The Trinity

In the Ari [Rav Isaac Luria] we find a few people whose souls were from Emanation--or what would be called "Divine".
But this only really works if you have a Neo-Platonic world view.  In some sense this does not really fit with Aristotle.
[But even with Neo Platonic Thought in itself there are plenty of problems reconciling Christian beliefs. and that is the reason I think Aquinas went to Aristotle.]

In any case what prompted this blog entry is I saw this blog jesus-god-and-an-inconsistent-triad/
and I see that there is a great deal of debate about this.

A further way to deal with this is Kant-simply to say that when Reason ventures into the realm of the dinge an sich [the thing in itself] it gets caught in self contradictions.

In any case I have not thought that believing in the Trinity is in itself any great problem because of the Talmud about the Barber that gave a haircut to Sanherib [I forget the page but I think it is around pages from 98-101. But I might be wrong. In any case it is somewhere in that area] and also the Tosphot in Avoda Zara which deals with this exact issue. [Not that I understood Tosphot very well, but I made a point of learning it with my learning partner so that  I at least get it as well as possible. From what I recall there were a few different ways that Tosphot deals with it.]

[I would normally not be writing on such a contentious issue if I would be having more time to learn Gemara and Rav Shach. But as you know things have been in chaos with me since May and especially my recent arrest. So I suppose it might take some time until I can get down to be doing any kind of serious learning of Gemara or the Avi Ezri for some time--until a miracle appears.]


It is a well known fact, amply borne out by the history of the discussion of the topic, that as soon as one goes beyond the automatic recital of traditional creedal phrases one inevitably leans either in the direction of modalism – the “persons” are simply the different aspects of the divine being and/or activity – or tritheism – there are really three Gods, albeit very intimately connected in some way. (“Swinburne and Christian Theology,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 41 (1997) , p. 54).

St Augustine is the source of some great ideas

St Augustine is the source of some great ideas that got into the work of Jewish scholars during the Middle Ages. However when people borrow from him or any Christina source, the source of the idea is usually not given. But even more than specific idea there is his whole Neo Platonic approach which became part and parcel of approved Jewish thought--mainly starting with Saadia Gaon.

One of the well known ideas of Augustine is that time is a creation. But there are many more.

Torah scholars that are demons. Is there any solution to this problem?

Rav Nahman of Uman made a point about Torah scholars that are demons in a few places. But does not really give a reason for why they appear nor for how to avoid them. Though that is already a remarkable fact that he had the courage to pull the wool out of people's eyes about the problem.
[The idea of Rav Nahman is that the actual human soul of these people is slowly replaced by a demon. The cause of this is unclear, nor is it clear what to do about it.]

I have thought that the problem is that Torah has been made into a paying profession and that invites the demonic Torah scholars in the first place. But  it is not so clear --that answer I mean. It was pointed out to me that the Keseph Mishna brings a defense for the practice of paying for a rav.

So one answer seems to be out, but then what is the trouble? From where does it come and what is possible to do about it? Just hide?
What a lot of secular Jews did at the beginning of the Reform Movement was in fact to simply get away from the religious world. They clearly say the problem so the majority of the Jewish people decided to get out and avoid the Torah Scholars that are demons.

Still that does not seem like the best solution either since we are all obligated to learn and keep Torah.

One other suggestion I have had is to pay attention to the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication. I mean to treat it as valid in term of actual law. But I have not been totally convinced by that myself since even in the Litvak world which attempts to go with the Gra to some degree there also seems to be this same problem, although it is to a lesser degree.
And besides these two solutions nothing occurs to me.

[I have mentioned before the approach of just getting a few tractates of the Talmud and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri and then just learning at home. In fact this seems to be the only possible solution to this problem. After all even in Israel the Dark Side is spreading rapidly -especially in religious areas, so there in fact is no where to escape from it. All one can do is learn Torah at home. And that was always what my learning partner in Uman was telling me, about how great it is to be in a place where there is no religious control.]

יאשיהו King Joshiyahu

יאשיהו King Joshiyahu from what I can see did the most thorough job of getting rid of idolatry throughout all Israel, but after him everything went downhill fast. He was the last of the good kings descended from David. The thing that made him unique was he went all through the Land of Israel, not just Judah.

