Western Civilization as opposed to religious fanaticism

The issue of religious fanaticism is best addressed by Kelley Ross. [That is the Kant-Fries school of thought based on Leonard Nelson]. That is simply this: you have an array of positive values from one end of the half circle of no value but all form [logic] going through various middle stages of partly adding value but lessening form until you get to the peak of all infinite value and zero form [God].


But so you have to have a hand in all the areas of positive value. But you just as much and even more so need to avoid every equal and opposite area of negative value.

Certain people were able to hold onto one particular area well and open up a path through that area into ultimate holiness.
Those are individual great people that hand a hand in perfecting some area of value.And there are people that Allan Bloom calls "civilization founding people" that go beyond one or two specific areas but are able to hold the entire superstructure in the first place like the basic foundations stones of Western Civilization.

Hegel also has the same kind of array of value, [http://autio.github.io/projects/scienceoflogic/] but connects them through a process of dialectic. Hegel is quite interested in fact in doing the same kind of defense of Christianity that Aquinas was doing, but somehow or other his ideas got to be used in the exact opposite ways he was intending them to be used. [Incidentally the opinion of Rav Avraham Abulafia, a mediaeval mystic was also very positive towards Jesus himself but not toward the actual functioning Catholic Church. In that way he was very similar to Hegel.]] But if in fact he is all that different than Leonard Nelson, I am not so sure of. [McTaggart answers a lot of the question son Hegel. Some he admits openly are a problem. Some he adjusts Hegel. Some he shows the questions are based on misunderstandings.] 

religious fanaticism.

My parents were very much against any kind of path that reeked of religious fanaticism. While having great respect for Torah. but anything that would take a person out of a path of balance and sanity was totally off the radar for them.
So with due respect for the Gra and Rav Shach, and Rav Nahman,-- they would not have agreed with elements of fanaticism that one might find in their writings. And the result of this kind of thinking would mean [at least in our present day and age] to stay away from the religious world as far as possible.

Their path was to send their children to public school, and emphasize getting a good education. Going for weekend excursions to the ocean etc. I.e., a normal, wholesome American home (in those days when there was such a thing). I am not so sure any such thing exists anymore. But it once did.

[Nowadays the secular world seems to be a kind of secular fanaticism. I am sure  my parents would never send me to public school today. They would find some private school. In fact, I almost went to a private school. My parents were willing to send me there. But in the end I backed out and continued in my regular high school which in those days was also excellent.]

 My basic orientation is not to follow any religion as a belief system, but rather to follow Reason. Sometimes Reason points out that some points are valid. Sometimes there are in other questions not. So the standard ought to be the question what does reason require? Not what does any particular religion require. There are no package deals. 

 However reason is a hard. But that only means that to reason well is hard. It does not mean that there is any better standard.

w23 music file

w23 Allegro and Rondo F Major for Orchestra   w23 in midi  w23 nwc

to get to authentic Torah in any sense whatsoever the only way is through the path of the Gra.

The importance of the signature of the Gra on the famous letter of excommunication is that often one without knowledge or experience can not tell what is authentic Torah or not. It is the same reason a mother warns her children not to put their hands on a hot stove.

It is somewhat of a shock that though "faith in the wise" is one of the most important principles of how Torah is acquired, still the Gra who was on the top of the list of the top ten, still is ignored.

I only saw one place alone that goes by the Gra with no compromise the yeshiva of Rav Silverman in the Old City of Jerusalem. [pronounced "Zilverman"]

I can only recommend such a kind of yeshiva. To me it seems of ultimate importance this one basic fact about the Gra. To me it seem clear that to get to authentic Torah in any sense whatsoever the only way is through the path of the Gra.

[So even if I do not have the merit to stick with the path of the Gra in ever detail, at least I can try to stick with it in areas that are within my control.]

