Faith, Reason, and the Constitution of the USA

I think the Constitution would work if faith had been strong. Faith and reason seems to have been the working formula of the Middle Ages and I think it worked well. Two things worked against this. The constant attacks on faith causes it to weaken, plus that fanatical faith which opened Protestants to the Dark Side. Also the Constitution was never meant to be workable except for a certain kind of people--people that believed in the Bible. Most of it was modeled on the  Fundamental Constitutions  of Carolina written by John Locke and there there was a requirement to be part of a church --any church. Plus, John Locke saw the danger of Islam and said openly not to let any of them in (in his Two Treaties).

I think this is a very significant election because it will determine if the American Republic can survive, or will be washed away by barbarian hordes.   And if America falls to the barbarians, that is the end of Western Civilization.


 I did not go much into John Locke but I do think his approach is right but with a kind of modification based on Kant. Kant and Locke have a lot in common but to defend Locke one would need the ideas of Kant.



Habermas  also noted that John Locke needs "retuning." But he did not suggest anything. My suggestion is to go with Kant. Habermas himself just mentioned this in his critique on Rawl's theory of justice.

  Still John Locke needs reworking from the standpoint of Kant. Kelley Ross has already done work in that direction. But for my part I just want to say that John Locke and Kant do have a point of agreement. That is to say: what is the main question on John Locke? It is that it looks like his political are ideas is based on his empirical viewpoint. The defense is that first of all John Locke's political ideas work even better in the framework of Kant--the self being the ding an sich. And besides that Kant defends empirical-ism from the aspect of phenomenon anyway. It is only wrong if you assume all knowledge has to come from empirical means

Sin

To some degree, I feel like I ought to repent on my sins. What brings me to that conclusion is the fact that things get more and more מצומצם constricted. That is at what the Talmud says "אין יסורים בלא עוון" [''There are no troubles without sin.'']
That is.--  sin might not be the cause of the trouble - but if there was not a sin, then the trouble could not reach the person.

So when I try to consider my own sins, it occurs to me the main thing seems be things along the lines of  not appreciating what I had. For example-- my parents, the Mirrer yeshiva in NY, Eretz Israel, the אור אין סוף, learning Gemara etc. I mean I do not think the lack of appreciation is as serious as the lack of continuing in the good things that I could have reasonably been expected to continue in.

This of course is not news. 

However the reason I bring this up is that this idea gives a way to judge others on the scales of merit. For after all what is a wicked person? It does not matter if their wickedness comes from their accepting a social meme from their parents or environment or free will. The fact of their being wicked comes from a simple thing--doing less than what they could reasonably have been expected to do and understand. Therefore even the most wicked people in the world are really not all that different from me.

I had an idea of repenting on my sins a few years back. I think it was, in fact, four years ago. The idea I came up with then was to learn Musar [Ethical books from the Middle Ages.] I am not sure if that helped much. And it did not last long. Still it seems to me to be the best thing that I can figure out. One advantage of Musar I think is that there are lots of things that at one time I considered to be great mitzvas and later understood they were terrible sins. The basic books of Musar from the middle ages are about as straight and simple as  possible in explaining simply what God does and does not require based on the Law of Moses. So there is less leeway for mistakes. It is straight Torah. It is different from what came later which tend to be not very well thought out religious fanaticism. 

miracles from the Dark Side.

Some people would object to  this but I have found it helpful for me to get perspective on cult goings on in the Jewish world by looking at parallel movements in the wider world. I think noticed someone mention this concerning people involved in Eastern cults.

Professor Moshe Idel coined the term ecstatic Kabalah but in essence this does not do justice the the phenomenon. Straight Torah can lead to genuine mystic experience I think. But mystics even from the middle ages do not seem to have powers any different than Hindu gurus. As I said it is helpful to do some comparing of the cult you are in with other cults that make the exact same claims and have the same miracles from the Dark Side.

to review forty days in a row

My basic approach to Torah has become a kind of forty days in a row kind of approach. That is to take one crucial area and to review it forty days in a row. This seems to work for me. I did this with difficult Tosphot and with a  few chapters of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik's Chidushei HaRambam. 

But I do not think this takes the place of בקיאות (or fast learning) in which one just says the words and goes on.

It is a good idea to have a kind of Beit Midrash [[study hall]]kind of situation --a place where one can go to learn Torah without distractions in order to be able to get through the entire Written and Oral Law at least once during one's lifetime.
That is the Old Testament, the Gemara Rashi Tosphot Maharsha and Maharam from Lublin, and the Yerushalmi with the Pnei Moshe.  

This is what in fact was the functioning yeshiva in Eastern Europe. It was simply the local synagogue which after the prayers in the morning the teenagers would stay and learn Torah the whole day until they got married. [Reb Chaim from Voloshin changed that to make yeshivas into private institutions in order not to have them subject to the local authorities.]
The problems that Reb Chaim had to deal with are well known when a synagogue and beit midrash [study hall] are mixed. There is constant tension.  The trouble is the making of yeshivas as separate private institutions got its own set of problems. Instead of solving the problems it just created a new set.

My basic impression is that yeshivas of the type that I went to are great places--the is the normal Lithuanian type of Musar Yeshiva. The best examples are the NY's Mir and Chaim Berlin-- and Ponovitch in Bnei Brak. 

[I am not sure how this could for people far from authentic Lithuanian kinds of places. Most yeshivas sadly are pseudo yeshivas. I would not step foot in most of them. It is like, "If you don't have water to drink, would you drink poison instead?"]

Allen Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind.

