On the subject of fear of God. On my last essay here I talked about how important it is. But I did not mention some of the pitfalls involved with it. The problem is that fear of God, even true fear of God, is often mixed up with stupidity. He brings this idea from a verse in Job, "Is not your fear your stupidity?" Fear of God needs to be coupled with intelligence. This is not something we see much.
Some books of Halacha in fact we find are institutionalized stupidity or concretized fanaticism.
In spite of these problems, and even if one goes to public school, I think the basic set of Musar books [especially the Chovot Levavot/ Duties of the Heart] are important and apply to everyone across the board.
I should just mention here one advantage of fear of God that I think if people would know about it would inspire them towards more effort in that direction. Fear of God helps to have less of your time wasted by idiots. You get more of your life goals [or natural human goods] accomplished and less of your time is taken up by nut cases. Fear of God forms a protective cover against nut cases.
Also I should mention that to justify fear of God nowadays you really need a modified Kantian approach.
Simple Medieval philosophy would be hard to use to justify fear of God today. Simply put the reason is that there are legitimate complaints by the rationalist like Descartes and Spinoza, and from empiricist like John Locke. So you clearly need either Hegel or Kant in any case.
[Most approaches to life I judge based on the idea of where their vector is pointing to. I.e. one approach my be full of flaws but of their vector is towards God then I will consider it kosher. Other approaches might disguise themselves in religious clothing, but if their vector is towards some human being or political ideals , then I will consider it as not kosher--even if they are strict about religious rituals and symbols. That will not make any path kosher to me. In fact an emphasis on religious rituals will in general cause red warning lights to go off in my mind.]
To conclude the main idea here to get the basic books dealing with fear of God and learn them every day.
The basic books are Chovot Levavot חובות לבבות, Mesilat Yesharim, Orchot Tzadikim, Shaari Teshuva.
[from the Middle Ages except the second]. Then the next would be the disciples of Israel Salanter, Madragat HaAdam [Navardok], Chochvei Or by Isaac Blazer. And the Nefesh Hachaim by Reb Chaim from Voloshin. Also the Gra has a few like the "Even Shelama," and the Sidur HaGra. If I could I would like to add to this basic set also the books coming from the Rambam--that is Musar books written by him and his son and grandson, etc.
The nice thing about Musar is it encompasses both the numinous aspects of Torah and the aspects that deal with human relationships together without emphasizing one over the other. Needless to say I think we have all witnessed people that do one part of the Torah and ignore the other part. So it is good that there is this balanced approach.
[Even Shelama collects pithy statements of the Gra from his commentaries. But sometimes the way they are written in that book do not correspond exactly with what the Gra wrote. To correct this flaw there is an edition of the Even Shelama from Israel that brings the actual language of the Gra on the side.]
Appendix
2) The Rambam/Maimonides has an approach that learning Metaphysics brings to love of God and Physics to fear of God. [He was referring to these two sets of books by Aristotle.]
3) In any case basic Musar seems to be important. When the question is applied to non Jews I am not sure how it could be answered.
My suggestion is talking to God in a private place. That is getting into the habit of talking with God directly where ever you go. And making it a habit to do a lot of walking so that you get a chance to tell God what is in your heart a lot. And learning Torah, the Oral and Written Law.
Some books of Halacha in fact we find are institutionalized stupidity or concretized fanaticism.
In spite of these problems, and even if one goes to public school, I think the basic set of Musar books [especially the Chovot Levavot/ Duties of the Heart] are important and apply to everyone across the board.
I should just mention here one advantage of fear of God that I think if people would know about it would inspire them towards more effort in that direction. Fear of God helps to have less of your time wasted by idiots. You get more of your life goals [or natural human goods] accomplished and less of your time is taken up by nut cases. Fear of God forms a protective cover against nut cases.
Also I should mention that to justify fear of God nowadays you really need a modified Kantian approach.
Simple Medieval philosophy would be hard to use to justify fear of God today. Simply put the reason is that there are legitimate complaints by the rationalist like Descartes and Spinoza, and from empiricist like John Locke. So you clearly need either Hegel or Kant in any case.
[Most approaches to life I judge based on the idea of where their vector is pointing to. I.e. one approach my be full of flaws but of their vector is towards God then I will consider it kosher. Other approaches might disguise themselves in religious clothing, but if their vector is towards some human being or political ideals , then I will consider it as not kosher--even if they are strict about religious rituals and symbols. That will not make any path kosher to me. In fact an emphasis on religious rituals will in general cause red warning lights to go off in my mind.]
To conclude the main idea here to get the basic books dealing with fear of God and learn them every day.
The basic books are Chovot Levavot חובות לבבות, Mesilat Yesharim, Orchot Tzadikim, Shaari Teshuva.
[from the Middle Ages except the second]. Then the next would be the disciples of Israel Salanter, Madragat HaAdam [Navardok], Chochvei Or by Isaac Blazer. And the Nefesh Hachaim by Reb Chaim from Voloshin. Also the Gra has a few like the "Even Shelama," and the Sidur HaGra. If I could I would like to add to this basic set also the books coming from the Rambam--that is Musar books written by him and his son and grandson, etc.
The nice thing about Musar is it encompasses both the numinous aspects of Torah and the aspects that deal with human relationships together without emphasizing one over the other. Needless to say I think we have all witnessed people that do one part of the Torah and ignore the other part. So it is good that there is this balanced approach.
[Even Shelama collects pithy statements of the Gra from his commentaries. But sometimes the way they are written in that book do not correspond exactly with what the Gra wrote. To correct this flaw there is an edition of the Even Shelama from Israel that brings the actual language of the Gra on the side.]
Appendix
2) The Rambam/Maimonides has an approach that learning Metaphysics brings to love of God and Physics to fear of God. [He was referring to these two sets of books by Aristotle.]
3) In any case basic Musar seems to be important. When the question is applied to non Jews I am not sure how it could be answered.
My suggestion is talking to God in a private place. That is getting into the habit of talking with God directly where ever you go. And making it a habit to do a lot of walking so that you get a chance to tell God what is in your heart a lot. And learning Torah, the Oral and Written Law.
