Maimonides His path could be reasonably called Torah and Aristotle.

Maimonides
His path could be reasonably called Torah and Aristotle. Maybe Torah and Reason would be better. But I should say how I stumbled onto the path of the Rambam. It is not that I thought the basic groups claiming following this path publicly were so great.
As for the groups of religious Zionists in Israel--well they come close to the ideal of the Rambam but again here I have a complaint.  And besides that they don't have anything even resembling a Talmid Chacham [Torah Scholar]. The Drashot [ideas in Torah] I have heard from them are woefully lacking the most basic understanding of what it means "to be able to learn."
Yose Faur [a self styled follower of the Rambam] is way too much of a fanatic. When he deals with Christian topics he seems to know what he is talking about but when it come to Talmud he is an Am Haaretz. He also sadly enough does not know what it means to learn.



So I admit in what is called the chareidi would there are spiritual paths that seems more attractive than that of the Rambam. I means I have know people that knew how to learn. And when you encounter that type of thing you never ever forget it.




 So what attracts me to the Rambam. It is the presence of reason in his path. To me facts and evidence are holy. Truth is the way things are. And the way things are is the one thing that the Rambam have beyond everyone.

I have been planning on dealing with the issue of trust in God for a time.  But before I can I would like any one reading this blog to read a few introductory texts. Obviously the most important is the Book the Madgragat Haadam from Joseph Horowitz from Navardok.
But to get an understanding of his approach I think a little background information is also important about the Musar Movement of Reb Israel Salanter. So for background information I think one should also learn the books of his major disciples like Isaac Blazer and Simcha Zizel from Kelm.


Then there are the larger philosophical issues about this in which it is necessary to have some background in philosophy also. The Minimum requirement for that is to have some basic understanding of the three major periods of Human philosophy-ancient Greece, the Middles Ages and German Idealism.

The idea here is that anything dealing with ethical issues in Jewish framework implies a larger context of Jewish Thought.
So before you can work on fixing faulty character traits in yourself which is the main focus of Musar you need to have a wider picture of the justification for the whole process. I mean if there is no justification for ethics in the first place  then why bother with correcting your character? Just do what you want! So the issue of ethical theory does come up even in a limited subject like trust in God.

We fist need to know why are moral rules needed? For example, why do humans need rules about keeping promises, telling the truth and private property? This answer should be fairly obvious. Without such rules people would not be able to live amongst other humans. People could not make plans, could not leave their belongings behind them wherever they went. We would not know who to trust and what to expect from others. Civilized, social life would not be possible.
I in fact have found that among people that have no moral rules, it is impossible to remain.

Musar can't stand on its own. It is a first order theory. It needs a second order theory to support it.
Now normally speaking this would be simple to provide if all we needed was the Guide for the Perplexed of The Rambam and the books of Saadia Geon.

Now these are good books. But there is Kant. Without Kant we can't know the limits of what we can know in metaphysical subjects.In other words German Idealism provides a critique on the whole Musar project that needs to be answered and not ignored.

Now I am embarrassed to admit it, but in high school I did very little math. I was at the time getting very involved in the violin and so spent as little time on math courses as possible. So after many years of work in the violin and  in Talmud, when I stated math again I was starting at an extremely elementary level. I did not know Algebra or even how to divide fractions--zilch. But I found a small introductory book to Elementary Math in used book store and after my morning prayers by the Western Wall, I used the method of the Ari'zal [Isaac Luria] of saying the words forwards and backwards. I would read one page forwards and understand nothing. But then I would say the words on the page  backwards and somehow the idea went into my head.

So I applied to Hebrew University and got a high enough score on the Collage entry Exam [Psychometric test] to be accepted. But then I had to run to the USA  So in New York I started the collage entry idea all over again. I applied to Brooklyn College but they did not have an idea of starting a semester in the middle of a year and I had made up my mind to go  for Rosh HaShannah to Uman, Ukraine]. So I applied instead to New York University. [At the time I did not know this is an Ivy League School.]
At any rate, at that time I majored in Physics. But this involved a certain amount of math also. But in any case, I was still doing the reading the words forwards and backwards and everything was going fine. I would read the words forwards and understand zero. Then I would read the words backwards, and it would miraculously enter my head.

The whole thing fell apart when I stated differential equations.{Also Chemistry.} At that point the saying the words backwards just got to be an hindrance, and not a help. So  I started in math and physics just saying the words and going on.

I should perhaps admit here that this does not seem to work very well with Tosphot. When it comes to Tosphot it is very helpful to have a smart learning partner.

But even with that I admit that the only way I have ever made any progress with Tosphot [of R Akiva Eiger and the Pneii Yehoshua for that matter is by sitting on the same Topshot for weeks at a time.]

But for Tosphot you really need a learning partner because he requires two different types of talent--one is analytic ability. Another is deep thinking.
Without both it is hard to see the depths of Tosphot and his rigorous logic..

I don't have a lot of ideas about Physics I admit since most of my efforts on it are spent trying to catch up with missed time. But one thing I should mention while philosophers today take materialism as their staring point and assume the existence of matter, in Physics matter has been disappearing for a long time. The first person to get rid of it to some degree was Gell Man. Quarks are point particles. String theory did in materialism completely. Now all there is is space time. And space time as we know from Kant is on the level of the thing in itself of which we have no ability to conceive of. We can simply put it into the equations but we don't know what it is. [String Theory today is basically expressed the language of Homology and Homotopy. That means it is about holes in spaces and about deforming spaces. And it is not quantum physics. Quantum physics people tried for years to make it fit with gravity with no luck. And I myself worked on a GUT with a Russian Physicist which was more promising than the others. People gave up. String theory is modified Relativity. It is just taking the idea of Kaluza Klein and expanding  them.]

I am still on the subject of conversion to Judaism.

First of all let me just say that in spite of the fact that the Rambam says: Gentile A is bought from a gentile B. Gentile A can jump into the Mikvah and he becomes free; still it might not work for a regular gentile from the street to do the same thing to become Jewish. This idea depends on the understanding of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik in that particular Rambam.

 what we call rabbinic ordination today is a legal fiction. according to Torah law there is no such thing as ordination any more.It has to be rav from rav until Mount Sinai. This the Talmud says explicitly. And there is no disagreement with this in the Talmud or any later authorities. Rabbi like to hide this fact but it is none the less true.

So why do we accept converts today? We depend on Tosphot that we are doing the messenger-ship of the people that did have true ordination thousands of years ago. So far so good. But as for converts today it would seem if we are doing messenger-ship then it has to be done exactly like the rishonim said or it is nullified..

For example: a Devout Muslim accepts Islam because it is the religion he was born into and has seen and heard not particular things about it to disturb his faith. But then he learns that if Islam is true then he ought to go out and murder as many Christians and Jews as possible. This is however less plausible than the original assumption. Therefor logic would dictate that he denies the original assumption. Sadly at that point most Muslims are not thinking in terms of which premise is more plausible based on cold hard logic.

What is moral reasoning?
Almost all people do not choose their own value system but accept it from parents from school, from friends from TV and from books. They in general choose to accept certain values and not to accept other ones.The criteria are, for example :[1] Personal Interest. A person who stands to benefit from affirmative action is more likely to think it is just than a person who does not stand to benefit or even to lose a place in a university on account of it. [2] Group Identification. There are lots more.

Logical moral reasoning: most people do not know what it is.
When you say the word logic most people think you mean something along the lines of: If A is true then B is true; i.e the laws of formal logic
But that is only one part of it.The main part of logic is the issue of plausibility.
If A is true then most people will accept B if they know that, "If A then B."
But what happens if Not B is more plausible than A? The logic would dictate that you turn around and deny your original assumption.
For example: a Devout Muslim accepts Islam because it is the religion he was born into and has seen and heard not particular things about it to disturb his faith. But then he learns that if Islam is true then he ought to go out and murder as many Christians and Jews as possible. This is however less plausible than the original assumption. Therefor logic would dictate that he denies the original assumption. Sadly at that point most Muslims are not thinking in terms of which premise is more plausible based on cold hard logic.


