Some people have suggested that there is a kind of war against man by the Dark Side. The Sitra Achra סיטרא אחרא and this seems a reasonable assumption. But then the question is how to identify what aspects of my own life are results of enslavement to the Dark Side?

Where can you see the influence of the Samech Mem? [Satan]?


So how to avoid the Satan is an important question. How to identify what there is in one's life that comes from the Dark Side. People can be working for the Dark Side and not know it. But they can be made aware of it when they see problems in their life. Problems one has are often reflections of what one is doing wrong.


Often one lets the Satan into his own life because he buys into some pre prepared package.  For example he buys into the 
religious narrative and thus accepts everything that is accepted in that society though some aspects of the Sitra Achra have penetrated it.  But he does not pay attention because he thinks by buying into it he will have a shiduch and a living. So he does not question.

The trouble with the religious world is that it is one thing to have a shaman. A schizoid personality type that is admired. It is another thing to put a schizo-typal personality in charge. 


I mean to say the best ideal of control of a community is as Aristotle said an Aristocracy--the rule of the best. What you have in the religious orld is the rule of the schizo typal personalities and the rule of the stupid.

So I do not hold by going to graves of tzadikim mainly because of the Ten Commandments. Monotheism. That is I am trying to get to a basic kind of keeping of the Law without adding on things or subtracting things  that  are not part of the Law