Navardok yeshivas

The way Navardok yeshivas were first made was by two students from the yeshiva just showing up in some town and sitting and learning Torah without asking for any favors. [It was part of that path to trust in God so asking people for favors was out.] I wonder if perhaps a similar approach is possible today. If there is no authentic Litvak yeshiva nearby then at least I suggest an hour a day of learning Torah [Old Testament, Mishna, Talmud, Midrash,  and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.].That is to restart the whole idea of Torah for its own sake, and trust in God.

In fact doing this at home is better as a rule. That means to have a session every day in Tenach, Mishna, Gemara, and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. 



In essence Navardkok consisted of two complementary concepts (1) to learn Torah without monetary compensation. (That is known as "Torah Lishma," for it's own sake, not for the sake of anything else.) (2) Trust in God without effort. That is to trust in God without doing anything to get that help. That is not to do what is called Hishtadlus "השתדלות". (The the מדרגת האדם by Rav Joseph Horwitz-the Alter of Navardok for details.)

The reason this is important is: to receive the yoke of Torah really there is a need of a Beit Midrash where one can learn Torah without being bothered. But the religious world itself needs a thorough house cleaning. It is full of Chametz/leaven. That is the leaders as a rule are demons from the Hell and that tends to leave a bad effect on the regular people. So in  a practical sense, I would not walk into any religious place but pray in a Conservative or Reform. The only kind of religious place I would walk into would be an authentic Litvak yeshiva. [There are very few of these. In the USA the only ones that are true and authentic are in New York. In Israel there are only Ponovitch and its branches or startups from people that learned in Ponovitch. ]

[The basic idea of learning Torah Lishma is not to use Torah for money. So to  large degree all the yeshivas in Israel that do so are lying as the Rambam wrote (commentary of Chapters of the Fathers, Pirkei Avot, chapter 4). Still the ironic thing is when they do learn for its own sake, then I think there is  mitzvah to give. I think this is clear in a few places in the Gemara.]

The false yeshivas use Torah to justify their sins and lies and covetousness and lust for money. They way they do this is to justify sin to make people feel good and positive. They say "We do not want any doom and gloom here. We want only positive messages. No Musar here."
The sin of the religious world is to use Torah to justify their lust for money. So I go no where near them.

[The classical example is the history (in the book of Kings) of Achav and Chizkia and the four hundred prophets that said, "You will be successful." Chizkiah however thought they were lying. So the called a prophet of God, Michayahu. He came and said also "Go up and you will be successful." Achav said to him How many times have I told you tell me only the truth in the name of God. Michaya said, "OK, you really want the truth? The truth is --you will not return alive." Achav said to Chizkia you see he always speaks bad about me. He is always negative.

T16 C major

Rambam 21:10 מלווה ולווה Laws of Lending and Borrowing

Rambam 21:10 מלווה ולווה Has been a confusing halacha for me for a long time. I did not realize that the Magid Mishna had actually explained it simply,-- even though he left it with  צ''ע (not clear why it is so.)

The basic idea is the same case that I have mentioned before in this blog many times. You have a lender a borrower and someone that bought a field from the borrower after the loan.
If the field is regular [not a guarantee for the loan] the lender gets it in case of default and 1/2 the improvements and in Halacha 21:1 he does not even pay for the expenses.

In Halacha 2:10 [when the field is collateral for the loan] the way the Magid Mishna explains it if the expenses are more than the improvement he gets half the improvement and pays nothing.  If the improvement is  more than the expenses, he can take all the improvement and pay for the expenses.
This would not be worth the time writing if not for the fact that the Rambam there is so unclear.
The way to see this in the Rambam is in the wording. The first part of the halacha is clear. The שבח is more than the הוצאה so the בעל חוב says "my field made the שבח" so he is claiming all the שבח and pays the הוצאה. Clear enough. But then: The שבח is less than the הוצאה he collects 1/2 from the בעל חוב and 1/2 from the מוכר. That is where the Magid Mishna and Rav Shach come in. At that point the בעל חובis coming by the claim of normal שיעבוד by which he has only a right to half the שבח as it says in Bava Batra. Still the בעל חוב gets the field with everything on it --all the שבח - but he has to pay only for a half and the other half he has a right to. So the part he has a right to the לוקח has to collect from the מוכר as per the same agreement "What I buy will be משועבד to this חוב."

It is clear but only with Magid Mishna and Rav Shach. [In any case the part the part that the בעל חוב is collecting because of מה שאקנה יהיה משועבד לחוב הזה he is not paying for. The only part he pays for it that which comes because it is part of the field. So with regards to 21:1 where the Rambam brings two opinions if the בעל חוב pays for the הוצאה in the normal case that the field is not collateral he is going like the opinion he does not have to pay.]






