I see the Alt Right and monarchists are not so thrilled with the Enlightenment. That would seem to be along the lines of Allen Bloom. (Closing of the American Mind). But Bloom takes the critique mainly from the beginning of the Enlightenment up until Kant and then skips over to the modern day American University. So he did not deal with German Idealism nor its offshoots. I am not sure why?

I see a lot of value in German Idealism and the later people like C.G. Jung who built on Schopenhauer and Kant.

Still the overall impression is that none of these people liked the Throne and Altar approach of the Middle Ages.


In any case you can see even in Jung  and Hegel the struggle to get out of a Torah Framework.

Certainly not in Kant though.


In any case I am still trying to evaluate the whole thing. I read Allen Bloom about 5 years ago and pretty much what he says makes sense. That is: The Enlightenment and the Anti Enlightenment have both been on a collusion course for some time and now are colliding. The devastation of the Enlightenment is apparent in the modern USA university. But the solution is no where to be seen. He certainly does not think a return to Throne and Altar  is a good idea. I also have sen plenty of abuse in religious settings. There is enough abuse for me to shudder at the idea of religious authorities have any kind of power.

I prefer to remain in the Allen Bloom Zone where both the Enlightenment and Throne and Altar approach have some validity and that the best way has simply not been found yet.

Just to be clear I think the modern world got intoxicated with modernity. The best thing is to learn Gemara, Musar [medieval ethics] Math and Physics. Take the best of the holy Torah and science.  [Hegel I am not so thrilled with.]

The Social Meme and the Lithuanian yeshiva model. There is a correspondence between what people are doing and what they think they are doing.

Every group has some social meme it is founded upon. Sometimes it is a positive thing and sometimes not. This is the reason I mention the Lithuanian yeshiva world often in  a positive light since the basic social meme [the set of core principles] is to learn and keep Torah. All other groups in the religious world are defined by things they hate. For example the very religious in the Jewish world could not care less about Torah. What they hate is hate defines them.  They hate secular Jews. They hate the State of Israel. They hate Christianity. And they love the money of secular Jews, They often have some central object of worship that is not the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.


[The Lithuanian yeshiva model at least in the form I saw in New York is amazing. The energy of Torah that fills these kinds of places is astounding. When you are a part of it you really live in order to learn and keep Torah.]

The great advantage of the Litvak [Lithuanian] yeshiva model is there is a correspondence between what people are doing and what they think they are doing. In that way it can be called true. In the religious world however there is a kind of disconnect. What people are doing has no connection to what they present to others what they are doing or what they themselves think they are doing.

 Yom Kippur we say the long confession which includes the idea of listening to one's parents and teachers. I think there can be cases in which parents and teachers are not teaching the right things and thus should not be listened to. Still, in my case, I had an amazing set of fantastic parents and amazing teachers. It is however hard to figure out how to balance the lessons I learned from them into one whole.  



The way I have tried to do this is by consciously arranged my daily schedule to include the different things I learned were important. That is small sessions. I go with the idea that even a little bit of something important is also important. 

[Learning Music, Math, Physics, Gemara, the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach would be my idea of  a great way to spend the day.]
[There are other subjects which are worthwhile to learn but not on a daily basis. ]


Reform Judaism I should mention is great in terms of the emphasis on obligations between man and his fellow man. But it has change over the years to be mainly a belief in Socialism instead of Torah. In the more religious circles others things are used to replace the Torah.

Darius

Darius is the most confusing person to me. On one hand he did give the order to complete the Temple in Jerusalem according to the Law of Moses. On the other hand he also invaded Hellas right before the Golden Age of Athens and Sparta. Art, Science, Math, Literature,  Music, Philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. Pretty much everything that enriches human life. It is hard to imagine what would have happened if Persia had managed to subjugate Hellas.

Would some of this managed to come about elsewhere? It seems unlikely since it never did at any other time or place, though there were plenty of opportunities.

The idea of the Divine light shining on me and my family while we were in Israel in Safed,  I admit implies a certain degree of responsibility on my part.  I thought I could escape from the presence of God, and that would absolve me of my responsibilities. Kind of like Jonah. But it did not exactly work that way.  In any case, apparently from what I can see, that not only was it wrong to run from God's presence, but even though I did so, that did not absolve me of my responsibilities.

