psychotherapy is ridiculous.

Implicit in the Oral and Written Law is a world view of what makes people tick. But to get a full picture it is best to learn Rav Nahman of Breslov who makes the assumptions explicit.

One important point is that mental illness comes from sexual sin. And that there is a correction for that. The Tikun Klali. [Ten psalms 16,32,41, 42, 59,77.90.105,137,150]
See this person write on the problems with the modern approaches
psychotherapy is ridiculous.

In Torah there is a fall of man and of  all creation. So it is not exactly that man is inherently evil but also not inherently good. What is possible to suggest is that there are new stages of consciousness that come into the world at certain periods-- but along with them come the forces of evil to stop the good.
At that makes sense if you see things like  Hegel that the In God there is the Idea [Logos] which is the source of Being. So that is where the center of gravity is--in Logos. The Divine Reason brought down in Plotinus. But with Hegel it is an ongoing process.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

With Rav Avraham Abulafia it is possible to understand some of the good and some of the evils of Christian history. That is if you take Jesus as being from Kindness which fell into Foundation in Emanation, חסד שנפל בכלי של יסוד then a lot becomes clear. At least to me anyway. But the fact that he was from the root of Joseph, at that time meant that that was only a preliminary phase.

In any case you need to look it up in Abulafia's books and also Profesor Moshe Idel to get the whole picture. 

In the Torah, things exist that are not God, but they depend on God for their existence

"אין עוד מלבדו" Or there are no gods besides God.
In the Torah, things exist that are not God, but they depend on God for their existence.

average good physicist has an IQ of 160

I am realizing something true that was talked about on the Reference Frame the most important Physics blog that I know of. and there they discuss IQ and how the average good physicist has an IQ of 160. [That is top level but not in particular up in Mount Olympus.] Undergraduate Physics is more alone the lines of 130.]But my point is built on the idea of learning all aspects of Torah which to many Rishonim include the Oral and Written Law plus Physics and metaphysics--and learning Torah is not just for the smart people. Personally I admit I can not imagine any time in the future when people will learn Physics and Math for their own sake even without understanding just for the sake of the commandment to learn Torah. But that is my opinion anyway and it is what I attempt to do as well as I can with my low IQ. But even a person as dumb as a grasshopper like me--if you keep with it, you eventually understand.
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Here is the commentWell, Edward Witten is easily profoundly gifted. With IQ 160 (SD15), one doesn't breeze through Jackson's Electrodynamics in a week after a history undergraduate degree or take up calculus at age 10. 160 is the average for first-class, but non-revolutionary, physicists - people like Ivy physics professors. For a physics PhD in general the average IQ is already 133 (SD15), so for a string theory PhD, the average would be like 145-160 (SD15). 

The thing is people with low IQ's like me tend to read laymen's versions of Physics. But that is not an option since most laymen's stuff about Physics is profoundly wrong. If you really want the real thing, then you have to learn the real thing. The is no alternative.

I once had a way of putting together Rav Nahman's ideas that helped make clear why Physics and Math are important. I forget now however the main gist of my argument. It I think was that the highest light of creation is the hidden statement where no holiness is easily found. Thus in my own way i understand Physics the be the laws of God in Creation itself, while Torah is the laws of God as referred to human action.

[The most famous source about learning Physics is the Obligations of the Heart חובות לבבות he was not alone. The thing is he goes about it in such a way that it is easy to miss what he is saying. It was more helpful for me when I saw the idea in Maimonides who makes it a lot more clear,]

In my two Litvak yeshivas, it was thought that learning Gemara makes one smart. And that intellect is somewhat fluid. The more you learn Torah the smarter you are. Nowadays this seems in accurate. Still I did see something in learning that I think has to be called help from Heaven. That sometimes a good idea would just come to me out of the blue. Also my two small books on Talmud  to me seem to be gifts from Heaven-since I was never on the level to be writing ideas in Torah in the first place. But somehow it just started after I was learning Gemara in Uman with a friend.

I think that Physics and Math ought to be part of one's ordinary education.

String Theory--Origins

[I think that Physics and Math ought to be part of one's ordinary education. Mainly I saw this in some books of Musar of the Middle Ages. But the message never got through to me. Eventually I started seeing the point. But the way I go about it is different. For me the best way to go about is is to say the words and go on as brought down in the Gemara itself and also in Rav Nahman's Conversations 76.

