Shaari Teshuva by Rabainu Yona

Ethics. {Musar}. I think  one of the most important Musar books to read is the Shaari Teshuva [Gates of Repentance] by Rabainu Yona. It occurred to me that it contains all the basics of Torah in a small, thin volume. Just think about it. It goes through the stringency of לאווין [prohibitions] that is a very important aspect of Torah. Then it goes through pretty much all the aspects of Torah that are relevant today that most people do not know about. And then it gets into the ארבע כיתות that deals with the four types of people that will never see the Divine Countenance. Those that speak lies, lashon hara, ליצנות, flattery.

If you think about it you can see it contains most of the basic facts that one needs to know in order to understand and keep the Torah. That is pretty remarkable for one small book to do.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

I have dealt with the issue of Rav Avraham Abulafia before today and he still seems to me to be important enough to bring up again. Professor Moshe Idel at Hebrew University has written about him already, and Rav Abulafia's  many books as a set are for the first time available in Mea Shearim.  Some would call him a kabalist, but he was not a kabalist. He was a mystic, and there is a big difference. I discovered his writings in the basement of HU, and spent a lot of time trying to decipher them --before they were actually printed in the modern edition. I was not sure myself what to think of him until I found him quoted by Reb Chaim Vital and the Remak and even the Chida.

You can get Professors Idel's books on him, but nothing quite compares to the impact and shock of actually reading his own words and visions. 


It might seem I am not in favor of mystics, but that is only partially true. I am against kabalists and mystics from the dark side as all of them are today. But a true tzadik like Rav Abulafia I have only the greatest respect for.

[The Chida writes very positively about him and adds "The Rashba (a Mediaeval Torah scholar) treated him as a common and empty person, and I do not know why? He was clearly a great man.]


The thing you have to know when it comes to mystic things is you need to get it from the realm of holiness. The trouble with the cult the Gra put into excommunication was  they are from the Devil and therefore can not be trusted even when they say seemingly right things, and do what seem to be kosher deeds on the surface.  

[Just for public information I ought to mention the aspects of mystic tradition I  think are OK: Sefer Yetzira, Rav Abulafia, the Ari (Isaac Luria), the Gra, Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira and  his current day descendants, and the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi)), the Remak. ] Outside of these one must run from what disguises itself as Jewish mysticism but is actually from the Satan as almost all modern day kabalists are. Not to mention the cult the Gra put into excommunication because he saw they are from Satan, though  they try to cover up their unkosher, unholy inner essence with Jewish rituals. You need to burn whatever they touch.





I am not saying I understood the Reshash. But I think he is very important in order to understand the Arizal (האריז''ל), but I just never got that far with him. It was mainly the Intentions of Sukka (כוונת סוכה) and Drush HaDaat (דרוש הדעת) that I did fairly thoroughly in the Rehash. And that actually went along well with the Intentions of the Omer (כוונת העומר) that I did in Shar Hakavanot and also in the Sidur HaReshash (סידור הרש''ש) by the grandson of the Reshash. 

I should warn people that I do not think anyone should look at even this very important stuff until having finished Shas with Rashi, Tosphot. --a warning offered by the Ari himself in at least two places with surprising severity. [My personal favorites are the עץ חיים of the Ari and almost anything the Remak wrote. Rav Abulafia was not my favorite reading, but I copied down some of his major unifications, and used to concentrate on them a lot as he said to do. I think I would have to say he is my favorite mystic, and my second would be the Ari.] 
[Some of the obvious problems are that people get mixed up with the idea that the mental "high " they get from this is somehow connected with Devekut [soul attachment with God]. But there are a host of other problems.] There are mystics that get attachment with God. But that is rare and it is not the kind of emotional high that people think.

The "Nirvana Fallacy."

 The issue of what kind of system or constitution people choose to live under is not an idle question. And it matter also if  the system is large or small where everyone knows everyone else, and there is a certain amount of confidence in promises and trust in one another.

