The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

In this small paragraph I am depending a lot on the analysis of Howard Bloom in The Lucifer Principle and Allen Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind both.


The details are mainly in the book by Allen Bloom about problems with the Enlightenment. But in terms of a solution --the meme-I am thinking of Harold Bloom.

That is I am thinking the solution is in bringing back  a certain kind of Meme--unit of social information.--The Law of Moses.
The Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.


I should mention that there is much in the Catholic Church that I think does not agree with the Oral and Written Law. Still I see the church as an important ally in terms of upholding the Law of Moses.
Whatever brings to the Law of Moses is good as far as I am concerned.

Most of what is called soft science is pseudo science. See the Feynman discussion on utube

This same problem plagues the world of Torah. Anyone with enough Charisma can claim to know Torah. There is no objective test and no checks and balances. Thus it is  a world full of fraud and scams.
You can see why the Rambam included Physics into his conception of what the Oral Law is. Not just because of the objective reality part of מעשה בראשית [the work of  creation] but also to connect to the דעת of God in a objective way.

The connection between the Litvak Yeshiva approach and the family of Yaakov Abuchatzaira

I had some connection with the family of  Yaakov Abuchatzaira. This was mainly through a grandson of Bava Sali, Shimon Buso.
This connection gave me a certain amount of clarity about the importance of Torah--that is the oral and written law and Musar [Musar in the sense of Reb Israel Salanater.] and the general path of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. Or said simply the Lithuanian Musar yeshiva approach.

I  mention this because of the clarity that came to me on these issues through my connection with family of Bava Sali [i.e. Israel Abu-cha-tzei-ra ישראל אבוחצירה]
This is a Sephardi family but this clarity about the Musar Litvak approach was  very clear to them as expressed to me by many years of involvement with this family.

I had in fact been impressed with this path before that. In fact, you could say I really found happiness and fulfillment through the Litvak Musar Yeshiva path.

But not everyone can be in a Litvak yeshiva. So what some people do is they try the "kollel thing" or Beit Midrash [study hall for anyone that wants to learn Torah].

The basic ups and downs about this path- I have written about in other blog entries. But here I wanted to mention this Bava Sali connection because of the clarity it helped me achieve concerning this. That is, -almost all of the issues I have brought upon this blog, I discussed at great length with Shmon Buso, and also had discussion with the daughter of Bava Sali, Avigail Buso.

There is no question that this basic Musar Litvak approach is what Mrs Avigail Buso was thinking as the right approach. I also had some connection with the direct descendants of the older brother of Bava Sali known as עטרת ראשינו. [David Abuchatzira]  Looking back on it there is no question that all held from this basic Litvak Approach. It definitely was not the "sefardi pride" approach of the many Sephardi Jews. It was as Litvak as you could possibly be.

[I would also like to suggest the books of Reb Yaakov Abuchatzeira as an addition to the traditional books Musar.]

 I can still see the need for people to learn morality from the Law of God, (the Five Books of Moses)
. 
I can see that even with learning Torah (the Five Books of Moses), people can be morally challenged, [or sometimes even worse.] But still, as much as the Oral and Written Law that people learn, the better. 



I have seen often people think that belonging to their group makes them righteous. But to me that seems like a mistake. The main thing to me is the Law of Moses, the Oral and Written Law. Not what group one is a part of.


[I have seen enough of the world to show me that without the Torah people are lacking morals. When the whole society is without Torah,  things looks pretty bad. ]

So my basic approach is this people should learn the Old Testament, the two Talmuds, Physics up to and including String Theory, and Aristotle's Metaphysics.
THE WAY for this is to do 1/2 a page per day with Tosphot and Maharsha [i.e. one whole side of a "daf".  ]

The general way I try to learn is by having fresh ground coffee and doing the learning as early as possible in the morning after a good night sleep. It is also important to be motivated. No matter how much energy you have if you do not have desire and will to learn Physics and the Talmud and Musar then nothing can help. You need to have the will. But if that essential ingredient is there, then you need coffee. Fresh ground  in the store. You do not need to cook it. You can mix it with water and and egg and drink it with Russian Halvah.

You also need a good night sleep before hand and as much as possible to guard that first hour when you wake up that it should be for learning alone. Nothing else.

[The basic idea in this is that there is an aspect of holiness that comes into one's soul by means of connecting with God's wisdom as revealed in the work of Creation. So there is the idea of learning Torah which includes the work of Creation and the work of the Divine Chariot as defined by the Rishonim like Ibn Pakuda and the Rambam and the Gaon Saadia. [They were aware of mysticism but held that the command to learn the work of creation and the work of the Divine Chariot did not refer to mysticism.]

Even though there are people in Islam that are not violent many seem to simply be like a Trojan Horse. Salad dressing on top of a poison salad to make it seem tasty.

The French are now under attack by Muslims. The French should not have killed Joan De Arc, nor their last king. The best repentance is bring back Throne and Altar.


My impression is violence is  a direct result of Islam. I do not think this is work place violence. That is I mean to say it is the result of  a certain kind of social meme that gets incorporated inside a persons personality at a certain age. If the social meme is bad, it will result in bad deeds regardless of the inherent disposition of the person.


I have seen this a lot. People can start out with good or bad dispositions, but if they are taught an evil belief system, the belief system will take over.

Thus we see why learning Musar is very important. [Mediaeval Ethics]

The Left really does not like the Second Amendment.  I am not sure why this is? Maybe because it was designed to protect the American people from the American government. We see in the Federalist papers the importance of limiting the government. [The 2nd amendment was made as a limit on government.] I think since the Left sees government as the greatest good, and people as worthless, thus the 2nd Amendment must bother them.

I wanted to mention that I think limited government was foremost in the minds of the founding fathers as the sole way to guarantee freedom. 
They must have taken note that Sparta considered themselves free even though they were not a democracy. {See Herodotus the discussion between Xerxes and the exiled king of Sparta who warned Xerxes what kind of men he was about to encounter at Therma. 1.7 million men against 300 Spartans was simply no match. According to the exiled king of  Sparta, the reason was because the Spartans considered themselves free and would guard that freedom at all cost. And this freedom was not because of loyalty to Sparta, but loyalty to the Law. And the Law required only one thing. Never retreat.} The reason is the government was limited by the fact that each of the two kings and the Ephors limited the power of the other.


1.7 million against each Spartan was 5,670 men against one Spartan.