I had some ideas about yeshivas which I thought to share . The idea is that I see the Litvak yeshiva as a great and important ideal but it saddens me that the ideal have been perverted into bureaucracy and cults. My suggestion is to revive the original idea. So here are my thoughts:

The basic idea of a yeshiva is the Oral Law. That is the purpose is to get a decent idea of how to keep the Torah.The way I see it the best approach to this problem was formulated well by the Lithuanian kind of yeshiva. That is I expect there to be flaws and bureaucracy and all the normal human problems that go along with any human institution. But overall I think the idea is sound. And you do not need a large investment for such a thing. You can put tons of money into Jewish institutions and come out with nothing but rot. The reason is the most important thing is missing--the Idea.
Without the idea or with the wrong idea all you get is a cult or tzadik worship,
It is the idea of a yeshiva that makes it what it is.

So what is the idea? It is Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot. Period.
In a practical vein this means a morning session from 10:00 to 2:00 and and afternoon session from 3:30 to 8:00.  About a hundred years ago the question of adding a little bit of learning Ethics came up. And also at some point someone decided to add a small Halacah session. But these were additions onto the main idea.

Kollel is a perversion of this idea and something that all gedolai Israel would have opposed if it had been brought up during a time when there were still people around that knew better. [That is you never pay people to learn. The whole concept is as absurd as paying someone to pray.]

What people did in NY was to go to Brooklyn Collage in the afternoon. This was sanctioned by Rav Hutner. This was in order to learn a vocation. Torah with Derech Eretz.

So in any case what you need is a straight forward Litvak yeshiva in every town and hamlet. Where there is Torah then there is everything of value.

On the other hand the lack of authentic Torah opens the door to cults which mimic true Torah but whose inner essence is satanic. These cults are sadly the main body of religious world today.
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I should mention that the ideas here took me a long time to come to. I admit I was part of the kollel at the Mir Yeshiva in NY. But on the other hand there really was nothing wrong with that. They were simply accepting government grants. No one was claiming that learning Torah could be used making money. It was clearly charity. If the yeshivas in Israel would be run the same way I would have no objection.

Unconditioned realities. The trouble with understanding morality is that of knowing any unconditioned realities. This is the source of moral contradictions. Just as Kant said that when pure reason ventures into the real of unconditioned realities contradictions automatically pop up.


The objects of experience are individual, particular, and concrete, while, on the other hand, the objects of thought, or most of the kinds of things that we know even about individuals, are general and abstract, i.e. universals.

So he shifted from the regular Neo Platonic approach which had been begun by Saadia Gaon and went to Aristotle. That gives knowledge of individual things since universals are in the individual. From there there will be higher levels of pure reason that can conceive of higher things.


Appendix. Aristotle by putting the forms inside of things helped bridge between objects of experience and universals. And other levels of knowledge that are concepts alone. It goes from the Oral Law, to Maase Breshit מעשה בראשית and from that to Maase Merchava מעשה מרכבה

Letter to a friend

Dear ...: That is a long letter with lots of points. As for the first point. Dale Martin is getting all of his material from other sources. He just puts it together very well. Better than I could ever do. But the actual sources are difficult. At Polytechnic I saw a few books in the library about the hypothetical documents.  But this is a long and involved study.

The Rambam [Maimonides] concerning Maase Breishit is also a difficult subject. I think looking into the Ramban [Nachmanides] is a good area of investigation. All the Rishonim are worthy of study. I do not think there will be any great kashe about the Rambam however because he seems to be uniform in his opinion from the beginning of his life until the end and hinted at it in many places. You are right that without the Ramban (Nachmanides) the Rambam (Maimonides) would have been forgotten and marginalized to the point of vanishing.

Besides that I think that it is helpful to get a general idea of all the rishonim in order to understand any particular one. Context makes a difference.

[I should add that Yaakov Abuchatzeira and the Gra clearly held from the Ari.]

the belief system of Torah is Monotheism

The Sages asked why was Mordechai called a "Yehudi". Today we understand the word to mean a Jew (or Jewish). But it means from the tribe of Yehuda [Judah].
He was from the tribe of Benjamin. So what could it mean?

They answer because he denied idolatry -- because anyone who denies idolatry is  as if he confess to the whole Torah.  Anyone who admits idolatry is as if he denied the whole Torah. [Yehuda comes from the word admit.]

