Jewish Ethics. Without Musar, people make up their own pseudo Torah

What I have wanted to do is to start something along the lines of Israel Salanter. A kind of Musar [Jewish Ethics] Movement that would stick to the original plan. Musar got to be sidetracked. For people in training in different fields it became about those fields. In some ways it became about being extra frum religious. But in it original conception it was about a kind of service towards God based on the classical books of Jewish Ethics. Of course, it was discovered that this in fact meshed well with yeshiva life. and it was difficult to do this program outside of a yeshiva context.

But I still think it is worthwhile renewing this program of learning the 30 or so books of classical Musar.
[Musar does have an aspect of keeping externals and internals. It is in find  a kind of complete program for serving God based on the Oral and Written Law. But it is  amazing how side tracked it got to be.
The basic Torah path has  mitzvahs, but it also gives a weight to each mitzvah. That is how much every mitzvah ought to be emphasized. When people pervert the Torah, the first step is to change the weight of the mitzvot. It is like you have a row of bottles. Each bottle represents a mitzvah, and the water in the bottles represents the weight or importance of each one. To find out the proper weight of each mitzvah is is necessary to learn Musar. Otherwise, one tends to emphasize minor things at the expense of major things. Without Musar, people make up their own pseudo Torah and present it as the real thing.

Peter Lloyd at the Daily Mail has an excellent article on men no longer marrying: “Why men won’t get married anymore: Women complain chaps today won’t settle down. Sorry, ladies, but it’s all your fault, argues a wickedly provocative new book.” He mentions Men on Strike and quotes me (though he states I am a lecturer at the University of Tennessee but I am not):

For an army of women, Mr Right is simply not there, no matter how hard they look for him. And the reason? When it comes to marriage, men are on strike.Why? Because the rewards are far less than they used to be, while the cost and dangers it presents are far greater.

‘Ultimately, men know there’s a good chance they’ll lose their friends, their respect, their space, their sex life, their money and — if it all goes wrong — their family,’ says Dr Helen Smith, a lecturer at the University of Tennessee and author of Why Men Are Boycotting Marriage, Fatherhood And The American Dream.

‘They don’t want to enter into a legal contract with someone who could effectively take half their savings, pension and property when the honeymoon period is over.

‘Men aren’t wimping out by staying unmarried or being commitment phobes. They’re being smart.’

Read more: http://pjmedia.com/drhelen/2015/04/20/men-arent-wimping-out-by-staying-unmarried-or-being-commitment-phobes-theyre-being-smart/#ixzz3ZN8EbXek



My advice is to only marry the daughter of a true Torah scholar. This is known in the Talmud as a "Bat Talmid Chacham." It is the only way to come as close as you can to a guarantee your marriage will stay together and you will have good children. It does not help if you learn Torah. And it certainly does not help if she learns Torah. You need that her father learns Torah.

But not hasidim. There is specifically an excommunication of the Gra against marrying into the cult of hasidim. And from I have seen there is a good reason for  this. Maybe people were not aware of it for a long time but from what can tell the Gra was right on the money.

  I want to suggest that people think too much about understanding what they learn.
In school this can come across in a powerful way. Your whole grade depends on how well you know the material. And this gets transferred to some degree in the yeshiva world in Israel. Tests to see if you know the material are a part of the story there.

But what I want to suggest is that this is the wrong approach to learning.

Certainly we know that when it comes to learning Torah--that that is an obligation on every male Jew from young to old sick or well, and it makes no difference if they are smart as Einstein or a dumb as a door knob.

Not only that but there is a specific obligation to go through the entire Written and Oral Law. This we find in a few places and I don't remember where. But the basic thing that is brought is this:
When one gets to heaven and has to give an account of his deeds the first thing God asks him is on his learning and then after that on his deeds. [This is because deeds flow from what one thinks is right. If you learn Torah your deeds will get better. Rav Shach and Shmuel Berenbaum said today there is no advice but to sit and learn Torah.  Nothing else can help--and nothing else is necessary. If you learn everything thing else will fall into place.]

