the world view of mainstream [Ashkenazic] Torah.

Hashkafa is the word used for the world view of mainstream [Ashkenazic] Torah.

It has to do with principles of faith for sure but it is much wider than that. It means in essence the philosophy of Torah and the word in itself implies that the Torah in fact has it own unique philosophy. We however do find that people carry into the Torah their own philosophies that they pick up elsewhere, and then claim that their philosophy is that of the Torah.- but this is not intellectually honest.


For me personally one of the advantages that I gained by learning Musar [ethical books of Torah written during the Middle Ages] is that it introduced me to the Philosophy of the Torah in a straightforward way before I had heard any alternative variations.

But Musar does this job in a soft way and only indirectly.

Recently in the process of learning Tractate Adodah Zara it seemed relevant to open up the Ramam concerning the actual principles of Torah as he explains them in Hilchot Teshuva [there he goes into greater depth than he does in the famous commentary to the Mishna in Chapter Cheleck in Sanhedrin].

Aristotle: that everything has  four causes. One is  purpose. And this purpose is close to intellect inside of everything. This refers to a well known idea that was developed in the Middle Ages.
 There are the four causes of everything  one of which is the teleological cause. And we know that the major characteristic of Aristotle is to develop  independent ideas from many different angles and then to weave them together. So the intellect in everything which in this case will refer to the Platonic idea is related to the purpose of the thing.



The purposes of all things are related to each other. They all come together like a function from a space to one point. That one point is the next world, the delight of the world to come. [Actually it is there is a hierarchy of arrows, that map from one space to another until you get to the last and final purpose.

 Rambam in the laws of Teshuva where he goes into some depth about what heresy is. Associating any  kind of physicality to God is one kind of problem that is identified in the Rambam. Also there is the problem of a mediator which the Rambam includes in the types of minut [heresy]. And there is no question the Rambam takes these things very seriously.

]

There are two ideas of what Torah is about. One is radical monotheism and the other is that of a document that is meant to lead people towards pure Monotheism. 

So the question is according to the Torah are all intermediate steps not kosher at all or is it possible that there is some justification of going to a tzadik for a blessing?  This is really a rather large issue and it would take a lot more than this quick note to deal with it thoroughly.

The idea of leading people towards Monotheism seems to be clear in Maimonides [in the Guide] when he gives reasons for mitzvot. 

This comes up nowadays when going to even Lithuanian Gedolim  seems to be commonplace and the issue seems to be surrounding the idea of an intermediary.

And it felt strange. I felt like I was opening up myself towards compromising the basic Monotheism of the Torah. I mean I was raised in home that was not particularly religious but the Torah was very important in our home and when I started learning Torah on a more intense basis I did not expect that my monotheism would be compromised.

Nowadays it seems to me that Orthodox Judaism is highly compromised concerning this issue [of Monotheism]. It does not seem to matter which group it is. While it is admirable the strict devotion to the Torah and Talmud that is claimed by the Orthodox, but that does not seem to provide an adequate excuse for diluting the most basic and essential message of the Torah

 I think it is possible to divide Breslov into two basic groups.

This would not be along the regular lines of who is the leader of that individual group. But the major issue would be concerning the problem of worship of a human being. I have been wondering for a long time where is Breslov located concerning this question. 

Yet a random sampling of people that come to his synagogue in Uman will show that many are pantheist and many also have crossed the line.  It is for this reason that I have decided that it is high time to take a closer look at the Talmud tractate Avodah Zara--Idolatry to see where the line can be drawn exactly.

I think that also it is possible to say that some groups of Hasidut do tend to blur the line between respect of a human being and worship of a human being.
However I do not mean to knock the more radical type of Breslov from the standpoint of strict adherence to the Law of the Torah.

But there is a much more serious issue that I was thinking about that relates to the interface between Strict Torah law and type of free society that Jews have gotten used to in the USA and in Israel. It is kind of a luxury to be striving for more strictness and more Torah when we have the benefit of a free society around us. 


Regardless of this it is clear that we need divine law and some counter balance to secular society. But make an ideal to undermine free and open society while enjoying its benefits seems to me to be problematic.

Tying oneself spiritually to a tzadik [i.e. saint]

Tying oneself spiritually to a tzadik [i.e. saint]. It occurs to me that I might have written about this in the past in light of the idea of Reb Chaim from Voloshin [the disciple of the Gra] that this type of thing is idolatry.


What bothers me is that the way this is understood by some people is to change the focus of Torah from being around God to being around a person. 


