I can not think of a worse nightmare than imagining the religious to be in charge.

I was in the Breslov Beit Midrash today [the Na Nach group] and listened a few minutes to a book written by Rav Natan [a disciple of Rav Nahman]. [I mean to say that the general approach is to read of books of Rav Nahman and Rav Natan aloud--and I listened a few minutes.
The statement of Rav Natan was basically about "חכמות חיצוניות" [secular wisdom].
 This seems to be an argument between rishonim. There are those that go along the lines of Saadia Gaon and the Rambam that see certain secular subjects as important. There are others that say no.

I am not really sure how to deal with this issue. To me the whole emphasis on not learning secular wisdom seems to be with intention to create a kind of alternative society. --The idea is to create a kind of insulation from the outside world.
 The same thing seems to be the emphasis on dress and the skull cap and women's dress. It all seems to be geared towards creating a separate society where the religious are in charge.

I can not think of a worse nightmare than imagining the religious to be in charge. Enough said for the wise.

On the other hand I can how a great deal of secular subjects are rotten--like anything that has the word "studies".

My own approach is more or less based on the Rambam in Mishne Torah in the part that deal with learning Torah and the part in particular that says to divide one's time into three parts. There the Ramabm says one part goes for the written law. Another third for the Oral Law. And the third for Gemara. Then the Rambam adds, "The subjects discussed in the first four chapter of Mishna Torah which are called Pardes are in the category of the Gemara."
Those subjects are what the ancient Greeks called Physics and Meta-physics. [The Ramabm repeats this in the Guide.] You can see this in the Hovot Levavot also[Obligations of the Heart by Ibn Pakuda].

I can see how the world changed from when I was growing up. The world I grew up in was optimistic and open. Southern California. Things were a little different in the two yeshivas I went to  in NY Shar Yashuv and the Mir but the same atmosphere or classic American optimism was there. Then I kind of wne into a period of hibernation. I was in the Vishniz community in Meor Haim in Safed for a few years and totally lost contact with the outside world. I spent most of my time in the basic path path of Rav Nahman from Breslov of Hitbodadut.[[Talking with God in the forest]. And there was a kind of Divine light that filled the atmosphere in those days. Then it all fell through. So when I awoke the world had changed drastically. I think a lot had to do with crimes that had changed people's perspective. The world was filled with suspicion one for the other. Maybe it is justified suspicion. But it seems to me it is usually misplaced. There are lots of deviants and sadistic monstors. But they are never the people that are usually suspected.

As Rav Nahman himself made a point of this in his critique of Torah Scholars that are demons.

Today I would probably have taken Rav Nahman's teachings in a more balanced way. My center of gravity would be along the lines of the Gra and Rav Shach, while at the same time I would try to follow what is valuable and important in Rav Nahman's teachings.

Rambam in laws of Nedarim chapter 1 law 19.

I have a question in the Rambam in laws of Nedarim chapter 1 law 19.
The question that I have is one that it looks like Rav Joseph Karo and the Radvaz answer but their answers look to me to be hard to understand.


The basic issue is this. There is a teaching in the Gemara that says hulin the hulin like hulin whether \I will eat of yours or will not is permitted. "'Hulin I will not eat of yours' is forbidden. 'Not hulin I will not eat of yours' is permitted."

The Rambam says, "'Not hulin I will not eat of yours' is forbidden." [Nedarim 1:19]

Now with the Radvaz, the Rambam holds like R Yehuda that from a negative we can understand what would result in a positive. So it makes sense why the Rambam would disagree with the end of that teaching. However the question I have is that, "How does it make sense?" Should not two negatives result in a positive?

Rav Joseph Karo holds the Rambam holds like R Meir that from a negative one can not derive a positive. So I am not sure how to deal with this issue. I saw a few days ago that Rav Shach has some ideas on this subject but I still have not gotten a chance to get over to the Litvak Beit Midrash where the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach is located to study carefully what he says.

I just wanted to give a short idea of who I am for those that are wondering. I was born into an amazing family. My parents loved each other and us [their children very much]. I went to public school until it became time to choose a university and instead i decided to go to Shar Yashuv [a Litvak Yeshiva in NY] and then the Mir in NY. And then to Israel.
The experience I had in the Mir was formative of my attitudes about the importance of learning Torah and trust in God.
I have not been able to continue on that path very well and so I also went to Polytechnic Institute of NYU for Physics.

the existence of time

McTaggart argues against the existence of time. I forget the argument. I was not like Kant's. But locality is well established. as in Special Relativity. Which means cause and effect have to be close to each other and in sequence. The only way I can see Kant's point is if time is circular like Godel wanted to show.


