I have learned that telling the truth at all cost creates a kind of force field around you that protects you from all evil. However, there is  a down side.

Since you tell the truth, you tend to think that others also tell the truth. That is often a mistake. But there is a principle that can help in this kind of situation. Once you have heard someone tell a lie, then you already know they will tell more lies. This applies to slander also. Once you have heard someone say slander, then you can be sure they will slander you too when you are not around .

Ketuboth chapter 6 כתובות פרק מציאת האישה What is the law--the halacha?

If amoraim (sages of the Talmud) are discussing an opinion in a mishna does that mean that is the law? The Rif (Rav Isaac Alfasi) brings this idea in chapter 6 of Ketuboth. It is in fact based on a gemara in Sanhedrin which deals with the issue of when a judge makes a mistake in a law. It is in reference to damages that are owed to a  woman. If someone hits her and makes a wound or causes to her some kind of embarrassment. To R. Yehuda if the embarrassment is public she gets 2/3 of the damages that are owed and her husband gets 1/3. If the embarrassment is private then she gets 1/3 and her husband 2/3.

The Gra asks on this that there are lots of places where the amoraim discuss an opinion in  mishna that is not the halacha.
On the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo one of the commentaries wants to answer this question that when the amoraim discuss an opinion in  mishna then that is the law.

In any case this does deal with the question what is the law--the halacha?

I tried to get somewhere with this subject in Sanhedrin with David Bronson where there are tons of permutations concerning the issue when a judge makes a mistake. When does he have to pay but the law stays and when the law is that the case is reversed.

 But over there the idea of the amoraim arguing about one opinion shows that it is the halacaha is brought.
This will clearly disagree with lots of other places in the gemara where the issue comes up what teh law actually is. In Eruvin the Gemara goes through the list of Tenaim--with whom is the law when there is disagreement.

The confusion about this issue i mentioned a few days ago about an situation where the stam mishna [mishna with no name mentioned in it]  says one thing and the gemara says this is the opinion of so and so but the sages say differently.In Bava Kama this is brought an used as a proof against Sumchos. In Ketoboth this exact situation is brought and the law is like the Mishna!

I heard once from Abigail Bussu [The daughter of Rav Israel Abu-hazeira] the main things are the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo and Musar [Medieval books of Ethics]. So in terms of halacah that would seem to settle things.--

The Shulchan Aruch is I heard one about 70-80 like the Rambam since Rav Joseph karo always goes by the majority between the Rif, Rosh, and Rambam. And in fact a lot of effort has been spent in understanding the Ramabm in recent years mainly starting with Rav Haim from Brisk [Soloveitchik] and Rav Shach. Still I think that the whole issue of halacah is still not clear.
But it is interesting that in the list of books that one is supposed to learn and finish every year Rav Nahman brings the Rif Rosh and Shulchan Aruch [The large edition with all commentaries]and he leaves out the Rambam.

religious world problems

The problem with the religious world is actually easy to understand in terms of Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle. That is the intention is to create a super-organism a movement that controls everyone else. and gets all the perks and benefits while they sit on top of us plebeians.

The ideas of Howard Bloom are actually quiet close to Hegel but he explains them in a understandable way.


The point is that if you ask why is the religious world so oblivious about the authentic values of Torah and instead focus on rituals -the answer is they need the rituals in order to seem like they are for the Torah and by that they can entice and capture innocent souls to be their slaves.--at first by love bombing them and then after they are trapped then their true disgusting faces appear.

The religious world presents themselves as if they have the true approach to Torah. The truth is the opposite. The religious world does not worship God. They worship their religious leaders.And they cover up their deception by emphasizing rituals that are in themselves made up to look like they are Torah principles.

The principle of the "meme" that Howard Bloom says is the nerve center of the super organism is also the center of every person's world. We all approach the world with a set of principles. Some of these principles tell of how to evaluate the world around us. Others tell us how to act. What should be the basis of all our actions. The set of principles of the religious world are directly opposed to Torah. Their principles are to put up a nice face in order to get control of everyone else so that they can be on top.

Of course if the religious world would be based on authentic Torah like you have in Ponovitch based on Rav Shach and the Gra then I would have nothing to complain about. But the issue is that once there is an authentic place of Torah like Ponovitch or Brisk, then a million copy cats sprout up. This is like Rav Nahman of Breslov said about the true tzadik. He said once there is a true tzadik then a million copy cats sprout out to try to get in on the act.

