What is Torah all about?

There seem to be  lot of opinions about "What Torah is all about." The Musar opinion of Isaac Blazer [good traits and fear of God] is not the only one. There is Abraham Isaiah  [author of the חזון איש] that the main thing is to be careful about law. The commentary on the beginning of Mishne Torah of the Rambam holds the main thing is to come to the higher awe of God. The Ran of Breslov held it is שמירת הברית [sexual sanctity]. The Torah itself puts a lot of emphasis on coming and staying in Israel in Deuteronomy פרשת היראה.

I think the higher awe of God is certainly among the major goals of Torah. But I can also see that Rav Isaac Balzer was right because I see  most of the books of the great sages of the Middle Ages and also the Reshash [Rav Shalom Sharabi] seconded his motion.

The opinion that the ultimate purpose of Torah is to come to awe of God has an important practical application. For if one merits to this awe of God, he might be tempted to push it off by ignorence of its value. So simply being aware of this idea is important.



The approach of the Gra and his disciple Reb Haim of Voloshin  is that the major way of coming to Oneness with God and Awe of him is by learning Torah. This idea is in fact mentioned openly in the Yerushalmi Gemara in Peah.כל חפציך לא ישוו בה. כל חפצים לא ישוו בה אפילו חפצי שמיים אינם שווים לדיבור אחד של תורה All the commandments are equal to even one word of learning Torah.
[This idea of the Gra I think is quite right.]]

New Left

My basic feeling is to notice the connections between the New Left and the Old Left of 1848. That is the militant approach to impose the dictatorship of the low class on all others. Also I recall that I would also have been a Leftist if not for learning the Old Testament along with the commentary called the Oral Law. In the Oral Law a great deal of Leftist ideas are opposed. For example the emphasis on good traits, working on improving one's own faults instead of the faults of others, and PRIVATE PROPERTY. The emphasis ought to be on personal transformation, not transforming "society." When one improves himself, then everyone around him also improves.

This did not come all at once though. Mainly it was diffused until I started taking Musar more seriously. Then at that time I started to see the whole thing about good traits {midot tovot) and fear of God as being the things that Torah requires above everything else.

(What makes sense to me to learn in terms of politics is L. T. Hobhouse in his Metaphysical Theory of the State. And I might mention that English History in itself gives a great background to understanding the Constitution of the USA.
L. T. Hobhouse in his Metaphysical Theory of the State is important because he brings a great deal of common sense to the issues.)

Bryan Caplan goes into the source of the problem in Hume

Bryan Caplan goes into the source of the problem in Hume in that Hume thinks reason does nothing but detect contradictions. He asserts this over and over again as if it is simple, yet without ever giving any kind of argument for it. It is as if he has packed the jury against reason without giving it a chance to defend itself. (To me it seems obvious that Hume got this idea from his learning of Geometry and saw there that one way reason  functions is to detect contractions.) But as Kant noted reason does more. But how? With Hegel it is by a dialectical process. With Fries it is by non intuitive immediate knowledge [non sensed and not through anything else].

Self defense and Dr Huemer

Dr. Huemer has a nice essay on self defense where he brings new points. Mainly that people have the right to defend themselves, and the police have no obligation to defend anyone as upheld in USA courts consistently.

Dr Kelley Ross also has an essay about this.

Reb Israel Salanter -the Musar movement

In the book of one of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter, Isaac Blazer, is brought the idea that there are two levels of fear of God. Fear of punishment and awe. And he brings that the lower fear is to bring to the higher fear which then leads to attachment with God.
In the prophets of old, it is clear that this attachment sometimes brought with it some kind of new revelation as with Moses who came to the highest level of attachment with God at Mount Sinai -but he did not stay there, but then brought the Torah to Israel.

The Musar movement [of Reb Israel Salanter] itself  in itself is a great idea. To get people to learn and try to keep the basic books of Ethics from the Middle Ages that encapsulated the basic lessons of how to live according to the Law of Moses.
The trouble is that it got mixed up with institutions. Real faith is personal. Torah was not meant to be a business.

One of the reasons for the divide of faith and state in the USA Constitution was the abuses of clergy in England of the Anglican Establishment. This same dynamic you can see today when people use Torah for money.

In any case, Musar itself is divided, into Musar of the disciples of Reb Israel, Musar based on esoteric literature [post Middle Ages], Musar of the Middle Ages. 
[In any case, the basic emphasis is on good traits and fear of God and pointing out that both are essential aspects of Torah.]

There is a difference of opinion about secular learning. All later Musar condemn it. Musar of the Middle Ages recommends parts of it--not all. The Rambam/Maimonides recommends Physics and Metaphysics as leading to fear and love of God.] [This same opinion you can see in the Obligations of the Heart and other Musar books of the Middle Ages that also go along with this idea. But even back then there were plenty of opposite opinions (like the Ramban/Nahmanides). But even the Nahmanides was a doctor. It seems he was against Aristotle but not learning a secular discipline for the sake of making an honest living.]

Learning Musar did in fact help orient me towards the importance of good traits and also to come to Israel. In fact, the whole mind set [paradigm-and world view] has stayed with me even after times when I have not been learning Musar.

second amendment

Gun rights and natural law

There is a lot of material on natural law. Though the start of it being stated explicitly began with Saadia Gaon.  Still the basic idea in the Constitution itself seems clear from two angles. One is the grammar of the second amendment. In grammar, the prefatory clause [being that] is subordinate to the main clause [therefore]. Second of all, the 9th amendment makes it clear that there are natural rights that the Constitution does not cover, and it limits the power of government to infringe on those rights. Though not tied openly to the second amendment, the implication is clear that natural law and natural rights are the underlying structure.

Gun rights in England were made clear by the Bill of Rights in 1689: Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law. But the USA Constitution, while depending  a lot on England for the basic ideas, is still different in particulars. 

[The whole thing began with King Alfred, but the more modern problem was with King James the Second who used the militia to collect taxes. James the Second was removed peacefully and thus came the Bill of Rights of 1689.]


In any case, I just can not see this working in Ukraine. The trouble is that different kinds of people make this whole thing improbable. See Sapolsky about DNA [at Stanford University]. 

There is a kind of similarity in witch trials in Salem and accusations of sexual harassment in the USA. Just the fact of being accused is the same as being convicted.  One can perhaps trace this to the Puritan roots of the USA. But to me it seems to be already mentioned in the Gemara itself: "Lashon hara [slander], if it does not convince completely, at least it does so by half." And this dynamic seems to be a regular human trait --nothing to do with Puritans. Just accuse someone you do not like of some dastardly, wicked deed, and you already get at least half of what you want. There is no loss.  You get everything or half. But you do not lose anything--[at least at first]. Eventually, the ball  bounces back.

[The trouble of tracing this to the Puritans is that you find it enough in England and on the Continent to suggest it was more wide spread.]