If you do any sin from the set of all sins in the Bible where it says he that does such and such will be cut off from his people, you bring a sin offering to the temple in Jerusalem. That is a she goat or a she sheep. (Leviticus 4) If you did idolatry by accident you bring only a she goat. Numbers 15
[Examples, Shabat, sex with close relations, sex with males, walking into the Temple without having gone to the mikvah and the ashes of the red heifer, eating a sacrifice before having gone to the mikvah, four kinds of service to an idol burning, pouring, sacrifice, bowing, or a service special to that idol.]





 If a person bows to a statue that he forget was an idol,  he is not liable a sin offering. What is the difference between this and if a person forgot it is the Sabbath day?

I want to answer that the difference is that Sabbath he is expected to remember from the very beginning of the week. There is a degree of liability in just forgetting Shabat all by itself and if furthermore he acts  on that forgetting then he is liable.
Idols one is supposed to forget.

In more detail here is my idea:
Abyee  and Rava argue if serving a false god from love or fear is liable. To prove his point Abyee finds any random place in the Mishna where the idea of serving an idol accidentally is liable. And he tries to go through the different possibilities what that could mean until he reaches to the point that it cant mean anything but serving a false god from love or fear. Then Rava says it means he says serving it is allowed.

Why don't Abyee and Rava both say serving a false god accidentally is the exact same case as Shabat? What is an accident on Shabat that one is liable for? He did one of the 39 types of work because he forgot it is Shabat today.
Say the same thing about idolatry. He knows idolatry is forbidden by he forgot this particular statute is an idol. An example would be when he was at the ceremony consecrating the idol but got mixed up later and forgot that he was there and thought he was at a different ceremony on the other side of town celebrating a statute built to honor a king.
That is the question my learning partner posed.
My answer is that Shabat he is expected to remember, not idols. He is not supposed to be thinking about idols all the time. So if he forgot about an idol he did a mitzvah.

I want to suggest a connection between good character traits and mitzvahs.
The main points are the Reshash ר' שלום שרבי. To him the traits are the actual soul of a person.
The subject of the soul is contained in the Eitz Chaim of Isaac Luria is great detail. But I forgot the whole thing. But also Reb Chaim Vital goes into some detail in his Musar book Shaarai Kedushah.
His idea is that in fact there is a connection. And keeping the mitzvot brings light and sustenance to the soul.
1) Also to Reb Chaim Vital  and the Chafetz Chaim the main purpose of the mitzvas is to bring to good character traits.
2) But in theory good character and mitzvas might be completely separate. You could in theory have someone keeping all the mitzvas with 100% perfection and have  bad character.[This is well known from the Ramban about מנובל ברשות התורה]
3) This fits well with the Rambam that the purpose of mitzvas is divided into several sub categories, one of which is in fact to bring to good character.
Character here means what men want from other men--to be a man. That is,-- to be someone you can trust in an emergency. When the chips are down and you are with a small group of men fighting for survival, then good character means someone loyal and trustworthy and has the skills that contribute to the group. If you put him on  watch to guard the perimeter to guard from other groups of men that want what you have,- you don't want him sleeping on the job. Character in terms of women means a wife you can trust. Not someone who will betray you for gain-- unlike the vast majority of women today.

Places that are openly connected with the path of the Gra the Villna Geon you can see Torah being studied and kept to a high degree of accuracy.

 I would like to propose that to get to the Torah it is impossible expect by means of the Gra.
I admit that on the face of this, it seems ridiculous. But I think I have see enough evidence to make this proposition  believable.

What this means is that if you look at places that are openly connected with the path of the Gra the Villna Geon you can see Torah being studied and kept to a high degree of accuracy. But outside that perimeter you see nothing but catastrophe.

The Gra, The Villna Geon, held is is an absolute obligation to go through the Oral and Written Torah.

Once he was with his disciple Chaim from Voloshin and saw some person in a inn who was not keeping Torah. The Gra said he will have to give an account of why he did not learn the secrets of the Chariot [mystic aspects of Torah] also.

We know that there is a statement in the Talmud that when a person goes up to stand before the higher court of law in Heaven to decide his fate, he will have to give account  and answer these questions:"Did you learn the Written Law?  [the Old Testament]? Did you learn the Oral Law?Did you finish the Mishna? Did you learn the Talmud? Did you learn the work of the Divine Chariot? Did you do your business dealings with honesty?"

The Gra understood this to be literal. There will not be an excuse on the day of judgment for a person to say, "I was not religious."
And further he held that one does not need to understand every word he learns. Sometimes people say that the Gra held that one needs at least to understand the meaning of the words. But f you look in the new edition of the אבן שלמה that brings down the sources from the actual language of the Gra you can see that is not so. You can just say the words and what you don't understand in this world they will remind you of in the next world. The main thing is to have gone through every single last word of Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot, and Maharsha, and the Jerusalem Talmud with the Pnei Moshe, and also all the writings of Isaac Luria.

I don't want to make it sound as if I have done all this. I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit that I am still in the middle of this process. And even the small amount of time I have to learn Torah I spend most of it on a tiny in depth session with a learning partner. So I am well behind schedule. So I hope at least I can explain this subject to others that might be able to take up this project.
[To some degree I have an excuse that my time in limited. I also have to give violin lessons and other kinds of activities in order to pay the rent.]

