American judges are a serious problem. Many problems that people have in their individual lives to corrupt judges. I don't intend to go in detail into this, but let me say that I have seen this a lot. My impression is that Constitutional Law is mostly involved in Supreme Court decisions. As if that has anything to do with the Constitution. You don't encounter many judges that have actual read the Federalist Papers that explain what the Constitution is all about. This might seem like something you can ignore if you are not actually in court. corrupt judges destroy the entire society. See the last of the thirteen stories.

The basic idea of that Torah lesson is about faith in God and that when people  have a lack of faith, they fall into problems that nothing can cure not medicine, or merit of ones parents, or even calling to God in prayer. It is a long lesson but the basic idea is that if people try to get back to faith it is the corrupt judges of a a society that make it impossible.  And I definitely saw this in NY.



Now to some it is easy to critique any religious leader because you always know you have secular society to fall back on.
But what would you do if secular society itself would break apart?

This problem is similar to utilitarians that can rely on the fact that they live an a Judaic Christian society to assume everyone has a common sense idea of morality that they can safely attribute to common sense.
[The assumption of higher and lower pleasures is fundamental to Mill. And he uses this distinction to come out with a Society that looks suspiciously like one based on Torah values. ]

This is of course obviously wrong. We only think it is common sense because we grew  up in a society founded on Judaic Christian values. A society based on utilitarianism without Torah would be a society of pigs--even in theory it has to come out that way--to the LCD lowest common denominator..

So we need Torah and we need teachers of Torah.. And this applies even to the larger American society as much as to the Jewish society.

But authentic teachers of Torah? They are hard to find because in the first place anyone with ordination already has by definition a little bit of fraud mixed up with them. Maybe some more than others. But in any case true ordination died out 2000 years ago. The last people to have it were rabbi Yochanan and Rabbi Yehuda ben Levi, early amoraim. Anyone that allows themselves to be called  rabbi after that is by definition a fraud.
So this is a little different from the Catholic church or Zen Buddhism where you need ordination fir anything you do or say to have validity.
[Just as one cannot become a Catholic priest without a bishop putting hands on a head, one cannot become a Zen teacher without having been authorized by a Zen teacher. And almost always that authorization is “vertical,” teacher to student.
If someone wants to be a Zen teacher, they must be made one. And that ceremony is public or has a major public aspect to it. And for the most part there are written documents involved. And on those rare occasions if there aren’t documents, there are witnesses.
If you ask someone who claims to be a Zen teacher who authorized them and they throw you out, you may safely assume that person has made it up. If that person says the question proves you’re not enlightened, then this suggests that person has made their credentials up. If they say it is none of your business, they are probably a fraud.]

In Torah things are just the opposite. The word Rabbi has a very very specified definition according to absolute objective standards. And the Talmud itself says those standards no longer exist for anyone. So according to the strict definition of Halacha anyone called a rabbi is a fraud.
The Sefardim never had this problem until recently. Their teachers were always "the sage" the Chacham חכם
And for a long time Ashkenazim never had such a problem either.. Who ever was the most learned was the one who gave the class in Mishna between Mincha [afternoon prayer] and Maariv [evening prayer].

Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

NATO does not understand Russia. The reason is that Russia does not play by the rules. They have plausible deniability. They can send in soldiers into anywhere they want and say the soldiers were on vacation. They can show their military might all over the world and say they are simply doing training exercises.
The can't understand Russian because Russia has a whole different set of rules. In the West you want to destroy a scientist you simply print an article in a newspaper that accuse him of racism or hating women. And he loses his job and wife and children and things are back to normal. Russia has simply been sitting back an watching the West consume itself in a piranhic frenzy about  blacks, women, gays, etc. Russia does not care about any of these things. You can criticize them all day long in Russia and no one will blink an eyelash.
Russia is a bear. And they just went into their normal twenty year period of hibernation. Now they are waking up and they are hungry, and looking for something to eat.

