I saw a fellow that was learning Torah.. But it did not look like he was doing it for show. Nor was he getting paid. I thought it looked unusual enough for me to ask him what he was doing. He said he has this session in Bava Kama of doing a 1/2 a page per day [That is called an Amud in Hebrew] with Tosphot and the Shita Mekubetzet.

OK I let it go. Then after a few days I saw him again and my curiosity was bugging me to ask what was going on. So I walked up to him again and said, "You must have learned in some Lithuanian Yeshiva."
He said, "No."
And I was shocked. Because Torah for its own sake you simply can't find outside of  a Litvak yeshiva. So I kept on probing until I found out that he started learning Torah about six years ago and and the person that he came to Torah with was in the Slobadka Yeshiva. Mystery solved.

For the general public let me just say Slobadka was a Musar Yeshiva in Europe that now is in Tel Aviv. It is Pure Litvak.

 there is no way one can learn Torah for its own sake [without pay] unless he or she is somehow connected with the Gra.

q26 mp3 [q26 in midi format] i can not find this in nwc

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q24 Edited   q24 in midi   [i put this here in midi for the sake of anyone who wants to print the notes] -i would share the nwc file but most people not have that format.



This is an mp3 file that did not work for a few days. Somehow Google or someone unknown to me managed to fix the problem and so here is the file.

Floride

from WIKI:
Hexafluorosilicic acid is also commonly used for water fluoridation in several countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Republic of Ireland. In the U.S., about 40,000 tons of fluorosilicic acid is recovered from phosphoric acid plants, and then used primarily in water fluoridation, sometimes after being processed into sodium silicofluoride.^[5] In this application, the hexafluorosilicic acid converts to the fluoride ion (F⁻), which is the active agent for the protection of teeth.

And this also from Wiki:
Concentrated hexafluorosilicic acid is corrosive and can attack the skin.

Belief in a true tzadik. This is apparently some kind of archetype that some people get more of and others get less of. And it is in apparently contradiction to   a false tzadik or a non authentic tzadik-- a faker. Most of these fakers have convinced themselves that they are true tzadikim.
["Being a tzadik"  work is not, contra popular opinion, an occupation of nobility and integrity, any more than any other profession is. It's a profession made up of noble and ignoble people, honest people and liars, decent folks and utter thugs. It does not deserve the cultural free pass we've given it.]

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I walk into some local synagogue and I hear the Rav giving talk about the halacha  not to put back food on the fire on the Sabbath day if it has not been totally cooked.  That is like what people say a little bit of knowledge is dangerous. Because he did not mention an essential point. The Halacha has to do with fire. Only with fire is there cooking. If for example one took a magnifying glass and cooked his cholent completely from beginning to end --there is no מלאכה work of cooking involved.
תולדות חמה are not the same as תולדות אש. This is so common that people talk out of ignorance that I stopped paying attention. [heat produced by something heated by the sun is however a rabbinical decree, but  there is no rabbinical decree about electricity which was not around at the time of the sages who had the authority to make decrees.  This is a well known fact--but I can't remember the exact source for it this minute. But take my word for it. The power to make decrees stopped a long time ago. It comes up in the Gemara in a few places, that even in the time of the Talmud they no longer had the power to make a decree that was binding on all Israel. The Rambam also says this in the beginning of Mishna Torah.

Is there any reason to be strict? Not as far as I can tell. The question about being strict is in Rosh Hashanah 14b.  Rabbi Akiva took two tithes from an etrog he picked on 1 Shevat. The  Talmud asks how could he do this? We know if one holds by the lenient opinion of Beit Shamai and Beit Hill he is wicked. If he goes by the strict opinion of both, he is an idiot. כסיל בחושך הולך. "An idiot walks in darkness"
The Gemara concludes he was not sure of what the actual halacha was so he was strict.

So if there is a doubt, then there is a reason to be strict. But if not, there is no reason, and all the more so to go around making up a stringency and calling it "halacha" is  a bad idea.

But there is a reason why the actual Torah is ignored, and people have to make up ways of being strict and pretending it is halacha. Because otherwise  young  people might stay home with their parents and fulfill the commandment of honoring their parents. You can't build a cult if people stay with their own families.

Since the world seems to be slipping into insanity by giving Iran Nuclear weapons my suggestion is for people to learn survival skills and acquire, fishing gear, traps, and guns and rifles.

Islam is much more coordinated than most people realize and Europe and the USA will not be safe with Islamic barbarian hordes roaming shooting at Jews and Christians.


People went looking for those bomb shelters that you could buy in 1962. But both the USA and the USSR were not suicidal-- unlike Muslims.
Nowadays the thing to do is to get yourself a bomb shelter and stock it well and bury it deep.
The problem with giving Muslims the Atom Bomb is that mutually assured destruction is an incentive to use it.
Black will no longer be considered so beautiful when people considered the fact that they put a traitor into the White House that gave our enemies the means to destroy the USA. K-12 and common core and many other issues will pale in comparison with the suicidal mistake of giving Islam the means to destroy the USA and Europe.