i am in mourning for my son Itzchak. Thus i post here two links to my books that he had a large contribution to help me write.

 Ideas in Bava Metzia ch.s 8 and 9 

Ideas in Shas

It is a terrible thought to note that he was begging people for help for years and no one wanted to help him. So he just laid down and died. [He was asking his family to come live with him and no one wanted to--even me. At best I wrote to him he should come to me in Israel, but he obviously needed help even to do so. ] I hope that since he had no place in this world, that at least God will find a place for him in the next.  Where no one else found a place in their heart for him that God will find a place for him in His and in Gan Eden.

But to say this to family members is hard to decide. Those that know, already know. So why make them feel worse? Those that do not know will just find someone else to blame.[Just like I am doing. Instead of asking ,''Why did I not help?,'' I ask, ''Why others did not help?"]

The problem is that humans -given the right set of circumstances-- can be incredibly kind or incredibly cruel. All I can do now is to dedicate any good deed I will ever do for his sake to have a place in the Garden of Eden. Perhaps also to do review 400  times every lesson in Mathematics, Physics and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.   

The point of concentrating on positive things that I can do, is that if I think overly much about what I did wrong, I am likely to go insane.

 I was at the beach and explained to some people there about from where the woke agenda comes from. I traced the lineage to the left Hegelians, Marx, the Frankfurt school and cultural Marxism. But while doing so I was asked about my own philosophical development.  I have mentioned this before, but just for now let me repeat.   Before and during high school I learned a lot of Spinoza. but I did not want to go into philosophy because I thought modern philosophy was not  good. So instead I went to two great Litvak yeshivot--Shar Yashuv and the Mir in N.Y.. But I still continued my philosophical education. In Shar Yashuv I learned Sartre's  Being And Nothingness. Eventually I arrived at Kant and the modification on KANT of Fries and Nelson.

I had explained the difference between the rationalists [Spinoza and Leibniz] and the empiricists [Locke and Hume], Reason recognizes truth as opposed to the senses recognize truth. this is different from pot modernism which hold there in truth, 

 In short I was asked what my philosophy is. I said reason recognizes truth. But I added ''What kind of truth? Universals.'' Then I went into that subject. then to Fries about a third source of knowledge  

Learning Torah is a commandment for everyone and therefore by definition is not skilled labor. The religious [frum] try to convince everyone else that they are morally and mentally superior and therefore must be put in charge of everyone else.

 I hold with learning Torah, but not as a paid profession. On one hand the stipend is low, but it is not a "skilled labor". "Skilled labor" gets paid more. Learning Torah is a commandment for everyone and therefore by definition is not skilled labor. It is something like English Literature majors. Or Psychology majors. These are the stupid people in college that think they are on par with Mathematics majors and are vastly overproduced. They then can not get jobs, but think they ought to be the people in charge of everyone else because of their imagined superiority. Ditto with religious institutions. They produce too many overly educated idiots that think they are geniuses.

The problem is that too many people try to convince others that the stupid disciplines equal the smart ones. i.e. the politics of resentment. The religious [frum] try to convince everyone else that they are morally and mentally superior and therefore must be put in charge of everyone else.

THE FRUM [RELIGIOUS] PRODUCE NOTHING BUT INTEREST IN THEIR OWN BRAND. -not even morality. They commonly poach and try to steal  the  wife of the baal teshuva [newly religious] and rape his children,

Hegel, Wokeness, and the Dialectical Faith of Leftism

 If one has merited to be in the Litvak World of Torah, it is a terrible thing to abandon that. Even though I see Rav Nachman of Breslov was a great tzadik, it is a mistake to leave the world of straight Torah. One might learn from the great advice of Rav Nachman, but Breslov is different.   

My own path into the Litvak world was philosophical interest. But modern philosophy repelled me [as it should]. So it made sense to the path that combined authentic Torah [Gra, Rav Shach, and musar. ]with reason. Reason and faith is the approach of the Rishonim and it continues in the Litvak world.

I might mention that this post is a result of many years of contemplating and seeing what happens to people that leave the Litvak Path. It never ends well.  

Reason for the Middle Ages [Saadia Gaon, Rambam, Ramban, etc..] means Plato, Aristotle. Plotinus, But this proved to have problems as noted by the early Enlightenment people like Berkeley. So arose the Rationists as opposed to the Empiricists. Each of these in turn proved problematic, so arose. Kant and a modification of Kant by Fries, Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross.  This progression is what is hold with. --as opposed to the other modern philosophy.  

other approaches do not make sense, Robert Hanna noted the bankruptcy of Analytic Philosophy. Woke is the Frankfurt neo Marx school. Marx is wrong since the labor theory of value is wrong [even though he did not explicitly say that he was building on that theory  still it is the basis of all his work--otherwise there is no ''surplus value'' to extract. .]

 

 Ukraine is a confusing place. That is unless you accept the proposition that half the people are saints and the other half are the opposite. [Well,.. the not so great part is less than half.] Because of this, I think it is best to make a deal with Russia. It makes no sense to say that Russia has no case. Anyone who has done business in Ukraine knows what I mean. So for everyone's benefit a peace agreement must be made and kept.