Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam [Maimonides] and the Beliefs and Doctrines by Rav Saadia Gaon.

One of the major ideas of the Torah is to bring to good character traits. This was the object of the Musar movement of Reb Israel Salanter to bring about this goal.

That was by emphasizing the idea of learning Musar--Ethics of the Middle Ages.

But Musar itself depends on world view issues-thus along with Musar what ought to be emphasize are the works of world view of the sages of the Middles Ages and the Gaonic period.

That is obviously the Guide for the Perplexed of the Rambam [Maimonides] and the Beliefs and Doctrines by Rav Saadia Gaon. ]


But along with good character there was an emphasis on Fear of God--at least that was the way Isaac Blazzer understood the ideas of his teacher Reb Israel Salanter.
In any case, it is clear that each school of Musar had its own unique approach but I think it is safe to say that these two things were fundamental--good character and fear of God.



The Guide of the Rambam has a mystical commentary [interpretation] by Rav Avraham Abulafia from the Middle Ages. [I should mention a lot of work of Rav Avraham Abulafia has begun ever since his writings were published in legible form in Jerusalem. Dr. Idel started this whole thing when he devoted his Ph.D thesis to Rav Abulafia and later a few books.]

Rav Abulafia was not liked by everyone. Still  I have a lot of confidence in him.

The Rashba, an important rishon was against Rav Abulafia. But see Shem Hagedolim by a well known Sefardi sage [Rav Yoseph Haim Azulai] who brings Rav Abulafia in a very positive sense. Also the writings of RAA are quoted by Moshe of Cordoba and Rav Haim Vital. [Moshe of Codoba is called the "Remak".]

R. Shimon Ben Yohai says one can take the pledge of a rich widow because the reason for the verse --"Do not take the pledge of a widow"--does not apply. So there is no doubt that we know the reason for the verse. The only argument is if we go by the reason or by the letter of the law?

עשות חסד ומשפט והצנע לכת עם השם אלהיך The prophet Micha says "What does the Lord ask of you but to do kindness and justice and to walk modestly with your God."
הצנע comes for a verb להצניע to hide. It means not to advertise your religiously. It has to do with general conduct--not to make a public statement about how religiously scrupulous you are.

This is mentioned in the end of tractate Makot.. There the Gemara says different prophets came along and reduced the number of commandments one has to do. Rashi explains there that if everyone would be required to keep all the laws of the Torah, no one would merit to the next world. So they reduced the requirements.
To me it seems clear that that Gemara and that Rashi are going with the opinion of  the sage of the Mishna, Shimon Ben Yohai that דורשים טעמה דקרא we go by the reason for  verse.

You can see in the Gemara that the reasons for the verses are not considered to be unknown. They are considered to be known, but the argument is if one goes by the words of the verse or the known reason. Thus, if one goes by the reason, and the reason does not apply in a certain case, then the rule does not apply. This you can see in a few places, but one which comes to mind is the Bava Metzia [end of פרק המקבל] where R. Shimon Ben Yohai says one can take the pledge of a rich widow because the reason for the verse --not to take the pledge of a widow--does not apply.

I had some doubt if the law is like this opinion or not. The Rambam in one case goes like it and in another not like it. Then I saw in the Avi Ezri a very nice answer that there is  a third opinion that the Rambam is going with. In any case, there are cases where we depend on this idea of Shimon ben Yohai for example in new grain that was harvested after the Omer as the Taz says.

The actual reason for the commandments of the Torah the Rambam gives in a few places in the Mishne Torah and the Guide; and the Rishonim from the opposite side of the aisle--[the Ramban with an "N" at the end and his whole school do not disagree in any place that I have heard of.]
Off hand, from what I recall, the reasons are : To not worship any other God besides the First Cause. And thus to stay away from all things related to idolatry. [To the Rambam that already accounts for about half of all the commandments.] To develop good character traits. To lessen one's desires and pleasures. To come to peace of the State.

music file U40

U-40 A Major 

the Law of Moses is to love and fear God.

One aspect of keeping the Law of Moses is to love and fear God. The Rambam considers these two commandments to be commands to do some action. After all, emotions can not be commanded. Thus he understands the first to learn Metaphysics. The second [fear of God] to learn Physics.

The way to do this  think is early in the morning. That is to get up and start right away with the hardest thing--[Quantum Field Theory]. [Seeing God's wisdom in his Creation, inspires one to fear and love of God as the Rambam brings down in the Mishne Torah ch. I and in the Guide.]

Before that a little Tosphot and plain learning of the Avi Ezri is also important as to start with simple fear of God. 

