The religious world has a problem with worship of people.

Worship of people is an odd permutation of the old evil inclination of idolatry. But there is is some fine line. I can see the importance of straight pure learning Torah in Shar Yashuv and the Mir. But along with that there is  a surrounding penumbra of the religious world which does worship people.
So one does need a bit of discernment. That is why I emphasize the Gra and Rav Shach -because in the straight Litvak yeshiva world you get mainly straight Torah without the accompanying problem of idolatry that is the main problem of the religious world.


I mean to say that the definition of idolatry is not just to bow down to images or a statue. It is also not as wide as I have often heard. I spent a good deal of time with my learning partner David Bronson, on the Gemara in Sanhedrin pages 61-64 to get a clear idea of what it is.
My main conclusion is that religious devotion to anything other than God alone [the First Cause, with no form or image] is idolatry. So it does not have to be molten images.

An examples of idolatry that exists in the religious world is "graves of the righteous". But this is just one example.

There is an odd thing about "Torah shelo Lashma" [Torah not for its own sake]. It seems different than using Torah to make money.
The way using Torah to make money is often justified by a statement of the Rambam "not just the tribe of Levi, but all who put it in their heart to turn from the vanities of this world and learn Torah for its own sake, God will provide for their needs". This in no way contradicts the idea of the Rambam that one who uses Torah to make money has no portion in the next world. Rather he is simply saying that God will provide. This can not be used to justify using Torah to make a living.

This seems different than "Torah shelo Lishma" (not for its own sake) which is what the sages say to learn for honor. That is there is an intention to receive a side benefit that come automatically. People honor one who learns. But that is a lot different than intending not just a side benefit, but using it specifically to get that benefit [e.g. as a means of making money].   

Background In the Mishna in Sanhedrin there is a list of things for which one loses his portion in the next world. "Reading outside books" is one.

One aspect of "outside books" ספרים חיצונים that is hard to understand is that the way the Rif and Rosh understand it, it refers to books that create their own explanations of verses of Torah than are not from the Gemara or midrash. If we would accept this literally there is no book in the religious world that would be allowed to read. All of them come up with explanations of verses that are not from the Gemara or midrash.



Background In the Mishna in Sanhedrin there is a list of things for which one loses his portion in the next world. "Reading outside books" ספרים חיצונים is on the list. The Rif and Rosh explain that refers not to science, but rather books that explain the Torah-- but in ways other than what is in the Gemara. The issue is not that they are saying things against Torah. The whole point is that it is pseudo Torah. As long as it is not from the sages it is by definition Torah of the Dark Side.  This would mean almost all books in the religious world nowadays.

[The issue is maybe not as important as another more serious issue: worship of people. Why is it that in the religious world this is thought to be OK I am not sure.]

I discovered the best way to learn is the idea of "Girsa" [saying the words in order and going on] as I mentioned a few times before. But the thing that prevents people from learning fast is they do not know that the words get absorbed in some sub-level of the mind and there get processed. If people would be aware of this I think everyone would be able to learn the Oral and Written Law, Physics and Mathematics. Easily. Not that everyone would become geniuses, but the main obstacle would be removed--that people imagine to themselves that they do not understand when in fact once they have said the words in order, the deeper levels of the soul do absorb the knowledge and process it and eventually they will understand even plainly and simply.


[People also need the idea that learning Torah is a commandment. Not just that but also that "Bitul Torah" is a sin. But I have to admit that my idea of learning Torah includes Physics and Metaphysics as the Rishonim that follow Saadia Gaon hold. [However plenty of Rishonim do not hold that way. They do not hold of Aristotle at all.] But my idea of learning Torah is also restrictive in terms of the idea that you see in the Rif and Rosh about "outside books" which they define as anything that explains Torah in any way that is not open in the Gemara or Midrash. So that means books that explain Physics are not "outside books"since they are not talking about Torah. [So "outside books" does not mean what most people think it means. Just the opposite. Almost all books that people think are OK nowadays are actually the very things that the sages forbid.]



Another incentive to learn is an idea of Rav Haim of Voloshin a disciple of the Gra.
That is that when one gets up in the morning a decides to learn Torah the whole day, then there are removed from him all obstacles, all yoke of government or of making a living. And that day he will be successful in Torah. That makes more sense than most of what people spend time doing

w90 B minor. Violin, Recorder and other winds and brass  [w90 in midi]  w90 nwc

The USA did not start out alone. It was a continuation of the English model of government.
[Really the colonists just wanted to continue as English citizens, not serfs of Parliament. When the king refused to back them up, then they revolted.] But now the situation is different, some in the USA do not want a continuation of the English form of government [with a king, Parliament, house of commons Bill of Rights etc.] Rather Marxism along a Leninist model--that is the rule of a political party along lines of Marx.]

So here it does not look like there is much insight that can be gained from history. But I feel there is always some insight to be gained from history; but here it is not clear from what historical examples can provide insight.

But I feel there must be somehow, somewhere, an insight.

Even the Civil War does not seem to help much since both North and South wanted just a straight continuation of the principles of the Constitution.


Looting and chaos do not seem like very good answers.

[Allan Bloom in his Closing of the American Mind focused on education in universities. That might be a good place to start. Take his suggestion and close the humanities and social studies departments. Not that he was saying at first to do that. Rather his thought was they might rise to the challenge. But since they have not, maybe the best thing is to simply turn off their funding from state and federal government.

[I mean you can not simply close them. But you can vote to stop wasting money on "Gender studies" and all the other pseudo intellectualism.] [See the Bezmenov utube video about infiltration into the universities.]

Another suggestion on the positive side is to learn the Federalist Papers.

It is not that I am against communism automatically. Rather a lot depends on what comes before. If you have a situation of civil war in Russia, then bringing in the Red Army made sense.But to do the same in the USA would be a terrible idea. In my view the Constitution of the USA is the best of the best.

The best of the philosophers nowadays seem unified that there is a need to go forward to Kant and get out of the insane philosophies of the twentieth century.

Certainly you see this with Kelley Ross [of the Kant Fries School of thought.] But he is clearly thinking only of one possible approach to Kant--that of Leonard Nelson.

Also with Robert Hanna you see this same approach of the need to get back to Kant.

However among the best is Huemer and he seems to be with the Analytic school and specifically G.E. Moore [the Intuitionists.]

So what can you do? I do not feel like discounting completely all the other approaches to Kant. [Marburg, Heidelberg, Gottingen]. I can not even figure out if all of these great people are simply talking past each other. The same points get addressed in only slightly different ways.

And for some reason, they do not seem that interested in Hegel. [Though there is a great spokesman for Hegel, McTaggart] [I also do not feel like discounting Hegel just because he was misused by the Communists.] [Not everyone is happy with McTaggart. They say he provided a good target for those that wanted to attack Hegel. Still he seems like the best defense. Besides that not everything was wrong.]


But of all of these, only Robert Hanna made a detailed study of the shaky foundations of all so called Analytic philosophy of the 20th century.

[As R Hanna noted that not only did it all start out with shaky foundations, but became downright insane after Quine. And then after a good number of people showed Quine to be completely absurd still that made not the slightest dent.]

You can see why people like Ed Feser just want to go back to Medieval Philosophy. But I can not see that because the difficulties there are real--as even Thomas Reid pointed out. No matter how absurd you think Berkeley's idealism is, you still need some way of answering him. And only Kant did that.
[And maybe Hegel also.]