Three pillars of English character: (1) moderation, (2) individuality and (3) love of hard labor.

One  subject that I want to deal with:  Freedom and Passover and the development of the idea of Freedom as we know it in America and the Western World which invention of the John Locke and the English. I would like to go into the good and bad aspects of the character of the English that gave rise to the English Empire and also has given way to the decay and downfall of England.

The main way I want to deal with this subject is to concentrate on the three pillars of English character: (1) moderation, (2) individuality and (3) love of hard labor.

What a priori value does freedom have?
Why should it have any value? It arose from the conflict between the church and the monarchs in Medieaval Europe. But if you would know the absolutely true objective law of morality, what possible value could freedom have? And let us say that it is a value because of what we don't know about people and their character and their individual situation. Then in theory the more you understand about yourself and others, the less you would value freedom. (I am saying that Reason does perceive freedom as value because morality is an ought --not a must. The laws of morality area based on free will.

The English character which gave rise to the Empire of England (and its extension, the American Empire) do seem to be  much based on the Old Testament. It values and principles and laws. Can anyone imagine England developing the way it did without its Christian orientation?  This is certainly ridiculous.  And the further England and the USA go away from this basic orientation and world view, the further they sink into the mud.
I am not saying they were doing everything right when they were more religious. But I can say it was a lot better when people were going to church on Sundays; -and it was better for Jews then too.
I claim everything right about the USA comes directly from the ideas of Torah (and John Locke and he claimed openly that his ideas were straight from the Bible--especially limited government). [Not in his Two Treaties but in other writings.]



It is a true observation that it was the Calvinist work ethic that created the capitalist west. Without a love of labor and hatred of false gain could capitalism succeed.



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But it is just that some aspects of the USSR  are impressive enough to me to seek out what aspects of that system contributed to the good that it did .
[The USSR was based on Marx and the philosophical aspects of Marx were are from Hegel, and the social aspects from Rousseau and the theory of value of labor from a rejected theory of Adam Smith.]



Maybe Americans are not that impressed with mathematics  and think that the engineering achievements of the USA out-shadow anything the USSR did. But the amazing Soviet mathematicians were so great in my eyes that it causes me to think that the Soviets must have been doing something right. [Plus I still see some residue effects of the USSR-- people obey the law!
But also I see that capitalism could never succeed in the Russian Empire. Capitalism without restraint is not viable. And the problem in Russia is there is not abhorrence of theft. and you can't abhor theft and ill gotten gain without some basic approach based on the Bible. This is the reason that Muslims are de-evolving into apes. Even though they have had some good religious principles in the past, but without a basic Biblical approach there is not much you can expect from people.

The problem with any Biblical approach however is not just that of interpretation but also cults that base themselves on the Bible.








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The last issue I want to deal with is the defend learning the Mishna with the commentary of the Rambam.

Mainly I will try to say that with the commentary of the Rambam you avoid some of the anti science tendencies you find in the more commonly learned  Bartenura [Rav Ovadia from Bartenura]. Also I find the Rambam is short and to the point, and it is possible to make a lot more progress with him than with most other commentaries that tend to be too long.

I already spent too much time writing this short essay and I can tell already I will not be able to get to these subjects today in any detail.

What makes something a cult?

 To my way of thinking the approach   of talking always with God like one talks with a friend makes the Monotheism of the Torah more felt and more intense. But I am sometimes alarmed when I hear people making a little bit more of a tzadik than I think is warranted by proper Torah thought.

Part of the problem I see in American education is that the issues that went into making of America are not addressed. Certainly freedom is mentioned  and yet the European conflicts between Church, Monarchs , Parliament and the people are almost ignored.
This creates a problem for Jewish people that learn in American public school. The issues of limitation of authority is certainly not addressed in the Talmud itself, and we don't get any idea of what and how are the limits of authority.


My question is from a Torah standpoint what is the limit of rabbinical authority and is there in theory any thing that could stand before rabbinic authority like the was in European --the Kahal-- the tax paying home owners?

Does conversion to Torah require an act of the court (beit din)?

Does conversion to Torah require an act of beit din (מעשה בית דין)? [That means a court that has ordination  in an unbroken chain from Sinai. And this the Gemara says no longer exists. The last people to get true ordination lived right after the time of the Mishna. And it was in the beginning of the period of the Talmud that it puttered out.] The ordination we have today is a fraud.]
I have assumed for years that according to the Gemara in Avoda Zara (עבודה זרה) that conversion does not need a beit din. This was in spite of the fact that I knew the Tosphot there assumes that Gemara is going along with the Gemara in Sanhedrin. [The Gemara in Sanhedrin says conversion is a "din"--which means it needs the authentic ordination.] But my learning partner mentioned to me today an interesting fact --that you do not see an major rishon ראשון (medieaval authority) who disagrees with this. Whether the Rif or the Rambam or Tosphot-- everyone is assuming you need an act of beit din.
The only thing different nowadays is that you can never tell if someone is sincere until after the conversion.

And it is also interesting to notice that in Breslov there was an old tradition to convert anyone who wanted to be converted immediately--or thus I have heard in the name of Michael Dorfman.
So to make a long story short, in spite of the fact that the Gemara in tractate  Avoda Zara seems to make conversion a very simple process [i.e. jumping into a natural body of water for the sake of becoming Jewish], still from Tosphot and the general medieaval authorities it does look like you need some kind of beit din.
Now Tosphot does say that even though there is no such a thing of ordination anymore, still someone can convert because there are things a beit din of three regular guys--(with no semicha) -can do. And Tosphot wants to extend the list to conversion. Well fine. So be it. If that is what Tosphot says, who am I to disagree? And one thing I have learned in life: Tosphot is always right.
At any rate, it is clear that the convert does not need to accept all the mitzvot with rigor, but the basic outline of mitzvot. That is open in Shulchan Aruch itself. ["They make known to him the outline of the mitzvot and don't make it hard."] But still basic mitzvot are needed--like shabat, kashrut, etc.
There is not argument about this. But since conversion is big business, most people in this business hide all these facts so they can continue the scam. But  three people as a beit din of regular guys we have seen that we need. I thought to get out of this problem. Most rishonim want three people --they don't however have to have ordination  because  ordination today anyway has no legal status.

In conclusion to me it looks like the dipping does need to be in front of three ordinary Jews. There is an opinion in the Rif that even in front of one Jew is good enough.

My learning partner noticed in the Rambam that the the Torah was given to all Israel and to whom ever wants to accept it. That means anyone who wants to keep Torah can do so. That is the basic idea. The trouble begins with the fact that some people supposedly convert to torah but don't really want to keep the laws of the Torah.

 The issue of cults..I am still trying to figure out how is it possible for a person to take a set of religious doctrines and use them to create a personal following around himself. And furthermore I am wondering how naive people can protect themselves from this type of thing.. This does not seem to depend on doctrine at all. It seems almost any set of doctrines from principles that I would consider to be kosher to even highly un-kosher doctrines can be used by people to make a following around themselves.
I mean who does not want dozens of fawning followers willing to do your every bidding?

I think the first hint that something is wrong is when the leader of your group is obviously a person that is highly comfortable around others. The more people friendly someone is, the less nobility of character they have.

Fear of God- the Musar movement

Yesterday I wrote a blog about fear of God
I still think that Isaac Blazer [a disciple of Israel Salanter] was right- that everything (--i.e. the  happiness and success) depends on fear of God.
The major problem with fear of God is that any human good will be exploited by charlatans.
Just like you find charlatans in every field of knowledge, so you find this in Torah and the world of people that are concerned with keeping the commandments. These charlatans make it hard to decipher what path is really effective in bringing one to fear of God. In this context, "charlatan" means someone who dress like a Torah scholar without actually having finished the Talmud at least once with all of the Tosphot. The dress is not innocent. They are definitely trying to use clothing to convince people they are holy. 


But to put the Torah on a firm philosophical foundation the top is Maimonides.

[Just for quick information, for Maimonides, the path to fear of God lies through the Talmud. After a basis in Talmud, then comes the actual steps that bring to it.

Physics according to  Maimonides brings to fear of God, and Metaphysics brings to love of God.]

The problem with this is obviously that no one has actual carved out a path to God through Physics. This is different than the Talmud in which there is a level of holiness one gets just by opening it up and learning. [This is my approach to the issue of holiness. It is a circle of value. 

You will notice that I don't think that learning Torah, or enlightenment is the goal and highest aspiration of man, but rather fear of God.
For details see the writings of Isaac Blazer and the general Musar movement.

In any case, however the Musar movement got off track, still we should ourselves get the basic Musar books of the Middle Ages and the later Musar of the disciples of Israel Salanter and try to keep every word.

[I should mention that teachers of Torah tend for some strange reason to be charlatans and highly morally challenged individuals. Why this is the case is not important at all. What is important is to realize that to learn Torah and Musar is more subtle than it seems at first. it does not mean to join the local religious groups which not matter what they call themselves have a חזקה of being some kind of devious, unclean cult. Better to go to a conservative or Reform Shul until this kind of problem is cleared up.]

I had an idea today about the role of fear of God in the ultimate scheme of things.

