The Universe is expanding. So two thousand years ago stars were closer to Earth. So three medium stars would have been able to be seen sooner than they are nowadays. (Nowadays three medium stars come out at 45 minutes in Israel.)
This might explain why the Gra holds the night begins 13.5 minutes after sunset instead of  72 minutes.
We find in the Gemara Pesachim that there is a four mile walk from sunset until the night. But the Gra says that refers to when all the stars come out and does not refer to the halachic beginning of night.
Most Rishonim hold by Rabbainu Tam that the night starts after 72 minutes and that is what I have been accustomed\ to do for years. But at least we can understand the Gra.

The medium three stars thing is given in Shabat along with an argument about 2/3 or 3/4 of a mile from sunset until night. The thing that makes the Gra convincing is that the Gemara in Pesachim is not dealing with when the Halachic night begins.



Here is the basic idea here in Hebrew but with a little more detail.



 בעניין שקיעה של רבינו תם. רוב ראשונים פוסקים כמו ר''ת. אני מתקשה להבין את הגר''א. השתדלתי למצוא אופן שהגר''א יכול להיות בהתאם עם הגמרא בשבת, ועדיין לא מצאתי אופן כזה. אם הגר''א היה צודק, היה בהכרח לראות  כוכב בינוני אחד בשקיעה הראשונה, ואחר כך עוד אחד בתוך כמה דקות.
  זה כדי ששקיעה תיחשב להיות בין השמשות. וזה רק אחרי שכבר קודם השקיעה, היינו צריכים לראות שלשה כוכבים גדולים. ואי אפשר לדעת את הממוצע של קבוצה מסוימת אלא אם כן יודעים את כל הדברים שיש בקבוצה, ואי אפשר לדעת מה זה כוכב בינוני אלא אם כן קודם זה רואים את כל הכוכבים (שאפשר לראות אותם בלי משקפת), ואז אפשר לדעת מה זה "בינוני". ואז צריכים לבחור כמה כוכבים בינוניים, ולראות מתי הם יוצאים בליל המחרת. אני עשיתי את זה, ולפי מה שראיתי, לא יוצאים כוכבים בינוניים עד בערך ארבעים וחמש דקות אחר השקיעה בארץ ישראל.
תוספות רי''ד בשבת מפרש רבינו תם גם לשיטת חכמי יוון  (שחכמי ישראל הסכימו אתם בגמרא בפסחים)- והם אמרו שאין מסדרון (פרוזדור) שהשמש נכנס בו בשקיעה.  רב נטרונאי גאון אוחז בשיטת הגר''א. אבל רב סעדיה גאון אוחז בשיטת רבינו תם (מצוטט באבן עזרא שמות י''ב פסוק ד').
החלל מתרחב. ולכן לפני אלפיים שנה הכוכבים היו קרובים יותר  לארץ.ולכן היתה אפשרות לראות שלשה כוכבים בינוניים קודם הזמן שהם נראים היום. היום שלשה כוכבים נראים אחרי ארבעים וחמש דקות אחרי השקיעה. וזה עוזר לנו להבין את הגר''א שאוחז בשיטה שהלילה מתחיל אחרי שלש עשרה וחצי דקות. אנחנו מוצאים בגמרא פסחים שיש מהלך ארבע מילים מן השקיעה עד הלילה, אבל הגר''א אומר שזה מדבר על הזמן שרוב הכוכבים יוצאים, ולא על התחלת הלילה על פי הלכה. ויש סיועה לזה בגלל שהגמרא הפסחים אינה מדברת על התחלת הלילה לפי הדין. והגמרא נתנה שיעור שלשה כוכבים בינונים רק לסימן, לא מה שקובע את  הלילה.

 So what i am saying here is that I think if you look at the issue in Shabat that you will see the Gemara holds the time after sunset is what determines the night and that the stars are given as a sign.
Now I do admit this is not like 99% of the rishonim and it is not like Saadia Geon. But there are people that depend on the Gra and from what I can see in the Talmud itself it looks like the Gra was right.
Anyway people have heard of the idea of majority opinion when it comes to Rishonim but that would be against all the rishonim to decide any halacha like that. The idea comes from the beit Yoseph when he could not find a majority between the Rif, Rambam, and Rosh  and he presented it as a way to decide which way the halacha probably would be, not as his own decision and not as the ipso facto Halacha.

In fact this might be a good place to bring what Reb  Chaim from Voloshin writes about about halacha.
Many have stumbled and thrown off from themselves the labor of learning the Talmud in order to derive halacha. For they say learning to do is only learning the Shulchan Aruch. And even those that learn Gemara do it only to make themselves smart....
and that is not the straight path...The main halachic decision always has to be from the Talmud itself and the learning of the Shulchan Aruch is only as a reminder

The problem here might be the rate of expansion. 2000 years might be simply too short a time for the expansion to make any difference.

Here is a short introduction.
On the Sabbath Day, Jews are not allowed to work. If a Jew works on the Sabbath, he must bring a sin offering. But let us say he knew today is the Sabbath but he forgot about two different kinds of work. Does he bring one sin offering or two? This is no mystery. WE know already that he brings two.
[These sin offerings are stated in the Holy Bible in Leviticus chapter 4.]
Now there are lots of kinds of sins for which a Jew has to bring a sin offering. Another example is eating blood or forbidden fat. So lets say he forgot about the prohibition to eat blood and also forbidden fat. The we also know he brings two sacrifices. [This can get to be expensive. Each sacrifice has to be a sheep or  goat. You can't bring turtledoves or pigeons except for specific sins.]

We know what kind of work a Jews can't do on Sabbath because the Bible tells Jews not to build the Tabernacle on the Sabbath. So we know what ever type of work was needed for building the Tabernacle, we can't do on the Sabbath.



Rabbi Zachai said Shabat is more strict than other commandments in the Torah because if one does two acts of work by one "forgetting" on Shabat he brings two sin offerings (Leviticus 4), while for other commandments he brings only one

The Talmud [Gemara in Sanhedrin 62]   for some reason does not like this. But what Rabbi Zachai says makes plenty of sense. If one knows today is Shabat but forgot about two kinds of work he does bring two sacrifices. This is called חילוק מלאכות division of labor.
What it seems the Gemara is trying to ask is that Shabat has divisions in side of it while other rmitzvot do not. But if that is what it is trying to ask then why does it not ask it? Instead it goes into the problem in an elliptical way. It asks: What two works are we talking about here? If harvesting and grinding then but other mitzvot we are talking about forbidden fat and blood. But there two there are two sacrifices.
If on Shabat we are talking about two acts of the same kind of work like harvesting the also by blood there would be only one sacrifice.

I have heard it often enough for it to seem to be a pattern. I think some people don't feel the holiness in the Talmud.
At first I did not think anything of it.


But then I noticed even sincere people that long for God's holiness sometimes do not feel what is happening inside the Talmud.
Sometimes people close to me  would see me learning Talmud and  did not feel what or why I was doing so.
Sometimes you hear from a Breslov person that he walked into a Litvak (Lithuanian )Yeshiva and all he saw was people talking about some subject in the Talmud and they were not talking about God. And this was always presented as a proof to me that in Lithuanian yeshivas people don't think of God.
[Of course that is silly because we really don't have a lot of information about God. We know he is the First Cause who made everything something from nothing. And that is about it.]
In any case I have realized that there are people who don't feel what is going on in Talmud learning. So I would like to tell people what it is. It is numinosity. It is not that it makes devekut (attachment with God) possible but rather it is a level of devekut in itself.

And it simply is not that case that people don't think about God. From the day I left the world of Lithuanian yeshivas until today I have not seen one single prayer with the fervor and intention I saw at the Mir. At the Mir you could feel the Divine presence [Shechina] descend into the building during the morning prayers.

The Rambam (Maimonides) says prophets and the later scribes [sofrim] were allowed to add mitzvot but they could not say that God revealed the mitzvah to them. And if they would they would be stoned as a false prophet because God has already told us that the Torah he gave us is permanent  and that he will never add any mitzvah nor subtract any mitzvah.

And that was only until the end of the time of the Talmud. After the Talmud, no one has permission to add or subtract even a mitzvah derabanan [rabbinical decree].

OK. That is the introduction.  Now the question is about the blessing we say of lighting the Hanukkah lights. We say "who commanded us to light .." Would it not make more sense to say "Who commanded us to listen to the Sages?" After that is how the Rambam tries to get out if this problem. He says we are commanded to listen to the sages and they told us to light the Hanuka lights.  (There is also the issue about the main idea of לא תסור don't turn aside from what they say refers to the Sanhedrin.)



I remember sitting by Reb Shmuel Berenbaum with my wife one Yom Tov and he talked at the festival meal about this or something related. Later I noticed a similar discussion in a commentary of the Rambam. But it was a long time ago. It might have been related to the idea of the second day of the festivals in which the regular blessing are said. (The second day of the festival is not a law but a custom based on where the witnesses can arrive.)

