It seems to me that I ought to mention a bit of my background. I was at two very great Litvak yeshivas that walk in the path of the Gra: The first was Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway for what I think was 3.5 years. The second year was tracate Chulin. The third was tractate  Ketuboth. Then for half that year was tractate Yevamot. Then I was at the Mir in NY also for about three years and then Israel. During the time I preparing for Israel, I got interested in Rav Nahman of Breslov. And during that first period in Israel, I was pretty much going with the path of Rav Nahman--that is a lot of going out into the forests doing "hitbodadut" [that is private prayer and talking with God in one's own language.].  Looking back on it all it seems to me that I would have done better to stick with the straight Torah approach of the Mir and the Litvak yeshiva, and tried to combine that with the great advice and ideas of Rav Nahman. 

That is to say,- I think it would have been better to try to stick with the great aspects of the path of the Gra--in terms of learning Torah and Musar, and to combine that with the good ideas of Rav Nahman. 

There is a tendency with Breslov to get off the track of learning Torah and straight Torah. Not that this was any fault of Rav Nahman himself, but there does seem to be that sort of danger. The mistake is understandable since the actual letter of excommunication of the Gra is not well known and who it applied to. What I suggest is that letter of excommunication is valid and yet does not apply to Rav Nahman as you can see if you see the actual language of that letter.  I think the actual herem is valid and yet does not apply to Rav Nahman.

z9 music file

 z9 F Minor   z9 in midi

 I think that the worship of dead people that permeates the religious world is some sort of idolatry. The reason I say this is that you can see in the Rambam that he defines idolatry as the worship of any being at all besides the First Cause. So worship pf dead people probably fits with that definition.

 The worship and love the religious have for the dead takes over their souls and bodies and they become zombies.=people with dead souls. 

That would be the reason for the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. He apparently thought worship of dead people is not in accord with Torah.

 Gerard 't Hooft [Physics] has an interesting idea that Quantum Mechanics is due to variables that move very fast. Not hidden variables. Nor any pilot wave. And in his theory space time itself is quantized. So how do you get from here to there? Maybe by worm holes? I mean to say that the connections between space might be worm holes. [This worm holes that connect between black holes in the core of atomic particles  I think was suggested by Robert Penna in NY [I should mention that I saw this idea of Robert Penna in a paper by Salwa Alsaleh whose papers I was reading.]

 Emma Goldman wrote a book that was against the Bolsheviks. Her Disappointment with Russia she called it. Socialism sounds good until it is put into practice.

But I was never impressed with Socialism the first place because I always felt that no matter how good a theory seemed or how logical it was, if the facts showed it is wrong, then it is wrong.

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.]