it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost.

The thing is that life is confusing and I have found it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost. It is also helpful to have an accurate mental model of how the world works. But that does not seem to be as necessary as having a small set of concrete principles. Thus telling the truth at all cost seems to be a very important thing. In my case, also the idea of trust in God seems to be a good thing to stick with. Though I know many people emphasize putting forth lots of effort to get your needs met, but that does not seem to work very well for me,- and in fact usually results in the exact opposite of the desired effect. Rather, it seems best to simply sit and learn Torah and Physics and then hope that what God wants for me will come to me. 

[To learn Physics I used a book by Joos called "Theoretical Physics". Recently I have used other books to learn further. Siegel's, Field Theory was very helpful (and Doron Cohen's Lectures in Quantum Mechanics). In Torah learning I found Rav Shach's Avi Ezri   to be a really great book. Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot are a great introduction to Rav Shach.] But I do not mean to set up myself as a good example. I can only describe the path I took to get to the Divine Light. That was basically being born into a wholesome wonderful home and going to the Mir (and Shar Yashuv) in NY and then going to Israel. That seems to have been enough to bring down the Divine light on me.  Losing that was mainly a result of getting fooled by counterfeit spirituality in the religious world. That is the reason I recommend avoiding counterfeit spirituality.

nightmarish religious world.Thus the Jewish religious world while not mentally ill in itself still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Some people suggest these negative trends in the USA began around 1900. Before that the USA had been WASP more as a religious identity more than an ethnic group. Apparently evolution was a big issue and the Bible being pushed out of schools.People even then were beginning to feel alienated. from the larger society.Then there was the push back which was mainly from Azusa Street and Aimee McPherson. But for some reason that seems to have had a very limited effect. The Leftward trends just kept going. 

My feeling about this is that the basic doctrine was really not as solid as the people like McPherson thought in the first place. As I have pointed out before letting Paul into the canon was like letting an ax into the piston engine. The basic Doctrine up until that time had been "the Constitution and the Word of God." But in the word of God itself as understood by Christians there were already tendencies of "anti Law." [anti-nomian-ism]. This charge was leveled at Protestants in particular after Martin Luther and it seems to me to be perfectly justified. In any case, this anti Law tendency just got worse over time. In Paul's time when Paul saw the effect of his antinomian letters, he pulled back and tried to correct the situation with limited success. But the antinomian letters are still there for anyone to read and still believe they are reading the "Bible". 

In any case, I can see the trouble with the opposite tendencies also--sanctimonious self righteousness, as is obvious to anyone who has lived in the nightmarish religious world for any period of time. To imagine that if everyone would be like that would make everything right is absurd.


I try to limit my critique in that direction however in order to try to come to a balanced approach which I think is best exemplified by authentic Litvak yeshivas and their surrounding communities. Those kinds of places seems to be the best at "not adding nor subtracting from the Law." Not only that but they seems to have this as conscious approach--to simply do what the Torah says, and rely not at all on any "doctrines."

The critique of Christian Anti-Nomian-ism started right with Peter and James. It came to full expression in Saadia Gaon who made clear his two major critiques on Christianity (1) anti-law (2) שיתוף ["joining" a creation with the Creator].

The trouble is the opposite critique has not really received a good definition. That is even though the Torah itself says "לא תוסיף" ''do not add to the Law,'' but the resulting nightmarish world that results when people do this has not really been analyzed.  Even Musar which was supposed to correct both tendencies has gone off the deep end of the pool.   

However I tend to think that the Rambam's Guide is a good antidote against religious fanaticism. 

The main dynamics of fanaticism is the religious leader is often a mentally ill person with OCD and sexual hangups. It becomes OK for him and his henchmen  to come up with new restrictions all the time as long as doing so does not interfere with their getting their own pleasures fulfilled. Thus the Jewish religious world, while not mentally ill in itself, still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Music for the honor and glory of God

t69 in mp3  This I think is more or less finished. It might need some editing so I ask the forbearance of the readers of this blog for any mistakes.  [t69 in midi]

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left.

