11.10.15
I see religious world as just as much a threat to Torah as Cultural Marxists and even more so. This is because it tries to destroy Torah values from the inside. But this does not invalidate the Torah. Abusus non tollit usum
There is a problem keeping marriage together in the world of the religious mainly because religious teachers, when asked by a wife about her husband, always say to her that her husband is a creep and insane and she would be better off to get rid of him. Why they do this is beyond me. Sometimes I think it is because of feminine charm. They must be thinking of feeling that all women especially young and pretty women are צדיקניות. This is of course not news. Asking people why their marriage stayed together the answer is always, " because I never let my wife talk to a religious teacher."
When the husband goes then to the religious teacher and asks why the religious teacher is trying to break up his marriage the religious teacher says, "that is not my problem."
This does present a problem. How does one go about keeping Torah when its representatives are madmen? This is a difficult problem and I am not at all in any position to give any clear answer.
What I do myself is try to learn and keep Torah as best as I can. And I try to keep in mind to stay away from these vicious madmen as far as possible. They might claim to be keeping Torah but I know better. They are enemies of Torah, not representatives of Torah, enemies of the Jewish people, enemies of God.
In effect this means that one that wants to learn and keep Torah has to go against the mainstream consensus.
The cherubim with revolving swords were place on the place back to the Tree of Life. That is to get to the tree of Life --Torah--one has to pass the test of the revolving swords.
The problem comes from using Torah as a cash cow. It is just a way to get ahead in life and crawl to the head of the pack.When people do this they are מועל בהקדש. [Using a holy thing for a mundane purpose.] That is the same as using an ox that has been dedicated to the Temple. There is a לאו a Biblical prohibition to use anything consecrated to God for mundane use. That is the reason the Gra gives for the idea כל דאשתמיש בתגא חלף anyone that uses the crown (of Torah) passes away. And this is clearly the source for the Rambam to reiterate this same prohibition in the Mishne Torah.
So instead it is best to focus on the fact that religious teacher have become part of the war on family values. But instead of fighting against the family from the outside like most Marxists do, they instead attack the family from the inside.
I see religious teachers as just as much a threat to Torah as Cultural Marxists and even more so. This is because it tries to destroy Torah values from the inside.
The major problem is religious teachers, but in fact everyone that supports them is guilty.
This of course does not apply to people that in fact learn and teach Talmud every day in authentic Lithuanian yeshivas. True and authentic Roshei Yeshivas are doing great work. It is the cheaters and scammers that are the problem.
religious teachers have maneuvered themselves into positions of power in Israel all by the pretense of representing Torah. It is time to pull off their masks.
The trick is they claim to be telling us simple Jews what the Torah says. They get away with this fraud because many simple Jews like myself have not spent the proper amount of time and effort to learn and understand Torah. This puts us into a position of disadvantage compared with the scum that call themselves religious teachers.
