If it leaves behind it a trail of human trash then you know it is a cult.

My feeling is that the excommunication  {Cherem } that the Gra signed would be valid even if it was not based on objective reality. Besides that I think it did reflect objective reality. That is to say when he identified the groups he put into Cherem [excommunication] with the Sitra Achara [the Dark Side], I think he was correct. Sadly enough I am basing this on evidence and study over a period of many years.

Part of the problem is idolatry. Another aspect of the problem is the claim that their idolatry is in accord with the Law of Moses.  That is a kind of fraud.


I did a great deal of study on this, which is sad- because if I had been smart, I simply would have accepted what the Gra said, and not have wasted years. But the human ruin that that movement leaves behind it ought to give any decent person pause. If it leaves behind it a trail of human trash, then you know it is a cult.

  I am very well aware of their doctrines and teachings. Have nothing to do with them at all. Do not go to their place on Shabat and don't read their books. It is pure Sitra Achra.


  This is why understanding the cultural assumptions tells you a whole lot about the trajectory a culture is on. It’s also important to realize some people can change a culture for generations by either positive or negative actions, given their place. 

But some ask, why did the Gra put a Cherem [excommunication] on the whole movement when not everyone was bad? The answer is that poison got mixed up into it. What if I tell you, " Here’s a box of candy. One of them is poisoned with Ricin, but don’t mind that. Enjoy." Would you eat any?

The laws of Cherem are strict. One that ignores them is also under Cherem. There are difference between types of Cherem and Niduy, but in case of fact the cherem is the most strict. And it does mean one can't sit within four yards of the person nor learn Torah from them.


If others ignore these laws that does not make them invalid.

If one ignores the cherem it is guaranteed he will become infected

It is a kind of deflecting people's interest in fear of God and to redirect it into something that destroys their sanity. While fear of God is a good thing and ought to be pursued by means of learning books of Musar [Mediaeval Ethics], still this desire to be right with God can be hijacked.

To a large degree this happened with me. I was at the Mir in NY and often instead of learning Musar I would learn books from that cult thinking that qualified as Musar.

It took me a long time until I starting noticing the poison contained in them. I needed experience with that cults and also to see the books from the Shatz cult to see from where many of the doctrines were coming from. It would have been better if the Litvish Gedolim [the great Roshei Yeshiva of Lithuanian Yeshivas] had been aware of this from the beginning and warned others, instead of my having to make my way through that filth.

Socrates:

Thoughts on Socrates:

(1) I think some things in human life are constrained. To me it seems Socrates had to do what he had to do and his end had to be the way it was.

(2) It has been argued that  Socrates could have argued that not all laws are created equal. Some laws are for expedience. Some are  expressions of natural law. Some laws are unjust.

(3) Also, I should mention that Socrates was not just bothering the leading citizens of Athens, but  among his followers were people that were traitors to Athens. The court might have been aware of this.

Marriage

It was easy when the rules and obligations were spelled out. This is what I found. When both the husband and wife know exactly what is expected. That is at least what I discovered. But it gets difficult when others stick their noses into your business. Especially psychologists and others that are supposed to be helpful.Religious teachers especially are to be avoided as they are experts at home wreaking. Traitors to Torah.
They are a separate category from those who learn  Torah for its own sake--not for money. 

"Transgender"

"Transgender" comes from the idea that people think reality is a social construct That is why it is best to throw out the social studies and humanities departments in universities.

People that were responsible should not have let pseudo science be called science. STEM just have been called science and everything else should have been called "fraud" or some other appropriate name.

Philosophy departments also tend to be trash.

Wittgenstein's naturalism reduces even science to word game behaviors that do not refer to objects and are not justified by facts.
Psychologists especially ought to be put into some garbage bag and thrown out.

Torah with Math and Physics and Aristotle's Metaphysics is my approach in a nutshell. That means simply to get through the basic Oral and Written Law word for word, plus math up to Algebraic Topology and Abstract Algebra and string theory plus the actual sets of books, The Metaphysics  of Aristotle. [Oral Law is the two Talmuds,  Sifra Sifri the Rambam with Rav Shach's Avi Ezri]
Say the words דרך גרסה in the way of just saying them and going on, with no repeats.

