Divine simplicity

Divine simplicity.

The main point I wanted to bring up is that this is the reason I think the (Rambam) רמב''ם made it a point to emphasize that God has no מידות, character traits.
It has been known for some time that introducing ideas into the Mind of God violates Divine simplicity. But what I think the Rambam is doing is even suggesting that even introducing Divine traits violates Divine simplicity.
I think the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed also was intended to guard Divine Simplicity.
Divine simplicity means God is not a mixture of things. (He is not a composite.) Also it means: He has no characteristics that are associated with the physical world. He has no form, no matter, no substance, etc.

I am grateful to God for granting to me a girl friend. I fully understand that it is better to be married but the religious world made sure and doubly sure that that would not be. It is in that area that I found the religious world to be as evil as humanly possible. They say they are for family values but I would be married today if I had never had anything to do with them. Thinking that they keep the Torah just because they claim so is  a grave error. They did everything possible to hurt my family and since then I have learned to keep as far from them as possible.

It is however an interesting question to ask, "Why and from where this problem stems from?" But others have asked this and no one that I have ever heard of has given much of an answer. Reb Israel Salanter tried to deal with this issue.

My basic impression I have to say is that the closer people are to keeping the path of the Gra the closer they are to holiness and human decency. The main trouble seems to be when people ignore the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication.

I do not have much of  a theory for this--it is just my observation based on many years of experience.



In any case I just wanted to mention the basic idea of a girl friend is an argument among Rishonim. Rambam against.  All others are in favor. The Gra brings the verse about Calev ben Yefuna in Chronicles chap 2 verse 46 as a proof that a girl friend in allowed.

In Kings 18 it says the reason Israel was exiled was because they were not keeping the laws of Moses.

In terms of having a good  idea of what the actual Torah requires, the best thing is to learn the Mishna of R. Yehuda Hanasi. This is the book that contains the entire Oral Law. This has the advantage of being the actual Oral Law, and short and concise. It is simple and understandable.
Knowledge about what the Torah requires is needed in this generation since there are too many liars that claim to know this--and even expect to get paid for their false knowledge.

[In theory one could just go through the whole Talmud  but that is a big project. The Talmud itself was written as a commentary on the Mishna so it is best at first to get the basic structure of the Oral Law.]


There are books that gives to the layman basic knowledge of what the requirements of the Torah are. But in my view it is better to go to the original sources.

Some people like layman introductions, but I prefer to go to original sources. For some reason I have always been like this. Even when I was circa seven years old, I preferred learning a collage chemistry book rather than simple introductions to chemistry written for my age group. (My mother offered to buy a simple introduction but I asked her to buy the college chemistry instead.) But since I am not very smart I often go to secondary material after I have read the original sources.

But since original source material is often hard to understand what I do is to say the words in order and to just go on and not worry if I understood everything perfectly. This idea is brought in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים and Reb Nachman also goes into this in Sichot Haran 76.

Exchange of the commandments is a major problem nowadays. People often want to keep the Laws of Moses but then come along people that exchange their commandments with the commandments of the Torah--and then they claim their commandments are in fact what the Torah requires. So to have an idea of what the Torah actually requires is important so that you know what it does not require or even forbids. Mitzvot made up out of thin air is the major problem nowadays.

U-17mp3 G Major [U-17 in midi] [U-17 in nwc]

u-18mp3  [u-18 in midi]  [u-18 in nwc]

 U-20 A Major u-20 midi format  [u-20 in nwc format]

Psalms 92: For You have made me joyful Lord by your works, I will sing about the doings of you hands.

כי שמחתני ה' בפעליך במעשה ידיך ארנן For You have made me joyful Lord by your works, I  will sing about the doings of you hands.

From the standpoint of Maimonides, there is a close connection between learning Physics and Metaphysics with Love and Fear of God.

This has nothing to do with mental capacity, but rather it is simply considered more or less along the same lines as learning Torah.

This you can see is based on Saadia Gaon. Later the Rambam [Maimonides] and the Obligations of the Heart חובות לבבות  and the מעלות המידות pick up the same theme.

Clearly later on polemics against all secular learning were reactions to the Enlightenment. However some geonim and many other rishonim were against all forms of secular learning unless it is for the sake of a vocation, e.g. Rav Hai Gaon--the last gaon, and the Rashba and Ramban/Nachmanides.


So the issue is simply a מחלוקת ראשונים an argument among mediaeval authorities. And once you have come to realize that, then there is not a lot more to say. An argument among mediaeval authorities is simply one of those things that are un-decidable. They are (as Motti Freifeld [son of the Rosh Yeshiva of Shar Yashuv] once told me) "אלו ואלו דברי אלקים חיים" "These and those are the words of the Living God." [That is  a quote from the Talmud about an argument between the sages of the Mishna.]


I should mention just as a side note that nowadays I generally go with the approach that Physics ad Metaphysics are important which is along the lines of the Rambam and my parents. However when I was in the Mir in NY and also in Israel I was going with the "Torah alone" approach.
One way to defend the Rambam approach is by the idea of the hidden Torah inside the work of creation.  That is a mystical concept from Reb Nachman but it does seem to be the way the Rambam is understanding this.
The way I personally do Physics nowadays is the way of  "not trying." That is I just say the words and go on. This is called דרך גירסה and for me it seems to work. This path of learning  is brought in the Gemara and the Musar book אורחות צדיקים


[I might mention the requirement of learning Torah along with this which to me means basically Gemara Rashi and Tosphot and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which is the best thing in terms of "Lumdut." --deep learning. I might be doing more of that myself if I had any books.]

a bad education can damage one's soul permanently.

[1] What is bothering me about  religious education is the fact that a bad education can damage one's soul permanently.
[2] Few people are aware of the dangers of a  Jewish education.  Learning Torah is not the same as being an apprentice under the local blacksmith. Torah is very different. And since it is usually taught by people that are not worth anything, the results are obviously not far off.

I would perhaps go into this if I was not so weak and sick. But in short the main idea is that bad teachers produce bad results and Torah is not like learning a profession. It goes down into the very essence of one' soul.
Obviously the Na Nach people are acutely aware of this more than any group I have seen. In any case, the issue really  began in my mind this morning when I thought about the basic idea of the Rambam that the commandments of the Torah have a purpose and that is to bring to several things which could be called objective morality.

The people that are there even in the best of yeshivas to teach Musar/ Ethics to me seem to be  far from normative objective morality. So perhaps how to become a decent person is possible to teach and to learn but they do not seem to be the people capable of doing so.

Just to be fair there are still around a few good places like Ponovitch or the great NY Litvak yeshivas. But my point is that the idea that just getting an education is  a good thing is completely wrong. In fact unless you are actually going to the Mir or some clearly decent place then the best thing is to avoid the whole bunch of frauds and jerks.

To teach Torah for money is forbidden. מה אני (לימדתי תורה) בחינם אף אתם (תלמדו תורה) בחינם. So in any case the whole scam does not have anything to stand on. And that is an open Gemara in Bava Batra.

England used to execute thieves.

One person (call him Moshe) was telling me he would not have a problem with people attacking him because he treats people with respect. That ignores the fact that there are people who choose violence as the first option. I have unfortunately encountered people that choose theft and violence as the first means of getting what they want and there are plenty more that I have not met.  The next day that same person, Moshe  was walking in the city and met a person who told him openly that he is  a  thief  and after talking a while asked him to buy some alcohol. Moshe said fine and bought 50 grivans worth with a 200 grivan  bill and the thief returned 100 grivans. Thus teaching Moshe that some people steal and lie just for the fun and thrill of it.  This is just one mild example of a very terrible phenomenon that exists among people. There are plenty that choose theft and violence just because it gets results and is fun.

