Some are more subtle. They seize every possible means of seeming kosher in order to hide the central figurine that they worship. But the rituals only serve as a public distraction. Their idolatry is not Jewish in spite of the protests to the contrary.

religious people need some central figure to concentrate upon, something on which to focus their minds. 

Zen Buddhists  say, "If you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately."  If you meet Buddha on the way, kill him immediately, otherwise he will kill you. Don't allow him a single chance, otherwise he will possess you and he will become a central figure. 
That is, religious world gets possessed by an graven image.  An arch type. 

The mind of the religious person wraps itself around this central figure. For  certain kinds of mind, a  central object is needed. This is what the Torah is trying to save us from. 

Some  are more subtle. They seize every possible means of seeming kosher in order to hide the central figurine that they worship. But the rituals only serve as a public distraction. Their idolatry is not Jewish in spite of the protests to the contrary. 


One of my reason for not being involved in the Charedi world is that it has been taken over by idolatry and that seems to me to make the whole thing not kosher. In this regard Reform and conservative Judaism are kosher because they are not doing idolatry nor do they acquiesce to it, nor make excuses for it. They might not be keeping everything that a Jew is obligated to do but they at least are not serving other gods. That makes them a lot more kosher than the religious .

The cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on- sordid shenanigans are not a good advertisement  for their beliefs. I don't reject this tradition in total , nor deny that there is value in it; and indeed a vital implicit message for people which is that meaningless existence  is probably the main problem of the modern world. 

But for all my interest,  that I found the individuals involved to be off-putting. Indeed, among the scores of teachers and authors I encountered -(set aside group members), there were barely a handful I found tolerable as persons or whose lifestyle seemed admirable (in so far as I could discover this): they were and are not an impressive bunch (at least, not to me).This was confirmed by visits spaced out over  years-  areas being the center of all that is the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on; and a places that  had more hyperbolic praise for their special and wonderful atmosphere than perhaps anywhere else.I  believing the legends and stories was intrigued. However --- I found these places and people as at best underwhelming; and  in fact, mostly somewhat unpleasant - with a seedy, fake and slightly sinister feel about them; and (with a few exceptions) a much higher than usual head count of apparently damaged, emotionally-desperate or exploitative, and manipulative  people.

This contrasts with my experience of real working class people and regular Lithuanian Yeshiva type of people, where (without going over the top about it) there are  some very decent and trust-worthy people, the general atmosphere is considerably more wholesome than average, and there is a fair bit of courage, integrity, beauty and a lot more altruism than I myself am capable of. Something to look up to. 

A lot of this boils down to s-e-x (variously  promiscuous, and rape of children) - I strongly suspect that the usual, mainstream secular and materialist motivation of sex is powerfully at work on or just below the surface of the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on spirituality - and there are very few who are exempt. This means that whatever spirituality is on-the-go is - in practice - put into a subordinate place; and the spiritual side really doesn't work as the primary motivator. It would be going too far - but not much too far - to suggest that the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on in real life (as opposed to in theory) seem to operate like a gigantic rationalization for aspiration for sordid shenanigans!  The damage they cause in individual lives is enormous and always denied. They leave trails of broken people and marriages where ever they go. Rape of children is the most common thing that I hear about in every the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on group, but that is not the whole story. It is just a constant underlying factor

It makes sense that exploitation soon follows then. Sex seems to be the most powerful, or most abused, tool in the marketers/profiteers arsenal. The fake  appropriation Torah is a shame. 

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In a university or legitimate Lithuanian yeshivas, the incompetent get weeded  out by competition. It’s only in societies like the ones built by the the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on and other status oriented types that the incompetent become the institution and wind up in positions of unassailable power, locking everyone else down to their piss-poor levels of performance. The main thing for them is the appearance of competence, not actual competence.
The major focus is credentials. The credentials are always given by equally incompetent frauds.
 This is one of the reasons the cult that the Gra signed the  excommunication on societies QUICKLY become hell on Earth. Because you can’t get rid of everyone who is competent without the rest of society collapsing.  

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The way to get clarity is by study of cults. Once you see the claims and practices of your supposedly enlightened groups are the same you gain insight into what is really going on.

Look up the Chafetz Chaim Vol. I chapter 4 for the reasons why I am obligated to make this information public.  Also see Vol I chapter 7 for the בין אדם לחבירו reasons.

I mean to say that there are two very different aspects of Lashon Hara  and each one needs to be dealt with separately before one can publish a statement like this. Obligations between man and his fellow man is one part and obligation between Man and God is the other part. Since the problems are in both areas I have had to make sure I would fulfill all the conditions necessary before I could write the above essay. 

The super-organism is an argument why starting a Lithuanian yeshiva is a good thing.

See the book by Howard Bloom, The Lucifer Principle.  But he was not arguing for  Litvak Yeshiva. but rather for an American kind of Democracy. But I think the argument [I mean building on what he was saying] can be used to support the idea of why it is good to have a Litvak yeshiva around even if you do not learn there or even if you are not religious at all.

My reasoning is simple. Why not learn the Oral and Written Law at home? Well, on one hand certainly that is a good idea. I am not objecting to anyone who wants to  avoid all the hassle and simply buy a few books of the Gemara and learn at home. But you know already what the drawback is. The only way it gets into you is by being in a Lithuanian yeshiva. Even if you are a genius and can learn at home and understand it, still the קנין בנפש-acquiring it into one's soul-does not happen outside of a Litvak Yeshiva. Period.   The reason is obviously because of the super-organism.

