Gemara in Bava Kama page 3

I wanted to write something fast about the Gemara in Bava Kama page 3 side A and then correct my spelling errors later.
And I wanted to point out how this is relevant in a larger way to general understanding of the Gemara. First I wanted to say that this part of the Talmud we need to divide into three parts. Part one and two deal with the braita [outside teaching = teaching that is not part of the Mishna] and the third part derives all four cases of tooth and foot in a different way.


The first way of the Braita is clear. We use "he sent" for foot and to get  to the lesser case [it walked by itself] we use a to tooth. The braita does the same with it ate. It uses it for tooth and to fill in the lesser case it uses a hekesh to foot.
 At this point--part three the Gemara uses "he sent" for both tooth and foot without us. And to get to the two other lesser cases it uses "ubier" ("It ate").. It does this but it only says one case for "it ate." The case the animal walked by itself. the  on the מהרש''א explains that it gets to the second less several case of tooth by means of the logic the gemara just got done using--the fact that tooth and foot are in equilibrium. so if you use it ate for foot you have to use it for tooth also.

 The natural question תוספות asks here is why does the gemara not ask like it did above what do you use the verse  כאשר יבער הגלל?

What this means is that about the Talmud uses    כאשר יבער הגלל to fill in all the gaps. The חמור case of נכלה השורש tooth and לא נכלה. Now what can now after the Talmud derives everything without that verse, what  do you need the verse for?

תוספות answers that the ברייתא means to say that if we did not have the ברייתא way of deriving all for cases we would be able to fall back on the way of the braita,


Ok this piece was what I wrote fast. Now I would like to explain a few things. one thing is that I used simplified approach in explaining this Gemara. You probably noticed that I left out the fact that part one and part two of the gemara assumes that all distinctions of tooth go into foot and visa verse. you cant have missed it because it is an essential part of the reasoning of the Gemara. And yet when I explained the Gemara used on two cases for foot [(a) he sent the animal, and (b) it went by itself] and two cases for tooth [it ate all, it ate part.]  For those of you familiar with covariant coordinates this is easy to explain why I did this. I similar changed the coordinates. I used vertical lines instead of slanted lines to go through my graph. The end result ends up the exact same way.

hard words

hekesh [“similarity” = same aspects of different cases= “what is it with this case? Thus and thus. So is it with that case.]

בבא קמא ג' ע''א 

 First I wanted to say that this part of the תלמוד we need to divide into three parts. Part one and two deal with the ברייתא, and the third part derives all four cases of שן and רגל in a different way.


The first way of the ברייתא is clear. We use ושילח for ניזקי רגל and to get  to  איפה שהלכה  בעצמה we use  שן. The ברייתא does the same with וביער בשדה אחר. It uses it for שן and to fill in the lesser case it uses a היקש to רגל.
 At this point the גמרא uses ושילח for both שן and רגל without us. And to get to the two other lesser cases it uses "וביער בשדה אחר. It does this but it only says one case for וביער בשדה אחר. The case the animal walked by itself. The מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א explains that it gets to the second less several case of שן by means of the logic the גמרא just got done using  that is fact that שן and רגל are שווים. So if you use וביער for רגל you have to use it for שן also.

 The natural question תוספות asks here is why does the גמרא not ask like it did above, What do you use the verse כאשר יבער הגלל.

What this means is that about the גמרא uses כאשר יבער הגלל to fill in all the gaps. The מצב  החמור of שן and the מצב הקל.  Now after the גמרא derives everything without that verse, what can do you need the verse for?

 תוספות answers that the ברייתא means to say that if we did not have the third way of deriving all for cases we would be able to fall back on the way of the ברייתא,

For the general public I feel I ought to insert a note or two about what is important about Gemara.

The basic importance of the Talmud is in two areas. Numinous value and moral value. The way I understand this is basically through the school of thought of Plato,Why I am a Platonist --friesian.com and  Kant,.[]  I should mention  that even Maimonides is somewhere in between Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus the Platonist. So in terms of would view and a good consistent way to evaluate moral issues, the Talmud is important. It also does give a rather spiritual path. And it has the advantage of being a logical rigorous explanation of the Written Law{Torah}.
There is also a philosophical advantage to the Torah and Talmud. This has to do with Western Civilization, and in particular the USA. Right now, it is a bit difficult to find a rational justification of either. In my view, the Talmud provides a way out of the modem political dilemma. I would have to find time to go into this another time.

I just got done writing about the Talmud on my other blog so I don't know how well i am going to be able to focus my attention here.
Here i wanted to discuss the Rambam.

We all would like the rambam to be saying in his eight chapters that the Torah is the middle path and also that it brings to the middle path. Right? But on the surface that does not seems to be what he is saying. My thesis is that in fact that is what the rambam is saying.
 Ok not to the meant and potatoes of the subject. Thus saith the Rambam: people have physical aliments and mental sicknesses. Medicine teaches us how to deal with physical sickness. And the same principle applies to mental sickness. You go to the opposite extreme for a while until  the bad nature or diseases is uprooted an then you return to the middle.

Now at this point it looks like the rambam is saying two different things. It seems he means that the Torah is itself the middle path, But also that it brings to the middle path. but how can he say that is the way to get to the middle is to go to the opposite extremer which he just got done saying is pure evil?
The Torah is i hope not telling us to go to some evil extremer in order to straighten out our personal problems!

I suggest that the Rambam here can be meaning that the Torah provides  ways for individual to cure themselves but that its general approach is in fact the Middle. Nazir is perfect example that the rambam himself brings  and [nedarim] oaths also. is an example . also a time to do for God is brought by the rambam as a general Principe that the Beit Din can use to correct faults of the generation that is :it is not just for a prophet.

A connection length of days and fear of God.

 I found a connection length of days and fear of God. And I definitely have found myself in need of length of days.--My days had become very short of full of nonsense. I decided I needed a definite refill of fear of God. So I asked myself from where do I think I might get a little fear of God? The most obvious answer I could think of is the idea of learning what is called Musar. This refers to two sets of books on the subject of Fear and Love of God and good character traits. One set was written during the Middle Ages by Jewish scholars. Another set was written recently by people on the same themes. One of these books is called the Madragat HaAdam.
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Do slogans determine people’s behavior?

How much do slogans determine people’s behavior? They find some slogan that makes sense to them and then use it to make snap decisions based on the slogan. I think slogans determine very much. See the essay of a professor from MIT (John Sterman) I have a link to on this blog in his discussion of computer models and how people do use their own modeling of reality and a small set of rules to determine their large range of behavior, I was once at the shabat table of Rav Zilverman in the old city of Jerusalem and he asked me if I could come up with a catchy slogan for the Geon from Villna. . . I gave some stupid answer I am sorry to say. I mentioned some  one of the aphorisms in the book Even Shelama. Today thinking back to this I realize that not only is very little of the Gra very catchy, but my suggestion missed the whole point. The point is something short and simple that grabs a person and alters their future behavior. 


Now we have see that some slogans cause people to do bad things. and other s are just a consciouses trap-- like ways of capturing people and  making them mental slaves them as we see in many religious cults today.
Often these cults use some nice sounding slogan but they act individually and collectively in ways opposite from the implication of the slogan.
 Philosophy also works by slogans. Hume came up with the idea that if something disagrees with his premises that it is meaningless. He wrote that if you could find some idea that is not based on observation then he would agree that his empirical philosophy is false, and then he goes right on and finds examples of ideas that are not based on observation. Then he does his neat trick. He calls these ideas "meaningless." And ever since then, in any discussion with left wing liberal,  when they encounter an idea that disagrees with them, they say it is "meaningless."




What I am wondering here is if it is such a good idea to reduce human life and its complexity to a bunch of slogans?

