IDF (Israeli Defense Force)

I think there are at least three good proofs in the Old Testament that show it is important to serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force).

One is well known already in the Book of Numbers אחיכם יעלו למלחמה ואתם תשבו פה.
["You will sit here while your brothers go up to war?"]

Another is the other less known events surrounding the פילגש בגבעה.
The third are the even less known events concerning Ezra and the building of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

The major point I wanted to bring out today is about the פילגש בגבעה. The Concubine of Giveah.
There the Tribes of Israel were upset that the tribe of Benjamin had sat by quietly while a terrible crime had been committed. The tribe of Benjamin said "It is not our business. It is not our affair."
The other tribes said, "We will make it your business." At that point in time the grandson of Aaron was around;-- Pinhas. And he asked consul from God directly by means of the Urim and Tumim and received an answer to go to war against Benjamin. One city (יבש בגלעד) did not go up to war. They also said it is not our affair. So after the war with Benjamin was over the tribes went to war with that city and wiped them out.

The same idea that came up in Numbers is here again. To sit by while everyone else has to go to war is not an acceptable course of action.

As was noted by Shimon Buso that when missiles were raining down on the north of Israel, everyone fled south. No one said their learning Torah would protect them.


The other thing is the fact that a lot of people were against the return of Israel to build Jerusalem and the Second Temple. This is gone into in great detail in the Book of Ezra and the Book of Nehemiah.
The book of Nehemiah has a major theme about the wicked people that tried to stop Ezra and Nehemiah from rebuilding Jerusalem.]




[There are problems today that remind me of the problems that Ezra had. Sefardim often make it their most essential business to get rid of Ashkenazic people--especially in Jerusalem. That is just one example. There are many kinds in Israel that make it their business to get rid of anyone not like their own social group. Sometimes this might even be justified. Still, this is  a factor to consider. Aliya to Israel without taking into account this tremendous animosity is ignoring a factor that might come to one's attention later.]
However my first time in Israel was quite amazing. If you can find a good group, then it is probably a good idea. Probably the best idea is to go to Tel Aviv.

group-think

The power of "group-think" is so powerful that often one can get mixed up whether his own thoughts and attitudes are actually his or her own or from the group. The Spartans were well aware of this when they developed their system of keeping the boys and adolescents away from their family and rather had them hanging out with each other in order to develop the kind of group solidarity needed for the kind of warriors they needed to sustain their system.
[In warfare, the whole strength of the Spartan system was the group locking shields together.]


After all how much of your own attitudes do you really think you came up with all on your own?

[The best idea then is to choose carefully with whom you want to hang out with.]

Bava Batra page 75

There are ways to argue for Christianity. One way is from Bava Batra page 75 from a statement of the Gemara that in the future saints will be called by the name of God. Then the next statement is that they are already called by the name of God. And R. Gershom says they are called the absolute name of God.  The first  idea come from a verse in Isaiah 43. The Gemara only quotes the verse itself but to see why the verse means that you have to go to the whole paragraph and get the context.

This is not to say that everything Christians say is right. Rather the automatic dismissal of everything they say is not in accord with Torah. They have some good and important points.

The events of the barber that gave Sanheriv, the king of Assyria, a haircut. The Gemara in Sanhedrin that was G-d coming down in a physical body. The Gemara itself says that if not for the open implication of the verses it would be impossible to say this.


The other most obvious aspect of this is of course Avraham Abulafia, the famous mystic. [Quoted in the last volume of שערי קדושה  and also brought in the Remak.]  [Professor M Idel has made a lot of books surrounding Rav Avraham Abulafia and it is worth while to pick up and read his essays. ] [The Ari also has at least one hint to what Rav Abulafia was saying.]

Relativity cancels non locality

The way I look at Physics from my admittedly amateur point of view is that Bell's inequality tells us either non locality or non realism. But since Relativity cancels non locality, it must be that non realism is true. That is that the electron has no space time values until measured.

However in the actual equations, it looks that the electron does have a sum of different states.
[In Physics language it is a "superposition of linear states." That means simply that the wave function is a sum of simple values of space or time with a simple coefficient in front of each term to tell you the probability of finding it there. When you observe it, the wave function collapses to just one term.]

