Before Abraham came into the world, the path towards God was open for anyone. But after he came then one needs to go through the path that he opened.
And the same goes for Moshe Rabainu [Moses]. I have not mentioned this much but it does provide a kind of background for my thinking. When it comes to understanding of the Oral Law the Talmud, I take it as obvious that one can't  understand Talmud unless he is in someway connected with the Gra.
I also think this is obvious. Make a list of all the books written after the period of the Gra and you will see. What are the great ones? They are all from the school of thought of the Gra. For example The חידושי הרמב''ם by Reb Chaim from Brisk. The Avi Ezri of Rav Shach from Bnei Brak, the Chazon Ish, etc.

Books from the groups under the excommunication that was signed by the Gra.

It is forbidden to learn those books. That excommunication does not lose force or relevance as time goes by. But instead of depending on hearsay, I made the effort to find the actual language of the different excommunications and also the minutes of the court cases in Villna preceding the excommunication . [There are  a few books that did work in this topic but I found the one with the actual original documents.] You really need to see this yourself to see this. I don't intend to argue this point here.

There is a place for authentic Lithuanian yeshivas where people learn Torah for its own sake. But because there are authentic yeshivas, that fact gives frauds  a cover story to make yeshivas that exist only for money or to advance a cult and call it  a yeshiva.

In the days of the Gra there was in every city just the local beit midrash [synagogue] which was used as a study hall during the day. There certainly was no concept that people could or should be paid to learn Torah. To learn for hire is not allowed.


People also hired a tutor to teach their children Torah at home.

What I suggest is for people to go out and buy their own set of the Babylonian Talmud and to plow through it.


The problem with the idea of learning in some local shul [synagogue] today is that the majority of the religious synagogues are affiliated with some cult. In fact the majority of the frum world consists of various cults. They are called frum because they are united in external rituals. The world views of most of these cults are highly antithetical to the world view of the Torah. Most worship some charismatic figure, dead or alive. But they cover this worship with Jewish rituals that their their idolatry seems kosher.

For this reason it is best to avoid these places like they were filled with people that had the black plague and learn at home or in some Conservative or Reform Shul.

The "Kollel Movement". The Kollel movement as a whole today is directed towards the goal of making Torah into a cash cow.



כל תורה שאין עמה מלאכה סופה בטילה וגוררת עוון All Torah that does not have work with it in the end will be worthless and brings to sin.

Appendix: If you are wondering about the excommunication of the Gra,  See the several books out there that collected all the testimonies in Villna in Yiddish and the actual language of the different excommunications and you will see what I mean. The excommunications are certainly still valid

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One of the  book I used for this research was in a library in the Old City of Jerusalem. It had the original language in Yiddish of the actual testimonies and documents.
If you can find it look at חיי מוהר''ן the edition put out by נקודות טובות printers. They put the parts that were left out. Those left out parts were included in their edition even more thoroughly than other editions that claimed to put in all the left out parts. You either have to find the השמטות of Shmuel Horwitz--the actual booklet or that specific edition that I mentioned above.

My learning partner suggested Rav Shach as a proper introduction to how to learn Talmud. And to some degree this makes a lot of sense to me. What makes his book, the Avi Ezri, so remarkable is hard to say.  Rav Shach have the ability to make the complicated simple. And he is complete. There is no major subject of interest in Talmud Babylonian of Jerusalem Talmud that he does not bring light on. I used to think that the Litvaks were just talking about him because they had no one else to replace the Stipleler Rav. But now I realize that Rav Shach was light years beyond anyone.

But since the Hebrew might be hard for some people I suggest making an annotated edition of just a few of the essays.  

His focus is on settling hard problems in the Rambam but by doing so he sheds amazing light on almost every hard problem in the Talmud. It is like no other book I have ever seen.

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Take human רצון "will". Nowadays you have popular writers that proclaim anything you want is good, and claim to be able to help you get what you want, and manipulate others into helping you. Or you have some approaches that invalidate anything that you want. You have to shape up to that particular system or leave.
An idea originating with Isaac Luria is all desires stem from רצון העליון the higher "Will." But people's will while coming from a place of holiness and good can fall away from that. People's will need to be raised up to its source in the Higher "Will".

The fact that there were great tzadikim like Gra does provide an excuse for copycats. It is sadly all too easy to play on peoples naivety and credulity. And it is impossible to warn anyone about the frauds charismatic fakers because  of the prohibition of Lashon Hara (slander). Besides that, it is hard to tell the difference between miracles from the realm of holiness, and the exact same kinds of miracles from the realm of darkness. It is not worth the time to warn people. If someone of the stature of the Gra was ignored by his own disciples, then what good would my warnings do? 

Ideas in Talmud

Ideas in Bava Metzia chapters 8 and 9

It is hard to judge the yeshiva world. The truth is it is very confusing. For example the tendency of Lithuanian yeshivas is to carefully protect what they are and what they are doing and to throw off and throw out anyone that does not seem to be a part of the program. I think this is  a good thing except when they throw out people that are in fact learning Torah for its own sake.
The general rule is they present themselves are elite geniuses when that is not usually the case.

On the other hand there are places in the Lithuanian yeshiva world that are of the highest quality like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak.

But the advantage of all Lithuanian yeshivas is there tends to be a minimum amount of pseudo Kabalah and lunatics which are so prevalent today in the world of the religious.

One thing about the pseudo Kabalah that is taught nowadays  is that it warps people's world view.
Pseudo Kabalah of course claims its lineage from Isaac Luria (the Ari), but in fact it teaches the Kabalah of the Shatz {Shabatai Tzvi} in disguise.


One fellow was telling me today his experience in some yeshivas when he was fourteen years old and was horrified how teaching young kids all kinds of pseudo Kabalah  would warp and mess up their minds permanently.

This came up with another fellow who was telling me about the Shuvu Banim Breslov crowd and some of the Shabatai Tzvi kinds of Kabalah that got to be central to their teachings.