The trouble is I have a hard time trying to figure out how keep my obligations. In theory it ought to be simple. Call people to keep the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law. It could not be more simple. But in practice it is hard because the world that makes a show of keeping the Torah are just about as far from the holy Torah as a human being could possibly be-- with all the cults and idolatry that they cover up by means of Torah rituals. For one who really wants to keep the Torah in an authentic way, the worst possible idea is to have anything to do with the religious Jewish world. The only exception I can think of is the Lithuanian yeshivas which are great,- except for the problem  that the boundary between them and the religious is fluid.

Therefore, what I can do is to recommend the basic Litvak yeshiva approach with a caveat (condition). That is,- this recommendation comes with conditions. While the basic approach is true to Torah to some degree,  it still has problems since  the border between it and the insane religious world is porous, and also the kollels are simply using Torah as a way of making an income.

Better no Torah than false Torah.

My impression in the 1990's when my wife left me that it was a tragedy on  a global scale. That is not that I thought I was special in any way. I know I am not. But for the years we were in Israel for some reason or other God decided to shine his Divine light on me and my family in a really intense way. It was so strong that even visitors to our home would comment on it. You can even ask Rav Peretz Aurbach who was there for a visit and he felt it. So it seems to me my home was a kind of focal point for some kind of Divine energy. When Leah left, I knew this was going to have global repercussions on the entire state of marriage everywhere.

[To be fair to her, it was not really her fault since religious teachers and leaders were putting great pressure on her.] But later when the so called Shiduch Crisis began and then later marriage has fallen apart as an institution and now all religious leaders worship the Vagina I am not surprised.
Nowadays anyone who wants to get married out to have his head examined.

The solution to this problem is clear. The Law of Moses says if one keeps to Torah, things will go well. If things are not well in the world, we can only blame ourselves. But the question remains, what part or aspect of the Law are we not keeping? I can venture a guess  for myself. Listening to our parents, speaking the  truth at all cost, not touching what does not belong to us, learning Torah, not doing idolatry towards people.

[Obviously staying away from the religious with all their forms of idolatry and cults makes a lot of sense. Better no Torah than false Torah.]

I saw with Rav Shick the idea of being attached to a tzadik and pantheism. He must have felt both of these ideas were the most important things to hold onto. I can see the importance of holding onto some basic trait, but neither of those two things seem  to be worthwhile goals, or to lead to any kind of human perfection or even improvement.

The Gemara itself seems to exclude any kind of idea of attachment to a tzadik as being a good thing, as it says in Sanhedrin circa 63b, "What is the difference between him and us?"

That is:-- the teaching of the Sages:  If one says, "Serve me," he gets the death penalty for being one that tries to seduce another to do idol worship. (מסית ומדיח). That is to all opinions. Then there is a  question if one answers that person and says, "Yes." Does he also get the death penalty? Some say "Yes." And others says "No" because all he meant was to make fun of the person asking for worship. After all מאי שנא איהו מינן דידן? ("What is the difference between him and us?").



[All the movements stemming from the Baal Shem Tov got heavily into pantheism, and have tried to sell it as the legitimate viewpoint of the Torah. (I do not think the Baal Shem Tov himself was responsible for this, but it came out of misunderstanding his intention in some of his statements.)

With Rav Shick the worship of a human being slipped into Vagina worship and with all religious leaders of this generation. [I mean worship of women which is the basic orientation of all religious leaders.]




My impression is the main thing to hold onto is the Law of Moses. And I can agree that there are particular things which can help to concentrate on. But attachment to a tzadik is at least one thing that seems to profit no one. The only results I have seen from that kind of approach are the destruction of good character. And the same goes for pantheism.

Trust and truth

You can not hide who you are or what you do. Believe me everyone knows. Everything is revealed. If if you take what does not belong to you in secret, everyone can feel the kind of person you are, and they do not trust you, so they will not hire you for any kind of job that requires trust. You have to get into the habit of always speaking the truth and never touching what does not belong to you and they you will begin to radiate an atmosphere of truth and truth around you that people can feel.

to repent on my sins

Since it is right before Yom Kippur and I understand the need to repent on my sins and the need of others also. Yet I realize that just like I am stuck in certain patterns of behavior that may or may not correspond the the Oral and Written Law of Moses it seems that changing my ways in a way that would be objectivity considered as Teshuva [a true return to the way of the Torah] is probably impossible.  This is a problem the Musar books deal with and their suggestion is to bring merit to many. That would probably translate to making yeshivas along the lines of Narvardok that empathizes good character trait [being a mensch] Fear of God, Trust in God and learning Torah.
The idea seems sound to me but there is a drawback that most places called yeshiva are really just private country clubs that learn Torah for show but they are not authentic.

