during surgery

I do not expect favors from people, but if anyone actually learned Mishna or the Avi Ezri or Gemara as I went into the operation I want to thank you.

I also want to thank all the amazing nurses and especially the doctor Alexander Sergevitch. And in particular the nurse Ira, who talked to me before and during surgery and called me Avraham Philipovitch. An amazing thing. Words of kindness and respect when I am certain I could not have looked very respectable.

The surgery was Thursday. August 31.

I am very pleased with the doctor Alexander Sergevitch  and the whole group of nurses. Uman does not have much of a reputation in terms of doctors, but this one is excellent.

(What I heard here in the hospital was there was a doctor in the unit left over from the USSR in Uman who was really bad and that gave Uman a bad reputation. But this doctor is different.)

Music for the glory of GOD

T99 T 97 D Major  t99 in midi
t97 in midi t99 nwc  t97 nwc

I need God's help today. I broke my leg and am having an operation called osteo synthesis. Prayers for me would be appreciated and learning Mishna. Learning Mishna should be with any of the basic commentaries. The Tiferet Israel is great but it is really a matter of taste. The Rav from Bartenura is also good.
If anyone could learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach for me today that would be even better. [Or better yet-to accept on themselves to learn the whole Avi Ezri from cover to cover.]

Another thing I would appreciate is if someone would learn a  little  Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot and Maharsha for me. {My name: Avraham Ben Leila and Philip].


I am very nervous and so my thoughts are not settled. I see I published the T99 without making sure it was finished. I see there are still a few parts that need finishing.  [a hour later I just added the missing parts.]

T97 might not be finished. Actually the end of T97 suggests to go a second and third movement. This is the kin of thing you see at the end of the first movement of the 40th symphony by Mozart where the ending in itself suggests a continuation.

Uman for Rosh Hashanah

I think it is important to know for people coming to Uman for Rosh Hashanah is there is a new criminal group that is going around beating up people seriously and robbing them. This is mainly at night or early morning in the city center and near to bus station.

I myself was victim but they do not care who it is. I do not know why the police have not put a stop to it. Just yesterday I saw another victim. A regular fellow [not Jewish] who was simply walking around in the city center early in the morning, and they beat him so severely that he might have internal head injuries. [It was light. Not nighttime.]
[He was coming out of a 24 hour a day store called "ATB". That is one place where this groups is waiting for people. They are very sophisticated and have night vision equipment. They also come up out of  car with masks so the nearby cameras can not see them.

[This comes up all the time in Uman. There is a new criminal group with new tactics every year or so.]



I do not think the police are even aware of the problem yet. In any case, please please please--people coming for Rosh Hashanah please stay near the Ziun of Reb Nachman and only go to the city in broad daylight.

[Though I am a thorough Litvak, I still have a lot of confidence in Reb Nachman's ideas (but not Breslov). The excommunication of the Gra simply did not apply to him as you can see from the wording the excommunication that the Gra signed. [There is an historical book that brings down the details and recently some people published a very thorough biography of the Gra which got people so mad that it must be accurate. I was there in Netivot around 7 years ago when it came out. But  I did not buy it. Mainly I have no doubt to what it must be saying--that the Gra was serious. And no doubt the Gra was right. But I still think because of Reb Nachman' personal service towards God he merited to deep insights that are important to listen to.]
In any case this new group might be so sophisticated that the police might be having a hard time keeping up. In any case this is not at all directed towards Jewish people. In fact the centre of activity seems to be ATB stores.


I should also mention that at Sofia Park are wandering vicious dogs so care should be  taken in visiting all these places. In fact it is better not to go to Sofia at all but rather the public river called Ostashivka on the other side of Uman where there is boating and swimming and no dogs


I should mention also that the subgroup of Na Nach people seems to me to be fairly good. At least it is the best of all the other groups.

There are times when thought does not help.

On the eve of  a battle between the Spartans and Athenians, the general Demosthenes, told them, "Let no man try to display his wits by summing up the dangers, because there are times when thinking does not help anything. Just face the enemy with a lively hope that you will succeed." [He won.]

The truth of the matter is just like that. There are times when thought does not help.

This was an idea I heard from someone who was getting married in Israel and he had spent a few years going through the entire Shas every month. [That is the whole Gemara. That is a little more than 100 pages every day].
He said not to even think if you are understanding your learning or not. This to many people may sound ridiculous but in  fact it contains a deep insight. There are times when thought does not help.
I found this to be the case in yeshiva. I would go through a small section of gemara--just saying the words. Then the Rashi on that Gemara. At that point I understood nothing. But then after a few more readings of the same gemara I would get the idea. Thus I got the idea that even when I think I am not understanding, something is being absorbed.

