Gemara in Bava Kama page 3

I wanted to write something fast about the Gemara in Bava Kama page 3 side A and then correct my spelling errors later.
And I wanted to point out how this is relevant in a larger way to general understanding of the Gemara. First I wanted to say that this part of the Talmud we need to divide into three parts. Part one and two deal with the braita [outside teaching = teaching that is not part of the Mishna] and the third part derives all four cases of tooth and foot in a different way.


The first way of the Braita is clear. We use "he sent" for foot and to get  to the lesser case [it walked by itself] we use a to tooth. The braita does the same with it ate. It uses it for tooth and to fill in the lesser case it uses a hekesh to foot.
 At this point--part three the Gemara uses "he sent" for both tooth and foot without us. And to get to the two other lesser cases it uses "ubier" ("It ate").. It does this but it only says one case for "it ate." The case the animal walked by itself. the  on the מהרש''א explains that it gets to the second less several case of tooth by means of the logic the gemara just got done using--the fact that tooth and foot are in equilibrium. so if you use it ate for foot you have to use it for tooth also.

 The natural question תוספות asks here is why does the gemara not ask like it did above what do you use the verse  כאשר יבער הגלל?

What this means is that about the Talmud uses    כאשר יבער הגלל to fill in all the gaps. The חמור case of נכלה השורש tooth and לא נכלה. Now what can now after the Talmud derives everything without that verse, what  do you need the verse for?

תוספות answers that the ברייתא means to say that if we did not have the ברייתא way of deriving all for cases we would be able to fall back on the way of the braita,


Ok this piece was what I wrote fast. Now I would like to explain a few things. one thing is that I used simplified approach in explaining this Gemara. You probably noticed that I left out the fact that part one and part two of the gemara assumes that all distinctions of tooth go into foot and visa verse. you cant have missed it because it is an essential part of the reasoning of the Gemara. And yet when I explained the Gemara used on two cases for foot [(a) he sent the animal, and (b) it went by itself] and two cases for tooth [it ate all, it ate part.]  For those of you familiar with covariant coordinates this is easy to explain why I did this. I similar changed the coordinates. I used vertical lines instead of slanted lines to go through my graph. The end result ends up the exact same way.

hard words

hekesh [“similarity” = same aspects of different cases= “what is it with this case? Thus and thus. So is it with that case.]

בבא קמא ג' ע''א 

 First I wanted to say that this part of the תלמוד we need to divide into three parts. Part one and two deal with the ברייתא, and the third part derives all four cases of שן and רגל in a different way.


The first way of the ברייתא is clear. We use ושילח for ניזקי רגל and to get  to  איפה שהלכה  בעצמה we use  שן. The ברייתא does the same with וביער בשדה אחר. It uses it for שן and to fill in the lesser case it uses a היקש to רגל.
 At this point the גמרא uses ושילח for both שן and רגל without us. And to get to the two other lesser cases it uses "וביער בשדה אחר. It does this but it only says one case for וביער בשדה אחר. The case the animal walked by itself. The מהדורא בתרא של המהרש''א explains that it gets to the second less several case of שן by means of the logic the גמרא just got done using  that is fact that שן and רגל are שווים. So if you use וביער for רגל you have to use it for שן also.

 The natural question תוספות asks here is why does the גמרא not ask like it did above, What do you use the verse כאשר יבער הגלל.

What this means is that about the גמרא uses כאשר יבער הגלל to fill in all the gaps. The מצב  החמור of שן and the מצב הקל.  Now after the גמרא derives everything without that verse, what can do you need the verse for?

 תוספות answers that the ברייתא means to say that if we did not have the third way of deriving all for cases we would be able to fall back on the way of the ברייתא,

For the general public I feel I ought to insert a note or two about what is important about Gemara.

The basic importance of the Talmud is in two areas. Numinous value and moral value. The way I understand this is basically through the school of thought of Plato,Why I am a Platonist --friesian.com and  Kant,.[]  I should mention  that even Maimonides is somewhere in between Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus the Platonist. So in terms of would view and a good consistent way to evaluate moral issues, the Talmud is important. It also does give a rather spiritual path. And it has the advantage of being a logical rigorous explanation of the Written Law{Torah}.
There is also a philosophical advantage to the Torah and Talmud. This has to do with Western Civilization, and in particular the USA. Right now, it is a bit difficult to find a rational justification of either. In my view, the Talmud provides a way out of the modem political dilemma. I would have to find time to go into this another time.

