interpretation of Torah

I have been thinking about the question of interpretation of Torah.

It is not just the approach of Saadia Gaon and Maimonides that when the simple explanation of the verse is not possible then we go to allegory. Rather I have been thinking about the history of interpretation from the Middle Ages and up until Heidegger and  hermeneutic circle. [ It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each individual part by reference to the whole. Neither the whole text nor any individual part can be understood without reference to one another, and hence, it is a circle. However, this circular character of interpretation does not make it impossible to interpret a text; rather, it stresses that the meaning of a text must be found within its cultural, historical, and literary context.]

Interpretation of the Middle Ages we already know about. פשט רמז דרש סוד or allegory.

Later came the questions of who has the right to interpret? Is is duly constituted authorities or any individual or perhaps a charismatic leader that the individual decides to accept? [This is not unrelated. The idea that every individual could interpret a text according to how it applies to him or her led immediately into disposing of the relevance of the text and going towards delusional charismatic leaders.]

I do not have a lot to add except to say that the  hermeneutic circle is really only closed in Torah because God is the ground of validity. Without that any text has  an non enclosed circle.  Also I wanted to mention that Torah might share some aspects of myth but it is not myth. It is Revelation. 

So to put together a whole approach based on these issues seems important to me but not really possible right now because it is a little foggy and vague how to put it all together.


In any case we already know חגי זכריה מלאכי סוף נבואה רבינא ורב אשי סוף הוראה.  Zachria, Malachi, Chagai are the end of prophecy and Ravina and Rav Ashi are the end of Halacha decision making. So we already know the attempts to claim these two gifts are invalid.

learning Torah

I believe that learning Torah will help everything turn around  for you for the good.  

Learning Torah goes very far if done on a consistent basis. Try to start learning Gemara  and Mishna yourself. Even just saying the words is a great mitzvah. The Jerusalem Talmud  says that even one word of Torah goes above all the other mitzvot. 

There are many mental blocks before this. That is it is not so hard in itself. But rather there are many questions on this. It is hard to accept. It was one of the first things I learned in yeshiva. That is I was in yeshiva in NY in the first place because I felt learning Torah is important. But in that yeshiva  Shar Yashuv I saw a book בנין עולם about the importance of learning Torah.
It is safe to say I fell away from this. But for the few years I had the merit to learn in Far Rockaway and then at the Mir in NY this idea about the importance of learning Torah really lit a fuse under me.



I do hold from the importance of Physics and Metaphysics also as the Rambam wrote, but that is only after one has finished Shas.

s75 F major  s75 in midi format

Musar and Gemara [Talmud].

 The constant barrage of propaganda via the media in the USA definitely gets to a person whether he likes it or not.  There is an effect. 
It was this exact thing that Reb Israel Salanter wanted to turn around for the good. That is he saw constant exposure to a certain social meme has an inevitable effect. He saw this in Reb Josef of Salant (not to be confused with Reb Shmuel of Salant) who was a great tzadik, and had come to his level by means of learning Musar [Medieval Ethics].  

What I recommend thus is Musar and Gemara [Talmud].

I also have a view that prophecy ended after the first temple was destroyed. Also that Ravina and Rav Ashi were סוף הוראה the end of the period when a Halachic decision could be made. These are both statements from the Talmud itself. That is modern efforts to claim these gifts are illegitimate. [This is the reason why later halacha books try to prove their point from the Talmud. Because רבינא ורב אשי סוף הוראה ]
There are lots of ways that people try to claim these gifts for themselves but we already know from the Talmud to ignore them. What ever signs and wonders they show are from the Sitra Achra-the Dark Side.
Anyone who has studied cults to any considerable degree will note that the
founders of such groups will not go very far in increasing
their membership by making ordinary or every day claims-they must promise
something extraordinary.



The trouble is the dark side has not just managed to worm its way into the religious world but rather to take it over completely. The religious teachers all teach Torah of the Dark Side. If one really wants to be loyal to Torah the worst thing is to have anything to do with the religious with their false religiosity.
Not only that but we know from toxo-plasmosis that there are parasites that effect one's mind. Just hanging out with the religious induces insanity.  That is if you do not have an authentic Litvak yeshiva in town there is then no other option but to learn at home. But one must avoid the religious at all cost.

