Islam has a problem with being from what could be called the "Dark Side."

 The god of Islam is the Satan, and that is simple to see from the actual events surrounding Mohamed. The revelations supposedly from God allowing him to do things which we would not considered very kosher were clearly not coming from the Creator, but from Satan.  And it is not news that Satan comes to people and makes them think they are getting revelation from the Creator.

  Christianity is not idolatry
  We have the original defense of the Trinity from Boethius. Later people tried to defend it by means of Plato and Plotinus. And after about a thousand years they gave up on that, and went to Aristotle.
(The Protestant way of defending this is to ignore the question.) So we have basically two kinds of defense. The Neo Platonic way is simple. It is the same as what we call sepherot. The Aristotelian [Aquinas] way is also rather straightforward-- aspects or modes of God. Whether any of these defenses works is not the issue. But what is the issue is the fact that they believe they are worshiping the God of Israel, the Creator. [This site http://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher/2014/12/incarnation-approached-subjectively-the-mystical-birth-of-god-in-the-soul.html  seems to have a Martin Buber kind of approach. In any case, Catholics nowadays try to defend it by means of Aristotle, because the Platonic approach had too many problems. So Aquinas went over to Aristotle and that is how things have been since then. See the blog of Edward Feser. ]
  As we see in Abyee Sanhedrin 62 that one who bows to a house of idols, but thinks it is a synagogue is not idolatry because his heart is towards heaven.
So in any case it is not idolatry. And that is that. So Merry Christmas and good will unto men, and peace on Earth.


  This is not like the Rambam. However it is not a principle of faith that the Rambam can never be wrong. The Rambam can be wrong, but we believe he is 99% of the time not wrong. But in a least four cases I know he is wrong. One is the mouse that is  half dirt and half alive. Spontaneous generation. (Look at that Halacha and you will see he means literal spontaneous generation, not evolution.)

  The Menorah we know was like Rashi. The reason the rings were invented was that Venus gets brighter and dimmer and that could not be explained by the spheres--contrary to the Guide. And in Pirkei Avot there is one place where the Rambam explains a Mishna based on a mistaken text  in Onkles.
So while in actual decisions based on the Gemara it is certain he could not make a mistake. But that is because that was his forte. But in other areas he was not infallible. (And according to the Rambam the authority in halacha is the Oral Law, not the Rambam. That we see by his order of decision making concerning a beit din or  a judge that makes a mistake. The first thing is that any decision not like  דינים המפורשים בש''ס (things stated openly in the Talmud)  are simply thrown out of court without a second's thought.)

Appendix:

1) Not that it has anything to do with the issue of this blog but still I think in the background people wonder what the Torah has to say about Jesus? The hagadah in Sanhedrin did come up recently in my studies. I just happened to be there in Sanhedrin. And I think on and off I have seen things on this subject but never put them in my blog because it did not seem relevant to any Jewish audience.
So I forgot most of what I saw.
Now let me make clear even if Jesus would be everything Christians would say, it would not mean we could worship him or any human being or pray to him or even to praise him.
That being said let me at least mention that the Jesus mentioned in the Talmud is not Jesus son of Miriam because we have a good idea of the time period Jesus lived in. We know when Peter was crucified and the other disciples also. We even know when the brother of Jesus was killed. All these events were right around the time of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. The Jesus the Talmud refers to it says openly was a disciple of Yehoshua ben Prachia who lived at towards the beginning of the Second Temple period. [see Pirkei Avot] The minimum separation in time here is two hundred years.
They can't be the same person.
Besides that I have seen few positive references. One from Isaac Luria. That was in those days I was learning Kabalah. So I might be forgetting exactly where I saw it. I think it was in the book of Chaim Vital on the Torah at the end of the book of Genesis. Plus it is well known the very positive things that The mystic Avraham Abulafia had to say about this subject. Professor Moshe Idel brings him in several places. Plus there is Yaakov Emden. And that is that. All these people clearly thought very highly of Jesus.  But no one thinks it is proper to pray to him or any human being. And that is why this issue is so charged with emotion. This is because some people think if Jesus was as great as they say we should all worship him. But that is wrong. We only should worship God alone, and great people and even great tzadikim we should respect and learn from.

