To Mueller: Have you no decency?

There are tons of laws in the USA. This is not a metaphor. The laws on the books in the USA could be used for ballast on a nuclear submarine.  There is no question if you get the best prosecutors around and have them examine any one individual for as long as it takes, you could convict anyone of countless crimes.
So to just keep investigating and then send for the best prosecutors in Manhattan to get at President Trump seems unfair. Usually what prosecutor does is investigate a crime after it is obvious that it has been committed. They do not look for crimes to investigate just because they do not like someone.

To Mueller: Have you no decency?

Hillel was thrown out of the yeshiva of Shemaia and Avtalion

From what is possible to tell, I think that Hillel was thrown out of the yeshiva of Shemaia and Avtalion until he could pay the entrance fee. [You see this  from the fact that on days he couldn't pay the fee he went up to the roof to listen through a crack in the ceiling.]

And Rav Shach brings the idea אף חכמתי עמדה לי "The knowledge I learned with pain stood with me."

What this seems to indicate  is that the trouble people go through in Litvak yeshivas is the only way to merit to Torah.

When people ask about some hard experience they went through in a Litvak yeshiva, they often consider the question to be unanswerable and use it as a reason to leave off learning. And the questions are often very good questions. Yet the answer seems to be that going through what they go through is the only way to come to Torah.

I am not saying to ignore the questions. But rather I suggest that the attitude ought to be to hang on even though there are questions.

ויגרש את האדם מן הגן וישם שם את הכרוב עם חרב המתהפכת לשמור את הדרך

When God threw out Adam from the Garden of Eden he placed at the entrance an angel with a fiery sword to guard the path to the tree of life. We see one can not get to Torah without going through these kinds of questions and difficulties.

[Sometimes there is just cause for the fact that people get thrown out, sometimes not. But what I am suggesting here is that when you have gone through problems, you ought to assume that there is something internal that is the cause.]

philosophy of Torah

The Ran of Breslov [Reb Nahman] had a low opinion of the Rambam's Guide for the Perplexed.
Also when he  listed subjects one must finish every year in such a way that the day does not seem long enough he listed the whole Talmud, and the poskim Rif, Rosh and the major book of Rav Joseph Karo The Laid Out Table. But he skipped the Rambam. It seems to me that he skipped it on purpose.
The Gra wrote his comments on the Laid Out Table,  not the Rambam.

The book I was most impressed with in terms of law is the Tur with the commentary of Rav Yoseph Karo.

But I also think the Rambam's Mishne Torah is good to learn with the basic commentary of Rav Shach's the Avi Ezri.

As for the Guide itself,  I can see the that the Ran of Breslov had a point, -- it seems a little out of date. In terms of the philosophy of Torah, I think Saadia Gaon's Faiths and Doctrines is better. In any case, Reb Nahman did not think learning any philosophy makes sense, and from that fact I thought  not to do so. Though I wanted to listen to the Rambam about the importance of Physics and Metaphysics, but because of the warning of Reb Nahman, I decided not to spend any effort on philosophy except as a pastime to relax.   I think anyone looking at philosophy today would have to agree that it is a waste land.

[However Leonard Nelson had a good point about non-intuitive immediate knowledge. That is knowledge that one knows,- but not through sense perception and not through any intellectual deductions (and not through anything. It is immediate, not mediate).  It is akin to Michael Huemer's idea of what reason perceives. Direct awareness of facts and of external objects. Not through anything. Huemer builds on Thomas Reid, but the idea seems close to Leonard Nelson's immediate non intuitive knowledge.--another word for faith.]

The smartest of the smart, and the best of all righteous people can make mistakes.

Can great people make a mistake?
The first time I heard this issue was in my first Litvak (Lithuanian) Yeshiva Shar Yashuv. This was brought up in reference to Moses (Moshe) accepting the mixed multitude and the other mistakes mentioned in the Torah [hitting the rock]. And the fact that when a great person makes a small mistake it can lead to terrible consequences.

