The Founding Fathers

The Founding Fathers were very much aware their system could only work with a "certain kind of person." A WASP who has his feet firmly embed in the Law of God. This is no secret. And this explains the Soviets also. For the Soviets wanted to put into place a just system [like Plato's with all property being shared] but they knew they had to do this without that kind of person that the American Founding Fathers had to build with. The result was the Soviets had to go with a full totalitarian kind of system because of the limits of the kinds of people that were not firmly into values based on the Bible. [For example: "Thou shalt not steal".]


How did the Soviets deal with the problem of people voting for themselves other peoples' money? Simple. Everyone had to work or go to prison. I forget the exact amount of time but I think it was three months. That is if in one's work book there was not listed any working for three months by an employer the person simply went to prison camp--and there he worked. That is there was no such thing as voting for oneself other peoples' money.

[THIS aspect of the founding of the USA is not emphasized in school anymore. But you can see this in the writings of the founding fathers.]
The best way to get into the law of God, is to have two sessions. One fast to get through all the material and the other an in depth session. That is the fast session should get one through the Old Testament, and the two Talmuds (even without Rashi and Tosphot) and all the midrashi halacha and Hagada like te Midrash Raba and the Tosephta etc. The in depth session I think is best with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which more than any other book contains the basic essence of learning Torah in depth.

music file T73

T73 D Major

Dr Kelley Ross tends to divide between systems that are based on a dichotomy between good and evil as opposed to systems which think of evil as non existent.

If you look at Dr Kelley Ross he tends to divide between systems that  are based on a dichotomy between good and evil as opposed to systems which think of evil as non existent.

My own impression of this is that in fact there is a struggle between good and evil, but the apparent difficulty with this is when evil disguises itself as good.

Much of what passes as legitimate Torah is part of a general phenomenon of Satanic teachings getting into the realm of Holiness.

[I probably should expand on this theme a drop. My basic point that I intended to get to was that by trying to avoid the Sitra Achra [the Realm of Darkness] the effect is most often to fall into something a million times worse. Something that mimics the Realm of Holiness in outside rituals and appearance but is actually the very core of the Sitra Achra. That was just one point I wanted to bring up. But there are many more side issues.

The simplest thing would have been to trust the judgement of the Gra and thus be saved from the problem without having to realize how right he was after years of wasted time and much damage to one's soul and family.

Hegel is certainly trying to support Christianity.

Both Hegel and Dr. Kelley Ross deal with the issue of Christianity. Hegel is certainly trying to support Christianity. He was not that different than Aquinas in his goal. His means to that goal however were very different. {As many have note that the general effect of Hegel was to weaken Christianity since he sublimated it into philosophy.} {At any rate, I think Aquinas did a better job.}





Dr. Ross takes an approach based on Kant and Schopenhauer.




But both approaches come from the Middle Ages of attempting a synthesis between Reason and Revelation-which to me makes the most sense. The trouble with Christianity is when this balanced approach was thrown out the window by Martin Luther. (No offense intended since he did have some good points also.)

In any case, it seems the obvious thing to do would be to get back to that balanced approach of the Middle Ages instead of the modern approach which could be considered thus: Fanatic Christians on Sunday morning and Fanatic secularists the rest of the week.

The modern day approach simply leaves out too much of the Mediaeval period which leaves out a major brick in the edifice of Western Civilization.

The lack of balance sometimes you find in individuals that go entirely in the direction of religion or entirely secular-or you get this combination of Sunday morning as opposed to the rest of the week.

The effect of this is that in the Jewish world also there is this lack of balance. Thus my own approach is based Maimonides [the Rambam] with his four step program: (1) The Written Law of Moses. (2) The Oral Law (the Two Talmuds) (3) Physics (4) Metaphysics of the Ancient Greeks. (He did not say Attica or Athens which leads one to wonder if perhaps he was thinking of Sparta along with Athens?)

The balanced approach and appreciation of the Middle Ages was once much more an inherent part of the education in the USA. In any case, it certainly was an still is an essential part of Litvak yeshivas in which the greatness of the "Rishonim" is well recognized and accepted.

façade of righteousness

The trouble in the Jewish religious world is it is hard to see through the façade of righteousness into the inner rotten core. The whole show and dance about supposedly keeping the Torah is really a trap meant to ensnare innocent naïve people.

The major rot really began with the Shatz and his false prophet Nathan from Gaza, but the basic principle of human idolatry seeped in.
So in an highly ironic way, the only movements within Judaism that are kosher are those that do not make a scene of of it: that is Reform and Conservative Judaism, and Religious Zionism.
Of course the great Litvak yeshivas do keep Torah the best, but they have also been infiltrated.

The best idea then is to learn Torah at home. And to be aware of this problem. There are more radical solutions also which do not seem practical. In any case, it is a sure bet that the more people make  a show of keeping Torah, the more moral depraved they are.

Of course this is not news. Everyone already knows this that has any dealings with the religious. It is just that no one seems interested in documenting the events because they always feel they will get no sympathy. [And that is true.] So the majority just go on with their broken lives trying to make sense of it. No one seems able to express the simple truth. The religious world is the Sitra Achra. The show of keeping Torah is just a disguise..
[On the other hand the Na Nach people seem to be perfectly aware of the problem. The  actual Litvak world is thankfully too busy learning and keeping Torah themselves to be too worried about what goes on outside of their circles. Still I find it necessary from time to time to mention this relatively ignored problem.]
[Not all revolutions are equal. It depends on what you revolt against. For example John Locke was for revolution when government tramples natural rights. When you have a government that is trying to bring back natural rights, that would not be acceptable to revolt. In terms of what I am dealing with in this essay, the idea would be after widespread abuse, it would be justified to have  a kind of revolution--something along the lines of what the Na Nach people already do. To learn and keep Torah but have nothing to do with the Dark Side religious people.

In fact I might mention that the best learning partner I ever had in Gemara is a person that happens to be highly sympathetic towards the Na Nach people.

The Redemption of Hegel

If you get your views on Hegel from Popper or Schopenhauer, it is inevitable to take a rather negative and dim view of him. 

I think since he was quoted and attacked quite a lot by leftists, this gave the impression that he him was part of that camp.

A further trouble is that one of the people that I really admire in philosophy is Dr. Kelley Ross in California. And he is straightforward negative about Hegel.
Further it does not help much his style of writing in which it takes a few months to be relatively certain that you have understood one page.. 

Still with all that, a lot of views ascribed to him were definitely very far from his mind.

The differences between him and Dr. Ross are significant but not as vast as some think.

The major difference is that Dr. Ross is essentially a Platonist, and his system is in essence a Kantian modification of Plato. Hegel is essentially an Aristotelian and his system is in essence a modification of Aristotle and Kant.

Someone on Amerika blog said that Hegel was a "court philosopher"--subservient to the Prussian court. But then why did Hegel said in his lectures  on the philosophy of history  "the United States is the land of the future." And in his lectures on Aesthetics:
If one now wants to go beyond Europe, it can only be to America." 
Popper quotes Hegel:
A people can only die a violent death when it has become naturally dead in itself”; but Popper leaves out the end of the sentence as  Hegel continues, “as e.g. the German Imperial Cities, the German Imperial Constitution” . Applied to the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Hegel’s remark makes sense.




While I can see some of the problems in the USA, still that calls for a bit more thought that just to get back to some kind of totalitarian kind of system.