This is just one example. I have no intent here to pick on Muslims. The same would apply to any belief system in which the conclusion is less plausible than the premise.I could go on and on almost to infinity because study of fringe literature and cults and fringe groups is a hobby of mine for many years. It has gotten to the point that a very respectable person in Bresolv on Shabat asked me to examine a book written in Israel  by someone who is supposedly walking in the footsteps of the Baal Shem Tov. Within five minutes I had already picked out three fatal flaws in his arguments.
Many religions try to present themselves as logical. And concerning original assumption they might well be.

great gifts

 Here is the list:

 [1] Raw beets. Don't worry about diets. Just stuff yourself with raw beets.When you get tired of that try other raw vegetables

 [2] Jogging. President Kennedy discovered this one and I have decided that there is no substitute for it. Even if spend as much time in the gym, --there is something that is irreplaceable about jogging.

 [3] Talking with God alone in a forest or in some other place alone.[

 [4] Musar. Reb Israel Salanter noticed something about several books of ethics written by Jewish ages during the Middle ages that they tend to bring Fear of God into a person. I know that there are lots of  claimants that say they have some substitute that is more effective. These claims often false. The proof is in the pudding. Would you trust a Hasid in a business deal until you have the money in your hand? Of course not. So the idea that any books of chasidut [even the best] can replace Musar is obviously false.
 Later people did claim this but that is not supported by internal evidence.

 [5] The greatest gift I have above all others is this : Don't Lie.

 The power of truth can take you through all problems and pierce tall mountains. If you hold to this one thing nothing can hurt you. People can try to hurt you,You can have setbacks. But the strength of always saying only the exact truth carries one above it all.

 [6] Maimonides. There is something about his path of combining Torah with reason as defined by Aristotle and Plato that is see as a great gift to the world.

 [7] Don't accept substitutes for these gifts. This is my particular contribution to this subject. Some people will tell you: you can get these benefits in other ways but I say don't believe them.

 For example some will say you don't need the path of Maimonides about the importance of Greek Philosophy. But what happens to many people is this: They are taught some kind of simple faith and then they discover the world does not correspond to the simple faith they were taught. So they revert to reason. But with no background in philosophy they think that reason says things that it does not say. For example some people disillusioned with Faith revert to materialism or relativism. Neither of these positions is defensible but since people think these views are scientific they tend to fall back on them.

[8] Shower once. Wash with soap. Rinse. Soap Again. The idea of doing this twice is that there is some layer of grease that does not come off until one has soaped twice

[9] Gravity. My wife discovered this amazing thing in child birth.. If you are a woman, don't lie down for child birth but remain standing as long as possible. Gravity helps immensely to make the process short and easy.

In terms of the feud between Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and the Kesph Mishna

In terms of the feud between Reb Chaim Soloveitchik [in the second halacha in "Laws of Forbidden Sexual Relations"] and the Kesph Mishna [R.Joseph Karo].I have to admit that I think the Beit Joseph is right.

I really wanted to write about this yesterday when it was fresh in my mind but I have other things to do beside blogging.
At any rate as fast as I can let me go over the major points.
In Yevamot (Tractate Yevamot) we find that Rav Awiya says a Jew that buys a gentile from another gentile the fellow jumps in the mikvah (body of natural water) and becomes free because the first gentile only had possession of the work of the hands. But if the gentile sold himself, [in a case let's say when he needs to pay off his debts] then he can't do this.
This is how Reb Joseph Karo understands the Rambam. The Rambam says a gentile buys a gentile from a different gentile he can do the jumping into the mikvak trick and he is free. It seems clear that from the way the Rambam puts it, that if he sold himself he can't do this trick.
Later when the Rambam says even acquiring the gentile from another gentile, the Jew  gets possession of the body simply means after the mikvah was done for the sake of slavery.

So far the Rambam looks perfectly clear. The only thing Reb Chaim has against this are several points which are easily answered.

[I really would not say anything but in spite of the  greatness of Reb Chaim opening up the whole idea of learning the Rambam in a deep way I still have found too many flaws] In the thing I wrote about before about work done not for its sake also everything the Reb Chaim said was great except that it contradicted the Rambam about the definition of a work that is not intended.


Reb Chaim is depending on an "even though" (Laws of Slavery chapter 9). Even though the Jews only buys the work of the hands, he still acquires the body. Reb Chaim is wondering what this even though is doing here. I answer: Because you might say the normal way of acquiring a slave is when he sells himself. So here we have something new.
However just to say a word on the side of Reb Chaim; he is understanding that Rav Achai disagrees with Rav Awiya about the case the Jew acquires the gentile from himself that there also the gentile can jump in the mikvah. It is not at all clear that this is what Rav Achei means.

I hope everyone is truly shocked. Yes there is slavery in the Torah. And the Torah does mean what it says. And the commandments are not good advice, they are laws. When the Torah says for example to honor your parents it does not mean to be nice to them. It means something much more radical. Homosexually is also the same. Slavery come to think of it might be a great idea. If there would be slavery in the USA maybe you would not have a Muslim Brotherhood president in the White House.

There is a reason to learn the Rambam with Reb Chaim Soloveitchik.

So far it looks like the score is even between the Beit Joseph and Reb Chaim.
If you look at the Rambam about slavery after you have looked at the Talmud it seems like he is saying that if  Jew buys a gentile from another gentile that if the gentile is smart he will jump into the Mikvah [any natural body of water] and shout out "Leshem Ben Chorin" [For the sake Freedom!!] before the owner has a chance to dip him in he becomes Jewish and is free. [But also he is required to keep all the mitzvot.]
The way it looks to me is that this does not refer to a case in which the gentile sold himself. [In a case where he had a lots of debts and wants to pay them off.]

The reason is that after looking at the Talmud itself this is the opinion of Rav Awyia. However so far we do not know if the Rambam decides like Rav Awyia. But is is significant that the Rambam says he buys him from a gentile. It seems implied that if the gentile sold himself that this would not work.

Reb Chaim disagrees with this.He says in any case the gentile can  jump into the mikvah and becomes free. and he has a good argument for this. And in this we will see if I can get a chance to write about it that he is disagreeing with the Beit Yoseph.


First of all both to Reb Chaim and the Beit Yosph the Rambam is deciding not like Rav Awyia but rather Rav Achai is opponent in the Talmud. and though to Rav Awyia there are two kinds of acquiring Reb Chaim holds that to Rav Achei there is only one--that is a type of acquiring that only gives the owner the right to dip the gentile in the mikvah , and until then no slavery exists.

I hope everyone is truly shocked. Yes there is slavery in the Torah. And the Torah does mean what it says. And the commandments are not good advice, they are laws. When the Torah says for example to honor your parents it does not mean to be nice to them. It means something much more radical. Homosexually is also the same. Slavery come to think of it might be a great idea. If there would be slavery in the USA maybe you would not have a Muslim Brotherhood president in the White House.

The fact that the charedi world has been using the Torah as a tool for making money has to stop.

 This is connected to another phenomenon in the Charedi world. It has the characteristics of the Eastern cults. Every small Charedi groups seems to have it s own Guru that they attribute Divine powers to.

I am willing to admit that every city should have a  a class in the Talmud in the local Beit Midrash. I have been an advocate of Beit Midrash Judaism for a long time. That is every city should have  a place for Jews to get together an learn Torah- but not for money.

I have been doing plenty of thinking about cults and sadly I have way too much experience with them.

But most of the time I look at them from a mystical point of view.  I try to understand if their powers are true at all and if they are they are they from the Side of Good or the Dark Side? Recently I have been looking at this question from the standpoint of Sociology. After all in spite of my distance for the profession I admit that Max Weber and the originators of the profession has good insights.

