My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum]

 My Dad [Philip Rosten/Rosenblum] had a way of downplaying anything good or great that he did. When he volunteered for the USA Air Force, he could have said it was for patriotic motives. But instead he said, "Well, everyone was getting drafted."  I realized that joining the Air Force had a significant effect on his life. For he had just got his master's degree from Cal Tech. So when he got to the Air Force, they must have seen that had someone they could use. So they put him into the development of the top secret B-29.  Then he was sent to fight for the war in Europe. But after the war, he developed the first Infra Red telescope. The the army base where he made that the focus of Senator McCarthy who had noticed that there were hidden communists in the USA government [like nowadays.] So when my Dad came to work on Monday morning, the whole place was empty, except for Berny Marcus, his friend. All the others were fired. So even though it was just window dressing because all the workers were back at work in a couple of days, still my dad and Marcus had been offered to work on a new government project--the top secret U-2 airplane. So he and Berny came to California. [They were flown out every Monday morning to Area 51, and came back home on Friday. [That is how it came about that I was born in California.] Then that was finished and there was apparently some other project at Hycon Corporation. But after that was finished, my dad invented a new kind of xerox machine called the "copymate machine." But that was the first time he was working in a private capacity. That lasted for five years, and then the USA government came calling again. They wanted him to put his infra-red kind telescope onto satellites that would spy on the USSR.  So they got a constellation of satellites into space for that, and then asked my dad to work on laser communication between satellites for SDI (Star Wars).

And that is when the whole incident when the KGB started stealing the documents from  TRW corporation where my dad was working. [That was made into a movie.] But my dad quit there, and started working for himself. He sold our house, and made a tidy sum, and started investing with that. 

[I am not saying he stopped because of the KGB. Rather it seemed to me, that he was going to quit even before that was revealed. He told me that better experts were up and coming from the universities and that his areas of experience were no longer needed.] 

When my dad was making his invention, the copymate machine in Newport Beach, we went to Temple Sharon in a nearby city. Then we moved when he started work on SDI, and I started going to Temple Israel in Hollywood. Then when I graduated from high school, I decided to go to a very great Litvak yeshiva, Shar Yashuv in NY. [My motivation was mainly philosophical. I had spent a lot of time studying Plato, Dante, Spinoza, and Chinese philosophy. To go and learn Torah seemed to me to be the natural next step.] Shar Yashuv had a beginners program, but rapidly advanced to deep "Lumdus" learning. [So my first year there was sort of confusing, but the second year in when we started on Hulin and the third year was for Ketuboth. In the middle of the fourth year, I decided to go to the Mir in NY. That is where I discovered a second kind of deep learning that you see in books of Rav Haim of Brisk and Rav Shach. It is very different from the type done in Shar Yashuv which was more analytic. [Kind of like G.E. Moore in philosophy.] The type of Rav Shach is more "global". [Sort of like Hegel.]

So my education in Physics was delayed by some years and I am finding it hard to catch up.

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 In the introduction to the Chovot Levavot you find he divides wisdom into knowledge of nature, knowledge of how to use nature, and knowledge of Godliness. But within that discussion he says the Arabic names. You can see there he is referring in this last to the subject known in the Muslim world as metaphysics. [He actually says that is what is talking about and then continues that this last subject is necessary to know for the sake of Torah. (So they are not the same thing.) So while he is referring to the actual book of Aristotle of that name he also clearly means the Muslim commentaries on that books which comprised that subject. [I assume he must have meant Al Farabi and Al Kindi.]

The thing about Metaphysics as a subject of study is that it seems to have its ups and downs. In fact I might have gone into philosophy myself if not for the fact that I felt that something was "off" about twentieth century philosophy. But some people did go into it anyway and retained their own common sense Like Dr Kelley Ross of the Kant Friesian School. Dr Ross, Huemer, Robert Hanna and a few others have also noticed this and suggested more or less just skipping twentieth century philosophy. [Dr. Ross wants to start with Leonard Nelson and Fries, Hanna wants to go straight back to Kant and skip everyone in-between, Humer goes back to Prichard and G.E. Moore.]

In the book of Rav Nahman of Uman he deals with the issue of Torah scholars that are themselves demons in the LeM vol I ch 12. Later in vol I chapter 28 he deals with a slightly different issue of people that hear Torah lessons from Torah scholars who themselves receive their Torah lessons from the Dark Side.

 

The basic idea there is that there are the "alef"s in the higher worlds. But often what some higher spiritual essence comes down into this world , it gets physicalized  in such a way that the dark forces have a hold on it. So when Torah scholars who receive their lessons from teh demons, when they see someone who is serving God with simplicity and with no "wisdoms", they try to stop them.