I just got done writing about the Talmud on my other blog so I don't know how well i am going to be able to focus my attention here.
Here i wanted to discuss the Rambam.

We all would like the rambam to be saying in his eight chapters that the Torah is the middle path and also that it brings to the middle path. Right? But on the surface that does not seems to be what he is saying. My thesis is that in fact that is what the rambam is saying.
 Ok not to the meant and potatoes of the subject. Thus saith the Rambam: people have physical aliments and mental sicknesses. Medicine teaches us how to deal with physical sickness. And the same principle applies to mental sickness. You go to the opposite extreme for a while until  the bad nature or diseases is uprooted an then you return to the middle.

Now at this point it looks like the rambam is saying two different things. It seems he means that the Torah is itself the middle path, But also that it brings to the middle path. but how can he say that is the way to get to the middle is to go to the opposite extremer which he just got done saying is pure evil?
The Torah is i hope not telling us to go to some evil extremer in order to straighten out our personal problems!

I suggest that the Rambam here can be meaning that the Torah provides  ways for individual to cure themselves but that its general approach is in fact the Middle. Nazir is perfect example that the rambam himself brings  and [nedarim] oaths also. is an example . also a time to do for God is brought by the rambam as a general Principe that the Beit Din can use to correct faults of the generation that is :it is not just for a prophet.

A connection length of days and fear of God.

 I found a connection length of days and fear of God. And I definitely have found myself in need of length of days.--My days had become very short of full of nonsense. I decided I needed a definite refill of fear of God. So I asked myself from where do I think I might get a little fear of God? The most obvious answer I could think of is the idea of learning what is called Musar. This refers to two sets of books on the subject of Fear and Love of God and good character traits. One set was written during the Middle Ages by Jewish scholars. Another set was written recently by people on the same themes. One of these books is called the Madragat HaAdam.
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Do slogans determine people’s behavior?

How much do slogans determine people’s behavior? They find some slogan that makes sense to them and then use it to make snap decisions based on the slogan. I think slogans determine very much. See the essay of a professor from MIT (John Sterman) I have a link to on this blog in his discussion of computer models and how people do use their own modeling of reality and a small set of rules to determine their large range of behavior, I was once at the shabat table of Rav Zilverman in the old city of Jerusalem and he asked me if I could come up with a catchy slogan for the Geon from Villna. . . I gave some stupid answer I am sorry to say. I mentioned some  one of the aphorisms in the book Even Shelama. Today thinking back to this I realize that not only is very little of the Gra very catchy, but my suggestion missed the whole point. The point is something short and simple that grabs a person and alters their future behavior. 


Now we have see that some slogans cause people to do bad things. and other s are just a consciouses trap-- like ways of capturing people and  making them mental slaves them as we see in many religious cults today.
Often these cults use some nice sounding slogan but they act individually and collectively in ways opposite from the implication of the slogan.
 Philosophy also works by slogans. Hume came up with the idea that if something disagrees with his premises that it is meaningless. He wrote that if you could find some idea that is not based on observation then he would agree that his empirical philosophy is false, and then he goes right on and finds examples of ideas that are not based on observation. Then he does his neat trick. He calls these ideas "meaningless." And ever since then, in any discussion with left wing liberal,  when they encounter an idea that disagrees with them, they say it is "meaningless."




What I am wondering here is if it is such a good idea to reduce human life and its complexity to a bunch of slogans?

[Note 1] Maybe my parents had the best slogan of all: Be a mensch. This sadly is untranslatable.But roughly it means to be a decent human being with good character traits-decent kind just loyal loving and responsible. This was the Jewish ideal of human perfection in the European generation of Jews that came to the USA.]

[Note 2] The Gra, it could be said would have had a slogan like "learn Torah". This might not be catchy but it does capture the basic idea. He did think that by learning Torah most of a persons problems are solved. And in fact he might have been right about this. Maybe the idea of learning only Torah is a bit too much. But I think it is fair to ask people to have a simple session every day in Torah Mishna and Gemara called "shiurim kesidran." That is "sessions in order." That is take a Old Testament and start at the beginning, and when you have read some in order, then you put a place marker and put it down. Then you do the same with the Mishna.. And you do this in order, and you do not repeat anything nor do you pause to think about anything.

Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism

[1] Buddhism and Hinduism make a lot of assumptions about duality and non duality and about self. What it is and if it exists at all. And if they say it does not exist they are not very clear about what it is exactly that they are saying does not exist. In spite of great philosophical sophistication and depth, both leave me with a sense that they have some good points but those points are mixed with numerous dogmatic assumptions that seem unwarranted. [2] The Lithuanian world seems to pride itself on its lack of interest in spirituality.To them it is learn Torah and keep mitzvot and that is that. That seems like a fairly good approach in that opening the doors of spirituality seems in fact to welcome a host of phenomenon like illusions and mental illness etc. that seem to be part and parcel of the world of Hasidim. [3] Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism and accepted it as Halacha Le'Moshe MiSinai. [A law to Moses from mount Sinai] This is in spite of the fact that it is not traditional Jewish doctrine. If you look at the personality cults that have sprouted up around him and around charismatic leaders claiming to going in the Breslov path, then there is not much to see.

There  are some amazing aspects to the basic Musar path of Torah. Musar here means medieval books of Ethics like the Duties of The Heart and the rest of the basic cannon But we know that Musar was expanded after the Middle Ages and came to include about 30 books considered to be basic. [And many of the later works began to include kabalistic themes like the Mesilat Yesharim at least as an undercurrent.
Nefesh Hachaim certainly uses the Zohar as a source of evidence for his thesis that learning Torah is the most important thing one can do.




Other people [mainly baali teshuva in Israel] went to Breslov directly and that became their basic source of value and frame of reference. So when they later hear themes of the basic Musar books of people like Saadia Geon or the Rambam they think it is heresy.

There are however extra curricular sources which have important contributions to make concerning what human beings are about.


The question is how to find a unifying thread,  A way to judge if a world view is sound--or if any aspects of it might be sound.This is not to say that once one has this thread his human problems will be solved. World view is only one important tool to come to where we need to go. It does not solve any human problems but it can be of some help not to fall into things that claim to be a solutions and yet are simply traps.


I have such thread that I use. Philosophy. But since the beginning of twentieth century philosophy the idea of philosophy being able to provide a way to judge other world views has become ridiculous.All twentieth century philosophy that is linguistic postmodern analytic philosophy- is in the famous words of John Serle "obviously false".
So people can be excused if they think my using philosophy to judge the validity of any given world view is unsound.

So what I have to add is that I mean I use the  common sense, Maimonides, Plato, and Aristotle.

I have had to use my own sense along with philosophical studies outside of mainstream academia in order to develop my own philosophical point of view.

There are certain professions which attract personalities that have no conscience, snakes in suits. These are areas in which a glib tongue will get someone very far. And you can’t depend on peer review in these areas because all the rest of the people at the top of the profession also got there by the power of their glib tongue and lack of fear for consequences of their actions in this world or the next.


These are not people that are sitting in jail. They are so smooth that they can maneuver themselves out  situations that would land lesser people in jail.

Religious people are exceptionally susceptible to these type of people, because religious people believe in a kind of Divine justice in  which if someone is doing well in this world there must be a reason for it. And if someone is suffering then they must deserve it.

And I do not refer here to the heads of cults. I mean even well respected member of any religious denomination.

In the Jewish world there used to be a mechanism in place that would prevent this kind of abuse. It was the Kahal-- the tax paying working Jews that were in charge of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They would make sure before they hired someone to serve as a religious leader, that that person really knew the Talmud well.  




Rather it is the type of people they hurt which I find more interesting. These are usually people with a high degree of interest in spiritual affairs and are seeking to become morally better people. It is this class of highly moral and sensitive spiritually minded people that snakes  hurt the most in their deepest subconscious levels.

The people that I tend to blame for this mess are those that without a sense of responsibility try to get people to join the cult of  charismatic Snakes in suits. But other people that that join and then lose their sense of responsibility and try to get others to join are more at fault.

How to learn the Shulchan Aruch [Code of Jewish Law] of Joseph Karo.

I think today I should concentrate on how to learn the Shulchan Aruch.

The fact of the matter is I have assumed that everyone in the world understands this intuitively. But recently I have noticed that this assumption is unwarranted.

So without further ado let me explain it.