Now all this is just common sense. We have Jewish communities in the Middle Ages and every community was able to make laws for its own members.  Just the laws would not have the force of a rabbinical law.
The problem is nowadays when all kinds of people claim to have divine revelation about some new mitzvah. This to me seems to be a problem.
You can even see this in Breslov which is generally just people sincerely looking to keep Torah.
But the leaders often claim Divine revelation. Just today I asked some fellow from Israel if he ever tried to be in a yeshiva. And he said he sold everything and came to Jerusalem  and found a job  and then walked into one Breslov yeshiva. It happened the minute he walked in the Rav was giving a lecture and was discussing the fact that he had critics. And he asked, "How can they criticize me when I have these amazing revelations from Heaven?" So Breslov does not seem to be immune from the general kinds of delusions which haunt the world of hasidim.

At any rate I do not mean to leave this hanging. My learning partner brought this up, and I do hope to recheck the Mishna LaMelech and Lechem Mishna  and (Ramban) Nachmanides about the issue of how there can be any such thing as a rabbinical mitzvah in the first place? [Since we are not allowed to add or subtract from the Torah. If anything comes up I hope to post it here.]
[I mean that the Ramban wrote a critique on the Rambam's Sefer Hamitzvot where he goes into this. I know he goes into this issue over there.]



I only mean for this blog entry to be an introduction to this problem.

I have mentioned learning fast a few times. . But the first time I saw this concept was from a book Biyan Olam בנין עולם which was from some Litvak in Israel. And in fact the Gra mentions this concept himself. And it is brought in the Talmud itself. [Avoda Zara 19:a] What slows people down is the Magen Avraham who people will always quote to you [not in his name] who held if you don't understand, it is not called learning. But it looks like the Gra did not hold from that particular Magen Avraham. [Orach Chaim 50 paragraph 2]
See the new edition of אבן שלמה from Israel where the editor brings proof of this in the Appendix

The Gemara says:
Rava said one should always say the words and go on even though he forgets and even though he does not know what he is saying.

I found this approach encouraging while I was in yeshiva because  the yeshiva I was in was into learning in real immense depth. That is a good thing. But I also needed this counter weight to get a general idea of what was going on.
And I should mention that at the Mir in NY, it was a given that in the afternoon one was supposed to be learning fast.

The Geon from Villna says two things stop a person's prayer from being accepted. One if he has sins.
The other is not relevant right now.

 But if you want your prayer to be answered and you know you have done some sin , it makes a lot of sense to go to someone who in your best judgment is righteous. The problem is deciphering who is a tzadik.
being a tzadik after the time of the Baal Shem Tov became big business.

If what Putin is doing is escalation, then I would say now not to escalate. The worst thing would be war. So if Putin wants Donetsk and Lugansk, then let him have them. What is the big deal anyway?
What exactly is in Donetsk that makes it worth a world war? Some coal?
Now normally speaking I would not say this, because it is not nice to just walk in and take over. But most of what good there is in the Ukraine comes from Russia anyway. The buildings and the infrastructure, schools, doctors, etc. all come from when the Ukraine was part of the  USSR.

As it is it is hard to do any kind of business in the Ukraine because business agreements are worthless. You can buy a apartment from someone you think is the owner and the next day the real owner shows up and asks what are you doing in my apartment? In Russia at least business is possible.


But this is all not really relevant to the main point. What seems to be happening is that Putin seems intent on matching whatever the Ukraine does. If the Ukraine sends in more troops then Donesk makes a draft and the Russians send in hardware and military advisers. There is not end to this scenario except not to escalate in the first place.
Don't send in more troops and then Russia will not send in more troops. And the young soldiers on both sides get to live out their normal lives instead of dying over a border which has always been fluid.

Even the critics of Musar(--the movement of Israel Salanter to get people to learn Jewish books of ethics from the Middle Ages-) admit it brings one to fear of God.  In fact that is their major criticism of it. They don't like the fact that it brings one to fear God. They think that is a bad thing. So no one is disagreeing with what Musar accomplishes. Rather they don't like what it accomplishes if done with the proper fervor and intensity.

Some people might think that fear of God is a bad thing.

Highly recommended spiritual groups: The Lithuanian Yeshivas in New York, Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. But for these places you in general need to have some knowledge of Talmud. For beginners in NY I would recommend Shar Yashuv.In Israel the best is Ponovicth. But that is known anyway as the MIT and Cal Tech of all yeshivas.

Less recommended  are almost any other Litvak Lithuanian yeshiva.
But cult places are to be avoided at all cost. They are dangerous cults (as the Gra pointed out).
But they have charisma, and people get spiritual highs from cults. Even so they are traps.
Sadly, some people feel that dangerous cults are only found in Hindu or Buddhist  groups. They feel anything Jewish is Kosher and the more Jewish and strict it is the more kosher it is. The truth is just the opposite. The more strict they are the more likely they are to be a cult. Especially when they parade their Jewishness.

The Rambam has a parable

The Rambam has a story inside the Guide about learning Physics and Metaphysics. It is the parable of the Kings palace. In short in the parable you have a country of a king in which people differ in their closeness to the king. there are people outside the country, inside, in the capital city, around the palace in the outer part of the palace and in the inner part.
The parable refers to how close people are to God. There the Rambam puts philosophers and scientists in the palace with God.
But he also makes a condition that they need to be facing God.

This comes mainly from learning Talmud. I believe in free market and family values.And any Jew that believes in Torah I highly recommend to vote Republican no matter who the candidate is.

Just for a lesson about what happens to when you attack the Republican Party whose symbol is the elephant.:

A bathing bull elephant got a painful surprise when a 13-foot crocodile chomped down on his trunk at a South African game reserve.

American tourist Ashley Lewis, 31, snapped amazing photos during her Dec. 26 trip to the Sabi Sands reserve of the reeling bull elephant rearing up on his hind legs with the croc latched onto his trunk.

“We had been sitting in our truck on the riverbank. Suddenly, about 300 yards upstream we heard loud and frantic trumpeting from an older bull elephant,” Lewis, a fitness marketer from Michigan, told Barcroft Media.

The elephant was bathing with his herd in the river when a crocodile lurking just below the surface sank its teeth into his trunk.

“The elephant reared up and down, taking the croc with him as if he was waving around a toy,” Lewis said.

The stubborn reptile loosened its grip only after the elephant slammed it to the ground, bashed it with his knee, and gouged it with his tusks, Lewis said.

The elephant then booked it out of the water, and is expected to make a full recovery, Barcroft Media reported.

The fate of the crocodile is unknown, but reserve rangers believe it likely suffered serious injuries.

http://nypost.com/2015/02/05/foolish-croc-chomps-down-on-elephants-trunk-regrets-it/

It seems to me that when I was at Walt Disney's "Its a small world after all," I got the impression that he was saying that people differ in dress, but all biological differences are irrelevant.

This came up because of my question about elite schools. The idea of my learning partner was that the USA is not elite enough. 

This seems to me to relate to the fact that most species have changed within the last 10000 years And the human species is also evolving into different species. Perhaps many different species. But at minimum we can see the major differences with be three. Whites. Blacks. Muslims.

The differences in species start with race and can come about by one groups being separate from another group for enough time. It does not matter why one group is separated from another. But it is that separation that causes the species to diverge.
This may not sound like Sunday school, nor John Locke. But it is simple biology.

In the Talmud, Sanhedrin, 62b.

Rabbi Zachi said there is something stricter about the Sabbath Day than other commandments of the Torah. For if one forgets concerning the Sabbath, and does two acts of work, he brings two sin offerings; and if he forgets about the other commandments, and does two acts, he brings one sin offering.
This is part of a whole discussion. But for now I wanted to make note of an amazing question.
It is the fact that the Gemara asks on Rabbi Zachi, and even as the Gemara tries to answer him, it still remains clear that the Gemara is unhappy with his statement. 
It asks, 
"What is he talking about? If one forgot two types of work on Shabat--so that he is liable twice, but also for other commandments if he eats blood and fat he is also liable twice. If on Shabat he did one type of work twice, he is only obligated once, but also if he ate blood twice also he is only liable once."

Then the Gemara tries to claim his statement is referring to idolatry and that will bring a support to Abyee.

But what is wrong with what he says at simple face value? We know on Shabat there is חילוק  מלאכות, division of work. He forgets two kinds of work he is liable twice. This we don't have any arguments about. If he forgot two or more areas of his beard he is not supposed to shave, then he is liable once. There is no division of work in other commandments.
This questions comes from my learning partner. And I can tell you don't bother looking at Tosphot or the Maharsha. No one addresses this. This is one thing I have found out about him. Often he will think of questions that should have been obvious but for most people are not.

You might ask maybe he means he forgot Shabat? Then he is in fact only liable one.


סנהדרין סב: רבי זכאי אמר יש חומר בשבת מה שאין כן בשאר מצוות. בשבת אם עשה שתי מלאכות בהעלם אחד הוא חייב  שתי חטאות משא''כ בשאר מצוות. הגנרא שואלת על איזה מצב הוא דיבר? אם הוא עשה טחינה וקצירה בהעלם אחד שזה חייב שתיים כמו כן בשאר מצוות אכל חלב ודם הוא חייב שתיים. אם עשה שתי פעולות  טחינה שזה חייב אחת כמו כן אכל דם ודם וחייב אחת. יש פה קושיה גדולה. מה שרבי זכאי אומר  בדיוק גמור. בשבת יש חילוק מלאכות משא''כ בשאר מצוות. בשבת אם עשה שתי מלאכות בהעלם אחד-היינו ששכח שתיהן- הוא חייב שתיים.  אם שכח ואכל שני מיני חלב הוא חייב אחת.