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left. I do not see any reason for the Right to reinforce this -except a few recently bad presidents with bad policies. But to continue in this vein now seems to defeat the whole purpose. For 200 years the USA stood for everything that is right and decent more than any other nation in history. Even King David and King Solomon did not get anywhere near the 200 year mark. David I think was about 40 years and Solomon I forget. My opinion is that a lot of animosity comes from male white people being severely abused by the last couple of administrations. But now that is stopping and the USA is getting back on track. Why knock it?


Allen Bloom in his The Closing of the American Mind saw all the problems but his solution was limited to education in Plato's Republic. I would propose another solution but also along the lines that he said about the importance of education. My solution would be more or less along the lines of the Rambam of education in four areas the Written Law of Moses, the Oral Law--especially Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which contains the essence of the Oral Law, Physics [i.e. Field Theory which means Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle. I do not mean to discount what Allen Bloom was saying. It is just a matter of emphasis.]

[I do not mean to be exclusive either. First of all clearly the Rambam was also referring to Plato even though he thought more highly of Aristotle. Still I am curious abut what he saw in the Republic. My own feeling is the smaller dialogues are more important. Also in terms of the Oral Law, it is a good idea to learn the whole school of thought of Reb Chaim Solovietchik staring the חידושי הרמב''ם from Reb Chaim himself and including his major disciples.

Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar

The amazingly powerful thing about Musar and Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar is that Musar speaks to people like me. That is to say, I had a great deal of trouble understanding what Torah is all about until I started putting serious effort into Musar.

Just for the record Musar is mainly a short list of medieval books on Ethics and also one from the Renaissance period the מסילת ישרים.\
This list got added to because some of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter wrote their own books like the מדרגת באדם and the אור ישראל.
The great thing about this is that it gives one an idea of what simple basic fear of God is.
Nowadays the trouble seems to be that the Sitra Achra got into the fear of God business so it is hard to enter into any religious circles without encountering the agents of the Dark Realm.

Thus you see in the original disciples  of Reb Israel Salanter they were careful to avoid completely anyone or anything that was under the excommunication of the Gra. Apparently they were aware that the Sitra Achra can feign signs of holiness, and the Devil can even give people the power to do miracles into order to pervert the holy Torah.

I mean just for one simple example take a look at the whole long list of Musar books given by Rav Isaac Blasser the foremost disciple of Reb Israel Salanter.



I wanted however to mention that as was noted by the other Litvak sages-- Musar has limits. You really do not see much of any effect after a bare basic minimum of effort. People that concentrate a lot on Musar do not seem to gain more in character development than those who spend a small amount of time and then the rest of the day learn Gemara. Thus it became standard to have two short sessions during the day [15 min and 29 minutes.] and the rest of the day to work and learn Torah

אין שמין לגנב Bava Metzia page 96

רב חיים הלוי leaves one option open to say that the רמב''ם hold like the רשב''ם in בבא מציעא page צ''ז ע''א. Another option is to say he holds like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back whole vessels. I showed a few days ago that the ראב''ד has to hold by the רשב''ם. But I think it is clear the רמב''ם has to hold like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back כלים שלמים או כסף
The reason I say this is this. In הלכה י''ד  we find there is a case in which the thief pays back according to how much it was worth at the time of the theft. That is when it went down in value in the meantime. So אין שמין לגנב can not be telling the court to evaluate the object according to the time that the case reaches the court. So all it can be saying then is that the thief can not say הרי שלך לפניך. But if the thief can pay back the original according to שווה כסף ככסף then what is the whole point of the law in the first place. If he would say הרי שלך לפניך then also all he would be doing is giving back the original object according to how much it is worth now and make up the difference in value with other מטלטלים. If the רמב''ם would hold by the רשב''ם then the whole law would become meaningless.
So the only option that is left is to say the רמב''ם holds like רש''י and the רא''ש.


