A certain amount of the extra added restrictions that often one finds people doing for Passover seem to me to be not all that necessary. After all what is matza? Just flour and water. Heat it up and eat it within 18 minutes and it can not be leavened, bread. The only way something an be leavened bread is by sitting. In any case, the restrictions I think are a power grab by religious authorities to make people think that we need their great wisdom.

Personally, I think the whole religious world has an aspect of being a cult. I would not go anywhere near them --with two exceptions. One would be  straight Litvak yeshiva. There the Torah is learned for its own sake. Another exception would be a Na Nach group of Breslov. Though these are very different kinds of groups, still they both seem fine to me. 

The best way to keep Passover is to do the seder at home.to make ones' own maza by making a thick batter of dough and to either put it into an oven or in a frying pan [or empty can of fish. if one does not have a frying pan.] with just enough oil so as to not stick. [a thin batter would be mezonot--cake and not considered as bread. even though one can eat it, it still is not maza.]

See the LeM of Rav Nahman volume II, chapter 44   not to add extra restrictions to the commandments of the Torah. Just to keep it plain and simple.

[I got the idea of not adding extra restrictions from the LeM of Rav Nahman. Since then I have tried to stick to what the Torah says: "Do not add nor subtract from the mizvot that I have commanded." However the religious thrive on adding restrictions. So I recommend staying away from them.]

 I think human affairs often go as a pendulum. You see the situation in Russia under the czars and it was quite natural that people would be upset and see the monarchy as a problem. [Especially you can imagine that when the monarch got a little too out of touch with the people, that would have exasperated the situation. Like going into WWI.] So then you get the Bolsheviks going in the opposite direction. And that that turns out to be not all that better.

I was thinking about this argument of Rav Shach

Hametz of a gentile who uses force that a Israeli has to guard or pay for. To the Rambam one is required to get rid of it. To the Raavad he does not. \

Rav Shach ties this with a different argument. That is the issue of Haametz of a regular gentile that a Israeli has accepted to guard. There he certainly does need to get rid of it. But the question is how much responsibility does he accept for the Hametz? Like a paid guard or a guard that guards for nothing.

I was thinking about this argument of Rav Shach before I went to sleep last night. And it occurred to me that you could argue one way of the other. On one hand the Raavad is only saying that a case where the Israeli accepts no responsibility at all that he does not trespass the prohibition of "בל יראה ובל ימצא"  ["Hametz (leaven bread or yeast) should not be found in your home nor your boundary."] That is unlike an unpaid guard. However what in fact is the unpaid guard obligated in? Only willful neglect. That would be as if one was walking alone the street in Yerushalaim and saw Arabs selling leaven bread on Passover and overturned their stand. Certainly he has to pay for the damage, but would not transgress the prohibition of "Hametz (leaven bread or yeast) should not be found in your home nor your boundary,"--even though he is incurring a financial obligation to pay for hametz on Passover.  

So you can see this argument of Rav Shach as possibly holding.

Bitul Torah means the very severe sin of not learning Torah when one is able.

What is considered a part of "learning Torah" is extremely important because of the sin of "bitul Torah".[Bitul Torah means the very severe sin of not learning Torah when one is able. ]

So when some rishonim [mediaeval authorities]like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam include Physics and Metaphysics in the category of learning Torah, the significance is great. What I mean is that one is obligated to learn Torah all the time. And if Physics was not a part of Torah, then it would be possibly bitul Torah. [Unless one was doing it for the sake of making a living.] 

The significance of the concept of bitul Torah is not just to make one guilty if e is not learning when he could. Rather it is to point out the awesome sweetness of Torah that one would not give up after having tasted it even once. The only thing is thatt I am saying that to some rishonim, math and physics come under the heading of "Learning Torah"

To so degree you can see this in Psalms 77, 105 and other places where it says to speak of God's wisdom in his creations.

picture of my Dad with the U-2 camera.

 

That was after he invented the Infra-red telescope. Then he was offered a job to make a camera to put on the U-2 airplane to see if the Soviets were about to launch a military strike against the USA. [That is, to see if there was any indication anywhere inside the U.S.S.R. if they were planning on a strike of any sort against the USA. No one in the USA had any info, and President Eisenhauer had been advised to launch a preemptive strike against the U.S.S.R.. Instead, he exercised caution, and decided to create the U-2 project. 

[In fact, the U-2 camera showed that the USSR was not planning any sort of attack on the USA. So the U-2 had the great merit of avoiding WWIII.]

 One is not allowed to mention the name of an idol and certainly not to swear an oath by an idol. Now for a regular prohibition of the Torah one gets lashes. [That is the punishment unless something else is stated openly.] But here things are a little different. One who swears by an idol has not done an act. The Gemara in Sanhedrin 63 side A says the opinion that one gets lashes for swearing by an idol is coming like R Yehuda who holds one can get lashes even for a prohibition that does not have an act. 

The Rambam brings that one does get lashes for this and the Raavad asks that that is only like R. Yehuda. But the law is not like R. Yehuda but rather R Yose who held one does not get lashes for a prohibition that does not have an act. 

Rav Shach answers that Rabin who stated the original version of the law before the Gemara made its corrections to his statement said simply one does not get lashes for a prohibition that does not have an act except swearing and vowing. [And that original statement was said according to the law which is like R Yose. And the way that original statement was said involved not just swearing a false oath but also swearing in the name of an idol.]

I am trying to figure out what possible reason the Rambam would have had to ignore the correction of the Gemara.

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