I had a epiphany today about the role of fear of God in the ultimate scheme of things.
The thesis I want to defend is this: there is an Intermediate Zone that looks very much like holiness. People that get stuck there inevitably have miracles that they do, and people that come to them experience all kinds of lights and miraculous events. In fact, it is almost impossible to tell that it is the Intermediate Zone --kelipat nogah (קליפת נוגה האמורה במרכבת יחזקאל או היכלי התמורות של הזוהר) except for the effects it has on the community that surrounds the tzadik, guru, or pastor. But I believe I have found a way to skip over the Intermediate Zone:  Fear of God. And this Fear of God is what is well defined in books of Mussar [Ethics]  from the Middle Ages like the Duties of the Heart and the books of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter.
(מדרגת האדם מיוסף הורוויץ וכוכבי אור מיצחק בלזר)

This is the multi layered thesis I want to defend.

One way I want to go about this is to examine the idea of the Rambam about what leads to Fear of God: learning Physics.  [If you read Maimonides carefully (בספר המורה) you will see he holds learning the  Metaphysics of Aristotle leads to Love of God, and Physics leads to Fear of God. (In Mishneh Torah he puts it all together. Learning the works of God inspires one to love and fear God. But he does not say that about learning Torah. And this idea of the Rambam is repeated by all the major books of Musar-- that learning physics and metaphysics brings to fear of God. Or lets me say they bring the actual language of the Rambam but as far as I know they might have been thinking it means kabbalah. [I mean  in Reishit Chachma he brings the Rambam but seems unaware of what the Rambam was referring to.  And this goes for almost all Musar books after the time of Zohar was published. They all assume  Maase Bresihit מעשה בראשית and Maase Merchava מעשה מרכבה are Kabalah. Exactly not like the Rambam.] In any case I never saw kabbalah bring anyone to love and fear God, but rather to a large range of messianic illusions. Thought I think that the Ari is important as a good approach to understand Torah. But I think most people that get into Kabbalah are not thinking of it in that way. I think they are looking for a spiritual uplift (a trip) or spiritual powers. So they get caught in the Intermediate Zone of Illusions. היכלי התמורות, עץ דעת טוב ורע)
  The obvious problem is that we do not see that the Natural Sciences divisions of most universities seem to have a lot of Fear of God.
  I would have to argue that this impression is only superficial. And that sciences students in my experience have more internal integrity and fear of God than most Orthodox Jews  who excel in external signs of fear of God.

There are paths of holiness that sometimes get blocked. The  tzadik צדיק tries to clear a path, and is sometimes successful, and sometimes even if he successful, is the underbrush  grows back and makes it uncross-able.


This happened to the path of [the Rambam] Maimonides. But that is because he made the connection between fear of God and science in only one direction. The truth is there is an opposite connection also--the path to physics is by fear of God. This path is unknown to date because people do not see the metaphysical significance in natural science. They think only people with talent can learn and understand science. This is not true.

The idea here is that people assume that with talent you can learn and excel in science, and without talent you can't. This only on the superficial level of science. There is a deeper level which one can reach only by Fear of God. But this fear of God is internal and unconscious. It can't be discerned by how much a person does external religious rituals.

[Of course some people with a great amount of talent go very far in science with no apparent fear of God at all because God sometimes gives people gifts and talents for no apparent reason, but here I am referring to people of average talent like myself.]

An example is the type of scientist my Dad [Philip Rosten] was. The fear of God in our home was not overt but very much present. [My Dad was responsible for a lot of the technology that went into focusing infrared rays and creating night version of the US Army and the camera for the U-2 and the satellite communication systems for SDI and other stuff ].

Appendix:
It does seems to me that we have a mitzvah of learning Torah and this is an obligation on every Jewish male all the time. The Rambam goes into detail describing how everyone is obligated --young old sick weary etc. He has a whole list. But he also expands this mitzvah to include Physics and Metaphysics.
I think that just like the mitzvah of learning Torah does not depend on whether one is smart or even understands his learning or not--so with physics and metaphysics. it think it is a mitzvah to learn Physics and Metaphysics --just like the Rambam said. I have no idea why this is either ignored by some Jews and take it as a general permission to learn secular subjects( though it is not a permission for general secular  things); or people take great offense at it.
I have seen for example in the writings of  Natan [Disciple of Rav Nahman] the idea that learning the natural sciences is a terrible thing. I can see perhaps he was reacting to the "Haskalah"(Enlightenment). But that learning science should be a bad thing is ridiculous and certainly not what any rishonim (first authorities) held..

My learning partner mentioned a source in the Talmud itself. We know the Rambam is bringing  his ideas from Chagiga and the story in the Talmud about R. Yochanan Ben Zakai
But there is also a story about R Ishmael ... [using science as a proof for how long the pregnancy of certain animals lasts. My writing got interrupted here so I forgot the details but I think that this was an argument between R Ishmael and the Sages in tractate Bechorot. ]

militant atheism

The issue of the militant atheism was brought up today in my Talmud session.


I was encouraged by my Rav Freifeld to learn secular studies. In this context, I learned Sartre. Even though I had read some Existentialist literature in Beverly Hills  High School, then that I first tackled the thick volume of philosophy of Sartre.
 I had a small degree of philosophical knowledge already which I had accumulated by my studies of Spinoza and Plato in high school. So Sartre seemed pretty second rate to me. I had already been exposed to the Greats.
Sartre came up because he was the first that tried to disprove the existence of God. Before him, there were people that did not believe but did not evangelize for that. [With my learning partner, I went through the different schools of Greek thought, but I can't do that here.]

Also mentioned in this conversation that my essay in which I drew a distinction between monotheism and the pantheism was inspired by Brad Scott and his essay. He had been  part of a Hindu sect, and became Christian. And he noticed that in Medieval Christian theology the distinction between monotheism and pantheism was clear.

Basically it was the Christians  that paved the path to a clear understanding of Monotheism,-- starting with Pseudo Dionysus. It is my opinion that when the Rambam borrows from Pseudo Dionysus [specifically the negative theology of the Rambam which is a distinctive Dionysus doctrine] and other Christian sources he does not mention his sources, but when he draws from Muslim sources, he does mention his sources. [The Physics of Aristotle is the obvious source for the Rambam's treatment of monotheism, but I think he also borrowed from Boethius. This would be worth  certain amount of effort to go into if anyone out there would be willing to spend the time and effort.]
Be that as it may. The type of faith that we Jews recognize as Monotheism was formulated very well by Maimonides.

Now I wanted finally to go into Godel and his formulation of  proof of Anselm.To my learning partner I just mentioned that I felt that mathematical logic was such a deep field that it would be for me like the Talmud. I would have to be involved in it for 30 years before I felt qualified to say anything intelligent about it. However from far away I can see a few things that can perhaps protect the proof of Godel from some of major critics. The compactness theorem for one.
[The Torah puts Monotheism as the foremost principle. That is the reason for the Rambam's approach.

The Intermediate Zone

[1] The Intermediate Zone (היכלי התמורות) (נוגה)  with the insights of Paul Brunton and Sri Aurobindo,
[2] The basic primate nature of all human beings,
[3] The need to enter the Intermediate Zone,
[4] Formation of cults around people that have only entered into the Intermediate Zone.
[5] The pseudo religions of psycho analysis, and psychiatry, and psychology which  partake of all the worst characteristics of the Intermediate Zone.
[6] Perhaps after all the above I might offer some suggestions about how the deal with the problem of the Intermediate Zone.


There is a ridiculously short amount of time today so let me just make my first major point as fast as I can.
People have to go into the Intermediate Zone. This is like university. There simply is no choice. You can't look at the writings of Aurobindo and Brunton and say well the Intermediate Zone is so dangerous, so why bother with the spiritual side of things at all? The reason is that we are all primates and the evil in our basic character comes out (from potential to action), and we fall into all the different types of viciousness that is associated with our animal nature whether we like it or not.
But to jump up to the Divine realms is not possible without preparation.
So we are stuck with the need to enter a very dangerous area of spirituality, an area in which people think because they have visions or powers that means they are enlightened. They simply do not realize that the Dark Side [Sitra Achara] is playing with them.

The solution I really don't know, but I have found a set of basic principles that has helped me as I wade my way through this swamp of cults.


I have seen a lot of manifestations of the Intermediate Zone. Most often this is with people of some established religion. This is more than people in Eastern cults. A lot of time a person accepts an established religion, and assumes that since it is the right religion, therefore all the intuitions he or she has come from the side of Holiness and Light.   At least people in Eastern cults seem to be aware of the possibility that their visions might not all be from the Side of Light.

Of course, it is not smart to be involved in a religion that was founded on someone who was heavily in the Intermediate Zone or the Dark Side (סיטרא אחרא) like Islam. But even religions founded on enlightened individuals do not provide protection from the Intermediate Zone.

One confusing issue is the difference between the Intermediate Zone and simple mental illness. Some people  look at any spiritual manifestation as mental illness. Sometimes this is correct. Sometimes they are confusing manifestations of the Intermediate Zone with insanity.