There are other areas of learning that I find it better just to read the material straight with no review until I have finished the entire book. That is, just to say the words and go on. Math and Physics I find to be more amenable to that kind of learning.

I should mention that Reb Freifeld of Yeshivat Shar Yashuv held by review.  That is specifically 10 times. Whether it was a chapter of Gemara or Tosphot, his main thing was to do review. I never got past this problem that I needed to make progress and yet the Rosh Yeshiva was emphasizing review. I still have no idea how to deal with this problem except to mention that in the Mir it was the accepted path to do in depth learning in the morning and to make progress in the afternoon. That does not really answer the question but at least it is  a kind of middle path.

[I must mention also that without Rav Freifeld's emphasis on in depth learning I am sure I would not be able to learn. To "know how to learn" is something I have seen that people need to get when they are young or they never get it. But it should be said that very few people understood what Rav Freifeld was doing. I felt very frustrated on his emphasis on learning in depth and I am sure a lot of other people felt the same way. Only later I realized the fact that when people do not get this right away in their first years in yeshiva, they never get it.
In the Mir yeshiva the whole question became mute,- because anyway the morning was for in depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning. That more or less answered the whole issue simply.

Learning Gemara opened the door into transcendence.

Reading Cleaving by Albert the Great just reconfirms what i already said   that the basic idea of the Middle Ages is to be attached to Hashem directly. The whole goal and orientation is completely different from the later Reformation.  


Personally, I have to say that I found learning Gemara opened the door into transcendence. It was just that that transcendence did not come to fruition until I got to Israel. I never really could put my finger, on it but there was some aspect of Gemara got me connected with the Divine.

What I mean to say is this:  at first learning Gemara was just that. Learning Gemara. The only thing different about it was my tremendous desire to learn Gemara. But there never was any thought about transcendence at all. It was just that while at the Mir in NY, I could feel the Divine presence. But that was all. It was only in Israel that the Light hit me with full power. But clearly it was because of the door that the Gemara opened. [Though I admit it might have been  learning Gemara in the Mir Yeshiva specifically or some kind Litvak yeshiva.]

The temporary romance has to precede the permanent one.

I have have not even heard of situations where this was not the case.

That is how love works. You have an intense love early in life, but for some reason it does not last, and then you find the next one which does last. In Litvak yeshivas they say every shiduch [date] that does not work  is one step towards the right one the "beshert." [The destined one.]

 Going through this  means one is one step towards finding the right one.

That is to say often people would go on endless shiduchim and never find the right one and the attitude was that each failed shiduch was one step toward the right one

The first one however must be real. It does not count if it is only immature love. Still there is something about it that makes it temporary.

Can virtue be taught?

The thing is that traditional American values were a delicate balance of values.  It was known to be hard to keep stable. I believe high school education was actually geared towards instilling those values. This all goes back to the conclusion of Socrates at the very end of Protagoras where  he decided that virtue can be taught.
Probably a lot of people in programs that are directly towards special ends [goal directed programs] do not see this. But when I was in high school I definitely got this impression.
 That was before the Frankfurt school [that came to the USA and changed education in the USA to become socialist] changed the very essence of USA education.

To me it seems that there is a lot of value in what could be called classical education.

 There also were Bible based organizations in the USA that explicitly had this as their goal [but combined these goals along with outdoor skills--being aware that virtue is best achieved in an indirect fashion.]


Can virtue be taught? Apparently not so easily. There is no question that the traditional Litvak yeshiva with its balance between Gemara Rashi and Tosphot with Musar/Ethics strove to achieve exactly that purpose. To me it seems clear that the gedolai Litva [sages of Torah in Lithuania] thought this balance was the best way to achieve this. Heads of the yeshivas in Lithuania  definitely did not think hours of Musar {books of Ethics} would bring to virtue. But neither did they think ignoring Musar was right. So they also sought this balance.

The Silverman yeshivas I think do the best job since their approach is modeled on the path of the  Gra which has in it an implicit balance of values.[I do not mean just Silverman. There are other yeshivas which have adopted the Silverman approach]
 I think it is clear that wickedness can be taught. I can see lots of systems out there that definitely instill evil in people. Does it makes sense to say the virtue can be instilled? Maybe. In any case my impression is that the general Litvak yeshiva approach ought to be modified into the Silverman approach which goes with the Gra and a great deal of Tenach [Old Testament] and Mishna. This is based on the Gra and from what I can see, the results are excellent.

[I might mention that I did try to do Mishna on my own time in yeshiva--mainly Taharot with the commentaries.]



So it seems the general conclusion is that virtue can be taught but not directly but as a by product of some other process. Why should this be so?