Mirans • an hour ago

Take a step back, forget about the lurid details and look at the big picture. We are now living in the gray area between republic and tyranny. It could be defined as the tyranny of the masses, otherwise known as democracy. If more than 50% of the population does not care if their rulers are gangsters and pedophiles it means that the Constitution and more generally the rule of law is invalidated. If Hillary wins there's nothing to prevent her from purging the FBI, the NYPD and any other law enforcement agency that stands in her way. When the rule of law Is replaced by the "over 50%" rule any revelations, no matter how outrageous, get drowned in the general apathy, indifference and even downright hostility of people who don't want to be taken out of their comfort zone. When democracy self destructs it will be replaced either by a republic or by tyranny.

Avraham rosenblum  Mirans • 36 minutes ago

That was argued by Brett Stevens in his blog Amerika. I however still hold the Constitution of the USA is possible to salvage if Trump is elected.

Mirans to  Avraham rosenblum • 25 minutes ago

I agree, but only if there's a complete government overhaul, a radical change in the immigration process and the education system and a drastic reduction in the power of government agencies that are not bound by the Constitution. The problem is not just the Clintons, it is that there are too many people that have made compromises.

donnieboy64  Avraham rosenblum • an hour ago

we are way beyond that. within two years there won't even be a border between america and mexico. within eight years the two nations will most likely be one.

Avraham rosenblum  Mirans • 5 minutes ago

That was the point of Allen Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind. The thesis of the book was the conflict between the Enlightenment and Anti Enlightenment--concerning political systems and his answer focused on American education! It is a subtle point and easy to miss.

At the very end he was recommending the Republic of Plato. My own approach is based on the Oral and Written Law of Moses. But in any case to get education back to classics was I think his idea of a possible solution.

I still hold by this reason and faith approach from my end which means the Rambam's approach. [i.e the Oral and written Law plus Physics and Metaphysics] And Christians could try the same from their end with Aquinas. I still believe that good education and gaining good character can go a long way. That is if everyone does their part then the USA can be salvaged.

That is an approach I learned from Shmuel Berenbaum. When he encountered human problems his answer was to :"Learn Torah". In the context of Maimonides that means his four point method the Oral and Written Law plus Physics and Aristotle's Metaphysics.

The Dark Side is now accepted as a legitimate part of Torah.

I try to grade institutions on a % basis.  That is-- I do not think any of them are perfect. But if I think they are above the 60% level. then I say they are worth supporting. And in fact I try to support any institution that I think is doing good, even if I do not agree with their theology. And I have been doing that for a long time. 
But if I think the Dark Side is using an institution as a front (or as a disguise), then the fact that the core is evil makes the whole thing evil. 

Religious teachers that belittle husbands do not get a passing grade. In fact a good deal of the religious world I consider to be a deceptive front for the Dark Side Sitra Achra. The Dark Side is now accepted as a legitimate part of Torah. It got in by means of sincere mystics. But after the Ari (Isaac Luria) all mysticism is from the Sitra Achra.

So though Reform and Conservative Judaism are  more lenient about Halacha (Law) but at least they are Kosher; as opposed to the religious world which has been taken over by the Sitra Achra.

Advaita Vedanta versus Maimonides

My basic feeling about the Advaita Vedanta is that it does not start out with obvious first principles. It wants to claim a strong thesis without proof and that thesis is by no means obvious. On the contrary, in Math, people start out with certain given axioms, but which are not counter intuitive. Rather axioms that seem obvious and almost do not even need to be stated. Like the shortest distance between two point is  straight line.


Besides that there are idolatry and Sitra achra [Dark Side] problems with Eastern Religions and all mysticism.The only thing I see as being a valid set of values is the Torah  system with no mysticism mixed in.
Mysticism is how the Sitra Achra managed to penetrate the Torah world
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To this Brett Stevens answered to me:

Brett Stevens says:

11/05/2016 at 7:53 pm

My basic feeling about the Advaita Vedanta is that its does not start out with obvious first principles.

It starts with a vision, from which first principles are later implied throughout the documents.

As far as its thesis, idealism is it; it supports this with metaphor instead of conventionally structured argument.

This is probably the best introduction for it I can imagine:

http://www.amerika.org/texts/the-perennial-philosophy-aldous-huxley/

That, and Evola, maybe a bit of Schopenhauer.

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That was the version of the book that I read many times over. I still have to say that I was not convinced. The closest I saw as an argument was Spinoza and even there I was not convinced. [He assumes nothing can affect a substance. That stacks the deck for his approach. But it is not a obvious first principle.] [On the other hand it clear substances can affect each other.]

Brett Stevens says:

11/06/2016 at 8:20 am

You would probably more want to read The Upanishads, but the point Huxley makes is that these ideas are not presented in philosophical format. They are merely descriptions and metaphors, like most religious writing. I found Spinoza convincing with a few caveats, so detoured to Kant. From there, Schopenhauer and from that, the Bhagavad-Gita.

Avraham:
I did a bit of the Upanishads and Sutras. But took a different path than you. From Spinoza to Maimonides, Kant,  and Schopenhauer.  I have great respect for Spinoza and I can understand why you would think he is true. I think it was a combination of things that took me on a different track. (1) Leibniz (2) my own critique on him based on my understanding of Substance based on Aristotle. From my  side of things it find it hard to imagine taking either the rationalists or the empiricists based on Kant's Critique. To me it seems there simply is no choice for anyone except to go with some school of thought that takes Kant into account. That means some school of German Idealism.

So I settled on the Kant school which seemed to make the most sense to me. You really have to combine it with Schopenhauer. You also need to be able to read through the chatter of later 20th century philosophical pseudo intellectuals.]
If I try to explain what I like about Kant it would probably go like this. I hate when stupid philosophers talk about science. I feel like screaming at the top of my lungs. Even the really smart ones like Edward Feser. The only one that did his homework is Kelley Ross and he shows very well how Kant's system works well with Quantum Mechanics.