(rest of essay deleted)

If you want to understand about cults and the Intermediate Zone I recommend learning about Scientology which gives a good template or measuring stick to understand whether your group is a cult or not. Adi Da also is a good example --or in fact even a better example because of lots of powers and miracles phenomena that appeared there.  If you want to understand this subject these two examples are important to learn about.


stripping the gurus
 This is a good reference book for Eastern spirituality. But the same could be written about spiritual leaders in other traditional chains.

I was just looking over the Talmud in Bava Metzia and I saw an important point. On page 104.The Mishna brings two conditions in which in renting there is a meaning that is implied "this field" in the case where one says, "I want to rent this apartment from you." These are the two strongest conditions: "This" and the person that want to rent the place. But you don't know that the  Mishna required both conditions. All the Mishna does is juxtapose this with the case of a serf. With the serf there is no requirement that the field remain the same. [It is entirely conceivable that the mishna requires neither condition and only make the difference to depend on whether the case is serfdom or rent. Or that it requires both of the strongest conditions. Or anywhere in the middle also for that matter]
It is hard to know what the Mishna means.

So when we get to Ravina and Shmuel things pick up. Ravina says, all that matters is the "this," and Shmuel says all that matters is who said it (the person that wants to rent, or the one that wants to rent out his place).
Here is where the Rambam comes in and brings the Tosepfta (teaching) that says exactly the same things as the Mishna in the case of renting and says openly it does not matter if the word "this" was used. This is a proof to the Rambam that  if the renter said it, then it does not matter. My point is it is hard to see why the Tospefta should be assumed to be a proof of the meaning of the Mishna.

So today I will just mention an important subject in the Talmud. What happens if a rabbi makes a mistake in a halacha.

 I wrote an essay yesterday attacking the Trinity and suggesting to Christians to repent. To my surprise almost no one looked at my blog.
So maybe I will stop attacking Christians. Maybe there's enough of that on the Internet. And after all even in my own philosophy, what matters is not what people believe, but what they do.
[Of course what they do depend slot of what they believe.]



So today I will just mention an important subject in the Talmud. What happens if a rabbi makes a mistake in a halacha. The first strange thing about this subject is the fact that Rabbi Tarfon is brought [Sanhedrin 33] as an example of a person that made a mistake in a simple thing [Devar Mishna]. The concept of Simple thing {devar mishna) is from what Rav Papa said something there is no argument about. something known and simple. In the days of r Tarfon the question of a female sheep that had the uterus taken out was not a settled question

the next thing is rav sheshet. Even thought he is quoted as referring to a devar misha still what he said makes more sense if you explain it to refer to shikul hadat.--question of judgment.

The major point i am trying to get to is to make the disagreement between rav papa and rav sheshet refer to a argument between the rambam and the geonim.

From what I can tell people are mammals. And not just any mammals, but part of the group of primates. Besides the basic viciousness of character come along with that, people seem to be particularly prone to physical, mental, and character illnesses.

Though I was too young to participate, I think the events of the 1960's effected me greatly.People that were not around at that time can't relate to the atmosphere. For me the world disintegrating around me caused a "crisis of world view."

The urgency to form my own consistent world view has existed ever since then.

For this reason I looked at different religions and philosophies;-- all with the interest to form my own world view that had internal consistency and would correspond in fact with the real world.
I don't have time right now to go through all the mistakes and things that I can't tell if they were mistakes or not.
[I did a lot of searching in: Spinoza, Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese philosophy, the Jewish Orthodox world, Christan streams of though, Islam etc. Though I never got that interested in Islam I had long discussions for several years with Muslim Imams and lived nearby a Muslim village. I have been around enough so that little that people do surprise me.  European philosophy is the most impressive of the bunch of world views I have seen and Plotinus and Maimonides, Kant and John Locke have to rate at the very top. (With honorable mention to  Anselm,  Aquinas, .)



Right now I will just state for the record my basic conclusion. If I have time I will try to go into the path that led me to this conclusion.
First the basic structure of my world view is that of Plotinus-- the neo-Platonic philosopher. But this comes with a slight modification. I don't think that Plotinus can be defended except by Immanuel Kant . Without immediate non intuitive knowledge there is no reason to assume to be true anything that Plotinus says. There is no ground for any of it. It comes across as ancient mysticism. But with Kant, Hegel and Schopenhauer a whole world opens up--the world that Plotinus navigated.

The meaning of this and it relevance for issues today is thus: It means that I am firmly in medieval school of thought of Jewish thinkers like the Chovot LeVavot [Duties of the Heart] and Maimonides (who was far more neo-Platonic than people realize).


The practical relevance for all this is that I know that some people feel free to ignore facts and reality in their pursuit of religious purity. I am not among them.

\
From what I can tell people are mammals. and not just any mammals but part of the group of primates. Besides the basic viciousness of character come along with that people seem to be particularly prone to physical mental and character illnesses.
Religions that claim people are basically good are false.
Psychology is just another religion with its own false doctrines and high priests.

This is not to say that mental illness and character illness are not real problems.
But in terms of applying the basic principles of the Torah to real life situation. I find the Talmud and the books of the medieval thinkers like Maimonides are the best.
I think sin is a cause of lots of problems and also bad character traits like anger or pride. As far as that goes Israel Salanter was right. The only hope for people to improve their character is to make a whole movement around learning the books of ethics that deal with that issue

However it seems to me that it is safe to say that the idea of closeness with a tzadik [saint or Guru] is not in the Torah.

In a neo Platonic system there is a possibility of having a central personality.
You can see this in the thought of  Eastern Religions.
However it seems to me that it is safe to say that the idea of closeness with a tzadik [saint or Guru]  is not in the Torah.
Just the opposite. There were plenty of people that were close to King Saul and King David that did not end up very well. I might mention Doeg and Avshalom, but to me the most striking example is Yoav ben Tzeruya
This is the saddest story in the Torah. King David would have been nothing without this fellow. Zilch. Talk about "shimush talmidai chachamim."
[Yoav was the general of David and he stood by David when all his friends turned against him.]



 I can see this as perhaps one reason the Rambam went to Aristotle.
The simple truth is that the Torah does not look very Neo Platonic.



He might have and does have many character flaws. It means simply someone attached to God in some abstract way and someone that one can also become attached to God by means of some connection with this person. --Like with me hearing his talk on Shabat and by being in the land of Israel.]
On the other hand it is hard to know the meaning of this Light. It does not seem to imply higher knowledge or better character.
In the Torah, the central point is to keep the commandments of God which are 613.And of all the commandments there are ten that are central. And in these commandments, the place of ones physical father and mother occupy a central place, not any prophet tzadik  or other role model. [The commandment of the Torah to honor ones father and mother refer to ones physical parents.It does not mean one can exchange them for what one wants to believe are his spiritual parents and then make up a commandment to honor them. this is falsifying the meaning of the Torah.] The reason for this is simple if one has learned a bit of the writings of Isaac Luria. The father provides one with his or her outer protective light. and ones mother provides him or her with the internal light.

Plotinus makes a very good point about human personalities, those closer to music or love need more direction than those closer to metaphysics.

Maimonides and Physics

I have wondered about the approach of the Rambam towards learning what he calls Physics and Metaphysics. [He says what the ancient Greeks called Physics and Metaphysics is what in Torah is called the "Work of the Divine Chariot" and the "Work of Creation." מעשה מרכבה ומעשה בראשית.]

My question is why does he put this into the category of service of G-d?

Now in the Jewish people there has been a traditional approach to what could be called "the service of God." This is is usually considered to be learning Torah and doing mitzvot and good deeds.
The approach of the Rambam never made a dent in Jewish theology.

I have never heard of any explanation either of why or how this could be considered the highest service of God -- even greater than learning Torah.
Though I have seen in other books [Maalat Hamidot מעלות המידות, Chovot Levavot etc.]
from medieval Jewish thought that adopt this approach to some degree, but never with the wallop that the Rambam gives it.


I would like to suggest here the reason for the Rambam. It is due to his Aristotelian philosophy.

It goes like this: everything has  four causes. The final cause is it purpose. Every individual object in the world has purpose. And the world itself has purpose. When one serves God by revealing the light and reason and logic in everything in the world, this accumulates in the higher purpose of the whole creation.

Personally, I have adopted the approach of my parents and Maimonides as the proper approach.
This is not Reform or Conservative or Orthodox. Just like you can not fit Maimonides himself into any of these modern categories so my path also.
 The failure of Reform was to teach moral relativism and to equate Left wing politics with Torah.
They are not teaching the approach of Maimonides, but neither are the Orthodox.

The idea of Aristotle. He goes along with that everything has purpose, and  every purpose in itself has a purpose. You can see there the implication that each of the four Aristotelian causes has in itself four Aristotelian causes.

Reform Judaism is not a cult. In fact it has some things right that Orthodox Judaism does not have.
(1) Monotheism. Orthodox Judaism has become a religion of pantheism which is opposed to the world view of the Torah and the Talmud and the Ari. That would be in addition to the pantheon of little gods they have.
(2) They are not opposed to the State of Israel and in fact do what they can to support it.. I have never heard of a Reform or Conservative person that was opposed to the State of Israel. I do  not look kindly on many Orthodox  who support the effort of the Muslims to wipe Israel off the map and drive the Jews into the ocean.
These are two important issues. When the  Ultra Orthodox  not just in word, but in deed try to bankrupt the State of Israel.
When  the  Ultra Orthodox support Islamic causes, they don't seem to realize that they are supporting people that have every intension of murdering Jews  like they have always done and seem to be intent on doing for the perceivable future.[What I mean is  the  Ultra Orthodox think they are just opposing the political contract of the State of Israel. They want to be under gentile rule. But they don't realize that gentile rule in Israel was never benign.]



