Reb Shmuel Berenabum- loved the Gemara and learning and living it is what he was about.
He lacked the highly negative traits of  dogmatic believers.

But let me just say for now that the few short years I was at the Mir were an amazing experience. So I want to put down a few memories that are not on the other essay.
First in the home of Reb Shmuel there was little in the way of ornaments. Mainly there were walls lined with books. And he really lived a Talmudic type of existence. I used to come over there on Shabat and on Motzai Shabat [Saturday Night] with my violin and play for the family and also tell bedtime stories to the children. But his basic entertainment was to learn Gemara. The rebitzin [his wife] would clear the table and after havadala and he would learn Talmud.
The music I played on the violin was in general classical music. [Mozart,  Handel, ]




I have not said much about how he learned. It is true that it was very much based on Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. But he had a depth to him. Once I was in a shiur in Zevachim and he was giving over some idea--a "yesod" type of the type that you see in the Chidushei Harambam of Reb Chayim Soloveitchik. And one person brought in another way to on the surface seems also to fit. But Reb Shmuel showed how it would not work. I.e. to use the "foundation" idea of Reb Chaim, you need a great deal of depth that most people don't have.

Reb Shmuel was very strict about Lashon Hara. Let me just say that he was not judgmental. He was not interested in being a frumy [religious] policeman.




I did not go to university at the time but after some years I asked him about university, and he said if it for parnasa (making a living) it is fine. I tried to say that it is a mitzvah in itself. I tried to bring sources from the Guide For The Perplexed and the Gra, but he simply said, "Only if it is for parnasa."

I might mention that sometimes the questions and issues that he raised were the same as you find in the Mishna Lamelech on the Rambam.

Don't get the impression that I was good disciple.-I am a barbarian. I live and eat like a bear. If I learn Gemara it is not because I think it is scientifically accurate. It is rather because I think it contains a holy core which I like. I am no where near the idea that all truth is in the Talmud. Nor is it infallible. It greatness lies to two areas. One is explaining verses of the Torah. The other area it is great in is  Law.

But though I admire Reb Shmuel let me just say that I am basically Reform. I have great interest in the Divine truths of the Torah and Talmud, but my real teacher was my father and his copilot my mother. It is his understanding of God and Torah that informs my beliefs. It is the understanding of Torah and what it means to live a decent upright life that I gained from my parents that is determinate. I know from my parents and their friends what it means to be a Jew. And the world of the Talmud to me is an important part of that if it is done with "Daat" common sense and equilibrium with Music and science and other aspects of life that constitute being a full human being, a mensch.

evil cults

 You can have a evil cult that is an offshoot of a religion that teaches good things. And also a good cult in a religion that teaches bad things. Right now I want to deal with both these questions in short order.
Section (1): The question of religion. A religion needs a few requirements. If it teaches things about the physical world, then, we need to ask if what it says actually corresponds to reality? [External consistency].  Is it self consistent? [Internal consistency.] If it teaches some moral system, does this system correspond to what common sense tells us is moral? This is called "phenomenal conservatism." That is, things are the way they seem unless some convincing piece of evidence show otherwise. This is a forgotten principle in the world of philosophy, but none the less it is very important. It seems to me that murdering 10 million people for the fun of it is wrong and if a religion teaches otherwise then it is up to the religion to bring convincing evidence.
I will say here my own point of view so you know where I am coming from. I think all people don't care about evidence. People care about being part of a group. This desire to be part of a group goes against even the instinct for self preservation as we see in the 15,000 Kamikazes in World War Two. Their group was more important to them than their personal survival. All the more so when it comes to group identity, people don't care about logic or evidence (especially to Americans to whom books are just words). The only time this can change is when group identity itself is that of believing in material or logical evidence as it is the case in the Judaism of Maimonides.


Cults. Today instead of cult let me deal with cult apologetics. Because of group identity people will ignore and twist evidence that goes against what their cult says. The only way I can imagine how to change this is to join a group that believes only in following logical evidence or material evidence e.g. Maimonides. I.e. there are beliefs in areas that there is no evidence or scanty evidence. But these beliefs are contingent on evidence. it is understood that any future evidence can change the nature of belief. E.g creation something from nothing. To Maimonides if this would be disproved we would have to accept it. This is a serious statement for him because to him the entire Torah rests on Creation ex nihilo. That means that if it would be disproved, then the Torah itself would lose it foundation. [The view of Maimonides is what is known as Monotheism.

That is that God made the world something from nothing, and he is not the world nor is the world him.According to the Torah God has no substance nor form, and so he did not create the world from his substance. He created in יש מאין from nothing. ex-nihilo.
Cults try to pretend they keep Torah by doing lots of external rituals while their inner core is טרף and נבלה. That's the reason the Gra put his signature of the document of excommunication.



