Letter of law of rituals while doing as much violence as possible to the spirit of the Law.

Hanging around with ugly stupid and insane people must have an effect on one eventually. No one is immune to the group they hang around with.

There are promises of improvement in all kinds of areas. But you never see someone improve in character or in learning. The effect is always negative. The result of coming close and connected with any of the groups is to take  a person that was kind, generous, and smart and make him rude, cruel, and stupid.
The defense that  heard given is that it is like an emergency room. Who comes to an emergency room of a hospital? Only sick people. But I can object to this analogy. People come to an emergency room to get better. Here people come with intention to get better from what is possible to see the get worse.

This can only be known by experience. Their words and writings all seem impressive. The only way to know something is deeply wrong is by observation. So based on the Chafetz Chaim Vol I:4 I have to warn people of the dangers. This is the same reason the Gra put that entire movement into excommunication. The reason is sometimes you need to warn someone of a danger they are walking into unawares.

There are plenty of ugly stories. But I do not need to go into them because everyone has their own experiences. But they choose to ignore the negative aspects because of the entertainment  and emotional value of the movement. It is fun and deep and has luminosity. The only problem is the luminous aspect comes from worship of human beings. It is not Torah. But it is dressed in the garments of Torah in order to entice people.

1. How close one is to God according to the Torah is not dependent on how close they are to a tzadik.
2. "Everything is godliness," is not what the Torah says. That is pantheism. The view of the Torah is Monotheism.
3. The Torah holds everything was created, something from nothing. Not from God's substance. In the Torah, God has no substance.

But these issues are not as obvious as the problem that the books themselves are filled with errors and distortions and promises that they can't keep and promises that they don't keep. That is there is no objective reality behind the promises.

But the thing that bugs me the most is not whether any doctrines are true or not. What bothers me is lying about what the Torah says. If someone wants to disagree with the Torah that is not as bad as disagreeing with it and then claiming that that is what the Torah says. That takes a kind of immunity to truth. And as fascinating as their books are they still filled with errors.


The fault is a kind of lack of concern by people that could have thought about this problem by instead buried their heads in the sand. This shows I think a kind of judgement--as if these issues are irrelevant. It is almost as if the people that did not speak out had some overriding interest to be silent. It can't be there were unaware of the problems. What I think is at least some people are afraid. They don't want to say what they think because of a good reason. They think that some invisible hand might punish them. They are not thinking whether this invisible hand if from the realm of good or the realm of evil. They just don't want to deal with this.


People need to be extremely careful whenever they submit themselves to a religious service. Research has to be done beforehand, for after all, whatever the sect or religion is we are opening our spirits in such places, opening them to all kinds of influences.  The teachers are currently just as damaged and broken as the  people, and so just as we choose our friends carefully, we must also choose our religious guides carefully. (Too many, many false teachers).


In any case this should not be taken as critique on the Baal Shem Tov of Reb Nachman, Heaven forbid. But rather the movement which went into something that the Gra knew was idolatry.

I should mention that the purpose of this blog is to ask hard questions. It is not to win a popularity contest.



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הדבר העיקרי שהוא  לא בסדר עם חסידות הוא העבודה זרה. אבל יש דברים נסתרים שנראים רצינים יותר. זה חייב להיות משהו יותר פנימי. להסתובב עם אנשי טיפשים ומטורפים מכוערים חייב להיות השפעה על אחד בסופו של דבר. אף אחד לא חסין לקבוצה הוא להסתובב בה. ישנם הבטחות של שיפור בכל מיני התחומים. אבל אתה אף פעם לא רואה מישהו משתפר במידות או בלמידה. התוצאה היא תמיד שלילית. התוצאה של מתקרבים ומחוברים עם כל אחת מן הקבוצות היא לקחת אותו אדם שהיה נדיב  ולגרום לו גסות, וטיפשות. ההגנה  הנתונה היא שזה כמו חדר מיון. מי מגיע לחדר מיון של בית החולים? רק אנשים חולים. אבל  האנלוגיה הזו לא מדוייקת. אנשים באים לחדר מיון כדי להשתפר. כאן אנשים באים עם כוונה להשתפר והמצב מחמיר. זה יכול להיות ידוע רק על ידי ניסיון. המילות שלהם וכתביהם  נראים מרשימים. הדרך היחידה לדעת משהו הוא  לא בסדר היא על ידי נסיון. לדברי חפץ החיים מחוייבים להזהיר אנשים מפני הסכנות. זהו מאותה סיבה שהגר''א שם התנועה כולה לתוך נידוי וכרם. הסיבה היא  אתה צריך להזהיר מישהו של סכנה שהם הולכים לתוכה במפתיע.

