Q&A - Working for Torah, Pleasure in Learning, and Sensing Torah (Rabbi Gottleib)(Jewish Philosophy)

okay this is q a so uh you know the floor is open yeah on the app when the fruit is taken from the tree that it's a diminishment in perspective on the world or it's a worse framework the movie metaphor was brought as in someone who knows they're watching the movie they know the horses aren't real whereas someone doesn't know that they're not watching a movie they look like they feel like they're going to be trampled to death and therefore they'll make the wrong decisions because they're seeing a false reality um I Heard somewhere before that when something is an image is black and white that we have to sort of generate the color in it it makes us work more so you have a vision of reality that's for sure inferior to color because the color has in there more of the true detail but because you have to make more of an effort to make up for it then that's something that's worthwhile that's something that increases the Merit on your part I was wondering if using that framework that kind of look at it instead of this diminishment of perspective that there's a way to kind of speak for the decision to kind of fall out of the garden whether we could bring out a merit on behalf of that choice uh let me see where you started from about this was you're talking about the tree of knowledge and then eating from the tree is a diminishment yes not falling off the tree yeah I'm trying to just trying to put it back together that's all all right so and all these things you quoted you quoted for me so I do recognize them and that's already something that shouldn't be taken for granted I don't always remember everything um so eating from the tree caused a deterioration in the whole of the creation that's that was point one now sometimes reducing let's say the information and the input that you have to deal with which would require you to provide some of that information on your own has certain beneficial effects in the case of black and white photography you become more involved with the picture because of the fact that you have to produce in your mind the colors that are missing from the actual um the photograph and that the benefit there is your psychological involvement there's a loss also because if you're asked to describe the colors of the objects some of them you're guessing you don't know I just need to know exactly but the involvement creates a benefit which at least sometimes can be worthwhile I wouldn't say that because black and white photography requires you to invest yourself more into the experience that therefore it would be a great benefit to Simply everyone become colorblind permanently I wouldn't I would recommend that I would say that in a world that's full of color and a world that has many color photographs sometimes looking at black and white photographs also gives you something which you won't get from looking into color photographs I think that's absolutely correct the same vein a book with pictures let alone comic strips which treats you like a three-year-old can't compare with books where you have to create the picture in your mind uh the involvement in the story where you're creating the picture of your mind is much greater and part of the purpose of literature is to involve you in the lives of other people if you too vicarious experience this vicariously and there's very little of that going on when you're just you know three words of your mind is asleep because it's all produced for you so I think there is a it doesn't mean we should never use color pictures we should never it is a benefit if I had to choose between a totality of color the totality of black and white I would use a talent of color the richness of the colors certainly is certainly greater now that you wanted to uh uh say that if that's the case maybe there is some benefit in eating from this you have knowledge of being expelled because then become more difficult in certain ways that is a very difficult question it's a very difficult question and it's discussed in the literature because to make your general description not very specific um there are a lot of ways to put this describe as rectifying evil finding God where he's hidden that process is an intrinsically valuable process from which it ought to follow that the more he's hidden and the more effort that you have to have to find him the more you've done and if God was much more revealed in Dunedin and he is an hour deteriorated world and if therefore the process of revealing him in the deteriorate world it's going to be a much much grander process than leaving on Eden and living in our deteriorated World means that we do more achieve more accomplish more have more credit more Merit more more self-creativity and therefore should be a net gain and that being the case God's commanding it's not thief in the tree it's either joking or itself it's self-defeating because we follow his command we're going to lose out on this extra gain that's the way in which I heard it put decades ago and I talked to people about it and within various pieces of literature about it recently trying to remember where I saw this maybe it was in the wrong how he was in the maharam the reason I saw some discussion which led to a at least a partial solution talked it over with my oldest son and he didn't think that it was totally adequate but it definitely suggestive and I think it helps clarify a little bit um the question that I just asked is based on an assumption let's say the amount of concealment in the Garden of Eden is ten percent and the goal is to get to 100 revelation so you have to overcome a 10 percent concealment now we've failed in the Garden of Eden and the world deteriorates to the point of 80 concealment now the goal is to get to 100 Revelation I've got to overcome 