In any case there is still a lot to talk about in this halacah as you can see in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and I have had occasion to bring this up also in my notes on Shas, and I also recall that Reb Chaim Soloveitchik brought it up.
This is what I wrote about this about a year ago:
  ב''מ קי: ב''מ י''ד: בבא בתרא קנז: הסוגיה כאן הוא בב''מ יד: ובבבא בתרא קנז: יש מחלוקת בין תוספות בב''מ ותוספות בבא בתרא. המחלוקת תלויה בסברת רב חיים הלוי מבריסק. הסברא היא זאת: לפי דעת הרמב''ם, בדיון של מַלְוֶה לווה ולוקח (ויש ברירת מחדל) שהמַלְוֶה גובה רק חצי השבח (השיפוצים) וחצי נשאר אצל הלוקח בגלל ששיעבוד שניהם עובר דרך הלווה. אבל המַלְוֶה גובה את כל השבח שגדל ממילא בגלל ששיעבודו חל על הקרקע בעצמו ישיר, ולא דרך הלווה [שהוא המוכר]. (זאת אומרת שאחר שהשיעבוד חל על השדה, הוא נשאר שם, ואינו שם בגלל המשכה של כח המוכר.) זאת היא סברת תירוץ הראשון בתוספות בבא בתרא במצב שלנו איפה שהמַלְוֶה גובה את הקרקע מן הלוקח, אף על פי שיש קרקע אחרת ללוקח השני. הסיבה היא ששיעבודו חל על הקרקע בעצמה. מצד השני, תירוץ השני ותוספות ב''מ יד: אוחזים שאם יש לוקח שני, המַלְוֶה צריך לגבות ממנו בגלל ששיעבודו הולך דרך המוכר, ואינו חל על הקרקע בעצמה. ועכשיו מחלוקת שני שתירוצים היא מחלוקת ראשונים. שהסברא של תירוץ הראשון היא שיטת הרמב''ם לפי פירושו של רב חיים ברמב''ם. והרמב''ן והראב''ד חולקים על הרמב''ם.  ותירוץ השני ותוספות בב''מ יד: הולכים לפי שיטת הראב''ד והרמב''ן
ואין להקשות על זה מדברי הרמב''ן שכתב שהמַלְוֶה אומר: "ארעאי [הקרקע שלי] השביח", בגלל שכוונת הרמב''ן היא שבגלל שיעבודו על הלווה הקרקע נחשב של המַלְוֶה והשיעבוד בא דרך הלווה

 להבין את מה הרמב''ם יחזיק כאן קשרתי את החוק הזה לחוק של לווה ולווה וקנה. קודם כל יש שני תרחישים בתוספות. אחד מהם הוא שבו השדה השני נקנה לאחר הגבייה. אם זה המקרה שלנו אז יש קשר ברור לדין לווה ולווה וקנה. במקרה שלנו יש מַלְוֶה וקונה ולמַלְוֶה כמובן יש שיעבוד ראשון. אבל אם שדה השני נקנה לאחר הגבייה, אז שיעבוד של שניהם באים כאחת [באותו הזמן]. זה כמעט אותו המקרה. אבל אנחנו יודעים מה רמב''ם אומר בלווה ולווה וקנה, שהם חולקים את השדה. אם זה אותו העיקרון אז למה החוק כאן לא יהיה אותו הדבר
 תירוץ: יכול להיות שזו כן דעת הרמב''ם שיכול לגבות מאיזה מהם שהוא רוצה. זה כמו בלווה ולווה וקנה שיש לנו ספק ומניחים הברירה בידם לפי פירוש הרמב''ם
אבל יש תרחיש אחר בתוספות. כלומר, כאשר השדה השני היה בבעלות בעת הגבייה (או  של הלווה או של לוקח השני). כאן אפשר רמב''ם מחזיק כמו  חוות דעתו של תוספות שמַלְוֶה חייב לגבות את שדה הראשון או השני. אנחנו לא באמת יודעים מלשון רמב''ם. כל מה שאנחנו יודעים הוא שהרמב''ם אינו מחזיק אותו שהוא מצב של  אפותיקי (או משכון) להלוואה.

That is I had gone back and forth on the idea if this is related to לווה ולווה וקנה as you can see. And in the end I guess I decided it was.
I do not recall if it was there in that place but I do know I used Rav Shach's idea about the difference between what grows on its on and what grows by means the efforts of the buyer. In any case I wanted to bring up this halacah because of the clarity the Magid Mishna and Rav Shach both bring to it.