The two main places in Musar i saw this were the Obligations of the Heart and Sefer HaMidot by Benjamin the Doctor. Later I saw that even in Rav Nahman's view there a difference between false "wisdoms" that he was against [rightfully so] and true wisdoms
[Besides that there is a basic idea in Rav Nahman about the ten statements of Creation and especially the  hidden statement of Creation] have deep holiness. 

Kant said when reason goes into the area of the things in themselves, it gets into self contradictions. So when it comes to religious issues I try to avoid speculation.

Kant said when reason goes into the area of the things in themselves, it gets into self contradictions. So when it comes to religious issues I try to avoid speculation. But I do take it as a fact that there is a kind of Reason that that recognizes universals.
That is a kind of faculty of reason that one knows things to be true as soon as they are understood. And these things are not based on sensory perception.

But also I do take it as a fact that there is a kind of immediate non intuitive knowledge. That was the major point of Leonard Nelson.

I found Leonard Nelson to be very important when I was trying to figure out "things"--I mean world view issues. And his idea of immediate non intuitive knowledge does seem to me to closely  connected with faith.
At the same time I was looking at ideas of Nelson [as presented by Dr Kelley Ross] I also found the web site of Michael Huemer. His idea that reason perceives more things than simple contradictions in language was also very helpful. Putting it together you get the synthesis of Faith with Reason -that is the old synthesis from the Middle Ages.

This is not to take totally the Nelson approach totally, --I still think that Hegel had a lot of important points. But Nelson's critique on the Neo Kant School I think was accurate.

[Kelley Ross also made some advances in this Kant Fries Nelson approach.]

I ought to add that the idea of Nelson [coming from Fries] of immediate non-intuitive knowledge is not the exact same thing as Michael Humer's Reason. The function of Reason for Huemer is much wider than what was assumed by Berkeley and Hume. To Huemer, Reason recognizes universals.[Universals are character traits that things have in common. But it also includes laws of nature or morality.] Immediate non intuitive knowledge is the starting points of reason that one knows without thinking about it--the existence of space and time.

When some kind of problem appears in the text of the Bible like the flood, I take the approach of Isaac Luria that placed the narrative in higher worlds [Emanation]. I think this idea goes back to Plato that there are two levels of reality--the real world of ideas and the shadow world of change.

Lots of problem arise in the religious world when you delve too deeply into it. So I try to keep things simple

With the Ari- the actual simple explanation of a lot of verses comes out to be in Emanation

King David changed a command of the Torah in a permanent way. So you have to say he held like R. Shimon Ben Yohai that we go by the reason for the verses, not by the literal meaning.

The command to build the משכון Tabernacle was not confined to the Sinai desert. If you look at the verses you will see that making the holy Ark of the Covenant and the Table for the Show Bread etc is all on the same level as building the Tabernacle with curtains of goat hairs. That is right away in the beginning of the command to build the Tabernacle, and it all comes under one large commandment ועשו לי מקדש ושכנתי בתוכם "They shall make for me a Tabernacle and I will dwell among them."[and then the verse explains how to build the Tabernacle.] Then look at the end of Chronicles I where King David gives the blue prints to the new Temple that he wanted Solomon to build. There is nothing there about curtains but rather walls.
So we find a later prophet can change things. What is there then that a later prophet can not change? I think it is natural Law.

I mentioned this a day ago when I brought down the Gemara in makot that later prophets reduced the obligations of the Torah until all that was left was faith. וצדיק באמונתו יחיה. If you look at Rashi over there in tractate Makot [last page] you will see he explains that Gemara literally. He says that these prophets saw that if people would have to keep all the commandments, then no one would merit to a portion in the next world. So they lessened the requirements.

The point here is I think you have to say that when the Torah talks about a false prophet, it says specifically one that says to do idolatry. [That is how the verse over there in Deuteronomy actually looks. It only refers to a prophet that says to worship idols.] There is an opinion that a false prophet is one that changes a commandment in a permanent way. But if that would be the case then King David would be a false prophet since he changed a command of the Torah in a permanent way. That does not seem like a likely scenario.
Some of the commands of the Torah it says are forever. But those are not all. Most of the time the Torah simply says to do such and such a thing without giving a time frame.


