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30.5.16

Organized schizophrenia is not the same thing as being careful in keeping the commandments of the Torah.

Organized schizophrenia is the over emphasis of rituals in the religious world.
This is not the same thing as being careful in keeping the commandments of the Torah.
Organized schizophrenia is when you have had in the past some charismatic figure who was a schizoid personality type obsessed with ritual preparation of food and cleaning rituals and sex.
And because he was in control enough of his obsession to make sure to do them only at the right times and places he gained a following as being a holy man. [That is he was only schizoid, not schizophrenic.]
So these rituals gained acceptance and became obligatory.
So far this is well known. I have added nothing here to what is well known and commonly accepted.

We can see this tendency in the religious world. Mainly with the groups that are obsessed with rituals and  sex and food preparation and cleaning rituals. But this can be traced back further. See the Sidur of Saadia Gaon and the order of prayers of the Rambam. We can see how things just kept getting added on and added on until there is no time left in the day to do anything,-- especially not learning Torah.

But what I wanted to add today is an idea from the מסילת ישרים Paths of the Just by Rav Moshe Chaim Lutzatto. That is that the outer affects the inner. Thus by extra strictness in חומרות added restrictions which were added on by some schizoid personality and became accepted by the whole social organism one becomes himself schizoid.

Appendix: This is well known concerning Pesukai DeZimra--the part of the morning prayer before the blessings on Kriat Shema. But the reason I mentioned the sidur of Saadia Gaon is the the first blessing of Kriat Shema itself is about three lines. The opening blessing, a short sentence, and the closing. ברוך אתה ה' אלקינו מלך העולם יוצר אור ובורא חושך then about ten words after that. And then ברוך ... יצר המאורות

So the problem seems to be be that the leaders of the religious community tend to be schizoid personalities that gain their fame from their fanatic addiction to rituals. It is a great thing that the Na Nach groups have noticed this problem. And in fact Reb Nachman himself made a note of the fact that often the leaders of the religious are demonic and so urged caution in this regard. My own approach is that I have been hurt so much and so often by the religious community that I simply refuse to have anything to do with them because I figure at this point the Sitra Achra has just taken over the whole thing lock, stock and barrel. I get panicky just by seeing them because of the kind of damage they have already caused me.