I have got my own  of critique on Hegel mainly on the world spirit and also he leaves out the Platonic notion of Kant about two levels of reality

four kinds of damages

four kinds of damages שור בור מבעה הבער [ox, a pit fire, man] that each has its own separate laws. That is certainly what I thought based on the famous Tosphot in Bava Kama page 6 that seems to indicate this at first glance. The Gemara learns that a rolling pit is liable because the common side of בור ושור (pit and ox). Tosphot asks ox refers to "foot" which is not liable in a public domain and yet still the rolling pit is liable in a public domain.
It turns out even the Rosh  thought that  Tosphot answers that once the principle kind of damage is learned then each has its own laws.



 The gemara says  a proof that a tree or wall that have fallen into a public domain ought to be liable from בור ואש. A pit and fire.
Th fallen tree does not move so it ought not to be liable as fire. So the Gemara learns from pit that does not move and still it is liable. It ought not to be liable since its beginning was not made to cause damage as a pit is. So the Gemara learns from fire that is liable even though its beginning was not made to cause damage.





He brings the opinion that he is disagreeing with there that after you learn different kinds of damages from צד השווה then anything learned from two different kinds of damage can only be liable as the much as either one, not both. That is you go by the least common denominator. So the fallen tree ought to be not liable for טמון hidden things which are not usually hidden in houses or in areas where the fire went. In such case fire is not liable and this other opinion says that though we learn from pit nd fire it ought to have the most lenient aspect of both and thus not be liable for טמון




What I am thinking about is that I discovered that Rav Shach says that the opinion the Rosh is disagreeing with might very well be true. I can not go into the details this minute but I thought it is important at least to bring up this fascinating issue.

In short the main issue where rav shach disagrees with the rosh is  the tree that falls. he asks in what way is it like a pit since the beginning of its creation was not for damage? He says thus even though we do learn from pit to say it is not liable for damage to vessels, it still ought to be also like fire which is not liable for damage to hidden things that are not customary to hid in such a place.

[Just for basic background the basic gemara says this: S.T.O.P; Stone, Tree, Open, Pit. are learned from pit and ox (foot) except for Stone which is learned from pit and fire. That is : a stone knife or bundle that he put on top on a roof and they fell by  a common wind he is liable because of the common denominator of pit and fire. The beginning was made for damage and another energy was mixed in to make it go and cause damage. A tree or wall that fell into a public domain are liable because of pit and ox. So also פותקים ביבותיהם letting one drains drain off into a public domain which cause damage also from pit and ox. Also a pit that rolls [a revolving black hole with no charge] is liable because of pit and ox.]


The way that Rav Shach suggest to answer for the Rosh is that we in fact only learn from pit alone and the tree that falls is liable because he was warned by the court to chop it down thirty days before hand. That is to say: פשיעה is considered like a מעשה כרייה. That is in נזקי ממון.  In chapter 1 law 8 where Rav Shach brings up the question on the Rosh and suggest that the Ramam would disagree with the Rosh, he points to chap 13 law 19 where he brings this alternative explanation of the Gemara in Bava Kama page 6 and says that perhaps that might explain the Rosh

In any case the thing to think about here in my opinion is the chicken with the string attached to his leg on page 19. What I mean in particular is the stone knife and bundle that fell from the roof that we say is obligated from בור ואש because כח אחר מעורב בו.Thus we can see why the owner of the string would be liable because the fact that the chicken is like the כח אחר. But that is just one small point. Rather I am thinking of how to square that Gemara on page 19 {Bava Kama} as the Rambam understands it with the gemara on page 5b and 6a as to how we learn that STOP {stone tree open pit} are liable.

The main issue I would like to think about is how the chicken with the string could be derived in the same way as the gemara derives STOP on page 6.

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States --shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. The problem with this law is that it would be difficult to enforce at the present time. [http://pamelageller.com/2016/11/hamas-cair-leader-calls-overthrow-u-s-government.html/]

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2385

Whoever knowingly or willfully advocates, abets, advises, or teaches the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying the government of the United States or the government of any State, Territory, District or Possession thereof, or the government of any political subdivision therein, by force or violence, or by the assassination of any officer of any such government; or

Whoever, with intent to cause the overthrow or destruction of any such government, prints, publishes, edits, issues, circulates, sells, distributes, or publicly displays any written or printed matter advocating, advising, or teaching the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing or destroying any government in the United States by force or violence, or attempts to do so; or

Whoever organizes or helps or attempts to organize any society, group, or assembly of persons who teach, advocate, or encourage the overthrow or destruction of any such government by force or violence; or becomes or is a member of, or affiliates with, any such society, group, or assembly of persons, knowing the purposes thereof—

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

If two or more persons conspire to commit any offense named in this section, each shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both, and shall be ineligible for employment by the United States or any department or agency thereof, for the five years next following his conviction.

As used in this section, the terms “organizes” and “organize”, with respect to any society, group, or assembly of persons, include the recruiting of new members, the forming of new units, and the regrouping or expansion of existing clubs, classes, and other units of such society, group, or assembly of persons.

(June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 2, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 87–486, June 19, 1962, 76 Stat. 103; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)

One thing I found about learning Torah- it helps to have a wife who wants one to learn Torah. Without that there is a kind of drag or friction on one's momentum

I believe there are two things that get in the way of learning Torah for myself. One is lack of appreciation  and the other is קושיות (questions). The way to understand this is something that Reb Nachman said concerning tzadikim (saints). That is  saints emulate their Creator. [That is a commandment in to the Torah to walk in God's ways. Just as he is compassionate, so we must be compassionate. That counts as one of the 613 commandments. ] So just as there are questions on God and the way he interacts with the world,- so there must be questions on saints.
You can extend this idea to Torah also. Since the Torah is God's wisdom concerning  how people ought to live and concerning the deeper meaning of life,-- so there must be questions on Torah also. Otherwise our wisdom would be equal to God's wisdom (Heaven forbid.)

I also noticed that Rav Shach says two things are important for Torah--תמידות and מרץ. [That is: time and energy.] But I see the time factor is difficult. When I was in yeshiva in Shar Yashuv and later in the Mir in NY the time factor was not so hard because the system was set up in such a way that it was fairly easy to spend lots of time on Torah each day. But now I am outside of a yeshiva environment and that makes the time factor infinitely more difficult. I am sure lots of people understand what I am saying because even among kollel people I saw the same problem. The solution that I found that works best for me is "small sessions." That is to spend  around an hour on one thing and then to go on to some other subject.

[The time factor is hard also in terms of concentration. Thus you find people that have to be in kollel because their social environment requires it, and yet have a hard time concentrating on Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot all day (who won't?) and thus  learn false and fake Torah which is easy and fun, but not Torah.]

One thing I found about learning Torah- it helps to have a wife who wants one to learn Torah. Without that there is a kind of drag or friction on one's momentum. If you think about it you will realize that most great Roshei Yeshiva in the Litvak world have wives that appreciate their learning Torah. I mean to the degree of the daughter of  [wife of R. Akiva]to give up everything just so she would have a husband who learns Torah. You might think that that is too much. Who requires that? But that is exactly the point I started out with. If one does not appreciate  Torah then it is hard to merit to it. I can not really explain what it is about Torah that is so special. Even when the Torah grabbed me I do not think I could have explained to anyone what it was that I found so amazing about it. One time my Dad went to visit his brother Alex in NJ and I went along. Just one or two days away from the yeshiva environment I told my Dad I felt like I was drowning. I desperately needed to get back to an environment of learning Torah. It is things like that I find hard to explain.