England used to execute thieves. Japan also until recently. No wonder these two countries are First World countries. They got rid of the bad genes and the DNA carriers. [You could also just lock them up long enough to make sure they do not pass on their genes to the next generation.]

[The reason the Tzar and the USSR dealt harshly with thieves was this reason: There is no cure for a thief. Once they have started down that path they do not ever go back to human decency.]

What do we do about people who have already turned to violence as their tactic of choice? Most pacifists react to this issue by simply pretending that it doesn't exist, that people either never deliberately choose violence, that violence always stems from earlier violence, poverty, or injustice, or that if people do deliberately choose violence, it's in rare cases that are not really of great importance.

The Cycle of Violence Steven Dutch's essay

Before we go any further, take your mouse and put the cursor on the bold lettering above.

Now, notice what you did. In order to move the mouse, you had to exert force, and very precise and gentle force at that. You didn't rip the mouse cord out of the computer, or crush the mouse in your grip, or push so hard on it that you mashed the trackball flat. The notion that force inexorably spirals out of control is precisely that trivially easy to refute.

Now it's probably true that resorting to unnecessary violence may very well lead to retaliation. So restraint in dealing with confrontations is usually a good idea. But all the talk about "ending the cycle of violence" fails to address the key question what do we do about people who have already turned to violence as their tactic of choice? As a problem-solving tool, "violence first" has a couple of things going for it:

It's simple
It gets results, especially after word gets around that you don't hesitate to use violence
It's gratifying. You get to vent pent-up rage, feel dominance over others, maybe even a sexual turn-on
Most pacifists react to this issue by simply pretending that it doesn't exist, that people either never deliberately choose violence, that violence always stems from earlier violence, poverty, or injustice, or that if people do deliberately choose violence, it's in rare cases that are not really of great importance. But history abounds with examples of people who have deliberately chosen violence. The ease with which people from non-violent backgrounds have been induced to commit atrocities in wartime shows how easy it can be for the violent to recruit assistants, and for the gratification factor to take hold. Thus, a single individual who opts for violence because he enjoys domination may succeed in recruiting many others less bold than he is. How do we respond to people who have opted for violence? Appeasement merely reinforces the conviction that violence gets results. Moreover, it provides gratification by reinforcing the feeling of dominance. When confronting people who have already opted for violence, non-violence has a very good chance of perpetuating the cycle of violence. Retaliatory force, on the other hand, makes the results of violence a lot less simple, a lot less effective in getting results, and a lot less gratifying.

Furthermore, violence is only the far end of the spectrum of force. Every screaming brat who throws a temper tantrum in public is testimony to the fact that children do not need to be taught the use of force. And regardless how loving, benevolent and diligent a parent is in meeting and supplying the child's needs, every child sooner or later runs into the fact that other people, much less the physical universe, will not. Sooner or later every human being has to face the fact that some desires will not be gratified.

Throwing the First Punch

How much is Hegel really to blame for the terrible use the Marxists make of his writings?

 How much is Hegel really to blame for the terrible use the Marxists make of his writings? They reject openly most of his system [objective morality] but still use some of his paradigms. [Marxism holds that moral values are not objective but are mere fictions invented by the ruling class to further its class interests (much like religion)] It should be easy to say this except for the fact that obviously the Kant/Friesian school does not like Hegel and in fact put the full blame and guilt of communism on his shoulders. Popper especially. It is not uncommon to hear people saying Hegel was incoherent.

But there was one thing that always bothered me about the idea of accusing  Hegel of absurdities. That is that I had read about 20 years ago in NY a Cambridge companion to Hegel and I knew he had a well worked out system.

To me it  makes more sense to redeem Hegel than to blame him.


This issue seems urgent because the USA is breaking apart over  the battle between traditional family Judaeo-Christian values as opposed to Marxism (Socialism). And to me it seems obvious that without Hegel, the Marxists would never have gotten off the first floor. They  could never have convinced anyone of their absurdities if not for taking the name of Hegel in vain. It was the use of Hegel that let  them be  believable.

[I broke my leg and after that got diverticulitis.  I was in a hospital in Uman and my brother urged me to leave the Ukraine and get an operation in either the USA or Israel. I stayed where I was and I am very grateful to God that He sent to me a great doctor who did the operation Alexandr Sergevitch, and a great nursing staff. Later after I was released I got diverticulitis and went to the other hospital right outside Uman that has a very good reputation that is called the hospital of the region. [Bolnitza Rayona.]  [It is outside of Uman on the Kiev Odessa highway.]  There God again had compassion on me and sent to me great doctors. [There had been a doctor at the first hospital who was a leftover from the old USSR who caused disasters on whom so ever he touched. But he was no longer working there. The doctor who saw me after my accident was not Soviet trained but young and had learned in Dnepropetrovsk. Apparently they have  a big institution there.]

This accounts for my not writing on my blog. I have been very weak and not able to do any learning or thinking.]

After I was out I talked  with a nurse that was visiting from Estonia. I told her that I suspect that medicine in 1st world countries is not so great, and that is one reason I did not run to the USA for an operation.  And she told me about one patient of hers that the doctors in the one of the best hospitals in the West killed by means of chemotherapy. He walked in looking 50 years old and two weeks later looking 70 and then a short time later died. I said: "The trouble with medicine in 1st world countries is they have too many toys."

Putting together my worldview in elementary school and high school. Going to a Lithuanian yeshiva was the best possible choice.

I spent a good amount of effort putting together my worldview in elementary school and high school.

I had a notebooks filled with ideas that I would jot down at night before going to sleep. Often I would think of some new idea right before falling asleep and get up and write in down and then go back to bed.

It is hard to know if I would have been doing this thinking if the atmosphere of the time did not call for it.That was at the height of the hippie movement. The hippies had one basic message:"Tear down the system," and they assumed that after they would succeed they would build a utopia in its place. But most people did not think tearing down the system was the best idea. But people did accept that the system needed to be examined.

I did a great deal of readings: Plato, Dante, Spinoza, Herman Hesse, Chinese Philosophies. But Philosophy of the twentieth century seemed to me to be obviously false and vacuous. It was not just that it was self contradictory and full of circular reasoning, but also they (twentieth century philosophers) did not care about reason and logic at all. To them the more unreasonable their ideas were  the better.

But my ideas had a lot to do with Socrates and living the good life. Not just philosophy for the sake of interesting ideas.

So going to Shar Yashuv and the Mir Yeshiva in N.Y. was about as a well thought out choice as I could have made.

There was also the issue that my parents obviously had a extremely happy marriage and sense  of family values. And to me it seemed secular society was on the warpath against family values. I did not think I was going to manage to build a family in secular society.

In hind sight, the going to a Lithuanian yeshiva was the best possible choice I could have made in terms of family. But right outside the door of many Lithuanian yeshiva is a "kelipa" (a dark force of evil/ the religious world) which is a power from the Dark Side that is more destructive to family than secular society.
I was not aware (at the time) of the danger of the religious world. I am now.

[The way to understand the problem is that where holiness exists, the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side) surrounds it as it says in Psalms "Around and around go the wicked." Wherever there is holiness, around it is always found the forces of the Dark Side trying to get in.]
It is well known that Evil that does not pretend to be other than what it is, is much less dangerous than Evil which pretends to be Holiness.

