Cosmological argument

The Cosmological argument

from Plato’s Laws, 893–96; Aristotle’s Physics (VIII, 4–6) and Metaphysics (XII, 1–6).
Also said later by Al Kindi so it is sometimes called the Kalam's Cosmological Argument.
See this paper that brings Plato's view-on pg 253.
People will also recognize this from the Obligations of the Heart.


This is in fact the same argument I have written at the top of this blog. But I usually go to Anselm's Ontological Argument which was proved by Godel.
But even the Cosmological argument I think of in a different way. That is I think of the the beginning of time and space and the laws of physics, not of the beginning of the physical universe.

An evolutionary psychologist

An evolutionary psychologist cannot be as smart as a good theoretical physicist, otherwise he would be one.

The problem with psychologists is not that they are not so smart as they think. It is rather that they are idiots.  


An "idiot" here I use here in the sense of someone of someone with an average I.Q. or lower that thinks they are a genius.

But to be fair this applies to just about anyone in the ludicrous "social sciences". Now there is an oxymoron  if I ever heard one

How to raise kids

However my feeling is that it is always best to start with basic texts--not watered down versions.

Honor of parents

Honor of parents goes on even when they have left this world. At least you can see that with Yonadav ben Recab. He was a friend of Yehu and he helped Yehu in wiping out the house of Ahab--which was at the time the son of Ahab and Ahaziahu the king of Judah. Ahazia was the grandson of Jehoshaphat.
So when Jeremiah came to his descendants and asked them to drink wine that was a long time after he was gone--and still they listening to their great grandfather rather than to  a prophet. --and they were praised for that and received an astounding promise from God for that.

So just for the record I wanted to state that my parents raised me in a more or less secular fashion. My brothers and I went to public school. [Though public school in those days was completely different than nowadays. Nowadays there is no question they would have found some private school at all and any cost.] Torah was considered very important in our family but not to make a public show out of. Nor to make money off of it.
The values of Torah were more or less summed up in these few simple instructions: Be a Mensch. [That is always to the right and moral thing.] Marry a Nice Jewish Girl.
Though Torah was encouraged, my decision to go to yeshiva was frowned upon, because they thought that yeshiva's even the best of them do really represent accurately what Torah is about. They thought in spite of the hype, that yeshivas are there to make money.

This leaves me now as it did then in a kind of quandary. For the great Litvak yeshivas I went to were clearly learning Torah for its own sake--that is Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. But I never succeeded in convincing them of that fact. And subsequent events showed that in fact they probably saw more clearly than me. Still it is hard for me to imagine how I ever could have gotten into authentic Torah with being at least for some time in an authentic Litvak Yeshiva.

"a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world

In the Torah nothing really compares to the problem of idolatry. And the religious world is so full of that, that I avoid them to  a great extent. I still can not understand why the Gra is ignored in this regard. It is--after all- not as if he did not understand the issues.

Not just him, but they ignore Rav Shach also.

Since the verse says "a wise man sees evil and hides", so my approach is just to avoid the religious world because there is obviously no hope they will ever wake up.

sexual immorality. The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.

NICE COMMENT ON A BLOG "All that really had to be said was that almost everyone at some point in their life is tempted to sexual immorality. It is a common temptation and a common sin. In fact, it fills the world with sinners. If it fills the world with sinners, then it must also fill Hell with the condemned. That form of sin is tremendously displeasing to God who, for the reason of impurity only and none other, destroyed cities in Old Testament times. Now that is some talk worthy of any traditional outlook."

 I would agree but also add that idolatry is also on the top of the list of things that God is unhappy with. And the religious world is full of it.

In any case just for information's sake, generally in the Old Testament: the forbidden relations in Leviticus are on a whole different plane than other kinds of relations. For example the prohibition of a mamzer bastard marrying into the congregation of God is a prohibition, not a כרת [being "cut off from one's people"] 

Moav and Ammon are along the same lines. Just prohibitions. Sex with an unmarried girl is required to marry the girl unless she or her father object. If they object, then he pays the normal amount of a Ketubah 200 zuz. 

Most of what people consider sinful in terms of sex is very different from the view of God. For example the menstruating woman problem is right in there in Leviticus 18 and 20 among the עריות. Homosexuality is also right there among the prohibitions one has to give up his life rather than transgress.

People also get confused about the betrothed unmarried girl in Deuteronomy and why is she any different than the unmarried girl in Exodus? The reason is this betrothal is not what people think nowadays. It is marriage. That is marriage always has two parts. קידושין ונישואין. Kidushin and Nisuin (or what is called Hupa). The Kidushin [betrothal] makes her already married, but they do not live together until Nisuin.
I hope this makes things clear. I ought to add that Rav Nahman brings problem of spilling seed in vain from mystic books and brings his own correction for that [to dip in the ocean -total immersion.] and ten psalms. But that is not a prohibition anywhere near the scale of things actually forbidden in the Torah.  The sexual thing is mainly about things the Torah considers very evil are thought nowadays to be fine. And things that are actually perfectly OK in Torah are thought to be terrible sins.  


[The so called sex change is not a change in sex. It is extending skin to make it seem something it is not or the opposite.]

comments about homosexuality just for the sake of clarity

I thought to add a few comments about homosexuality just for the sake of clarity. However I have to repeat that I really learned these issues long ago and I have forgotten almost everything. Even when I started looking at the Talmud again, it was with David Bronson and we were doing Nezikim [Civil Damages] not Nashim [Women].
So just to be clear, any and all homosexual acts come under the set of Idolatry, Murder, and Forbidden relations in Leviticus 18 and 20. [When threatened with the choice of transgressing one of them or being killed one has to choose being killed.]
The things that people can get mixed up about these things are many.
 One thing is a homosexual act with a minor under three is also gets the death penalty. The reason is sex with a minor is also sex.
Also I wanted to add that not all sexual relations in the Torah get the death penalty. The reason is there are plenty of things that are brought down in Exodus and Deuteronomy that are simply prohibitions. --Not prohibitions with death attached to them. [The general rule is in Torah if it does not say any particular punishment then it is just a prohibition. For it to be anything more severe, it has to say so.]
And in fact there is one exception in the forbidden relations in Leviticus that does not get death that is sex with a nida [menstruating woman who has not gone to the ocean or a river after seven days]. [She needs to check also! If after 7 days she bleeds up to three days then she needs 7 clean days. But that is rare. The three days in a row thing I think goes up to the 18th day of the cycle. If she sees on day 19 that is the start of a new nida cycle and is not related to the previous cycle.]

I really have no idea why these things are unclear to people. The only reason I can possibly think of is that perhaps people do not learn enough Gemara. Or perhaps if they are learning Gemara maybe they do not spend enough time of the tractates that are from Seder Nashim like Ketuboth or Yevamoth.
I admit I also have not leaned these either for along time. But I am grateful to Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv that the few years I was in his great Lithuanian yeshiva, the yeshiva was learning these tractates (those years).
So perhaps that is the answer to all these modern day problems? Everybody ought to sit down and learn Ketuboth and Yevamoth. Then all the confusion will disappear!

In answer to the issue of faith-I can only say that I go with the idea of Leonard Nelson of Immediate Non Intuitive Knowledge (Faith). This is the only way that see that knowledge about moral values is possible. But once you accept the Divine Inspiration of the Bible, then these facts are provable and can be derived rigorously from the verses.