Western Civilization

Western Civilization is again being invaded by barbarian hordes.

300 Spartans and a certain number of allies [I forgot how many -I think it was about 2000] stopped the Persian invasion of Helles which was close to 3 million men. It happened once. I can happen again.


 It was in fact about one Spartan per 10,000 Persian soldiers. We know the number of Persians because Xerxes made a closure that would contain 10,000 men exactly. and thus he counted his invading army. The amazing thing was a king of Sparta that had been kicked out and was advising  Xerxes told he that his army against 300 Spartans was not even a contest.[In fact the only reason the Spartans finally fell was someone betrayed their flank.]

"No problems without sin."

I realize the path of repentance is far from me. How do I know this? Well two things. One is everything in my life fell apart at a certain point, and we know from the Torah that, "There are no problems without sin." [Even though the book of Job infers differently, still this seems to be the basic approach of the Torah.]


The way that Reb Shmuel Berenbaum [the Rosh Yeshiva of the Mir yeshiva in NY] dealt with almost any problem was this, "Learn Torah."  That was his cure all for every type of difficulty that anyone brought before him. [That went along with his emphasis on not speaking Lashon Hara(slander). See the book, Chafetz Chaim for details. A very important book I might add.]

What seems right about this idea of "Learning Torah"is that, in fact, I think that repentance involves finding a basic set of rules of conduct and sticking with them. Certainly anything that I am doing wrong or have done wrong is mentioned somewhere in Oral and Written Law. In any case, I certainly have not found out what I am doing wrong.

Note: The subject of "No problems without sin" is an argument in the Talmud. But the conclusion is "There is death without sin, but never problems without sin." This comes up in Tractate Shabat.

[Even though I realize I must be far off the mark there are still a number of basic principles I have tried to stick with. Even though I realize they do not really count as true repentance for whatever I have done wrong, still they are I think good ad hoc measures, [i.e. good for the needs of the hour..]
(1) Speak the truth at all cost (2) Learn Torah , the Written and Oral Law (3) Ten Commandments, (4) the Golden Rule [Do unto other as you would have others do unto you.]..

[Some might think religious fanaticism is the answer. What religious fanatic does not think he has the absolute truth? However I never saw any good come from religious fanaticism-never. It just takes people away from the more important aspects of Torah like obligations between man and his fellow man.]

The fundamental idea of pagan religion is everything is Divine

The reason the Gra signed the excommunication was that he was against the idea of representing the Torah as a  pagan religion —

 The fundamental idea of pagan religion is everything is divine and filled with divinity. That the universe is some kind of MetaDivine realm.


Since the Gra saw people teaching this in the name of Torah he thought it would be best to make a clear distinction between Torah and pagan religion.

This obviously was ignored by the religious and so they continue to this day teaching pagan religion in the name of Torah. They get away with this scam because they disguise this in cute little rituals.

The super-organism based on some higher social meme

The super-organism based on some higher social meme-- that is the Howard Bloom formulation. He was thinking of the best model as that of the USA constitution. But as someone mentioned that politics is downstream from religion. So to me the Law of Moses is the best meme. But to Maimonides Torah is downstream from Physics. Physics is downstream from metaphysics.The question then is why would these contain a higher aspect of value? I think with Hegel it is possible to answer this question.
The absolute idea flows into metaphysics and downstream from that is physics etc. but with Hegel alone this would translate into a top to bottom system as communist systems are in fact base on Hegel

What you need to bottom to top feedback as with a Democracy.

The problem in the religious world

The problem in the religious world is every area of value deteriorates into its opposite.
What that means is when art deteriorates it becomes anti art i.e. Picasso, Music becomes anti music. Torah when it falls becomes anti Torah. And that is worse than anti art because anti Torah i.e. force of unholiness the forces of the dark side demonic forces.


The solution to this was found by the sages דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה. Derech Eretz [work and manners] comes before Torah.
Thus the Rambam says that the occupation of learning Physics and Metaphysics is above learning Torah. [This is open in the parable of the king in the state at the end of vol 3 in the Guide for the Perplexed.]
He found in these a higher kind of numinous value than Torah itself.

The simple thing would be to fire all the pseudo teachers--if only people would listen.

s43 A Major

The devotion to Torah in the Litvak world

The Haredi world ought to be divided conceptually into two parts. The Litvak (Lithuanian) yeshiva world which is basically loyal to Torah and try to keep its values. Marriage there tend to have a kind of synergy   because of devotion towards God and his Law. There are however other groups which are strict about rituals but are cults and in fact the marriages are quite abusive in both directions,

The devotion to Torah in the Litvak world tends to raise the marriages towards a transcendent goal.
There is almost nothing in the religious world that I consider kosher at all. To me they all look like cults of idolatry except for the yeshivas like Ponovitch that are clearly into straight Torah. The rest of the haredi world seem to me to be walking mummies. Dead and worshipers of the dead.

Alliances makes  a difference and the yeshiva world made a big mistake in aligning itself with what is the haredi world, They have a lot more in common with the Reform and Conservative who  who also try to keep Torah but with less emphasis  on rituals. But Reform and Conservative certainly do not worship the dead like the rest of the haredi world.

[I  was never part of Ponovitch but the general yeshiva world tended to be alike in this respect to love and devotion towards God and his Law. That is my impression anyway about pretty much anyone I met in that world. They shine with the inner light of Torah. Maybe that is just my subjective observation, but it seems to me to be real. ]

Of course it take some kind of merit to be a part of the authentic Litvak Torah world which I apparently do not have. Maybe the problem is once one walks away from it the door gets locked behind him. Or perhaps some sin causes some kind קלקול corruption in the עולמות העליונים.

In any case the religious world  is different from the yeshiva world and it is basically demon possessed. It makes a good show of keeping Torah but the inner energy is from the dark side. They are always begging money from secular Jews but when someone needs their help they always hurt when able an never help.

I tried to explain this once in some blog post that it is the result of the fact that every areas of value has an opposite area of value. Some the world of Torah when it falls it falls into anti Torah. This is the same with music or art. It it is not a phenomenon that is exclusively in the Torah world.