In Bava Batra page 18 in Tosphot first words מכלל, Tosphot changes what the meaning of R Yose is. Before Rav Papa it is that the bees stay at the border and the mustard can be put right next to them. After Rav Papa who says the case of the Mishna is when half the field was bought, Tosphot says the case is the mustard is at the border and the owner of the mustard can tell the owner of the bees to keep the bees 6 handbreaths away from the border.

[I think I have mentioned this problem before.] Part of the reason is in the language R. Yose uses and another part of the reason is as Tosphot says that before Rav Papa R. Yose is holding the owner of the bees did something slightly wrong by putting the bees next to the border. While after Rav Papa nether did anything wrong because the field had not been sold yet. The language of the Gemara is this: The owner of the mustard says to the owner of the bees "why tell me to keep my mustard away? Keep your bees away!" If the mustard was there first that means he is saying in fact to keep the bees away. If the bees were there first it means that the owner of the mustard is saying he too can put his mustard next to the border.

Therefore after we come to Rav Papa Tosphot means that either one that was at the border first can tell the other one to keep his things 6 handbreaths from the border.
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In בבא בתרא דף י''ח ע''ב  in תוספות first words מכלל, the תוספות changes what the meaning of ר' יוסי is. Before רב פפא it is that the bees stay at the border and the mustard can be put right next to them. After רב פפא who says the case of the משנה is when half the field was bought, תוספות says the case is the mustard is at the border and the owner of the mustard can tell the owner of the bees to keep the bees ששה טפחים away from the border. Part of the reason is in the language ר' יוסי uses and another part of the reason is as תוספות says that before רב פפא it must be ר' יוסי is holding the owner of the bees did something slightly wrong by putting the bees next to the border. While after רב פפא nether did anything wrong because the field had not been sold yet. The language of the גמרא is this: The owner of the mustard says to the owner of the bees "why tell me to keep my mustard away? Keep your bees away!" If the mustard was there first that means he is saying in fact to keep the bees away. If the bees were there first it means that the owner of the mustard is saying he too can put his mustard next to the border. Therefore after we come to רב פפא, it must be that תוספות means that either one that was at the border first can tell the other one to keep his things that cause damage ששה טפחים from the border.


בבא דף דף י''ח ע''ב בתוספות ד''ה מכלל , תוספות משנה מה המשמעות של ר 'יוסי. לפני רב פפא זה שהדבורים ליד הגבול ואת החרדל ניתן לשים לידם. אחרי רב פפא הוא אומר שהמקרה של משנה הוא כאשר חצי השדה נרכש, תוספות אומר המקרה הוא חרדל הוא בגבול בעל בעל חרדל יכול להגיד בעל הדבורים להרחיק את הדבורים ששה טפחים מן הגבול. חלק מהסיבה היא בשפה שר 'יוסי משתמש וחלק אחר של הסיבה היא כמו שתוספות אומר כי לפני רב פפא זה חייב להיות ר' יוסי הוא מחזיק שהבעלים של הדבורים עשו משהו לא בסדר לשים את הדבורים ליד גבול. אחרי רב פפא אף אחד לא עשה משהו לא בסדר, כי השדה עדיין לא נמכר. שפת גמרא היא זו: בעל החרדל אומר לבעלים של הדבורים "למה תגידו לי להרחיק את החרדל שלי, הרחק את הדבורים!" אם החרדל היה שם קודם, זה אומר שהוא אומר למעשה להרחיק את הדבורים. אם הדבורים היו שם קודם, פירוש הדבר שבעליו של החרדל אומר שגם הוא יכול לשים את חרדל ליד הגבול. לכן, אחרי שהגענו לרב פפא, זה חייב להיות כי תוספות אומר כל אחד שהיה בגבול בראשונה יכול לומר לשני לשמור על מרחק ששה טפחים מהגבול.

U-31 E Minor

Torah scholars that are demons create a bad name for the holy Torah

James Madison opposed a bill that required the State to support teachers of  Religion.
The arguments he used apply just as much to teachers of Torah.
See the actual essay

If there would be an obligation to give money to Torah scholars, don't you think the Gemara would have said something about it? Instead it talks about not sending them out to build a wall around the city but they are obligated to dig a well because they also need water. But in all the Gemaras about charity, there is nothing about an obligation to give money to Torah scholars. Only to poor people.



This is related to what the Gemara says about teaching Torah. The Talmud says: "God said to the Jewish people, 'Just as I taught Torah for free without pay, so must you teach Torah for free.'"

