There is a kind of effort in the Lithuanian yeshiva world to minimize the effects of cults.

There is a certain amount of policing to keep out the hasidic  nuts. That aspect to the people that have been kept out is hurtful, yet they seem to lack the self awareness that they might have been carrying a hidden virus with them--a Trojan horse. But on the other hand the whole thing became a gigantic self serving bureaucracy.  So to learn authentic Torah can be a challenge. The best idea I can come up with is private learning at home. Every day to have a session in Talmud, Musar, and what is called Hashkafa "world view" by which I mean the any of the books of the Rishonim concerning Jewish Philosophy, and to avoid rigorously pseudo Torah.

In fact that last step of avoiding pseudo Torah and cults is probably more important than  the first.

Next on can try to identify places where there is an authentic spirit of Torah and support them and even perhaps try to lend  a hand in building up such places.


Just because most people are unaware of it let me say over the basic list of what counts as legitimate Haskafa: Saadia Gaon's Emunot VeDeot, Rambam's Guide, Crescas, Joseph Albo, Ibn Gavirol,Abarbenal {actually Abravenal in Spanish}, the father and son. Isaac Abravenal and Yehuda

If all this seems a bit hard to relate to, then as an introduction: the  best things are the Chafetz Chaim and Shimshon Rafael Hirsh.

Appendix: Litvaks do not know it but what is a cult? It is an archetype. The leader get absorbed into a certain  archetype. That gives him amazing powers from the sitra achra. People are drawn to him like a magnet. But the archetype is a level lower than human, not higher. It is a lower order of being.
This explains the reason the Gra put that group into excommunication. The trouble is that it is infectious. It is like the Toxo parasite. It takes over the mind.

The question is in Avot. One who learns to teach is given to learn and teach. One who learns to do is given to learn teach and do.

I think that mishna is hard to understand.  I can see the advantage of teaching Torah and also of doing. From what I remember the Gra brings a source for that mishna that might explain it. My thought is Torah has to be learned in order to do it. But what if one has sinned and caused others to sin? Then one needs to do and to learn and teach also. I am not saying this explains that mishna.. I will have to think about that mishna.

 It is connected with the mishna that anyone who is מחטיא את הרבים אין מספיקים בידו לעשות תשובה. anyone who causes the many to sin is not let to do teshuva (repentance). I was surprised to see some books of Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] that I respect bring this down. The first place was in the חובות לבבות. And then Reb Israel Salanter in his letter of Musar and then in the Madregat HaAdam by Joseph Horvitz from Navardok. They all bring down this problem that once one has sinned and caused others to do so he can not do repentance. But then they give a solution to the problem.  המזכה את הרבים To bring merit to many. This seems to me to be very important. It is giving a solution to a problem which seems in solvable. If one can not repent on his sins what hope is there for him? But then they bring this mishna that if one brings merit to the many that serves as a way out of the problem. I think Bava Sali must have been thinking along these lines also. He was once saying words of Torah and it was after the time for the generators to go off line. People were getting ready to leave the hall. He said, "As long as words of Torah are said here, the lights will not go out." And that is what happened. Thus, I see teaching Torah as a way to come to keep Torah.

What is the kernel of what I am saying is that I think that sins stops one from seeing the light. They cause one to  lose the way, and think evil is good, and good is evil. Thus, after one has sinned, and especially caused others to sin, it is virtually impossible to repent. Because if he tries to repent while thinking what is evil is really good,- then all the more he repents, all the more sin he will be doing.

The best advice is thus to learn Torah, with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and Chidushei  HaRambam of Reb Chaim from Brisk in order to get an idea of how to understand any given law in the Torah.

toxo and marx  (Stanford)

Can a virus take over your mind? How much of what we think is because we want to and how much because some parasite in us wants us to think it? It can make a mouse be attracted to a cat. What else it out there --or inside of us-making us think and act in ways that cause our demise?

 How can you know what is abnormal if you do not know know what is normal?


Howard Bloom thinks of the same kind of idea in terms of a meme a unit of social information that seeks to perpetuate itself via a host like a human being. But could it be biological? Just some hidden pathogen or parasite that gets contracted by contact with other infected people.

Hasidim could be understood in this light. A kind of parasite on the body on Torah redirecting it towards its own destruction.

So the question is this:

Toxoplasmosis and the social meme? Is there a connection?

There is a barnacle that rides on the back of  a crab that injects a hormone into a male crab that causes teh male crab to act like a female. It then digs a hole for its eggs. But it has no eggs. But the barnacle sure does!! How much of our behavior and thoughts are  directed some hidden parasite like hasidim that need a host? 

