Part of the problem I see in American education is that the issues that went into making of America are not addressed. Certainly freedom is mentioned  and yet the European conflicts between Church, Monarchs , Parliament and the people are almost ignored.
This creates a problem for Jewish people that learn in American public school. The issues of limitation of authority is certainly not addressed in the Talmud itself, and we don't get any idea of what and how are the limits of authority.


My question is from a Torah standpoint what is the limit of rabbinical authority and is there in theory any thing that could stand before rabbinic authority like the was in European --the Kahal-- the tax paying home owners?

Does conversion to Torah require an act of the court (beit din)?

Does conversion to Torah require an act of beit din (מעשה בית דין)? [That means a court that has ordination  in an unbroken chain from Sinai. And this the Gemara says no longer exists. The last people to get true ordination lived right after the time of the Mishna. And it was in the beginning of the period of the Talmud that it puttered out.] The ordination we have today is a fraud.]
I have assumed for years that according to the Gemara in Avoda Zara (עבודה זרה) that conversion does not need a beit din. This was in spite of the fact that I knew the Tosphot there assumes that Gemara is going along with the Gemara in Sanhedrin. [The Gemara in Sanhedrin says conversion is a "din"--which means it needs the authentic ordination.] But my learning partner mentioned to me today an interesting fact --that you do not see an major rishon ראשון (medieaval authority) who disagrees with this. Whether the Rif or the Rambam or Tosphot-- everyone is assuming you need an act of beit din.
The only thing different nowadays is that you can never tell if someone is sincere until after the conversion.

And it is also interesting to notice that in Breslov there was an old tradition to convert anyone who wanted to be converted immediately--or thus I have heard in the name of Michael Dorfman.
So to make a long story short, in spite of the fact that the Gemara in tractate  Avoda Zara seems to make conversion a very simple process [i.e. jumping into a natural body of water for the sake of becoming Jewish], still from Tosphot and the general medieaval authorities it does look like you need some kind of beit din.
Now Tosphot does say that even though there is no such a thing of ordination anymore, still someone can convert because there are things a beit din of three regular guys--(with no semicha) -can do. And Tosphot wants to extend the list to conversion. Well fine. So be it. If that is what Tosphot says, who am I to disagree? And one thing I have learned in life: Tosphot is always right.
At any rate, it is clear that the convert does not need to accept all the mitzvot with rigor, but the basic outline of mitzvot. That is open in Shulchan Aruch itself. ["They make known to him the outline of the mitzvot and don't make it hard."] But still basic mitzvot are needed--like shabat, kashrut, etc.
There is not argument about this. But since conversion is big business, most people in this business hide all these facts so they can continue the scam. But  three people as a beit din of regular guys we have seen that we need. I thought to get out of this problem. Most rishonim want three people --they don't however have to have ordination  because  ordination today anyway has no legal status.

In conclusion to me it looks like the dipping does need to be in front of three ordinary Jews. There is an opinion in the Rif that even in front of one Jew is good enough.

My learning partner noticed in the Rambam that the the Torah was given to all Israel and to whom ever wants to accept it. That means anyone who wants to keep Torah can do so. That is the basic idea. The trouble begins with the fact that some people supposedly convert to torah but don't really want to keep the laws of the Torah.

 The issue of cults..I am still trying to figure out how is it possible for a person to take a set of religious doctrines and use them to create a personal following around himself. And furthermore I am wondering how naive people can protect themselves from this type of thing.. This does not seem to depend on doctrine at all. It seems almost any set of doctrines from principles that I would consider to be kosher to even highly un-kosher doctrines can be used by people to make a following around themselves.
I mean who does not want dozens of fawning followers willing to do your every bidding?

I think the first hint that something is wrong is when the leader of your group is obviously a person that is highly comfortable around others. The more people friendly someone is, the less nobility of character they have.

Fear of God- the Musar movement

Yesterday I wrote a blog about fear of God
I still think that Isaac Blazer [a disciple of Israel Salanter] was right- that everything (--i.e. the  happiness and success) depends on fear of God.
The major problem with fear of God is that any human good will be exploited by charlatans.
Just like you find charlatans in every field of knowledge, so you find this in Torah and the world of people that are concerned with keeping the commandments. These charlatans make it hard to decipher what path is really effective in bringing one to fear of God. In this context, "charlatan" means someone who dress like a Torah scholar without actually having finished the Talmud at least once with all of the Tosphot. The dress is not innocent. They are definitely trying to use clothing to convince people they are holy. 


But to put the Torah on a firm philosophical foundation the top is Maimonides.

[Just for quick information, for Maimonides, the path to fear of God lies through the Talmud. After a basis in Talmud, then comes the actual steps that bring to it.

Physics according to  Maimonides brings to fear of God, and Metaphysics brings to love of God.]

The problem with this is obviously that no one has actual carved out a path to God through Physics. This is different than the Talmud in which there is a level of holiness one gets just by opening it up and learning. [This is my approach to the issue of holiness. It is a circle of value. 

You will notice that I don't think that learning Torah, or enlightenment is the goal and highest aspiration of man, but rather fear of God.
For details see the writings of Isaac Blazer and the general Musar movement.

