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.

s82 B flat Major  mp3 s82 midi format    s82 in nwc

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.

Hyper religiosity

Hyper religiosity actually has a history that is very different from simple keeping of Torah. That is people first think they will adhere to the literal meaning of the text (of the Oral and Written Law). Thus being more loyal to the Torah than normal Jews. Then comes the personal delusions in the form of visions that radically change the meaning of the texts. 
That is.-- first (step one) being supposedly more loyal and faithful to Torah, and then (step two) ending up replacing the Torah with their personal revelation (schizophrenic delusions.)
They hide their secret venom for the holy Torah and Jews that are not part of their cult.
[I should, make it clear that straight Torah is great. It is when the hyper-religiosity comes from schizoid tendencies  that there is a problem. There is also a problem when a normal person is seduced to join a cult and by that partakes of the schizoid delusions of the cult even though he is himself sane--at first. For this reason the Gra signed the excommunication because he did not want normal Jews joining  any schizoid cult and thus slowly losing their own sanity.
The Gra said that to the degree one lacks knowledge of the seven wisdoms he will lack in knowledge of the Torah. That refers to the Trivium and Quadrivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric,
Music, Astronomy, Arithmetic, Geometry. [The Hebrew translation of these in the חובות לבבות is not like modern Hebrew. הנדסה today is used to refer to Architecture. In the Obligations of the Heart it refers to Geometry.]
To subvert Torah many people pretend to be religious and replace Torah with religious delusions.
They distract people from real Torah. Anything as long as it is not Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot or the worthwhile seven wisdoms.
I do not agree with redefining Torah to make it correspond to people's supposedly mystic delusion.
The trouble with the religious and their schools is they are on the forefront of every new kind of delusion. They try to hide it, but that is a fact.

 God would never ratify the message of a false prophet. That so
many religious leaders  and teachers  fell under the spell of Nathan from Gaza  attests
to the fact  he was not a peripheral figure in the mystic circles, but his influence with regards to the movement’s adoption and approach to
the kabalah of the Ari   was  decisive. This taken by itself
represents should represent a devastating blow to the propagandists of a new
movement, but when coupled with the other little known facts about the
origins of these mystic circles should lead any and all Jewish people desirous of being
led to the truth that this movement was nothing but a successful deviation of
historical Torah. I do not want to go into it in detail. But it is simple to draw the line between the dots.

As time went on, these factors were to produce the
inevitable march from spiritual pride and pseudo-religiosity to down right
diabolical deception and delusion.

How can you tell who is an expert in areas that you yourself are not an expert?

It may not seem like  a big deal but to me it seems an important question whom can you trust about a field you know little or nothing about?There is an essay by Steven Dutch about this. [Actually in his writings there are two essays about this. Who is an expert? and how do you discern an expert?] 
There seems to be a few focal points. And there is also a question of subject matter. An expert in Physics today is not the same thing as an expert in philosophy. In Physics, the more one knows, the more expert they become. In Philosophy (or in things like pseudo sciences like psychology), the more they know, the more stupid they become.

At any rate, the  focal points are: (1) Experts. (2) Talented amateurs, self taught. (3) Being yourself self taught--this was the old American value given birth to by the Old Frontier life style. (4) In yeshivas it is assumed if you know Torah fairly well then you know everything.  (5) Public opinion.
(6) Credentials.
My Dad (who made a lot of money on the Stock Market) said the best way to lose money in the stock market is to follow the advice of experts.

John Stossel had an opinion piece about this a long time ago. And Dr Dutch noticed that real experts when they venture into others areas seem to forget that those other areas also require many years of efforts to master

In any case each of these areas requires a whole essay in itself. The USA once was very much into the "self taught" thing. Later "experts" became the thing. After that "credentials" became the thing.

George Fox had the idea of listening to ones close friends and family is the best way and this has support from the Arizal {Isaac Luria.}



This above essay is just to give a brief account of the issues. To me it seems I never found out a good way to decide who is an expert. I had great parents and great teachers in high school and later in yeshiva and at Polytechnic University in NY. But all of that was simply a result of God directing me in good directions, not personal choice or any abilities of discernment.