To make this clearer: the Gemara is treating the works of Shabat as separate mitzvot. But they are not. They are only part of one mitzvah--Shabat.

I am not saying there is no answer here, but it eludes me for the moment. [Two years later I am pretty sure I never found an answer.]

When I was in high school I felt I needed more of a challenge. The school I was in was going too slow for my taste. [Today looking back on it it is hard  to see what I was thinking.] In any case, my parents made the efforts and found an elite private school that had very high standards and feed into the Ivy League school in the USA. After they accepted me, when it came time to make a final decision to attend or not I backed down. This gives me a little perspective on what an elite school is.

I now have a little perspective on some mistakes I made in life after  that. Because a one time I was in a very good yeshiva in NY--the Mir. And then I got involved in Breslov. And I must have been thinking that by leaving the Mir and joining Breslov that was coming close to a true tzadik. Yet now I see that leaving an Ivy league yeshiva to join a mass movement is not the same thing as coming close to a tzadik. In fact now it looks to me just the opposite. Joining Breslov in no way implies one is coming close to a tzadik. In fact, what ever fear of God one has before he joins, he will probably lose because of the nonsense people say. \?

Saturday is the day of the week one is supposed to rest from labor. We know what "labor" means because the Bible tells us to build the Temple, but not to do so on Saturday.
So we know that the types of labor that went into building the Temple are the types of labor you are not supposed to do on Saturday.
If one forgot that today is Saturday and did some kind of work, then he brings a sin offering (Leviticus chapter 4);-- a she sheep or a she goat. It is best not to forget because this can get to be expensive.
There are other kinds things for which one brings a sin offering. One example is eating fat that is over the stomach of a cow. [That is called chelev in Hebrew]. But that is indistinguishable from fat from other areas of the animal. So lets say Joe is at his table and eats a piece of fat he things is allowed.
Then Mr Smith comes in and asks, "Where is the chelev I left on the table?" Joe brings a sin offering. But he would also bring a sin offering if he thought chelev is permitted.
That is: there are two kinds of accident for which one brings a sin offering; (1) a mistake in material facts, or (2) a mistake in law.



If you forget it is Shabat is that the same as a mistake in material facts or in law?
What I am getting at is this.
One bows to an idol and he did not know it is an idol. He is not liable.
But if he thought it is not an idol because it is made of clay, not silver or gold, then he is liable a sin offering [a she goat].[The Book of Numbers 15] Rambam שגגות ז:א
So he made a mistake in law and he is liable. And that is what we find in laws of Shabat also. If he did not know something is forbidden, he is liable a sin offering. But what if he forgot? You would say it is the same thing. Then in idolatry why in Sanhedrin (62b) does Abyee not say שגגת עבודה זרה [accidental idolatry] is when he forgot?
I answered once that Shabat he is required to remember so forgetting it is close to doing something on purpose.(To me today this seems ad hoc, or a Pollyana kind of making an unwarranted exception for one thing.)
But today it occurred to me that idolatry might not be like Shabat. My learning partner has suggested that you can't say someone is liable for idolatry unless there is a physical object involved.
Let's say someone bows to Apollo. Without a physical statue in front of him, you can't say he is liable
So what I suggest is forgetting Shabat where there is no physical object involved is forgetting a law, and thus he is liable. But forgetting an idol is an idol is forgetting material facts, and thus he is not liable.
Appendix: I am probably not writing this in the proper order.
In any case, you can ask: if the Rambam is right (that serving the idol he thought was allowed because it was clay), then why did not Abyee and Rava jump on that example?  Answer: They did. Rava certainly did when he says "אומר מותר". [H says it is allowed.] And Abyee is also doing the same. He is saying a case of mistake in law is a שגגה accident.
 יש ארבעים ושלשה חטאים שבשבילם אדם מביא קורבן חטאת. יש שני מיני שגגה בהרבה מהם, שגגת מציאות ושגגת דין. החברותא שלי רוצה לומר שרק כשיש הנאה יש שגגת מציאות. למשל אדם אכל חלב ולא ידע שהוא חלב ואחר כך אמרו לו. הוא חייב חטאת. אבל אדם שהרים ירק בשבת בחשבו שהוא תלוש, והתברר שהיה מחובר, הוא פטור בגלל שהיה מתעסק. לפי זה אפשר להבין אביי בסנהדרין סב: אביי אמר שאם אדם השתחווה לאנדרטא (ורש''י מוסיף ולא ידע שפעם היתה נעבדת והתברר שהיתה נעבדת), לא כלום הוא
אני שאלתי על זה מהרמב''ם הלכות שגגות ז:א' וב'. זדון עבודות ושגגת עבודה זרה חייב רק חטאת אחת. אבל החברותא הראה לי שהרמב''ם מסיים שהוא חשב שאינו עבודה זרה בגלל שלא נעשה מכסף או זהב. משמע שטעה בדין.

הבעיה כאן היא זאת. כשהרמב''ם רוצה למצוא שגגת עבודה זרה הוא הולך לטעות בדין ואז הבן אדם חייב קרבן. וכשהגמרא רצתה למצוא שגגה שהוא פטור בשבילו היא הלכה לטעות במציאות. איפה הדיון הפשוט? שהוא שכח שהצורה הזאת היא עבודה זרה??
  רואים מזה שהגמרא והרמב''ם מדקדקים לומר דווקא טעות בהוראה
לא כמו שבת שבמצב שאדם שכח שהיום שבת כן הוא חייב קרבן.
אני חשבתי לתרץ שבן אדם חייב לזכור את השבת ולכן כשהוא שכח זה קרוב למזיד והוא חייב חטאת, מה שאין כן בעבודה זרה. אבל היום חשבתי שיכול להיות שע''ז אינה כמו שבת. דוד אמר לי שאי אפשר לחייב בן אדם על ע''ז אלא אם כן יש חפץ גשמי. בלי זה אין על מה לחייבו. מזה אני בא להציע ששגגת שבת איפה ששכח את השבת אין שום חפץ גשמי. זו היא טעות בדין, ולכן הוא חייב חטאת. אבל כששכח שאיזו צורה היא ע''ז זה שכחת מציאות ולכן הוא פטור.
עכשיו אפשר לשאול אם הרמב''ם צודק למה אביי ורבא לא תפסו את הדוגמה שלו--שחשב מותר בגלל שנעשית מן חומר לא כסף ולא זהב? תירוץ: זה כן שבם אומרים. רבא אמר שגגת ע''ז היא כשהוא אומר מותר. אביי גם אמר ששגגת ע''ז היא כשעשה טעות בדין וחשב מאהבה ומיראה מותר.

Individuality is known to be an important principle.  "One was Abraham" That Abraham served God only by thinking that he was alone in the world and not looking at people that tried to stop him from serving God in the way he knew he was right.  They were trying to tell him the only way of getting to God is by intermediates. And also anyone who wants to come close to God can do so only in this same way--by not looking at the people that want to distract him.
But it is less known that the Gra said a similar thing.on Proverbs 14 verse 2.
"We know from the Rambam that for a person to correct his own character flaws he has to do things that are wrong in the eyes of people." [This we know from Maimonides in the eight chapter introduction to Pirkei Avot.]

The Gra says one who succumbs to social pressure to do what is right in the eyes of people but which he knows is wrong in terms of his own need for character correction, God despises him.

In other words there is no mitzvah to follow social norms. There is only a mitzvah to follow the Torah. And the Torah does require of people to have good character. Good character is one of the 613 mitzvot.  מה הוא רחום אף אתה תהיה רחום מה הוא חנון אף אתה תהיה חנון "As God is compassionate so must you be compassionate. As God is kind, so you too should be kind." And this is listed in the list of the 613 by the Rambam.
I have to say this because some people think the Torah requires conformity with the group. But clearly only stupid people can think that because it is self contradicting. Even so I have heard it from many people who have clearly not thought out their position.

The Gra, Eliyahu from Vilnius says that every word of Torah is a mitzvah that outweighs all the other mitzvahs.
In this context he is talking about the Oral and Written Law. You need to be careful about this because nowadays many people think any ideas that any jerk says in Hebrew is called Torah. Some go further and say that anything  some idiot with a paper of ordination from three other idiots says is a halacha. [The Oral Law is the two Talmuds, Mechilta, Sifra, Sifri, Tosephta. Five books. Nothing more or less. ]

In any case, the Gra is getting this from a Mishna and a statement in the Jerusalem Talmud.
And that is important because it has become customary to change what the Torah's view is on things in order to make it more compatible with some delusional idiots ideas of what Torah ought to say.

So this idea is money in the bank. We can count on this idea as being accurate, that every word of Torah outweighs all the other mitzvahs.
And when the Talmud says when a mitzvah comes along that can't be done by others one stops learning, the Gra says that means one is allowed to stop learning to do the mitzvah, not that he has to.


And here the Gra is making a lot of sense. For one who is occupied in one mitzvah does not have to do any other mitzvah even if the other mizvah is greater. So it makes sense that one can go and do the other mitzvah if he wants to, but he does not have to.

