The Cold War

There were more than a few incidents in which individual soviet soldiers decided not to launch a nuclear strike against the USA, though the circumstances warranted it. I think there were occasions in which the officer involved was demoted.

There also was caution on the side of the USA. President Eisenhower was being urged to launch a nuclear strike against the USSR by the Secretary of the Navy, but instead decided to begin the U-2 program to see what the Soviets were up to. That showed him that, in fact, the Russian were not preparing any kind of invasion or launching of missiles. My Dad was the leader of one the teams that developed the cameras for the U-2.


The other incident in which the officer was ordered to launch missiles against the USA if he saw a missile launch against the USSR, and he decided not to launch. He was demoted. (He had seen only one missile on the screen, and decided it was a computer glitch. He though if the USA wanted to attack why would they launch just one missile?

S18 A Minor

s-18 A minor

massive welfare for blacks

My learning partner said the problem in the USA  is virtue signaling. That is it is considered good to show compassion therefore the middle class largely voted for massive welfare for blacks because voting for compassion makes them feel good. And the costs were thought to be distributed among a lot of people. So voting in such a way did not directly hurt the person voting immediately.

A positive aspect of Christianity

The positive aspect of Christianity is that Jesus was basically saying the same thing as Reb Israel Salanter.-that the main thing the Torah wants is love and fear of God and good character traits. That is what is called בין אדם לחבירו.
There is another advantage that they are based on and model it on the words and actions of  a true righteous person--that is Jesus himself. [This fact I would not have known outside of learning Avraham Abulafia, a medieval mystic. Recently all his books were printed, but I had to go through the microfilms to discover this fact.]
The negative aspect is they deify  a person.

That is to say I accept that following a truly righteous person helps one to be right with God. And that without a good example it is almost impossible to be righteous on one's own.
It is human nature to need a good example to follow--not just good words.

Not only that but if you weigh these two aspects I think the fact of following a righteous person outweighs the negative aspect of deifying that person.

Still that does not mean that deifying a person is good. Rather it is idolatry.. Still what you see in Torah is that compassion and  kindness outweighs the sin of idolatry. For example you see this in the first chapter of אור צפון which is the collected talks of the Rosh Yeshiva of Slobadka. You see this also in the Talmud itself in terms of the generation of Achav when God ignored the sin of idolatry because they practiced loving kindness one with the other. But He was strict with the generation of the destruction of the second temple because even through they had Torah and Mitzvot still they did not practice loving kindness.

That being said -it is better just to sit a learn Torah, Gemara and Musar. If all that is too much,  then just Musar.

[What brought this on is I see people  are seeing communism does not work, Capitalism has big drawbacks. religions tend to be problematic. Since people are seeking the truth I have here set down my basic idea of what truth is as best as I can see. That is Musar is how I see things. That is I think correction of bad character and fear and love of God are the main things to concentrate on.

[I should mention that Avraham Abulafia is brought down by Chaim Vital in the last volume of his Musar book Shaari Kedusha. Also Professor Moshe Idel has done a lot of research on him. The PhD thesis of Moshe Idel was on A. Abulafia. The actual printed books I only saw after I had done as much work on that sugia as I cared to do. Nowadays you could probably order the entire set in the USA. ]


The two negative aspects of Christianity are nullification of the mitzvot and worship of Jesus, however these are aspects only of Pauline Christianity, not Peterine Christianity as has been well known for at least 150 years since the Clementine documents have been known about.

[Books of Mediaeval Ethics]

In my own approach to Musar [Books of Mediaeval Ethics] I have tried to go more with the Rambam than in the other approaches.

As is well known every school of Musar had a different emphasis. My own approach is to take the idea of Isaac Blasser [the first and foremost disciple of Israel Salanter] that the main thing to emphasize is fear of God. But to get to fear of God I would take the idea of the Rambam of learning Physics and Metaphysics.
This I know is a departure from the traditional schools of Musar.
Most of them were against secular studies completely to the degree that they ignored the fact that the very books the Musar movement was founded on take the approach of the Rambam.
Still I realize that there are different schools of thought in the movement and I do not want to imply any of them were wrong. I can see the amazing effect of going to any Musar Yeshiva has on most people (except the Mashgiach himself who is suppose to be teaching it.)

I think that with in mind that every human enterprise has the flaw of being run by humans, still the Musar movement deserves consideration.
I see other ideas that have been suggested to help either individuals or larger groups. Most of the ideas come under the group heading of religions of political structures.

No one that I have seen emphasizes Musar on a global scale. And that is sad because I can see how it could help almost anywhere.


The Renaissance was caused by a return to the the ideas and writings of Ancient Athens and Rome. By taking of what was great from them it surpassed them in many ways. I also have seen the Middle Ages as having elements of greatness that the modern age lacks completely..
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Though Musar is founded on specific books the basic idea is universally applicable. That is the main thing is to work on one's מידות character traits and the way to do that is by learning books from the Middle Ages that emphasized that and explained it. For books like this have a background that is religious but the emphasis is on character.

stress and religious fanatics

Damage to the hippocampus seems to aggravate normal religious behavior and make it obsessive.
What causes this kind of damage? Glucocorticoids that are caused by stress.

What that means is do not spend time with jerks and a stressful crowd. That is to say they hurt not just your subjective feelings, but also your biology and that causes damage to your hippocampus and that over time will causes different types of mental problems.
It is part of the rule not to do things which damage your physical health.

There is no obligation to go to  any kind of religious gathering that is filled with jerks.

Reb Israel Salanter

I see most of the world is far from the Musar approach.
[That is the idea that to gain good character is by learning Musar (Ethics of the Middle Ages).]





That is sad because I see a lot of other approaches and systems being tried.  Israel Salanter's the original idea was that the main aspects of Torah are good character, Fear of God and Trust in God. Many other systems are being tried --the USA Constitution, communism etc. Personally I see that Reb Israel Salanter was right. That the main thing about Torah is character and the way to gain good character is by learning Musar.
[That is-- some think the fundamental aspects of religion are rituals, and meta-magical thinking, and a  shaman or guru.  Israel Salanter saw that Torah is something else entirely. It is about being a mensch.]



If possible I would like to suggest this approach on a wide scale. That is I suggest the ideas of Reb Israel are universally applicable. To everyone for all time.
That is the main thing is to have good character and the way to gain that is by learning works of Ethics of the Middle Ages.  People with different aspects of character that need correcting might try different books. The main set is well known. That is Obligations of the Heart and others.