The gemara in Eruvin also brings down a number of things that later prophets changed like the fact that in the Torah it is stated that children can bear the guilt of their parents and Ezekiel changes that. And besides that he also changes the dimensions of the Temple.

Another thing which I do not think is really that important, but it still seems worth mentioning. That the place of the Temple was not stated in the Torah openly but the simple way of looking at the verses seems to indicate it should be at Mount Eval. This is because in the early verses it says to bring your sacrifices in a place I will choose. And to put the altar of God in a place I will choose. And then later it says when you cross the Jordan river you should build the Altar of God at Mount Eval and bring your sacrifices there. So God did choose a place and it is not Jerusalem. So what do you do with that? I think you have to say what the Gemara says in Eruvin, that later prophets changed things.

I ought to add that it is not uncommon to use verses to prove a point. An example is the פלגש girlfriend that the Rambam forbids to anyone who is not a king, and the Gra counters that with the example of Caleb ben Yephuna from Chronicles I 2:46 who had a few girls friends and was not a king.

after a certain age there is a clear connection between one's looks and one's character.

Abraham Lincoln said after a certain age there is a clear connection between one's looks and one's character.
The actual event was that he said something along the lines that you can tell a lot about a person';s character by their looks. They someone objected. And Lincoln answered that it has to be after a certain age for this to work. Teenagers clearly it does not work with.

I think in Eruvin that says there were things that were decreed by Moses and nullified by later prophets.

In Torah there is one place where a false prophet is dealt with--and the way to know is when he says a prophecy and it does not come to pass within the time frame given by that person. So what about Yona at Ninve? the Sages ask. They answer a negative prophecy can be nullified if people repent. So I ask from Jeremiah 18:9 and 18:10 where it says God can make a good decree and then change his mind if people do evil. But that seems to leave the criterion of the Torah with no way to be evaluated.

The only possible answer I can imagine is that there is a Gemara I think in Eruvin that says there were things that were decreed by Moses and nullified by later prophets. In particular that Gemara brings the example of punishment coming on subsequent generations as brought in the Ten Commandments. Later that was nullified by Ezekiel who said children will not die for the sins of their parents. The Gemara there brings a few more examples.

That is not the only place you see something like that. In the last page of tractate Makot you find later prophets nullifying actual commandments as explained there by Rashi. [Rashi over there says that the reason was that these later on prophets saw that if you would require of people to keep all the commandments, then No One would merit to the next world. That he says is the reason most of the requirements were nullified. Look up the Rashi if you can find a gemara.]

two schools of thought that came from Kant, Leonard Nelson and the Marburg school.

There are two schools of thought that came from Kant, Leonard Nelson and the Marburg school. [Both based on early interpretations of Kant.

If you look at Cassirer's (from the Marburg) critique on Nelson you can see an important point -that a priori knowledge has to be with the limits of conditions of experience. So it looks to me that both schools had some important points.

But what I would like to suggest is that Nelson and Hegel are not as far apart as Nelson thought. To Nelson we have a kind of knowledge that comes not through pure reason and not through experience and has no intermediate point at all: immediate non-intuitive. Though Hegel does not have that he certainly expands the role of reason itself far beyond perceiving contradictions as Kant thought. But Hegel mechanism is far different from Nelson's. It is the dialectic. Which is right I am not sure. But I think all three schools of thought are important.
[As opposed to Twentieth century philosophy which just a result Physics Envy. Empty and ridiculous.]

My search for truth ultimately led me to learn Gemara which which is an area of value of Numinosity. Still that leaves issues of world view aside. Gemara is mainly about how to keep the commandments of the Torah and does not deal with world view issues at length.

So even though it is a great thing to concentrate on one thing at a time and not get too spread out, it still leaves a lot of important questions unanswered. To some degree Saadia Gaon and the Rambam fill gaps left over.
[Though you could argue about that. There is a tendency to seek out in Rishonim hidden truths. Still there is a more relevant issue. It is that world view affects actions. From what I can see the religious world is a disaster zone in terms of decent character traits. You can not be holy if you are not a decent human being first. So in my view, the world view issues have not been addressed well.

To some degree I made up for that by learning the books of Rav Nahman who does deal with the larger issues in a powerful and relevant way.

Today my view is that learning Gemara is one important area of value, but there is a separate area of value that is philosophy. So if I could I would simply plow through the basic works of Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Leonard Nelson, Hegel. But there seem to be time constraints. 

