And the more people depend on the Zohar, the more they fall in delusions. The reason is that the Zohar itself has a certain flaw.

I agree that there were great mystics like the Ari Isaac Luria], Rav Nahman, the Remak [Moshe Cordovaro]. But to the degree they depended on the Zohar they seem weak.  But that does not invalidate their teachings. It just means that was the sort of looking glass that they were seeing through. It is like when one wears green colored glasses everything looks green.

But to account for the true revelations of great mystics you do not need the Zohar. There is more or less a basic path that people can follow--of separation from pleasures of this world and to spend time learning Torah. That in and of itself leads to attachment with the Divine.


But to account for mystic revelation I think the best approach is the Kant Friesian School which is a kind of Neo Kant School different than the Marburg School of Herman Cohen.

[The sad thing is no one has translated Leonard Nelson which is a very important development of Kant. So unless you have time to go and learn him in German, he is more or less a closed book. However Dr Kelley Ross does make up for that to some degree in his development of Nelson's Philosophy. But that still does not replace the original.]



The fact is that kabalah has flavor. It is Geshmak. But not accurate. And the more people depend on the Zohar, the more they fall in delusions. The reason is that the Zohar itself has a certain flaw. Though it was written to encourage people towards the service of God and is based on previous great books like the Sefer yezira. Still the intention of presenting it s as if it was written by R Simon Ben Yochai leaves it with a certain degree of some aspect of the Sitra Achra, a sort of spirit of fraud. Andthat spirit gets into people that learn it.

the four elements that turns up in Kabalah

The odd thing about the four elements that turns up in Kabalah quite a lot is that it does not really seem to be all that accurate. If the kabalists were receiving this idea  by Ruach Hakodesh [the Divine Spirit] then it seems that they were being fooled. If they were just borrowing from Aristotle and the ancient Greeks then why not at least attribute their sources?
[The four elements idea in fact seems to have been an obstacle instead of a help in coming to understand the nature of matter and energy. It took a lot of effort of Boyle, Dalton, Newton, Locke et al to get to the idea that matter has elements that are not divided so neatly into Fire Water Air and Dirt.




The system of the Ari towards the end of the Eitz Haim also has the regular Ptolemaic scenario of the sun going around the Earth.

While I would not doubt the Ari and the Remak [Moshe Cordovaro] on the deeper meaning of Torah, still I tend to limit their validity to areas outside of their expertise.

However when I really what to learn about the Wisdom of God as it is revealed in the Work of Creation and the Divine Chariot as the Sages said it seem to me that the Rambam and Ibn Pakuda were more correct to say that that is what the ancient Greeks were learning and what they called Physics.


[Also the עם כל דא [although] that comes up all the time in the Zohar is a medieval invention of the Ibn Tibon family meant to replace the other ways of saying "although" that you have in the Midrash and Gemara like אף על פי, אף על גב which are in fact really difficult. (One means "also on the mouth," the other is "also on the back.") You can see why Ibn Tibon would have replaced them. But this does show that the Zohar is not from R Shimon Ben Yochai.]

Rav Isaac of Aco asked the person that publicized the Zohar in Spain about the original manuscript. But was never shown it, and when he asked his wife about it, she said there was no original manuscript.

[It is like people are looking for  a Jewish point of view about the world, and kabalah seems to be the only thing out there that is presented as authentically Jewish and has flavor and interest. But is it so accurate? Once I stated looking for accuracy in my world view, the Zohar seemed less impressive. But as far as mysticism goes I think Rav Avraham Abulafia and the Ari and Remnak are important. However at least Rav Abulafia was simply stating his own revelations with no reference to any books at all. [He even attacked the kabalists.] This seems a lot better than even the Ari or Remak who are basing themselves on the Zohar at least to some extent. And philosophy does not seem to have any validity at all. Philosophers spend their time wondering what scientists do and thinking about words. Philosophy is meaningless.]