 This is a issue I have thought about for a long time after seeing the fact that religious people universally assume as an a priori principle that if they were in charge and in control, that everything would be peachy. The "Nirvana Fallacy." Yet we see that when in fact, they gain any power at all, they always manage to destroy good arrangements and understanding between people, and to make bad situations much worse than they would be without their meddling.

Yet we also see some great yeshivas which are great not just for themselves but for the entire surrounding communities like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak and the three great NY yeshivas, Mir Chaim Berlin and Torah Vedaat.

This is an obvious question but one that few people have ever raised in such a fashion. Rather what we see is people take a pro or con approach without  considering that the facts on the ground seem to point in contrary directions even without any interpretation.

The answer to me seems simple-- based on Hobbes. That is the difference between government and civil society. That is government is a monopoly of force. That is the most terrible thing to grant to religious people under any circumstances. But civil society is voluntary arrangements between people and that  is the place of Torah. קיימו וקבלו as it says in Megilat Esther. That they accepted the Torah afresh in the time of Morechai and Esther.
Thus we see in private institutions like yeshiva where everyone is there because they want to be there everything works fine. But when you introduce an element of coercion (כפייה דתית as they call it in Israel)  then the whole pie is ruined. [Plus the problem with the fanatical religious that their word is meaningless. For some odd reason they do not seem to think lying or fraud towards secular Jews is  a problem.]


Another issue is that the religious are exceptionally prone to schizoid tendencies which makes them susceptible to the illusion that whatever they are feeling or thinking at the time must be right and must apply to all people uniformly--since they believe they are in direct contact with the Divine. This leads to incredible levels of self delusions.  The reasons the great yeshivas avoid this problem is obvious--they are Litvaks. That is they go with straight Torah as their guide. 

And their intention is clear -to sit and learn Torah and to keep it. It is not to gain power. The last thing you want to do in grant coercive power to any faction that seeks it, no matter how nice they make themselves seem before they get power. You know they will control everyone for the interest of their own small faction.


Appendix:
Note 1. The importance of what kind of system people to live under you can see from Herodotus when the Persians were deciding whether to live under a democracy or an monarchy, and in the history of the war between Sparta and Athens when what kind of system in place largely determined outcomes. 

Note 2. It should be obvious that people have the right to be free of fraud and force. Thus the existence of  a civil society [where government does not enter into] does not give the right to people to commit fraud. Thus the fraud of the religious ought to be outlawed.
It, at least, comes under the category of dishonest representation of one's product.

Note 3. No one should be able to declare himself a expert in Law without authentic ordination which no longer exists since the middle of the Talmudic period. They do not get to call themselves experts and thus lord over other Jews by means of fiat and their own decrees.

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Reform Judaism as opposite to Jewish cults.

The trouble with Jewish cults is that something can be idolatry and still be quite Jewish and even  seem kosher. Jewish cults are the modern permutation of idolatry. Just because something is Jewish and 100% kosher does not mean it is not idolatry

The main obligation of the Torah as we see from the second commandment of the Ten Commandment is not to do idolatry.

The way to see this is from the Gemara in Sanhedrin [circa 64] and also in the Tosephta האומר עבדוני חייב

One tells another person, "serve me" is liable under the law of מסית ומדיח (One who tries to seduce another to do idolatry.)
And their supposed "devekut" (ecstasy) is of diabolical origin since the mind and the speech of the ecstatic are confused, as if he were being spurred on by someone else, or as if another were speaking through him.



[This is one area in which Reform Judaism is doing a lot better than the more religious who have a great deal of trouble with cults. I can scarcely even think of any religious group that is not actually doing idolatry. ](You can easily see the problem in the religious world because along with idolatry comes dishonesty. There is no security of possessions or contract or even your own wife and children.)


Another side point about Reform is they are mainly going like R.Shimon Ben Yochai that holds we go by the reason for the verse--דורשים טעמה דקרא

And another important point is that  the basic creed of Reform is Monotheism which is in fact the creed of the Torah. That is the belief that God made the world, and He is not the world.

