21.4.16
What I suggest is to stop hanging out with insane people because until the spiritual equivalent of toxo is discovered you might as well be careful. After all we see the effects of hanging out with insane people.
We know a parasite can make a male crab think it is a female. But that is not as bad as toxo. Toxo can cause a mouse to think of cats as sexually attractive. That is it is a parasite that can make one do self destructive things. But what else is out there affecting our behaviors without our knowing it?
The most interesting thing about cat woman disease is what Sapolsky mentioned: what else is out there that we are not aware of?
Obviously Howard Bloom has already dealt with this issue on another plane. The Super-organism plane.
But what about a spiritual parasite? Can there be the same as a spiritual equivalent of toxo? (toxoplasmosis).
What I suggest is to stop hanging out with insane people because until the spiritual equivalent of toxo is discovered you might as well be careful. After all we see the effects of hanging out with insane people. There is no question that it is infectious. So far we do not know how it is infectious but we know it is. As the Rambam wrote "a man is drawn in his opinions the the people he hangs out with."
The most interesting thing about cat woman disease is what Sapolsky mentioned: what else is out there that we are not aware of?
Obviously Howard Bloom has already dealt with this issue on another plane. The Super-organism plane.
But what about a spiritual parasite? Can there be the same as a spiritual equivalent of toxo? (toxoplasmosis).
What I suggest is to stop hanging out with insane people because until the spiritual equivalent of toxo is discovered you might as well be careful. After all we see the effects of hanging out with insane people. There is no question that it is infectious. So far we do not know how it is infectious but we know it is. As the Rambam wrote "a man is drawn in his opinions the the people he hangs out with."
20.4.16
(1) The first night of Passover. Count the actual new moon as the first day of the month.
The way you count is you consider the first day--the day of the new moon to be the first day on the month. That is day 1. Then you count up from there until day 15. That gives you the first day of Passover.
(2) It is strange that the blessing for when the twelve constellations come [rise above] the horizon is not said anymore. Nor the blessing when any of the seven planets come into the constellation of the sheep.
(3) It is strange the opinion of the Rambam concerning Physics and Metaphysics is ignored when it is not the custom to ignore any of his other opinions.
(4) It is strange that the after blessing which refers to "nefashot" should be counted masculine when the word ''nefesh'' is in general feminine. Not always. But as a rule Nefesh is feminine. In fact the only exception I can think of is in Leviticus. But the rest of Tenach {Old Testament} has it as feminine.
(5) Mazah is not any different than the pancakes you cook in the morning. The only real difference is that the dough should be thick in order to be considered as bread. But if you should make a normal pancake with oatmeal or wheat flour with water in a thick dough and spread in on a frying pan-that is matzah. Unless dough sits still for 18 minutes before being cooked it is the same as any matzah.
(6) Cleaning for Pesach is a good thing however it has nothing to do with bread crumbs. The Gemara says crumbs are nullified automatically even if you did not do so openly.
(7) The reason people go overboard with these things seems to be to be a result of schizoid tendencies. Or perhaps some kind of evil inclination to get people to focus on things that are really just adding to the law in order to distract attention form what the Law does in fact require.
Some people just want the appearance of keeping the law so that naive will pay them to do rituals.
Pesach is a good example.
The way you count is you consider the first day--the day of the new moon to be the first day on the month. That is day 1. Then you count up from there until day 15. That gives you the first day of Passover.
(2) It is strange that the blessing for when the twelve constellations come [rise above] the horizon is not said anymore. Nor the blessing when any of the seven planets come into the constellation of the sheep.
(3) It is strange the opinion of the Rambam concerning Physics and Metaphysics is ignored when it is not the custom to ignore any of his other opinions.
(4) It is strange that the after blessing which refers to "nefashot" should be counted masculine when the word ''nefesh'' is in general feminine. Not always. But as a rule Nefesh is feminine. In fact the only exception I can think of is in Leviticus. But the rest of Tenach {Old Testament} has it as feminine.
(5) Mazah is not any different than the pancakes you cook in the morning. The only real difference is that the dough should be thick in order to be considered as bread. But if you should make a normal pancake with oatmeal or wheat flour with water in a thick dough and spread in on a frying pan-that is matzah. Unless dough sits still for 18 minutes before being cooked it is the same as any matzah.
(6) Cleaning for Pesach is a good thing however it has nothing to do with bread crumbs. The Gemara says crumbs are nullified automatically even if you did not do so openly.
(7) The reason people go overboard with these things seems to be to be a result of schizoid tendencies. Or perhaps some kind of evil inclination to get people to focus on things that are really just adding to the law in order to distract attention form what the Law does in fact require.
Some people just want the appearance of keeping the law so that naive will pay them to do rituals.