When given a choice I usually choose badly. Only after a long time would go by I would see how my own choices tended to ruin everything. 

Sometimes the subject matter make the question who is an expert very easy. For example in Physics or Math we have no doubts. The standards are well established. There is no way to fake it. In other areas the subject matter makes knowing who is an expert almost impossible. And there are areas that are in between these two extremes.

The way in moral values seems to be simple. You start with prima facie evidence. The reason is that all reasoning starts with prima facie evidence or common sense principles. Then you work from there. If your conclusion is highly improbable based on some prima facie A then you have to decide which to reject A or B.  It seems to me the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule have prima facie validity. It would take something with more more prima facie validity to overturn any of them. And nothing can fulfill that condition. 


In any case since I have no idea who I am writing for let me try to be ore specific. For example at the Mir Yeshiva in NY the very idea of credentials was laughed at. Everyone knew that to have ordination was a guarantee of being an עם הארץ (totally ignorant of Torah). They way they knew who was an expert was that they themselves were experts and they had no trouble of telling whom was the best. That was obviously, Reb Shmuel Berenabum. 

The thing that all this leaves out is the fact that there are plenty of people who have something to gain by pretending to be experts and giving themselves credentials.   (That is they give to members of their cult, credentials. And most people are easily fooled by this trick.)  You need the ability not just to tell who is expert but also who has the most to gain by fraud and pretense.  

In any case the Lithuanian yeshiva world is generally very accurate in their assessment of the level of people. The great Roshei Yeshiva as a rule are in fact very great. Rav Shach, Rav Kinevsky were in fact very great Torah scholars and great tzadikim.

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s79 C minor s81 B major   [s79 in midi]  [s79 nwc]  [s81 in midi]  s81 nwc

We know what legitimate Torah is

I noticed one very nice thing about Torah, and that is that we know what legitimate Torah is. There is very little (if any at all) ambiguity  about what is authentic Torah. And that makes it easy to detect what is phony and false.
Just for the record, just in case there might be some person who does not know:
The Oral and Written Torah  we know very well what they are. Two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra Sifri, Midrash Raba, Midrash Tanchuma.
We know what is legitimate and authentic halacha [Rif, Rosh, Rambam, Tur, Shulchan Aruch of Rabainu Joseph Karo.]
We know what are the authentic books of Musar  (Ethics) (Obligations of the Heart, אורחות צדיקים  שערי תשובה.)
And we know what are the authentic books of השקפה [- the world view of Torah]. The Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam, אמונות ודעות of Saadia Gaon. [Joseph Albo and Abravanel also.]

And we know what is legitimate למדנות: books showing how to learn: R. Akiva Eiger, Reb Chaim Soloveitchik (חידושי הרמב''ם), Rav Shach (the Avi Ezri אבי עזרי), Reb Naphtali Troup.

What I mean by this is this: There might be some people that keep this better and some that keep it less well. But at least we have a clear idea of what is legit [legitimate] and what is not.

[That does not stop phonies from trying to claim their delusions are legitimate. But what is good is that those who wish to know what is authentic,-- can know]

[There is debate about the Zohar. I do not think it is from R. Shimon ben Yochai. The words עם כל דא which is a translation of עם כל זה come up all the time in the Zohar. And עם כל זה is a phrase invented by the Ibn Tibon family of translators to say "although." Before the middle ages, there were a few ways of saying "although." One was אף על פי. Another was אף על גב. But none of the ways was very elegant. The first means "even on my mouth." The other means "even on the back." So Ibn Tibon came up with this more elegant way:  עם כל זה. And this comes up all the time in the Zohar showing that it was authored in the Middle Ages. 


