A Book on Bava Metzia  Book on Shas  both were updated. i added a bit. Also I saw one idea was not written very well in the older versions, So I had to go back and explain things.


Title page of book on Bava Metzia



Title page for book on the Talmud

If I would have to reduce my parent's idea of a proper education into one phrase I would say it would be: "Torah and vocation and survival skills."

My Dad was born to Jewish immigrants from Poland right after World War I.  There is a story behind this. In Poltusk, Poland, there was a Jewish family, the Rosenblums. The father was Altar Rosenblum. One of his boys left the old country and immigrated to  to NY and started a bakery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He was  married to a Jewish girl from another Polish village. His younger brother, Yaakov, came to join him. When Yaakov arrived it was suggested that he marry the sister of the wife of the first brother. So they sent for Rivka. When she came, Yaakov and she got married. Their second son was Philip. He was sent to public school along with his older brother Alex and younger sister Ruth. He had a choice to go into doing the violin professionally, or to go the Michigan State University for Mechanical Engineering. He chose the latter. He also applied to Cal Tech and was accepted. (California Institute of Technology). That was the top university in the USA for technology at the time. MIT was second. But Philip's parents were poor immigrants so he decided to go to Michigan instead since it was $100 less expensive. By the time he graduated from Michigan his parents could also pay for Cal Tech so he went there for his master's degree.

Then World War II started. So he volunteered for the USA Air Force. He was sent to France to set up an Air Force base for the Allied airplanes. Because of his experience in engineering, he was able to sent up a system where people that knew nothing about planes would be trained in fixing just one small part of  a plane. So when damaged and planes would arrive he had a system in which he had a whole team that each member knew just one portion of the plane and they could get almost any plane up and back into action with a few hours. His main obligations were for a group of B-29 Bombers. He was the captain of the group. (In Air Force terminology that means  flight commander- the leader of a pack of B-29 bombers going into battle.)
After the war, he met my mother, Leila Freeman. She was also from a family of immigrants from Poland. (Dorthy Solomon and Isaac Freeman were her parents.) They lived in NJ. Philip met her on a beach. He was with a group of  friends, and someone suggested that they go over  say hello to the group of girls that was at the beach at the same time.

He worked at the time for the USA Army at Fort Monmouth NJ. That is where he invented a kind of camera that could focus Infra Red rays into a coherent image. And that is when he had a article written about him in Life Magazine.

They had three boys. I am the middle. My first memories are from public school in Newport Beach California where they had moved. Philip had been recruited by  again to build a camera for the highly secret U-2 project. So he flew off to Area 51 every week. Later he was asked to join the SDI project at the height of the Cold War  (Star Wars). So we moved to Beverly Hills which was in commuting distance from TRW where his laboratory was located.

The main thing that I was hoping to get to was the main thing in this narrative was family vacations, skiing, sailing, and going to the beach every weekend. This was their way of parenting. We just would spend time together as a family. And they never argued. There was an amazing love and aura of peace and wholeness about them.  Their main principle was to be  a "mensch"--a decent human being.
We  believed in Torah--the Oral and Written Law of Moses. [That means to say that we went to a very good Reform Temple in Hollywood, but we placed much more emphasis on Torah that the official Reform doctrine.] But I should mention that we were not religious fanatics. And my parents also thought that it is not good to be a crazed, religious fanatic.  Learning Torah and keeping Torah is important. But their idea of what it means to learn and keep Torah was  based on how their were taught by their parents who were simple working Jews from Eastern European Shtettles. And that was very far away from religious fanaticism.

Their approach was balance. And that is an approach that I try to keep to.

I was philosophically inclined and as a teenager I would talk to my mother about my ideas when I got home from school. I also showed interest in Physics and my parents encouraged me in this direction. All my years in High school I had a college textbook of Collage Physics that I read from time to time. But I have no talent in that direction.  I tried to explain this to my Mom  I said that I thought I would try to go into the violin thing. She said, "If so then you have to spend at least 6 hours a day practicing." But even a lot of practice had a "law of limited returns" for me. So I was not good at anything I tried my hand at.  At some point I got interested in learning Torah more than what had been in our home and wanted to go to yeshiva. My parents were against this. And time showed that they were right. There are two kinds of Torah learning. One is what is called לשמה for its own sake. That means one does not make money from it or get other kinds social benefits. The other kind is for social benefit and money. They thought that yeshivas were mainly about the later--that is to use Torah for some alternative benefit. And this they thought was wrong.
To some degree they are right. But as for the two yeshivas were I learned I think that both places were very much into learning Torah for its own sake.

They also had a concern about making an honest living and not depending on charity. Plus the whole idea of being in yeshiva and learning only Torah implied a kind of lack of balance or fanaticism that they disapproved of.  Later on I began to appreciate their point of view.  But this was all my own fault. Neither yeshiva in NY was saying anything about being fanatic. My first Rosh yeshiva (Rav Friefeld) told me to spend half a day going to university. (And Reb Shmuel Berenbaum also had nothing against university if it for making a living. That is what he told me openly word for word.) And the second place {The Mir in  NY} also was simply concentrating on learning Torah but no one said it could be used as means to make  a living.

