Nefesh HaHaim and learning Torah

Probably the most important Musar books to learn are

 The Nefesh HaHaim and a Musar book of collected ideas from the Gra called Even Shelma אבן שלמה  "Perfect Rock" or Perfect Measure".. The first one is rather important . The Nefesh HaHaim is very important in so far that he explains a lot of issues- for example-the importance of learning Torah, how to pray properly and a lot of other stuff.

Both are considered classical Musar books. Neither are medieval but even so they are considered part of the classical cannon or set.

The trouble I found with the Nefesh Hahaim was it made me feel guilty when I am not learning Torah. And that is confusing to me because my parents and the Rambam were more along the lines of Torah with a vocation plus Physics and Metaphysics. Still I admit the Nefesh Hahaim might in fact be the most important of all Musar books.

There was a later Musar book that was saying to give your children the Nefesh Hahaim and on their bar Mitzvah [or Bat Mitzvah] to have them read the 4th part which talks about learning Torah. I had hoped to do that- but the truth be told- I got distracted from learning Torah. I am not proud of that. If I could go back today I would try to stick with the path of my parents as close as possible תורה עם דרך ארץ Torah with a vocation. That is to learn Torah half a day and to learn an honest vocation for making a living. That is I would learn Torah but do my best not to be in a position of using Torah for the sake of a livelihood..


So what makes it so hard for me or others to learn Torah. The problem is clearly half and half. That is half the problem is in me. When I or anyone walks away from Torah it is no surprise that when we try to come back into the world of Torah that we find the door is  locked.

The other half of the problem is the Dark Side the Sitra Achra now has taken over a large part of what used to be called the world of Torah. Nowadays the leaders are the villains. That means to learn Torah you have to get a Gemara and  a book of Musar and the sidur HaGra and do your thing at home. There are very few authentic Litvak yeshivas around anymore. There obviously are in New York like the Mir and Torah VeDaat and Ponovicth in Israel. But besides the great Litvak yeshivas it is hard to find anything authentic.

Muslims are obstacles to peace

I noticed on a blog  a letter from Germany about the problems with Muslims. You have an incident when a Muslim woman just walks up to a policeman in Germany and stabs them in the neck with no warning. What is odd about this is people in Israel have been going through this kind of insanity for 60 years with no sympathy from anyone. You would imagine that today people would have more sympathy for what Jews have gone through with Muslims. But no. Whom gets the blame for Muslim violence? Jews, of course!

I was actually there at such an incident. Besides the constant weekly suicide bombing of Jews in Jerusalem, I also experienced a lot of personal attacks, and also witnessed many attacks.
There was one incident just like that one in Germany that I remember- of a Muslim just walking up to a police officer and stabbing them without even saying, "hello."
Not that Jews got any sympathy from this. On the contrary. Even the Israeli media always referred to these kinds of incidents as "obstacles to peace." [As if these were just minor insignificant events!]

Even a Jewish woman in NY, when I mentioned this kind of thing to her, said "Well, they must have gone through a lot to be driven to such violence."

So ever since I stated blogging, I never referred  to this kind of thing. I figure, people are born  hating Jews. It is in the human DNA, and nothing I can say will change that.
If Jews are attacked by Muslims, then according to people, we deserve it. If people are attacked by Muslims, then Jews are at fault.
Where I saw this letter the comments were referring to some Zionist conspiracy, or other kinds of Jewish world take-over types of ideas.  But I did not pay much attention because these kinds of opinions are very common nowadays in the USA Germany and Russia. World takeover? I'd rather sit and learn Torah.
And in terms of how the world ought to be? Frankly, I thought normal American Wasp [White Anglo Saxon Protestant] society was pretty good.  Now I do realize there are lots of leftists and Marxists that are joining together to destroy decent Wasp society. But that is not a Jewish conspiracy. There are plenty of ordinary white people that are trying to take down the USA and Western civilization. But these are Marxist and Islamic conspiracies , not Jewish ones. But that is not the point for most people. They really just don't care about Western civilization. The main thing is to blame Jews whenever things don't work. If Americans would really care about Wasp society, they would not have an Islamic president. If Germany really cared about Western civilization, they would not invite the Islamic invasion.

Ideas on Bava Metzia page 14

Ideas in Shas  Ideas in Bava Metzia ch 8 and ch 9

In בבא מציעא we find that the רב said that in a case where one has bought something from a thief and the property returns to  the owner, that the buyer  gets the money he paid for it from the thief and the improvement also. רש''י explains that this is a case in which the original property was already improved and the thief damaged the property. So the original owner is getting back the property with zero improvement.  תוספות explains that the case is simply that the property was empty and the buyer improved it, and so when רב says the גנב pays back the שבח, it is a simple case of his giving back the improvement, and the original owner gives back the investment to the buyer.