The day of the philosopher as isolated thinker--the talented amateur with an idiosyncratic message--is effectively gone. ” —Nicholas Rescher, "American Philosophy Today," 'Review of Metaphysics' 46 (4)

Campbell, James: " No longer could the [philosophy] professor function as a defender of the faith or an expounder of Truth. The new philosopher had to be a leader of inquires and a publicizer of results. This shift was made obvious when certified (often German-certified) philosophy Ph.D.'s replaced theology graduates and ministers in the philosophy classroom. The period between the time when almost no one had a Ph.D. to when almost everyone did was very brief. [...] The doctorate, moreover, was more than a license to teach: it was a certificate that the prospective philosophy instructor was well, if narrowly, trained and ready to undertake independent work in the now specializing and restricted field of academic philosophy. These new philosophers functioned in independent departments of philosophy [...] They were making real gains in their research, creating a body of philosophic work that remains central to our study even now. These new philosophers also set their own standards for success, publishing in the recognized organs of philosophy that were being founded at the time"

This seems to me to be the reason that philosophers with a message like Hegel are ignored and marginalized.
This is sad because it means that people with a message are never trained in philosophy an could not tell you the difference between an a priori and an a posteriori if it hit them in the face.
People with a message nowadays are in general cult leaders and charismatic idiots  the assorted Eastern cults



And it also means that professional philosophers in general have no idea of what they are talking about when they venture outside of trivial philosophical word puzzles.
Certain professions do not take well to become professions.
Some people  think that professionals know what they are talking about, and talented amateurs are just plain ignorant. It does not matter what profession it is.  What ever the professionals say is true. Period. 
I, on the other hand, am a pure bred Californian. To me anything any professional says is suspect until proven true. I would rather the talented amateur over the professional; the very word "professional" leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Using Torah as a profession is by definition against the Torah. 

But there certain professions where in fact the professionals are better than the talented amateurs. Math and Physics and the other natural sciences come to mind. 

 But in the field of Philosophy the professionals seems to be fairly good at word puzzles and that is all. When they start to talk about Physics I run the other way. The repeat clichés they think are true because they heard them from someplace.

In order to print my booklet on Bava Metzia--- open gmail.Download file table top. Then push on the right mouse button. You will see "help" in Russian.. Push on Help. Choose program. To "observe" To "local disk". Go to"Soft" then to  "Portable". Go to "Microsoft Office Word 2007." Then "save as" "Document Word." Then send tomy computer then to HDD disk. then to popka polzavit
Otherwise the letters all come out in Russian script.

The problem with women is not that they care too much. It is that they don't care at all.

I figure that a young woman who flirts with me would be considered flattening to most men of my age.
But personally I am finding it annoying. While it is true I have no wife, that still does not mean my time or attention is free.
I know young attractive women can command center stage when they want to. I am just trying to figure out in my own case how to say "No" politely.
The problem with women is not that they are too emotional. It is that they are not emotional enough. They think men are at their becking and command. The problem is not that they care too much. it is that they don't care at all.

The Trouble is that Islam as a group has declared war on Israel and use daily any and all means to destroy it.

Americans' news feeds are overflowing with images of domestic scandals, protests in Turkey, and war in Syria. But the real story is Iran. By year's end, we may be confronted with a choice: Accept a nuclear-armed Iran, or support a military action to delay the program.



President Obama's policy on Iran has failed. Diplomacy has fizzled. And even The New York Times' news page and Obama's former advisors agree that sanctions aren’t working. And this is why Obama’s reaction to the recent Iranian election is so troubling.


My own feeling about Iran is I admit the hard line. It is not that i am in principle against Muslims.. I have known many fine and upright Muslims. Especially in the North of Israel. But also in the areas around Jerusalem i have had know many fine Muslims. I have nothing against them as people. And even as a religion my only complain against Mohammad as a highly immoral person. But i admit there were many great philosophers in th Islamic tradition. The Trouble is that Islam a s a group has declared war on Israel and use daily any and all means to destroy it.And their war on America is undeclared but real nevertheless.They will not launch a nuclear device against the USA At first. thy will try other means of stealth. Biological weapons, chemical weapons, forest fires, random attacks by knifes. Then when the timing is right they will go in for the kill..

Also I need to put together some kind of essay for the Internet about Musar of Israel Salanter and the problem that faced the Musar movement--There is no no second order ethics (I.e. no justification for ethics).  So they could have gone to the Medieval sources themselves for the issue of second order Ethics--like the Guide for the Perplexed. But instead went to the Kabalah of the Ari'zal. The Ari'zal's system is a powerful and amazing system but it is has two problems. No argument. No justification for statement that are laid down by Fiat-decree. Also I have another problem with the Ari'zal. He is based on the Zohar. I dislike the Zohar so much that yesterday as i was walking to the local synagogue I walked by a Zohar that was in the trash on the street and i did not even pick it up. It is not that I don't like what it says. But I dislike the fact that it is a forgery.

Also ethics is a big deal. The Musar movement approach to ethics is this: no one has had anything to say about ethics besides Jewish orthodox people. Muslims barely count and Christians are of course much worse as being idolaters. So the movement automatically cuts itself off from the basis of Musar: the books that were written during the Middle Ages by Muslim and Christian scholars.

In the view of the Musar movement (and Chasidut also) there has not been any legitimate thinking about morality outside the Jewish world. It is all just convention.

It would be difficult to support this contention by attention to the history of ethics.

Perhaps this will help:  Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Augustine, Maimonides, Aquinas, Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Nietzsche, Hegel, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, Prichard.(4)

 I do not think anyone  with them would argue that Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Epictetus, Aquinas, Butler, Kant, Bentham, Mill, Bradley, Sidgwick, Moore, or Prichard--any one of them--thought that ethics was  convention.


On the other hand Musar is important. People need some sort of a moral guide through life. Many may think that they can get by without one but chances are that they are egoists and do have a principle which is guiding them. "If it makes me feel good, if it makes me happy, if I like it and can live with it then it is all right for me to do it." That may seem like an attractive principle by which we can make decisions until one starts to think about it. As a guide for all people that principle would lead and does lead to many conflicts.  

My impression of the original people that opposed secular education is that they were dealing with a situation in which their community supported them.


However he was a person that was respected by his community. and he was talking to people that could have sat in the local beit midrash and learned Torah and their father in laws would have supported them. They had little problem finding a wife or parnasah.

What would happen I wonder if suddenly the whole community returned against him? There can be such things. We know in the Torah of episodes of what you could call miracles of the Sitar Achra. We know many cases in which whole communities turned against Tzadikim. Moshe Rabbainu was not the first and not the last. [Korah seems safely far in the past but I know that he shows up even nowadays in rabbinical garb.

But let ups say for the sake of argument a tzadik would find himself with out a wife, with no parnasha wherever he would go in the Jewish world people would hound him out of town. Not just no one would hire him but they would actively try to bring blood libels of today the equal of sexual abuse libels against him.

I ask you --would not collage seem to him to be better option than what he had originally thought? It is not possible he would rethink his opinion?

In such a case a tzadik would think thus:
If A then B. A= the community is righteous. B I= am a wicked person.
I find A plausible. But I find B to be highly plausible. If I would accept A I would have to accept B. But B seems highly unlikely. Therefore I reject A. This is the type of Logical thinking a tzadik would do in such a case. Further he would reason further:I find not B to be the most plausible of all the propositions. Therefore not A

The problem of the Rambam.
The problem is that it looks like that if you take the Rambam together with the Gemara you get a different halachic decision than if you take him on his own.


This seems to be the problem that Reb Chaim Soloveitchik is coming to answer.
An example is the Rambam in laws of forbidden sexual relations. In the case a person jumps into a mikvah before his is dipped for the sake of avdut (slavery) then he becomes free- but only if he was bought from an Akum (gentile). The problem is that the Rambam says if he is bought from an Akum the Israel still has kinyan Haguf (possession of the body). To put in arbitrarily the distinction of a mikvah like the Kesef Mishna does does not seems very much like it according to the simple peshat in the Rambam. But Reb Chaim makes a distinction here that makes sense. If the Israel buys the Akum from himself he has Kinyan Haguf completely because the akum can sell himself. But buying from another Akim he buys the kinyan Haguf that gives him the right to dip the akum into the mikvah for the sake  of advut.

So the Rambam comes out exactly like he says. The simple peshat (explanation) in the Rambam is the true peshat (explanation) and yet it is accord with the Gemara also!

This is according to my basic impression that the Rambam wanted to be able to be read on his own without looking at the Gemara.


In spite of the fact that the Rambam wanted to be learned on his own still people that read the Rambam without the proper Gemara background have just enough knowledge of Halacha to mix everything up without knowing they are doing so. And it is easy reading. A million times easier than the Talmud. So people can pretend to understand and fake their way.
Perhaps the Rambam was addressing an audience of people that already had basic Gemara concepts. and could read Gemara simply and plainly as opposed to the general Baal teshuva today.

