(The Work of Creation and the Divine Chariot) are what the ancient Greeks called Physics and Metaphysics.[They do not refer to any kind of mysticism]]

If you take the natural sciences as being "secular" [devoid of numinous content], then I can see why people find them as dry. But for me, the opposite is the case. I see in them the "Wisdom of God",- the hidden Torah contained in the Work of Creation.  

{This is not my original idea. Rather it is based on the fact that I noticed in the חובות לבבות Obligations of the Hearts (Gate III perek 3) and the Guide of Maimonides this idea.  See the Guide of the Rambam (Maimonides) introduction. He says what the sages called מעשה בראשית ומעשה מרכבה (The Work of Creation and the Divine Chariot) are what the ancient Greeks called Physics and Metaphysics.[They do not refer to any kind of mysticism]] 

[See the Le.M of Rav Nahman about the hidden Torah and how it reaches even into the places far from God to call all those fallen souls back to Him.]   LeM vol II perek 12.

[I might mention that I was interested in the natural sciences when I was younger, but did not see the "numinous" content in them. So it took me  long time to start to see this aspect of things. Clearly my dad working at TRW on laser communication was intuitively aware of this, but I never heard him express it as such. And this must have come from his older brother Alex, that encouraged my Dad in this direction.]

Clearly some Rishonim disagreed with this approach, and I myself was inclined to just sit and learn Torah. However circumstances were such that I thought it wise to take the advice of the Gra, the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda. [The Gra was quoted in the translation of Euclid by one of his disciples as saying, "One will lack in knowledge of Torah a hundred times more than his lack of knowledge in the seven wisdoms.]"  כפי חסרון הידיעה בשבעת החכמות כן יחסר הידיעה בורה מאה פעמים

 

great ideas of the Gra

 One of the great ideas of the Gra is that every word of Torah is worth as much as all the other commandments put together. And you can see in the Nefesh HaChaim of his disciple Rav Chaim of Voloshin the greatness of learning Torah. So while on one hand I felt the tremendous holiness  of learning Torah, I did not appreciate the Litvak world [built on the Gra] as much as I should have. I saw the great advice of Rav Nahman and that got me off track to get involved in Breslov. So while clearly there is tremendous benefit in the books of Rav Nahman, but there is a "consciousness hook" by which I and others can get off track when we do not realize that Rav Nahman is one thing but Breslov is something else.

{I should add that I had a really great time in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY.  So I had no good reason to think the grass was greener elsewhere. But now that I know , at least I figure that I can let others know about the importance of the Gra and Rav Shach. --while still retaining a great deal of respect for Rav Nahman.

I also want to add here that it was Rav Freifeld of Shar Yashuv that told me to go to university. To him the best approach was half day of Torah and half day of university. But I did not listen because I felt I needed to be learning Torah all day at that point. (And after all what could I done in college at that point? I did not know of the method of learning of "saying the words and going on". So I I could do would have been philosophy which in the 20th century was a disaster or music.]

One of the reasons that I am impressed with the Kant-Fries School of thought is personal experience. I know that can not be used as a proof for a philosophical idea, still for me this made the idea of the Friesian School highly credible. I mean to say that Kant  tries to find a justification of the synthetic a priori by means of structures that are already placed in the mind. And thus to him, reality has to conform to the mind. If you find this doubtful, you are not alone. So the idea of non intuitive immediate knowledge made more sense. That is that there is knowledge that we know not by reason and not by the senses. And this gives the beginning axioms upon which the synthetic a priori can be built.

[I mean to say that my own belief in God is not based on reason, but can be justified by reason as we see in Kurt Godel's proof of the existence of God.  While this proof is solid, still there is always room for doubters to doubt. So for me faith comes above reason. And faith is immediate non intuitive.

[If Fries was accused of psychologism that is not really all that accurate since he was only saying we need to inspect ourselves ["know thyself"] to see the source of this faith, but not that it depends on the mind.]

And even if other things he got wrong, that is not a reason to discount what he got right. This is like what the Rambam wrote about Muslims. He wrote "If they lie about us, that does not give us a reason to lie about them."

General Grant and General Robert E. Lee

 General Grant tried to underplay the South's fighting ability. He wrote that the numbers of the Union forces counted all the axillaries. [Cooks, baggage carriers etc.] But in most  battles (before overwhelming numbers were brought against the South), the South won. [There was one exception in which General McClellan won and that gave confidence to the North.] [And I mean this only in the East. On the Western Front, the Union had total victory, and took Kansas and Tennessee.]And the very idea that the North was fighting for what was right seems to contradict both the Old Testament  and the New. [note 1]

I mean to liberate slaves who would afterwards turn to be Trojan horses and continue to undermine the Republic. That was wrong. But to keep the Union together, that very well might have been right as General Sherman said that with that break up, the states would turn out to be like Mexico fighting one with the other to the ruin of all. [As was in fact the case before the Constitution was signed]

So they were fighting for morality based on "reason". But if you want morality based on reason you can come up with systems that look good on paper (like Marxism), but end up enslaving the entire population where it is employed--and murdering a high percentage of its own population. [note 2]

[note 1] There are rules about how a slave is to be treated. But that does not mean the institution is wrong. It is well known hat even a gentile slave must be treated as well as the master. The law is that if the master has only one pillow, he must give it to the slave. The only thing the slave must d is to work, not to suffer.

