קטרת מבטלת ארס נחש

See (תורה לשמה (שאלה שס"ו     and see   ליקוטי ר שמשון מאסטרופולי  pg 9 ("איתא בתקונים דרשו ד, קליפות ביחזקאל וכו"


ויאמר יהוה אל-משה קח-לך סמים, נטף ושחלת וחלבנה, סמים, ולבנה זכה:  בד בבד, יהיה


משחית אף חמה

More Trig - Vilna Gaon - איל משולש

Was reading more of the איל משולש. This part just blew me away (Ayil Meshulash, 356). Hope I can write it down clearly.

First he notes that in every multiplication of fractions we have 6 items (3 numerators and 3 denominators).
Ex. a/b * c/d = e/f 

[Ex using hebrew letters:   א/ב * ג/ד = ה/ו]

[The using of the hebrew letters instead of a,b,c, etc is how the Gaon writes it and imho is a critical piece of knowledge in regard to other issues]

Now what he points out beautifully is that there are exactly only 72 ways to manipulate the equation above [a/b *c/d = e/f] while still maintaining equational balance according to the laws of mathematics. You can work it out yourself or you can look at the chart he made there (אות שנ"ו) or mine below.

Additionally, he points out, and this was the brainstorm for me, if you work out all 72 possible ways of rearranging the equation you'll find that the possibilities as to how the numbers can be rearranged and swapped among each other is actually fairly simply broken down into just 2 groups:
a,c,f   &  b,d,e   or in the hebrew    אג"ו  בד"ה

That means to say that it's impossible for an integer of one of the groups to switch places with an integer from the other group alone and for the equation to still be correct. Example:

2/3 * 6/8 =  5/10     2=a,  3=b,  6=c,  8=d,  5=e,  10=f

2,6,10  v  3,8,5  -- you can switch the 6 with the 2 or 10 but you cannot switch it with the 3,8,or 5 (without making other rearrangements) and still have the equation correct and balanced.

It sounds complicated but it's really not, it's just hard to show in a blog.

So I guess in essence what I found so intriguing about this insight is the revelation of this funny new relationship  -- אג"ו  & בד"ה

[p.s. Note the word of והי"ה only appearing in אג"ו of the עשר מכות - in דם, כנים, ושחין ]

[Made an amateurish list of the 72 expressions]

Outdated Gittin (Divorce) Process - כתיבה וחתימת גיטין

I observed 2 Gittin proceedings a couple of years ago. I was really struck by how outdated the process is in the context of our modern world and technology. When considering the core Gemara issues  from which the halachot come from it seems downright farcical some of the practices we still have in place nowadays in the כתיבת גיטין process.  A few points that readily come to mind:

• Writing the גט with a stylus (קולמוס) is fine by me but the signing of the witnesses (עדי חתימה) with a stylus makes absolutely no sense. Literally no one nowadays signs their name or even uses a stylus hence the entire concept of קיום עדי חתימה is out the window if no one can connect the witness' stylus signature with the witness!!.... I don't understand why no one sees this as an issue...
  
  Assuming one wants to continue the halachot of עדי חתימה nowadays (one could argue that modern day databases and archives could take the place of עדי חתימה particularly since we hold עדי כתיבה כרתי) it still would make alot more sense to require the witnesses to sign the Get in the same manner they sign on their financial statements-- a pen-- so that the mechanism of קיום חתימה is logically possible.

• The witnesses signing their name as Reuven ben Yaakov also could use a fine tuning. Nowadays there are a plethora of better criteria that could be used as a form of ID of a witness such as Last Name, Social Security #, fingerprint, saliva sample, etc; who in the world even references their friends or business associates by "Reuven ben Yaakov"? Again, the whole mechanism to allow for קיום עדי חתימה ceases to apply. 

• The meticulousness of writing all various names and spellings of the location of the man and woman.... wouldn't the use of the International Standard of Longitude and Latitude be a better and more precise way of  getting the point across. I mean you can still keep writing the city you're located in and all that but once you add in the Longitude and Latitude coordinates there would then be no need to further add details such as  דיתבא על נהרא פלן and the like....

All this I say while admitting the fact that my knowledge of Gittin is truly very limited and כל שאינו יודע בטיב  גיטין וקידושין לא יהא לא עסק עמהן but still I feel the issue should be raised and as yet I haven't seen it anywhere... will keep searching...

בד, לבד v. נגד, כנגד

Note the seeming superflousness in the preceding 'ל' and 'כ' of לבד and כנגד, respectively.

זהר הקדוש, ויקרא דף מ"ד ע"ב -- וכי לבדו הוה, והא כתיב, (בראשית ה) זכר ונקבה בראם. ותנינן אדם דו פרצופין אתברי, ואת אמרת, לא טוב היות האדם לבדו. אלא דלא אשתדל בנוקביה, ולא הות ליה סמך לקבליה, בגין דהות בסטרוי, והוו כחדא מאחורא, וכדין הוה האדם לבדו.

בד meaning "solitary/unitary" by itself (see Yoma 71b), לבד then does not really mean "alone" but rather "towards solitarianism/solidarity" even if being done by more than one person (see Janus' Groupthink in Sociology as an example).

The difference between נגד and כנגד being clearly obvious then:
 כנגד -  "like" or "as if to be" נגד, but in truth not נגד at all because it's ultimately towards a mutual consensus and השלמה in the larger scheme. Hence the meaning of כנגד as complementary/alongside/ parallel to.

לא טוב היות האדם לבדו אעשה לו עזר כנגדו


[Also, besides for "bad"/ בד having negative connotations in both english and persian, see שער הכוונות תפלת השחר ג that kabbalistically as well בד is related to negative realms]

פר - Separation

יישר כח to "Phil" who posted on the balashon blog here who insightfully pointed out that all forms of פ-ר having meanings of "separation" - פרק,פרש, פריקה, פרד,  מספר, פרי, אפר?, פריכה, פרת וכו

Far-reaching indeed..... מנצפ"ך

4 Parts of a Sound (קול)

From Wikipedia:

ADSR envelope

When an acoustic musical instrument produces sound, the loudness and spectral content of the sound change over time in ways that vary from instrument to instrument. The "attack" and "decay" of a sound have a great effect on the instrument's sonic character. Sound synthesis techniques often employ an envelope generator that controls a sound's parameters at any point in its duration. Most often this is an "ADSR" (Attack Decay Sustain Release) envelope, which may be applied to overall amplitude control, filter frequency, etc. The envelope may be a discrete circuit or module, or implemented in software. The contour of an ADSR envelope is specified using four parameters:

1-Attack time is the time taken for initial run-up of level from nil to peak, beginning when the key is first pressed.

2-Decay time is the time taken for the subsequent run down from the attack level to the designated sustain level.

3-Sustain level is the level during the main sequence of the sound's duration, until the key is released.

4-Release time is the time taken for the level to decay from the sustain level to zero after the key is released.
 
 
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