In mysticism there is a threat to the essential
underpinnings of the holy Torah,  in the sense that they adhere to a view of spirituality that is fundamentally
experiential and subjectivist; and in more or less subtle language,  put forth the idea that there is, in these days, a new, charismatic, "super wakening" in the making, which will inevitably supplant the antiquated institutions of historical Torah. Those at the fringes  tend (nowadays, using very cautious language) to consider any questioning of
its hyper-delusions as, at best, a manifestation of a hardhearted "traditionalism" or intellectualism [חכמות], and at worst, a diabolical the unpardonable sin of slander against tzadikim (righteous people). 







In any case, the things which I think is important is to get through the entire Oral and Written Law, and after to concentrate more on עיון in depth learning.

If you do not have time for that then Musar [Ethics] is the best thing to concentrate on. The basic set of Musar books contains after all the main message of Torah fear of God, and good character. Especially the Obligations of the Heart חובות לבבות. But also the book of Rabbainu Yona {שערי תשובה} is very important. There are  few other Musar books from the middle ages which form the basic set of Musar. (The אור ישראל by a disciple of Reb Israel Salanter also is a very important book.)

best yeshivas

The two best yeshivas that I ever saw were both in NY. Though I saw lots of yeshivas in Israel and in many other places around the world I was most impressed with the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway. The reason is these places were the closest thing I saw to learning and keeping Torah for its own sake. It was not just that they were both very much into learning "Beiyun"(--in depth) but also there was a spirit of "Torah for its own sake" that I never saw elsewhere.

[I have tried to express in a few essays what is unique and special about authentic Torah but nothing really gives the power and impact of learning in one of these two places.]
[The main thing about the yeshiva world is to learn and keep Torah. Since most people are far from NY, the best thing is to get your basic set of the Oral and Written Law, and just plow through them. The actual world of yeshivas itself tends to be very confusing because of the numerous cross currents. For those like me that simply do not want to know or hear about that it is best just to make your own spot a place of authentic Torah (מקום תורה) and do not be concerned what others are doing.] It might be a good idea to do research and to write  a paper on the yeshivas, and the yeshiva movement as it started with Reb Chaim of Voloshin. But the short and sweet of it is simple. There are places which are more or less devoted towards learning and keeping straight Torah. Some are better and some are worse but as long as straight Torah is their focus they are basically good. The trouble is the cults that pretend to be keeping straight Torah and they are very dangerous and ought to be shot on first sight.

What is straight Torah? The basic Oral Law is the two Talmuds. The basic set of Halacha is the Rishonim Rif Rosh Tur Shulchan Aruch of Rabbainu Joseph Karo. The best of the later achronim are the Pnei Yehoshua, R Akiva Eiger, and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, and Rav Shach's Avi Ezri.


Great tzadikim   such as the Gra and Rav Shach  became more and more aware of the danger of counterfeit movements entering in and ruining genuine Torah as time went by, and they wrote specific warnings  about this. Other people have chosen to ignore the problem and thus indirectly caused many to fall. 
The cults teach and practice and try to bring people to their imitation Torah and succeed because no one of real stature combats the problem. False teachers was a problem addressed by Reb Nachman himself;- and though the movement founded on him is full of false teachers, still there is great importance in his lessons, -and this one among them. Fake Torah is much worse than no Torah.


One way the cults trick people is by camouflaging the belief being taught and until the subject is willing to accept it.


They claim to teach Torah. But think for a minute.


 Imagine a man with a bottle in his hand. There is a colored liquid in the bottle and there are many healthy ingredients in that bottle. There's water in it and and  excellent ingredients. But there happens to be an amount of prussic acid, and though it's a very small amount it can kill anybody who drinks out of that bottle! What's the point of praising the good ingredients when there is rank, lethal poison in the bottle?" The pseudo Torah cults add Torah to their poison to hide what they are actually offering. [The Sitra Achra, the Dark Side, imitates the realm of holiness but one with his eyes open can tell the vast difference.]

The major reason the Gra signed the excommunication was for this very reason. He saw the attempt to subvert the Torah. The main objective of cults is to break up your relationship with your parents and wife an children. They are scum pretending to be superior beings.