However is there is a authentic Lithuanian kind of yeshiva in the area that is the best. [Authentic can mean   either Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat, or Ponovitch,--or it can mean that it is run by someone who learned at one of these  authentic yeshivas.]
 The trouble with the religious is the "Nirvana Fallacy" You see an imperfect world and they suppose if they were in charge everything would be better. When they get power they always make  bad situations worse.  And their rule when it comes to secular Jew is "force and fraud." Promises  are considered as a way of gaining misplaced trust with no intent of fulfillment.  The better system is Reform and Conservative Judaism in which religion is mainly the private sphere. Coercion ought to be separate from Torah.

Administrative Agencies?

Administrative Agencies? I should mention that Dr Kelley Ross also criticizes this at this link

NYC Junto Oct. 1, 2015: Epstein and Huemer. Small government or no government?

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points of focus.

In my own life I have found it useful to have  several points of focus. That is I try to identify negative points of focus--things I have done wrong and try to find ways of correcting these areas. Also I try to identify areas of positive value to focus on. 

That is "Teshuva" (repentance) is trying to figure out what I have messed up, and what to do about it. And then there is the fact that people can have only a very few central rules that they keep in mind,-- and so I try to identify the central areas that need attention.
And I do not want to pick out rules randomly or just pick rules based on what people tell me that they think is important. Like my Dad used to say, "The best way to lose money on Wall Street is to listen to the experts."

So just to make this short "Learning Torah" in the sense of Lithuanian kinds of yeshivas I have found to be an important area of focus. You tend to see this best in the small book, Nefesh HaChaim  by a disciple of the Gra, Reb Chaim from Voloshin.
[When we say "Learning Torah" in the sense understood by Litvak yeshivas and by Reb Chaim from Voloshin we tend to mean the entire Oral and Written Law. Tenach, the two Talmuds, Sifra Sifrei, Midrash Raba etc. That is the actual Oral Law as it was written down by the Tenaim and Amoraim [Talmudic sages]. Later on adaptions or reductions tend to be not what is referred to in this sense.  [Thus learning Gemara is called "Learning Torah."][Based on the Rambam. I also consider Physics as apart of the Oral Law as he says openly  in Mishne Torah.]

Another area of focus I think is important is Musar. Fear of God. That is the works of Ethics written during the Middle Ages which help to orient one's attention to what is important in Torah. Good character, fear of God etc.

Part of the importance of this is that there are values that one thinks he made up all by himself, but in fact gets from the media, TV, his parents, his society etc. Very few people make up their own values from scratch (though almost everyone thinks they did.)
And besides the values that one hold to consciously or unconsciously, there is to issue of the inner essence of a person --who and what he really is, in spite of the fact he might be holding to values to go against his inner essence.


The reason true authentic Torah learning is so rare is that any one who wants to gain many followers has to make extraordinary promises. Litvak yeshivas make no promises and claim no special revelations of Divine truth. Their job is simply to sit and learn plain straight Torah.  They do not even claim money to support them. They are well are that learning Torah is not a money making profession, and never claim that it is. 

FALSE TEACHERS:

People that try to use Torah for money are simply scoundrels  and should be avoided at all cost. Plus the cults that think they are in communication with the dead ought to be avoided. This is a common feature in all the religious groups and therefore they all should be avoided. 
Another way of telling whom is  a false teacher-he asks for  money. Another thing is they assume they have authority that the Torah does not give them. After all semicha (ordination) is non existent. True authentic ordination ceased during the middle of the Talmudic period. 

And they make extraordinary claims. They are not teaching Torah.

one's inner light comes from his mother and his outer light אור מקיף comes from his father.

The Hindus had this idea of following in your parents footsteps. [I mean that they thought this is desirable.] To me this makes a lot of sense as long as what one's parents are about and what they are doing is not obviously wrong. I think one's parents and ones immediate family and one;s immediate friends have a lot to do with what one is. They not not just reflect on his inner essence but are apart of it.

