We find that common knowledge is sometimes used as a kind of testimony. This is even brought in the Shut of Rav Moshe Feinstein. There is a law about milk of a gentile. However because of  אנן סהדי common knowledge, Rav Moshe allows it. []Anything other than cow's milk would receive a fine from the government so it is a  case of "we testify"--common knowledge. But that can not make a marriage or a divorce as Rav Shach notes.  Even if we would have a case of a woman brining forth her divorce document in which case we would say that she received it in a proper way, still if witnesses came and said she found it in the trash, this would not be a case of two against two. 

So I suggest אנן סהדי common knowledge, is used a legal only in the case of a derabanan., not laws from the Torah.

[You can see how this is relevant when two people are married and then divorced without all the details of divorce. Then the woman remarries. Are the children of the later marriage mamzerim? I say "No", because of the above idea that the first marriage also did not have two valid witnesses.

 I heard an interview of Peter Scholze [one of the mathematicians of this generation] about learning math, and it seems to me his advice is more related to people that are particularly talented in that area. But what if one is not talented in that area? Should one give up? I think not. You can see this in a few rishonim where Physics and Metaphysics are considered to be part of the learning sessions that one ought to do every day. [Ibn Pakuda, Rambam, and others based on those of the geonim that held this way like Saadia Geon.] This is the whole point of Rav Nahman. What does one do if he or she is not as talented as others? What about us losers? Should we give up? No. There is always hope. אין ייאוש בעולם כלל. "There is no such thing as giving up." That is how I see his method of learning of saying the words and going on. There is always hope.

[I ought to add that there are plenty of rishonim that hold one ought to learn just Torah, but I have not been able to walk in that path. I am not sure why. It is not that I think that is wrong. Rather that it just did not seem to work for me. If maybe I had stuck with it, things might have been different. But after leaving it, I could not get back in. And Rav Nahman said, "If there is one posek [note 1] to depend on, you can depend on him". [That was in response to a question of Rav Natan to him about his fear of deciding a law because of the possibility of making a mistake. ] So I decided to go along with the other rishonim that hold from the importance of Physics and Metaphysics. 

[note 1] posek: a rishon that decided the law. The word "posek" can also loosely be applied to the very early achronim. Not like today where the word is applied to anyone.]

Rav Israel Salanter on learning a lot of Musar

 The idea of Rav Israel Salanter of learning a lot of Musar seems to make sense from the standpoint that in fact good character traits--"to be  a mensch" -is the essence of Torah. However, to know what are good character traits does not seem possible without Shas. Learning Gemara in depth. So when I have  a choice, I would rather learn the Avi Ezri or Tosphot which go into the depths of the Gemara. Musar seems for me to be along the lines of orientation, rather than an actual source of knowledge. [The Chazon Ish makes this exact point in his short Musar book.]

In fact, you can see, the main positive aspect of Musar is in yeshivot where it is learned as a side dish to the main thing--Gemara, Tosphot, and Rav Chaim from Brisk or the Avi Ezri. 

[Though I admit that learning a lot of the Hafetz Haim about the laws of Lashon Hara would make a lot of sense.]

"Kollel Erev", [evening kollel].

 I was in the nearby Na Nach place today, and someone mentioned that they would like to make a "Kollel Erev". Even though their suggestion was that it should be limited to Gemara, I still wanted to express my doubts. Somehow mixing Torah with money does not seem to work very well. Either people will learn --no matter what. Then when there is that degree of commitment, then  money just seems to appear. Or when there is not that degree of commitment, then no matter how much money your pour on it, the whole enterprise remains flat. 

[I mean to say that Rav Israel Salanter started the kollel idea as a temporary solution to the problem that people right after marriage --when they are supposed to be going up in spirit, have  to leave off learning Torah to go and work. But he did not mean kollel should be became the standard way of using Torah to make money as it has become. Often the result of pouring money into the "Torah world" is the creation  "Torah scholars that are demons" [in the memorable words of Rav Nahman. And that phrase just says it all.]

 x21 D minor mp3 x21 midi  x21 nwc

 I have been thinking about Columbus and Isabella. To me it looks like the war against Moorish rule in Spain was connected with the expulsion. The thing which looks odd is that Isabella looks  heroic in her support of Columbus, even pledging her crown jewels to pay for the expedition, [that was said to be a suicide mission by all the experts.] The message got to her just as she and her husband were about to wage the last battle to end Moorish rule in Spain. But she does not seem so nice when the issue was the Alhambra decree. 

  However I think it is possible to understand Isabella by means of  the way the Columbus himself thought of his mission was as a  way of expanding Christianity. [There is lots of evidence for this.] So I think to understand Isabella is clear. She wanted Spain to be Christian and she wanted to expand Christianity.

I think this is clear also from the events starting from the pogrom of 1391 which started the downward spiral. There were plenty of converts [about 200,000] and it seems many of which were not sincere. So you have the Inquisition which was directly responsible for investigation of insincere conversions. The numbers of auto-de-fa's are not as great as people imagine. The estimates are between 1000 and 2000. Still the pressure was on.

 The closest I can see for a consistent world view in philosophy is that of the Kant Fries School developed by Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross. [Though I do not share the distain against Hegel.] While Michael Huemer also has some important points, I still think the approach of Kelley Ross comes out on top.

I have a few reasons for saying this. One is that I mainly can not stand when philosophers  start to talk about physics. Especially QM or Relativity. The only one who has understood the subject and been able to place it within the context of a wider world view is Kelley Ross. 

And Analytic Philosophy I think is already fit for the trash bin.  Robert Hanna goes into rigorous detail showing this.

[However, the actual Fries and Leonard Nelson approach seem to be in great need of modification as Kelley Ross shows. Besides what he shows it is an odd sort of fact that Nelson was not very happy with Relativity and Fries was against the existence of atoms. However the insight of non intuitive immediate knowledge seems so  significant that I am thinking that these short comings should be ignored.]