I noticed that a lot of Christians have a very skewed way of looking at the New Testament.
I must have written about this before but maybe deleted it. If I would even begin to go into the issues there would not be enough time.
So perhaps I should just touch briefly on the topics.
(1) The Trinity has no support. The name of God in the Old Testament is "I will be", not "I am."
[Christian scholars know Greek well enough to be aware that the words "I am" used by Jesus were slightly out of place. So they think to make a interference from that that he was referring to the name by which G-d revealed himself to Moses. The trouble with that is that there is no גזרה שווה  equivalence of two words. Jesus used the words "I am." God used the words "I will be." [see note 1 at end of essay.]
Still that is not meant to detract from the value of believing in a true tzadik as Reb Nachman made clear on many occasions.
(2) ביטול המצוות nullification of the commandments. Also has no support from the Sermon on the Mount. The Christian misreading of that is shockingly, intellectually dishonest.  Jesus is clearly saying the commandments of the Torah are forever and will never be nullified. [That is clear in the law of Moses where it says to keep all the laws of the Torah forever (Deuteronomy ch. 6). And the prophets end with an extortion to keep the law of Moses.]
(3) The inclusion of Paul into the canon of official books certainly puts a twist on the whole thing very different than what you would have gotten if the school of thought of Peter and James had been included as you can see from the Clementine  Doctrines and Recognitions. [German Scholars have already said that "Simon" there is a pseudonym of Paul.] [I wonder if  "Simon" is a composite? I have not seen the scholarship on this issue, but to me it seems that the same name there is used for at least two different people.]
(4) Only people very ignorant of Torah Law can see in anything that Jesus did things that were contrary to law.
In some areas he held one opinion as opposed to others for example mixing dirt with water on Shabat as this is an argument in the Rosh on tractate Shabat. Collecting ears of grain that no longer need nourishment from the soil is certainly not forbidden, and those that accused his disciples of doing something forbidden on Shabat are just the same kind of insane religious fanatics that you see today that love to bark at people, and thus displaying their own ignorance of Halacha. This is common in the insane religious world where they love to make up prohibitions out of thin air just in order to be able to bark like dogs.

In terms of the trial of Jesus, it is hard to find a case in which more legal procedures were violated. That is almost a textbook example of how to do everything wrong and against Torah Law. 

[I would imagine that if people would learn the Recognitions and Doctrines of Clement of Rome would clear up  lot of misconceptions..]



note 1. אהיה means I will be and אהיה אשר אהיה means I will be that which I will be. Rabbainu the Ari [I. Luria], goes into this in great detail in the Eitz Chaim and Mavo Shearim. To me it seems the most simple explanation of this name is that everything in the present time is only potential in relation to the future. Everything in the past were merely the conditions that led to the present. And potential is less perfect than action. Thus God wanted to say that he is pure action, not potential.

The problem that I see is the religious world is a million times more evil than anything in the secular world.

"The accursed Enlightenment." What does that mean? I assume it refers to the actual Enlightenment philosophers Hobbes, and Hume and Rousseau plus the ideas of the Enlightenment that had come into the Jewish People.  It is unlikely that he meant the Rambam who emphasizes the learning of Metaphysics and Physics as understood by the Ancient Greeks.
The problem that I see is the religious world is a million times more evil than anything in the secular world. The Enlightenment I admit has problems, but the religious world which pretends to keep Torah is so far infinity worse  than anything else out there, I wonder why that side of things was unknown the the great Litvak Sages like Rav Shach. The religious world certainly is not the path of traditional Torah, but rather some kind of insane perversion thought up by mentally-ill religious fanatics.

In the religious path only lays heartbreak and broken families and mental and sexual abuse of one's children and slavery to some kind of  mafioso who pretends to be  a tzadik.

None of that has anything to do with Torah (as  I have tried to convey many times). The Torah and the religious world are direct polar opposites. Almost anything is better.

Still, Rav Shach has point that Musar and the yeshivas developed long the lines of Reb Israel Salanter were on the authentic path of Torah

The secular world gives the main energy of the religious. Its emphasis on sex can only lead to frustration among the majority of guys who are not super Alpha Males with all the brains and brawn  and money. So what does the average guy do? He joins the religious world with its promise of a shiduch. But then later, when  the insanity of the religious becomes obvious, it is too later to turn back.
And even if you know your own motives were pure--to keep God's law, the vast majority of people in the religious world are there only because they are losers and that is the only way they can get sex. They just hide their motivations with high minded sounding phrases of Torah

it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost.

The thing is that life is confusing and I have found it is best to find a small set of basic principles to stick with at all cost. It is also helpful to have an accurate mental model of how the world works. But that does not seem to be as necessary as having a small set of concrete principles. Thus telling the truth at all cost seems to be a very important thing. In my case, also the idea of trust in God seems to be a good thing to stick with. Though I know many people emphasize putting forth lots of effort to get your needs met, but that does not seem to work very well for me,- and in fact usually results in the exact opposite of the desired effect. Rather, it seems best to simply sit and learn Torah and Physics and then hope that what God wants for me will come to me. 

