30.5.15
Every person has some particular tikun [correction] they need to do. Some kind of action done on a daily basis that would turn everything wrong in their life into good.
) But how can you know what your tikun is? The one thing you need to do that would turn everything that is wrong in your life into good?
) My own parents had an idea like this. A few basic principles that us kids should stick with,e.g. to be a "mench" a decent moral human being. But they were not think so much about the concept of a tikun. More like they were defining how one should live.
) It is along these lines that the Gaon from Vilna discovered the one tikun that if a person would do would in fact take him out from the depth of hell--to learn Torah. The idea is that if one could just stick with learning Torah every day--even a tiny bit-the Torah has enough light in it to pull one out from all his problems.
) The caveat for this to work is that it has to be real Torah, not pseudo Torah.
Real Torah is the Oral and Written Law. The Old Testament, the Two Talmuds, and the Halachic Midrashim and the Aggadic Midrashim. That means 99% of what is presented as Torah today is pseudo Torah.
) דרכ ציון אבלות מבלי באי מועד "The paths of Zion are in grief from lack of visitors." [From the book of Lamentations.]
That means the ציונים = the path markers on the way into holiness are gone. No one knows anymore what particular הנהגה [action preformed every day] which will lead either yourself or anyone else into holiness. Even though people do know they need to stick with a short set of principles in order to make it and have success in this world and the next, still they don't know and can't find this set of principles.
And when they find something that seems to work [חבלים מפלו לי בנעימים] wreckers fall on it.
You get to Israel and out of no where comes some bad neighbor who is intent on making your life a living hell. For some reason he or she does not like Americans or Ashkenazim or thinks you are not religious enough or who know what? Any excuse will do fine.
) My own conclusion about this is that the Gra was right. Torah is the general tikun. It is because it is so important that the Sitra Achra makes it almost impossible to come to. Even when I try to learn Torah something always goes haywire. Always. It is like the Sitra Achra will stop at nothing to get me to stop learning Torah. And of course the מניעות המח obstacles places by the mind are there also. Questions like if Torah would be so great they why does it not make people better?
Why are there jerks learning Torah? But the obstacles are much more than that. My approach to just to try to struggle through it.
When I first went to yeshiva my mother who was perfectly well got sick suddenly and died. My wife got married to me when I was a plain yeshiva student at the Mirrer yeshiva and then one day she decided that she did not want me learning Torah anymore. It was her or the Torah. Not both. And of course everyone agreed with her. I could go on but you get the idea that learning Torah I think only comes through great trials. You walk into a yeshiva you think is there for the specific purpose of learning Torah, and they throw you out from the top of the stairs. I think that to the degree that Torah is important, that the Dark Side will do everything it can to stop one from learning Torah. Because I think that if one learns Torah then everything changes. Everything.
But if one learns Torah for money the same rule does not apply because the Sitra Achra likes that.
When Torah is used for personal needs, it becomes poison. סם חיים למימינים בה ובם מוות למשמאילים בה The sages said it is the elixir of life for those that learn it for its own sake and the elixir of death for those that learn it for money.
) Torah in this context means 10 books. Old Testament, the Two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, Mechlita, Torat Cohanim, Midrash Raba, Midrash Tanchuma.
direct commentaries on the above can also be included. But 99% of what is called Torah today is pseudo Torah
) But how can you know what your tikun is? The one thing you need to do that would turn everything that is wrong in your life into good?
) My own parents had an idea like this. A few basic principles that us kids should stick with,e.g. to be a "mench" a decent moral human being. But they were not think so much about the concept of a tikun. More like they were defining how one should live.
) It is along these lines that the Gaon from Vilna discovered the one tikun that if a person would do would in fact take him out from the depth of hell--to learn Torah. The idea is that if one could just stick with learning Torah every day--even a tiny bit-the Torah has enough light in it to pull one out from all his problems.
) The caveat for this to work is that it has to be real Torah, not pseudo Torah.
Real Torah is the Oral and Written Law. The Old Testament, the Two Talmuds, and the Halachic Midrashim and the Aggadic Midrashim. That means 99% of what is presented as Torah today is pseudo Torah.
) דרכ ציון אבלות מבלי באי מועד "The paths of Zion are in grief from lack of visitors." [From the book of Lamentations.]