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יש בעיה של שמירה על הנישואין בעולם של יהדות החרדית בעיקר בגלל רבנים כאשר נשאלים על ידי אישה על בעלה תמיד אומרים לה שבעלה הוא שרץ ומטורף והיא תחיה טובה יותר להיפטר ממנו. למה הם עושים את זה הוא מעבר לי. לפעמים אני חושב שזה בגלל קסם נשי. להם יש התחושה שכל הנשים הצעירות ויפות במיוחד הן צדיקניות. זה כמובן לא חדשות. כששואלים אנשים למה נישואיהם נשארו יחד התשובה היא תמיד, "כי אני אף פעם לא נתתי לאשתי לדבר עם רב." נחמן מברסלב ציין בעיה זו בספרו לקוטי מוהר''ן בכמה מקומות, אבל אזהרותיו מעולם לא נענו. ופעם אחת שהזכרתי כמה מרעיונותיו בבלוג הזה, ומייד איבדתי את כל הקהל שלי. אז זה נראה לי שזה לא משהו שאנשים רוצים לשמוע. אז למדתי לסתום את הפה שלי על זה. זה גורם בעיה. איך אפשר ללכת עם שמירת תורה כאשר נציגיה הם משוגעים? זו בעיה קשה ואני בכלל לא בכל עמדה לתת תשובה ברורה. מה שאני עושה לעצמי הוא לנסות ללמוד ולשמור על התורה כהטוב ביותר שאני יכול. ואני מנסה לזכור להתרחק ממטורפי קסמים אלה ככל האפשר. הם יכולים לטעון שהם שומרים תורה, אבל אני יודע טוב יותר. הם אויבים של תורה, לא נציגיה, אויבי העם היהודי, אויביו של אלוהים. למעשה זה אומר שאחד שרוצה ללמוד ולשמור על התורה יש ללכת נגד קונסנסוס הזרם המרכזי. הכרובים עם חרבות מסתובבות היו במקום הדרך בחזרה לעץ החיים. כלומר להגיע לעץ החיים שהיא התורה, יש לעבור את המבחן של החרבות מסתובבות. הבעיה מגיעה משימוש בתורה כפרה חולבת
יש לאו דאורייתא להשתמש בשום דבר המקודש לאלוהים לשימוש יומיומי. זו הסיבה גר''א נותן לרעיון כל דאשתמיש בתגא חלף. כל מי שמשתמש בכתר של תורה מאבד חלקו לעולם הבא. וזה המקור לרמב''ם
צריך להתמקד בעובדה שרבנים חרדים הפכו לחלק מהמלחמה על ערכי משפחה. אבל במקום להילחם נגד המשפחה מבחוץ כמו רוב המרקסיסטים, הם מעדיפים לתקוף את המשפחה מבפנים. אני רואה יהדות חרדית כאיום על תורה כמרקסיסטים תרבותיים ואף יותר מכך. זאת, משום שהיא מנסה להרוס את התורה מבפנים. הבעיה העיקרית היא רבנים חרדים, אבל למעשה כולם שתומכים בהם הם אשמים. זה כמובן אינו חל על אנשים שלומדים בכל יום בישיבות ליטאיות אותנטיות. ישיבות האמיתיות ואותנטיות הראשים עושות עבודה נהדרת. רק הרמאים ונוכלים הם הבעיה. רבנים חרדים תמרו את עצמם לעמדות הכח בישראל כל על ידי העמדת פנים של המייצגים התורה. זה הזמן למשוך את המסכות שלהם. הם טוענים שהם אומרים לנו, היהודים הפשוטים, מה שהתורה אומרת. הם מצליחים בהונאה זו, כי יהודים רבים כמוני לא בילו את הכמות הנכונה של זמן ומאמץ כדי ללמוד ולהבין את התורה. זה מעמיד אותנו בעמדה של נחיתות לעומת חלאת הרבנים
When the husband goes then to the religious teacher and asks why the religious teacher is trying to break up his marriage the religious teacher says, "that is not my problem."
This does present a problem. How does one go about keeping Torah when its representatives are madmen? This is a difficult problem and I am not at all in any position to give any clear answer.
What I do myself is try to learn and keep Torah as best as I can. And I try to keep in mind to stay away from these vicious madmen as far as possible. They might claim to be keeping Torah but I know better. They are enemies of Torah, not representatives of Torah, enemies of the Jewish people, enemies of God.
In effect this means that one that wants to learn and keep Torah has to go against the mainstream consensus.
The cherubim with revolving swords were place on the place back to the Tree of Life. That is to get to the tree of Life --Torah--one has to pass the test of the revolving swords.
The problem comes from using Torah as a cash cow. It is just a way to get ahead in life and crawl to the head of the pack.When people do this they are מועל בהקדש. [Using a holy thing for a mundane purpose.] That is the same as using an ox that has been dedicated to the Temple. There is a לאו a Biblical prohibition to use anything consecrated to God for mundane use. That is the reason the Gra gives for the idea כל דאשתמיש בתגא חלף anyone that uses the crown (of Torah) passes away. And this is clearly the source for the Rambam to reiterate this same prohibition in the Mishne Torah.
So instead it is best to focus on the fact that religious teacher have become part of the war on family values. But instead of fighting against the family from the outside like most Marxists do, they instead attack the family from the inside.
I see religious teachers as just as much a threat to Torah as Cultural Marxists and even more so. This is because it tries to destroy Torah values from the inside.
