Tractate Shabat page 139. I quote: "If you see a generation that troubles come upon it go out a check the judges of Israel.

Tractate Shabat page 139. I quote: "If you see a generation that troubles come upon it go out a check the judges of Israel. For no troubles come upon the world except for he cause of the judges of Israel."

So we see the problem that Rav Nahman was referring to concerning Torah scholars that are demons [LeM vol. I perek 12 and 28] was noticed before. 

 The problem is how to tell who is from the realm of holiness and who is from the Dark Side?

And it is not possible to simply say, "Go and learn Torah, and you will see who is giving authentic advice and who is the fraud" because people need immediate advice and do not have the time to go through the entire Shas before they can reach a conclusion.

But you do have an indication if not an absolute proof.. Who encourages you to learn every day Gemara and Tosphot is from the Realm of Holiness. 

[The Dark Side can not stand that people learn authentic Torah.]

And I can see that ones parents often warn one about this problem. But the religious fanaticism that is in people does not let them listen their parents. This is odd since you might imagine that the fifth commandment of the Ten Commandments ought to make a difference to supposedly religious people.

[Parents are often aware of hypocrisy, while young [i.e eighteen years old] are not aware. The young think in fact it is all about learning Torah for its own sake, not for money and power. o they warn their children. But the children are taken in by the propaganda. Thus it is best to listen to the Torah which already told us to listen to our parents. We might be smart, but they know a thing or two about the ral world.

It is hard to know what to make of all this. On one hand, the importance of Torah is clear. On the other hand the religious world is mentally sick. What could be the meaning? I should mention that I was troubled by this for years until I understood that the religious world an d Torah are two  opposites. 

I really did not appreciate the path of the Gra and the straight Litvak yeshiva

 I really did not appreciate the path of the Gra and the straight Litvak yeshiva. Now I am happy that I also was inspired and gained a great deal from the advice and ideas of Rav Nahman of Breslov, but leaving the context of the straight Litvak sort of yeshiva was a mistake. [At least I can see that now.] So while I can not change the past, I can suggest to others that if they have merited to be in a straight Litvak yeshiva, then "count your blessings." Be grateful. You can learn from Rav Nahman's LeM and other books, but one must not be taken off the straight and narrow because of that.

z46 music file

 z46 A minor

Worship of dead corpses would seem clearly to be a problem.

 There is little in the religious world that actually corresponds to Torah. Examples are plentiful. Worship of dead corpses would seem clearly to be a problem. And yet the herem the Gra signed addressing this exact problem is ignored. There are many other examples but open idolatry should seem to be clearly in violation of the Ten Commandments. So why are all the groups that are included in the herem [excommunication] of the Gra thought to be the highest examples of loyalty to Torah? Should not every one of their books be considered to be dirty? No. Rather considered the peak of loyalty to Torah! How much clearer could things be?

 Thomas Sowell on Slavery 

I looked at some of this and I can see his points. After all we know slavery in the Torah is nothing like slavery as practiced. For example if one has only one  pillow, he must give it to his slave. The slave can not be made worse off than the master. That is different from galley slaves. 

[However brilliant Thomas Sowell is I must mention that some of his points are less accurate as noted by Brian Caplan here.   

Besides this it occurred to me that Lincoln had the authority to free the slaves דינא דמלכותא דינא."The law of the state is the law." Though he clearly did not have authority to make war on the South.  Even though the law of the state is the law is applied differently by the Rishonim, still t least we have the Rambam who hold that if a king declares "Anyone who does not pay such and such a tax will be sold as a slave" that is valid. Thus with symmetry, he can declare slaves to be free.  

If that was a good idea or not is debatable. But to me it seems that it was valid. Not only that but a sell under duress is valid. So the fact that the Southern States signed the 14th ammendment under duress does not make it invalid.. The only aspect that one can complain about in the Civil War is that the union of the states was voluntary. So making a war to keep it together, seems absurd. 