So the way to put it perhaps is not that the electron has no space time values until measured,- but rather it has certain possible values before measured, and then the wave function collapses when it is measured.

This way of looking at it  makes more sense in the actual equations.

Also this helps the Kant/Friesian school of thought in that there is causality among dinge an sich things. The reason is that not just observation can cause the collapse of the wave function-- but also a connection with the environment. That is what makes quantum computing hard --that fact that you need the quantum particles to be isolated from their environment.

[The Kant Friesian School seems to me to be very important much more so than Hegel. Apparently Dr. Kelley Ross would like a whole shift in academia from 20th century vacuous philosophy to Leonard  Nelson and Kant. And he is probably right about that. In Germany the Kant/Fries school is called the Critical School and is slightly different from Dr Kelley Ross in their emphasis on the Socratic Method.]

Appendix:
1. What I mean by Relativity cancelling non locality is possible to see on a day by day basis in the Global Positioning Satellites [GPS] found in many taxis. If not for relativity they would be wrong by a few kilometers every day. The nice thing about GPS is it proves both Special Relativity and General Relativity.

We are not all that sure about what we did wrong.

In terms of repentance the Gates of Repentance {of Yona of Granada} does accept the basic  formula that it consists of three steps (1) Acceptance of doing right in the future. (2) Regret for the past. (3) Confession. Yet as you can see he does have lots of additional things which makes it more accepted.
That is what the entire first part of his book is about.
What I wanted to suggest is based on the events of the son of King Solomon [King Rehabaom].
The prophet came to him and his princes with the news that  Shishak  would attack them and be successful because of their sins. At that point from what I can tell they did not repent but they did humble themselves before God. And that helped to nullify at least some part of the evil decree.

What that means is that often one [like me] really does not know what we have done wrong in the past. It is hard to repent because we are really not all that sure about what we did wrong--though we are certain that we did something wrong. Sometimes this confusion is because of conflicting messages.  [Our parents told us one thing and society tells us something else. Reason is normally the most reliable guide towards proper action but sometimes itself does not gives clear answers.]
In such cases simply humbling oneself towards God is apparently a good approach. We see in this case in the Old Testament that simply humbling themselves helped.

 Ahab also humbled himself and from what is possible to tell in the Old Testament, that helped to nullify an evil decree even though he did not actually repent.

Often doing what we think is right leads us into great evil. You can see an example of this in history Richard [the most notorious king of England]. It looks that in the beginning he simply was trying to do what was right. But that led him from one evil deed to another. Often Reason is the worst possible guide. [In fact, in the kings of England there is much to learn in terms of Ethics. ]

[The Middle Ages had a combination of Reason with Faith in order to take care of this kind of dilemma. In particular you see this in Saadia Gaon, the Rambam, Aquinas and Anselm.]

music files c54 u55

U-54  U-55 A Minor

learning Musar

The idea of Reb Israel Salanter about learning Musar is in my mind a great idea even though the whole thing got off track to feed into a kind of fanaticism. Still the original idea seems important to me.

The original idea was an emphasis on several points as I think is clear from the writings of his disciples.  Clearly the importance of "Midot Tovot" [good traits: honesty, kindness, not to speak lashon hara (slander)] was foremost in his mind as you can see from his own statements about his motivation to begin the Musar Movement. Fear of God also I think you have to say was  apart of it as you can see in the writings of Isaac Blazzer.
 The trust in God aspect of it really I think was from Rav Joseph Horwitz of Navardok because you do not see that much in the other disciples.


The problem is the basic idea of Musar is not to be a fanatic, but rather to keep the Law of Moses in the most simple basic way possible. Not to add and not to subtract.

[The Middle Ages got a bad name that is not justified. In fact in certain areas of thought, the Middle Ages far surpasses later ages. You can see this when you learn Rishonim [medieval sages] on the Gemara. However for me personally I found Rishonim hard to get into without the help of people like Rav Shach in his Avi Ezri, or  a good learning partner.]