In any case, however the Musar movement got off track, still we should ourselves get the basic Musar books of the Middle Ages and the later Musar of the disciples of Israel Salanter and try to keep every word.

[I should mention that teachers of Torah tend for some strange reason to be charlatans and highly morally challenged individuals. Why this is the case is not important at all. What is important is to realize that to learn Torah and Musar is more subtle than it seems at first. it does not mean to join the local religious groups which not matter what they call themselves have a חזקה of being some kind of devious, unclean cult. Better to go to a conservative or Reform Shul until this kind of problem is cleared up.]

I had an idea today about the role of fear of God in the ultimate scheme of things.

I had a epiphany today about the role of fear of God in the ultimate scheme of things.
The thesis I want to defend is this: there is an Intermediate Zone that looks very much like holiness. People that get stuck there inevitably have miracles that they do, and people that come to them experience all kinds of lights and miraculous events. In fact, it is almost impossible to tell that it is the Intermediate Zone --kelipat nogah (קליפת נוגה האמורה במרכבת יחזקאל או היכלי התמורות של הזוהר) except for the effects it has on the community that surrounds the tzadik, guru, or pastor. But I believe I have found a way to skip over the Intermediate Zone:  Fear of God. And this Fear of God is what is well defined in books of Mussar [Ethics]  from the Middle Ages like the Duties of the Heart and the books of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter.
(מדרגת האדם מיוסף הורוויץ וכוכבי אור מיצחק בלזר)

This is the multi layered thesis I want to defend.

One way I want to go about this is to examine the idea of the Rambam about what leads to Fear of God: learning Physics.  [If you read Maimonides carefully (בספר המורה) you will see he holds learning the  Metaphysics of Aristotle leads to Love of God, and Physics leads to Fear of God. (In Mishneh Torah he puts it all together. Learning the works of God inspires one to love and fear God. But he does not say that about learning Torah. And this idea of the Rambam is repeated by all the major books of Musar-- that learning physics and metaphysics brings to fear of God. Or lets me say they bring the actual language of the Rambam but as far as I know they might have been thinking it means kabbalah. [I mean  in Reishit Chachma he brings the Rambam but seems unaware of what the Rambam was referring to.  And this goes for almost all Musar books after the time of Zohar was published. They all assume  Maase Bresihit מעשה בראשית and Maase Merchava מעשה מרכבה are Kabalah. Exactly not like the Rambam.] In any case I never saw kabbalah bring anyone to love and fear God, but rather to a large range of messianic illusions. Thought I think that the Ari is important as a good approach to understand Torah. But I think most people that get into Kabbalah are not thinking of it in that way. I think they are looking for a spiritual uplift (a trip) or spiritual powers. So they get caught in the Intermediate Zone of Illusions. היכלי התמורות, עץ דעת טוב ורע)
  The obvious problem is that we do not see that the Natural Sciences divisions of most universities seem to have a lot of Fear of God.
  I would have to argue that this impression is only superficial. And that sciences students in my experience have more internal integrity and fear of God than most Orthodox Jews  who excel in external signs of fear of God.

There are paths of holiness that sometimes get blocked. The  tzadik צדיק tries to clear a path, and is sometimes successful, and sometimes even if he successful, is the underbrush  grows back and makes it uncross-able.


This happened to the path of [the Rambam] Maimonides. But that is because he made the connection between fear of God and science in only one direction. The truth is there is an opposite connection also--the path to physics is by fear of God. This path is unknown to date because people do not see the metaphysical significance in natural science. They think only people with talent can learn and understand science. This is not true.

The idea here is that people assume that with talent you can learn and excel in science, and without talent you can't. This only on the superficial level of science. There is a deeper level which one can reach only by Fear of God. But this fear of God is internal and unconscious. It can't be discerned by how much a person does external religious rituals.

[Of course some people with a great amount of talent go very far in science with no apparent fear of God at all because God sometimes gives people gifts and talents for no apparent reason, but here I am referring to people of average talent like myself.]

An example is the type of scientist my Dad [Philip Rosten] was. The fear of God in our home was not overt but very much present. [My Dad was responsible for a lot of the technology that went into focusing infrared rays and creating night version of the US Army and the camera for the U-2 and the satellite communication systems for SDI and other stuff ].

Appendix:
It does seems to me that we have a mitzvah of learning Torah and this is an obligation on every Jewish male all the time. The Rambam goes into detail describing how everyone is obligated --young old sick weary etc. He has a whole list. But he also expands this mitzvah to include Physics and Metaphysics.
I think that just like the mitzvah of learning Torah does not depend on whether one is smart or even understands his learning or not--so with physics and metaphysics. it think it is a mitzvah to learn Physics and Metaphysics --just like the Rambam said. I have no idea why this is either ignored by some Jews and take it as a general permission to learn secular subjects( though it is not a permission for general secular  things); or people take great offense at it.
I have seen for example in the writings of  Natan [Disciple of Rav Nahman] the idea that learning the natural sciences is a terrible thing. I can see perhaps he was reacting to the "Haskalah"(Enlightenment). But that learning science should be a bad thing is ridiculous and certainly not what any rishonim (first authorities) held..