(3) Reform lacks the astounding amount of child sexual abuse that goes on in the Orthodox world


The problem however is that for some reason Reform do not learn the much Mishna or Talmud. And even the Conservative do not make it a priority.
And the very idea of keeping the commandments is not on the radar scope of the Reform. Well at least the right wing of the Conservatives do better in terms of keeping mitzvas.

The major problem with Reform it they lack the numinous  aspect of Torah.




I think the Conservative movement is on the right track in terms of emphasizing the Talmud but also recognizing that reason and logic and science also are authorities in there areas.
At this point I would have to say that since the Orthodox seems to have problems with facts and reality that it has morphed into a cult. Orthodox have had plenty of time to get their act together, and just seem intent on getting more and more fanatic.

Kabalists in Israel

Kabalists in Israel. One way to tell if someone is fraud is by listening to them when they mention a subject you know something about. [They claim to knowledge in Talmud, but when they open their mouths the effect is spoiled] This test works for  other subjects as well. It was mentioned to me about a religious book called Genesis and the Big Bang. But it works for kabalah as well.
But the whole scene of kabalists in Israel is confusing. Perhaps it might be better to mention one at a time. I have forgotten so many it might be hard for me.
Perhaps a few names at first just to help me so some recall.
There was that fraud who prayed at the western wall every day for the sunrise minyan. He had the major characteristic of most kabalists in Israel that whatever personal likes and dislikes they have, they attribute it to Ruach Hakodesh (the divine spirit רוח הקודש).
There was that fellow in the old city who  had some connection with Rav Ashlag. But since he is not part of the Kabalah Center, people go to him for a Sabbath meal, and get a little spiritual inspiration. He is believe it or not a OK fellow. I would not exactly call him a kabalist along the lines of Bava Sali but he is a kosher person.

Then there are the  kabalists that learn Shalom Sharabi. They like to think that they are the real thing, but they too are just deluding themselves. And have all the normal character traits of frauds. And actuality believe anything they think is automatically the Divine Spirit. But in terms of knowledge of kabalah it seems to me that they are actually doing well. They take the Ari and the Reshash and do a rather rigorous examination of both. I have even heard from one friend in the old city that this Reb Yaakov actually knows an thing or two.
But none of these people are "up there."
  They are just looking in from the outside, and as usual filled with delusions of grandeur which seems to be part and parcel of anyone who touches the Zohar.
  Then there are all the kabalists that actual have some kind of spirits divine or otherwise.

  I have to say that they people are not really kabalists per say. They don't know much of the Ari or the Reshash. But they have something. It is what should be called trans-personal. It is not the divine spirit. but it is something. but they confuse it with the divine spirit. This is a trait of the religious world that they assume any spiritual manifestation buy a Jewish persona has to be from the Divine realm.

Then there are all the descendants of Bava Sali.

Bava Sali had great character but a lot of the miracles were a result of his character, not some kind of knowledge. But the flaw was that his knowledge was not perfect. He made mistakes about people and even the failed miracles are not advertised. There were times he said such and such a thing will happen that simply never came about.


Descendants of Bava Sali tend to have something of his spirit. I could mention a few. Rav Shimon Buso in Netivot, Reb David Abuchatzeira in Naharia, Moshe Buso in Jerusalem [somewhere in the vicinity of Rechov Shmuel HaNavi]. The daughter of Bava Sali, Avigail Buso. She definite has something like the Divine Spirit.

The book of Spinoza, the Ethics, was a companion of mine for all my years in high school. But eventually I started seeing some problems in his logic. There are good reasons I switched to Leibniz and Kant.
But as Jewish books go as far as ethics is concerned, the Ethics of Spinoza is powerful. 

The Ethics ("Musar") books of the Middle Ages e.g., The Duties of the Heart, are better than the Ethics. They avoid some of the problems you find in Spinoza. They are a little more modest about what we can know.




I forgot it, but I did have some way of defending Spinoza. I think it was something like this: What is an accident? Some characteristic of a substance. The difference between them is the substance is permanent and the accident can go away. A leaf can be green in spring and red in fall. But substances also change. In fact there is little that is permanent. What is it that these substances are accidents of?
It is this permanent substance that survives  all changes that Spinoza calls substance.
 This argument is what I used to try to defend Spinoza. Not that I am particularly happy with them but that at least we can understand what Spinoza was trying to get at.

Now if you want to give a critique on Spinoza, it would go like this. Even with this justification, that is still not a axiom. Typically an axiom in Geometry or Physics starts  with something self evident and almost trivial. For example if a=b, then b=a. You don't start with something highly counter intuitive and then try to make it into an axiom like "Nothing can affect a substance." [Even though philosophers do this all the time since Hume, it still just talking cleverly and making something dumb sound smart. ] For reasons like this. and several others(that Leibniz pointed out) I decided that Plato, Aristotle, Maimonides, and Kant were closer to the truth.

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Spinoza puts a condition of substance which almost forces his conclusion of Pantheism. 

 People claim for the Rambam the title of the greatest Jewish philosopher. Maybe he was, but the Guide for the Perplexed is the most perplexing book I have ever read.
They used to print it with the commentary of Joseph Albo. If you can get through it congratulations! I found it frustrating. And the medieval alchemy really bothered me.
But if you want to get to what Maimonides was saying without having to go through hell and back to find out, then the best book I ever saw is David Hartman's. And the Rav Kook Institute also had a very good edition of the Guide with a short but very good commentary.  Also Rav Kapach from Yemen had an edition based on the original manuscripts of the Guide with his own very deep commentary. If you have time I would recommend learning these and also Plato and Aristotle in order to have an idea of the issues that the Rambam was addressing in the Guide.

I have been challenged to write an essay about moral objectivity.. I have not read the essay on the Standford or Internet encyclopedia of philosophy.. [Whatever is there I am sure I could never write anything better than that.] But in the meantime, I just want to organize a few thoughts about this subject.
  First, Professor Michael Humemer does not use the idea of the fallacy of subjectivity in his essay because he knows that an outside statement about morality can be coherent as long as the statement itself is left outside the set of all moral facts.[As Moshe Israel Rosten noticed] 
  To defend Moral Objectivity I could in theory use  Professor John Searle's argument. [ Here is the web adress: http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~jsearle/] But his argument works really only against the idea that all knowledge is subjective. But some people don't say that. They say just moral facts are subjective. This is harder to defeat. (Moshe Israel Rosten pointed this out to me. This is because the moral relativist might accept there is objective truth but just not in the area of morality. For that you need the essay of Michael Huemer in Colorado http://www.owl232.net/objectiv.htm)

But I should mention that my interest in objective morality actually goes deeper than a challenge on the Internet. When I was learning Torah I certainly thought I had found one self consistent objective logical and reasonable system of morality and a unified coherent world view. That illusion has been smashed. In its place I have a philosophical system based on Kant and Plato that the Torah can be justified with.  But what I presently believe in does not really come anywhere near the grandeur of Torah and Talmud. So what I try to do is to fit the Torah into my present world view. But the whole process is like  the practice medicine used to be about a hundred years ago. It is a hodge podge of different things that seem to work with no unifying principle
At any rate Michael Huemer does a neat thing. It claims that also the claim of all moral values are subjective is alos incoherent in this way:


Since rational judgment presupposes some ground apart from the judgment on which for it to be based, the denial of objectivity implies the intrinsic impossibility of rational moral judgment, since said denial means that moral values cannot have any independent existence apart from the mind

"There is a systematic plan to establish an Islamist beach head in the United States with the eventual goal of watching the United States crumble from within and establishing Islamic rule in this country,"

Steve Emerson's 70-minute film, Jihad in America: The Grand Deception, was released on DVD last October. Emerson, who directs The Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), says the documentary traces the roots of Islamism inside the United States and reveals the chilling reality about the goal of the Muslim Brotherhood.

"Our job is to change the Constitution of America," Sayyid Syeed, national director of the Office for Interfaith & Community Alliances for the Islamic Society of North America, says in the film. "There is a systematic plan to establish an Islamist beach head in the United States with the eventual goal of watching the United States crumble from within and establishing Islamic rule in this country," Doug Farah, a national security consultant and analyst, adds.
http://www.onenewsnow.com/media/2013/01/10/jihad-in-america-the-chilling-reality

My own comment on this is that America will not be able to fight an enemy as long as it does not acknowledge the fact that it is an enemy. America and the whole western world and Russia also ought to learn the difference between a friend and an enemy before it is too late. Even Russia needs to learn this.
This is not the same type of conflict as the cold war. That was a conflict between two powers each trying to prove to the other that they could make a decent and just society. This is not what Muslims are trying to do. They are trying by the power of money and oil to infiltrate and destroy Russia and the USA.
It does not help to go back in history to find people like Ibn Rushd, or al Farabi. The question is what is Islam today. The greatest threat to the survival of the human race in two million years. and a threat to the very existence of Planet Earth.
Muslims armed with atom bombs are just as much a threat to us all as Muslims armed with a 747 jet airliner. Even more so.