The actual way to understand any single halacha in the Shulchan Aruch is by starting from the Talmud.
Sometimes this is very simple. A very good example is  we all know that one is not allowed to eat milk and meat together. But what about a cow's milk producer--the gland that makes milk? This is an argument in the Gemara and  is contained in a few short, simple paragraphs. So once you have read those simple paragraphs, you can trace the halacha down through the Tur, Beit Yoseph, Bach, and the Shulchan Aruch with the Shach and Taz.  [You could do the Rambam and Rif and Rosh also but nothing would change substantially in your understanding.] This is an unusually simple example.

Later I got involved in learning with Naphtali Yegear. That already involved very deep analysis of the Gemara and Tosphot with the Rabbi Akiva Eiger and Shav Shemtta. That was a level of depth I simply was unprepared for. So on my own, as I was doing Ketobot I continued doing the path of Halacha type of learning that starts from the Gemara and weaves down until the  Shulchan Aruch with all its commentaries like the Shach and the Taz. But Halacha type of learning is not the same as in depth learning of Gemara.

This Halacha  type of learning is not really how to learn Gemara. Learning Gemara proper, means to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and maybe months until its depths start to reveal themselves to you. Yet I want to emphasize here that this Halacha type of learning the Gemara is the only legitimate way to learn Halacha. The only reason we do things like reading the Shulchan Aruch straight is to get a general idea. But we must not fool ourselves to think that since we have read a halacha in the Shulchan Aruch that now we understand that Halacha -even with all the commentaries. This is simply not the case. There is no halacha anywhere that one can understand unless he has made that progression from the actual Talmud until the text of the Shulchan Aruch through the poskim in-between.

[But if you do not have a good learning partner I admit it might be best to do the Halacha type of approach to the Talmud. The in depth approach might simply be too hard for people to do on their own and most people are not even aware of its existence. they think learning the Talmud in depth actually means doing it with poskim [Rif, Rambam, Rosh, Tur, Shulchan Aruch]. This is obviously false But it still might be the only thing available to most people. And I might as well admit it the in depth approach was something I could never really get a good handle on. Though I sat through the classes of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum .

Once Muslims get their hands on Atom Bombs, the term "suicide bomber" will take on a whole new meaning.]

The world is definitely headed towards global conflict but it is not between the Ukraine and Russia. It is between Christendom and Islam. And therefore from my Jewish point of view I would like to see Christendom united and strengthened. [OK I admit if everyone would-sit and learn Gemara that would be a better option. But being that that is unlikely at least we can all agree that mankind ought to make progress towards a more ethical moral human decent world rather that towards barbarianism and jihad. Progress towards the later at this point would mean the extinction of the human race. Once Muslims get their hands on Atom Bombs the term suicide bomber will take on a whole new meaning.]

total immersion in Torah

The basic opinion of only Torah all day finds its basic expression in the Nefesh Hachaim of Chaim from Voloshin the major disciple of the Geon from Villna. But to a large degree it is implicit in older books of Musar and in the Talmud itself. In fact in the Tenach (the Hebrew Bible) we do find the idea that serving God is the only thing that has value. 

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While total immersion in Torah all day might good for some people but I have some questions if the Torah itself asks this from people. If we take a look for example  at the first and foremost of all books of Musar --the Chovot Levavot [Duties of the Heart] we find that he claims [Shar Prishut] that one is obligated to learn an honest profession that does not include depending on being supported for learning Torah.


But in truth the idea of learning Torah as a profession I did not hear about when I was in NY . There never was a question in anyone's mind that one should learn Torah all the time but that it is not to be a paid profession. The idea in N.Y. was that if one was sufficiently devoted to learning Torah, that God would provide some means of support,- in some kosher  way--not in the form of a pay check for sitting  learning.
  Everyone knew the simple basic Halacha that one is not allowed to make the Torah into a device to make money. Secular and religious Jews alike.
There is a difficult fine line here--the line that one should learn Torah but that this should not be a paid profession.
 Torah is everywhere.  It is the root of all creation. The Ten Statements of Creation the root of creation and inside of them are the Ten Commandments which are to essence of the Torah.
Torah is everywhere and in all actions and in all people. But in forbidden actions the glory of God is not revealed. So how do forbidden actions have any existence? They is by the first of the ten statements of Creation, the hidden statement. This is the highest of all the statements. That means that when one has fallen into the kelipot-- areas of darkness where there is no glory of God and from there one realizes how far he is as fallen and begins to seek God from there, that is when he has the highest flight into the highest levels.
The point being that one needs to learn Torah in order to find God. But when one does learn Torah and keeps his commandments then he can serve God through anything.