See חידושי הגרנ''ט from Reb Naphtali (Troup) [One of the great Roshei Yeshiva at the time of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik.] He considers כיבוד אב ואם (honor of one's father and mother) as a regular מצוות עשה(positive command).  [I forget the context and I do not have the book to be able to look it up. His book incidentally is highly related to the חידושי הרמב''ם of Reb Chaim.

In the Ari שער הגלגולים we find that one's inner light comes from his mother and his outer light אור מקיף comes from his father. There is a lot to go into about this but I think I wrote about this a few times already.

In any case, this would not apply if the parents are on some kind of bad path. This is dealt with at length in the Tur Beit Yoseph

counterfeit Torah.

Maybe Leftism is rage against pseudo religious people and counterfeit religiosity.  ( It does not have to be from a bad heart to be wrong. Maybe it is like the original Enlightenment. People just got tired of pseudo religiosity. If they only people that were openly religious would have been the ones that were sincerely religious then I doubt if the Enlightenment would have gotten of the ground.
What has been noticed is a lot of people use religion for personal gain, and also a lot of religious people are insane. And they try to win people over to counterfeit Torah. In fact this is the vast majority. The actual authentic yeshivas where real Torah is learned are rare.

 Most of the religious follow leaders who are  spirit mediums, that channel information from the "spirits" who communicate with them.  They make a show of keeping Torah but the whole philosophy is דורש אל המתים--In the category of the verse "Do not seek the spirits of the dead."

"There shall not be found among you anyone who... practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord..." Deuteronomy 18:9-12

Dr Kelley Ross on Divine command theory

A “Divine Command Theory” might have been mentioned somewhere, but it’s impossible that would be in a “positive way.”  I don’t think I had even heard of such a theory until I found it in the Ethics textbook I used to use.  So if I ever mentioned it, that was to caution students about it.   Again, Nelson’s diagram at http://www.friesian.com/universl.htm#note-3 rules out anyone’s will as the source of morality.

Musar and the Rambam

Books of mediaeval ethics (Musar) say that if one has sinned the best thing to do is to bring merit to the public.
They base this on the statement in the Mishna, כל המזכה את הרבים אין חטא בא על ידו( A sin does not come to anyone that brings merit to many people). That is supposed to counter [oppose] the effect of כל המחטיא את הרבים אין מספיקים בידו לעשות תשובה ( One who has caused sin to many people is prevented from repentance.)

But you can see the effects are not opposed. Let's say that, for example, one has been מחטיא את הרבים (caused many to sin) up until today, and now he wants to start being מזכה את הרבים (bringing merit to many). Then he would  be prevented from future sin, but still be unable to repent on past sin.

But what the books of Musar are suggesting is still valid. The effects of bringing many to sin and bring merit to many are still opposed in their effects. So it is still a good idea to stop bringing people to sin, and to begin to bring merit to people. 

One still might not be able to repent, but still even a little bit of good is also good.


[The idea of bringing merit to many is brought in the books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter and that is no surprise.  But you also find it in the classical mediaeval  books of Musar.]

You can learn what ever books of Musar you like, but my own tastes have changed during the years. If I could I would try to get all the books of the son and grandsons of the Rambam, Reb Avraham and later descendants of the Rambam.  [They were printed recently in Israel].

I saw one time in Uman someone had a copy of volume that had a lot of the books of the descendants of the Rambam in it. Interesting also to note another fellow had the entire Mishne Torah in one volume (no commentary)!!  That I thought was really neat. I think it was based on the Yemenite manuscript. [That makes it easy to do the program of the Rambam of learning the Mishne Torah and then the Physics of Aristotle and then the Metaphysics of Aristotle.]
What I suggest is to have one session in the Mishne Torah of the Rambam straight and another in the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach (Elazar Menachem Shach from Ponovitch) straight through from beginning to end. 