I noticed that a lot of Christians have a very skewed way of looking at the New Testament.
I must have written about this before but maybe deleted it. If I would even begin to go into the issues there would not be enough time.
So perhaps I should just touch briefly on the topics.
(1) The Trinity has no support. The name of God in the Old Testament is "I will be", not "I am."
[Christian scholars know Greek well enough to be aware that the words "I am" used by Jesus were slightly out of place. So they think to make a interference from that that he was referring to the name by which G-d revealed himself to Moses. The trouble with that is that there is no גזרה שווה  equivalence of two words. Jesus used the words "I am." God used the words "I will be." [see note 1 at end of essay.]
Still that is not meant to detract from the value of believing in a true tzadik as Reb Nachman made clear on many occasions.
(2) ביטול המצוות nullification of the commandments. Also has no support from the Sermon on the Mount. The Christian misreading of that is shockingly, intellectually dishonest.  Jesus is clearly saying the commandments of the Torah are forever and will never be nullified. [That is clear in the law of Moses where it says to keep all the laws of the Torah forever (Deuteronomy ch. 6). And the prophets end with an extortion to keep the law of Moses.]
(3) The inclusion of Paul into the canon of official books certainly puts a twist on the whole thing very different than what you would have gotten if the school of thought of Peter and James had been included as you can see from the Clementine  Doctrines and Recognitions. [German Scholars have already said that "Simon" there is a pseudonym of Paul.] [I wonder if  "Simon" is a composite? I have not seen the scholarship on this issue, but to me it seems that the same name there is used for at least two different people.]
(4) Only people very ignorant of Torah Law can see in anything that Jesus did things that were contrary to law.
In some areas he held one opinion as opposed to others for example mixing dirt with water on Shabat as this is an argument in the Rosh on tractate Shabat. Collecting ears of grain that no longer need nourishment from the soil is certainly not forbidden, and those that accused his disciples of doing something forbidden on Shabat are just the same kind of insane religious fanatics that you see today that love to bark at people, and thus displaying their own ignorance of Halacha. This is common in the insane religious world where they love to make up prohibitions out of thin air just in order to be able to bark like dogs.

In terms of the trial of Jesus, it is hard to find a case in which more legal procedures were violated. That is almost a textbook example of how to do everything wrong and against Torah Law. 

[I would imagine that if people would learn the Recognitions and Doctrines of Clement of Rome would clear up  lot of misconceptions..]



note 1. אהיה means I will be and אהיה אשר אהיה means I will be that which I will be. Rabbainu the Ari [I. Luria], goes into this in great detail in the Eitz Chaim and Mavo Shearim. To me it seems the most simple explanation of this name is that everything in the present time is only potential in relation to the future. Everything in the past were merely the conditions that led to the present. And potential is less perfect than action. Thus God wanted to say that he is pure action, not potential.

The problem that I see is the religious world is a million times more evil than anything in the secular world.

"The accursed Enlightenment." What does that mean? I assume it refers to the actual Enlightenment philosophers Hobbes, and Hume and Rousseau plus the ideas of the Enlightenment that had come into the Jewish People.  It is unlikely that he meant the Rambam who emphasizes the learning of Metaphysics and Physics as understood by the Ancient Greeks.
The problem that I see is the religious world is a million times more evil than anything in the secular world. The Enlightenment I admit has problems, but the religious world which pretends to keep Torah is so far infinity worse  than anything else out there, I wonder why that side of things was unknown the the great Litvak Sages like Rav Shach. The religious world certainly is not the path of traditional Torah, but rather some kind of insane perversion thought up by mentally-ill religious fanatics.

In the religious path only lays heartbreak and broken families and mental and sexual abuse of one's children and slavery to some kind of  mafioso who pretends to be  a tzadik.

None of that has anything to do with Torah (as  I have tried to convey many times). The Torah and the religious world are direct polar opposites. Almost anything is better.

Still, Rav Shach has point that Musar and the yeshivas developed long the lines of Reb Israel Salanter were on the authentic path of Torah

The secular world gives the main energy of the religious. Its emphasis on sex can only lead to frustration among the majority of guys who are not super Alpha Males with all the brains and brawn  and money. So what does the average guy do? He joins the religious world with its promise of a shiduch. But then later, when  the insanity of the religious becomes obvious, it is too later to turn back.
And even if you know your own motives were pure--to keep God's law, the vast majority of people in the religious world are there only because they are losers and that is the only way they can get sex. They just hide their motivations with high minded sounding phrases of Torah

it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost.

The thing is that life is confusing and I have found it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost. It is also helpful to have an accurate mental model of how the world works. But that does not seem to be as necessary as having a small set of concrete principles. Thus telling the truth at all cost seems to be a very important thing. In my case, also the idea of trust in God seems to be a good thing to stick with. Though I know many people emphasize putting forth lots of effort to get your needs met, but that does not seem to work very well for me,- and in fact usually results in the exact opposite of the desired effect. Rather, it seems best to simply sit and learn Torah and Physics and then hope that what God wants for me will come to me. 

[To learn Physics I used a book by Joos called "Theoretical Physics". Recently I have used other books to learn further. Siegel's, Field Theory was very helpful (and Doron Cohen's Lectures in Quantum Mechanics). In Torah learning I found Rav Shach's Avi Ezri   to be a really great book. Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot are a great introduction to Rav Shach.] But I do not mean to set up myself as a good example. I can only describe the path I took to get to the Divine Light. That was basically being born into a wholesome wonderful home and going to the Mir (and Shar Yashuv) in NY and then going to Israel. That seems to have been enough to bring down the Divine light on me.  Losing that was mainly a result of getting fooled by counterfeit spirituality in the religious world. That is the reason I recommend avoiding counterfeit spirituality.

nightmarish religious world.Thus the Jewish religious world while not mentally ill in itself still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Some people suggest these negative trends in the USA began around 1900. Before that the USA had been WASP more as a religious identity more than an ethnic group. Apparently evolution was a big issue and the Bible being pushed out of schools.People even then were beginning to feel alienated. from the larger society.Then there was the push back which was mainly from Azusa Street and Aimee McPherson. But for some reason that seems to have had a very limited effect. The Leftward trends just kept going. 

My feeling about this is that the basic doctrine was really not as solid as the people like McPherson thought in the first place. As I have pointed out before letting Paul into the canon was like letting an ax into the piston engine. The basic Doctrine up until that time had been "the Constitution and the Word of God." But in the word of God itself as understood by Christians there were already tendencies of "anti Law." [anti-nomian-ism]. This charge was leveled at Protestants in particular after Martin Luther and it seems to me to be perfectly justified. In any case, this anti Law tendency just got worse over time. In Paul's time when Paul saw the effect of his antinomian letters, he pulled back and tried to correct the situation with limited success. But the antinomian letters are still there for anyone to read and still believe they are reading the "Bible". 

In any case, I can see the trouble with the opposite tendencies also--sanctimonious self righteousness, as is obvious to anyone who has lived in the nightmarish religious world for any period of time. To imagine that if everyone would be like that would make everything right is absurd.


I try to limit my critique in that direction however in order to try to come to a balanced approach which I think is best exemplified by authentic Litvak yeshivas and their surrounding communities. Those kinds of places seems to be the best at "not adding nor subtracting from the Law." Not only that but they seems to have this as conscious approach--to simply do what the Torah says, and rely not at all on any "doctrines."

The critique of Christian Anti-Nomian-ism started right with Peter and James. It came to full expression in Saadia Gaon who made clear his two major critiques on Christianity (1) anti-law (2) שיתוף ["joining" a creation with the Creator].

The trouble is the opposite critique has not really received a good definition. That is even though the Torah itself says "לא תוסיף" ''do not add to the Law,'' but the resulting nightmarish world that results when people do this has not really been analyzed.  Even Musar which was supposed to correct both tendencies has gone off the deep end of the pool.   

However I tend to think that the Rambam's Guide is a good antidote against religious fanaticism. 

