The Rambam apparently contradicts himself in terms of עובר לאו ירך אמו [a sheep's fetus is not part of his mother.] Gemara Temura page 19

 The Rambam apparently contradicts himself  in terms of עובר לאו ירך אמו [a sheep's fetus is not part of his mother.]

For one one hand he writes When  a person who separates a pregnant sin offering (sheep, goats, or cows), the mother or the infant can be brought as a sin offering. Quite openly saying the law that עובר לאו ירך אמו  a fetus is not part of his mother. Yet in laws of Temura replacement he writes when one separates a pregnant female for a Passover sacrifice when she gives birth they both go to pasture until they get a blemish naturally, and then as sold and with that money a Passover offering is brought. Or if she gives birth after Passover, then both are sold for a peace offerings. The reason the for this last law is the exact opposite of the reason for the first law עובר ירך אמו a fetus is part of his mother.

[This last law is subject to a debate. R. Elazar says when one separates a pregnant sheep for a Passover, if she gives birth before Passover, the infant is brought as a Passover sacrifice and the Gemara says the reason for R Elazar is עובר לאו ירך אמו [a sheep's fetus is not part of his mother. So we see the sages hold עובר ירך אמו a fetus is part of his mother.

[Contradictions of this kind are very common in the Rambam and that gives plenty of folder for debate as to why. (Mainly held the best idea is to go with the simple approach of the Gemara like the Rosh. But others have tried to find explanations for these contradictions to the Gemara that you see in the Rambam all the time. ) Mainly the idea that Rav Shach brings is the mother and fetus are possible sin offerings. While in the case of the female separated for a passover sacrifice, the mother is obviously not going to be a passover --the passover must be a male. Okay--that makes some sense. The problem is if  עובר לאו ירך אמו [a sheep's fetus is not part of his mother then why should this matter?  Even if the holiness that descends on the mother is a pushed off holiness (only applicable in terms of money) still fetus should be a regular passover sacrifice just as when sets aside a male sheep for holiness of money, still automatically it becomes set for a regular sacrifice.   

I am hoping to go "vitter" further to the next sugia, but ust for a last note, it seems Rav Shach does agree with this idea that since the holiness that devolves on the mother is pushed off, that make the born sheep also not fit for a sacrifice. I noted tat he brings one of the Baali HaTosfot as a proof to this. 

It looks like I am clocking out. However סוף דבר הכל נשמע את האלוהים ירא ואץ מצוותיו שמור כי זה כל האדם The end of all things, after everything has been heard,, Fear God and keep his commandments, for that is all of a man.  Which in itself seems to indicate the importance of the path of the Gra-that of straight Torah.

Sadly I was not able to stick with this but I still can recognize its importance. 

But you can ask if Fear of God is the main thing, then why not emphasize Musar? The answer is I think there is a limit of how much Musar can help. That is the Law of Limited Returns. Probably it is best to concentrate on Gemara, Tosphot and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

 T 47  t47 mp3   t47 nwc

One of the great Musar books Gates of Repentance

There are four major things that I can see I did wrong in hindsight. Leaving the Land of Israel, and the advice of Rav Nahman of Brelov, the kind of devekut [attachment with God] that I had while I  was in Safed. and the path of my parents.

This is important because, I decided that I would not try to see where my mistakes were based on books but rather based on what I saw that lead to terrible consequences.

So this awareness of my sins helps me to keep my focus on not repeating the same mistakes.

One of the great Musar books Gates of Repentance helped me to see the importance of discovering what mistakes I have done. But to actually determine the exact sins, takes a lot more that just picking out what at first glance might seem to be wrong.

 There is clearly some sort of obligation to walk in the ways of one's parents, [note 1] but it hard to know how far this goes-especially in cases where one's innate talents are not the same as one's parents. And Western society in definitely based on the idea of one finding his or her talents and going in that direction.  Nor is there any concept in the West of doing both. Rather the way the West works in one person for one job. So how does one decide? I myself was in this sort of predicament, not having the same set of talents as my father. But I have tried somehow to walk the fine line between  the areas where he excelled [STEM] and my own interests Gemara, and Tosphot.

So what comes out for me is more or less along the lines of Torah with Derech Eretz/work. A Balance between Physics and Math and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach  But I admire the great Litvak sages like the Gra, and Rav Shach who were able to devote all their time to Torah learning. Just that I never managed to succeed in that direction for reasons unknown tome.

[note 1] If you do not walk in the path of your parents, you are dishonoring them by definition.

But war is no answer. Rather the USA must say to both sides that they must sit down together and negotiate a peace deal.

The people of Ukraine were extremely kind to me. In the end I had to get back to Israel, but I feel that sticking up for the Ukraine makes a lot of sense. There might be some hot heads, but the vast majority of people there really have great hearts and a spirit of kindness.

But war is no answer. Rather the USA must say to both sides that they must sit down together and negotiate a peace deal.  [This is not my original idea. I heard it on a Tom Woods program. But I present it here because it makes a lot of sense.

the Litvak world is right about the primary importance of learning Torah,

 Even  though I feel the Litvak world is right about the primary importance of learning Torah, תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם that is not to say that I had the greatest time in the Litvak world. The best idea is not to put anyone on a pedestal. The admirable thong about the Litvak world the refusal to admit all of the false doctrines that people claim for Torah are true. Thankfully, they are insistent about straight Torah. But being human means that they do not always [or even very often] measure up to the standards of Torah. Even the roshei yeshivot are flawed human beings -as are the rest of us. But still they refuse to let in all the many insanities  of the religious world.

In every discipline there is the authentic true way, and the host of armies of falsehood that surround it that pretend to authenticity even though they are phonies- pseudo Torah.

This problem could have been avoided if people had been aware of the signature of the Gra on the famous letter of excommunication. But due to lack of faith in the wise, that is ignored

There is a series of positive values, and in every area of value there is a Sitra Achra-a Dark Side which imitates that value, but in fact just to to use the real to justify the phony  however I admit that I think of Rav Nahman as a great tzadik and this approach of the Gra should not be taken as a criticism of him.

[Even though learning Torah is an obligation on everyone,  this is often misunderstood. The Rambam wrote "Just as one is not allowed to add or subtract from the Written Law, So one is not allowed to add or subtract from the Oral Law." So only the books of the sages of the Mishna and Gemara count as "Torah". But I should also mention that learning these books counts as learning Torah, so when one learns Tosphot he is "learning Torah" 

I might mention here that i just noticed today a few books that have come out in the litvak world that are pretty good. I only asked my son Izhak at the end of his life to send to me the Avi Ezri, but now I see there are some other really great books out there-- the Birchat Shmuel, the Kehilat Yaakov by the Stipler, Even Haazel, and even nowadays there seem to be some pretty decent roshei yeshiva. Of course these are all along the lines of Reb Chaim of Brisk. But I do miss my great learning partner David Bronson whose path in learning is more along the lines of an electron microscope, but I have not been able to get to that kind of depth myself, nor have I seen any book that approaches that kind of depth. Still these other books in the Litvak world are very impressive. [i tried to capture some of the depththat i saw in david bronson  in my little book on bava metzia and also my other book on shas, but nothing can compare to hearing it from the first source]