My learning partner mentioned a source in the Talmud itself. We know the Rambam is bringing  his ideas from Chagiga and the story in the Talmud about R. Yochanan Ben Zakai
But there is also a story about R Ishmael ... [using science as a proof for how long the pregnancy of certain animals lasts. My writing got interrupted here so I forgot the details but I think that this was an argument between R Ishmael and the Sages in tractate Bechorot. ]

militant atheism

The issue of the militant atheism was brought up today in my Talmud session.


I was encouraged by my Rav Freifeld to learn secular studies. In this context, I learned Sartre. Even though I had read some Existentialist literature in Beverly Hills  High School, then that I first tackled the thick volume of philosophy of Sartre.
 I had a small degree of philosophical knowledge already which I had accumulated by my studies of Spinoza and Plato in high school. So Sartre seemed pretty second rate to me. I had already been exposed to the Greats.
Sartre came up because he was the first that tried to disprove the existence of God. Before him, there were people that did not believe but did not evangelize for that. [With my learning partner, I went through the different schools of Greek thought, but I can't do that here.]

Also mentioned in this conversation that my essay in which I drew a distinction between monotheism and the pantheism was inspired by Brad Scott and his essay. He had been  part of a Hindu sect, and became Christian. And he noticed that in Medieval Christian theology the distinction between monotheism and pantheism was clear.

Basically it was the Christians  that paved the path to a clear understanding of Monotheism,-- starting with Pseudo Dionysus. It is my opinion that when the Rambam borrows from Pseudo Dionysus [specifically the negative theology of the Rambam which is a distinctive Dionysus doctrine] and other Christian sources he does not mention his sources, but when he draws from Muslim sources, he does mention his sources. [The Physics of Aristotle is the obvious source for the Rambam's treatment of monotheism, but I think he also borrowed from Boethius. This would be worth  certain amount of effort to go into if anyone out there would be willing to spend the time and effort.]
Be that as it may. The type of faith that we Jews recognize as Monotheism was formulated very well by Maimonides.

Now I wanted finally to go into Godel and his formulation of  proof of Anselm.To my learning partner I just mentioned that I felt that mathematical logic was such a deep field that it would be for me like the Talmud. I would have to be involved in it for 30 years before I felt qualified to say anything intelligent about it. However from far away I can see a few things that can perhaps protect the proof of Godel from some of major critics. The compactness theorem for one.
[The Torah puts Monotheism as the foremost principle. That is the reason for the Rambam's approach.

The Intermediate Zone

[1] The Intermediate Zone (היכלי התמורות) (נוגה)  with the insights of Paul Brunton and Sri Aurobindo,
[2] The basic primate nature of all human beings,
[3] The need to enter the Intermediate Zone,
[4] Formation of cults around people that have only entered into the Intermediate Zone.
[5] The pseudo religions of psycho analysis, and psychiatry, and psychology which  partake of all the worst characteristics of the Intermediate Zone.
[6] Perhaps after all the above I might offer some suggestions about how the deal with the problem of the Intermediate Zone.


There is a ridiculously short amount of time today so let me just make my first major point as fast as I can.
People have to go into the Intermediate Zone. This is like university. There simply is no choice. You can't look at the writings of Aurobindo and Brunton and say well the Intermediate Zone is so dangerous, so why bother with the spiritual side of things at all? The reason is that we are all primates and the evil in our basic character comes out (from potential to action), and we fall into all the different types of viciousness that is associated with our animal nature whether we like it or not.
But to jump up to the Divine realms is not possible without preparation.
So we are stuck with the need to enter a very dangerous area of spirituality, an area in which people think because they have visions or powers that means they are enlightened. They simply do not realize that the Dark Side [Sitra Achara] is playing with them.

The solution I really don't know, but I have found a set of basic principles that has helped me as I wade my way through this swamp of cults.


I have seen a lot of manifestations of the Intermediate Zone. Most often this is with people of some established religion. This is more than people in Eastern cults. A lot of time a person accepts an established religion, and assumes that since it is the right religion, therefore all the intuitions he or she has come from the side of Holiness and Light.   At least people in Eastern cults seem to be aware of the possibility that their visions might not all be from the Side of Light.

Of course, it is not smart to be involved in a religion that was founded on someone who was heavily in the Intermediate Zone or the Dark Side (סיטרא אחרא) like Islam. But even religions founded on enlightened individuals do not provide protection from the Intermediate Zone.

One confusing issue is the difference between the Intermediate Zone and simple mental illness. Some people  look at any spiritual manifestation as mental illness. Sometimes this is correct. Sometimes they are confusing manifestations of the Intermediate Zone with insanity.


(rest of essay deleted)

If you want to understand about cults and the Intermediate Zone I recommend learning about Scientology which gives a good template or measuring stick to understand whether your group is a cult or not. Adi Da also is a good example --or in fact even a better example because of lots of powers and miracles phenomena that appeared there.  If you want to understand this subject these two examples are important to learn about.


stripping the gurus
 This is a good reference book for Eastern spirituality. But the same could be written about spiritual leaders in other traditional chains.