The most severe mistakes is walking away from the yeshiva world.

See the story about Adam and Eve. There after they ate and were kicked out of the Garden of Eden there were set there fiery angles with swords to guard the pass so that Adam and Eve would not be able to get to the Tree of Life.

 But one of the most severe mistakes is walking away from the yeshiva world. That is what you would call the Lithuanian kind of yeshiva world. That is not to say all these yeshivas are perfect. But more or less when one is a part of them I was walking in the way of the Torah in the most simple basic way that was understood by the rishonim. Walking away from that even to join what one thinks were better groups is the result of the power given to the devil to make things glittery and seem full of light when they are in fact full of darkness.

But the Devil never tries the tactic of telling people "Come and let's do a sin." It is always "Let's do a mitzvah." The Devil tries to get one to walk away from Torah by telling him that some other alternative group is keeping Torah so much better. They have so much more life and and so much more strict etc.  And they are doing it so much more faithfully.   In spite of this knowledge, after one leaves he  can't get back to  the straight and simple path of learning and keeping Torah.

I wrote once a whole book of memoirs. It has thankfully been lost with time. Still my memories contain a good deal of facts that relate to modern issues. For example my experiences with Shelomo Freifeld. It would take a whole new book to go into that. But mainly my point would be this. There are no simple answers.  They write books today about him. And they say he was a tzadik. And that might very well be true. But he was more of  a rosh yeshiva than a tzadik. And there is  avast difference. But I do remember that in his yeshiva there was an amazing spirit of Torah that swept me off my feet. I was so involved in Torah that every second away was like torture.
And that was when I met his son in law Naphtali Yeager. Naphtali had a deep way of learning that I have never seen afterwards. Later I went to the Mir in NY and I was not disappointed. But there was something missing in the Mir that I had felt in Reb Freideld's yeshiva.
But that is all I can really say about this because it all just raises questions in my mind about what was really going on. These are questions I have had ever after and never found any kind of satisfactory answer.
I should mention that Reb Freifeld did not think much of me. Nor did any of my teachers--ever. And their critiques of me were always justified. This is a subject not for now, but I am no tzadik--never was and never will be. But I do love the Torah. And I still think that learning and keeping Torah is the greatest thing on earth. --Even if I can't do it myself.


Some facts about Shar Yashuv, the yeshiva of Rav Freifeld. It was geared to bring people up to speed in learning the Talmud. And it was mainly about "עיון" learning in depth. The idea of בקיאות learning fast was frowned upon. Nor was  there any Musar סדר period of time devoted to Musar. השקפה the world view that was advocated was derived from Rav Isaac Hutner.
There was a  a Breslov fellow that used to come into the place. David Dun.This person I could never figure out. He would invite me over for Shabat (Friday night) and when I would come to his home after the regular prayers on Friday night no one would be home. There was one bachur there who was connected with Breslov (i.e. Rav Shick). It was from him I got the book of prayers of Reb Natan. But Rav Freifeld did not allow any evangelizing of Breslov in his yeshiva.

When you need a miracle you should go to the source of miracles directly -to God.

I wanted to say that just before I saw part of it I had been thinking of the problem of simony. That is money for miracles. This is the Jewish world is called a "pideon", that is money you give to  a tzadik in hope for a miracle.



When you need a miracle you should go to the source of miracles directly -to God.  But the idea of Talking with God in ones's own words is much more important than saying psalms or written prayers.
He said it is impossible to be a kosher person without this kind of approach--that is talking with God in a private place every day. One should go to a forest or someplace in the wilderness and spend the whole day just talking with God in ones own words.given a limited amount of time to talk with God,  it is best to go to place where you can be alone and talk with God from your own heart in your own words rather than go to any kind of religious setting.

For the glory of God here is a waltz

q74 [q74 in midi] I am not sure if a waltz has certain rules or not. I can see a minuet does. So this can't be a minuet.

q71 [q71 in midi]  q72 6-8 time [q72 in midi]   q75 [q75 in midi]  n56 [n56 in midi] q73

 [q73 in midi] q3 [q3 in midi] q4 [q4 in midi]  q5 [q5 in midi] e72  [e72 in midi]

I feel like Kant in a specific way. Just like Kant found himself between two schools of thought and found something right in each one--and also something wrong. So also I feel I am in a similar kind of situation. I was in two great yeshivas in NY and saw a lot of what is right about learning the Oral and Written Law. But I also saw what is wrong. But I also grew up in an amazing home environment with my parents and brothers. My parents were the most amazing, wholesome, compassionate, responsible, loving,  and sincere people I have ever met. Yet there was something missing-- learning Torah. So what I feel I need to do is to find some middle ground. Torah with work and the natural sciences is my formula.

The Mishna says, "All Torah that does not have work with it is worthless." {Pirkei Avot chapter 2} You can say we "don't poskin [decide the law] that way" because it is a debate between Rabbi Shimon Ben Yochai and Rabbi Ishmael. However we do poskin [decide the law] that way. It is an open Halacha in the Rambam.

People ought to learn Torah in the straight Lithuanian yeshiva path. Cancel all classes in pseudo Torah. [And most classes in "Torah" are pseudo Torah. One needs to be extra careful about from whom he or she learns Torah. Sadly most people that present themselves-as teaching Torah are teaching Torah from the Sitra Achra. It is hard to find legitimate Torah nowadays. What might be the best thing is to stay home and get a regular Talmud and go through it yourself--every last word of Gemara. Rashi, Tosphot, Maharsha, and Maharam from Lublin. When you learn the actual Oral Torah yourself at least you know you are getting the real thing.]

 But they also should work and not be using Torah as a way to get charity money.

Newton was a straight monotheist

My learning partner noticed that Newton was a straight monotheist. That is he believed in God but not the Trinity. I mentioned that there is a simple proof against the Trinity. It is this: Christianity is committed to two contradictory theses. One is that  a=g (God), b=g, and c =g. But a is not equal to b is not equal to c. That is the Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Ghost is God. But the Father is not equal to the Son. The Son is not equal to the Holy Ghost. 
But to knock Christianity over this issue does not seem to me to be  a good idea. The reason is that I think that Christianity misinterpreted what Jesus was saying. At the time there was no example of a Jewish Tzadik for Christians to understand what he was doing and what he was about.

The idea of "My father and I are one" is a simple expression of דביקות-Devekut -attachment with God. When one feels the light of God on him, and flowing through him, he can say he is "One with God." That does not mean the Trinity. But at the time how could anyone have understood this? The only similar types were prophets, but that was clearly not what was going on.

If not for this mistake, Jesus would simply have become another tzadik in the spectrum of Jewish Tzadikim.


That is not the same as a saint. A tzadik brings something special in the world. And people that follow that tzadik can gain. But they can wreak up the whole thing also.

In any case, the whole thing seems like a distraction from sitting and learning Torah.  But this seems like an important enough subject for me to at least state my opinion about it.  I have often found that when I need help in some way it is generally Christians that will help. The idea behind this I think is that every tzadik brings something special into the world. Thus the idea of compassion got into people that go along with that belief system. The problems however is the idea that the commandments were nullified. Also there is the problem with worship of a person. 

A nice thing about the Lithuanian yeshiva approach it that it tends to combine numinous holy and powerful experiences of learning and keeping Torah with great intensity along with a remarkable lack of religious delusions.  In fact, anything that even seems like  grandiosity is rigorously exuded.
To some degree this maybe over done. They tend to err on the side of caution. But judging by how many delusional religious fanatics there are than wander into Litvak yeshivas it seems that they are justified.

This leaves us with the question how to discern between delusion and authentic religious experience?
Probably there is no way.