Whatever religious group one gets involves with, it always seems to end up being worship of people.
Even Buddha who was not asking for worship, did end up becoming an object of worship.
I must say that even though it is good to learn from the wise, it is never good to worship them.

I think it proper to mention that I try to stick with good principles that have been emphasized by wise men. And I try to use common sense to avoid things that may be held up for admiration but which I feel are suspicious.


(1) So worship of people as far as I am concerned is completely out of the question.
(2) I also avoid rebuking others for the same reason. It is a command in the Torah, but it is a command that I feel can cause more damage than good if applied without great caution.  I try to save it for the most serious of issues.
(3)   I definitly agree with the emphasis in the Mir Yeshiva on learning Gemara and Musar [ethics and rules of proper conduct].
(4)  I feel that Rav Silverman [Eliyahu] was right for taking the Gra at his word about putting his signature on the letter of excommunication. That is the only yeshiva that I am aware of that does take it seriously. That is for the same above mentioned reason about the importance of not doing idolatry.

What is relevant now about this is that keeping Torah depends on staying away from Jewish religious teachers as far as possible.

סביב רשעים יתהלכון In Psalms there is  a verse that states "around  go the wicked" This is usually understood to mean wherever holiness is found, around that come the kelipot dark forces to wreak it up.


In Reb Nachman's thought this comes up in different ways. One is the idea he brings from the Zohar that when there is a lot of sin in the world, the opening towards holiness is almost shut. But in order that it should not be shut completely they place there a false teacher.

For me in particular this is relevant because  my experiences with religious teachers has been universally negative in the extreme. I definitely can relate to what Reb Nachman is saying.

That is that religious teachers are actually placed there to keep people away from Torah and to give Torah and bad name. There is no question that there is a great deal of evidence to support Reb Nachman's thesis that Jewish religious teachers are home wreckers and their actual mission is to destroy families and all adherence to Torah.

What is relevant now about this is that keeping Torah depends on staying away from Jewish religious teachers as far as possible.

As ironic as it seems the best places with real authentic Torah are places that go by the Gra--and the more closely they follow the Gra the better.

[It seems to me that this ties in with another idea of Reb Nachman that the evil inclination is a continuous spectrum. That is--it starts at coarse  physical desires but reaches up towards the spiritual evil inclination and even up to the fallen angel the Satan. That is similar to the idea of Reb Israel Salanter that there is  a physical evil inclination and spiritual evil inclination. The spiritual one has nothing to do with physical desires but rather what ever is against the Law of God, the Law of Moses, it gives one a great desire to do.  ]

It should be clear that the spiritual evil inclination is vastly more evil than the physical evil inclination. And this explains the reasons for the phenomenon that I discuses in the above essay.

U-25 E Flat Major   U-23 F Major

The Constitution of the USA

There is an aspect to the Constitution that is not mentioned often. It is this. It was the way in the ancient world that if you had a small village that was just barely surviving and there was a neighboring village that was doing better you had two choices. Do better--work harder. But that turns out to be hard. It is much easier to get a few men together and invade the next village and kill the men and enslave the women. The only protection from this was for the other village to have more men. And thus States arose. The more men--the more protected you were. And thus arose Empires also. The bigger--the better. This is the unspoken story about the USA Constitution.It is a way to get everyone together to make a State.But the unique thing is it is based on moral principles not just might makes right like the Left. [In this I am leaving out the important point that human flourishing depends on there being a state.] In any case the Constitution depends on the kind of people that created it. It can not exist without the majority of the people agreeing with it's principles. I mean it can not be a unifying force strong enough to create a nation unless people agree with it.

The reason socialism appeals to people is also because of agreement but its agreement depends on greed. "Take from the rich and give it to us." It appeals to the lowest denominator of human nature. The Constitution appeals to the highest aspects of human nature.

In the yeshiva world in the Mir in N.Y. and Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway the emphasis was on learning Torah. The basic idea I think is that you can either tell people what your ideas of morality and justice are and hope that they will accept them. Or a better choice is let people learn Torah, and thus teach themselves morality.
This goes along with the basic problem of trying to convince other's of your own ideas. Usually it does not work. But when people learn Torah and Musar along the lines of Reb Israel Salanter and the Gra--in that way they teach themselves.
But I never really saw much justification for this idea until I learned the Nefesh HaChaim by a disciple of the Gra. There he brings the well known ideas about learning Torah from Shas.

That is to say that learning Torah is a drawing down of the light of the (4) שם מ''ה יוד הא ואו הא  and therefore on a whole new level beyond any of the other commandments of the Torah.

