Patriotism and Nationalism:

That one's country comes first is as sound an idea as that one's family comes first: each family has the right to prefer its interests over the interests of other families.  If my wife becomes ill, then my obligation is to care for her and expend such financial resources as are necessary to see to her welfare.  If this means reducing my charitable contributions to the local food bank, then so be it. Whatever obligations I have to help others 'ripple out' from myself as center, losing claim to my attention the farther out they go, much like the amplitude of waves caused by a rock's falling into a pond diminishes the farther from the point of impact. Spouse and/or children first, then other family members, then old friends, then new friends, then neighbors, and so on.

From here:maverick philosopher

Homosexuality

It is more simple if you start with the Old Testament and then work backwards from there. That is what Aquinas does as far as I recall. He starts out that the laws of the Old Testament are binding in the areas of Natural Law. Only the rituals are not in his view. That leaves  the sexual relations in Leviticus 18+20 in their place. This is somewhat similar to R. Shimon Ben Yochai that we go by the reason for a verse, not the letter of the Law. And to the Rambam and all the Medieval Authorities we know the reasons for the verses and they are all natural law except for the Red Heifer.


 So if you would take the Rambam literally along with R. Shimon Ben Yochai, you do not end up all that different than Aquinas.--Though it is hard to imagine how this is possible, but it still is simple logic.

The reason this is more or less like Aquinas is the Rambam says that most of the laws of sacrifices and rituals are certainly Divine, but rituals were given because the the  tribe of people that he names that were in the Middle East at the time that did the opposite. And the sacrifices were given because of the weakness of human nature that people will sacrifice anyway so we might as well do it for God.

The reason that sex issues are unclear today is that Protestants start in the opposite direction from Aquinas. They assume nothing is binding unless they can find it in the New Testament. And that simple fact is from where all the confusion begins--since even if you find something forbidden in the NT, it is easily cancelled, by some other verse.
I have tried to tell Protestants for  a long time that ignoring Thomas Aquinas is not a good idea-but I can not think of any instance when I got through to anyone.

My own appreciation of Medieval thought probably goes back to Beverly Hills High School when I used to learn Dante. But especially in the Litvak Yeshiva World the Middle Ages is considered far superior to anything and everything that came later.

My own feeling about Philosophy however is more based on Kant and Hegel and Neo Platonic thought. But I was and am still highly influenced by The Gra and the Litvak approach to straight Torah which I really hope to get back into some day,
I ought to mention that Hegel has no epistemology. He just by passes the Mind -Body problem. So I do also depend on Leonard Nelson and Immediate non-intuitive knowledge for my world view]

Homosexuality, Idolatry, Murder

Rav Nahman was especially interested in correction for sexual sin which people had been interested in before him. Masturbation (spilling seed in vain) was the specific issue he was addressing, but the fact is that all sexual sin more or less come under the same heading.

The Ari, Isaac Luria, has a few unification for that purpose, but the thing about unifications is they depend on a precondition of attachment to the Divine. Without that they do nothing.

So R Nahman did his own prayer and and service towards God and received the idea of the Tikun HaKlali, i.e. the ten psalms to say that same day that one has sinned. That means the day starting at night and ending 24 hours later at 72 minutes after sun down.

The ten psalms are 16,32.41,42,59,77,90,105,137,150. (With intending the Divine Names אלף למד
אלף למד הי יוד מם)

What promotes this is that I see there is a lot of ignorance out there in terms of sexual issues.

So I thought to write a bit about it. 

The main thing to know is that in Torah there are levels of how severe any particular sin is.
It starts with an איסור עשה,  לאו, לאו שיש בו מיתת בית דין. The first level is a negative command derived from a positive command. Then straight negative commands. Then Negative commands that have the death penalty. Those are usually connected with when it says in the Torah "That soul will be cut off" but not always. It is useful to know this because it gives a simple way of knowing what the Torah considers more severe and what is less severe.