I usually don't use this space for politics. And I might just delete this whole essay. But for now that I am on a role let me just say I can see the position of Russia concerning eastern Ukraine. The Russian point of view is simple. People in the East of the Ukraine  want to be Russians, so let them be Russians. They also think they the Russians civilized the Ukraine, and without them the Ukraine would be everything they say they are. And they are 100% right. Two very valid points.
What I was thinking is anyone in the East of the Ukraine that wants to be Russian, perhaps they should be given a certain sizable sum of money to go live in Russia? It is not the best idea but it is certainly better than war.

Trust in God

The opinion of God in the book of Job that it was blasphemy to accuse God of being just. Then what exactly is the idea of trust?

Job was saying that he was guiltless. And his friends were saying that God never punishes anyone unless they are guilty. And God in the end came and said that his friends were wrong. Though you could explain it differently but we know from the narrator's perspective that the simple explanation is correct. So then what does it mean to trust in God?

Answer: Trust in God is an independent variable than whether one is doing good or not.
Joseph Horvitz [The author of the מדרגת האדם] (student of  Israel Salanter ) brings the statement of the Sages on the verse, "One who trust in God kindness will surround him." (Psalms 16) They say: "Even a wicked person that trusts in God, kindness will surround him."
  The way this is understood is one should be doing God's will.  And using his or her reason to understand what God's will is. But even if one fails and misunderstands Gods will, then still trust alone will save him.
In theory it applies even to people that knew they were transgressing God's will. Because trust is an independent variable.
  The Geon from Vilnius (Elijah) also said in a similar vein one who trust in God even though  transgresses major sins, is better than one who keep all the Torah and mitzvot. [In the book אבן שלמה]

   I discovered this book called the Level of Man (Madgragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם). [This is known today by the name Navardok]
And this book has trust as  central theme. And what makes it all the more interesting is the fact that the author did practice what he preached. But also after I left the Mir to go to Israel there was something about this approach that stuck with me. Maybe even until this very day.
So the fact that there was a time I actively tried to walk in that path and for a time it worked and for a time it seems to have puttered out makes wish I could figure out the proper approach.
People of course know the argument between the Chovot Levavaot [Duties of the Heart] and the Gra about effort--השתדלות.
The former says one should do effort, and the later says not.
The proper approach is to do what God asks of you. [But even this how do yo know? It was assumed you use your faculty of reason to try to understand as best as you can God's will for you, and then if you do that then it is understood that everything else would be taken care of from Heaven.] [Or to be as explicit as possible: learn Torah and everything will work out.]

But to get back to my story, there was a time that I decided --also based on my understanding of Torah that I ought to work for a living and stop the trusting in God approach. That not only did not work, but it seemed to me that I was being shown a lesson from heaven of what happens to a person when he trusts in his own efforts and abandons trust in God.--Everything not just falls apart, but it falls apart with a vengeance.
Of course this probably was because of the vector involved, and probably has little to do with whether the actual law (Halacha) was like I was thinking. If ones vector is to God and then he turns away, that is probably worse than if the vector was never pointing in that direction in the first place.
[Trust is not just a principle to do what is right and assume God will help you. It is also a key decision making tool. It helps to decide what to do.]

How this applies in the larger world I am not sure. I am only trying to give people an idea of how it applies in my world in my realm of decisions that I have to make. People in different situation might find this principle applies in different ways according to their present problems.
For the general public that are interested in this  recommend the book Madragat Hadam which give the best presentation I have seen on this subject.

