So reason can help understand Torah, but not override it.

 What is authoritative? Sola Scriptura. So reason can help understand Torah but not override it. It is the major theme of the Middle Ages to find the right balance between Reason and Revelation. But when it come down to a direct conflict, the actual words of God in the Five Books of Moses and the Prophets must take precedent over the faulty and fallible reason of man. And what are prophets is not open. The word of God has not become irrelevant as time ha gone on. Nor have we advanced beyond God.

We need the Gemara to derive and understand the words of Torah, but not override them.

  

 There is the thesis anti thesis synthesis of Hegel which is one way to get to the truth of things. He gets it from Socrates [as Dr Kelley Ross pointed out] who for some reason was always able to ask the right question to get to the opposite principle than the one that was suggested.   In some of the shorter dialogs this gets to just that--contradiction. In some however progress is made.

And from what I saw in the Logic of the Encyclopedia this is the foundation of his whole system. But he also said there is not just one method of gaining ground in Philosophy. [That is why some have claimed he never had this method.]  

Mainly Hegel wants from this method to get to the conclusion that logic and reason permeates everything, There is no where beyond reason. --For in plain terms God made everything through his wisdom and reason. [That is not how Hegel would put it.] [Hegel also wants that reason can get to absolute truth by itself, not needing empirical evidence]

The reason I bring this up is that the only two areas I have done any study in science are math and physics and in fact progress is never made by the same method that the previous bit of progress was made.

Well obviously areas out from the possibility of experience [not possible experience]: areas that do not come under where when how why the categories. But the categories are not known by the categories- but they are known, Immediately after the Critique was published this was more or less along the lines of the original critics like Schultz.   So what Fries did was to postulate non immediate intuitive knowledge, Though Hegel and Fries were not saying the same thing, but I see this non intuitive knowledge as one more means of getting to the absolute truth in a different way than the dialectic. Just like Hegel had said: there is not just one way.

[fries disagreed  with kant on the transcendental deduction. fries felt that perception can not tell us anything about a priori principles.]  

I need to mention here that I totally agree with sola scriptura --only the word of God is the one true standard of truth and moral authority. I consider the validity of the Talmud to go only so far as to be an accurate understanding of how to fulfill the commandments of the Torah. And I think the Talmud hold the same view.

 I have noticed that when Christians defend their faith, they sometimes are unaware of the background that Jesus lived in. One instance is ''netilat yadaim'' [ washing before bread, or fruit that has been washed and is now wet, or before the three prayers]. It has nothing to do with coming from the market back home. The last two requirements are not generally observed except for before the morning  prayer. [There is however no good reason why these are not observed.] The first one has two reasons, one in Hulin chapter 8  מים ראשונים מצווה מים אמצעים רשות מים אחרונים חובה ("The first washing is a good deed, the middle washing is allowed, the last washing after the meal is an obligation."). Since it is clear the disciples were  not washing before bread, so it must be that Jesus held with this opinion: the first washing is a good deed,-not an obligation. 

Plus i should add here that just  because the religious fanatics (Pharisees) yelled at Jesus means nothing. Just as when religious fanatics yell at people nowadays it means nothing. They yell when they have no source in the Law  to defend their insane restrictions.  Have you ever been in Mea Shearim? Do you really think women have to walk on the opposite side of the street according to the Law? That is just the nature of religious fanatics- to make up their own restriction and yell at everyone else that is not following them. It has nothing to do with Torah.

סרך תרומה [[to cause priests to be used to washing for truma] is the other reason given for washing hands, That is the reason many consider it as an obligation. But if one holds the first reason from the Talmud in Hulin chapter 8, then it is only a good thing to do, not an obligation.  

Washing of cups however is different and that is in tractate Kelim. Some vessels [made from clay] can receive impurity from inside only. That is relevant to when the Temple was standing, but now with no temple, it make no difference.

See Mark 7 verse 1.

But Jesus also held with the authority of the scribes as in Mathew he said, "The Scribes and Pharisees sit in the seat of Moses, so all that they say to do that you must do.... " [but there are many hypocrites among them etc.]

I need to mention here that I totally agree with sola scriptura --only the word of God is the one true standard of truth and moral authority. I consider the validity of the Talmud to go only so far as to be an accurate understanding of how to fulfill the commandments of the Torah. And I think the Talmud holds the same view. I do not think the sages thought they could override the commandments except in time of emergency like Eliyahu on Mount Carmel where he brought sacrifices outside of the Temple. or in a case of, "Do not do" שב ואל תעשה for the sake of some other overriding reason. In any case, in Avot Derav Natan on Pirkei Avot we see this amora [Rav Natan] says on the Mishna openly that the decrees of the scribes can not override the Torah. This is however clear only in the correction of the Gra there on the girsa.[language.]