The idea of תוספות is that this is not any different from a case where a person goes into someone else's field and plants it. In such a case the owner pays the הוצאה, או את השבח which ever is less.
This all seems simple and plain. Now this is also the way the פני יהושע understands this and it seems like there is no need of any explanation.

The problem here arises when we look at בבא קמא page צ''ה ע''ב. It looks like this entire subject in בבא מציעא is going according to the opinion of רבי מאיר over there, and against רבי יהודה and רבי שמעון. That seems absurd on the face of it.   רבי מאיר is the one person who holds that improvement goes back to the original owner with the stolen object, not רבי יהודה or רבי שמעון. But if you try to explain the subject in  בבא מציעא as if it was going like the law in בבא קמא , you encounter major problems. Some of these problems were noted by the פני יהושע, but there is  a  question  that seems to me to be even more powerful that the questions the פני יהושע raised. The fact is that שמואל is the person that argues with רב in בבא מציעא דף י''ד and he says  the buyer does not get back the improvement. If you try to explain this according to רבי יהודה it makes no sense. Of course he does not get back the improvement  because no one took it from him in the first place!
In short, the whole subject in  בבא מציעא seems to be going completely like רבי מאיר and we know from עירובין that this is simply impossible. When there is an argument between רבי מאיר and or רבי שמעון with רבי יהודה the law always is like רבי יהודה.

) בבא מציעא דף י''ד. בבבא מציעא אנו מוצאים כי רב אמר כי במקרה שבו אחד קנה מגרש מגנב ואחרי  חזרת הרכוש לבעלים, שהקונה מקבל את הכסף ששילם עבור אותו מגרש מהגנב ואת השיפור גם. רש''י מסביר כי מדובר במקרה שבו הנכס המקורי השתפר ביד הקונה אחר שהגנב היזק את הרכוש. אז הבעלים המקורים מקבלים בחזרה את הנכס עם אפס שיפור. תוספות מסביר כי במקרה הוא פשוט כי הנכס היה ריק והקונה שפר אותה, ולכן כאשר רב אומר הגנב משלם בחזרה את השבח, זה מקרה פשוט של  חזרת השיפור לקונה שעשה את השיפור,  והבעלים המקוריים יחזירו את ההשקעה לקונה. הרעיון של תוספות הוא שזה לא שונה מכל מקרה שבו אדם נכנס לשדה של מישהוא  ונטע הצמחים. במקרה כזה בעלים משלם את ההוצאה, או את השבח איזה שהוא פחות. כל זה נראה פשוט ורגיל. עכשיו זה גם האופן שבו הפני יהושע מבין את זה. הבעיה כאן מתעוררת כאשר אנו מסתכלים על בבא קמא דף צ''ה ע''ב. זה נראה כמו כל הנושא בבבא מציעא הולך לפי דעתו של רבי מאיר שם, ונגד רבי יהודה ואת רבי שמעון. זה נראה אבסורדי על פניו. רבי מאיר הוא האדם היחיד אשר גורס כי שיפור חוזר לבעלי המקורי עם החפץ הגנוב, לא רב יהודה או רב שמעון. אבל אם אתה מנסה להסביר את הנושא בבא מציעא כאילו שזה הולך כמו החוק בבא קמא, אתה נתקל בבעיות גדולות. חלק מהבעיות הללו צוינו על ידי הפני יהושע, אבל יש שאלה שנראית לי להיות אפילו יותר חזקה  מן השאלות שהפני יהושע הרים. העובדה היא כי שמואל הוא האדם שמתווכח עם רב בבבא מציעא דף י''ד והוא אומר הקונה אינו מקבל את השיפור. אם אתה מנסה להסביר את זה על פי דעתו של רבי יהודה זה לא הגיוני. כמובן שהוא לא נחזיר את השיפור כי אף אחד לא לקח את זה ממנו מלכתחילה! בקיצור, כל הנושא בבבא מציעא נראה שהולך לגמרי כמו רבי מאיר ואנחנו יודעים בעירובין כי זה פשוט בלתי אפשרי. כשיש ויכוח בין רבי מאיר לבין רבי שמעון או עם רבי יהודה החוק תמיד הוא כמו רבי יהודה. יש לומר יש חילוק בין מגרש לחפץ המיטלטל.

For some reason this whole piece was not in either book as far as I could tell so I put it into the Ideas on Shas just now Sept 7  2016. I can't remember if there was some reason I left it out.

After thinking about it it occur to me I might have left it out because it seems trivial.