80 percent concealment that's much more uh revealing in the hidden it's much more rehabilitating the evil it's much more self-creativity because I'm starting from a position of much greater concealment sounds like I'm doing more accomplishing more earning more merits being more self-creative that's where the question comes from but maybe that's not the right description of the of the of the task let's suppose the description of this is Incarnation you have 10 concealment let me say 90 Revelation and the goal was to go to 100 revelation and let's suppose falling into a world of 80 concealment right the goal is to go to 70 percent not 100 Revelation but just 70 percent concealment in other than both conditions you're only overcoming ten percent you're not achieving the total revelation now overcoming all of it you're just working under different conditions but the amount of difference your effort makes isn't bigger then you won't have the conclusion that you're accomplishing more and therefore there was a good side to it and all the rest of it and a symptom of this is something which is definitely does say and that is let's look at the way the test started and where we are now and what we would have expected it was a challenge in Ghanaian tree of knowledge they failed we are now it's like taking a trip on a highway and because of a failure you now thrashing around in the forest well what should we do now what is our responsibility now you might say well you have a double responsibility first of all get out of the forest and then get back on the road and then finish the trip that would mean to have a double jog now I have to overcome the forest to get back on the road and then by getting back on the road to face the same challenge that they faced in the Garden of Eden of the tree of knowledge and this time succeeded that challenge chose to complete the journey that they started that would be a natural thing to think but it's wrong it's wrong says the only challenge that we have is to get out of the forest that's all if we get out of the forest and we restore it to the condition of the Garden of Eden from there on out it's an automatic pilot it happens by itself our challenge is only under these conditions not into those conditions that challenge is beyond it's not not a challenge anymore that's going to be taken care of because of the effort we make here so it's not as if it's added on now if it's not if it's added on you can also say that the challenge is to do a certain amount here and that's and once that's done it's all that's all our contribution is so it's not you know sort of numerically speaking it's it doesn't follow from this framework that under our condition will be doing more earning work achieving more getting more Merit it doesn't follow it could be equal that being the case um because welcome said I wanted the 10 to be achieved this way if you've failed you'll achieve the 10 that way then you could ask why he preferred this way over that way okay that's all that's all that's uh but it's not certainly not that the framework implies that by leaving gun Aiden you definitely are going to be doing more earning more creating more having more Merit no if it doesn't doesn't fall that I think that was that was progress after you know having thought about it discussed it read about it at least I realized that there's an extra assumption that I'm making there that may not be correct actually just I was I mean I know that's a very debated subject but recently I was taught that there's three steps to it here that there's let's say the thought process I want to I want to do this thing I want to do this action and there's let's say I'm going to do this action and carrying out the action you stay in the closest I don't think your definition is right I just let me learning with somebody else right now all right that doesn't matter too much anyway what about it so how much how much a cure is actually um our choice about some either way my chef knows that outcome that we're going to choose whether it's going to take place why why is it even considered that we have to hear okay well to ask that question you don't need the introduction of the three parts of a voter in the house above us that's not relevant to that right is a big champion of Free Will and he says you have three different dimensions of freedom and you get credit for each one of them separately and right so leave the leave the the what you want to know is for knowledge and Free Will that's that's what you want to know right um there are two ways to respond to that problem in our literature um there's a solution to the problem which is given by Russia and the reverse and others and there's a way to dissolve the problem which is given by the Rumba they're different they contrast to one another there could be reasons for approving for preferring one over the other but those are the two treatments that that are given in our literature I can describe them briefly to you we'll see how how it goes um let's rehearse the problem first of all precisely what exactly is the problem as you'll find in the room and other places where the problem is described in quite in in all logical detail I'm making a decision here's how it looks to me I'm trying to decide whether to do a or b it's the kind of thing I've done before sometimes I still be in this occasion I think yes these benefits those benefits I choose other way I say to myself I could have done B I chose to do the way I could have done B also in the past I've done the end of these conditions this time I did a because I chose a I had two Alternatives both open to me both possible for me and I chose one and made it real I could just as well just the other one to make it real that's the way Free Will fears feels to me now the critic says uh Godly are you religious and I said there's