I think this whole situation gives to me and others a chance to finally get to sit down and get through the Oral Law [that is the two Talmuds with Tosphot and Maharsha], the basic set of Ethics (Musar) books of Rav Israel Salanter, and Physics and Mathematics.
[Many Rishonim said also Metaphysics referring to besides Plato and Aristotle's Metaphysics as the Rambam stated openly in the beginning of the Guide for the Perplexed.

F Major w69mp3  w69 midi  w69 nwc

Trust in God draws good things. That is not the same as trusting in the Divine decree. Rather it is trust in itself which God answers. והבוטח בה' חסד יסובבנו  Kindness surrounds one who trusts in God. Not that kindness surrounds everyone. [I am just picking one verse, but there are many more all over.]

On one hand you do not hear about trust in God outside the Litvak Yeshiva World. And even there not so much. I heard about it at the Mir, but in Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway not so much.

The interesting thing about trust in God as understood at the Mir in NY was that it was active, not passive. That is to say--it was trust in God in such a way that one was left free to learn Torah. It was a kind of way of being freed from constraints.--Constraints that would normally prevent one from learning Torah.

קניין סודר acquiring by means of handkerchief  as far as I can tell in the Raavad  and the R''id (Yeshaya of Trany) seems to work because of a kind of acquiring by means of money.
With the Rambam it seems a different kind.

The Tosfot Ha'Rid right at the beginning of kidushin says if the handkerchief is worth more than a penny then the kidushin is valid.
[That must be how he understands the gemara there that "exchange'' would not work because it is valid even for less than a penny.]
However the Rambam understands that that type of acquiring would not work for kidushin nor for letting a slave go free.

That is based on the Gemara in Kidushin i think around pg 79. One fellow had a Hebrew maid servant and threw at her a vessel and said, "With this vessel you go free." That the Gemara there says is not valid. At first the thought it is not valid because of acquiring by means of a  handkerchief. And in they end they decided it was because the vessel was owned by the owner.
So the Raavad in fact says that letting a slave go free by means of acquiring by handkerchief is valid. The Rambam says not.

So what I see here is the an argument about the handkerchief.

I admit this is the way it looks to me. From what I can see in Rav Shach's Avi Ezri, he seems to understand this sugia differently and I can not figure out what he is saying.

Capitalism

Capitalism causes prosperity, e.g. USA, England, Europe. Communism causes mass starvation (USSR in the 1920-'s and 1930's ) and mass murder. Example Venezuela.
Steven Dutch: Correlation, in and of itself, doesn't prove causation. But correlation, coupled with a reasonable causal explanation, does constitute strong evidence of causation.


Working class people work, and they worked hard to get what they have. So they don't want it threatened. They don't want criminals in their neighborhoods and they don't want the value of their homes threatened. And they're smart enough to realize that if you can take down the wealthy and the powerful, you can squash working class people like a bug. So many of them don't buy into the "soak the rich" philosophy because they know perfectly well who will be next to get soaked.


Leftists: buy a clue. We are not going to seize the wealth of the top 10% of the population and pass it out among everybody else. First, it wouldn't go all that far. Second, once it was spent, there would be no more. See Chile, 1974 for additional information, or take notes during Zimbabwe 2007-. We are not going to cure poverty by printing a million dollars for everybody. See Germany, 1923 for details. 

Politics and Philosophy seem to have a dividing line between them. If you take the top philosophers their ideas about politics seem not so great. Hegel, Kant, Leonard Nelson. Even John Locke came after the Glorious Revolution in order to justify it.

While the system of the USA Constitution and the Limited Monarchy in England seem to be the results of circumstances and not any well thought out system. The whole idea of having a Parliament was because Edward I needed money from the lords. Money that he did not have a right to under the  feudal system. So he had to come up with Parliament so he could get their money with representation. And later the  reason for the House of Commons was the same. The Magna Carta same as just being a way to stop the king from getting as much as he wanted from the nobles.
I could go on, but the idea seems the same. Whatever really works in politics is never the result of some well thought out policy but the result of circumstances and later is found to be working well.

I noticed Leonard Nelson on the Friesian web site of Dr Kelley Ross. But for some reason it was ignored by most of academia. My learning partner David Bronson asked me about that. I said well it makes sense because the top philosophers are not at the Ivy League places, Ed Feser after all is in Pasadena. Michael Huemer in Colorado.
For some odd reason the people of philosophy at the Ivy League schools are mediocre or less.

[it is like Allan Bloom said about the drastic decline and fall of the universities--but specifically pointing out the-social studies and humanities as being less than worthless but of actual negative value.]