The idea of Musar I should mention is also along the same lines. It is not possible to reach the "self" directly because only the surface of the self is visible. But by learning Torah and Musar one indirectly can reach the self. [ I might mention the important principle of not speaking Lashon Hara [speaking evil] about others as being the opposite side of the coin of learning Torah.--That is to say that both of these things together reach to the light of the שם מ''ה {Divine Name with the value 45}

But both of these ideas  are based on Chazal. You can not just go through the Torah and find something that appeals to you and claim that "This... is the main thing."  That is called המגלה פנים התורה שלא כהלכה and the Rif and Rosh say that books that claim that type of thing  are in the category of ספרים חיצוניים -books of the Dark Side.
 Since it came up I might as well expand a bit. The basic idea of the Ari Isaac Luria is that at first there was no place for creation because the Infinite Light was everywhere and so God contracted Himself  to create a hollow space for creation (and left a spot of his light in the middle ) and then drew into it a קו וחוט a line and thread of his Infinite Light which went down a drop and then turne towards the sides to make the first sepherah of circles. Then from there down some more nine more times. Then came אדם קדמון The ten sepherot in the form of  a man. Then from his ears nose mouth were drawn more worlds. Then from his eyes. That last one caused the breaking of the vessels and then the light of the שם מ''ה [name of value 45] shown to make a correction. That is the short story of why it is important to learn Torah. That is because it draws that light which is a correction to all the kelipot and breaking of the vessels.
I usually do not go into this because the Dark Side has taken the Ari as prisoner..

In the beginning of בבא בתרא the גמרא is trying to figure out if היזק ראיה שמיה היזקץ or not? They do this at first by looking at the משנה
The משנה says that if שותפים want to divide a court yard they build a wall.
The words the משנה uses are שרצו לעשות מחיצה.  So the question is what is a מחיצה? A wall? or just some sticks stuck in the ground to show where the dividing line is. The גמרא seems to say that if the word מחיצה means a wall [גודא] then we learn from this that היזק ראיה לאו שמיה היזק.
I have at this point in time no idea what the גמרא means. Does it mean this. If it means a wall then there is no proof one way or the other. Only if it means a division, then we can deduce that היזק ראיה שמיה היזק. Or does it mean there is an actual proof?

I think it is possible that the גמרא is thinking like this. If the משנה would hold היזק ראיה שמיה היזק then it would have written השותפים שרצו ליחלק בונים כותל. That is to say it had an easy way of adding a little more information. But it choose not to do so. Therefore it must hold לאו שמיה היזק



בתחילת בבא בתרא הגמרא מנסה להבין אם היזק ראיה שמיה היזק או לא? הם עושים זאת בהתחלה  על ידי שמסתכלים במשנה. המשנה אומרת שאם שותפים רוצים לחלק חצר הם בונים קיר. המילים שהמשנה משתמשת בהן הן  "שרצו לעשות מחיצה". אז השאלה היא מה היא מחיצה? קיר? או רק מקלות תקועים באדמה כדי להראות היכן הקו המפריד הוא. גמרא נראית שרוצה לומר שאם המילה מחיצה פירושו קיר [גודא] אז אנחנו לומדים מכך היזק ראיה לאו שמיה היזק. אין לי בשלב הזה מושג מה הגמרא מכוונת. האם זאת אומרת - אם פירושו קיר אז אין הוכחה לכאן או לכאן. רק אם זה אומר חלוקה, אז אנחנו יכולים להסיק כי היזק ראיה שמיה היזק. או אולי פירוש הדבר ישנה הוכחה בפועל?


אני חושב שזה אפשרי שהגמרא חושבת ככה. אם המשנה מחזיקה שהיזק ראיה שמיה היזק אז היא היתה כותבת השותפים שרצו ליחלק בונים כותל. כלומר היה למשנה דרך קלה להוסיף קצת יותר מידע. אבל היא בחרה שלא לעשות זאת. לכן היא חייבת להחזיק לאו שמיה היזק.

In the beginning of Bava Batra the Gemara is trying to figure out if היזק ראיה שמיה היזקץ. (Damage caused by seeing is damage or not). They do this at first by looking at the Mishna
The Mishna says that if partners want to divide a court yard they build a wall.
The words the mishna uses are שרצו לעשות מחיצה (that wanted to make a division) so the question is what is a מחיצה (division)? A wall? or just some sticks stuck in the ground to show where the dividing line is. The Gemara seems to say that if the word מחיצה means a wall [גודא] then we learn from this that היזק ראיה לאו שמיה היזק ((Damage caused by seeing is not damage).
I have at this point in time no idea what the Gemara means. Does it mean that if it means a wall then there is no proof one way or the other. Only if it means a division then we can deduce that היזק ראיה שמיה היזק. Or does it mean there is an actual proof?


I think it is possible that the gemara is thinking like this: If the Mishna would hold היזק ראיה שמיה היזק then it would have written השותפים שרצו ליחלק בונים כותל. That is to say it had an easy way of adding a little more information. But it choose not to do so. Therefore it must hold לאו שמיה היזק