I heard a story today which hit home.  A woman was praying for her husband to repent on his bad ways for ten years with no result.One day it was suggested to her that she  should pray to be able to serve him and be a proper helpmate for him as the Torah requires. From that time on  she began to wash his socks and laundry and help him in other ways. And in fact he also began to change for the better

What was interesting to me was  that a prayer for someone to repent is not a bad prayer. It is much better that praying for some enemy's ruin and destruction.  Still apparently even to pray for a bad person to repent is not a good as wishing sincerely for oneself to love them and to wish to serve them. 

s77 C major [s77in midi]  s78 [s78 in midi] s80 [s80 in midi] j2 [j2 in midi format]

I can see that there were serious problems with the Enlightenment philosophers.

While I like the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, I can see that there were serious problems with the Enlightenment philosophers. But that is how philosophy progresses. At first there is some puzzle or problem, and then someone comes along and solves it. That was the problem of change for Parmenides. The greatest thinkers struggled with that until you got Plato and Aristotle. Same with the Enlightenment philosophers that struggled with problems of human freedom and how we know stuff until Kant came along and then the whole German Idealism school. My advice would be to learn from the best of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance and Kant.

It is common in Litvak yeshivas to learn and appreciative the importance of the Rishonim medieval scholars and yet still to learn from the best of the Achronim [scholars after the Beit Yoseph and including the Beit Yoseph (Rav Joseph Karo)]. This is not to say the achronim were greater but rather there is something to learn from them.

One can learn the Musar (books of Ethics) of the Rishonim but still come out not understanding a thing until one gets to the Musar of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter.

One can learn Gemara and Rishonim all day and still just not get it until one opens up Rav Shach's Avi Ezri. This happens to me all the time.

Kant

My suggestion is the Kantschool of thought. That is an extension of Kant that uses Schopenhauer for metaphysics and Hegel for epistemology. 


It is kind of like Ayn Rand and John Locke in practice.


The importance of Schopenhauer is great. Also  German Idealism [i.e. Kant, Fichte, Schelling,  et al.]. I still have a great deal of trouble with Hegel. I see most Marxist principles and Leftist Socialism stemming from him. I can not figure out if the trouble was people misusing him or if there really was something "off". This is not an irrelevant question. The fate of about 100 million people perishing under socialist governments in the 20th century seems to raise some some doubt about Socialism. 

From a Jewish point of view German Idealism is important because the basic structure of Metaphysics of Torah is mainly Neo-Platonic and Aristotelian. [That is the metaphysical backbone that is clearly stated by Saadia Gaon and the Obligations of the Heart and Maimonides and the Ari.] There are questions about this structure which need to be addressed and not just papered over. [The general way to deal with the Rambam and Saadia Gaon is to ignore them an pretend they did not write anything about the basic metaphysical structure of Torah.]
That is,- there is a reason why Saadia Gaon and the Rambam adopted the Neo Platonic point of view. The same reason gives us today a further reason to find support for the Torah point of view after that much of the medieval concepts used by the Rambam and Saadia Gaon seem quiet,.. well..--medieval. That is,- axioms that do not seem all that true anymore.

[After I wrote the above essay I thought to mention some points. Mystic experience is not what the holy Torah is about. Because the Rambam rational approach is not interesting to people they go instead to mystics. The trouble is most of them all are teaching the teachings of the Shatz in different form.]

Jewish cults. What you tolerate you get more of.

Events similar to this are repeated ad nauseam in the history of the  Jewish people.  A charismatic (in the generic sense) leader, claiming a special calling, and extraordinary powers, will, little by little, gain control over people’s hearts, minds, women and (significantly) their property. Impressing upon their followers the imminence of the "Geula"גאולה/Redemption, or some global catastrophe, and assuring them that they alone will be the survivors, they assure these followers that  they will occupy a position of power and influence in the new world to come. Readers will note that this has  happened in Uganda, where thousands of innocent persons lost their property, their freedom, and finally their lives in a hideous fashion after being duped by a charismatic leader. 

