I imagine that my dad's (Philip Rosten-Rosenblum) contribution to laser communication will be lost to history for lack of documentation. While he had been hired by TRW for the X ray satellites, when those had been launched, they had him work on a new kind of idea--laser communication. That is the same thing as radio waves except that you super impose signals on lasers instead of radio waves. That was very well known to me who first hand knowledge of his lab at TRW and his associates. However when TRW went under because of the KGB spy that had been found there, all documentation was lost and they sold their records to other aerospace corporations. In the mix up, my dad's name was lost. But I imagine that is no worse than the inventor of fire or the wheel whom we also do not know their names. [And by the way, it had nothing to do with the amazing advantages of laser communication as we see in fiber optics and the Space X laser communication system, but rather to have a signal system between satellites that the Soviets could not eavesdrop into.] That was at the height of the Cold War when the USSR and the USA were almost at the point of total war. Some system to protect American communications had to be found and that was my dad's idea. A way to have a system of communication that the Soviets could not listen into. Radio waves are spread out. Laser signals are focused. {TRW had noticed him because they wanted X ray satellites,-- and who better to get for that than the inventor of the Infra Red ray Telescope and later invented the Copy Mate Machine using X rays to for a perfect image.. Only after the last of those satellites were launched did the focus switch to laser communication.

There is an amazing spirit of Torah that seems to dwell in any place that closely follows the Gra.

 Even though the Shulchan Aruch [by Rav Joseph Karo] was not written as a commentary on the Gemara, when I was learning Ketuboth, I found that opening up the Shulchan Aruch with the side  commentaries always gave a fresh perspective on the subject. [Mainly that was from the Taz who generally was writing in answer to the Bach, and from that sort of back and forth discussion I always saw a deeper understanding of what the Gemara was saying.  As my learning partner David Bronson once told me, that a lot of people saw something really special about the Shulchan Aruch in that they wrote their commentaries that it. [The Gra, Shach, Taz, etc.]

[That was during my third year at Shar Yashuv. And I have to say that my experiences at the few great Litvak yeshivas where I was at for a few years were astounding. There is an amazing spirit of Torah that seems to dwell in any place that closely follows the Gra.  Certainly anyone I know can testify that their years at any Litvak yeshiva were the best of the lives. There really something astonishing about the Gra and the world of Litvak yeshivas which follow that path of straight Torah. What is straight Torah? you might ask. It is the idea of not adding and not subtracting from the Torah. What the Torah says--that is that.]

 Henry II really tells us something about repentance. He had realized that his problem which were great stemmed from a previous sin. And he decided that everything that he was suffering was a result of that sin. He had muttered some words that his knights thought meant that they should kill Thomas Becket. -which they did. After some years his own children, the king of France and the king of Scotland were ready to invade and destroy him. What some people would do in such a situation of absolute crisis I do not know. But he decided he needed to make amends. He went to the place of the crime. Walked bare foot until his feet were bleeding. He went to the basement and ordered the monks to flog him 5 time for each monk. All together he was flogged 300 times. [Five times for 60 monks.] How many of us would repent to that degree after we have recognized what  it was exactly that we did?

I do not see that a worm hole could get any where in this universe --any faster than one could go by regular space--since space seems to be almost flat. The only questions that I wonder about are the branes in String Theory which fill space.

 I do not see that a worm hole could get any where in this universe --any faster than one could go by regular space--since space seems to be almost flat. The only questions that I wonder about  are the branes in String Theory which fill space. [You need branes for the ends of open strings to hold onto]. Also there are the sort of extra folded up dimensions in String Theory. What I am wondering about is if these go anywhere? {String Theory seems the best thing out there in terms of understanding the basic nature of pace and time.}

Another thing that I can see could be helpful in getting around in this universe is a black hole. What I means is that black holes carry around space, and that is what makes the powerful emitters [sometimes]. [Cygnus X-1 is like that. It is powerful emitter of X-rays--that mass comes from its partner. It was a binary system at first.]] I mean inside nothing can leave. But there are black holes that carry around space. And when space is being carried around there is no upper limit about the speed of light. Since it is just space, not matter. So anything attached to space when space is moving around can go at any speed since from its point of view, it is just standing still. It is space that is moving. 

learning every chapter ten times.