I should mention that שיעבוד of a field whether a field that is collateral or just plain is the same when it comes through מה שאקנה יהיה משועבד that is the buyer and the lender divide the שבח.

problem with Islam

I noticed the problem with Islam but only after it was brought to my attention in the most unpleasant ways possible. Personal experience. Before that I had assumed as many others that we are all just people underneath our skins and everyone really just wants the same things security and happiness. I had to learn the hard way what Brett Stevens is suggesting apparently simply from thinking things out thoroughly.

It might be considered a fault of mine to give people and groups the benefit of  a doubt long after they have shown their true colors.
But on the other hand when I finally do decide that some group is bad, then at least I being a reliable source.

The Mishna says כל המקבל עליו עול תורה מעבירים ממנו עול מלכות ועול דרך ארץ "The yoke of government and the yoke of the way of the world is removed from one who accepts on himself the yoke of Torah."
I took this to heart a few years ago thinking that I needed to get back to Torah.
Then I noted the Rambam brings this idea in an expanded way in Laws of Repentance ch 9, where he brings the idea that "all fears" are removed from one that accepts the yoke of Torah. This is the same idea but in a more general sense.
This idea can be used by unscrupulous people that try to get money out of secular Jews. Still abusus non tolit usum. Abuse does not nullify use. And I can see that there is a great need to sit and learn Torah.

Since the really great and authentic Lithuanian kinds of Yeshivas based on the Gra are few and far and the evil yeshivas that are hot beds of the sitra achra [the Dark Side] are close and many, thus there really is no choice but to get yourself the basic set of Torah and learn at home. The most important I think is Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which contains the basic principles of how to learn and most of the basic principles of Torah.

But in case people are reading this that might need a more basic introduction: the best of introductory books I have seen are those of Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsh --that is his book, the Horev. After that The English Soncino Talmud I think is great. I am not exaggerating. The translations there are works of genius. After that the best book of Jewish Law is the Tur with the Beit Yoseph. I really loved learning that book with the Bach also.

Race mixing

Stephen Gould suggested the fact of female choice as being an important factor--that is when there is freedom for the female of a species to choose upward that tends to bring the species to a higher level.

In any case, the problem with mixing that I see is that race is the beginning of one species being divided into two or more. That means race mixing is going directly against Nature and fighting against nature usually results in Nature winning the battle.

reason can perceive universals

To me it seems reason can perceive universals. I tend to go with Michael Huemer on this and Hegel also. The idea that there is some upper limit to reason Hegel answered by means of a dialectical approach.  [That is Hegel does not really hold of what is called intellectual intuition and is like Kant on that score. But he holds by thinking reason penetrates into the ding an sich by a dialectical process.]

As Bryan Caplan pointed out Kant is based on Hume and Hume assumes that all reason can do is perceive contradictions. He never proves this but just accepts it as an axiom. But clearly Reason does much more. It recognizes general principles.  Thus the whole basis of Kant falls away. Still there is much in the Intuitionist school of Michael Huemer that seems like quietism and does not address the issues raised by Kant--like how does reason go further? For this we need Hegel.

That is the Intuitionists deals with Kant's question how can reason perceive synthetic a priori like this: It just does. Period. clearly Huemer is more subtle than that and goes with probability. He is an amazing writer but still things there that needs critique. 

[I would rather not go into this, but just look up Hegel and Huemer's writings  Prichard's, John Searle, and the Rambam's Guide for the Perplexed.  You will see with this background what I mean.] [When the Rambam says to learn Metaphysics, I think that though he meant the set of books of Aristotle by that name, this should be applied to Kant and Hegel.]


[I should mention I have tried hard to defend the Kant/Fries school of Kelley Ross, but in the end I have had to go with Hegel. It is not necessarily one particular problem. Kelley Ross is an amazing thinker, but to me Hegel just makes a lot more sense.]

There is a Jewish mother blog "Mother in Israel" that suggested on her blog Hegel a long time ago that I ignored because I had found some important insights on Kelley Ross's Kant Fries site.  The thing I think that got me most interested in Hegel was when I realized his jargon was philosophical an that statements taken out of context or poorly understood did not constitute a true critique. Also just seeing  some of the problems in Kant that simply are not well answered brought me around to seeing the importance of Hegel. That is in a nut shell: The critiques on Hegel I thought were not accurate.

It occurs to me I was never very impressed with implanted knowledge especially since it can't be falsified-not with any of the things Kant though were unconditioned, but even things like Math.   Still all in all Dr Kelley Ross is an amazingly thorough thinker. I still have to go with Hegel.