[Note 1] Maybe my parents had the best slogan of all: Be a mensch. This sadly is untranslatable.But roughly it means to be a decent human being with good character traits-decent kind just loyal loving and responsible. This was the Jewish ideal of human perfection in the European generation of Jews that came to the USA.]

[Note 2] The Gra, it could be said would have had a slogan like "learn Torah". This might not be catchy but it does capture the basic idea. He did think that by learning Torah most of a persons problems are solved. And in fact he might have been right about this. Maybe the idea of learning only Torah is a bit too much. But I think it is fair to ask people to have a simple session every day in Torah Mishna and Gemara called "shiurim kesidran." That is "sessions in order." That is take a Old Testament and start at the beginning, and when you have read some in order, then you put a place marker and put it down. Then you do the same with the Mishna.. And you do this in order, and you do not repeat anything nor do you pause to think about anything.

Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism

[1] Buddhism and Hinduism make a lot of assumptions about duality and non duality and about self. What it is and if it exists at all. And if they say it does not exist they are not very clear about what it is exactly that they are saying does not exist. In spite of great philosophical sophistication and depth, both leave me with a sense that they have some good points but those points are mixed with numerous dogmatic assumptions that seem unwarranted.




[2] The Lithuanian world seems to pride itself on its lack of interest in spirituality.To them it is learn Torah and keep mitzvot and that is that. That seems like a fairly good approach in that opening the doors of spirituality seems in fact to welcome a host of phenomenon like illusions and mental illness etc. that seem to be part and parcel of the world of Hasidim.


[3] Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism and accepted it as Halacha Le'Moshe MiSinai. [A law to Moses from mount Sinai] This is in spite of the fact that it is not  traditional Jewish doctrine.

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If you look at the personality cults that have sprouted up around him and around charismatic leaders  claiming to going in the Breslov path, then there is not much to see.

There  are some amazing aspects to the basic Musar path of Torah. Musar here means medieval books of Ethics like the Duties of The Heart and the rest of the basic cannon But we know that Musar was expanded after the Middle Ages and came to include about 30 books considered to be basic. [And many of the later works began to include kabalistic themes like the Mesilat Yesharim at least as an undercurrent.
Nefesh Hachaim certainly uses the Zohar as a source of evidence for his thesis that learning Torah is the most important thing one can do.




Other people [mainly baali teshuva in Israel] went to Breslov directly and that became their basic source of value and frame of reference. So when they later hear themes of the basic Musar books of people like Saadia Geon or the Rambam they think it is heresy.

There are however extra curricular sources which have important contributions to make concerning what human beings are about.


The question is how to find a unifying thread,  A way to judge if a world view is sound--or if any aspects of it might be sound.This is not to say that once one has this thread his human problems will be solved. World view is only one important tool to come to where we need to go. It does not solve any human problems but it can be of some help not to fall into things that claim to be a solutions and yet are simply traps.


I have such thread that I use. Philosophy. But since the beginning of twentieth century philosophy the idea of philosophy being able to provide a way to judge other world views has become ridiculous.All twentieth century philosophy that is linguistic postmodern analytic philosophy- is in the famous words of John Serle "obviously false".
So people can be excused if they think my using philosophy to judge the validity of any given world view is unsound.

So what I have to add is that I mean I use the  common sense, Maimonides, Plato, and Aristotle.

I have had to use my own sense along with philosophical studies outside of mainstream academia in order to develop my own philosophical point of view.

There are certain professions which attract personalities that have no conscience, snakes in suits. These are areas in which a glib tongue will get someone very far. And you can’t depend on peer review in these areas because all the rest of the people at the top of the profession also got there by the power of their glib tongue and lack of fear for consequences of their actions in this world or the next.


These are not people that are sitting in jail. They are so smooth that they can maneuver themselves out  situations that would land lesser people in jail.

Religious people are exceptionally susceptible to these type of people, because religious people believe in a kind of Divine justice in  which if someone is doing well in this world there must be a reason for it. And if someone is suffering then they must deserve it.

And I do not refer here to the heads of cults. I mean even well respected member of any religious denomination.

In the Jewish world there used to be a mechanism in place that would prevent this kind of abuse. It was the Kahal-- the tax paying working Jews that were in charge of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They would make sure before they hired someone to serve as a religious leader, that that person really knew the Talmud well.  




Rather it is the type of people they hurt which I find more interesting. These are usually people with a high degree of interest in spiritual affairs and are seeking to become morally better people. It is this class of highly moral and sensitive spiritually minded people that snakes  hurt the most in their deepest subconscious levels.

The people that I tend to blame for this mess are those that without a sense of responsibility try to get people to join the cult of  charismatic Snakes in suits. But other people that that join and then lose their sense of responsibility and try to get others to join are more at fault.

How to learn the Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law] of Joseph Karo.

I think today I should concentrate on how to learn the Shulchan Aruch.

The fact of the matter is I have assumed that everyone in the world understands this intuitively. But recently I have noticed that this assumption is unwarranted.

So without further ado let me explain it.

The actual way to understand any single halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is by starting from the Talmud.
Sometimes this is very simple. A very good example is  we all know that one is not allowed to eat milk and meat together. But what about a cow's milk producer--the gland that makes milk? This is an argument in the Gemara and  is contained in a few short, simple paragraphs. So once you have read those simple paragraphs, you can trace the halacha down through the Tur, Beit Yoseph, Bach, and the Shulchan Aruch with the Shach and Taz.  [You could do the Rambam and Rif and Rosh also but nothing would change substantially in your understanding.] This is an unusually simple example.

Later I got involved in learning with Naphtali Yegear. That already involved very deep analysis of the Gemara and Tosphot with the Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Shav Shemtta. That was a level of depth I simply was unprepared for. So on my own, as I was doing Ketobot I continued doing the path of Halacha type of learning that starts from the Gemara and weaves down until the  Shulchan Aruch with all its commentaries like the Shach and the Taz. But Halacha type of learning is not the same as in depth learning of Gemara.

This Halacha  type of learning is not really how to learn Gemara. Learning Gemara proper, means to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and maybe months until its depths start to reveal themselves to you. Yet I want to emphasize here that this Halacha type of learning the Gemara is the only legitimate way to learn Halacha. The only reason we do things like reading the Shulchan Aruch straight is to get a general idea. But we must not fool ourselves to think that since we have read a halacha in the Shulchan Aruch that now we understand that Halacha -even with all the commentaries. This is simply not the case. There is no halacha anywhere that one can understand unless he has made that progression from the actual Talmud until the text of the Shulchan Aruch through the poskim in-between.

[But if you do not have a good learning partner I admit it might be best to do the Halacha type of approach to the Talmud. The in depth approach might simply be too hard for people to do on their own and most people are not even aware of its existence. they think learning the Talmud in depth actually means doing it with poskim [Rif, Rambam, Rosh, Tur, Shulchan Aruch]. This is obviously false But it still might be the only thing available to most people. And I might as well admit it the in depth approach was something I could never really get a good handle on. Though I sat through the classes of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum .

Once Muslims get their hands on Atom Bombs, the term "suicide bomber" will take on a whole new meaning.]

The world is definitely headed towards global conflict but it is not between the Ukraine and Russia. It is between Christendom and Islam. And therefore from my Jewish point of view I would like to see Christendom united and strengthened. [OK I admit if everyone would-sit and learn Gemara that would be a better option. But being that that is unlikely at least we can all agree that mankind ought to make progress towards a more ethical moral human decent world rather that towards barbarianism and jihad. Progress towards the later at this point would mean the extinction of the human race. Once Muslims get their hands on Atom Bombs the term suicide bomber will take on a whole new meaning.]

total immersion in Torah

The basic opinion of only Torah all day finds its basic expression in the Nefesh Hachaim of Chaim from Voloshin the major disciple of the Geon from Villna. But to a large degree it is implicit in older books of Musar and in the Talmud itself. In fact in the Tenach (the Hebrew Bible) we do find the idea that serving God is the only thing that has value. 