In any case, sex between males is among the things not allowed according to the Torah.

In any case sex between males is among the things not allowed according to the Torah. As for dissident children בן סורר ומורה - there are rather strict conditions for which that law applies. (e.g. the amount of meat he needs to eat to be liable is almost humanly impossible to eat in the required time period).
In any case there is never a death sentence unless any act is done in front of two kosher witnesses and warning is given. The warning has to be about the reason for the prohibition and also the punishment and the perpetrator has to acknowledge the warning. It is like Miranda rights in that respect. Otherwise the case is thrown out of court.

Appendix

1) It is understood that the laws of the Torah were all addressed to Jews alone. Every single last one.
The question of what gentiles are obligated in is simply uninteresting to the Torah. As far as the Torah is concerned if someone wants to keep the Torah--very nice.
[''I have put before you this day the life and the good, and death and evil. So choose life by keeping these commandments.'' Deuteronomy. Now there is a deal you can't turn down. Who does not want life and the good? No one.]
2) In any case the subject does come up. We have the well known seven laws that were given to Noah. And how much of later laws that were given to Moses apply is subject to debate.
A ger toshav גר תושב the Rambam decided is one who accepts the seven laws in front of the Sanhedrin.
But there is an argument about that. To some opinions in Mesechet Gerim--a tractate outside the Mishna- a ger toshav is one who accepts on himself not to do idolatry.
In the middle ages the idea of gerei hashar גרי השער came up and the Beit Joseph did consider gentiles that were civilized to be in that category. That is a step up from gerei toshav, but not yet a full ger.
3) The Seven Laws, include not to murder, and not to do idolatry. Islam seems to be idolatry since they are worshiping   a false god. (They call him God, But you can call many people by the same name. That does not mean they are the same person. When they worship Satan, it does not help if they give him the name of the Creator. In fact it makes it worse.)

We all know that one brings a sin offering for doing a sin by accident. But do accidents combine?

Introduction: If one does any one of 43 sins he brings a goat or a sheep to the Temple in Jerusalem.
Only in the case of idolatry must it be only a she goat.
The sin has to be done by accident. You can't bring a sacrifice for intentional sin.
The sins are Shabat, sex with close relatives, sex with a male, sex with an animal, idolatry, walking into the Temple before getting purified, eating a sacrifice before getting purified, and a few others.
Sin offerings are commanded in Leviticus 4 for general things and in Numbers for idolatry.


I am going to share my questions about this with the general public even though I have not gone over it thoroughly with my learning partner.

Fact 1) One does work on the Sabbath day. He forgot that work is forbidden or he made a mistake in law and thought that it is in fact permitted, plus he forgot Shabat.

This is an unresolved question in the Talmud. [Sanhedrin 62, Shabat perek klal gadol] (That is does he bring one sacrifice or 39 for each work?) (I say it is unresolved because the Talmud brings it up in serval places and suggest maybe we can answer it form this or from that etc.? It sounds like It has not come to any conclusion and is always keeping it in the back of it mind to try to find some answer.)
Fact 2) If one depends on the Sanhedrin that made a false ruling and they allowed forbidden fat plus he got a piece of forbidden fat and permitted fat mixed up. Rav said he does not bring a sin offering.
He depended on the Sanhedrin so his additional error does not make him obligated.

So my question here is do accidents mix? [Horayot page 2]
Or lets say he forgot two things--that forbidden fat is forbidden and and it got mixed up.  From the Gemara in Horayot you would say he already brings only one sin offering. Just because he forgot something extra that does not add to the number of sin offerings. and you would be right in that reasoning. So I ask again, why don't we say the same thing on Shabat? He already brings only one sin offering because he forgot it is Shabat. So why would he bring more just because he forgot more stuff?