Thus I decided to stay away from idolatrous cults that seem to infest Orthodx Judaism like lice.  Even if they are the only show in town. To me it is more important to stay away from idolatry.

This clarity only came to me after learning Sanhedrin 63 fairly well. Before I learned that page in Sanhedrin the whole concept of idolatry was fairly ambiguous to me. I wrote some of my ideas about that Gemara in my little booklet on the Talmud. Mainly I was concentrating on the Tosphot there. But learning it in depth helped me understand the subject better.

An example of idolatry a person says any created thing besides God, "You are my god, save me" that makes the thing itself into an idol. The person himself gets the normal penalty for idolatry.

I should mention in this context that the belief system of Torah is Monotheism.  That is that God made the world something from nothing. That is Torah belief excludes pantheism. And it excludes worship of tzadikim.

God also is a simple One. He is not a composite of substance and form. He has no form nor substance nor anything that we can conceive of. There is a limit to human reason and even to pure reason in this regard. We can know he exists and that is all.

Also in the Torah there is no sense that God is imminent in nature or tied to natural substances or phenomena.  Nature also is not divine. It's  de-divinized; the created world is not divine, it is not the physical manifestation of God. The line of demarcation therefore between the divine and the natural and human worlds is clear. 


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, to summarize, the view of God is that there is one supreme God, who is creator and sovereign of the world, who simply exists, who is  incorporeal, and for whom the realm of nature is separate and subservient. 

Indeed, creation takes place through the simple expression of his will. "When God began to create heaven and earth," and there's a parenthetical clause: "God said, 'Let there be light' and there was light." He expressed his will that there be light, and there was light and that's very different from many Ancient Near Eastern cosmogonies in which there's always a sexual principal at work in creation. 

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Why do you need to speak out against cults?

Is it slander to speak about cults?

The illusion of being careful about Slander.


Selective enforcement.


Force includes relying on the legal system, which ultimately rests on the use of force as a last resort. Goading your opposition beyond endurance to the point where they respond violently is non-violence only in the most hypocritical, specious sense.

Putting people in the position where they either have to yield to your demands or resort to violence to stop you is emphatically not non-violence.


The three items on the list are calculated, manipulative, and deceptive practices.
 Can you really claim to be non-violent if you threaten someone else's position to the point where they feel they must resort to violence to protect their interests?


Forms of  peace



The only truly non-violent tactic, in the sense that it neither commits nor provokes violence, is complete non-resistance and submission to the demands of the power elite.


Women would have to submit meekly to rape rather than struggle to resist. And no "pacifist" I have ever heard of advocates that.

Generally, what passes for "non-violence" or "pacifism" is one of the following: Relying on the law. This is not non-violence because if all other measures fail, the legal system will use force to achieve its ends. That's why we speak of enforcing the law.

Maintaining a facade of pacifism while provoking the opposition to violence, or creating an intolerable obstruction that can only be removed by force, or threatening their position to the point where they feel they have to resort to violence to protect their interests. This position, as already noted, is hypocritical, manipulative, and deceptive.




The Cycle of Violence


Before we go any further, take your mouse and put the cursor on the bold lettering above.Now, notice what you did. In order to move the mouse, you had to exert force, and very precise and gentle force at that. You didn't rip the mouse cord out of the computer, or crush the mouse in your grip, or push so hard on it that you mashed the trackball flat. The notion that force inexorably spirals out of control is precisely that trivially easy to refute. Now it's probably true that resorting to unnecessary violence may very well lead to retaliation. So restraint in dealing with confrontations is usually a good idea.




Most pacifists react to this issue by simply pretending that it doesn't exist, that people either never deliberately choose violence, that violence always stems from earlier violence, poverty, or injustice, or that if people do deliberately choose violence, it's in rare cases that are not really of great importance. But history abounds with examples of people who have deliberately chosen violence. The ease with which people from non-violent backgrounds have been induced to commit atrocities in wartime shows how easy it can be for the violent to recruit assistants, and for the gratification factor to take hold. Thus, a single individual who opts for violence because he enjoys domination may succeed in recruiting many others less bold than he is.