Motivations and world view are two intertwining issues.
People have some control over their motivations and this often depends on their world view.
When it comes to morality most philosophers are mostly interested in motivation. Schopenhauer thinks all motivations come under three headings: egoism, malice and compassion.
I there are more than just these three. And I think that they are to some degree subject to ones own choice.
But I also think that one can only follow a small number of principles. So while you might have open to you a number of principles or prime directives in your life, I do not think you can hop between them.



Each one of these people was apparently aware of the need to have a prime principle in ones life and also believed the choice of this prime directive is subject to choice. But they each choose a different prime directive not just for themselves but also to claim that thus and thus prime directive is the true one for all men.

This principle we find in political philosophy also. John Locke felt the protection of natural human rights is the proper Prime directive of government and that the way to protect peoples rights is by one main method-to protect their property from other people and from the government itself.  To Hegel and Marx, this is all ridiculous and they have another basic principle for government--"the State" which embodies the General Will. All individual interest is to be subjected to the State. This is now sadly the acting principle of the American government in direct opposition to the Constitution. [I don't want this to be a polemical peeve because I have not decided against Marx at all. Sometimes I feel in a situation the playground is occupied by bullies that a large degree of power granted to the State by Marx is important. 

----------------------

Classical Torah Theory is I believe a good system. I think it is clear that Classical Torah theory of people like Maimonides and Saadia Geon is advocating a morality that is logical, objective and humane.
This is however very different from Chareidi Jewish ethics of the modern era.
These two systems are so different it is not like comparing apples and oranges.

And I think the doctrine people believe in has a great influence on their actions

On the other hand I see Classical Torah theory as highly moral.


In response to this I recommend a return to learning Classical Torah Theory--starting with the Guide of The Rambam and the Emunot and Deot of Saadia Geon.
And when we find that our attitudes are different from those of the Rambam or Saadia Geon I suggest that the mistaken attitudes should be the ones to go.

The issue here is that the Conservative and Reform Movement have left the works of Musar and Medieval Jewish ethics in the hands of the Orthodox. This has given the Orthodox a monopoly in defining what Musar says. This was a bad mistake.

I would like to argue for a renewal of the idea of Israel Salanter about having a small Beit Midrash in every city for the sake of the study of Musar-Jewish Ethics.

But I am going to do this in such a roundabout way that it might not be obvious what I am advocating.



This one word made everything clear to me, but I realize it might not for people reading this blog.
So I will elaborate.

Classical Torah Theory as developed rigorously by Maimonides and the other Jewish thinkers of the Middles Ages is different in Orthodox Torah Theory. The area of difference is in Meta Ethics.

Orthodox Judaism today does not seem to have one theory of Morality but many. It slides between these theories seemingly almost at random.,- according to perceived interest of the group. The way it slides is by supposing that the many conflicting approaches do not conflict. But for lack of time I will not go into this right now.


 [To say things are good because God commands them means that mitzvot are arbitrary conventions established by God for no rhythm or reason. If so the Torah is not good. It is arbitrary]  Or because God is stronger than us and can punish  us if he wants to. Or that it is in our nature  But it is far from clear that we ought always to act in accordance with our nature. Suppose it were discovered that I (an aggressive male) am naturally adapted to fighting other people. I presume it will be granted that such a nature is possible--I could, for example, have naturally quick reflexes, physical strength, and an innate bloodlust; I might even have a naturally fearsome visage, suited to intimidating my opponents. Would it follow from this that I ought now to go out and attack people physically?





Now what I want to ask about this situation is, would Nazism be a good form of government, or would it still be bad? Surely this would be a case of establishing Halacha conventions according to which  Nazism  is good, if there were any such thing?  Yet here Nazism  would still be just as bad as it always was. The fact that something is generally practiced, obviously, does not make it right; that is why it always makes sense to doubt whether current practices are right. It always makes sense to try to establish better conventions, to find conventions good or bad, and so on, which it could not make sense if there were no possible standard of value independent of the conventions themselves.


On the other hand Classical Torah Theory as developed by Maimonides and Saadia Gaon [Ibn Ezra and many other Jewish thinkers from the Middle Ages] is very well grounded.
Their justification of Torah Morality is based on Aristotle and Plato. Saadia Gaon and Maimonides are from the Neo Platonic school (see chapters 3 and 4 from Emunot And Deot) and Ibn Ezra from  Platonism.
Whether in Plato or Aristotle Morality is objective and that is how the Medieval Thinkers understood the Torah to mean. as opposed to Orthodox Judaism today.  What I mean by  "objective" is that their truth does not depend on beliefs, feelings, or other attitudes of observers towards the things evaluated. This provides a reasonable interpretation of the notion of the objectivity of ethics. Assuming the correspondence theory of truth, this view entails values being 'part of reality' or 'part of objective reality.'

The issue here is that the Conservative and Reform Movement have left the works of Musar and Medieval Jewish ethics in the hands of the Orthodox. This has given the Orthodox a monopoly in defining what Musar says. This was a bad mistake.

But The Orthodox are right that morality in the area between man and man is not all what Torah is about.
There is the numinous aspect also. And in fact without this between God and Man aspect it is doubtful how far the moral aspect can go.
This is because as Israel Salanter noted many times we humans can only do good and act decently from a religious motivation., not from a moral motivation.

There is in the Jewish world an existing movement which was intended  to be a mass movement but which never really took off.. It is the Musar Movement of Israel Salanter. It had two parts to it. One was the emphasis on every person to learn a cannon of five Medieval books about Jewish ethics. Another part of the movement developed with new books coming out by Israel Salanter himself and his disciples.
 The Musar Movement  is a very good thing.

But I also have complaints about this Musar movement
[1] There does not seem to be an Meta-Ethical Theory unless you count the books of Jewish philosophy from the Middle Ages..Maimonides and Ibn Ezra and Saadia Geon for examples.
[2] But if you include Meta-ethics then you are almost invariable trust into the world of Medieval scholastics which were not Jewish. If you ignore the scholastics then there is not possible framework to understand Musar expect as pure anti Rational fanaticism. Which is in fact how Musar is understood today.

But the lack of Musar in the Jewish world today means that Jewish people get their morality from whatever is in the air --the spirit of the times and try to find justification for this in the Torah, or they can the world view of  hasidut. None of which is very Jewish. While many Hasidim are not insane, but the world view of Hasidut is insane and when people accept that world view it makes them slowly lose their morality and sanity
Hasidut does make great effort to look Jewish. Everything that is visible and public is emphasized.  Jewish dress,  and extreme observance of rituals that are public. This is good for public image. But Hasidut is a variation of th movement of Shabatai Tzvi. They simply took the basic ideology of Natan from Gaza that he created to justify the claim that Shabati Tzi was the Messiah and Divine, and they used that intellectual framework to say that their own leasers were of similar grandeur. In fact though Hasidut looks original when compared with Jewish books, in fact its entire intellectual structure is taken over from the movement of Shabatai Tzvi

You have an identifiable population in the USA which is openly hostile to America.

Instead of spying on all Americans why not do the simple thing? You have an identifiable population in the USA which is openly hostile to America. They have openly declared war on the USA for all who have stopped to listen. Why not simply send them home? When has there been in history a nation has allowed it avowed enemies to remain in its borders?

My learning partner and I are having a debate about learning Jewish  ethics ( Medieval Books of Jewish ethics ).
He must have noticed my recommending learning Musar {Jewish Ethics} on this blog.
The first Musar book he was introduced to was the Orchot Tzadik. This provoked such a negative reaction that he actually said, "I hate Musar."   The Medieval Books of Jewish ethics gives--a coherent world view.]

The truth be told learning Musar has been a debate for a long time among Lithuanian sages. Volloshin had no musar sessions. Reb Chaim Soloveitchik was openly against the Musar Movement.
The Chazon Ish penned a great critique on it. He brought a case of when people in a  =city were all getting angry at a teacher of children that had come to the city when there was already a teacher there. the Chazon Ish talks about how they would get all indignant about "masig gevul Reehu" [infringing on another's territory.]
But the Halacha says  that the new teacher was right So what good is Musar with no Halacha?

