People get a feeling of holiness and power [numinousity]  from all kinds of different sources.For this reason learning Torah is important. That is so that one gets accustomed to receiving this numinous power from a source of holiness. Or it also is good to be connected with a tzadik [saint] who is connected to Torah.

This is a large subject. To some degree Allen Bloom goes into it in his book The Closing of the American Mind. [I used to have a link to it on one of my blogs, but it should be fairly easy to find. It is the most important book in Philosophy of the 20th century.]

He makes the point there that religious groups were considered as bad things by the founders of the USA. They wanted to make religion unimportant. I imagine they were not thinking of what could serve as a substitute. Clearly politics did and still does replace religion as  a source of that feeling of power and purpose. But if they were thinking in those terms seems doubtful to me.


But there can be many other sources from which people derive their feelings about the meaning of life. E.g., Muslims get their feeling about the purpose of life from murder. This gives them a feeling of numinousity and value for their lives. Others get this from sex and sexual issues.

For all these and many other reasons I think learning Torah is highly undervalued. For learning Torah directs a person's feelings of direction and purpose towards a holy source.

The theory here is actually very simple. Picture  a clock.  From 6:00 to 12:00 are values starting from all form and no content to all content and no form. But for every area of value there is an opposite place of the clock that is an opposite value. A value of the Sitra Achra--the Dark Side.
See this link for more detail: Origin of Value.

I could go on, but it is best to look at that Origin of Value thesis by Dr. Kelley Ross.

[To get some background about the Origin of Value you need to know a bit of Kant. For a good introduction to Kant see Mattey's lectures on Kant]  I should mention say my small knowledge of Kant comes from the two great encyclopedias, the  Stanford encyclopedic of Philosophy and also the Internet encyclopedia of Philosophy and also reading Kant in German. (I had to read him in German because I could not understand the English translations.) [If anyone has ever read Kant in English and understood him please raise your hand. No? I thought so.]

Music for the glory of God

h9   h9 in midi  h9 in nwc

Ideas in Talmud


Ideas in Bava Metzia with some editing

One major critique of Lithuanian yeshivas is the problem of emphasis on status. Also there tends to be forgotten why we are learning Torah. These are at least two of the complaints that I have heard and I think they are accurate. But to upgrade yeshivas seems impossible. All attempts to modernize and make them more relevant or more spiritual results in the creation of cults.
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The first thing that happens when one gets interested in Torah is he of she is confronted by various cults that represent themselves as teaching authentic Torah. Because of this danger it is almost better not to teach Torah at all and not to try to bring people to Torah. The problem is that Torah has become contaminated.  While one thinks he is learning Torah and doing more in terms of mitzvot on the side he is losing his humanity and his soul and getting involved in sexual sins that he would not normally be doing. So the problem of cults in the Torah world is more than just serious. It almost makes it better not to keep Torah at all.

But what I suggest is to first get rid of the cults, and then in fact come to Torah authentic Torah.



The  challenge is to come up with an approach to Torah  that can both enter into the theater of historical change, as did Stoicism or Marxism, and at the same time provide a genuine alternative to a hopeless historical oscillation between an essentially sterile scientific universe of atoms and the void and  religious fanaticism and repression. If what is lacking in the scientific worldview is the dimension of value, and if what constitutes religious oppression is the imposition of a dogmatic system of value, then clearly what we must originate is a positive, constructive  discipline of value.-and to be rid of the negative destructive cults.


Whether learning authentic Torah is equal to this is not an abstract puzzle for a distracted few.

Reflection gives rise to fundamental questions about our very existence and purpose in life. Such reflection is not  idle curiosity: Most people that come to Torah come not through the traditional awe and wonder, but out of the perplexity and pain that inevitably disillusion us with the innocent confidence in the world we so often begin life by having. Torah is the attempt to deal with  solitary unhappiness with the blank mystery, the cruel fates, the tragic good intentions, and the bittersweet beauty  in the world.
It is the beginning is of self-discovery of doubt and ignorance.

Music for the Glory of God.

q49   q49 in midi

(1) People give up learning the natural sciences for bad reasons. They think they need some kind of extra special talent.  Or they think they are too hard. Or they don't see a numinous reason. There is however one good reason. They have bad parents. Bad parents make it nearly impossible to get anywhere in life. Also bad genes are a factor. But bad genes still don't cancel free will.

(2) In any case as for the major difficulties that people have I want to say that the way of learning of the Talmud Shabat page 63a say the words and go on even if you do not understand is helpful. That is to say and words in order and go on. And don't worry about understanding until you have finished the book four times.

(3) As for the numinous aspect Maimonides deals with that in the Guide +  gives good reasons to realize there is a hidden kind of luminosity and numinosity inside the natural sciences.

(4) ראשית חכמה יראת השם The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. So before and after one learns the natural sciences and or Torah and Talmud he should learn Musar. [Medieaval Ethics.]  Or the books based on Medieval Ethics from the disciples of Israel Salanter.