The main dynamics of fanaticism is the religious leader is often a mentally ill person with OCD and sexual hangups. It becomes OK for him and his henchmen  to come up with new restrictions all the time as long as doing so does not interfere with their getting their own pleasures fulfilled. Thus the Jewish religious world, while not mentally ill in itself, still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Music for the honor and glory of God

t69 in mp3  This I think is more or less finished. It might need some editing so I ask the forbearance of the readers of this blog for any mistakes.  [t69 in midi]

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left.

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left. I do not see any reason for the Right to reinforce this -except a few recently bad presidents with bad policies. But to continue in this vein now seems to defeat the whole purpose. For 200 years the USA stood for everything that is right and decent more than any other nation in history. Even King David and King Solomon did not get anywhere near the 200 year mark. David I think was about 40 years and Solomon I forget. My opinion is that a lot of animosity comes from male white people being severely abused by the last couple of administrations. But now that is stopping and the USA is getting back on track. Why knock it?


Allen Bloom in his The Closing of the American Mind saw all the problems but his solution was limited to education in Plato's Republic. I would propose another solution but also along the lines that he said about the importance of education. My solution would be more or less along the lines of the Rambam of education in four areas the Written Law of Moses, the Oral Law--especially Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which contains the essence of the Oral Law, Physics [i.e. Field Theory which means Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle. I do not mean to discount what Allen Bloom was saying. It is just a matter of emphasis.]

[I do not mean to be exclusive either. First of all clearly the Rambam was also referring to Plato even though he thought more highly of Aristotle. Still I am curious abut what he saw in the Republic. My own feeling is the smaller dialogues are more important. Also in terms of the Oral Law, it is a good idea to learn the whole school of thought of Reb Chaim Solovietchik staring the חידושי הרמב''ם from Reb Chaim himself and including his major disciples.

Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar

The amazingly powerful thing about Musar and Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar is that Musar speaks to people like me. That is to say, I had a great deal of trouble understanding what Torah is all about until I started putting serious effort into Musar.

Just for the record Musar is mainly a short list of medieval books on Ethics and also one from the Renaissance period the מסילת ישרים.\
This list got added to because some of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter wrote their own books like the מדרגת באדם and the אור ישראל.
The great thing about this is that it gives one an idea of what simple basic fear of God is.
Nowadays the trouble seems to be that the Sitra Achra got into the fear of God business so it is hard to enter into any religious circles without encountering the agents of the Dark Realm.

Thus you see in the original disciples  of Reb Israel Salanter they were careful to avoid completely anyone or anything that was under the excommunication of the Gra. Apparently they were aware that the Sitra Achra can feign signs of holiness, and the Devil can even give people the power to do miracles into order to pervert the holy Torah.

I mean just for one simple example take a look at the whole long list of Musar books given by Rav Isaac Blasser the foremost disciple of Reb Israel Salanter.



I wanted however to mention that as was noted by the other Litvak sages-- Musar has limits. You really do not see much of any effect after a bare basic minimum of effort. People that concentrate a lot on Musar do not seem to gain more in character development than those who spend a small amount of time and then the rest of the day learn Gemara. Thus it became standard to have two short sessions during the day [15 min and 29 minutes.] and the rest of the day to work and learn Torah

אין שמין לגנב Bava Metzia page 96

רב חיים הלוי leaves one option open to say that the רמב''ם hold like the רשב''ם in בבא מציעא page צ''ז ע''א. Another option is to say he holds like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back whole vessels. I showed a few days ago that the ראב''ד has to hold by the רשב''ם. But I think it is clear the רמב''ם has to hold like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back כלים שלמים או כסף
The reason I say this is this. In הלכה י''ד  we find there is a case in which the thief pays back according to how much it was worth at the time of the theft. That is when it went down in value in the meantime. So אין שמין לגנב can not be telling the court to evaluate the object according to the time that the case reaches the court. So all it can be saying then is that the thief can not say הרי שלך לפניך. But if the thief can pay back the original according to שווה כסף ככסף then what is the whole point of the law in the first place. If he would say הרי שלך לפניך then also all he would be doing is giving back the original object according to how much it is worth now and make up the difference in value with other מטלטלים. If the רמב''ם would hold by the רשב''ם then the whole law would become meaningless.
So the only option that is left is to say the רמב''ם holds like רש''י and the רא''ש.


רב חיים הלוי משאיר אפשרות אחת לומר  כי רמב''ם מהחזיק כמו הרשב''ם בבבא מציעא דף צ''ו ע''א. אפשרות אחרת היא לומר שהוא מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים. הראיתי כי ראב''ד יש מהחזיק עם הרשב''ם. אבל  לרמב''ם יש להחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים או כסף. הסיבה שאני אומר את זה היא  שבהלכה י''ד אנו מוצאים קיים מקרה שבו הגנב משלם בחזרה על פי כמה שהחפץ היה שווה בעת הגניבה. כלומר, כאשר זה ירד בערך בינתיים. אז אין שמין לגנב לא ניתן לומר לבית המשפט להעריך את האובייקט על פי הזמן שהמקרה מגיע לבית המשפט. אז כל מה שניתן לומר אז הוא כי הגנב לא יכול לומר "הרי שלך לפניך." אבל אם הגנב יכול להחזיר את חפץ המקורי בגלל שווה כסף ככסף, אז מה כל העניין של החוק מלכתחילה. אם הוא היה אומר הרי שלך לפניך אז גם כל מה שהוא היה עושה הוא להחזיר את האובייקט המקורי פי כמה שהוא שווה עכשיו ולשלם את ההבדל בערך עם מטלטלים אחרים. אם הרמב''ם היה מחזיק עם רשב''ם אז החוק כולו יהיה חסר משמעות. אז האפשרות היחידה שנותרת היא  שהרמב''ם מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש.


If you put this all together, it means that the Rambam holds with Rashi and the Rosh that the thief has to pay back whole vessels or money, and the Raavad holds he can pay back even any objects according to their worth as the Rashbam says in Bava Metzia 96A.

simple faith

To go completely with simple faith with no reasoning at all seems to get some people far. This is the case even when the principles of simple faith are sometimes in fact at odds with reality. The reason is easy to understand if you go with Kant that there are areas of value that are not accessible to human reason. Not just that, but when human reason attempts to go there, it comes up with self contradictions.
It is even possible come up with a hierarchy of values in which content and form are complementary. Thus the more form, the less content. And we already know that reason perceives form only, not content. For example logic is all form with no content. The objects of logic are sentences that could stand for anything. If A implies B and A is true, then B is true.


So I do not want to knock the path of simple faith alone. In fact it seems to me that great people like Bava  Sali were in fact just going with simple faith, even though he certainly was a great Torah scholar also.

Still my path more or less is that of my parents which in one word could be called "balance." that means basically the same thing as the Rambam with a balance between Reason and Revelation.
The trouble with the path of simple faith is that not everything one thinks is content from the realm of holiness is as such. One can feel tremendous holiness from something that is in fact from the Dark Realm.

The actual doctrines of faith I ought to mention are to Rav Joseph Albo less than those of the Rambam.

I also suggest to learn with faith. That is in learning the four forces: The Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics-to not think if you understand or not. Rather to say the words and go on and believe that God will eventually grant to you to understand.