In spite of all this, I still think Reb Israel Salanter was right because of one word "Paradigm." It is gives on the basic world view of Torah. This is not possible with just Talmud alone.


[Ponovitch where Rav Shach was he Rosh yeshiva learns Musar and he even has in his intro to the Avi Ezri some deep praise about Musar.]


Just to be clear: a lot of Gedolai Israel thought  it is best simply to be in a Lithuanian kind of yeshiva all day and by that good values and world view would be absorbed by learning Torah and by the effect of the group.  The reason my learning partner is not happy with Musar is he thinks it lacks insight and depth.  Who am I to place my opinion among these great people? But my impression is for myself that I need Musar and I also wish I could spread the ideas of Musar and Ethics around the whole world because I see them as being good for me and for others. One rav in Netivot said to me something along the lines once about people that don't learn Musar are like nightmares.{Or something like that. He is the rav in Yeshiva HaNegev over there, and we were discussing the issue of students. One student had come to the internet place in Netivot twice and was caught in the act and expelled. He said to me as he was leaving: "It is high time to join the IDF anyway." But in any case this incident got me discussing students with the rav and the subject of Musar came up.

[I can't account for the reason yeshivas tend to throw out people. Shimon Buso [the grandson of Bava Sali once said to me it is a אחריות גדולה לזרוק תלמיד a terrible responsibility to throw out a student]. David Bronson said I have nothing against throwing out students. The question is which students? The trouble is they tend to throw out the sincere and leave in the ones that are there because of "connections" and family relations. Almost as if they are private clubs and not real yeshivas for learning. I admit David Bronson's analysis of the situations seems accurate. I have personally had enough of the Ultra Religious, but my complaints come from more personal directions. I would go to a conservative or Reform synagogue but not the ultra religious.

The elderly lady turned Dirty Harry as she defended her home in Orange County, California, and her wheel-chair-bound husband – scaring off the 31-year-old assailant by firing a single shot from her .357magnum revolver as he tried to break through the front door.

This is a story about how owning a gun saved lives. The good guys are still alive and the bad guy is behind bars. Gun ownership is the great equalizer…. and these stories need to be embraced and celebrated often to combat and battle the liberal media gun-grabbing meme.

A burglar came in for the shock of his life when he burglarized the house of a 72-year-old grandmother.

The elderly lady turned Dirty Harry as she defended her home in Orange County, California, and her wheel-chair-bound husband – scaring off the 31-year-old assailant by firing a single shot from her .357magnum revolver as he tried to break through the front door.

A 911 call reveals Jan Cooper screaming ‘Back up you son of a b****! Back up! Get the hell out of here!’ before firing a round from the mighty handgun. It missed the burglar by just inches. [...]

Read more here. A FoxNews report offers more:

 Jan Cooper, of Anaheim, fired one shot from her .357-magnum Smith & Wesson revolver around 12:30 a.m. Sunday as a man attempted to break into her home. During a 911 call of the incident, Cooper can be heard begging with the dispatcher to send deputies and warns that she has a gun at the ready as her Rottweiler barks furiously in the background.

Minutes later, a breathless Cooper says the man has come to the back porch and is trying to get in the house through a sliding door. Through the vertical blinds, Cooper saw his silhouette just inches away through the glass as he began to slide open the door.

“I’m firing!” Cooper shouts to the dispatcher as a loud band goes off.

Cooper then curses at the suspect, shouting at him to “back up.”

Perez had a rap sheet that included other burglary and narcotics charges and was on parole and staying at a halfway house not far from the Coopers’ address, Amormino said. 

Learning Torah

The Gemara has a discussion if one fulfills the mitzvah of learning Torah by saying the Shema. It comes out that one does. It also says one should not tell this to  "ami haarez" [ignorent] least they learn to be lenient with this mitzvah.

On the other hand we know the Talmud Yerushalim in Peah says that one word of Torah is worth more that all the mitzvot.

This can be understood in two ways. This idea of one word of Torah being worth more than all the mitzvaot might refer to just the bare obligation. Or it might refer also to all the words of Torah one learns after that during the whole day.

Now we know that learning Torah during the day after one has fulfilled the bare obligation in the morning is not the exact same thing as doing a mitzvah that one is not obligated in. We do find in the Talmud that when one has a mitzvah in front of himself or learning Torah one should learn Torah. This seems as far as I can tell to the non obligatory of learning Torah during the day that one is morally obligated to do even though he has in fact already fulfilled the obligation by saying the Shema in the morning.
[This discussion shows why one must stop learning if a mitzvah comes up that can't be done by someone else. This is simple. Since one has fulfilled his obligation in the morning therefore any obligatory mitzvah that comes up later obviously one should do instead of learning]





Now on one hand they are right that everyone should learn Torah. But frankly I feel kind of like the German Jews that came to America that were based on the teachings of Shimshon Refael Hirsch--that they took an unbelievable degree of offense at anyone that even suggested that their children should not go to collage.

There was movement started by Reb Israel Salanter to learn books of Musar [Five books of Jewish Morality written by Medieval sages].
This had a core cannon of six books from the Middle Ages and one post  Renaissance book-the Mesilat Yesharim.The complaints about this movement were varied. The Chazon Ish asked "What good is Musar if you do not know Halacha?"

Clearly this is a good point but I have  a further complaint. What good is Musar if you do not know the philosophy behind the books? What I think is important about Musar  only comes because of the general paradigm of Musar i.e. it imbibes into tone the general world view of Torah.

Also I want to mention a few more flaws in the movement that should be taken constructive criticism not destructive criticism. Things that should be corrected to make the movement better than it already is. First get rid of all the moral busybodies



Second the are issues that come up in Musar that are not dealt with. The Ramchal emphasized learning Kabalah. The Rambam emphasizes learning Physics and Metaphysics [i.e. each on a set of books written by Aristotle]. The Ramchal puts down all secular disciplines  and is opposed to the Rambam in this issue. why are these issues not dealt with? and what about borrowing from Aristotle and Plato that Musar does but today this is ignored?

In spite of these complaints I agree that Musar is very important for religious and non religious Jews. We all need Ethics and to understand the basic point of view of the Torah concerning world view issues. Halacha gives us "Particulara." Musar gives us "Generala."

While people think many laws of the Torah seem counter to objective reason I think it can be shown that most of the time critiques of the Torah are based on ideas of morality that are based on false views like empiricism or moral relativism.

From a philosophical point of view  what is of value in the Torah and Talmud and what is not?First we have to establish a philosophical point of view to start with. and we have to establish a set of ground rules for what constitutes evidence.
I do not start out thinking that everything in the Torah or Talmud is true and then work backwards to eliminate things I don't like.  I start out like Descartes with zero assumptions and then build up.
This is a significant difference between me and Orthodox Jews.
But to get to my point I start with Moral objectivity. I holds that moral claims assert propositions that are at least sometimes objectively true. What is meant here by the qualifier "objectively" is that their truth does not depend on beliefs, feelings, or other attitudes of observers towards the things evaluated.
 I will not here try to counter moral relativism or relativism in general. Nor the lunatic American British Analytic Linguistic schools of thought. [Most serious modern philosophers have awoken to the fact that all twentieth century philosophy is "obviously false" (in the famous words the Professor of philosophy at Berkley John Searle) and so there is no need here to bother with them.]

So we start with Moral objectivity.. From that standpoint I think there are two things of great value in the Torah and Talmud: the Laws of Morality that can be defended by objective reason and Fear of God.

While people think many laws of the Torah seem counter to objective reason I think it can be shown that most of the time critiques of the Torah are based on ideas of morality that are based on false views like empiricism or moral relativism.


But I do not think that the fanatic  Orthodox approach is right either. We can't assume the whole tradition is right against evidence.  [For example where would the Tyrannosaurs Rex have fit into the ark? Afetr all Noah was commanded to take all living things into the  ark.]

I think the best approach is to combine the two approaches (1) start from the philosophical way from zero assumptions and work up. (2) Work with the basic content of Torah and Mitzvot and only reject what is clearly contrary to evidence. (3) Assume that even you evaluations of evidence and of the Torah itself are flawed and that we all have to listen to people smarter than ourselves.  None of anyone reading this blog are going to examine the Talmud with more rigor than the Tosphot or Rambam or Chaim Soloveitch. \


We are not going to understand evolution better that Stephen Gould or Steve Dutch. We all have to realize our limitations. Aish HaTorah is not going to disprove evolution.