I would like to defend this approach but for right now I thought it is enough to at least state it in a simple straightforward way.

Source for Math Physics Metaphysics is Rambam (Maimonides), and  the Musar book, Obligations of the Heart.
Source for just saying the words and going on in the Talmud לעולם לגרס אינש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג דלא ידע מאי קאמר.

(The Lithuanian yeshiva world has a lot of this right, but the nepotism hurts it. It is  purported to be a meritocracy. But that seems to be not the case. Mostly the perks are  for family members only. The fact that the State gives money to yeshivas which are nothing more than private club houses with no learning Torah hurts the entire system.]

Feminism is hatred of Western Civilization [Comment on Dalrock]

1. 
   
2. link
3. The entire basis of Feminism is hatred of Western Civilization, and in the context of Feminist ideology, hatred of White men. Don’t believe me? Take it from arch-Feminist/Lesbian/Jewess Susan Sontag,

   “If America is the culmination of Western white civilization, as everyone from the Left to the Right declares, then there must be something terribly wrong with Western white civilization.[…]

   […]The truth is that Mozart, Pascal, Boolean algebra, Shakespeare, parliamentary government, baroque churches, Newton, the emancipation of women, Kant, Marx, Balanchine ballets, et al., don’t redeem what this particular civilization has wrought upon the world. The white race is the cancer of human history; it is the white race and it alone—its ideologies and inventions—which eradicates autonomous civilizations wherever it spreads, which has upset the ecological balance of the planet, which now threatens the very existence of life itself. What the Mongol hordes threaten is far less frightening than the damage that Western “Faustian” man, with his idealism, his magnificent art, his sense of intellectual adventure, his world-devouring energies for conquest, has already done, and further threatens to do….”

   From Susan Sontag’s collection of essays, ‘Styles of Radical Will’, 1969. Link:https://books.google.com/books?

   IMO, this is the veritable ‘Rosetta Stone’ of the Left. Feminism, Marxism, Post-Colonialism, LGBTnXYZ, Black Nationalism, MultiCulturalism, et al. All of it is about a visceral, obsessive hatred of the Christian, Western Civilization that White men have created over the past 3000+ years.

To The Other Jim: Not all Jewish people agree with those views. She might be Jewish but feminism is not the view of the Law of Moses. Not everything Jewish people do is in accord with the law of God. She is clearly an enemy of Western civilization but that is not representative of all Jewish people nor of the Torah

Concerning Justice Ginsberg:
I am very unhappy with liberals and see them as very destructive towards Torah values and objective morality. The fact that she is Jewish does not help in the slightest since her view oppose the Law of Moses. In the Torah you will find that Jewish people do not get a pass when they transgress the law of God.

Political correctness and secular humanism

Nice comment on Kiev Post: Political correctness and multi-culturalism (as well as repression of Christianity while coddling of Islam, secular humanism, etc.) is to blame not only for the terrorist incidents but for the continuously unfolding suicide of the West.

A good deal of American technology comes from Jews.

I see many people think that American technology was created only by non Jewish people.

A good deal of American technology comes from Jews. The Manhattan Project was like the roll call of a yeshiva. My Dad was the head scientist of a lab that created the first night vision  apparatus and made one of the cameras for the U-2 and satellite communication by lasers and other projects. I admit many other people helped, but there was a significant Jewish contribution to all aspects of American technology.

comment i saw on Unz:
The recent atrocities, both in the U.S. and in France,
show us that young men are out of control. The
usual civilizing agents – religion, education,
early marriage, military service (let alone family) -
no longer seem effective. Rejection of early marriage,
while producing many feral women, has been even
worse for men who too often seem to have
nothing better to do with their lives than squandering
their energy on video games and masturbation to online
porn. If Trump wins, I hope he gives serious consideration
to reintroducing some sort of a rite of passage for
18-20 year olds. Young people need to challenged hard at
that age to make a successful transition into manhood
and womanhood

The paradigm of the West  is feminism and leftism. It is not the same as a chosen worldview. It is the default setting, the colored glasses that everything is seen through. The best advice I have is to learn the Law of Moses in depth until the basic approach is internalized..  

Torah [The Five Books of Moses] and Judaism are really not the same thing. But neither is Christianity that same as the Five Books of Moses.

