to get through the two Talmuds

Simchat Torah is the best time to make a commitment to get through the two Talmuds with all the commentaries-every day to do a few pages with Rashi, Tosphot and Maharsha.  Beside that to do a few in depth sessions with the Reb Chaim of Brisk [Chidushai Harabam] and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.

the Talmud asks since only the light of Torah can bring a person to the revival of the dead, [as is mentioned in the verse -טל תורה מחייה אותו that the dew of Torah will ring a person to be revived at the time of the revival of the dead] then how can women merit to a portion in the next world [since women are not obligated in the commandment to learn Torah -    so they get no reward by doing so]. The Gemara answers by bringing up their children to learn Torah and waiting for their husband to return from the study hall.

 I was looking at the Gate of Intentions by Rav Chaim Vital about Sukot, and it mentions there the importance of repentance on the night of Hoshana Raba. [The 7th day of Sukot after midnight] That is when the memo is given to the angels that was sealed on Yom Kipur. There it says there is still hope to repent before the angel of judgment gets the memo. But how to repent or on what to repent is the question. The most obvious answer is to learn Musar [books of ethics].  This is because every person is on their own path and can't know what they are doing wrong except by seeing what others do wrong. כל הפוסל במומו פוסל, all who cancel cancel with their own defect. SO only by seeing what is wrong with others, can one see what is wrong with himself.

 There is a fine line between exploitation and a  legitimate structuring of society. A hierarchy of a group is a natural phenomenon in all mammals and ants and lobsters.   To see all hierarchy as exploitation is a mistake. But there can be exploitation also--and often it is not easy to see the difference. You need a balance as the ancient Romans had figured out when there was a peasant rebellion, and instead of making war against them, someone had the brilliant idea of creating institutions that would insure the lives and liberties of the people while leaving the patricians in power to insure law and order. Thus was created the office of the tribune.

    Everyone has a place and just because one is low in the hierarchy  that does nor mean he or she is exploited. But there is a line that can be crossed. The advantage of  some systems is they give one the chance to excel based on ability and competence--not birth.

 I am not doing much in depth learning nowadays, but just occurred to me at the beach to ask an obvious question. With a gift we say that if the external circumstances show it was given with a mistaken assumption, then the gift is invalid--even though it was signed and sealed in a legitimate court of law according to halacha. To Tosphot [Ketuboth 37] this applies also to sales. But a forced sale is valid. You might answer that in a forced sale, there is no mistake about the circumstances. But even in the first case, it seems that the mistake in circumstance also ''forced'' the sale.

What I mean here you can see in a few examples. Let's say a person has heard that his son died in a faraway country, and then signs away all his property. Then we discover that his son is alive. We say that gift is invalid. 

But if someone ties up a person, and forces him to sign a document of a sale, that sale is valid- since we say because of the circumstances, he really did intend for the sale to be complete and valid. 

     Even though a lot of the woke and gender insanity depends on the Frankfurt School, that does not mean that Kant and Hegel had nothing to say of importance. Rather it is indicative of where philosophy  went wrong after them. And there were a lot of false leads and trails that veered off into lunacy. But it is hard to get to some sort of '''' birur'' [separating the wheat from the chaff].   High I.Q. does not seem to help much, since the philosophy professors in the USA universities are very smart.  [The highest I.Q.s in universities are the physics and math students and teachers, while the lowest are the teachers in the psychology departments.] 

 My son Izhak held with the importance of Rav Nahman of Breslov but in the way that many do so in the Litvak yeshiva world--that is to accept many of his major principles but not to take it all--especially when it seems not to apply to some present situation.  And I would have to agree with this. After all you do not see real Torah learning except in the Litvak Yeshiva World. and there are clearly no real Torah scholars outside of the Litvak world. 

 You can see in some of the books on ethics from the middle ages the synthesis of faith with reason. But this was not universal. The dividing line seems to be the Geonim from Saadia Gaon down through the Obligations of the Hearts until the Rambam. On the other side [against secular studies] are Rav Hai Gaon Tosphot and the Ramban. 

 But even the side that held with the importance of learning physics and metaphysics there are some differences. Ibn Gavirol went with Plato.In fact his book on platonic philosophy was widely used as an introduction to Plato. And even the system of Ibn Pakuda [author of Obligations of the Hearts] was neo platonic. But Rambam clearly thought Aristotle was superior. [I don't mean that Plato and Aristotle are the end. Rather philosophy did make progress in Plotinus, Kant, Fries, Leonard Nelson.]

[There is a way for everyone to become an expert in Physics and Mathematics; that is mentioned in the gemara tractate Shabat pg 63--to say the words and go on. This is called ''bekiut'' in Litvak yeshivot, but it is not meant tor replace in depth learning, but as a supplement. Even so when Rav Nahman learned in this fast way, it was I think a major part of his learning. See Conversations of Rav Nachman 76 where it is brought that he said in the few minutes in the morning before the morning prayer, began he would go through four pages of the Shulchan Aruch with all the commentaries, i.e., Shach, Taz, Pri Chadash, Beer Hagola etc.