Apples Protect your heart

Foods that Heal

Apples

Protects your heart

prevents constipation

Blocks diarrhea

Improves lung capacity

Cushions joints

Apricots

Combats cancer

Controls blood pressure

Saves your eyesight

Shields against Alzheimer's

Slows aging process

Artichokes

Aids digestion

Lowers cholesterol

Protects your heart

Stabilizes blood sugar

Guards against liver disease

Avocadoes

Battles diabetes

Lowers cholesterol

Helps stops strokes

Controls blood pressure

Smoothes skin

Bananas

Protects your heart

Quiets a cough

Strengthens bones

Controls blood pressure

Blocks diarrhea

Beans

Prevents constipation

Helps hemorrhoids

Lowers cholesterol

Combats cancer

Stabilizes blood sugar

Beets

Controls blood pressure

Combats cancer

Strengthens bones

Protects your heart

Aids weight loss

Blueberries

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Stabilizes blood sugar

Boosts memory

Prevents constipation

Broccoli

Strengthens bones

Saves eyesight

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Controls blood pressure

Cabbage

Combats cancer

Prevents constipation

Promotes weight loss

Protects your heart

Helps hemorrhoids

Cantaloupe

Saves eyesight

Controls blood pressure

Lowers cholesterol

Combats cancer

Supports immune system

Carrots

Saves eyesight

Protects your heart

Prevents constipation

Combats cancer

Promotes weight loss

Cauliflower

Protects against Prostate Cancer

Combats Breast Cancer

Strengthens bones

Banishes bruises

Guards against heart disease

Cherries

Protects your heart

Combats Cancer

Ends insomnia

Slows aging process

Shields against Alzheimer's

Chestnuts

Promotes weight loss

Protects your heart

Lowers cholesterol

Combats Cancer

Controls blood pressure

Chili Peppers

Aids digestion

Soothes sore throat

Clears sinuses

Combats Cancer

Boosts immune system

Figs

Promotes weight loss

Helps stops strokes

Lowers cholesterol

Combats Cancer

Controls blood pressure

Fish

Protects your heart

Boosts memory

Protects your heart

Combats Cancer

Supports immune system

Flax

Aids digestion

Battles diabetes

Protects your heart

Improves mental health

Boosts immune system

Garlic

Lowers cholesterol

Controls blood pressure

Combats cancer

kills bacteria

Fights fungus

Grapefruit

Protects against heart attacks

Promotes Weight loss

Helps stops strokes

Combats Prostate Cancer

Lowers cholesterol

Grapes

saves eyesight

Conquers kidney stones

Combats cancer

Enhances blood flow

Protects your heart

Green Tea

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Helps stops strokes

Promotes Weight loss

Kills bacteria

Honey

Heals wounds

Aids digestion

Guards against ulcers

Increases energy

Fights allergies

Lemons

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Controls blood pressure

Smoothes skin

Stops scurvy

Limes

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Controls blood pressure

Smoothes skin

Stops scurvy

Mangoes

Combats cancer

Boosts memory

Regulates thyroid

aids digestion

Shields against Alzheimer's

Mushrooms

Controls blood pressure

Lowers cholesterol

Kills bacteria

Combats cancer

Strengthens bones

Oats

Lowers cholesterol

Combats cancer

Battles diabetes

prevents constipation

Smoothes skin

Olive Oil

Protects your heart

Promotes Weight loss

Combats cancer

Battles diabetes

Smoothes skin

Onions

Reduce risk of heart attack

Combats cancer

Kills bacteria

Lowers cholesterol

Fights fungus

Oranges

Supports immune systems

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

Strengthens respiration

Peaches

prevents constipation

Combats cancer

Helps stops strokes

aids digestion

Helps hemorrhoids

Peanuts

Protects against heart disease

Promotes Weight loss

Combats Prostate Cancer

Lowers cholesterol

Aggravates 
diverticulitis

Pineapple

Strengthens bones

Relieves colds

Aids digestion

Dissolves warts

Blocks diarrhea

Prunes

Slows aging process

prevents constipation

boosts memory

Lowers cholesterol

Protects against heart disease

Rice

Protects your heart

Battles diabetes

Conquers kidney stones

Combats cancer

Helps stops strokes

Strawberries

Combats cancer

Protects your heart

boosts memory

Calms stress

Sweet Potatoes

Saves your eyesight

Lifts mood

Combats cancer

Strengthens bones

Tomatoes

Protects prostate

Combats cancer

Lowers cholesterol

Protects your heart

Walnuts

Lowers cholesterol

Combats cancer

boosts memory

Lifts mood

Protects against heart disease

Water

Promotes Weight loss

Combats cancer

Conquers kidney stones

Smoothes skin

Watermelon

Protects prostate

Promotes Weight loss

Lowers cholesterol

Helps stops strokes

Controls blood pressure

Wheat Germ

Combats Colon Cancer

prevents constipation

Lowers cholesterol

Helps stops strokes

improves digestion

Wheat Bran

Combats Colon Cancer

prevents constipation

Lowers cholesterol

I terms of Torah what I suggest are the books of Rav Shach.

I terms of Torah what I suggest are the books of Rav Shach and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. And  the basic Musar books I think you should know. There is a set of the classical Musar books the are the Chovot Levavot, אורחות צדיקים ספר הישר של רבינו תם. There are also a few books from the direct disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. מדרגת האדם אור ישראל. That is Reb Israel had one disciple Joseph Horvitz from Navardok and Isaac Blasser. 

Not everything the people say that sounds like Musar (Ethics) should be accepted as Musar. 


You see Musar itself is based on certain world views that the rishonim [mediaeval authorities] had. So even if you do not see them discussing their world views in their Musar (Ethics) books, still there is a strong connection between their world view and the Musar they wrote. So learning only the Musar means often people pick up world views from other sources without knowing it. So I see learning the Emunot VeDeot of Saadia Gaon and the Guide of the Rambam as being very important. 

I think the main reason people support Trump is they are thinking of the kind of freedoms that had before the Federal Government began intruding in every single aspect of private life.

