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14.2.11

  The modern dilemma. It is the search for meaning. With many so called "Torah" books the problem is there has to be some possibility that the author had some idea of the meaning of life.
  
  This you don't see much in Musar [books on ethics]. Musar today has de-evolved into simply psychology.
And Psychology has no coherent theory of the human being. It has one school in which man is simply matter --Skinner. Another school which is just the opposite.
  
The Litvak approach is in essence a straightforward attempt to get back to classical Torah of Talmud and the medieval Jewish thinkers. This is admirable. And it has an important ethical backbone. And that ethical part of it is important because devekut [attachment to God] is impossible without ethics.

  However there are flaws in Medieval system. These flaws were there in the first place and creating a pseudo Middle Ages --i.e. a movement to supposedly return to that type of mentality does not work.
And it's weakness is already apparent by the fact that Nietzsche has already conquered  ultra religious Judaism (by way of his messengers Weber and Freud.). You can't have a conversation with a ultra religious person without Nietzschean concepts --commitments, life-goals life-style, values, self esteem taking over.
I was having a conversation with one religious person who had never even heard of Nietzsche and had learned in Satmer his entire life, and he was trying to prove to me that the Rambam hold lack of self esteem is the source of sin--not pride. You see from this that chasidic thought has been emptied out and replaced by Nietzsche's thought.