רב חיים הלוי משאיר אפשרות אחת לומר  כי רמב''ם מהחזיק כמו הרשב''ם בבבא מציעא דף צ''ו ע''א. אפשרות אחרת היא לומר שהוא מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים. הראיתי כי ראב''ד יש מהחזיק עם הרשב''ם. אבל  לרמב''ם יש להחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים או כסף. הסיבה שאני אומר את זה היא  שבהלכה י''ד אנו מוצאים קיים מקרה שבו הגנב משלם בחזרה על פי כמה שהחפץ היה שווה בעת הגניבה. כלומר, כאשר זה ירד בערך בינתיים. אז אין שמין לגנב לא ניתן לומר לבית המשפט להעריך את האובייקט על פי הזמן שהמקרה מגיע לבית המשפט. אז כל מה שניתן לומר אז הוא כי הגנב לא יכול לומר "הרי שלך לפניך." אבל אם הגנב יכול להחזיר את חפץ המקורי בגלל שווה כסף ככסף, אז מה כל העניין של החוק מלכתחילה. אם הוא היה אומר הרי שלך לפניך אז גם כל מה שהוא היה עושה הוא להחזיר את האובייקט המקורי פי כמה שהוא שווה עכשיו ולשלם את ההבדל בערך עם מטלטלים אחרים. אם הרמב''ם היה מחזיק עם רשב''ם אז החוק כולו יהיה חסר משמעות. אז האפשרות היחידה שנותרת היא  שהרמב''ם מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש.


If you put this all together, it means that the Rambam holds with Rashi and the Rosh that the thief has to pay back whole vessels or money, and the Raavad holds he can pay back even any objects according to their worth as the Rashbam says in Bava Metzia 96A.

simple faith

To go completely with simple faith with no reasoning at all seems to get some people far. This is the case even when the principles of simple faith are sometimes in fact at odds with reality. The reason is easy to understand if you go with Kant that there are areas of value that are not accessible to human reason. Not just that, but when human reason attempts to go there, it comes up with self contradictions.
It is even possible come up with a hierarchy of values in which content and form are complementary. Thus the more form, the less content. And we already know that reason perceives form only, not content. For example logic is all form with no content. The objects of logic are sentences that could stand for anything. If A implies B and A is true, then B is true.


So I do not want to knock the path of simple faith alone. In fact it seems to me that great people like Bava  Sali were in fact just going with simple faith, even though he certainly was a great Torah scholar also.

Still my path more or less is that of my parents which in one word could be called "balance." that means basically the same thing as the Rambam with a balance between Reason and Revelation.
The trouble with the path of simple faith is that not everything one thinks is content from the realm of holiness is as such. One can feel tremendous holiness from something that is in fact from the Dark Realm.

The actual doctrines of faith I ought to mention are to Rav Joseph Albo less than those of the Rambam.

I also suggest to learn with faith. That is in learning the four forces: The Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics-to not think if you understand or not. Rather to say the words and go on and believe that God will eventually grant to you to understand.


Simple faith seems highly related to 'Devakut' attachment with God. But the issues involved attachment with God are unclear to me. As I mentioned before the infinite Divine Light (as the Ari called it) was shining in me and around me in Israel for about seven years until I simply decided that it was too much for me. Clearly leaving the light was a terrible mistake. But in the meantime I have had time to consider the implications and the subject itself.
Mainly I have come to realize that the command in the Torah "to be attached to God" (Deuteronomy 6 is literal. Yet  Klal Israel said at Mount Sinai to Moshe (Moses), "You go to God and hear what he says and tell us an let us not see the Presence of God nor hear his voice any more least we die." That seems like a direct contradiction. One verse saying Devakut is a commandment and to the anonymous commentary o the first four chapters of the Ramam in Mishne Torah  is the highest commandment, and yet Israel refusing to be attached to God and then God agreeing with them?
So we see like Kant said that when one enters into the Realm of the Dinge An Sich self contradictions are manufactured.
I also learned that there is no process by which one can come to attachment with God. There are other commandments that one must do but they are independent areas of value. They do not result in Devakut. Devakut is more like a free gift to who God chooses for some special mission.
Also I learned that there is a lot of religious delusions in the religious world from people that imagine their every thought and desire and insanity is from God. This led to my awareness that the religious world in itself is mainly insane--or rather its leaders are insane and from the Dark Side and have no idea what true attachment with God is nor true Torah. That is once I got to understand the authentic Torah I can tell what counterfeit Torah is .