That the Torah is everywhere and in everything. In particular  the letters of the Torah are in everything. Not that everything is Divine. But that there is Divinity in things. Even in Evil there is divinity. For without God making everything exist nothing could exist. But the Divinity in Evil is hidden. But if it would be open Torah inside of Evil the the Dark Side would have nourishment from open Torah. So instead in evil is hidden Torah.
The Torah as a whole is in principle contained in the Ten Commandments. These were hidden in the world until they were revealed at Mount Sinai. These commandments are thus contained in a hidden way in the ten statements of creation. The hidden Torah inside of evil is in the first hidden statement of creation, the מאמר הסתום. So one can find God even if he has fallen  from holiness. One can return to God even from the lowest depths of Hell.

[IV] Not to be stubborn about anything. I think this is related to his idea that one should learn Torah fast. We know that when you lean fast there remain things you do not understand. But He thought going back and reviewing these things is not necessary and not even desirable. What you got, you got. What you did not get, .. don't worry about it.

[V] The Will. I have not be looking at Philosophy for a long time so I can't write much about this. But mainly we know about the Dinge An Sich of Kant. The thing in itself. There are two aspects of this. Material things and ideas. It is complicated. But Schopenhauer took this idea in a direction different than Kant. He though there is only one Thing in Itself, the Dinge An Sich. The Will. And the whole world is just a representation of that Will.

Music for the glory of God

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I still hold that Scientology is the archetype example of a cult and is still very important to study from that aspect. It is the secular aspect of it that also provides a good subject of study. After seeing it in detail it is easy to see the cultic aspects of one's own group that he thinks is unique in its claims.



I mean, you can't study the cult one is involved in,-- because he is involved in it. And as far as he can tell, there might be some aspects of it that are good. After all why else would he have gotten involved in it? That makes it very important to study Scientology as a pristine example of a cult, and how it recruits and develops, even when it is based on a ridiculous idea.

Elazar Menachem Shach the Rosh Yeshiva of Ponovitch explained what is the essence of idolatry. It is  the thought, "This can help." At least as a necessary condition, but maybe not sufficient.  That comes directly from the Talmud itself. An idol that fell and broke is nullified because people say if it could not save itself how could it save me. We see from that the essence of idolatry is the thought "This can save." [That is unless the "this" is God.]




And what we learn from Professor Huemer Why are people irrational about politics?  is that people can choose to believe irrational things because of the desire for sex, or to fit into a group where they expect to get sex, etc.
This all boils down to the vacuum of knowledge. That is what idolatry and a cult is. The statue is a vacuum of knowledge. It is like something hollow that one can put into it all his imaginations and delusions and he wants to do that because he wants to fit into the group that is following that vacuum of knowledge.

Appendix: Torah differs from idolatry in that the central thought is that God can help. Idolatry is that some other being or mitzvah can help.

Why people are irrational about politics

This is very relevant to the subject of idolatry that I am learning right now.

Idolatry comes up in Sanhedrin pages 60-63 and in Avoda Zara 41.

Rav Shach says we see the essence of idolatry is the thinking that it has power to save.
Is that the only condition? I think it is clear it needs some kind of invisible power to affect things at a distance.  Otherwise why is it any different than walking into a store and asking for a loaf of bread.

In any case we see idolatry is not the same as a mistaken world view. These are different subjects.
Michael Huemer's essay deal with why people choose irrational world views. and if we are to understand idolatry we need to understand this phenomenon.



So what we have here is two things: (1) A simple definition of idolatry from Rav Shach. Ability to save. [Based on the Talmud in Avoda Zara that an idol that fell and broke does not need nullification because those that worship it say, "It could not save itself so how could it save me?"]
(2) The idea of Michael Huemer and Bryan Caplan that people can will themselves to believe things that they know are wrong in order to fit in with a group that want to be  a part of.

I brought this up in my learning Talmud session yesterday. We were getting to teh end of teh subject of idolatry in Sanhedrin 63. The next mishna is a different subject. So I was trying to sum up some of what we had learned.

He brought up the fact that I had studied Scientology as a very important example of a cult and asked about some of the aspects of it that I had learned about. And also brought up another cult in the USA.

I still hold that Scientology is the archetype example of a cult and is still very important to study from that aspect.

I mean you can't study the cult you are involved in because you are involved in it. And as far as you can tell there might be some aspects of it that are good. After all why else would you have gotten involved in it? That makes it very important to study scientology as a pristine example of cult and how it recruits and develops even when it is based on a ridiculous idea.

And this is the connection between Michael Huemer and Rav Shach. Rav Shach showed us what is the essence of idolatry: the thought, "This can help." At least as a necessary condition but maybe not sufficient.  That comes directly from the Talmud itself. And what we learn from professor Huemer is that people can choose to believe irrational things because of the desire for sex or to fit into a group where they expect to get sex etc.
This all boils down to the vacuum of knowledge. That is what idolatry and a cult is. The statue is a vacuum of knowledge. It is like something hollow that one can put into it all his imaginations and delusions and he wants to do that because he wants to fit into the group that is following that vacuum of knowledge.

Music for the glory of God

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Fake yeshivas. Pseudo Torah

How can you tell if someone's Torah lesson (homily)  comes from the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side)?
You can tell if you see the person is arrogant.  If they are arrogant, they receive their Torah lessons and ideas from the side of the demons.

This seems to me to be very relevant nowadays  that there are very few teachers of Torah who are not arrogant.  At least that is among the teachers of "hashkafa [frum world views]." 

Arrogance is in manner, but it also refers to thinking one knows a subject without the proper preparation.  World view issues have the odd trait that people without knowing much about Torah can have opinions about Torah issues.

So you don't get many frauds being Math professors. This is the same reason you don't get many frauds in those that teach Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot. The subject is inherently hard. But world view issues of Torah is different in that people can fake it easily. [It is easy to pretend that kabalah is hard and to pretend to know it. It is hard to pretend the same kind of thing with Math or Physics. The subject matter itself weeds out the phonies, and then they go to yeshiva to pretend to be smart.]

The problem is there are too many fake yeshivas. Now some people ought to be sitting  and learning Torah that is Gemara, Rashi, Tosphot. But most can't. It is too hard. But they can't work either. They have no skills. So you get fake yeshivas where people are not learning Torah but pseudo Torah.
The truth be told very few people after the age of eighteen should be learning anything at all. Not Torah and not humanities. They should be flipping hamburgers. Maybe 5% of the people that can be doing STEM or Torah should be. But I know of very few people like that. The rest of the garbage they are teaching is not worth it for the people learning it teaching it or supporting it.