The literal meaning of Torah פשט הפשוט

The idea of going straight to the Torah [the Five books of Moses and the Old Testament]  is not a bad idea. I think a lot of doubts can be settled that way.This does not mean there is not a need to solve contradictions. Contradictions in metaphysical reality seems to be part of the nature of reality as Kant saw.

What we see in practice is a lot of what goes on is contrary to the Law of God but people have ways of excusing  it by finding some verse that they say is ambiguous and making a explanation that contradicts the plain meaning of the text. The reason is people are attracted to the ugly and profane and sexual sin and want to hear that it is OK and so find some verse to support them.

It seems that Saul was in fact interpreting the word of God.  It was not the same as simple disobedience.

If you look at the actual verses it seems Saul thought he had obeyed the word of God because that is how he interpreted  it. It was not simple disobedience. It was first- interpret. And then to imagine that  he fulfilled it.

I would like to name  this sin, "the sin of interpretation." חטאת הפירוש

The group that the Gra put into excommunication is poison.

The group that the Gra put into excommunication is poison.

The toxicity is in the dosage.  When children are constantly inundated with this, the overall effect will be noticeable.  They internalize this as the new normal.

So why are they doing this?

Part of the reason is that religious teachers hate you.  You, the stupid  masses that do whatever you are told, and never question; they despise you in the same way that a rapist hates his victim.  Your unguarded mind is too tempting for them to resist (or so they tell themselves) and it’s your fault for making them do it.

Another part of the reason is that it works.  Every single one of you is a fallen creature in love with sin.  You lust after ugly pornography, you live  through  antiheroes, and deep down you want to rebel against the reality God made. 

So while a Litvak yeshiva  showing off how delicious learning Torah is might raise awareness, its impact is going to fall short of a group that subtly implies something subversive, dark, and sinister.  Part of you loves things that are twisted; they’re just giving you what they want. It is the same reason the group of the Shatz was so successful. You want sin, and you want to be told it's OK.

In the Middle Ages the point of Christian scholarship was to iron out the contradictions plus work out the problems of theology based on the Neo Platonic school.  One such problem was Divine simplicity. The way this was done by Boethius was mainly to stick to Neo Platonism. This was serious work and was not made irrelevant by subsequent people, nor Martin Luther.  The Jewish world faced a similar problem. To iron out the contradictions and meaning of the OT and in the Talmud. Plus similar problems in Theology. In any case, all this is based on one idea. There is no essential contradiction in the word of God. What Protestants do is to ignore all these problems. If a certain verse appeals to one, then he or she grabs it and that is that. Divine simplicity never bothers Protestant at all. All the problems facing the Middle Ages were simply swept under the carpet, not answered.


As about a thousand years of trouble with Divine simplicity did not get very far, Aquinas simply  went to Aristotle following Maimonides.This was very helpful as far as Divine simplicity was concerned but made other problems. Kelley Ross thinks the problems with Aristotle are so great that the logical thing to do was to go back to Plato. [Not that Aquinas or Maimonides could have done that since they were busy working out their system. But later on people when they saw the problems could have simply gone back to a Neo Platonic approach. But in the West that is not what happened. People went into a far more radical empirical-ism than that contemplated by Aristotle. So the Western Judaic Christian  world tends to be pretty secular.
[Dr. Kelley Ross: However, a stricter empiricism again creates the difficulty that the apparent "form" of an object cannot provide knowledge of an end (an entelechy) that is only implicit in the present object, and so hidden to present knowledge.
Curiously, the reaction to this was not immediately a new Platonism or Neoplatonism, but a more extreme empiricism:  The Nominalists overcame the Aristotelian difficulty by rejecting Realism altogether.]


My own feeling about all this is the to learn the Oral and Written Law and take a Neo Platonic approach. I do not think Aquinas was very successful in answering the Divine simplicity problem. Or rather let me say I think the Rambam did a better job by simply sticking with Aristotle and the First Cause. Though I can appreciate the efforts of Aquinas and what he did for natural law but in terms of the NT I think he was simply trying to do the impossible. As long as Paul is part of the NT there can not be any way to get him to correspond to the OT

I have thought that the Left will use violence to stop Trump because of two reasons. (1) Power is their religion. That is they do not have transcendental traditional religious values. Thus they bring to politics all the fervor you would normally find in religious fanatics. (2) I have some interest in Marxism and am aware of some of its doctrines. See some Marxist writings and you too will see that  the tendency is to advocate violence. Plus I saw that these kinds of books were being taught even in the humanities and social studies departments of good universities that I was in like Polytechnic in NY. So in terms of that I have to agree with the previous comment.

See the links to Marx and Hegel on the internet and you will see what I mean