Kabalah? Is it for you?

I would like to defend the theses that it is better to leave the Zohar alone. But I would like to also say this with the understanding that often there are very good insights into the Torah which you can find in the Zohar and the Ari (Isaac Luria האריז''ל).
To I make my these clearer I want to say that what gentiles consider Kabbalah and what the Zohar and the Arizal [Isaac Luria] are about are two very different things. The Zohar is not about magic. It is a neo platonic explanation of the Old Testament.

And it is an explanation that is necessary  for many reasons. One is that the alternative--Maimonides [the Rambam] with his reasons for the mitzvot  based on Aristotle are not very convincing. Clearly some type of Neo -Platonic approach is necessary. [See other medieval kabbalists especially Avraham Abulafia and the Ramban (Nachmanides).] (I mean the Rambam might be right but in any case he is hard to accept and grasp.)

Yet I still have to say that my general impression of people that learn Zohar is that they start thinking they are the Messiah, and get other delusions rather quickly.

That is just one criticism of it. I have another one also. It is this. That the aspect of Torah which is Numinous and holy is not touched by the Zohar or the Ari. This is an inner holiness of Torah which has nothing to do with the things talked about in the Zohar at all.

I should say that I spent time learning Kabbalah, and I am familiar with many of the so called "kabalists" in Israel, so I am not completely ignorant about this subject. I learned the Eitz Chaim of  the Ari [Isaac Luria] several  times, and went through the other writings of the Ari at length. I read several works of the Remak (Moshe Cordovero) including the Pardes and the Reshash and prayed with the Sidur HaReshash for many years. I went through  several authors of Medieval kabbalah like Avraham Abulafia and others. A lot of this was very inspiring for me.  But still it has the tendency is to instill delusions into people.
I know the fraudulent kabbalist of the Kotel.  And I knew others that had actual insights. One fellow had virtual film going through his head showing him the life of people that came to him. [He was put into Cherem (excommunication) by Rav Ovadia Yosef]  I was close with many of the disciples and descendants of Bava Sali.

Also one odd thing was that people that learned Kabbalah also thought they knew how to learn Gemara (The Babylonian Talmud), even though they could never tell you a simple explanation in any Gemara  They seemed to believe their expertise in Kabbalah gave them expertise in everything.

So though Kabalah is a legitimate sub-section of Torah learning, still there is the problem of cults.
And the Sitra Achra that got mixed up with it also.

The main principle in terms of Kabalah is this: Sephardim are OK, Ashkenazim are not.
The Ramchal also is fine [as far as I can tell], even though Rav Hutner (Rosh Yeshiva of Chaim Berlin) is reported to have said that some aspects of his teachings come from the Shatz.] 

  So I say in general simply to learn in a kosher Lithuanian type of yeshiva.
And avoid kabbalists. [But it is still OK to go to descendants of Bava Sali for blessings and advice-not because of Kabbalah, but rather from the standpoint of being descendants of a tzadik which gives  certain kind of merit.]

I think it is common practice for nations to try to limit the ability of their enemies to launch attacks from nearby bases. From what I understand this was part the reason the the USSR absorbed different territories after WWII and the reason they demanded that American remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey and the reason that Israel took the Golan Heights.

In spite of my ignorance about American history I recently read a very nice book on the subject and it was amazing in given the basic overview with detail but not too much. From what I can tell it was not just the British but also France was taking American boats and men. The thing which triggered the war was that after both England and France had signed agreements to discontinue this practice, they kept on doing it.

Besides that England was not fighting Napoleon at the time. They were involved with an economic war with France. And this was part of the reason they impounded American boats they could trade freely with France and England. This bothered both England and France.
In the attack on Canada, America was intending to limit the ability of England to launch naval attacks against America.
I think this is common practice for nations to try to limit the ability of their enemies to launch attacks from nearby bases. From what I understand this was part the reason the the USSR absorbed different territories after WWII and the reason they demanded that American remove its nuclear missiles from Turkey and the reason that Israel took the Golan Heights.I think this was also the reason that America attacked Florida when it was owed by Spain and why it took possession of Alabama --i.e with intent to stop the attack the creek Indians.I will not even go into the reason for taking Texas.

Most people that lived in the USSR that I have encountered always have something nice to say about it. [I have been hanging around one of the former republics of the Soviet Union so when I say this it means that  everyone misses the USSR.] And they always start with: "It was not so bad." And they always include the word "stability." If you compare the USSR with what came before it and what came after it, it is hard to miss their point. Instead of free market capitalism as you used to have in the U.S.A. you have strong man tactics, or bully capitalism. [The same thing that Marx criticized in the first place]
And before the USSR there were massive pogroms in almost every Russian and Ukraine city. And Russia was fighting a completely ridiculous pointless war in the West and chaos reigned. And people concentrate on what was wrong with the USSR, but forget that the alternative was  already much worse and corrupt. and this fact continues until this very day Jan 2 2013.
I will not even get into the good aspects of Soviet Science and the massive efforts to make housing and transportation and medical care available for everyone at almost zero cost. Sure it would be better if a country had a free market system in which everyone had strong  Biblical values so that there would be an inherent sense of right and wrong. But lacking that, there is no question that the USSR was an improvement on what came before it and what came after it.

And sadly America itself is rapidly coming to the place where people are lacking all basic Biblical values and in fact need something like a strong centralized federal government to keep them even barely decent.in other words I would like Jews to be good Jews and Christians to be good Christians. But lacking that, I think you need something like a strong centralized government to keep people from hurting each other. And in America Christan are no longer good Christians and Jews either ignore the Torah and Talmud or go off into strange nightmarish Chasidic cults.
And the way the USSR dealt with Muslims is great lesson for us all. When some  Soviet citizens were taken prisoner, they send in Unit Alpha of the KGB. They caught one terrorist and sent his body parts to the other  terrorists. . Nor did they have some smart Beverly Hills lawyers arguing about Muslim Human and Civil Rights.

basic crisis of the Enlightenment.

Max Weber was the first person to see the basic crisis of the Enlightenment. [Rousseau and Jonathan Swift were the first to attack the Enlightenment but Weber saw that the whole project itself had entered a phases of crisis] (For bit of background information: The Enlightenment was political project or conspiracy to take power from princes kings and priests and give it to the intellectuals and scientists. It succeed like no movement had ever succeeded before. It said to the kings and queens: "Either you will listen to our ideas about justice and freedom or we will make you listen."]

This was a reaction against reason and a search more natural wholeness. The attack against the enlightenment had been started by Rousseau but the first one to see the actual dissatisfaction with reason and the ultra rational world of European Civilization before WWI was Weber.

This is clearly the reason for the radical movements of the twentieth century. The baal teshuva that feels the emptiness of secular America, the Communists and the Nazis-just some people went to religion to fill the emptiness and others went to secular religions like Nazism or Environmentalism or Radical Feminism.

All the above was stated clearly by Weber and later by Allen Bloom




I would like to defend the idea that problem with the Enlightenment goes back to Renaissance Italy from where the whole movement began with the Humanists and can even be traced back to Antiquity. The thing that makes me say this is the fact that even Renaissance Italy with all its glory fell into nothingness after 1500. From there it migrated to Northern Europe and eventually to the USA. But the seeds of its destruction are still there. It can't exist for any extended period without the Bible--without holiness, without a connection with numinous reality.

But this Bible [or Old Testament approach] can't work either without ancient Rome and Athens. Freedom and equality are in no way Biblical values. It's the unique combination of Athens, Rome, and the Torah that created Western Civilization.--and is needed for its continuance.
 
However there is a  problem with how many people approach the Bible. They look at it as if it is porous. They feel they can put in any interpretation that suits their fancy. For this reason for Jewish people the books of Musar [books of ethics from Jewish thinkers in the Middle Ages] are  essential. It is not that these books are so insightful into human nature  or into the Divine Realms [like Isaac Luria]. It is rather that they excel in the one thing the Middle Ages excelled in: logical rigorous thought. There is almost no way to get a self consistent logical approach to the Torah without basing yourself on some Medieval thinker. The reason is that that is what they were good at in those days. It is the same reason why no modern commentary on the Talmud comes anywhere  in lights years of one word of a Tosphot on the Talmud.

For Christian people this all would imply the need for them to learn the books of Aquinas, and Anselm and Abelard.

The modern Jewish synthesis of the medieval books of Musar are contained in the writings of the giants of the Musar movement of  Israel Salanter.
[But sadly that movement fell into the trap of frumkeit and' or the  pseudo  science of psychology.]

But the original Musar movement was definitely on the right track.

For a good example of what is wrong with that movement today a glance at the garbage written in Michtav Meeliyuah of the books of Avigdor Miller will suffice.