The type of yeshiva I would recommend would be the traditional Lithuanian yeshiva but with this difference.
The only difference would be Physics and Math that the Musar yeshivas did not have in them, and for some reason unknown to me they decided to ignore the Rambam. Maybe it is the same reason the Gra's signature on the letter of excommunication is ignored. Some people just ant to be religious fanatics and the more stupid rituals the better.

[Just to make it clear what I am saying: If you go through books of Ethics you will find that they deal with the problem that sometimes one finds he can't repent. Their idea is that this comes from כל המחטיא את הרבים אין מספיקים בידו לעשות תשובה (from heaven they do not let repent anyone who causes many to sin). And their cure for this problem is כל המזכה את הרבים אין חטא בא על ידו ( no sin comes about through anyone who causes many to do a good deed or a commandment.)]

Then the problem is that what most people do to bring merit to many is usually the source of terrible sin. As a rule it is better for people to pursue selfish ends rather that do things they think are a mitzvah. The most horrible thing come into the world through people that want to help the world. The more sincere they are the worse their effect.

Determinism is self refuting.

three-arguments-against-determinism


https://sydneytrads.com

Determinism is self refuting.

But we wouldn’t say that the snowfall is “true” or “false.”


I should mention that Allen Bloom mentioned briefly this idea. Also John Searle I believe has a book along the same lines. I am not surprised to see a professor at a NY university putting together such an excellent essay.

To have some learning session in Kabalah. There was an opening of Divine Light on me for the years I was in Israel before I pushed it away. So I do have a great deal of confidence in the Ari himself that learning him does prepare the soul for a higher kind of light--if done for the intention of learning Torah.

Because of the fact that young people -when they get interested in Torah also get interested in Kabalah is not a surprise.  They do first need to get the idea that it is kosher. If not for that crucial step, even the most secular Jew would reject the idea of having anything to do with it.

(1) To me the Ari seems important. But a lot of the Dark Side got mixed into the general books of Kabalah especially after the Baal Shem Tov. Not that this as the fault of the Baal Shem Tov, but rather the fact that the basic approach of the Shatz got into all mystic books after the 1700's.
The focus of the Sitra Achra (Dark Side) became the possession of religious teachers, and from there it was easy to subvert the rest of the Jewish people.
(2) Without the Kabala,h the Torah looks to modern eyes rather empty of significance. So it is natural to look for what is going on under the surface. This is the same as when you read Chaucer, you look for the deeper meanings. But in Kabalah people expect they will find the feeling and knowledge of numinous value.

(3) My position on this is that the Zohar is not from R Shimon ben Yochai. But that does not invalidate it. It was common for souls of people to reveal things to the living as we see with Joan of Arc and many others.

(4) I do think the Ari [Isaac Luria] is important but almost nothing that was written in Kabalah after him. The only two schools of thought after the Ari that I consider kosher are Yaakov Abuchatzeira and Shalom Sharabi.

(5) Besides those to schools of though I think everything else is basically from the Dark Side.
[Clearly Yaakov Avichatzaira and Bava Sali held very highly of the Ari and the Remak. The trouble is clearly not from them but from later demonic teachers that got to be commonly accepted as tzadikim who were clearly not so.]

Th danger is also that people  that learn kabalah think they have Ruach  Hakodesh and or the ability to do miracles. They imagine anything they think come from the realm of holiness.

(6) My own position you have to realize comes from a balance of a lot of things. I really liked the Eitz Chaim of the Arizal which I learned in the Mir Yeshiva in NY [between sessions] before I went to Israel, and in Israel I learned zero Kabalah, but visited the grave of the Arizal. [I mean in NY the basic thing was to learn Talmud and  so I learned the Ari only between sessions--I think. I might have done some during some sessions.] In any case, there was an opening of Divine Light on me for the years I was there before I pushed it away.  SoI do have a great deal of confidence in the Ari himself that learning him does  prepare the soul for a higher kind of light--if done for the intention of learning Torah. If it is done for the intention of getting spiritual powers it definitely causes one to fall into the Dark Side. I also look at the Ari from the standpoint of Kant that there is a an area of value that reason can not know. The realm of the dinge any sich.