Recovered memories

Recovered memories are just one of many examples how people get work themselves into a frenzy to believe what they want to believe.

This all goes back to Howard Bloom's the Lucifer Principle. People get hard wired to hold to certain beliefs. [e.g. like their father raped them.] And then after a certain age the belief is transformed from software to hardware. That is the way circuit boards are made nowadays as opposed to long ago.
Once long ago you could rewire a circuit board because it was made of removable parts . But after the transistors were thought up by Shockley people started making the wiring onto boards and then putting them into the oven to harden them. after that you can not change the wiring. It is hard wired. All you can do is to throw out circuit board and make a new one.
That is how people's brains work. They accept certain beliefs because their mother told them so. After that it becomes hardwired.

Self justification is the way people makes excuses for what they ought to know is wrong. Recovered memories is one of the ways people do that.

The best approach to combat self justification is to get the meme at a young age.

The best approach to combat self justification is to get the meme at a young age. That is to learn the Shaari Teshuva by R. Yona of Gerondi.[Gates of Repentance.]

That is to get it hard wired into yourself to not assume your are correct but to check your work.

This is one of the great advantages of the Musar Movement of R Israel Salanter that he emphasized the classical works of Ethics from the Middle Ages which includes the Gates of Repentance.

self justification is the source of all evil. For everyone makes mistakes.

For everyone makes mistakes. But the real evil occurs when people dig in to justify their mistakes.

Rav Nahman has this idea that it is good to look for the hints in events. But not always. For there is such a thing as obstacles for a mitzvah.


So to fight self justification the best thing is to look at when actual events showed you that you were wrong about some decision.

Why to fight self justification? Because it is not good to justify doing evil. So when you wrong the best idea is to repent on it instead of justifying it.

But how can you actually tell when your decisions were wrong? By events.

It is worth repeating that pantheism is not a part of Torah thought. In the Middle Ages--in all rishonim this simply never appears. On the contrary in the Rishonim the major idea is Creation Ex Nihilo. [The Torah holds that God made the world from nothing. He is not like a spider whose web is made from itself. 

But you can see this right away in the beginning of the Eitz Haim of the Ari also. This exact point is  reiterated a few times. Emanation does not contradict Creation Ex Nihilo. [An example: your son comes from you, but he is not you.]


[I have to go soon because this is the library here an they are closing soon. But you can look this up yourself and see that the whole emphasis in the Religious Jewish world on pantheism is a kind of fraud. --claiming that it is traditional Jewish Thought.

If they would be simply going with Spinoza that would be different. At least then there would be some justification. But that is not what they are saying. They are rather trying to import a pantheism into Torah though from the outside for a certain agenda they have.[That is to claim divinity for their  leaders.] Rav Nahman also noticed this and brought up the point about the evil leaders of the religious world many times in the Lekutei Moharan.[ e.g. L.M. Vol. I ch. 12 and ch 28. But also 61 and vol II ch 1 and 8 and other places I have forgotten.]

Fast learning of Physics

I have tried to take Physics out of the realm of the elite priesthood and show how it is for everyone.

Mainly by the idea of the Hidden Torah inside the work of Creation and also by the idea that you can learn it simply by saying the words and going on.
But that being said I admit there is  a place for review. In fact in Lithuanian yeshivas based on the path of the Gra and Rav Shach it is the regular schedule to do intense learning in the morning and fast learning in the afternoon.

[And though in these great places like the Mir and Shar Yashuv the way of deep learning is more or less along the lines of Rav Haim from Brisk, still I find that for myself review is the only way I can get into any kind of understanding at all.]

So in conclusion what I think is best is to have some sessions for simply saying and words and going on until one finishes the book and then reviews it again and again. But also to have one or two sessions where one does lots of review on the exact same page or else even goes to previous pages and works oneself up to place where he or she is holding.


You might laugh at this but I think that even talented people that have high IQ and do well in Physics--could also benefit from this.]