Fear of God I began to consider to be a goal after I saw this idea in the book אור ישראל the light of Israel by a disciple of Israel Salanter.
In some way this was a natural result of my environment. I had been in Far Rockaway in the yeshiva of Shelomo Freifeld and they were not learning Jewish Ethics there. It was solely for the purpose of Talmud study. But I felt I needed some time with Musar and also for other perhaps subconscious motivations I decided to go to the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn. And that is Musar yeshiva.
So one day I picked up one of the classical Musar books the Light of Israel and I saw this idea that coming to fear of God is a goal in itself. And that in fact is a little different than the idea that they were telling you in yeshiva that learning Torah is the goal in life.
Based on the Rambam of what leads to Fear of God [learning Physics and Metaphysics] I changed my schedule a little bit. Though learning Talmud I still feel is an important thing to do every day I do think that learning Physics and Metaphysics leads to some kind of internal transformation that the Rambam was talking about.
I know most people don't associate fer of God with learning the natural sciences but I have a "faith in the wise" אמונת חכמים in the Rambam when it comes to this matter.
What I suggest is a daily schedule that roughly divides one's learning period into (1) Musar [Jewish Ethics] (2) Natural Science (3) Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. That is on a personal level and this I think is a good idea for universities also. [In Chaim Berlin yeshiva in NY there is no secular program but it was understood that people would go to the nearby Brooklyn collage so that they don't have to spend their whole lives collecting charity. For this is a serious flaw in the the insane religious world system. That it makes collecting money from rich reform Jews as a goal in life. And that method of keeping Torah is clearly flawed. And I don't think it has much to do with learning Torah or fear of God either.]
Isaac Luria is also important but I am not sure how to fit him into a learning schedule. One thing about Lurianic Kabalah is that it is hard to justify Torah without it. This even came up yesterday when I was learning Torah and the issue of how people were keeping Torah in the first Temple period. I would rather not go into the subject right now but this is for a a general principle. When I find contradictions between science and Talmud or some problem of interpretation of Torah I run to Isaac Luria's writings. For example we find they did not keep the Passover until Hezekiah or Sukkot.
What you have to do is to say to have the light of Torah תפארת "Glory", and that is a column of light.
Prophets during the first temple period were receiving light from a different source נצח or הוד. In order to but in a case where the light of Torah was lost a prophet could move over to the column of light of Glory and receive what had been lost or forgotten. You don't have to agree with this. But you can see how the Ari can help solve problems in Torah thought amazingly easily.
In some way this was a natural result of my environment. I had been in Far Rockaway in the yeshiva of Shelomo Freifeld and they were not learning Jewish Ethics there. It was solely for the purpose of Talmud study. But I felt I needed some time with Musar and also for other perhaps subconscious motivations I decided to go to the Mirrer Yeshiva in Brooklyn. And that is Musar yeshiva.
So one day I picked up one of the classical Musar books the Light of Israel and I saw this idea that coming to fear of God is a goal in itself. And that in fact is a little different than the idea that they were telling you in yeshiva that learning Torah is the goal in life.
Based on the Rambam of what leads to Fear of God [learning Physics and Metaphysics] I changed my schedule a little bit. Though learning Talmud I still feel is an important thing to do every day I do think that learning Physics and Metaphysics leads to some kind of internal transformation that the Rambam was talking about.
I know most people don't associate fer of God with learning the natural sciences but I have a "faith in the wise" אמונת חכמים in the Rambam when it comes to this matter.
What I suggest is a daily schedule that roughly divides one's learning period into (1) Musar [Jewish Ethics] (2) Natural Science (3) Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmud. That is on a personal level and this I think is a good idea for universities also. [In Chaim Berlin yeshiva in NY there is no secular program but it was understood that people would go to the nearby Brooklyn collage so that they don't have to spend their whole lives collecting charity. For this is a serious flaw in the the insane religious world system. That it makes collecting money from rich reform Jews as a goal in life. And that method of keeping Torah is clearly flawed. And I don't think it has much to do with learning Torah or fear of God either.]
Isaac Luria is also important but I am not sure how to fit him into a learning schedule. One thing about Lurianic Kabalah is that it is hard to justify Torah without it. This even came up yesterday when I was learning Torah and the issue of how people were keeping Torah in the first Temple period. I would rather not go into the subject right now but this is for a a general principle. When I find contradictions between science and Talmud or some problem of interpretation of Torah I run to Isaac Luria's writings. For example we find they did not keep the Passover until Hezekiah or Sukkot.
What you have to do is to say to have the light of Torah תפארת "Glory", and that is a column of light.
Prophets during the first temple period were receiving light from a different source נצח or הוד. In order to but in a case where the light of Torah was lost a prophet could move over to the column of light of Glory and receive what had been lost or forgotten. You don't have to agree with this. But you can see how the Ari can help solve problems in Torah thought amazingly easily.