It has been a long day so I am not going to try and make my question clearer right now. If you want a little background take a look at those two Gemaras and also the Mishna LeMelech on the Rambam הלכות שגגות פרק ב

APPENDIX:
1) There are two kinds of accident. One is in the facts of the situation. The other is in law.
2) One reason I am bringing this to public attention is because I am looking for some help in my argument with my learning partner. I can't seem to convince him about this point that if one is liable only one sacrifice because he forgot Shabat then he can't be liable more for forgetting more. On one hand he is right that the Gemara itself seems to consider this question undecidable. But to me it looks like I have a proof from Rav. And who knows if perhaps that statement of rav might be part of the reason the Rambam did in fact decide that if one forgets both work and Shabat he brings only one sacrifice. I mean we do find the Gemara seems to  lean in that direction anyway, but this statement of Rav ought to be the smoking gun.
3) Forbidden fat is the fat that is in general sacrificed. It covers the area of the stomach. Because it is such a  serious issue,  Reb Shmuel Berenbaum never ate meat, only chicken. I think his wife sometimes served meat on Yom Tov to the guests like myself but for him it was only chicken.
4) I think it should be clear that Eliezer Menachem Shach's book the Aviezri probably deals with this. It is right up his alley to answer "shver" Rambams {hard to understand Rambams}. But I don't have his book. [I am right now in Uman, and they do not usually have too many Litvak books in the local synagogue.]

There is a permission to have a girl friend in the Torah.

Mainly this is an argument between the Rambam (emphasis on first syllable) who forbids and the Ramban (emphasis on the last syllable) (Moshe ben Nachman) and Raavad who permit. This comes up in the Shulchan Aruch also where the commentaries say that even the Rambam only forbids it as an איסור עשה a prohibition that comes from the force of a positive commandment.
The Gra brings down the notable fact that כלב בן יפונה [caleb ben yefuna the friend of Joshua] had a girl friend. He and Joshua were the only two of the spies that Moses sent into the promised land that gave a positive report. he is the only person in the Torah that it says about him וימלא אחרי השם he went after God completely

The only reason I mention this is that we live in a time when shiduchim  are impossible for most people.
The Rosh (Rabbainu Asher) seems to think that mainly it is permitted, but that because of nida issues he rules against it.
And that is the way the Tur also rules.
I also happen to know a few people with several wives.. Nowadays when a woman wants a guy she will get him. She won't care if he has another wife.  Woman want the Alpha Male and rarely let anything get in their way.
The Cherem of Rabbainu Gershom had a time limit according to the Shulchan Aruch. It has expired.



In general though I would keep this private. You personal life should never be allowed to be examined in public or subject to the approval of anyone.

The Geon from Vilnius has a few ideas which I wanted to share. that God runs the world with a different trait from time to time.

1) The Geon from Vilnius has a few ideas which I wanted to share.

that God runs the world with a different trait from time to time.

Now I shared this with someone and they thought I meant in cycles. Now cycles might be an idea but it is not what the Gra meant from what I can tell. The cycle idea might help us understand the rise of civilization. The Sumerians [cities and infrastructure], the the Jewish people [the Ten Commandments and the Law], the the Greeks (science, art, music, philosophy, politics), then the Romans, and then the Renaissance.

2) The Torah portion of the week corresponds to every hundred years. That is why the Gra found himself mentioned in Tetze. And also we find the Holocaust in Ki Tavo with the curses. That put us in a parsha that mentions the verse "Moshe called to Joshua" {VaYelech}.

The idea of infinity is in itself kind of paradoxical.

The idea of infinity is in itself kind of paradoxical. It is not a limited thing and it does not keep going. The strange nature of infinity was what led Kant to conclude that space itself can't be finite nor can it be infinite.  It is the way we conceive of things in themselves (dinge an sich).