In conclusion: You need a balance between  Athens and the Torah. and neither one alone suffices. This was clearly the opinion of Maimonides and of Aquinas. And I would not even have to mention if if not for the problem that today the divorce between Torah and Plato and Aristotle has been completed  to the detriment of both. and this divorce was definitely against the world view of the Rambam, and the Baali Musar from the geonic school like the Chovot Levavaot. [Though I admit that this modern religious fanatic approach was in fact quite in accord with the Rashba, and others of the anti Rambam school. I can not answer this objection except to say that I think the fanatic religious approach is not for everyone. But it might very well be for some people. there was even for me a period in my life that i could not dream of tearing myself;f away from the holy words of the Torah and Talmud for even a minute.--except during the time between morning seder and afternoon seder which was the time periods that i got married in.]

The Musar movement

 The Musar movement is a movement based on the idea that people ought to learn the medieval Jewish books of ethics.] I have been critical of this because first of all those books are in fact medieval with all the good and bad that goes along with that. I.e. they are rigorous logical and powerful but highly scholastic and petty and have some false axioms upon which they base themselves..
On the other hand I had today an eye opening experience which indicates to me that Musar if fact goes along way in giving people a basic idea of the total world view of the Old Testament along with a good summary of the basic practices that the Old Testament involves. I.e. how it would apply to people in a modern framework.


Maybe I should make a quick list of the Musar I found helpful in case anyone wants it for reference.: Yesod Veshoresh Haavoda, Chovot Levavot, the 8 chapters of the Rambam on Avot, Shaari Teshuva, Maalot Hamidot, Sefer Hayashar attributed to Rabbi Tam,  Reshit Chachma. and the major disciples of  Israel Salanter: Madragat Haadam [Joseph Horwitz from Novardok, Simcha Zisel from Kelm and Isaac Blasser from Petersberg. His book, Or Israel is a masterpiece].


In some of these books there are ideas concerning science that are false. That does not make them pseudo science. Mistakes made in good faith are not pseudo science.
Catholics have their own sets of books of ethics that are similar in purpose and for Christian people it is probably a good idea to learn them.

natural law theory embodied in the Declaration of Independence of Thomas Jefferson along with the emphasis in Southern California to be an individual, and not follow the crowd.

There is a difference in natural law doctrines that have affected me growing up in the USA I definitely imbibed the natural law theory embodied in the Declaration of Independence of Thomas Jefferson along with the emphasis in Southern California to be an individual, and not follow the crowd.
This Thomas Jefferson doctrine is different than other theories of natural law.
The basic idea I should state here is that people have natural rights that they are endowed with by their Creator. These rights are natural rights, and do not owe their existence to any government. And here is the key point--governments are formed not just to preserve these rights, but also people give up a certain amount of their rights in order to form a government.

This is due to John Locke. Further the identification of Divine rights with natural rights comes from Thomas Aquinas.
There is a theory of natural law from Saadia Gaon who associates all laws of the Torah --Divine Law with laws of reason-not nature. This is a different natural law theory than Aquinas.
[That is also not necessarily the reason for the law, In the gemara itself there is the idea of reason for the laws. And teh question about what to do when the reason does not apply to a certain situation. This come up in Bava Metzia page 119. R Shimon ben Yochai said a rich widow, one can take a pledge for a loan from since the reason for the law not to take the pledge of a widow does not apply. The sages disagree. But in any case all agree the commandments are not the goal in themselves. Rather they are to lead to certain goals.

It is possible to defend the idea that one should visit at least once the grave of Nachman in Uman and say the Ten Psalms that he designated.

 While this can't be defended from the aspect of empirical knowledge, it can be defended as an aspect of a priori knowledge. This would not be a priori knowledge that comes by reason, but rather by non intuitive immediate knowledge. In this case this would be an area of all content and no form. The fact that there is no form in this area would be the reason why the faculty of reason can't perceive it.






 I admit there is a certain aspect of "faith in the wise" of this. But even the idea of faith in the wise can be defended. In general when you open a book on algebra, you have a certain amount of faith that the author knows something more than you about the subject. And you  also depend on the implicit belief that there are no errors in the book. Even the knowledge that there is one single error in the book would immediately force you to put it down. So you do depend on faith in the wise for this.


 This little essay gives an idea why I feel that the intuitionist school of philosophy missed a basic point about Kant.--that Reason can perceive universals. Once you get out of the area of universals you have to look for another source of knowledge. For instance the thing in itself. Once we are out of universals what reason do you have for thinking that reality should conform to what you think of it?
[Universals are explained by Michael Huemer: I have here two white pieces of paper. They are not the same piece of paper, but they have something in common: they are both white. What there are two of are called "particulars" - the pieces of paper are particulars. What is or can be common to multiple particulars are called "universals" - whiteness is a universal. A universal is capable of being present in multiple instances, as whiteness is present in many different pieces of paper. A particular doesn't have 'instances' and can only be present in one place at a time (distinct parts of it can be in different locations though), and particulars are not 'present in' things.]
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 Almost all ideas of the cult th Gra put into excommunication can be traced directly to Natan, the false prophet of Shabati Tzvi. The reason that most people are not aware of this is simply that they are usually not familiar with both sets of writings.

The area of non intuitive immediate knowledge is where the Intuitionists [like Prichard] are missing the point. They rightly see that reason perceives more than analytic propositions. But they do not see that still there is a limit to reason-the limit that it sees only universals.

The doctrines of Marxism even if they would be logical, still experience shows the human misery that follows them.

[1] Private property and free market. You can't learn even one page of the Talmud without having this drilled into you. Yet the thing is that the Talmud along with the American Conservative Movement does recognize the need for government intervention at certain times. This would avoid some of the problems associated with unlimited capitalism.

The doctrines of Marxism I think even if they would be logical, still experience shows the human misery that follows them. All the more so that they are not as logical as they sound.
[The reason I rejected Marx even before I realized that he is not logical is because I was aware of the scientific method that no matter how logical a theory is if if what it predicts comes out wrong then it is wrong.]

[2 ] I do not identify with the Libertarian Party because of philosophical problems that I find there. Also almost every Libertarian thinker seems to have some area of flakiness.

[3] I disagree with the basic approach of the Conservatives and Neo-Conservatives to identify Communism as the prime enemy. What I mean to say by this is that America for about fifty years has supported vicious dictatorships as long as they were not communist. This started in Vietnam and continued up until today. I see this as a mistake. Communism and the John Locke type of American Democracy are not enemies.They are two rival ideas of how to solve the political question how to create a just society that provides equality and freedom for all. Communism was vicious but it was vicious in pursuit of a worthy goal. And most people that lived under the dominion of the USSR miss the stability. Even the children of a former KGB agent that I know recognize that the level of education in the USSR was much higher than it is today in former USSR territories.

In the USSR the was no welfare. If someone did not work they went to jail, i.e a Soviet jail-not an American hotel jail. And after three years if they still refused to work they were sent to Siberia.
Everyone worked and everyone had food and raised their own families without social workers tearing apart the families as they do in America. When people hear about people that suffered in the USSR they mainly are hearing about people that were trying to tear down the government. almost ever single person that lived in the USSR that I have asked about how it was always says things like, "It was not bad . There was stability." The people I have heard complain about it were usually trouble makers.  [And in few societies is real political dissent is tolerated. Dissent is squished in the USA as much as it was in the USSR. Let me suggest for example that someone would suggest that blacks are stupid. I do not say this is true. But how long do you think that persona would be tolerated anywhere in American society whether in business soft government? They would throw him the the American equivalent fo Serbia before you could say"Karl Marx." ]



In spite of the theory of Karl Marx being objectively wrong still there is the point of the Talmud-the law of the country is the law. according to the Rambam [Maimonides] that means that once the coin that is minted by the government has become the coin that is used in the market place then the government has the legal category of a government . In that case all it laws are valid except for anything that goes directly against Torah law. This has wide application as you can see from the Gemara in Bava Batra that it applies even to disputes between Jews in which they could go to a Jewish court if they wanted to. This means the common conception of the law of the country among religious Jews is   has no Talmudic basis. [i.e. the chasidim can't blame their lack of morality on the Talmud.]

Pork is the Answer for Peace in the Middle East

http://holgerawakens.blogspot.com/2012/12/pork-is-answer-for-peace-in-middle-east.html

Controlling large unruly mobs is always troublesome but nowhere is this truer than in the Islamic Middle East. Violence always almost escalates and it takes only a few "martyrs" to instigate a revolution. Just think of how many lives would have been saved if the Syrian regime had better managed the initial anti-government demonstrations?

So, how can an angry mob of Muslims on the verge of deadly violence be constrained? Unfortunately, as recent events show, the standard repertoire-tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets usually fail. Protestors just run and quickly reassemble as the tear gas dissipates or the police run out of rubber bullets or water. Desperate police or soldiers then resort to live ammunition and disaster follows.

There is, however, a solution that would not require new and expensive technology let alone training Third Worlders in enlightened western-style crowd control. The answer is pork and the reasons are obvious--save the most secularized, every Muslim detests pork, and even indirectly coming into contact with a swine product can be nearly debilitating. Supposedly, even mere proximity will deny the observant entrance to Paradise, so forget about those awaiting 72 dark-eyed virgins (no small matter for millions of sex-starved young men).