The major problem is religious teachers, but in fact everyone that supports them is guilty.
This of course does not apply to people that in fact learn and teach Talmud every day in authentic Lithuanian yeshivas. True and authentic Roshei Yeshivas are doing great work. It is the cheaters and scammers that are the problem.
religious teachers have maneuvered themselves into positions of power in Israel all by the pretense of representing Torah. It is time to pull off their masks.
The trick is they claim to be telling us simple Jews what the Torah says. They get away with this fraud because many simple Jews like myself have not spent the proper amount of time and effort to learn and understand Torah. This puts us into a position of disadvantage compared with the scum that call themselves religious teachers.
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יש בעיה של שמירה על הנישואין בעולם של יהדות החרדית בעיקר בגלל רבנים כאשר נשאלים על ידי אישה על בעלה תמיד אומרים לה שבעלה הוא שרץ ומטורף והיא תחיה טובה יותר להיפטר ממנו. למה הם עושים את זה הוא מעבר לי. לפעמים אני חושב שזה בגלל קסם נשי. להם יש התחושה שכל הנשים הצעירות ויפות במיוחד הן צדיקניות. זה כמובן לא חדשות. כששואלים אנשים למה נישואיהם נשארו יחד התשובה היא תמיד, "כי אני אף פעם לא נתתי לאשתי לדבר עם רב." נחמן מברסלב ציין בעיה זו בספרו לקוטי מוהר''ן בכמה מקומות, אבל אזהרותיו מעולם לא נענו. ופעם אחת שהזכרתי כמה מרעיונותיו בבלוג הזה, ומייד איבדתי את כל הקהל שלי. אז זה נראה לי שזה לא משהו שאנשים רוצים לשמוע. אז למדתי לסתום את הפה שלי על זה. זה גורם בעיה. איך אפשר ללכת עם שמירת תורה כאשר נציגיה הם משוגעים? זו בעיה קשה ואני בכלל לא בכל עמדה לתת תשובה ברורה. מה שאני עושה לעצמי הוא לנסות ללמוד ולשמור על התורה כהטוב ביותר שאני יכול. ואני מנסה לזכור להתרחק ממטורפי קסמים אלה ככל האפשר. הם יכולים לטעון שהם שומרים תורה, אבל אני יודע טוב יותר. הם אויבים של תורה, לא נציגיה, אויבי העם היהודי, אויביו של אלוהים. למעשה זה אומר שאחד שרוצה ללמוד ולשמור על התורה יש ללכת נגד קונסנסוס הזרם המרכזי. הכרובים עם חרבות מסתובבות היו במקום הדרך בחזרה לעץ החיים. כלומר להגיע לעץ החיים שהיא התורה, יש לעבור את המבחן של החרבות מסתובבות. הבעיה מגיעה משימוש בתורה כפרה חולבת
יש לאו דאורייתא להשתמש בשום דבר המקודש לאלוהים לשימוש יומיומי. זו הסיבה גר''א נותן לרעיון כל דאשתמיש בתגא חלף. כל מי שמשתמש בכתר של תורה מאבד חלקו לעולם הבא. וזה המקור לרמב''ם
צריך להתמקד בעובדה שרבנים חרדים הפכו לחלק מהמלחמה על ערכי משפחה. אבל במקום להילחם נגד המשפחה מבחוץ כמו רוב המרקסיסטים, הם מעדיפים לתקוף את המשפחה מבפנים. אני רואה יהדות חרדית כאיום על תורה כמרקסיסטים תרבותיים ואף יותר מכך. זאת, משום שהיא מנסה להרוס את התורה מבפנים. הבעיה העיקרית היא רבנים חרדים, אבל למעשה כולם שתומכים בהם הם אשמים. זה כמובן אינו חל על אנשים שלומדים בכל יום בישיבות ליטאיות אותנטיות. ישיבות האמיתיות ואותנטיות הראשים עושות עבודה נהדרת. רק הרמאים ונוכלים הם הבעיה. רבנים חרדים תמרו את עצמם לעמדות הכח בישראל כל על ידי העמדת פנים של המייצגים התורה. זה הזמן למשוך את המסכות שלהם. הם טוענים שהם אומרים לנו, היהודים הפשוטים, מה שהתורה אומרת. הם מצליחים בהונאה זו, כי יהודים רבים כמוני לא בילו את הכמות הנכונה של זמן ומאמץ כדי ללמוד ולהבין את התורה. זה מעמיד אותנו בעמדה של נחיתות לעומת חלאת הרבנים
Physics,
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| I love learning Physics and MetaPhysics |
A Rambam Yeshiva would not be anything like the yeshivas we see today. The books there would be the Mishne Torah and Aristotle's encyclopedic work Physics and his other encyclopedic work, Metaphysics. He writes clearly in several places the the Mishne Torah contains the entire Oral Law and if he has that book he does not need Talmud or the writings of the Geonim. He could not be any more explicit if he tried. In the beginning of Mishne Torah he writes that the Mishne Torah contains all the Oral Law and take a good look at his language there when he says "One does not need any other book from among them." [ביניהם not בינתיים.] That is one reads the Old Testament and then the Mishne Torah and one does not need any other book from among the books that he just mentioned in that paragraph. Look at that paragraph and you will see he does not mean to learn Mishne Torah and then Talmud. He clearly meant his book to replace the Talmud. Period.
