music file x65

 x65 C Major MP3 file

the Labor Theory of Value is false.The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle.

 The major thing I dislike about communism is that it makes no sense. [It is based on the Labor Theory of Value which is false. The value things have does not depend on how much labor went into making them. I do not are if someone spent a whole day making one needle. That makes it no more valuable to me than if  a factory produced it and I can buy it for one cent. Rather, the value depends on how much people want it. And the factory owner does not extract excess value from the worker. He creates value. The proof you can see yourself. Try to make on your own something and then try to sell it on the street. One day of doing that would have shown Marx and Lenin a thing or two about capitalism.] But that is besides the fact of its supposedly scientific predictions came out just the opposite of what it was predicting. But when things are in chaos, it does provide a means to taking control. That was the assessment of the head of the FBI J. Edgar Hoover. And he meant that in a negative sense. But the same idea was expressed to me by a Mormon who worked as an economist. [I asked him about President Hoover  and the depression and the fact that Roosevelt instituted lots of socialist policies to bring the USA out of the Depression. Whether that worked I do not know, but the answer that Mormon fellow told me was that sometimes in a times of chaos, you need some way that central government can take control.] And in a more startling way it was expressed by many people I met in the Ukraine. No one ever told me things were better under democracy than under communism. Whenever I asked, people always told me things were better than than they were under democracy. [They always said: "It was better then than now." And I saw that also. The police were spending their time hiding in their station, and the streets were empty of police. The more the fear of the KGB dissipated, the more crime and chaos.] You could see this clearly. The more distance the memory of communism was, the more crime was taking over.  

Still the point seems to be the same. To establish some kind of stability when everything is in chaos. But the order ought to be to first bring stability and then an free market democracy. Not the opposite.

So if one is connected with this highest area of value--when he falls he falls into its exact opposite the peak of evil

 It is an odd thing that you see in the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought that there is no cause and effect relation between subject and object (as Dr Kelley Ross makes clear in his blog site https://www.friesian.com/).

And in fact when I was looking at Physics I noticed that Newtons laws are expressed by the Lagrangian and Hamiltonian  in such a way that objects simply tend towards the lowest energy state [or in optics towards the highest energy state] [So one might be excused to wonder how to they know where the lowest energy state is? Are particles that smart?]The causes of things seem to be the actual laws of nature, not the physical forces. It is almost as if we live in a Platonic world where the really real are the laws of mathematics. The physical world is a shadow representation of the really real.

One advantage of the Kant Fries school for me is after one has worked out all the kinks which was done by Greta Hermann and Kelley Ross, it proved me a sort of template to understand my own experience. For seven years in Tzefat [Safed] I had what in various schools of thought is categorized as "devekut", the "Infinite Light", Samadhi etc. [Though I can not tell which is more to the point.] This is not religious fanaticism  but rather a direct experience of the Divine. Or sometimes even more--a direct connection with the Divine.-and absorption into the Infinite Light. But what you see in Kelley Ross is that this is just one area of value. Not all. In terms of the Ari one would say this is the area of value of "Keter" but lacks a;; the other areas. Thus one might have total devekut with God but lack any of the other areas of value. And even more so--each area of value is opposite to its exact opposite. So if one is connected with this highest area of value--when he falls he falls into its exact opposite the peak of evil   

He was dealing in this from strictly a legal standpoint, but I think he also saw some of the implications of using Torah as means to make money. One implication is the ruin of Torah.

The major place where the Rambam is critical of the yeshivas in his time is in his commentary on Pirkei Avot  דאשתמש בתגא חלף. ["One who uses the crown passes away."] [Not in the first place in Pikei Avot where this statement comes up but later in ch 4.] So he would not have been very happy with the kollel system. And even today it is a major shock to read what he wrote 800 years ago and basically is still impossible for anyone to swallow.  He holds that (I am paraphrasing) the heads of the yeshivot that say it is a mitzvah to give money to support these institutions are liars.

There should be yeshivot where people learn Torah, but they ought not to be means of making money.

But in his own days, the implications of what he wrote were clear to people and caused the first major controversy.

 He was dealing in this from strictly a legal standpoint, but I think he also saw some of the implications of using Torah as  means to make money. One implication is the ruin of Torah. Or rather-the ruin of sincere Torah. Those that are sincere are despised.

So while there is no promises, still the idea was the only way to deal with life's difficulties is to learn Torah.

