The main magic of the Litvak yeshiva is based on trust in God. When Torah is learned for its own sake, and not for the sake of making  a living, there is a sort of settling of the Divine presence.

But that magic disappears when the intention becomes for the sake of making money.

But ordination programs got introduced (even in the Mir yeshiva of NY itself). That seems to have been a mistake.

 But not the only one. Even the idea of  "kollel" itself to me seems to be a problem. I just do not think people ought to be paid for learning Torah. Religions just to be too much of a business. 

 

Slave revenge

 Slave revenge has nothing to do with bettering the living conditions of the slave as in the incident with the Nat Turner rebellion. It is simply a way of  "getting back"at former masters.

This is what is going on in the USA right now. Slave Revenge. An attempt to destroy the whites. Not better the blacks.

 The lesson to learn from the civil war is rhetoric. 20 years of rhetoric created the situation when young teenagers of both the North and South were anxious to kill the other. This same situation has existed in the USA from the 1960's until today when colleges  and high schools have been overwhelmed by teachers all too ready to demonize the USA, and lionize Communism and Socialism.

And now, as back then in 1861, this can not end peacefully. 

 In America the basic argument between the Right and the Marxists is from tractate Ketuboth page 9. That is do you go by חזקת השתא או חזקה מעיקרא the state of things now or the state of things before. That is do you assume conditions now always existed until you reach the point where you know they did not. I.e. prosperity, freedom, etc all the markers of Western Civilization. Until you reach the point of despair and poverty when you know these conditions did not apply.  

Or do you assume the state of mankind was poor and desperate short and brutal until something like the USA came along to make it different. [Even the age of Mozart does not count since it was only capitalism that made conditions of prosperity and freedom apply to everyone, not just the monarch.] 

Well clearly the Gemara holds that we go by the state of things before and you push that forwards as far as possible until something you know changed it. That is the Constitution of the USA.

Certainly Marxism did not make things prosperous or make people free in any country that has ever tried it. The long lines in Russia just to get a few groceries shows that.

So we know it was capitalism that changed the original conditions of mankind.

[The basic issue in Ketuboth is that a priest marries and then comes to court and says he found his new bride not to be a virgin. [i.e. no hymen]. So she is forbidden to him. But if a Israeli comes and says the same thing she is permitted to him because it is a ספק ספקא doubt of a doubt. Maybe she had sexual relations before Kidushin. Then she is permitted. But even if she had relations after Kidushin, it might have been against her will. So she is still permitted. 

Tosphot asks why not go by חזקת כשרות that every person starts out with. That is--they are Ok util you know otherwise. Tosphot answers because of חזקה מעיקרא the original state of things. That is..you assume she was a virgin until the very second you found out otherwise. That means after the Kidushin and so she is forbidden to the Koken,

So we see we go by the original state of things even when there is a present state of things against it.

[That is from Rav Akiva Eigger and Rav Shach.]

 

 Philosophy seems less interesting to me nowadays because I am upset about what is going on in the USA and I do not see philosophy as ever getting issues of government correct.

For some reason Plato, Kant, Leonard Nelson, Hegel may have been great and deep thinkers, but when it comes to political issues they did not seem to have that same degree of insight or talent.

The people that got politics right the founding fathers of the USA Constitution were not philosophers and they did not base their thought on philosophy. Rather they based their ideas on England and especially the Glorious Revolution of 1689.

It is not that the issues were all that different. Rather that the philosophers got the issues wrong. Hegel saw the terrible mess of the French Revolution but his solution seems to involve too much government. Kant also was dealing with the crisis of modernity of Germany after the old structures of society were changing. But his solutions also do not seem accurate--too much world government and or too much individual.

What ever Thomas Jefferson and James Madison got right, it was not based on philosophy. 

 Kelley Ross of the Kant Fries school of thought has commented on the idea that Kant must have been onto something since we see his idea  in Quantum Mechanics.

The basic ideas that between two states the electron is really not doing anything. It has no classical values of position and momentum. So it really does seem very similar to Kant's Dinge An Sich. The thing in itself which Reason has no access into.

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