What Donald Trump has done is launch a full-scale anti-Federalist counter-revolution. Many of his backers reject the idea that the Federal government has any power at the State or local level. They call for the repeal of Constitutional amendments that have increased the power of the Federal government, like the 14th, 16th and 17th. What they ultimately want is to recreate a free world. To paraphrase Michael Moore's documentary, "Dude, Where's My Country?" The Donald Trump answer is "The people you took it from are taking it back."

"physics envy,"

The harder the science you do, the more you look down on anyone not on that level. If you are in math, you think physicists are stupid. If you are a physicist, you have "math envy," and think biologists are stupid. If you are a biologist, you have "physics envy," and think psychologists are frauds and idiots, along with being insane themselves, and their motivation in going into psychology was to project their defects on everyone they do not like. 
Also, the scale of jargon is reversed. The more of a pseudo science it is, the more they have to invent jargon for simple things- so that they can sound profound and call what they do "science." Thus, "social sciences," which are at the bottom, have jargon invented for things that there are commonplace terms for. It is a scam in order to be able to call what they do "science." [I feel nauseous just writing the two words together.]


The result of envy is to try to de-legitimize whatever anyone on a higher level is doing and make yourself sound as if you were at the top. 

There is a lot to go into here but this will have to do for now.
in every vector of value there is a hierarchy. 

So what I m suggesting is a hierarchy in each area of value.
So you get a string a values. E.g. the one I started with in the above essay. Math --Physics-Chem-Biology etc.. Up there in (8) Beauty will be Bach-Mozart-Beethoven-etc. Politics also will have its own string. Another string will be in the Holy-"Pietative" Old Testament-Talmud-Rishonim-etc. 


So what you need here are different kinds of awareness or knowledge of universals. That is some universals are "It must be." The next level is "It can be" and the next is "one ought to do such and such a thing." That is for the different modes of necessity and possibility there will be a different kind of non intuitive immediate knowledge.

Mir Yeshiva in New York

The Mir Yeshiva in New York was a unique kind of place in that every day was a new class that was along the lines of something you would see in the book from Reb Chaim Soloveitchik or Shimon Shkop. That is:- the classes consisted of expanding the approach of Reb Chaim to every single page of Gemara.

So this gives me an idea of how to explain simply what it means to learn Gemara on a small scale. To get the basic idea you really do not need to go through the whole four year program. If you just would have one tractate of Talmud and one essay from Reb Chaim Soloveitchik or Rav Shach and go though that one essay along with the Gemara it was written on, then you would already know what it means "to know how to learn."
You might not yourself at that point "know how to learn" but you would have understood the basic idea.

Now I do not claim this deep knowledge myself. In fact, in the two books I wrote on Bava Metzia and Shas I sometimes see the kinds of trivial concerns like are like Freshman Level. Like "Why did the Maharasha write such and such a thing."  That might be slightly interesting, but it is not called "knowing how to learn." Knowing how to learn is global.  It means knowing how to calculate the sugia [subject] in front of you--so you know thoroughly the Tosphot. And then the crucial step is to know how it connects with the rest of Shas.
There are not a lot of places on that level. Mainly they are in NY (Mir Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat) or they are offshoots of Ponovitch in Bnei Brak.

This gives you a general idea of how education should be pursued. You should look for the highest quality. For some reason God directly my steps to almost always have teachers of the highest quality--even when I was not looking for this. If it is worth doing it is worth doing right.

[Sometimes people jump towards the global thing and are missing the first step in knowing the sugia. So I think my two books are important because they tend to combine both things. I deal at first with knowing the sugia in its place and then see how it connects with the global concerns of the rest of Shas.



If you want an equal of a Litvak Yeshiva in your home, then you only need one Shas, plus the books of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and Rav Shach and the basic Musar books. If you also want to more mystic side of Torah after you have finished Shas twice, then what I recommend is simply to plow through the writings of the Ari (Isaac Luria) straight from beginning to end-or at least the Eitz Chaim which gives you the basic idea. But I should mention I think the Eitz Chaim goes with the idea of direct mystical awareness at least as far as the Ari was concerned. That fits with Hegel but not Kant.

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religious teachers have found way to mislead the public about Torah

I was naively optimistic about what most religious teachers are. I thought they were sincere and wanted everyone to learn and keep Torah.


Why is a good question which I do not have an answer for. But the fact is there are three main characteristics of most religious teachers. In these three things they are the exact opposite of what they claim. They are anti-Shalom Bait, Anti-Family values, anti-learning Torah. They do everything they can to break up homes and make sure the children are taken from their parents, and they hate it when they see Jews learning Torah. It rubs them the wrong way. They claim to make yeshivas as a public service but all they are in chat rooms for them and their buddies. If anyone actually tries to sit in one and learn Torah they make sure to throw him out.

I know they are extremely dangerous to ones mental and spiritual health. The worst mistake one can make is trust in anything they say.


They are failures when it comes to human decency and sincerity. How can they teach that to others?


However Torah is important. It is not a reflection on Torah the fact that it can be misused. There is no system that is immune to abuse. And it there is any way to abuse a system people will find it.

The problem is that religious teacher have found way to mislead the public about what the Torah says and means. They are enemies of Torah.

I will forever be their enemy because they are enemies of the Torah.
To them Torah is a set of rituals and as long as they are the center of worship they don't care what people do outside of the rituals that have little or nothing to do with Torah. They found some schizo persons that were addicted to rituals and found way and making everyone else do them.

It is not that they are buffoons. It is that they are outright damaging and dangerous.

I already dislike word play. Ordination from Sinai stopped during the middle of the period of the Talmud.

Religious teachers are the equivalent of the Sophists in ancient Athens claimed to be able to impart moral virtue to youth.  Moral education is their  venture. Now, I might say “Please spare me. I am not impressed. You oafs wouldn’t know virtue if it bit you.” But I would say it, or think it, partly because I already mistrust religious teachers .
But the question still remains - education of youth and also education of  adults that still have not yet acquired thorough knowledge of the Oral and Written Law. They too are like youth in that they are vulnerable because of their lack of knowledge and experience.
Almost anyone can come along and like the sophists claim to teach Torah and make  a nice bundle off of it.
I already dislike word play. Ordination from Sinai stopped during the middle of the period of the Talmud. So why do they play this word game? Could I just start to call myself and my friends "Doctor"? Why not? Is it not just a word?
I do not think these are innocent word games. They openly declare their intention that everyone has to listen to them.