There are several areas in which I disagree with religious Judaism as a whole and there are areas which I agree.
One very major area that I disagree is the way they justify Torah and the Talmud. You can see some of the arguments in books by Rav Avigdor Miller. These arguments in favor of Torah and Talmud are obviously false. On the other hand I do have a way of arguing negatively for Torah and Talmud.
That is I can’t justify what I will call now just "Torah" [but meaning Torah along with it commentary the Talmud] in a positive way but I can deal effectively with most of the criticism. This I do mainly based on my readings in philosophy of Kant, [non intuitive immediate knowledge--which is meant to work mainly for a priori knowledge.], and the Intuitionists like G.E. Moore and Michael Huemer. 
So in short I do justify Torah but not in the way of the Orthodox.


There are individual areas of halachah I also disagree but these are based on my reading of the Talmud and the later authorities like the Rif, Rambam, Tur, and Shulchan Aruch with its commentaries the Shach and the Taz.--




Specific areas of disagreement are the time of Rosh Chodesh, electricity, some aspects of Nida, and the status of statehood of Israel and serving in the IDF. But in general I accept the general framework of Halacha and how a legitimate halacha opinion is found and defended by means of the Talmud and poskim that I mentioned above. In other words I claim that a halacha that can't be defended by the Talmud is not a legitimate halacha.


In terms of Books in Torah thought that I think are the most impressive I would have to put the  the Madragat Haadam of Joseph Yozel Horvitz commonly known as the "Alter of Navardok".
As for the Madgarat Haadam there is not even any English translation.

I think both of these books can provide a system of checks and balances in Torah thought. For each one on its own can be misused. But both together I think provide a very good approach to Torah.


Some of the most important ideas in these books a re ideas that have universal validity and are in no way specific for Jewish people. One is trust in God with no effort. This is probably the most important idea of the Madragat HaAdam. The other is talking with God in a forest or some place far away from other people. 



The Orthodox do have one advantage over me--they seem more Jewish.This seems to me to be the result of a kind of nationalism (or rather chauvinism)  in which seeming Jewish seems to be the most important thing. And the Orthodox certainly seem very Jewish. They wear lots of black clothing. They speak Yiddish. They hate everything that smacks of  culture or gentile thought. There is obviously nothing remotely good or Jewish about any of this. But if what you value the most is to seem Jewish, then by all means go ahead and join them.




The thing I should mention about non intuitive immediate knowledge and how it helps to justify Torah is this. One basic area of debate between the rationalists and the empiricists is this we can know things  based on empirical evidence. because we can check our conclusions with what happens in the real world. But when it come to a things that we perceive by reason alone things  how do we know that what we think has anything to do with reality? [This is a bit of a simplification-- we do find the intuitionists think that even empirical evidence we know only by reason].
It is this question that immediate non- intuitive knowledge comes to answer.
It does more that just answer Kant's question how is synthetic a priori possible. It answers how is a priori possible.

Once you get to synthetic a priori we can see that there are areas of value that we know beyond just the principle of non contradiction. and we can test these areas by falsification. In other words even morality which we cant derive from an "is", we can falsify . This is what Socrates spent all of his time doing. and this is in large part what the Talmud is doing. Except the Talmud accepts  sources of information that were unknown to Socrates.

I would like to introduce the major and most motivating idea of Navardok-- trust in God. That is trust without effort--as opposed to trust with effort.
That was based to some degree of a statement of Israeli Salanter and the Geon from Vilnius  that real trust in God means to trust with no effort.




I would like to suggest an integrated approach that combines the best of both approaches with a special emphasis on hiking in the woods and forests while talking with God and when one is not doing that to sit and learn Gemara Rashi and Tosphot.

For people that are limited in time and have to go to school my suggestion is  to introduce into schools two pretty important books of philosophical and  ethical thought--the book of Joseph Horvitz --the Madrgat Haadam I see both as containing important principles for the proper conduct of human life.  

They contain these basic principles: Trust in God with no efforts, talking to God in a forest or someplace where you are not seen or heard by others, learning the Torah, and a program designed to correct ones character flaws--learning Musar.