A lot depends on what you think is the main service of God.  This is subject to debate in the Jewish world. The Gra had a two tier system. Learning Torah was the top. After that is keeping the Torah [Oral and Written]. But he did not think one should go searching for mitzvahs to do. He said it is better to sit in ones room and twiddle ones thumbs rather than go searching for mitzvahs. There are lots of variations. Prayer and talking with God are also important. But there were a few other main things.
Learning Torah is hearing what God says to us  and talking with God is to help us be open to the Torah.
But my opinion is that Love and Fear of God are the goals. And the mitzvahs are to help us reach these goals. That comes from a commentary on the Rambam. And it seems to me to be basically  what the Rambam himself was getting at.

The idea of the anonymous commentary [הלכות יסודי התורה פרק ב' הלכה א] is that one verse says do mitzvahs to come to fear God. Another verse Deuteronomy 10:12 says, "What does God want from but but to fear God in order that you should do his mitzvahs?" The answer he gives is the lower fear is to do mitzvahs. And Mitzvahs are to come to the higher fear. And that higher fear leads to Love of God.


The Stipler Rav (Chaim Kinyevski) [author of the set of books קהלת יעקב Kehilat Yaakov] said lets us look at the different groups that emphasize one point or other. It is usually in that particular point they are the worst of anyone.  So he said they only advice is to keep the Torah just like it says, nothing more or less.

Introduction:
The Rambam in chapter one of the Laws of Idolatry explains that essence of idolatry is to try to come close to God by means of a intermediate or a mediator. This would include people.
Later in chapter 2 he explains that a mediator can be anything from the highest heavens until anything composed of basic elements, or any created thing. People are created things so people can be mediators. Idols do not have to be physical objects. They can be even great and special human beings. Even a true tzadik. [Clearly the Gra saw this problem in his days when he signed the excommunication against Hasidim, that said not to sit within four yards of a hasid, or have any interaction in business or in any other way with them..]

In chapter 3 he says if one serves an idol  from love or fear [i.e. he loves the beauty or is afraid the idol will hurt him] then he is liable only if he accepts the idol as a god with spiritual powers.
We don't see this condition elsewhere.


The Remach רמ''ך [Rav Moshe HaKohen] asked, "Why in throwing a stone at Markulit one is liable without accepting it as ones god?"

The Rivash [A Rishon on the Rambam] and the Beit Yoseph answer this in some way I did not have a chance to figure out.

My learning partner said the Rambam means he is liable a sin offering for doing idolatry by accident. He might not be referring to liability for the death penalty.

But I think what the Rambam is saying is in all cases. Because the condition of accepting as ones god is only when one is openly not using the idol as a mediator as in the case he serves it from love or fear. But in any other case, it is enough to serve the idol as a mediator in order to be liable.




הקדמה: בתחילת הלכות עבודה זרה הרמב''ם כתב שעיקר עבודה זרה היא לעבוד או לפאר אמצעי כדי להתקרב להבורא יתברך. וכן הוא כתב הפירוש המשנה פרק חלק. בפרק ג' הוא אומר שהעובד מאהבה או מיראה אינו חייב אלא אם כן הוא מקבלו עליו כאלוה. הרמ''ך שאל למה הוא חייב כשזורק אבן למרקוליס בלי לקבל עליו כאלוה? החברותא שלי תירץ שכוונת הרמב''ם היא שחייב חטאת בגלל עבודה זרה בשוגג. והוא לא כיוון שחייב סקילה. אני רוצה לומר שהתנאי לקבל עליו כאלוה הוא רק במצב של עובד מאהבה או מיראה. ובדרך כלל העובד רק בתור עמצאי חייב בגלל שהעובד לאמצעי הוא עיקר עבודה זרה

Navardok was trust in God.

The idea of Israel Salanter was simple people ought to learn Musar. Musar about thirty books that deal with Jewish ethics and Jewish world view written from the beginning of the Middle Ages until the later Renaissance.

 Joseph Yozel Horvitz was a disciple of Israel Salanter.
Each disciple had a different approach.


 What made Navardok different was trust in God.
Rav Horvitz based his idea of trust in God on a small paragraph written by the Geon Elijah from Vilnius as a comment on a verse in Proverbs 3:5 .
The verse is בטח בה' בכל לבך ואל בינתך אל תשען Trust in God with all your heart and don't depend on your intelligence.
The Gra (the Geon Elijah from Vilnius) said this means to trust in God with all your heart and not with just a percentage of your heart. And not to depend on your intelligence even as a slight support.
A disciple of the Gra said this is parallel to what the Gra said about a story in the Talmud. The local students  did not know what this verse means: "Throw on God your burden (יהביך) and he will give you your means of a living." One day Raba Bar Bar Chana was walking with a merchant and carrying a burden. The merchant said to him ,"Take your burden יהביך and cast it on my camel."

The Gra explained that the idea here is that the  students  thought one should trust in God and also go around working for ones needs. Therefore the word יהביך (burden) was a problem. It should have said your needs. When they saw that Raba had a burden that he needed to pay to have carried and yet the merchant asked to do him a favor, they saw that  even for things you need to work for, if it is decreed from heaven, people with beg you to do it for you.

What the Gra is saying here is that the word יהב means to give. So it does not make sense to say cast on God your "give." But when the students saw what happened with Raba they understood the merchant said take what you need to give to me and put your burden on my camel.




4) My own path is that I don't think God is obligated to do anything for me or for anyone at all. I definitely go with the idea of Schopenhauer that the Dinge an Sich is "the Will." The Will is not rational. The Will does not have human good in mind. Human good is not the goal of the Will.
Rather if you turn towards the Will, then the Will turns towards you.
And when the Will turns towards you, then you have someone to depend on. this someone might not grant to you all you wishes, but you know that what ever it does in your life is right and good. especially when it does not grant to you your wish.