They think they are the wisest of all men and  are also thought to be so by very many men—and  the only thing that prevents them from having a good reputation among everyone is natural science and those who study it. They believe that if they ruin the  reputation of Physics and Math, they will then be awarded celebrations as the undisputed champions of wisdom. They believe that they are truly the most wise, but whenever in private conversations they come up short they are shielded by their followers. These men, who think they are superior to all, are in fact inferior to all. They may pose greater dangers to Torah than  buffoons who do not go with Torah at all. These  are ambitious men who would like to discredit natural science by reducing it to its lowest common denominator: clever words and weaponry.

They gain power by being supposedly pro family and family values. They in fact highly hostile to any families but their own, and use their authority to dismantle families of people they do not like-- if anyone is stupid enough to listen to them. Mainly what they want to to weed out the smart so that they -the religious teachers- will be the smartest kids on the block. Religious teachers are inherently vile—but he is never so vile as when they are trying to disguise and deny their vileness. No prostitute was ever so costly to a community as a prowling and obscene vice crusader, or as the dubious religious teacher who jumps at such a chance to show off his holiness.

However to know any single halacha properly one needs to know the Talmud from where that halacha comes from.

As for Halacha in fact the only valid source is the Talmud. But because not everyone has the time it is perfectly fine to go by the Rambam or the Tur Beit Yoseph. The only Achron in Halacha I have much respect for is the Aruch HaShulchan. There are people that go by the Gra in every detail like Rav Zilverman in the Old City. These are all very good approaches. However to know any single halacha properly one needs to know the Talmud from where that halacha comes from.

As for the other issues like problems with all religious teachers  being creeps that I brought up in my essay. I would not say what I say if I did not know it to be true.  And like I mentioned before there is such a thing as group behavior.  There are plenty of examples of this in the Gemara. See the end of kidushin "Where it says stay away from that group that are from such and such a city because they are all liars."  In any case my essay was really meant to address a public problem which is very real and everyone knows it except the people that want everyone else to be blind. 

And there are the obvious exceptions of people that are sitting and learning Torah all day who can be trusted and in Israel there is in fact is pretty good rigorous system in place. But these are side issues and tend to detract attention away from the widespread catastrophe that surrounds us.

It is for good reason I have mentioned the importance of  a legitimate Lithuanian yeshiva. If you do not have one there, then at least  get the book of Rav Shach so you can be yourself a walking Litvak Yeshiva, keeping the whole Written and Oral Law. Get to you also the books of Rav Chaim Soloveitchik and the other great sages of Lita.

[What people call halacha nowadays is a joke. They take the majority of the frauds and liars that are as crooked as snakes and go by the majority opinion. That is what they call Halacha.]

why is there evil,

  I think the issue of "why is there evil," is confused with existence of God. Also I think in the West, a metaphysical structure of the world was denied beginning in the Middle Ages with the idea that universals do not exist  and getting up to the British empiricists. Both of these issues I think tend to obscure the central issue.\

FrankNorman

The people most likely to use the "problem of evil" as an argument against Christianity tend to have a very blurry conception of evil.
And also often to be the same people who reject the very idea of there being any transcendent standards of right or wrong.



\Frank: you brought up a good point that both points used against existence are contrary one to the other. If they hold no objective metaphysical structure of the world exists, then there is no objective evil, and so the problem of evil does not exist.

In any case, the first cause idea was already used by Aristotle himself.  People for some reason think it began with the Rambam and Aquinas based on Aristotle's' idea of a First Mover.  But in fact Aristotle does bring the idea of the first cause also in his Physics.

Here is the idea of the first cause in my own words:
Belief  in God is rational.
 Everything has a cause. So unless there is a first cause, then you would have an infinite regress. And then nothing could exist. Therefore there must be a first cause. Therefore God, the first cause, exists. QED. (You could prove the first step a priori that everything has a cause by noting that nothing can come from nothing. This makes it a priori, not just an empirical observation).

I love Avraham's Music!

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I love Avraham's Music!

religious teachers always lie

I wrote a rather sharp essay about the Mishna "עשה לך רב", "Make for yourself a rav." And I did mean to be sharp because it is misused. Even so the issue is relevant and should be addressed in a more calm fashion. The actual issue is: to whom (if anyone) must one listen?  Perhaps anyone that claims to speak in the name of Torah? Perhaps to any group that have decided to claim the title of "Rav" for themselves and their associates?
Or perhaps (as, in fact, the Torah does say) to one's parents?  Should perhaps they be given consideration? Perhaps the Torah is just making a suggestion: "It is  a good idea to listen to your parents, when you happen to agree with them"?!!

Furthermore then what place does the Oral Law --the actual tradition written down by the Tenaim and Amoraim have?

One of the "Gedolai Lita", the sages of Lithuania, Naphtali Troup addressed this issue. The name might not be familiar to you, but he has a stature close to that of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. You can find his book in yeshivas called Chidushei HaGarnat. His ideas became widespread in yeshivas even more that Reb Chaim's. But, for some reason, his reputation was eclipsed by Reb Chaim.
The idea is the command of listening to your parents is a Mitzvat Ase, מצוות עשה- positive command.
[What I mean is: It pushes off a negative command, but not a negative command that is also a positive command, nor a command that has "כרת" (being cut off from one's people) attached to it.]



As for the cult of religious teachers --they should be trashed.



As for the Oral Law --it should be learned and kept. And never trust any rabbi about what it says. They always lie.
religious teachers  always lie because the very title shows they  do not know or care what the Torah says. Ordination from Sinai  stopped during the period of the sages of the Talmud, thus anyone with ordination today is a fraud, a cheat, and  a liar.

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Avraham's Music

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The cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on always lie about everything,- especially Torah. They use true things to promote lies. They mix a little truth with the lies so it all sounds plausible.