no other reason I would wear this hat it must be released well um you believe that God knows everything yes I do you believe he knows it before it happens yes I do now let's see Godly just a minute ago you chose A over B that's what you did do you believe that God knew yesterday what you were going to do yes I do hmm So Yesterday God knew you were going to choose a now tell me Godly if he knew yesterday you were going to choose a could you really have done B what would we need to do be now when yesterday God knew I was going to do away to do be now would mean to make God's knowledge yesterday wrong do you really have that power that's not bad you know if you can do something to make God stops wrong you're a pretty tough guy you know you get a lot of jury and going for you right clearly you don't have the power to make God's knowledge wrong falsify guys now the guys infallible can't be wrong so that means you really didn't have the power to do be notice carefully focus on this the problem of foreknowledge is not how I did what I did the problem foreign could I do what I didn't do no one's saying that because he knew I was going to do it he pushed me forced me caused me to do hey we're not talking about how I did a we're talking about did I really have be available to me also to have any alternative other than what I did so God's four knowledge yesterday they're going to do a knocks out the possibility of doing B which means they didn't have an alternative now when I think about that what do you mean I didn't have an alternative there was nothing else I could do that doesn't sound like free will Free Will seems to mean that there are two two Alternatives in front of me they're both possible for me I can make either one of them true and I may I choose one and I make it true because I chose it and the other one if I had chosen it I would be the one that I that I made through that picture of Free Will seems to be contradicted by God's foreknowledge Again The crucial thing to focus on is foreknowledge is not a challenge to how you do what you do for now it's a challenge too there was something else you could have done that you didn't do that's the challenge that foreknowledge has for free will are we clear so far okay now the solution points out that the problem is based on a hidden assumption under the table that they don't tell you clearly and once you take that assumption from out from under the table and you put it on the table you realize that maybe there's a different way of describing things then the problem goes away let's let's try it again I have I my picture is I have a and I B I could do a I could do B it's my decision to make the difference and I chose a since in fact I really chose a yesterday God knew that I'm going to choose a now we ask could I have done B let's think what am I asking about in the real world I get a and the real world God knew that I was going to do a that's a real world I'm asking about whether there's some other possibility that didn't happen won't happen right it's just what we call today a virtual a virtual world something that you make up and does that virtual world make sense so be keep in mind that what I'm going to talk about whether I could do me or not I'm not talking about what happened I'm not talking about the real world I'm talking about a virtual world where other things happen and whether that virtual world makes sense so here's how I go what about the possibility what we call in philosophy a possible world or virtual world in which I do be what would that world be like does it make sense to say that there's this world in which I do B rather than a and here comes the critic and says well listen what's that world it got in it what's that world like remember in the real world yesterday he knew you were going to do a so says the critic in that virtual world we're thinking about where you do be yesterday you have to put in that he knew a H now you're going to be in trouble you got a single World in which yesterday he knows a and today you do B that can't happen wait a second hold on we're not talking about the real world we're talking about that possible world maybe when you think of the possible World in which I actually do be then yesterday you should put in that he knows I'm going to do B who says you put in there that I knows I'm gonna do a why did you transfer why did you transfer the knowledge of you yesterday of a from my world to the possible world you're thinking about a world in which I do be which I didn't do in this world maybe in that world the yesterday hasn't it be instead of a who told you to put a in there no no this was that he knows all together but that's knowing possibilities no reality are both knowledge and he has all knowledge he has knowledge of all the possibilities and he has knowledge of the realities we're talking about two different worlds the real world is a world in which the things that actually happen in history happen and the possible world is something else which didn't happen won't happen never be just we're asking whether it was possible so now when I talk about being possible I say let's consider the possibility of doing B and I ask Will that contradict what happened yesterday which yesterday in the real world we're not talking about the real world we're talking about another world in which I do be maybe the yesterday in that other world will have an it be not a who says you put your transfer a to there we're changing the outcome on today's picture from B from A to B maybe when we do that we should change the yesterday from A to B also and then there's no contradiction so once you hear that the the critic has got to fill in the yesterday in that possible world and he fills it in by copying it from here you can ask why should you copy it from here why who says it's the right way to fill it in now I