One of the main ways I have learned about life is by making mistakes.
This you might think is not terribly efficient. After all would it not be better not to sin at all in the first place? You are probably right. But I have found this method to be more effective.
The reason I am not sure of. Maybe I just do not have enough Daat [common sense] without experience.
But also you can say that with just pure reasoning one can justify anything. And in physics we know the only way to decide between a infinite number of possible theories is by testing and falsifying the opposing theories. This was after all the only way to decide between newton and Einstein.

Thus I was not sure what t think about the State of Israel until I was there and then by going with the Satmer opinion I left it in order not to have anything to do with it. Then the Moral Realm opposed me. That is I discovered that the results of my opposition were so disastrous that i had to rethink my position.

The same applies to my parents who advocated Torah with a vocation. That is they held not to learn Torah in such a way that you end up having to depend on a kollel check which is charity and which is against the Torah. I learned again by experience that my parents were right. This is in spite of the fact that arguing from pure reason you can justify the kollel check.



I am not saying this is the best way to go about making life decisions. But what else is there? How else will you make life decisions? By Reason? By T.V.? By what your "friends" tell you? Is not experience the best thing after all? But once we come to this realization is it not also a good idea to learn from one's parents? To learn from their experience? After all they are not  suspected of lying to you for their own benefit. They may be flawed people but they will not lie to you on purpose in order to get some benefit out of you are your "friends" will do. Even your teachers will lie to you for the benefit of some mass movement they are promoting. But not your parents.

There are I admit bad parents--especially parents that have become involved in some lunatic cult. And there are many like that nowadays which is why we do not think parents can override commandments of God.

I think you have to consider the Gra as a revolution.

1) I think you have to consider the Gra as a revolution. And I mean this only in the most positive way.

2) The two questions I want to ask are was he original and did his ideas effect things that came later.

3) Even though it was of great importance to Reb Chaim from Voloshin to downplay the revolutionary aspect of the Gra I think you have to say it was  revolution in Jewish thought.
In the religious world it is not considered a plus to come up with new ideas. You have to show your ideas have a basis in what came before for your ideas to be accepted. Still the way the Gra considered learning Torah as the prime service towards God has to be unique.

4) Furthermore he did effect everything that came later. Not just the yeshivas built on his path. But also defining what it means to be a kosher Yid. That the essence of a kosher yid is the oral law.



6) I am trying to evaluate the Gra without reference to whether I think any particular yeshiva or group is great or not. I am just looking at the aspect of originality and the general effect he had.
You might not think much of any particular yeshiva. But Brisk, Mir, Ponovitch, and all the other great yeshivas in Europe were all following the path he blazed.

7) The Gra : "Learn Torah." I have seen plenty of people base their lives chasidic ideas. They don't usually come out very good.
As a part of a regimen of Torah learning they are good. But outside of that context they are disastrous.  

I hold a lot from the approach of learning fast, (except for the time when I am learning in depth on purpose) this is the way I learn and recommend to others.  But in the book Binyan Olam and Orchot Tzadikim I saw that this is in fact the Talmudic approach. [לעולם ליגרס אינש אע''ג דמשכח ואע''ג ולא ידע מאי קאמר] So when it comes to Torah learning and also natural sciences that is how I go about it.
That is one should go through the Talmud Bavli once straight  page by page. If possible with every Rashi and Tosphot on the page. Just say the words and go on. [If at first you don't understand you will after rereading  the book again.] A lot of information is absorbed subliminally. And the same goes for Halacha. Read the Rambam with as many of the commentaries on teh page as you can. every day one page [1/2 a daf]. Then do the Tur in the same way. And then the Shulchan Aruch, page by page. This is how I learned for years and it was only recently that I started doing a bit more in depth learning.
Also this is how I did Physics and Math. Stefan Forest, a Professor of Physics, in Munich told me this is also how he knew another very great physicist used to learn.
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 Talmud Torah outweighs all the other commandments. תלמוד תורה כנגד כולם}. Sometimes good ideas are used by some groups as consciousness traps and that seems to be the case here. So what I recommend is to learn Torah in a regular Lithuanian yeshiva environment

The Devil has a hard time doing all the dirty work on his own so he set up two groups as his messengers and agents. Doctors to kill people physically and religious teachers to kill people spiritually.  Obviously he was not talking about responsible doctors or people that learn and teach the Oral and Written Law exactly as it says.But I think we can still learn a lot by what he said.


