Kalev ben Yefune comes up in the Five Books of Moses. First he is one of the spies that Moses [Moshe] sent to the Land of Canaan. Later he is brought up in the Book of Joshua  as asking Joshua to give him Hebron as an inheritance (as as promised to him by Moshe Rabainu [Moses]). Later he is mentioned in Chronicles. as the husband of a few wives and girl friends and having children from all. This fact is what the Gra uses as proof that the פילגש girlfriend kind of relationship is permitted.

The place to find this information is in the Laws of Kidushin. [This issue comes up in the Rambam, in the Tur and also by Rav Joseph Karo.]

Mutiny on the Bounty.

Mutiny on the Bounty. The kind of mud children that come by mixing races seems to have been the basic result of that whole episode. The mutineers --as much or little as they were justified,  ended up such that their children were little brown babies.
Though nowadays there is much effort spent in trying to make these mud children, still one would thing that common sense ought to prevail.
Parents can only despair of seeing their race continue.
Marriage is only rocks on ruin and families also.
What is one to do?

The best idea I think is repentance. For the actions of parents affect their children. And how does one repent. It is brought in books of Musar if one is accustomed to learning one page of Gemara, he should learn two. If one chapter of Mishna, then he should learn two.

One thing got me personally into learning was the idea of the Gra based on the Yeushalmi that every word of Torah is equal to all the other commandments of the Torah. And in fact it seems that without confidence in the Gra and his approach, no one can come to Torah.  All people end up with is counterfeit Torah. I think a lot of effort ought to be spent on getting rid of counterfeit Torah, before it can even be suggested to come to authentic Torah.

political and religious authority

I have been thinking about political and  religious authority for a while.The thing that got me interested was an observation that love of power and oppression are very human traits and people that have these tend to look for careers in politics or as religious leaders.

The fact of political authority seems best to be defended based on a consequential theory. That is- without the state, human flourishing would be impossible, and we would all be at the tender mercies of the worse of society that feel no compunctions or conscious moral restraints.
This does not apply in the religious world as Reb Nachman pointed out often about religious leaders.
[We would all be better off without religious leaders, since they always cause trouble and malice.]


In fact, Reb Nachman emphasized personal service: The verse says "One was Abraham"--that means that Abraham served God in the way -that he thought of himself as being alone with God and did not look on obstacles placed in his path by people, or even his own father and family. In a similar vein, it is impossible to come to God except by this trait of "One was Abraham" to think to yourself that you are alone with God and not to look or pay attention to obstacles from your family or supposed friends. [It is important to take note that Reb Nachman did not just say that that is how Abraham reached God. Rather he goes on to add that no one can reach God except in that way.]

In another essay Reb Nachman went into the issue of lack of faith that causes that people need hard services to come to God. Reb Natan said to him "But it seems to me that I have faith." And Reb Nachman replied that sometimes it is lack of faith in oneself that causes one to fall.


The  thing about the great NY yeshivas like the Mir is that there is no claim of authority at all. The message is simple: What ever the Torah says, that is what it says.

[I mean to say that political authority is legitimate. Religious authority is however a scam since true and authentic ordination does not exist. It ended during the middle of the Talmudic period. Authority is however still claimed stupid people still like to present themselves as smart and wise in order t get power and money an be able to inflict pain on others.] This critique however does not apply to Litvak yeshivas  which learn Torah for its own sake which is a very great and important thing.

Music for the Glory of God

U-34 D Major

Bitul Torah [being idle from learning Torah]

The whole concept of Bitul Torah [being idle from learning Torah] comes from a verse in Numbers 15 כי דבר השם בזה הכרת תכרת הנפש ההיא מעמיה. "For the word of God he despised". [That is the Torah is saying there to bring a sin offering for doing idolatry by accident, but not for doing idolatry on purpose. It might have stopped at that point. But then it continues to say this extra idea "for the word of God he despised." So you see this idea from the fact that the verse might have just stopped at saying one does not bring a sacrifice for a sin done on purpose.

This idea of ביטול תורה [being idle from learning Torah] is mostly ignored nowadays except in Litvak yeshivas where people are more aware of this issue.