can make it more concrete Bertrand Russell who was a lifetime atheists and anti-religious said don't try to beat up the religious believer with this problem of our knowledge of free will because it's a very simple solution imagine God yesterday I chose today to do a yesterday God knows that I'm going to do this today how does he know how does he know that well here's the suggestion he knows it by taking a sneak peek at the future say come on peaking at the future we're talking about God now right not you and not Philip either talking about God and he can see he could be picking the future so his guide yesterday at seven o'clock oh there he is deciding to an A and B let's see what he does ah he chose a that's it he did a now I know yesterday what he's going to do he gets his knowledge from my action my action causes his knowledge if that's what's going on then we imagine a world in which I do B we have to imagine God in that world also sneaking a peek at the future and seeing what I do and he's going to see that I do be and therefore the day before he's going to know that I'm going to be that a because he gets his knowledge from my actions so this means that the critic has simply made an assumption which he cannot justify that when he asks whether I could do b or not he puts into it of course I'm keeping constant the idea that he knows a and then his knowing hey you're doing me is a contradiction who told you to keep that constant who told you to put that into the picture that's the solution and that solution is is logically consistent if of course you assume it's appropriate to describe God as um observing my actions and thereby getting his knowledge some people don't like that drum up in particulars against that tooth and nail but some people are aren't bothered by that now what I'm going to say now I have said for I don't know 20 years I saw basically in the reverse but I saw it now happened to be learning the Derek Heim which is the maharaja's commentary on percivals and the first mission of the second chapter he says what I'm going to say now word for word it's as if I had read it that I didn't read it but it's there word for word the descriptions in our literature of God's knowledge our descriptions of seeing God sees man's actions God sees the future the descriptions of seeing the vocabulary is vocabulary of C is it literal isn't it literal he doesn't have eyes and ears he doesn't have legs and shoulders okay fine okay I know we all know that song in this right and it doesn't have to be literal and so on and so on but that's the description those that's the vocabulary that's used that is the description of getting his knowledge from the action so you would have uh strong just and this is what the morale says he States this illusion he States it in very very lymphatic terms that the literature treated as God's perceiving it and since he's perceiving it then if you had chosen differently you he would have perceived what you chose differently and it's not going to be any contradiction of thinking could I have done B sure I could have done B and if I had done B then he would have known it was going to do B because he gets his knowledge of what I do by watching me do it so that's the solution which as I say many people uh accept that's as I said a moment ago dependent upon assuming so it's appropriate to talk about God getting his knowledge from what we do the Ramba in the guide of the Perplexus against that tooth and nail he talks about now of course it was written Arabic and I'm not fluent in Arabic for that you have to talk to um but in the Hebrew translation it's he paulus means being affected by and the Roman says at least six times that God has not affected by anything outside of himself true I think four out of the six times he says if he were affected by something outside of himself he would change we don't allow the idea of God's changing but twice he simply says being affected by is ruled out it's just not um not appropriate to speak a lot about being affected by it well to say that God gets his knowledge of what I do by observing me do it is his being affected in spades now as we say Hebrew I do it am I doing it causes him to nobody knows I'm looking into the future knowing what you're going to decide watching me decided and I didn't say anything in that same moment they're going to get in trouble with time talk that's what that let's leave that aside for the moment we can do it but let's leave it everything all at once and he looks from yesterday today watches me choose a that's how he knows that I choose a that's right he's staying here yesterday and looking at today right now we're looking at it don't give me right now I'm not interested in that right that's that's another now from another time perspective let's move the future is what we're going to choose yeah that's it I don't know why you I why are you avoiding my vocabulary he sees us choosing in the car moment right I know what the current moment I mean I do it when I do it yeah of course I do it when I do it I don't do it when I don't do it I mean that's that's just what we call a tautology right of course I do it when I do it the moment there isn't going to help you it's not going to give you any information you didn't have right he sees me doing it he sees me making the choice and doing the action and that's how he knows the choice that choice that I make and the action that I do he knows it by seeing me do it which means my doing it causes his knowledge just like right now if I raise my hand you know I raise my hand because you saw me do it my raising my hand gave you the photons to your to your retina and that's how you know this yeah that I did it because my action caused you to know that I did it he and that's the model of not a vision vision is I do it he's watching and when I do it that causes him to