[note 2] I hope it is clear that Reason and Revelation is what is necessary. I am only criticizing the idea that reason alone can bring to objective morality. Reason alone can not bring to objective morality since it is the most flawed of all human perceptions. But nor is Revelation sufficient since it is just as subject to perversions as any other human institution. Only with Reason with Revelation is there any chance of coming to objective morality.  

שבועות כ''ב ע''א. הגמרא נותן הסבר אחד לברייתא. ברייתא זו מובאת כשאלה על רב פפא שאמר נדר אינו צריך שיעור (מידה). הברייתא עצמה אומרת את זה: "שני קונמות מצטרפים, שתי שבועות אינן מצטרפות." (שני נדרים מצטרפים. שני שבועות לא.) [כלומר שאם אוסר לעצמו חצי גודל (של כזית) של תאנה וחצי גודל של תפוח, מצטרפים שני הגדלים הללו, אפילו אם הוא אסר כל אחד בנדר נפרד. הגמרא שואלת איך מצטרפים שני נדרים? לך לכאן ולא מספיק. לך לשם ואין מספיק. [כדי לעבור על האיסור צריך לעבור על כל שיעור של כזית). תשובה: הוא אסר את שניהם על ידי נדר אחד. לאחר מכן מביא הגמרא אמירה של רבינא לענות על השאלה על רב פפא. התשובה היא רב פפא מדבר על מכות, ברייתא מדבר על מעילה. בשלב זה הגמרא גורסת שהחכמים מחזיקים יש מעילה בנדרים. אבל לפני נקודה זו, הגמרא חשב שהחכמים מחזיקים אין מעילה בנדרים. אז עכשיו אנחנו מגיעים לרב משה בן מיימון ולרב''ד. הרמב''ם כותב אם אוסר לעצמו חצי גודל (שיעור) תאנה וחצי גודל (שיעור) פרי אחר אפילו בשני נדרים נפרדים, הם מצטרפים לעשות גודל שלם. שואל הרב''ד זה בניגוד לגמרא הנ"ל שאומר שרק כשעושים נדר אחד לאסור שני חצאי גדלים (שיעורים) אז מצטרפים. לא עם שני נדרים. ואז רב שך אומר שהרמב''ם גורס שאחרי אמירת רבינא, הגמרא כבר לא צריך את התשובה הראשונה ההיא. שהרי לפני אמירת רבינא חשבה הגמרא שיש רק מלקות לנדרים, לא מעילה. אז הברייתא דיברה רק על קבלת מכות. ובקבלת מכות רק עצם העבירה על דברי הנדרים משנה. אז שני נדרים נפרדים לא יצטרפו. אבל אחרי רבינא אין צורך בתשובה זו. כדי לעבור על האיסור מעילה, יתחברו שני גדלים נפרדים כמו שתי חתיכות נפרדות כמו כל מאכל אסור. השאלה שלי בשלב זה היא שזה תקף רק לנדר שבו אומרים "האוכל הזה אסור לי כמו קרבן". זה המקרה היחיד בו מעילה חלה על פי רב משה בו מיימון. והרי זה הרמב''ם כאן שרב שך נותן עליו תשובה. אבל אם אומר "אוכל זה אסור לי" שאין בו מעילה. אם כן מדוע כותב הרמב''ם שני חצאי גדלים שאסורים בשני נדרים מצטרפים? זה אמור להיות המקרה רק אם כל נדר מסתיים ב"כמו קרבן

הייתי רוצה להביא פה כמה הוכחות שהרמב''ם מחזיק שיש מעילה בנדרים רק כאשר אומרים זה אסור לי כמו קרבן אבל אין לי כח כשעת. אבל אני מקווה שהשם יתן לי כח אחר כך להביא את הראיות האלו