Music for the glory of God

s52 C Minor

Socialism or any Rousseau based system I do not like. The way I see it the Constitution of the USA    would work perfectly well if not for the New Deal and the Great Society and black influence. The Constitution grants certain powers to the Federal government and no more. All other powers and right remain for the States or for the individual.
This really goes back to Hobbes that government is in order to protect civil society.

From the aspect of Torah, Socialism has two problems. Two are from the  Ten Commandments. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not covet. From the aspect of Torah the Federal government has a problem because it is limited by contract. The contract in this case being the Constitution. It is in violation of this contract because it has usurped power not given to it and reserved only for the states or individuals.   No one can believe in the Old Testament and still hold with socialism.

I was learning Shabat

I was learning Shabat while engaged to my future wife and spent that year learning Shabat and then Aruvin during my first year of marriage and then Pesachim. While a lot of my learning Shabat was done with Tospot and the Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua, still some parts I did with a learning partner that wanted to concentrate on Halacha so we did the Gemara, Rashi, and some Tosphot and then the Rosh and Rif and Shiltei Giborim on the Rif and the Tur and Beit Yoseph. When it comes to the laws of Shabat, that is about the only way I have ever heard that gives a clear understanding of the material. 

I am not saying I liked that last approach. It as the approach my learning partner insisted on. But I admit when it comes to Halacha that the only way to understand Halacah is by doing the Gemara with the Tur Beit Yoseph. But if it had been up to me, I would have rather just done the Maharsha,  Pnei Yehoshua and Tosphot. On my own I not only learned the Maharsha, but the book Maharsha HeAroch which combined five commentaries on the Maharsha.

I can not say which approach is better. When I was starting out learning, I combined both approaches. But by the time I got to the Mir, I was pretty set on "Lumdus," = learning in depth  with intense analysis of Tosphot.  Though I was ignorant, still the deeper levels of the Gemara were what interested me. But I guess what happened was at the Mir, the group that was doing  Shabat that year were "halacha oriented" so I just went along with it.


To me "learning" still just means Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot, Maharsha, and Maharam from Lublin. Everything else is extra credit.

[As for the actual laws of Shabat, I am lenient about things like the public domain needing 600,000 as Rashi and Tosphot both say.  Also electricity and writing in English as per the Rema that in Hebrew in the actual prohibition.  Muktze also according the the later Mishna in chapter Beit Shamai where the Gemara turns the mishna around, so the school that allowed mutzah was Beit Hillel. I am not going into these subjects here, but just stating in what areas I am lenient. It is OK to be more strict,-- as long as being strict does not cause one to do less of what he should in obligations between man and his fellow man.

One important point is that there is little reason to be strict unless one knows he or she is taking the strict opinion. But often people think the more strict opinion is the only opinion.  Being overly religious is not a substitute for being a decent human being.] 

Advice by a man of wisdom and experience on the topic of personal safety:

Don’t hang out with stupid people, don’t go to stupid places, don’t do stupid things.

s53 s53 in midi

The group that the Gra put into excommunication.

The Shelah [שני לחות הברית] says there is a mitzvah of rebuke even if you know the person will not accept it.

Later I saw this in the Gra in the book אבן שלמה that is there is a commentary on that book that brings the actual words of the Gra from his commentary on mishlei an kohelet etc. There I saw this.

Therefore I wanted to take the opportunity to warn people about the group that the Gra put into excommunication. This is completely ignored by the entire Jewish world for reason unknown to me.

I would make an exception for Reb Nachman and the Baal Shem Tov himself as you can see in the actual words of the document they would not be included. The actual document that the Gra signed specified  a specific group.

My opinion about that group is they are the Sitra Achra [pure evil] itself and anything they touch becomes unclean. Just to not mince words: I do think they are a cult of idolatry, and should get the death penalty. It does not matter if they pretend to keep Torah. 