) The thing that is difficult to understand here is where is the primary emphasis? The mind or external reality? With Kant external reality contains the dinge an sich (the thing in itself). In this way he is like Plato. We humans are down here in the cave of non reality. On the other hand with Kant sometimes the mind seems to take precedence. As when we say the mind makes external reality possible.
 To answer this  Schopenhauer-that the subject and the object each contribute a half to the final representation.
Frankly I like this. It gives us two levels of reality which is "just right" from my point of view. [Plato]
But these two levels of Kant  are not empirical and interior. They are phenomenon, and dinge an sich.
And the understanding is applied to both.



2) To show morality is objective  
\\All we have with Kant and Schopenhauer is that the representation is made half by the subject and half by the object. But what is that representation? It is a universal. It is not the dinge an sich! The dinge an sich exists independently from the subject as Kant says openly! The dinge an sich or a moral principle exist independently from the subject.  It's character--how it applies in any situation --part of the moral principle that is a representation is dependent on the  subject.
hink it is right.

"Anything but Torah." (That is the motto of the Satan)

I am looking on the news about difficulties involving Russia and the Ukraine. Also a set of problems involved with Muslims not very happy with Western Civilization. That along with race issues in the USA. Plenty of problems with no apparent answer.
My answer to these difficulties is to learn Torah. That is my feeling is that learning the Oral and Written Law would be a help. But for Torah to be it is also important to learn Musar along with it. Musar referring to books which deal with the ethical and world view issues of Torah.

This basic idea you can find in the book Nefesh Hachaim by Chaim from Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra [Eliyahu from Vilnius]. But it makes sense also. We know we humans are prone to mistakes especially in moral decisions. Ask yourself how many of your actions just ten years ago you think today were right? Probably very few. You have in the meantime probably changed your world view about major issues. The result is actions you did ten years ago you think were wrong. So we humans are flawed and need extra help to connect with the moral realm.

The written law is concerned mainly with revelation and the Oral Law is mainly concerned with how human reason can understand and interpret the Written Law. Together this is powerful way to come to connect with the space of moral facts.
Human reason on its own I should mention is not able to get to any solid conclusion about morality. What human think is moral today is utterly outrageous tomorrow.


So what I am suggesting is this: to get a Gemara Brachot and say it word by word. The first page with Rashi Tosphot and the Maharsha, and then the next page and so on until you have finished Shas. Same with the Jerusalem Talmud, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra. Learn at home. (Don't bother with synagogues.)  It does not take more than a few minutes in a synagogue for someone to come up to you with some way to get you to stop learning Torah. They will always have some other mitzvah in mind that is "very important." "Anything but Torah." (That is the motto of the Satan)

For that reason, I tend to think the best thing is for people to get their own complete set of the Written and Oral Law: Gemara (Talmud), Bavli and Yerushalmi, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra, and to learn them at home.

 For right now suffice it to say that the best approach to Torah that I know is a balance between Derech Eretz (work) and learning. What I think people should do is to balance between learning Torah and work or going to collage.

But this is just a symptom. What I think is something more internal is a problem in the charedi world. Some spiritual problem that I just can't identify.

For that reason, I tend to think the best thing is for people to get their own complete set of the Written and Oral Law: Gemara (Talmud), Bavli and Yerushalmi, Tosephta, Sifri and Sifra, and to learn them at home. 
Start learning Torah yourself. Open a Gemara Brachot and just say the words page after page until you have finished the whole Shas. Then do the same with the Yerushalmi, and then the Tosphta, Sifri and Sifra. Then all the writings of Isaac Luria. And have also an in depth class.
The best way for in depth learning is to get the basic set of Brisk--Chaim Soloveitchik, Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop, and the Avi Ezri from Eliezer Menachem Shach, and learn them on one  sugia.
[Shmuel Berenabum's classes would be a good addition to the Brisk school of thought if they were available. They were taped but never printed.]