This is all in the way of introduction. I know the Rambam holds from learning Physics and MetaPhysics as the fulfillment of the command to love and fear God because of how it inspires a person. I just wanted to bring the idea of the Gra as a first axiom and then

 And learning Torah is like sacrifices that need to be for the sake of heaven for them to have any value. A sacrifice that is offered with intention to eat it after its time allotted is not just not a mitzvah, but karet [cutting of from ones people].

I am not one to try to decide between these people. But what I would suggest is that if we can't be learning Torah with the kind of התמדה constancy as the Gra was advocating, at least we can put in a couple of hours per day. [For people just starting that would be the written law that is to go through the Old Testament word by word from beginning to end, and the Mishna. upon which the Talmud is based. Also one session with Talmud in depth to begin to get an idea of the depths of the Talmud because that is important at the very beginning of ones learning. If you don't get that right away, you never get it. You find lots of people that think learning Talmud in depth means memorizing lots of commentaries  or other nonsense.

To the Rambam learning Physics and Metaphysics brings to fear and love of God which are the major goals of the Torah.
Let me try to be short.
The Torah is clothed in the Creation. So when you learn about God's creation you are learning God's wisdom.

But you could in theory go into this in detail with bringing different places where the Rambam go into this in more detail. This is probably a worthwhile project also since for some reason people tend to go away from physics when they start learning Torah thinking there is some kind of contradiction.

Major sources: Rambam beginning of the Guide, beginning of Mishna Torah, end of vol III or (vol II) in the Guide in the story about the palace of the King,


 To put this all together you have to start with the idea that the goal of Torah is to come to love and fear of God. Then you need the idea that the the world was created by the ten statements of Genesis, and thus those statements are the life force of all that is in the world. And that those ten statements are the clothing of the Ten Commandments. And the highest statement is the first one "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" in which it does not say openly God said. It is the hidden statement which is the life force of everything and everywhere where God's glory is hidden.
Thus Torah is God's revealed wisdom and Physics and Metaphysics is his hidden wisdom.

That is the short and simple of it.
 There are people that if exposed to straight Torah will not be able to accept it.  This explains also how often it is better for people to learn the natural sciences rather than open Torah, because זכה נעשית סם חיים, לא זכה נעשית לו סם מוות. By being exposed to open Torah one can become worse. And in fact this often happens before our very eyes.
Also seeing the wisdom inside ever aspect of creation binds ones soul to the purpose of that individual creation which in it s higher source is close to the purpose of all creation which is God's glory.




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Appendix:
1) I want to suggest that this learning should be coupled with regular books of Fear of God. Mainly books from the Middle Ages. The world after the Middle Ages lost a lot of Fear of God and so to be inspired in that direction one needs books from that period. Also Musar books after the Middle Ages have a lot of Kabalah and that tends to side track people from good charter into religious fanaticism.
This is why I think the original Musar Movement of Israel Salanter was based on Medieval books of Fear of God and not books based on Kabalah.
I was in fact in a place once that was following this approach of Israel Salanter (Musar),  and the effect was electric. (That was the Mir in Brooklyn, NY.)

To the Gra  learning Torah means the Oral and Written Law.

That is the two Talmuds and the Mechilta, Sifra Sifri and Tosephta.

You can see this even more clearly in his disciple Chaim from Voloshin. In one letter he says אין לנו אלא דינא דגמרא. we only have the law of the Talmud when he is arguing with some rav about some decision of his.

But learning Halacha was not on the agenda of the Gra. The Gra wanted people to learn the Oral and Written Torah, and after that kabalah after they had finished the Oral Law.


What I am suggesting  is to learn like the Litvaks: Gemara Rashi Tosphot with the Rambam and Chaim Soloveitchik.
 On the side I would have a Halacha session in Rambam, Tur Beit Yoseph, Shulchan Aruch. But I would not make halacha into the main thing. In the Mir in NY halacha was a half hour in the morning compared to four hours of depth Gemara until Mincha and the 4 hours of fast Gemara in the afternoon.

What does trust in God mean?

  Do you  go after your own needs, but also trust in God?
Or do you need to sit and learn Torah, and assume that what is decreed for you will come automatically? [As the disciple of Reb Israel Salanter wrote in his book Madragat HaAdam מכאן שאין אדם צריך לשום סיבה אלא מה שנגזר בשבילו יבא ממילא בלי שום סיבה כלל] (Translation: "From here we learn that a person does not need any cause, but rather what is decreed for him will come to him without any cause at all--as the Ramban/Nahmanides concluded.")

The Gra said this issue is addressed in the Gemara Rosh HaShanah 26b.
The actual text of the Gemara is just about two lines. It says:
"The people in the local study hall did not understand a strange word in a verse in Psalms יהבך. 'Cast on God  יהבך [burden] and He will support you.' And then they saw Raba Bar Bar Hana walking with a merchant, and the merchant used that word and said, 'Put  יהבך on my camel'; and so then they understood it."
The Gra explained:  "They thought that one should do השתדלות (effort), one should take actions to get his needs meet, but also trust in God. But because of that, they did not understand the verse. They thought it should say צרכיך, 'Cast on God your needs and He will support you.'  After they saw that their original assumption was faulty, and that rather one should just sit and learn and then what one is supposed to have will come automatically, then they understood the verse." (This was in fact how all Navardok yeshivas were started: two students just would come to any Russian town and simply sit and learn Gemara and Musar in the local beit midrash [study hall] and a yeshiva would just pop up around them.)
They would not ask for money. They simply learned Torah.]
This above approach was clearly what people were saying or implying in Far Rockaway [Shar Yashuv] and later in The Mir Yeshiva in NY. The idea was in incredibly simple and straightforward: "Learn Torah and God will do the rest. He will take care of everything else."  [Though if you actually try to pin me down I could not tell you if anyone actually put it in such basic fundamental terms.] [In any case, I could not say I could fulfill this. I wish I had.]

 I have a modified version of this. That is there are things which  are obligations upon me that it would not be right to shirk. And when there are actual obligations that the Torah puts upon me,  I need to do. The cases where one should trust are things that are not actual obligations.
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In the above I am presenting the idea of Navardok of trusting in God, and assuming He will help without any effort on my part. That is the path of the Gra and Navardok. On the other hand the Duties of the Heart [חובות לבבות] says one should do effort. So what we have here is an argument among Rishonim [first authorities, i.e anyone from the Middle Ages]. And I was trying to show how I try to navigate my way between these two options.
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So trust is  a kind of value that has nothing in the secular world to correspond to. And it is like walking on a tight rope over Niagara Falls. You really never know when to trust, and when to put out your own effort. It is highly personal. To bring this message to the larger public, the way to do so  is by starting a kind of Navardok yeshiva --which means a regular Litvak Musar Yeshiva, but with an extra emphasis on trust in God. [Or to set aside one room of your home or a yeshiva just for Musar. I saw this in Netivot in the yeshiva of Rav Montag there, and this makes a lot of sense to me. This helps to bring the basic message of the Torah into focus: to be a mensch, that is to have good traits.
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This kind of conflict- when to trust and when to expend effort- is really just a single example of a larger set of conflicts in values that occur in life. Much of moral philosophy deals with conflicts in values. But even conflicts in moral values are even more basic to nature that we are aware. This is an example of  logical contradictions one gets into when he enters into areas where not just human reason, but even pure reason can't enter as Kant goes into. [That is this is an area of numinous value, the dinge an sich. ]

On a personal note I think I should have stuck with the basic approach of yeshivas in those days -"Trust in God, learn Torah and God will take care of the financial issues." When I left this kind of framework, not only did things fall apart from a Torah perspective, but from a financial perspective also-- almost with a vengeance. That was  to tell me in so many words, "You abandoned Me, so I will abandon you."  Whether you ascribe this interpretation to the events that occurred at that time or not does not really matter, because the fact is this: as long as I  trusted that God would take care of things, and I sat and learned Torah,  God did take care of everything in the best possible fashion possible. And when I stopped, so did He.

Appendix:

(1) I am not going into The problem of Evil or Theodicy. While I  try to have this attitude of trust, still when things do not go my way, I do not  make that a question on God. And it seems that this is required in order to have true trust in God. It has to come with its complement--of a determination not to ask questions when things go wrong.

(2) We know the self is hidden. We can't know our motivations. We often think we are acting from the most noble motivations. It is obvious to others that this is not the case. They can see through our self deception easily. The reason we fool ourselves is we think we have some kind of  special access to know out own motivations. And that is a delusion. But we do know what we are consciously committed to. And to know that is absolutely simple. We can only be committed do what is right or not. Those are the only two options and we can know every second whether we are acting in accord with what we know is the real truth of if we are putting self interest ahead of the truth

(3) Thus what I suggest is to learn the Madragat HaAdam [the book of Musar by  Joseph Yozel Horwitz  of Navardok] in order to try to get to trust in God as much as we can. That is what I am suggesting is that learning Musar is a way of penetrating into the Hidden-Self [the Ding An Sich]. And I am pretty sure that Reb Israel Salanter must have been thinking along these lines also. Reb Israel Salanter must have thought of his system of learning Musar as being a kind of spiritual practice that can penetrate the veil that separates us from the hidden reality. And I am inclined to agree.


