Musar itself is great but tends to be kind of mediaeval in philosophy.

There is a great of good ideas in the Gra and Rav Nachman and Musar [the Musar movement of Rav Israel Salanter.] The thing is you need some kind of measuring stick to decide what is applicable to you and what is not. There are lots of false ideas out there and common sense and reason are needed to sort things out. This was the general approach in the Middle Ages. Reason and Faith. For after all if you would take everything in Torah literally, it would be problematic. So you need some common sense. Even to choice who you think is valid also requires common sense.

As Rav Nahman pointed out, there are plenty Torah scholars that are demons. And they have a Torah of the Sitra Achra. The realm of evil. So it does take a certain amount of caution to discern whom to listen to.

Some of the great ideas of the Gra are well known--learning Torah, trust in God, and his signature on the letter of excommunication. [Which did not apply to Rav Nahman as you can see if you look at the original documents that were later collected in a few famous books. I saw a book that had the original documents in a small public library in Jerusalem in the old city.]

Some of Rav Nahman's ideas were talking with God in one's own language as one talks with a friend. But lots of other great ideas and insights--too many to go into.


[Musar itself is great but tends to be kind of mediaeval in philosophy. It seems to ignore the concerns of the Enlightenment philosophers. Is there some way out of that? Maybe. Kant came along to some degree to answer the rationalistic empiricist problem--mind body. In tend to see Hegel as being a good approach to this issue. But with in mind the kinds of concerns of McTaggart.]

I myself do not have a commitment towards any system of beliefs but rather I am committed to seek the truth in all issues.  This is kind of personal but also it was the atmosphere of S California where I grew up. But I also recognize the opinion of people that know more than me.

free stuff in order to get elected

The strategy of promising free stuff in order to get elected is really not all that different from communism. So in order to evaluate if this is a legitimate approach one could look at the history of communism to see if it is workable policy. Well no. It is not workable. It destroys the economy. But what it does do is to get people's votes to put the one that promises into power.

The general way of Torah used to be such that one got married and continued to learn for number of years but the idea was never to use Torah as a means to make money.

What happens in the Mir in NY is that a person is learning Torah for its own sake a few years and then gets married. Then his father and or father in law support him and her a few years. But there was never any intention of using the holy Torah to make money. So he never bothered to learn Yora Deah and get the phony kind of ordination we have nowadays. In Ketuboth page 109 there is a case related to this that is brought in Shulchan Aruch of Rav Yoseph Karo. In the Gemara the case is a person went away and someone else gave money to his wife to support her. The husband does not have to pay it back. But if she borrowed to support herself then he does. [But not anything that she spent, but only the amount that he was obligated that is two meals per day or about a quart of flour per week.]

The casein Shulchan Aruch is the father in law supported the couple for the two years that was stipulated in the marriage contract but then kept on supporting the couple after that. Then he decides to ask his son in law to pay him back.

The Trumat HaDeshen is brought in the Rema [Moshe Isarles] that the son in law does not have to pay back for the wife but only for himself. The achronim over there disagree.

So what happens if someone gives you a present and then later asks you to pay for it?

[The general way of Torah used to be such that one got married and continued to learn for  number of years but the idea was never to use Torah as a means to make money. This is what I myself was doing for the years after I got married. And then we got to Israel. In Israel I did not join the kollel in Meor Haim because I thought it was along the lines of using Torah for money. But the State of Israel itself made things easy to settle in. Rent was very low and so were the bills. As for the kollel thing itself I am not sure what to think. Mainly it seems to me to be forbidden and yet still I admit there are those who allow it.]

young men angry? https://nypost.com/2019/07/31/readers-sound-off-on-why-young-american-men-are-so-angry/

Why are we angry?

Let me share my story.

I work a corporate job that routinely demands 70-plus hours a week. I barely have time to think, much less take care of myself mentally and physically. I am so burned out I can barely handle life anymore. I am 43.

I am constantly told how I am wrong at work.

I am seeing on the Internet that white men are toxic. It’s in the popular culture.

I’m a Democrat, and frankly the anti-white rhetoric has gotten ME angry.

I’ve been passed up for several promotions for applicants who were less qualified but met race and gender preference criteria — also known as, not a white male.

It’s not a good time to be one. I can only imagine what a young man who hasn’t established himself yet is going through.

The hidden Torah and Physics.