The Mordechai [a rishon who, along with the Rosh, was a disciple of R. Meir from Rotenburg] brings this in Bava Batra and asks, "Then how it is permissible to pay teachers of Torah even for children?"
To some degree this is related to the Rambam who makes this same point about learning Torah.
[The Rambam holds a somewhat radical position in this regard. He wrote about this at length in his commentary on Pirkei Avot and that caused the first wave of opposition to him even before he had written the Guide for the Perplexed.]



The reason I bring this up is that there is a known problem with Torah scholars that are demons and that creates a bad name for the holy Torah itself. If learning and teaching Torah was not a lucrative profession then it would attract less bad apples.
[The phrase Torah scholars that are demons comes from Reb Nachman who brings it from the Zohar and the Ari and from my own experience it's  a fitting epitaph.]

[You can see this theme in the major book of Reb Nachman quite a lot. Sometimes openly but more often in passing. In any case he was obviously aware of this problem and eventually this resulted in the Na Nach group being rightfully suspicious of all religious authorities. I am however not sure what most Na Nach people would say to do except to ignore them. That seems to be the best idea. and certainly if possible to simply make learning and teaching Torah as a voluntary act, not a job that gets paid.]

 I am not saying the problem is the money. Rather that the money is what attracts the flies in the first place. Reb Nachman I think in any case is choosing his terminology precisely, and I do not think he i is just using a term of exaggeration. Besides this you can not say Reb Nachman was exaggerating because then it would be lashon hara/slander. So he has to have meant it literally.

Troubles in the Musar movement

One of the flaws of the Musar movement was that it emphasized the Ethics and Morals of Torah without the underlying philosophy of Torah. I mean to say they did not learn along with the Jewish Ethics of the Middle Ages also the Guide of the Rambam (the Guide for the Perplexed), the  אמונות ודעות of Saadia Gaon {Doctrines and Faiths} and a lot of other of the Jewish sages from the Middle Ages that dealt with השקפה world view issues. [Joseph Albo, Abravanel, Ibn Gavirol etc.] But you can not have ethics without world view.  The principles of Ethics have nothing to stand on.

One result of this is the Musar movement itself more or less fell into oblivion. The representatives of the movement were ipso facto the "spiritual advisers" in the Litvak yeshivas which simply did not and do not earn much respect.[Not just that most of them are not anything near the level needed to be a decent rosh yehiva, but even in terms of Musar itself they have nothing of interest to say. They have no idea of the background and world view of the mediaeval writers of Musar.

The trouble to a large degree is that the rishonim themselves that were writing on the world view of Torah were well versed in Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus. Without that background, a lot of what they say is incomprehensible.

Even with that background what they say can be hard to understand.
[See the discussion of the Rambam why no predicates apply to God and see Hegel's treatment of the same issue.]

[In fact to come out with a intellectually rigorous moral system s exactly what the Rishonm were doing and in my opinion they did a great job. Much better than any moral theories developed after the so called Enlightenment--a misnomer if I ever heard one. [A better term would be the Endarkenment.]

The best way to ruin a good relationship is to get married.

The best way to ruin a good relationship is to get married. I had a friend who was a Russian physicist who was friends for many years with one girl, and then eventually they got married, and that was the end of it. I have seen this plenty of times. If, after all, the Torah does allow a Girl friend פילגש, why be more strict than the Torah itself? Is it is not enough what the Torah forbids that we have to add on extra restrictions?
[The  Rishonim in general allow a girl friend. The two well know examples are the Ramban and Raavad, (also the Gra) but there are many more if one takes the trouble to look them up. The Rambam in this case is the opinion of one against many.]


Caleb ben Yefune is the only person in the entire Old Testament upon who it says the unique phrase "וימלא אחרי השם" he went totally after God. It never says anything like that even about the greatest of tzadikim righteous. On others its says "He walked after God" and all other kinds of phrases, but never does it use the word "totally." And Caleb had at least a few girl friends and a few wives. See the Chronicles chapter 2; verses around 46. דברי הימים פרק ב' פסוק מ''ו   

However it is good to be married and if one can find the right person for that I am all for it. In fact I would still be married today if i had  stayed away and kept my wife away from Torah scholars that are demons (which nowadays pretty much means all of them). It is hard to find a Torah scholar nowadays that  is not mixed up somehow or other with the Dark Side.

If  people had taken the advice of the Gra and listened to what he wrote on the letter of excommunication, then things would be different.[And there s no reason to think the excommunication is not valid legally. One would have to not only assume the Gra was mistaken but also that that mistake would invalidate the whole thing. But in fact the Gra was not mistaken and even if he had been the cherem would still be perfectly valid.]

