I should make clear that I mainly hope to walk in the path of my parents, not just because of the commandment of, "Honor your father and mother," but because they were in fact great people. And the sages, in fact, deal with the [more common] issue when one finds that his or her parents are somewhat less than admirable.[See the Tur.] They hold that, "Honor your father and mother" is not a blank check. It just so happens, in my case that I had every reason to walk in my parents path, and to hold that that is what the Torah required of me.
But I was thinking about this the other day, and it occurred to me that just because one can not run a four minute mile, does not mean the one who does 4.5 is not also great. So even though the exact path of my dad was not really open to me, I think I could have still tried my best. [I imagine that I really could have gone to Cal Tech as he did if I had had the understanding of this being desirable. But in those days long ago, there was a general mood of specially going against one's parents as being the admirable thing.]
And even with all of that, I still believe that going to Shar Yashuv in NY, and then the Mir were great choices-- where I did learn authentic Torah. The only Torah that is worth learning. After all, one needs the real thing. Only later did it occur to me to make up for my deficit and go to Polytechnic Institute of NYU.
I want to add here a note about Musar. Though my parents had a clear idea of what it means "to be a mensch" [decent person], that is not obvious to most people like myself. That is why we all should learn Musar--the books on ethics from the Middle Ages. Otherwise we get it into our heads that our own obsessions constitute morality. The basic set of Musar is known but here I want to bring the basic titles שערי תשובה, חובות לבבות, מסילת ישרים,אורחות צדיקים [Gates of Repentance, Obligations of the Hearts, Paths of the Righteous, Ways of the Just]That is the basic group. There is always added a fifth but it is not clear what that fifth is. Some add the Sefer HaYira that is attributed to Rabbainu Tam. Some add the Sefer HaMidot. I would like to add the books of the Gra, the Geon of Villna, and of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter.] (Altogether these give a clear idea of what it means to be a decent human being.)