.The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on

The reason they lie about everything is because they are schizo personality types  and their leaders have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. hyper-graphia, hatred of sex, obsessive compulsion disorders, and are malicious. That is they intend to do harm. But they get the appearance of ‘doing good.’This  has a seductive appeal because it gives the ‘moral high ground.’ This moral high ground is then exploited to shame and barrage anyone who disagrees into oblivion

I do not think one should have a rav because they do not teach Torah. The Mishna (that one should have a rav) was referring to a rav at the time of the Mishna when there was ordination from Sinai. And furthermore there are further problems with ravs nowadays. I am not sure how to explain what is the problem but these are well known. Everyone besides themselves knows that everything they say has some agenda. You can't trust them to tell you what the Torah says

They think they are doing a favor for Reb Nachman by worshiping him

Reb Natan his disciple was a classical case of Temporal Lobe Epilepsy. Obsession with hared of sex, hyper-graphia. Obsession with religion. In any case, there was one person that was asked how he managed to stay married for a long time, when nowadays that is uncommon. He answered,I made sure my wife never talked with any religious teacher. Religious teachers today are extremely dangerous when it comes to keeping ones family together and to raise a healthy, wholesome family. I have been around the block enough times to know this in my own experience and many many other people's. Especially the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on . You think to gain something by their blessing? It is all an illusion only to vanish after some time

The closest you can get to the idea of a real rav is if there is a person that is actively teaching Talmud daily in a Litvak yeshiva. That kind of rav is OK. The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on are bad people and we need to take back the Torah. The real, Torah. Religious teachers are as corrupt and crooked as a snakes, but much more dangerous. Because when one follows them he or she think he or she is doing a mitzvah. It is true that a mishna in Pirkei Avot can be used in a false way to support this conspiracy to divert Judaism into a cult of worship of the great leader. All one needs to do is get together with a few other criminals  and agree to start giving each other ordination. Then you have a mishna that tells everyone that they have to listen to a rav about all important matters in life. Even if none of these people know anything about Torah, they still get the immense authority given by this mishna over everyoneAuthentic ordination ended in the middle of the age of the amoraim (sages of the Talmud).] So the only people that get the title are only those that do not know the Torah even at the most minimal level, or are false and devious enough to know the fact and yet ignore them.Temporal lobe epilepsy is an important model of behavioral change that accounts for the overarching  increased religious interests, hypergraphia (obsesive need to write), increased moral and philosophical concerns,  and lack of humor. Hate of sexuality. Norman Geschwind. Many of Geschwind’s observations and formulations regarding this topic were highly developed in 1974, reflecting his long-standing interest in behavioral changes in epilepsy
Appendix bout Halacha. Halacha.  It is hard to give a good idea of what Halacha is. Clearly the first problem is the charlatans that claim to know it. But even if we could clear away all the trash it still is hard to get to Halacha because it has to come from the Gemara. Without knowing from where it comes inside the Gemara itself there is no halacha that comes out right. Context is everything. The way I approached Shabat was to learn masechta itself with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharasha. And besides that I had a learning partner with whom I did the Gemara, Rif, Rosh and the Shiltei Giborim on the Rif and the Tur Beit Yoseph. To my way of thinking this is the only way to do Halacha. And I am not alone in this opinion. The Maharshal wrote that it is better to poskin from the Gemara itself rather than any compilation of halacha even if one get the halacha wrong. And he wrote that specifically on the Rambam. The Maharsha wrote in a similar vein about those that poskin from the Shulchan Aruch (The large Shulchan Aruch with all the commentaries) even with knowledge of the commentaries. He wrote that it is proper to rebuke them and they are causing many people to sin. The disciple of the Gra, Reb Chaim from Voloshin wrote a response disagreeing with a pesak of some famous religious teacher and added "We only go by the law of the Gemara.There are no shortcuts to Halacha. No one has a right to an opinion in Halachah unless they have done the work. Everyone has the right to an opinion but no one has the right to an uninformed opinion.

If you want to have an opinion in the Laws of Shabat, then go through tractate Shabat with Rashi Tosphot Mahrasha Maharam from Lublin and the the Rif, Rosh, Tur, Beit Yoseph from start to finish. Every last word. Ah you say you don't have time? Then cancel your TV programs and make time. You don't have the right to an uninformed opinion

talmud ideas

Ideas in Tractate Bava Metzia 

Ideas in Shas I have to say that a good deal of credit goes to my learning partner for these two books. He asked that his name not be mentioned publicly.. But it is not just his ideas that I mention but also the motivation for writing. The most rigorous type of learning Talmud I saw in NY in Shar Yashuv and the Mir and had almost forgotten about this kind of learning until I encountered it again in my learning partner.
Seeing that most people do not even know this kind of learning exists I decided to write these two books showing how it is done.
[Not that I am so great at this. I learned from people that know how to learn a  million times better than me.]

Where is the path of Torah? 

learn word by word

One way I have found helpful in learning is to learn word by word as I have mentioned. But sometimes after I have finished a book and am in the process of review I find it helpful to hold my place with a place marker. Then the next day to go back over the previous page and then to go further after that.

I love to learn Torah

There was a process that I used when there was a very limited amount of material that I absolutely had to understand then and there,- and there was not time for my usual relaxed way of learning of saying, "When I come around the whole book the second time I will get it."
That is;- I would say every paragraph forwards and backwards. I based this on Yehuda, a mediaeval mystic, and the Ari (Isaac Luria) and Moshe Chaim Lutzatto. In all of their books I found some hint to this kind of idea.

I hesitate to mention this idea because it might be that some people do not need it, and others it might not work so well for.  Still for myself I have found it effective in some cases.


I used this saying the paragraph forwards and backwards when I was Polytechnic Institute of NYU. Without it I could not have succeeded. The reason is I needed to pass exams. The fast method of learning that I use t give me an overview of  a subject simply did not could not have given me the understanding I needed to pass those exams.
But that was because I was doing a very limited amount of material.
So in short what i recommend is two sessions for every subject. A fast session in which you read the words as fast as possible and do not think at all whether you understand or not. The other is this approach of saying every paragraph forwards and backwards. And even many times util you get it.

The first time I saw the idea of learning fast was in a secular context. Speed reading. But the idea did not include saying the words. In the Jewish context I saw this in a Musar book the Ways of the Righteous.

If people would learn in Litvak yeshivas they would already know this. The regular way of any Litvak Yeshiva is slow and in depth learning in the morning and fast in the afternoon.

the cult that the Gra signed the excommunication on

The problem I see with cults [Hindu, the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on, etc.] is that the leader can absorb people into his archetype.
Especially in the West. This is because the West has been emptied of meaning by David Hume and the British  Empiricists. That is if one holds by Nominalism and or empiricism the world has been emptied of meaning. This is what gives secular society the empty feelings that people feel but can not express. Thus youth are prey for archetypes that can absorb their energies and spit them out.