The story of most of the kings of Judah that were descended from the house of David is a disappointing story, because it all seems to go downhill after Solomon,

modern progressivism is modern "regressivism."

Modern progressivism is modern "regressivism." So what can you do? The Litvak Yeshiva solution is simply to go back to the Middle Ages--and that in fact makes a lot of sense on one hand. But it does not answer the very questions that led to dissatisfaction with scholasticism and religion in the first place.

So my solution is more modest--to find a world view that works for me and helps me make sense of a confusing world.

So I try to hold to a kind of common sense approach of Reid towards philosophy-as are some modern day philosophers like Kelley Ross, Michael Huemer, maverick philosopher and others.

Common sense and balance and to be a mensch are definitely the values of my parents. So what that means in a practical sense is to learn from the greats of the Middle Ages,and also advances from the Enlightenment. How to make sense of the contradictions? Use common sense and balance.

Just to be clear, though I am no expert, I did the usual adolescent reading of Nietzsche, the Communist Manifesto,  and all the usual progressive stuff.  Being not so smart, I could not really see what was wrong with their arguments, but it all seemed way too shallow as compared to other reading I was doing, Plato, Spinoza, Dante, etc. [Now it would be fairly straightforward to see what was incorrect in Marx Freud, Nietzsche etc. But that is not the reason I did not go after them. The reason was they all seemed so "19th century like" obsolete and irrelevant. As if making revolution and sex free was going to solve all mankind's problems. They seemed -forgive the expression--naive.
Just the opposite with Plato and Dante etc. They seemed extremely relevant and deep and penetrating into the core of issues.

You do not have to be an expert

Winston Churchill said something along the lines that everyone needs at least one hobby [or more] I forget the quote. But this brings me to what I have been trying to say about Math, Physics, and Learning Torah. You do not have to be an expert. And besides that Torah was never meant to be a paying profession anyway. And even though one can get paid for math and Physics still than does not mean you need to be an expert.

There is such a thing as doing something "Lishma" for its own sake.

The way to understand this is by the Gra [the Gaon of Vilna]who brings the Jerusalem Talmud that says that every word of learning Torah is worth more than all the other commandments of the Torah put together. [The Jerusalem (jerusalem Talmud) brings this from a verse כל חפצים לא ישוו בה(all desired things can not be compared with God's Wisdom)]
The way to get to the idea that that includes math and Physics is through the rishonim. Most books of Musar from the period of the Middle Ages have physics and metaphysics as being a part of God's Wisdom.


I also have to say that if you learn  bu just saying the words and going on, you will eventually understand a lot more than you can even imagine now. See Talk 76 of Rav Nahman of Breslov.

[I might add that Rav Nahman also makes a good case for why Torah is no supposed to be a paid profession. Even though he does not discuss the issue directly, still he points out the problems created by such a system. In fact, my learning partner in Uman was always telling me how wonderful it is to be in an area with no religious controls.]

to learn in depth

The main way of learning Torah that I think is the best is one that most people coming into the Litvak Yeshiva world find impossible to accept --that is to learn in depth even before you have gone through Shas even once. I mentioned this one time to David Bronson and he agreed with me. The reason is simple experience. If people do not learn "how to learn" [that is how to get into the depths of Talmud] right away, then they never get it.

And I admit my first years in Shar Yashuv were frustrating for this very reason. There was a great insistence to get into the depths of learning the Gemara and Tosphot even before you had even finished the tractate itself.

But how to get into the depths of learning is hard to know. I have mentioned Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which is of course an amazing masterpiece. But the type of learning of Rav Shach is different than what they were doing in Shar Yashuv. Not that they conflict, but they are simply different.
The path of Shar Yashuv was more along the lines of what is called in Israel "calculating the sugia" (sugia means the subject matter right on the page, but it also can mean that subject as relevant to other places in the Talmud.]: getting Tosphot--every word, and not going on until you do. Rav Shach and Rav Haim Soloveitchik are more interested in global issues: how does one sugia compare to another?