So you can ask then what to do after you have read the Mishne Torah? You can finish it in one month easily. Start at 9:00 AM and go until 5:00 PM. A normal working day. You can finish it in two weeks. Then he explains you learn "the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot which are the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks." Here too he explains this clearly in several places in the Mishne Torah and Guide. And he not ambiguous in any way. You can see what enraged people about the Rambam. He says after one has finished reading the Written and Oral law (as he defines Oral Law to mean his book the Mishne Torah), then he spends all his days learning Physics and Metaphysics.
And don't think that was the major thing that caused the controversy about him. In fact in the very first controversy these outrageous statements did not even come into play as a factor.
The thing that condemned him in the eyes of the Jewish world was that he said not to give money to yeshivas. And this was in the commentary on the Mishna which was read by all Jews everywhere. He writes that on Avot chapter 4 Mishna 7.
[His idea there is that there is no mitzvah to give money to someone who can work but refuses to do so. Also his idea is that it is forbidden to be נהנה from words of Torah. The Gra also compares words of Torah to הקדש. This is a whole subject in itself but in any case it is important to understand the Rambam and not to try to explain away what he says. And this applies to everything in Torah. The first thing is not to explain away things you don't like. Rather if you can't keep what it says then don't keep what it says, but don't try to say it means something besides what it in fact says.]
So clearly a Rambam approach to Torah would be a radical departure from what people think today compromises a Torah approach. And he writes in a letter that the only reason that his book was not accepted as the final decision is because of the arrogance and pride of people wanting honor and power. So when the final redemption comes and arrogance and the evil inclination will be eliminated from the world then his book will be accepted as the objective truth. In the future the Mishne Torah of the Rambam will be considered as the truth and final decision. The son of the Rambam who became the Rav of the city after the Rambam in fact taught the Mishna Torah instead of Mishna or other things that had been customary to teach between the afternoon and evening prayers.
My personal opinion is that Physics today (and Meta-Physics) has gone considerably beyond Aristotle and that today the Rambam would hold to learn the Old Testament, then the Mishne Torah and then modern Physics and Kant.
And I should mention that this is the way I have accustomed myself to be learning for some time now. The only thing is I admit I do learn Talmud as I thing it is the only way to understand the Mishne Torah. Without knowing from where the Rambam gets his decision, people always misunderstand what he is saying. [And they think they understand.] For that reason, one should also learn Talmud and Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam together with the Rambam after finishing it at least once.
10.10.15
The way I try to justify Torah is by immediate non intuitive knowledge.
The best justification for Torah is good parents. But if you don't have that then you have to go about it in a more circular fashion.