Simple faith seems highly related to 'Devakut' attachment with God. But the issues involved attachment with God are unclear to me. As I mentioned before the infinite Divine Light (as the Ari called it) was shining in me and around me in Israel for about seven years until I simply decided that it was too much for me. Clearly leaving the light was a terrible mistake. But in the meantime I have had time to consider the implications and the subject itself.
Mainly I have come to realize that the command in the Torah "to be attached to God" (Deuteronomy 6 is literal. Yet  Klal Israel said at Mount Sinai to Moshe (Moses), "You go to God and hear what he says and tell us an let us not see the Presence of God nor hear his voice any more least we die." That seems like a direct contradiction. One verse saying Devakut is a commandment and to the anonymous commentary o the first four chapters of the Ramam in Mishne Torah  is the highest commandment, and yet Israel refusing to be attached to God and then God agreeing with them?
So we see like Kant said that when one enters into the Realm of the Dinge An Sich self contradictions are manufactured.
I also learned that there is no process by which one can come to attachment with God. There are other commandments that one must do but they are independent areas of value. They do not result in Devakut. Devakut is more like a free gift to who God chooses for some special mission.
Also I learned that there is a lot of religious delusions in the religious world from people that imagine their every thought and desire and insanity is from God. This led to my awareness that the religious world in itself is mainly insane--or rather its leaders are insane and from the Dark Side and have no idea what true attachment with God is nor true Torah. That is once I got to understand the authentic Torah I can tell what counterfeit Torah is .

Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda Rambam emphasized Physics and Metaphysics,

When Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda Rambam  emphasized Physics and Metaphysics, they also makes it very clear exactly what they means. That is as these subjects were understood in Athens and Sparta. On the other hand, this does not mean to deny the importance that Rav Isaac Luria  brings to understanding the Torah. In fact for me personally the only way I can understand the Torah even in the most simple way is through Rav Isaac Luria. But I do not talk about that much because the whole business really got absorbed into the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side.]

Bava Metzia 96a

Looking at my notes on בבא מציעא צ''ו ע''א I am a little shocked. Today it seems to be clear the ראב''ד holds אין שמין לגנב and that that means like the רשב''ם. The reason I say this is that the ראב''ד says אף על פי שאמרו אין שמין לגנב הני מילי בקרנא אבל בכפילא שמין לגנב דומה דגזלן והשכל מורה כן. The law for a גזלן is כל הגזלנים משלמים כשעת הגזילה. The only way I can see this is that the ראב''ד holds just like the רשב''ם that אין שמים לגנב means one evaluates the worth of the,stolen object according to the time of העמדה בדין and the כפילא according to the time of the גניבה just like for the גזלן one evaluates  the object according to the time of the גזילה. I was struggling to make sense of the idea of רב חיים הלוי  to bring the statement of Rav in Bava Kama page 65 as a source for the ראב''ד. Today it seems to me this can not be true. In order to defend רב חיים הלוי I had to say the ראב''ד perhaps does not hold with the law אין שמין לגנב but we see clearly he does hold with it.


כאשר אני מסתכל על הרשימות שלי על בבא מציעא צ''ז ע''א אני קצת בהלם. היום זה נראה ברור שהראב''ד מחזיק "אין שמין לגנב" וכי זה אומר כמו הרשב''ם. הסיבה שאני אומר את זה היא כי הראב''ד אומר אף על פי שאמרו "אין שמין לגנב הני מילי בקרנא אבל בכפילא שמין לגנב דומה דגזלן והשכל מורה כן". החוק לגבי גזלן הוא כל הגזלנים משלמים כשעת הגזילה. הדרך היחידה שאני יכול לראות את זה היא כי ראב''ד מחזיק בדיוק כמו הרשב''ם, כי "אין שמים לגנב" אומר שצריך להעריך את השווי של החפץ שנגנב על פי הזמן של העמדה בדין ואת כפילא לפי הזמן של גניבה בדיוק כמו עבור הגזלן צריך להעריך את האובייקט על פי הזמן של גזילה. אני נאבקתי כדי להבין את הרעיון של רב חיים הלוי להביא את ההצהרה של רב בבבא קמא דף ס''ה ע''א כמקור עבור הראב''ד. היום זה נראה לי זה לא יכול להיות נכון. על מנת להגן על רב החיים הלוי הייתי צריך לומר את ראב''ד אולי אינו מחזיק עם החוק "אין שמין לגנב" אבל אנו רואים בבירור שהוא כן דוגל בכך.  

a situation in which you can learn Torah

It is really a terrible thing to be in a situation in which you can learn Torah in a group of people that are sincerely also trying to learn Torah and to walk away from it. There is one obvious reason. A Pythagorean was asked by a father what  he could do to make sure his son would grow up to be a mensch --a decent ethical human being. The Pythagorean answered make him a citizen of a state with good laws. And as we know from Hegel, there are several layers of a state. That is the first thing in the family. Then there is a middle layer which was more immediate that the local community -for Hegel that was the corporation. But if Hegel had been aware of the existence of what is an authentic Litvak yeshiva there is no question he would have noted that that is the ideal middle step.

There are many ways to Sitra Achra tries to substitute some other thing in place of Torah. The main method of the Sitra Achra is: "Come and let's do a mitzvah." The trouble is of course the Stra Achra copies holiness. It pretends, "We also learn Torah." This is especially true after they see that making yeshivas is successful money making strategy.

Even though an authentic Litvak yeshiva as a rule needs a rosh yeshiva who is the real thing, this does not have to be the limiting case. It is possible that the most essential feature of a Genuine Litvak yeshiva is the fact that they exclude nonsense.--that is things that pretend to be kosher but are not. And people that pretend to be kosher but are not. 

Non authentic place are mainly for the benefit of the mafioso leader and his henchmen. They just use Torah as a cover.

There seems to be a difference in approach between Rav Shach and Steven Dutch.

Here is Steven Dutch:
"If you believe there is a problem, it is your responsibility to fix it

Most "activism" is glorified freeloading. The activist says, in effect, "Hey everybody, drop what you're doing and solve my problem for me. Divert funds from your programs to pay for mine."

If you think child care is a problem, you study economics and business and figure out a way to provide it economically.
If you think drug company profits are exorbitant, you study biochemistry and business and start a company to develop low-cost drugs.
If you want free health care, you raise the necessary capital and start an HMO that charges low premiums and pays bills with no questions asked.
If you think oil company profits are excessive, you study geology and engineering, start your own drilling company, and find and sell oil for less.
If you think alternative energy sources are the answer, you study physics and engineering and develop them.
You may be the victim of a bad home and past injustice, but if you wait for someone else to set it right, your life will suck. Nobody else's."
Rav Shach on  the other hand seems to hold with the idea  of simply learning Torah and that by means of the light of Torah, much darkness will be dispelled. That seems to have been in fact the general approach of the Mir yeshiva and Shar Yashuv in NY.
But what would that imply then for me? In my case I tend to think that the accepting the yoke of Torah includes  the approach of the Rambam who put Physics and Metaphysics right along side of learning Torah as essentials.
I also wonder what is the bare minimum requirement. To learn the Oral Torah seems to be  a bit much. I have trouble myself with understanding Tosphot. On occasion I was blessed with great teachers in Shar Yashuv and the Mir who understood how to go into Tosphot deeply. And more recently I had a learning partner whose head was perfectly fit for the kind of reasoning that is required to be able to understand Tosphot, that is David Bronson. But on my own I have a great deal of trouble with Tosphot.
Ideally going through the Oral Law would mean doing all Shas with Rashi Tosphot and the Maharsha, in order with no skipping. But to get at least more swiftly into the essence of Torah it seems to me the best thing to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