 כמה קרוב אחד הוא לאלוהים על פי התורה אינו תלוי  בכמה הוא קרוב לצדיק. "הכל אלוקות," הוא לא מה שהתורה אומרת. כלומר הפנתאיזם. ההשקפה של התורה היא המונותאיזם. התורה מחזיקה הכל נברא, יש מאין. לא מן החומר של אלוהים. בתורה, אלוהים אין בו חומר. אפילו חומר רוחני

The 10,000 hour rule.

The 10,000 hour rule. That is to gain expertise in any subject one needs 10,00 hours.

{This rule I saw on some blog.}

When I think about it I can see this is right. You have the normal four year program in a Lithuanian yeshiva. That means 10 hours per day at minimum of learning Torah. 10* 365*4 minus Friday and Shabat.

But I wanted to add the idea of critical mass. That is the hours can't be spread apart too far. That is it is not the same thing doing 10 hours per day four years in yeshiva as doing a few hours per day over a longer period of time. [Critical mass is the idea that not just you need a certain amount of mass but that the mass needs to be close together.]

Mirrer Yeshiva in NY

I never knew Avraham Kalmanovitch. I was aware the last time I was in Israel that someone had started a yeshiva on his name. The grandchildren of David Abuchatzaira [the older bother of Bava Sali] go there.

I think it takes something very special to create a real authentic yeshiva.

There was some really amazing energy in both the Mirrer Yeshiva in NY that he founded and also the first yeshiva I went to in Far Rockaway.

I don't know what it takes to do that but I guess that it is not visible or obvious. I have seen an incredible amount of yeshivas that just don't have that spirit. The Hasidic yeshivas I have seen are cults based on the worship of their leader. Other places are a little better  because they are not idol worshipers. But the places were built in order to get the piece of paper that would say they don't need to serve in the Army. Other places are more into money. The Rosh Yeshiva was a grocery store owner that went out of businesses and so decided to open a kollel. In Israel that was simple to do with just three names and ID numbers and you would get an automatic government stipend.


I should mention the reason to put the above paragraphs here come from the Chafetz Chaim, Volume I chapter 4. It is the same reason that you warn you children not to play with a bad kid. You need to watch out to protect him from bad influences.

Gravitational waves exist.

Gravitational waves exist. One hundred years after Einstein's General Relativity paper they were discovered.

Music for the glory of God [i added these in midi for anyone who wants to print the notes]

a song for Godr1  [r1in midi format] [r1 nwc]   n98 [n98 in midi format]  n98 nwc n97 [n97 in midi]  n96 [n96 in midi] n96 nwc n95 [n95 in midi] n94 [n94 in midi]  n92 [n97 in midi] [n97 I see was not finished.]

n75  [n75 in midi]

What causes the generation gap.

What causes the generation gap. From what I can see it is the saying of grotesque falsehoods. This is usually done to advance some cause of the adults or protect their self image. Or to advance some cause.
This is sometimes on a large scale. A whole generation teaches lies to the young.  The results will be that the young will rebel once they find out they have been lied to. 

There are two aspects to this:
(1) If you are telling and teaching a certain religious tradition then to do so accurately. Do your homework.