The way I try to justify Torah is by immediate non intuitive knowledge. The way I try to go about explaining this is thus: You have an object in front of you you can feel and see and smell. How do you know the actual has anything to do with how you perceive it? You depend on empirical sensory perception to tell you things about the object. But let's take something you can't perceive directly. E.g. 2+2= 4. You don't have a physical way to test this. You depend on reason. But there are however areas that reason starts to contradict itself. Questions like, "Is the universe infinite?" "Is time infinite?" Unconditioned realities. Knowledge about unconditioned realities depends on immediate non intuitive knowledge. These are things like when Socrates asked the slave about some aspect of a triangle. The slave did not know. But Socrates by a skilled set of questions guided the slave until the slave knew the answer. So he showed the slave that he knew things that he did not know that he knew.
There are things you know not by sensory perception and not by reason.
Let's say you have a clock. At 6:00 is all form and no content. Like logic. At 7:00 is Math. More content but not completely formal like Godel showed. 8:00 is Physics. There you deal with actual physical things that have content. 9:00 is Music. 10:00 is laws about people's relationships. 11:00 is mystic and metaphysical realities. 12:00 is all content and no form- God.
The content is the thing that is known by immediate non intuitive knowledge.
This immediate non intuitive knowledge is the way I think the Torah was received. And Reason was a step before that as the Rambam explains in the Guide. That is Reason perceives objective moral values. [Natural Law.] And immediate non intuitive knowledge knows the level after that.
The way I try to justify Torah is by immediate non intuitive knowledge. The way I try to go about explaining this is thus: You have an object in front of you you can feel and see and smell. How do you know the actual has anything to do with how you perceive it? You depend on empirical sensory perception to tell you things about the object. But let's take something you can't perceive directly. E.g. 2+2= 4. You don't have a physical way to test this. You depend on reason. But there are however areas that reason starts to contradict itself. Questions like, "Is the universe infinite?" "Is time infinite?" Unconditioned realities. Knowledge about unconditioned realities depends on immediate non intuitive knowledge. These are things like when Socrates asked the slave about some aspect of a triangle. The slave did not know. But Socrates by a skilled set of questions guided the slave until the slave knew the answer. So he showed the slave that he knew things that he did not know that he knew.
There are things you know not by sensory perception and not by reason.
Let's say you have a clock. At 6:00 is all form and no content. Like logic. At 7:00 is Math. More content but not completely formal like Godel showed. 8:00 is Physics. There you deal with actual physical things that have content. 9:00 is Music. 10:00 is laws about people's relationships. 11:00 is mystic and metaphysical realities. 12:00 is all content and no form- God.
The content is the thing that is known by immediate non intuitive knowledge.
This immediate non intuitive knowledge is the way I think the Torah was received. And Reason was a step before that as the Rambam explains in the Guide. That is Reason perceives objective moral values. [Natural Law.] And immediate non intuitive knowledge knows the level after that.
(1)The God of Maimonides and Aristotle tends to lack personality. (2) The omnipotence and benevolence of God, while happy and comforting to contemplate, generates the Problem of Evil, that the evidence of the world and of events frequently would seem to contradict an omnipotent and benevolent agency.
(3) It seems to me that Yaakov along with Job and King David found some way of dealing with these issues. The way they did this was to project God's goodness out over a longer period.
(4) Schopenhauer started out that "the Will" is essentially irrational and not benevolent in any sense. Later he indicated that the Will is multi dimensional.
To me it seems that this was the opinion of Job and God himself who agreed with Job.
The friends of Job said: "God is just". God said they were wrong. Point blank. At point blank range. There is no way to misinterpret this because the entire Book of Job shows this.
The first statement is that Job was without sin. So trying to fudge the variables here does not work. Trying to make it that there were other faults is clearly not what it says. Then the whole story of how God caused him to suffer in order to win a debate with Satan just shows the point. Because you want to win a debate with someone does not give you cause to make someone else suffer. This is the clear position of the narrator. The Book of Job and Schopenhauer are in clear agreement.
( People ignore the fact that if God is good then he is not just. You can't have it both ways.)
Schopenhauer also had a chance to put the subject into the Will. But like the Rambam he refused to take that route. Furthermore he also decided not to put the ideas into the Will either. In these ways he seems to be very much like the Rambam.