My Dad had a major principle, i.e.,  to be self sufficient.


I think if I had known about the way of learning of the Talmud in Tractate Shabat page 63A of saying the words and going on-- I probably could have gone into Physics. The trouble I think was I did not have method of learning by which I could understand. I discovered that that even if I don't get it at first it gets absorbed by osmosis.

I think I had a spiritual connection with my parents. This is something you see in the Ari and I definitely felt it.

This is all the bare outline. There is more to tell about our trips to go skiing and sailing but perhaps I will leave that to another time since it seems like almost a new topic.

More details:
1) My Dad left TRW before the scandal about the Russian spy emerged. {That was the event in which the KGB found found a janitor inside of TRW who was able to steal the plans for the SDI project.} My Dad's reason for leaving was that there were many very talented engineers being trained by USA universities in more modern technologies and that they were going to be hired and that he was going to be fired. So he left before that could happen. The scandal about the Russia spy emerged afterwards and then TRW went under.
2) Then my Dad tried his hand at different projects. He made improvements in our home in Beverly Hills and sold it at a profit. And began to do the same with other real estate properties. And he invested heavily in the Stock Market and never took the advice of any stock broker. He said, "The fastest way to lose money on the stock market is to take the advice of stock brokers." He investigated every company he invested in. His business abilities were inherited by my brothers.

3) My mother got sick and died right after I went to yeshiva. This was a terrible blow to my father and us brothers. It is very hard to describe my mother. Mainly she took her responsibilities towards her husband and her children with the highest degree of serious that any human being can summon. And this included her loyalty and love towards her own parents and sisters.
That means she spent all of her time raising her children properly, cleaning house, getting us to school and then after school violin and piano lessons and working herself on part time jobs  like typing as secretary. It was on the way to a violin lesson when she told me how she wanted to be buried--in  plain pine box. She never had the chance to get old but she did ask me and my brothers never to put her in an old age home. This she said every  time when that I or my brothers asked her what we could do for her in gratitude of all she was doing for us.
She and my Dad had a horror about being dependent on other people's favors. Self sufficiency was their prime directive.
The idea of self sufficiency came up in many situations. For just one example I was not allowed to use teh ski lift until I could walk up the mountain on my own two feet and ski down. And that is exactly what I did. Only then was I allowed to go up on the ski lift. Another example was the slide rule. You can do calculation instantly with the slide rule. But my Dad did not let me use it until I could do the same kind of calculations by hand. That is to say my brothers and I were taught to be self sufficient. That was the reason also that we were sent to join the boy scouts in order to learn outdoor skills. But again I should mention my parents had a very abundant quantity and quality of common sense. They would never send us to the boy scouts today and would be horrified even if we would want to go on our own.

If I would have to reduce their idea of a proper education into one phrase I would say it would be: "Torah and vocation and survival skills."

The modern world can't confront Islam. It [Islam]does not fit into any category that people can understand. In the modern world we are used to cherishing freedom of religion. And Islam is a religion. It goes against everything the West accepts as basic fundamental rights to try to dictate to others that their religion is bad. The easiest thing is to blame Israel. That at least has the advantage of being something people can understand and relate to.

What else could the world do? Call it a political system? It is not that [though it has political goals].

The problem is not so much how to confront Islam, but rather an identity crisis of the West itself.
People don't know who they are anymore. In Christendom people knew who they were. Christians. And in the USA for about 200 years people knew who they were and what they stood for. Freedom and Democracy for all. Jews knew who they were. And Communists also.
None of this applies anymore. Americans are embarrassed of their heritage. Christendom is such an obsolete concept I can't even remember how to spell it.

I would like to deal with this problem in more depth but suffice it to say the modern world is facing problems that it can't understand and does not even have the conceptual categories to define the problem.
This is bad news. Once this happened before. The old world had passed away in World War I. The kings and old categories were gone. In that vacuum grew Nazism and Communism.

My solution to this dilemma is simple. Learn Torah. I mean the Oral and Written Law of Moses.


I can imagine that some people might not like this. It is strong medicine. But it is about the only thing I can think of that would give Western Civilization a chance to get back on its feet.

The world is shedding old categories, and entering a new phase. In  restless sea one needs a map. But not any map will do. The Law written on Two Tablets of Stone is what the world needs. [There is more to the Five Books of Moses than that but that is the essence. And the essence of Torah is what people need.

The Musar (Ethics) movement has a connection with Kant.

The Musar (Ethics) movement has a connection with Kant.

The problem that Musar ((Ethics)) was meant to address was the disconnect between obligations between man and his fellow and and obligation between Man and God.  The idea of Israel Salanter was that by learning mediaeval books of ethics one tends to correct this disconnect.
Kant was also concerned with the problem of radical evil. He thought there are only two principles. One decides to act in accord with objective morality, and then he is totally good. Or he or she decides act only for self interest, and then he or she is totally evil. {This would mean that one decides to act only in the interest of the group he or she is a part of, that is also totally evil. This explain what is wrong with Islam--in that personal morality is not important. The spread of Islam by the sword is the major thing.} Kant in an uncharacteristic way saw a solution to this dilemma. His solution was surprisingly close to that of Israel Salanter, i.e. to be part of a community that the requirement for membership is commitment to objective morality. That is a Musar Movement.