know what I'm doing so if the Rambo is against the idea of God's being affected and this has to be taken carefully because maybe I'll go into that if we have time later but all right uh just put the note of caution can't God shouldn't be affected knowing what I do by seeing me do it and that my action causing this knowledge is certainly being affected by so the Romans going to reject this solution and indeed and the guy out of the products part 3 chapter 17. are almost a long chapter on Divine Providence and he's describing there among other things one of this Arabic schools of philosophy and he says these people believe that God knows everything and also that man has Free Will and a little thought will reveal to you that that's a contradiction period so what he says in the in the laws of chuva and detailed everything else but there he says it's simply a contradiction it's end of story so he's not going to accept this solution because he will not accept the idea that God is affected by anything outside of him his attitude towards the problem is to deny that it's a problem that you can even raise and he does that by pointing out that for other reasons we deny that God has any qualities the qualities with which we describe the world none of them apply to God God is beyond Transcendence infinite if you like well that word has 16 different meanings um he's beyond all conceptional understanding or description and particularly has no qualities so we're not going to talk about God's knowledge knowledge is equality he doesn't have any qualities oh don't worry that doesn't mean he's ignorant ignorance is also equality we're not going to say he knows I'm not going to say he's ignorant we just don't you know do something very unjewish he says stop talking you can't talk about God at all so if our problem was a contradiction between Free Will and God's knowledge and we stop talking about God's knowledge you don't have two things to have a contradiction between them because this one we don't talk about it anymore That's What I Call dissolving the problem not solving the problem but dissolving the problem you get to this position where you can't raise the problem because remember won't give you the vocabulary to say the words to raise the problem I you'll ask me well how does that mean I'm not going to describe God at all isn't the literature filled with hundreds of descriptions of God the written bible or thousand pages and the Tom the two talmuds and the midrashes don't we have hundreds and hundreds of descriptions of God my mind at least takes care of that part one chapter 54 where he says we don't describe what God is they only describe what he does that we can describe you gotta describe what he is knowledge is something about what he is we don't describe that at all so that being the case the problem of foreign problem for the Rama because it's based on pretending that you understand something that you don't pretending that you can understand what God's qualities are and that's just a mistake that's two ways to deal with the problem okay that's uh this is recorded many times I've done this many times if you go back too far in history you'll get you'll see where I did it wrong I used to think there were four four approaches I read the chuva of the reverse I realized that there's much better philosophy that I am and that's not a surprise they're really only two two uh two ways to handle it and by the way if they tell you that God's outside of time that's true but it doesn't help it doesn't help it's not relevant to the the questions yes in the back partner business okay I I don't know if I mentioned this clearly but I'm not an expert in in in law and It's Tricky it can be done but It's Tricky there are certain conditions you have to set up to make it permissible divide the prophets and say he'll take the Saturday prophets that I'll take oh I'm sorry Jews massage I Jews McConnell Shabbos that's even more tricky I don't know I don't know I I mean I know from experience use own shares and companies in which other Jews own shares and the other Jews don't have to be Michelle and that sense of two out of many partners in owning the business and they're all sharing the profits so but I don't know any more than that it's a very tricky question yeah so the idea that I did because I don't meaning I could say I don't think the top potential I'm just giving me as an example right to become let's say a guttle right so maybe for me you can always say that that maybe I won't be able to get a lot of money that would be able to share as well but me put my status there and work to give it to someone who who has their cerebral potential another point on that is that um that that question from relationship he said he said the ES but you will you won't um you'll be using on this one right that's what for Christmas okay okay let's uh I'd like to see us inside before we talk about what he said but the question you asked is a very important question and it's based on an assumption which I think is an incorrect assumption um Yeshiva Koval teller study is not an investment in Taurus scholarship to produce more literary works of Jewish scholarship that's not what it's about it's about doing the Commandment of the creator is that a surprise shouldn't be a surprise we really should be doing God's Commandments shouldn't we now what is the Commandment of Torah well you make a blessing on on the midst of Torah every morning and what it says there is last sake to occupy ourselves with words of Torah doesn't say to understand and to um insights and so on and so on is to be occupied with the words of Torah and Hashem the way of God says in his chapter on automator that the entire reward that you get for satama Torah is the effort that you put in the histabus not for the results and we say when we finish a tractate and we