The religious world is anti Torah. But they are anti Torah in a way that is disguised.

The Gaon of Villna issued a warning and then later Rav Shach. In fact on the actual letter of excommunication --the top signature is of the Gra. So why is the supposed religious world completely filled with what both these great tzadikim warned against? Because the religious world is anti Torah. But they are anti Torah in a way that is disguised. They camouflage themselves with things that seem  Torah-dik.

However, I do not think the excommunication applies to Rav Nahman for reasons I mentioned elsewhere. So I feel free to follow his good advice and even bring on this blog ideas from him.

My tendency to to make peace between scholars of I can. However there are times when you have to draw a line. The Jewish religious world though it presents this facade of holiness, is very much on the opposite side--the Sitra Achra as can be easily attested for by the countless of people that have been burnt and destroyed by it --those that were seduced by its appearance of holiness.

I usually like to make peace, but for peace you have to be able to tell when something really is a Trojan horse.

I think my own motivation for going to learn in a NY yeshiva was a philosophical quest for the truth.And to some degree I think I found that in terms of numinious value [as per the Kant Fries School]. Learning Gemara is important--but I lost a sense of balance. Getting involved in the religious world tends to make one crazy.

beginning of Reform Judaism.

Rav Nahman was the only one that warned about the Dark Side in the religious world openly. The more I see of it, the more I am alarmed. But it is hard to know what to do. I thought at one point to mind my own business, but it gets worse at an exponential rate and it is "in your face".

Even if you just try to avoid the religious world in total, they still get in through the cracks.

This is probably not a new problem as you can see in the Bible and the false prophets of Ahab. further warnings are given in the Gemara. But Rav Nahman was the first to pin point the issue: "Torah Scholars that are Demons." That would be  right in the beginning of his major book in section 12 and 28. But it comes up in lots of other areas. So what does it mean? In a practical sense I think the meaning is clear. Avoid the religious world. But could Rav Nahman have meant that? Maybe when he was alive he was able to warn his disciples about whom to avoid. But nowadays? How can you tell?

So it is possible to understand the reasons for the beginning of Reform Judaism. It was probably for these exact reasons.

I was thinking of King Yoshiyahu who got rid of all the idolatry in Israel during his reign. He must have been alarmed at the same kind of phenomenon that I am seeing nowadays.


[After I wrote that above essay, it occurred to me why Rav Nahman used the terminology of demons for religious leaders. He must have been referring to their malevolence. -I mean to say that clearly Rav Nahman was basing himself on the Zohar and the writings of the Ari where the subject of Torah Scholars that are demons comes up. But my question is why did Rav Nahman choose to concentrate on that issue and in such a way that sounds not nice? It must be that he noticed what i noticed. In the Jewish religious world the leaders tend to rejoice in doing harm to innocent people that they feel they can hurt without repercussions. While being extra nice to secular Jews they think they can get donations from.

The main subjects emphasized by the Rishonim -that is the Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.

The main subjects which I would like to do are the main one emphasized by the Rishonim especially the Rambam--that is the Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.

As I am having trouble getting through the basic material I thought at least I might share the idea with others in case they might succeed where I have not.

The Written Law--that is clear.

The Oral Law is the actual written account of the written law in the two Talmuds. Sifra Sifri, and the  Midrashim. But even though I did manage to get through Shas -a lot of it was done without Tosphot. If I could go back and try again today I would do every single Tosphot.

Physics --even though the Rambam was talking about the Physics or Aristotle still I think it applies to today's  also. So that would go through classical, the Quantum, and then Strings. Strings is important because it seems to be the only way to make sense of things like quarks.

Metaphysics would be Plato Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant Hegel.

The way I would do this would be the idea that is brought in the gemara and a book of Musar the אורחות צדיקים and Rav Nahman's idea of just saying the words as fast as possible and going on.

To that I would like to add the idea of שיעורים כסדרם sessions in order. That is you take one book and go through a few pages, then put in a place marker and then take a different book and go through a few pages, etc.
[Not all the above sessions every day. You have to work out how it might work for you. For example you might want to get through the Jerusalem Talmud with the commentaries. So that is something like 40 minutes on one page alone. Then you might want a session in Physics. That might be a math session in Algebra which is a part of Physics. As Michael Humer noted--there are no bare facts. Nature expresses herself in Math and by math. As Heidegger put it: nature itself allows herself to be understood only by a priori knowledge. (And that is a puzzling fact all and in itself.)