Las Vegas

I  am inspired by the amazing stories of heroism--parents protecting their children with their own bodies etc. Someone commented to me that that is no surprise when it comes to Americans  that have a kind of compassion for others built into their souls.

The good thing about this is that the first reaction of Americans when they see a person that needs help is to help. That is the prima facie position. Only if evidence adds up to show otherwise will this change.  

I did a lot of reading about cults when I was trying to figure out the issue for myself.   The reason is that once one is involved in a group, it is difficult to get a 3-d perspective on it. You can not just learn more about it, and then decide if it is  a cult or not. I found looking into other groups that  are cults was helpful to gain some perspective on these issues. In particular, I read as much as I could about Adi Da and also Scientology- two very good examples of cults; the later more secular and the other religious. After gaining some knowledge about those cults, it became a lot easier to evaluate almost any cult.

My basic impression when it comes to Torah is the closer one gets to the Silverman approach the better. That is to go with the Gra's approach, or what is more commonly known as the Litvak Yeshiva approach.

[The basic idea is when you are coming into some area of positive value, e.g. Torah, there is a nee to pass through the regions of the Dark Side that try to seduce you with clever words. The best thing is to go by your gut instinct-- if it walks like  a cult, if it talks like a cult, then it is a cult and stay away as far as possible.


People might know the name of Clifford from Clifford Algebras. But it so happened that he wrote a nice essay on the ethics of belief that says it is not ethical to believe in whatever u want to. Your beliefs effects those around you. There is an obligation to test your beliefs and to believe only on sufficient evidence.

A shipowner was about to send to sea an emigrant-ship. He knew that she was old, and not overwell built at the first; that she had seen many seas and climes, and often had needed repairs. Doubts had been suggested to him that possibly she was not seaworthy. These doubts preyed upon his mind, and made him unhappy; he thought that perhaps he ought to have her thoroughly overhauled and refitted, even though this should put him at great expense. Before the ship sailed, however, he succeeded in overcoming these melancholy reflections. He said to himself that she had gone safely through so many voyages and weathered so many storms that it was idle to suppose she would not come safely home from this trip also. He would put his trust in Providence, which could hardly fail to protect all these unhappy families that were leaving their fatherland to seek for better times elsewhere. He would dismiss from his mind all ungenerous suspicions about the honesty of builders and contractors. In such ways he acquired a sincere and comfortable conviction that his vessel was thoroughly safe and seaworthy; he watched her departure with a light heart, and benevolent wishes for the success of the exiles in their strange new home that was to be; and he got his insurance-money when she went down in mid-ocean and told no tales.



The credulous man is father to the liar.

quick dismissal of the ISIS claims

https://motls.blogspot.com/2017/10/stephen-paddock-could-have-been-muslim.html#disqus_thread

I've found the quick dismissal of the ISIS claims by "authorities" very odd. Probably just more western authorities not wanting to stoke "islamophobia" so desperately hoping for another explanation. Every time a terror attack happens in Europe and the person is an ethnicity that is 99% Muslim they still spend time searching for a mysterious motive or saying its unknown why "they did this". So no surprise when an old white guy kills some people they dismiss it even when Daesh is jumping up and down saying he is their guy.



Something else to consider is U.S. has many mass shootings. Does ISIS claim them? Only in a very small number of cases, and they were right as far as we know.

ISIS released even more posts this morning. They have doubled down, tripled down, and quadrupled down on their claim. I am sure ISIS is not that stupid (their IQs may be above 105) and they know these repeated claims will immediately cause Daesh to lose all credibility if any evidence of another motive comes out. Of course ISIS can make false or mistaken claims. But for them to back it up to such a strong degree, I would say its very unlikely they would do so and risk losing all credibility going forward.

My basic feeling about Reb Nachman is that important aspects of reality were revealed to him. Or as one person put it, "He is one important part of the big picture."

The problem is well known to be the cults  and groups that pretend to be going by his approach.

The general rule of cults is they are never satisfied. And the danger is they can get a person off track. And that usually happens by means of the the good ideas that are mixed up with bad ones.

Islam and Mass Murder

 In Islam to die by means of killing infidels is considered the only guarantee to get into Heaven. I mean to say that in Islam there is nothing about living a good life that guarantees getting into heaven except one  thing--to die by means of murdering infidels. So as far as that murderer was concerned, he went out in the only reasonable fashion possible.

[Later note--This post was about some incident that I have forgotten. In any case, I think the point is clear that there is  some kind of tendency with Islam which provokes towards violence. I would guess that the reason for this is found in the life of its founder.]

And in Southern California in those days, to follow your dream and find the truth of things was very much in the air.

Someone noted that the path of the Mir yeshiva (New York) was not exactly the path I was raised on {Beverly Hills High School}.
My basic excuse for leaving the path of secularism was mainly I think because I found something profoundly empty and meaningless about secular society.
And in Southern California in those days, to follow your dream and find the truth of things  was very much in the air. For me to find a path that made me happy and in which I found meaning was certainly not against my parents wishes.

I eventually did leave the Mir to go to Israel and eventually left the straight and narrow path. But I would have to admit I was no time as close to my essence as much as during the time I was at the Mir.

[I am not saying there should not be doctors and physicists but in terms of finding my inner essence I definitely have to say that that I found at the Mir. However the modification in my own schedule I would make today  would be to allot  some part of the day to learning Physics as per the Rambam.]

Islam

Howard Bloom has a small section on Islam in his book The Lucifer Principle which seems to fit his basic approach about the power of the super-organism. Going with Howard Bloom seems much better that trying to attribute things to the power of mind control of cults.

This is basically as the Rambam held that free will does not work when one is part of a group.He or she is automatically drawn after the "meme" unit of social information and opinions of the group.
Thus all one can do is to make sure he is part of good group.

Football

I do not like it when I see or hear people disparaging the USA. I guess this shows I am not alone.

Insulting the American Flag definitely gets under my skin.

The Left and mass murder.

To get back to Kant and Hegel. That is the common ground everyone can agree upon. It is true that the Left uses Hegelian ideas, but because of that they can be shown the error of their ways. The errors seems mainly to be  from the labor theory of value which is not from Hegel. But once they accept the Labor Theory of Value they then use Hegel.


Even Kelley Ross admits that people that go with Hegel are believing in objective morality.



From my own personal personal perspective, when the Rambam says to learn Metaphysics and Physics that includes Kant and Hegel even though he was referring openly to the Metaphysics and Physics of Aristotle. I tend to take the Rambam in that he meant the basic subject matter, NOT just just the specific writings of Aristotle.

Man kills 2 with knife at French station, yells 'Allahu akbar'--http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-french-train-station-knife-attack-20171001-story.html

The Chicago Tribune is putting that at the very head of its article. It is not hiding the fact that it is another incident of Islamic Terrorism.

But the NY Times as usual hides the truth:"
The Paris prosecutor’s office, which handles terrorism cases nationwide, said on Sunday that it had opened a terrorism investigation, but the authorities said the assailant’s motives were not entirely clear.
“This act could be of a terrorist nature, but at this hour we cannot affirm it,” said Gérard Collomb, the French Interior minister, who is in charge of domestic security."


[It was that kind of coverage of Islamic Terrorism that got me frustrated over the years.]


The issue of evil came up recently in a conversation. I basically took the approach of Dr Kelley Ross about a continuum of values on the side of holiness and by implication the exact opposite also. That is that Evil is a real presence. That is most clear in Islam because of the devious demon they worship. But the problem exists even in the larger religious world where evil hides in more subtle disguises. 