That does not mean one can not learn a vocation. But it does mean that in the time one is not learning or being involved in his vocation he is required to be learning Torah.

However my feeling is it is best to learn Torah at home to avoid the confusing people that hang out around yeshivas trying to entice people into all kinds of insanity.

[This is the reason for the fact that Litvak yeshivas throw out people along with  other reasons. I agree that the yeshivas are right about this general practice.]


The Rambam includes Physics and Metaphysics of the Ancient Greeks in the category of learning Torah. In any case, exactly what is called learning Torah in order to be safe from the sin of Bitul Torah tends to be unclear. The most strict definition would be only the exact text of the Old Testament and the two Talmuds. Then you would add the actual texts of Aristotle that the Rambam includes--the Metaphysics and Physics. I think however it is safe to enlarge the definition to learning Rashi, and Tosphot and the basic Rishonim, plus the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach along with Quantum Field Theory.  But one has to evaluate very carefully what he wants to include in learning Torah.

[I should mention I found the Pnei Yehoshua very helpful. Also the books of the Gra I found very helpful. If all this seems too much the best thing is to simply learn the Mishna of R. Yehuda HaNasi along with the commentary of  Rav Ovadiah from Bartenura

[If you are in the walking distance from the great Litvak NY yeshivas or Bnei Brak then by all means learn there. But if not, home is better than anything else. Also if you have the ability to start you own place along the lines of the straight Torah of the Litvaks that is of course the best thing.]

Eliyahu the prophet asked Israel on Mount Carmel, "How long will you jump between the two extremes? If the Lord is God, then serve Him. If the Baal is God, then serve him."
At the time the Temple of Solomon was in Jerusalem, and people would go there and worship God and then return home and go to the local Baal Center and worship there. That way that had all their bases covered.
The Gra [Eliyahu from Villna] had the same  point. He saw people were worshiping God but also worshiping their leader or "tzadik." They would say to worship according to the Torah, but add on this one little thing--the worship of their leader or his grave.
They would come up with some religion that externally looked like Torah but in essence was the exact opposite.
The general approach has been to ignore the Gra except for the Zilverman yeshiva in Jerusalem, but I tend to think this ignoring of the Gra was and is a mistake.

Eliyahu the prophet is saying "Either this or that, but not both." That is the same thing the Gra said. Make up your mind.


[I am not sure but this whole event I think was only for Israel (the ten tribes) but not Yehuda and Benjamin. In any case the king there is the king of Israel, not the king of Judah. I do not even know if there was anyone from Judah present. So in any case we do see that even the ten tribes were still serving God. Were they allowed to go up to Jerusalem on the three festivals? Yeravam had forbidden that years before this event. In any case, you see some kind of worship of the Lord still existed in the ten tribes. The thing which is sad is not long after that the ten tribes were exiled because apparently  they were still doing idolatry even though they had listened to Eliyahu and after seeing fre fall from heaven had answered "The Lord is God, the Lord is God."]

Musar Movement

The basic idea of the Musar Movement  was not at all connected with yeshivas originally. It was simply the realization that no one is automatically moral without learning. [Moral principles are included in what is called "universals." Things that apply to different particulars.And it is characteristic of universals that they are  recognized by reason. One might need sense perception to understand the meaning of a universal, but it is reason that recognizes the principle as Michael Huemer goes into detail in his essay criticizing Ayn Rand.]

The  insight of the Musar movement was the realization that the Rishonim [authors during the Middle Ages] had an extra measure of logical rigor in understanding the principles of the Old Testament and the two Talmuds as opposed to achronim[authors after the Middle Ages.]

[This is a well established fact even though I find it very hard to get into the Rishonim without the help of the Achronim on the Gemara.
But in terms of the basic principles of Torah, achronim go off on tangents far away from Torah. Sometimes they find some odd principle that appeals to them and they decide that that principle is what the whole Torah is all about. The examples are many. Sometimes the principles they come up with are in direct opposition to Torah and sometimes they are just some minor issue that that person want to exaggerate into some big deal.]


So even though in the Musar movement itself--the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter--they also wrote books explaining  ethical principles of Torah but as a rule they are sticking with the approach of the rishonim. [That is until the second generation of Musar which then started also going off on tangents.]