Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar

The amazingly powerful thing about Musar and Reb Israel Salanter's idea of learning Musar is that Musar speaks to people like me. That is to say, I had a great deal of trouble understanding what Torah is all about until I started putting serious effort into Musar.

Just for the record Musar is mainly a short list of medieval books on Ethics and also one from the Renaissance period the מסילת ישרים.\
This list got added to because some of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter wrote their own books like the מדרגת באדם and the אור ישראל.
The great thing about this is that it gives one an idea of what simple basic fear of God is.
Nowadays the trouble seems to be that the Sitra Achra got into the fear of God business so it is hard to enter into any religious circles without encountering the agents of the Dark Realm.

Thus you see in the original disciples  of Reb Israel Salanter they were careful to avoid completely anyone or anything that was under the excommunication of the Gra. Apparently they were aware that the Sitra Achra can feign signs of holiness, and the Devil can even give people the power to do miracles into order to pervert the holy Torah.

I mean just for one simple example take a look at the whole long list of Musar books given by Rav Isaac Blasser the foremost disciple of Reb Israel Salanter.



I wanted however to mention that as was noted by the other Litvak sages-- Musar has limits. You really do not see much of any effect after a bare basic minimum of effort. People that concentrate a lot on Musar do not seem to gain more in character development than those who spend a small amount of time and then the rest of the day learn Gemara. Thus it became standard to have two short sessions during the day [15 min and 29 minutes.] and the rest of the day to work and learn Torah

אין שמין לגנב Bava Metzia page 96

רב חיים הלוי leaves one option open to say that the רמב''ם hold like the רשב''ם in בבא מציעא page צ''ז ע''א. Another option is to say he holds like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back whole vessels. I showed a few days ago that the ראב''ד has to hold by the רשב''ם. But I think it is clear the רמב''ם has to hold like רש''י and the רא''ש that the thief has to pay back כלים שלמים או כסף
The reason I say this is this. In הלכה י''ד  we find there is a case in which the thief pays back according to how much it was worth at the time of the theft. That is when it went down in value in the meantime. So אין שמין לגנב can not be telling the court to evaluate the object according to the time that the case reaches the court. So all it can be saying then is that the thief can not say הרי שלך לפניך. But if the thief can pay back the original according to שווה כסף ככסף then what is the whole point of the law in the first place. If he would say הרי שלך לפניך then also all he would be doing is giving back the original object according to how much it is worth now and make up the difference in value with other מטלטלים. If the רמב''ם would hold by the רשב''ם then the whole law would become meaningless.
So the only option that is left is to say the רמב''ם holds like רש''י and the רא''ש.


רב חיים הלוי משאיר אפשרות אחת לומר  כי רמב''ם מהחזיק כמו הרשב''ם בבבא מציעא דף צ''ו ע''א. אפשרות אחרת היא לומר שהוא מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים. הראיתי כי ראב''ד יש מהחזיק עם הרשב''ם. אבל  לרמב''ם יש להחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש כי הגנב צריך לשלם בחזרה כלים שלמים או כסף. הסיבה שאני אומר את זה היא  שבהלכה י''ד אנו מוצאים קיים מקרה שבו הגנב משלם בחזרה על פי כמה שהחפץ היה שווה בעת הגניבה. כלומר, כאשר זה ירד בערך בינתיים. אז אין שמין לגנב לא ניתן לומר לבית המשפט להעריך את האובייקט על פי הזמן שהמקרה מגיע לבית המשפט. אז כל מה שניתן לומר אז הוא כי הגנב לא יכול לומר "הרי שלך לפניך." אבל אם הגנב יכול להחזיר את חפץ המקורי בגלל שווה כסף ככסף, אז מה כל העניין של החוק מלכתחילה. אם הוא היה אומר הרי שלך לפניך אז גם כל מה שהוא היה עושה הוא להחזיר את האובייקט המקורי פי כמה שהוא שווה עכשיו ולשלם את ההבדל בערך עם מטלטלים אחרים. אם הרמב''ם היה מחזיק עם רשב''ם אז החוק כולו יהיה חסר משמעות. אז האפשרות היחידה שנותרת היא  שהרמב''ם מחזיק כמו רש''י ואת רא''ש.