Pesach is a good example.
19.4.16
The Musar [Ethics] Movement 2.01
תנועת המוסר 2.01
The Musar [Ethics] Movement 2.01
This would be slightly different than the Musar Movement 1.01
The set of books the first Musar [Ethics] Movement was based on was three, חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart, מסילת ישרים ואורחות צדיקים. [I do not know the common English translation. I think perhaps Paths of the Righteous, The Path of the Just.] This basic canon was added onto and so the actual books that people were concentrating on were about 30 and even more if you count the Maharal from Prague. In any case the literature was a lot.
But to launch another Musar movement with the purpose in mind as Reb Israel Salanter, I think would have to include the אור ישראל by one of the major disciples of Reb Israel Salanter, Isaac Blasser. And the מדרגת האדם by Joseph Josel Horowitz a later disciple of Israel Salanter after the original three.
Plus it would have to include Jewish philosophy which I think has been ignored at terrible consequence. That would be the אמונות ודעות by Saadia Gaon, the Guide of the Rambam, Ibn Gavirol, Crescas, Joseph Albo, Abravenal.
There are still details to work out. The First Musar Movement somehow got absorbed in yeshivas and is almost zero in effect today. It gets at best lip service, and some "mashgiach" [the person that in theory in charge of the spiritual welfare of the students] talks once a week. Yet it is well known that mashgiachs are just the people too stupid to be rosh yeshivas. They don't even know much about what is going on in Musar itself, much less Gemara. A mashgiach is a person talking about virtue who know nothing about it. How could it not be damaging? Why not get a football couch that knows nothing about football?
So it is hard to see where this might go. Still it is important, and without which nothing else can begin of much worth.
[Plus outdoor skills and physical fitness. Outdoor skills is for character development, plus survival skills.] Outdoor skills and physical fitness have to be a part and parcel of any Ethical movement. Ethics does not exist in a vacuum.
[Outside of all the above I wanted to say that things in Ethics you need to work on, it is a good idea to memorize them and say the paragraph right when you wake up in the morning. Like if you need to work on some trait,you find some statement in a Musar book that deals with that trait and say it over right when you wake up.]
The set of books the first Musar [Ethics] Movement was based on was three, חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart, מסילת ישרים ואורחות צדיקים. [I do not know the common English translation. I think perhaps Paths of the Righteous, The Path of the Just.] This basic canon was added onto and so the actual books that people were concentrating on were about 30 and even more if you count the Maharal from Prague. In any case the literature was a lot.
But to launch another Musar movement with the purpose in mind as Reb Israel Salanter, I think would have to include the אור ישראל by one of the major disciples of Reb Israel Salanter, Isaac Blasser. And the מדרגת האדם by Joseph Josel Horowitz a later disciple of Israel Salanter after the original three.
Plus it would have to include Jewish philosophy which I think has been ignored at terrible consequence. That would be the אמונות ודעות by Saadia Gaon, the Guide of the Rambam, Ibn Gavirol, Crescas, Joseph Albo, Abravenal.
There are still details to work out. The First Musar Movement somehow got absorbed in yeshivas and is almost zero in effect today. It gets at best lip service, and some "mashgiach" [the person that in theory in charge of the spiritual welfare of the students] talks once a week. Yet it is well known that mashgiachs are just the people too stupid to be rosh yeshivas. They don't even know much about what is going on in Musar itself, much less Gemara. A mashgiach is a person talking about virtue who know nothing about it. How could it not be damaging? Why not get a football couch that knows nothing about football?
So it is hard to see where this might go. Still it is important, and without which nothing else can begin of much worth.
[Plus outdoor skills and physical fitness. Outdoor skills is for character development, plus survival skills.] Outdoor skills and physical fitness have to be a part and parcel of any Ethical movement. Ethics does not exist in a vacuum.
[Outside of all the above I wanted to say that things in Ethics you need to work on, it is a good idea to memorize them and say the paragraph right when you wake up in the morning. Like if you need to work on some trait,you find some statement in a Musar book that deals with that trait and say it over right when you wake up.]
18.4.16
The cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on change their story depending on whom they are talking to
There are several reason that I think you should get a set of Avi Ezri.
One reason is that fact that it shows how to learn Torah in a very simple and understandable way.
But also there is the fact that he (Rav Elazar Menachem Shach) was the only one to stand up and oppose the false god of the the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on.
That already says a lot about the quality of his character and intelligence.
I should mention that the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on change their story depending on whom they are talking to. They definitively serve a false god, not the God of Israel, but they get away with it because they are extraordinarily excellent in doing rituals. And to other groups that have obsessive compulsive needs to be doing ritual all day long this is a big plus. So they get a pass at serving a phony deity.
