Rashba [Rav Shmuel Ben Aderet] in Kidushin page 17

I have been thinking about a Rashba [Rav Shmuel Ben Aderet] in Kidushin page 17 for some time already. He asks from inheritance of a convert. He could not say to his brother "take the idols and I will take the other stuff," if inheritance of a convert was from the Torah. So we see "there is no choice" אין ברירה [going back in time.] But one brother can say to another, "You take the produce in one place, and I in another," and his idea is to get the produce which already has the tithes taken from it. The Rashba answers that there is choice in one sort of things, but not in two sorts. Then he asks from a gemara in Temura where you have two partners dividing up ten sheep against 9 and  a dog. All the ten that are opposite to the set with the dog are considered the "price of a dog" and therefore can not be brought as sacrifices. The Gemara asks let one sheep be for the dog and the rest would be OK. So from that question we see there is choice even by two types. אפילו בשני מינים יש ברירה

Rav Shach suggests that even in dividing among inheritors there is some ambiguity if the act is as they are buyers, but the actual things they are dividing are thought to be simply inheritance. Or if in the objects themselves there is an ingredient of being buyers. So the Gemara that holds one brother could not say "Take the idols," holds they are buyers, but the other Gemara in Temura holds they are inheritors [in two types] and so the saying of ''take the idols" would not be forbidden except for the fact that he agrees to the existence of the idols which makes that act forbidden. [It would not be forbidden because of "no choice since we see in Temura that "there is choice"יש ברירה  even by two sorts of things.]

 Rav Avraham Abulafia was the most neglected of all the mystics of the middle ages. I learned a lot from him. In particular the idea that even in languages of gentiles there is holiness. So that idea combined with the idea of the Ari Isaac Luria to say the words of verses forwards and backwards gave me the idea of using this method in Physics which in fact helped me get through my Physics courses at Polytechnic Institute of NYU. But I have not mentioned this on my blog because I did not want to distract from the fast learning. But both methods seem to be important. Certainly one can see that the Litvaks that walk in the path of the Gra get to great depth in Gemara by means of intense review. Yet without the fast learning type of approach of saying the words and going on that you see in the Conversations of Rav Nahman [76] one lacks a certain perspective in learning. 

[The general Litvak approach based on the Gra is to emphasize in depth learning for the morning hours and "bekiut" fast learning in the afternoon. But for some reason, I left the Litvak world and went more in the direction of Torah with Derech Eretz [work and Torah]. But, I can see the greatness of just siting and learning Torah all day-- for those that can manage to do so.] 

 

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 Rav Nahman of Breslov mentions often in the LeM the problem with Torah scholars that are demons even though he does not refer to this problem in the same way all the time. For example in LeM vol I:61 he refers to the importance of not granting "semicha" [ordination] to people that are not really proper or prepared. So let's say there would be no such thing. What approach would be possible? Could people just go to any student of Ponovitch or the Mir to ask what the Torah says about such and such a question? I imagine that would  be the best approach.  At least to me this makes sense because in fact when I got to the Mir I was astounded at the high level of learning of even the first year students. My experience has been that almost any student of any of the great Litvak yeshivas tends to have a great grasp of Torah.

[Besides this we already know that "semicha" is  a fraud. Authentic semicha disappeared in the middle of the time of the amoraim.  That is why later amoraim are just known as "Rav" or just their first names. Apparently it continued somewhere into the Talmud period but the farther you go it gets less and less until it is accepted that at the end it simply no longer existed. [Semicha means a continuous granting of authority to teach Torah from Moses on Sinai  down to the middle of the Talmud period.] 

Another point to take into consideration is that Torah ought not be used as a means to make money. So why support that? Better give the same money to the great Litvak yeshivas that learn Torah for its own sake.

The Kant direction has tons of interpretations, but the best to my mind is the Kant-Fries school [see Kelley Ross.

 Kant is really a different sort of approach than Hegel. Hegel does deal a lot with Kant, but does not actually refute him in any points at all. So my thinking about philosophy is that it branches out into three separate directions. These might be reconciled in some way, but it is not that they are all the same. 

