The general approach of the Gra was no matter what the troubles are the answer is always just one thing: to learn Torah. This I would have to agree with even though I would expand the definition of learning Torah to include Physics and Metaphysics. That is well defined in the Guide for the Perplexed as referring to these subjects of the ancient Greeks. [Also on the first page of the Obligations of the Heart.] Metaphysics is not mysticism.

So the minimum would be to get through the two Talmuds, and the basic Physics up to String Theory. Metaphysics though I have a hard time to figure out what ought to be included. I am thinking besides Aristotle's books to include Kant and Leonard Nelson.

The religious world is a kind of Dark Side

The major problem I see in the religious world is a kind of Dark Side (Sitra Achra) aspect that seems to have settled on it and leaves its odor on everything. To some degree I thought I could avoid that by learning straight Torah in two great yeshivas the Mir in NY and Shar Yashuv.

But that turned out not to be as effective as I had thought. The reason is the verse in psalms סביב רשעים יתהלכון [round about go the wicked]. That is the Sitra Achra.

So as one tries to come to straight pure Torah as is learned in the Mir or Ponovitch, or any of the great Litvak yeshivas, there is this problem that holiness is surrounded by the Dark Side. And even if you manage to get inside the straight Torah world, the Sitra Achra (Dark Side) has anyway made its nest there.

What one might do is simply to get the essentials and go through them as best he can on his own. That would be the two Talmuds (with Tosphot and Maharsha on one, and the two side commentaries on the Yerushalmi]. [Or just even straight with no commentary at all in order to at least get through material at least once.] Then Rav Shach's Avi Ezri and Rav Haim of Brisk's Hidushei HaRambam. Those two books give one  a basic idea of how to get into the depths of the Talmud.

[I have mentioned before this that Rav Nahman of Breslov noted the problem with Torah scholars that are demons in the LeM I:12 and I:28. He hints to this also in LeM I:8. However the point here is bit different. He I am saying that as a result of Torah scholars that are demons the whole religious world is infected. So the cure is not simple. Normally one would go to  a straight Litvak Yeshiva based on the Gra in order to learn authentic Torah, not Torah of the Sitra Achra (Dark Side.) However it is nowadays hard to avoid the Sitra Achra even there.]

Dr. Kelley Ross was gracious to answer my question about the riots. He wrote: "It occurs to me that this is Antifa’s equivalent of the Tet Offensive.  They are hoping for war."


I think that means that Kelley Ross thinks the Left is hoping to dismantle the very Constitution of the USA and impose a socialist [Communist] dictatorship.

[The Tet Offensive was that that very idea. To attack cities in South Vietnam in order to cause the South to get rid of their government and accept Communism.

That sounds serious to me. I thought they were simply trying to burn down American cities. To dismantle the Constitution seems like it would be the worst disaster in human history. But anyway I have been thinking that a Mad Max scenario [where civilization collapses] is very much probable except for pockets of where Western Civilization will continue and prosper.

The odd position of time and space in the Bell's inequality does seem to have a lot to do with Kant. [That space and time are just ways of measuring things. But they exist like all dinge an sich (things in themselves)-they exist but reason has no access to understand them.].] [If the electron is here then it has no value for momentum. Not zero or anything else.Not just that there is conspiracy to keep us from knowing what it is.] That is,-- you first have to get out of the idea that there is action at a distance. All Bell's inequality means is that there are two possibilities, (1) things have no values in space and time until they interact. Or (2) action at a distance. But we know action at a distance is not true because of Relativity. So we are left with things having no classical values until measured.
SEE Gellmann There is nothing non-local about Einstein Podolsky Rosen


The idea that things have no value of space or time is not so strange. In Lemaitre's article in Nature 1931 where he discusses the big bang that he predicted he says that space and time had to have begun after the first quantum had already split into many others. So there is obvious some sub-layer underneath space and time. That is clear anyway from the Aronov-Bohm effect where you see that space has already a mathematical structure.


From other directions, Kant is being revived. Robert Hanna went through a painstaking rigorous detailed critique of 20th century analytic philosophy showing it is ready for the trash bin. [Even G.E. Moore.] But Neo Kantian-ism was discarded for other good reasons.
So by default one is left with Leonard Nelson's approach to Kant or Kelley Ross's synthesis of Nelson.

  Note that Nelson has been ignored almost universally.
On the other hand I can imagine that some might want to revive the other Neo Kant approaches of Marburg, Heidelberg or Husserl. Frankly, I would be happy with anything that would get back to Kant. [Robert Hanna seems to have a soft spot in his heart for Husserl. Still he says openly that he was refuted. There simply is no one left on the playing field except Kant and Leonard Nelson.]
Still that leaves the question about Hegel. To me it seems Hegel is fine if you understand him with McTaggart.
[I like McTaggart a lot, but I ought to mention that he provided a convenient target for those who wanted to attack Hegel and assumed McTaggart=Hegel. Also, they assume that the Metaphysical State was Hegel's, and you can see that Hobhouse thinks that way. Even though his critique on the Metaphysical State is not actually directly against Hegel. But seeing things in the former USSR without the force of the state I got a good taste  of a good argument for the state.  [Before the Soviet State, no one was going to have an American kind of Democracy in Russia and even today the whole idea seems absurd. You can not have an American kind of democracy without Americans! And that takes many years to develop that kind of mentality. Maybe it is DNA? or whatever. ]


[I wanted to mention that there is a lot of confusion about Bell. Bell's inequality does not
disprove causality. Rather it can prove one of two things. Either no causality or that things have no values in space and time until measured. Since we know there is causality because of GPS which depends on Relativity. So what we know now is things have no value in space and time until measured.  And that is not all that different from how Lemaitre explained the beginning of the universe where space and time did not exist until after there were already a bunch of quantum particles around. I saw this in the blog the reference frame [I think] later it became clear in my own study of QM, GPS is a nice proof of Relativity since it would not work unless both Special and General Relativity are true.
]

So there is something below time and space.

How do you have a beginning of the universe before there was even space or time. How can something start before something else when there is no "time"?

Yet that is exactly the idea of Lemaitre in an article about the expansion of the universe--the big bang. [The article was published in 1931 in Nature. That is: that  time and space existed only as statistical notions before there were lots of quantum particles.] [Lemaitre's original discovery of the expansion if the universe was from 1927.]


This fits well with the Aspect experiment which shows that nature violates Bell's inequality. That is-- there are no hidden variables. Particles have no values of space and time before they interact.
So there is something below time and space.

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].