To help people is not by giving them money or products. It is by giving them fear of God and good character traits. And within the Rambam point of view natural sciences the thing that brings to fear of God because of one getting a grasp and awe of his amazing wisdom that is a part of his  Creation.

(5) Fear of God however is not easy to find. Where you would except to find it is always the place of the greatest evil. To find the real thing takes a great deal of skill and subtlety and awareness of the frauds and fakers.

סביב רשעים יהלכון. When evil and darkness surrounds one, the advice is to speak only truth. And the truth has the power to save one from all darkness.



And one should spend as much time as possible talking with God in a place where no one else is and to pour out one's heart to God. But I think he must have considered this kind of private conversation with God as fulfilling this idea of praying to God with truth. prayer to God  ought to be with fear and love and fiery excitement. But when one can't pray to God in such a way, then the thing is to pray to God simply from the simple truth in one's heart.  [That is private conversation with God.]

This it is not ביטול תורה. That is it is something that is so worthwhile that one should spend all day on it. But if not all day then at least an hour a day.  That is even though in theory one is supposed to learn Torah all the time and the only time one is allowed to interrupt his learning is when there is a mitzvah that cant be done by anyone else. And we know that the regular prayers are not able to push off learning Torah. That is a person who learns Torah all the time does not have to interrupt learning to pray. Still  private conversation with God to be a kind of mitzvah that can't be done by others. T\


 What you can see is that people can get into learning so much so as to loose their human heart. That is a famous stereotype about Litvaks, but it has some basis in truth. On one hand the Litvaks do have the only straightforward idea of what Torah is about. And they deserve immense credit for that. But they also need a little bit of the vitamins of prayer in order not to lose the human heart.

Music for the glory of God

q48b  [q48b in midi]


q47   [q47 in midi]

j40   [j40 in midi]


n100    [n100 in midi]

I would like to learn Torah, but I find it is hard to do so. You can't depend on doing it in a synogogue because of the fact that most synagogues are there for other reasons. Same problem with yeshivas. They are usually set up for reasons other than being a place where anyone can walk in and start learning Torah.
So for Joe  Public to learn Torah it means in a practical sense to go out and buy the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrashim and bring them home and set aside a certain place in his home to plow through them, page by page word by word. Same with Isaac Luria's stuff.

I mean even at the very best if you have a Lithuanian yeshiva in your neighborhood that does not mean they are open for the public. Most yeshivas tend to be  insane asylums that are not learning Torah at all, but using the name yeshiva to advance some charismatic lunatic that they worship as a deity.


I SHOULD MENTION:
This plowing through Talmud approach probably needs some kind of introduction like the basic Musar books or Shimshon Refael Hirsh's Horev.

The regular criticism of Breslov is correct.

Breslov. The regular criticism of Breslov is correct. The numinous aspect of Torah like every area of value, when it falls from its state of perfection,-- it becomes its opposite.

You see this often. When music fell, it did not just lose its value. It did not become just noise. It became anti-Music.
So when the holy and luminous and bright aspect of Torah falls, its becomes not just of less value. It becomes anti Holiness.

What sometimes happens  is  ריבוי אור effect. Too much light that makes people go off the straight path. The way to avoid that problem is to have a good idea of what Torah is about, the Oral and Written Torah and not to deviate from that at all. That is by learning Musar. Or Shimshon Refael Hirsch.

That fact that people make cults from someone does not eliminate  value. It just means one has to be careful.

The problem seems to be that there is no way to get to the good without going through a lot of bad stuff, e.g. leaders that are charismatic lunatics and a general weakening of the desire to learn Talmud.

The major good things I think are his Rosh Hashanah--as he said himself, and his idea that in learning one should just say the words and go on דרך גירסה. The  ten psalms he said to say to correct sexual sin. But the bad things are the cults that are founded on him.

There is little in this world that is all good or bad. Even things that we do that we must do and are even mitzvahs have lots of evil. And even our evil has good.

Let us say for example you feel a civic obligation to support some cause. Even if the cause is good there has to be some negative aspects to it. Or it might be only good at how it presents itself to the public. In its inner workings it might be very evil.

 Before Abraham came into the world, the path towards God was open for anyone. But after he came then one needs to go through the path that he opened.
And the same goes for Moshe Rabainu [Moses]. I have not mentioned this much but it does provide a kind of background for my thinking. When it comes to understanding of the Oral Law the Talmud, I take it as obvious that one can't  understand Talmud unless he is in someway connected with the Gra.
I also think this is obvious. Make a list of all the books written after the period of the Gra and you will see. What are the great ones? They are all from the school of thought of the Gra. For example The חידושי הרמב''ם by Reb Chaim from Brisk. The Avi Ezri of Rav Shach from Bnei Brak, the Chazon Ish, etc.

Books from the groups under the excommunication that was signed by the Gra.

It is forbidden to learn those books. That excommunication does not lose force or relevance as time goes by. But instead of depending on hearsay, I made the effort to find the actual language of the different excommunications and also the minutes of the court cases in Villna preceding the excommunication . [There are  a few books that did work in this topic but I found the one with the actual original documents.] You really need to see this yourself to see this. I don't intend to argue this point here.

