Rav Nahman of Breslov comes about as close as I can see into making the Old Testament and the Gemara into a comprehensive system--that is a interconnected system based on a small number of basic principles.

Rav Nahman of Breslov comes about as close as I can see into making the Old Testament and the Gemara into a comprehensive system--that is a interconnected system based on  a small number of basic principles. This kind of task was taken up to a a large degree by the baali HaMusar [sages and authors of works on Athics.] from the Middle Ages  the  Obligations of the Heart by Ibn Pakuda חובות הלבבות and Saadia Gaon. But Rav Nahman brought the task to its completion.

Maimonides was doing something similar--showing that Torah does not contradict Aristotle. But Rav Nahman was trying rather to show that the Torah makes sense. he was not concerned if it agreed with Aristotle.

Still his synthesis seems to leave out a few major principles that were noted by the baali HaMusar and especially the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter. [Midot/good character, learning Torah, trust in God]]

I was reminded about this because on my way to the sea I spoke briefly another secular Jew like myself and he said something along the lines that the main thing is Rav Nahman and that everyone needs the ideas of Rav Nahman. I forget his exact language. But it reminded me of this fact that Rav Nahman has a good advice and ideas about almost any and every human problem.

I think the father in law of Rav Shach [Issar Meltzar] said the Derara dememona is a doubt about where the money ought to go. I forget because I no longer have an Avi Ezri [of Rav Shach] to look up. But if that is what he said it makes sense anyway.
The reason I say this is that the Gemara in Bava Mezia 79 seems to take this as a simple matter.
The basic gemara over there says [in the third case] that if a ship with a cargo of wine sinks the if the ship owner said, "I am renting to you this ship," and the wine owner said "I am hiring you to carry this wine," then wherever the money is that is where it stays. If both said (in forth case) ("stam") "I am renting to you a ship," [not this ship] and "I am hiring you to bring wine," not this wine then they divide.

It looks like a exact copy of the mishna on page 100 and also the mishna on page 97. On page 100 the same issue came up in the Gemara and the Gemara concludes the mishna there is like Sumhos.

No one on page 79 says anything about Sumhos. Not the Tur, the Rosh, the Shulhan Aruch or the Maharsha. But interestingly enough right there the Tosphot says the reason for the case when they are both definite this ship and this wine  is hezkas mamon [prior status of where the money is]. And the reason for the end when they divide is the doubt.

I recall I brought up these issues also on page 100 in my small booklet on Bava Mezia chapters 8 and 9.
[The regular way to understand Derara Demmona is a doubt to the court even without their words. Also the issue seems divided between Bava Metzia page 2b and the Gemara is Bava Batra as to what are the conditions under whcih Sumhos says they divide. Whether you need Derara Demmona or if he hold they divide with D.M. then all the more so without D.M.]

So to make it short, the major issues I see here are these. Why does Rav Papa on page 79 in the forth case not say he is going like Sumhos? And even if he would why is he not saying like Sumhos in the third case? So it looks here that you have to say this Gemara holds Drara Demmona is when there is a doubt. Furthermore why does the Gemara not go straight with the sages that say המוציא מחבירו עליו הראיה? One who take money out of a prior status needs proof.

The 15th of the Federalist Papers says that the essence of government is to make laws and by implication to enforce them. This in itself seems to be an argument why not to give power or vote for religious parties in Israel. [Even though the argument in the Federalist papers was arguing for a union of the states  as opposed to staying as they were an confederacy with no unifying centre.]

Even religious people in Israel would not like the religious powers to be to have power over their individual lives.

Learning Torah really ought not be mixed with politics.

Mind can not be a epiphenomenon of Body.

 By analytic means it was shown that the epiphenomenon approach to the Mind Body Problem entails and self contradiction in one of the intermediate steps.
That is to say that Mind can not be a epiphenomenon of Body.
[The epiphenomenon approach is a suggestion of John Searle. But Searle himself says that it is not an adequate solution.

Rav Nahman [from Uman and Breslov].