This is opposed to Pagan cults. Pagan cults are a system of rites. 
 Pagan cults are  systems of rites that involves a manipulation of substances — — that are believed to have some kind of inherent power, again, because of their connection to whatever the primordial world stuff may be in that tradition. So  there's always an element of magic in a pagan cult. It's seeking through these rituals and manipulations of certain substances to, again, let loose certain powers, set into motion certain forces, 

One final and very important point, in the polytheistic worldview, just as there are good gods who might protect human beings there are also evil gods who seek to destroy both humans and other gods. Death and disease are consigned to the realm of these evil demons or these impure evil spirits, but they are siblings with the good gods. Human beings are basically powerless, in the continual cosmic struggle between the good gods and the evil demons, unless they can utilize magic, divination, tap into the powers of the meta divine realm, circumvent the gods who might be making their lives rather miserable. But what's important is that  in the pagan view, evil is an autonomous demonic realm. It is as primary and real as the realm of the holy or good gods. Evil is a metaphysical reality. It is built into the structure of the universe. That's the way the universe was made. The primordial stuff that spawned all that is, spawned it good and bad and exactly as it is, and it's there and it's real.


So  the fundamental idea of Torah  is a radically new idea of a God who is himself the source of all being — not subject to a metadivine realm. There's no transcendent cosmic order or power. 

So what then are the implications of monotheism?
 So in the  Torah - Hebrew Bible, for the first time in history we meet an unlimited God who is timeless and ageless and nonphysical and eternal.

That means that this God transcends nature. Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Bible. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine.
So there's no process by which humans become gods and certainly no process of the reverse as well.
 God can't be manipulated or coerced by charms or words or rituals. They have no power and cannot be used in that way, and so magic is sin. Magic is sin or rebellion against God because it's predicated on a whole mistaken notion of God having limited power. 

I knew this fellow fairly well and we had a few discussions about difficult subjects in the writings of Isaac Luria an he knew the material very well. Much better than almost any so called kabalaists in Israel.

A few years ago i lost contact with him while on my adventures to the USA and Uman and to other parts of Israel outside of Jerusalem.

when i knew him he was on the up and up. He was married [a prerequisite for respect in the world of the charedim] and well respected in the community.
The yesterday I met him again and he had been in prison.. His wife was on the path to becoming pretty much not religious and so there a divorce and she was instructed as common in the chareidi world to make the worst possible accusations and lies against her husband so that she would gain the advantage in the monetary arrangements. [Charedim do not advice all young wives to make these claims--only baali teshuva wives. But for people born a part of their community they go out of their way to make peace.]

The thing here is that after he told me some of the things that happened to him and his family i kind of sympathize with the wife. They were living in some yishuv outside of Jerusalem and had bought a large plastic swimming pool for their 5 year and 4 old daughters.one weekend they went away and the chareidi neighbors slashed it .

I was having the traditional cholent on Shabat.  I said over my little idea about Rav Huna who had thousands of students and the fact that he was not paid anything for learning or teaching Torah. In fact Abyee had a scheme to have his students advice him to divorce his wife and then the guarantor of her dowry/Ketuba [Rav Huna's father] would have to pay, and then he could remarry her and then have money for breakfast. The Ketuba all in all was about two hundred dollars. So Rav Huna must have been in desperate straits. And still he did not ask or receive any money by learning Torah. I have said this over a few times already but I was surprised by the reaction of the fellow I knew from Jerusalem.

I said that the present day gezera of having to serve in the IDF is a result of the sin of using the Torah to make money.

I had a few idea to mention. One in particular I think stands out. It is related to something the Chovot Levavot says--The Duties of the Heart.

It is the idea that one is not supposed to make up a new religion.

That means in practical terms that even though what does it means to keep the Torah can be hard to decide on a daily basis still we know what it means not to keep the Torah.

That means to say we know more or less that a Jews is supposed to learn the Oral and written law--the Five books of Moses and the Babylonian Talmud from cover to cover- and to keep what the Torah says. Period.
But in this process sometimes people have experience with other individuals which might not be optimum. This still does not give one permission to go and make up some new religion.
Learning Torah has been considered the prime directive of the Torah for a couple of thousand years. This is not the subject of any debate. That means to say at minimum everyone should sit down a learn Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot at least an hour every day. And when it comes to Jewish law, the requirement to keep it is not a debate-- although the particulars are.

Also Monotheism is the philosophy of the Torah. This also has never been the subject of ant debate. Torah is not a document of pantheism in any sense and no one ever considered it as such--not Maimonides nor Isaac Luria