How do we respond to people who have opted for violence? Appeasement merely reinforces the conviction that violence gets results. Moreover, it provides gratification by reinforcing the feeling of dominance. When confronting people who have already opted for violence, non-violence has a very good chance of perpetuating the cycle of violence. Retaliatory force, on the other hand, makes the results of violence a lot less simple, a lot less effective in getting results, and a lot less gratifying.



Furthermore, violence is only the far end of the spectrum of force. Every screaming brat who throws a temper tantrum in public is testimony to the fact that children do not need to be taught the use of force. And regardless how loving, benevolent and diligent a parent is in meeting and supplying the child's needs, every child sooner or later runs into the fact that other people, much less the physical universe, will not. Sooner or later every human being has to face the fact that some desires will not be gratified.



Throwing the First Punch



Pacifists are vociferous in denouncing "aggression." I can think of a number of cases where "aggression" either shortened a war or ended genocide. None involve the United States, by the way.In 1971, civil war broke out in Pakistan, which was then made up of two ethnically and geographically separate areas. A million people died and ten million fled into India. Faced with an overwhelming refugee crisis, India invaded East Pakistan, which became independent as Bangladesh.







Not only is it morally permissible to commit aggression, sometimes it's morally obligatory.







So What's Your Plan?





There are intellectual pacifists whose real though un-admitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism.
Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States.

 Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defense of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty....


 Those who "abjure" violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.

The basic reason people support Trump

The basic reason people support Trump is mainly frustration of the vast majority of Americans of seeing the Left destroy the USA and its values. This might not be felt by people that are part of bureaucracy of government. But this frustration is felt deeply by most ordinary Americans.

But what are the forces at work to destroy the USA? Mainly Socialists, Muslims and blacks on welfare. These three are the three headed hydra that is hard at work to destroy everything good and godly  and wholesome about the USA.

The basic reasons I do not agree with socialism are outlined in an essay by Michael Huemer. I will try to find the link. Mainly the reason is that socialism in its very core is based on the labor theory of value which is simply not a true doctrine. I just found the link. Here is the essay: The Theory of Economic Value.

I can not be accused of being ignorant of the arguments for Socialism. I spend a good deal of time learning the whole game plan from Russeou, Hegel, Marx, etc. Probably I spent a lot more time on this than it deserved.  [Not all of the above authors. Just a lot of their writings and also more modern treatments of their thought, like the Cambridge Companion Edition of Hegel, plus  the vast site on the internet devoted to Hegel and Marx.]

What makes more sense to me is: The Talmud, Maimonides, Israel Salanter, the Chafetz Chaim, John Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Popper, Jung. These are all on the side of the individual and private property  and the main job of government is to protect the private sphere of activity [civil society].
To help to put all the above together it is helpful to learn The Closing of the American Mind by Allen Bloom and the Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom.

But I have carefully considered all sides of the arguments. I have also discussed these issues with many people that lived under socialist systems and also in the USA before the age of political correctness. With ordinary people and with people thoroughly entrenched in both systems.

Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

To my understanding it would make sense to get the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. The reason is this. Knowing Hebrew is in fact some help to understanding Torah, but not as much as you might think. 

What you need because of limited time is something small and simple that gives you the basic idea. That is definitely Rav Shach's book the Avi Ezri. What he does is to give a good idea on how to analyze any given halacha in the Torah in a very deep way, but also in a very simple way. 

I could recommend Rav Chaim HaLevi Soloveitchik's book the Chidushei HaRambam, but there is something about Rav Shach's book that goes way beyond the Chidushei HaRambam. But since the Chidushei Harambam is smaller you might try to get that and to work on just one long essay.  
I cant really explain very well what the thing is bout Rav Shach's book. It is simultaneously simple to understand and yet very deep. However I admit that it was Rav Chaim Soloveitchik who opened the door to the Rambam.  There were some preliminary steps before him but they were just cracks in the door. Reb Chaim opened it swung it open. Rav Shach then walked in. That being said if possible the best thing would be to get the books of his two disciples Barch Ber and Shimon Shkop and just plow through them.

blaming Israel

I had thought that people would notice a problem with Islam after 9/11. But instead everyone went about claiming it is a religion of peace and blaming Israel. I do not see why this should be any different. Everyone will keep on saying it is the fault of the Jews and that it is because they don't give enough territory  and that Islam is wonderful.

