I have a soft spot in my heart for learning Torah. Most synagogues that i attended were more about prayer. But I suggest taking every synagogue and Temple and converting it into a place where Torah is learned.
This was, in fact, the way things were in the time of the Talmud. But regardless of history I think today what people need is a place where they can go and sit down and learn Torah without distractions.
This in fact was the original idea of a yeshiva when Reb Chaim from Voloshin began this idea. Before that there was the local synagogue that was used for prayer, but during the day when people were at work, the younger teenagers would be there and learn Torah from the local rav.
But this too is history. Nowadays yeshivas have morphed into money machines.
This is all bad news. We need simply a place for one thing alone--learning Torah for its own sake--not for the sake of making money, or any other purposes.
"Learning Torah" in this context means only traditional Torah: Talmud, Rashi, and Tosphot. Anything after the Mediaeval Rishonim is strictly off limits. For anyone who is not up to Talmud there are plenty of good books of Rishonim that provide a good instruction to Torah: the Guide for the Perplexed, or the אמונות ודעות by Saadia Gaon. There are great books of Musar from the Middle Ages also.
I should mention that bringing back people in repentance is a very evil thing to do. What I am suggesting here is rather to have places where people learn Torah and the Torah will teach people what to do. But the whole concept of "Kiruv" is very evil. It first and foremost causes people to ignore the fifth commandment. all the evil in the people they supposedly bring back to Torah goes into them until they become infinitely more evil that the people they are supposedly helping.
. And you can see this in fact in every Kiruv organization.
This was, in fact, the way things were in the time of the Talmud. But regardless of history I think today what people need is a place where they can go and sit down and learn Torah without distractions.
This in fact was the original idea of a yeshiva when Reb Chaim from Voloshin began this idea. Before that there was the local synagogue that was used for prayer, but during the day when people were at work, the younger teenagers would be there and learn Torah from the local rav.
But this too is history. Nowadays yeshivas have morphed into money machines.
This is all bad news. We need simply a place for one thing alone--learning Torah for its own sake--not for the sake of making money, or any other purposes.
"Learning Torah" in this context means only traditional Torah: Talmud, Rashi, and Tosphot. Anything after the Mediaeval Rishonim is strictly off limits. For anyone who is not up to Talmud there are plenty of good books of Rishonim that provide a good instruction to Torah: the Guide for the Perplexed, or the אמונות ודעות by Saadia Gaon. There are great books of Musar from the Middle Ages also.
I should mention that bringing back people in repentance is a very evil thing to do. What I am suggesting here is rather to have places where people learn Torah and the Torah will teach people what to do. But the whole concept of "Kiruv" is very evil. It first and foremost causes people to ignore the fifth commandment. all the evil in the people they supposedly bring back to Torah goes into them until they become infinitely more evil that the people they are supposedly helping.
. And you can see this in fact in every Kiruv organization.