So one one hand we have the argument about a girl friend between the Rambam against all the other rishonim. But though to the Rambam a girl friend is forbidden it comes only as a negative derived from a negative. That is one is supposed to do Kidushin and then Hupa. [The other rishonim allow this but here I am just giving an example of where that category comes up.]
The next level is all the times it says in Torah do not do something but gives no punishment.
The next level is where there is a death penalty attached like in Leviticus 18 and 20. That includes homosexuality [Leviticus chapter 18: verse 22 and chapter 20 verse 13]. But those particular sins have an extra degree of severity because they come under the category of יהרג ואל יעבור, Be killed rather than transgress. That does not apply to any other commands except three: Idolatry, Murder, and the sexual acts of Leviticus 18 and 20.

I hope this short review is helpful for people. [I do quote Rav Nahman because I do not think he came under the (חרם) excommunication signed by the Gra.] That brings up this other issue about idolatry;- that was clearly the main reason the Gra signed the letter of excommunication. And that certainly still applies.

[Having a good idea of the actual legal status of any sin is helpful also, because a lot of times you find statement about the severity of some sin that gives  you the impression that that is the worst of them all. Yet later you find that the legal status is nothing. So you know the previous statement was meant in a spiritual sense.]

Idolatry you know is severe for the reason that it is emphasized in the Torah itself. But also because it is the main thing that the prophets stress. What ever failings the kings of Judah may have had the prophets always stress only one point--did they or did they not do idol worship?

Jordan Peterson tackles gender roles: Don’t ‘socialize little boys to be more like little girls’

https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/11/01/jordan-peterson-tackles-gender-roles-dont-socialize-little-boys-to-be-more-like-little-girls

Religious freedom in the USA I think is built on the model of England during the 1700's.

Religious freedom in the USA I think is built on the model of England during the 1700's.

That is to say that the Pilgrims were not all that tolerant. And it has been pointed out that the Indian that saved the Plymouth Colony was a Catholic. [Squanto was a Roman Catholic.]

Rather, the American Model is taken almost in full from the English Model after 1668. I do not know why in fact this is not emphasized more in USA schools- because to me it seems important. The Constitution is surely a work of genius and perhaps even Divine inspiration. However it did not spring into existence out of thin air.

[There is a limit to tolerance as John Locke brings up in his Two Treaties.] 

I have been looking at Kings and also Isaiah Jeremiah and I had a few thoughts and questions.
First in Jeremiah 18:9 it looks like a positive decree can be turned to a negative one. This seems to go against what the Sages say about the verse in the Torah about how to tell if someone is a false prophet.

Second: to me it is not clear the case with Atalia the wicked queen that ruled over Judah for seven years until she was overturned and the rightful ruler was placed on the throne. It says she was the daughter of Omri who was the father of Ahab. I am thinking perhaps the verse means the granddaughter  because Ahab was at the time of Jehoshaphat. His son was Yoram who married a daughter of Ahab.
Also in the end of Isaiah 56 it looks hard to know whom it is talking about. The non Jews there have they become full Jews? It does not look that way. The reason is the last verse. My house will be a house of prayer for all the nations. Yet in a few verses back they are bringing burnt offerings and also זבחים which means peace offerings


There does also seem to be a limit to religious freedom in Kings. Hezekiah did a lot of effort to get rid of idolatry from the area he was king over --Judah and Benjamin.  Yoshiyahu later made the most powerful effort in that direction throughout all Israel==even areas he was not king over.

When the Rambam says that learning Physics and Metaphysics are a fulfillment of the commands to love and fear God,

When the Rambam says that learning Physics and Metaphysics are a fulfillment of the commands to love and fear God, it is simple to understand what that means in terms of Physics. The things that lead up to Quantum Field Theory and String Theory.
But when he says Metaphysics, it is harder to know what is included. On one hand he makes it clear he is referring to what the ancient Athenians were talking about. So he must mean at least the Metaphysics of Aristotle. But today I think you would have to expand that to Plotinus, Kant, Hegel and Leonard Nelson.