Rav Nahman had a goodly number of amazing pieces of advice. But I realize also that sometimes his ideas can be taken in ways that do not seem to be so great. For an example I think I was learning Torah a lot better when I was part of the Mir Yeshiva in NY. Getting involved with Breslov seems to have given me some great things, but also seems to have gotten me off track in other ways.

So what you have to say I think is that in terms of learning authentic Torah it is the Litvaks [Lithuanian] Yeshivas that have it down pat--i.e. that have authentic Torah (keeping and learning).

On the other hand, for specific issues, no one is greater that Rav Nahman to get into the core of problems, and find solutions (at least as far as humanly possible).

One bit of advice comes from the last Torah lesson he said in his lifetime in Uman [Le''M vol II chapter 8]--the problem of מפורסמים של שקר famous leaders who are false. [i.e. scam artists]. And it was well known in Breslov that that warning applies even inside of Breslov itself.
The problem nowadays seems to be that a great number of people claim to be presenting authentic Torah who are what Rav Nahman said are "demons." ["תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודיים"] (Le''M volume I chapter 12 and 28) So how do you tell who is who?
Experience is one way. As Rav Nahman himself brought in the end of sipurei Maasiot that some kinds of knowledge come only with time and experience. They are not known simply by logic.
But if one does not want that kind of experience then there is also the possibility of simply listening to the warnings of the Gra and Rav Shach. That is by אמונת חכמים [faith in the wise]. But that also has a pitfall since often people will assume that Rav Nahman himself was in the category of what the Gra was warning about. I assumed as much myself until I had an opportunity to take a look at a book that printed up the original documents from the court testimony in Vilna and in the actual letter of excommunication that was signed by the Gra.

Kant, Hegel

A certain degree of animosity towards Kant, Hegel seems to have been generated by WWI. So people of the 20th century would go to great lengths to find almost any kind of world view that would by pass Kant and Hegel. Almost to the degree of making them unmentionable.

Though I am no expert in Philosophy at all, but I understood that the English people that were more or less continuing the legacy of Kant and Hegel pretty much denounced the whole thing after WWI. That is what I understood about Bradley anyway. Certainly Hobhouse's critique on the Metaphysical State was in reaction to WWI.

This to me seems unfair--as if Kant and Hegel were responsible for WWI. [See Patrick Buchanan's The Unnecessary War] [That book is not philosophy, but simply showing that WWI was pointless (which is clear) and led inevitably to WWII which already at that point was necessary]

Ayn Rand on the other hand seems to have objected to Kant on the basis of Neo Kantianism which took a psychological turn. as opposed to the objective approach of Schelling, Hegel, and Fichte.
Kant himself seems to have anticipated the problems in his second edition of the Critique of Pure reason when he put in a whole section just to reply to Berkley's lunatic idealism. That seems to settle the issue.

[In terms of the actual critique of Hobhouse I recall that Brand Blanshard had a pretty good answer. It was based as I recall on the consequential theory of political power. [See Danny Frederick on Huemer on that same issue.]

In terms of that issue I might mention that Hegel is right that people are defined a lot by their relationships as much and perhaps more so than their inner essence. It is from my standpoint interesting to note a whole branch of math based on that idea arose in the 1940's Category Theory --that the main thing to look at are the maps from elements in a set or group as much as the elements themselves.

[Though I admit that that idea can be misused as Steven Dutch makes a note of.

The idea of saying the name of God as it is written.

The idea of saying the name of God as it is written. Sanhedrin 90 side one and Avoda Zara 17b 18a and the Maharsha in Kidushin at the end of chapter three in the agada section.

Sorry I do not remember the exact page but the Maharsha there is talking about this exact subject and mentions the people in his days who were dabbling in mysticism and speaking publically about it.In particular abiout this very aspect that they were saying different ways of saying the name. He was clearly not very happy about this.

In Segulat Israel there are brought different combinations of the names. And also we find in the Ari this subject. Rav Nahman himself brings such an idea in his Sefer HaMidot.

The basic source of the whole issue is in Sanhedrin 90a that says one who says the name of God as it is written has no portion in teh world to come. In Avoda Zara there is brought the case of one sage who was put into prison and killed and the Gemara there on page 18 attributes his fate to teh fact that he was saying the name as written.