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5.1.21

the best I saw was the Mir in NY, and Shar Yashuv was a pretty close second.

 Even though there is great good in the Litvak yeshiva world, it would be hard to point towards any kind of tribalism that I could agree with. The flaw of using a group as a guide for one's principles seems to me to be that groups have no principles, only individuals. [Besides once money got mixed up inside the world of Torah and Torah became a way to gain money and power, the juice just got drained from the battery.]] Rather it is best just to take the basic idea which is to learn Torah and leave off doctrines. That for one thing I did see as really great aspect of the Litvak world- no doctrines. Just: "Learn what learn Torah says and do it."  But the actual institutions certainly can be flawed. In any case, the best I saw was the Mir in NY, and Shar Yashuv was a pretty close second.

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4.1.21

In places like the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv, it was thought that depth learning is for the morning and fast learning for the afternoon.]

 Rav Nahman of Breslov was against learning any kind of philosophy and I can see his point being that it never comes to any kind of conclusion. You can spend a lifetime just trying to untangle the arguments and still have gotten now where. However the Kant-Fries-Leonard Nelson system has found a certain amount of grace because in it there is a justification of faith plus an accurate way of showing the limits of reason and the limits of faith.

I mean, you can see to a great degree that just Torah with no Metaphysics at all tends to be a bit too narrow. It leaves too much room for delusions in areas that are not within the strict bounds of Gemara and Tosphot. 


But as far as Rav Nathan was concerned, the opinion of Rav Nahman was also against learning science and that is far less clear based on many places in the LeM where he emphasis seeing the wisdom in all things including physical. Plus his emphasis on faith in "the wise" {LeM I:60}. And that would have to include the gedolai Sefarad like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam.


[I have to mention that the way of learning fast by saying the words and going on makes the most sense to me in this regard since not everyone is an Albert Einstein, and yet the way Ibn Pakuda and other rishonim hold this kind of learning is an obligation. So the path of fast learning is the best idea. However some sessions of review are also important, but how much to emphasize one kind of learning as opposed to the other is not clear to me. In places like the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv, it was thought that depth learning is for the morning and fast learning for the afternoon.]

3.1.21

tractate Eruvin page 37

 There seems to be some kind of doubt about what "no choice" אין ברירה means. Does that means what one will choose in the future does not reveal now what he  chooses. Or does it even mean  even right now, what one chooses does not reveal what one has chosen. 

This comes up in tractate Eruvin page 37. Rava said the reason R. Shimon said, "the statement: 'the two portions [lugin] I will choose are truma' does not help," is not because there is no choice, but because it says ראשית (the first) meaning that the left offers have to be apparent.שייריה ניכרין."

The Gemara asks on Rava, "What about the mishna where R Shimon said: "When one says, 'the truma and maasar of this stack are in it,' is considered to have called the name and place of the truma and maasar and so it is valid." The Gemara answers its own question and says there there is an area surrounding the truma and maasar and so it is considered that the left over parts are apparent.

 Tosphot asks the the same question would apply even if the reason of R Shimon in the first statement would have been because of "no choice". [So the question of the Gemara should not have been on Rava, but on R Shimon himself no matter what the reason for the first statement of R Shimon would be.]

Rav Shach asks on this question of Tosphot the the difference ought to be based on the idea that "no choice" usually refers to the future [i.e. what ones will choose in the future is considered as if he choose it now. The second statement  of R Shimon refers to a case where he says he is setting the truma and maasar right now-but it will not be revealed where there are until he actually picks them out.

Furthermore what does one do if let's say he or she is "possessed"?

Jordan Peterson  discusses ideological possession in one video which kind of set off a whole train of thoughts in me starting from Howard Bloom with the issue "social memes".

It certainly seems related to what Rav Nahman talks about with "Torah scholars that are demons" [LeM vol I ch.s 12, 28.] meaning "possessed" I guess.


Furthermore what does one do if let's say he or she is "possessed"? 

My thought about this is the idea of Rav Nahman of "hitbodadut" which means going to  a place where no one else is around and talking with God as one talks with a friend. That I think is the way Rav Nahman is thinking that it is possible to get to one's inner core or the authentic you, and shed all the layers of false ideologies that one has picked up from other people.

[Besides that, Rav Nahman has advice for every possible problem in the Sefer HaMidot. I just do not recall what he says that would help for this problem.] 

1.1.21

The problem with modern philosophy is the tactic of writing in a manner that is incomprehensible, then accusing critics of failure to comprehend, as though the fault resides with the critics rather than the original writer.

I do have a point of view in which I try to fit the good points of many different philosophers. That is basically of Plotinus (i.e Neo-Plato). So while I accept the insights of the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought, I  think about Reason as not being human reason at all,  but Divine Reason  which can be manifested in living beings to some degree.

[So I do not think human reason determines the nature of things. Rather Divine wisdom permeates Creation and determines the laws of nature.]   



But it takes a certain degree of common sense to be able to tell who really has something to say and who does not. 


The problem with modern philosophy is  the tactic of writing in a manner that is incomprehensible, then accusing critics of failure to comprehend, as though the fault resides with the critics rather than the original writer. 


So I do try to use common sense to have a consistent world view. But I do have a kind of starting place which is Plato and Plotinus. And with that context I manage to fit in the insights of the Kant-Fries-Nelson school of thought, (non intuitive immediate knowledge --faith) [but also find an important place for G.E. Moore with the fact that reason recognizes universals,  Certainly each of these schools would disagree with each other. But by means of the Plato Plotinus system I manage to fit it all in one consistent system.   But I am not arguing for this. I am simply saying my own world view for those that might care what I am thinking.

Now you might wonder from where I picked up this world view. Well in part because after school I waited for my dad to pick me up at the library and while waiting I used to read Plato. And then later I learned the Chovot Levavot [Obligations of the Hearts by Ibn Pakuda] while at the Mir in NY  and his system is neo-Platonic [i.e. Plato-Plotinus.]

Pinocchio

 Pinocchio gave his life to save his father. And he did in fact lose his life. But what kind of life was that? of a puppet? It was in fact his supreme sacrifice to save his Dad that became the cause that he became a real boy and in fact started having a true life, not the life of  a puppet.


Why does this matter? because often art precedes philosophy in insight and depth.