celebrate as a long paragraph that the person recites and one of the things he says there is we make effort and those who are not studying and learning Torah make effort we make effort and we receive reward and they make effort they don't get reward asks what are we talking about here I said we're talking about a Shoemaker now in those days a Shoemaker made you choose you came in he measured your foot and he made your shoes didn't have 400 boxes of shoes picked down one to fit you would say goodbye okay so uh what do you mean we uh we work and receive reward and he works and doesn't reserve your word he takes your measurements he makes you a shoe you come in and you pay for it but it works doesn't get reward instead of the club is kind but he takes your measurements it makes the shoe and it doesn't fit what then well you don't pay it right I mean it doesn't fit you can't wear it see he worked he made an effort but he doesn't get paid what's the comparison to study of Torah you sit with your ex for a week this way and that way this way in that way and you don't get it you don't get what choices means do you get a reward yes you do yes you do because the Mitzvah is to be occupied with Torah the Mitzvah is to make an effort to learn Torah that's the Mitzvah that being the case that's what you get that's the reward that you get so to say I'm not going to be a goggle I'm not going to create new to our ideas or embody total understanding and graspatory maybe my time in Yeshiva isn't worth it or even is worth less even worth less that's not true that's not true it may be and the best case that that girl is learning 14 hours a day and you're learning 14 hours a day he has his background he has his Brilliance he has his memory and you have the much weaker resources because you start if you're both learning 12 hours a day you'll both get the same reward the fact that he turns out great Torah ideas and you don't has nothing to do with the reward that you're getting and that being the case the reward is an indication of the importance of the activity to August broken so it doesn't follow that you should give up your time in Yeshiva for him or for anybody else certainly not to say my I'm better off making more money and supporting other people that that certainly it doesn't follow there might be other considerations which one could use to but the fact that the quality of your automotoro isn't on that high level does not mean that the quality of your Mitzvah is worth any less that's very very important yeah I'm the the by the way I just want to say if you look at the 26th chapter of the of the uh the path of the just or straight he describes the top spiritual level that a person can achieve which is hasidus no it has nothing to do with fur hats and you know on silk coats um and casino is the closest relationship the code is broken that you can have and he says the concept of hassiris is one although its expression depends upon your circumstance and it gives three examples someone's whole life is learning and teaching Torah someone who has an independent business and someone who's a hired laborer all three of them can be hasidim in his sense it's the same concept it's the same achievement it's just under different circumstances so say that his actions are his form the operation of looking into the future to see what I will do and then maybe altering things now appropriately without compromising that and then meanwhile his Essence has already said everything in motion to unfold as it will unfold we say his actions are him but maybe a distinction we can make between the actions in himself is one that the actions can be affected and they can shift according to circumstances but whatever part of him that institutes them that is the part that is unwavering it cannot adjust okay the end of it I think is is clear I must tell you I have taught this for 50 years and I always say listen in the case of knowledge foreknowledge and free will talk about God knowing the picture here doesn't involve action doesn't involve doing anything he knows he could no one be just a passive Observer and the problem will rise just the same way as it arises right for God's actions there are other problems there are philosophical and maybe I used to say maybe if you put together knowledge and action and and deal with them simultaneously maybe there could be another problem it could be but we're one second we're talking only about foreign knowledge and Free Will and I Hold On and and I've showed you how to solve that and I I used to say that uh as a kind of open possibility that hadn't Explorer in the lists a year or so I started exploring it I think there is another problem I think there is a problem which is even from the point of view who thinks they can solve the problem of foreign will I think the problem of foreknowledge and free action may be insoluble even according to them that's my current state of thinking which doesn't doesn't answer for tomorrow but is it my current state of thinking so you started off now with action that's a new dimension that's a new dimension I'm realizing how tricky it is and I don't have any subtle thoughts on it I'm thinking about it but that's why I don't want to get into that because I think there's a lot that needs to be clarified there but in terms of what you said at the end I think that's 100 right I hinted when I when I said that um uh the idea of his not being affected by is a tricky idea I sort of made an apology there I'll tell you now what I what I what I meant then someone says my mind he says God it's not affected by what we do what about reward and Punishment somebody wouldn't punishment if I do a Mitzvah I get a reward if somebody does an Avera he gets a punishment so it's my doing the Mitzvah that generates the reward and it's his doing the very generous the punishment