I am not immune from this myself and  there are lots of shades of grey in this. Even some authentic Lithuanian  yeshivas can have some characteristics of cults.

Kabalistic and mystic error mixed with a combustible pseudo-spiritual empowerment and magnetism has constantly proved a deadly mixture. Unfettered by authentic Torah and unmoved by charity, which is not mere affectation, or emotional attachment, it will breed jealousy, rivalry, quarrels and sects, and fulfill the demonic purpose, which is the further fragmentation of the Jewish world.

Indeed, primitive man understood that to him belonged the responsibility not only to provide for himself and his family, but also the duty of beating the $h#t out of any man or animal that threatened his family’s existence. This is why when you encounter a Jewish cult, your obligation is not to run and hide, but to beat the living daylights out of them because they threaten the very existence of yourself and your family. It is why the Gra put them into Cherem 
What you tolerate you get more of. And it is simple to show the origin of their teachings come from the Shatz. The trouble is it is all one big mass deception. There is nothing in the Torah about being possessed by the neshama {soul} of a tzadik. That is pure idolatry. In the Torah we are not automatons.

The constant craving for spiritual experience, as is attested to by all the great mystics of the Torah like Rav Avraham Abulafia and the Ari, is addictive, like a drug. Since the experiences are indeed spurious, they will never ultimately satisfy the soul that hungers after them, and will be required in stronger and stronger doses. In light of this, it is no surprise that cult leaders themselves were no longer content with mere Torah but went further and further down the road of absurdity and fanaticism.

It is an undeniable fact that most Jews take their values and beliefs from other people. When listening to teachers they like, they will retain some of their teachings; when listening to teachers they don't like, they ignore just about everything being said, whether or not it is truth. They will read certain authors and underline the bits they like. They will listen to secular leaders on  radio and imbibe whatever is current thinking. In this way, the majority of Jews build up a formidable store of haphazard knowledge. 

The trouble with this store of knowledge is that it is mostly useless!  There can be only one type of useful, valuable, knowledge… knowledge  given by God, and which points to God and His Truth. Everything else is worthless. It does not matter how 'academic' a topic is. or how important it is in the eyes of others; if it does not agree with God's view of things, then it is, bluntly, nothing but rubbish!

Along with this magpie-collecting of odd bits of knowledge, comes a growing interest in New Age ideas, concerning everything from incense and soothing oils, to yoga and spiritualism. Oh, how evil loves to hide its true self behind many guises! Weird ideas from occultists, New Agers, unbelieving scientists and plain sceptics, have tended to shape popular Jewish culture. So, when it comes to demons, there is a wide diversity of opinion concerning their presence, their ways and their aims.

Favourite aunts, uncles, or even parents, are seen; usually they have come to 'comfort' those they leave behind. It is assumed, that this 'proves' ghosts are spirits of dead people and that most of them mean no harm.

This is a great error, for all ghosts, without exception, are demons: wicked angels whose only task on this earth is to deceive and to harm. We are told this in the Torah. Ghosts are never friendly. They are always wicked, even if they appear to be kind. Their purpose is to make us believe they are spirits of the dead. Once they manage to delude us, they continue to hold our attention, so that any belief we may have in God as He is presented in scripture, is eroded to nothing.

Demons are angels who were thrown out of God's presence. Satan was the chief of all angels, of incredible beauty and power. But, he sinned, even before Man sinned. When he was cast out of heaven, those angels who followed him were also cast out. All of this is found in scripture. They were bound to this earth and they have lived here since the world was formed. They devote their sleepless, evil lives to harming God's people, deluding and harming others and generally wreaking havoc in the lives of all humankind. They will persuade and nurture Hitlers and Neros; they will make great preachers fall; they will cause governments to oppress and individuals to rebel.