[This is just for a first reading of the Mishne Torah. The second time around I recommend doing with with the Keseph Mishna. I mean this for the 45 minute halacha session in the morning. This should not take the place of learning the Gemara Rashi Tosphot Maharsha Maharam from Lublin. ]

Dear Dr Ross. You wrote here http://www.friesian.com/universl.htm : However, a stricter empiricism again creates the difficulty that the apparent "form" of an object cannot provide knowledge of an end (an entelechy) that is only implicit in the present object, and so hidden to present knowledge.

This seems to be the only statement in that essay about the problems with Aristotle.

I thought there were more serious problems with Aristotle like this: from Stanford: Some maintain that Aristotle’s theory is ultimately inconsistent, on the grounds that it is committed to all three of the following propositions:

(i)	Substance is form.
(ii)	Form is universal.
(iii)	No universal is a substance.

(eio. No U (universal) is S (substance). Some F (form) is S. Some F are  U, but some  are not.)
That is F is not a subset of U. But F and S intersect. There are some forms that are substances.

This seems important because the  Maimonides is considered to be going with Aristotle. It does not seem that he would have missed these problems. Is there perhaps ways to answer these things? Or Perhaps Maimonides was aware of these problems and therefore took a kind of Middle Path between Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists. Sincerely Avraham Rosenblum

Dear Mr. Rosenblum,

Aristotle’s forms must be hidden in part, for we cannot tell from the inspection of an acorn what the grown tree will look like.  The Aristotelian “form” thus becomes separate from its obvious meaning in Greek, i.e. eidos as image.  Since Aristotle wants to be a kind of Empiricist, with the “form” derived in some way from the perception of the object, the universal that is mentally abstracted from the image carries with it things that are not actually visible.

In a Kantian theory,  what we know about universals will only apply to phenomenal objects.  The status of abstract (universal) objects among things-in-themselves is left open, as with other matters of transcendence.  At the same time, hidden features of universals obviously cannot be abstracted directly from perception.  Thus, what the oak will look like is a matter of speculation, scientific investigation, or just waiting around for the tree to grow from the acorn.  What scientific investigation has learned, of course, is that the form of the oak is determined by the DNA in the acorn.  The “entelechy” has a physical basis, but this could be not gathered from the mere inspection of the acorn.  Aristotle’s “entelechy” was thus for real, but not in the way he thought.

I would agree that Aristotle affirms (i) and (ii), but I don’t really see (iii).  Universals are forms, and forms are substance.  I think that Maimonides is actually a Neoplatonist, where the chain of Being is grades of form, and universality, from the four elements up to the One.

So I am curious why you, or anyone, would say that “No universal is a substance” in Aristotle.

Best wishes,

KR

Dear Dr Ross. I thank you for your detailed reply. My basic idea that Aristotle hold no universal is a form comes from Marc Cohen  in the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia Aristotle's Metaphysics. where he traces this idea to  book Z chapter 13 of the Metaphysics.Sincerely Avraham Rosenblum

Dear Mr. Rosenblum,

I’m not entirely sure what this means.   in Aristotle can only be a universal, since it can only be general.  Individual things are combinations of form and matter, with the matter accounting for individuality and spatial extension.  Are  you saying that Marc Cohen traces the idea that form is not a universal to Metaphysics Z?  This would be very strange.  Forms can be individual things if they are sui generis, unique of their kind.  But only God, and then the Intelligences that drive the planets, are of this kind – although St. Thomas, naturally, added human souls.

KR

Appendix:

(i)	Substance is form.
(ii)	Form is universal.
(iii)	No universal is a substance.

"Substance" is the major term. "Form" is the middle term. "Universal" is the minor term.

[I have trouble understanding this. Either (i) means "All substance is form." All substances are in the category of form, [A]. Or perhaps it means, "Some substance is form." [I].

Same with (ii) either: "All form is in the category of universals." [A] or "Some forms are in the category of universals." [I]
(iii) seems to mean:  "There is no intersection between  the set of universals and the set of all substance." [E]

So we have a lot of possibilities to go through. Let's start with AAE. The middle is distributed. But there is the illicit process of the minor term..
Perhaps it is rather IIE. Then that would be the fallacy of the undistributed middle. Neither premise refers to every member of the middle term.