 The general approach of the Mir Yeshiva in NY when it came to life's questions was "learn Torah". [In pain English that means the oral and written Law: the Old Testament, the two Talmuds plus the midrashim.] That was at least the basic idea I got by hanging around the rosh yeshiva, Rav Shmuel Berenbaum. That is there was an implicit awareness that life has tons of difficulties and most of which simply have no "solution". That is just the way life is. As Jordan Peterson puts it: "Life is hard." [He means that it is implicitly hard, not because someone else is making it hard.] 

So while there is no promises, still the idea was the only way to deal with life's difficulties is to learn Torah. 

[There are differences in approach however. How much in depth learning and how much fast leaning and the proper balance seems to differ from Litvak yeshiva to any other Litvak yeshiva.]

The only two things I would like to add to this is the idea of Physics and Mathematics being part of the command to learn Torah as you can see in the last of the first four chapters of Mishna Torah where "Pardes" is defined as Physics and Metaphysics as the Greeks understood them, and then later where it is stated that one should divide the learning time into Tenach, Oral Law, and Gemara and in the category of Gemara is ''Pardes." 

Plus the idea that even Math can be learned in that fast sort of way that is usually reserved for learning Gemara fast- that is to say the words and go on. 

crises [plural] in an individual's life

 The point of Rav Nahman of Breslov and the point of those learning his books is to address crises [plural] in an individual's life. It is not to define Torah. Nor is it actually to "be mehazek" strengthen one in keeping Torah-- though sometimes that is the effect. The cause of this is that something changed in human mentality in the 1700's. The old forms of community were still in place, but something about the modern mind changed. The issues and problems became very different.

This is very different from the sort of Musar (Ethics) books of the Middle Ages which were to define what it is that Torah requires from you in terms of Fear of God and character traits. They in essence explain what the Torah is all about in a practical sense. They are slightly different from books of the Middle Ages which deal more directly with the actual worldview of Torah. 

What were some of the crises that Rav Nahman was dealing with? The average layman could accept the idea that we ought to just learn and keep Torah plainly and simply.  But the problem was with religious leaders that seemed intent on fouling up the whole thing--and still are. So he deals with that often in e.g. LeM vol. I ch.s 8, 12, 28, 60, vol. II ch.s 1, 8  and many other places I forget off hand.

בבא בתרא דף ב' ע''אAt the very end of this i suggest an approach that might help understand this sugia. But without my learning partner, David Bronson, I am not sure how it all would fit together.

תוספות asks in of בבא בתרא דף ב' ע''א why do you need "therefore"? [היינו since they are required to build the wall, therefore they divide if it falls.]. Answers תוספות: it might fall into the domain of just one and he would be believed saying, "I built it" because he has a מיגו of saying, "I bought it." רב עקיבא אייגר asks, "Why do you need 'I bought it?'" Perhaps just "I built it" alone should be believed since it is in his domain except for the "therefore" of the משנה. To answer this question רב שך says if he would say "I built it", and if he is believed, that takes the wall out of its חזקה of belonging to both. He got the idea from  רב איסר מלצר the author of the אבן האזל. That means that he would not be believed to say I built it except for the possibility that he could have said I bought it. So now we know he can not even say that because they are both required to build the wall. רב שך suggests further that this might depend on a similar argument between תוספות and the Rambam in בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א. The case is two people come into court holding a garment. The law is they divide. What happens if after that, one comes in and only he is holding it and says, "The other admitted to me that it is mine." The other says, "I rented it to him." The גמרא says, "He is not believed, because we say 'Until now you thought he is  a thief, and now you rented it to him without witnesses?" תוספות asks why do we need the "We are witnesses?" Answer: because there is a מיגו he could have said, "You grabbed it from me." So we see that in fact if he had said that he would be believed. So why not believe the first one that has the object? Because he says you agreed with me and by that he tries to place the other in the category of  a thief and so he is not believed. What רב שך is saying here is hard to figure out. It seems to me that both are accusing the other. And why would this have a חזקת מטלטלים after they were already in court and it was decided they should split? I would like to suggest that this is in fact the reason the גר''א in חושן משפט קל''ח  and the ריטב''א have a different answer for why he would be believed to say, "The other grabbed it," because it is talking about things that are commonly borrowed or rented out. That is what I think that note of the גר''א means over there. Furthermore the רמב''ם is consistent with his other opinion  about if one grabs after there is already a doubt [תפס אחר שנולד הספק] that we do not take it from him and the רא''ש holds we do take it from him. That is about the case of  "a כהן grabs a animal of tithe that is doubtful." So the רא''ש is just going with the תוספןת as usual. That is to say both of the pleas cancel since each is accusing the other of lying so we simply go with חזקה. And the one that has it now has no חזקה since he has it after there has already been born the doubt.

