I have been thinking about an argument between the Rashbam and the Ramban [Nachmanides] if a divorce document needs to have the time of its writing put into it. [In Rav Shach, Laws of Divorce perek I chapter 25]

The Rashbam [Shmuel ben Meir,  a grandson of Rashi] holds it never needs the time in it. The only opinion that holds it needs the time is R. Meir who holds the witnesses on the document cause the divorce to become valid. But the law goes like R. Elazar that the witnesses that see the giving of the document to the woman cause the validity of the divorce.  So he would hold there is no worry about the daughter of his brother.  [The opinion that holds the reason the time is in the document is because of the fact that he might have married the daughter of his brother, and then she might have committed adultery. Then, since she is his relative, he might write a divorce document, and put in a time before the time of the adultery to save her from the death penalty.] But to R. Elazar there is no worry about that because if there is not time in the document, then we would assume she was married until right now and thus there is not worry about the daughters of his brother.  

What occurred to me today was this question. Why does this have to do specially with the opinion of R Elazar?  I think the idea is that R Meir not have the same idea--that we would assume the divorce did not happen until the last minute. So the time needs to be put in so that he does not put in a latter time. But would not the same go for R. Elazar? He could have a divorce now and have no time in it and later put in a time? That is to say I am not really clear about what the explanation of Rav Shach is here.

 The way the Native Americans are presented in schools nowadays seems to leave out half the story. I noticed this concerning the Iroquois. Their genocide of the Erie, and later attempt to do the same to the Shawnee is simply left out of the story.   

[I am just mentioning one example. Of people are going to learn about the history of the Native Americans, then it ought to be done right and thoroughly, or not at all.]

 Rav Avraham Abulafia is unknown to most people.  partly because he is considered a "mekubal" the last thing he would have liked to be known as. He wrote--''the Christians believe in three gods, and the mekubalim in ten.'' And until today you can see he was right. I was in the Breslov place today and learned LeM 33 and tried to explain that God is beyond time and space since these two are His creations. One can not say ''God is here,'' nor that he is absent from here since neither predicate are applicable to Him.  Most people that learn the LeM of Rav Nahman seem to think that pantheism is correct, but in spite of this being not the Torah approach it is also incorrect from the aspect that has no plurality in Him. If everything is God, then one introduces a plurality into Divine simplicity--(Divine simplicity means that God is not a composite. He has no predicates. Not time nor space, nor any sort of ingredients.

[Just to be clear--God has no characteristics that can be applicable to finite beings--as Saddia gaon makes clear.

There is no such thing as tolerance.

 There is no such thing as people that do not have a cut off point... of what is acceptable and what is not. There is no such thing as tolerance. The Left will not tolerant the political right. Everyone has some cut off point of what they will tolerate and what they will not. Often it will be a case of self deception. Where people are congratulating themselves of how tolerant they are by not tolerating the intolerant. (I wish they would see the logical contradiction in that.) [This is not my own new idea. I heard this in Uman by a fellow that I had  known in Safed. ]

Maybe you can see this in people that will not tolerant "racism" in whites, but hate males or whites etc. But This is just one example. I am sure most people an find examples of their own. There is no such thing as tolerating a little bit of cyanide in your chocolate pudding. 

z24 E major 

 I have been mulling over in my mind back and forth  the subject of documents. It is something that at first seems like a direct contradiction that I must have seen plenty of times but never paid attention to the fact that these two statements directly contradict. One is עדים החתומים על השטר נעשה כמו נחקרה עדותן בבית דין (witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court. ) and the another statement is מפיהם ולא מפי כתבם. (from their mouths, not from their writing.) I would never have noticed this if I did not see in the Avi Ezri  this exact issue. [In Laws of Gitin] chapter I halacha 24.] 

The law  is that in a "get" (divorce) document there is time.

The  sanhedrin there is a mishna that monetary laws need to be investigated and verified.  The gemara right there asks if so why are loans OK if the time put on them is after the actual loan was made? The gemara answers so as to not shut the door in front of people that want to borrow money. [That is-to lessen the restrictions] The Nemukai Yoseph asks then want about a get or kidushin?

Rav Chaim of Brisk answers there are documents that cause an event.-like gitin or kidushin or a document of  a present. This type is what the gemara refers to as עדים החתומים על השטר נעשה כמו נחקרה עדותן בבית דין (witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court.  The another type of document is simply a proof that an event happened--like a loan. For that we know that it needs to be verified by bringing in the witnesses. This seems to answer the question of the Nemukai Yoseph. However Nahmanides/ the Ramban however disagrees with this sort of division. To him documents of loans are also regular documents. You do not divide between them and documents of kidushin. So the whole answer of Rav Chaim falls off in this case.[]

Rav Shach answers a different answer.  He notes that sometimes documents involve a court case that needs to be investigated.--a "din Torah". That can mean loans  or documents of presents. These are  cases where the doc. is a doc. but loans have the advantage that the sages lessened the requirements in order not to shut the door. But cases like kidushin do not need a court and so do not require verification in the first place in a court. So you would not even need to say "witnesses signed on a document are as if their testimony was already investigated and confirmed in court"--because you do not even need a court.

 I wanted to mention some of the major aspects of the path of the Gra. (1) Learning Torah is the most essential part of it. It is not just from his comment on the Mishna in Peah אלו דברים שאין להם שיעור וכו'.. ותלמוד תורה כנגד כולם והגמרא ירושלמי אומרת שאין לו שיעור היינו אפילו על ידי דבר [דיבור] אחר מן התורה אדם מקיים את המצווה של לימוד התורה. [These are the things that have no measure... and learning Torah is equal to them all. The Talmud Yerushalmi says that means no lowest measure. That is even by one word of Torah one fulfills the commandment of learning Torah.] Rather the spirit of Torah is embedded in the path of the Gra. Learning in depth also is an essential part of the Gra's path, i.e. Tosphot, Maharsha , R. Akiva Eiger, the Ketzot etc.

(2) Not to speak lashon hara. [i.e. not to speak evil about others.]

(3) Trust in God --as you can see in the Madragat HaAdam who brings the comment of the Gra on Mishlei.

(4) Great caution in dinei mamonot --monetary laws--Choshen Mishpat.

[5] "The seven wisdoms". This is a forgotten part of the Gra. Most people assume that math and physics are not in the Gra's approach. But you can see that it is in the intro of the translation of Euclid by Baruch of Shkolov who was a disciple of the Gra. There he quotes the Gra: "For every lack of knowledge in any one of the seven wisdoms, one will lack a hundred fold more in Torah."]