Bitul Torah. [That is the idea that when one can learn Torah he must do so.]
Bitul Torah is a very different idea than the California idea of the supreme importance of having fun.

So is learning Math and Physics Bitul Torah? Well obviously not if it is for the purpose of making a living. But the question is if they are included in "learning Torah". [But I am not very happy with this approach since not everything one can do to make  a living is OK. It has to worthwhile in itself.]
The accepted answer among many rishonim would be that they are not. Nahmanides [Ramban] and his whole school of thought would have said no. This shows up in later books of Musar also.
However there were some rishonim that said yes. Rambam, Benjamin the Doctor author of Maalot HaMidot}, and Ibn Pakuda.

I have thought about then the question that comes up often abut the fact that Math and Physics are hard. On one hand you have "derech Girsa" saying the words in order from the beginning to the end and then review. That is however only one part of learning. Learning I think always has two parts, bekiut and Iyun. [(1) fast, (2) in depth].

So what would the in depth part be? Clearly review, but what method of review would work? I recall at the Mir I used to try to take every section of what ever I was learning like the Pnei Yehoshua and go over it ten times or more. That seems about the best way to do in depth learning.


The ten times review and go on I heard first in Shar Yashuv of Rav Shelomo Freifeld. Later at the Mir in NY I heard about this concept from others. But I think in stead of going on it makes sense to go back page by page. Then times a page then the previous page and then the previous.

Now it is the Reds (the Marxists) that have already taken over the Congress and the Education and the courts. There is literally no one left to stand for freedom except Americans themselves.

Bunker Hill I think is an important moment in American History because that is when Americans decided they were not going to be slaves to the King nor to Parliament.
That is to say that Parliament was treating the Americans as people they could simply tax. The king, King George refused to intervene.
So they declared independence. Or treason if you look at it in that way. But however you look at it they were not going to be slaves.
Thus, the same issue has come up again. The Congress, the Senate, the courts are all treating Americans as their personal lap dogs. Americans have to go along with every possible insanity. You know the list. And woe to anyone who stands up for what is right and true.
So the issue again has arisen. Stand up to the powers that be, or be free? Which will it be? 

But things are not as simple as they were then. The issue is to identify the enemies. It is not longer the English Parliament. Nor the Red Coats. The soldiers of England. Now it is the Reds (the Marxists)  that have already taken over the Congress and the Education and the courts. There is literally no one left to stand for freedom except  Americans themselves.

[slowly wearing down the USA by a constant small wounds. Never a open fight

The Fabian approach of the communists [slowly wearing down the USA by a constant small wounds. Never a open fight], was revealed in private meeting of Communists in Berkeley in around 1993. [I forget the exact year.] So adoption of standards to wear down and break American resistance to Communism took place by infiltration into all sections of industry, university and government. The plan was to constantly knock down Christian-American traditional values.
I can see that process is finally completed. That is why the next stage of takeover is to take to the streets and start the violent communist revolution. That is stage 2.

[Being aware of this does not really help anything, since values are inside of people. If Americans no longer retain the core Christian values that the USA was founded on, then there is not much one can do.] If they go to church, then all they hear anyway is leftist agenda. Accepting of all the communist points, and rejection of everything of the Bible.

[Not that I agree with everything Christians say. Some things seem right, and other things seem wrong. For example the concept that: "Jesus is the same as God" seems obviously wrong. But also the idea of his being simply a prophet seems wrong also. Prophecy stems from (Victory) Netzah and Hod (Splendor) [two sepherot of Emanation], but that does not mean the soul of a prophet comes from Emanation. However, there are souls of Emanation like the Patriarchs, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, David. The Ari said also the soul of Rav Haim Vital. And a soul of Azilut (Emanation) is "divine". Since between God and Azilut (Emanation) there is no curtain. And based on Rav Avraham Abulafia, my opinion of Jesus he was from Azilut. [Light of Kindness (Hesed) contained in the in the vessel of Foundation (Yesod)].

Another area where I disagree with Christians is events like the disciples in the field picking corn. If the grain no longer needed the soil and was already ripe, then that is not a "work". So it is hard to understand what the complaint might have been. But it would not have been that the disciples were desecrating the Sabbath. What probably happened is you had a bunch of the usual sort of insane religious fanatics (of which there are plenty of examples nowadays) looking for something to complain about, while at the same time not really having any idea of the actual law. Nosey neighbors.

[There are other examples. mixing mud with water is subject to an argument in the Rosh. Some rishonim hold mixing water with dirt is desecration of the Shabat; others hold it is permissible. See the Rosh. Washing the hands is another example. The Sages say מים ראשונים מצוה מים אמצעים רשות מים אחרונים חובה the washing before the meal is a good thing. In the middle of a meal, it is permissible. After the meal it is an obligation.

Fourth of July

To celebrate the Fourth of July I think people ought to start a learning session in the Federalist Papers and get through them --word for word. I do not mean to get through them all on the 4th, but rather to start a daily session of one or more pages. This explains a lot of what the Constitution of the USA is about. And the wisdom there does not just apply to the USA but to all people that want to be free. Not free as in anarchy but free as in a peaceful law abiding country which maximizes freedom.

In defense of Hegel I want to say that I think he was looking for a synthesis between freedom and law after he saw the horrors that the French Revolution produced.

So it not that he was simply a "statist". And even if he was so what. His point was to show how truth logos gets revealed through a process of dialectics.  And that that process shows that any concept has some elements of self contradiction until it come to a higher level. And that by that process of getting to teh higher level one can go higher and higher until one reaches Absolute Spirit. It is a thoroughly Neo Platonic approach.

My grandparents--themselves immigrants to the USA did not even bother to sell their property in Newark, NJ. They saw where the wind blows and donated all their property to the city and hightailed it out of there.
In fact, these were the same grandparents that left Poland when it was still part of the Russian Empire and the tzars. [They had left even before WWI]

Sometimes it just is not worth the effort to fight.
So what I am thinking is that people ought to come to Israel.
The USA is just heating up too fast and things are getting close to the boiling point.
I mean if there are no police then things can get ugly fast.

The only thing I can imagine that might help at this point would be to outlaw protests in the interest of public peace and order. And if people do not want to go home peaceably, then to deal with that with extreme prejudice. And as for the police, to give them double their present salary. To back them to the hilt. Give them medals and public acclaim.

x2 mp3 x2 midi x2 nwc

To me it seems sad that there are some differences between Hegel and the Kant-Friesian school of Leonard Nelson. I can see how each complements the other. But the differences that started between Hegel and Fries have just kept on going. It is not that I see peace in itself as a goal. Rav Nahman said there are two kinds of debate one is between tzadikim and other is when a tzadik is making effort to be rid of the Sitra Achra and the wicked.
He brings this in LeM  I:5 and that and also at the end of LeM vol I about King David. [There the issue was the Saul was persecuting David, even though Saul was in fact a greater tzadik than David. See the Gemara that Saul was asking God "You said You would give my kingdom to my friend who is better than me. Now you say you are giving it to David. God answer when you were in the Physical world, (a world of lies), I told you a lie. Now I am telling you I am giving the kingdom to David." So we see in the Gemara itself that Saul was greater. And this is clear in the later prophets where there is counted 7 shepherds and 8 princes that would protect Israel if they were around. And there Saul is counted not King David. 

[The idea of "arguments between tzadikim (the righteous)" is one very useful bit of information in Rav Nahman. It sort of hints to the idea of Kant of the "dinge an sich" areas where Reason can not enter.]]