Perhaps it is AIE. Same problem. The middle term is not distributed.

Perhaps it is IAE.  Form is distributed in the second premise but not universal. That seems to be a fallacy of the minor term. You say something in the conclusion about every member of the minor term but not in the second premise.

So that is what Marc Cohen means. That there is no way to make sense of all three propositions.

Perhaps Aristotle means this:

(EIO-4. No U (universal) is S (substance). Some F (form) is S. Some F are not U but some might be?)

Proverbs. 27:6, "The kisses of an enemy may be profuse, but faithful are the wounds of a friend,"

Accountability relationships in the Torah  include that of Saul the king to Samuel the prophet, Nathan holding king David accountable for moral failure, Nehemiah wanting to travel to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls but being accountable to King Artaxerxes, Daniel to  God,

How do we choose someone to be accountable to?

An unhealthy choice would be to choose someone you know will tell you just what you want to hear, or someone who has the same weak areas you do. Far better to choose someone who can encourage you-add courage to your life and struggle, someone who is making a success of his/her own life, someone further down the road than you in life stage or experience. Mutual accountability between equals (either two individuals or a small group) can be non-threatening and growth-producing, as well as protective.

The whole trouble in the Jewish world is the religious teachers that set themselves up as authorities. People go to them for advice and by that are drawn into more evil than they would do on their own. While having someone to discuss your spiritual problems with is a great thing, there is a terrible fact that the religious teachers themselves are  demons. This is brought in the LM [Lekutai Moharan] of Reb Nachman in many places. {This book of Reb Nachman was studied by Bava Sali and Rav Hutner.} He asks, "Why are people making disagreement with those who fear God? It is because they hear Torah lessons from תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים." (literal translation: "Torah scholars that are demons.") [I bring this from Reb Nachman, but the same idea you can find in the Talmud and Mishna and the Ari.]

The way to deal with this is simple. Pray for them and pray to find charity in your heart for them. But be wary and stay as far from them as possible.

[My warning here does not refer to the great Lithuanian yeshivas Ponovitch, Brisk, Mirrer Yeshiva  in NY, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat.]

There is a famous place in the Mishna which deals with this subject I think in Nazir about the pharisees being those that destroy the world. That is the only place I recall off hand. In the Gemara itself there are few places. One is the end of Shabat where is says literally "If you see a generation that troubles have come upon it, go out and check the judges of Israel;-- for all the troubles that come into the world only come because of the judges of Israel. "And then the Gemara brings a verse. Then there are few places from the Old Testament itself. And I do not mean the famous verses from Jeremiah. Someplace else which few know about.. You have to read the verse very carefully to see it. It says something like this: "Since Israel will not listen to the true shepherds I have given to  them, I will give them other shepherds that will lead them astray. ""וירעום" The reason no one knows this verse is because it is easy to miss. It says "וירעום" as a pun meaning "they will be shepards to them" and also it means "they will do damage to them." It is hard to see in the verse itself until you read it very carefully.

The Gaon from Villna

The Gaon from Villna as is well known went into "Galut" exile. That is a kind of repentance that people no longer do anymore.

The idea is to go from city to city where no one knows who you are and not sleep in the same spot for two nights in a row. I think it also involves not taking any money with you. What it used to involve was to sleep in the local Beit Midrash [study hall].

What this kind of repentance was supposed to do I imagine was to open one' person to insults.

But I think it also opens up ones mind to "reality" the way the world really is as opposed to they way we are taught that it is.

You learn by how people treat you as an unwanted stranger much more about them than when they treat you as someone they know has something they want like money etc.

To some degree I have lived like this for some time, and it is an amazing way of opening your eyes to how people really are --- as opposed to how they want you to think of them, and the act they put on to impress others.