Yom Kippur

My feeling about repentance is that the best time to repent is after Yom Kippur when we are aware of the issue. And the main issue of course is that it is not at all clear about what we need to repent on. So we have not even come up to the preparatory stage of being open and willing to repent.

This was mentioned by the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter as being one major reason for learning Musar [Ethics]--in that it at least signifies a person;s willingness to learn and to be open to changing his ways for the better.

And I do not think that it is particularly young people that are more open to repent than older people. I think repentance is a mainly a matter of software. That is deleting the old bad programs, and inserting in their place good programs. And is simple how to do so. Learning Musar. That is to make a conscious effort to gain an idea of what objective morality is.

The simple way to do this is to get the basic set of Musar which is divided into the classical books from the Middle Ages,  and the basic set of books from the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter.


It seems to me that I got sidetracked from Musar --and probably because of that lost my way and direction. And even today, I find it hard to get back on track, or to figure out exactly how where and what to repent on.
For some reason, I got involved too much with the mystic side of things, and that started because of the very good Musar book, the Mesilat Yesharim. But in the printed Mesilat Yesharim, they added another small book by the same author [the Ramchal ] that recommends learning mysticism. That got me off track. Considerably off track. -Not the fault of the Ramchal, but rather the way I understood him.]

American Nationalism

I am fairly impressed with American Nationalism because it is not a blank approval of all kinds of nationalism, but rather sees something special about the principles upon which the USA was founded: Natural Law and Natural Rights. These are things that Hegel himself would have greatly approved of even though his system was hijacked by the Left. 

Divorce. Torah is no protection and in fact makes things worse is because we live in the Age of Counterfeit Torah.

Someone suggested that the Protestant world is to blame for the present day situation [with marriage] because divorce got to be acceptable. No more embarrassment was attached. That is Protestants might have made a crusade against divorce instead of evolution, but instead decided evolution was the thing to fight against.

Something has changed about the very nature of marriage. It seems to be across the board--regardless of place.

This topic overshadows all others.We need to get back to marriage and family and only with that can Western civilization survive and prosper.

That Torah is no protection (and in fact makes things worse) is because we live in the Age of Counterfeit Torah. This is the age in which everything that presents itself as authentic Torah is just the opposite. 

Hidden Torah inside Creation

Learning Physics is not usually considered a part of service of God. Nor is it considered a way to come to enlightenment. Both of these assumptions are not like the Rambam [Maimonides].[That is to come to fear and love of God and attachment with God is through Physics and Metaphysics.]
[That is along with learning the Oral and Written Law. That is the Old Testament and the Mishna.]


In the Guide, the Rambam is more explicit about this, but it turns up in Mishne Torah also, and in the Musar book Obligations of the Heart.

The question is how to do this for people that are not particularity talented in that area and for that I think the best idea is just to say the words and go on and to know that eventually you will understand. [That is given enough time.]


[Of course you have to understand enlightenment in a wider way than just experiencing the "Infinite Light". I mean to say one can even have true experience of the the Light of God, but that does not necessarily come with right knowledge. The kind of enlightenment the Rambam is talking about is a wider concept that simply experiencing the Divine Light.
The way to make sense of this in my opinion is through the idea of the Hidden Torah inside Creation (the physical universe).


[The Rambam openly says he is referring to the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks. --not mysticism.]'''


The hidden Torah inside Creation is a theme which comes up in Reb Nachman quite often. But the most simple way to explain it is  the idea of the Hidden Statement [the highest statement of Creation.]

[I think it is proper to mention here the idea of שיעורים כסדרם (learning sessions in order) which means to learn short sessions in the different subjects that you need to cover every day. This can be helpful when you are in a situation where you have a few subjects you need to cover daily like Tenach (Old Testament), Mishna, Gemara, Midrash, Physics, Metaphysics. What is helpful is to do just two pages of  each subject and then to go on to the next subject.] [Sessions in order is how Bava Sali learned. It comes from the Ari.]

Buddhism.

My son came to help me during this period when I am recovering from breaking my leg. He has with him some books on modern Buddhism. And that reminded me that different systems of thought have different ideals about what is the proper way to live.

Certainly gaining "higher consciousness" does not seem like a Torah ideal. But still the Buddha had some pretty good ideas: the four noble truths and the eight-fold way.[In short: Life is suffering and the solution is to cease desiring and stop ignorance.]
What makes it especially interesting is the fact that he seems to have found in that group people he gets along with and can relate to.

Though the way it is presented in the West is far from the original ideas of Buddha, still some important elements remain. In particular the fact that he grasped something about the nature of the Divine which goes beyond human understanding.


[The Four-Fold Negation and is a fundamental Buddhist philosophical principle that deals with attempts to characterize Nirvân.a or ultimate reality:  we cannot either affirm or deny anything about it.]

[In Lithuanian yeshivas (based on the Gra) learning Torah is considered as the prime ideal. This is in fact due to the aspect that it does get one to the Infinite Light (אור אין סןף) and for me it seems hard to distinguish this from the Buddha idea of "Higher consciousness or enlightenment"]

[Nowadays I have a slight modification of the Litvak ideal. While the Litvak ideal is to learn the entire Oral and Written Law, my own approach is to  do that-- but add the two things of the Rambam: Physics and Metaphysics. And to do all this fast. That is to say the words and to go on.  ]
Also I should mention I do not have any sefer, but if I did have a Villna Shas I would first and foremost have an in-depth session..[That is, to do the same  page over and over again for  few weeks]. That is what I mentioned before to have an in depth session and also a fast session. At this point with limited time I would spend my time on Gemara to be in depth. Faster sessions I would have in other subjects.]

music file u18

U-18 F major

Learning and reading is not always of benefit.

"Who knows what else is out there?" Sapolsky. [In terms of mind control parasites like Toxo-plasmosis.]

Lots of times in what one reads or hears there is some hidden unit of social information [meme] that changes dramatically how one thinks about the world he lives in and thus that changes how he acts.

Learning and reading is not always of benefit. Sometimes depending on what one reads. Learning can be really damaging.

This is brought in the Mishna [of R. Yehuda HaNasi] אלו שאין להם חלק לעולם הבא: הקורא בספרים חיצוניים

"These are they who have no portion in the next world:.. One who reads "outside" books."

  According to the Rif and Rosh this means the exact opposite of what most people think it means.
People think it that if they read just Jewish religious books, that is OK.

  The Rif and Rosh say just the opposite. They explain"Outside books" means books that supposedly explain the Torah but not in the way the sages did. That means almost all religious books nowadays are "outside books," because they explain the Torah but not in the way the sages of the Mishna and Gemara did so.

I am only saying this because I take this personally very seriously. In the religious world, there is little that I consider kosher at all. The best is obviously the great Litvak yeshivas: Ponovitch, Brisk, Mir-but that does not stop the dark side from trying to gain entrance into these places.

I have no objection to learning wisdom from all sources. But that is not what most religious books are about.They are mainly abut finding some dark side doctrine that appeals to them and then presenting it as authentic Torah.

[Thus when it comes to Torah I am careful  in what I read. And most of the religious stuff out there I will not come within ten feet of.]

race is real.

I have thought for a long time that race is real. This might have come from my parents. I recall once going on a skiing vacation that the issue of race was brought up, and I heard my mother say some comment which indicated to me that she did not think that all races were the same. I forget the comment, but the idea was mainly that black people are not necessarily as talented as white people. I do not know why that was a surprise to me. Perhaps I was myself being indoctrinated by the public school system without my being aware of it.