I can not go into all the details, here but you can easily on your own find examples of this type of thing and even see it in your own lives when you saw someone get involved in some cult.

Cults are the reincarnation of the ancient idols. Joining a cult one becomes a servant to some archetype. This at least gives me an idea of why the Gra saw fit to put the entire movement  into excommunication. Not just that he saw it as kelipat noga, but rather that he singled it out as the most destructive force coming into the world at the time that would result in other cults like communism and other assorted idolatries.

Learning Musar [Ethics] has made me a better person.

Learning Musar [Ethics] has made me a better person. There was an implicit message in the Ethics movement of Reb Israel Salanter;.

It was not that it is good idea to learn Musar [Mediaeval Ethics]. That was not news. The unstated message was that Fear of God is contained in the classical Musar book.
I do not think anyone ever expressed the idea in that way but it seems to me after I spent time reading the books of his disciples that this is what they were thinking.
That means they were thinking like this: If you want fear of God, then go through the entire set of Musar from beginning to end. That is a good deal of reading.

Why this is interesting is this. The more one fears God they he fears people or anything else. Nor does he have any reason to fear anything else. People I noticed can have fears that they are not happy with. Sometimes they know their fears are irrational. Other times they do have something real to be afraid of. Sometimes they can not tell the difference. It seems to me the best way to deal with this is to learn Musar.

generation gap

generation gap

How does a culture unwittingly sow the seeds of inter-generational mistrust? When does youth begin to suspect that adult camaraderie may be deeply flawed? Revolutions begin in the younger generation, rather than the seasoned adults. Something in the cultural soil goes bad.

One variety of these seeds of mistrust and reveals that they usually begin to sprout informally, even playfully, in arenas like the Beit Midrash or Synagogue   where young men mixed as freely with adult men. The young are always watching and wondering what makes adults tick. Their natural inclination to imitate the ways of adults is a deep source of cultural stability because it tends to ensure that what an adult does today will be emulated by a youth tomorrow.

I have had people ask me questions in Halacha because they knew they could not get an honest answer anywhere else. Everyone seems to have an agenda. Halacha means what they want it to mean.

The hard thing about halacha is that one needs to know the source before he can understand it at all. But in essence that simply means to sit and learn Gemara like Lithuanian Yeshivas do anyway.


The issue is not adults verses teens. It is young married adults that still need guidance for older people. They need to know whom they can trust.
This is hard to know. Usually you need to know a subject really well to be able to tell who else knows it really well.

I any case for the sake of the record there were people I knew that really did know Torah well. mainly they were in NY. Some are today Roshei Yeshiva in the Mir and Chaim Berlin. Rav Nelkenbaum in the Mir. Shelomo Haliua in Chaim Berlin. Shimon Buso in Netivot in Israel. Clearly Rav Elezar Menachem Shach was the greatest Torah scholar of the last generation.

music

r29 a minor

I love Avraham's Music

When the world I knew was caving in around me I needed a basic rule for living. That is to say the truth at all cost.

What determines what a human being is one thing that is really three. Commitment.long term. short term and if these two correspond one with the other.
The inner self is hidden from view. We think we know it but we know only the surface like the surface of a ball. We know what we are thinking. The stream of conscious. But what is motivating us is hidden. But we can know to what basic rules for living we are committed to. Alexander the Great was asked how he accomplished so much. He gave  a rule of living. What needed doing he did right away without delay. That is he had  a short term commitment that corresponded with his long term commitment to take over the entire world.
 When the world I knew was caving in around me I needed a basic rule for living. That is to say the truth at all cost. These kinds of rules we choice for how we live determine in the long run who we really are. 

The problem is Islam is the greatest threat to the survival of the human race.

There are many verses in the Q'ran calling for violence against unbelievers, the jihadists quote as they behead and enslave. There is a long tradition of scholarly interpretation and military implementation of those verses over centuries - not only by 20 year-olds but by imams, mullahs, sheikhs, and great Islamic empires. 

Those who persist in claiming that Islam is a religion of peace at the least have a lot of explaining to do. They have a huge weight of evidence, textual and historical, to contend with. 


Good luck to those who seek to persuade other Muslims of their "religion of peace" view! I pray for their safety and success. Those Muslims that really believe in the golden rule, I wish them well and pray for their health and success. But they are not following Islam, they are following Western ideals.

The problem is Islam is the greatest threat to the survival of the human race since that volcano eruption 75000 years ago almost wiped out our entire species. That was just one volcano. Imagine what the Islamic Atom Bomb could do to us. People that do not realize this simply have their heads in the sand, teh sands of Saudi Arabia money buying off our politicians.
 Believe me when i tell you the reason Germany has let in the new Islamic invasion, the reason George Bush claimed after the deadliest attack on American soil that Islam is a religion of peace--believe me when I tell you is is all about the Billions of dollars that Saudi Arabia buys our politicians with. Follow the money trail.

Girls, be smart and get a Litvak!

Girls, be smart and get a Litvak! A man who has learned in Ponovitch.

In the Jewish world, the Middle Ages have a different reputation than in the Christian world. In the Jewish world the Middle Ages are looked upon as the peak of Enlightenment. That is to say the "rishonim" are considered unsurpassed and also un-surpass-able.  The best thing we can say about the Gra is he qualified as a rishon. It is considered that rishonim cant be wrong--at least in Torah subjects. But we admit they can be wrong about scientific issues.

This relates to Christians because it has become customary in Christian circles to look at the Middle Ages as the "Dark Ages." Nothing in Christianity has come anywhere near the quality of thought of Aquinas nor Anselm. Not within a million light years. And yet Christians still insist on thinking that they have somehow out-grown the Middle Ages. If only they were smart enough to see the brilliance of the Middle Ages. That would already be a step up.


I should add the the "rishonim" well deserve their reputation. But to see this takes years in yeshiva. Mainly the problem with achronim is fuzzy logic. This is mirrored in the Christian world where the best of philosophical thinkers after the middle ages  show circular logic consistently.