John von Neumann brought a proof against the hidden variable theory. It turned out that the proof was wrong. [That is what led John Bell to reconsider hidden variable theories and to reexamine the EPR experiment, and that is when he discovered his famous inequality. --the one that Nature violates.]

Apparently, even the smartest of the smart, and the best of all righteous people can make mistakes.

Even more than that.- Ahia Hashiloni anointed Yeravam ben Navat as king of Israel. And Ahia is considered the greatest prophet after Moshe. That is indicative that some things must happen-- even though they seem less than desirable.
Oddly enough even with Moses there seem to things than are not considered mistakes, but still seem to have been less than desirable, e.g sending of the spies to see if Israel was a great as all that.

Taking Musar seriously

The beginning of my taking Musar seriously was on Rosh Hashanah in the Mir in NY. It was during Musaf [a prayer on Rosh Hashana] and I had the book of a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter, The Light of Israel by Rav Isaac Blazer.
Going through the introduction, I got an idea of what it is all about. However I should add, that I was in any case attracted to the Mir in the first place because I felt it had an atmosphere of Fear of God.

At any rate, I got into it deeply. But that was in a way I can not describe now at all because I fell from that higher state of consciousness.

And I would like to add that it is possible for people to come to a higher state of consciousness and to fall to a lower state. Not just individuals, but even whole countries.


The main way I got into that  higher state of consciousness was simply doing the Musar thing as it had been originally accepted in Litvak Yeshivas--that is to learn Musar about a 1.5 hours per day and the rest of the day Gemara. I do not say that I could do that now, but that is what I was doing back then, and I found it   to be an amazing method and path.

[I admit I might have over done it. But I figure it is better to overdo it than to under do it.]



What I'm trying to say is that at the Mir in NY and also in other Litvak yeshivas, the Musar session is short. It is 20 minutes before Minha [afternoon prayer] and 15 minutes before Maariv [evening prayer]. However in Europe the Musar sessions were longer and if you added them up, they came to about about 1.5 hours per day.

I also think that the approach of the Boy Scouts is important--that is one learn good traits by action. The way the Boy Scouts do that is to learn good traits as an aspect of survival skills. [The Boy Scouts used to be more based on faith. Sadly they fell from that.]


[I should add that Rav Shach thought that the Musar movement was very important. I mainly can see the importance of Musar in terms of the ideas that it implants into one. It helps to develop a healthy world view. And people in their teens and 20's are looking for making sense of the world around them. And Musar does a great job in giving an accurate representation of what the world is actually like, and what one's responsibilities in it are.  And for me I think the main effect of Musar was to help me form my world view and correct mistakes. I did not perceive any effect on my traits--though I might have missed that.]

[So why do Litvak yeshivas learn less Musar than advocated by Reb Israel Salanter. I imagine it is because of the "law of limited returns."That law indicates that there is an upper limit as to how effective it can be. It is like drinking water. It is good for you, but there is a limit.]

u92 music file

u92 F Major

"History is just one damn thing after another." (anonymous) This to some degree helps to understand the Rambam who saw learning history as Bitul Torah, a waste of time.

"History is just one damn thing after another." (anonymous)
This to some degree helps to understand the Rambam who saw learning history as Bitul Torah, a waste of time.
Yet there is some aspect of history that I think is important because it helps to understand the USA.  English History [especially the history of England after Elizabeth.] helps to understand the issues that became part of the USA Constitution.
And the USA was until around 1960 one of the great wonders of the world. But socialists could not stand to see the good times, and came over from Europe to destroy it by means of socialism, Therefore, it is important to understand the basic principles upon which the USA was founded.

After thought:
Democracy as in the USA actually stems from England with modifications based on English experiences with conflicts between with Parliament, and the King. So it has a long history. Even in ancient Rome elections took place. So the way democracy is understood in the USA is not actually all that new and has deep roots. So I feel it is unlikely to disappear any time soon.

On running for office in Rome

[The basic formula that made America great was the combination of Reason and Revelation. That is faith with reason.]