The way you can see that causality [or locality is correct is by GPS [Global Positioning System]. Both Special Relativity and General Relativity have to be right for the system to work at all.
However there is a  set up that Einstein Podolsky Rosen thought up that Bell showed that Quantum Mechanics is  right. So you can  show from the inequality of Bell that either locality is not right or that particles do not have classical values until measured. So since we know locality is right therefore we have to take the second choice. Particles do not have classical values until measured.

I one time wrote to Dr Kelley Ross asking about this result which looks a  lot like Kant. I asked him that de-coherence is well known phenomenon. That means the wave function of particles collapses even just because a particle interacts with another particle. That is what makes Quantum computing hard to set up. He answered that some people argue that if your look at the big picture in which the lab itself is a part of the system we still have the result that things do not have classical values until measured.

Just to be a little more clear about the issues I raised in my blog from yesterday I want to explain a little as best I can.

The idea of R.   Meier is this. You can not derive a plus from a minus, a yes from a no. That means let us says you have a sentence, "If it is raining it must be wet outside." To R. Meier you can not derive "If it is not raining it is dry outside." And this came up in one of my little books on Shas. But I had forgotten this whole issue about R Meir.

This comes up in the Talumd tractate "Nedarim" page 11 side A. and in the book of Rav Shach on the Rambam laws of nedarim vows chapter 1 law 18 [actually 18 through 20].

The problem in the Rambam is in law 18 he says, '"That which I will eat of yours is not secular" and then he is forbidden to eat of anything that belongs to the other person.' That is like the Sages against R Meir.. Then in law 20 he says, "That which I will eat of yours is secular or that which I will not eat of yours is secular and that is allowed to eat from the other fellow,' and that is like R Meir. So everyone wants to answer how can the Rambam decide the law in two contradictory ways? The Radvaz [Rav David ben Zimrah], the Migdal Oz [Rav Shem Tov from Spain], and Rav Elazar Shach  and Rav Yoseph Karo each try to answer this question.


I have nothing new to add here except that I can see that I really must have been a real ignoramus (am haaretz) when I was at the Mir, because this exact chapter in Nedarim is what the whole yeshiva was learning in my first six months there and I can see now that I was completely unaware of the issues that ought to be obvious to anyone learning Nedarim--but I missed all these issues.

daughter of an"am Haaretz" -ignoramus

I was surprised to see in the commentary of the Rambam on the Mishna  that one is not allowed to marry the daughter of an"am haaretz"[that is a ignoramus]. That is it is not just good advice but actual a law. Then I noticed the same thing in Mishne Torah of the Rambam. This goes to show what they used to say in the Mir Yeshiva [during the short period I was there] concerning the choice of whom to marry: "If your wife wants you to learn Torah,- you will. If she does not want it,- then you won't."

This is an important point to consider when thinking about marriage.
 When at the Mir, I was hoping for this kind of shiduch. In the meantime, the girl [whom I knew from high school] who had been writing and calling me for years to get me, just seemed to not want to give up. I tried to explain to her nicely, and not nicely, that I was not interested in her. Yet, she just did not  give up. So one day, on the phone trying to find a place for her for the Sabbath meals, I was on the phone with Arye Kaplan. He asked why I did not marry her? I said, I wished for a daughter of a person that was into learning Torah{as in the path of the Mir}. His reaction to that was that it was not possible that I would be offered anyone else in the religious world except for a baalat mum [a person with a hidden defect]. [That is to say, I should marry her since she is a good girl that I know very well. That is preferable to someone I do not know, and would find later problems with.] So I talked afterwards to Rav Getz, a good Torah scholar who learned at the Mir. He also suggested that I marry her.[I did. Soon after we went on the normal 6 dates--every motzai Shabat. And for a while I stayed at the Mir [I forget how long. Maybe two years I think. Then Israel. So for a good long time se stuck with me as I was learning Torah and she deserves credit for that,]  


I ought to add that these issues are not all that clear, since it is possible to have a girl that wants you to learn Torah even though her background might be not religious at all. And on the opposite side of things you might have  a girl from a religious background that wants one to work. But in any case, I suggest that if one is into learning Torah in the way of the Gra and the Litvak Yeshiva World. I suggest  that this issue ought to be  a first priority. For it is hard for most people to realize what the issue is all about. It is not that it is "good idea" to learn Torah. It is more or less that learning Torah is the purpose of life and of the creation of the universe. It is the first priority beyond anything else imaginable. It is hard to see this. For I myself having fallen from this ideal find it hard to describe. But in fact there is a profound truth in this that is more or less impossible to communicate to anyone who does not already feel it deep inside of him or her.
[In later times I got involved in Physics and Mathematics, yet I feel that even though these are also important, still I wish I had been able to contunue in Torah.] The thing is --it is hard to find the right balance.