David Hume wrote: The order in nature could equally well result from the intrinsic properties of matter itself. This he thought was an argument against intelligent design. The issue to be decided is whether the order in nature is the result of intelligent design. If it is, then the properties of matter (e.g the bonding properties of carbon and hydrogen) are also the result of intelligent design. Postulating a dichotomy between intelligent design and the properties of matter therefore amounts to postulating a priori that there is no design in nature. Hume (and all who follow him) essentially follow a grand circularity. That is called circular logic and proves nothing since anything can be proved if one is clever enough to conceal the circular nature of his arguments 

Kant

The greatest consideration should be given to the possibility of  graded levels of reason. I mean to say that we have different levels of unconditioned realities. Modes of necessity. So in knowledge of these modes we ought to considered different levels of non intuitive immediate knowledge.

In short: How is a priori synthetic knowledge possible? you could say like the intutionists [Prichard G.E. Moore, Huemer, Bryan Caplan] that it is by reason. They are expanding the areas that reason knows for good cause. They look at Hume's argument that reason has only one function--to `perceive  contradictions.They know that that is wrong. But we do have to admit the kind of reasoning we use to advance a mathematical series is different than the other kinds of intellectual perception that they suggest. That is they ignore Kant's arguments, not just Hume.

So Plato could have answered the question how the forms participate with individuals -he could have answered the representation makes the object possible and the object makes the representation possible. 

Making and keeping friends. Getting married and staying married and having good children. How to do this?

Marriage is great 

marriage and friends is what life is about. 

Making friends, finding acceptance, falling in love, and becoming lovable  present  real and lifelong challenges for human beings in every culture.  Friendship is a philosophic problem because  a man or a woman without friends, real friends, is incapable of the fullest flourishing. Such people will always just miss capturing the deepest sort of happiness. The time to address youthful eroticism is before the wounds of rejection and insecurity become lasting scars. 
How to make and keep friends and a spouse. Two problems everyone thinks about but no one addresses.

Adults are too busy to take a hand in such matters. The youth suffer. They  grow up, reenact the same ineptitude with their own kids, and spend their time browsing the self-help stacks of bookstores.  Where are adults who should care about youths and their ability to channel love and eros to its proper end: making friends and a wife and kids?

So people know they need help but have no where to go. The question is under the surface of consciousness. So it can never be expressed.

To answer this question people get attracted to cults that claim to answer these concerns. They pour their time efforts and money into false leaders that pretend to be able to answer these concerns. 

So the problem of cults is a deeper problem that relates to the very essence of what a human being is.

People in Lithuanian yeshivas will recognize immediately what I am talking about. They know that the Litvak yeshiva is probably the best forum and environment for making and keeping friends and getting married and staying married and having good children. They know it is not a cult. It is the exact opposite. But what bothers me is that sometimes it does not do this function very well.
This fact seems not to be addressed at all anywhere. I found that the effect can be the opposite of what you would except.

Rambam holds with the basic metaphysics as Aristotle

The Rambam holds with the basic metaphysics as Aristotle. But this leaves him in a predicament when it comes to power. [potential] (Potential means able to do something that one is not actually doing.]) Since the Rambam and Aristotle  say the God has no matter that would mean he has no ability to do anything other than what he is doing. You need to get to the idea that action does not use up possibility.
for the Rambam is that universals represent a kind of mode of necessity.



I think that we can see why the Rambam was so firm that God can't have any physical aspect. Not just from a Torah perspective but also from the perspective of Aristotle.  [That is he is not specifically trying to knock Christianity or any specific doctrines. He just holds that matter and the universe is not a part of God. That is what is usually called Monotheism. Pantheism is a different belief system  of Torah which is that God made the world, but is not the world. (This is one reason  the Gra signed the  excommunication.)  After all if "Everything is godliness then maybe it does not hurt so much if their "tzadik"  leader is a little more godly than anyone else.]

As Kelley Ross writes:

 ..In Aristotle ... matter is potential; but then matter is so intrinsically amorphous, merely the passive recipient of actualizing "form," that the Neoplatonists identified it with Not-Being (and evil) -- quite apt when Prime Matter, or pure potential, is not actual at all and so in fact doesn't exist -- and both Aristotle and the Neoplatonists eliminated any material component to God (or the One). 

Rambam holds with the basic metaphysics as Aristotle

The Rambam holds with the basic metaphysics as Aristotle. But this leaves him in a predicament when it comes to power. Since the Rambam and Aristotle  say the God has no matter that would mean he has no ability to do anything other than what he is doing. You need to get to the idea that action does not use up possibility. 


What I am trying to say is what Kelley Ross is saying and what I think we have to consider as going for the Rambam is that universals represent a kind of mode of necessity.



I think that we can see why the Rambam was so firm that God can't have any physical aspect. Not just from a Torah perspective but also from the perspective of Aristotle.  [That is he is not specifically trying to knock Christianity or any specific doctrines. He just holds that matter and the universe is not a part of God. That is what is usually called Monotheism. Pantheism is a different belief system introduced by the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on to get people to worship their leaders.  After all if "Everything is godliness then mybe it does not hurt so much if their "tzadik"  leader is a little more godly than anyone else.]

As Kelley Ross writes:

 ..In Aristotle ... matter is potential; but then matter is so intrinsically amorphous, merely the passive recipient of actualizing "form," that the Neoplatonists identified it with Not-Being (and evil) -- quite apt when Prime Matter, or pure potential, is not actual at all and so in fact doesn't exist -- and both Aristotle and the Neoplatonists eliminated any material component to God (or the One). 

Bava Metzia

Bava Metzia page 14b.  ideas in Bava Metzia chapters 8 and 9

 On the way to the bank it occurred to that there is one significant difference between Rashi and Tosphot concerning Shmuel and that that difference may very well indicate some serious revising of how to understand the Tosphot. The difference between Rashi and Tosphot is in area of Shmuel. To Rashi when Shmuel says the buyer gets the price he paid for the field but not improvements it means he does not get the improvement from the owner nor the thief. (I have a remarkable proof for this but I can't write it this minute.)
There is no difference between Rashi and Tosphot that is true as far as the opinion of Rav is concerned.