הרמב''ם ה' מלווה ולווה א:י''ד-ט''ו

 אין שמין לגנב
רב שך  say that the רמב''ם Laws of loans א:י''ד-ט''ו holds by the רשב''ם that the thief can pay back מטלטלים.
 But it occurred to me  that there is no need to have the רמב''ם go with the רשב''ם in terms of the time of the evaluation.אין שמין לגנב is limited to simply mean that the thief can not say הרי שלך לפניך
Now today it occurred to me even more so that while the רמב''ם holds from the רשב''ם it must be the case that he does not hold by him that אין שמין לגנב tells the court to evaluate at the time of העמדה בדין. There are two reason for this. The first reason is the simple language of the רמב''ם shows this in הלכה ט''ו . There he says the court evaluates the object according to how much it was worth. Not how much it is worth. This shows clearly that the רמב''ם hold the court looks at the amount the object was worth at the time of the theft if the object has gone down in value. or was broken. Not the time of העמדה בדין. But if it went up in value the court does not look at the object in terms of the time of העמדה בדין either but rather at the time it was broken which also was in the past. In both cases the language of the רמב''ם is past tense. How much the object was worth. Not how much it is worth
The other reason is the גמרא in בבא קמא ס''ה ע''א where זולא ויוקרא are considered on the same plane as שבירה. So if it goes down in value that is the same as if it was broken. That is the thief has to pay back the amount it was worth at the time of the theft and if the object is still whole then to return the object. If the object went up in value and then was broken then the thief has to pay back the amount according the the later higher value.



רב שך אומר כי  הרמב''ם ה' מלווה ולווה א:י''ד-ט''ו מחזיק בשיטת הרשב''ם כי הגנב יכול להחזיר מטלטלים.  עלה בדעתי כי אין צורך לומר שהרמב''ם הולך עם הרשב''ם מבחינת הזמן של הערכה. אין שמין לגנב מוגבל פשוט לומר כי הגנב לא יכול לומר הרי שלך לפניך. עכשיו  עלה בדעתי אפילו יותר, כך שבעוד שהרמב''ם מחזיק עם הרשב''ם, זה חייב להיות כך שהוא אינו מחזיק על ידו לגבי הדין "אין שמין לגנב" שאומר שבית המשפט צריך להעריך החפץ לפי ערך של חפץ כזה בעת העמדה בדין . ישנן שתי סיבות לכך. הסיבה הראשונה היא השפה הפשוטה של הרמב''ם מציג את זו בהלכה ט''ו. שם הוא אומר בית המשפט מעריך את האובייקט על  פי כמה שהיה שווה. לא כמה שזה שווה. זה מראה בבירור כי הרמב''ם מחזיק שבית המשפט בוחן את  השוויות בזמנו של הגניבה אם אובייקט ירד ערך, או נשבר. לא בזמן ההעמדה בדין. אבל אם זה עלה בערך, בית המשפט אינו מסתכל האובייקט במונחים של הזמן של עמדה בדין  אלא בזמן שהוא נשבר שגם זה היה בעבר. בשני המקרים השפה של רמב''ם הוא עבר. הסיבה השנייה היא הגמרא בבבא קמא ס''ה ע''א שבו זולא ויוקרא נחשבים על אותו המישור של שבירה. אז אם זה ירד למטה בערך שזה זהה אם זה היה שבור. כלומר הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה את הסכום שהיה שווה בזמנו של הגניבה. (אם האובייקט הוא עדיין שלם, מחזיר את האובייקט ומשלים את הנותר). אם האובייקט עלה ערך ולאחר מכן נשבר אז הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה את הסכום על פי הערך המאוחר הגבוה.

There are many ways for the Sitra Achra to take one from Torah.

I think that in Pirkei Avot it is possible that there is an argument about which path is preferable to learn Torah along with working or learning Torah alone. No one suggests that one can use Torah as a means for making money but there is this idea that, "When one accepts the yoke of Torah, then the yoke of work is removed." That is the Mishna of Nechunia ben Hakanah.
  But then there are the other mishnas that seem to indicate that it is preferable to work and learn. "All Torah that does not have work with it is in the end worthless." So this seems to be an argument between the sages of the Mishna.
This issue seems to get mixed up with other issues concerning the using of Torah to make money which is commonly called "Kollel". That seems to be  forbidden. However there is a different issue in which one is passive. That is he does not actively go around trying to make money off of the Torah, but rather sits and learns and hopes that parnasa [money] will be sent to him from heaven.


What is possible to tell from the Gra is apparently this later approach. That it is preferable to sit and learn Torah and hope that money will come.  I myself basically did this while in the Mir yeshiva in NY and then in Israel also. I lapsed from this however and no longer am able to recommend this path as fervently as I ought to because of what is called "קושיות" (questions). But in reality there is something about this path that does break through the veil of perception and gain one entrance into the Beyond. It is just that I do not seem to have the kind of merit that is required to be able to learn Torah and trust in God. I mean to say this: that even though learning Torah and trusting in God are merits in themselves but apparently one needs some kind of elementary kind of merit to gain entrance into that higher kind of merit. Otherwise the Dark Side comes along and causes one to always find something better to do rather than learn Torah. Or it replaces the authentic Torah with Torah of the Dark Side.
This might have something to do with some kind of set of personality flaws inside of me that cause me not to be able to learn or recommend learning for others. I mean it might not just be some kind of sin but also even more likely it has to do with character flaws in me.

In any case, what ever are my flaws, it seems to late to be able to correct them.

[In case it is not clear what I mean here, let me try to explain. There are two aspects of learning Torah. One is setting aside time for learning the Oral and Written Law of Moses, that is the Tenach,  the Two Talmuds all the halachic and agadic midrashim. But there is a higher level of learning all the time and with as much energy and determination as humanly possible because Torah is the purpose of Life and the source of all good in the universe. That kind of learning is in a whole other ball park than the first kind. It is this second kind of learning that I can not do, and even the first kind is about as easy as pulling out teeth without anesthesia.] I really could not even venture a guess as to why I can not learn. I imagine it has something to do with my walking away from it once.

[When one does not merit to learn Torah, the whole world become the agents of the Dark Side (Sitra Achra) to remove him from it--even other people that are learning. They will become to very first to try and convince him to stop learning. Then there will be everyone else. There are other techniques also. One most popular is to substitute the real authentic Torah with false Torah and Torah from the Sitra Achra. There are many ways for the Sitra Achra to take one from Torah. [I can imagine there are infinite ways for the Sitra Achra to take one from Torah. The most popular is: "Come and do a mitzvah."]

Music for the glory of God

T68mp3 t68 midi  t68 nwc

It occurred to me two valid reasons to pay attention to the "cherem."

For some reason, the religious teachers that pretend to teach and follow the holy Torah tend to be demonic. There are of course the exceptions of the genuine Litvak yeshivas in N.Y. and Bnei Brak, but the exceptions simply prove the rule,--that there is a problem. Most people would like to sweep it under the carpet, so they emphasize  the prohibition of lashon hara [slander. For the laws see the Chafetz Chaim, or the short version.] thinking that by doing so they will be immune from attack while at the same time continuing to attack baali teshuva [newly religious] and others they don't like.
[Maybe the problem has gotten worse. I am not sure. Clearly, in Europe there were rigorous standards; so the run of the mill religious teachers were in fact pretty good. Maybe it is just nowadays that people that their only qualification is that they are insane religious fanatics are the ones that get into positions of power.
In any case, because of this problem I avoid the religious world in toto.
The problem nowadays is the entire religious world. But I believe that if the excommunication of the Gra had been listened to, then this problem would not exist. 

  It occurred to me two valid reasons to pay attention to the "cherem." One reason is as Reb Chaim from Voloshin goes into in his book the נפש החיים about the problem of idolatry. (i.e. idolatry can apply to people, not just objects.) 