If you put this all together, it means that the Rambam holds with Rashi and the Rosh that the thief has to pay back whole vessels or money, and the Raavad holds he can pay back even any objects according to their worth as the Rashbam says in Bava Metzia 96A.

simple faith

To go completely with simple faith with no reasoning at all seems to get some people far. This is the case even when the principles of simple faith are sometimes in fact at odds with reality. The reason is easy to understand if you go with Kant that there are areas of value that are not accessible to human reason. Not just that, but when human reason attempts to go there, it comes up with self contradictions.
It is even possible come up with a hierarchy of values in which content and form are complementary. Thus the more form, the less content. And we already know that reason perceives form only, not content. For example logic is all form with no content. The objects of logic are sentences that could stand for anything. If A implies B and A is true, then B is true.


So I do not want to knock the path of simple faith alone. In fact it seems to me that great people like Bava  Sali were in fact just going with simple faith, even though he certainly was a great Torah scholar also.

Still my path more or less is that of my parents which in one word could be called "balance." that means basically the same thing as the Rambam with a balance between Reason and Revelation.
The trouble with the path of simple faith is that not everything one thinks is content from the realm of holiness is as such. One can feel tremendous holiness from something that is in fact from the Dark Realm.

The actual doctrines of faith I ought to mention are to Rav Joseph Albo less than those of the Rambam.

I also suggest to learn with faith. That is in learning the four forces: The Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics-to not think if you understand or not. Rather to say the words and go on and believe that God will eventually grant to you to understand.


Simple faith seems highly related to 'Devakut' attachment with God. But the issues involved attachment with God are unclear to me. As I mentioned before the infinite Divine Light (as the Ari called it) was shining in me and around me in Israel for about seven years until I simply decided that it was too much for me. Clearly leaving the light was a terrible mistake. But in the meantime I have had time to consider the implications and the subject itself.
Mainly I have come to realize that the command in the Torah "to be attached to God" (Deuteronomy 6 is literal. Yet  Klal Israel said at Mount Sinai to Moshe (Moses), "You go to God and hear what he says and tell us an let us not see the Presence of God nor hear his voice any more least we die." That seems like a direct contradiction. One verse saying Devakut is a commandment and to the anonymous commentary o the first four chapters of the Ramam in Mishne Torah  is the highest commandment, and yet Israel refusing to be attached to God and then God agreeing with them?
So we see like Kant said that when one enters into the Realm of the Dinge An Sich self contradictions are manufactured.
I also learned that there is no process by which one can come to attachment with God. There are other commandments that one must do but they are independent areas of value. They do not result in Devakut. Devakut is more like a free gift to who God chooses for some special mission.
Also I learned that there is a lot of religious delusions in the religious world from people that imagine their every thought and desire and insanity is from God. This led to my awareness that the religious world in itself is mainly insane--or rather its leaders are insane and from the Dark Side and have no idea what true attachment with God is nor true Torah. That is once I got to understand the authentic Torah I can tell what counterfeit Torah is .

Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda Rambam emphasized Physics and Metaphysics,

When Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda Rambam  emphasized Physics and Metaphysics, they also makes it very clear exactly what they means. That is as these subjects were understood in Athens and Sparta. On the other hand, this does not mean to deny the importance that Rav Isaac Luria  brings to understanding the Torah. In fact for me personally the only way I can understand the Torah even in the most simple way is through Rav Isaac Luria. But I do not talk about that much because the whole business really got absorbed into the Sitra Achra [the Dark Side.]

Bava Metzia 96a

Looking at my notes on בבא מציעא צ''ו ע''א I am a little shocked. Today it seems to be clear the ראב''ד holds אין שמין לגנב and that that means like the רשב''ם. The reason I say this is that the ראב''ד says אף על פי שאמרו אין שמין לגנב הני מילי בקרנא אבל בכפילא שמין לגנב דומה דגזלן והשכל מורה כן. The law for a גזלן is כל הגזלנים משלמים כשעת הגזילה. The only way I can see this is that the ראב''ד holds just like the רשב''ם that אין שמים לגנב means one evaluates the worth of the,stolen object according to the time of העמדה בדין and the כפילא according to the time of the גניבה just like for the גזלן one evaluates  the object according to the time of the גזילה. I was struggling to make sense of the idea of רב חיים הלוי  to bring the statement of Rav in Bava Kama page 65 as a source for the ראב''ד. Today it seems to me this can not be true. In order to defend רב חיים הלוי I had to say the ראב''ד perhaps does not hold with the law אין שמין לגנב but we see clearly he does hold with it.