  I was at the sea shore again today pondering רב שך. The issue is this.  שבועות כ''ב ע''א. The גמרא gives one explanation of a ברייתא. This ברייתא is brought as a question on רב פפא who said a vow does not need a size. The ברייתא itself says this שני קונמות מצטרפים שתי שבועות אינן מצטרפות. Two נדרים are joined. Two שבועות are not. [That means to say that if one forbids to himself a half size (of a כזית) of a fig and a half size of an apple, these two sizes are joined, even if he אסר each by a separate נדר. The גמרא asks how are two נדרים joined?  Go here and there is not enough. Go there and there is not enough. [To transgress the prohibition, one needs to transgress the whole amount of a כזית). Answer: he forbade both by one נדר. After this the גמרא brings a statement of רבינא to answer the question on רב פפא. The answer is רב פפא is talking about מכות, the ברייתא is talking about מעילה. At this point the גמרא is holding that the חכמים hold there is מעילה with נדרים. But before this point the גמרא thought the חכמים hold there is no מעילה with נדרים. So now we come to רב משה בן מיימון and the ראב''ד. The רמב''ם writes if one forbids to himself a half size of a fig and half size of another fruit  even with two separate vows, they are joined to make a whole size. The ראב''ד asks this is in contradiction to the above mentioned גמרא that says only when one makes one נדר to forbid two half sizes are they then joined. Not with two נדרים. Then רב שך says that the רמב''ם hold that after the statement of רבינא, the גמרא no longer needs that first answer. For before the statement of רבינא, the גמרא thought there is only מלקות for נדרים, not מעילה. So the ברייתא was only talking about getting מכות. And in getting מכות, only the fact of transgressing the words of the נדרים matter. So two separate נדרים would not be joined. But after רבינא there is no need for this answer. To transgress the איסור מעילה, two separate sizes would be joined just like two separate pieces of any forbidden food. My question at this point is this only applies to a נדר where one says, "This food is forbidden to me like a קרבן." That is the only case where מעילה applies according to the רב משה בו מיימון. And after all it is the רמב''ם here that רב שך is giving an answer for. But if one says, "This food is forbidden to me" that does not have מעילה. So then why does the רמב''ם write two half sizes that are forbidden by two vows  are joined? That should only be the case if each vow ended with "like a קרבן."

(I am cold and tired, so I ask you to take my word for it that Meila applies to nedarim only when he says "like a sacrifice." --I mean this is the Rambam's opinion. Not other rishonim.. But after all, it is the Rambam that Rav Shach is trying to give an answer for. 

pondering Rav Shach.

 I was at the sea shore again today pondering Rav Shach. The issue is this. Shavuot page 22 side a. The gemara gives one explanation of a Braita. This braita is brought as a question on Rav papa who said a vow does not need a size. The Braita itself says this שני קונמות מצטרפים שתי שבועות אינן מצטרפות. Two vows are joined. Two oaths are not. [That means to say that if one forbids to himself a half size (of a kezait) of a fig and a half size of an apple these two sizes are joined even if he forbid each by a separate vow, The Gemara asks how are two nedarim joined?  Go here and there is not enough. Go there and there is not enough. [To transgress the prohibition, one needs to transgress the whole amount of a kezait). Answer: he forbade both by one vow. After this the gemara brings a statement of Ravina to answer the question on Rav Papa.The answer is Rav Papa is talking about lashes, the braita is talking about meila. At this point the gemara is holding that the sages hold there is meila with nedarim. But before this point the gemara thought the sages hold there is no meila with nedarim. [Meila means transgressing. This is the word used to for the case where one uses an animal dedicated to be a sacrifice. For this prohibition there is a guilt offering. The point here is that there is an alternate opinion of R. Meir that there is no meila with nedarim. So what does this mean? It means that if one says this piece of bread is forbidden to me like a sacrifice and then he goes ahead and eats it anyway, he has to bring a guilt offering. This fact is not well known because  you do not see this subject much in tractate Nedarim. It actually comes up in tractate Shavuot 

So now we come to Rav Moshe ben Maimon [Rambam] and the Raavad. Rav Moshe writes if one forbids to himself a half size of a fig and half size of another fruit  even with two separate vows, they are joined to make a whole size. The Raavad asks this is in contradiction to the above mentioned gemara that says only when one makes one vow to forbid two half sizes are they then joined Not with two vows. 

Rav Shach says that Rav Moshe ben Maimon [Rambam] holds that after the statement of Ravina, the gemara no longer needs that first answer. For before the statement of Ravina, the gemara thought there is only lashes for nedarim not meila. So the Braita was only talking about getting lashes. And in getting lashes only the fact of transgressing the words of the vows matter. So two separate vows would not be joined. But after Ravina there is no need for this answer. To transgress the isur or meila two separate sizes would be joined just like two separate pieces of any forbidden food.

My question at this point is this only applies to a neder where one says "This food is forbidden to me like a sacrifice." That is the only case where meila applies according to the Rambam. And after all it is the Rambam here that Rav Shach is giving an answer for. But if one says simple "This food is forbidden to me" that does not have meila. So then why does the Rambam write two half sizes that are forbidden by two vows  are joined? That should only be the case if each vow ended with "like a sacrifice."

 So I do not have energy this minute to show that Rav Moshe holds that only when one says like a sacrifice does the prohibition of meila apply. But in the meantime I ask you to belieeve me that this is in fact the opinion of the Rav Moshe [Rambam]