  Another reason is that a "cherem" has a valid halachic category of an isur neder," which means the object becomes a חפצא של איסור "forbidden object." I was in fact unaware of this last problem until I saw explained it thus in a commentary of the Rambam. (I want to mention that you can go through the entire tractate of Nedarim without being aware of this problem because the connection with cherem is never explained there openly. The commentary I saw this in is in the regular edition of the Rambam on the bottom of the page. I think it was  somewhere in the beginning of ה' שבועות or ה' נדרים.

One thing is certain. That the path of Torah is no where near the path of the insane religious world. These are two direct opposites.

music file t 67

t67 E minor

When people try to flee from the Sitra Achra [Dark Side] they often end up in some greater evil.
This happens because the great evil disguises itself in elaborate ritual observances in order to seem kosher. 

For this reason I have stressed the importance of learning the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach so as to have a good idea of what the Torah actually does require of you.

The Rambam[ה' ממרים] holds there is a difference between (1) גזרות תקנות ומנהגים [decrees and laws that were instituted by the sages] and (2) laws made as a fence for Torah.

The Rambam[ה' ממרים]  holds there is a difference between (1) גזרות תקנות ומנהגים [decrees and laws that were instituted by the sages] and (2) laws made as a fence for Torah. The prime example of the later are the 18 laws brought in the first chapter of Shabat. But the Rambam extends that to anything made as a fence.
Thus for the Rambam: laws judged by the 13 principles can be changed by  a later court of law even a small one.
Things that are תקנות גזירות ומנהגים ([decrees and laws that were instituted by the sages]) can be changed by a later court if that later court is greater in number and wisdom. Laws made  for a fence can not be changed by any court of law- ever. [The Rambam is obviously getting this last category from the first chapter of Shabat concerning the 18 decrees.]
The issue here is the Raavad who makes only two distinctions -if the law דרבנן is accepted by all Israel. If so no one can nullify it. If not, then even a small court can nullify it. So when does the גדול בחכמה ומניין become relevant to the Raavad?

The question here is אבות דר' נתן The commentary on Pirkei Avot from the amoraim [sages of the Talmud]. There it is clear that no one has the authority to make  a law as a fence for the Torah since it says doing so is like what Adam HaRishon  [the first man] did in adding to the command of God not to eat from the tree of knowledge. So what does this mean? Perhaps the Rambam saw this midrash and decided that we see from it a difference between decrees and laws that were instituted by the sages and things instituted for  a fence. However the Rambam  is saying the opposite of that braita [teaching] in so far as the laws made for  a fence are more strict.

The teaching in אבות דר' נתן is  very explicit about decrees that add laws to Torah  law. It says better a wall that is ten inches and stands, rather that a wall 100 yards and falls. This is obviously of great relevance today when people are constantly coming up with new things to add to the Law of the Torah.

The interesting thing is the fact that things learned by the 13 principles are the most lenient and can easily be changed. That is contrary to the usual way these things are understood. But it fits well with teh well known opinion of the Rambam that things derived from the 13 principles are דברי סופרים words of the scribes as he says in the ways a woman can be married.

importance of institutions.

In short I had two ideas today that intersect. One is the fact that no institution can take the place of learning Torah. You can not support some institution that you think is learning Torah. You have to do it yourself. It makes no difference where you do it. It could be on the beach. It could be at home. It could be while parachuting on the way down when you have nothing else to do before you get to the ground.

The other thing is I did want to emphasize the importance of institutions. If yeshivas today were in fact authentic Litvak yeshivas then in fact it would be a great thing to support them.
'When a father inquired about the best method of educating his son in ethical conduct, a Pythagorean replied: "Make him a citizen of a state with good laws."

This includes two levels. The state one lives in. The other is the local group one associates with.

So if one is in the area of a genuine Litvak yeshiva then great. If not then the best thing is to get the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, a Gemara [Vilna Shas edition ONLY.], and Musar and learn them at home.
[I say Rav Shach because he is the most logically rigorous and deep. However any of the disciples of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik from Brisk are also very good., I.e. "Gedolai Litva" 

Many students have a difficult time seeing a distinction between the following two statements: a. It's true. b. It's true for me.

"Well, it's true for me ...."
Many students have a difficult time seeing a distinction between the following two statements:

a. It's true.
b. It's true for me.

But there IS a difference, and it is important to see the difference, and most people see the difference when it comes to things like mathematics, science, accounting, engineering, law, etc.

Here's the question: What does "for me" add to "It's true"? What I mean is, why would anyone say "It's true for me"? Let's say, for example, your favorite physics teacher asks you to tell her what the rate of fall is for a body located approximately at the surface of the Earth. Let's say that you are a student of physics and know with certainty, that bodies fall at 9.4 meters per second per second. If you write on your exam that bodies fall at 9.4 m/sec^2, your instructor would put an annoying red "X" next to your answer. (It should be 9.81)

"But wait a darn minute, there, ma'am: it's true for me that bodies fall at 9.4 m/sec^2!"



Relativism and Tolerance
What is the matter with the following claim:
"Different groups have different moral beliefs.
[One glance would show the absurdity of the logical extension of this argument. Disagreements in questions of history or biology or cosmology do not show that there are no facts about these subjects.]

Do you understand the reasons why such statements as "well it's true for them…" are confused and mistaken (with exceptions)?
Do you understand why such statements as "no one can tell me what to believe (or what to do)" doesn't work as a response to moral criticism? And why it isn't a very respectable or sophisticated response to differences in opinion? [Let's say a cashier in a supermarket who takes money from the cash register is approached by her boss. She defends herself: "No one can tell me what to do."
Let's say a private in the army does not know how to clean and reassemble  a rifle.He is approached by his superior officer who tries to tell him how to do it. He answers: "No one can tell me what to think."]

Do you understand the reasons why such statements as "who needs morality?" are confused and mistaken (with exceptions)?
Do you understand the difference between the law and morality and why the law is an insufficient moral guide?
Do you understand how it is that humans get their views about morality? The various stages of development that many humans experience?


Morality is a social phenomenon. Think about this. If a person is alone on some deserted island would anything that person did be moral or immoral? That person may do things that increase or decrease the chance for survival or rescue but would those acts be moral or immoral? Most of what we are concerned with in Ethics is related to the situation in which humans are living with others. Humans are social animals. Society contributes to making humans what they are. For humans there arises the question of how are humans to behave toward one another. What are the rules to be? How are we to learn of them? Why do we need them?


Consider what the world would be like if there were no traffic rules at all. Would people be able to travel by automobiles, buses and other vehicles on the roadways if there were no traffic regulations? The answer should be obvious to all rational members of the human species. Without basic rules, no matter how much some would like to avoid them or break them, there would be chaos. The fact that some people break the rules is quite clearly and obviously not sufficient to do away with the rules. The rules are needed for transportation to take place.

Why are moral rules needed? For example, why do humans need rules about keeping promises, telling the truth and private property? This answer should be fairly obvious. Without such rules people would not be able to live amongst other humans. People could not make plans, could not leave their belongings behind them wherever they went. We would not know who to trust and what to expect from others. Civilized, social life would not be possible. So, the question is :

Why should humans care about being moral?

John Mackie calls ethical intuitions 'queer' and 'utterly different from our ordinary ways of knowing everything else'. '

Behind Mackie's distaste for intuition there no doubt lies some of the strong empiricist sentiment of twentieth-century philosophy. Empiricism--roughly, the idea that all 'informative' knowledge, or knowledge of the mind-independent, language-independent world, must derive from sense perception--has been fashionable for the last century, though less so, I think, in the past decade.


Here, I will give a  counter-example to empiricism.