(2) Don't lie to protect that tradition. If there are problems with it then don't hide them or make excuses.

panenthism

  This doctrine, "God is everything" did not originate with the Besht. It is true that the verse of the Torah ["You were shown to know that The Lord is God, there are no gods besides Him."] is explained to support this belief. But the practice and goal of union with the God that created all and permeates all and is All appears in the Upanishads [the final sections of the four Vedas written 1000-500 B.C.E.]
  The first one to make Yoga into a coherent unified system was Patanjali [circa 200 B.C.E. during the time of the Second Temple].
  "Yoga" means "union", i.e. union of the finite transitory self with the infinite "Atman" or "Brahman" [eternal infinite self].
In Yoga-Vedanta philosophy there is one true God that is invisible, imminent, transcendent that created everything. The name the Hindus give to this God is Brahman.
All creation is composed of the substance of Brahman.

  This is not traditional Torah. In the theology of the First authorities (Rishonim - Medieval sages), God is everywhere but separate. The world and God are not one. The world is not made of Divine Substance. It is made from nothing. In Torah thought God has no substance at all. So things are not made from his substance.
Creation ex-nihlo is the view and philosophy and emphasis of the Torah as explained by the Rambam and other Rishonim [authorities of Torah of the Middle Ages]. This is very, very different than the views of Breslov Hasidut or any other Hasidut one that I am aware of.
Modern day Breslov is an attempt to beat Hindu Yoga-Vedanta at their own game. It is not Torah.


Changing the essence and meaning of Torah as defined by the Rambam and the Geonim bothers me.

The "contraction" is described in detail by the Ari. At first, the light of God was everywhere. So there was no place for creation. So he contracted his light and made an empty space like a sphere. [There was also a point of light left in the center of the space.] He then sent His light down through one opening and the light went down a bit and then started curving around and became the first sub sphere (called Keter) in the larger sphere. This happened ten times. This does not imply things are Godliness. 
 The question is not the tzimtzum but the light. And the light is "created light" as stated by the Sefer Yetzira and brought down by the  Ari.



) In panenthism God also transcends the World, and so is not equal to the world. Rather he contains it.
See for example: Lekutim Yekarim from Pinchas of Koretz Parshat Veetchanan: "There is nothing in the world but the Holy One Blessed be He." (This is a later book. It is not from the original books of R. Pinchas.)
Ben Porat [page 126] from R. Yaakov Yoseph brings one story from the Besht that he said "There is no place empty of God." Later the same story in Heichal Bracha (from  of Kamarna) got expanded into him saying, "There is no existence besides him."


) The Ari said [from the Zohar] that the sepherot of Azilut (Emanation) are Godliness. After that i.e. the sepherot of creation, formation, and the physical universe are not Godliness. (Eitz Chayim Heichal 1, Shar 3, chapter 3). [The Zohar says in Emanation alone, the vessels and light are Godliness. After Emanation just the light is Godliness not the vessels.]
This is independent of the "Contraction" question. But concerning the contraction the Arizal wrote, "He contracted Himself." (Eitz Chayim 1:2:2; 1:2:3; 1:2:4) [Not "his light".]

Books of the cult under the excommunication of the Gra  defend the doctrine of panentheism, by going to the zimzum. But in fact it does not help much. Even if it was not complete, things still don't have to be Godliness.]

The appeal of cult under the excommunication of the Gra is entertainment,  emotional value, not truth value. 

The Nefesh Hachaim does say that realizing there are no powers in the world besides God is important. That is not the same as pantheism. That means the world is under the control of God alone.

Nature certainly becomes the stage of God's expression of his will. He expresses his will and purpose through forces of nature in the Torah. But nature isn't God himself. He's not identified with it. He's wholly other. He isn't kin to humans in any way either. So there is no blurring, no soft boundary between humans and the divine, Thus worship of  a tzadik is contrary to Torah.