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While total immersion in Torah all day might good for some people but I have some questions if the Torah itself asks this from people. If we take a look for example  at the first and foremost of all books of Musar --the Chovot Levavot [Duties of the Heart] we find that he claims [Shar Prishut] that one is obligated to learn an honest profession that does not include depending on being supported for learning Torah.


But in truth the idea of learning Torah as a profession I did not hear about when I was in NY . There never was a question in anyone's mind that one should learn Torah all the time but that it is not to be a paid profession. The idea in N.Y. was that if one was sufficiently devoted to learning Torah, that God would provide some means of support,- in some kosher  way--not in the form of a pay check for sitting  learning.
  Everyone knew the simple basic Halacha that one is not allowed to make the Torah into a device to make money. Secular and religious Jews alike.
There is a difficult fine line here--the line that one should learn Torah but that this should not be a paid profession.
 Torah is everywhere.  It is the root of all creation. The Ten Statements of Creation the root of creation and inside of them are the Ten Commandments which are to essence of the Torah.
Torah is everywhere and in all actions and in all people. But in forbidden actions the glory of God is not revealed. So how do forbidden actions have any existence? They is by the first of the ten statements of Creation, the hidden statement. This is the highest of all the statements. That means that when one has fallen into the kelipot-- areas of darkness where there is no glory of God and from there one realizes how far he is as fallen and begins to seek God from there, that is when he has the highest flight into the highest levels.
The point being that one needs to learn Torah in order to find God. But when one does learn Torah and keeps his commandments then he can serve God through anything.

There are several areas in which I disagree with religious Judaism as a whole and there are areas which I agree.
One very major area that I disagree is the way they justify Torah and the Talmud. You can see some of the arguments in books by Rav Avigdor Miller. These arguments in favor of Torah and Talmud are obviously false. On the other hand I do have a way of arguing negatively for Torah and Talmud.
That is I can’t justify what I will call now just "Torah" [but meaning Torah along with it commentary the Talmud] in a positive way but I can deal effectively with most of the criticism. This I do mainly based on my readings in philosophy of Kant, [non intuitive immediate knowledge--which is meant to work mainly for a priori knowledge.], and the Intuitionists like G.E. Moore and Michael Huemer. 
So in short I do justify Torah but not in the way of the Orthodox.


There are individual areas of halachah I also disagree but these are based on my reading of the Talmud and the later authorities like the Rif, Rambam, Tur, and Shulchan Aruch with its commentaries the Shach and the Taz.--




Specific areas of disagreement are the time of Rosh Chodesh, electricity, some aspects of Nida, and the status of statehood of Israel and serving in the IDF. But in general I accept the general framework of Halacha and how a legitimate halacha opinion is found and defended by means of the Talmud and poskim that I mentioned above. In other words I claim that a halacha that can't be defended by the Talmud is not a legitimate halacha.


In terms of Books in Torah thought that I think are the most impressive I would have to put the  the Madragat Haadam of Joseph Yozel Horvitz commonly known as the "Alter of Navardok".
As for the Madgarat Haadam there is not even any English translation.

I think both of these books can provide a system of checks and balances in Torah thought. For each one on its own can be misused. But both together I think provide a very good approach to Torah.


Some of the most important ideas in these books a re ideas that have universal validity and are in no way specific for Jewish people. One is trust in God with no effort. This is probably the most important idea of the Madragat HaAdam. The other is talking with God in a forest or some place far away from other people. 



The Orthodox do have one advantage over me--they seem more Jewish.This seems to me to be the result of a kind of nationalism (or rather chauvinism)  in which seeming Jewish seems to be the most important thing. And the Orthodox certainly seem very Jewish. They wear lots of black clothing. They speak Yiddish. They hate everything that smacks of  culture or gentile thought. There is obviously nothing remotely good or Jewish about any of this. But if what you value the most is to seem Jewish, then by all means go ahead and join them.




The thing I should mention about non intuitive immediate knowledge and how it helps to justify Torah is this. One basic area of debate between the rationalists and the empiricists is this we can know things  based on empirical evidence. because we can check our conclusions with what happens in the real world. But when it come to a things that we perceive by reason alone things  how do we know that what we think has anything to do with reality? [This is a bit of a simplification-- we do find the intuitionists think that even empirical evidence we know only by reason].
It is this question that immediate non- intuitive knowledge comes to answer.
It does more that just answer Kant's question how is synthetic a priori possible. It answers how is a priori possible.

Once you get to synthetic a priori we can see that there are areas of value that we know beyond just the principle of non contradiction. and we can test these areas by falsification. In other words even morality which we cant derive from an "is", we can falsify . This is what Socrates spent all of his time doing. and this is in large part what the Talmud is doing. Except the Talmud accepts  sources of information that were unknown to Socrates.

I would like to introduce the major and most motivating idea of Navardok-- trust in God. That is trust without effort--as opposed to trust with effort.
That was based to some degree of a statement of Israeli Salanter and the Geon from Vilnius  that real trust in God means to trust with no effort.




I would like to suggest an integrated approach that combines the best of both approaches with a special emphasis on hiking in the woods and forests while talking with God and when one is not doing that to sit and learn Gemara Rashi and Tosphot.

For people that are limited in time and have to go to school my suggestion is  to introduce into schools two pretty important books of philosophical and  ethical thought--the book of Joseph Horvitz --the Madrgat Haadam I see both as containing important principles for the proper conduct of human life.  

They contain these basic principles: Trust in God with no efforts, talking to God in a forest or someplace where you are not seen or heard by others, learning the Torah, and a program designed to correct ones character flaws--learning Musar.





This is opposed to Pagan cults. Pagan cults are a system of rites. 
 Pagan cults are  systems of rites that involves a manipulation of substances — — that are believed to have some kind of inherent power, again, because of their connection to whatever the primordial world stuff may be in that tradition. So  there's always an element of magic in a pagan cult. It's seeking through these rituals and manipulations of certain substances to, again, let loose certain powers, set into motion certain forces, 

One final and very important point, in the polytheistic worldview, just as there are good gods who might protect human beings there are also evil gods who seek to destroy both humans and other gods. Death and disease are consigned to the realm of these evil demons or these impure evil spirits, but they are siblings with the good gods. Human beings are basically powerless, in the continual cosmic struggle between the good gods and the evil demons, unless they can utilize magic, divination, tap into the powers of the meta divine realm, circumvent the gods who might be making their lives rather miserable. But what's important is that  in the pagan view, evil is an autonomous demonic realm. It is as primary and real as the realm of the holy or good gods. Evil is a metaphysical reality. It is built into the structure of the universe. That's the way the universe was made. The primordial stuff that spawned all that is, spawned it good and bad and exactly as it is, and it's there and it's real.


So  the fundamental idea of Torah  is a radically new idea of a God who is himself the source of all being — not subject to a metadivine realm. There's no transcendent cosmic order or power. 

So what then are the implications of monotheism?
 So in the  Torah - Hebrew Bible, for the first time in history we meet an unlimited God who is timeless and ageless and nonphysical and eternal.

That means that this God transcends nature. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Bible. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine.
So there's no process by which humans become gods and certainly no process of the reverse as well.
 God can't be manipulated or coerced by charms or words or rituals. They have no power and cannot be used in that way, and so magic is sin. Magic is sin or rebellion against God because it's predicated on a whole mistaken notion of God having limited power. 

I knew this fellow fairly well and we had a few discussions about difficult subjects in the writings of Isaac Luria an he knew the material very well. Much better than almost any so called kabalaists in Israel.