That means the ציונים = the path markers on the way into holiness are gone. No one knows anymore what particular הנהגה [action preformed every day] which will lead either yourself or anyone else into holiness. Even though people do know they need to stick with a short set of principles in order to make it and have success in this world and the next, still they don't know and can't find this set of principles.
And when they find something that seems to work [חבלים מפלו לי בנעימים] wreckers fall on it.
You get to Israel and out of no where comes some bad neighbor who is intent on making your life a living hell. For some reason he or she does not like Americans or Ashkenazim or thinks you are not religious enough or who know what? Any excuse will do fine.
) My own conclusion about this is that the Gra was right. Torah is the general tikun. It is because it is so important that the Sitra Achra makes it almost impossible to come to. Even when I try to learn Torah something always goes haywire. Always. It is like the Sitra Achra will stop at nothing to get me to stop learning Torah. And of course the מניעות המח obstacles places by the mind are there also. Questions like if Torah would be so great they why does it not make people better?
Why are there jerks learning Torah? But the obstacles are much more than that. My approach to just to try to struggle through it.
When I first went to yeshiva my mother who was perfectly well got sick suddenly and died. My wife got married to me when I was a plain yeshiva student at the Mirrer yeshiva and then one day she decided that she did not want me learning Torah anymore. It was her or the Torah. Not both. And of course everyone agreed with her. I could go on but you get the idea that learning Torah I think only comes through great trials. You walk into a yeshiva you think is there for the specific purpose of learning Torah, and they throw you out from the top of the stairs. I think that to the degree that Torah is important, that the Dark Side will do everything it can to stop one from learning Torah. Because I think that if one learns Torah then everything changes. Everything.
But if one learns Torah for money the same rule does not apply because the Sitra Achra likes that.
When Torah is used for personal needs, it becomes poison. סם חיים למימינים בה ובם מוות למשמאילים בה The sages said it is the elixir of life for those that learn it for its own sake and the elixir of death for those that learn it for money.
) Torah in this context means 10 books. Old Testament, the Two Talmuds, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, Mechlita, Torat Cohanim, Midrash Raba, Midrash Tanchuma.
direct commentaries on the above can also be included. But 99% of what is called Torah today is pseudo Torah
A music file for the glory of God. I am grateful to God for granting to me to write this and all the music he has ever or will ever grant to me. Also I am grateful to have not lost it like I thought I had.
B98 B98 in midi
B98 B98 in midi
29.5.15
The best advice I can see at this point is to learn Torah and Mussar .
"Learning Torah" means to have set times for learning every day. At least two hours. One hour for fast learning to get through the Oral Law. The two Talmuds and the Halachic Midrashim and the Aggadic Midrashim. Another hour for in depth learning of Talmud.
Musar [Ethics] means mainly to me to be of the rational school of the Rambam. But Musar from the more Kabbalistic directions is also OK.
This does not mean to be a religious fanatic or a baal teshuva--God forbid.
It means to keep the Torah but not along with the many insane groups that compromise the insane religious world . Most of them have little to nothing to do with Torah except in appearance.
Torah is a balance between obligations between God and Man and obligations between Man and his fellow man
"Learning Torah" means to have set times for learning every day. At least two hours. One hour for fast learning to get through the Oral Law. The two Talmuds and the Halachic Midrashim and the Aggadic Midrashim. Another hour for in depth learning of Talmud.
Musar [Ethics] means mainly to me to be of the rational school of the Rambam. But Musar from the more Kabbalistic directions is also OK.
This does not mean to be a religious fanatic or a baal teshuva--God forbid.
It means to keep the Torah but not along with the many insane groups that compromise the insane religious world . Most of them have little to nothing to do with Torah except in appearance.
Torah is a balance between obligations between God and Man and obligations between Man and his fellow man
[Kiruv means turns Jews into religious fanatics. This is not a good thing.
We get some insight into idolatry by means of what looks at first glance as strange statement in th Talmud in Sanhedrin 63b and 64a.
The Talmud is arguing about the proper interpretation of some verse in the Bible about the general practices of idolaters. One interpretation is this:
The priests of idolatry would see some rich person and draw a picture of him with his colorful clothing and general appearance and then work their calves and animals of idolatry to the point of exhaustion and when they would give them something to eat they would put the picture of that rich person in front of them.