Appendix
1) In spite of my emphasis here on the Oral Torah, I hope it is clear that one needs also to finish the Old Testament in Hebrew. The Oral and Written Torah are both a part of what is called simply "Torah."
And it should be understood that one should also finish the basis set of Mathematics and Physics as the Rambam made clear in several places in his writings. I in fact had a Handbook of Mathematics printed by Springer. It was a translation of something in Russian and its style was very Russian--that is dense. But it was the only thing out there available that I could afford.
Nowadays I think it would be better to just get a few basic textbooks. One for Algebra like that three volume set from Nathan Jacobson., and one for topology like that one from Allen Hatcher (Algebraic Topology. Also I only left out the writings of Isaac Luria because I think the Oral law comes first. But after one has finished once through the whole Oral and written law then certainly it is important to get the set of the writings of Isaac Luria and go through them word by word until he has finished the whole set.]
2) Also in spite of my emphasis on balance, Torah with Work and college, that does not mean to learn non kosher subjects in college, like psychology. What makes it non kosher is its world view about what human beings are is not like the world view of the Torah in these matters. There are people that believe in psychology and still outwardly do Jewish rituals, but they are pigs that show themselves to split the hoof and so outwardly have one sigh of kashrut but inwardly they are traif not kosher.
3) Post Modern Philosophy  would have to be considered to be not kosher. In spite of the Rambam's emphasis on learning Physics and Metaphysics still philosophy today is not along the lines he was thinking.
4) Most every academic discipline has a kosher core and a pseudo science exterior. This includes Torah and kabalah also. In fact I have a theory that most institutions are made to stop people from doing what they profess to be helping them to accomplish. This is because the pseudo exterior is most often the main thing that is being taught. Psychology for example really intends to make people mentally ill. It accomplishes this by getting them to talk about sex and to make them think they are getting cured of some problem by doing so. And people love to talk about sex. psychologist just found a way to make money off of this perverse desire.

(Sanhedrin 62a)

R. Natan said the reason fire is mentioned specifically about Sabbath is to divide between the kinds of work. That is, it is to tell us that one is liable a sin offering for each individual type of principle work. (There are 39 types. We know them because the Torah says don't work on building the tabernacle on the Sabbath day therefore we know the different types of work that went into building the tabernacle are forbidden on Sabbath. Playing cards would not be forbidden since it was not a necessary type of work in building the tabernacle.)

R. Josi says it is coming to tell us it is only a prohibition.

(Sanhedrin 62a)

The Rambam in laws of sin offerings tells us if one turns over coals on the Sabath day he is liable two sin offerings, one for burning and one for putting out. The reason he says is that the halacha is that one is liable for מלאכה שאינה צריכה לגופה work done not for its own sake. [This comes from the Talmud in Kritot page 20b]
What that means is that  in the desert they needed coals to make the tabernacle.. I forget why but take my word for it.

The Rambam also says if one lights a fire in order to get warm he also in liable because it is a work that is not needed for it own sake.

(For some reason, I should mention, the Tur and Shulchan Aruch  and most Rishonim do not follow the Rambam here, but say work done not for its own sake is not liable.)

So what comes out from all this is that Rabbi Nathan has to be saying that the only case of the verse לא תבערו אש בכל מושבותיכם ביום השבת you shall not light a fire in all your dwellings on the Sabbath Day is talking about making coals. This is hard to swallow. The idea here is that when the Torah  makes fire forbidden it comes to be forbidden from the Torah and the only case for that here is making coals.
To Rabbi Josi things look easier, because to him making fire in any case is forbidden and that is fine.
By normal prohibitions we don't find any differences between work done for it own sake or not.

This whole essay is really not a big deal. It is just one small observation I had today between giving a violin lesson and other such stuff.

Just one thing that might make this more relevant to people is the fact that this idea of fire has nothing to do with electricity. Even if electricity was fire it still would only be liable if you needed to make coals. One way you can see that not every heating process is fire is by the fact that if you cook food with a magnifying glass on Sabbath that is not liable. תולדות החמה derivatives of the sun are forbidden only by rabbinical decree. And there is no rabbinical decree on electricity because  after the time of the Talmud no one has the authority to make a rabbinical decree (that is a גזירה דרבנן). However local beit dins could make decrees for their communities, but not for the whole Jewish people. This is an obvious principle in Halacha and I don't need to belabor the point.