In the Christian world we find:“That the wife brings her husband to heel (and to God) by filing for divorce and taking up with a new man.”

On the blog Dalrock Feminism is criticized. Especially Christian Feminism.

For example the author takes to task this deplorable practice:
In the Christian world we find:“That the wife brings her husband to heel (and to God) by filing for divorce and taking up with a new man.” 



My comment on this is:  Doing that makes her forbidden to her husband. [Besides the fact that it is adultery and gets the death penalty if done in front of a witnesses with a warning.]


A comment on my comment comes from Lyn87:

1. The words of Jesus in Matthew 19:9 are as follows: “And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and whoso marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery.”

   I think it does make her forbidden to her “husband” – because he is not her husband. If we really believe what Jesus said, a woman divorced for anything other than fornication (a general term for illicit sex) is guilty of adultery (aspecific term for having sex with another man’s wife), if she remarries. It makes no sense to say that a woman is committing adultery with her own husband since that defies the very definition of the word – you can no more commit “adultery” with your own wife than you can steal your own wallet – yet Jesus classifies the sex within those “marriages” as “adultery” (again, a very specific term that means “sex with another man’s wife”). The ONLY possible explanation is that not only is the man she is acting as a wife toward not her husband… but another man is.

   Other than the exceptions provided for in Matthew 19, any “marriage” subsequent to the first one is not a marriage in the eyes of God, but is simply an adulterous union given sanction by the state and, now, the church. There is really no other way to ready Matthew 19 – most of the “couples” in churches today that are the second marriages of the wives are actually just two people shacking-up with a piece of paper that falsely claims otherwise. The county clerk that issues the license doesn’t care, and Kim Davis doesn’t care, and most pew-sitters and pastors don’t care, but God certainly seems to care. There are exceptions: when my dad was a pastor he flatly refused to perform several wedding ceremonies, including ones that would result in an adulterous union as defined by Matthew 19. He would tell them, “I can’t marry you – you’re already married to someone else.”

   My current pastor is a generally very straight guy, but he has a few blind spots and this is one of them. I told him that he’s allowing open adultery to exist in the pews and even in the leadership by considering adulterous unions to be valid marriages. I see no way to read the words of Jesus in Matthew 19 without concluding that those women are married to other men in the eyes of God.

   I asked him a rhetorical question: “What if the former husband of one of the divorced-and-remarried women in the congregation came to you, pointed out the words of Jesus in Matthew 19, and demanded that you take action to have his wife return to him (like Hosea did with Gomer). His response was that the church’s stance was to “help the marriage that (currently) exists.” My response, of course, is that Jesus was very clear that the “current marriage” is not a marriage at all, or else Jesus would not have called it “adultery” – again, a very specific term for when a married woman has sex with someone who is not her husband.

   He wouldn’t agree to it – like I said, he’s a pretty straight guy with a blind spot. It’s a dangerous trend to tell people that they are legitimately married when God has unambiguously defined such relationships as being adulterous. It’s dangerous for the church leaders who accept “the current marriage” and will answer to God for calling adultery “marriage,” and for the couples themselves, who are committing adultery and being told they are not.

I answered to Lyn87 this comment


Lyn87. Sorry I did not make it clear.The reason she is  forbidden to her husband comes from some verse about the Sota. I admt I forget the verse. But what comes out of that verse is כשם שהיא אסורה לבועל כך היא אסורה לבעל. Just like she is forbidden to the adulterer so is she forbidden to her husband. It is from a verse in numbers right I think right before the sacrifices of the princes of the tribes. It has nothing to do with her being forbidden to her first husband after being remarried to someone else. It is a totally different issue.

To Lyn 87: As for your quotes from the NT my feeling is that as Rav Yaakov Emden said that Jesus was being more strict than the Mosaic Law. That means in plain English that he was not defining Mosaic Law but rather being more strict. So People following Jesus would certainly not be allowed to remarry because of that statement of Jesus--but not because it is adultery, We find this often in the Old Testament of things not being desirable even though they might not be forbidden from the strict letter of the Law. That is around every mitzvah and every prohibition there is grey area. For example idolatry. Some things are straight forward idolatry and get the death penalty. No problem there. But other things like service not in its way but in a way of honor is forbidden but does not get the death penalty. [I think.]