I was in the Breslov place nearby today and that is why I was listening as they were learning the LeM  vol II perek 7. The interesting thing is that Rav Nahman holds that by saying the words that one is learning the learning enters the mind.

But this saying of the words does not have to be aloud. It can also be in a whisper. But the words need to be said. If I had known this in high school I might have gone into physics or math. After all this method of saying the words and going on would have helped me enormously. But I was not aware of this method at that time.

People in philosophy tend to lose common sense

People in philosophy tend to lose common sense. I am not sure why this is. Maybe it is because they are so smart that they start to build in their minds all these strange utopias in the sky. They think "If only we could make the perfect classless society like Marx, then everyone would have plenty of stuff.] They tend to forget the Marx was tried. It did not result in plenty of stuff. The reason why Marx was never attractive for me  was that I had heard in school about the scientific method. That is: that no matter how wonderful an idea sounds and is worked out in every detail, still if it predicts a certain result and that result does not come to pass, the theory is wrong.

The same goes for psychology. After trillions of dollars of government money, have they ever cured even one single person of anything? If you want to make someone insane, send him to a psychologist.

[ I thought to add here one point. That is this is why the Friesian School of Kelley Ross has always impressed me very greatly--because not just that his approach based on Kant, Fries and Nelson has some major advances in philosophical thought but also he seems to be the only philosopher with common sense. (I am not sure why this is.  I am thinking that mainly the great thing about this approach is more based on Ross than on Fries or Nelson. It is as if Ross went to collect the important points of Fries and then the important points of Nelson and Schopenhauer and made his own structure. He calls it the Friesian School. But it seems like a vast improvement on Fries or even Nelson.]

Why is Fries important? Because of the thing in itself. The question about this is if we can not know anything about it then we can not know it exists. So Hegel simply said we can know about it because our minds are all part of Logos.(There is no dinge an sich because all Being is rational) [Neo Platonism ] Fries said we know the thing in itself by means of a kind of knowledge that is not by reason nor by the senses. So we know about electrons that they exist and also properties based on mathematics and Physics which also have to start with basic axioms that can not be proved. 

LeM of Rav Nahman

 In the LeM of Rav Nahman of Breslov [and Uman] it is brought [vol II. perek 7] that R. Eliezer was on the level of son, while R.Yehoshua was on the level of servant. That is to say there is a tzadik who serves God on the level of son and another who serves God on the level of servant. And the level of son is איה מקום כבודו [like the question the serafim angels ask: "Where is the place of His Glory?"] The level of serving God like a servant is on the level of מלוא כל הארץ כבודו [that is the statement of the ophanim angels: "The whole world is full of his glory."] 

And there Rav Nahman explains that even the tzadik who serves God on the level of son should still be aware of the level of "The whole world is full of his glory." And the tzadik that serves God on the level of servant should also be aware of the question "Where is the place of His Glory?" which shows when one reaches a higher level in the service of God, the more he knows how much more of a way there is to go. 

I think this balance is a lesson for each person. Even as we gain in understanding in Torah, we ought to retain the knowledge of how far we really are. And yet not be so discouraged as to think progress in impossible.

I have not tried to object strongly to the practice in Israel of using Torah to make money. The reason is that it seems if you would simply come at the end of the month and give to each person a monthly salary then no one would learn. Still the way of having the young men in kollel take exams to show they went over the material seems to be that that is forcing them to use Torah to make money. I find it hard to object to this practice but I myself found it so repulsive that I left the kollel system for this exact reason.  

I said to my wife that, "We will trust in God and he will help us. But if it ever comes to a situation where there is no parnasa [means of a living]I will find an honest job rather than use Torah to make money."

[In fact, I find the whole profession of using Torah to make money highly odd. And I think the Torah they learn has no blessing in it.

[This is besides the fact that young people can be convinced that the the  teachers of Torah that use Torah to make their living are all righteous and all the secular Jews and gentiles are all wicked. However that is only because young people do not have much experience with any of these groups. They assume the religious world is righteous, not from experience but from what they have been told. However, as is well known, the truth is very different.   Even by the most rigorous standards of Torah, we find many gentiles willing and anxious to extend a helping hand to you, and many religious that will use you for their own interests until you are no longer of any use to them. So if we look at the standards of Torah, we find many secular Jews and gentiles much more righteous than any of the religious. 

However I might take down this blog entry since I would not want to disparage the importance of learning and keeping Torah. Rather I would hope t encourage others to come to midot tovot {good character}. It is just that  religious people as a rule seem to be  very far from human decency. It seems they think they can get away with this fraud to pretend tp be righteous  since young people do not know any better and have no real experience with them. 

