The first thing that happens when one gets interested in Torah is he of she is confronted by various cults that represent themselves as teaching authentic Torah. Because of this danger it is almost better not to teach Torah at all and not to try to bring people to Torah. The problem is that Torah has become contaminated.  While one thinks he is learning Torah and doing more in terms of mitzvot on the side he is losing his humanity and his soul and getting involved in sexual sins that he would not normally be doing. So the problem of cults in the Torah world is more than just serious. It almost makes it better not to keep Torah at all.

But what I suggest is to first get rid of the cults, and then in fact come to Torah authentic Torah.



The  challenge is to come up with an approach to Torah  that can both enter into the theater of historical change, as did Stoicism or Marxism, and at the same time provide a genuine alternative to a hopeless historical oscillation between an essentially sterile scientific universe of atoms and the void and  religious fanaticism and repression. If what is lacking in the scientific worldview is the dimension of value, and if what constitutes religious oppression is the imposition of a dogmatic system of value, then clearly what we must originate is a positive, constructive  discipline of value.-and to be rid of the negative destructive cults.


Whether learning authentic Torah is equal to this is not an abstract puzzle for a distracted few.

Reflection gives rise to fundamental questions about our very existence and purpose in life. Such reflection is not  idle curiosity: Most people that come to Torah come not through the traditional awe and wonder, but out of the perplexity and pain that inevitably disillusion us with the innocent confidence in the world we so often begin life by having. Torah is the attempt to deal with  solitary unhappiness with the blank mystery, the cruel fates, the tragic good intentions, and the bittersweet beauty  in the world.
It is the beginning is of self-discovery of doubt and ignorance.

Music for the Glory of God.

q49   q49 in midi

(1) People give up learning the natural sciences for bad reasons. They think they need some kind of extra special talent.  Or they think they are too hard. Or they don't see a numinous reason. There is however one good reason. They have bad parents. Bad parents make it nearly impossible to get anywhere in life. Also bad genes are a factor. But bad genes still don't cancel free will.

(2) In any case as for the major difficulties that people have I want to say that the way of learning of the Talmud Shabat page 63a say the words and go on even if you do not understand is helpful. That is to say and words in order and go on. And don't worry about understanding until you have finished the book four times.

(3) As for the numinous aspect Maimonides deals with that in the Guide +  gives good reasons to realize there is a hidden kind of luminosity and numinosity inside the natural sciences.

(4) ראשית חכמה יראת השם The beginning of wisdom is the fear of God. So before and after one learns the natural sciences and or Torah and Talmud he should learn Musar. [Medieaval Ethics.]  Or the books based on Medieval Ethics from the disciples of Israel Salanter.

To help people is not by giving them money or products. It is by giving them fear of God and good character traits. And within the Rambam point of view natural sciences the thing that brings to fear of God because of one getting a grasp and awe of his amazing wisdom that is a part of his  Creation.

(5) Fear of God however is not easy to find. Where you would except to find it is always the place of the greatest evil. To find the real thing takes a great deal of skill and subtlety and awareness of the frauds and fakers.

סביב רשעים יהלכון. When evil and darkness surrounds one, the advice is to speak only truth. And the truth has the power to save one from all darkness.



And one should spend as much time as possible talking with God in a place where no one else is and to pour out one's heart to God. But I think he must have considered this kind of private conversation with God as fulfilling this idea of praying to God with truth. prayer to God  ought to be with fear and love and fiery excitement. But when one can't pray to God in such a way, then the thing is to pray to God simply from the simple truth in one's heart.  [That is private conversation with God.]

This it is not ביטול תורה. That is it is something that is so worthwhile that one should spend all day on it. But if not all day then at least an hour a day.  That is even though in theory one is supposed to learn Torah all the time and the only time one is allowed to interrupt his learning is when there is a mitzvah that cant be done by anyone else. And we know that the regular prayers are not able to push off learning Torah. That is a person who learns Torah all the time does not have to interrupt learning to pray. Still  private conversation with God to be a kind of mitzvah that can't be done by others. T\


 What you can see is that people can get into learning so much so as to loose their human heart. That is a famous stereotype about Litvaks, but it has some basis in truth. On one hand the Litvaks do have the only straightforward idea of what Torah is about. And they deserve immense credit for that. But they also need a little bit of the vitamins of prayer in order not to lose the human heart.

Music for the glory of God

q48b  [q48b in midi]


q47   [q47 in midi]

j40   [j40 in midi]


n100    [n100 in midi]

I would like to learn Torah, but I find it is hard to do so. You can't depend on doing it in a synogogue because of the fact that most synagogues are there for other reasons. Same problem with yeshivas. They are usually set up for reasons other than being a place where anyone can walk in and start learning Torah.
So for Joe  Public to learn Torah it means in a practical sense to go out and buy the Babylonian Talmud and the Jerusalem Talmud and the Midrashim and bring them home and set aside a certain place in his home to plow through them, page by page word by word. Same with Isaac Luria's stuff.

I mean even at the very best if you have a Lithuanian yeshiva in your neighborhood that does not mean they are open for the public. Most yeshivas tend to be  insane asylums that are not learning Torah at all, but using the name yeshiva to advance some charismatic lunatic that they worship as a deity.


I SHOULD MENTION:
This plowing through Talmud approach probably needs some kind of introduction like the basic Musar books or Shimshon Refael Hirsh's Horev.

The regular criticism of Breslov is correct.

Breslov. The regular criticism of Breslov is correct. The numinous aspect of Torah like every area of value, when it falls from its state of perfection,-- it becomes its opposite.

You see this often. When music fell, it did not just lose its value. It did not become just noise. It became anti-Music.
So when the holy and luminous and bright aspect of Torah falls, its becomes not just of less value. It becomes anti Holiness.

What sometimes happens  is  ריבוי אור effect. Too much light that makes people go off the straight path. The way to avoid that problem is to have a good idea of what Torah is about, the Oral and Written Torah and not to deviate from that at all. That is by learning Musar. Or Shimshon Refael Hirsch.

That fact that people make cults from someone does not eliminate  value. It just means one has to be careful.

The problem seems to be that there is no way to get to the good without going through a lot of bad stuff, e.g. leaders that are charismatic lunatics and a general weakening of the desire to learn Talmud.

The major good things I think are his Rosh Hashanah--as he said himself, and his idea that in learning one should just say the words and go on דרך גירסה. The  ten psalms he said to say to correct sexual sin. But the bad things are the cults that are founded on him.

There is little in this world that is all good or bad. Even things that we do that we must do and are even mitzvahs have lots of evil. And even our evil has good.

Let us say for example you feel a civic obligation to support some cause. Even if the cause is good there has to be some negative aspects to it. Or it might be only good at how it presents itself to the public. In its inner workings it might be very evil.