(4) I should mention that the greatest yeshiva in the world Ponovitch has a connection with Navardok. The Stipeler Rav, Rav Kinevsky was a son-in-law of Rav Yoseph Yozel Horwitz the rosh yeshiva of the Navardok yeshivas.  

(5) The story with Navardok was the students were taught Ethics and Trust in God along with Gemara. And the kinds of students that came out of such schools really had good character. [Students of Navardok would just go to any random Russian city and sit and learn in the local synagogue and a yeshiva would automatically pop up around them.
Kelm learned Musar most of the day. The Mir (in the city Mir) learned from I think about from 1.5 or more hours per day of Musar after it became  a Musar yeshiva. [But in NY, the Mir had a 20 min. session in Musar before the afternoon prayer and 15 min. before the evening prayer.]

(6) Trust in God has become considered to be opposed to work. That is if you see someone learning Torah all day that is supposed to mean they trust in God. If they are working, it means they are not.
I disagree with this formulation of the problem. While it is true that to get a good picture of what trust in God is in practice, I do not agree that this formulation is the right one.  The way I see things is that Torah ought to be learnt along with a vocation, and survival skills.
That is in fact what you generally see in "Mizrahi" institutions. Or "Bnei Akiva." That is religious Zionism.

(7) I do not want to make it seem like I have trust in God nowadays. But I try to repeat that small paragraph about trust from the Gra when I wake up in the morning in the hope that eventually it might sink into me to begin to trust God again.

(8) Musar today I think should be directed towards finishing all of the four classical books of Musar along with the books of the disciples of Israel Salanter.  [There are two books from Isaac Blasser. The אור ישראל and a second one that just came out recently in Bnei Brak of his writings and letters. I saw this book in Netivot in Rav Montag's yeshiva but most people are completely unaware of the existence of this second book. The letters of Simha Zissel from Kelm I found completely unintelligible and no one has reprinted them. The מדרגת האדם {Level of Man}is  a masterpiece. The book אור צפון {Hidden Light}from the Rosh Yeshiva of Slobodka I think is important, but for some reason he wrote in every chapter something that seems contrary to the simple explanation of the Gemara. I was not able to make much progress there. That is incidentally where Rav Avigdor Miller went to yeshiva.]

(9) Trust also goes with accomplishment in Torah, not intelligence. See this note: "But in any case, is there any compelling evidence of a correlation between IQ and achievement? Richard Feynman  had an IQ of 123, which is OK, but not exactly astronomical, Yet he was one of America’s greatest theoretical physicists. ... Amusingly, William Shockley, inventor of the transistor, was among the elementary school children tested by IQ  researchers (in the 1920's). His IQ was not high enough to be a “termite”, so he was shut out of the experiment and was not deemed “gifted”."


(10) I have been hoping that by saying over to myself that piece of Musar [That Gemara Rosh Hashanah along with the commentary of the Gra] that somehow the concept of trust would get inside me. I can not say that I succeeded in that, but it did help me withhold action. I was in a situation which was very terrible but I thought that unless I am actually force to leave that I should not do so based on this idea of the Gra that if it is from Heaven it will happened whether you like it or not. So I stayed and somehow after years of torture somehow the situation just seems to have been resolved.


(You might that you are not allowed to learn in some beit midrash. That happened to me but that is from Heaven. In that way God will guide your steps to where you ought to be.  )

Asking for money to learn Torah seems to violate the Rambam's idea that for one to seek charity in order to learn Torah causes one to lose his portion in the next world. But to accept charity that is offered seems to be OK in terms of the end of the Laws of the Seventh year --"not just the tribe of Levi but all who put themselves out to serve God and turn from the pleasures of this world, God will provide." This seems to be in accord with the Mishna in Pirkei Avot. [Perhaps this is an issue of סוגיות חלוקות (differing approaches in the Gemara)? But I think this is not a case of disagreement but rather to seek charity to learn is forbidden, but to accept it if offered is OK. ]  But in a practical sense I think the majority of people have  a kind of intuition of who is learning Torah for its own sake and simply accept money in order to continue to do so,- as opposed to those who are learning Torah for ulterior reasons of personal gain. And all intuitions have a prima facie plausibility on the face of it unless some other intuition comes along with more prima facie plausibility that can defeat the first one as Dr. Michael Huemer goes into.

What ever people say about the Ukraine, they are hospitable to Jews coming for Rosh Hashanah. I have heard complaints but in general it is clear that they make a great effort be hospitable. I don't know why people accuse the Ukraine of antisemitism, but that seems to me to untrue. Very untrue.
There is every Rosh Hashanah a massive national effort to make sure people coming to Uman have a good time. The Ukraine sends in every type of police and military force  force to safeguard Jews. I have rarely seen such a massive effort to safeguard Jewish people. What you see on Lag BeOmer in Meron [a festival in Northern Israel] does not even come close.
[To safeguard Jews, the Ukraine brings in every division of their military and police force--to make sure there is no trouble on Rosh Hashanah. Not just the Ukraine version of special forces, the Berekt, but many other branches of their military and special expert units. The Israeli police also come. And the local people bend over backwards to make sure Rosh Hashanah is nice. To accuse these people of Antisemitism is the height of absurdity. I have never met nicer people.]

And this is important to me because I think Rosh Hashanah in Uman is important.
From perceptive I was definite going down until I got to my first Rosh Hashanah.  My world had turned into a surrealistic nightmare.  My world had turned into a Faustian fall, more distorted and nauseating than portrait by Picasso.
One Rosh Hashanah was enough to turn that all around.

Appendix
This post is based on an idea I learned from Reb Shelomo Friefeld  and my first year teacher in Gemara in Far Rockaway. That  is the lesson about gratitude. Since Ukraine has been in fact hospitable to Jews it seems to me to be the height of ingratitude to deny it or to be silent about it in a case when the Ukraine needs someone to tell the truth about how it has been treating Jews for the last twenty years since it gained independence.
In any case I urge the governments of the Ukraine and Russia to settle. The Russian and Ukrainian people are good people and there is no reason for this conflict to continue. As for the eastern provinces I know there was a referendum twenty years ago but I think the eastern areas  should have a degree of autonomy. In that way they remain a part of the Ukraine, but have their own system of education--like Quebec in Canada. In that way Russia is happy, and the Ukraine is happy.
Russia is not trying to annex the East of the Ukraine. They are simply supporting people that want closer ties with Russia. But this can be done without a war.

Three core principles Joy, Private conversation with God, learning fast have been my core principles
But I added another one about truth.
And I want to discuss them each briefly.
1) I might seem serious, but in fact I have taken this idea of joy of as central.
First I want to say that this idea of  can be defended. I know some people might wonder where in the Torah is there a command to be happy? I wondered about this also.
But in fact Reb Chaim Vital, the disciple of Isaac Luria, list the four good character traits thus: (1) humility, and to be infinitely low in ones own eyes תכלית השיפלות, and to go away from all kinds of anger, (2) Silence,- to speak only Torah, or what is absolutely necessary for the body, or for the honor of people; (3) to  minimize body pleasures--even those that are necessary, (4) and joy in ones portion for "Everything that happens from Heaven is for good," and also joy in mitzvot. And these good character traits are the very essence of the Torah and the purpose of the Torah as he explains there. [This short chapter of Chaim Vital is quoted in full in the beginning of the אבן שלמה of the Gra that came out recently.]
So being always happy is a even more that a mitzvah as these four good charter traits are essence of the mitzvot. [To the Rambam the purpose of the mitzvot is to bring to good character and to Reb Chaim Vital good character depends on the foundational soul (which is composed of four parts) and that is the clothing of the Intellectual soul upon which depend the 613 mitzvot. That is basic good character is needed to keep any mitzvah. Otherwise one just thinks he is doing a mitzvah but it is in fact a sin. The evil inclination always dresses up in mitzvahs and come and tells you "come and do a mitzvah." But then after one has good charter the mizvot are to bring to a higher level of good character.


The idea is that there is no mitzvah to be miserable. Nor to make others miserable. And this determines what is a mitzvah is.

2) Conversation with God. People often think of God as being far away. And they think he is accessible only through hard types of actions.  all you need to do to get close to God is to talk with him as you would talk with a friend.
Where can you find God? In Times Square, in a church, even in a synagogue. In any place you decide it is time to tell Him your troubles and ask for help.
If possible I would like to start a world wide talking with God movement. That is to make it a project to go up into the mountains every weekend (with proper outdoor gear and boots) and to go off to some secluded spot and talk with God. But also to speak with Him on the way to work every day and on the way back home and on the subway. And to know and believe that this is all you need to get to God. You don't need to go to any spiritual person. You can go to God directly.


3) Learning fast has been a big help for me. Not only has it helped me learn the Oral Law much more thoroughly than I could have without this advice but also in the natural sciences.

[But in terms of learning Torah I ask people to learn at home. Get yourself a full set of the two Talmuds Babylonian and Jerusalem, Mechilta, Sifri, Sifra and Tosephta and plow through them.}
Also the Mishna Torah of the Rambam with the commentaries on the page.

