Half truths are known to be lies. Leaving out some significant detail that changes the whole picture is in fact liable to prosecution in courts of law. [That is liable under the law of not to lie under oath.]
When people teach half of the Torah--the parts that appeal to the desires of people, that is in effect lying about Torah. It is not authentic Torah.
This is the reason people don't learn Musar. It is like scratching your itch with sandpaper. It hurts. And it does not appeal to sensual desires. No wonder it is not popular.
I admit I am as guilty of this as anyone. At the Mirrer yeshiva which took me a tremendous amount of effort to get to when I found that the Musar book s were saying without exception that one must work and learn and not use the Torah as means to making a living nor to be accepting charity for learning Torah it was a message you can bet I did not want to hear. If I had thought that originally I would have stayed in Los Angeles and gone to UCLA. And it hardly made sense to me at that time either. Cognitive dissonance. So I found the books that told me what I wanted to hear. I was wrong for thinking I found some some excuse not to listen to the very basic and simple message of Torah to learn a profession and not to use Torah as "a shovel to dig with." I tried to remedy this later by going to NYU. But to learn physics I found out is better to start young.
My parents were telling me things I did not want to hear so I turned away from them. I thought I knew more.
Musar nowadays has been tailored to tell people what they want to hear.
In Musar from the Middle Ages secular knowledge is considered important. So that message has been edited out since it is not what people want to hear. [Duties of the Heart, Guide for the Perplexed, Maalot Hamidot which has two separate chapters one for the importance of learning Torah and the other the importance of learning "wisdom"].
The anti-Zionism of the insane religious world today you can bet goes against traditional Musar. They are grasping at straws to try to make sense of their evil and lunatic beliefs. the insane religious world cover up their lies with lots of rituals thinking that that excuses them. While they have a point that we all should learn and keep Torah but the Conservative and Reform are much closer to the Torah ideal than the the insane religious world .
When people teach half of the Torah--the parts that appeal to the desires of people, that is in effect lying about Torah. It is not authentic Torah.
This is the reason people don't learn Musar. It is like scratching your itch with sandpaper. It hurts. And it does not appeal to sensual desires. No wonder it is not popular.
I admit I am as guilty of this as anyone. At the Mirrer yeshiva which took me a tremendous amount of effort to get to when I found that the Musar book s were saying without exception that one must work and learn and not use the Torah as means to making a living nor to be accepting charity for learning Torah it was a message you can bet I did not want to hear. If I had thought that originally I would have stayed in Los Angeles and gone to UCLA. And it hardly made sense to me at that time either. Cognitive dissonance. So I found the books that told me what I wanted to hear. I was wrong for thinking I found some some excuse not to listen to the very basic and simple message of Torah to learn a profession and not to use Torah as "a shovel to dig with." I tried to remedy this later by going to NYU. But to learn physics I found out is better to start young.
My parents were telling me things I did not want to hear so I turned away from them. I thought I knew more.
Musar nowadays has been tailored to tell people what they want to hear.
In Musar from the Middle Ages secular knowledge is considered important. So that message has been edited out since it is not what people want to hear. [Duties of the Heart, Guide for the Perplexed, Maalot Hamidot which has two separate chapters one for the importance of learning Torah and the other the importance of learning "wisdom"].
The anti-Zionism of the insane religious world today you can bet goes against traditional Musar. They are grasping at straws to try to make sense of their evil and lunatic beliefs. the insane religious world cover up their lies with lots of rituals thinking that that excuses them. While they have a point that we all should learn and keep Torah but the Conservative and Reform are much closer to the Torah ideal than the the insane religious world .