A few years ago i lost contact with him while on my adventures to the USA and Uman and to other parts of Israel outside of Jerusalem.

when i knew him he was on the up and up. He was married [a prerequisite for respect in the world of the charedim] and well respected in the community.
The yesterday I met him again and he had been in prison.. His wife was on the path to becoming pretty much not religious and so there a divorce and she was instructed as common in the chareidi world to make the worst possible accusations and lies against her husband so that she would gain the advantage in the monetary arrangements. [Charedim do not advice all young wives to make these claims--only baali teshuva wives. But for people born a part of their community they go out of their way to make peace.]

The thing here is that after he told me some of the things that happened to him and his family i kind of sympathize with the wife. They were living in some yishuv outside of Jerusalem and had bought a large plastic swimming pool for their 5 year and 4 old daughters.one weekend they went away and the chareidi neighbors slashed it .

I was having the traditional cholent on Shabat.  I said over my little idea about Rav Huna who had thousands of students and the fact that he was not paid anything for learning or teaching Torah. In fact Abyee had a scheme to have his students advice him to divorce his wife and then the guarantor of her dowry/Ketuba [Rav Huna's father] would have to pay, and then he could remarry her and then have money for breakfast. The Ketuba all in all was about two hundred dollars. So Rav Huna must have been in desperate straits. And still he did not ask or receive any money by learning Torah. I have said this over a few times already but I was surprised by the reaction of the fellow I knew from Jerusalem.

I said that the present day gezera of having to serve in the IDF is a result of the sin of using the Torah to make money.

I had a few idea to mention. One in particular I think stands out. It is related to something the Chovot Levavot says--The Duties of the Heart.

It is the idea that one is not supposed to make up a new religion.

That means in practical terms that even though what does it means to keep the Torah can be hard to decide on a daily basis still we know what it means not to keep the Torah.

That means to say we know more or less that a Jews is supposed to learn the Oral and written law--the Five books of Moses and the Babylonian Talmud from cover to cover- and to keep what the Torah says. Period.
But in this process sometimes people have experience with other individuals which might not be optimum. This still does not give one permission to go and make up some new religion.
Learning Torah has been considered the prime directive of the Torah for a couple of thousand years. This is not the subject of any debate. That means to say at minimum everyone should sit down a learn Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot at least an hour every day. And when it comes to Jewish law, the requirement to keep it is not a debate-- although the particulars are.

Also Monotheism is the philosophy of the Torah. This also has never been the subject of ant debate. Torah is not a document of pantheism in any sense and no one ever considered it as such--not Maimonides nor Isaac Luria

Devykut "attachment with God."

For me it so happened that I   that I started reading the Ari (Isaac Luria רבינו האריז''ל).  And after about a year I made Aliya to Israel and then I did a lot of  personal conversation with God while hiking in the forests surrounding Safed in the north of Israel].

 I spent most of my time in a forest. And then I got something that you could call Devykut. Devykut means literally "attachment with God." 


But outside of the subject of of this devykut, I would like to defend the Arizal [Isaac Luria--known by the short name the Ari] here in a philosophical way.
 The system of the Ari is Neo Platonic. That is is assumes a very Neo Platonic system, and then develops it in great detail based on the personal insights of the Ari himself-not on reasoning or logic.

But what makes it particularly interesting is the fact that it looks like Plato was right. I mean let's looks at the rival schools of thought. The rationalist-- the antimonies of Kant demonstrated well the fallacy of rationalism.
The empiricists. There are a few well known simple proofs that empiricism is wrong. [See Michael Huemer's counter examples like you know an object can not be blue and green in the same place at the same time.]  Also Twentieth century philosophy is problematic. In the famous words of John Searle [at University of California, Berkeley], Post modern philosophy and all the analytic linguistic approach is "Obviously false". Just by default alone you are stuck with Hegel or Kant. At this point I rest my case. In either case you are dealing with a neo Platonic approach.

[Well I am not exactly done. I am not very happy with Hegel. But I would rather not go into that right now. And Kant many people associate with the Neo-Kant School. And that is definitely not Neo Platonic. {They also do not think we can know if the Ding An Sich  exists, and that is not Kant who wrote that we do know it exists--but its character is modified by our subjective input.} 

[It would be possible to argue with me that the Ari and Neo-Platonism do put a large degree of confidence in reason--much more than Kant. I assume this is why many Jews like were happy enough to go along with Hegel. 

[On a side note I might mention that there is another system of Kabala of Avraham Abulafia which Moshe Idel did some work on. And I should let people know that in university when people talk about Kabala they are usually talking about Avraham Abulafia, or some other Medieval system [like the "Heichalot"] and not Rav Isaac Luria. [These are relatively unsophisticated systems.] When people in the religious world talk about Kabalah, they usually means three specific people: the Zohar, Moshe Cardovaro and Isaac Luria. There is in fact almost no intersection between University Kabalah and Isaac Luria Kabalah.

There are a few different approaches to I. Luria. The best I think is Shalom Sharabi from Yemen. But there is also a good approach of the Ramchal [Moshe Chaim Lutzatto]. These are both very sophisticated approaches]. 
  

Kabalah in the Ashkenaic world after the events surrounding Shabati Tzvi are filled with interpretations from Natan his disciple. Of all Ashkenazim, only the Gra is clean. The rest of the books take the system of Shabati Tzvi in Kabalah -- but the problem is the system itself is wrong and from the Sitra Achra.
When people think they are reading holy books of Kabalah, they are getting a heavy dose of the Sitra Achra (Dark Side) when they read Ashkenazic Kabalah.

Fear of God brings to length of days. [That is that each day should be filled with things that contribute to life goals--and not having your day taken up by things you know to be a waste of time].
I think we can rely on his intuition in this but it still does not tell us how to come to fear of God.

We know the Rambam had an unusual approach to this. [Even though he hides this approach well for the sake of uninitiated still you can see it openly in the Guide.] He held that learning the work of Creation leads to fear of God. and he defines this as what the ancient Greeks called Physics.

I have only a few minutes left here so I would like just to get to my point about Fear of God.
A proper Fear of God program that would I hope lead to length of day I think could be divided into several areas.
[1] Talking to God in a wilderness or forest far from other people. [Pack a lunch and canned water] This is not prayer but opening up ones heart to God. This is very very different from prayer. One advantage of this is that prayer is for specific things that are often contrary to ones actual interest. Another advantage is that it takes exercise to get to a wildness.
[2] Musar. That is two parts. Ancient medieval Musar books and part two the Musar books of the disciples of Israel Salanter. [Christians might try to find similar books that apply to them. Perhaps St John of the Cross.]
[3] The Rambam program of Physics. This goes even for people that are not talented in Physics and Math.

An overview of philosophy today

\
And further more I want to take note of the very significant Neo Platonic approach to reason   There he divides reason into three parts reason in potential, reason in actuality and reason that is acquired. This seems highly Kantian. It assumes a kind of process where reason has gotten a hold of the data that is out there, and now has to process the data.


 This has already been noted by Edward Fesser concerning the general Aristotelian idea of potential and actuality.




This essay I wrote yesterday. But today I just wanted to add a few ideas concerning the implications of the above essay.


And most philosophers of the twentieth century have been trained in linguistics and existentialism and thus lost their ability to think logically. So in fact the only interesting thing today in philosophy is this debate between California and Colorado. (And also Edward Feser-- for Catholics.)

There is among Catholics and effort to get back to work on Aquinas and Aristotle. This is a good thing but  Aquinas never made a bridge between the First Cause who is total actuality and the God of the Old Testament. Aristotle also I see as an important aside to Plato. But his Metaphysics has an essential contradiction in it that to me makes Plato much more interesting

The path of Torah is fairly well understood

Though I think that there is a basic Torah path which involves learning Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and basic acetic practices which lead to enlightenment.

But the questions about Torah are many and I think might even be insolvable.