4) Truth at some point become important to me. When my world was falling apart and I saw myself sinking rapidly I decided the one thing I needed to hold onto was never to say an untruth under any circumstance. I discovered after that the amazing power of truth to hold one up under all kinds of floods and disasters. It provides an invisible force field than nothing can penetrate.

The major support of Reform and Conservative Judaism comes from Musar Ethical books of traditional Judaism
I mean the major principle of Reform Judaism is what? That between man and your fellow man comes before between Man and God. This is the exact same principle of Musar.
The Chafetz Chaim brings this from the verse, "You should walk in his ways, and keep his mitzvot."
The command to walk in his ways we know is the commandment: "What is he? Kind. So you too should be kind."
R. Chaim Vital (the disciple of Isaac Luria) in chapters one and two of his Musar book Sharei Kedusha makes the same point. And the great Yemenite Kabalist, R. Shalom Sharabi, goes into this exact point in detail. He says the soul of a person is his character traits. The mitzvot are simple the clothing and food of the soul but not the soul itself.
Reb Chaim Vital says, "One must be more careful to stay away from bad character traits than be keeping positive and negative commandments because bad traits are very much worse that sins."


Reform Judaism is right about Ethical Monotheism. This is first of all true. Also it is what the Torah is about.  But Reform is wrong in ignoring the Oral Law and the efforts of the  Sages to understand Divine Law. Also-It is bourgeois. They have no Gra, or Chaim from Voloshin,   or Issac Luria, Israel Abuchatzaeira. No juice. No taste. The batteries need charging.

And it ignores the most important aspect of Torah the holy numinous aspect.
.

Also "social justice" is an 1840's invention of two catholic priests meant to replace noble obligation (Noblesse oblige). It is not the main idea of the Torah, nor the prophets, nor the writings. 

In spite of this I would only pray in a Reform temple or a Conservative one. I would run from the insane religious world  like one runs from a charging leopard. That is just how frightened I am from them.

And it would not matter if the only mikvah in town was in an the insane religious world  (Synagogue). I would still simple refuse to go anywhere near the the insane religious world for shear and utter terror what they would do to my immortal soul.
The Sitra Achra just got too much intertwined with the insane religious world  until it is impossible to separate the two.

This fact is hidden to many religious people because they think their approach is based on Talmud and Halacha. They are unaware that it is not based on Halacha at all but rather it takes a few halachas and rituals to cover up  a vast body of Sitara Achra. The few halachas they do only serve to cover the real essence.

This was not always the case. Before the time of Shabati Tzvi things were straightforward. But after his time the energy of teachings of the Shatz (Shabati Tzvi) got totally entwined with the insane religious world . What makes this almost impossible to know is that people today rarely every learn the books of the Shatz and his prophet Natan from Gaza. But if you have had the sad experience of A reading those misguided books then you can see right away how the most basic teachings of the Shatz are part and parcel of the insane religious world  today.

An idol can be anything from heaven and earth. It does not have to be a physical object.
If one accepts it as his god by accident, then he is liable to bring a sin offering. If on purpose, he is liable the death penalty.
What if he did not accept it as his god, but served it from love of the image, or fear that it might hurt him?







This is the argument between Abyee and Rava about doing idolatry from love or fear. [Sanhedrin 62b]
The argument is very simple at first. Abyee says: One who serves an idol from love or fear is liable. Rava says, he is not.

Then Abyee finds some place where the idea of idolatry by accident is mentioned and he asks what is it referring to? One who bows to a house of idols thinking it is a synagogue is not doing anything wrong because his heart is towards heaven. If he bows to a statue thinking it is not an idol also it is nothing. Why does he skip the simple case-he forgot it is an idol?

Now my learning partner has suggested that  a sin without pleasure (הנאה) will be liable only if it is a mistake in material facts. [For in most sins either a mistake in facts or law would be counted as an accident.] Now that idea would help us here in Sanhedrin 62, but not in Shabat where we know if one forgets Shabat he is liable. Forgetting Shabat certainly is not the same as making a mistake in law.

That leaves us where we began. So far I have no decent idea of why Abyee skips this seemingly obvious case.


 (A case of mistake in material facts would be if he ate forbidden fat חלב which he thought was normal fat שומן. That is liable because there is pleasure involved. A case of mistake in law would be if he thought there is no prohibition in eating forbidden fat חלב. That also is liable a sin offering.)

הבעיה כאן היא זאת. כשרבא רוצה למצוא שגגת עבודה זרה, הוא הולך לטעות בדין, ואז האדם חייב קרבן. וכשהגמרא רצתה למצוא שגגה שהוא פטור בשבילו היא הלכה לטעות במציאות. איפה הדיון הפשוט? שהוא שכח שהצורה הזאת היא עבודה זרה
  רואים מזה שהגמרא והרמב''ם מדקדקים לומר דווקא טעות בהוראה
לא כמו שבת שבמצב שאדם שכח שהיום שבת כן הוא חייב קרבן.




Appendix:
1. A person can be an idol. If a person says, "Serve me." He is automatically liable. [Sanhedrin 62a]. If others tell you to serve a certain person or that if you serve him you will get such and such benefits then they are liable the death penalty. This explains why the Gra [the Villna Geon], signed that particular excommunication [the famous cherem] on hasidim. He must have known that with hasidim serving a tzadik is an important principle.  Since in the Torah, serving a tzadik is idolatry, he decided to sign the excommunication. If the terminology of destructive manipulative cult leaders would have been around in those days that is what the Gra would have said about it.

Stay put.

The Gra defines the path of Torah.
The Gra  equates Joy with the world of "Bina" Understanding. Which is the root of all holiness.

1) Joy is holiness in itself.
It is much more than just extra extra credit. If I was doing some kind of practice that I thought was obligatory according to Jewish law, but I knew this practice made me depressed, I dropped it.

I said to myself, "If this would really be an obligation according to the Torah, it would not be making me depressed."

This would especially apply to how I would keep Shabat or pray.

The idea in  the LM: "Joy is the realm of holiness in itself. Depression is the evil realm, and God hates it."
And I also thought that to make people upset also was not a mitzvah. This related to how I would interact with others. I assumed the only interaction with others that could count as a mitzvah would be when I would bring them joy. This in fact has support from the Gra when he equates Joy with the world of "Bina" Understanding. Which is the root of all holiness.

2) Talking with God. It is the highest goal of all to be talking with God all the time. Mainly in a forest.  When I was down and out, this gave me a connection with God that has kept me going through thick and thin. I dread to think where I would be today without this amazing piece of advice.

3) Say the words and go on. This amazing piece of advice has gotten me through the Talmud and Rambam and writings of Isaac Luria  and much more. And he was right that when I thought I was not understanding, later on understanding just came spontaneously. Without this advice, I would never have gotten as far as I did in the Oral and Written Law,-- or Mathematics and Physics either.
(Obviously there are lots of things that remain mysteries to me. I am just not very smart. But in this way I learned and understood a lot more than if I would have gotten stuck on details and ended up dropping the whole thing; or even worse--think that I understood stuff when if I had gone on to read the whole subject, it became clear only by the picture  what the  details were about. In fact, it is a lot easier to decide what a DNA molecule of a tree is saying by looking at the forest, rather than trying to decipher the actual molecule. )
4)I learned from the Rambam that the belief system of the Torah is Monotheism. This is not the same as Pantheism. Pantheism is the faith of Hinduism and I can understand why people might be attracted to it. But then they should just say they are teaching Hinduism. Not claim to be teaching Judaism. 

In Shabat the Rambam decided like Rabbi Yehuda that מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה [work done not for its own sake]  is liable. So then why is צידת נחש [capturing a snake so that it does not hurt one] allowed? Because it is פסיק רישא דלא ניחא ליה. [Something not intended but which had to happen by his action and he has no pleasure from the unintended result] (Like the Aruch.) But the obvious question is why is it דבר שאינו מתכווין (something not intended)?
I mean Reb Chaim has a point that it is only in the opinion of Rav Yehuda that it is considered a work done not for its own sake. But here  we are not in the opinion of Rav Yehuda. So surely it could be something not intended, but why?








This idea I had yesterday when I was think about Tosphot and then it occurred to me today that it might apply be what Reb Chaim is trying to get at.
The idea is this we find that something not intended can be composed of lots of subsets. We find for example with find even a total accident מתעסק can be liable if there is pleasure involved. And even if one does something he know what he is doing, but makes a mistake in law thinking it is allowed, is also an accident.

And the list goes on and on.

It is for this reason I think that Tosphot (Shabat 94) wanted to confine  מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה [work done not for its own sake] to a very limited set, i.e. a small and closed set. That is work done for the purpose for which it was done in the Tabernacle alone is called "work done for its own sake." Everything outside of that is not for its own sake, but it can be intended.

This type of reasoning can help us understand Chaim Soloveitchik


I want to say the reason is because the Rambam is like Tosphot in wanting to define מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה [work done not for its own sake]  as a very restricted category and that everything outside of it is in category of דבר שאינו מתכווין. [That is the Rambam will not define it like Tosphot, but he still will confine it to  a very restricted area.]