In fact, American were so convinced Islam is great they voted twice for a Muslim President. On the other hand I have to admit I am not really sure what seems to be the problem with it. I can see why people might make a mistake. It took me a long time to realize there might be a problem with Islam. I was certainly willing to give Muslims a chance. It is a long story. But at some point it began to dawn on me that something is really really wrong with it.

אין אדם עומד על דבר אלא אם כן נכשל בו
I had to learn the hard way about a lot of things. But I am not recommending this procedure. It is just the only way I found out about things that had good reputations that were really insidious cults.
And sometimes personal experience is not enough to evaluate things. You know your own experience is just a microcosm of the large picture. So you need a kind of balance and common sense. 

Slander, Chafetz Chaim, Halacha

I think the Chafetz Chaim is very important. [The book of laws on not to speak slander]

But warning people about insane baali tesuva and hypocritical back stabbing FFB is not Lashon HaRa.

But in any case, I along with most other people could use a good dose of Chafetz Chaim. 

 There is a whole set of the works of the Chafetz Chaim in Hebrew that is very inexpensive. You could get it plus and English Hebrew dictionary and go through it at home. I went through almost the entire set while I was at the Mir yeshiva in NY. I skipped on the small book that he wrote to Jews in the USA telling them about basic mitzvot. At the time this seemed redundant to me.

I mentioned to Shimon Buso a grandson of Bava Sali, that there are plenty of ways of misusing the Chafetz Chaim. He answered to me that without learning it, slander is הפקר [a free for all].

I have mentioned that I tried to stick with saying the truth all the time, because the slander thing seemed to me to be impossible to keep. I needed something to stick with that was both powerful and yet practical.


In any case though the Chafetz Chaim is important, I think it is clear that without a good background in the basic works of Philosophy during the Middle Ages that people almost automatically fill in the gaps in their education with pure nonsense. Thus I suggest to go through this very basic minimum: אמונות ודעות by Saadia Gaon, The Guide of the Rambam. Ibn Gavirol, Joseph Albo, Crescas,  Isaac Abravenal, Jehuda Abravenal. Why this should be so hard is beyond me. People do at least this much reading every two weeks. Tally up  the time they spend on novels and newspapers. The exact same time they could go through the above list.

As far as Halacha goes I think it is best to learn the Rambam with the commentaries. That is to go through one half a page of Rambam per day with the Kesef Mishna and Magid Mishna. After that to do the same with the Tur Beit Yosef.

religious world

What is the basic problem with baali teshuva (newly religious people) is simple. Either they are loyal to their parents and friends. Then they are not baali teshuva. Or they are not loyal to their family and friends. Then all the more so they are worthless when it comes to commitment. If they can drop their own family and friends then what is their commitment to anything worth?

That being said the religious world itself is a nightmare of backstabbing hypocrites. Neither the FFB (frum religious  from birth) nor the Baali Teshuva have anything going for them. The FFB think by birth they are the intellectual superiors of  the whole world. The truth is the FFB and the Baali Teshuva deserve the hell they make for each other.
Of course both groups are highly deluded.
Which brings me to the point I often make that the only place you can find authentic Torah is in a Lithuanian yeshiva. There the baali teshuva are taught a balanced set of values that includes loyalty to parents and family. And there the FFB tend to be more aware of their own limitations.

c from this lethal combination of FFB and Baali Teshuva. It is mainly one large idolatrous cult with lots of little variations. But they don't think they are doing idolatry because of the excuse of doing lots of rituals. So when they worship their leaders they think that is not idolatry.

Ideas in Talmud edited  Ideas in Bava Metzia

As you can tell, I am mainly learning in the way I learned in Shar Yashuv by the rosh yeshiva Naphtali Yeager.  I concentrate on "לחשבן את הסוגיא" to calculate the subject.   However I do look at Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and Rav Shach {Elazar Menachem Shach.} but only in so far as they help me understand the subject matter on the page of the Gemara. This is also how my learning partner, David learns.