In spite of this I think the path of Torah is fairly well understood. We don't have a lot of questions about what the oral and written law say to do. Nor do we have a wide range of ambiguity about the world view of the Torah. These are fairly well settled issues. The problem that makes it ambiguous is not just intention either. The ambiguity comes from some mysterious aspect of the whole Torah path to perfection. For some people it seem to work and for other it does not. And this seems to have nothing to do with intention. It is just that even person has his own path he must trod down on.

OK now I hope that I have made it clear that particular aspect of Torah. But I wanted to point out a some of the basic problems about what you might call Torah world view. In this we have to start out with the assumption that the Torah is not a glass that you can pour out its world view, and substitute your own in it place. Maimonides and Saadia Geon did a basic analysis of the world view of Torah. They bring to light the basic approach to Torah that one might not be able to see by just learning Gemara, or the written Torah itself. (There is no reason to think their analysis of the world view of Torah is obsolete. No new information has been made available to suggest this.)

I want to add that not only does the Torah have a particular world view but it also has something to say about human goods.[It is not just a book of rituals.] And it sees a connection between non moral values and moral values. People might have alternative views about human goods, but they should not claim that their views are consistent with the Torah. [The issue is not what is Apikorosut/heresy. Rather what does the Torah think about a certain set of questions. If people don't agree with Torah that is their prerogative. But it is not their prerogative to claim their alternative scheme is what the Torah says.]


Here I list  a few Torah views which I think should not be up for debate (1) Reality is objective.
 (2) Moral principles are also objective and can be known through reason. [But because human beings are flawed we need the Torah to reveal to us what  reason would say about how to achieve human goods.] (3) Capitalism is the only just social system. This is obvious when you open up the Torah portion after the Ten Commandments in Exodus. You could also consult Tractate Bava Metzia for more details concerning the practice of capitalism. (4) According to Maimonides and Saadia Geon the Torah is Monotheistic. That is that the First Cause/the Creator  made the universe something from nothing--not from His substance. (5) According to the Torah the universe is not God, and it is not condensed god substance. Maimonides goes into this in great depth in the Guide for the Perplexed and Saadia Geon also goes into this in his Emunot Vedeot.

God is not identical with the world,

[1] The belief system of the Torah is monotheism.  God is not identical with the world, but that He is accessible to every human being. But access to God does not come through other human beings but by direct talking with God from ones deepest core in his heart.
This might be hard to do but it is a lot easier that running around after people for help that they can't give anyway.
[2] Part of the issue here is that there seem to be a list of things that are offered to people to promote some kind of connection with the Creator. Yoga and meditation is high on the list if you are considering Brahma to be identical with the First Cause, but I seriously doubt if this works. Also praying through other people seems to me to be problematic. Monotheism I think implies direct prayer to God, not through intermediates. This is not to disparage anyone's religion but rather to suggest to people to get together a private prayer  kit and to go out into the wilderness with hiking boots and pack lunch and talk to God directly. And not invoke any persons merit but to speak to God as you would your own parents. If you were asking your mother a favor, I do not suppose you would ask it in the name of some saint. And God I think is not less concerned about you than your own parents.

[3] Now some people go to public buildings for religious matters, This seems to be to form more of a connection with people than with God,- and I think it should be avoided unless there are social reasons involved or else to learn Torah and Talmud which does need a learning environment. But religious ceremony in public buildings in my opinion is purely negative.

[4] Often people think wearing religious clothing makes them righteous and they get an obnoxious attitude of superiority by that. but according to the Torah one ought to be careful never to display how religious you are.or even if you are religious at all. מה ה' אלקיך דורש ממך כי אם הצנע לכת עם אלקיך "What does got desire from you but to walk modestly with your God." That is to make sure to not wear religious clothing so that your relationship with God remains personal, not public.
[About the head covering.  That is just one of the things the religious like to add to the Torah to make themselves seem righteous. The origin of the whole thing is from מסכת סופרים where it says one called to read the Torah in public should cover his head. There is no law that one should cover his head any other time. It is considered a good thing but not a law. But even a good thing can turn sour when use for nefarious purposes and the religious make a show of it which is against the Torah.]

fear of God

On the subject of fear of God. On my last essay here I talked about how important it is. But I did not mention some of the pitfalls involved with it.  The problem is that fear of God, even true fear of God, is often mixed up with stupidity. He brings this idea from a verse in Job, "Is not your fear your stupidity?"   Fear of God needs to be coupled with intelligence. This is not something we see much.
Some books of Halacha in fact we find are institutionalized stupidity or concretized fanaticism.



  In spite of these problems, and even if one goes to public school, I think the basic set of Musar books [especially the Chovot Levavot/ Duties of the Heart] are important and apply to everyone across the board.


  I should just mention here one advantage of fear of God that I think if people would know about  it would inspire them towards more effort in that direction. Fear of God helps to have less of your time wasted by idiots. You get more of your life goals [or natural human goods] accomplished and less of your time is taken up by nut cases. Fear of God forms a protective cover against nut cases.

Also I should mention that to justify fear of God nowadays you really need a modified Kantian approach.

Simple Medieval philosophy would be hard to use to justify fear of God today. Simply put the reason is that there are legitimate complaints by the rationalist like Descartes and Spinoza, and from empiricist like John Locke. So you clearly need either Hegel or Kant in any case.

[Most approaches to life I judge based on the idea of where their vector is pointing to.  I.e. one approach my be full of flaws but of their vector is towards God then I will consider it kosher. Other approaches might disguise themselves in religious clothing, but if their vector is towards some human being or political ideals , then I will consider it as not kosher--even if they are strict about religious rituals and symbols. That  will not make any path kosher to me. In fact an emphasis on religious rituals will in general cause red warning lights to go off in my mind.]

To conclude the main idea here to get the basic books dealing with fear of God and learn them every day.
The basic books are Chovot Levavot חובות לבבות, Mesilat Yesharim, Orchot Tzadikim, Shaari Teshuva.
[from the Middle Ages except the second]. Then the next would be the disciples of Israel Salanter, Madragat HaAdam  [Navardok], Chochvei Or by Isaac Blazer. And the Nefesh Hachaim by Reb Chaim from Voloshin. Also the Gra has a few like the "Even Shelama," and the Sidur HaGra. If I could I would like to add to this basic set also the books coming from the Rambam--that is Musar books written by him and his son and grandson, etc.
The nice thing about Musar is it encompasses both the numinous aspects of Torah and the aspects that deal with human relationships together without emphasizing one over the other. Needless to say I think we have all witnessed people that do one part of the Torah and ignore the other part. So it is good that there is this balanced approach.
[Even Shelama collects pithy statements of the Gra from his commentaries. But sometimes the way they are written in that book do not correspond exactly with what the Gra wrote. To correct this flaw there is an edition of the Even Shelama  from Israel that brings the actual language of the Gra on the side.]

Appendix


2) The Rambam/Maimonides has an approach that learning Metaphysics brings to love of God and Physics to fear of God. [He was referring to these two sets of books by Aristotle.]
3) In any case basic Musar seems to be important. When the question is applied to non Jews I am not sure how it could be answered.
My suggestion is talking to God in a private place. That is getting into the habit of talking with God directly where ever you go. And making it  a habit to do a lot of walking so that you get a chance to tell God what is in your heart a lot. And learning Torah, the Oral and Written Law.

Israel Salanter's Musar Movement

I have been a kind of follower about the idea of Fear of God ever since I read about it in a book by Isaac Blaser --a major disciple of Israel Salanter.

This is something you really have to see his book to get a taste for. Ever since then the whole idea has gone up and down in stages for me.

To just to try to make it clear to people what I am talking about let me explain that to Isaac Blaser fear of God is the Dinge An Sich [the thing in itself].

