For the general public I feel I ought to insert a note or two about what is important about Gemara.

The basic importance of the Talmud is in two areas. Numinous value and moral value. The way I understand this is basically through the school of thought of Plato,Why I am a Platonist --friesian.com and  Kant,.[]  I should mention  that even Maimonides is somewhere in between Aristotle and Plato and Plotinus the Platonist. So in terms of would view and a good consistent way to evaluate moral issues, the Talmud is important. It also does give a rather spiritual path. And it has the advantage of being a logical rigorous explanation of the Written Law{Torah}.
There is also a philosophical advantage to the Torah and Talmud. This has to do with Western Civilization, and in particular the USA. Right now, it is a bit difficult to find a rational justification of either. In my view, the Talmud provides a way out of the modem political dilemma. I would have to find time to go into this another time.

I just got done writing about the Talmud on my other blog so I don't know how well i am going to be able to focus my attention here.
Here i wanted to discuss the Rambam.

We all would like the rambam to be saying in his eight chapters that the Torah is the middle path and also that it brings to the middle path. Right? But on the surface that does not seems to be what he is saying. My thesis is that in fact that is what the rambam is saying.
 Ok not to the meant and potatoes of the subject. Thus saith the Rambam: people have physical aliments and mental sicknesses. Medicine teaches us how to deal with physical sickness. And the same principle applies to mental sickness. You go to the opposite extreme for a while until  the bad nature or diseases is uprooted an then you return to the middle.

Now at this point it looks like the rambam is saying two different things. It seems he means that the Torah is itself the middle path, But also that it brings to the middle path. but how can he say that is the way to get to the middle is to go to the opposite extremer which he just got done saying is pure evil?
The Torah is i hope not telling us to go to some evil extremer in order to straighten out our personal problems!

I suggest that the Rambam here can be meaning that the Torah provides  ways for individual to cure themselves but that its general approach is in fact the Middle. Nazir is perfect example that the rambam himself brings  and [nedarim] oaths also. is an example . also a time to do for God is brought by the rambam as a general Principe that the Beit Din can use to correct faults of the generation that is :it is not just for a prophet.

A connection length of days and fear of God.

 I found a connection length of days and fear of God. And I definitely have found myself in need of length of days.--My days had become very short of full of nonsense. I decided I needed a definite refill of fear of God. So I asked myself from where do I think I might get a little fear of God? The most obvious answer I could think of is the idea of learning what is called Musar. This refers to two sets of books on the subject of Fear and Love of God and good character traits. One set was written during the Middle Ages by Jewish scholars. Another set was written recently by people on the same themes. One of these books is called the Madragat HaAdam.
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Do slogans determine people’s behavior?

How much do slogans determine people’s behavior? They find some slogan that makes sense to them and then use it to make snap decisions based on the slogan. I think slogans determine very much. See the essay of a professor from MIT (John Sterman) I have a link to on this blog in his discussion of computer models and how people do use their own modeling of reality and a small set of rules to determine their large range of behavior, I was once at the shabat table of Rav Zilverman in the old city of Jerusalem and he asked me if I could come up with a catchy slogan for the Geon from Villna. . . I gave some stupid answer I am sorry to say. I mentioned some  one of the aphorisms in the book Even Shelama. Today thinking back to this I realize that not only is very little of the Gra very catchy, but my suggestion missed the whole point. The point is something short and simple that grabs a person and alters their future behavior. 


Now we have see that some slogans cause people to do bad things. and other s are just a consciouses trap-- like ways of capturing people and  making them mental slaves them as we see in many religious cults today.
Often these cults use some nice sounding slogan but they act individually and collectively in ways opposite from the implication of the slogan.
 Philosophy also works by slogans. Hume came up with the idea that if something disagrees with his premises that it is meaningless. He wrote that if you could find some idea that is not based on observation then he would agree that his empirical philosophy is false, and then he goes right on and finds examples of ideas that are not based on observation. Then he does his neat trick. He calls these ideas "meaningless." And ever since then, in any discussion with left wing liberal,  when they encounter an idea that disagrees with them, they say it is "meaningless."




What I am wondering here is if it is such a good idea to reduce human life and its complexity to a bunch of slogans?

[Note 1] Maybe my parents had the best slogan of all: Be a mensch. This sadly is untranslatable.But roughly it means to be a decent human being with good character traits-decent kind just loyal loving and responsible. This was the Jewish ideal of human perfection in the European generation of Jews that came to the USA.]

