כישוף [witchcraft 'kishuf'] has become accepted. It goes by nicer names. Euphemisms. As סגולות. I mean to say we don't call it witchcraft anymore. We call it magic. Or even further we consider it kosher by naming it segulot--charms.And we turn commandments of God into lucky charms.

How this got to be so widely accepted is beyond me. Once it was well known that witchcraft, magic charms, astrology were forbidden by the Torah.
Nowadays you can find the religious world is filled with such things. [Whole books are devoted to segulot and charms and magic, but are considered kosher because they are in Hebrew.] You find that even mitzvot are made out to be charms.


If it could be proved that one had used a charm, he  was burned at the stake in England under Elizabeth I-- if the intent was to cause death. If it was  to find a lost object, the punishment was a year in prison.

However, I consider Reb Nachman to be one of the  best and most sincere. He was not a part of the group that the Gra put into Cherem [excommunication] as you can see if you look at the original documents. Rather, is a mild critique on the group that the Gra condemned  though the real facts of the matter are that that criminal group is infinitely worse than anything I care to describe since for my own mental balance I try not to deal with groups that are truly evil and criminal. There are good blogs that deal with that side of things and they are very good if have the stomach for that type of thing.

Worship of dead people is not a new form of idolatry. We are used to thinking of ancient idolatry as being directed towards images, however kivrei tzadikim [graves of the righteous] was also an ancient form of worship as we see in the Clemintine Recognitions [Book 10: 25]:
Chapter XXV.-Dead Men Deified.
"But if they choose to argue, and affirm that these are rather the places of their birth than of their burial or death, the former and ancient doings shall be convicted from those at hand and still recent, since we have shown that they worship those whom they themselves confess to have been men, and to have died, or rather to have been punished; as the Syrians worship Adonis, and the Egyptians Osiris; the Trojans, Hector; Achilles is worshiped at Leuconesus, Patroclus at Pontus, Alexander the Macedonian at Rhodes; and many others are worshiped, one in one place and another in another, whom they do not doubt to have been dead men. Whence it follows that their predecessors also, falling into a like error, conferred divine honor upon dead men, who perhaps had had some power or some skill, and especially if they had stupefied stolid men by magical fantasies¹¹

When I got to the yeshiva of Rav Freifeld, Shar Yashuv, Motti Friefeld [Rav Freifeld's son] always stressed review and learning in depth.
And thus until this day I am always torn between review and going on.
In the Mir Yeshiva there was already a system in place of doing in depth learning in the morning [10 A.M.-2 P.M.] and fast learning in the afternoon [i.e. 3:45-8 P.M.].

The Gemara in tracate Shabat 63 talks about the importance of just saying the words and going on. And this is discussed in depth in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים.

For others I can't really say. For me I find different methods seem to apply to different kinds of learning. For example once you have finished Shas at least once I have found it helpful to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and even months. In the Ari that was printed by Rav Ashlag with paragraph divisions I found it helpful to repeat every paragraph twice and then to go on. That was very similar to the way I was doing the Gemara the first time around. I would repeat the section of the Gemara twice with Rashi and go on.
[Later the way I would do the Gemara is this: every sentence together with Rashi. That is I keep one finger on the gemara and one on Rashi and read them in exact correspondence.]



[I have mentioned before the importance of Physics and Metaphysics so here I wanted say what I found helpful in these subjects. In Physics I found it helpful to do about a hundred pages and then go back to do review in reverse order. [that is backwards chapter 10 then 9 then 8 etc.] I might explain this in more detail but I figure you anyway have to find what works for you best.  Reverse learning I found in three places, the Ari, a medieval book of Musar from the school of the Jewish German mystics, and also the Ramchal [Rav Moshe Chaim Lutzatto.].

In the prayer book of Rav Saadia Gaon the first blessing of the Shema is about two lines.

In the  prayer book of Rav Saadia Gaon the first blessing of the Shema is about two lines. That is the opening יוצר אור ובורא חושך and then the next sentence. And then it finishes יוצר המאורות.

This is just one example of how over time, people just keep adding and adding things that were optional, but eventually people that came later thought they are obligated.

One source of misunderstanding is the statement of the Chazal {sages} כל המשנה מטבע הברכות אינו יוצא ידי חובתו. ["One who changes the form of the blessings has not fulfilled his obligation"].
This does not mean one who adds or changes words. It means that when a Bracha starts and ends with a Braruch, it always has to start and end that way. When a bracha has no 'baruch'' at the end,  it has to always end that way. It has nothing to do with the middle. However sometimes Chazal specifically state what has to be in the middle.

An example in Birachat HaMazon. The blessing after bread. In that the second blessing has to have ברית ותורה and the third has to have מלכות בית דוד.
Thus ברכת המזון could be said in short: ברוך אתהה'..הזן את העולם כולו בטובו בחן בחסד וברחמים הוא נותן לחם    לכל בשר כי לעולם חסדו. ברוך  אתה ה' הזן את הכול. נודה לך ה' אלקינו על ארץ חמדה טובה ורחבה שרצית והינחלת
לאבותינו ברית ותורה. ברוך אתה ה' על הארץ ועל המזון רחם ה' על ישראל עמיך ועל ירושלים עריך ועל מלכות בית דוד משיחיך ברוך אתה ה' בונה ירושלים ברוךאתה ה'  הטוב והמיטיב
four short lines

s98 C major   s98 in midi

Traditional Torah

Traditional Torah is what the world of religious Jews are supposedly offering. What makes clear this claim is a lie is the worship they offer to their leaders. The fact that they emphasize rituals does not make them traditional. Idolatry is not traditional Torah. The fact that they deny they are in fact worshiping their leaders does not make it any less true.