 Rav Freifeld the founder of Shar Yashuv used to emphasize learning every chapter ten times. And  when we were doing Ketuboth and Hulin this created for me a certain degree of tension.--For I wanted to "make progress." I think after a few years have passed, I can now see his point. And thus I would even like to share his idea with the world, that one never needs to give up if he or she encounters something hard to understand in his studies. Even after doing one chapter, one still does not understand. What I suggest is doing that chapter 10 times and then going on. [Or going back to the previous chapters if one is inclined at that point to do review.] 

I had a sort of conflict between bekiut and iyun [fast learning and in depth learning]. For that reason I decided on a system of repeat every paragraph But when it comes to some subjects like physics I find the idea of review ten times of each chapter to be the best.]

 Once I saw the operating room in Uman [Ukraine] and I swore to myself that I would never allow myself to be there. As maters turned out later,- I had been injured --the dogs in Sofia Park attacked me one night and I broke my right foot in three different places. I was brought to the local hospital and the doctors and nurses did a better job with much more dedication and efforts than I could ever have received in the West.  The whole episode was a  surprise. I was brought to the hospital and given a bed and never once asked about payment or insurance. Rather the opposite. The very first night [when the incident happened] they ran a whole battery of tests --blood tests, etc. And then I was given a bed and food, and never once was payment ever brought up. The operation that was a few days later certainly saved my life, as I need to walk to keep my metabolism going at a steady rate.  However, I did notice that a lot of the great people I met in the Ukraine had been part of the previous Soviet apparatus. -Or trained under it. [What ever the reason for it, I found a great number of people in the Ukraine that were  kind hearted  to a degree which was astounding. But there were plenty of people that were the exact opposite. The criminal others were restrained during the time of the USSR. But once that fear began to dissipate, at lot of the old criminal elements in the Ukraine began to raise their heads at alarming rates.

[My impression is that I can see that the type of system that fits to USA is not the same sort of system that can find in that area of the world. Even to the degree that I can say that because of the differences between people, the type of system of the USSR worked there. But the efforts of communists to try to overthrow the government of the USA was and is a terrible mistake. The same kind of system should be not  be thought to work uniformly anywhere.  Just the opposite. The system of government of the USAI see I highly superior. If the issue is exploitation of workers, it is now the welfare system in the USA that exploits the workers to the advantage of the supposedly professional victims--people that make a living out of being victims

It is not out of communism that conern arose for the poor and the working class, but rather from Torah valuesas you can see in Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Eliabeth ,The nobility itself. from principles based on Torah.

But the idea that everything would have been nice and peachy in the USSR without Communism is absurd. There is a DNA tendency towards criminality that needed Russian rule to tame. The DNA there is totally different from Angle Saxon DNA. It tends very much towards violence.

Gitin page 63, side B

 Gitin. I can see the difficulty in understanding the argument between Rashi and the Rambam in Gitin page 63, side B. However Rav Shach offers an answer to this great problem that I fail to see really answers it. One says to to two  people "write a get and give it to a messenger." The Gemara wonders if this means to write once,- or at least once. To the Rambam this refers to a case that the get [divorce] was found to be null. To Rashi the case is when the get [divorce] was lost. To Rav Shach the argument depends on the question if writing the get [divorce] requires being a messenger or simply command of the husband.

What Rav Shach means is: The difference is this: If writing the get [divorce] requires to be a messenger from the husband, then we can understand that after he has written a get [divorce] and it got lot it might be a doubt if he has fulfilled his mission. this might be the doubt in the Gemara on page 63 maybe the messenger-ship was filled since he wrote the get as commanded. this is how Rav Shach explains Rashi that holds the doubt of the gemara is  if it was lost. but if simply found to be null, then of course he can write another. However even if we say that the Rambam holds  the writing does not require messenger-ship rather only a command of the husband, still I can see that there is the exact same doubt about how far his command extends--to write it just once or at least once. Like a drill sergeant would say, "I told you to get this done. I did not say to TRY to get it done!!!".  o to say the argument between Rashi and the Rambam does not seem to depend on the question of if the get requires "messenger-ship or only a command."

[The basic issue in  Gitin is this: One says to two to write a get and give it to a messenger. The Gemara asks, "Does he mean to write it once only, or to write it until it gets done?" This is left as a doubt. The Rambam says the question is referring to a case when  the get was found to be null To Rashi, the issue is if the get was lost--but if found null obviously one could write another"]