Jesus is a sore topic

 The subject of Jesus is a sore topic. Especially when combined with the history of the church.  The opinions vary. On one hand, you have the Rambam who thought that Christianity is idolatry. And Rav Abulafia does not seem to disagree with that at all. But the opinion of Rav Avraham Abulafia is that Jesus was the messiah son of Joseph,  --even though his opinion about the church was highly negative.

[The issue of  Christianity however is approached differently in Tosphot in tractate Avoda Zara. By sitting and trying to learn that Tosphot with my learning partner, helped me see that Tosphot seems to have several different approaches.] My own opinion is that I go with Rav Abulafia.

Messiah son of Joseph is brought in the end of tractate Suka and in the Zohar and the Kol HaTor of the Gra and the Tikunim Hadashim of the Ramchal. What it means is simple. It refers to a preliminary stage before messiah son of David. [Rav Nahman also refers to this . Just today I was in the Na Nach place and opened up the LeM of Rav Nahman and saw that sometimes the same tzadik can contain both aspects in himself.]

I should add that there are souls of the world of Emanation in the Ari [The Arizal, Rav Isaac Luria]. These are souls that are Divine, in that they receive the light of God without any division in between God and them. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Aaron Joseph, David. So when it comes to the subject of the messiah son of Joseph or son of David, we are talking about a spark of the soul of David or Joseph.

[I might add here that I think the idea of Emanation is the approach that Hegel took to this same issue--that is how I tend to read Hegel. [See the debates about Hegel between McTaggart and Cunningham (Logos is everything or penetrates everything?). At any rate, this idea of over flowing or Emanation seems to me to be what Hegel was saying concerning Logos and Jesus. And we know that Hegel was aware of the Ari and borrows from him concerning Adam Kadmon. So it is not to far to imagine that Hegel was thinking along these lines concerning more central issues in his system. So I am not claiming that this answers all the issues in Hegel. Certainly McTaggart and Cunningham would argue that the idea of overflow along with condensation might not answer the issues they were raising. Still this seems to me to be what Hegel was saying.]

[So what would McTaggart say? He would answer that my arguing that condensation of the light or flow of Logos does not answer the issues --because of the same problem--it is the same or it is not.[The law of the excluded middle.] So I am not saying I could answer this question. But rather that I think that this is what Hegel was saying.

So the question would be can incremental change cause a complete change in essence or some other variable.\This is answered in Chaos Theory and in fact is a suggestion of Kelley Ross on how evolution happens.

[Just to make myself clear I want to mention that I can see important points in Kant, Leonard Nelson Kelley Ross, Huemer and Hegel.  ]

it is better to sit in one's room and twiddle your thumbs that go around looking for "mizvot"

 Rav Nahman wrote in the LeM that when one needs compassion from Heaven the way thing to do is to have compassion on others. the difficulty of course is that it is not always so clear how to have compassion on others. But it is clear that when someone asks for help, it ought to be offered as the law is on Purim, "One must give to whom so ever asks."

My approach to having compassion is to try to give to whom so ever asks, but not to seek things to do. The disciple of the Gra, Rav Chaim of Voloshin said it is better to sit in one's room and twiddle your thumbs that go around looking for "mizvot". As Rav Nahman said "the evil inclination is dressed in mizvot."

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.]