Saadia Gaon on some problems in Christianity and some possible answers.

Saadia Gaon dealt with the two basic issues of Christianity of cancellation of the commandments and the Trinity.
But for some reason his book אמונות ודעות [Faiths and World Views] is rarely learned. The reason is that is is not on Gemara nor Musar. Still it sets the stage for all later Musar. [See the Introduction to the Obligations of the Hearts.]

In any case I wanted to mention that certainly he was correct that cancellation of the commandments is wrong. The trouble with this is it is not from Jesus himself but rather from Paul. And Paul was referring to gentiles. So while Saadia Gaon was right to criticize the doctrine, the point is that the doctrine is itself not even in the NT. note 1 [see http://www.anthonyflood.com/bahnsentheonomicposition.htm]
However, I ought to add that there is the point of R Shimon Ben Yochai-- that the commandments have a purpose. And when the purpose does not apply to a situation, the commandment itself is not applicable. For instance: it is not allowed to take a pledge from a rich widow. R. Shimon Ben Yochai said one can take  a pledge from a rich widow. [BM 119] [See Rav Shach where he brings up this argument between R Shimon and the Sages.]

The Trinity is also apparently a difficulty except if one takes into account that all mystics generally held the souls of the patriarchs from from Emanation. [I mean all mystics. See Sefer Yezira, Sefer HaBahir, Rav Avraham Abulafia etc.]


[note 1] "Do not begin to think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things have happened, not one jot or tittle shall by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:17-19).

Several points about the interpretation of this passage should be rather clear. (1) Christ twice denied that His advent had the purpose of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. (2) Until the expiration of the physical universe, not even a letter or stroke of the law will pass away. And (3) therefore God’s disapprobation rests upon anyone who teaches that even the least of the Old Testament laws may be broken.

Attempts are sometimes made to evade the thrust of this text by editing out its reference to the moral demands of the Old Testament—contrary to what is obvious from its context (5:16, 20, 21-48; 6:1, 10, 33; 7:12, 20-21, 26) and semantics (“the law” in v. 18, “commandment” in v. 19). Other attempts are made to extract an abrogating of the law’s moral demands from the word “fulfill” (v. 17) or the phrase “until all things have happened” (v. 18). This, however, renders the verses self-contradictory in what they assert.

In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29

Introduction. A wife can have three different kinds of property. Money or property that she brings into the marriage is divided into two types. If it is written in the marriage contract נכסי צאן ברזל then the husband gets the use of it and rent or fruit it produces. But it remains her's and if there is a divorce the property goes back to her and if the value is lessened he has to make up for that. Then there is money that is not written in the Ketubah. [נכסי מלוג] That also he gets the profits and use. But does not make up for the loss if the property is damaged. In any case, the money or property belongs to her.
But money or property that comes to her during the marriage belongs to the husband. That is money she makes in her job, or she finds, or is given to her. However, if given to her on condition that her husband has no part of it, then it belongs to her. But still [as all property that belongs to her], her husband still gets the profits. There is an exception, i.e. if the condition it was given to her stipulated that even all profits would not go to the husband.

[If that sounds confusing, the way to simplify it is to remember the basic difference if whether the money or property was brought into the marriage, then it belongs to the wife. If it was acquired by the wife after they got married, then it automatically belongs to her husband. These are all in Tractate Ketuboth chapters 6 to 9. [These are not well known facts because when people learn Ketuboth it often revolves around the the first parts way before you get to 6-9.]





In Rav Shach's Avi Ezri Laws of Marriage 22 law 29 is brought the idea that there is a difference between when a wife loans money to her husband to when she buys something from him. This comes from the Gemara in Bava Batra chapter 3 [חזקת הבתים] page 51. In the case of buying and selling if the money was known to the husband the deal is valid. The money is thought to belong to the woman. In the case she loans him money the money is considered to really have belonged anyway to him.

The way Rav Shach explains this is that money given in a loan if not anymore thought to be in the possession of the wife since the actual physical money of a  loan is always meant to be spent. It no longer is in the physical possession of the wife. But the money of a deal of buying and selling is thought to have been in the physical possession of the wife. 

In the Gemara itself the difference between buying and  a loan is brought and asked. The Gemara itself answers the husband did not want to be "a borrower is a slave to the lender" [that is a verse in Proverbs.] The idea is that if he could have gotten the money from her with having to arrange that it should be  loan he would have done so. But with buying and selling it is assumed that the deal makes both parties happy. The seller gets more utility from the money and the buyer gets more utility from the field. Rav Shach is just going into the deeper reason why the money in the case of selling in the first place is conspired in fact to have belonged to the wife.

That Rav Shach says is a good reason why her husband did not want to borrow. But what is the underlying difference? He says it is the issue of (חזקה) presumed status.

w58 G Major

I might add besides the debt of gratitude I owe my parents introducing me to classical music, I have to mention Mr Smart in my high school whose love of music and contagious enthusiasm for great music definitely encouraged me. [I should add my thanks to my friends in  high school with which we had a string quartet that met every week that also helped me develop my intuition for music. i.e.  Wendy Wilson [not the famous one but one who later became a lawyer in Michigan], Roland Hutchingson, Paula Finn.]

[Here is a link to a piece that I wrote in those days

Wolfgang Wodarg, a German lung doctor on virus.

interesting doctor that has some knowledge about viruses, not speculation.

To repent is always a good idea. The best idea is to find books on the subject from the Middle Ages before the concepts of faith and repentance got watered down during the Renaissance. Many ideas of the Renaissance are important, but do not take the place that the Middle Ages had on the importance of Faith with Reason. (That was the unique contribution of the Middle Ages.)

The issue is really like that of Hegel that there is a kind of dialectical process going on in history in which truth gets steadily clarified. [So even though the Renaissance was an improvement on many things from the Middle Ages, still that does not mean to throw out teh good that was unique to the Medieval period.]

I thought about repentance for some time while I was in Uman and came up with the idea that surely most of my mistakes I am unaware of. Just learning the Gates of Repentance  and other books of Musar of the Middle Ages and Rav Israel Salanter is a help but there can be even after learning Musar many issue that remain unclear. So it occurred to me that at least some of my mistakes I am aware of. I can tell by subsequent events and stemmed directly. So the idea I got was to repent on at least what I know I did wrong. Then with help from above hopefully I might be able to get further. This seemed certainly an advantage to just picking out of  a hat what happens to occur to me what repentance might be.    

The idea of saying the words and going on has a lot to do with trust in God.  It is mentioned in Rav Nahman but goes back all the way to the Gemara itself and brought in the classical medieval  Musar book אורחות צדיקים Ways of the Righteous.

To me it seems like a way to learn not just Gemara but also Physics--but again only with trusting God that you do a small amount if effort and then God sends the blessing.

[But then you also need faith that such a path of learning is in itself worthy and needed. This was definitely the way of books of Musar based on Saadia Gaon. חובות לבבות for example. [Obligations of the Hearts.] However this was an argument in Musar itself. Certainly the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter saw no value and even negative value in any secular studies. I would myself make a distinction between exactly what type of secular studies we would be talking about. Any subject in a University which has the name "studies" attached to it is clearly pseudo science.

nice video about viruses being manufactured in labs.