, being  scrupulous in honesty in money matters. But learning Torah is the focal point that everything turns on.

Most of my efforts to get back into real authentic learning Torah were foiled. WHAT DOES IT MEAN "REAL LEARNING"? It is the intensity of learning

I noticed that Rav Shach in one of his talks says the main thing one can do for Klal Israel [The people of Israel] is to learn Torah.  The issue is not how much territory does Israel control. This idea of Rav Shach as is well known finds support in the books of the sages and a lot of the source material is found in the Musar book the Nefesh HaHaim.
But what I wanted to add is that in the book of Kings I. 9 verse 11 it says that Solomon gave to Hiram 20 cities in the Galil (Galilee) . So again we see this idea that the safety of Israel is not a matter of territory. [The Galil is divided into three parts, lower, middle, and upper where Safed is. So it was definitely Israel proper that Solomon was giving away.]

Though I do not learn much Torah anymore, I can see the point of Rav Shach.
It was a point that I first encountered in Shar Yashuv and later in the Mir. But I did not see much support for that point of view until I discovered the Nefesh HaHaim.

Part of the reason I do not learn much is that most of my efforts to get back in real authentic learning Torah were foiled and even backfired.
The Nefesh Haim [Rav Haim from Voloshin a disciple of the Gra] brings out this point about the importance of learning Torah and I am pretty sure that I was not so aware of it. After I graduated from high school I did want to learn Torah more seriously so I came to NY to Shar Yashuv. That is a yeshiva mainly known for being for beginners. But while there I was befriended by the later rosh yeshiva Naphtali Yeager and he showed me the depths of learning. That is the way you can see in my little booklets that I wrote on Gemara. Only later when I came to the Mir Yeshiva did I become aware of the path of Rav Haim Solovietchik.


WHAT DOES IT MEAN "REAL LEARNING"? It is hard to define. Mainly it is what you experience in a Litvak yeshiva. It is not just learning the gemara in depth as Litvaks do. It is the intensity of learning