 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.

Torah and Freedom

  My idea of a just society is that of a circle of freedom contained in a larger circle of government. The purpose of government is to protect the inner circle of freedom where people have a right to be left alone.
  To be as brief as possible let me just say that the question of creativity and freedom in relation to Torah and Talmud is a immense project. It means first of all dealing with the origins of the idea of freedom being a good thing--and the critiques of Nietzsche and Rousseau against the Rational Enlightenment {that advocated the rule of Reason}. Any possible answer would have to answer this critique of freedom and defense of creativity.

The participants in this debate are John Locke, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Jonathan Swift, Rousseau, Nietzsche,  Marx.
Locke was pro freedom. The rest not. Hegel was in the middle. Not I think as people understood him.


Rawls did a noble task of trying to find some middle path, but Habermas blew him into smithereens. Kant did a good job in opening up a path between these paths. But his work is still in great need of elucidation. and how it could apply to Torah also is not clear.





My personal take on all this goes back to the argument between Aristotle and Plato about universals. I am basically with Plato on this which means I go by Socratic ignorance that what we think we know we really don't know at all. And Platonic knowledge--that there are things we do know but we don't know that we know. For me this opens the area of civil society in which people have the right to be left alone and government to led the lives the what to lead and make the contracts and relationships with others that they want to make. Their individuality is realized not as part of a group or a nation but as part of their own family and circle of friends. This is the area of Freedom and free will. In this area there is Divine service.

I deplore abuse and misuse of the Torah. Like any work of literature, the text has meaning, words have meaning.

I can't ignore the question of what to do with a text. Do you go by (1) Charity (i.e. one gives it an interpretation that makes more sense to him) or (2) "He meant what he said?" This questions comes up in many texts that either I believe in fully or at least believe they are inspired. Take for example the Torah. Or the Talmud or Plato.
  My attitude towards this is based on my experience with the side commentary in the Talmud called Tosphot. But also on a separate group of experiences that happens to me when people ask my advice about something or other. Also I like to look at the wide message of a text. This later idea I got from English literature classes.
  My first set of experiences with Tosphot is "He meant what he said."  But then inside of what he says is always contained something that looks like a glitch. But you go over it until you see the meaning in such a way that the glitch was actually not a glitch at all; but you see that you thought it was a glitch because you did not understand it perfectly. This has given me confidence in the "He meant what he meant" approach always even in Torah or anything that I read. But I have seen that often when people asked me for advice I would say exactly opposite things to different people-because of whom I was talking with. Different and even opposite pieces of advice apply to different people.


The problem with the (2) charity approach is that any text can say anything you want it to say.

  The third way of context I learned in my English literature classes in Beverly Hills High School with some great teachers.
Take for instance the Five Books of Moses. The context is clear. The basic approach is clear. The theme of these Five Books is clearly united.

Just in case this needs a explanation let me just say what Torah is not about first. It is not about Pantheism. It is not about Learning Torah. It is not about minutia that you can pick out from halacha books. It is not about the length of girls skirts. It is not about belief in any tzadik/saint including Moses.
It is about what King David said to Golath, "You come to me with a sword and a spear and I come to you in the name of the Lord God of the armies of Israel who you have insulted this day."
The basic theme of the Torah is the importance of Israel coming into the land of Canaan and building the Temple there and keeping all the commandments of God.

Habermas: On Israel (Considered by many to be the foremost philosopher of this generation.)

Habermas: In one respect, Muslim terrorism still possesses a certain outmoded characteristic in that it revolves around murder, around the indiscriminate annihilation of enemies, women, and children—life against life. This is what distinguishes it from the terror that appears in the paramilitary form of guerilla warfare
Compare the new terrorists with partisans or conventional terrorists, for example, in Israel. These people often fight in a decentralized manner in small, autonomous units, too. Also, in these cases there is no concentration of forces or central organization, a feature that makes them difficult targets. But partisans fight on familiar territory with professed political objectives in order to conquer power. This is what distinguishes them from terrorists who are scattered around the globe and networked in the fashion of secret services. They allow their religious motives of a fundamentalist kind to be known, though they do not pursue a program that goes beyond the engineering of destruction and insecurity. The terrorism we associate for the time being with the name "al-Qaeda" makes the identification of the opponent and any realistic assessment of the danger impossible. This intangibility is what lends terrorism a new quality.