The question on this is that something not intended is not at all the same thing as being obligated a sin offering. So I still have to do some thinking about this way of explaining what Reb Chaim might be getting at. Until I can get this idea past my learning partner I don't want to present it as anything but ad hoc. [I would like to say there is a connection between not intended and normal sin offerings. My idea is that sin offerings need some degree of knowledge but not to actual intend them.E.g picking up a radish on Shabat that one thought was already picked but turned out to be attached to the ground is not liable, but to cut it is to Abyee. So some knowledge is needed to be liable--but not too much. And that is what makes something an accident.]

אני רוצה להסביר תירוצו של ר' חיים הלוי על הרמב''ם בעניין  דבר שאינו מתכווין ומלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה וצידת נחש. דבר שאינו מתכווין יכול לכלול הרבה דברים, למשל מתעסק במקום שיש הנאה. שם ההנאה מספיקה קצת כוונה בכדי שיהיה חייב קרבן.ו עוד יש טעות בדין או במציאות שנחשבים בכלל אינו מכווין. נראה לי שזאת הסיבה שתוספות רצו לצמצים את גדר מלאכה שצריכה לגופה להיות רק מלאכה הנעשית לצורך מה שהייתה צורכה במשכן. הסברא הזו עוזרת לנו להבין ר' חיים סולובייטשיק.בשבת הרמב''ם פסק כרבי יהודה שמלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה חייבת. ולכן למה צידת נחש מותרת?בגלל שהיא דבר שאינו מתכווין דלא ניחא ליה כשיטת הערוך. אבל למה זו דבר שאינו מתכווין? אני רוצה להגיד שהרמב''ם כמו תוספות רוצה לצמצים את הגדר של מלאכה שצריכה לגופה, וכל מה שחוץ לגדר הזה הוא דבר שאינו מתכווין.

If you look at the book of Reb Chaim you will see why this whole commentary is necessary. Without this explanation it is not clear what he means at all, nor is it  not clear how  his explanation of the Rambam  does not contradict  how the Rambam explains דבר שאינו מתכווין in chapter 1 of Laws of Shabat. I think you have to come to this commentary of mine to have the Rambam make sense.

I think I saw the Chazon Ish ask this on Reb Chaim, but I have neither his, nor Reb Chaim's book. I am writing this from memory. Nor do I have the Talmud Shabat in front of me.
Certainly, I remember my learning partner ask this on Reb Chaim. I tried to tell him the basic idea of Reb Chaim, and I remember his first question was from the way the Rambam explains a ''thing not intended.''

I had some idea that part of my family [Rosenblum] was in Poland during World War II.
Now I see the NY library has a book on Poltusk and I found some of my family members who were killed during the Holocaust. I did not not see any pictures of the people that were killed. But there was one of my grandfather's brother, Fishel ben Alter Rosenblum.  It looks like we were a semi religious family. Fishel Rosenblum in the picture had a tie. It seems we were probably what you would call Conservative.
I know my grandparents kept Shabat and Kashrut, but certainly were not obliviously religious.



Before this all I knew was that my Dad was a captain in the US Air Force flying B-29s.

I saw on a list of victims,  two families of Rosenblums that were killed in the Holocaust, Avraham and his wife Zirel and a daughter Feige, and another Rosenblum, Ben Zion with his wife Finkel and children, Mendel, David, Reishel, Roiza, Golda, Feiga.

They all must have been young because the father Avraham was one of the children of Alter.

 His father was Alter Rosenblum (1870 – 1922) and his mother was Shaindel Marcusfeld (1870-1903). 

His younger brother Yaakov was my grandfather who came to the USA right after during WWI.

The Rambam has an idea of what constitutes the Oral Law that gives some support to the idea that learning Physics and Meta-Physics is an actual obligation.
And it is important to know whether this is an obligation or not because of the concept of Bitul Torah.
And the idea of Bitul Torah is that it is not just a mitzvah to learn Torah but it is a sin not to learn Torah. ביטול תורה כנגד כולם. That is we have a statement from that sages talking about the worst types of sin (גילוי עריות שפיכות דמים עבודה זרה) a person can do and then they and on the end of this discussion that not learning Torah during a time period when one could be learning Torah is the worst of all sins.

In the Rambam's  Laws of Talmud Torah about how one should divide his day, the Rambam says  הענינים הנקראים פרדס הם בכלל הגמרא "The things called Pardes are in the category of learning Talmud"
And that obviously refers to what he said at the beginning of Mishna Torah the the subject matter discussed there is called "Pardes." [Orchard]  That means the Rambam understood "Pardes" to means Physics and Metaphysics and he considered learning these two subjects as a part of the mitzvah of learning Torah. [There is no surprise here. The Rambam in the Guide says what the sages means by the work of Creation and the work of the Divine Chariot the Greeks called Physics and Metaphysics. And if you put his ideas about this in Guide together you get the same conclusion]

I looked into the history of Pultusk, Poland.[http://yizkor.nypl.org/index.php?id=2548] And I can see that the idea of public school [secular studies] was frowned on by the some religious people.  But  regular Jews did not share that attitude. For example when my grandparents came to the USA they sent my Dad to public school and later he majored in Mechanical Engineering at Cal Tech worked on almost every top secret project that was around, the U-2, the Orion, SDI, etc.
Clearly there were and still are plenty of Jews that think Science and Math are an important part of Torah study like the Rambam.

But as far as things are today  both ultra orthodox religious schools and also public schools in the USA are extremely bad. If I had the choice I would home school my children in Torah and natural sciences. And if that was not an option I would send my children to some kind of Religious Zionist school like Bnei Akiva [or whatever they are called in the USA]

At the Mir in NY the books of Breslov were in the Musar section.
And that was during the era right after they got to the USA from the Mir in Europe.
That means the books were considered a regular part of the cannon of Musar books by Reb Avraham Kalmonovicth, and the Mashgiach Reb Feldman.
And it goes without saying that Breslov was an important part of the world view of the Mashgiach that came after Reb Feldman that is Don Segal, the Mashgiach of Ponovicth.
And I specifically asked both Don Segal and Leibel Berenbaum about this subject. And this was definitely in the context of the\ issue of the excommunication that was signed by the Gra.

The excommunication is as valid today as it was when the Gra signed it.

Certainly no one thought that is has expired. And in a large degree this seems also to have been the opinion of Rav Shach of Ponovitch was was the Gadol Hador at that time.

But the books of Breslov are kosher

My path is a balance between different things.
I can't justify everything here right now and also I can't claim that everyone should be doing everything on my own private list.
But at least for those who are curious here is my basic list of things to do.
(1) Math or Physics session for an hour after I get up, and had coffee and tea in the same cup and folic acid.
(2) A session of Gemara (Talmud) Rashi and Tosphot with a learning partner.
(3) Music session.
(4) Rosh HaShanah  in Uman.
(5) Musar.[Jewish Ethics] That could be classical Musar or Musar from the school of thought of the Geon from Villna or his disciples. And try to fulfill what the books of Musar say to do especially the Gra. [Musar has two parts: (a) Classical Musar like the חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart and also  (b) a Israel Salanter part that includes books of his disciples like Navardok.]

The above I do as a kind of service towards God. But sometimes there have been practical benefits  also. There was for example a time I was in the Mir in NY and was getting a monthly salary. But in general I try to intend what I do to be not for personal benefit.

Also, it seems to me that my wife, Leah came to me to NY mainly because I was at the Mir. That is I think she was attracted to me more by what I was doing [learning Torah] more than by who I am, or my personality.

If you do any sin from the set of all sins in the Bible where it says he that does such and such will be cut off from his people, you bring a sin offering to the temple in Jerusalem. That is a she goat or a she sheep. (Leviticus 4) If you did idolatry by accident you bring only a she goat. Numbers 15
[Examples, Shabat, sex with close relations, sex with males, walking into the Temple without having gone to the mikvah and the ashes of the red heifer, eating a sacrifice before having gone to the mikvah, four kinds of service to an idol burning, pouring, sacrifice, bowing, or a service special to that idol.]





 If a person bows to a statue that he forget was an idol,  he is not liable a sin offering. What is the difference between this and if a person forgot it is the Sabbath day?

I want to answer that the difference is that Sabbath he is expected to remember from the very beginning of the week. There is a degree of liability in just forgetting Shabat all by itself and if furthermore he acts  on that forgetting then he is liable.
Idols one is supposed to forget.

In more detail here is my idea:
Abyee  and Rava argue if serving a false god from love or fear is liable. To prove his point Abyee finds any random place in the Mishna where the idea of serving an idol accidentally is liable. And he tries to go through the different possibilities what that could mean until he reaches to the point that it cant mean anything but serving a false god from love or fear. Then Rava says it means he says serving it is allowed.

Why don't Abyee and Rava both say serving a false god accidentally is the exact same case as Shabat? What is an accident on Shabat that one is liable for? He did one of the 39 types of work because he forgot it is Shabat today.
Say the same thing about idolatry. He knows idolatry is forbidden by he forgot this particular statute is an idol. An example would be when he was at the ceremony consecrating the idol but got mixed up later and forgot that he was there and thought he was at a different ceremony on the other side of town celebrating a statute built to honor a king.
That is the question my learning partner posed.
My answer is that Shabat he is expected to remember, not idols. He is not supposed to be thinking about idols all the time. So if he forgot about an idol he did a mitzvah.