My learning partner today discovered Handel, and was very impressed. He said to me that Beethoven said that Handel was the greatest composer who ever lived. I mentioned to him that some time after Handel there was in the USA some composer who people said would be a second Handel. I was saying this implying that such a thing is ridiculous. It is like people today list the great composers and put Beethoven and Mozart together with some pop jerk.
And he made an interesting observation--that they all lived under nobility. It was an age when everyone believed in God, and everyone worked, and everyone believed in Torah, and there were kings and princes.
[It is like him to see this. When ever I bring up the idea of democracy and the Constitution of the USA, he is never impressed. From what he can see, the USA only worked well until it was invaded by the 3rd world.]
I once came into the home of the daughter of Bava Sali and they were playing on the stereo the Messiah of Handel.
I have not seen her nor her family for a few years, but every minute I spent with them was precious.
One thing I learned from her and her son Shimon Buso was the world view of Bava Sali and his general approach.
It was basically in a nut shell the approach of the Gra (Eliyahu fromVilnius) and Israel Salanter. That is it was a limited idea of what Torah is. Torah is Torah, and everything else is not Torah. And we are all obligated to keep the commandments from the Torah and the "fences" made by the Sages. A no nonsense approach.
Musar (Ethics) was the main thing to learn. [You ask them yourself, but believe me, Musar was foremost to this family. That is they really say the idea of Israel Salanter that everyone should learn Ethics/ Musar as being the truth and the way.]


Navardok means to learn Torah  with a lot of Musar, and a lot of emphasis on trust in God with no effort (that is no השתדלות).
But let me say I can't endorse everything about Navardok. Though I agree the major learning has to be in Talmud and Musar, I still feel (based on the Rambam and the many Musar books based on his approach from the Old Sefardi school of thought) that Physics and Metaphysics are also important. Plus a Boy Scouts type of program --to teach character and self reliance and morality..
Appendix
Here is my how and why to learn Physics program:
My  idea about learning Physics is this.
The first twenty minutes in the morning are essential. Also the last twenty minutes in the day before you go asleep. When you wake up get a coffee or tea or both and learn  some work of fear of God [Musar] and then  Physics/Math before anything else.
[Then during the day of course one should learn Torah.]

And the desirability of this, I base on Maimonides alone. You will not find many tzadikim that agree with this. But I still feel that in this case the Rambam was right.
And the way to learn it I have found is not that different from learning Talmud. You need a fast session and an in-depth session.  The in-depth one for me has varied over time. One thing I try to do is to concentrate on one small subject for forty days straight. The fast session is like it sounds--say the words in order and go on.

To the Rambam, Physics is the key to fear of God. So I don't consider it a waste of time from Torah. The other opinion along these lines is the Geon (Eliyahu) from Vilnius, who considered all of the seven wisdoms to be essential for understanding the Torah.

Besides the basic ideas of the Gra and the Rambam about the desirability of this, it makes sense to have a means of living without using the Torah for making money.

There is some kind of spiritual awakening of the higher world when one is doing the 39 types of work in this world that correspond to the 39 of טל אורות אוריך (dew of light) and the 39 types of work by which the work was created. He saw in nature and in the study of nature a higher purpose. And if not for people that were making a religion of science, he would have shown how science and Torah are connected are one.
[Sometimes he hints to this like in the above example where he brings the idea that the tabernacle in the wilderness was like heaven and earth so work-i.e. doing any one of the 39 types of labor waken the corresponding component in the work of Creation]

Leviticus 4

Just a drop of background information. We want there to be separate penalties of doing any of the four services for idolatry. That is if one sacrificed an animal and then bowed to it, he would bring two goats instead of one to the Temple in Jerusalem. R. Aba  suggested in the Gemara that this might depend on the argument between Rabbi Jose and R. Natan. R.Josi says why does it say on Shabat not to light a fire--to tell us it is a prohibition. [Not Karet,cutting off from ones people. That is is only a prohibition.] R. Natan says to divide the works.
so in idolatry. "Bowing" [Deuteronomy 17] comes to tell us it is only a prohibition to R Josi, and R Natan would say to divide.






Rav Joseph said no to this idea. He said everyone agrees in idolatry that the four types of service are divided. And he learns it  the same way even in Shabat people learn the division of work.







 אם נפש אחת תחטא בשגגה  מכל מצוות ה' אשר לא תיעשנה ועשה אחת מהנה  "If a soul sins by doing one of the commandments of God that are not allowed to be done and sins by doing one of them."

