note about colleges nowadays

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I have two USMC sons, and one Army. One of the Marines started college, found he didn't like it (neither the students nor the profs). He dropped out after 3 semesters and joined the Corps. There he learned electronics and worked on Harriers and copters. First job when he got out: engineer at SpaceX, making 30% more than I make with a PhD and 35 years in the classroom. I am proud of the fact that I have steered all of my 9 children away from academia, and I do my best to steer my students away from it also.

Michael Huemer has already mentioned some problems with universities. My feeling about this is that certain ones in STEM are very good like CalTech and MIT and Stanford. But outside of STEM it is all just a waste.

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What would be the response of Aristotle to Thomas Reid. [that knowledge that a flame is hot is not similar in any way to the hotness of the flame.] And does Aquinas hold by the approach of Aristotle in this regard?
Rishonim were going with the basic world view of Plotinus as you can see in Ibn Gavirol and Saadia Gaon. It was the Rambam that made the turn towards Aristotle. That had already been the world view of the Muslims. The Christians were the last to go with Aristotle starting from Aquinas. before that they had been totally Neo Platonic.
So the question is with all. Do they have any answer about the questions of Thomas Reid.

My opinion is that they do not. That is to say that it is unavoidable to get to the synthesis of either Hegel of Kant or some synthesis of Kant like in Leonard Nelson.

To trust in God was a major element of the Musar yeshivas of Navardok. But it is implicit in almost all Litvak yeshivas. Where I went was the Mir in NY and before that was Shar Yashuv. But in both places there was a basic idea that all you need to do is to learn Torah and God will take care of the rest.

And trust in God had other benefits. It is brought in the Sefer HaMidot of Rav Nahman that by trust in God good thoughts are drawn to you. That is it is a shield against evil thoughts and evil world views.

In spite of this, in some places Torah is used to make money. But that is not the idea behind a Litvak yeshiva in its original sense.

But the point is that to learn to trust in God depends a lot I think on being in a Litvak yeshiva where that is the prevailing world view --that trust in God is the main thing in life. By being with like minded people one can gain that kind of world view himself.

In Israel I have very little familiarity with the situation, but the best and are Ponovitch and Brisk.

In terms of the issue whether all one is supposed to do is to learn Gemara I have found it helpful to depend on the opinions of Ibn Pakuda and other Rishonim that include Physics and Metaphysics in the category of learning Torah.

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trust in God

The idea of trust in God that is Torah based is trust without effort. You see this in the Levels of Man
Madragat HaAdam of Navardok. And he brings the idea from the Gra.
But in a practical vein what does it mean? My impression is that when there is something immediate that one needs to do, then he does it. But in terms of planning for the future that is where trust in God comes to play its role.

  That is the way trust in God was understood in the Mir in NY. That is to say you sit and learn Torah and do not worry about money.

  [And now that at least for myself I expand the definition of learning Torah to include Physics (as brought in the Guide of Maimonides), I would have to go with the same idea. To do the Physics for its own sake. ]
In any case the idea is that you do what you should be doing to serve God and do not worry about money. That seems to be the basic idea.
In fact I do not have much trust and realize that that is an area I need to work on. So how does one go about working on trust in God. One idea I thought makes sense is to say over that very part of the Madragat HaAdam itself every morning right when you get up--before saying or doing anything..\
Another idea is to encourage others to trust in God and to learn Musar. That is an idea I got from reading a disciple of Rav Israel Salanter.


[I have not made a major issue for the last few years since I have been afraid of self deception. I can imagine I am trusting in God and then when things do not go my way I am afraid I can deny the very validity of trust in the first place. The fault would be clearly my own self deception. So I have not emphasized this for myself. But recently it is looking like an issue that ought not to be ignored.

My impression of the best places to go to learn Torah --at least in terms of what I am familiar with is for beginners Shar Yashuv in NY, and for advanced levels the Mir [ of NY]. I am really not very much familiar with yeshivas in Israel. If, of course, Ponovitch [in Bnei Brak] is still represented by anyone like Rav Shach, well that stands to reason that that is the top. He was the Mount Everest of the Torah world.

The things that were amazing to me about Litvak yeshivas in New York was their depth.
Israel is great in many ways, but too many people come because they imagine they will get some level like what you have in Litvak yeshivas in NY. That is usually not actually what happens.