But now this reflects on Tosphot also. For Tosphot says the law on page 14 is the same as the law on page 101. So in fact as I wrote before in the opinion of Tosphot the owner would pay the buyer the lesser amount, improvement or expense. So as far as that goes everything is OK. But lets looks then at the opinion of Tosphot concerning Rav. If the thief did no work why would the owner pay anything to the thief? The arrows I wrote were correct as far as Tosphot in concerned but my point is the cases are different. The case where the owner pays the thief the lesser amount is when the thief did the work on the field. The case where the owner pays the buyer the full amount of the improvement is when the buyer was the one to do the work.

Bli'neder if I get a chance I will try to present the whole subject in more detail.
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בבא מציעא י''ד ע''ב

There is one significant difference between רש''י and תוספות concerning שמואל. The difference between רש''י and תוספות is in area of שמואל. To רש''י when שמואל says the לוקח gets the price he paid for the field קרן but not שבח it means he does not get the שבח from the בעל השדה nor the thief.


So when I wrote there is no difference between רש''י and תוספות that is true as far as the opinion of רב is concerned.
But now this reflects on תוספות also. For תוספות says the law on page י''ד ע''ב is the same as the law on page ק''א ע''א So in fact as I wrote before in the opinion of תוספות the  בעל השדה would pay the buyer the lesser amount, שבח or יציאה. So as far as that goes everything is OK. But lets looks then at the opinion of תוספות concerning רב. If the גנב did no work why would the בעל השדה pay anything to the גנב? The arrows I wrote were correct as far as תוספות in concerned but my point is the cases are different. The case where the בעל השדה pays the thief the lesser amount is when the thief did the work on the field. The case where the בעל השדה pays the לוקח the full amount of the שבח is when the לוקח was the one to do the work.


בבא מציעא י '' ד ע''ב יש הבדל משמעותי אחד בין רש''י ותוספות בנוגע לשמואל. ההבדל בין רש''י ואת התוספות הוא בתחום של שמואל.  לרש''י כאשר שמואל אמר שהלוקח מקבל את המחיר ששילם עבור השדה, קרן אבל לא שבח, זה אומר שהוא אינו מקבל את שבח מן בעל השדה ולא את הגנב.  אין הבדל בין רש ''י ותוספות בנוגע לדעת רב. אבל עכשיו זה משקף על תוספות גם. לתוספות החוק על דף י''ד ע''ב זהה לחוק בעמוד ק''א ע''א.
 שלדעת תוספות בעל השדה ימשלם לקונה הסכום הפחות, שבח או יציאה.  אבל בואו נראה אז על דעתו של תוספות בנוגע רב. אם הגנב לא עשה שום עבודה מדוע בעל השדה ישלם כלום לגנב? החיצים כתבתי צדקו אבל הנקודה שלי היא שהמקרים שונים. במקרה שבו בעל השדה משלם את הגנב את הכמות הפחותה זה כאשר הגנב עשה את העבודה על המגרש. במקרה שבו בעל השדה משלם לוקח את הסכום המלא של השבח הוא כאשר הלוקח היה זה שעשה את העבודה.

sex confusion

Behavior once deemed as a sign of mental disturbance, e.g., gender confusion, is now foisted upon us as normal and worth celebrating; in the name of this new "normal," our daughters must now share bathrooms with men and those "transitioning" or "confused" about their gender--I am certain this will go well. The press, furthermore, must not report race or ethnicity in their descriptions of suspected criminals lest we allow our inner racist to emerge; after every attack from Muslim killers, we are warned not to engage in a backlash against Islam; all sorts of shows and statements can be made ridiculing Christianity and Judaism, but let not a single acrid word on Islam slip from your lips if you want to keep your job or not put yourself at physical risk; leftist thugs openly try to disrupt political meetings of those with whom they do not agree; demanding that our immigration laws be respected, gets one labelled a xenophobe and a racist; requiring voters to identify themselves comprises racist voter "suppression"; agencies of the state openly suppress political dissent and "offensive" speech and positions; men are considered the enemy; women, once proudly roaring out their equality, now demand special protections from men; relations between black and white have become the most tense and nauseating in my lifetime.

from here

Sidur of Yaakov Emden. The idea was sex that can result in conception should be only Friday night after the middle of the night.

I was thinking of mentioning something about the Sidur of Yaakov Emden.
This was given to me by Reb Shelomo Friefeld. It had a whole section in it about marriage which I could not even read at the time. But before I was married I did study that section. And today it seems to me to be  a good thing to give to yeshiva students before they get married.

You want a shiduch with me? Then learn all of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri, and then call me.

Y

Ideas in Talmud

I wanted to mention something about Rashi on Bava Metzia page 14. I think Rashi and Tosphot are not having a big argument here and also perhaps no argument at all. It seems to me that Tosphot is assuming the case is when only the buyer did any work on the field and that is why the owner pays the buyer for the improvement. Just think. If the only person to do improvements on the field was the thief, then why would the owner pay the buyer anything?

However even given this, there is the difference that to Tosphot when the owner pays for the improvement he would be giving the least amount to the thief, and then the thief would give the entire improvement to to the buyer. But if the thief did nothing in the first place, why would this make any sense? Is it possible that perhaps Rashi and Tosphot would not be disagreeing at all?
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I wanted to mention something about רש''י.   I think רש''י and תוספות are not having a big argument here and also perhaps no argument at all. It seems to me that תוספות is assuming the case is when only the buyer did any work on the field and that is why the בעל השדה pays the לוקח. Just think. If the only person to do  שפוצים on the שדה was the גנב, then why would the בעל השדה pay the לוקח anything?
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However even given this, there is the difference that to תוספות when the בעל השדה pays for the improvement he would be giving the least amount  שבח או יציאה to the גנב and then the גנב would give the entire שבח to to the לוקח. But if the גנב did nothing in the first place why would this make any sense? Is it possible that perhaps רש''י and תוספות would not be disagreeing at all?