If you do not have something nice to say--do not say anything.

I tried to impress upon myself the importance of not giving rebuke for a few years. I would repeat to myself the statement of Reb Nachman's  אע''פ שתוכחה היא דבר גדולה ומוטל על כל אדם להוכיח את חבירו כשרואה בו דבר שאינו הגון, אע''פ כן לאו כל אדם ראוי להוכיח

"Even though rebuke is a great thing and it is an obligation on every person to rebuke their friend when they see them acting in a way that is not proper, still not every person is fit to be able to give rebuke. As R. Akiva said "I would be surprised if there could be found even one person in this generation who is fit criticize..'"

The Shelah brings this up and the Gra also but in a different sense. There is a sense just saying what the proper thing is. This is brought up in the אבן שלמה which is  a small book of sayings of the Gra.

The whole issue starts with the fact that rebuke is in fact one of the 613 commandments to the Rambam (and I think also all of those who counted the mitzvot like the Smag and Semak.].

It is significant that Reb Nachman only said one Torah lesson in Uman and this statement of his is the beginning of that Torah lesson. It is obvious to me that he thought of this fact (not to rebuke) as being of prime importance--way beyond how it sounds to us. To me and probably to most people it just does not seem like a big deal. But clearly to him, this was the one and only principle he wanted his last days on earth to be about.

Fast learning

Fast reading I found helpful in terms of learning.--Especially for difficult subjects. The difficult thing is to find some middle ground between fast learning and in-depth learning. I also think that there is an emotional aspect to learning. That is that one needs an emotional commitment.

One place I was learning at divided the day into slow in depth learning in the morning and fast learning in the afternoon and I have long thought that that combination makes the most sense.
That was at the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY.

Before the Mir, I had been in Shar Yashuv and there Reb Freifeld, Rav Naphtali Yeager and Motti Freifeld all emphasized in depth learning.

[So the fact that there I would do the Gemara and each Tosphot about twice and then go on was way too fast for their taste. Still some time later, I have begun to see the wisdom of their approach. I am sure that if I had not been exposed to real in-depth learning when I was in my teen age years, that I would not have been able to pick it up later. So I can see why Litvak yeshivas do emphasize this kind of (in-depth) learning. But I also think it needs to be balanced with fast learning.]





I have known people that could learn fast and comprehend. Shimon Buso and others. But I think the benefit of fast learning is usually not visible right away.

Maimonides and his synthesis between Faith and Reason

I have not done enough work on Maimonides to say much. Some of the main points were already brought up by Dr Kelley Ross and Sunwell that he is an arch type Kant Friesian. That is with the source of knowledge of universals being from non intuitive immediate knowledge. My personal question at this point is how to deal with the differences between Hegel and Kant and where to place Maimonides in regard to their differences. But the Middle Ages opens up a whole new range of possibilities in this regard. What I mean is the differences between Aquinas and Scotus also invites thought in regard to Maimonides.What was he thinking in terms of Human Freedom? Was he more like Aquinas or Scotus? There are plenty of mysteries about Maimonides that still require thought.
The main things I find important about Maimonides are his synthesis between Faith and Reason [which was shared by most other great people during the Middle Ages]. But it is his particular approach which especially fascinates me. An approach that I am still puzzled by and also enthralled with.

Rosh haShanah page 15 side B. An answer for a question I asked on Tosphot

Background. An אתרוג is unlike other fruit. It stays on the tree after it is already ripe. Thus we do not know if to go by the time of לקיטה for מעשר or the time of חנטה.  For vegetables we go by the time of לקיטה. For fruit in general we go by the time of חנטה. But the אתרוג is a doubt.רבה says an אתרוג coming from the seventh to the eight year is obligated in laws of the seventh year, but not מעשר. From the sixth to the seventh year, it is not obligated in anything. אביי asked on this. In ראש השנה , תוספות suggests that רבה can answer אביי that he is going like רבן גמליאל. I asked on this in my notes, that would simply put the question of אביי on the end of the statement of רבה. The answer to my question is this. If רבה is holding like רבן גמליאל that means the אתרוג is obligated in laws of the seventh year. That is because it ripened in the seventh year. My question was that the same אתרוג ought to be obligated in מעשר because for מעשר ,רבן גמליאל goes by the time of חנטה.
The answer is simple. כולם נכנסים לשדה שלו ואתה רוצה שיהיה חייב במעשר? I mean to say that even though it is already the eight year, but because he had to make the אתרוגים free and available to the public, so they are still coming into his field to take the אתרוגים. And in that case there is no way he could be obligated in מעשר.


) ראש השנה ט''ו: אני רוצה להציג שאלה על תוספות. תוספות אומר רבה היה יכול לענות אביי ולומר שהוא הולך כמו רבן גמליאל. אני שואל שזה היה שם את השאלה של אביי בחזרה לסוף הדין של רבה. (1) רק כדי להציג את הרעיונות הבסיסיים כאן: רבן גמליאל אומר לאתרוג אנחנו הולכים לפי הזמן של חנטה לערלה רבעי ושביעית וזמן לקיטה למעשר. רבי אליעזר אומר שאנחנו הולכים לפי הזמן של חנטה לכל דבר. רבותינו באושא החליטו שאנחנו הולכים לפי הזמן של לקיטה לכל דבר. (2) רבה אמר אתרוג של שישית שנכנסה לשביעית אינו מחויב בביעור ולא במעשר. אתרוג של השנה השביעית שנכנסה לשמינית מחויב בביעור אבל לא במעשר. (3) אביי שאל, הסיפא של רבה הוא בסדר כי הוא רוצה להחמיר, אבל מה לגבי הרישא? זה בסדר שהוא פטור מביעור משום שאנחנו הולכים לפי זמן חנטה, אבל מה לגבי מעשר? אם הולכים לפי חנטה, אז הוא צריך להיות מחויב במעשר. (4) רבה ענה: כולם נכנסים לשדה שלו ואתה רוצה שהוא יהיה מחויב במעשר? כמו חולית של ים לגבי אבדה. (5) תוספות אומרים שיש לרבה יכולת לענות שהוא הולך כרבן גמליאל. (6) השאלה שלי היא שזה היה זורק את השאלה של אביי בחזרה על הסיפא במקום הרישא.




רקע כללי. אתרוג הוא בניגוד לפירות אחרים בזה שהוא נשאר על העץ אחרי שהוא כבר התבשל. לכן אנחנו לא יודעים אם ללכת לפי הזמן של לקיטה עבור מעשר או הזמן של חנטה. עבור ירקות הולכים לפי הזמן של לקיטה. עבור פירות  אנחנו הולכים לפי הזמן של חנטה. אבל האתרוג הוא ספק. רבה אומר אתרוג שמגיע משישית לשנה השביעית אינו מחויב בכל דבר.  משביעית לשנה השמינית מחויב בחוקים של השנה השביעית אבל לא במעשר. אביי שאל על זה.  תוספות עולה כי רבה יכול לענות לאביי שהוא הולך כמו רבן גמליאל. שאלתי על זה שזה יעמיד את השאלה של אביי על סוף לדוח של רבה. התשובה לשאלה שלי היא זו. אם רבה מחזיק כמו רבן גמליאל, אז האתרוג מחויב בחוקים של השנה השביעית. זאת משום שהוא התבשל בשנה השביעית. השאלה שלי היא שאותו אתרוג צריך להיות מחויב במעשר משום שבמעשר רבן גמליאל הולך לפי הזמן של לקיטה. התשובה היא פשוטה. כולם נכנסים לשדה שלו ואתה רוצה שיהיה חייב במעשר? אני מתכוון לומר כי למרות שהוא כבר  שנה השמינית , אלא בגלל שהוא היה צריך לעשות את אתרוגים זמינים לציבור, ולכן הם עדיין באים לתוך שדהו לקחת את האתרוגים. ואם כך, אין דרך שהוא יכול להיות מחויב במעשר



This answer occurred to me  today as I was looking over my notes on the Gemara in Rosh Hashanah

This is clearly what Tosphot was trying to say, but for some reason I did not understand Tosphot until today.