(from Leviticus 4:1)

We have got a whole different issue in Sanhedrin 62A about the words  אחת מהנה.
This seemed to me to be a little familiar from tractate Shabat 70, but I saw something unusual today.

The major issue here is if a person has any of the forbidden sexual relations brought in Leviticus 22 and 23 by accident [like having sex with his sister, or a male, or an animal, etc.] or eats a sacrifice outside of the specified area of the Temple or walks into the Temple before going to the a natural body of water [river or pond] and getting sprinkled with the ashes of the red heifer, then he has to bring a sacrifice.
But just to be a short as possible I wanted to concentrate on doing "one of them."
The basic idea here is this:
אחת מאחת הנה מהנה אחת שהיא הנה והנה שהיא אחת
"One from one, them from them, one that is them, and them that is one."
The most obvious question here is the second drasha [extrapolation]. That is, we understand the first  extrapolation [drasha] perfectly well. It could have written "one" and instead it wrote "from one." That is obviously coming to tell us something. But what is the second extrapolation ? "Them from them." How, I ask, could it have written only "them." בעשותה הנה? That makes no sense! In Hebrew you would have to write אתהן! [Object form, not subject form!]


I think is this Rashi  thinks the whole word ''מהנה'' (from them) could have been dropped. That is at first glance it looks like the idea is it could have written הנה ''them'' and instead wrote ''from them'' מהנה. But that clearly is wrong because them הנה is not an object. This is what I think Rashi is pointing to in Tractate Shabat 70a  and also  Sanhedrin 62a; that it is the whole word that could have been left out.
That means that we understand sometimes he forgets one thing אחת "when a souls sins and does one"  and for that one he is obligated  several sin offerings "One that is a 'them'". and sometimes he does many acts and is obligated only one--"them that is 'one'"
That is just like in Shabat if one forgets that it is shabat and does many different types of work he is obligated only one sacrifice. If he knows it is shabat, but forgets  that certain type of work are forbidden, then he is obligated for every single type of work. So is the same for idolatry.


'

There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.

 There is outer service towards God and inner service. Inner service is learning Torah, and prayer. Outer service is physical labor for a living.
If God would always bring plenty into the world people could learn Torah with no work. And this he sees as being the best option. But sometimes the flow of blessing is held up at one end, so people have to work. And that work itself is serve of God. It is however outer service. And it is considered inferior.
But it still brings blessing because the 39 types of labor awaken the 39 types of work that went into creating the universe. The dew of light-טל אורות טליך
this  clears up for me  the idea of Trust in God.


 And I had been reading the Madragat HaAdam מדרגת האדם by  Joseph Horowitz. And it was confusing to me how he could emphasize trust in God without doing any effort on one hand, and my seeing lots of statements in the Talmud about the importance of work.


In fact, for a couple of years I had been reading the ethical works of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius], and Israel Salanter also, and I could not make sense of it all. On one hand I knew the decision  of the Rambam/Maimonides and the general approach of the Talmud about combining work with Torah. On the other hand with the Gra the emphasis is with learning Torah.


Appendix:
1) The Madragat HaAdam says that:
מכאן שאין האדם צריך לשום השתדלות, אלא מה שנגזר על האדם יבוא ממילא, בלי שום סיבה כלל
"From here we learn that a person does not need to do anything, but what is decreed on him will come automatically without any effort on his part at all."

  That means--that one can learn Torah and does not have to work--because (1) you are trusting in God and when one trusts in God God will fulfill that trust,   and (2) one is doing what is obligatory on him by learning Torah.

  But this does not leave room for times when ones prayers are not answered. . There are times when God simply does not answer, and then one does have to work.The blessings can be held up because of all kinds of different reasons.