Did you learn the Old Testament?

Did you learn Mishna?

Did you learn Gemara?

Dito the Work of Creation (which the Rambam says is Physics)

Dito the Divine Chariot (which the Rambam says is Metaphysics)
[Nowadays people are inclined to say the last two mean Kabbalah. I would say that it is true that one should learn all the Ari [Isaac Luria] and Moshe Cordovero, the Rashash and the Ramchal and Yaakov Abuchatzeira. But I don't think that cancels what the Rambam says.

But here I want to bring the idea that in learning all one needs is simplicity and to say the words in order and go on.

And there souls from realms of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil. And there are four worlds of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

Divinity of human beings. I have heard that this is a subject brought up concerning converts to Judaism. They ask if the convert thinks that Jesus was divine. If they answer "Yes," this is supposed to imply that they are not worthy converts.
That seems to be not the issue. See Avraham Abulafia and Professor Moshe Idel's academic treatment of his philosophy. The issue seems to be more along these lines, "Is one is allowed to worship any human being even if they are divine?" And the answer there is "No."
Sanhedrin 62.






According to Isaac Luria  any soul from Emanation of the side of holiness is Divine.
אלקות.


Divinity of human beings.
This is something you find a lot by Isaac Luria.

The entire Shaar HaGilgulim שער הגלגולים is devoted to the discussion the Ari had with Reb Chaim Vital about how important his soul is. It goes into great detail about the root of different souls and their source and in what spiritual world they are embedded in.
The whole subject really depends on knowledge of the book the Tree of Life of Isaac Luria.
The basic idea is that you have got four worlds, Emanation, Creation, Formation and the Physical world. And each soul is from some place in one of these worlds. And there souls from  realms  of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, which are mixtures of good and evil.
And there are four would of evil. And there are souls from those worlds.

I recommend learning the tree of Life of the Ari and then the Shaar Hagilgulim to get a basic idea of what this is all about.

And this is not something that the Gra would disagree with. The Gra not just has a commentary on Sifra Deztniuta of the Zohar, but goes clearly with the system of the Ari.

Appendix: Emanation is Divine. That means the Divine light which entered into the Empty space came don undifferentiated until it reached the floor of Emanation. That is stated openly in the Zohar and the Ari. So anything lower than Emanation is not Divine.

It can happen that souls of evil get mixed up in the soul of a righteous person and visa versa.
Saying over your good desires to God in fact creates a kind of small soul that goes around in the world until it accomplishes that good desire. It might even enter into a bad person and cause him to think thought so repentance.

Islam is= Killing unbelievers and having sex with their women.

Islam is: Killing unbelievers; Fighting unbelievers; Beheading unbelievers; Terrorizing unbelievers; Extorting money from unbelievers: and Crucifying unbelievers if they criticize Islam.

Being anti-Islam is a good thing. Anti-Islam people are anti-killing, anti-fighting, anti-beheading, anti-terrorizing, anti-stealing, and anti-crucifying, anti rape.

No wonder Duke University Professor, David Schanzer thinks being against Islam is so hateful. Apparently we should all be pro-Islam and promote killing, fighting, beheading, terrorizing, stealing, and crucifying. So much more peaceful.

While there may be moderate Muslims, Islam is Islam. There is no moderate Islam. To be pro-Islam is to be pro-savage. To be anti-Islam is to be pro-civilization.

A very nice note from Joyce Willis ·


I detest Islam, NOT Muslims, just like I detest Nazism, NOT Germans and I detest Stalinism, NOT Russians.

In Islam, *all* non-Muslims are called *unbelievers*, *infidels* or *kafir*(derogatory).

