Philosophy is still the servant of religion, but now that religion is the new secular religion of wokism.

Philosophy used to be thought of as being in the service of religion and Kant did not like that and tried to emancipate philosophy from religion.  After Kant  there was still a lot of optimism that philosophy would make some progress. Eventually all that optimism dissipated when philosophy could not show a single positive result. Zilch. So it became the handmaid of science. But even in that, it could not show anything deep nor profound or even relevant. So in her desperation, she became anti-science [with the no truth doctrine] and became the servant of wokism and political correctness. Philosophy is still the servant of religion, but now that religion is the new secular religion of wokism.

Analytic philosophy is good for people that would like to be mathematicians, but do not have talent. It gives them something to do, and keeps them out of the way from people with real talent. Continental philosophy is good for people that would like to be authors, but do not have talent.

Psychology  is good for people that would like to be con-men, but do not have talent.

I think one ought to have a goal of getting through the whole oral and written law, plus basic physics and mathematics. --at least once. You can see in the writings  of the Gra the importance of getting through the whole oral and written law plus the seven wisdoms. 

But how can one accomplish this?--that is by the way of learning called ''girsa'' i.e., just saying the words and going on. That is, to have one session in Gemara i.e.,  to make a place marker and  go through one side of a page of Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot with the Maharsha and Maharam printed in the back of the Gemara. Put the place marker in, and the next day to go on to the next page. Do the same with the Yerushalmi and Midrash. Plus go through daily a few pages of Physics and Mathematics. But all of this is what is known as ''bekiut''. Besides this, one should have a few in depth sessions with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach or the Chidushei HaRambam by Reb Chaim of Brisk.     [ Mathematics in depth is not all that different from the fast learning called ''girsa''. The difference is for every chapter you go forward, you go back to all the previous chapters.]

Another aspect of learning in depth I heard from my son Izhak--that of doing lots of review. [The gemara mentions review forty times.But that should be done separately from the fast kind of learning i have mentioned up above. ] 

 To Rav Avraham Abulafia, Jesus was a very great tzadik. But that does not say anything at all about Christianity. Rav Abulafia quite definitely considered the Catholic Church to be straight idolatry. and in that he was going with the opinion of the Rambam. However Tosphot in tractate Avoda Zara considers Christianity to be ''shituf'' (joining anything with God's name ).[Actually in that one short Tosphot there are a few opinions, but the general gist of his argument is that it is shituf.] [Shituf is joining another with God. In the Gemara itself over there, it is talking about the prohibition of joining anything with God's name in an oath--for example when Gideon shouted ''A sword to the Lord and to Gideon'' to arose his men before battle.

Rav Avraham Abulafia lived near the time of the Rambam. The Rambam died in 1204 and Rav Abulafia was born around 1240.

Learning fast--just saying the words in order and going on --is a great piece of advice about learning which really comes straight from the Talmud itself. לעולם לגרוס איניש אע''ג ששוכח ואף על גב שאינו יודע מה שהוא אומר .  and one of the major books of Musar the  אורחות צדיקים brings this path of learning in Shar Hatorah. But they are usually understood to mean learning gemara in this way. However at some point  a few years ago I became aware that learning math and physics is considered as part of the mitzvah to learn Torah and so I applied this path of learning to my studies in Physics at the Polytechnic Institute of NYU.  

So now I try to have both in depth learning sessions with lots of review of every chapter and also fast learning sessions.  [this is very well known in litvak yeshivot where the accepted approach to learning is to do in depth learning in the morning and fast learning in the afternoon.] [however the fast learning is much slower than the approachof just saying the words and going on]

  I might make clear a few categories. ''Zona'' [זונה] is a woman who has had sex with someone forbidden to her by a prohibition, not an isur ase איסור עשה. A zona is forbidden to a kohen. The Rambam expands the definition to include the common usage of the word to mean a prostitute. That is a woman who is willing to have sex with more than one partner. [It does not mean sex for money--because if it did, then all married women would be in the category of prostitutes.] The actual word for prostitute is kedeisha קדישה. Niuf adultery ניאוף is sex with a married woman. It is not sex outside of marriage, [as many Christians mistakenly believe.]

NOW that I am at it, I might expand this to clarify some more issues. ''Mezonot'' support in what is called alimony is none existent in Torah. But from derabanan [words of the scribes] a widow gets mezonot until she remarries. A divorced woman gets only the ketubah,-- $500 nowadays. There is a ketubah of $1000 for a virgin, but of course there is almost no such thing as a virgin anymore. Any woman getting married nowadays is almost never a virgin.  And there is almost no such thing as a ''good woman''. Almost any woman at 18 years old will be influenced by society and become a fat bitch after about 10 years. 

Even though to some people marriage is thought to be the only legal connection between man and woman -I do not see it that way . To most medieval authorities, a girl friend [concubine ]- is permitted. That includes the Rosh, Raavad, Ramban/Nahmanidess and others that I have forgotten off hand. Even to the Rambam/Maimonides there is no prohibition involved except for lack of doing kidushin [marriage]. That is,- he sees the kidushin as an obligation, but lack of it is not a prohibition in itself. And not all versions of the Rambam have that either. [''Rambam'' is said with emphasis on the first syllable. ''Ramban'' with emphasis on the last syllable ]

Besides that, a girl friend relationship is well established  even after the giving on Mount Sinai of the Torah as we see in Chronicles I chapter 2 verse 46 concerning the concubines of Caleb ben Yefuna. [That is the same Caleb who was a friend of Joshua. See whole incident in the Book of Numbers. Joshua and Caleb were among the 12 spies that Moses sent into the Land of Canaan [Israel] and they brought back a good report as opposed to the other ten spies]

[And even if you find a good woman, she can leave any time she gets tired of you and your beer cans on the couch, and take the kids and half of anything you own, and she will get paid by the government to do so.  Who needs it? ]

the tremendous depth in Tosphot is being forgotten and ignored.

I am very sad because I feel that the tremendous depth in Tosphot is being forgotten and ignored. but i also feel that I am not one who can help recover from this loss. [Tosphot is the commentary on the Talmud on the opposite ide from Rashi.] the only two people i ever knew that could see this depth were naftali yeager [the rosh yeshiva in Shar Yashuv and David Bronson my learning partner in Uman [by the ziun of Rav Nahman]. ] My feeling is that to see this requires a combination of high IQ and talent.

Now I do not mean to belittle the great efforts of that whole school of thought that revolved on Reb Chaim of Brisk and Rav Shach that digs into the Rambam. But I miss the people that could see what is really going on in Tosphot. Believe me,-- I looked . All my years in the Mir Yeshiva in New York I learned every achron [later commentary] I could get my hands on, but never saw this. They certainly have important points -especially the Maharsha. Still my impression is that they are all revolving on the outside of Tosphot--never the inside. 

[i tried to capture a little of this in my little booklet on bava metzia to which i provide a link here.]

but you will see what i mean here only in the parts that i bring the questions and issues brought up by david bronson and my tentative answers. that is from bava mezia pgs 97b to 104b. the rest i wa doing without his insights