Of course there are levels of how bad things can be. This we see in the Eitz Chaim of Rabainu the Ari. The problem with the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on is they worship the crown of darkness, the crown of the Sitra Achra. So their evil is not apparent. It is the higher root of evil.
The way I see things based on the Ari is there are planes of evil. Not all evil is the same. The root --or from where evil comes from is not the same as the evil itself. And I do see it as a metaphysical reality. See the part of the Eitz Chaim after Shar HaNukva and you will see what I mean.
Appendix: Just to get back to Rav Shach. The point of the whole school of the Litvak Gedolim was global. It was to understand how the subject in front of you fits with the rest of Shas and with the Rambam. The trouble is that most of that school is hard to understand. It is easy to finish an essay of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and think you still do not get it. With Rav Shach, that never happens. He makes the deepest concepts crystal clear.
One reason is that fact that it shows how to learn Torah in a very simple and understandable way.
But also there is the fact that he (Rav Elazar Menachem Shach) was the only one to stand up and oppose the false god of the the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on.
That already says a lot about the quality of his character and intelligence.
I should mention that the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on change their story depending on whom they are talking to. They definitively serve a false god, not the God of Israel, but they get away with it because they are extraordinarily excellent in doing rituals. And to other groups that have obsessive compulsive needs to be doing ritual all day long this is a big plus. So they get a pass at serving a phony deity.
Of course there are levels of how bad things can be. This we see in the Eitz Chaim of Rabainu the Ari. The problem with the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on is they worship the crown of darkness, the crown of the Sitra Achra. So their evil is not apparent. It is the higher root of evil.
The way I see things based on the Ari is there are planes of evil. Not all evil is the same. The root --or from where evil comes from is not the same as the evil itself. And I do see it as a metaphysical reality. See the part of the Eitz Chaim after Shar HaNukva and you will see what I mean.
Appendix: Just to get back to Rav Shach. The point of the whole school of the Litvak Gedolim was global. It was to understand how the subject in front of you fits with the rest of Shas and with the Rambam. The trouble is that most of that school is hard to understand. It is easy to finish an essay of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and think you still do not get it. With Rav Shach, that never happens. He makes the deepest concepts crystal clear.
17.4.16
The book Ideas in Shas and a piece of Music
Ideas in Talmud updated R38 G major I think this piece is OK but I am not really sure.
Ideas in Bava Metzia
Ideas in Bava Metzia
Wisdom of crowds=Wisdom of the mob.
Wisdom of crowds. This was an issue addressed by my Dad. After a career in science, he went into the stock market. He told me once the best way to lose money in the stock market is to listen to advice of the experts or the crowd. That was pretty much in accord with the general world view of Californians in those days of the importance of finding your own path and not listening to the wisdom of crowds.
He was in those days working with the best stock brokers of Merrill-Lynch. But that was what my Dad said even abut the top experts--not to listen to their advice about what to invest in.
Today I would have to temper (modify) this advice. Sometimes. Sapolsky mentioned on one of his utube videos [#22. min. 45 ]that if you take a lot of experts and take the average of all their estimates about the thing they are expert in then the medium turns out to be very close to the true value more than any one expert. But the caveat [condition] is they have to be experts in that field. For example given to Navy geologist temperature and some other variable the question was asked, "Where in the world would this be?" Take the collective answer of all and take the average. It came out within 300 meters of the right spot.
So you really have to be expert enough to be able to tell who is a real expert and who really has just assumed expertise.
[Mainly the reason my Dad went into business instead of continuing in science was as far as I understood was the his project of creating satellite communication by lasers was completed for NASA and he no longer wanted to be under the thumb of an any employer. He wanted to be self employed. He was tired I think of taking orders and thought he could do better n his own.
He was in those days working with the best stock brokers of Merrill-Lynch. But that was what my Dad said even abut the top experts--not to listen to their advice about what to invest in.
Today I would have to temper (modify) this advice. Sometimes. Sapolsky mentioned on one of his utube videos [#22. min. 45 ]that if you take a lot of experts and take the average of all their estimates about the thing they are expert in then the medium turns out to be very close to the true value more than any one expert. But the caveat [condition] is they have to be experts in that field. For example given to Navy geologist temperature and some other variable the question was asked, "Where in the world would this be?" Take the collective answer of all and take the average. It came out within 300 meters of the right spot.
So you really have to be expert enough to be able to tell who is a real expert and who really has just assumed expertise.
[Mainly the reason my Dad went into business instead of continuing in science was as far as I understood was the his project of creating satellite communication by lasers was completed for NASA and he no longer wanted to be under the thumb of an any employer. He wanted to be self employed. He was tired I think of taking orders and thought he could do better n his own.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)