Evolution, much of psychiatry and psychology, many scientific ideas, social practices, are formulated and initiated by demons, through humans.  Often, they will work through just one person: have you ever come across someone whose very presence makes your skin crawl and whose every word is tinged with malice? It is highly likely that the person is 'led by the nose' by demons. What about those in society whose perversions spill over, often dramatically, so that many in society are at danger? It is likely that they are the pawns of demons. Demons are like stalking lions, watching for easy prey. And when they find someone, they pounce with a ferocity that is boundless and totally vicious.

The main problem with the cult that the Gra put a Cherem {חרם} excommunication on is idolatry. That is: people have a natural tendency to worship some idol. It does not really matter which one it is. That cult made worship of its leaders as a kind of supposedly kosher idolatry and created a sophisticated system to show how it is kosher based on the kabalah and also used ideas from the Shatz and also makes sure to look kosher in dress and rituals to try and get away with this fraud.

interpretation of Torah

I have been thinking about the question of interpretation of Torah.

It is not just the approach of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides that when the simple explanation of the verse is not possible then we go to allegory. Rather I have been thinking about the history of interpretation from the Middle Ages and up until Heidegger and  hermeneutic circle. [ It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle. However, this circular character of interpretation does not make it impossible to interpret a text; rather, it stresses that the meaning of a text must be found within its cultural, historical, and literary context.]

Interpretation of the Middle Ages we already know about. פשט רמז דרש סוד or allegory.

Later came the questions of who has the right to interpret? Is is duly constituted authorities or any individual or perhaps a charismatic leader that the individual decides to accept? [This is not unrelated. The idea that every individual could interpret a text according to how it applies to him or her led immediately into disposing of the relevance of the text and going towards delusional charismatic leaders.]

I do not have a lot to add except to say that the  hermeneutic circle is really only closed in Torah because God is the ground of validity. Without that any text has  an non enclosed circle.  Also I wanted to mention that Torah might share some aspects of myth but it is not myth. It is Revelation. 

So to put together a whole approach based on these issues seems important to me but not really possible right now because it is a little foggy and vague how to put it all together.


In any case we already know חגי זכריה מלאכי סוף נבואה רבינא ורב אשי סוף הוראה.  Zachria, Malachi, Chagai are the end of prophecy and Ravina and Rav Ashi are the end of Halacha decision making. So we already know the attempts to claim these two gifts are invalid.

learning Torah

I believe that learning Torah will help everything turn around  for you for the good.  

Learning Torah goes very far if done on a consistent basis. Try to start learning Gemara  and Mishna yourself. Even just saying the words is a great mitzvah. The Jerusalem Talmud  says that even one word of Torah goes above all the other mitzvot. 

There are many mental blocks before this. That is it is not so hard in itself. But rather there are many questions on this. It is hard to accept. It was one of the first things I learned in yeshiva. That is I was in yeshiva in NY in the first place because I felt learning Torah is important. But in that yeshiva  Shar Yashuv I saw a book בנין עולם about the importance of learning Torah.
It is safe to say I fell away from this. But for the few years I had the merit to learn in Far Rockaway and then at the Mir in NY this idea about the importance of learning Torah really lit a fuse under me.



I do hold from the importance of Physics and Metaphysics also as the Rambam wrote, but that is only after one has finished Shas.

s75 F major  s75 in midi format

Musar and Gemara [Talmud].

 The constant barrage of propaganda via the media in the USA definitely gets to a person whether he likes it or not.  There is an effect. 
It was this exact thing that Reb Israel Salanter wanted to turn around for the good. That is he saw constant exposure to a certain social meme has an inevitable effect. He saw this in Reb Shmuel of Salant who was a great tzadik and had come to his level by means of learning Musar [Medieval Ethics].  

What I recommend thus is Musar and Gemara [Talmud].

I also have a view that prophecy ended after the first temple was destroyed. Also that Ravina and Rav Ashi were סוף הוראה the end of the period when a Halachic decision could be made. These are both statements from the Talmud itself. That is modern efforts to claim these gifts are illegitimate. [This is the reason why later halacha books try to prove their point from the Talmud. Because רבינא ורב אשי סוף הוראה ]
There are lots of ways that people try to claim these gifts for themselves but we already know from the Talmud to ignore them. What ever signs and wonders they show are from the Sitra Achra-the Dark Side.
Anyone who has studied cults to any considerable degree will note that the
founders of such groups will not go very far in increasing
their membership by making ordinary or every day claims-they must promise
something extraordinary.