And Lincoln's statement, "If slavery is not wrong then nothing is wrong", seems untrue. Maybe slavery is OK if slaves are treated right, while murder is wrong. Or making an unjust war might be wrong?  People get all excited about lots of different things. sometimes justified and sometimes not.

Nowadays I can see the point of the South that in freeing the slaves, there would be perpetual war against the whites. This seems fulfilled nowadays with the continuous attacks against the Constitution and all Western values. It is like letting the German Barbarians into the Roman empire. While at firt things seemed okay, but eventually it was a time bomb just waiting to explode.

Lets say for a similar example that a women agrees to get married to some man. And then at some point she wants to leave? Can he then bludgeon her to death? [As actually happens.]

And so what about the colonies making the war of Independence of the American Revolution? if you want to go with "No taxation without representation". Well from what could that be true? We know the king of England can not make taxes without the consent of Parliament. But the Parliament can make taxes as well as it pleases. And the American colonies were being taxed y Parliament as is the right of Parliament to do so. [And even the king agreed.] Where in the Magna Charta or the Provisions of Oxford does it say every person that is taxed has to have representation? So the Colonies were in rebellion exactly as the South was. What makes one right and the other wrong? If the South was wrong, then so was the American Revolution.

Rav Shach in Yerushalmi perek 2 halacha 5 in Peah and 2:11 in Laws of Peah

 I am still pondering this hard Rambam 2:11 in Peah. The owner of the field harvests the whole. He was supposed to leave 1/60 of the standing wheat to the poor. He gives from what was reaped to the poor. And if he gives most of what was reaped, that is not obligated in truma and maasar. [Truma is what is given t priests. Maasar is what is given to Levites. Clearly neither applies to peah which is the edge of the field which is given to the poor.] Only if he finished all the work [reaped and threshed], then he has to take truma and maasar and give to the poor.

Again what is this "most of what was reaped"? Normally  one can give his whole field as peah except for the first stalk. [Obviously of he does nothing with the field at all then it can not be "peah" i.e. the corner. There has to be some beginning work in order for the rest to be what was left 

So Rav Shach brings from the Yerushalmi perek 2 halacha 5 in Peah that if he even started to reap the 1/60, then the obligation of peah goes on the sheaves, not the standing wheat any more.

That helps a little. So now he can give the whole 59/60 as peah. But still I am wondering about the Yerushalmi itself. Why can he not just give what is left of the standing ears as peah and what in them does not make up the whole 1/60, to give the needed amount from what was reaped?  

Even though I am a beach bum, I am not saying that this is an ideal path. Just the opposite. If I could spend all day and night learning Torah I would.  And you can see the importance of this in the Nefesh HaChaim by Rav Haim of Voloshin (a disciple of the Gra.) Why I do not is the fact of the religious world is a mess of people that imagine themselves to be superior to all others by means of rituals that have nothing to do with Torah. [And it does help much by the fact that most "Torah scholars " are demons as brought many times in the LeM of Rav Nahman. though what this means is not clear, still one can be pretty sure this this ("demon") is not a complementary term.

The correction {tikun} to

 all this would be to heed the idea of the Gra who signed on the letter of excommunication. But that is ignored, and so the religious world ends up with this sort of characteristic of in outward rituals, all is well , inside there is a tiny invisible drop of cyanide.  

[And I must add that Rav Nahman himself was certainly not in the inclusive language of that letter, though many people think he was. 

[As for the religious world in general I must say that I discussed this with David Bronson for a few hours and after that he said, "Well since there are problems that we can not fix, let's sit and learn Gemara," and thus began our daily sessions for one hour in Gemara. And eventually I began to see that bitul Torah [not learning Torah when one can] is the source of many problems that people have including me. [Still I do not mean that the world of yeshivot is OK. Just that since no one really knows what is going on, we ought to sit and learn Torah as well  as we can--including not using Torah to make money.