What enrages people is that the Rambam understands the Torah thorough the eyes and world view of Aristotle. And that he is not embarrassed about that makes it worse. At least he could try to hide where he gets his ideas from like everyone else. And what makes it even worse is that no one can claim to understand the Torah better than the Rambam unless they want to seem like an arrogant, ignorant fool. Thus people just ignore the Rambam when it comes to the world view of Torah.
My approach is different than the generally accepted approach. I say the Rambam was right, and everyone else simply does not understand the Torah.
In any case the Rambam's approach to Torah is I think about as close to the actual Torah approach as possible. In another approaches there are strong elements of polytheism. They may not reach pure polytheism but they certainly come close. Today Torah practice often contains polytheist beliefs. In fact it is almost an axiom that the more strict one is in practices the more likely there are underlying polytheistic beliefs. Monotheism is not the same as polytheism except in number. There is more than a quantitative difference. There is a qualitative difference. A difference in world view. And the world view of Torah could not be further away from what people think it is today. It presents a reality that is radically different than what people think the Torah is about.
A Rambam Yeshiva would not be anything like the yeshivas we see today. The books there would be the Mishne Torah and Aristotle's encyclopedic work "Physics" and his other encyclopedic work the Metaphysics. He writes clearly in several places the the Mishne Torah contains the entire Oral Law and if he has that book he does not need Talmud or the writings of the Geonim. He could not be any more explicit if he tried. In the beginning of Mishne Torah he writes that the Mishne Torah contains all the Oral Law and take a good look at his language there when he says one does not need any other book "from among them." That is one reads the Old Testament and then the Mishne Torah and one does not need any other book from among the books that he just mentioned in that paragraph. Look at that paragraph and you will see he does not mean to learn Mishne Torah and then Talmud. He clearly meant his book to replace the Talmud. Period.
So you can ask then what to do after you have read the Mishne Torah? You can finish it in one month easily. Start at 9:00 AM and go until 5:00 PM. A normal working day. You can finish it in two weeks. Then he explains you learn "the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot which are the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks." Here too he explains this clearly in several places in the Mishe Torah and Guide. And he not ambiguous in any way. You can see what enraged people about the Rambam. He says after one has finished reading the Written and Oral law (as he defines Oral Law to mean his book the Mishne Torah) then he spends all his days learning Physics and Metaphysics.
And don't think that was the major thing that caused the controversy about him. In fact in the very first controversy these outrageous statements did not even come into play as a factor.
The thing that condemned him in the eyes of the Jewish world was that he said not to give money to yeshivas. He wrote that the heads of yeshivas that say it is a mitzvah to give money to yeshivas are liars. And this was in the commentary on the Mishna which was read by all Jews everywhere. He writes that on Avot chapter 4 Mishna 7.
So clearly a Rambam approach to Torah would be a radical departure from what people think today compromises a Torah approach. And he writes in a letter that the only reason that his book was not accepted as the final decision is because of the arrogance and pride of people wanting honor and power. So when the final redemption comes and arrogance and the evil inclination will be eliminated from the world then his book will be accepted as the objective truth. In the future, the Mishne Torah of the Rambam will be considered as the truth and final decision. The son of the Rambam who became the Rav of the city after the Rambam in fact taught the Mishna Torah instead of Mishna or other things that had been customary to teach between the afternoon and evening prayers.
My personal opinion is that Physics today (and MetaPhysics) has gone considerably beyond Aristotle and that today the Rambam would hold to learn the Old Testament, then the Mishne Torah and then modern Physics and Kant.
And I should mention that this is the way I have accustomed myself to be learning for some time now. The only thing is I admit I do learn Talmud as I thing it is the only way to understand the Mishne Torah. Without knowing from where the Rambam gets his decision, people always misunderstand what he is saying. [And they think they understand.] For that reason, one should also learn Talmud and Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam together with the Rambam after finishing it at least once.
(3) It seems to me that Yaakov along with Job and King David found some way of dealing with these issues. The way they did this was to project God's goodness out over a longer period.
(4) Schopenhauer started out that "the Will" is essentially irrational and not benevolent in any sense. Later he indicated that the Will is multi dimensional.