Even though most women never become zavot [women who have seen blood after the first seven days],

 Even though most women never become zavot [women who have seen blood after the first seven days], still I wonder why there is no mention of "מים חיים" [live waters-- or river or spring]in their case? I mean to say- that the law of the Torah is a nida [the regular monthly cycle] sits seven days and goes into a collection of water [a place where rain water has collected.] Still there is a custom to sit seven clean days.. Seven clean days is for a zava. So if you are worried about a zava (even if you are pretty sure she is not a zava) then why not require a spring or river? At least be consistent. If she is a zava? Fine. Have her wait seven clean days and send her to a spring or sea. If she is just a nida, then why wait seven days? Make up your mind.

I think the most basic problem in Kant is that we know nothing about electrons, photons, other people, etc.

 The basic approach of the Torah is Neo Platonic as you can see in the Chovot Levavot [Obligations of the Hearts] by Ibn Pakuda. [Also Saadia Geon, the Rambam and Ramban and all other rishonim that I am aware of] But this needs modification because it is based somewhat on Aristotle. Now with all due respect to Aristotle, there are some issues that need addressing as Berkeley noticed. There is nothing in the sharpness of the knife that enters into the human brain to give it the idea of sharpness. There is nothing in the heat of the fire that comes into my head to give me an idea of hotness. You go back and forth on these issues until you get to Kant and Hegel. But going back to the straight Neo Platonic view is impossible. So you are left with who was right? Kant or Hegel?

Maybe this will be like the problems between Plato and Aristotle that also had no resolution until Plotinus came up with the Neo Platonic school. May that is how things will eventually work out between Kant and Hegel. It seems each has some things right, and some things not so right. So until a new Plotinus comes along, I think we are stuck.

{I can imagine you can look up the problems in each. Critics abound. But just for one example of a problem in Kant. The mind imposes the categories on the phenomenological world. OK. But whose? My mind? Yes. Your mind? Yes. Lots on minds imposing all their rules on the world. There is something odd about that. Plus, the other issue that a central proof in the Critique is to show from the fact of time ordering events in the mind, Kant gets to time ordering events in the world. Well, no. That is Relativity. Problems with Hegel on the other hand also abound. Mostly because of his political views which in fact seem a bit hard to swallow. The individual is not a microcosm of the state. The only way a well ordered state can function is by division of powers. Not the king, not the parliament, not even the people have all the powers. Examples abound when one of these gets the upper hand what goes wrong. But the individual is just the opposite.  I would rather my heart not be working against my lungs. The individual works only when everything is working together. The state is just the opposite.  

I think the most basic problem in Kant is that we know nothing about electrons, photons, other people, etc. That is the very reason I had to write "phenomena" instead of "appearances". All we know about are the image of electrons in our minds. I this so obvious? Would it not take a lot of evidence to show that we know nothing about electrons, only our concept or electrons? Lacking any definite proof, would it not make sense to say that we know E=mc^2 about actual electrons, not just the ones in our minds.

This was the exact point of Hegel. This was later taken up by Michael Huemer and the Intuitionists. But they diverge from Hegel in other points.]

Would not physics seem to be about actual electrons? Not just the appearances on our heads? I thought Physics is telling us something about electrons and the Schrödinger equation. Not just he ones I have in my head. I after all I a not smart enough to have come up with the Schrodinger equation all on my own. No in my conscious nor in my subconscious. So why should those poor electrons worry about what I think? Besides the fact that I could not have come up with the Schrodinger equation even if I had thought nut i a thousand years. Would t t]have giv3n  chance to those poor miserable electrons some toe to have fun until I cam along with my preconceived ideas anpoiyt ow they ought to behave

Trust without effort.]

 Trust in God is a difficult issue to know when it applies. On one hand when I was about to go to Shar Yashuv [a great Litvak yeshiva in NY and now I have heard that there is one in Israel also], my parents were saying that they thought most people going to a yeshiva were doing so in order to make that into a profession. And I was claiming that "No. They are learning Torah for its own sake."

 And as far as the Litvak world of Yeshivot based on the Gra I think it is clear that I was right.

But since then this issue of trust in God has always been a difficult issue to figure out.

Before I got married I mentioned this issue to my father in law (Bill Finn) and he agreed totally with me. Trust in God is everything and carries the day. 

[By that time I was at the Mir, and I think I must have been aware of Navardok. Trust without effort.]