Trust in God. "Bitachon"

There is no algorithm for when one should make effort to get his needs and when one should sit back and trust in the Divine decree. But the closest I  ever got to some kind of resolution about this was Rav Nahman of Breslov in the LeM vol II. Chapter 4. that one should make  a vessel in which the blessing can flow into.

Even in open miracles in the Bible there is always some physical action attached in the same way. Some action by which the blessing can come into the world. E.g. Elisha the prophet telling Neeman the Syrian general to immerse himself in the Jordan seven times in order to be cured.

[I have to add that the only time that trust in God was a real possibility for me in terms of restraint from action was at the Mir in NY for the short time I was there as a student and married. It seems to me the fact that the general atmosphere was such that trust in God was a possibility. A kind of group dynamics. When everyone else was trusting in God, it made it a greater reality for me. And in fact it worked. The more I ceased from action and chose to sit and learn Torah and trusted that God would do everything for me that I needed, the more it happened just like that.

Rav Elazar Shach laws of marriage ch 22. law 16 and law 17.

I just wanted to introduce a subject and later go into it in more detail.
The issue is in Rav Elazar Shach laws of marriage ch 22. law 16 and law 17.
What I wanted to say is that there is property the wife brings into  a marriage that is not written in the Ketuba. [That is called נכסי מלוג]. [That property the husband receives the fruit but does not own it.] What if he and she sell it? [That is they sell it together, not one or the other.] The issue is in tractate Ketuboth. Ameimar said a husband and wife that sell the property of the wife, the deal is not valid. The first way the Gemara understands this is one without the other. But when together, it is valid. The second way of the Gemara is even together the deal is not valid.
The Gemara brings the reason for the second way is from the law in the Torah of  "a day or two" of a slave. The law there only applies if the slave has one owner, not two. So the idea is that for a sell to be valid there has to be one owner.
Rav Shach goes into this in detail which I would like to continue later if possible.

Off hand it seems like the issue of דבר שלא בא לעולם that one can not buy or sell something that is not in the world now. For example in Torah law one can not sell fruit that will come from a tree. Either the whole tree. Or a kind of hold on the tree אילן לפירותיו. So in our case the wife owns the property but she can not sell it because the fruit has to go to husband. He can not sell it because he does not own the property, only he receives the fruit.

w57 G Major  w57 midi

w57 nwc format

Two major issues in Christianity

Two major issues in Christianity are Christology and the Commandments. These are the two issues that take up a good deal of thought and room. Christology is "Who was Jesus?". The issue about the commandments is about the point of Paul which seems to be nullification.

The issue of Christology I have mentioned before that I think it is along the lines that you usually think of the Patriarchs--souls of Emanation. [Very common in all works of mystics.] In Particular Kindness in Foundation as brought in Rav Nahman of Uman.

As for the nullification issue --to me it seems wrong. I can not see anything that indicates such an idea in Jesus himself. It seems to be a later addition. [See the Theonomic position in Bahnsen Anthony Flood.] He puts it better that I could.

Here is an extract from Banhsen: Listen to His own testimony:

Do not begin to think that I came to abrogate the Law or the Prophets; I came not to abrogate but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, until all things have happened, not one jot or tittle shall by any means pass away from the law. Therefore, whoever shall break one of these least commandments and teach men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 5:17-19).

Several points about the interpretation of this passage should be rather clear. (1) Christ twice denied that His advent had the purpose of abrogating the Old Testament commandments. (2) Until the expiration of the physical universe, not even a letter or stroke of the law will pass away. And (3) therefore God’s disapprobation rests upon anyone who teaches that even the least of the Old Testament laws may be broken.¹⁶

¹⁶ Attempts are sometimes made to evade the thrust of this text by editing out its reference to the moral demands of the Old Testament—contrary to what is obvious from its context (5:16, 20, 21-48; 6:1, 10, 33; 7:12, 20-21, 26) and semantics (“the law” in v. 18, “commandment” in v. 19). Other attempts are made to extract an abrogating of the law’s moral demands from the word “fulfill” (v. 17) or the phrase “until all things have happened” (v. 18). This, however, renders the verses self-contradictory in what they assert.

century of philosophy that is worthless and vacuous [both so called "analytic" and "continental"].

After a century of philosophy that is worthless and vacuous [both so called analytic and continental] it seems the main issue in philosophy is between Leonard Nelson and Hegel. Or more accurately between Nelson and McTaggart-- since Hegel without McTaggart is almost indecipherable] .

Analytic philosophy is worthless because it is all about analyzing language-- which means analysis of fiction; like a deep study in the physics of Tolkien's Rings. Language is 100% subjective; and has zero independent validity except for when you say "dog" that I understand a dog. There is nothing more. It all about the King's clothes--when he has no clothes.]
[Modern philosophy is elaborating endless variations on existing themes
And as Steven Dutch put it:
"Elaborating endless variations on existing themes is creativity in a sense, but not of the same order as coming up with wholly new classes of ideas. This is not a value judgment, it is simply being true to the accurate usage of words."

I see trust in God [Bitachon] as very important. That was ever since I saw the book Madragat HaAdam [of Navardok] at the Mir in NY. But how to implement trust in God in a practical sense has always been an issue for me. The way it worked at the Mir for other and for me was more or less to devote ourselves to learning Torah and taking it as a given that God would take care of everything else.. And that worked--for as long as I was there. But not so much since I left.

To me the issue seems always to be exactly how much effort do you do and how much do you cease efforts and trust in God. That may not tell you much about the inner heart, but it does relate to the practical aspect of trust.

Maimonides was working for Saladin (as a doctor)

If Maimonides was working for Saladin (as a doctor) the last ten years of his life that would mean he started worked for him about 7 years after Saladin conquered Jerusalem. [ But that would have been in 1191 about three years after Saladin lost to Richard I the Lion Heart [at Arsuf]; and thus Saladin lost control of most of Israel especially the coastal regions, but retained Jerusalem]. That also means that during that time Maimonides wrote the Guide for the Perplexed.



[Saladin was actually not an Arab but a Kurd, but was working for the Seluks in Egypt until he killed his employers and took over. His major rivalry was with the Caliph of Baghdad who was Abassid. [The Abassid's  ruled the Muslim world for about 500 years from 750  A.D. and on until 1254 A.D..]



It does not seem to me that the fact he was working for Saladin changed anything in the Guide. He had it all laid out in his mind from the time he was a teenager as he writes in the Commentary on the Mishna. He says openly he is going to write two more books. One collected all the laws and the other explaining the world view of the Torah.  It is somewhat along the lines of Aristotle and Plotinus (neo Plato). That is also the basic world view of the Hovot LeVavot [Obligations of the Heart as you can see in the very first section of that =the most important of all Musar books.]