I have thought a lot about the proper path in life.
Maybe too much because after all I grew up in my parents home which was an absolutely amazing experience. The love that was between my parents for each other and for us kids was palpable. You could almost touch it in the air.
Still I was interested in philosophical questions from about as early an age as I can remember.
We were mainly Reform Jews but obviously my parents had a lot more to them than the Reform secular doctrines.
So I got interested in what formed the basis of my parents home --that is the Oral and Written Law of Moses. [The Oral Law most people think of as the Talmud but there are actually a whole set of books that compromise the actual Oral tradition: two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra Sifrei and few others.]
But to defend this tradition in an intellectual way I have to rely on Kant . Maimonides and Saadia Gaon do provide some justification, but because of the onslaught of philosophy and also archaeology I found it necessary to provide for myself a deeper justification.
Reform itself got way too much into the "social justice" thing--which is just another word for socialism. The religious generally follow con men and so are not following Torah at all, and make up rituals in order to seem like they are keeping Torah, and ignore the things the Torah really does require. The religious world is in general made up of mentally ill people.
So I am thinking that Reform and Conservative are basically right [because of the most important aspects of Torah are Monotheism and בין אד לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man] but need more learning and keeping of of Torah but not like the people that make a show of religiosity to get money and power. The religious world -it's leaders are simply mad men. [That is all but the few pockets surrounding Litvak yeshivas where Torah is learned and practiced sincerely.] The general religious world has either zero fulfillment of obligations between man and his fellow man, or at a level much lower than gentiles. Honesty, working hard for a living, keeping your word, and general human decency are almost impossible to find in the religious world.
To defend the Torah, I however basically have to depend on the Rambam. That means that Torah is to bring to objective morality. So in some way I use the Kant school of thought imply to patch up the gaps.
Appendix. To prove that בין אד לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man is the most important part of Torah you would need the basic set of Musar books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. My first awareness of this really began my first year in Yeshiva when I was learning the Sefer HaChinuch. It was somewhat of a shock to me to discover a lot of obligations between man and his fellow man are a major part of the Torah.
Israel Salanter tried to correct this flaw but with little success. The Musar movement itself became a kind of "frumkeit" religiosity. Not that this is desirable. The best thing is to keep all the Torah--obligations between man and his fellow man and between man and God. But if there is a choice one or the other obviously according to the Torah itself the obligations between man and his fellowman come first.
This of course goes entirely against the basic tenet of the religious that only they are kosher. To me it seems the truth is exactly the opposite.
Maybe too much because after all I grew up in my parents home which was an absolutely amazing experience. The love that was between my parents for each other and for us kids was palpable. You could almost touch it in the air.
Still I was interested in philosophical questions from about as early an age as I can remember.
We were mainly Reform Jews but obviously my parents had a lot more to them than the Reform secular doctrines.
So I got interested in what formed the basis of my parents home --that is the Oral and Written Law of Moses. [The Oral Law most people think of as the Talmud but there are actually a whole set of books that compromise the actual Oral tradition: two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra Sifrei and few others.]
But to defend this tradition in an intellectual way I have to rely on Kant . Maimonides and Saadia Gaon do provide some justification, but because of the onslaught of philosophy and also archaeology I found it necessary to provide for myself a deeper justification.
Reform itself got way too much into the "social justice" thing--which is just another word for socialism. The religious generally follow con men and so are not following Torah at all, and make up rituals in order to seem like they are keeping Torah, and ignore the things the Torah really does require. The religious world is in general made up of mentally ill people.
So I am thinking that Reform and Conservative are basically right [because of the most important aspects of Torah are Monotheism and בין אד לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man] but need more learning and keeping of of Torah but not like the people that make a show of religiosity to get money and power. The religious world -it's leaders are simply mad men. [That is all but the few pockets surrounding Litvak yeshivas where Torah is learned and practiced sincerely.] The general religious world has either zero fulfillment of obligations between man and his fellow man, or at a level much lower than gentiles. Honesty, working hard for a living, keeping your word, and general human decency are almost impossible to find in the religious world.
To defend the Torah, I however basically have to depend on the Rambam. That means that Torah is to bring to objective morality. So in some way I use the Kant school of thought imply to patch up the gaps.
Appendix. To prove that בין אד לחבירו obligations between man and his fellow man is the most important part of Torah you would need the basic set of Musar books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. My first awareness of this really began my first year in Yeshiva when I was learning the Sefer HaChinuch. It was somewhat of a shock to me to discover a lot of obligations between man and his fellow man are a major part of the Torah.
Israel Salanter tried to correct this flaw but with little success. The Musar movement itself became a kind of "frumkeit" religiosity. Not that this is desirable. The best thing is to keep all the Torah--obligations between man and his fellow man and between man and God. But if there is a choice one or the other obviously according to the Torah itself the obligations between man and his fellowman come first.
This of course goes entirely against the basic tenet of the religious that only they are kosher. To me it seems the truth is exactly the opposite.