Rosh Hashanah page 15

Background. Rosh Hashanah page 15


Raba says an Etrog coming from the seventh to the eight year is obligated in laws of the seventh year but not maasar. From the sixth to the seventh year it is not obligated in anything. Abyee asked on this.



In Rosh Hashanah, Tosphot suggests that Raba can answer Abyee that he is going like Raban Gamliel.

I asked on this in my notes that would simply put the question of Abyee on the end of the statement of Raba.
The answer to my question is this.
If Raba is holding like Raban Gamliel that means the Etrog is obligated in laws on the seventh year.That is because it ripened in the seventh year. My question was that the same Etrog ought to be obligated in masaar (tithes) because for maasar (tithes) Raban Gamliel goes by the time of picking.
The answer is simple. כולם נכנסים לשדה שלו ואתה רוצה שיהיה חייב במעשר? [People are coming into us field to take fruit, and you want him to be obligated  to give tithes?!] That is: the same answer Raba gave, he could also have given if he was going like Raban Gamliel. Just the time period is different. The way Tosphot is understanding things is that even if people are coming into his field in the eight year just to get the etrogim, that also is enough to make him not obligated in tithes for the etrogim. It is kind of a subtle point that Tosphot is making.

I mean to say that even though it is already the eight years but because he had to make the etrogim available to the public so they are still coming into his field to take the etrogim. And in that case there is not way he could be obligated in Maasar.

One measure of mysticism brings ten measures of delusion. In the Ashkenazic world all mysticism is from the Sitra Achra (Shadow Realm) [with the exception of the Gra].

That Occult and Mysticism are  bad things seems to be getting to be a fundamental of faith.

I would not go that far.  To me it seems there were genuine mystics like Rav Isaac Luria, the Reshash [Rav Shalom Sharabi] and Rav Yaakov Abuchatzaira.
However the tendency seems to be clear. That one measure of mysticism brings ten measures of delusion.

It is too bad that there does not seem to be an accurate measuring stick or test to tell the authentic from the counterfeit.
The basic difference clearly is that in the Ashkenazic world  all mysticism is from the Sitra Achra (Shadow Realm) [with the exception of the Gra]. But the Sephardi world is not far behind. Most any involvement with mysticism nowadays is guaranteed to be from the Sitra Achra.

[On the other hand I might mention what Reb Shmuel Berenbaum [the rosh yeshiva of the Mir in NY] told me when I asked about earning the writings of the Ari (Isaac Luria). He said, "First finish Shas." ["Shas" means the Talmud.] I said "I did." Then he said "Then do it again." And to some degree there in fact seems to be some benefit to learning the Ari for people that have gone through the proper stages of preparation. This is in fact stated clearly in the writings of the Ari himself. I should mention I feel that I gained a lot by learning the central book of the Ari, the Eitz Chaim, before going to Israel. And the attitude of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzaira is clearly positive towards the Ari. But this all seems to be predicated on the idea of having done Shas a few times before hand.]

Reb Israel Salanter. Civilization needs certain unifying factors.

 The basic approach of Reb Israel Salanter is much more significant than most people realize. It contains the seed of the new future. The modern world as is seen clearly is in the decay of post modernism. There is no unifying factor as faith was during the Middle Ages. But the Middle Ages still provides the seeds of the future. The books of Ethics written then.

[Civilization needs certain unifying factors. Though faith was certainly that factor during the Middle Ages, that faith needs some kind of synthesis with later developments. The Middle Ages got a lot right--much more than we admit today. But still there were areas that were naive.]
One important insight of the Middle Ages was the synthesis of Faith and Reason. They knew very well that religious fanaticism is poison. But they also knew the need for faith and morality based on the Torah. [The Middle Ages had  a great idea what to do with religious fanatics-- lock them up in some institution where they can do their thing without bothering anyone else.]

[ In the Middle Ages synthesis of Faith and Reason meant (more or less) Torah with Neo Platonic thought. The tilt towards Aristotle happened almost towards the end of the Middle Ages. Both Maimonides and Saadia Gaon were Neo Platonic.]

[I was never that much into the mind set that looked down on the Middle Ages. But going to yeshiva in NY was even for me a eye opener. The son of Rav Freifeld [Moti Freifeld] told me "Rishonim can not be wrong. Achronim can be wrong."] ["Rishonim" means mediaeval authorities. Achronim means authorities from the Beit Yoseph and after-including the Beit Yoseph (Rav Joseph Karo)]
Besides that it always was (and still is) the basic emphasis of all authentic Litvak yeshivas to emphasize rishonim.

[From where this idea of the superiority of the modern age over the Middle Ages is not clear to me.--To some degree it seems to be a result of realizing the advances of the Renaissance and later on advances in the natural sciences. But the Renaissance is not the same things as the Enlightenment which seems to have gotten almost everything wrong. "What is Enlightenment?" is Kant's famous question. The simple answer is, "Everything that tries to undermine faith. It was a movement directly specifically to bringing down Throne and Altar."
But within the context  realizing the importance of rishonim [medieval authorities], I find some acharonim [later writers] to be of great benefit. Mainly I am thinking of Rav Shach and the Maharsha.
[But there are also some more  achronim I found helpful, e.g. the Pnei Yehoshua, Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. ]

Reb Israel Salanter

(1) To me it seems clear that Reb Israel Salanter was right about starting what is called the Musar Movement. The thing is today it needs modifications. I mean to say that not only has it changed a lot from the original idea, but also the original idea needs modification.
(2) The original idea was really defined in the Letter of Musar [אגרת המוסר]. The idea was the importance of everyone learning books of Ethics from the Middle Ages. [Rishonim].
(3) The modification I suggest is that it should include the Guide of the Rambam and the אמונות ודעות (Faiths and Knowledges ) of Rav Saadia Gaon.
(4) Another modification is the "משגיח" really needs to be dropped. [The person that in yeshivas gives the "Musar Shmooz". [Musar Talks] These are mainly just rosh yeshiva "want-to-be"s.

Maybe people need somewhere to go for spiritual advice--but that is never a mashgiach.

In yeshiva, I talked with the rosh yeshiva himself, Reb Shmuel Berenbaum, not the mashgiach.
(Also descendants of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzaira are good to go to for advice.)
(5) Outdoor and survival skills contributes a lot towards good character--learning to work as a team. Thus a part of Musar ought to be camping and survival skills in nature.

"Does knowledge of God come through knowledge of nature?" To Hegel you would have to say yes, but visa versa also.

I think Hegel can best be understood as a synthesis of the schools of thought that preceded him.  Though in my own mind I have in general thought of Hegel as the continuation of Aristotle, but now I realize he is  a lot more comprehensive than that.

One thing I noticed is that he wants to answer a problem that arose in the Middle Ages. "Does knowledge of God come through knowledge of nature?"