) The story about  Joseph Horwitz was that he was a student of Israel Salanter [the founder of the movement geared to tell people to learn Musar/Ethics]. He practiced this idea of trust in God  in Russia and his son in law was in Ponovitch (before Rav Menachem Shach) The Stipler. [Author of the Kehilat Yaakov ]

 I hope it is clear I am not implying in any way I have succeeded in reaching anything like these high levels. I am merely discussing goals which I wish I would have. I am the scum of the universe.
On the other hand there was a time I was trying to do this trust thing. And it did in fact work. It is just I think that once one has left the door closes behind him. But if someone could start out fresh, just learning Torah straight and not using it for money in any way but only to trust in Divine providence I think that things would work out.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need to learn Torah and do what it says

. But embedded in the very nature of things are solutions to these problems. For we find that a lot of times of Torah refers to the idea that a judgment is made in heaven against some person of group of persons. For example we have Sodom where there was a decree to destroy it. And yet a discussion God had with Abraham weakened the decree and in fact resulted in the coming into the world of Ruth [from the book of Ruth]-- the grandmother of King David.
Naaman the Syrian general had leprosy. He went to Elisha the prophet. Elisha told him to wash in the Jordan river.
  He laughed at that and said "Are not the rivers of Ashur greater the little stream of the Jordan?"
  But his servant said, "What would you lose to try it?"
  He went and tried it and was cured.

The idea is sometimes there is a little thing one can do to turn around his whole life. One small mitzvah. Something that seems insignificant.

The Gra (Eliyahu from Vilnius) also refers to this idea in a few places. But he concludes that it was only in the time of the prophets that one could go to a prophet and find out what what particular good deed should he emphasize in order to lessen the judgments from on high. Now we just need tolearn Torah and do what it says


But the idea that one can lessen judgments by doing some right action is a powerful idea. Especially if you think there actually is such a thing as a way to lessen judgments.
Sometimes in older books you find similar things. The Ari has a certain number of fasts one should do for certain sins. and he would also tell people to concentrate on certain Divine names during those fasts.
To some degree you might think this is an idea that can be abused and you are right.  But chemistry also can be misused, and auto repair manuals also.

My basic feeling is that the best way of lessening judgment is to learn Torah for its own sake. [That is the Oral Law and the Written Law.


Learning Torah in this sense does not mean you have to be doing it all day. What I am asking for is an hour every day of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot with a learning partner. After that, go to school, or go to work, or go to the beach and pray for waves and surf. [But don't speak Lashon Hara, gosip]
I do not think that God is automatically interested in human good. [See Schopenhauer.] I think that most of the time it is just the moral laws embedded in nature that act to reward and punish people. And there is no reason to think the First Cause has to be concerned with humans. But I also think that when humans decide to turn to Him in truth, then he is concerned.
So the logical thing to do would be to turn to Him, by Torah, prayer, and marriage

 But there was a time that my idea of service towards God was really that of the Gra-. That anything you do beside learning Torah is step down. It was understood that there are lots of mitzvahs one must do in situations when no one else can do them like the law is decide din the Talmud, but still mitzvahs are not considered as precious as learning Torah. And I can't disagree with this because to  a large degree I think it did help me in quite amazing ways. When I learned Torah in such a fashion and with that type of commitment, I got married, had children, had a kosher means of living, went to Israel etc. Everything was working just like it was supposed to in theory. Theory and experiment matched perfectly. I did my end of the bargain-- I learned Torah and God kept his end of the bargain. "Anyone who accepts on themselves the yoke of Torah they take away from him the yoke of government and the yoke of making a living." [Mishna in Pirkei Avot.]

If you have more than an hour to learn, the my feeling is  to learn the Mishna, Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Tosephta and Sifri and Sifra and all the writings of the Ari. ''a little is also good.'' and learn every day a little bit of each book. and just open a Talmud and learn a page of Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and put in a place marker and the next day go to the next page. etc. and similarly with all the above sessions. And also all the books of Musar/ethics in the same way.
Don't worry if you do not understand at first. Just say the words in order and you will automatically understand. And if you don't understand right away you will eventually understand. And even if eventually you do not understand--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else.