כאשר אני מסתכל על הרשימות שלי על בבא מציעא צ''ז ע''א אני קצת בהלם. היום זה נראה ברור שהראב''ד מחזיק "אין שמין לגנב" וכי זה אומר כמו הרשב''ם. הסיבה שאני אומר את זה היא כי הראב''ד אומר אף על פי שאמרו "אין שמין לגנב הני מילי בקרנא אבל בכפילא שמין לגנב דומה דגזלן והשכל מורה כן". החוק לגבי גזלן הוא כל הגזלנים משלמים כשעת הגזילה. הדרך היחידה שאני יכול לראות את זה היא כי ראב''ד מחזיק בדיוק כמו הרשב''ם, כי "אין שמים לגנב" אומר שצריך להעריך את השווי של החפץ שנגנב על פי הזמן של העמדה בדין ואת כפילא לפי הזמן של גניבה בדיוק כמו עבור הגזלן צריך להעריך את האובייקט על פי הזמן של גזילה. אני נאבקתי כדי להבין את הרעיון של רב חיים הלוי להביא את ההצהרה של רב בבבא קמא דף ס''ה ע''א כמקור עבור הראב''ד. היום זה נראה לי זה לא יכול להיות נכון. על מנת להגן על רב החיים הלוי הייתי צריך לומר את ראב''ד אולי אינו מחזיק עם החוק "אין שמין לגנב" אבל אנו רואים בבירור שהוא כן דוגל בכך.  

a situation in which you can learn Torah

It is really a terrible thing to be in a situation in which you can learn Torah in a group of people that are sincerely also trying to learn Torah and to walk away from it. There is one obvious reason. A Pythagorean was asked by a father what  he could do to make sure his son would grow up to be a mensch --a decent ethical human being. The Pythagorean answered make him a citizen of a state with good laws. And as we know from Hegel, there are several layers of a state. That is the first thing in the family. Then there is a middle layer which was more immediate that the local community -for Hegel that was the corporation. But if Hegel had been aware of the existence of what is an authentic Litvak yeshiva there is no question he would have noted that that is the ideal middle step.

There are many ways to Sitra Achra tries to substitute some other thing in place of Torah. The main method of the Sitra Achra is: "Come and let's do a mitzvah." The trouble is of course the Stra Achra copies holiness. It pretends, "We also learn Torah." This is especially true after they see that making yeshivas is successful money making strategy.

Even though an authentic Litvak yeshiva as a rule needs a rosh yeshiva who is the real thing, this does not have to be the limiting case. It is possible that the most essential feature of a Genuine Litvak yeshiva is the fact that they exclude nonsense.--that is things that pretend to be kosher but are not. And people that pretend to be kosher but are not. 

Non authentic place are mainly for the benefit of the mafioso leader and his henchmen. They just use Torah as a cover.

There seems to be a difference in approach between Rav Shach and Steven Dutch.

Here is Steven Dutch:
"If you believe there is a problem, it is your responsibility to fix it

Most "activism" is glorified freeloading. The activist says, in effect, "Hey everybody, drop what you're doing and solve my problem for me. Divert funds from your programs to pay for mine."

If you think child care is a problem, you study economics and business and figure out a way to provide it economically.
If you think drug company profits are exorbitant, you study biochemistry and business and start a company to develop low-cost drugs.
If you want free health care, you raise the necessary capital and start an HMO that charges low premiums and pays bills with no questions asked.
If you think oil company profits are excessive, you study geology and engineering, start your own drilling company, and find and sell oil for less.
If you think alternative energy sources are the answer, you study physics and engineering and develop them.
You may be the victim of a bad home and past injustice, but if you wait for someone else to set it right, your life will suck. Nobody else's."
Rav Shach on  the other hand seems to hold with the idea  of simply learning Torah and that by means of the light of Torah, much darkness will be dispelled. That seems to have been in fact the general approach of the Mir yeshiva and Shar Yashuv in NY.
But what would that imply then for me? In my case I tend to think that the accepting the yoke of Torah includes  the approach of the Rambam who put Physics and Metaphysics right along side of learning Torah as essentials.
I also wonder what is the bare minimum requirement. To learn the Oral Torah seems to be  a bit much. I have trouble myself with understanding Tosphot. On occasion I was blessed with great teachers in Shar Yashuv and the Mir who understood how to go into Tosphot deeply. And more recently I had a learning partner whose head was perfectly fit for the kind of reasoning that is required to be able to understand Tosphot, that is David Bronson. But on my own I have a great deal of trouble with Tosphot.
Ideally going through the Oral Law would mean doing all Shas with Rashi Tosphot and the Maharsha, in order with no skipping. But to get at least more swiftly into the essence of Torah it seems to me the best thing to learn the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.