But I see this at least as a flaw in the system that should be openly corrected --that is it should be stated publicly that  the purpose of serve towards God is to do God's will and not to be tied to a tzadik.

learning Torah is the highest mitzvah

 In the older type of Torah system it was considered that learning Torah is the highest mitzvah and that as much time one needed to spend on a vocation was acceptable but not desirable.

Now the Rambam is probably the best support of Torah of all. He is highly rigorous but leans towards Aristotle.
So between the Rambam the Ramchal  there is fairly strong basis for Torah.
So the lack of a basis is not what is bothering me.  Torah has great intellectual and moral validity, but it does require some effort to discover what it is and how to live in accordance with it.

what idolatry involves.

I think that people are not very well aware of what idolatry involves. And recently I have thought that it might be a good idea to look at Tractate Idolatry [Avodah Zarah] in the Talmud to get a better idea of what it involves.
In spite of the fact that it does tend to be a confusing issue at least I think we can see some of the things that are either sufficient or necessary conditions for some act to be considered idolatry.
First any one of the four major types of service that people do towards an idol is idolatry. They are offering incense, bowing, slaughtering an animal as a sacrifice, or offering blood. Sometimes you hear religious people accusing some other religious group of doing idolatry, but that is a complaint that does need to be defended.


But there is more to it than that. The basic definition is accepting some other being as ones god besides God--[the first cause]. [This might not be a necessary condition. Doing one of the four services before an idol is alone enough to convict a person of idolatry. Accepting some other being besides God [the First Cause] as ones personal god would have to be considered a sufficient condition, not a necessary condition.]

One issue that makes the whole subject more complicated is that if one serves an idol with the type of service that's specified for that idol that is also idolatry.
I should mention that the Malbim discusses the fact that Nebuchadnezzar wanted to bow down to Daniel as an idol and the discussion that Jeremiah had with Yochanan ben Kareach in this regard.

It so happened that Jews in Egypt were telling Jeremiah that from the time that they had stopped offering incense to the Queen of Heaven that they began to have troubles. Jeremiah said to them that their troubles stemmed from doing idolatry, not from ceasing to do idolatry. Further he said if they do not stop they will be destroyed. [In the Tenach the issue that seems to bother God the most is idolatry. This certainly has to be the top on the list of the big No No's. Though it is true that in general keeping all of the mitzvot is also high on the list but this has to take the cake. You do not see racism on the list of No No's at all. Nor Homophobia. Rather you could say that homosexuality is rather frowned upon as being sodomy. Islam-phobia would probably be considered  a mitzvah.]

The thing that they were telling Jeremiah was [according to the Malbim] that they did not accept the queen of Heaven as their god, and that they were good orthodox Jews and believed all the thirteen principles of the rambam. They were just offering incense as a segulah [lucky charm].

Now I have discussed idolatry many times on my different blogs. And I have decided that it is time for me to do some serious work in Tractate Idolatry [Avodah Zarah] in order to get some kind of clarity about these issues. Idolatry is one of those terms that it is easy to throw around and accuse people you don't like of doing. It used to be a term that was an extreme insult. Nowadays racist has taken its place. But even so it is an important subject to understand.
Some people it seems are not even aware that they might be doing idolatry. On occasion you see this complaint leveled by Christians against some kind of practice like working too hard or making an idol out of some movie star.  But worshiping a movie star is not one of the four [avodot] types of serve one renders to an idol. They do seem blissfully unaware that serving a human being as god might very well come under the basic definition of idolatry. (Aquinas was aware of this issue and being the great thinker that he was did try to resolve it honestly. Protestants however seem unaware of the issue at all.) But of course this could apply across the board. Sometimes you do see people that seem to get close to crossing the line separating simple admiration and desire to emulate towards idolatry. 

 For further research I hope to do the two major areas in Avodah Zara which deal with these issues. The beginning of chapter three and four. It is surprising that this issue has not received more attention.
When people act and treat their rabbi as a god is that idolatry? I would think so. So even if I think that going to Uman is important, but I think people need to be very careful not to cross the line between being with a tzadik on Rosh Hashana which is good and doing things that might be considered as crossing a fine line.

So in conclusion I think it is safe to say that the four services do not depend on thought or attitude. Once one has done them he is guilty of idolatry. He can't say he did not accept the idol as a god. It is only in the sufficient condition of accepting a different god as one's god is where thought is relevant. So now we can see that offering incense to the queen of heaven was considered as idolatry even if they did not accept her as their god.