"A country of halacha"?

"A country of halacha" sounds to me like a nightmare. One reason we can already see in the Lekutei Moharan of Rav Nahman of Breslov. That is that a lot of the religious leaders in the religious world are actually not human. This is first mentioned in the L''M volume I chapter 8 where he brings the idea of רברבי עשו people that claim ordination but are actually from the realm of evil. [There he brings the cure for this is to groan--that is to pray with such sincerity that one actually groans].

But the most dramatic place this is mentioned in in the LeM chap 12 and 28 concerning Torah scholars that are demons. So it is clear that giving power to these religious leaders could not possibly be a  good idea.

The issue really relates to Howard Bloom's Lucifer Principle. There he goes into the problem of a social system that is set up on principles that are not moral. Even though he does not really go into what is moral and what is not until the very end of the book in a footnote where he advocates the system of the US Constitution as opposed to Islam. But the basic idea is that the religious world is a social system based on a meme that all power belongs to its leaders and that ritual is supreme especially wearing a kipa[ yarmulke similar to the pope.]
Torah itself is mainly for show. The real agenda is actually pretty sinister.


In "halacha" the way the religious world understands is there is no freedom. And the rules are made by religious creeps. So it is no surprise that in Uman my learning partner said one of the greatest thinbgs about it was that it was not under religious authority. 

The regular Mishna holds ממון המוטל בספק חולקים. [Money that is in doubt is divided]. This comes up in several places in the Mishna. And every place it comes up the mishna goes like Sumchos.
But in Bava Kama Shmuel says that is not the opinion of the sages who hold one who enters a plea that money that is in someone else's possession really belongs to him needs to bring proof.


The question of המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה has the same format as a Gemara in  Ketubot page 40b.

There Rabbainu Hananel [last of the Geonim and teacher of the Rif as far as I recall] and the Raavad say the law is like the stam Mishna even though in the Gemara Rava said "These are the words of R. Meir but the sages say..."

In Bava Kama you have the same situation. A stam Mishna says one thing and then the Gemara says [from Shmuel] These are the words of sumchos but the sages say etc.

the religious world a lot of people like to consider themselves as being particularly smart

In the USA it is considered a good thing to find where your talents are and to pursue that as a goal. This can be misleading. For example lets us say you notice that you are not very good in mathematics. But in other of subjects you are a lot better. So you find yourself in a group of people following a course load in some soft subject. The tendency will be to think you simply have found yourself with group of people that have a different set of talents. You do not immediately suspect the truth that that whole group has a low IQ and that the reason you are better in that than in math is because you found yourself with  bunch of dumbbells.


The issue of self deception comes into play here. Just take for a hypothetical example. You are in a Physics class in university and notice that everyone  else in class in doing better than you. So you get discouraged and switch to psychology and immediately notice than you are doing better than anyone else in class. Does that mean that now you have found your real calling and talents? Or does it mean that psychology students have the lowest IQ of anyone else in universities and Physics students have the highest? [The answer we already know. But the point is that this example can be applied to other areas.]

You can use this example to explain why in the religious world a lot of people like to consider themselves as being particularly smart. And like to convince others of this "fact". This comes from a certain degree of self deception. Even being able to memorize a lot of things in the Talmud does not make one smart.  Smartness at least as understood as being able to figure out complicated stuff has nothing to do with how much work you put into something nor with memory. 

When I was in Shar Yashuv [of Rav Shelomo Freifeld]  I wanted to learn fast--that is by just saying the words and going on like you see in Rav Nahman's Sichot HaRan 76. But for some reason that kind of fast learning was looked down on over there.  so I found some kind of compromise in that every section of gemara I would read twice and go on. That was not going exactly fast but not as slow as the path was over there either.

Nowadays I can see the value of both going very fast like Rav Nahman emphasized and also the kind of in depth intense learning that you have in teh great Litvak Yeshivas like Ponovitch and Brisk.

So when I eventually tried to expand my horizons a little and get into Physicsand Mathematics  I also found the need the path of lots of review and also the fast kind of learning of Rav Nahman.