essence of Torah

I do not have enough spiritual sense to be able to claim the absolute truth. Truth as in TRUTH. But I do have enough of that kind of sense to be able to tell quality when I see it and to be able to discern fraud.So I do want to share some of the valuable ideas I have see around.
One thing is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. More than any other book I have seen that is the one set that contains the essence of Torah in crystallized form. I saw in my parents the path of Torah of balance-- i.e. Torah with Derech Erertz [That is "to be a mensch"decent human being--with good character and being self sufficient].  Their path as more or less the way of the Rambam with his four fold program of learning the Oral Law, the written Law, Physics and Metaphysics. In Reb Nachman I saw a wealth of great ideas --that is: particular pieces of advice, but all a vision of Torah that makes full use of his predecessors to create tapestry or a vast fresco of Torah. That is he weaves together the Tenach and Talmud with the Ari to create an amazing vision of what Torah is suppose to be about. That is not to give any kind of agreement with the group that supposedly go by his teachings. {Visionary would be a good word for Reb Nachman.}

[Among his good ideas are: (1) talking with God in one's own language. That is the real essence of prayer. (2) Avoidance of doctors. (3) Making an importance issue out of the kind of fast learning mentioned in Gemara and later books of Musar.]

Reb Israel Salanter had two disciples Isaac Blazzer, and the Madragat HaAdam. Both have written really amazing Musar books. The Madragat HaAdam is mainly about trust in God with no effort. If only I could come to that! But at least I am happy to be reminded about that. [A second book by Isaac Blazzer came out recently of his writings after he wrote the אור ישראל.]

Something strange is going on.

I seem to have trouble when it comes to learning Torah. It is as if there is some hidden obstacle(s).
The last day of Pesach was when a rosh yeshiva was having the last meal before the end of Pesach and I did not attend. That blew my chance of marrying his daughter. . Then getting back to Israel finding myself thrown out of every yeshiva that I attempted to sit and learn in got me to wonder if it is החרב המתהפכת לשמור דרך עץ החיים the fiery sword that guards the path to the Tree of Life. The truth is the obstacles to Torah for me are from so many directions that tend to wonder what is it all about?

Something strange is going on. So to some degree I found a kind of compromise by going with the opinion of the Rambam who advocates a four fold path of learning Torah (Oral and Written), Physics and Metaphysics. [The Polytechnic Institute of NYU I went to and majored in Physics]
Still something strange is going on. It is almost as if, even when I manage to get my hands on a book of Torah, that it does not take long until I lose it, or something happens in some way that I can not use it. Maybe I just do not have the merit to learn. Something always happens. So to cherish and love every word of Torah that I can manage to learn is my goal. To at least appreciate it from afar like a long lost love, and being aware that it can easily be taken away from me in the blink of an eye.

Maybe it is just some kind of test? But who knows? Or perhaps it is just a simple way of getting me to pay attention to the Rambam about the importance of Physics and Metaphysics along with learning the Oral Law (Two Talmuds) and the Written Law. If that was the idea, I would have to say that it was effective. Eventually I began to see the importance of the Rambam's four fold path.

The simplest way of understanding this is that it is the battle of the memes, units of social information. Every set tries to get a hold of as many people as possible in order to promulgate itself.

Even specific sins do this.

a problem with Islam

I think there is a problem with Islam in itself. What I have thought until now is that it makes a whole lot of difference whom you admire. That is even if their theology would be OK (I am not saying it is), then there would still be the trouble that they emulate a dark and evil person. Christianity seems to have trouble in the area of theology but has the redeeming value of whom they admire and strive to emulate.

Some people prefer to see only bad things Christians have done, and refuse to see any good. This seems to me to be intellectually dishonest. I have to say that it is an eye opener when you find yourself in a fix and not one of your supposed friends wants to help you or even admit he knows you and it always seems to be  a Christian that comes along to offer a helping hand

Berkeley

 Berkeley people are not dumb. I had a learning partner who had a degree in computer science from Berkeley who is light years smarter than me. The problem is that Leftism and Socialism in various shades from strong RED to Pink were simply the accepted academic university norms and still are until today. [I was horrified to see this in NYU.] Philosophers today are not visionaries and tend to be quite superficial thinkers. [With the exception of Kelley Ross.]  I think it was easier in the USSR to see the problems with the system of communism more than in the USA where people could dream about a socialist paradise without having to feel the jackboots on their necks.

Easter.

Rome at the time was not a democracy. The issue I think was that Pontus Pilate was afraid the people would send a message to Rome that he was a bad governor. That kind of report I vaguely recall would get a governor dismissed and I think sometimes executed. Also religious fanatics (as the super religious people I think were) are not representative of all the Jewish people. I have not thought about the relation of the life and death of Jesus to the question of Democracy but it seems to me that a good deal of American Democracy is based on a long history of thinking about Jesus and natural law and freedom from Saadia Gaon, Maimonides, Aquinas, John Locke, and the history of the rise and fall of Athens, and the Roman Republic. It is by no means obvious to me that the story of Jesus tells us something against the kind of Republic that the USA is.

Musar movement

Even though the Musar movement in the sense of Reb Israel Salanter is not all that possible--as a mass movement, still it seems to me important  to try to get through the major works of Musar. That is the basic set of books of Ethics from the Rishonim (medival authorities), mainly because of the need to work on one's character. Tikun HaMidot [self correction of bad character traits]. The Musar movement itself seems to have drifted off into religious fanaticism,- in spite of its original idea being to come to good character traits.

The Musar movement has become part of the fanatic religions world which has set itself against the State of Israel as a primary focus. So there is not much in the way of good character one can gain from it today.
Today in terms of gaining good character, it makes more sense to go to Israel and serve in the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and  learn Torah in some Mizrachi [Religious Zionist Yeshiva like Merkaz HaRav], rather than join groups that are have more in common with Mein Kamp rather than true authentic Torah.
[In terms of Torah learning it is hard to say that the super religious have much of an advantage over the Religious Zionist yeshivas. The religious Zionist yeshivas learn pretty much the same material. The difference in learning seems to be evenly distributed. I have met great learners that were part of the Religious Zionist yeshivas.]


One advantage of the Musar movement is that it calls attention to what is really important in Torah--good character מידות טובות and this ironically the very area where the religious fail miserably.

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