But the main goal is to try to finish Shas and all the Oral Law and Physics and metaphysics at least once,

Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report?

Eliyahu and Elisha crossed the Jordan River before Eliyahu was taken up into Heaven. They were coming from Jericho. So they crossed into an area that was outside the original border or Israel as defined in the book of Numbers. But was that area occupied by the tribe of Reuben and Gad?

Who was the king of Israel in the time of Elisha? Yoram the son of Ahab? Or Yehu?

Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report? And it is not as if the Canaanites were all the friendly by that time after what had happened in Shechem.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

It was a few years ago that I was sitting in Hebrew University and looking at micro films of old manuscripts of Rav Avraham Abulafia and I came across some positive statement  about Yeshua [Jesus]. That was on the day before Hanuka. I kind of froze in my seat because I was not sure what to think of that. I knew that the Rashba [An important Rishon] did not hold of Rav Abulafia at all. But I also knew that the Remak (Rav M. Cordovaro) and Rav Haim Vital were quoting him as legitimate. Also the Chida brings him (Rav Haim David Azulai). It got to be the night of Hanuka and I decided to go with Rav Abulafia even though I knew that would send me on a trajectory that was far from what I had been doing until then.

Why did I decide that? because I figured the Rashba was more of an expert in his particular field of Gemara, while Rav Abulafia was more of an expert in his area.

[Besides that I had been learning the books of Rav Isaac Luria and  Rav Nahman of Breslov already for a few years so I anyway had a kind of mental framework in which it is possible to understand the importance of true tzadikim. I also had been looking at the book of Rav Haim Vital in which the root souls of lots of different tzadikm is brought. That is the book where the Ari was explaining to Rav Haim Vital that the soul of Rav Haim Vital was from Emanation. [Most souls are from Creation]. So I already understood that there can be souls that stem from Emanation.]


I ought to mention that in the meantime someone from Mea Shearim came to Hebrew U. and put all the books of Rav Abulafia into readable script and printed them and you can even buy them in regular Hebrew.

Appendix

[1] Just for some background --the Rashba was a Rishon that had serious issues with Rav Abulafia. But even before I was looking at the manuscripts I was aware of the Rav Haim David Azulai who stood up for Rav Abulafia and that gave a lot of support in that direction. If the Rashba would be expressing an opinion about some passage in the Talmud, that would be more important. But in terms of his opinion about Rav Abulafia, that seems to me to be out of his range of expertise.]

[2] The idea of certain souls being from Emanation is brought down even before the Ari. However Rav Isaac Luria -the Ari- goes into a lot more detail than you can find anywhere else. So there is nothing particularly damming about saying a great tzadik has a soul that is from Emanation (i.e. Divine).

Jordan Peterson

Constellations of belief

Constellations of belief is why people will hold to a given belief even when it goes against common sense--because it is connected with a group he wants to be  apart of or because it is part of a belief system that does have elements of truth.

This is how people fall into evil, but it is also how people fall into good. The reason is there is "out there" lots of constellations of belief. And in no given place is "all truth". That gives a wide range of free will.

In this statement I am trying to give a reason for people holding to things that do not seem to make a lot of sense like the Trinity--because of other things that go along with it like the Golden Rule.
But as Dr Michael Huemer pointed out it is often group identity that determines people's beliefs.

I have had a hard time with this exact subject. And I have no golden rule such as common sense or Reason as to how to judge in this area.
However I do have my own set of rules that I try to hold to in terms of belief systems and rules of conduct. The top one is tell the truth no matter what the consequences are [unless it is a case that can cause harm to others]. I believe that telling the truth always gives me a certain degree of common sense by which then I can tell what world view systems make more sense.

As for world view issues I missed the anti reason movement in the West almost totally. I found rational philosophy to make sense and almost never even saw the 20th century post modern stuff until I already had been learning Plato and Spinoza in High school and elementary school.
But pure Rational philosophy almost has to lead to Kant. It is not just problems in Spinoza himself but also the points raised by Berkeley and Hume. Almost by force one is lead to Kant to find some middle ground. But does that then lead to Hegel as a lot of people thought? I am not sure. To me it seems Hegel is good for Metaphysics and Leonard Nelson is good for epistemology.


