Nationalism has a complicated history;-- much more that people realize. I was once asked about this idea and I said at the time that it does have some support from the Zohar as there כנסת ישראל [congregation of Israel] is used most often as a nickname for the Divine Presence.
That is the שכינה (Divine Presence) is thought to be the חיה (life) or unifying soul of Israel.

In any case, the history started with the French Revolution. By the time of Napoleon III, communism socialism was opposed to nationalism. In any case Napoleon III was the first to create a kind of synthesis of nationalism along with socialist policies than have come to be part and parcel of the modern state. 

But the whole going to "kivrei tzadikim" [grave of the righteous] has gone way past the fine line.

There is a kind of fine line. I think going to the grave of Reb Nahman to say the ten psalms is fine. But just that one can step over an invisible line.
But the whole going to "kivrei tzadikim" [grave of the righteous] has gone way past the fine line.
However to a small degree it is allowed and even mentioned in the Gemara itself on as a practice that is legitimate.



In fact I noticed today that someone quoted the חיי מוהר'ן קס''ב [Life of Reb Nahman. 162]  where Reb Nahman said that he wanted to return to Israel and to die there. That is he did not in fact want to be buried in Uman. Rather --if it had been his choice he would have returned to Israel and to stay there until he died and to be buried in Israel.

The basic idea of idolatry to the Rambam is what is what is considered going to God through a middle man. The actual worship of the middle man is only a derivative of the main principle which is using the middle man to get to God. I went into this in my litttle booklet on Shas.
Reb Haim from Voloshin also goes into this in the נפש החיים
[I used this fact to explain a difficult Rambam as I might post here.]

I tried to learn this subject in Sanhedrin pages 63-65. My basic conclusion from all that was to stay away from the religious world since according to that Rambam, they are all doing idolatry.

I did not act on that at the time but eventually what the Rambam was saying started to make sense to me.



) סנהדרין סא: הרמב''ם פסק שעבודה לאמצעי גם כן נחשבת למינות. בפירוש המשנה הוא מסביר העיקר החמישי שעבודה לשום דבר חוץ מן השם היא עבודה זרה. וזה אפילו אם כוונתו היא שהאמצעי יקרב אותו להשם יתברך. (ושם הוא מסביר שהאיסור מכיל כל דבר מהמלאכים עד הגלגלים ועד כל דבר מורכב מארבעה היסודות. כוונתו כל דבר מן הרוחניים ודברים שנעשו מן ההיולי (כמו שחשבו לגבי הגלגלים), וגם דברים בזה העולם שנעשו מן ארבעה היסודות. ובמשנה תורה הוא מוסיף שהאיסור מכיל כל דבר שנברא.
כשלמדתי את הרמב''ם בהלכות עבודה זרה, לא היה ברור לי מהוא עיקרו ומהותו של עבודה זרה. ראיתי שהוא מביא את העניין של לקבל כאלוה, וחשבתי שזה מהותו של ע''ז. אבל אחר כך ראיתי את הגמרא בסנהדרין סב: אתמר העובד ע''ז מאהבה ומיראה אביי קבע חייב רבא קבע פטור. והבנתי שאם מהותו של ע''ז היא לקבל כאלוה אז אין מקום לשיטת אביי שגם בלי זה הוא חייב. ואין מקום לכל המחלוקת. ואז הבנתי למה הרמב''ם התחיל עם הסיפור של דור אנוש. לפי דעת הרמב''ם עיקרו של ע''ז הוא לשבח ולפאר או לעבוד שום נברא בתור אמצעי כדי לקיים רצון הבורא או שיהיה האמצעי מליץ טוב בשבילו או שהאמצעי ישפיע איזה טוב אליו.
הקדמה: בתחילת הלכות עבודה זרה הרמב''ם כתב שעיקר עבודה זרה היא לעבוד או לפאר אמצעי כדי להתקרב לבורא יתברך. וכן הוא כתב הפירוש המשנה פרק חלק. בפרק ג' הוא כותב שהעובד מאהבה או מיראה אינו חייב אלא אם כן הוא מקבלו עליו כאלוה. הרמ''ך שאל למה הוא חייב כשזורק אבן למרקוליס בלי לקבל עליו כאלוה? החברותא שלי תירץ שכוונת הרמב''ם היא שחייב חטאת בגלל עבודה זרה בשוגג. והוא לא כיוון שחייב סקילה. אני רוצה לומר שהתנאי לקבל עליו כאלוה הוא רק במצב של עובד מאהבה או מיראה. ובדרך כלל העובד רק בתור אמצעי חייב בגלל שהעובד אמצעי הוא עיקר עבודה זרה.






Ideas in Bava Metzia.   Ideas in Shas

Rav Avraham Abulafia was one of those people who were not exactly politically correct.
The major story with him is fairly well known. He was a mystic from the Middle Ages and is quoted extensively by later mystics like Rav Haim Vital, the Remak and Rav Haim Azulai. etc.
He went to debate the pope and the pope sent police to arrest him on his way there. But anyone who tried to lay a hand on him did not survive long.

But he was subject also to criticism by the Rashba and others.
Thus his books were not published for 800 years until recently someone finally published the whole set.