However the reason why I think the גר''א is right here is that תוספות is saying that the טענה "he took it from me" in the בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א is believed in and of itself, not just because of the חזקת מטלטלים. So while the issue of  one party seized it  after the doubt is born is relevant, still that is not the reason for תוספות to say the actual טענה of "he seized  it" is believed.

תוספות שואל בבבא בתרא דף ב' ע''א מדוע אתה צריך "לפיכך"? [היינו מכיוון שהם נדרשים לבנות את הקיר, ולכן הם מתחלקים אם הקיר נופל.]. תשובת התוספות: זה עלול ליפול לנחלתו של אחד בלבד והוא יאמין באומרו, "בניתי את זה" כי יש לו מיגו לומר: "קניתי את זה." רב עקיבא איגר שואל, "למה אתה צריך 'קניתי את זה?'" אולי צריך להאמין רק "בניתי את זה" לבד מכיוון שהוא נמצא בתחום שלו, למעט "לכן" של משנה. כדי לענות על שאלה זו רב שך אומר אם הוא היה אומר "בניתי את זה", ואם מאמינים לו, זה מוציא את החומה מחזקה של שייכות לשניהם. הוא קיבל את הרעיון מרב איסר מלצר מחבר אבן האזל. זה אומר שלא יאמינו לו שהוא אומר "שבניתי את זה" למעט האפשרות שהוא יכול לומר "שקניתי את זה." אז עכשיו אנחנו יודעים שהוא אפילו לא יכול לומר את זה בגלל ששניהם נדרשים לבנות את החומה. רב שך מציע עוד שזה עשוי להיות תלוי בוויכוח דומה בין תוספות לרמב"ם בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א. המקרה הוא ששני אנשים מגיעים לבית המשפט המחזיקים בגד. החוק הוא שהם מתחלקים. מה קורה אם אחרי זה, אחד נכנס ורק הוא אוחז בזה ואומר, "השני הודה בפניי שהוא שלי." השני אומר, "הישכרתי לו את זה." הגמרא אומרת, "לא מאמינים לו, כי אנחנו אומרים 'עד עכשיו חשבת שהוא גנב, ועכשיו הישכרת לו את זה בלי עדים?' תוספות שואל מדוע אנו זקוקים ל"אנחנו עדים"? תשובה: מכיוון שיש מיגו הוא יכול היה לומר, "תפסת את זה ממני." אז אנחנו רואים שלמעשה אם הוא היה אומר את זה שיאמינו לו. אז למה לא להאמין לראשון שיש לו את האובייקט? כי הוא אומר "שהסכמת איתי" ועל ידי זה הוא מנסה למקם את האחר בקטגוריה של גנב ולכן לא מאמינים לו. את מה שרב שך אומר כאן קשה להבין. נראה לי ששניהם מאשימים את האחר. ולמה שיהיה לזה חזקת מטלטלין אחרי שהם כבר היו בבית המשפט והוחלט שעליהם לחלק? ברצוני להציע שזו למעשה הסיבה שלגר"א בחושן משפט קל''ח והריטב"א יש תשובה אחרת מדוע יאמינו לו לומר "האחר תפס את זה" כי זה מדבר על דברים שמושאלים בדרך כלל או מושכרים. זה מה שאני חושב שפתק הגר"א אומר שם. יתר על כן הרמב''ם תואם את דעתו האחרת לגבי אם תופס אחרי שיש כבר ספק [תפס אחר שנולד הספק] שאנחנו לא לוקחים את זה ממנו והרא''ש מחזיק שאנחנו כן לוקחים את זה ממנו. זה בערך המקרה של "כהן תופס חיה של מעשר שהוא בספק." אז הרא''ש פשוט הולך עם התוספת כרגיל. כלומר שתי התביעות מתבטלות מכיוון שכל אחת מהן מאשימה את השנייה בשקר ולכן אנחנו פשוט הולכים עם חזקה. ולמי שיש לו עכשיו אין חזקה שכן יש לו את זה אחרי שכבר נולד הספק [ביניין תקפו כהן]. אולם הסיבה שבגללה אני חושב שהגר"א צודק כאן היא שתוספות אומר כי הטענה "הוא חטף את זה ממני" בבא מציעא דף ו' ע''א מאמינים כשלעצמה, לא רק בגלל של חזקת מטלטלין. אז אמנם הנושא של צד אחד תפס אותו לאחר לידת הספק הוא רלוונטי, אך עדיין זו לא הסיבה של תוספות לומר כי מאמינים בפועל לטענה של הוא תפס אותו