 [I saw similar ideas in the Even Shelema which is quotes from the Gra but I forget where and I don't have the book anymore.]
[In other words,-- the Gra was aware that the Sitra Achra the Dark Side had penetrated into the world of Torah and tried to warn people before the disease spread into teh highest echelons but his warnings have gone unheeded until this very day.]


But so as not to dwell on the negative, let me just say for the record that there were a few people that were religious people  that I have  a great deal of respect for. The Reconstructionist religious teacher,  Roth in Los Angeles that was always there when my family needed him. He bar mitzvaed my brother Keith. And on many other occasions he was there for us. He never tried to cause family problems as the entire religious community did in Los Angeles and in NY.
There were and still are good ones: There is was Reb Shmuel Berenbaum of the Mir in NY and there is Shimon Buso in Netivot. That is to say there are religious teachers that are good and sincere. Pretty much the run of the mill average Litvak who is sitting and learning Torah is good. Just the ones in L.A. are particularly evil for some reason.

The bad religious teachers in general are leaders of cults. Their main targets are young people with middle class parents so they have access to money. They make a song and dance around  young people and make this show about how we are all one happy family. That is how they build their cults. It is supposedly all for Torah, but in the end whom is it that gets all the benefit? It is the religious teachers. These types of religious teachers are all too common and the problem is there is no outcry against them. Anyone who has suffered from them is always blamed. Never the real villains.

There is no good answer for these problems that I am aware of. But we can see why people opt out. All they are looking for is a little love. A little compassion. And can't find it anywhere. The approach of Reb Shmuel Berenbaum when encountering these kinds of problems had only one piece of advice: "Learn Torah." And that seems to me to be the best idea. After all it is the pretense of keeping Torah that is the problem. The psudo Torah. But the authentic Torah is still available for whom ever wants it.

Music for the glory of God

q81 e67 e33 e36 e69  q83 BL m  e43 this might need some editing. g3 e34   b105

e55  s7 G major

How to learn Poskim [legal authorities] --to do the whole Tur with the Beit Yoseph.

How to learn Poskim [legal authorities] --to do the whole Tur with the Beit Yoseph. And after that the Shulchan Aruch of Joseph Karo with the Beer Heiteiv. [There are very few achronim that I think are any good when it comes to almost anything and especially Halacha. The best is the Aruch HaShulchan and the basic school of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop and Rav Shach. ]


A shiur in the Avi Ezri.   The way to do the Avi Ezri is straight from cover to cover.

If you have only an hour to learn, I think the Avi Ezri is the best thing. It is Halacha, and deep learning and shows how to learn in an amazing simple way all together.


[After I wrote the above last night, it occurred to me that I needed to make clear I am talking about learning fast. Just say the words and go on. See Sichot HaRan chapter 76. And also Biyan Olam [a book about learning Torah, that used to be around in yeshivas but I doubt of it is in print anymore.]

The same goes for Rav Shach's book the Avi Ezri. I think the first time around just to say the words and go on. However I am nowadays learning it with my learning partner and we are going slow, but that is because we are using it as a kind of tool for learning in depth.

Lashon Hara about true things. This is an argument between the Rambam and Rabbainu Yona.

So what I wanted to deal with is Lashon Hara about true things.  This is an argument between the Rambam and Rabbainu Yona. To R.Y. it is forbidden only because of the things that will result from it. To the Rambam it is forbidden from its own self except in Beit Din.

The places and people I saw that were successful in learning Torah were always the places that keep this idea of Lashon Hara foremost in their minds.

But I admit I was not able to do this. At some point I saw that my whole world had turned upside down and my very existence was a statement of Lashon Hara about people I thought were good and turned out to be horribly evil. It was not that I did not want to be careful about this. But instead I decided to stick to just one thing--to speak the truth at all costs. I figured that the power of truth would help me through the mess I had gotten myself in.

[I should mention that the worship of tzadikim has gone over the line already. So while we should learn from them, but not worship them. Even if these people would be perfect, still idolatry is idolatry. And all the more so when in fact even a true tzadik has something negative in them. And when one worships him he gets attached to the negative side of the tzadik.]