But that original reading of Musar started a whole train of events. I read then the major corpus of the books of Musar [the Famous Five: Duties of the Heart, Gates of Repentance, Mesilat Yesharim (by Moshe Lutzato),  Sefer HaMidot, and Orchot Tzadikim (Paths of the Righteous)]. That led me eventually to notice that a lot of the books of Musar were in fact telling people to learn Kabalah. (That is most Renaissance books of Musar.) And that got me started on the Tree of Life of Isaac Luria.

He said that it relates to length of days. He said that when a day starts for most people it is short. There are lots of things to do and not enough time to do them. He said this in a context of learning Torah and doing mitzvot, but I suppose it applies in wider area of a polynomic realm of values also. [note 1]

So when I saw my days were in fact getting shorter. I was spending way too much time doing things that I knew were just plain a waste of time. I got a wake up call and realized that I had wandered too far from the path of Fear of God; and Musar.

I would like here to suggest that the idea of length of days also applies in a physical manner. I.e. that the door way to length of days can be found in books of Musar [Fear of God.] That is instead of the over emphasis on doctors and medicine I would suggest to people that have physical aliments that they also should work on Fear of God solutions. [Or to put it more bluntly--to go out a buy the regular Musar books and read them--out loud, word after word, until you get to the  end and then start again.]
[Also, I should mention that the general Musar corpus has expanded to include books like the Nefesh Hachahim by Reb Chaim from Volloshin and the Madgragat HaAdam by the Alter of Navardok. The more recent ones you might like more and you might like less, but they still contain that spark of Fear of God which is the Dinge an Sich!]

[note 1] Everyone it seems has some kind of problem with length of days issues. It does not matter if you are a movie producer, or a theoretical physicist, or the general secretary of the Communist Party in China. Half your days are spent on complete waste of time things, and the other half seems to get nowhere- even when you are doing what you know is right.
You try to do physics, and then you get to university and then you discover papers to be graded and other varieties of wasted time. Even if you are a fireman, you find this. [This hit me in particular when I went to Polytechnic University of NYU. The amounts of wasted time were enormous. I am sure everyone knows exactly what I am talking about and how it applies in their own lives.]

 I ended up at the Mir in NY.  So years were going by a no shiduchim [marriage proposals] were even offered to me while everyone around me was getting married at exponential rates.

Then a girl I knew in California decided to get me. [the blessing was during the 10 day period from Rosh Hashanah until Yom Kippur. ] She found out where I was during the Yom Kippur holidays and came there (without my knowing or telling her) and there was an arranged meeting after Simchat Torah. And then she ran to NY to get me. Nothing swayed her intentions. I told her many times in ever conceivable way that I did not want her, but eventually I did give in and I am happy I did so.

The world of religious Judaism has\ too much Sitra Achra [dark side] just waiting for naive people to stumble in. The main problem seems to be in fact in the cult the Gra put into excommunication. The Litvaks while not having much in the way of tzadikim, don't have much in the way of their opposite either.

It is almost as if the dark side found away to penetrate the world of Torah by coming in the disguise of tzadikim.
 And the only way this is possible is because there were true tzadikim that it is possible to copy in external dress and customs.

Normally I would just write this stuff in a private notebook but it occurs to me that there might be people out in the world that would like to understand what it means to learn Gemara [Talmud] properly.If I write in in a private notebook maybe no one will ever see it. On the Internet it might help people get an idea of how to learn the Talmud.

Gemara Tosphot Yoma 34b. [i.e. the Babylonian Talmud]
I wanted to mention two questions on this Tosphot.

But before I do I need some terminology. "Work done not for its own sake" = A. "Work that is not intended" is B (אינו מכווין). Pesik Risha פסיק רישא [automatically happens] is C.
In Tractate Kritut we have the case of turning over coals. For turning over the bottom coals Rabbi Shimon says he is not obligated. Tosphot says there are three reasons to say he is ought to be obligated in a sin offering: (1) Melechet Machshevet (מלאכת מחשבת). [ Done on purpose, not accidentally] , (2) damaging by fire which R. Shimon says is obligated, and (3) it is a case of  being intended and automatically happens. So why is he not obligated ? Answer (of Tosphot): A מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה.
Then why, Tosphot asks, does not the Gemara say this? Why does it say the case is B (אינו מכווין)? Answer to show the strength of R. Yehuda who says even though it is B, he is still obligated in a sin offering.

Tosphot then approaches the Gemara in Tractate Shabat 103a. There is is picking green leaves (chicory, endive (plant)) [http://www.naturemanitoba.ca/botany/wildPlants/Chicory.pdf] that can be eaten. If he does it to eat, then to R. Shimon he is obligated only once and not for the additional obligation of making his field look nicer. But we ask is it not B+C (אינו מכווין בפסיק רישא)?
 Answer: It is someone else's field.
That is just the straight Gemara.
The two questions on Tosphot concerns the way he treats this later Gemara.
Question one: Tosphot is satisfied with his being not obligated in someone else's field since it is B+C (אינו מכווין בפסיק רישא) . This is in direct contradiction to what he said in Kritut concerning the parallel case of coals.
Question Two: In his own field, we should also make a distinction if it is A מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה or not.

The 2nd question is really just a note, but not really a "kashe".


I really have to be running along but I will take a couple more minutes to make question one even more powerful.
Tosphot says the reason in Kritut that the Gemara said it is a case of B+C is because it wanted to show the strength of R Yehuda. So why, Tosphot asks, then in a later on case when he draws the coals closer to himself, the Gemara does not say the same thing? Why does it say it is a case of A?
Answer: In drawing coals it could be that he does not mind if they get hotter. So the Gemara can't say it is not intended. Only in the case of turning over coals in which case he is against the idea of the bottom coals getter hotter. He would rather they would not . But he simply has no choice since he has to get the top ones to the bottom of the pile where they will cool down and  become usable coals. My point here is that Tosphot says that even so, R. Shimon would say he is obligated to bring a sin offering except for the fact that it is A.

So why then in Tractate Shabat is Tosphot satisfied with the fact that it being B+C makes him not obligated even thought it is simply a case of his not caring whether the field gets improvement in value.

I probably should mention here that I do not mind if he is not obligated in Shabat 103 because it is A. I only wish that that would be the reason that the Gemara or Tosphot would use over there.

My learning partner made a suggestion that perhaps Tosphot meant for the original three means of being obligated to R Shimon  were meant to work together. [I.e.  that the idea B+C with the idea of damage by fire]. That is: Maybe Tosphot meant for those three original means to be obligated to work together. But if you look at the actual language of Tosphot you can see that is not what he says. But at least it might save Tosphot in a conceptual manner--even if it is not exactly what he said.



Incidentally this all came up because my learning partner and myself were looking at Reb Chaim Soloveitchik  who has very nice piece on Maimonides concerning Shabat. But after looking at his essay for a while it occurred to my learning partner that we ought to go back to the Talmud itself to get a little more background.
So that led us to this Tosphot in Yoma.




Appendix:
[1] Work done not for its own sake: Classical example: Digging a pit for the dirt, not for the hole to plant in.
Work not intended: Classical example: He does something permitted but something forbidden might result.
Pesik Reish is he does something permitted but something forbidden must result.
[2] You might take a look at the essay of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik about "work done not for its own sake" which has real grace and power. It is complete and self contained and answers some good questions about the approach of Maimonides to this whole subject.
[3] There is a third question also on the same Tosphot. It concerns the issue of how Tosphot treats the Gemara in Kritot. In that Gemara there is a case where someone pulls burning coals closer to himself. the Gemara itself says it is not obligated in a  sin offering because it is "A".work done not for its own sake.