One thing I noticed is that when I leave a certain area of value it is almost impossible to regain it.

One thing I noticed is that when I leave a certain area of value it is almost impossible to regain it.
For instance at one point in my life I was very enthusiastic about Musar. (That is the movement started by Israel Salanter that was geared to getting people to learn classical books of Musar, or Ethics from the Middle Ages. This is very small set of about five books.) When one sees his days are shrinking--that is he finds his days being taken up with nonsense, then he should know that fear of God can cure this problem. And for sure I have that problem, but to get back to Musar I find is impossible. I try to get some Musar book and learn it but something always happens to prevent this.

The main approach to Torah is to have the oral law at home and to go through it page after page without skipping a single word. That is the Babylonian Talmud with Rashi and Tosphot and the Maharsha, the Jerusalem Talmud, Sifri, Sifra, Tosephta. That is the main body of the Oral Law. Besides that one should have a set of the basic school of Brisk. That is Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, Reb Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop, and Rav Eleizer Menachem Shach's Aviezri. These last one are important in order to understand the Rambam.
But what I am referring to here is mainly the fast session where you say the words and go on.
The original idea to learn that way comes from the Talmud (ליגמור והדר ליסבר)   But since it is fast it should not take much time. A simple half hour per day will get you through all the above in a few years.
And in this way you will understand a lot more than if you got stuck on every small detail.
And what you did not understand here, you will be reminded of up above. The main thing is for when you get to the next world you will have finished once completely the entire Written and Oral Law.

Doing this at home is better than in  any synagogue where people will definitely try to stop you from learning, and come up with all kinds of other so called mitzvot to try and stop you. 'the evil inclination is dressed up in mitzvahs. Be assured if you are learning and someone comes up to offer you another mitzah, that they are from the Sitra Achra,

The Gra says the main thing about the Erev Rav is Bitul Torah. They will do anything to get a person to stop learning Torah. He says the kelipot that the two messiahs have to take down are Esav and Ishmael, but the Erev Rav is the worst.

You should have an in depth session also and that is best with a learning partner. And that should be a hour per day. That gives time for work, and collage, and to volunteer for your local  Boy Scouts.

We can't say that everything is made of God's substance because he has no substance.

Substance is what the essence acts on to make it actual and to make it what it is. Such a concept does not apply to God. Essence is something that does apply to him. Essence is what makes something what it is.
We can't say that everything is made of God's substance because he has no substance. He is not made of anything.  He is not a composite.
Pantheism  is not the  belief of the Torah. Nor is Panetheism.

I thought after that short introduction to mention that the fundamental point of view of Torah is Monotheism.  That is that there is a first cause that made everything and he is not what he made.  And he did not weave the world out of his substance like a spider weaves a web.
Though you can see this point of view in the first verse of the Torah it is not addressed explicitly until you reach the books of Maimonides and Saadai Geon.

In spite of the great inspiration you can find in Eastern religions and especially Hinduism their pantheism should not be presented as the view point of the Torah. The Upanishads and the Bhavagad Gita are very inspiring but they are not Torah.
I don't know why pantheism became a part of Orthodox Judaism, but it has. For that reason if I could go to a Reform Temple or Conservative synagogue I would.

Before Reb Chaim from Brisk people were worried about "How?" After Reb Chaim people became worried about "Why?