Then you end up with Straightforward Conservative Judaism.

As Habermas has noted there needs to be some new thought concerning politics.
Frankly I was a bit shocked to see his basically positive approach towards Hegel and Marxism.
But to be frank I was shocked to see the famous critic of Marx, Karl Popper also seeing a lot of the good points in Marxism.


But being in a city of the former USSR where people are still afraid to break the law from the terror of the police or as they call it the "malitzia." Only after twenty year is this fear of breaking the law wearing away.



 And I have written before about main main complaint about John Locke and the American democracy--empiricism..Empiricism is false. we have knowledge of things besides what we know by our senses. Examples are out there by the millions
Some type of new political philosophy is clearly needed.

And what philosophers think does effect people. 100 years ago all philosophers in England were Anti Christian- some more openly than others. This was in spite of the fact that 99% of English people were starkly Christian.  Do you think that the Philosophers had an effect? clearly they did. Islam is the fastest growing most vibrant religion in england is is due to be the religion of the  majority in a few years.
Philosophers have an effect.

What i mean by this is that there is a very wide variety of concepts of what the soul is starting with Plato  and on . An also there is a wide variety of opinions of what is the goal of human existence in this world.

I want to suggest that these two questions as linked together with super-glue.
I dare not here go into the complicated borrowings that went on in the Middle Ages among Christian, Jewish and Muslim philosophers.[i would love to but i have no time right now]


[1]  Only the sechel hanikne (acquired intellect) will be left of a person after his passing way. (acquired intellect) is when one know many things in one knowing
This from the Rambam. I suggest this is pure Neo Platonic thought. where the actual souls is included in the higher Intellect  Wisdom which is the first emanation of the G-d.
[2] An Aristotelian concept that the soul is the form of the body. This is not against the Neo Platonic concept of Torah lesson 25 but complements it. The in fact reinforces it.] the real soul is included after passing away in the highest form-pure form the form of the good.while the actual aspect of the soul that is tied to the body will not exist after death.
[3] The soul is the "I".

[4] And the purpose of all this is to be included in the Infinite One--pure Neo Platonic thought again.] where after the soul is included in wisdom it rises to the Infinite One

Being included in God? Is this the goal?  This is  a neo platonic idea.

To the Rambam  by sechel hanikne ones merits to the world to come.  

I have recently become interested in Musar and the seemingly extravagant claims made for it by Israel Salanter. I am thinking that perhaps the Musar movement was right and that there is something about that basic set of books [the six classical ones I mean] which instills good character traits in people. While I am not totally convinced,  I am still tending in this direction. In fact, I brought this up with one fellow I know and his thought that it sounds good and further that someone should put the basic Musar cannon into dots. What this would mean would be someone should get together the basic Musar books of the disciples of Israel Salanter and make a set out of them and put dots into them.
That would be the books of Reb Israel Salanter, "HaTvuna," "Or Israel" of Isaac Blasser, The second recent volume of the writings of Isaac Blasser that came out recently in Israel, The "Madgragat HaAdam," "Chachma and Musar" from Simcha Zizel. 


This maybe is not on the deep philosophical level of Kant or Plato but these are still very good books and perhaps in fact do instill something precious into people.

I agree learning is not everything.  I have long held that something like the Boy Scouts of America is very important for children  and this instills values into people that no books could ever do.

The problem is that it seems to me that this is not very workable in Brooklyn.  At any rate is it my suggestion to start the Orthodox Jewish Boy Scouts of America  that meet every week and would learn out door skills and survival skills and what things like “team work” and “loyalty” and “human decency” mean in real life.

 Also I must mention later books of Musar after the direct disciples of Israel Salanter are not very good. They became "frum" [in the non complementary connotation of that word].  In my recommendation of Musar i meant specifically the books of the first generation disciples

The interesting subject for today is what is called Musar. This has relevance for Jews and gentiles alike.
It is a subject that is built from certain foundations and then reaches its peak in the person of Israel Salanter.
The essence of Musar is the  idea that everyone should learn one of five basic books of Morality written during the Middle ages on the subject of ethics. To this is added the idea of the subconscious that Israel Salanter borrowed from Schopenhauer. The idea is this:by daily review of these books something of their ideas on ethics gets into the subconscious.

But there are a few unstated insights about this idea that are not stated explicitly. One is a very well known Jewish idea but sadly enough Christians seem to be completely unaware of it.It is the idea that during the Middle Ages people were very careful in what they wrote about philosophy and theological subjects. It is what is called in the Jewish world "Rishonim." It means not that people that wrote then were somehow divinely inspired.It does not mean that. It means that they were extremely careful not to write things that would be logical fallacies. This care and caution was shot to smithereens after the time of Hume who in spite of his great and original thought wrote in basic logically fallacies--so much so that it leaves me wondering if he did so on purpose. since then philosophy is dominated by circular reasoning including Hegel who assumes what he wants to prove. [As Habermas noted that in the phenomenology Hegel tries to prove the identity of Subject and Object--but in fact he assumes it right from the start.] You never see this in writing from Jewish Christian or Muslim philosophers from the Middle Ages.

Christians probably have some equivalent of Jewish Musar from the middle ages but i am not sure of what it could be. They should probably make and effort to dig it up. What I means is Musar may be based on philosophical thought but these are books that are specifically about morality, not philosophy.

This means that learning Aquinas would not be in this category of Musar.

At any rate back to the Jewish subject of Musar

This subject was highly misunderstood after Israel Salanter. The reason was that the divide between reform Jews and orthodox Jews had grown to such a degree that the emphasis of people like Maimonides on science and philosophy was ignored. So Musar was taken to be a radical anti science anti philosophy doctrine and any books from the actual Musar books that said differently were explained away.


Something is curious about Musar in terms of the treatment of the soul. This subject is too big for this blog right now. But just briefly let me mention that the Jewish treatment of the soul was influenced by the brethren of purity. In fact the whole move away from Neo Platonic thought in Ibn Ezra [who accepts the Neo Platonic scheme point black] and Saadia Geon to Aristotelian thought in Maimonides seems to have been influenced by the Muslim philosophers of those times.  But as we reach the Musar Movement of Israel Salanter it seems the idea of the soul have changed to the general Christian concept  of an ethereal essence.
 I really have no time to go into this right now but it would make a great term paper.

Reb Israel did borrow the idea of the self from Hobbes and the subconsciousness from Schopenhauer and other ideas developed by Enlightenment philosophers. Later on the Musar movement made a move to deny this debt. The prime directive in the Jewish Orthodox would today is never acknowledge a debt to a Christin or Muslim thinker.



 The Rambam (Maimonides) and Saadia Geon always acknowledged from where they borrowed their ideas. That is what makes them interesting and it helps to see what they are adding or improving on.

I have a love hate relationship with the Musar movement of Israel Salanter.

It is hard to disagree with the basic three core themes. (1) Fear of God is the most important thing in the world. (2) Good Character traits are a basic component of Fear of God (3) The way to get to Fer of God and good character traits is by learning the traditional books called Musar-- books of ethics written by medial Jewish authorities like Maimonides.
He borrowed from  Schopenhauer the idea of the subconscious 


[Schopenhauer was the most widely discussed philosopher in the German-speaking world in the time of R.Israel Salanter.]

And the system of R. Salanter was based on the concept of the subconscious--i.e. to read Musar in such a way that it will penetrate into the subconscious. [See letter 6 in Or Israel. he calls the subconscious there by its German name. It is not possible to imagine he did not know about this from the Gemran speaking world he was in at the time in Konigsberg.the city of Kant]
This is all good.

Where Musar went wrong is a whole different subject in itself.
Perhaps someone could devote a academic study on this subject?

Musar became "Frumkeit."
Reform Jews to them are the arch enemy, "the prime enemy" (Glavni Protivnick) as the Russians used to say about the USA.
Somehow Musar the idea that we the frum orthodox are all righteous and holy and everyone else is criminally insane.
To me this seems to indicate a slight disconnection with reality.

"Traditionally, Natural Law jurisprudence tends to come from Aristotelians, or at least Thomists. From that, we might suppose that Aristotle could have a natural law theory. But the Thomists don't think of ethics in empirical terms, as did Aristotle."