The trouble is the dark side has not just managed to worm its way into the religious world but rather to take it over completely. The religious teachers all teach Torah of the Dark Side. If one really wants to be loyal to Torah the worst thing is to have anything to do with the religious with their false religiosity.
Not only that but we know from toxo-plasmosis that there are parasites that effect one's mind. Just hanging out with the religious induces insanity.  That is if you do not have an authentic Litvak yeshiva in town there is then no other option but to learn at home. But one must avoid the religious at all cost.

[I  would not have the gumption  to mention this if not for the fact that the daughter of Bava Sali thought that I have to ability to say things that would be listened to.  Therefore I have to obligation to say the truth even though it is uncomfortable for people to hear it.]

Since it is difficult to find a place of authentic Torah, the best thing is to get your own: Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

s76 B flat major

It is not that halacha is wrong but that it is highly sensitive to initial conditions.

Learning Torah and trusting in God  seem to me to be the two major principles that I transgressed in my personal life. I had been at the Mir yeshiva in NY and at one point decided to make aliya to Israel. Not a bad decision in itself but  diminished  learning Torah to a vast extent.  Another bad decision was to leave Israel based on the idea of the Rav of Satmar that to be part of IDF was the prime sin of all sins. This was and still is to a large extent the basic doctrine of the Ultra Orthodox. But the choice to leave Israel also was based on the idea of keeping Halacha. That is the Halacha that one should work for  a living an not be learning and depending on charity [a kollel check which is charity pure and simple ,unless you say you are learning Torah to make money in which case it is even worse.]
From here I learned one can do what the Halacah says and still be doing a terrible sin. That is why learning Torah is the main thing not halacah--because halacha can be and often is highly misleading and can lead to terrible evil. It is not that halacha is wrong but that it is highly sensitive to initial conditions. That is it depends on the Gemara itself. It depends on the actual  state of affairs. Without perfect knowledge of these two things it can be the exact opposite of what the Torah requires. [It certainly does not depend on what people say. ]
The trouble seems to be with what Reb Nachman called Torah scholars that are demons. שדיים יהודאיים which he brings from the Zohar. That is most of the people that supposedly represent the holy Torah are actually demons in human form. They may claim to be teaching Torah, but in fact are teaching the Torah of the Sitra achra. the dark side. For this reason I have tried to make it a point to  emphasize going and learning Torah only from authentic Lithuanian kinds of yeshivas. 
[The whole subject of Torah scholars that are demons and get their powers from the dark side is actually gone into by the Ari Isaac Luria to some degree. But Reb Nachman brings out the point in a way that you can't miss it. Sadly  the entire religious world has missed the point, and still follow their leaders who are in fact demons in human form. The Gra tried to warn people. Rav Shach tried to warn people. But it is like my brother said hen he would try to warn people about a bad business deal. No one ever listens--without exception. They always make some kind of excuse. And then they fall.]

Saadia Gaon, Rambam, John Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kelley Ross.

Mainly the Left is based loosely on Rousseau, Hegel, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche. Also it is highly connected with existentialism. These all seem to me to be wrong turns. It once was considered the most sensible. 

The better approach seems to me to be based on Saadia Gaon, Rambam, John Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kelley Ross.