The Law of Moses does need a Background and explanation  but neither Judaism nor Christianity provide  accurate believable background.

Judaism as defined by what Jews do and believe could just as well be defined as belief in the Golden Calf since that was what the vast majority of Jews believed at Mount Sinai.

Nor is it believable that the Law of Moses is just a shadow of things to come. Any honest reading of it will show it was meant to be obeyed and observed for all time.

 Clarity about these things came to me in stages. You could say learning the Talmud was helpful because of the rigorous examination and attempt to understand the Law of Moses. Mainly in the beginning of Yevamot and Nedarim and also in the Shar Yashuv Yeshiva it became clear to me that the Law of Moses is rigorous and has a well defined meaning that is objective and not dependent on who is reading it.



A real defining moment of clarity came to me in Geula [a neighborhood in Jerusalem] when a beggar woman was reading the book of Deuteronomy all the time. I asked her about this. She told me Moses came to her in a dream and asked her "What flaw did people find in my book that they feel it is unnecessary and irrelevant? Why do they not read it and keep it?" [I don't remember her exact words. But it was something along the lines of Moses asking her why people ignored the Law of Moses. This refers to all the Five Books but she was concentrating of Devarim Deuteronomy for some reason]



Of course, the Law is used as a cover up for worship of idols. Worship of people is the common way this is done. You have con men, supposed saints, that make a  show of keeping Torah and then people worship them. This is more insidious than open idolatry. I will simply not walk into an religious synagogue because it is a place of idolatry. But if there was an authentic Litvak yeshiva (orBeit Midrash) in my area, I would run to be there as much as possible.

Act against Islam

overreach-and-invasion

At some point people have to say enough is enough. We will not abide by Muslims invading our land and our women and murdering us anymore

r100 e minor

One problem I have noticed is  דורש אל המתים. I do not know why people think it is OK to go to the graves of tzadikim when this seems to be contrary to an open verse in the Torah in Leviticus 20. Do not seek after the dead.

What some people are looking for is the Mediaeval period which in fact formed the backbone of the Renaissance. For example the Amerika Blog

The fact of democracy decaying into tyranny we have seen in these last 8 years. But what people have suggested about a return to Aristocracy as Aristotle suggested is more about the Medieval period I think of kings and queens and strong faith

Catholic approach to Islamic invasion.

Link

Letter from a Catholic to his priest.

 Dear Father Remi:

I've come close to walking out of mass before, when Deacon Mike was plugging for gun control. I didn't, then, but I resolved that I would walk out if the church again attempted to interfere, even if only by suggestion, with matters of internal politics of the United States or undermining of the Constitution of the United States or undermining of the security of the United States.

This morning, at the early mass, I did walk out after we were intoned to not be afraid of letting in "refugees." I'm not sure what universe the reader lives in. I am not sure what universe the writer of the request for prayers lives in. In the universe I live in, the real universe, those refugees are mostly - no, _overwhelmingly_ - military age males, from a hostile religion, heavily infiltrated by ISIS/DAESH, a slave trading, raping, fanatical, genocidal, and expanding group of that religion. No, the State Department and DHS cannot filter out the maniacs.

Yes, as a matter of fact I do have quite a bit of experience over there.

I will not welcome them. I will not encourage others to welcome them. And I will not support a church that says we should. They are the enemy. They are the enemy of both civilization and Christianity. They are not an enemy to be turned by turning the other cheek. (Indeed, given the sexual proclivities of the region, it is wise to keep all one's cheeks far, far from them.) And those who would let them in are working hand in hand with the enemies of civilization and the Church.

Whether I shall come back to Saint Mary's, find another Catholic Church less politically and suicidally liberal, or join a less effectively anti-Christian Protestant church I cannot say at this time. I am pretty sure that whichever way I decide, God will understand my preferring not to support the ruin of my country, my civilization, or my religion.

Sincerely,

Thomas P. Kratman
------------
From Ex-Army: Me, now, the last time I was in a church was when I got married, I think, several decades ago. I have no hostility to religion or organized religion, I'm just sort of indifferent to its manifestation in public. Just indifferent. I have no grudge against it. If anything, I'm rather biased in favor of Christianity because it's been instrumental in producing the Western Civilization that I value above all other cultures of mankind. And, though I'm not a believer, I usually prefer believers to non-believers. They tend to be better people. I'm a lifelong fan of C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and other Christian-oriented writers of that sort. Morality-wise, I find Christianity as good a guide as any religion or philosophy, and superior to the vast majority.

