Herem [חרם excommunication] of the Gra

 So why is it that the Herem [חרם excommunication] of the Gra is ignored? [That is his signature on the letter of excommunication.] I think it is because people do not realize that a herem is a regular halacha (law) based on nedarim נדרים (vows). The only question would be if a herem is made by someone qualified.  Clearly he was qualified. So it applies according to the strict law.

[Why do I say it comes from nedarim (vows). That is because I saw this in the commentaries on Laws of Shavuot and Nedarim.

So what is a neder (vow)? It is when someone says, "This loaf of bread is forbidden to you like a karban."(קרבן sacrifice brought in the Temple) If that loaf belongs to the speaker, then the neder [vow] is valid, and the other person can not eat from that loaf. אדם יכול לאסור את שלו. So in the case of the Gra,  the herem was valid, and anyone transgressing it even until today  transgresses a prohibition of the Torah.

Rav Nahman I believe was a great tzadik and not under the herem. However he does not seem to have been aware of its validity.   So while `I think the best idea is to be part of a straight Litvak yeshiva, I can see the importance of following the advice of Rav Nahman in the many areas that he touches on. [Rav Nahman himself said a prophet knows only what is revealed to him. He is not "all knowing". It is a mistake to think of any tzadik as impervious to mistake--even the greatest like Moses as we see in the Torah in the case of the waters of Meriva

SO in short there are two reasons to be careful about the herem of the Gra. One: it matters not if one agrees with it. It still has halachic validity. Two: is refers to objective reality.

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 Avraham Abulafia [the mystic from the Middle Ages I have mentioned before] had an approach צירוף אותיות combining the letters of the Divine names of God. His approach is brought at length in the Remak (Moshe of Cordoba) and Rav Chaim Vital.

There was a  debate because of his books of prophecy. That I imagine was too much to swallow for many people. But even the Chida (Rav Chaim David Azulai) brings him in Shem HaGedolim.  

[One thing I noticed was his sympathetic approach to Jesus but from what I can tell that was not the reason the Rashba was against him.]

Nachmanides asks in the first mishna in Ketuboth this. We know that if the husband comes to court and says he found his wife not to be a virgin we believe him until she brings proof that she was. [So she loses the Ketubah and also to one opinion the marriage itself is not valid. [It is like when you buy something and what you get were two different things. The whole deal is null in the first place.] ]

The Gemara says the reason is that the Ketubah is from the words of the scribes, not from the Torah. So if it would be from the Torah she would be believed? And he would need to bring proof? But why? In general when a document comes to court that has a condition stated in in it do not we usually say first show that the condition has been fulfilled and then we can deal with the document?

The Ramban [Nachmanides] says the reason she would be believed is there is a Hazaka and a Rov [prior status and a majority that most women are married as virgins.]

So we see a hazaka (status) alone would not be enough. Rav Shach shows why this is the case from Ketuboth 76. There is an exchange of an ass with a cow. The owner of the ass now get the cow. But when the owner of the cow goes to take possession of the ass he finds it dead. Rav Yehuda said in the name of  Shmuel the owner of the ass has to show it was alive at the time of the deal. Tosphot askes over there but why? The owner of the ass already has a hazaka (status) in the cow. [He has already taken possession,] So should not the other party have to bring the proof the ass was not alive at the time of the deal? Answer. It is only a Hazaka. That is not enough when we need clear proof, not just prior assumptions. So we see from this that Where you need proof a Hazaka (status) is not enough, but a hazaka (status) with a rov (majority) would be. [Why would the Rov help? I did not look into this enough yet. But I assume it comes from that Gemara in Ketuboth where you collect the Ketubah because she got married in a garment that is reserved for virgins. That is a Rov (majority).]

There is such a thing as being too smart. Rav Nahman brings this up in the LeM in a few places but the most famous place is around LeM Vol II, chapter 12. "החכמות מטעות את האדם מאד".

You can see this in universities.  On one hand the stupidest people in universities are the students in the psychology departments. That is those are the students and teaches with the lowest IQ. They mostly have two digit IQs. But among the smartest are in the Philosophy departments. [They are not the smartest which are the Physicists.] But in the philosophy department you see this phenomenon that Rav Nahman talks about. They are too smart. At some point the smartness takes them off on some crazy tangent.