F Major Winds and Violin w22

The greatness of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri

The greatness of Rav Shach's Avi Ezri is that it combines an aspect of simplicity along with the basic meaning of what it means to "be able to learn". Even though I have not been able to finish it myself, still I want to recommend a way of finishing it. That is to read each chapter a few times until it is fairly clear, and then move on. So you do not have to get every single detail, but you also do not move on until you have gotten some basic idea. This is in fact how I used to learn Gemara.
 [This did not seem to work when it came to Physics in which it seemed better just to do straight "Girsa" (saying the words and going on with no review at all) a few times through the whole book from cover to cover until I could get the basic idea, and even be up to any level in which review would be helpful.]



Even though I am not much of a Litvak, I still want to leave the name of this blog as it is since I wish I would have the merit of learning Torah and walking in the path of Musar.
 Even if I can not be as good as I ought to be, at least I can want to help and encourage my friend to be as good as he can be.(This idea is from Rav Nahman.)


As for myself, I have to admit I did not appreciate the straight Litvak approach of the Gra and Rav Shach as much as I should have. But today I have begun to see what is special and important about the straight Lithuanian yeshiva approach, and also to see that as much as modeled on the authentic approach of the Gra, the better it is.

Litvak Yeshiva path

The Litvak Yeshiva path is not exactly the path of Musar. There is a certain amount of discrepancy. What would be called secular studies is one area. Another is Torah for money.
However the areas of agreement are more that the areas of discrepancy.

The secular studies area is easily divided into two parts. One part is where in fact secular studies are ridiculous.  Obviously pseudo science. And anything with the word "studies" attached to it.
On the other hand, there are areas in which the Rambam and other rishonim held they are even higher than traditional "learning Torah" i.e. Physics and Metaphysics.
But this is clearly an area of disagreement among rishonim. The Ramban/Nahmanides clearly was no fan of Aristotle. Even in his defence of the Rambam, he did not go so far as to advocate the Guide for the Perplexed itself. [I.e. I mean to say that there is a letter from the Ramban/Nahmanides defending the Rambam, but in spite of his impassioned plea for the defense of the Rambam, he did not actually defend the Guide as being "right."]



The nice thing about being in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY was the fact that almost no one was there in order to be using Torah to make money. In both places the clear intention for everyone was "Lishma" (i.e., Torah for its own sake). And besides that, there was also a kind of feeling of, "if everyone would be doing this the whole world would be a better place." There was a feeling of doing something for all mankind just by sitting and learning Torah. [You can actually see this stated as such in the Nefesh HaHaim of Rav Haim of Voloshin, a disciple of the Gra.] [I ought to add the fact that in both Shar Yashuv and the Mir I was very happy. There is a kind of "synergy" when you are learning Torah in the path of the Gra that everything seems to fall into place. Just like the sages said, "One who receives the yoke of Torah on himself the yoke of government and work is removed from him."]


I have really no good ideas about the Metaphysics. Leonard Nelson of the Kant Fries School looks pretty great to me  --but ironically enough I also think Hegel has some great ideas. Nowadays, there are some really great people like Kelley Ross, Huemer, Ed Feser. Steven Dutch I think is gone, but his web site is still up--thank God.
The way to put that all together is basically this. Moral principles are universals. And the function of reason is to recognize universals. But to start reason, you need some kind of starting point that is not itself based on reason. So you have to know your starting points, or at least accept them as prima facie unless something even more clear overthrows it.
 But reason without faith is empty. It can easily come up with all kinds on nonsense. So you need a kind of immediate non intuitive perception [faith].


[Mainly I believe that the Leonard Nelson approach makes the most sense because the transcendental deduction of Kant never really worked to be able to combine reason and perception. As Kelley Ross put it both must  have a deeper source  That is non intuitive immediate knowledge. But as Michael Huemer pointed out, that there is no reason to believe implanted knowledge has any relation to reality.  Therefore that immediate non intuitive knowledge-the axioms by which knowledge starts must be open to correction. It is not infallible. And if one asks-- that empirical facts ought not to be able to correct a priori knowledge that is where Hegel comes in handy. There is a point where knowledge itself gets to a plateau and gets above it by contrasting two points where separate series of reasoning led to and end up in a contradiction by which one starts the whole process again. Something like electromagnetism and newton that contradicted until you got special relativity,-- and relativity and quantum mechanics contradicted until you got quantum field theory and to sew up gravity you get string theory.