Before Reb Chaim from Brisk people were worried about "How?" After Reb Chaim people became worried about "Why?"[Why does the gemara say what it says and on what kind  reasoning do the Rambam and Raavad disagree?]
Now today lots of people go into "yesodot"  (foundational reasons) for the arguments in the Talmud or between the rishonim in ways that are similar to Reb Chaim, but without rigorous logic.
And while I can see why people do not think this is important, because after all we have the books of Rav Shach and the disciples of Chaim from Brisk. We have the recently published books of Reb Moshe the Dibrot Moshe and Reb Aaron Kotler. But Reb Aaron was not doing what Brisk is doing. Nor is Reb Moshe. They are not dealing with "Why?"
For the general public let me try to make it clear what I am saying here.
When we look at the Rambam we generally see the first problem is to find from where he brings his laws. That can help to understand what he is saying. Without that his laws are often understood in ways opposite to what they mean in the Gemara itself as has been noted by the Beit Yoseph.
So now we know from where the law comes and we have some idea of why he might decide the law in that way. Though there could be dozens of ways. The first person to bring some logical rigor to the study of the Rambam was the Mishna Lamelch. And later the Or Sameach. But Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam is his Pieta, his 9th symphony. it is the first time the Jewish people were able to see the logical rigor inside Maimonides instead of just believing it is there. and that process was left incomplete so Shimon Shkop and Baruch Ber and Rav  Shach continued this process. It is this reason that Reb Shmuel Berenbaum is much more important to the Jewish people than is known. because he was not just a continuation of this brisk approach but also was very exacting in its application.

In the thirteen principles of faith of the Rambam there is a mitzvah to believe that there will come a  messiah who will usher in a period of peace and good will, and there will be rebuilt the holy temple and the Jewish people will be able to live in peace.

He has a job to do, and if he does his job, well fine. No one needs to believe in a him or any person. In the Torah there is no mitzvah to believe in people. There is mitzvah to believe in God--that he exists and he is not a composite, he is not made of parts, and he is not the world. Rather he made the world out of nothing. He is not space or time and he is not in space or time. Space and time are his creations.
We have in the Torah many commandments from God. The major ones are in the Ten Commandments. But there are many more that deal with laws of the Temple in Jerusalem and civil law. But none of them say to believe in a tzadik. There is no mitzvah from the Torah or words of the scribes or any  decree of later sages to believe in any tzadik. [That is in Hebrew: there is no such Mitzvah דאורייתא from the Torah nor a Mitzvah דרבנן ] And you can't add such a mitzvah because the Torah itself says you must not add or subtract from the Mitvahs of the Torah.

4) There was a king that was ruling over the Jews and he set up an image and asked the Jews to worship this idol. Some Jews went along with it and some refused. Yochanan killed a priest that was worshiping that idol and started a war that he could scarcely have thought he could win. Five Jews against the Greek Empire. Not an even fight. But he won. And they went into the Temple and found a jar of oil that had not be desecrated and lit the menorah; and it stayed lit--for eight days.

5) Jews are asked by God not to worship any beings besides God. And that includes tzadikim.

6) We are asked to keep the Torah and its פירוש המקובלת [its accepted explanation] which is the Oral Torah; that is two Talmuds, one Tosephta and the Sifri and Sifra. (That is from Maimonides)
And many  sages tell us that we are not to read "outside books (ספרים חיצוניים)." People think "outside books" are philosophy  and science, but that is not how the Talmud uses this term. In the Talmud  (right smack at the beginning of chapter "Chelek" in Sanhedrin) the Talmud says (according to the Rif} "outside books" are books that explain the Torah in a way other than the Oral Law has already explained it. And this would include books that say it is a mitzvah to believe in a tzadik.


7) But tzadik worship should be rejected.

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9) The truth be told I was years ago that I was reading the book of Daniel that some of these ideas occurred to me. And it has taken a long  time for me to be able to formulate my thoughts about this difficult topic. Also the previous essay about finishing Shas (the whole Oral Law) took me a very long time to be able to articulate.

10) Now most of the ideas here are not dealing with what is a tzadik. Maybe he is a soul from Atzilut. Maybe he is a Divine Incarnation. Maybe he is a deified being.  Maybe there are lots of variations of this that I have not heard of. And there is nothing wrong with any of that.  But don't claim there is a mitzvah to believe in him, and don't worship him with any of the four services nor in the way he is usually worshiped. All these are considered idolatry in the Torah. And that includes tzadikim that are in fact tzadikim.