To me it seems that this was the opinion of Job and God himself who agreed with Job.
The friends of Job said: "God is just". God said they were wrong. Point blank. At point blank range. There is no way to misinterpret this because the entire Book of Job shows this.
The first statement is that Job was without sin. So trying to fudge the variables here does not work. Trying to make it that there were other faults is clearly not what it says. Then the whole story of how God caused him to suffer in order to win a debate with Satan just shows the point. Because you want to win a debate with someone does not give you cause to make someone else suffer. This is the clear position of the narrator. The Book of Job and Schopenhauer are in clear agreement.
( People ignore the fact that if God is good then he is not just. You can't have it both ways.)
Schopenhauer also had a chance to put the subject into the Will. But like the Rambam he refused to take that route. Furthermore he also decided not to put the ideas into the Will either. In these ways he seems to be very much like the Rambam.
What enrages people is that the Rambam understands the Torah thorough the eyes and world view of Aristotle. And that he is not embarrassed about that makes it worse. At least he could try to hide where he gets his ideas from like everyone else. And what makes it even worse is that no one can claim to understand the Torah better than the Rambam unless they want to seem like an arrogant, ignorant fool. Thus people just ignore the Rambam when it comes to the world view of Torah.
My approach is different than the generally accepted approach. I say the Rambam was right, and everyone else simply does not understand the Torah.
In any case the Rambam's approach to Torah is I think about as close to the actual Torah approach as possible. In another approaches there are strong elements of polytheism. They may not reach pure polytheism but they certainly come close. Today Torah practice often contains polytheist beliefs. In fact it is almost an axiom that the more strict one is in practices the more likely there are underlying polytheistic beliefs. Monotheism is not the same as polytheism except in number. There is more than a quantitative difference. There is a qualitative difference. A difference in world view. And the world view of Torah could not be further away from what people think it is today. It presents a reality that is radically different than what people think the Torah is about.
A Rambam Yeshiva would not be anything like the yeshivas we see today. The books there would be the Mishne Torah and Aristotle's encyclopedic work "Physics" and his other encyclopedic work the Metaphysics. He writes clearly in several places the the Mishne Torah contains the entire Oral Law and if he has that book he does not need Talmud or the writings of the Geonim. He could not be any more explicit if he tried. In the beginning of Mishne Torah he writes that the Mishne Torah contains all the Oral Law and take a good look at his language there when he says one does not need any other book "from among them." That is one reads the Old Testament and then the Mishne Torah and one does not need any other book from among the books that he just mentioned in that paragraph. Look at that paragraph and you will see he does not mean to learn Mishne Torah and then Talmud. He clearly meant his book to replace the Talmud. Period.
So you can ask then what to do after you have read the Mishne Torah? You can finish it in one month easily. Start at 9:00 AM and go until 5:00 PM. A normal working day. You can finish it in two weeks. Then he explains you learn "the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot which are the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks." Here too he explains this clearly in several places in the Mishe Torah and Guide. And he not ambiguous in any way. You can see what enraged people about the Rambam. He says after one has finished reading the Written and Oral law (as he defines Oral Law to mean his book the Mishne Torah) then he spends all his days learning Physics and Metaphysics.
And don't think that was the major thing that caused the controversy about him. In fact in the very first controversy these outrageous statements did not even come into play as a factor.
The thing that condemned him in the eyes of the Jewish world was that he said not to give money to yeshivas. He wrote that the heads of yeshivas that say it is a mitzvah to give money to yeshivas are liars. And this was in the commentary on the Mishna which was read by all Jews everywhere. He writes that on Avot chapter 4 Mishna 7.
So clearly a Rambam approach to Torah would be a radical departure from what people think today compromises a Torah approach. And he writes in a letter that the only reason that his book was not accepted as the final decision is because of the arrogance and pride of people wanting honor and power. So when the final redemption comes and arrogance and the evil inclination will be eliminated from the world then his book will be accepted as the objective truth. In the future, the Mishne Torah of the Rambam will be considered as the truth and final decision. The son of the Rambam who became the Rav of the city after the Rambam in fact taught the Mishna Torah instead of Mishna or other things that had been customary to teach between the afternoon and evening prayers.