This provides a lot of insight into Hegel. Hegel is thinking that by knowledge of the Divine come knowledge of nature. [Not that he would put it that way, but rather "Absolute Spirit".] But Hegel is also using the idea of dialectics to go from nature up to the Divine also.

[This is to me very similar to Dr. Kelley Ross's "Ontological Un-decidablity."]


My own feeling about this [I mentioned many times] is on the side of Maimonides. That is that knowledge of Physics and Metaphysics is a prerequisite to come to love and fear of God.
The most obvious reason is that knowledge of nature provides constraints against religious delusions. This is not the reason why the Rambam considers it a prerequisite but still you can see its obvious advantage. Just too many religious people think of themselves as being super holy and super smart simply by the fact of their adherence to certain rituals.
I do feel however I gained the experience of Absolute Spirit in Safed after a few years of being in in the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY. And that was at a time I was doing only Torah learning [i.e. the Old Testament and the Talmud [Gemara Rashi Tosphot]].

confidence in Torah

Reb Nachman's critique of Torah teachers may seem to some people as not a good thing, but to me  it reinforced my confidence in Torah.
If there had never been any awareness of this problem, I think that would have been strange to me. How can people that are externally keeping Torah (and even teaching it) be wicked?

The fact that Reb Nachman pointed this out gave me renewed confidence in Torah,-- because I could separate what the Torah actually teaches from the Torah of the Dark Side that the religious world teaches.  

supposed teachers of Torah.

Most of what passes today as authentic Torah are  tricks of the Sitra Achra [The Shadow Realm]
The trouble is the religious world is just too full of cults and cult leaders.



In this, the Na Nach people definitely are on the right track-- in terms of suspecting automatically anyone that claims to teach Torah. They might go a little overboard, but this approach tends to protect them from the agents of the Dark Side.

[I have mentioned before that because of this problem, the best thing is to get your own Vilna Shas and  the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and to learn Torah at home.]

[In this the Na Nach people are going with statements of Reb Nachman who warned against false teachers. The idea of being aware of this problem still is ignored however.]
What Reb Nachman says about most supposed teachers of Torah is highly shocking. That is until you have experienced it yourself and then you see the point. It took me some real horrific experiences until I saw the truth of Reb Nachman's words. And that brings me to the question "How to tell the difference ?" As a rule if you go with the Gra you are safe. What he excluded ought to be rigorously excluded. [This however does not exclude Reb Nachman in spite of what most people think. But it does mean to take the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication seriously.]

[The trouble is however in the entire religious world. Even what you would think are straight Litvak yeshivas often have this problem.]










[I would not make such a big deal out of this if not for the damage that false teachers of Torah cause in the lives of all who are misled by them. ]

Moral obligations are so inherently hard to know -the best approach is to pray

Prayer I think is sometimes effective. But I think it has to go along with general life style. That is ones's actions and words and thoughts  should also be prayer. Prayer by itself does not work if it is unrelated to one's actions.
There were times that in my own life I think prayer was effective.
I broke my leg fending off vicious dogs. And I had prayed before that for help from God. For the month in was in the hospital I was wondering what good was my prayer? Then the last day there it occurred to me that this  business with my leg got me out of  a much  worse situation than I had been in ever before. But I could not escape until the event of the broken leg.

This maybe is not very much of an inspiring lesson but it does help me get to my point. That Rosh Hashanah is about teshuva repentance. But  since moral obligations are obscure what I think is a good idea is to spend time praying to merit to repent. My logic is that at least a few times in my life when I prayed or something, the prayers seemed to get answered.
I was in Safed in Israel and I remember one time my wife was asking me about parnasa [money]. I told her I would go out and pray about it. So I went out [not by kivrei tzadikim but rather in the forest] and for one hour I prayed only about parnasa--nothing else. After that in fact there was a kind of help n that direction.

There were other times when things were more desperate. There was a time I was in the shiloach [underground steam] in Jerusalem which is at the bottom of  along flight of stairs. The Arabs on the top of the stair case were throwing large stones down the stair case in order to kill me  so I prayed then a short prayer. "God, if they succeed, my children will never know who I was.  I have no army and no weapons. But I have You." And then I started walking up the stairs. The shower of rocks stopped. When I reached the top the Arabs were there and one called out to the others "Here he is," and they started throwing rocks again. They were in point blank range. But not one rock hit me. As I was walking away, I saw a stream of rocks flowing by my head, but not one hit me.

So I definitely feel prayer is sometimes effective; but in some way that is not clear. It is not just a matter of how hard one prays or sincere one is.

What I am trying to get at is that moral obligations are so inherently hard to know -the best approach is to pray to be put on the right path. At least one day in the year that is Rosh Hashanah.

It is not that the laws of Torah are ambiguous, but rather their application in everyday life. Another problem is people that make money supposedly teaching Torah are liars.That makes it difficult to know what the Torah really says. [So to have a decent idea of what Torah says you have two choices, (1) either find a straight normal Lithuanian yeshiva like Ponovitch or the Ivy League NY Litvak Yeshivas.   Or (2) learn Talmud and Musar and the Avi Ezri at home. I should mention that even though I have no first hand knowledge, but Mizrachi or Bnei Akiva kinds of Yeshivas also seem pretty good to me. I do not know ll the names they go by. One name I have heard is דתי לאומ (religious Zionist) and these places seem very good to me. They seem to have "balance."
The basic premise of the great Litvak yeshivas is that virtue can be learned and taught. And they seem to come to that goal to a large degree. But the kind of approach I think that brings to virtue is to learn Musar, Physics, and survival skills.

music file u13

U-13 E flat major  U-13 in midi  [U-13 in nwc]

The highest light was contained in מאמר הסתום the hidden statement of Creation.

It makes sense before Rosh Hashanah to mention a few words about Reb Nachman. Reb Nachman hints in a few places to the hidden Torah that is contained in the work of Creation. If you put together the scattered places where he deals with this, you get this picture:
The highest light was contained in מאמר הסתום "the hidden statement of Creation." That remained hidden in דרך ארץ [the way of the Earth, or  hidden in the Earth] until it was revealed by the ten plaques and became revealed in the Ten Commandments.
 Reb Nachman was NOT disagreeing with the Rambam that the fulfillment of the major commandments of Torah to love and fear God come from learning Physics and Metaphysics. Just he had to hide this because of the Enlightenment which had pitted itself against  Faith.
 [You can see Reb Nachman hinting these ideas in lots of places -too many for me to remember off hand. E.g. where he says sometimes people have fallen so low that if you would tell them straight Torah they would either no accept it or become worse. So you have to hide it in שיחת חולין --שיחת תלמידי חכמים צריכה עיון simple conversation. I am also thinking of here he says to hold on to words of truth and where truth is  a light that can take a person out of all is troubles.

[It is a  mystic idea which is based on the Ari.]

Note (1) The Hidden Statement. Genesis has nine places where it says "God said". The Mishna says, "With ten statements God created the world." So where is the tenth statement? The Tikunai HaZohar says that is the מאמר הסתום the hidden statement of the first verse.


The Rambam emphasizes Physics and Metaphysics in both the Mishne Torah and the Guide. But the way he does this sounds like he is talking about coming to high spiritual levels [Love and Fear of God].
But what I think is he means this as a general program of leaning.