The inevitable oblivion which must be the fate of the pseudo miraculous and the falsely sacred will be the fate of those that opposed the Gra and Rav Shach.

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Everything depends on getting to the right kind of yeshiva and avoiding the cult yeshivas.

When I consider the actual need to repent on my sins, it seems the place my thoughts go to automatically is the Musar books (Ethic books) of the Middle Ages.  I got the idea a long time ago that my troubles are the direct result of sin. Therefore when I see things not going the way I would like the to I think about "What is it that I am doing wrong?" 
Now in yeshiva I learned  a certain amount of Gemara and Tenach (Old Testament). But to get a good idea of what the Torah actually requires of me I found  I was not really understanding at all until I learned Musar.

The thing I gained from Musar was to get a good idea of the basic worldview of Torah--that is: what the Torah considers important.[Also the ספר החינוך [Sefer HaChinuch by a disciple of the Ramban] was a great help in that direction.]  

There is however a question on this system because sometimes people that are "משגיחים" "mashgichim" (מנהלים רוחניים "the spiritual adviser in the yeshiva") are not people that represent the ideals of Musar very well. Often it is those people that specifically give Musar and all yeshivas a bad name.

I wish I had an answer for this dilemma. But at least for myself I consider Musar to be the way and the path to the Tree of Life because through it I can understand at least more or less what is is that God requires of me.


Just for the record the actual Musar (Ethics) books that I liked the most were the Mediaeval Books: חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart, שערי תשובה. אורחות צדיקים, נפש החיים ספר היראה המתיחס לרבינו תם, אור ישראל ע''י רב יצחק בלזר תלמיד רב ישראל סלנטר
(Musar tends to emphasize fear and love of God and good character which it sees as the most essential and important aspects of the Torah. )

Once I discovered Musar I tried to get my actions to fit. Part of the problem for me was the message was not always clear. That is the yeshiva path seemed different to some degree. A later problem for me was the religious world really did not seem kosher at all. For some reason I encountered "love bombing" when I was younger and and later an amazing amount of animosity when I did not seem to present a source of income to yeshivas. [Young yeshiva students with rich American parents are highly sought after  in yeshivas.] For this reason I have tried to make it a point to recommend only the best of the yeshivas that I have known are doing their job sincerely like the great NY yeshivas: Mir, Chaim Berlin Torah VeDaat and Shaar Yashuv and the Israeli Brisk and Ponovitch.
Everything depends on getting to the right kind of yeshiva and avoiding the cult yeshivas.



They are attempting to establish a dichotomy that does not exist; one between the spirit of Torah and institution of yeshivas. There is no opposition between the two. One can learn for years in legitimate yeshivas and come to Israel and merit to great attachment with God in a way that can not be described by word.
It is an error in a matter of divine truth, to imagine the Torah is
invisible, intangible, a something merely "pneumatalogical", by
which many Yeshiva communities, though they differ from each other in their many ways, are united by a bond that is invisible to the senses…
If you are not in any yeshiva and nothing is nearby that is authentic then the minimum is the get the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and just plow through it.


[What I assume that if you are in Russia or France or Germany that there must be places that could be considered as authentic branches of the basic authentic Lithuanian yeshivas. That is in Israel you have a yeshiva in Tifrach that is not Ponovitch nor a branch of Ponovitch but is run by someone who was at Ponovitch and along the lines of Ponovitch. That constitutes an authentic Litvak yeshiva. In a similar way they must be places in Russia or Germany that are run along the lines of authentic Litvak yeshivas. Even a local Beit Midrash study hall could be considered authentic if it is run along the same line.]
[Musar yeshivas learn and accept all Musar but I should mention that I am not able to learn Musar that is kabalistically based as most of it is after the Middle Ages. Even to the extent of learning teh Shaarai Teshuva of Rabbainu Yona at this point I would have a hard time with because of his affiliation with the anti Rambam party. The only Musar I can learn and be comfortable with is from the school of thought of Saadia Gaon and the Rambam.