Here is my question about the Rambam in an expanded version and the answer of Dr Kelly Ross to my short version of the question.




Jean Paul Sartre, famously asserted that, "Without God, all is permitted." This was supposed to be a quote from Dostoyevsky (1821-1881). This is a misquote. [The actual statements is without hell, all is permitted.] Besides that it is not true. The manifest ignorance and absurdity of Sartre's pronouncement is evident when we reflect that he ignores one of the oldest and best known theories in Western philosophy: Plato's Theory of Forms. For Plato, meaning, value, and morality exist independently of any god or Deity, and this is quite characteristic of Greek philosophy in general.
And the general approach of all Jewish thinkers from Saadia Geon and the Duties of the Heart until the Rambam was firmly on the side of Plato.
With the Rambam things get confusing. He wants to retain Natural law which comes from Saadia Geon and is pretty much stated openly in the Talmud. But he wants to move towards Aristotle away from Plato's form of the Good. I still do not know if anyone has addressed this serious issue in the Rambam.

Dear Dr Ross. Could Aristotle have natural law theory? You write he hold from heteronomous authority. But does that have to be so?




Dr Ross: "Traditionally, Natural Law jurisprudence tends to come from Aristotelians, or at least Thomists. From that, we might suppose that Aristotle could have a natural law theory. But the Thomists don't think of ethics in empirical terms, as did Aristotle. Instead, natural law comes from the Mind of God in what is overall a theistic system. But Aristotle's God doesn't worry about human phronesis (prudence), and his conception of even human "wisdom" (sophia) precludes practical issues or applications. As Aristotle says, ethics is not for the young, because they literally have not learned enough from experience. Yet the old themselves are liable to notice that the young are often the most passionate about justice. And if this passion is often expressed in foolish, destructive, or vicious ways, where is the fault? The old are just as likely to become cynical as wise, or pessimistic rather than dedicated. Aristotle certainly had no political ideals to promote; and he may not have appreciated himself how the institution of "mixed" forms of government he described, as praised by Polybius or James Madison, represented in ideal in its own right, as an accommodation with the ignorance or self-interest of human nature. Even now, a substantial body of political opinion is impatient with checks and balances and divided authority.

Best wishes,
Kelley Ross

Concerning Conversion to Judaism

The first thing to notice in the Rambam/Maimonides is that there are two operative levels of Gerut/conversion. The first is simply to become Jewish. For this one needs a lower level of conditions [an easier set of conditions].  The next and highest level is to be acceptable for marriage in the Jewish world.

Now the main and simple condition for the first level is something so simple it is amazing that few have ever noticed it. This simple condition is not on their radar because they do not agree that it is something that even exists. This condition is "ratzon" (desire) to be Jewish. The Rambam says:  The Torah was given to the Jewish people and to anyone who wants to accept it"

To give you an example of how simple this is take the case of a slave that a Jew buys from a gentile. The Halacha is that as they are getting ready to put him in the mikvah for the sake of being a Jewish slave, he jumps into the mikvah on his own in front of the people standing around and says he is going into the mikvah for the sake of being Jewish. He becomes automatically Jewish and he is obligated in all the mitzvot and he can no longer be owned as a slave. (That is the buyer loses his money because he can no longer own the labor of the fellow). We see here that the desire of the Beit din is not necessary to make someone Jewish. He becomes Jewish even against their desire. It depends only on his own desire.

However when we look into the Rambam about laws of marriage we find a whole more stringent set of conditions. There he needs  (accepting the mitzvot) in front of three judges.



On a side issue in terms of Conversion of Women. The Tosphot in Yevamot does allow the a case in which the woman goes to the mikvah on her own and the acceptance of the Mitzvot alone is in front of three judges. The Rambam however requires that the Mikvah also be in front of three judges. The way to do this is to get a lot of Styrofoam slices and put them over the mikvah, then the woman gets into the mikvah that is covered in Styrofoam and then the three judges come into the room. Then she dips herself totally under the water in front of them and they see the acceptable dipping but nothing else.

A further point here is that become Jewish is not dependent of the will of the judges or anyone at all except the actually person involved. Judges can’t make someone Jewish and they can’t unmake some from being Jewish.


One last point. There was an old tradition to accept converts and not make things hard for them as is customary today. I agree with this approach for several reasons. One is that it is the Halacha. The other is that apparently some people are afraid the convert is not "all that well put together." But so what? People  anyway have no problem throwing anyone they don't like out of their communities the instant that the person rubs them the wrong way.--Jew or Gentile. It is just that when it is a Jew that rubs them the wrong way they find lots of clever ways of disavowing that person's Jewishness. A good example is Sephardic communities. To Sephardim all Ashkenazim are not Jewish;--- period. They just go along with the act as long as it benefits them but when it comes to a crunch and the poor ashkenazic Jew is down and out on his luck the Sefardi simply says to himself, "Well, he is not really Jewish anyway, so why bother to help him?" [And for Sephardim, American Ashkenazim are in the general category of Amalek. 


]

The Musar movement

I am looking a bit at Israel Salanter and Isaac Blazer. The Musar movement seems to have an idea of heteronomous authority. But that shouldn't be a surprise to me. This I think was the tendency of Torah thought for a long time, and I think that it was solidified by the Rambam who was going with Aristotle.
Once anyone is going with Aristotle they will have to end up with authority coming from outside of ones self. There is no absolute Form of the Good in Aristotle, so where else would authority comes from but divine command?

On the other hand, Divine command Theory has something going for it. The "self" itself is to Kant one example of a thing in itself, and we know that Schopenhauer considers the Will the be the absolute Ding an Sich. 



The Musar Movement. It looks to me they had some amazing insights.--especially about what they call negiot- rationalizations and excuses. This is a important insight. This is where the evil inclination is not buried like the Id. It is known and a person is doing what he knows to be wrong but he excuses it with negiot.  and rationalizations.

Is there a mitzvah to learn Torah to get a salary?

Is there a mitzvah to learn Torah to get a salary?

How would you go about thinking about this question logically?

At first sight it seems like the same question as "Is there a mitzvah to put on tefilin purely for the sake of money?" This seems simple. You simply divide the action from the intension. The intension is bad. You are not supposed to use the Holy Torah for money. But the action looks good.

But as we think deeper into this we can see that learning Torah is different. It is like the types of work on Sabbath that the intension is linked to the act. For example once who erases not in order to write has not done any work at all. It is not even a work done for a different intension. It simply is not work.

For it to be work it has to have the "on condition to write."

Same with Torah Learning. The Rambam says one who learns on condition to receive money has no mitzvah and loses his portion in the next world. That means the act itself has lost the category of a mitzvah and entered into the category of a sin of the most grievous type possible.

To see the opinion of Maimonides on this subject look into Pirkei Avot Chapter 4 Mishna 5 and in the laws of Talmud Torah. He could not have been clearer.

This helps us to understand the difference between people in authentic Lithuanian yeshivas that learn Torah for its own sake  as opposed to people that see in Torah an easy way to make money and scam people. 

Chaim Soloveichik and Shabat

Chaim Soloveichik and Shabat 
I can already begin to see the light with him. I am still in the middle of figuring him out concerning Sabbath but I think I can see where he is going. He looks at the second "Some say" in pesachim with the argument between Abyee and Rava about pleasure that comes to a person against their will.
The second "some say" holds straight down the board that to R. Shimon we consider intention alone. To R. Yehuda the basic idea is that he does not care about intention.

But however it works out in pesachim, we can see already that this might be a help to Reb Chaim. He would want Pesik Raisha to be forbidden to R. Yehuda even if it is against his will and permitted to R. Shimon.
The only thing left to Reb Chaim is to bridge the gap between Shabbat and other types of prohibitions. Stay tuned



[In plain English this all means that Reb Chaim has a ready made answer to answer the contradiction in the Rabam about piecing a boil on shabat. Once you consider it a work not intended that is pesik reish you answer the Rambam poskins like Shmuel in work not intended. But Reb Chaim still has to prove that R. Yehuda will disagree so that we will still have an an argument between him and R. Shimon in Keritut.]