This I can imagine was the case in the days of Rav Nahman himself who had a lot of enemies and certainly his students. And this Torah lesson was probably said in relation to that fact. But I think it applies all the more so nowadays. When there is someone who just wants to sit and learn Torah for its own sake and not work and just trust in God to provide his needs, often the very enemies of that person are Tora scholars who are demons.

the beginning of בבא מציעא also page 7 and the end of that chapter.

  It occurred to me as I was at the sea thinking about the issue that רב שך laws of שאלה ופיקדון bring about a person that finds a document among his documents and he does not know whether the lender or borrower gave it to him to guard, [at the end of the first chapter of בבא מציעא]. Now רב שך answers that it reverts to a verbal loan in which the borrower can say "I paid". But I was thinking that exactly the same answers that רב שך had been giving before that in other cases like the third hundred might work. So in the case of the third hundred he is guarding the 300 hundred for both, so both have a חזקה. [The word "hazaka" means holding onto the object.] But רב שך [Rav Shach] himself says about a lost object that it stays by the finder because he is not guarding it for both, but only the real owner. So I was wondering why not use that same exact answer here with finding a document among his documents. It could be that both people gave it to him to guard. But we do not know that. It is possible that only one person gave it to him. Since it is doubtful, we should not say "divide" but leave it as in fact is the law. Apparently רב שך did not want to use this as an answer, and I am not sure why. [I think it is proper to add here that this is the very issue which is at the center of רב שך's approach in that entire section, the fact that a person that is guarding something for someone else means that person for whom he is guarding it for is considered to have a חזקה in the object. If this was not the case, then you would always say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. That is the only reason that in the beginning of בבא מציעא that the law is to divide, because there is a חזקה for both people.]

עלה בדעתי כשהייתי בים וחשבתי על הנושא שרב שך מביא בהלכות שאלה ופיקדון. אדם מוצא מסמך בין המסמכים שלו והוא לא יודע אם המלווה או הלווה מסרו לו אותו לשמירה, [ בסוף הפרק הראשון של בבא מציעא]. כעת רב שך עונה שזה חוזר להלוואה מילולית בה הלווה יכול לומר "שילמתי". אבל חשבתי שאותן תשובות שרב שך נתן לפני כן במקרים אחרים כמו המאה השלישית עשויים לעבוד גם פה. אז במקרה של המאה השלישית הוא שומר על 300 המאות לשניהם כך שלשתיהן יש חזקה. אבל רב שך עצמו אומר על אובייקט אבוד שהוא נשאר על ידי המוצא כי הוא לא שומר עליו לשניהם, אלא רק לבעלים האמיתי. אז תהיתי מדוע לא להשתמש באותה תשובה מדויקת כאן במציאת מסמך בין המסמכים שלו. יכול להיות ששני האנשים נתנו לו את זה לשמירה. אך איננו יודעים זאת. יתכן שרק אדם אחד נתן לו את זה. מכיוון שזה ספק, אנחנו לא צריכים לומר "לחלק" אלא להשאיר את זה כמו שהחוק למעשה. כנראה שרב שך לא רוצה להשתמש בזה כתשובה, ואני לא בטוח למה. [אני חושב שנכון להוסיף כאן שזה הנושא שעומד במרכז הגישה של רב שך באותו סעיף, העובדה שאדם ששומר על משהו עבור מישהו אחר פירושו אותו אדם שהוא שומר עליו נחשב כבעל חזקה באובייקט. אם זה לא היה כך, תמיד היית אומר המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. זו הסיבה היחידה שבתחילת בבא מציעא שהחוק הוא חלוקה, כי יש חזקה לשני האנשים.  

 It occurred to me as I was at the sea thinking about the issue that Rav Shach [laws of שאלה ופיקדון] bring about a person that finds a document among his documents and he does not know whether the lender or borrower gave it to him to guard, [at the end of the first chapter of Bava Metzia] Now Rav Shach answers that it reverts to a verbal loan in which the borrower can say I paid. But I was thinking that exactly the same answers that Rav Shach had been giving before that in other cases like the third hundred might work. So in the case of the third hundred he is guarding the 300 hundred for both so both have a "Hazaka". But Rav Shach himself says about a lost object that it stays by the finder because he is not guarding it for both but only the real owner. So I was wondering why not use that same exact answer here with finding a document among his documents. It could be that both people gave it to him to guard. But we do not know that. It is possible that only one person gave it to him. Since it is doubtful we should not say divide but leave it as in fact is the law. Apparently Rav Shach did not want to use this as an answer, and I am not sure why.

[I think it is proper to add here that this is the very issue which is at the center of Rav Shach's approach in that entire section--the fact that a person that is guarding something for someone else means that person for whom he is guarding it for is considered to have a hazaka in the object. If this was not the case then you would always say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה. That is the only reason that in the beginning of Bava Metzia that the law is to divide--because there is a hazaka for both people.

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