it does not mean that he's affected by what I do and then what the Rama was saying would be just blatantly wrong well reward and punishment is that one of the fundamental beliefs of the Jewish religion but it's not it's not it's like you're saying it's not a cash elected always says because God has a principle of how he interacts with the world exactly what you said God has a principle and how we act directs the world let's say overly simplistic mitzvos get get reward and a various gay punishment and now when somebody does a Mitzvah he triggers this part of the rule on sevens in a very triggers that part of the rule and the rule stays the same the rule is unchanging the rule of how to deal with the world is conditional on what conditions take place in the world and when these conditions occur they trigger this response there's no change in him because he is the rules not not the responses so that's exactly right there's that unchanging constancy that's behind what the events that take place but the constancy involves rules that are conditional on the the circumstances that take place I think I think that's genuine that's that's really good yeah and the only thing I left out is that the part of him that is that is consonants it's generating the rules that part we can say it doesn't have knowledge we don't talk about that so we can we can escape also foreknowledge on that front somewhat I think that's absolutely right that's that's the part that we can't describe by the way is my oldest son put it when we talked about them within the decades ago and if you look at the rhombus vocabulary very carefully the I think the right way to describe it is this he doesn't have what we call knowledge but he can do everything that we do with knowledge he isn't less than we are because he doesn't have our knowledge he's more than we are not less so um just so he can do everything that we do with knowledge it's just that he doesn't use knowledge to do it and if you want a an analogy maybe you know what a synthesizer is it's a machine that produces musical notes and although some instruments are a failure the newest um electronic means for creating the sound of violins is recorded violin music they failed to do it mechanically in terms of the physical and announced but take a clarinet or a saxophone which is much easier the notes are much much less rich and you can do that with a synthesizer right now somebody doesn't know about synthesizer here's this he says I hear a saxophone no you don't you're a saxophone sound produced not by a saxophone and you don't know what's producing you wouldn't understand it if I explained it to you so the synthesizer can do what the saxophone does but not the way the saxophone does it God can do everything that we do with knowledge just as news knowledge to do it that's the way to put it yeah one of the most enjoyable things that like if you do it the right way I guess is that it's impossible to have a massage I mean in my head I don't know you do hear some things like that in some literature but I'd have to see how it's expressed it strikes me as overly General um saving a life or a Novi carrying out what a krishborg who tells them to do these are less inherently less joyous than learning Torah could it be so for certain people maybe enough other people I don't know I don't know the inherently less choice um we asked the curtisborough to make the words of Torah sweet in our mouths I'm going to do that for any of them part of the brother in the morning in our mouths to itself was it just like I look at the tennis player why does he love it because that's what he does and that's where these profession is or it could be that voice Professor because that's what he loves because he's good at it it's not maybe just what it is in a sense or there's something specific I think that's probably not a not a correct way of representing the the tennis player I don't think that if you had his strength and if you had his coordination and you make very well have the ability to have it or have something similar to it that you would get pleasure out of it as well I think it's quite reasonable to think that uh having the same bodily makeup in the same general psychological makeup would mean that you're capable of similar Pleasures unless something's stopping you like weak legs there or something you know that was that was something else I think that some literature like the Tanya would say that when you're learning Torah you are absorbing so to speak the thoughts of the Creator into your mind your whole being now as a vehicle for the expression of the thoughts of Torah and since your mind is in a certain sense the highest part of you and your mind is totally absorbed into its relationship with Torah that would produce a very very specific kind of pleasure but let me take an extreme example and I'm saying this probably for the recording of people are going to think about this let's take Moses say Torah to the Jewish people that's studying it getting new insights into it and stuff and so on and as described in our literature as Shrine the screen of God's presence is speaking through his throat he's the vehicle through which God's not um uh words reach the people I can imagine the the joy in in that in that process being greater even than grasping in the river maybe some other people disagree with me but it seems to me that probably you know probably and what about prophecy in general having prophecy prophecy says the greatest vacuous the greatest connection with this world who is prophecy of all prophets other than Moses when they had prophecy they lost complete control of their bodies and their minds I don't think he could be working on the under those conditions person say well I know the prophecies you know at the 10 o'clock but I'm going to base matches I'll skip it I don't think so