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24.2.19

The Rambam uses every opportunity to say that one should not use Torah to make money. So why has it become such a bussiness? I am not sure but today i met a girl from Brazil who recently arrived in Israel who mentioned that a lot of people in Israel are having trouble with making ends meet. [making enough to get by.] So the fact that a lot of people do not work but rather use Torah to make money makes little sense.
One thing I saw in my first yeshiva in Far Rockaway was the opinion of the Gra that every word of Torah is worth more that all the other commandments of Torah.He brings this from the Yerushalmi Talmud. And that fact sunk deeply into me. The only thing that has changed much is that because of the opinion of Maimonides and other rishonim is that I include Physics and math in the category of Torah.

When it come to Torah I try to spend time in the local Na Nach (Breslov) group's place. That seems to be the only place I can learn Torah.

But if I could I would try to have a balance between these separate areas of study.
But when it comes to Physics i try to use the approach of Rav Nahman of just saying the words as fast as possible and going on. I would try to show this from Rav Nahman's main books but I have to go since i have no computer and I am just borrowing a friend's.



[Maimonides also includes the Metaphysics of Aristotle in the category of learning Torah but I have not been able to spend much time in that area. And modern philosophy seems to have gotten off track in that area.]

21.2.19

Where you see clearly the approach of Maimonides about the importance of Physics is in the story brought in the very last chapter of a volume in the Guide [I forget which]. Where the people around the palace of the King are the people that learn Talmud and the people in the palace are the physicists.and philosophers.

I myself had never even noticed this until I saw it quouted in a book by David Hartman
Rav Nachman emphasized not to masturbate but this can be taken too far in that people think this is worse than actual things that are forbidden in the Torah.Even though Rav Nahman was certainly right that it needs a correction to say the ten Psalms [16,32, 41, 42, 59, 77,90, 105 137, 150.] but still it is not an actual prohibition in the Torah.

The way to learn Torah is to say the words and go on.

The way Rav Nahman said to learn Torah was to say the words and go on. [See Conversations of Rav Nahman 76. Also there are places like the Le.M I perek 12 which indicate the same idea::דע כי על ידי אמצעות הדיבור יכולים לבוא לתבונות התורה לעומקה. The LeM is the major work of Rav Nahman. 


This approach I found to be the only way I could learn Physics and Math also.

But it took me a long time until I stated applying this method to Physics. My parents had always been very pleased when I showed interest in Physics, but until I saw this in the חובות לבבות and also Maimonides the message did not really sink into me.
 But I should add the idea of review ten times as away of doing one's in depth sessions. This I heard in Shar Yashuv by Rav Freifeld. And the in depth session should be in the morning and the fast sessions in the afternoon as they do in all Litvak yeshivot.

I have found it best to learn in the local Na Nach synagogue. I tried a Litvack place for a while but that did not work out very well. [Na Nach is agroup of Breslov people that follow Rav Nachman from Uman.]
the mishna in Bava Kama the beginning of chapter 4.
The basic order is this you keep on dividing the amount by half. But instead of it going to the last one it always goes to the first one. In that way each Nizak (person that was damaged) keeps slipping down one notch.

[Just for background information the mishna says if an ox gores another ox then they divide [as it says in the Torah] the sum of the goring ox. So if both were 200 and the gored ox is now worth nothing, then each gets 100. If it gores again then the last one gets 100 and the two early ones get 50 each. If it gores again the last one gets 100, the earlier one50 and the last two 25 each.