12) There are different ways that people try to entice you into idolatry. I tend to think that it is hard not to fall into some kind of cult. Everyone wants to be part of some group. and the closer knit it is the better. Who cares if they are doing idolatry as long as one is accepted and loved. Right? I can't really answer that. It would be nice if keeping the Torah was lovey dovey, and people around were really sincere. But if they aren't, so what? Even if you were alone in the world, you still should keep Torah. And even if everyone hated you for doing so, you would still have to keep Torah. No now you have people that pretend to keep Torah around. All that is is another test of your faith. Why is it any different from the other times when people try to stop you from Torah more directly? All this is is that the Satan has found another way of enticing people away from Torah.

13) Sorry if this sounds a bit excited. You really have to start out with confidence in the Torah in the first place for this essay to make sense. And to defend the Torah I have tried to do on other occasions. This essay is just starting after one has confidence in Torah. And at that point I try to show what the basic idea of the Torah concerning this issue.

14) On a different issue I should mention that everyone needs some example of human excellence to look up to and to model themselves upon. And it is better that that model should be  a tzadik and not a rasha{wicked}. It is not just that it is human nature to need to find some model or perfection but also this model provides a social meme to form a society upon. And every group does this and every group has this one person or model that they consider perfect and try to model themselves upon. Some people take this model of human perfection beyond kosher limits and start to worship that person. That is not good and it is idolatry. But independently of that it is clearly better that people should have a true model of perfection than a wicked person. And that is why it is OK and even good to have  a model of how to learn Torah and to pray

Some people just can't stand to see someone learning Torah with energy and joy. It annoys the hell out of them. Literally.

When I say that it is easy to go through Shas and the entire Oral Law I mean you need a  decent idea of what the Oral Law is. I mean the actual texts that compromise that actual Oral law. That is only five texts--(1) The Babylonian Talmud, (2) the Jerusalem Talmud,  (3) Tosephta, (4) Sifri and (5) Sifra. It is possible to do this only if you have a clear idea of what you are doing. Also you need  certain degree of confidence in the idea of saying the words and going on. It is in fact something stated already in the Talmud--לגמור והדר ליסבר. shabat 63a But even this simple knowledge is easy to get distracted from.  And many people make fun of this kind of learning and it is easy to lose confidence in it.
. But I saw a lot of great people learned this way in the book Binyan Olam. And Reb Shmuel Berenbaum (of the Mir in New York) definitely did this. I would walk by his shtender on the way to my seat in the afternoon seder session. I remember he was doing tractate Chulin that year. I would walk by and he would be on page 60. A few hours  later I would walk by again and he would be on page 76. He was packing it away at a rate much faster than what I am describing here.
In this way you can easily go through the entire Talmud with Rashi, Tosphot, and the Maharsha. Every single last word. And the entire Jerusalem Talmud with the Pnei Moshe, and the two other commentaries on the page. And the entire Tosephta with the Chazon Yechekeil and the entire Sifri and Sifra. And all you need to 20 minutes per day. That simple easy twenty minutes is enough to get you through one whole page of Gemara with Rashi and Tosphot and the Maharsha. And the same goes with the other books I mentioned above. But it is best to do this at home where people will not distract you. People are more of a  hindrance than the evil inclination. People will definitely try to stop you from doing this.
Some people just can't stand to see someone learning Torah with energy and joy. It annoys the hell out of them. Literally.


You still have plenty of time to get your Ph.D in Physics and Mathematics and your Eagle Scout badge. And also you can do the "talking to God" thing (Hitbodadut) on the weekends. Go on a camping trip with your family and while up in the woods take some time to go and talk to God alone.


Appendix:
learn very fast.  when one starts to learn it often happens that he gets discouraged because he does not understand right away so he or she drop the subject completely.
But if one gets used to learning fast then he will merit to finish these books he needs to be doing and to learn them again and again three and four and more times and everything that he did not understand at first he or he will eventually understand. And even if there remain a few things one still does not get--so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above everything else. And eventually he will know a lot more than if he got stuck on ever little thing.