doesn't sound reasonable to me that he would do that um I think you have to be careful there are certain great merits that tamater has and the certain uh descriptions of its greatness and you have to know how to read those descriptions not read them as if you're nine years old and you took every word literally and simplistically um things have to be seen in context as the famous about about the Shema and you'll be told that means studying it to know what it means says that and he quotes a rush who says that but it is what you hear because when the Shema is described by the rambam in the 10th chapter of philosopher as Shima means doing it out of love of the master the Creator who commanded item is not disagreeing with the rambam no Surrey the Shema in every Mitzvah is to do it because of this world who created out of love of the creator in addition to that there's another element in thermator and that is to want to know what it says not just to be occupied but the occupation being should be an effort to know and understand what it says and that also goes by the name leshma doesn't contradict the rambam not the Russians in exactly the same way the children has to be the Holy Spirit or it's stuck has been done there's another thing in addition so you have to be very careful to take what you read and put it in context and compare it with other examples and uh and to see what you know talk about Joy you have those on the holidays could there be a special dimension of simcha in tamato that you don't have another thing that for sure that for sure but you didn't ask about a special Dimension you asked whether it's more than that's a very tricky judgment very tricky judgment that would be very cautious to say that you could measure you know yeah I mean and I'm sure that it has different descriptions that I'm not aware of but I gave you the one from the balotanya that your mind is united with so to speak and is the mind is the highest element in what you are so then it is you know it you know it it it's it's it elevates and and purifies and connects the mind with the with the Creator that you don't have with something else but isn't the mind you know because I'll say um worse is the thought of doing the crime than doing the crime itself you have to be so careful let's see now okay so on this side I have thought thinking of doing the crime and over here I'm doing the crime tell me something when you do the crime you weren't thinking of course you were that's why you did it so when you do the crime it includes the thinking well a can't be bigger than a plus b that's not possible it means when you talk about the crime there's the thinking of the crime and then there's the doing minus the thinking of the crime split into the two halves you split into two hands the thinking is worse than the physically carrying out not taking the thinking into account okay fine why says the rumbum because when you think you are polluting the highest element in you so if you compare the thinking which pollutes the highest element versus just the bodily performance there's a certain sense in which the thinking is worse because it involves the high the the the the the the the higher element in you but that's a dimension to talk about it globally as being more important than all the other dimensions is very very tricky especially since especially since just to give you a little perspective there are several different mixes about which we say this Mitzvah is equal to all the other midsomes now mathematically that's going to be very very difficult a is equal to BCD and E and also B is equal to a c d and e that's not now contradiction unless some of them are zero right you can't beat both both that way and that's what it said so it means a is equal to them in one dimension and B is equal to the others in a different dimension that's how you solve it everything is dimensions nothing is global nothing's global my my motto is if you ask a question you get a simple answer it's wrong nothing's really simple yeah last question I have to go so prescribing to see or hear I wonder what's what's there between those for us so when what's coming to mind is like we have um not safe in Israel that will listen in part C and I and then when the other thing that really kind of Burns in my mind is when avraham doesn't have to sacrifice Isaac he passes his test he says he names a place Hashem era a maybe I'm getting the okay so that's the moment so he says Hashem is seen then so I want to understand how we mean hearing versus scene there's a very very important very difficult deep question I've thought about this many many times I described the project which I think would be a wonderful project you'd just like to take hummus there are certain things which you are told to see now other things we're told to hear although the word to hear means to to understand also it's very tricky or be careful about when you use it Hebrew also means to understand um and there's so there are some things you're told to see something you're told to hear and there's some things that you're told to both see and hear that's three categories it would be a fascinating study to first of all collate all of it make lists of what they are to try to find some element some some common element in the three for each of the three categories how they relate to one another I think that would be a great great study someone like a Hirsch would have to do something like that yeah but thanks to be acknowledged all the places where they're all the commentaries and everything else but I think it's a very very important the Oneness because it said are both hearing and seeing both hearing answer and how Xeno it's true so I don't have a good answer to your question I could say here and there but it's a fascinating fascinating category it should really be done thank you very much