The Kant direction has tons of interpretations, but the best to my mind is the Kant-Fries school [see Kelley Ross.] The main point is the immediate non intuitive knowledge [faith] about the things in themselves. [Or the thing in itself in Schopenhauer's modification of Kant.] [You would need this immediate non intuitive knowledge to get to the dinge an sich, since neither reason alone or sense perception alone can do so.]

The Hegel aspect also has this sort of approach that we can know the dinge an sich things in themselves, but not some other faculty besides reason, but by reason itself. [He is not all that different from G.E. Moore in that respect.] Reason gets there because of a give and take process he calls the dialectic. That is in fact the way science progresses.[Reason and sense perception work together. See Huemer ]

Then there is the intuitionists-- G.E. Moore, Prichard, Huemer. I am not sure where to place them. That is in some way the analytic school, but somewhat different.

Gemara Shabat pg 63.One should learn even if he forgets and even though he does not know wat he is saying.לעלם ליגרס אינש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר

In Shar Yashuv [of Rav Friefeld] there was a tremendous emphasis on review and in depth learning. This was in some sense at the Mir also except at the Mir there was the afternoon sessions which was devoted to fast learning. I should admit however that at both places I was out of my depth. The only way I can explain the way they were learning would be if you would learn the Chidushei HaRambam of Rav Chaim of Brisk or the Avi Ezri.

But I felt the need to learn fast--to cover ground. So I developed this sort of style that every paragraph in the Gemara I would learn twice with Rashi and the Maharsha [plus what ever rishonim or achronim that were available.] That way I could satisfy myself that I was doing some review-- but not lingering overly long. [That was the way I went through a lot of the large tractates.]

[Some time after that I was in Uman and David Bronson came there, and we started learning. In his sort of learning I saw the same kind of depth I had seen in Shar Yashuv and the Mir. But after that I left Uman.] 

[Since This balanced approach between in depth learning and fast learning of the Mir seems best to me. I later applied this balanced approach to Physics and it seems to work for me.

[Later,  I began to learn even without understanding based on the Gemara Shabat pg 63.One should learn even if he forgets and even though he does not know wat he is saying.לעלם ליגרס אינש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר The learning gets absorbed into ones subconscious even though he thinks he did not understand. The subconscious processes the raw data as he sleeps at night. The saying of the words is not for understanding but rather for the uptake of the data.

Kant changed from the transcendental deduction in the Critique A to a more inclusive sort in B.

 Kant changed from the transcendental deduction in the Critique A to a more inclusive sort in B. [in order to answer the critique of Schultz]. However, even the second version  suffers from the mind-body problem. The body receives the signals, and then the categories [of Aristotle, how, where, why, when, how much, etc.] unify the information. But what information? There still is no way we know that can combine the signals with the mind. Computer chips in a bathtub are not a computer. And even when you put them together who is the user? So you need immediate non intuitive knowledge to unify the sense perception with the mind. 

That is not new. That is the basic idea of the Kant/Fries/Nelson approach. However I would like to ask if this is so different from Hegel? Hegel wants to collapse the mind body problem all into the mind--the absolute Idea [what you might know more familiarly as the Logos].  But Hegel's concept of reason and the mind is not at all like Kant. [That is the source of the famous critique on his Smaller and Greater Logic.]

His logic does not suffer from the Humean, "Reason can only tell us something is wrong if it is self contradictory," [an unproven postulate, and one that seems wrong on the face of it as G.E. Moore and Prichard and Huemer noticed.]

Hegel's Reason and Fries's are the same thing. Some source of knowledge that is beyond reason and beyond sensory perception.

[I owe Kelley Ross gratitude for explaining the idea of non intuitive immediate knowledge in a way that I began to understand that it means some deeper source of knowledge that branches out into empirical or a priori knowledge or both together.] [The G.E. Moore approach and Huemer is that reason simply recognizes universals. It is not going into the particulars of how. And the how is the question of Kant. How do we know synthetic a priori (universals)?]  So Kelley Ross noted that Huemer could have benefited from the Friesian/Leonard Nelson approach.]