At any rate, see R Shimon ben Yochai in Bava Metzia 119 that we go by the reason for a verse, not the literal meaning. [so one can take a guarantee of a loan from a rich widow.]

As for ''it is a karban that which you derive benefit from me.'' can be said to anyone and is valid. If one say it to one' father, that is the complaint of Jesus. However it is Biblical. One can forbid one's property to another, That is from Parshat Nedarim [vows] in the Book of Numbers, and at any rate if you have to give money toyour parents, then the neder [vow] does not apply anyway. see. tractate nedarim   

new music file for strings, oboe and bassoon z98

 z98

crisis of faith

 I was going through a crisis of faith for a few days about ten years ago. I had realized that there were problems in understanding Torah. In many places it seems wrong, And in other places, it seems immoral, In some places, I could find answers. For an exemplar: Noah's flood  can be explained by the Ari- Isaac Luria as referring to the female waters. But at some point, it seemed I was making too many excuses. Plus, my experience in the religious world left a lot to be desired. It seems the more religious people are, the less moral they are. But at that point, I discovered the web site of Kelley Ross which bring the view of Jacob Fries and Leonard Nelson about non intuitive immediate knowledge which in many ways can be understood as faith or knowledge which is beyond reason. That is to say,  that reason has a limit. It can only tell us things within the area of possibility of experience. That was Kant's new idea, Kant  reasoned thus: that reason can only be sure of contradictions that arises from definitions and axioms. Experience or induction can only tell us things by induction . But Kant reasoned that there is knowledge beyond that, that is there is apriori knowledge.- knowledge that is beyond definition and experience  but even that has to be within the realm of possibility of possible experience. Fries saw the flaw in Kant that Kant had tried to mend by his Copernican revolution that knowledge can be known only by the categories of the mind. Fries saw that any knowledge to be true had to be based on knowing axioms which are not depended on the mind, but can be known by inner looking. introspection. I.E. Non intuitive immediate knowledge. Now Hegel saw the same flaw in Kant, and tried to answer this by his gothic structure of all reality, but this did not work for me since  Hegel held there is nothing beyond reason. But I felt that reason itself has to start from axioms which are not based on reason, but rather that all reason must start with axioms known beyond reason that reason can not prove.

My questions about the Torah and the religious world were deep. After all, Torah itself is monotheism and good midot character traits  But if the religious had neither, there were serious problem. But this went deeper since reason by itself when it goes into the realm beyond the possibility of experience comes up with self contradictions  and even makes self contradictions in people that attempt to go beyond the bound of experience. So the problem with the religious world seem a natural flow from the nature of their assuming they know that which they don't know. 

 Even though I agree with anyone who can put their trust in God and sit and learn Torah as is the basic approach of the Gra and the Litvak yeshivot which go by him, still I feel that a more balanced approach suits me in which I go by the medieval authorities like Ibn Pakuda that see learning Physics and Metaphysics as a part of learning Torah. But in order to fulfill this approach, I really can not be sitting in any yeshiva, and I have to do this on my own. [In any case, I was only really part of the Yeshiva world as long as I was socially acceptable .... a young  student right out of high school with rich parents. What is not to like? But after my wife left me, I was thought to be undesirable, and never found anywhere that would allow me to sit and learn Torah. So with little choice, I went to the Polytechnic Institute of NYU. At least, they were looking at my grades and abilities, not my social status. At any rate, I learned from that experience that the religious world does keep some rituals, not the moral obligations of the Torah. 

 In Israel it looks like Degel HaTorah [which is the party of the Litvaks that go by the Gra] will be part of the new government. On one hand this makes me happy because I agree with those people who it and learn Torah for its own sake and believe they deserve support. [From what I understand the stipend for a person sitting in kollel and learning Torah was about $200 per month and now will go up to about $300 (1500 shekels)]. But I also feel a twitch of regret that I had tasted the joy of Torah and the light in the Litvak world but did not manage to stick it out, and went into the more secular way of doing Physics at Polytechnic of NYU. 

Is accepting a stipend for learning Torah Ok? I know it is not to the Rambam, but you can see in the responsa of the Geonim that the great yeshivot in Iraq [Babylon] did receive stipend from the community.

Even in the Gemara itself you see this in the page in Hulin right before Reshit Hagez where there was a sack of gold dinars placed at the steps of the yeshiva of Rav Ami and he grabbed it for the yeshiva. Also the story about two amoraim walking in some city  and one noticed the beautiful synagogue, and the other rebuked him saying, "Were there no students of the yeshivot to support that they spent the money on buildings?"

But I can see the point of the Rambam also when Torah becomes  a business it is a disaster.

So if possible I would suggest that the money for yeshivot ought to go only to the Litvaks who learn Torah for its own sake. I can not see how this could be implemented but that is what I think would be the bet policy.