This goes back to what the Torah means. The Torah has a basic meme. That is Monotheism. That God made the world something from nothing and He is not the world and the world is not Him. This is the background worldview of the Torah. This was so obvious that it did not need to be expressed until Saadia Gaon and later the Rambam. But this meme can be lied about. Hasidim deceive concerning the meaning of Torah. They can do so because sentences express abstract features, but these are always in a context of other abstract features (a network)
Torah has a basic meaning and every verse in Torah also. The meaning depends on the background and network. Thus worship of tzadikim is not defined by what anyone wants. Idolatry in the Torah has a specific meaning that depends on the entire network and context.

Sharia

I think from what I understood from talking with the son of a sheikh for hours over several years that Islam does recommend to people to make war on the infidel and that that is considered justified--not just in the book and in Sharia but in actual practice. In fact, it was  a common occurrence in Israel to have some Muslim just walk up to someone with a kitchen knife and kill them. This happened daily at least once per day in one city or the other during the 80's and 90's.This was so common that it was not reported even in Israeli newspapers, much less international news. When bus bombings happened (usually once per week) the media always downplayed it as an "obstacle to peace."

The way to understand this is by Carl Jung. The collective unconscious. It is not known to most people--that this comes from Kant's dinge an sich.

I mean to say we have with Kant the "self." This idea of Kant is sadly under-treated in Allen Bloom's book, The Closing of the American Mind. -Because Bloom himself tilted towards Hegel. Otherwise his treatment of the self is a masterpiece. [It is somewhere in the middle of the book. I forget where..]
But Kant's self is a ding an sich a thing in itself whose essence is hidden from us. This became in the hands of Nietzsche the "Id" that s more well known. But what I am suggesting is that is this the source of Jung's collective unconscious which is similarly hidden from view but motivates all the important actions of any people or nation.

An article about Black anger towards white people


This is explained clearly in Howard Bloom books about the power of the meme. People get a certain meme inside them and it stays there. If people get it hardwired in them that the White person is teh cause of all their troubles this idea will not be defeated by contrary evidence. I think further that this has something to do with Kant's dinge an sich. I think it is a kind of collective consciousness type of thing.

 What does it mean to "know how to learn?" This is hard to say. When I was in Shar Yashuv in NY the rosh yeshiva told me that I would know how to learn within a  year or two years. I forget which. To some degree that happened because of a combination of factors. First I was doing the work. Next is after I would do the work I went up to Naphtali Yeager with what I thought was a good question. And before I could ask the question he would have me recite the entire Tosphot [in my own words] to see if I understood what Tosphot was saying. While doing so often something would feel a bit out of place. There would be some extra word in Tosphot that one would normally look over and go on. But then Reb Naphtali would show me the deeper questions that Tosphot was meaning to ask there. 

So the question of how to introduce one to the concept of knowing how to learn has come up. I wrote a small essay on this. But in short the best thing is to get an Avi Ezri of Rav Shach and by that to see how to learn. In the meantime you do not have that you might just take a page of Gemara with Rashi and Tosphot  with the Maharsha and try to do some  work. 

This is just the short and simple of it. But if possible I suggest getting the entire set of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, Baruch Ber, Shimon Shkop, Rav Shach and Naphtali Troup and plow through them word by word.
[I mean you do have to learn the Gemara that their essay is written on, and look up the Rambam and what ever else they are bringing up in their essay.


OK I have gone over the mechanics of it. But what does it mean? It means you cant know the law unless you know the source of the law and its context and the entire framework from where it comes.
The law is an abstraction and as such can mean almost anything anyone wants it to mean anytime unless it is understood as part of a network. Thus memorizing the whole Shas , being able to recite a law by heart is less than meaningless. It is negative. It gives the false impression of knowing a law of the Torah when in fact shows no understanding at all.

But memorizing laws is what most people are impressed with. They have not the foggiest idea of what it really means to know how to learn. Even if the person knows what the law means it still is nothing because without knowing the Background and context he has no idea of how it applies. 

Change can come by small sparks. The fall of the USSR was unexpected by most people. Maybe no one at all saw it coming.  But sudden change usually come by some pressure buildup. When people get frustrated enough with hypocritical religious teachers especially that destroy families while building up their own,-- they will react.
 But change can go in different ways. My suggestion is to get back to authentic Torah. Gemara Rashi Tosphot. But this can only come by recognizing that the rot of the religious teachers came not from Torah, but by impersonation and deceit.

The reason for this state of affairs is difficult to know. But there is still the Noah;s ark of genuine Lithuanian yeshivas. Few and far between though they may be.  So when I suggest coming to authentic Torah I mean to say to also get rid of the charlatans. And make it clear the charlatans do not represent Torah.