Then when the animals would see the rich person they would run towards him and the priest would say "You see the gods like you. come and sacrifice yourself to them."
Another interpretation of that same verse is that it referred to the father. Some father would sacrifice his son and the priests would say come and kiss the idol.
This gives deep insight about Kiruv. The attempt to get college students involved in the insane religious world .
The approach is the same. The main target is always some student with rich parents. the hidden message here is what the sages said that a poor person is considered dead. So these cults try to get the young students to give up their education and to join them and thereby to become forever dependent on the cult. The way they do this is by love bombing either them or their parents. They make this whole show of how much they love the students because supposedly he is Jewish. What they really love is his money.
I should mention that there is nothing wrong with learning and keeping Torah. But what is wrong with Kiruv is that Torah is used as bait to catch fish and cut them open and cook them and eat them.
It was my good fortune that I went to a baal teshuva yeshiva that was in fact only about learning and keeping Torah and had no other agendas. But that is rare.
I have come to see Kiruv as extremely evil.
The yeshiva I went to was in NY, Shaar Yashuv, which was an amazing place. It probably still is.
Later I was at the Mir and then in Safed. Safed was great until baali teshuva [newly religious] started showing up in Meor Chaim. You think making baali teshuva is a mitzvah. Ever try living next to one?
Baali teshuva [newly religious] tend to be the worst of religious fanatics. Part of the problem I think is ignorance about what the Torah says. The tendency is because they have an internal desire to be part of the insane religious world -which is nowadays the only way they can see to get married and have wholesome family--and they read a book about halacha they think they know enough to judge others. Or even recruit others. But newly religious people with this problem are not the only ones. Often families of what you think are people that have always been religious are actually of baali teshuva.
This accounts for almost all of the religious fanaticism you see today in Ultra Religious neighborhoods. It is not like they pretend that they have always been that way. rather the Ultra Religious are always the baali teshuva --just pushed back a few years.
The Talmud is arguing about the proper interpretation of some verse in the Bible about the general practices of idolaters. One interpretation is this:
The priests of idolatry would see some rich person and draw a picture of him with his colorful clothing and general appearance and then work their calves and animals of idolatry to the point of exhaustion and when they would give them something to eat they would put the picture of that rich person in front of them.
Then when the animals would see the rich person they would run towards him and the priest would say "You see the gods like you. come and sacrifice yourself to them."
Another interpretation of that same verse is that it referred to the father. Some father would sacrifice his son and the priests would say come and kiss the idol.
This gives deep insight about Kiruv. The attempt to get college students involved in the insane religious world .
The approach is the same. The main target is always some student with rich parents. the hidden message here is what the sages said that a poor person is considered dead. So these cults try to get the young students to give up their education and to join them and thereby to become forever dependent on the cult. The way they do this is by love bombing either them or their parents. They make this whole show of how much they love the students because supposedly he is Jewish. What they really love is his money.
I should mention that there is nothing wrong with learning and keeping Torah. But what is wrong with Kiruv is that Torah is used as bait to catch fish and cut them open and cook them and eat them.
It was my good fortune that I went to a baal teshuva yeshiva that was in fact only about learning and keeping Torah and had no other agendas. But that is rare.
I have come to see Kiruv as extremely evil.
The yeshiva I went to was in NY, Shaar Yashuv, which was an amazing place. It probably still is.
Later I was at the Mir and then in Safed. Safed was great until baali teshuva [newly religious] started showing up in Meor Chaim. You think making baali teshuva is a mitzvah. Ever try living next to one?
Baali teshuva [newly religious] tend to be the worst of religious fanatics. Part of the problem I think is ignorance about what the Torah says. The tendency is because they have an internal desire to be part of the insane religious world -which is nowadays the only way they can see to get married and have wholesome family--and they read a book about halacha they think they know enough to judge others. Or even recruit others. But newly religious people with this problem are not the only ones. Often families of what you think are people that have always been religious are actually of baali teshuva.
This accounts for almost all of the religious fanaticism you see today in Ultra Religious neighborhoods. It is not like they pretend that they have always been that way. rather the Ultra Religious are always the baali teshuva --just pushed back a few years.
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