repentance on character flaws?

Do you have to do repentance on character flaws? I claim you do. In other words you need to correct more that just bad deeds but to get the core of bad deeds in one's very attitudes and character. This was the whole-point of Reb Israel Salanter's Musar (Ethics) movement and the Boy Scouts both.

The Boy Scouts was in order to teach good character by means of outdoor skills. The actual intention of the movement was as far as I know to actually teach good character. But that is something that needs to be learned through practice and working together with others. It can't be learned in a vacuum.
That movement has fallen into the Dark Side but the original intention is admirable and ought to be resurrected.

The Musar (Ethics) movement was intending to teach both good character and also Fear of God in a more direct fashion--learning the actual texts many hours every day until the ideas become ingrained. This idea also fell completely and no one does this anymore.
But here just like with the Boy Scouts the original idea was sound and good and ought to be resurrected.
In fact I  suggest both together. Learning Musar (Ethics) while camping in the wilderness.

Further I claim all external problems people have are a reflection of internal problems. personality flaws.  Not that the external problems are not real. They are real but they are an epi-phenomenon of an internal problem.
So when learning good character by outdoor activity one is also correcting internal flaws.

abuse of religious authority.

In your own personal experience, what was an incredible abuse of power you have ever witnessed?
In my experience it has been abuse of religious authority.
There is no name for this but the basic idea is that people believe some authority who uses his authority not to teach what he is supposed to but rather for criminal  and non moral purposes.
This is kind of related to what you see in cults but not exactly.

Practice of Torah has nothing to do with the religious world.

Practice of Torah has nothing to do with the religious world. These are two exact opposites.

This is obvious to anyone with an experience. That is to say the principles are opposed one to the other.

One is to concentrate on Jewish rituals in order to get secular Jews to give them money. That is the basic meme of the religious world.
The essence of practice of Torah on the other hand is modesty--to serve God privately without public display and to be self sufficient   and to work on one's character trait and keep the commandments.
For example, "Thou shalt not bear false witness. Thou shalt not steal, etc." The polar opposite of the religious world.

Just to be fair, I have to exclude from this critique authentic Lithuanian yeshivas and their surrounding communities that do make an effort to keep Torah sincerely as it says, and not from any alternative motivations.

[There was in fact an incident with a group of followers of Rav Nahman of Breslov. They were living in a different city, and in that city the rav was against Rav Nahman. There was at the time some questions about Halacha [Law]. Rav Nahman told them, what ever that rav says is teh law, be sure to do just teh opposite. And in fact what ever law that rav said , the followers of Rav Nahman opened up the Shulchan Aruch of Rav Joseph Karo and saw that the exact opposite of what that rav said is the true law. This incident can be taken as an archetype. What ever the religious say is the law of the Torah, in all likelihood if you open up the Shulchan Aruch you will in general see the exact opposite. 

Ideas in  Tractate Bava Metzia chapter 8+9   [Ideas in TALMUD]

[These are two different books. The one on Bava Mezia is only on ch.s 8 and 9. The one on Talmud is on general areas of Talmud]

r57 g minor mp3 r57 in midi   r57 nwc

[marriage ideas]

Yeshiva [beit midrash] starts at 18 years old. The emphasis is at that point to start thinking about shiduchim [marriage ideas]. In the USA it was expected to marry sometime during the first four years --from 18-22. The idea was to be supported by one's parents or in laws for a few years after that until some viable other form vocation becomes available.
This seems to me to be the best idea and applicable to everyone. Even for people in STEM.

A lot depends on the kind of institution one is in. People depend a lot on their immediate environment for their attitudes towards life.

Kant and Hegel

The ground of knowledge is in the long run intuitive. It is almost the same kind of thing as intellectual intuition.


 neither the subject nor the object is primary. Neither causes the other. Both need a Ground--the subject itself.
For Hegel, the ground is the Subject. 

For both this is the privileged position. The bird's eye view. I have difficulty seeing how any of this is all that different from neo-Platonic thought with the Logos Mind having the privileged position.
And I should mention this is not God as the Rambam already made clear. He knows there is a kind of internal spiritual principle in the Universe a kind of Gaia spirit. But that is not God and worship of it is idolatry.