I wanted to bring a few ideas and then to tie them in.
[1] One is that to some degree I can see the point of the Russian Revolution. People feel hurt. And sometimes that is justified. So from one aspect I can that there is such a thing as justified anger.
You can see this in the אורחות צדיקים [Paths of the Righteous] in the Gate of Anger.
The problem is that often the anger is directed towards the wrong targets. Capitalists, kulaks etc. Though it must have been that in tzarist Russia these powerful kulaks and capitalists were abusing people to the degree that their anger spilled over.
But also people were angry at religion. And that is also often justified. Not that in the Law of Moses, there is anything wrong. Not the Oral or Written Law. However people use that as a cover to hide their evil. This Rav Nahman pointed out often. So what people did was to reject all religion.
That was because people did not have the ability to be able to discern what is right and what is wrong. So they just said all religion is wrong. They did not have the insight and understanding of the Gra and Rav Shach to be able to tell the difference between the holy and the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side.]
What they could have done was to have "faith in the wise" and just trust that the Gra and Rav Shach knew what they were talking about.
But furthermore, sometimes there is a point to the secular. It is not to say that if if just have the right religious values everything is OK. Not really. Often religion opens the door towards other things. People might start out with faith in a true tzadik like Rav Nahman but then get side tracked. That is in fact almost guaranteed. That is because it is in the very nature of things, that religion gets side tracked
all too quickly and easily.
[1] One is that to some degree I can see the point of the Russian Revolution. People feel hurt. And sometimes that is justified. So from one aspect I can that there is such a thing as justified anger.
You can see this in the אורחות צדיקים [Paths of the Righteous] in the Gate of Anger.
The problem is that often the anger is directed towards the wrong targets. Capitalists, kulaks etc. Though it must have been that in tzarist Russia these powerful kulaks and capitalists were abusing people to the degree that their anger spilled over.
But also people were angry at religion. And that is also often justified. Not that in the Law of Moses, there is anything wrong. Not the Oral or Written Law. However people use that as a cover to hide their evil. This Rav Nahman pointed out often. So what people did was to reject all religion.
That was because people did not have the ability to be able to discern what is right and what is wrong. So they just said all religion is wrong. They did not have the insight and understanding of the Gra and Rav Shach to be able to tell the difference between the holy and the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side.]
What they could have done was to have "faith in the wise" and just trust that the Gra and Rav Shach knew what they were talking about.
But furthermore, sometimes there is a point to the secular. It is not to say that if if just have the right religious values everything is OK. Not really. Often religion opens the door towards other things. People might start out with faith in a true tzadik like Rav Nahman but then get side tracked. That is in fact almost guaranteed. That is because it is in the very nature of things, that religion gets side tracked
all too quickly and easily.