Even in Physics it is not the smartest that make the greatest advances. Anything more than an 150 IQ is  detrimental. The super IQ people that get on game shows are never the ones that make real advances. 

To combine faith with reason

To combine faith with reason was a major goal of the Middle Ages. But by means of Torah scholars that are demons as Rav Nahman [of Breslov] brings in the LeM vol I chapter 12 and 28 the Dark Side now tries to destroy faith under the cloak of faith.[It is like Daniel Defoe wrote that in every generation the Dark Side changes and develops new tactics.]

Another  method by which the Dark Side tries to destroy faith is by the disguise of "reason" which as a political system became Socialism. 

Socialism is not a good thing since I do not relish the prospect of the world de-evolving into socialist banana republics like in Africa or South America. I mean who in their right mind would want to live in Niguarda, the Sudan or Venezuela? You really think socialism is so great the  take a look at how it destroys everything in its path.

 The problem with teachers of religion especially in the Jewish world is actually seen from ancient times. That is the false prophets that were documented in the books of Ezekiel and Jeremiah. And you see this in the Mishna and Gemara. The Mishna brings that the prushim [Pharisees] were מכלי עולם (destroyers of the world). [The group of "prushim" ([Pharisees]) are often confused with the sages of the Mishna,- but these are not the same group. The prushim were the religious fanatics. That would be the religious today. This is the opposite of the sages of Mishna who were not trying to make a show of how religious they were, nor trying to use the appearance of Torah to get others to give them money.

[So even though Rav Nahman of Breslov brings up the problem of Torah scholars that are demons in the LeM Vol I ch 12, he is not the first one to notice this problem]

  Here I would like to answer the question I asked on רב שך.  The question was ר' יהודה and ר' שמעון both hold we go by the דרשינן טעמא דקרא, לר' שמעון תמיד ולר' רק כשהטעם נכתב בתוך הפסוק and yet come to opposite conclusions. The answer is this. ר' שמעון מחזיק  we go by both the reason and the literal meaning. You see this in the case in Sanhedrin כ''א ע''א. He says a king may not marry more than שמנה עשרה and also not even one that might turn his heart. It is ר' יהודה that says we go only by the reason when the reason is written.

So back to our subject about marrying a gentile woman. The reason ר' שמעון says not to marry any gentile woman is not because of going by the reason for the verse, but rather because that is the literal meaning of the verse. In that particular verse the seven Canaanite nations are not mentioned even though that is the larger context there. And if he would only go by the reason for the verse he would forbid only seven nations. And the reason ר' יהודה who is the תנא קמא forbids only seven nations is when the reason for the law is written in the verse he goes only by the reason which applies only to the seven nations since they are specially more attached to idolatry more than any other nations.  

כאן ברצוני לענות על השאלה ששאלתי על רב שך. השאלה הייתה שר' יהודה ור' שמעון שניהם מחזיקים שאנחנו הולכים דרשינן טעמא דקרא, לר' שמעון תמיד, ור' יהודה רק כשהטעם נכתב בתוך הפסוק, ובכל זאת מגיעים למסקנות הפוכות. התשובה היא זו. ר' שמעון מחזיק אנחנו הולכים גם לפי הסיבה וגם משמעות המילולית. אתה רואה זאת במקרה בסנהדרין כ''א ע''א. לדבריו, מלך לא יכול להתחתן יותר משמונה עשרה וגם לא אישה כזו שיכולה להפוך את ליבו. ור' יהודה אומר שאנחנו הולכים רק לפי הסיבה כשהסיבה נכתבת בפסוק. אז חזור לנושא שלנו על נישואין לאישה לא יהודיה. הסיבה שר' שמעון אומר שלא להינשא לאישה לא יהודיה אינה בגלל היותה של הסיבה לפסוק, אלא כי זו המשמעות המילולית של הפסוק. באותו פסוק שבעת העמים הכנעניים לא מוזכרים למרות שזה ההקשר הגדול יותר שם. ואם רק נלך לפי הסיבה לפסוק זה היה אוסר רק על שבעת האומות. והסיבה שר' יהודה שהוא התנא קמא אוסר רק שבעת האומות היא כאשר הסיבה לחוק כתובה בפסוק הוא הולך רק לפי הסיבה שמתייחסת רק לשבע העמים מכיוון שהם קשורים במיוחד לעבודת אלילים יותר מכל עם אחר