I think the American system was mainly meant for Wasps. I mean to say from the beginning with Hobbes and John Locke I think all their thought was based on the idea that their system would be for people that accepted the Old Testament and the New. Maybe not openly but I think that underscores everything they wrote as an unconscious assumption. The trouble with some blacks I have noted is they do not accept that basic moral system. Many seem to believe it is their moral obligation to bring down the USA.

The Constitution simply was not designed to protect against a population intent on its destruction. That seems to be the main problem with blacks and Muslims.

There is a need to define a specific set of writings as being fundamental  Torah.  Most of the set is well known.The Old Testament. The Two Talmuds. The Rishonim (medieval scholars).

It is just for the record I wanted to write here the basic achronim [later authorities] that are considered a fundamental part of Torah and are important to learn. R. Akiva Eiger, the Pnei Yehoshua, the Kezot HaChoshen, and the school stemming from Reb Chaim Soloveitchik that forms a commentary on the Rambam: Reb Chaim, Shimon Shkop, Baruch Ber, Naphtali Troup, Rav Shach.
The best of this last list is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which one can more or less learn straight. It is a very deep book but it is self contained. In fact it is so well done that I wonder if perhaps I could make the two books that God granted to me to write on the Talmud a little bit more self contained also.

You can see that there is some way to do this even with the kind of comments I did on the Talmud. for Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira also wrote a book of learning on the Talmud that also you can simply pick up and read straight without having to look up anything. [I used to read it in Israel. but no longer have it.]




[This list should not be needed except for the fact that outside of the Yeshiva world it is virtually unknown. Also I have seen an enormous amount of confusion about this very issue so it seems like a good idea to make it known to the general public.]

S99 D major  [S99 in midi]

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