Today in an ironic way is the yartzeit [day they died] of both my father and Reb Aaron Kotler. [Kislev 2 on the Hebrew calendar]. My father did not want me going to yeshiva. He believed in the Oral and Written Torah but that was not the issue. He thought learning Torah is a great thing. The reason he did not want me going to yeshiva was he thought all yeshivas are rabbinical schools or they use the Torah to make money.


To Reb Aaron the most important thing in the world was to make yeshivas.

The result of his efforts was the Lakewood yeshiva in NJ and several kollels in different American cities. One, for example, in Los Angeles. I was there at the beginning of the kollel of Lakewood in LA. They asked me to go to people I knew in Beverly Hills to ask for money for them. Why? Because it is a mitzvah to learn Torah. {That is they were saying since they learn Torah people ought to give them money. We will learn in short order that that is not really what they think. Rather they want people's money, and have found a way to con them to give it to them. A there are always people around to oblige them. A sucker is born every minute.}


This is a hard issue to  resolve. On one hand I never intended to use the holy Torah for money and I thought the type of yeshiva I was going to was really trying hard to learn Torah for its own sake and not for money.

On the other hand I learned the hard way that my father was right. I was for some years in Israel after learning at the Mir in NY. After a period in Israel my wife and I decided to return to California. When we got to LA the people in the Lakewood Kollel told my wife to divorce me because I was learning Torah.
Thereby giving me direct proof that my father was right all along. But not just that but since then I have seen many others proofs to my father's position.
So what we have from this is in fact it is a great thing to learn and keep Torah and the more effort one puts into this the better. But we also learn that there are people that claim to be learning Torah and claim that it is  a mitzvah to give them money. One should avoid these types as much as possible. They are extremely dangerous. And they give  a bad name to Torah. After people experience religious teachers, no wonder they are turned off from Torah. Who would not be? It is up to people that care about Torah to remedy this situation and do what ever is possible to stop this scam.

[No offence to Reb Aaron. He should not be held responsible for all the jerks that came out of his yeshiva. He was after all only intending for the sake of Heaven. But by the same token we could say why blame communism for the millions that Stalin murdered? Or why blame Nazism for what Hitler did in the name of Nazism? Maybe it was a few jerks that did not understand Nazism?]

So what I think is that we already know that kollels are against the Torah. If the Torah itself says this is forbidden and people choice not to listen and pretend that what they are doing is Torah then why blame the Holy Torah? 

 Once people think they are God's gift to mankind the trouble begins. [I should mention my critique here is not against Reform or Conservative groups whom I have generally found to be upright. Not am I criticizing people that learn Torah for its own sake as should be. And many people like that are around in Israel and in NY yeshivas. One bad batch does not spoil everyone else.

What I suggest is we can admire greatness. But we need vision to recognize greatness. In my father and mother were real greatness. The kind of greatness that lives according to Torah --not just learns it.

That is what I suggest is that my father was a more accurate representation of how the Torah wants people to live. The more so called "strict" approaches I think are not accurate and also wrong.

Not all cults are created equal. Some cults are great for keeping people out of worse cults.
And if this is all that would be good about some cult  that would be enough but sometimes a cult even has positive value.  "tzadik"s are often some delusional leader who has enough magnetism to delude others.


The best scenario I can see is not to join any of the cults. But even if one does that is not always a bad thing. I was for example a  part of Rav Shick's {Moharosh} group for about 6 years and I think I got positive benefit out of it. But if I had been smart I would have just stuck with the basic Litvak Mir Yeshiva --straight Judaism approach-- .

Songs of thanksto God for his Kindnesses on me and also for the things that were from his judgments.

h41 [h41 midi][h41 nwc]  h39 [h39 midi ][h39 nwc]  h37 [h37 midi] [h37 nwc] h36 [h36 midi] h28 [h28 midi] [h28 nwc]  h11 [h11 midi] [h11 nwc]  h4 [h4 midi] h4 nwc  h24 edited  [h24 midi] h24 nwc mathematics [mathematics midi] mathematics nwc  CHS CHS midi chs nwc

The major concern of the Torah  is in commandments between man and his fellow man. I get this idea from a few places. The Chafetz Chaim, Rav Shalom Sharabi, and some of the disciple of Israel Salanter like the Alter of Slobadka, and Rabbainu Yerucham of the Mir.