Is there a mitzvah to learn Torah to get a salary?(Or, on the other hand is there a mitzvah to learn Torah not for money, and in fact to receive no money from doing so?)

Is there a mitzvah to learn Torah to get a salary?
How would you go about thinking about this question logically?
At first sight it seems like the same question as "Is there a mitzvah to put on tefilin purely for the sake of money?" This seems simple. You simply divide the action from the intention. The intension is bad. You are not supposed to use the Holy Torah for money. But the action looks good.
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But as we think deeper into this we can see that learning Torah is different. It is like the types of work on Sabbath that the intension is linked to the act. For example once who erases not in order to write has not done any work at all. It is not even a work done for a different intension. It simply is not work.
For it to be work it has to have the "on condition to write."
Same with Torah Learning The Rambam says one who learns on condition to receive money has no mitzvah and loses his portion in the next world. That means the act itself has lost the category of a mitzvah and entered into the category of a sin of the most grievous type.

To see the opinion of Maimonides on this subject look into Pirkei Avot Chapter 4  and in the laws of Talmud Torah. He could not have been clearer.

Sometimes parents hear things like this: "Nobody can tell me what to believe ...".It seems that this might be a claim: "No one has the moral right to tell me what to believe."

Sometimes parents hear things like this:  "Nobody can tell me what to do or believe ..."
What exactly is this a defense against? It seems that it might be claiming one of the following:
1. No one can force me to believe something I don't want to believe.
2. No one has the moral right to tell me what to believe.
3. No one has the intellectual right to tell me what to believe.

1. Well, no one can force you to believe something -- true enough. But what exactly does this mean? Perhaps it says something like this: No matter how strongly someone else believes that I'm wrong, that will not cause me to believe otherwise.
 I can imagine cases in which this strength of will might be noble, even heroic. Saints and martyrs come to mind. But small children also come to mind, and inexperienced adolescents, and stubborn husbands. In other words, this trait might be a virtue, but it might be a vice, too. And so by itself, it does not recommend itself as a strategy.

2. On the face of it, it is not obvious that NO ONE has the moral right to tell me what to do. I can imagine a young cashier with sticky fingers, and his boss or colleague or parent reprimanding him. I can imagine a Colonel in the army lecturing a cocky new Lieutenant on the issue of courage. The Colonel has been there, done that, seen more, and faced more, and would seem to have the moral right to tell the Lieutenant what to think and how to act. I can imagine a seasoned teacher lecturing a younger teacher on the virtues of being patient with students, or on being overly easy in grading. And so, it seems that this claim needs to be justified.

3. This is the weakest position, and can't withstand even the slightest scrutiny. All you have to do is to imagine the relationship between someone who is bright and inexperienced in something, and someone who is bright and experienced in that same thing. The latter does have the intellectual right to tell the other what to believe -- at least in some situations. Indeed, it is one of the most maddening things to have someone who makes unjustified and false claims about something about which you know well. Yes ... you DO have an intellectual right to correct him.

So, it seems that the claim that "nobody can tell me what to believe" is simply not true, or at least if it is true, it has to be justified and defended. It is certainly not obviously true.

(This doesn't even touch upon the issue of social implication. Once my beliefs and actions effect other people, they no longer belong to just me -- they are public. They automatically open themselves up to public scrutiny, and I do not have the same proprietary rights to them that I had when they effected only me.)

All humans need to make decisions concerning the right thing to do. Most humans want to do what is good. It is good to do the right thing. Often knowing what is the right thing to do, knowing what is right, and knowing what is good is not all that easy. Answers to the questions, "What is the right thing to do?" and "What is the good ?" aren't obvious to many or universally agreed upon. Yet, humans need answers to these questions. Situations requiring moral deliberation and ethical principles.

1. "Well, it's true for me ...."
Many students have a difficult time seeing a distinction between the following two statements:

a. It's true.
b. It's true for me.

But there IS a difference, and it is important to see the difference, and most people see the difference when it comes to things like mathematics, science, accounting, engineering, law, etc.

Here's the question: What does "for me" add to "It's true"? What I mean is, why would anyone say "It's true for me"? Let's say, for example, your favorite physics teacher asks you to tell her what the rate of fall is for a body located approximately at the surface of the Earth. Let's say that you are a student of physics and know with more certainty than that Bush is president, that bodies fall at 9.4 meters per second per second. If you write on your exam that bodies fall at 9.4 mXsec2, your instructor would put an annoying red "X" next to your answer.

"But wait a darn minute, there, ma'am: it's true for me that bodies fall at 9.4 mXsec2!"





Examples of situations requiring moral deliberation and ethical principles.
Question 1: A friend of yours wants you to join his club and sponsors you for membership. Being a member of this club will greatly enhance your career plans. However, once you are inducted, you realize that there is an unwritten rule that no baal teshuvas [newly religious] are allowed membership.

Question 2: You meet some friends at a shabat meal and find yourself seated beside a rather attractive person. During the course of the evening, you have an enjoyable conversation and you promise to call that person to set up a date. When the person gets up to leave, you suddenly realize that he/she is physically handicapped.
Do you still call for the date?
Question 3: You have just earned a degree in Chemistry. Your best job offer comes from a laboratory that does experiments in chemical warfare. You do not agree with this practice, but you also realize that if you turn down the job, they will hire someone else who might do the job 'too well'.
Do You take the Job?
Question 5: You have been friends with a couple for several years. Now they are involved in a messy divorce and child custody battle. One of them asks you to testify on his/her behalf.
Do you agree to testify?

Question 6: When checking your mailbox one day, you discover a letter addressed to you from a legal firm in Florida. Inside is a letter explaining that you have been identified as a herd owner in a cattle farm that is now in receivership in the state of Florida. The letter further informs you that now that all accounts with creditors have been settled, the remaining proceeds from the sale of the herd are to be distributed among the shareholders. Enclosed is a check, made out to you, for a substantial amount of money. You know that you are not the person for whom this check is intended, since you have never invested in cattle or anything else. Upon reading the letter further, you discover that the funds due any unidentified herdowner will revert to the state of Florida after the passage of 7 years. It has now been 6.5 years since the cattle were sold. This means if you send the check back the money will most likely go to the state.
Do you cash the check?

Question 7: A close friend of yours comes to you and reveals that she is pregnant. Her partner does not know yet, and she is extremely upset. "This is just not the time to have a baby" she says, "I'm thinking of having an abortion, but I'm not sure if it is the right thing to do." She assures you that she and her partner tried to prevent becoming pregnant, but that it obviously did not work.
What would you tell her to do ?

Question 8: You're a West Point cadet bound by a strict honor code. You witness another cadet, who is also a friend, cheating on a test.
Do you turn them in?

An example will help illustrate the function of these principles in an applied ethical discussion. In 1982, a couple from Bloomington, Indiana gave birth to a baby with severe mental and physical disabilities. Among other complications, the infant, known as Baby Doe, had its stomach disconnected from its throat and was thus unable to receive nourishment. Although this stomach deformity was correctable through surgery, the couple did not want to raise a severely disabled child and therefore chose to deny surgery, food, and water for the infant. Local courts supported the parents’ decision, and six days later Baby Doe died. Should corrective surgery have been performed for Baby Doe? Arguments in favor of corrective surgery derive from the infant’s right to life and the principle of paternalism which stipulates that we should pursue the best interests of others when they are incapable of doing so themselves. Arguments against corrective surgery derive from the personal and social disbenefit which would result from such surgery. If Baby Doe survived, its quality of life would have been poor and in any case it probably would have died at an early age. Also, from the parent’s perspective, Baby Doe’s survival would have been a significant emotional and financial burden. When examining both sides of the issue, the parents and the courts concluded that the arguments against surgery were stronger than the arguments for surgery. First, foregoing surgery appeared to be in the best interests of the infant, given the poor quality of life it would endure. Second, the status of Baby Doe’s right to life was not clear given the severity of the infant’s mental impairment. For, to possess moral rights, it takes more than merely having a human body: certain cognitive functions must also be present. The issue here involves what is often referred to as moral personhood, and is central to many applied ethical discussions.

Not all moral questions are dilemmas. Most are not. It is just that moral philosophy has tended to concentrate on moral dilemmas because there is an underlying assumption in Western countries about the basic principles of Judaic-Christian morality.