Bava  Batra page 18-b. The third Tosphot on the page מכלל דר. יוסי סבר וכו'  Tosphot suggest that the first questioner on the page did not know that R. Jose holds על הניזק להרחיק את עצמו because if he had known this he never would have had a question. The question was that R Yose says one can put mustard next to bees because each hurts the other. The question was if Rava is right  that הבא לסמוך אצל הגבול אינו  סומך then how could the situation with R Yose arise at all? The answer would be that R Yose holds that על הניזק להרחיק את עצמו and that bees cause no damage to mustard and therefore the owner of the bees was allowed to put his bees next to the border. Rava never said a ניזק can not put something next to the border, only the מזיק.
But in this case, I have a question on the last Tosphot on the page where he brings Rabainu Chananel that says the way the Gemara reads is אלא אמר רבינא and from that he concludes that Rava has to have gone back on his entire assumption.


I think the reason for Rabainu Chananel is he wants to question to apply  even if the mustard was first.

[It might be a good idea to mention the fact that each of these three Tosphot have a completely different idea about what this Gemara means. The First Tosphot is the Ri. The second is obviously different but maybe it is from one of the later authors of Tosphot. The last is Rabbainu Tam.
The fact that the first and second are different threw me off course for a while until I was ready to give up on what the second one was saying.]



בבא בתרא י''ח ע''ב. תוספות השלישית בדף "מכלל דר' יוסי סבר וכו',. תוספות אומר כי השואל הראשון בעמוד לא ידע שר' יוסי מחזיק שהניזק מרחיק את עצמו, כי אילו ידע זאת לא היתה לו שאלה. השאלה היתה שר 'יוסי אומר שאפשר לשים חרדל ליד דבורים, כי כל אחד מזיק השני. השאלה היתה אם רבא צודק כי הבא לסמוך אצל הגבול לא יכול איך המצב עם ר' יוסי בכלל להתעורר? התשובה היא שר' יוסי מחזיק כי על הניזק להרחיק את עצמו ודבורים לא גורמות נזק לחרדל ולכן בעל הדבורים הורשה להניח את דבוריו ליד הגבול. רבא מעולם לא אמר ניזק לא יכול לשים משהו ליד הגבול, רק את מזיק. אבל במקרה זה יש לי שאלה על תוספות האחרון בדף שבו הוא מביא רבינו חננאל שאומר את הנוסח של הגמרא הוא אלא אמר רבינא ומכאן הוא מסכם כי רבא חייב לחזור על כל ההנחה שלו. אבל גרסה זו באמת אומר כי התשובות של רבינא ורב פפא הן עצמאיות וזה בדיוק מה תוספות שלנו אומר. אבל תוספות שלנו אומר את זה בלי לגרום לרבא לחזור על מה שהוא אמר..

To restart the Musar Movement

One thing you see in the Old Testament quite a lot is that people were going through lots of problems and the general approach of the prophets was that the problems they were having were because they were not keeping the Law of God [תורת משה] That suggests that the question is not how religious a person is but rather being religious in the right way.
Therefore what I suggest is to reopen the idea of Reb Israel Salanter about Musar [Jewish Ethics from the Middle Ages] and specifically setting aside a room for that purpose. The reason is that Musar is like concentrated orange juice. It gives you the basic idea of what God requires of you without going into too many details which can get one lost. But I do not mean this in just a personal way. Rather what I suggest is to completely restart the whole Musar Movement concept all over again.

[That is to say that the general approach of the prophets was not to tell people to pray more or to go to some grave to say Psalms. (דורש אל המתים "Seeking the dead" is a bad idea as you can see in Deuteronomy 18:11) It was almost always a two part idea. First was to stop doing idolatry. The second was to get back to the Law of Moses.] [There are too many examples to go into detail but this is clearly what the prophets were saying.]
That is to say that most of the advice you hear from people about how to get out of your problems is not accurate. It is not what prophets who really were in touch with Divine Reality said. What people in touch with the real thing said was to keep the Law of Moses.


What does that mean in a  simple vein? First of all to restart the Musar Movement would be  a first priority- and this does not  have anything to do with Litvak yeshivas.  Rather it is a whole separate focus. It also does mean just (like it sounds) to start to be careful about the obligations between man and his fellow man-not to lie or steal etc. It also has a lot to do with government which is  unauthorized to a be redistribution mechanism. Keeping Torah is not to vote for other people's money to be given to you.