(Habermas is considered by many to be the foremost philosopher of this generation. They might be right

The thing I must say about these people is their forte is in discovering fallacious logic. This includes their ability to discover the falsities in philosophical, political and economic thinking in most American universities and includes the falseness and self contradictions in Marx, Rousseau and almost all philosophers after the Enlightenment. The interesting thing is they never discover a flaw in Medieval thinking. The reason is there never is. Medieval thinkers made damn sure never to write anything that could be a million miles near circular reasoning. [Here I only refer to first level Medieval thinkers like Maimonides, Tosphot, Aquinas and Anselm. I don't mean second level people like the Ramban ( Moshe Ben Nachman) that did make mistakes in logic.] Also I don't mean they did not make mistakes at all. Obviously they did-but not in logic, only initial assumptions.
Incidentally just as side note: The Jews are not outsiders who invaded and colonized Israel; they are a native people whom the legal government allowed to return, as legal immigrants, to their ancestral homeland. The Zionists were given sovereignty, again by the legal government, over only that part of Palestine with over 60% Jewish population, so rule of the majority was followed. The Arab response to this LEGAL establishment of a nation by a NATIVE people was a War of Genocide, which failed. Bottom line, as I've EXPLAINED numerous times, is that the Arabs themselves have created the situation they're in by refusing to make peace after their attempt to ethnic-cleanse a NATIVE people from Palestine failed.

How to learn Kabalah the best idea is to go to just about any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatziera.

How to learn Kabalah
prerequisite: It is necessary to have learned a lot of Talmud. First of all learning Talmud has a effect of purifying one and also just to understand the Kabalah the basic background of the Talmud is necessary.

Step (1): The first thing to do is to avoid the charlatans [They use kabalistic jargon to sound profound.]
Step (2): The next step is to learn the Eitz Chayim עץ חיים{a two volume work called the Tree of Life} of Issac Luria. It helps to learn all the writings of Rav Isaac Luria, but if you know the basic Eitz Chaim, you already know the basic structure of the Kabalah. The rest is just filling in the gaps. Now if you have come to this step the next step --and this is the step which everyone fails in--is the books of Shalom Sharabi. The major work is the Nahar Shalom [נהר שלום] printed at the end of the Eitz Chayim (עץ חיים). The problem here is simple. The Nahar Shalom [נהר שלום] is a vast system and it is hard to figure out how one part relates to the other. There are a few keys like when you read the word "chaya"often you know you are talking about Atzilut [Emanation].
At any rate, even here there is a major debate between the Ashlag and his disciple who wrote the comments on the printed Eitz Chaim. Between these two giants I dare not say anything.
As far as the present day  teachers of Kabalah --  most is  from Shabati Zvi and has little to do with real Kabalah. [You can not find the books of Natan, the false prophet of the Shatz in print but they are in microfim. Somehow most of new ideas of the Shatz and Natan from Gaza got into all books of Ashkenazim. I do not know how it happened, but it is easy to see.] [Not that I think anyone should read that stuff.]



So to get a unadulterated idea of Kabalah you really have to go to Rav Isaac Luria straight.



Now as for the kabalah of the Moshe Cordovaro and Medieval kabalah and the Heichalot the best bet to to go the Avraham Abulafia. Personally, I think Avraham Abulafia rivals Luria in greatness.

[As for people to learn from, I think the best idea is to go to just about any descendant of Rav Yaakov Abuchatziera.]

STEALTH JIHAD-Psychological Warfare. Humanity is at risk.

STEALTH JIHAD
 Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for Islam and current Islamic propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the Islamic line in textbooks.
 Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

 Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting Islam in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
 Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "Islamic" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity.

 Eliminate Christian prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."


 Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Islamic goals.
 Discredit the Christian family as an institution.

Radicalize society. Help create an atmosphere in which when a man has an argument with his wife or a neighbor with another neighbor the automatic reaction is to go to the courts.

This year may prove to be the culmination of Islam's many years of infiltrating our educational institutions, and trade union organizations and attempts to dis-stabilize America relationships one with another. The effects of the poison of Islam is having the desired effect of undermining the Christian basis of the USA.
_____________________________________________________________

 But I can ask that people that see this process going on should do whatever it takes to stop this because I think the fate of mankind itself is in the balance. I should say that I see this process as corroding the very essence of humanity. And when I see people that see this process and do nothing I get frustrated.
Normally I would not say anything about this. After all there are some problems inside of Christianity. But at some point I began to realize that if Islam would have its way the whole world would look like Saudi Arabia and the Sudan. But not before they had atomized Europe and the USA. The very thought of it sends shivers down my back. How can people stand by and watch the destruction of Western Civilization in equanimity. It is not their concern? Or maybe they think that Islam  is a source of compassion and virtue and their daily rhetoric about destroying Christendom and all Judaeo-Christian civilization is just empty words? Or was is it they saw "It's a small world after all," in Disney Land  and they think teh whole world is just lovey dovy and everyone just wants peace and virtue.?