[Note 2] The Gra, it could be said would have had a slogan like "learn Torah". This might not be catchy but it does capture the basic idea. He did think that by learning Torah most of a persons problems are solved. And in fact he might have been right about this. Maybe the idea of learning only Torah is a bit too much. But I think it is fair to ask people to have a simple session every day in Torah Mishna and Gemara called "shiurim kesidran." That is "sessions in order." That is take a Old Testament and start at the beginning, and when you have read some in order, then you put a place marker and put it down. Then you do the same with the Mishna.. And you do this in order, and you do not repeat anything nor do you pause to think about anything.

Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism

[1] Buddhism and Hinduism make a lot of assumptions about duality and non duality and about self. What it is and if it exists at all. And if they say it does not exist they are not very clear about what it is exactly that they are saying does not exist. In spite of great philosophical sophistication and depth, both leave me with a sense that they have some good points but those points are mixed with numerous dogmatic assumptions that seem unwarranted.




[2] The Lithuanian world seems to pride itself on its lack of interest in spirituality.To them it is learn Torah and keep mitzvot and that is that. That seems like a fairly good approach in that opening the doors of spirituality seems in fact to welcome a host of phenomenon like illusions and mental illness etc. that seem to be part and parcel of the world of Hasidim.


[3] Breslov has taken over the non dualism approach of Hinduism and Buddhism and accepted it as Halacha Le'Moshe MiSinai. [A law to Moses from mount Sinai] This is in spite of the fact that it is not  traditional Jewish doctrine.

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If you look at the personality cults that have sprouted up around him and around charismatic leaders  claiming to going in the Breslov path, then there is not much to see.

There  are some amazing aspects to the basic Musar path of Torah. Musar here means medieval books of Ethics like the Duties of The Heart and the rest of the basic cannon But we know that Musar was expanded after the Middle Ages and came to include about 30 books considered to be basic. [And many of the later works began to include kabalistic themes like the Mesilat Yesharim at least as an undercurrent.
Nefesh Hachaim certainly uses the Zohar as a source of evidence for his thesis that learning Torah is the most important thing one can do.




Other people [mainly baali teshuva in Israel] went to Breslov directly and that became their basic source of value and frame of reference. So when they later hear themes of the basic Musar books of people like Saadia Geon or the Rambam they think it is heresy.

There are however extra curricular sources which have important contributions to make concerning what human beings are about.


The question is how to find a unifying thread,  A way to judge if a world view is sound--or if any aspects of it might be sound.This is not to say that once one has this thread his human problems will be solved. World view is only one important tool to come to where we need to go. It does not solve any human problems but it can be of some help not to fall into things that claim to be a solutions and yet are simply traps.


I have such thread that I use. Philosophy. But since the beginning of twentieth century philosophy the idea of philosophy being able to provide a way to judge other world views has become ridiculous.All twentieth century philosophy that is linguistic postmodern analytic philosophy- is in the famous words of John Serle "obviously false".
So people can be excused if they think my using philosophy to judge the validity of any given world view is unsound.

So what I have to add is that I mean I use the  common sense, Maimonides, Plato, and Aristotle.

I have had to use my own sense along with philosophical studies outside of mainstream academia in order to develop my own philosophical point of view.

There are certain professions which attract personalities that have no conscience, snakes in suits. These are areas in which a glib tongue will get someone very far. And you can’t depend on peer review in these areas because all the rest of the people at the top of the profession also got there by the power of their glib tongue and lack of fear for consequences of their actions in this world or the next.


These are not people that are sitting in jail. They are so smooth that they can maneuver themselves out  situations that would land lesser people in jail.

Religious people are exceptionally susceptible to these type of people, because religious people believe in a kind of Divine justice in  which if someone is doing well in this world there must be a reason for it. And if someone is suffering then they must deserve it.

And I do not refer here to the heads of cults. I mean even well respected member of any religious denomination.

In the Jewish world there used to be a mechanism in place that would prevent this kind of abuse. It was the Kahal-- the tax paying working Jews that were in charge of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. They would make sure before they hired someone to serve as a religious leader, that that person really knew the Talmud well.  




Rather it is the type of people they hurt which I find more interesting. These are usually people with a high degree of interest in spiritual affairs and are seeking to become morally better people. It is this class of highly moral and sensitive spiritually minded people that snakes  hurt the most in their deepest subconscious levels.

The people that I tend to blame for this mess are those that without a sense of responsibility try to get people to join the cult of  charismatic Snakes in suits. But other people that that join and then lose their sense of responsibility and try to get others to join are more at fault.