But any movement  can be hijacked sadly. Still the basic approach of Musar I think is right, and it is important to find people of like mind. [If I had been smart, I would either have stayed in the Mir Yeshiva in NY which was a Musar Yeshiva, or even in Israel after I made aliyah, I could have gone to the Lithuanian yeshiva of Rav Fievelson the the Old City of Safed --but sadly enough I did not have to foresight to see how important Musar is.]

In Tana De'Vei Eliyahu: God said to Elijah,  the prophet, "I will let you know some of my traits. Sometimes you have people that have not a drop of Torah or good deeds in them, and yet when they turn to me and are involved very much in praying to me, then I pay attention to them, as it says in the verse 'He turns to the prayer of the empty one.'"

1.) Tana De'Vei Eliyahu  is one of the standard Midrashim. It has similar status and authority as the Midrash Raba and Tanchuma.

2.) The idea of "private conversation"is first that it is private. It is in a place where no one else is around. Also it is not from  any prayer book. It is ones own words that one says to God.

3.) I should mention that this is the only kind of prayer I feel has any  validity. The standard prayers I think are a waste of time. If one is learning Torah then he is not obligated in the standard prayers. That is a regular Halacha in the Rambam and Shulchan Aruch. If one is involved in learning a vocation the time that is most important is right when he gets up in the morning. To spend that time running to shul to half heatedly say words he does not mean and then to start his studies means he will not get very far. This is why in fact people that do this can't do anything well. This is because all their efforts and energy is not going into real prayer and not going into their work either.

4.)  prepare a pack lunch and go into the forest every day all day long to talk with God. I actually tried this for  a few years in Safed. I don't this anymore. But I still feel that when things are confusing for me that there is no other address to go to but to God directly.

A Song for God   h55  [h55 in midi] This might need some editing. I am not sure. It seems a little short.

q64 [q64 in midi]  j100  [j100 midi]

Today in an ironic way is the yartzeit [day they died] of both my father and Reb Aaron Kotler. [Kislev 2 on the Hebrew calendar]. My father did not want me going to yeshiva. He believed in the Oral and Written Torah but that was not the issue. He thought learning Torah is a great thing. The reason he did not want me going to yeshiva was he thought all yeshivas are rabbinical schools or they use the Torah to make money.


To Reb Aaron the most important thing in the world was to make yeshivas.

The result of his efforts was the Lakewood yeshiva in NJ and several kollels in different American cities. One, for example, in Los Angeles. I was there at the beginning of the kollel of Lakewood in LA. They asked me to go to people I knew in Beverly Hills to ask for money for them. Why? Because it is a mitzvah to learn Torah. {That is they were saying since they learn Torah people ought to give them money. We will learn in short order that that is not really what they think. Rather they want people's money, and have found a way to con them to give it to them. A there are always people around to oblige them. A sucker is born every minute.}


This is a hard issue to  resolve. On one hand I never intended to use the holy Torah for money and I thought the type of yeshiva I was going to was really trying hard to learn Torah for its own sake and not for money.

On the other hand I learned the hard way that my father was right. I was for some years in Israel after learning at the Mir in NY. After a period in Israel my wife and I decided to return to California. When we got to LA the people in the Lakewood Kollel told my wife to divorce me because I was learning Torah.
Thereby giving me direct proof that my father was right all along. But not just that but since then I have seen many others proofs to my father's position.
So what we have from this is in fact it is a great thing to learn and keep Torah and the more effort one puts into this the better. But we also learn that there are people that claim to be learning Torah and claim that it is  a mitzvah to give them money. One should avoid these types as much as possible. They are extremely dangerous. And they give  a bad name to Torah. After people experience religious teachers, no wonder they are turned off from Torah. Who would not be? It is up to people that care about Torah to remedy this situation and do what ever is possible to stop this scam.

[No offence to Reb Aaron. He should not be held responsible for all the jerks that came out of his yeshiva. He was after all only intending for the sake of Heaven. But by the same token we could say why blame communism for the millions that Stalin murdered? Or why blame Nazism for what Hitler did in the name of Nazism? Maybe it was a few jerks that did not understand Nazism?]

So what I think is that we already know that kollels are against the Torah. If the Torah itself says this is forbidden and people choice not to listen and pretend that what they are doing is Torah then why blame the Holy Torah? 

 Once people think they are God's gift to mankind the trouble begins. [I should mention my critique here is not against Reform or Conservative groups whom I have generally found to be upright. Not am I criticizing people that learn Torah for its own sake as should be. And many people like that are around in Israel and in NY yeshivas. One bad batch does not spoil everyone else.

What I suggest is we can admire greatness. But we need vision to recognize greatness. In my father and mother were real greatness. The kind of greatness that lives according to Torah --not just learns it.

That is what I suggest is that my father was a more accurate representation of how the Torah wants people to live. The more so called "strict" approaches I think are not accurate and also wrong.