The world is divided into the House of Islam and the House of War, the *Dar al-Islam* and the *Dar al-harb*. The Dar al-Islam is all those lands in which a Muslim government rules and the Holy Law of Islam prevails. Non-Muslims may live there on Muslim sufferance. *The outside world (non-Muslim), which has not yet been subjugated, is called the "House of War," and strictly speaking a perpetual state of *jihad*, or holy war, is imposed by the law*.

The treatment of the infidels in Islam is divided into two categories. The polytheists, pagans, idolaters and heathens have the choice of converting to Islam or suffer death. The Jews and Christians, whom the Koran calls people of the book, can retain their religion but on the sufferance of accepting humiliation and subjugation to Islam and payment of *Jizyah* (poll-tax/extortion) to the Islamic rulers [For more detail read this article: Unfettered Religious Freedom in Islam – A Fact or Fiction? - by Alamgir Hussain].

Now, let us have a closer look at what the Koran says about the infidels:

_Slay the unbelievers wherever you find them_ (2:191).

_Make war on the infidels living in your neighboorhood_ (9:123).

_When opportunity arises, kill the infidels wherever you catch them_ (9:5).

_Kill the Jews and the Christians if they do not convert to Islam or refuse to pay Jizya tax_ (9:29).

_Any religion other than Islam is not acceptable_ (3:85).

_The Jews and the Christians are perverts; fight them_ (9:30).

_Maim and crucify the infidels if they criticise Islam._ (5:33).

_The infidels are unclean; do not let them into a mosque_ (9:28).

_Punish the unbelievers with garments of fire, hooked iron rods, boiling water; melt their skin and bellies_ (22:19).

_Do not hanker for peace with the infidels; behead them when you catch them_(47:4).

_The unbelievers are stupid; urge the Muslims to fight them_ (8:65).

_Muslims must not take the infidels as friends_ (3:28).

_Terrorise and behead those who believe in scriptures other than the Qur’an_ (8:12).

_Muslims must muster all weapons to terrorise the infidels_ (8:60).

The Qur’an certainly proclaims that when the time is appropriate, Muslims must use force to convert the unbelievers to Islam. For the non-Muslims, the alternative to this is to pay the humiliating protection money (Jizya tax) or be killed (by beheading, of course). A militarily dominant Islam, without doubt, precludes the peaceful co-existence with the unbelievers if the Muslims have to abide strictly by the unalterable stipulations of the Qur’an.

I would like to go through the entire Oral and Written Law along with the basic Rishonim and Achronim. But that takes a lot of time. So I thought to share the burden. That is if people would oblige me, I would like them to build a house that would be devoted just to learning Torah and Ethics.
Take for example Tennessee. Just simply put in town a simple building that would have only the Oral and written Torah and books of straight Torah Ethics.
That means the Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds. Torah ethics is what is called Musar, and it is a well known cannon.


There are so  many cults that use Torah to hide their devious and highly destructive intentions that makes this hard to understand why it is a good thing. But I know that it is possible to base a  good and wholesome community solely around this basic building that is devoted to learning Torah.

In Sanhedrin 63, the Talmud considered that "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדםis a general prohibition that includes lots of subcategories. One of the things is the rebellious son בן סורה ומורהץ.
[The reasoning here is that the rebellious son has a few conditions he has to fulfill  and one is a large amount of eating raw meat and drinking something like a gallon of wine.]
But the Talmud right there says we don't give lashes for any prohibition that includes more than one subcategory.

So the question my learning partner asked was. "Then what is the prohibition?"
I answered without thinking "Don't eat on the blood" לא תאכלו על הדם. But that is obviously wrong.
He said there is no prohibition. It is just one of those things that the Torah gives a punishment for without telling you why what he did is wrong or what warning to give to him.

But Tosphot does seem to think the prohibition does come from that verse and then asks on it but we don't give lashes for a prohibition that might lead to the death penalty.  So I was not going to write about this today because it is still unclear. In any case I changed my mind and thought that this still might be interesting to people.


appendix
the general rule is even if there is a verse in the torah which gives a punishment, yo cant punush unless it also says a verse to forbid.