I perhaps should go into what is wrong with the Leftist philosophers but the critiques are well known.
I do not see what I could possibly add to the discussion except to say that the emphasis in learning and education ought to be shifted away from second rate philosophers to first rate philosophers. Why concentrate on what is wrong and flawed?
[To go into what is wrong with Nietzsche in short: moral values have prima facie validity. To defeat moral values you would have to have starting principles that have more initial plausibility. That is let's say you have a principle A that seems sort of OK. From A is implied B. Then if B makes no sense then you would have to reject A. All leftist philosophers start from some A that sounds sort of OK. They come up with something nice sounding but which has very little initial plausibility, but being a naive first year college student you really do not have the intellectual power to  disagree.  Then from A is deduced some B like all morality is relative. Since B has no initial plausibility it would require some strong A to prove it.  Just the opposite "not B" has more prima facie plausibility than A.] [What is wrong with Post Modernism is this: Frege wanted to expand the a priori. This was easily defeated. But then people took this defeat to mean there is no a priori. The problem was תפסת מרובה לא תפסת. Don't bit off more than you can chew. Do not try to prove too much.]

Rambam

With the Rambam there is a kind of four fold program. The Oral Law, the Written Law of Moses, Physics of Aristotle and the Metaphysics of Aristotle. I would like to say that this is only an introduction. That is, I think the Rambam would agree that after one has finished the Mishne Torah of the Rambam (which he held contained the Oral Torah) that after that he should spend his time  on Gemara, Modern Physics, and Metaphysics as it was developed later by Kant.


The Rambam did hold his book the Mishna Torah is sufficient to know the Oral Torah, however look in the "Laws of Talmud Torah" where he explains that one divides his day into three parts, and one is for deepening one's understanding of the Oral Law, and also the subjects that he briefly touched on in the beginning of Mishne Torah which are called ''Pardes'' and are in fact the areas of Physics and Metaphysics.[He goes into more detail in the Guide.]

If one has a authentic Litvak yeshiva in his area, he should definitely go there to learn Torah,-- especially with a learning partner. But if not, the best thing is to make one's own space into a place of Torah.

I also am a big fan of speed reading in Torah. That is-- to say the words and to go on. That is to have a session in Gemara, Rashi Tosphot in such a way that he will eventually finish the whole Oral Law i.e. the two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, and the Midrashim. What one does not understand here, they will remind  him of in the next world. I am also a big fan of Rav Shach and Reb Israel Salanter, and thus I believe that everyone should go through the entire Avi Ezri of Rav Shach at least once, and all the books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter on Torah Ethics (plus the books of Musar of Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira the grandfather of Bava Sali).

[To understand the Rambam I also think it is important to learn the books and letters of his son, Reb Avraham, and of course the very important Guide for the Perplexed. Some people are so perplexed they do not even know they need the Guide. Reb Avraham Abulafia wrote that the secret of the final redemption is contained in the first forty chapters of the Guide.


In case it is not clear what I was saying: The Mishne Torah is good as an introduction to Torah, but it is a terrible idea to decide any halacha without knowledge of the Gemara and the source of the halacha as the Mahrasha and Maharshal wrote and many others.
[As for learning Halacha as they do  in Authentic Litvak Yeshivas for 45 minutes in the morning my basic feeling is to get through the entire Tur, Beit Yoseph, and Bach. I consider that the prime Halacha book. Though I admit the Aruch HaShulchan is a close second.] [For the halacha session in the morning I recommend one of three things: (3)  Rambam Keseph Mishna, (2) Tur, Beit Yoseph (3) Shulchan Aruch with the Beer Hetev.


You can bring support to this idea of the Rambam from the LM Vol II. chapter 12 of Reb Nachman. This idea is this :Even though God's glory fills the whole world there are areas where his glory does not reach. מקומות המטונפים as it says in a verse וכבודי לאחר לא אתן. But since nothing can exist without God's making it exist every second how can those places exist? Answer: They get there life force from the מאמר הסתום. That is in Genesis it says for each act of creation He said" The tenth statement is the very first statement In the beginning God created heaven and earth. That is the highest statement corresponding to the sephirah of Keter the crown. So when one turn to God from those places where God's glory is not apparent he gets sustenance from the highest level of the Crown and brings up all the fallen souls. 

There are many other places in the LM where you could bring support to the Rambam like what Reb Nachman says about stories. This is to be expected because the thought of the Rambam and Reb Nachman are in general highly correlated.