The easiest tactic would be loading 00 shotgun shells with savory bacon bits. Such "pigshot" when fired into the air would quickly send the panicked fanatics fleeing for cover and contaminate the area for days if not months. Water cannons could also stray crowds with pig broth and just imagine protestors trying to get the stench out of their clothes. The "infected" would stink for days and thereby be ostracized from civil society. Individual soldiers need only be armed with aerosol cans with an active ingredient of 2% pork (or .01% pig blood) to squirt rowdy protestors (much better than pepper spray or guns).

For defensive purposes, bacon grease could be smeared on streets, Holy sites or around government buildings and foreign embassies. A twenty-foot wide "white line" of rancid lard separating Sunni from Shia (or Copts from Muslims in Egypt) virtually guarantees peace. Just to make sure, post signs with pig faces and crossed bones every few feet.

Pork products can facilitate major but humane military operations with zero loss of human life. Property damage would also be minimal and thereby alleviate costly post-conflict re-building. Better yet, no depressing TV coverage of bombed out neighborhoods, over-crowed hospitals and maimed children. Hear that Mr. Assad!! Just fill artillery shells withed cubed ham, sausage patties, deep fried pork rinds, chitterlings or whatever else the mission demands. A single scrapple filled 155mm shell exploding at an altitude of, say, 50 meters could easily contaminate a small village. Inhabitants might not return for twenty years after such a bombardment.

Further add the possibility of humane gas war fare that, being non-lethal, would not violate any Geneva conventions. Flat bed trucks could be modified as mobile Chinese field kitchens, complete with a traditional large exterior ventilating circular fan. When the enemy is within range, computerized sensors would guide the exhaust fan and the pork strips would be cooked in giant woks. Panic would ensue as fanatics whiffed some twice cooked pork drifting their way.

Yes, this sounds fine in the abstract but who will use this weaponry? Surely no self-respecting Muslim will even handle a pork sausage filled artillery shell. Recall the widespread and violent 1857 Indian Sepoy Mutiny when both Muslim and Hindu troops employed by the British East India Company rebelled rather than bite a rifle cartridge covered in grease made from beef tallow or lard. Hard to imagine any Muslim government, no matter how secular ordering its Muslim citizens to touch pork products.

Fortunately there is a solution-outsiders and non-believers. For centuries Muslims have used non-believers for tasks deemed too unclean for the faithful. Many Jews, for example, were skilled silversmiths in Yemen since metal working was too dirty for Muslims (tanning was also off-limits). Most Muslim countries still have Christian populations and in Egypt Christians once used pigs when collecting garbage.

More relevant, a long tradition exists of Arab governments utilizing outsiders (even fellow Muslims) to impose domestic security since outsiders have few ties to natives. The Mamelukes , originally slaves imported from Turkey rose to power thanks to their superior military ability and even held the Egyptian throne from about 1250 until 1517 and still exercised influence until 1811. The most famous mercenaries, of course, are the Swiss Guards who have for centuries provided security for European royalty and it would not take much to create a Middle East equivalent.

So, Muslim regimes will quietly use local Christians or recruit mercenaries (today called "contract workers) from around the world notable for both their military prowess and an affinity for pork products. Yes, these pork-lovers will be hated but that's the point-strike terror into those prone to violent protest. Far superior to dispatching ill-trained young military recruits who might panic and start shooting or, worse, defect to join the protestors.

These riot control specialists might be called the SOW team (for Special Operation Weapons) and will be instantly recognized by their uniforms--pink berets with matching curly tails, pigskin suede jackets embellished with wild boar emblems and, for especially dangerous missions plastic strap on snouts and will often be accompanied by aroma-heavy trucks carrying real pigs trained to sniff out bomb factories, smuggling tunnels or whatever else needs to be found (recall how pigs can sniff out truffles). Perhaps once a year this SOW team will go on parade chanting oink! Oink! Such a sight, no doubt, will terrify Muslim mothers who will warn their children "Watch out or the Pigs will get you!"

The upshot, hopefully, will be a return to political stagnation-no incessant calls for democracy, Sharia compliant states or anything else beyond the paralyzed status quo. Life would return to the good old days when nothing happened, hardly a disaster considering deadly events in contemporary Libya, Lebanon, Egypt and Syria. But, it would be an improved stagnation vis-à-vis past dictatorships of torture and imprisonment. Peace through pork, so to speak. Aren't pigs wonderful?

A problem with Sharia Law is that it is legal to lie to infidels.

A problem with Sharia Law is that it is legal to lie to infidels. This legal loop hole is what is allowing Muslim to take over Europe by vowing to uphold the legitimate Constitution while in fact intending to enforce Sharia law. and I personally have a problem with people that lie.  I probably should have learned this in my parents home but my parents taught mainly by example and not but Musar shoomzes [informal talks about ethics]. Even at a Lithuanian institution [The Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway] I did not find  a lot of emphasis on not lying. At the Mir I found a lot more emphasis on monetary issues [not to steal of to defraud or even to touch someone else's possessions of honor in any way with out their permission and on not speaking slander.] 

Karl Popper rightfully noticed the totalitarianism in Plato.

Karl Popper rightfully noticed the totalitarianism in Plato. But I have a feeling that blaming the abuses of the medieval period on Plato and Aristotle does not make sense. He quotes from one book (Rats Lice and the Middle Ages) that correctly shows that people were miserable. But to blame Aristotle for that? There were no rats or lice in Africa or South America? Were there no totalitarian societies like the man eating  Polynesian tribes   that had not heard of Aristotle of Plato?
I have heard of other complaints about European civilization in the Middle ages coming from the Russian Orthodox church claiming that the West misunderstood Aristotle's "energia."  [This is not actually energy. It refers to the fact that a body can change from one state to another.
Now the Russian church has a point about dynamic energies from G-d. This idea however seems to stem from the more ancient view of the church that was Neoplatonist. This really wouldn't work  with Aristotle.
They could claim that dynamic change is implicit in the Aristotelian idea of energy but it is still is not what would be called today energy. it is the reverse of potential. something can be hot or cold. When it becomes actually cold that is when it come from potential to actual energia a stopped non dynamic state.


]
It seems to me everyone is against Europe's case claiming for themselves  a higher level of humanity and civilization.

Hebrew calendar i

The way I see it the first night of Hanuka ought to be Thursday night [the first day should be December 7]. This would be based on the idea that the actual beginning of the Jewish month should be at the time of the molad [when the path of the moon and sun are on the same longitude.]. It is not that I am trying to disagree with the Rambam that says the present day Hebrew calendar is from Mount Sinai. It is just that his position seems to me to be untenable. I have no fun out of disagreeing with the Rambam, but in this case I have to. The present day calendar was the calendar that was accepted in ancient Athens and instituted by Meton. It is not mentioned in the Talmud anywhere. The idea that Hillel the second sanctified it is also simply nonsense. If he had done so it would have been mentioned in the Talmud.
Lacking a specific calendar, we have to fall back on the simple  idea of the Torah itself and the Talmud in Sanhedrin that the time of the beginning of the month is the conjugation. [See the opinion of Rava and Rav Ashi in Sanhedrin page 10 side b as Rashi explains them there.]

Welfare checks for not working were non-existent. If you did not work you went to a nice comfy Soviet Prison. I am just letting the people in the USA know what they are getting themselves into with their African President

 The blacks in the USA are activity trying to create a welfare  state in which the white people will work and the blacks will enjoy their welfare checks and get university degrees by means of Affirmative Action [every university must have the same percentage of blacks that there are in the general population outside the University. also every business. Otherwise the university is sued for racial discrimination] instead of the traditional way by study).
This is hiden in the USA by Hollywood always portraying blacks as saints and by the fact that there are outstanding black people like Est and the supremo court Justice Sowell.  But these few black people do not change the general animosity of blacks towards everything that America represents. and their attempt to turn it into a  African Socialist state.

White people are forgetting an important fact about welfare states-people work. In USSR there was no welfare. Thought it is true that bread was 22 kopecks [less than five cents] and doctors were free, still people had to work. A person that did not work was sent to prison for an average of three years. If after that he still did not work he was sent to Siberia. Ar,y service was an obligation. And after that you got three month vacation. But right after two weeks someone from the government would come and find out if you already had work lined up. It had to be written on your work card. Welfare checks for not working were non-existent. If you did not work you went to a nice comfy Soviet Prison. I am just letting the people in the USA know what they are getting themselves into with their African President

The basic freedoms that American took for granted a generation ago are gone

I think a lot of the problem in America is a lack of Judeo-Christian values. The types of values you were taught at home and in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts: honor, loyalty, trust in God.
Now America  is a society that is constantly on the lookout for new values. And when Americans arrives at some new value, they hold from it as if it was given at Mount Sinai, (Instead of the actual Torah which was given at Mount Sinai.)  It was inevitable that as the media keep on portraying black people as great saints, (and the bad guys in movies are always  businessman) that eventually they would get a black president who is sucking the life blood out of America.  But you can't call him evil. Nor a sinner. Nor a racist against white people. That would be a sin.
  The only hope I see at this point for America is a return to the Constitution of the USA. But I don't see that this could ever happen. The basic freedoms that American took for granted a generation ago are gone. In it place is a a society of vampires.