I admit I can not say how people were learning in the Mir Yeshiva in NY. By the time I got there I was already trying to get through Shas. Plus the in depth study I did was mainly concentrated on the Pnei Yeshoshua and the Maharsha which is certainly not what anyone else was doing. People in general were just preparing in the morning for the classes of the Roshei Yeshiva. And each class was different. You can see the first years classes in the book the Sukat David.
Reb Shmuel Berenbaum however was different. Mainly this is what he would do--take a look at the Mishna laMelech on the Rambam so to the issues that come up in any particular sugia. Those were the areas he would concentrate on. But his answers were based on a a kind of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik kind of approach.

Here is part of a letter I got:

"Would you be able to help me look at some questions regarding the Talmud and the New Testament?  I know that you really respect the Talmud and grow inspiration from it.  Would you say that all Halacha is inspired by the Holy Spirit?  

If so, does the Halacha and the inspiration of it include the statements in the Gemara and in the rest of the sages that seem to refer to Yeshua/Yeshu?  Yeshua affirms the people sitting on the seat of Moshe and says about the Prushim to do as they say, but not to do as they do.  If so, Yeshua would confirm the command of heeding to the sages also in regard to their statements about himself?  Do I have to accept them?  Are they really talking about him?  What do you think?  Do you accept them like the rest of the oral Torah, or would you consider these statements as human additions produced in a different spirit than the rest of the Gmara?  Do you regard it as binding?  Yes or no? Why or why not?"

My answer--


The major thing I find important about halacah is the idea of looking at the Torah in a rigorous painstaking way, plus the idea that morality can be known by reason. The main point of the Talmud is to understand how to keep the written law.  Not every word has to be understood to be divine. But inside of the Talmud is the "Oral Law." In any case reason does have a place in understanding how to keep the Torah. The Rambam has that even Avraham the patriarch only understood natural law after it was revealed. Reason also is a kind of revelation.
The human attempt to greet God's word I think evokes a response from Him. So when I was at the Mir and also in my first yeshiva I felt there was some kind of amazing spirit. But I admit this can depend on the individual.

I am thinking mainly that reason can know morality. 

The critiques in the Talmud would have to be about a different individual according to the time line given there. Rabbi Yehoshua Ben Perachia was around 200 BC. He would have had to been a drop too old to have been the teacher of Yeshua. 
The pairs start at the beginning of the second Temple and go up until the end. And Rabbi Yehoshua ben Perachia was in the middle.

As you can see in the above letter I was trying to hint at the Kantian school of which the Rambam was clearly an early predecessor. But it was late and I did not want to make the letter too long.

I am also thinking about the fact that we give different weight values to different midrashim in the Gemara itself. For example pairs. זוגות, at the end of Pesachim. No one pays the slightest attention to that Gemara even though the Gemara itself is explicit. Also cures.

The idea of how much weight to give to different values seems important to me. Thus in the Torah we have the Ten Commandments which clearly have most of the weight. yet often one or more are ignored because of something that clearly has less weight. And moreover- even among the  other 613 the Torah gives weighted values to different functions. To love and fear God and to be attached to Him are the stated purpose of all the other mitzvot, The verse says in Deuteronomy do the mitzvot in order to love and fear God and to be attached with him.  This is one reason why Musar and the books of the rishonim on the philosophy of the Torah are important to learn. They indicate the weight of each value in Torah. Without them one can mix this up.
 Mainly when people want to pervert the Torah they start with this. They change the order of what is considered more important in Torah.  To make cults they take some doctrine that is either not in Torah at all or something trivial and make it is be of super importance as if it was some secret teaching.

People have a right to protect their lives and property. This should go without saying.

Heather McDonald  on criminal illegal aliens.

People have a right to protect their lives and property. This should go without saying.

Getting married and having children seems to be  a regular part of the yeshiva experience.
You might not get the best shiduch that you think you deserve, but the tendency is to find a good marriage partner.

But the yeshiva world is highly sensitive to factors of social desirability. Especially on the East Coast.

Age and what kind of family one comes from are very important factors.

My own experience with this was that I saw when I got to yeshiva (in NY) people were getting married right and left. Every few days there was another "Vort." This went on a few times per week.
[A Vort is the announcement of  a marriage engagement. But the actual event of the Vort is a meal after Shabat. on Saturday night.