There is a place for authentic Lithuanian yeshivas where people learn Torah for its own sake. But because there are authentic yeshivas, that fact gives frauds  a cover story to make yeshivas that exist only for money or to advance a cult and call it  a yeshiva.

In the days of the Gra there was in every city just the local beit midrash [synagogue] which was used as a study hall during the day. There certainly was no concept that people could or should be paid to learn Torah. To learn for hire is not allowed.


People also hired a tutor to teach their children Torah at home.

What I suggest is for people to go out and buy their own set of the Babylonian Talmud and to plow through it.


The problem with the idea of learning in some local shul [synagogue] today is that the majority of the religious synagogues are affiliated with some cult. In fact the majority of the frum world consists of various cults. They are called frum because they are united in external rituals. The world views of most of these cults are highly antithetical to the world view of the Torah. Most worship some charismatic figure, dead or alive. But they cover this worship with Jewish rituals that their their idolatry seems kosher.

For this reason it is best to avoid these places like they were filled with people that had the black plague and learn at home or in some Conservative or Reform Shul.

The "Kollel Movement". The Kollel movement as a whole today is directed towards the goal of making Torah into a cash cow.



כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה וגוררת עוון All Torah that does not have work with it in the end will be worthless and brings to sin.

Appendix: If you are wondering about the excommunication of the Gra,  See the several books out there that collected all the testimonies in Villna in Yiddish and the actual language of the different excommunications and you will see what I mean. The excommunications are certainly still valid

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One of the  book I used for this research was in a library in the Old City of Jerusalem. It had the original language in Yiddish of the actual testimonies and documents.
If you can find it look at חיי מוהר''ן the edition put out by נקודות טובות printers. They put the parts that were left out. Those left out parts were included in their edition even more thoroughly than other editions that claimed to put in all the left out parts. You either have to find the השמטות of Shmuel Horwitz--the actual booklet or that specific edition that I mentioned above.

My learning partner suggested Rav Shach as a proper introduction to how to learn Talmud. And to some degree this makes a lot of sense to me. What makes his book, the Avi Ezri, so remarkable is hard to say.  Rav Shach have the ability to make the complicated simple. And he is complete. There is no major subject of interest in Talmud Babylonian of Jerusalem Talmud that he does not bring light on. I used to think that the Litvaks were just talking about him because they had no one else to replace the Stipleler Rav. But now I realize that Rav Shach was light years beyond anyone.

But since the Hebrew might be hard for some people I suggest making an annotated edition of just a few of the essays.  

His focus is on settling hard problems in the Rambam but by doing so he sheds amazing light on almost every hard problem in the Talmud. It is like no other book I have ever seen.

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Take human רצון "will". Nowadays you have popular writers that proclaim anything you want is good, and claim to be able to help you get what you want, and manipulate others into helping you. Or you have some approaches that invalidate anything that you want. You have to shape up to that particular system or leave.
An idea originating with Isaac Luria is all desires stem from רצון העליון the higher "Will." But people's will while coming from a place of holiness and good can fall away from that. People's will need to be raised up to its source in the Higher "Will".

The fact that there were great tzadikim like Gra does provide an excuse for copycats. It is sadly all too easy to play on peoples naivety and credulity. And it is impossible to warn anyone about the frauds charismatic fakers because  of the prohibition of Lashon Hara (slander). Besides that, it is hard to tell the difference between miracles from the realm of holiness, and the exact same kinds of miracles from the realm of darkness. It is not worth the time to warn people. If someone of the stature of the Gra was ignored by his own disciples, then what good would my warnings do? 

Ideas in Talmud

Ideas in Bava Metzia chapters 8 and 9

It is hard to judge the yeshiva world. The truth is it is very confusing. For example the tendency of Lithuanian yeshivas is to carefully protect what they are and what they are doing and to throw off and throw out anyone that does not seem to be a part of the program. I think this is  a good thing except when they throw out people that are in fact learning Torah for its own sake.
The general rule is they present themselves are elite geniuses when that is not usually the case.

On the other hand there are places in the Lithuanian yeshiva world that are of the highest quality like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak.

But the advantage of all Lithuanian yeshivas is there tends to be a minimum amount of pseudo Kabalah and lunatics which are so prevalent today in the world of the religious.

One thing about the pseudo Kabalah that is taught nowadays  is that it warps people's world view.
Pseudo Kabalah of course claims its lineage from Isaac Luria (the Ari), but in fact it teaches the Kabalah of the Shatz {Shabatai Tzvi} in disguise.


One fellow was telling me today his experience in some yeshivas when he was fourteen years old and was horrified how teaching young kids all kinds of pseudo Kabalah  would warp and mess up their minds permanently.

This came up with another fellow who was telling me about the Shuvu Banim Breslov crowd and some of the Shabatai Tzvi kinds of Kabalah that got to be central to their teachings.