That said, a damn fool is a damn fool, whether he's a Christian or not. Some of my fellow-thinkers among the realist right are hostile to Christianity precisely because of the sort of nonsense that Mr. Kratman describes above. I'm not, or I'm usually not, because the same kind of nonsense can be found outside of the churches and outside of Christianity, among just about every other religion or nonreligious belief system. Indeed, I first encountered it, back in the 60's, with the counterculture movement which was overwhelmingly anti-Christian.

Obviously, Christians don't have to be damn fools, because Tom Kratman clearly isn't. Ir also occurs to me that while Pope Francis is a damn fool in much the same way that the priest addressed is, Pat Buchanan, of the same church, definitely is not.

My attitude in these matters is simple. When someone is correct on the issues of gun control and inviting "Syrian" "refugees" to move in, I respect him for his conclusions whether he's a theist or an atheist or something in between. When he's wrong on those issues, I have zero respect for his opinions on the matters whether he's a peasant, Pope, or punk rocker.

A religious leader is, supposedly, an expert on matters of religion. That's where his authority lies. He has no more expertise in matters of statecraft than does a janitor or a courtesan. Bad advice from a preacher or priest deserves no more respect than bad advice from anyone else.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

My thought on this is: While I think being compassionate is admirable, I can see the point of not letting in people that desire one's demise.

I have written before about my experience in this area but just for now I should just admit that it took a lot of major wake-up calls for me to realize that Muslims really mean business. Just one example out of many. I was going to the small river the Shiloach where King Solomon was anointed king. It is deep, and to get to it one has to go down though a long flight of stairs  about 30 yards. When down there the Muslims at the top started throwing large rocks at me. After being accelerated after a 30 yard drop, if even one had hit me, that would have been the end. And of course that is what they were intending. I prayed to God and said: "I have no army, nor any weapon. But I have You."  And I started up the stairs. There was a lull in the rock throwing. When I got up to the top, there was a whole gang of Arabs. One said to the other "Here he is again." And they started again throwing rocks at me at point blank range. As I walked away I saw the rocks flying at every side of me. But not one hit me. I was shaken and shocked. And I realized then that they were not my friends.

Muslims are to be a problem whenever they get past a certain percentage. When below 10% they are exemplary. Then everyone thinks they are peace loving. Then after the 10% mark things start to get violent. First they send in their children and teenagers to cause trouble and claim they have no control. etc. Bringing in large number in Germany is definitely treasonous.

And people can be fooled. Genes tend to determine a lot. People can marry some black person or Muslim or Tartar and think they are getting a good deal -but then the children revert to form.

race riots

There are race riots  scheduled for attacking white people tomorrow across all major American cities. What I suggest for Jewish people are: (1) To stop supporting black causes. (2) Get a carry-conceal licence and train. (3) Stop trying to bring down decent white, Wasp {White, Anglo Saxon Protestant}society.

Blacks have been at war with whites,- including white, Ashkenazic Jews for a long time. Ignoring this will not make it go away. In fact, pretending race does not exist, and at the same time trying to nuke decent Wasp society is bad strategy,  and self contradictory, and guaranteed to backfire

To get to Torah you have to go through Hell and back

Though I was born and raised in an exceptional home I felt very unsatisfied in high school.

When I got to yeshiva in NY I felt like I was breathing free air for the first time. When the Torah declares itself "the good and the life", I really felt this.

Not just me. but when I called a friend I had in high school, and told her about yeshiva, she too was filled with this sense of urgency and meaning.

This experience was overpowering. But I have not been able, and still am not able to recommend it because of reasons beyond my ability to control.
I was myself, perhaps, not worthy of Torah. And thus, I found people supposedly in the Torah world whose character left something to be desired. Morally challenged people. If I had myself been worthy this never would have happened.

It says in the Torah God put the fiery sword on the path to the Tree of Life so that Adam and Eve would not go back and eat from it and live forever. To get to Torah you have to go through the trials of fire and water, and the people that stand in the way. The charlatans that make a show of keeping Torah -for profit.