They use sophisticated means to reinvent Torah to mean that their leader ought to be worshiped. Sometimes this is worship offered to corpses [Kivrei Tzadikim] Graves of the righteous they call it. Sometimes it appears in other forms. But, in short, there is almost nothing in the religious world that corresponds to traditional Torah.

I myself am prone to being mixed up in this regard. I hear and listen to compelling speeches or read religious propaganda and get convinced easily. 

There seems to be little that can provide immunization from such influences.  This is because it is common for the religious to cloak their deceptions in traditional garb. All the better to catch naive people like me.

The truth is the religious world is demon possessed. I do not know how this happened. But for this reason it is best to avoid the whole scam. Or one could at least be sure to learn authentic Torah only. That is the Old Testament {Tenach}, The Two Talmuds, straight Musar of the Rishonim. And don't give the Sitra Achra a place in your heart to hold onto. 

[I don't have any test for authenticity but I think the signature of the Gra on the excommunication should at least provide a starting point. If we know to exclude Torah from Sitra Achra, that can at least help to steer us in the right direction.   But paying attention to the Gra would anyway exclude the entire religious world as I mentioned above.]

I did not want to make a list but authentic Torah mainly means the books of the Talmudic sages which are more than just the two Talmuds. The Rishonim also are legit. Achronim tend to be problematic. The best among the Achronim is Rav Rav Shach and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik with their commentaries on the Rambam and the Musar school of thought of Reb Israel Salanter.

[Just to be clear, I do not think Reb Nachman was in the category of the excommunication. So his books are OK and even good to learn. Also I should mention the Ari is very great, and it is a wonderful thing to learn his books. When I was in Safed I did not however learn his books, but I had learned the in NY before I got to Israel and I feel I had great benefit from them. The trouble is with books of mysticism after the Ari. The only good ones are those of the Ramchal, the Gra, Reb Yaakov Abuchatzeira, the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi). The rest are pure Sitra Achra and ought to be avoided at all cost.]

Still I am careful about mystics when the make mistake because, "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" ("false in one thing, false in everything."⁾ A witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter.

[Reb Nathan the disciple of Reb Nachman created a new religion based on faith on Reb Nachman which mainly borrows from Christian themes but puts Reb Nachman into the center. This was certainly not the intention of Reb Nachman himself who was a sincere Jew and only intended to bring people to Torah.] Still the trouble is divergence from true Torah is like two lines
 that are almost parallel but not quite. At first they are close. but then as time goes on and yo trace the path of the line, it diverges more and more fro the original line.

One can glimpse here the logical development of the
concept of merit and holiness qua faith in the tzadik  in place of the
virtue of  faith in God and Torah, which  is inextricably linked to the higher virtue of menchlichkeit good character and human decency, we have in
its place a mere emotional "trust" in the transfer of the tzadik's merits to ourselves
. This will eventually become, in extremist
circles, a presumptuous "claim"to merit and holiness, and empowerment of Ruach HaKodesh[divine spirit].

For people far from authentic Torah yeshivas,  my recommendation is to get at least one of the following books: The Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. The Chidushei HaRambam by Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, The chiushim of either of the disciples of Reb Chaim Reb Baruch Ber or Shimon Shkop.
Then to have one session fast just reading through  them. And another session  "Beiyun"  review of one chapter for as long as it takes to "get it."
Books that come under the category of what the Gra put into חרם cherem excommunication I suggest throwing out because they are טמא unclean and make unclean anyone that touches them. 

They destroy the lives of the people in whose home they are. 


There is a good reason the Gra signed his name on the Cherem and I am surprised that people ignore it. 


What they do to good honest people is horrific and they hide under a false cloak of pretended sanctity. There is nothing they touch that they do not ruin. If the Gra signed a cherem against them there  are countless of victims that never got a hearing or  a chance to have the crime committed against them heard and addressed. I am shocked that no one stands for justice. When terrible evils are committed against simple honest folk no one seems to care. They say it is none of their concern until it reaches their own doorstep. And then when they ask for help, everyone else says it is none of their concern. The Gra saw all this more than two hundred years ago and still people hide their heads in the sand. 

The only person I heard that understood what the Gra was saying was Rav Sha ch and he also is ignored. [However I have seen a few blogs that deal with this [and they are doing great work]. I tried many times to call people's attention to the crimes with complete apathy as a response. So I gave up. I figure when people start caring about justice, that is when they will find help in their own lives. But as long as they ignore crimes committed against other, then I might as well be knocking on a brick wall. There is another reason I can not write about this. It is the power of the Sitra Acra itself. The Satan. And I am afraid of the powers of the Dark Side. So I avoid the subject as to my up-most ability. I try to write only about positive and happy themes. This is not because I care about people. It is rather because I care about myself and so I only want to think about happy things. I also have begun to wish to find kindness and charity in my heart for all.I saw the disciple of the Gra Reb Chaim from Voloshin said when one has enemies and judges them on the scales of merit-that is he starts to think of them as righteous then their hearts turn to good.
 I would have been happy to pursue justice just like the Gra and Rav Shach, but with no friends and no allies there is nothing I can do.

s96 G major [s96 in midi]  s97 [s97 in midi] s98 C major  [s98 in midi]