[I  would not have the gumption  to mention this if not for the fact that the daughter of Bava Sali thought that I have to ability to say things that would be listened to.  Therefore I have to obligation to say the truth even though it is uncomfortable for people to hear it.]

Since it is difficult to find a place of authentic Torah, the best thing is to get your own: Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

s76 B flat major

It is not that halacha is wrong but that it is highly sensitive to initial conditions.

Learning Torah and trusting in God  seem to me to be the two major principles that I transgressed in my personal life. I had been at the Mir yeshiva in NY and at one point decided to make aliya to Israel. Not a bad decision in itself but  diminished  learning Torah to a vast extent.  Another bad decision was to leave Israel based on the idea of the Rav of Satmar that to be part of IDF was the prime sin of all sins. This was and still is to a large extent the basic doctrine of the Ultra Orthodox. But the choice to leave Israel also was based on the idea of keeping Halacha. That is the Halacha that one should work for  a living an not be learning and depending on charity [a kollel check which is charity pure and simple ,unless you say you are learning Torah to make money in which case it is even worse.]
From here I learned one can do what the Halacah says and still be doing a terrible sin. That is why learning Torah is the main thing not halacah--because halacha can be and often is highly misleading and can lead to terrible evil. It is not that halacha is wrong but that it is highly sensitive to initial conditions. That is it depends on the Gemara itself. It depends on the actual  state of affairs. Without perfect knowledge of these two things it can be the exact opposite of what the Torah requires. [It certainly does not depend on what people say. ]
The trouble seems to be with what Reb Nachman called Torah scholars that are demons. שדיים יהודאיים which he brings from the Zohar. That is most of the people that supposedly represent the holy Torah are actually demons in human form. They may claim to be teaching Torah, but in fact are teaching the Torah of the Sitra achra. the dark side. For this reason I have tried to make it a point to  emphasize going and learning Torah only from authentic Lithuanian kinds of yeshivas. 
[The whole subject of Torah scholars that are demons and get their powers from the dark side is actually gone into by the Ari Isaac Luria to some degree. But Reb Nachman brings out the point in a way that you can't miss it. Sadly  the entire religious world has missed the point, and still follow their leaders who are in fact demons in human form. The Gra tried to warn people. Rav Shach tried to warn people. But it is like my brother said hen he would try to warn people about a bad business deal. No one ever listens--without exception. They always make some kind of excuse. And then they fall.]

Saadia Gaon, Rambam, John Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kelley Ross.

Mainly the Left is based loosely on Rousseau, Hegel, Freud, Marx, Nietzsche. Also it is highly connected with existentialism. These all seem to me to be wrong turns. It once was considered the most sensible. 

The better approach seems to me to be based on Saadia Gaon, Rambam, John Locke, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kelley Ross.


I perhaps should go into what is wrong with the Leftist philosophers but the critiques are well known.
I do not see what I could possibly add to the discussion except to say that the emphasis in learning and education ought to be shifted away from second rate philosophers to first rate philosophers. Why concentrate on what is wrong and flawed?
[To go into what is wrong with Nietzsche in short: moral values have prima facie validity. To defeat moral values you would have to have starting principles that have more initial plausibility. That is let's say you have a principle A that seems sort of OK. From A is implied B. Then if B makes no sense then you would have to reject A. All leftist philosophers start from some A that sounds sort of OK. They come up with something nice sounding but which has very little initial plausibility, but being a naive first year college student you really do not have the intellectual power to  disagree.  Then from A is deduced some B like all morality is relative. Since B has no initial plausibility it would require some strong A to prove it.  Just the opposite "not B" has more prima facie plausibility than A.] [What is wrong with Post Modernism is this: Frege wanted to expand the a priori. This was easily defeated. But then people took this defeat to mean there is no a priori. The problem was תפסת מרובה לא תפסת. Don't bit off more than you can chew. Do not try to prove too much.]