Of course coming from California I had no idea what to expect when I got to yeshiva. But I also got the shiduch"bug." The only reason I was there was because I wanted to learn the Oral Law. But this Shiduch thing was infectious. So after some time people were interested in offering shiduchim to me. The only thing was the Rosh Yeshiva had dibs on me (for one of his daughters). So I had to wait until he felt the time was right to make what was unofficial to be official. However, I screwed things up because I was unfamiliar with social norms on the East Coast.  Not only that but I no longer found any favor in the eyes of the Rosh Yeshiva. So I went to the Mir. But in the Mir I had no social standing.
[I should mention I have no grudge about the Shiduch thing. First of all God gave me a great Shiduch later in any case. And as far as I can see I am not much of Rosh Yeshiva material. As Rav Freifeld saw in me eventually that I am just too wild and searching. --free thinking I guess you could call it. I go by reason and evidence. Not tradition--unless tradition happens to agree with reason and evidence.]



So it is not necessarily easy. Certainly in my case the whole business was a disaster. Still a nice girl I knew in CA came out back East and started chasing me, thank God! Not that I was so happy about it at the time. I still was in the impression I had good possibilities at the Mir. Still this girl from CA turned out to be  a great shiduch for me.

Why is all this important? Because today the social structures of the world are collapsing. So in the larger world even if one is what should be considered a good partner that will not necessarily result in n anything. Also there the problem of cults that use the instability of the larger society as a means of attracting converts as they present themselves as a better option.


At any rate, after my wife left, I decided I was not going to depend on anyone's favors and I found myself a nice girlfriend. Still I do not think this is best idea idea as a rule.  [The girl friend option  is an option because of Chronicles I 2:46. That is the Caleb the friend of Joshua had a few girl friends and wives. That is the פלגש is not reserved for kings alone contrary to the Rambam as the Gra pointed out in his commentary on Shulchan Aruch. 

The religious world outside yeshiva is of course just cults. So if one is not in an actual Lithuanian yeshiva it is best to seek one's spouse among classmates in university.

An integral domain has sub domains. All together you get ten. We know there is an close connection between groups and manifolds. Can you have a kind of Mayer-Vietoris sequence between domains? What I mean is let's say you have a map from an integral domain to a commutative ring, and another map to another commutative ring. And then you have a map from either commutative ring into a larger group. So now can you put an "H" (homology groups) in front of each map? And if so, would this work for all the sub-rings underneath the integral domain? For example could you do the same with a Noetherian Ring, and another Noetherian Ring. And you have an intersection between them. And you map into some larger ring. Can you apply the Mayer Vietoris theorem? Or would there be an obstruction?

How to learn Musar [ethics]

How to learn Musar [ethics]? You would think this would be simple after all the effort put into the idea by Reb Israel Salanter.
 Some people emphasized one particular area of value. A good example is the Hafez Haim.
[Not to slander.]


What to me makes sense is in fact to take the Musar books of the rishonim [medieval writers] and plow through them. But to get a wider perspective what  I think is the best thing is to have one session of going through all the works of classical Musar [about 30 books] and another session of going through the writings of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. Plus one more session in classical Jewish world view issues like the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam and the Faiths and Doctrines by Saadia Gaon  . What happens is that this last step is omitted by most people and the result is people end up with view totally contrary to Torah,-- but think their views are from the Torah.

To learn Musar in yeshivas at all was subject to debate. But what I am suggesting is  a further step to add השקפה. World view issues. I see this as very important because I see that without this later step people really get ideas very much opposed to the Torah but think their ideas are OK because they heard them from some delusional maniac in the name of the Torah.

I have not given this much thought but I can say based on what I have seen that Musar [learning ethics is important, but without world view it can be highly distorted.]

The Hafetz Haim's books about not to slander and general Musar are in fact a great starting place to begin with.
[I should add that not to slander does not mean you can not warn your children about bad cults. That is even if there is one or two decent people in that cult you can still say the cult is bad. The reason is there is such a thing as group behavior, a social meme. Not only that but if the social meme itself is evil, then the group itself is evil.
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Appendix: For the general public: Musar means mainly medieval books of ethics. But also refers to books by the disciples of Israel Salanter.


Most Musar books do not go into world view issues except the Obligations of the Heart who makes in he first part of his Musar book. However Rav Moshe Haim Luzato did go into world view issues in detail but not in his Mesilat Yesharim.

Music for the glory of God

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