The hidden Torah [that is enclosed in the Work of Creation] is mentioned a lot in the Le"M of Rav Nahman in different ways.

One place I noticed this is in the book of Rav Natan his disciple that is brought on the subject of the Red Heifer. That is the sacrifice that is brought outside the Temple and which purifies from the kind of uncleanliness associated with the dead.

For a long time I have thought that this hidden Torah inside of Creation refers to Physics. My reasoning originally was based on the Obligations of the Heart. [Chovot Levavot] where he says both to learn the spirituality inside of creation and also the wisdom inside of creation--two different things [Shar HaBehina chapter 3 I think.]

You can see this idea also in the Rambam in his Guide and the Mishne Torah.

[In terms of the Ari--Rav Isaac Luria you do see a lot of Divine names that are contained in the physical Universe. --at least in the Eitz Chaim. But also in the Reshash [Rav Shalom Sharabi] there is an expanded version in the forth volume of his Sidur. (I mean that there are two sidurs of the Reshash. One is the smaller red one. The other is the large one which is considered more accurate. The smaller one was put together by the grandson of the Reshash. The smaller red one is thought to be a compilation done in Syria. Though I used the smaller one for years until I found the larger one, still Rav Mordechai Sharabi said the smaller one is not all that reliable.]

At any rate, this refers to the spirituality inside of Creation.--not to the laws of Physics which is what the Chovot Levavot  and the Rambam are referring to.

Rav Nahman: You can serve God with everything. אפשר לעבוד השם בכל דבר.

So how can you learn Physics. Say the words and go on. This is called "Girsa" learning in that way was already mentioned in the Gemara in Shabat 63.

If the Gemara would have wanted to say that music is forbidden period. It is hard to imagine how it could have said it any clearer.

Music is mentioned in the book of Rav Nahman (Le''M 72) as being a great thing -- rids one of illusions and delusions. The way to understand this is not simple since in the gemara in Gitin [I forget the page number but it is towards the beginning] "How do we know that music is forbidden?" And then it brings some verse. And then it goes on to explain that music is forbidden whether by voice or by instrument.
The answer on one hand is like Tosphot that it is referring to music at a wine party. Another answer is that even if you do not hold with the answer of Tosphot but go with the Rambam that all music is forbidden, still he adds that singing praises of God is allowed and praiseworthy.

But again the comes up the more well known question that using verses of the Torah as words for songs is forbidden. It specifically refers to psalms and the Sir Hashirim but the prohibition is for all verses of Torah. "When people use the words of Torah for a song the Torah dresses in garments of mourning and complains before God ';They have made a song out of me'".[That is a quotation from the Gemara.]

[If the Gemara would have wanted to say that music is forbidden period. It is hard to imagine how it could have said it any clearer. So is there any answer for all this? Mainly I have to say that I depend on Tosphot.]

Faith in the wise is one of the great principles

Faith in the wise is one of the great principles I found in Rav Nahman's Le''M vol I chapter 61.

And it is the reason why I will often quote different wise people --for example Rav Nahman himself, and the Gra, and Kant and Hegel. The reason is this principle of faith in the wise. So it can happen that people that are wise can contradict each other. Sometimes that is in order לגרש את הסיטרין אוחרנין to expel the forces of evil. That is often one is no worthy to learn from a truly wise person or a tzadik. So it comes about that different tzadikim disagree with each other in order to sow confusion in minds of people that then go away from them.

This applies to truly wise and great people. So this is  test to see who is worthy. On the other hand there is such a thing as the Torah of the Realm of Evil. And there are Torah scholars that are in fact demons of the Sitra Achra as Rav Nahman brings in Le''M vol I chapter 12 and 28. So it is necessary to develop some kind of common sense to be able to tell the difference between authentic and inauthentic.

"Faith in the wise" is as is well known a principle from the Mishna in Avot [Pirkay Avot] but the reason this stuck in my mind was that Rav Nahman ties it into the problem that I had at the time. He says על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא את משפטינו לאור "by means of faith in the wise one is able to bring his judgment into the light." That is to merit to the right piece of advice that will help him in his troubles." i.e. to merit to the right advice. I was not sure what to do at that time. So I simply learned that particular Torah lesson every day--saying it from beginning to end, until some kind of clarity would come to me. So I was learning that lesson for a different reason --not to come to faith in the wise. But the idea of faith in the wise did stick with me.