In the Alter of Slobadka you can see this in I think the first or second chapter of the book of his collected writings.
The Chafetz Chaim said this on the verse והלכת בדרכיו ותשמור מצוותיו. First walk in his ways (which we know that means "Just like  he compassionate so too must you be compassionate.") and then keep his mitzvot.

Shalom Sharabi gives a deep explanation of this in his book the נהר שלום:  We know the Torah and mitzvot are compared to clothing and bread and wine. The Torah is drink and food of the soul. The mitzvot are the clothing of the soul. So then what is the soul? It is one character traits--the מידות. And that is the meaning of the  verse חסרון לא יוכל להמנות what is lacking can't be filled. We can do repentance on lack of Torah and miztvot. But we can't repent on the lack of a good character trait because that is like the soul is lacking a limb. It can't be replaced.

This was the idea of Israel Salanter [the Musar Movement]--that Torah has these two aspects and I think he saw that too many people sacrifice one aspect for the sake of the other.


I think that my father and mother were better at the between man and one's fellow man than anyone I have heard of. But they did not talk about it. And they did did not advertise it. Nor did they preach it. They just did it and by their actions showed me an example of human greatness that I have not seen surpassed or even heard of anyone that has done better.  Thought when it comes to other aspects of Torah I have great respect for people that were able to learn and and pray. But as far as keeping the  Torah as a whole--not just some parts and ignore the rest-I think my parents were beyond anything I have heard of or seen. 

The Rambam and Creation Ex Nihilo This is a good essay about this important topic and I thought to bring it to others since I have mentioned a few times the basic characteristics of Monotheism as understood by Maimonides and never brought my sources. So here for those interested is the essay from which  I based my views.  See the son of the Rambam for more details about this.

Ideas in Bava Metzia-I made new corrections--in grammar etc.

Ideas in Talmud This has a new section at the end where I had a debate with my learning partner about  a Rambam

There are two aspects of Torah--the between man and his fellow man part and the between man and God. My parents excelled at the former. And I admit this is hard balance to keep. Some people - mainly Reform and conservative Jews are  mainly interested in the aspect of Torah that is between man and his fellow man. And they are right about that. That is the most essential aspect of Torah.

The problem is that part does not cancel the other part. And that is where the troubles begin. Some people notice that in fact there are plenty of things that the Torah requires of us that are strictly between man and God. E.g. the whole Temple service which takes up  a good part of the book of Leviticus, Shabat, etc.

The trouble is that when people start to notice these other parts of Torah,  the between man and his fellow man parts tend to disappear.

 I don't think there is any good solution to this problem because men are programmed to be able to concentrate of only a very small set of principles in their daily lives. 613 principles are just too much.
So people try to distill the essence of Torah and package it. And they don't usually get it right at all.
The approach that was tried by Israel Salanter seem was intended to address this problem. That is he looked at the books from the Middle Ages that addressed both of these aspects of Torah and he saw that they were in fact very effective in helping a very great tzadik, Shmuel from Salant, to reach the kind of balance that the Torah intends.

So the Musar approach I think I would have to agree with.--with one addition. That is books of השקפה also from the Middle Ages. That is the Rambam, and the other thinkers that were interested in defining the basic world view of Torah.  But if there is much today that reflects this I doubt. To some degree the Religious Zionists have this approach but only approximately. While they do try to find this balanced approach still, I am not sure if they have reached it. The Mir Yeshiva and the normal straight Lithuanian yeshivas where I learned also seemed to be close to it, but not exactly. But these last two approaches seem to be about the closest I can imagine to striking this balance.


[The Religious Zionists are right that the Torah is very interested in getting Jews to Israel. That is the reason the Red Sea was split and it also is the subject of prophecies of all the prophets. The normal Litvak yeshivas however are lot better when it comes to learning Torah. But the fact that one group emphasizes one good trait and the other emphasizes  another good trait is no reason to complain about either group.