Now to some degree we can accept this. we already are understanding that the only time lighting a fire is obligated is when he needs the coals. I might like to argue about this here but I am anxious to get to a much more glaring difficulty. Before Tosphot says one of the three reason R  Shimon would say tuning over the bottom coals is obligated is that even though it is accidental it would be obligated for even damage by fire is obligated. I mean to say that Tosphot. That is, you do not need intention to be obligated for lighting a fire. So even if he thinks he is pulling apples closer to him he would be obligated in a sin offering. how then do we say he is not obligated because of A? [That is for R Shimon you do not need melechet machashevet (מלאכת מחשבת) for fire.]

Normally, I would just write this stuff in a private notebook, but it occurs to me that there might be people out in the world that would like to understand what it means to learn Gemara [Talmud] properly. If I write in in a private notebook maybe no one will ever see it. On the Internet it might help people get an idea of how to learn the Talmud.

Trust in God

We do not find that the Alter of Navardok [the Madragat HaAdam] ( Joseph Yozel Horwitz )  tried to justify Torah based on reason.
In fact it seems that one of the minor themes that are developed in his book is the idea of tests. That is that people can have tests of their faith because of reality.

It is hard to know what he would've said about the Guide for the Perplexed of Maimonides.


On the surface it does look like a basic difference in approach.


I would like to suggest that there is no contradiction and that Joseph Yozel Horwitz was referring to a Platonic level of reality that supersedes physical reality.
 [I may not have said it in so many words, but I tend to look at the world as a superposition of a lot of planes of existence. There is a moral plane- -a world as real as this, and it is superimposed on this physical reality. This is not a thing different than Plato except that I think there are these planes right "inside" of things like Aristotle ]





I think in the West people been highly influenced by the empiricists like Hume and thus find this approach to be difficult to accept.


One of the most famous essays in the history of philosophy, and specifically in the philosophy of religion, is Hume's "Of Miracles," which is Section X in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. Yet Hume's argument against miracles suffers from a logical circularity.
While Hume is the most famous for undermining the certainty and necessity of the Principle of Causality, that every event has a cause, miracles do not in fact violate the Principle of Causality. They are caused. The Red Sea parts, not because it just happens, but because God makes it happen.
[Trust in God and learning Torah,  Gemara, Rashi, and Topshot were the major themes in the book of Joseph Horowitz. Tests that prevent one from this path were a minor theme also mentioned in his book. He seems to have the idea that Torah always comes with tests. But the tests will be different for each person. In his days the attraction of the wider world seems to have been the major test.

Today people might have tests of different paths that lay claim to be legitimate Torah paths. But regardless of the type tests involved the Alter of Navardok thought that learning Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot  every day as much as feasible defines the true Torah path.
To get to Torah you have to deal with several layers of tests. One is being thrown out of good yeshivas. The other is to run from the frauds and charlatans that claim to be following the path of Torah. There might many other tests , but these two are the main ones. Even Hillel got thrown out of teh yeshiva of Shamaiya and Avtalyon. and in the Gemara there were plenty of great amoraim that had this happen to them too.

Evil.

I would like to take the opportunity here to discuss Evil. [Not "evil" with a lower case e, but rather Evil with a capital E.]  I know where I want to get to in this discussion but the track is long. It takes us through Plotinus, Schopenhauer, Job, Kant,, Israel Salanter,  and Isaac Luria.
The most thorough analysis of this problem is in Isaac Luria.

 
1) The first place to start from is clearly Plotinus. He has  identified the Good with the One of Plato. And in his framework it is easy to get to the idea that the farther one is from the One, he is closer to evil. This make physical desires closer to evil than is generally understood in the U.S.A.. At least with Plotinus we do not get the fulfillment of ones physical desires to be identified with the good. That is something Plato already knocked clear out of the water. Isaac Luria does us all a great favor by putting Plotinus together with the pre-Socratics to have a highly powerful self consistent system.(Its flaw is it is dressed in highly mystical terminology. But as a philosophical system it is as sophisticated as Hegel and maybe more so. And I think Luria avoids many of the pitfalls that Hegel fell into.)

 So with Luria we get what looks much more like a realistic account of evil that the simple physicality approach of Plotinus which frankly is a powerful system but does not take into account that Platonic forms might also account for evil.

  At any rate, with Isaac Luria at least we are finally getting somewhere. We have got the Tzimum [(צמצום) contraction of the Infinite Light] plus the Kelipot ("shells" forces of evil) caused by the breaking of the vessels [of nekudim (נקודים)][which as part of the correction eventually became Emanation (אצילות).]
This results in two separate types of evil, one from the contraction [tzimtzum] and the other from the kelipot. [Kelipot are basically when the light hit the vessels of emanation and broke them and the pieces of the  vessels fell.]  three major groups of evil: Dimion [delusion], physical animal desires that have not be absorbed into holiness.  [Desire for honor is also an animal desires as we see by all groups of primates] (3) Evil that stems from the original contraction of the Light.

The there is the holy angel [Satan] which in this scheme seems to stem basically from the world of the Kelipot.

 the higher one goes in spiritual growth, the stronger is the evil inclination.

[Schopenhauer has a different account, but I did not find the time here to go into his account. Schopenhauer in any case is best as a modification of Kant. They both ought to be learned together.

In any case, Schopenhauer puts evil right smack into the Will. And only in a latter letter admits that in the final analysis the will itself has a higher aspect of the Good like Plato thought..



  At any rate, this brings me to the end of this discussion and the question of how to deal with evil. \ the higher one grows in spirituality the stronger and more subtle his evil inclination becomes, he can't give much of a solution except to go to a a wise man and get advice. [Now this might sound like a "cop out" but it is not. . To him, getting advice from people that are not themselves holy is the cause of  evil in the world.]


But how does this help us? We already know people that claim to be holy or whom their followers claim to be holy are often the exact opposite.

Israel Salanter's idea might be more practical.

But Israel Salanter may have hit upon the germ of an idea that can answer this question. He noticed something unique about books concerning fear of God that were written during the Middle Ages. Books concerning philosophy during the Middle Ages have something that books written  do not have. They avoid circular reasoning. Circular reasoning seems to be a plague affecting all  philosophy from David Hume  and onward. [Hume excelled in circular reasoning. (Taking apart Hume) Not only does it affect all is major ideas but he seems intent on putting it into every single chapter that he writes.] On the other hand Medieval books do have a problem of accepting as axioms things that today we would consider not  true.

Now gaining Fear of God is not directly related to the question of evil since we know Satan disguises himself in mitzvot. He never comes and says lest do something wrong. When Satan wants to trap a person in some scheme he comes and says lets do a mitzvah and then shows you why it is a mitzvah.
However Medieval books about the fear of God do one very important service- -the issue of world view. and we already know that world view issues are even more important that issues about physical pleasures.

 I think one needs the Torah to open up ones soul to the objective moral universe. And when I say Torah I mean the Written and Oral law [Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot]. I do not mean the many many books that were written after the Talmud that people claim they also are Torah. It is not the right of any individual to write some book and then claim it is Torah.


Central contrast is between knowledge and life: the study of  knowledge concerned with the collection of data is opposed to the study of the Torah as a tool for promoting life.

Every person have have a direct connection with God by going to a place where no one else is like a forest or some other place in nature an talking with God as one talks with close friend.
Sex as something very holy and precious when between a man and his wife, but something bad when not so.
If one sees his days have become short and full of wasted time, he ought to try to gain fear of God.  books of ethics written during the Middle Ages --i.e. the standard Musar books.

But before I could reject empiricism and or rationalism, I needed to spend plenty of time going as deep as I could into both approaches and to see if there were any flaws. Well, to some degree with Spinoza it was easy to see the flaws, since some were obvious and some were pointed out by later philosophers. Leibniz was more difficult to deal with. There are no flaws but it just does not click.


The problems with John Locke are the same flaws that are a part of any of the empirical schools like Hume. Obviously I was going to need some kind of Kantian approach --- or Hegel. Later I learned about the intuitionist school of thought. There is something good to be learned from all these schools of thought.