Hard exercise lifts testosterone levels.
[I used to jog but it was too public. Now I exercise at home. In the USSR they had a 10 minute radio program every day at 7:00 AM. This encouraged people to exercise for ten minutes in the morning. I think this is an amazing and great idea.

Alcohol diminishes testosterone.
Sex once a week lifts levels of testosterone
Bad for testosterone: cell phones and wifi  waves.

No hormones. Stop sugar.  Plastics demolish testosterone levels.





I am not in favor of testosterone therapy. I don't think it does anything. It is like vitamins. The body needs it -but it needs it in a natural way.

I know many Christians have a negative idea towards sex. This seems to me to be a good approach to some degree because when guys chase after girls the girls tend to run away. It seems a basically retrained approach is best. However just for the record let me say that I think the Christian attitude is highly based on Paul and not very much on the Torah. [In the book of Tecla, Paul basically says that anyone who has sex will not get into the kingdom of heaven]. In the Torah itself we find a different approach. Calev Ben Yefuna had two girlfriends, and he was "totally with God. " וימלא אחרי השם
Not only do we not find criticism for his several wives and two girls friends, but he is the only person in the entire  Bible that it says about him this unique phrase. On some people it says they were righteous, others it say walked with God. Other walked before God. But to be totally with God? That unique phrase is only used on Calev who was definitely having sex outside of marriage. [That is what a פילגש is. I looked up the place in the Shulchan Aruch which brings this argument between the Rambam and the Raavad and I looked at the Gra and he brings this proof to the Raavad from Calev Ben Yefuna.]

I should mention that health has been a major concern of my learning partner for some time. So before and after we learn our session of Talmud he fills me in with the latest insights.
I have not mentioned them collectively but a few  times. Let me say he got me started on beets a few years ago. I was over weight and he said to me something about vegetable juice. He had a vegetable mixer and that was his thing in those days.

Now you have to understand that he takes more care of his diet than he would normally have to do because he is in a situation  where he can't jog or take long strenuous walks. But recently I found myself in a similar kind of situation so I also am taking more of a look at diet.

At any rate, in those days the vegetable mixer was not working for me either, so I just started having a raw beet with black bread in the morning. I would do a short math session. Then I would jog. Well you can guess the weight just came off like that. Bamm!

Any questions about diet I ask my learning partner who spends a good amount of time studying this subject. But I also learned from him the idea of egg yokes. I found this surprising because in fact Ashkenazic Jews have used egg yokes as coffee creamer for about 200  years. Not just as nourishment but also that it makes one not want bad food.

When he mentioned this to me about egg yokes I told him about Arnold Schwarzenegger in some movie that puts raw eggs in a mixer when he got up in the morning. His comment was why do you think he looks like that? If you are in the USA however you want to make sure there are not anti antibiotics in the chickens from where the eggs come from. Even in areas where people grow their own food like the Ukraine  or Russia there is still a difference between eggs. Brown ones are more likely to be antibiotic free.

There used to be a lot of really good songs being sung on Shabat in Brooklyn, New York. I fear they are mostly being forgotten. I remember my friend at the Mir , Shelomo Berger, who had in his family tradition and really nice Yah Ribon Olam. It was almost like a small symphony. I also remember when I was at the school of Shelomo Friefeld the Yom Kipper  and Rosh HaShanah service like like a  great Beethoven Symphony. It was not that the songs [nigunim ] were more accurate, but that the songs were connected and related in the way that Mozart or Beethoven would weave a strong rigorous framework with a few basic themes. My sadness about all this being forgotten is not just one sided. It applies also to the spirit of Torah that existed then.  It was a vast enterprise to build up a moral and just society according to the Divine law.

The social "meme" was Torah. People acted by their own free will according to the dictates of God's Law. Thus you had a moral decent society as long as that lasted. What went wrong is a mystery to me. At some point the social structure which was in place to protect from dangers of the secular world became worse than the secular world.  I think a lot of its attraction was based on the idea that it gave immunity from the evils of secular society. But this protection became instead a kind of trap.

So in simple terms what was right was a joint community effort to keep the Law of God. תורת משה. What went wrong is that this ceased to be the major motivation. People began to use Torah as a means to make money and status. 

An argument by Ruth Marcus helps the Godel's proof of the existence of God.

An argument by Ruth Marcus helps the Godel's  proof of the existence of God. One critique is that there seems to be a contradiction in different perfections.
The argument of Marcus about moral perfections seems to overcome this objection.

Marcus defines a consistent set of moral principles as one in which there is some "possible world " in which they are all obeyable. That they may conflict in the actual world is not a mark of inconsistency. As in the case of necessity of identity, there was a resistance to this interpretation of moral conflict. Her argument counts against a widely received view that systems of moral rules are inevitably inconsistent.[3]

I have modified version of Ayn Rand's idea

I have modified version of Ayn Rand's idea that a society follows it philosophers. I think a society also follows its religion. If the society is unjust, then you do not need to bother examining the religion.

People also have two modes of operation. Inherent character and world view. And these are warring. Sometimes bad character warps a good world view. Sometimes a bad world view warps good character. And sometimes the opposite. The Geon from Vilna has a similar idea and you certainly see this in Isaac Luria's writings in Shar Hagilgulim.

In any case Ayn Rand has a wealth of great ideas

Once blacks became lawyers, they made it their business to check that every corporation had an exact amount of blacks working for it, and every bank was giving loans to an exact amount of blacks.

  For people that are unaware of the problem, the failure of the banks,  was because they were forced to make toxic loans to blacks. Once blacks became lawyers, they made it their business to check that every corporation had an exact amount of blacks working for it, and every bank was giving loans to an exact amount of blacks. [Less than this exact amount would bring a law suit of discrimination and the owner would lose his business and be put into jail.] Normally, a bank manager can tell when a loan is a bad idea. He sees an unemployed black walking into his bank asking for a home loan. Normally, he would show him the door.
But because of the fear of lawsuits, he would have to give him the loan.

Normally, an employer can tell when a black person is not able to do a certain job. In such a case, he would not hire him. But then there is the real possibility of being sued for discrimination and losing his entire company. So he hires the black, and puts him in some position in which he hopes the black will not do too much damage to his firm.
You multiply the effect of this several million times, and you get  the story of the failure of the American economy.
It makes me wonder about the wisdom of the Civil War. After all the American Constitution is in its essence a contract that the Northern States were unilaterally trying to change. This is in general not how contracts work. The normal way a contract works is that after you sign on the dotted line you can't change the terms without the consent of the other party. This is clearly what the North was doing and so by definition of contract it justified the secession of the southern states.

A second application of the compactness theorem shows that any theory that has arbitrarily large finite models, or a single infinite model, has models of arbitrary large cardinality (this is the Upward Löwenheim–Skolem theorem).


Two years later I don't know why I wrote the above note but I think it was because I wanted to prove the consistency of the  idea of Godel that a being can have an infinity of positive traits. He uses this idea in his proof of the existence of God. And it has been criticized. I thought to answer that criticism with the Lowenheim Skolem theorem. [Say the ''s'' in Skolem as in English-- not ''sh''.][This is similar to why C^n is not used instead of C^infinity, which is the it makes no difference which manifold you use. So C^infinity is always used.]

The actual idea of Gödel's proof of the existence of God came from Anselm. People argued whether it was rigorous or not. Leibniz showed that it is. Godel put it into logical notation and thus it is easily shown by on proof checking software program computer that is is a rigorous proof. No one dares to suggest that the proof is not rigorous. Rather the critics focus on the axioms.

[Hegel held that it is a valid proof and in fact the entire system oif Hegel is all about how to get to God--the absolute- as he makes clear.]

I learned Books of Ethics (Musar) along with the Talmud.  This set of books  set of books were written in the middle ages and are meant to distill the basic ethics of the Talmud.

I once heard say that whenever one is asked for charity, he should always give and mot ask about who is asking. This is derived from a law in the Shulchan Aruch about Purim. It so happened that I was in a certain city playing the violin on the street. In this city there were anti Semites.
Eventually other beggars stated asking me for money as I was playing the violin. There was one German fellow who also used to ask me for money. He thought that since I was playing Mozart that I must like Germans. In fact he is wrong. I just happen to like Mozart. However since he is poor and he he was asking for money so according to this idea of always giving to a poor person I had to oblige. Once he heard his friends in the center of town scheming to rob and kill me, and warned me and  introduced me to the head of the Mafia in that area and told him to keep watch out for me. It so happened that the head of this Mafia was also of German extraction [though he spoke  only Russian].
That was the end of that problem.

After this I thought to myself of the verse cast your bread on the face of the waters and in the space of many days you will find it again.

Eli: Spodek: Really relationships are reflections of world powers.

 Eli: Spodek: Really relationships are reflections of world powers.


Sarah Adelle Spodek:|or world powers are reflections of relationships!"


Me:   However Hegel (and people that borrowed his ideas like the feminists and communists and nazis and psycho therapists) reduce all relationships to power struggles. I tend to think that this is not true and that in fact the idea of borrowing from Hegel is not a smart idea.
However the point of Sara is true that international relationships are highly based on personal motives and the actual people involved more that the interest of each nation.