And what is the advantage of this? Well, at least two things I can think of off hand. One is Midot [character ]and the other is the Heidegger Dilemma. That last thing is that modern life is meaningless.
 Reason has a limit as Kant noted. It can not venture into unconditioned realities.

The idea here is that you get two advantages by a Litvak Yeshiva. One is improvement in character. The other is it gives a connection with the meaning of life from the realm of good. [As we know people can find the meaning of their lives from the Dark Realm. And I would like to avoid that. So instead I recommend something that gives a connection with the bright, and holy  side of things.]

Jews in the U.S. support left-wing causes not for the causes themselves, but because they see those causes as a way to stick it to the Christian majority.

An excerpt from an essay from this site
This is critique and perhaps it hurts. But the best thing when you hear critique is the first evaluate if it is true, or even if some small part of it is true. And if it is, then to accept it, and to try to work on correcting the situation

Here is the excerpt:

"Jews in the U.S. support left-wing causes not for the causes themselves, but because they see those causes as a way to stick it to the Christian majority. I don’t think most of them do this consciously. But a lot of them equate “white America” with “oppression” and “conformity” and believe the patriarchal white majority is something that needs to be usurped.

This explains why Jews were the architects of feminism and the backers of the ’60s Civil Rights Movement. What better way to screw up Christian families and majority-Christian neighborhoods? This also explains a lot [about] 20th century art. 

Put it all together, and basically it comes down to “how can we destroy the Christians of America?”. Christians — or people who just think Christianity is what helped make America."


That is the basic idea of the critique. There is much to discuss about this problem. The best way to deal with this that I can see is simply to stop endorsing bad stuff when it seems  the things that make them interesting are that they hurt Christians.

Idolatry does not bother anyone unless it happens to be an idol they don't like.

But many Jews were Democrats because Democrats were like Kennedy. No one saw where it was leading to. Now many Jews are going definite Republican and pro traditional Judaic Christian society values.

The reason for the above essay is to address those that are still part of the Anti American Democratic party.

Ideas in Shas

What I am doing in the Gemara is mainly based on how I learned how to learn in Shar Yashuv. In the Mir in NY, Reb Shmuel Berenbaum was largely dealing with what you could call Global Issues. That is how the Gemara in front of you fits in with the rest of Shas. And he would do this based on the regular achronim, Reb Chaim Baruch Ber, R Akiva Eiger etc.

But what I am doing is more like working on the actual calculating the sugia on the page itself. And sometimes I go into how it relates to other sugiot.
The thing about the Mir Yeshiva in Brooklyn was that each of the four Roshei Yeshiva knew Shas very well and almost all of their classes had to do with "global issues"- how the subject on teh page related to other areas in Shas. It was in Far Rockaway that I had gotten the idea that the first step is to work on the subject on the page completely before looking into the issue of how it relates elsewhere.

The original idea of Navardok was trust in God as you can see in the book מדרגת האדם which is really a fantastic book. But after Isaac Blasser discussed with the Alter of Navardok [Joseph Horvitz] the importance of public work, the focus became making yeshivas. "Yeshiva" here means places that learn Talmud all day. That has little to do with modern usage of the term. The modern yeshiva is  a chat factory.
But there are a few notable exceptions which hearken back to the original idea.

I would not bring this up if I did not think there is something very special about this kind of institution. But extreme care must be taken that if one starts such a thing, that it not go off course.

My own experience in yeshiva was remarkable. I mean it was luminous. But for some reason my steps were guided towards authentic yeshivas. For all I know, I could have been guided towards very bad places [cults whose main focus is on the worship of their leader]. [It was the son of Elchanan Wassermann who told me about Shar Yashuv.]

 I was guided towards two very great places. Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. Shar Yashuv is more for beginners and the Mir in NY is for more advanced levels. But both places were prime examples of what a yeshiva ought to be.

But to describe what a yeshiva ought to be is not easy. Mainly I would say it is a link between Reason and Revelation. That is one works on the hard details of what the Torah is telling us by reason. But somehow that reason approaches the Divine. It is a kind of symbiosis between numinous reality and the mind. You can't really say what it is-but you know the instant you walk in the door.

I really have no idea what it takes to make such a place. But I was drawn to authentic places. [Then my own stupidity got me involved in insane cults.] [But the nice thing about being in an authentic yeshiva is that you never, ever forget the taste of the "real thing."]
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Maybe I should hide this fact but here it is anyway. I had an emotional connection with both yeshivas. I was in the kind of dilemma that is described by Heidegger. The emptiness of modern life was oppressing me. When I walked into  a place learning Torah in an authentic way I felt like I could breathe. So I admit there was an emotional component to all this. It was not just intellectual curiosity.

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Just for background information for those that might not know. The major authentic yeshivas today are few. The list is short. Ponovitch, Brisk, Mir in NY, Chaim Berlin in NY, Torah VeDaat in NY.
[Tifrach I have heard good things about, but it is mainly a branch of Ponovitch.]

Hasidic so called "yeshivas" are dens of the Dark Side. The sexual abuse of children is already on police record in Israel. I think that this comes from the origins of the movement. And even non hasidic people  that are aware of this are silent because of the power of the movement. They are afraid of taking it on least they lose their jobs. But constant patterns of behavior shows that the child abuse is not accidental but an integral part of the movement.

Possibly the most consistent argument one is faced with when discussing politically incorrect subjects is the knee-jerkingly reflexive, "You can't generalize like that!" This is usually followed with an anecdote about someone's friend 

Any logical person will soon realize that when discussing macro-issues in regard to society and its trends, not only can you generalize but in fact you must generalize. 

Condensed from here  

I take it that when you see consistent behavior in group that it is obligatory to generalize even though you know there are exceptions.