 But my conclusion is that learning Torah, Gemara, Rashi and Tosphot has universal objective value for all human beings.  I have to conclude that learning Torah and private conversation with God are better than democracy and capitalism and communism and pretty much beat every other proposed solution

But back to my original questions. This is complex. There are reasons to think that this question is complex.
First question "Test". Are you worthy of learning Torah? Perhaps some person has joined some cult that tries to turn people to a evil path and by that has come into the category of those that are not allowed to repent and are prevented from repenting from Heaven.

Talmudic Wisdom

What people have looked for in Talmud sages  is wisdom.
--not Talmudic ingenious ideas, and not moral lessons.
  

The Hebrew sages were all monotheists who held that God fashioned the world, but remained outside it [God and the world are two radically different things]


  When people ceased to find wisdom Jewish teachers there began the mass movement of psychology which dressed itself in the respectable garments and academic gowns of Science.

When people today look for  sound and serene judgment regarding the conduct of life they can't find it anywhere  except among charlatans that claim this knowledge.

Some people still make good money by pretense to this deep knowledge, though they have no idea about the truth in human life.

This creates a sense of outrage in people that feel they have been defrauded.



[1] Learning Torah is important. The main thing is Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which combines all aspects of Torah and  puts them into a simple to swallow pill form.
The reason the Avi Ezri (אבי עזרי) of Rav Shach is important is the same as when you do math you look at the proofs. You see how it is derived and then you get a true understanding of what is going on. It is like when I read the Handbook of Mathematics which gave me a general picture of the theorems, but not an understanding of any one theorem thoroughly. You need to learn how the law is derived.  

The final result of Torah is as it relates to actions and being a mensch. Get  Musar [Ethics]. 



(Torah in this context means the Old Testament (תנ''ך) and Gemara, Rashi and Tosphot). It is a gateway into the real reality hidden outside the cave.
You have to learn Talmud at home. There are exceptions to this rule. There are sometimes places [like Ponoviz in Bnei Brak and the great Litvak yeshivas of NY] where people have no agenda, and are just there to learn Torah. But these places are rare. In general, it is best to play it safe, and stay home and do your learning without bad influences around. [It is a problem today that the Sitra Achra (סטרא אחרא Dark Side) has penetrated most places of pretended Torah. Torah of the Dark Side/Sitra Akra.]


[2] One aspect of my wisdom for the world are ideas about the conduct of life that I received from my parents. One is "Balance." That is that even though it is true that we all need to sit and learn Gemara, but this needs to be done with balance. You still need to go to a technical collage or university and learn an honest profession.
You still need to go to the  learn survival skills and learn how to work together with others.

You need to be self sufficient. and self reliant. It is nice if you have  a community around you to support you, but self reliance was the first commandment of my Dad.

[3] Musar. Ethical books written during the Middle Ages concerning the acquiring of fear of God. The Middle Ages  was a time when fear of God was a primary topic, and the books concerning this aspect of life written during that period are better than anything written later. [Simply because it mattered more, -and because logical reasoning was more valued. Medieval books  never have the problems of circular reasoning that all philosophy and theology books have after that period.] And fear of God is an essential ingredient for human life.


[4] Natural Sciences.  Learning of natural sciences was an important part of life to Maimonides and my parents. I can't account for why they thought this to be so. [Physics is the hidden Torah inside of the world.

That is to say: There is no reason for anyone to say they can't learn Physics or Math. All you need to do is to say the words in order (see the Talmud Tractate Shabat page 63a that says to learn like this. לעולם לגריס אף על גב דמשכח ואף על גב דלא ידע מאי קאמר) and go on until you have finished the whole book four times. The ideas will automatically be absorbed into your subconsciousness. And then they will grow and one day you will wake up and discover that you understood all the material you thought you did not understand. I hold that learning Physics and Math is as important as the Oral and Written Law. When it comes to learning Torah we do not make a difference whether one is good at it or not. We say everyone is required to learn Torah. Once the Rambam included Physics in the category of the Oral Law, the same idea applies. We do not make a distinction whether one is good at it or not. Therefore my idea of saying the words and going on is important because it is the only way for some people to get an idea of Physics at all.

[5] Stay away from cults and false leaders that sprout up like mushrooms. Especially the world of Religious Judaism today is filled with them. And they never go away even when they die. They just get stronger.
[6] Outdoor and survival skills.
[7] I am a fan of sit-ups. There is something about sit ups that helps me concentrate afterwards that no other form of exercise can do.
[8] Hydrogen peroxide with toothpaste for brushing.
[9] Iodine  for wounds and cuts. This was well known in the USA and the USSR. The reason is it stays there and continues its anti bacterial action for longer periods than other kinds of medication.
[10] Boric acid for bacteria on feet or fungus.
[11] Obesity? Have a coffee [or tea] first thing in the morning with one whole raw egg mixed in. Beets with black bread in the morning for breakfast. [These are just my own ideas but based on the Talmudic idea of פת שחרית bread first thing in the morning.]
[12] I used to jog. I found that not convenient any more but I still think it is the best. I think for me sit-ups are important also. At least these are things that do not need a gym.
[13] The Talmud warns us about people that make a show of being religious. Especially people that put themselves forward to show they are teachers of Torah. The Talmud derives this warning from a verse in Tenach. The basic subject in in tractate Shabat "When ever you see troubles come on a generation check out the judges of Israel for all the trouble that come into the world only come because of the judges of Israel." In short that means the religious world is to be avoided at all cost. There is there some kind of unspeakable evil that parades itself as Torah.

() The Gra went did a kind of repentance called "Galut" that is wandering from place to place where people do not recognize you and not to spend much time in  any one place. This kind of teshuva has the aspect to it that it is not good to always be hidden from the way the world really is. people can get disconnected with reality when they are too sheltered. And a lot of the world revolves on status. You can't get married or get a job without status. but too much status tends to be harmful. One forgets his own faults and failings. Thus this idea of Galut is very important.

Torah stands at the door: The Will To Torah. or The Tragic Torah

The Tragic Torah

Torah Tragedy.

In the Torah and Gemara Rashi and Tosphot [Talmud] we find  Tragedy at every turn. We find the lonely individual Moses in the wilderness took the wrong step in life and hit the rock instead of speaking to it , abruptly finding himself cut off from the land of Israel forever. David after being anointed king finds himself a hunted fugitive. in the life of every Talmudic sage we find some tragic event and inexplicable mysteries.


 For Torah, the truth about life is in tragedy. True Torah, must reveal the essence of life [the ten statements by which the world was created] and thus be amoral, because life in its very core is not moral.
We know the Rambam [Maimonides] was not a particularistic. We know he held that behind every law of the Torah there is a principle at work that are  life, love, and natural law.



And as the Torah is not moral guidance but rather primal natural laws, through which the Torah both creates and destroys lesser life such as human beings and animals, Torah must be regarded as "anti-life" to morally condemn natural things such as death, pain or tragedy.

Torah life unconditionally and captures its essence of existence without flinching or defending itself with morality but with natural principles.


For the truth of Torah we need not look into historical documents but into the Platonic realm of myth and magic. and  without a strong and rich life of myths and magic , the people slowly decay from within.

 Torah is not  is not created from moral or rational principles, but from the depth of the soul of a people. The myth is the expression of that unique soul, but as soon we try to "objectify" or rationally explain its relevance, we slowly kill our cultural life and replace it with a clinic, materialist worldview. This worldview is the modern one, where we have literally killed the belief in religion, passion, magic and myth, because we no longer understand their function. We search for "objective" answers to the myth itself and unsurprisingly we find none, because the truth about life,  does not lie in the Torah  itself, but in its metaphorical expression of life.

 There is a correlation between Torah and perception of reality. We cannot gain direct access to any "dinge an sich"  objective truth, the "thing in itself"; instead, we interpret it through Torah symbolism