But I can not help but feel sad that the basic approach of combining Torah with Physics and Metaphysics as the Rambam suggested is not implemented at least a little bit.

On one hand I can see that to learn Torah well one needs to concentrate on it like they do in Litvak yeshivas. All day, every day. But I can not help but feel sad that the basic approach of combining Torah with Physics and Metaphysics as the Rambam suggested is not implemented at least a little bit.
[As I mentioned, the other major Musar books agree with the Rambam. This you can see in the Obligations of the Heart  שער הבחינה he mentions learning the wisdom in God's creation. It is hard to see it there at first, but if you are exacting in the language you can see it.] However when one is involved in Torah to the degree that you see in Litvak yeshivas, I can see why people would not want to be distracted.

And after all, I am the biggest time waster of all-so who am I to talk? Still I can see the advantage in knowing at least a bit of Quantum Mechanics and Aristotle's book Metaphysics.
Today after Kant, I think one ought to approach Metaphysics along the lines of Leonard Nelson and the Kant-Friesian approach. [In terms of Metaphysics that means mainly Schopenhauer who is close to Plato. As such the whole thing is in fact close to Saadia Gaon and the Rambam.]

Much of philosophy has become absurd so most of the approaches are not worth the time and trouble. But I am very impressed with  Leonard Nelson. Where things went wrong seems to be when people spent just too much time and effort either defending Hegel or disagreeing with Hegel. Hegel seems to be like a kind of collapsed star-- that once one is in its orbit, there is no escape. It is like one gets trapped in that world view.





[The Rambam is tilting towards Aristotle but still remains in a Neo Plato context. So along with Saadia Gaon he corresponds well with the Kant/Fries and Schopenhauer streams of thought.  ]

U-90 A Major U-90 midi  U-90 nwc

First Americans (apparently they were from Stone Age France.

First Americans (apparently they were from Stone Age France. click on link) The North Atlantic ice-edge corridor: a possible Palaeolithic route to the New World (click on link)


The basic idea depends on a computer model. People  took all the known data from that time period and feed it into the computer [the largest in the world] and they discovered the current near the glaciers of the Ice Age flowing toward North America. Plus the discovery in Virginia of a spear head that was made by a method known only in Ice Age France.
This current towards N America still exists today as you can see here off the coast of Greenland



And here are the currents from 20,000 years ago: (https://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/feature/the-once-and-future-circulation-of-the-ocean) [See: Circulation of Atlantic Ocean currents reversed 20,000 years ago]

u89music file

U-89 B Flat Major  U-89 in midi

Musar of Reb Israel Salanter

The world view of Musar is really radical and simple. That good traits [note 1] are what really matters.
[Not that everyone that learns Musar is a decent person. I think my own parents were about the best thing I ever saw in terms of personal traits.  We attended Temple Israel [Reform] so we were not really into learning Musar. But the fact is my parents knew well that Torah is about good traits. I assume they got that from their parents.

But there is the "spirit of Torah" that I found in NY Litvak yeshivas that I did not feel as a part of Reform Judaism That being said Reform Jews are in general a lot better when it comes to the aspect of Torah that relate to obligations "between man and his fellow man."


And sometimes Musar can provide some ideological excuse. Although Musar is important, the proof is in the pudding   --good traits are what matters, not the learning about good traits.
I also went to the Boy Scouts, and there also was an emphasis on traits and self improvement.

At any rate, the message about good traits and fear of God I saw in Musar so much that at some point I got the message that: that is what "it's all about." That is, one's portion in the next world, and also in this world. Further, that holding on to good traits tends to create a force field around one-imperfect but still a kind of protection.
You might not think of Dante as an authority about Gehinom [Hell],-- but his opinion is also that the people in Hell did not have good traits.


[note 1] This is called "midot tovot". Not to lie, or steal. There are more details but that is the basic idea. Musar  goes into the details, not just in the mediaeval books, but also the Musar books that were written by the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. The books of Reb Israel helped me to get a clear idea of what Torah is all about even more than the classical books of Musar.

Since the Lithuanian Yeshiva world is as difficult to figure out as much as politics and since politics is nowhere near being an exact science, therefore it makes no sense to analyse it but rather to identify the particulars places that are worthy of support and emulation. Regardless of what ever the reason for their excellence might be.

The well known Ivy League is obviously Ponoviz in Bnei Brak and the Litvak yeshivas in NY.
But what makes them great seems to be for me an impossible question to answer.


The Litvak Yeshiva = Straight Torah. And that is the main thing which makes this kind of institution unique and important.

Litvak yeshivas

Even though people do not look on Litvak yeshivas as hippe communes they do have something in common. A kind of attempt to escape from the world and to build a private Utopia.
The flaw in the system is that it is not self contained.

There is unquestionably an aspect of utopia in the whole thing. And when it works--it works well.
And when things are going OK, you never have any reason to doubt that this is the "true path."
It is like me and my stomach. I never noticed how my digestive system is working, until  something went haywire. Same in the Litvak yeshiva world. There are plenty of good reasons to say that it in fact is about as close to utopia in this world than one can get. One learns and follows objective morality and is able to ignore the awful horrifying secular world.
The reason I am asking about it is for the cases when it does not seem to work--like for me. I am no where near being able to do an analysis on this but it begs to be done.
It is like political theory. When a state seems to be abusing people, the tendency is to attack theories that support the state. When on the other hand chaos and crime reign, one looks for justification of the State. 

What I mean is the Litvak yeshiva context was very nice for me for a while, but at some point something seems to have gone off course. And I can have no idea how to account for that.