[The morning prayer tends to take a lot of time. That is a good thing if one wishes it as a voluntary thing. But in essence it is short. The original blessings for the Shema were one sentence long each as you can see in the prayer-book of Saadia Gaon.]  

[This idea of the Rambam I noticed first in a mediaeval book of Musar מעלות המידות. That was at the Mir in NY and it bothered me greatly since in fact I was spending all my time at the Mir learning Gemara. The was a great deal of cognitive dissonance that this caused to me. Later in Israel I noticed this same Rambam idea in חובות לבבות Obligations of the Heart. But not where you would expect to see it. It is in fact in שער הבחינה But you have to be exacting in his language to see his point.   ]

The basic idea here is not just the importance of Physics but also that of balance.

u39 music file

U-39 6-8 time E Minor

 See the Old Testament events surrounding the writing on the wall in the palace that Daniel had interpreted. The king did not repent after he heard the proper interpretation by Daniel.--even though he clearly believed in what Daniel had said since he gave him the promised reward
Why I bring this up is that it occurred to me that you see this quite a few times in the Old Testament.
With King David, Nineveh, Ahab, and Hezekiah. [They all repented after hearing from a prophet that a n evil decree had been declared on them because of some evil deed they had done. After they repented the evil decree was either rescinded or lessened. ]On the negative side --people that saw the message on the wall and did not repent, King Saul, and most of kings of Israel.

In any case, the idea seems to be consistent -that even after a decree has been made and the writing is on the wall, and danger is imminent,- repentance can change everything. And what is repentance? To obey God's word. Not in thought or words, but actions. ["Acta non verba."]

The important thing to notice about God's word is the idea in Deuteronomy chapter 4 "Don't and and don't subtract to the commandments."  Do not make up new ones, and do not delete or declare null the old ones.

The actual commandments are clear, but interestingly enough they do not have much to do with politics. Any politics is simply to keep the peace and do the laws of Moses.
But that does not mean politics is not relevant. Rather the idea is whatever brings a society close to keeping the Law of Moses is the way to go. It does not matter one way or the other if it is a democracy or monarchy or whatever else.

Not that politics is not important. But my impression is that the Constitution of the USA s about as good as possible. The only problem is that people need some degree of education about what it means. Thus in high school I suggest people learn the Federalist papers along with the line thinkers that came to bring about the Constitution. Starting from Plato and Thucydides.
In other words,I think getting the political system right is important but it is not a subject of the Law of Moses or the Two Talmuds. In philosophical jargon it would be called a different area of "value."  See Dr Kelley Ross for more detail. [ I do not understand his system very well. It requires thorough knowledge of Kant. But I get the basic ideas.] [I think an original-ist approach would have averted the Civil War also because the whole issue of secession would have been resolved by a 2/3 majority which is required to amend the Constitution or it could have gone to the Supreme Court because after all the South had legitimate grievances.

[The Law of Moses is actually pretty clear on a lot of issues like not to steal, cheat, lie etc. See the Ten Commandments for more details.]

Bitul Torah-not learning when one is able to learn

The general way the idea of Bitul Torah is looked at is that if there is a positive commandment that can not be done by anyone else, then one is required to stop learning Tora and do that commandment.
The way the Gra understands it is that not that one is required, but one is allowed to stop learning. And that makes more sense because the rule is one positive command does not push off another one."
This all come from a Gemara Yerushalmi that one sage sent his son to another city to learn Torah. Word got back to him that his son was doing other kinds of commandments. He sent to him, "I did not send you there for those other reasons but to learn Torah."

The issue of ספרים חיצוניים [outside books] comes up in Sanhedrin and it is related to the idea of Bitul Torah in this way. What constitutes Torah? According to the Rif and Rosh ספרים חיצונים are books that explain the Torah in ways other than the ways the sages of the Mishna and Gemara explained it.

Thus to understand Torah besides the two Talmuds one would learn the Midrashim that were written by the sages of the Talmud. I had in fact had learning partner Hagai Preshal who learned the Midrash Raba in his spare time. [The basic ones as far as I recall are  מדרש רבה, מדרש תנחומא, אליהו רבה וזוטא ספרי ספרא תורת כהנים]
[I should add that things that the Rambam considered important to learn, I do not think are Bitul Torah.  That is Physics and Metaphysics. To the Rambam that refers to these two subjects as understood as such by the Ancient Greeks. In my mind that would mean basically Quantum Field Theory and Aristotle's book The Metaphysics.

The way to go about this is to get to it right when you wake up in the morning, have the first cup of coffee and then Gemara and --Quantum Field Theory. Just open it up and say the page after page in order.