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) בבא מציעא יד: יש לך מצב שבו שדה נגנב ונקנה ועכשיו חוזר לבעלים המקורים. רש"י שואל מדוע בעל השדה אינו משלם את השבח (השיפוץ)? אחרי הכל, הוא מקבל שדה שהשתפץ. רש"י אומר שזה מקרה שבו הגנב נתן לשדה ללכת בור (הניח אותו להתדרדר) והיה שבח בידיו של הלוקח. מה שרואים מפה הוא שאף על פי שרש''י חולק על תוספות והרמב''ם בדין הזה, עם כל זה היסוד הוא שמה שהלוקח השביח הוא מקבל [או מן הגנב או מן בעל השדה]. וזה כמו שרב אלעזר מנחם שך פירש הסוגיא בדף ט''ו איפה שיש דיון דומה. שם הלוקח אכל פירות וצריך לשלם על מה שאכל. רב שך מסביר שזה מצב שהלוקח לא עבד על השבח, כגון שהפירות הם פירי אילן.
אני רוצה להזכיר משהו על רש''י. אני חושב שבין  רש''י ולתוספות אין ויכוח גדול כאן. נראה לי כי לתוספות יש הנחה שהמקרה הוא כאשר רק הקונה עשה כל העבודה על המגרש. רק תחשוב. אם האדם היחיד שעשה שפוצים על השדה היה הגנב אז מדוע  בעל השדה משלם ללוקח כלום?

There really is no short cut towards Torah, but one thing I have discovered that does help the learning is the book Chafetz Chaim.

I had in mind to mention the 10,000 hour rule. That is the amount of time it takes to become expert in any serious discipline. And I wanted to discuss the problem this makes for learning Torah and a vocation. Plus the time factor that people adding to the prayers during the ages has made. These are interesting topics.

There really is no short cut towards Torah, but one thing I have discovered that does help the learning is the book Chafetz Chaim. That is care in Lashon Hara. [Not to slander.] [I should add that warning people about a bad group is not slander--even if they do not accept what you say.]
. People in yeshiva that were more careful in Lashon Hara simply did better in their studies. This might not help a lot to shorten the 10,000 hours but at least it helps that the time accumulates. And in any case as far as Torah is concerned 10.000 was no where near enough for me to get anywhere. That is even with learning with Reb Shmuel Berenabum, and doing the Maharasha and Tosphot and the Pnei Yehushua still I had no even gotten my feet wet. It took many years after that to finally start figuring out what was going on in Shas. It is like playing the violin. It is not just the time but the continued effort over many years.

In any case because learning a vocation also takes a similar amount of time it is hard to know how to balance Torah with a vocation.

One thing I think would help would be  to shorten the daily prayers. Look at the Sidur of Saadia Gaon. The entire first blessing of Shema is two lines. Why the prayers are so long is simple. People found that they were going through times of persecution and the regular prayers were not helping. Some person came along and said "these is the way I have been praying all these years and if you add these things to the prayer that will help." and thus the prayers got longer and longer. It is organized schizo tendencies.
Birchat Hamazon is another example. And besides this the grammar needs correcting. Bore nefashot should be בורא נפשות רבות וחסרונן על כל מה שברא להחיות בהן נפש כל חי ברוך אתה ה' חי העולמים, That is nefesh is feminine. and one needs a bracha at the end.





It did also occur to me to explain a little bit about what Reb Chaim Soloveitchik  and Rav Shach are doing. You might say they are writing the Tosphot that the Rambam would have written. That is they see the Rambam is totally different than Tosphot. So they ask why? What would the Rambam have answered to the kinds of questions that Tosphot was asking in order to bring the Rambam to his conclusions?

The main problem that the Gra saw in the cult that the he signed the excommunication on was simply the Sitra Achra.

The main problem that the Gra saw in the cult that the he signed the  excommunication on was simply the Sitra Achra. The realm of darkness. That is powers of darkness that would use sincere individuals without their knowledge to accomplish nefarious ends and purposes. That is in fact hinted at in what he wrote privately.
That is to say it is not really idolatry in the most simple way we understand idolatry unless you go with the Rambam. Going with the approach of the Rambam certainly would put the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on into the category of idolatry because of the problem of the mediator. We usually think of the main idea of idolatry as being worship of other gods. But to the Rambam it is to praise or worship in any form any being at all in order that that being should bring one close to God. That is the main essence of idolatry. Then there is a branch of idolatry which is serving other beings not in order to come close to God. That is the Rambam reverses the order of what is the main thing and what is secondary.
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הבעיה העיקרית שהגר''א ראה בחסידות הייתה פשוט שהיא הסטרא אחרא. ממלכת החושך. כלומר כוחות חשוכים אשר ישתמשו באנשים כנים ללא ידיעתם ​​כדי להשיג מטרות ועניינים נפשעים.  למעשה הוא רמז לכך במה שהוא כתב באופן שחסידות היא קליפת נוגה. כלומר זה לא ממש עבודה זרה בצורה הפשוטה ביותר שאנו מבינים עבודה זרה, אלא אם כן אתה הולך עם רמב''ם.
 והגישה של הרמב''ם בהחלט ישים חסידות לתוך הקטגוריה של עבודה זרה בשל בעיית של המגשר. אנחנו בדרך כלל חושבים על הרעיון המרכזי של עבודת אלילים כמו להיות סגידה לאלים אחרים. אבל לדעת הרמב''ם זה לשבח או לעשות שום פולחן בכל צורה שהיא לאיזה יצור בכלל כדי שהיצור יקרב אותו לאלוהים. זוהי המהות העיקרית של עבודה זרה. ואז יש סניף של עבודה זרה שבו הוא עובד יצור לא כדי להתקרב לאלוהים. היינו לרמב''ם הדברים בסדר הפוך.  העיקר הוא עבודה לאמצעי. הדבר  המשנית היא לעבוד  או לפאר ולשבח איזה יצור חוץ מן הבורא יתברך

Certainly they use the external rituals of Torah to make it seem like they are following the Torah. They have also found that they can get paid for doing ritual and getting others to do rituals also. These are side issues but serious enough to show something is not kosher about the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on.

No offence intended for the sincere and  even great individuals who saw far but not far enough to know that their insights and revelations were mixed. The Ari said this even about the Beit Joseph -that his "magid" was from Yetzira and thus  a mixture of good and evil--true and false things. That you can find in either the חזיונות רבי חיים ויטל I think. I forget where I saw this statement of the Ari.

I have to mention that it is allowed to say lashon hara to warn people from a bad cult.


And I am not claiming that I keep the Torah all that well. All I am saying is the Torah is not about worship of tzadikim. That much I know.