First example: Nothing can be both entirely red and entirely green. How do I know that? Note that the question is not how I came upon the concepts 'red' and 'green', nor how I came to understand this proposition. The question is why, having understood it, I am justified in affirming it, rather than denying it or withholding judgment. It seems to be justified intuitively, that is, simply because it seems obvious on reflection. How else might it be justified?

A naive empiricist might appeal to my experiences with colored objects: I have seen many colored objects, and none of them have ever been both red and green. One thing that makes this implausible as an explanation of how I know that nothing can be both red and green is the necessity of the judgment. Contrast the following two statements:

Nothing is both green and red.
Nothing is both green and a million miles long.

We have never observed a counter-example to either statement, so it would seem that the second is at least as well-supported by observation as the first. The second statement is probably true, since we have never observed a green object that is a million miles long, although there seems to be no reason why there couldn't be such a thing. We have a clear conception of what it would be like to observe such a thing, and it would not be senseless to look for one.But the first statement is different: we can see that there simply couldn't be a green object that is red, and it seems that no matter what our experience had been like, we would not have said that there was such an object; consequently, it would be senseless even to look for one.

I conclude with a final epistemological objection to intuitive morality. Even if moral properties are real, it does not seem that they could affect anything. They do not produce physical effects, so they do not affect our brain processes, so they probably do not affect our mental processes either.

Some philosophers maintain that knowledge of a thing requires some kind of interaction with it.
Now, this problem is not specific to moral knowledge. It is a general problem about a priori knowledge. Paul Benacerraf originally raised it as a problem about mathematics: since we have no interaction with the number 2--we do not bump into it on the street, and so on--how can we have knowledge of it?

Answer: Reason perceives universals

Universals exist necessarily. 'Universals' are abstract things (features, relationships, types) that two or more particular things or groups can have in common. For instance, yellow is a universal. It is something that lemons, the sun, and school buses, among other things, all have in common. Yellow is 'abstract' in the sense that it is not a particular object with a particular location; you will not bump into yellow, just sitting there by itself, on the street. Nevertheless, yellow certainly exists. Here is an argument for that:
1.
The following statement is true:
(Y) Yellow is a color.
2.
The truth of (Y) requires that yellow exist.
3.
Therefore, yellow exists.

Comment: Suppose I say, 'The King of Colorado is fluffy'. Since there is no king of Colorado, some would say the sentence is false; others would say it is neither true nor false. But no one thinks it would be true.

Some philosophers (the 'nominalists') say that the only thing multiple particulars have in common is that we apply the same word or idea to them. Here is an argument against that:

4.	Yellow is a color, and lemons have it.
5.	No word or idea is a color, nor do lemons 'have' words or ideas.
6.	Therefore, yellow is not a word or an idea.

Yellowness is something lemons, the sun, and so on have in common; so what they have in common is not (merely) a word or idea. Some philosophers will say I have oversimplified this issue. I say I have simplified but not oversimplified; the existence of universals is a trivial truth.

[The latter part of this essay is taken from Dr Michael Huemer.]]

The Torah's world view is Monotheism. That is: that God created the world something from nothing, and He is not the world, nor is the world Him.

The basic idea of the verse אתה הראתה לדעת כי השם הוא האלהים אין עוד מלבדו (You were shown to know that the Lord is God, there is no other besides Him.) is actually explained simply in the beginning of the Mishne Torah (of Maimonides). [הלכות יסודי התורה פרק א' הלכה א-ד] That is that God's existence is independent of anything else. The existence of everything else depends on the existence of God. It does not mean the way people commonly take it to mean nowadays as a support for the Bhagavad Gita.

I mean to say that the Torah's world view is that of what is called Monotheism.That is that God created the world something from nothing, and He is not the world, nor is the world Him.

This all goes to show how right Reb Israel Salanter was about Musar. For in Musar one gets the basic orientation of the Torah. 

[In Israel, in Rav Montag's yeshiva I had an opportunity to demonstrate this. I was talking with some of the "kollel-lite" guys that were learning in kollel, and this subject came up. I had two stones in my pockets. I asked them about one of them, "Is this stone godliness?" "האם האבן הזאת אלקות?" They remained uncommitted. They must have thought I had something up my sleeve. I then took out the other stone and put the first one on the floor and smashed it with the second one. It made such a noise that the entire beit midrash looked up-including Rav Montag.
I asked them, "Did it just break godliness?"האם עכשיו שיברתי אלקות? 
[I do not recommend this demonstration because part of the first stone flew out and it could have hurt someone. That would have then brought up the question: "Is godliness is dangerous?"]

Most supposed Torah scholars are demons as Reb Nachman pointed out. Once they decide to use Torah for money they lose their holy soul and become possessed by forces from the dark side.]

Not enough credit is given to Kant when it come to his insight that when pure reason goes into an area of  "the thing in itself" (dinge an sich (plural)) it comes up with self contradictions. Kant intended this insight to be expanded. Not just to be understood in the limited philosophical form he put it in.
 Thus Kant himself applied it further. He said when a person looks into his own soul and psychology that creates in him mental illness because the "self" is in the realm of the dinge an sich. [That in itself was an important insight. It was by this awareness that one is only conscious of the surface of the self--not what is inside it that gave Kant the ability to overcome solipsism.

Thus it seems clear to me why learning Torah presents the kinds of problems that one generally encounters. The reason now seems simple. It is in the realm of the dinge an sich.
The only way to come to Torah is to be able to jump over the questions. To come to appreciate Torah is much more important than the amount of time spent learning it.
The question typically are sometimes contradictions in the issue of "parnasa" how much time to spend on a livelihood as opposed to how much time spent of learning Torah. There are also questions that arise from phony people that pretend to learn Torah and yet are not at all moral or decent.[Most supposed Torah scholars are demons as Reb Nachman pointed out. Once they decide to sue Torah for money they lose their holy soul and become possessed by forces from the dark side.]
The way you can see this in the Ari [Isaac Luria] and Rav Shalom Sharabi is  the צימצום applied to all the midot (sepherot). Thus when the צימצום occurred it happened even in wisdom. So there are areas where wisdom can not venture into. [That is how the Reshash explains  the צמצום at the beginning of the נהר שלום  based on a reading of the Ari.]

One trouble is also the very common problem of people being thrown out of yeshivas. There are many causes of this-sometimes justified and sometimes not. One thing that makes this disturbing is the fact that many yeshivas present themselves as "open door" places to the public. That is the face they present when trying to collect charity. But the big picture is more simple. It is hard to merit to Torah and to do so one has to overcomes the mental blocks, questions about, "Why should one learn Torah?" So if it would not be one kind of question or problem it would be another, because there is not way to merit to Torah without jumping over the questions and ignoring them and simply saying "people are people are primates" and simply decreeing on oneself to sit and learn Torah as much and even more than what is possible.

[What I meant to say here about Rav Shalom Sharabi is that he mentions the doubt of Reb Chaim Vital about if the צמצום  was only in כלליות or also in פרטיות. And the Reshash says there that this doubt of Rav Chaim Vital was only at the beginning of his learning from the Ari, but later it was clear to him that it also applied in פרטיות. Reb Nachman brings this same point also. He says like the Reshash that the צמצום contraction happened in all the traits -for example wisdom. So there is a limit to how far reason--even pure reason can extend.]

noble savage myth

I wanted to mention that I think the problem in England is the noble savage myth that was popularized by Rousseau. They think they have found the noble savage in Muslims. They hate their Christian past but can not shake it off, so instead they cater to Muslims and by they get the feeling of spiritual release from the constraints of the Bible. I know I am not stating this properly but they main idea is I think England and France's infatuation with Muslims is highly psychological and not at all based on reason but rather the deep "Id"--more or less discovered by Nietzsche.