I could defend this idea from the Rambam's texts. But what would like to is to suggest that the Rambam means this in more of an essential way that applies to everyone in order to come to objective morality.
It is already obvious that religious fanaticism does not lead anyone to righteousness.  But my reasoning is that Love and Fear of God are the essential ground of Torah. Without them, the mitzvot are not real.
Now in terms of first learning the Oral Law, the Mishna itself is in fact the actual Oral Law and does not take a long time to get through and its simple explanation is not hard. Plenty of people go through the Mishna each month. And that is the basic requirement of the Rambam for  doing Physics and Metaphysics.

[The Mishna is the basic book of R Yehuda HaNasi that contains the entire Oral Law]

Asking religious leaders for personal advice is a guarantee for disaster.

Pericles warned the Athenians not try to try to expand their empire while fighting the war with Sparta. It seems, in fact, that he was right. They were trying to expand into Syracuse and all Sicily and that seems to have been the cause of their defeat.

It is hard to know when one is making a mistake.

People like me are prone to error. Often even people with an extra measure of intelligence seem to make serious errors in judgment. The Athenians themselves were aware of this, and felt that the best safeguard against mistakes in human affairs is discussion. But that did not seem to help in that case.

What I feel has helped me to a great degree has been discussion with family. People that you can depend on to have your best interests at heart. Discussion with friends that have supported you in times of crisis also counts.

I did this myself in times of stress. In Jerusalem, when I was going through a confusing period, I asked a group of my closest friends--(people that had previously stuck with  me in times of crisis) -to gather together on every Wednesday night to discuss my problems and possible solutions.

After that when I was in NY and also going through a confusing period, I called my brothers often and discussed with them their opinions about my situation, and also I asked what they remembered from the basic approach of my parents--[which I had forgotten a lot of.]

This all was a new approach for me. Before that, I had thought the right thing to do in times of crisis was to ask religious leaders. At some point, I realized asking religious leaders is a guarantee for disaster.

[I might mention that to me this is already contained in the Torah itself in the command of "Honor your father and mother." As pointed out in books of Medieval Ethics (Musar) this means to obey your parents. This is also mention in the חידושי הגרנ''ט Reb Naphtali Troup, one of the great sages of Lithuania at the time of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik.
[I might mention that Moshe Israel noted a lot of times when family members are not good sources of friendship. He saw this in the USA and right here where I am now in the Ukraine right in my hospital room this came to my attention. One fellow I saw had no money for medicine and I helped him out a little and his wife told me after that how in their family right the last week there was some problem with inheritance. So I have to qualify my remarks about family as being  prima facie. That is the way things are until proven otherwise.

In any case the main lesson to learn here is wherever you go for advice, never ever ever go to a religious leader.

Music for the Glory of God

U-9 G Major in mp3  [u-9 in midi]  u-9 in nwc

There are also social memes that get into people's heads

Toxo-plasmosis is the parasite that gets into the mouse that makes it think the cat is attractive. [And thus the mouse gets eaten and the parasite gets into the cat's stomach which is where it wanted to go.] Sapolsky asks: "Who knows what else is out there [like that]?" That is who knows what other kinds of parasites are there causing us to think things that are not true?

These get in by hanging out with the wrong type of people.

There are also social memes [[units of social information]] that get into people's head without being necessarily from biological origin.


[To find the right group to hang out with is often a hard project.  I should add that part of my own interest in the violin was certainly the Music aspect of it, but there also I felt a kind of אור מקיף "surrounding light" ] on professional violinists. Also I want to add that that the Mir yeshiva in NY besides being great in terms of learning also had the type of crowd that I felt was good to hang out with.] But the main thing is to avoid the cults. That is to identify and to gain the common sense you need to be able to identify bad groups and to avoid them. And if possible to help influence laws that will make them illegal, so they should not be able to entice and hurt others.


Though I am not saying this very well my basic point is that a people like myself need to download good social memes [units of social information] into our minds. That is by learning Musar. And Musar is especially important because it is mainly the work of Rishonim. [The Middle Ages]. The Rishonim were especially careful in understanding the Torah.  

music file u12

U-12 D Major [Sorry if there are mistakes. This is not edited] u-12 midi  u-12 nwc

Socrates asked "What is virtue?",

Socrates asked "What is virtue?", and could not find anyone that could answer the question.[Meno]

Even with Musar/Medieval Books of Ethics the question still seems hard to answer.
Besides this he  asked, "Can virtue be taught?"If so then why it is that the children of virtuous people are sometimes not virtuous? If by nature, then it does seem to be from free will.
The books of Musar do  a great job in explaining the basic ethics of the Torah but leave open the basic questions of how to identify virtue and to get it after one recognizes it.  Learning Musar would seem to help at least in terms of recognizing virtue. 

Learning Torah is needed

I could vaguely see this, but someone coming into the city (of the former USSR) where I am right now pin pointed the problem: "Punk-keit". That is in this city there is a kind of idealization of the punk. The young criminal thug. This must account for the fact that the Russians always seem to look down on this area and think of it as second rate.

This reminds me that when a person has a "yetzer hara" (an evil inclination), he does not think of that thing that he desires as being wrong. In this city, theft is certainly not considered a bad thing. I think it shows how much learning Torah is needed for people to get an idea of the difference between right and wrong. In particular Musar (Mediaeval Ethics) is necessary because it deals with the areas of Torah that are most needed. One place you can see this is in the Reshash {Rav Shalom Sharabi} where he brings this idea that the actual soul is one's character traits, while Torah and mitzvot are the clothing and food of the soul.

That is to say: if one lacks good character, he does not even have a holy soul. Then all the Torah and mitzvot do nothing. This is a reason most Jews in Europe were aware that the most essential lesson of Torah is "to be a mench" (decent human being .)

a unity between physicality and spirituality. Not just a connection but a kind of ground of being in which they are one and identical.

There is such a thing as a unity between physicality and spirituality. Not just a connection but a  kind of ground of being in which they are one and identical. That was the kind of thing I saw and felt between my parents and also it existed between me and my wife. That is not the same thing as two different things being connected but a place in which they are one and the same. [ Like the aspect of wave or particle of an electron before you measure it. ] This is also similar to the way Hegel is looking for a ground of unity between Notion and Being.

When I faced very difficult times

When I faced very difficult times, I made up my mind to tell the truth at all cost. telling the truth I feel has created a kind of force field around me. It does not make me impervious to harm, but I do think it has helped.


[I might have chosen not to speak lashon hara /gossip and also to learn Torah,  but at the time these were the things that made the most sense to me.]

Bava Sali had guarding his eyes as a prime principle, and I was aware of this at the time, but again I needed to find some principle  I could hold onto that I thought would help. I was not looking for just any random religious principle, but rather something I thought if I would hold fast onto it, could help me through my troubles. The most promising things in that direction were these two ideas of faith and truth.

[Today I would add learning Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, and Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] but then I was looking for something more basic.]


So now that I feel I am also in a difficult period, my thoughts are still to look for the set of basic principles to hold onto that should work. The main ones still I think should the truth telling at all cost. I was trying to work on trust in God without effort but now I feel I overdid that. I might have stayed in a bad situation thinking that if God wanted me to leave He would make it happen. That I think now was a mistake in judgment.  But the things that are still clear I think to continue to hold onto. That is to be careful about lashon hara [not to slander or say anything bad about anyone unless under extreme necessity.] To try to spend as much time as possible learning the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, the Vilna Shas, and Physics.

What I hope is that if I can hold onto these important things, maybe I will awaken to further things I need to do.

[You might note that I have not included metaphysics as  a prime obligation for myself.  ]