My personal opinion is that Physics today (and MetaPhysics) has gone considerably beyond Aristotle and that today the Rambam would hold to learn the Old Testament, then the Mishne Torah and then modern Physics and Kant.
And I should mention that this is the way I have accustomed myself to be learning for some time now. The only thing is I admit I do learn Talmud as I thing it is the only way to understand the Mishne Torah. Without knowing from where the Rambam gets his decision, people always misunderstand what he is saying. [And they think they understand.] For that reason, one should also learn Talmud and Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam together with the Rambam after finishing it at least once.
9.10.15
People get a feeling of holiness and power [numinousity] from all kinds of different sources.For this reason learning Torah is important. That is so that one gets accustomed to receiving this numinous power from a source of holiness. Or it also is good to be connected with a tzadik [saint] who is connected to Torah.
This is a large subject. To some degree Allen Bloom goes into it in his book The Closing of the American Mind. [I used to have a link to it on one of my blogs, but it should be fairly easy to find. It is the most important book in Philosophy of the 20th century.]
He makes the point there that religious groups were considered as bad things by the founders of the USA. They wanted to make religion unimportant. I imagine they were not thinking of what could serve as a substitute. Clearly politics did and still does replace religion as a source of that feeling of power and purpose. But if they were thinking in those terms seems doubtful to me.
But there can be many other sources from which people derive their feelings about the meaning of life. E.g., Muslims get their feeling about the purpose of life from murder. This gives them a feeling of numinousity and value for their lives. Others get this from sex and sexual issues.
For all these and many other reasons I think learning Torah is highly undervalued. For learning Torah directs a person's feelings of direction and purpose towards a holy source.
The theory here is actually very simple. Picture a clock. From 6:00 to 12:00 are values starting from all form and no content to all content and no form. But for every area of value there is an opposite place of the clock that is an opposite value. A value of the Sitra Achra--the Dark Side.
See this link for more detail: Origin of Value.
I could go on, but it is best to look at that Origin of Value thesis by Dr. Kelley Ross.
[To get some background about the Origin of Value you need to know a bit of Kant. For a good introduction to Kant see Mattey's lectures on Kant] I should mention say my small knowledge of Kant comes from the two great encyclopedias, the Stanford encyclopedic of Philosophy and also the Internet encyclopedia of Philosophy and also reading Kant in German. (I had to read him in German because I could not understand the English translations.) [If anyone has ever read Kant in English and understood him please raise your hand. No? I thought so.]
This is a large subject. To some degree Allen Bloom goes into it in his book The Closing of the American Mind. [I used to have a link to it on one of my blogs, but it should be fairly easy to find. It is the most important book in Philosophy of the 20th century.]
He makes the point there that religious groups were considered as bad things by the founders of the USA. They wanted to make religion unimportant. I imagine they were not thinking of what could serve as a substitute. Clearly politics did and still does replace religion as a source of that feeling of power and purpose. But if they were thinking in those terms seems doubtful to me.
But there can be many other sources from which people derive their feelings about the meaning of life. E.g., Muslims get their feeling about the purpose of life from murder. This gives them a feeling of numinousity and value for their lives. Others get this from sex and sexual issues.
For all these and many other reasons I think learning Torah is highly undervalued. For learning Torah directs a person's feelings of direction and purpose towards a holy source.
The theory here is actually very simple. Picture a clock. From 6:00 to 12:00 are values starting from all form and no content to all content and no form. But for every area of value there is an opposite place of the clock that is an opposite value. A value of the Sitra Achra--the Dark Side.
See this link for more detail: Origin of Value.
I could go on, but it is best to look at that Origin of Value thesis by Dr. Kelley Ross.
[To get some background about the Origin of Value you need to know a bit of Kant. For a good introduction to Kant see Mattey's lectures on Kant] I should mention say my small knowledge of Kant comes from the two great encyclopedias, the Stanford encyclopedic of Philosophy and also the Internet encyclopedia of Philosophy and also reading Kant in German. (I had to read him in German because I could not understand the English translations.) [If anyone has ever read Kant in English and understood him please raise your hand. No? I thought so.]
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