The first person to pay any attention to him in recent years is Professor Moshe Idel who did his PhD thesis on Rav Abulafia, and also wrote lots of later books dealing with his approach. Then later, that fellow from Mea Shearim went into the basement of Hebrew University and started the long and arduous process of writing down the medieval script into legible Hebrew letters and publishing his books.

What is lacking is for someone to redact his system. To condense it and explain it. For what was published was simply to write down in legible script the manuscripts in medieval script. No real analysis has been done yet.

Even though it is common to give students advice, "Think for yourself. Examine the issue on your own and come to your own conclusions," if your friend comes to you complaining about stomach pains would you tell him to study the issue on his own and come to his own conclusions, or would you tell him to go to a doctor?

Faith in the wise has a good argument going for it from Dr Michael Huemer. Even though it is common to give students advice, "Think for yourself. Examine the issue on your own and come to your own conclusions," if your friend comes to you complaining about stomach pains would you tell him to study the issue on his own and come to his own conclusions, or would you tell him to go to a doctor?

I never thought thinking for oneself made sense when it come to learning and understanding  Physics.

So faith in the wise is an important principle but the real issue is how to gain the proper degree of common sense to tell who is really wise or an expert in a subject and on the opposite end of things who is faking it?

Soft subjects are just too easy to fake. The hard sciences are much harder to fake.

The ease of faking expertise in easy subjects is what makes the experts worth while staying away from.


The greater the reputation one has in the easy stuff, the greater likelihood is the guy is just the best faker among mediocre fakers.

[But still faith in the wise I think is important. There was a time I was in great need of good advice, and I decided to take a Torah lesson of Rav Nahman from Breslov Vol. 1:61 and just say it through every day for as long as it would take for me to get to a good decision. That is a lesson that discusses the problem of not knowing the right direction.

I was looking at the history of Communism and it seems to me that in spite of it being really ridiculous, still I think it comes from an awareness of abuse on the part of princes and priests.

I was looking at the history of Communism and it seems to me that in spite of it being really ridiculous, still I think it comes from an awareness of abuse on the part of princes and priests.
That is:  it is  a reaction.
John Searle pointed out that not just moral relativism but the larger relativism itself is incoherent. It depends on reality itself being relative. Thus not just the truth of "It is raining here and now" as a statement, but the very fact of the rain in itself. ["There is no intermediate position of truth relativism or semantic relativism between absolutism and ontological relativism, the view that everything that exists only exists relative to my feelings and attitudes."]

The further most obvious problem with Communism is the question: "Who hires the worker?" The obvious answer is the boss. No one is born with the label "worker" printed on their forehead. They only become a worker because the boss hires him. If you kill all the bosses, then there are no workers.



So what kinds of abuse caused people to fall for incoherent doctrines? You have to say there was a lot. Not just that, but Communism itself seems to have been a necessary antidote against the types of criminal populations that were under the rule of the USSR.

So the clear and true points of critique against socialism are seeing just one side of the picture.
I have mentioned before that the Ran (Rav Nahman) from Breslov made a note of the terrible and horrific abuses that were done in the name of the holy Torah. He considers many of the great and well known religious authorities to be demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים

So what you end up with is: there really is no big answer for the human dilemma. We all ought to simply keep and learn Torah and Musar as best we can.

That was in any case the answer my learning partner David Bronson suggested. I had mentioned some of the problems with abuse in the religious world and he agreed but then suggested that since that is the case we ought to simply learn Gemara and try to be decent people ourselves instead of looking at what is wrong with others, or trying to correct the world.

[You would be right if you think that that is not the most satisfying answer. If you would in fact like to do something in the right direction, I would think that the basic Musar Movement of Reb Israel Salanter makes the most sense.--that is learning Ethics and books of Morality from the Middle Ages before these issues got to be muddy.]

In the Litvak yeshiva world there is a general goal of learning Torah. This not for the sake of making money.

In the Litvak yeshiva world there is a general goal of learning Torah. This not for the sake of making money. In fact, it is considered close to sinful to make money by means of learning Torah.
So then what do people think about when they think about "Parnasa"--making a living?
It is known that there is an argument between the trust of the Obligations of the Heart and Navardok.
However it was pointed out by Rav Joseph Horviz of Navardok that the Obligations of the Heart also recognizes the idea of trusting in God without doing any effort.
What I noticed today is that in the very end of שער הביטחון the obligations of the heart brings this idea of trust in God with no effort as a higher level than trust with effort.

It used to be understood that learning Torah is  a kind of attachment with God. However Saint Simon began the approach in Europe that working is a higher goal-in fact the highest goal. This got to be embedded deeply into people. But from a Torah point of view, learning Torah is higher- but not as work.

[Saint Simon and Hegel were not responsible for the chaos that engulfed Europe after the French Revolution. But their systems were used to justify the various revolutions that plunged Europe into darkness. Marx used both.]

[Marx  used the labor theory of value and the principles of Saint Simon and a modified form of Hegel to weave together his approach. In high school I was barely aware of the thinking behind Marx though I read his Manifesto. Mainly I have to say I just as very unimpressed with most 1800's thinking. None of the revolutions promising Utopia seemed to make sense to me.]

On the other hand I understand very well the reasons that Europe went in for all those crazy theories. They were tired of abuses by priests and kings. It is in fact a point of interest that none of these revolutions made  a dent on the USA, England or Switzerland the three countries with a strong Protestant force.