 People that are not happy with Hegel I think come from  legitimate complaints about German Nationalism which they think was inspired by Hegel or from complaints about Communism.
But even though Communism as a theory is clearly wrong I can see how it was needed to bring peace and stability to the Russian Empire. You really can not see this unless you have been in former republics of the USSR and see how things really are. If you would be there you would understand what the czars and the USSR were facing. It is nothing like ruling mild mannered white Anglo Saxon Protestants!

[I should add that Kelley Ross also has a Metaphysical approach that is different than Hegel, which is as important as the whole Kant Fries School. But to me it just does not look all that different than Hegel's Metaphysics.]

finding truth in a given world view system

There is a certain n point when you give up finding truth in a given world view system. This is like a person with great expertise in tax laws who has worked for years as a lawyer and a tax accountant.  Then he hears about a politician who has come to town that is going to give  a speech about taxes. So he goes to listen. He expects to hear some relevant  argument about the local tax cuts to conservation groups that  have been harassing the logging industry or such similar themes. But he hears nothing of the sort. All the politician talks about is how he is going to lower taxes and increase spending for teachers and health care etc,. That is nothing related to the issues. Then he goes into the book the politician has written and also finds nothing. So at some point he decides that politician has nothing to say that is relevant to tax issues.

That is like me when I a trying to make sense out of the big world I live in and I hear some promises of any given world view. Then I find out they have nothing to say about important matters.

One reason I think I was particularly attracted to Rav Nahman's of Breslov lessons is that I saw there real insights and advice as to human problems which I did not see in Musar. [Though Shar yashuv in Far Rockaway and the Mir in NY were for me amazing places to learn Talmud, I still found myself feeling empty until I found the books of Rav Nahman.]

Hegel and McTaggart for Metaphysics and Leonard Nelson for "How do we know stuff?" ( i.e Epistemology)

The blogger Mother in Israel mentioned once on her blog about Hegel. I was pretty much against Hegel at the time since I had been learning the Kant Friesian School of Dr Kelley Ross . But for some reason that I have forgotten I started looking at Hegel again. [My first time had been in NY when I borrowed the Cambridge Companion to Hegel].

It is a lot easier to understand Hegel (I must say) if you look at McTaggart. The is an important point that McTaggart makes in his commentary on the Greater Logic right away in the very beginning.It is that The Dialectic is not meant  to derive all laws of Physics by pure Logic. There is an interplay between empirical evidence of Reason.


[Dr Ross expands on the format of the Kant Fries School of Leonard Nelson. Nelson was mainly against the Neo Kant School and had little to say about Hegel.]

To me it seems tragic that Neslon and Hegel are not learned much. It terms of making sense of the world they have much to offer.

What were the sacrifices that Hezekiah [in Chronicles] brought after he cleaned the Temple?

What were the sacrifices that Hezekiah [in Chronicles] brought after he cleaned the Temple? Some might have been burnt offerings. The אלים [sheep over a year old] may have been peace offerings. (They could not have been burnt offerings since if they are sheep they need to be less than a year old.) But what were the sin offerings that he brought of the Tribe of Judah? From what I recall that must have been for just the majority of the tribe of Judah. I mean to say that a sin offering for the whole congregation I seem to recall can be for a single tribe.
[They certainly were not for individuals because they were seven male goats. The sin offering for an individual has to be a female goat.]

book of Kings

In the book of Kings all you really see with King Ahaz (the father of Hezekiah) is that he found a nice altar in Damascus and then asked Uriah the Priest to build one like it in the Temple. But in Chronicles it took the priests and Levis two weeks to clean out the Temple when Hezekiah began his reign. That seems to indicate that the whole Temple area was completely unusable. Also you can see this from the fact that Hezekiah did not want to bring the Passover in uncleanliness as he could have if the Temple had been usable.[ Instead he made the 14 of Iyar the Passover as the Torah requires for people that did not manage to make the first one.

The problem that I see about the selling of Joseph is that in the very beginning of chapter 39 it says the Ishmael[s] sold him to Egypt.

The problem that I see about the selling of Joseph is that in the very beginning of chapter 39 it says the Ishmael[s] sold him to Egypt. But in the  actual events it says the Tribe of Medyans in 37;36 sold him to Egypt. [Not one to the other and then to Egypt.]

But what I think is that the actual selling is attributed to the Mediyans indirectly.