[To learn Physics I used a book by Joos called "Theoretical Physics". Recently I have used other books to learn further. Siegel's, Field Theory was very helpful (and Doron Cohen's Lectures in Quantum Mechanics). In Torah learning I found Rav Shach's Avi Ezri   to be a really great book. Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot are a great introduction to Rav Shach.] But I do not mean to set up myself as a good example. I can only describe the path I took to get to the Divine Light. That was basically being born into a wholesome wonderful home and going to the Mir (and Shar Yashuv) in NY and then going to Israel. That seems to have been enough to bring down the Divine light on me.  Losing that was mainly a result of getting fooled by counterfeit spirituality in the religious world. That is the reason I recommend avoiding counterfeit spirituality.

nightmarish religious world.Thus the Jewish religious world while not mentally ill in itself still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Some people suggest these negative trends in the USA began around 1900. Before that the USA had been WASP more as a religious identity more than an ethnic group. Apparently evolution was a big issue and the Bible being pushed out of schools.People even then were beginning to feel alienated. from the larger society.Then there was the push back which was mainly from Azusa Street and Aimee McPherson. But for some reason that seems to have had a very limited effect. The Leftward trends just kept going. 

My feeling about this is that the basic doctrine was really not as solid as the people like McPherson thought in the first place. As I have pointed out before letting Paul into the canon was like letting an ax into the piston engine. The basic Doctrine up until that time had been "the Constitution and the Word of God." But in the word of God itself as understood by Christians there were already tendencies of "anti Law." [anti-nomian-ism]. This charge was leveled at Protestants in particular after Martin Luther and it seems to me to be perfectly justified. In any case, this anti Law tendency just got worse over time. In Paul's time when Paul saw the effect of his antinomian letters, he pulled back and tried to correct the situation with limited success. But the antinomian letters are still there for anyone to read and still believe they are reading the "Bible". 

In any case, I can see the trouble with the opposite tendencies also--sanctimonious self righteousness, as is obvious to anyone who has lived in the nightmarish religious world for any period of time. To imagine that if everyone would be like that would make everything right is absurd.


I try to limit my critique in that direction however in order to try to come to a balanced approach which I think is best exemplified by authentic Litvak yeshivas and their surrounding communities. Those kinds of places seems to be the best at "not adding nor subtracting from the Law." Not only that but they seems to have this as conscious approach--to simply do what the Torah says, and rely not at all on any "doctrines."

The critique of Christian Anti-Nomian-ism started right with Peter and James. It came to full expression in Saadia Gaon who made clear his two major critiques on Christianity (1) anti-law (2) שיתוף ["joining" a creation with the Creator].

The trouble is the opposite critique has not really received a good definition. That is even though the Torah itself says "לא תוסיף" ''do not add to the Law,'' but the resulting nightmarish world that results when people do this has not really been analyzed.  Even Musar which was supposed to correct both tendencies has gone off the deep end of the pool.   

However I tend to think that the Rambam's Guide is a good antidote against religious fanaticism. 

The main dynamics of fanaticism is the religious leader is often a mentally ill person with OCD and sexual hangups. It becomes OK for him and his henchmen  to come up with new restrictions all the time as long as doing so does not interfere with their getting their own pleasures fulfilled. Thus the Jewish religious world, while not mentally ill in itself, still has the trouble that its leaders are mentally ill.

Music for the honor and glory of God

t69 in mp3  This I think is more or less finished. It might need some editing so I ask the forbearance of the readers of this blog for any mistakes.  [t69 in midi]

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left.

There is enough of "Down with the USA" from the Left. I do not see any reason for the Right to reinforce this -except a few recently bad presidents with bad policies. But to continue in this vein now seems to defeat the whole purpose. For 200 years the USA stood for everything that is right and decent more than any other nation in history. Even King David and King Solomon did not get anywhere near the 200 year mark. David I think was about 40 years and Solomon I forget. My opinion is that a lot of animosity comes from male white people being severely abused by the last couple of administrations. But now that is stopping and the USA is getting back on track. Why knock it?


Allen Bloom in his The Closing of the American Mind saw all the problems but his solution was limited to education in Plato's Republic. I would propose another solution but also along the lines that he said about the importance of education. My solution would be more or less along the lines of the Rambam of education in four areas the Written Law of Moses, the Oral Law--especially Rav Shach's Avi Ezri which contains the essence of the Oral Law, Physics [i.e. Field Theory which means Quantum Mechanics, Quantum Field Theory, String Theory, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle. I do not mean to discount what Allen Bloom was saying. It is just a matter of emphasis.]

[I do not mean to be exclusive either. First of all clearly the Rambam was also referring to Plato even though he thought more highly of Aristotle. Still I am curious abut what he saw in the Republic. My own feeling is the smaller dialogues are more important. Also in terms of the Oral Law, it is a good idea to learn the whole school of thought of Reb Chaim Solovietchik staring the חידושי הרמב''ם from Reb Chaim himself and including his major disciples.

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