I want to suggest a connection between good character traits and mitzvahs.
The main points are the Reshash ר' שלום שרבי. To him the traits are the actual soul of a person.
The subject of the soul is contained in the Eitz Chaim of Isaac Luria is great detail. But I forgot the whole thing. But also Reb Chaim Vital goes into some detail in his Musar book Shaarai Kedushah.
His idea is that in fact there is a connection. And keeping the mitzvot brings light and sustenance to the soul.
1) Also to Reb Chaim Vital  and the Chafetz Chaim the main purpose of the mitzvas is to bring to good character traits.
2) But in theory good character and mitzvas might be completely separate. You could in theory have someone keeping all the mitzvas with 100% perfection and have  bad character.[This is well known from the Ramban about מנובל ברשות התורה]
3) This fits well with the Rambam that the purpose of mitzvas is divided into several sub categories, one of which is in fact to bring to good character.
Character here means what men want from other men--to be a man. That is,-- to be someone you can trust in an emergency. When the chips are down and you are with a small group of men fighting for survival, then good character means someone loyal and trustworthy and has the skills that contribute to the group. If you put him on  watch to guard the perimeter to guard from other groups of men that want what you have,- you don't want him sleeping on the job. Character in terms of women means a wife you can trust. Not someone who will betray you for gain-- unlike the vast majority of women today.

Places that are openly connected with the path of the Gra the Villna Geon you can see Torah being studied and kept to a high degree of accuracy.

 I would like to propose that to get to the Torah it is impossible expect by means of the Gra.
I admit that on the face of this, it seems ridiculous. But I think I have see enough evidence to make this proposition  believable.

What this means is that if you look at places that are openly connected with the path of the Gra the Villna Geon you can see Torah being studied and kept to a high degree of accuracy. But outside that perimeter you see nothing but catastrophe.

The Gra, The Villna Geon, held is is an absolute obligation to go through the Oral and Written Torah.

Once he was with his disciple Chaim from Voloshin and saw some person in a inn who was not keeping Torah. The Gra said he will have to give an account of why he did not learn the secrets of the Chariot [mystic aspects of Torah] also.

We know that there is a statement in the Talmud that when a person goes up to stand before the higher court of law in Heaven to decide his fate, he will have to give account  and answer these questions:"Did you learn the Written Law?  [the Old Testament]? Did you learn the Oral Law?Did you finish the Mishna? Did you learn the Talmud? Did you learn the work of the Divine Chariot? Did you do your business dealings with honesty?"

The Gra understood this to be literal. There will not be an excuse on the day of judgment for a person to say, "I was not religious."
And further he held that one does not need to understand every word he learns. Sometimes people say that the Gra held that one needs at least to understand the meaning of the words. But f you look in the new edition of the אבן שלמה that brings down the sources from the actual language of the Gra you can see that is not so. You can just say the words and what you don't understand in this world they will remind you of in the next world. The main thing is to have gone through every single last word of Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot, and Maharsha, and the Jerusalem Talmud with the Pnei Moshe, and also all the writings of Isaac Luria.

I don't want to make it sound as if I have done all this. I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I am still in the middle of this process. And even the small amount of time I have to learn Torah I spend most of it on a tiny in depth session with a learning partner. So I am well behind schedule. So I hope at least I can explain this subject to others that might be able to take up this project.
[To some degree I have an excuse that my time in limited. I also have to give violin lessons and other kinds of activities in order to pay the rent.]

A lot depends on what you think is the main service of God.  This is subject to debate in the Jewish world. The Gra had a two tier system. Learning Torah was the top. After that is keeping the Torah [Oral and Written]. But he did not think one should go searching for mitzvahs to do. He said it is better to sit in ones room and twiddle ones thumbs rather than go searching for mitzvahs. There are lots of variations. Prayer and talking with God are also important. But there were a few other main things.
Learning Torah is hearing what God says to us  and talking with God is to help us be open to the Torah.
But my opinion is that Love and Fear of God are the goals. And the mitzvahs are to help us reach these goals. That comes from a commentary on the Rambam. And it seems to me to be basically  what the Rambam himself was getting at.

The idea of the anonymous commentary [הלכות יסודי התורה פרק ב' הלכה א] is that one verse says do mitzvahs to come to fear God. Another verse Deuteronomy 10:12 says, "What does God want from but but to fear God in order that you should do his mitzvahs?" The answer he gives is the lower fear is to do mitzvahs. And Mitzvahs are to come to the higher fear. And that higher fear leads to Love of God.


The Stipler Rav (Chaim Kinyevski) [author of the set of books קהלת יעקב Kehilat Yaakov] said lets us look at the different groups that emphasize one point or other. It is usually in that particular point they are the worst of anyone.  So he said they only advice is to keep the Torah just like it says, nothing more or less.

Introduction:
The Rambam in chapter one of the Laws of Idolatry explains that essence of idolatry is to try to come close to God by means of a intermediate or a mediator. This would include people.
Later in chapter 2 he explains that a mediator can be anything from the highest heavens until anything composed of basic elements, or any created thing. People are created things so people can be mediators. Idols do not have to be physical objects. They can be even great and special human beings. Even a true tzadik. [Clearly the Gra saw this problem in his days when he signed the excommunication against Hasidim, that said not to sit within four yards of a hasid, or have any interaction in business or in any other way with them..]

In chapter 3 he says if one serves an idol  from love or fear [i.e. he loves the beauty or is afraid the idol will hurt him] then he is liable only if he accepts the idol as a god with spiritual powers.
We don't see this condition elsewhere.


The Remach רמ''ך [Rav Moshe HaKohen] asked, "Why in throwing a stone at Markulit one is liable without accepting it as ones god?"

The Rivash [A Rishon on the Rambam] and the Beit Yoseph answer this in some way I did not have a chance to figure out.

My learning partner said the Rambam means he is liable a sin offering for doing idolatry by accident. He might not be referring to liability for the death penalty.

But I think what the Rambam is saying is in all cases. Because the condition of accepting as ones god is only when one is openly not using the idol as a mediator as in the case he serves it from love or fear. But in any other case, it is enough to serve the idol as a mediator in order to be liable.




הקדמה: בתחילת הלכות עבודה זרה הרמב''ם כתב שעיקר עבודה זרה היא לעבוד או לפאר אמצעי כדי להתקרב להבורא יתברך. וכן הוא כתב הפירוש המשנה פרק חלק. בפרק ג' הוא אומר שהעובד מאהבה או מיראה אינו חייב אלא אם כן הוא מקבלו עליו כאלוה. הרמ''ך שאל למה הוא חייב כשזורק אבן למרקוליס בלי לקבל עליו כאלוה? החברותא שלי תירץ שכוונת הרמב''ם היא שחייב חטאת בגלל עבודה זרה בשוגג. והוא לא כיוון שחייב סקילה. אני רוצה לומר שהתנאי לקבל עליו כאלוה הוא רק במצב של עובד מאהבה או מיראה. ובדרך כלל העובד רק בתור עמצאי חייב בגלל שהעובד לאמצעי הוא עיקר עבודה זרה

Navardok was trust in God.

The idea of Israel Salanter was simple people ought to learn Musar. Musar about thirty books that deal with Jewish ethics and Jewish world view written from the beginning of the Middle Ages until the later Renaissance.

 Joseph Yozel Horvitz was a disciple of Israel Salanter.
Each disciple had a different approach.


 What made Navardok different was trust in God.
Rav Horvitz based his idea of trust in God on a small paragraph written by the Geon Elijah from Vilnius as a comment on a verse in Proverbs 3:5 .
The verse is בטח בה' בכל לבך ואל בינתך אל תשען Trust in God with all your heart and don't depend on your intelligence.
The Gra (the Geon Elijah from Vilnius) said this means to trust in God with all your heart and not with just a percentage of your heart. And not to depend on your intelligence even as a slight support.
A disciple of the Gra said this is parallel to what the Gra said about a story in the Talmud. The local students  did not know what this verse means: "Throw on God your burden (יהביך) and he will give you your means of a living." One day Raba Bar Bar Chana was walking with a merchant and carrying a burden. The merchant said to him ,"Take your burden יהביך and cast it on my camel."

The Gra explained that the idea here is that the  students  thought one should trust in God and also go around working for ones needs. Therefore the word יהביך (burden) was a problem. It should have said your needs. When they saw that Raba had a burden that he needed to pay to have carried and yet the merchant asked to do him a favor, they saw that  even for things you need to work for, if it is decreed from heaven, people with beg you to do it for you.

What the Gra is saying here is that the word יהב means to give. So it does not make sense to say cast on God your "give." But when the students saw what happened with Raba they understood the merchant said take what you need to give to me and put your burden on my camel.




4) My own path is that I don't think God is obligated to do anything for me or for anyone at all. I definitely go with the idea of Schopenhauer that the Dinge an Sich is "the Will." The Will is not rational. The Will does not have human good in mind. Human good is not the goal of the Will.
Rather if you turn towards the Will, then the Will turns towards you.
And when the Will turns towards you, then you have someone to depend on. this someone might not grant to you all you wishes, but you know that what ever it does in your life is right and good. especially when it does not grant to you your wish.