the problem of Torah shelo Lishma (--Torah not for its own sake, but rather for the sake of power or a shiduch or money).

 The problems of the religious no one seems to associate with the problem of Torah shelo Lishma (--Torah not for its own sake, but rather for the sake of power or a shiduch or money).

The Ari means to say that the Talmud is mixed with good and evil like the tree of knowledge of good and evil was. See the Introduction of the Eitz Chaim. R. Zeira came to Israel and fasted forty days in order to forget the Babylonian Talmud and to start learning the Talmud Yerushalmi.

The reason is there is an aspect of holiness  and entry into holiness in Gemara. Like the Gemara says about one who has Torah but not Fear of God: "Woe to him who has the door but not the house."  It is a door for holiness if learned for its own sake. But when learned or taught for money, it changes its character into something negative.

When people see the general kinds of insanity and evil in the religious world, they almost never associate the problems with Torah not for its own sake,- but rather find flaws in the Torah itself.

But to me the answer seems to lay in the intention. סם חיים למימינים בה סם מוות למשמאילים בה 

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The problem in the USA now is that the Marxists are trying to take it down. But it was not always that way. Before this started so suddenly, the educational system in the pseudo social studies, very much Marxist as Allan Bloom noted in The Closing of the American Mind.  He was saying back 30 years ago that the universities were the problem.

I suggest simply closing the social pseudo studies departments. Once and for all. [However a lot of the studies in USA universities are great, STEM, Music, Arts. Plus the technical schools are great.] 

And as for reparations for slavery, maybe people ought to pay back the trillions of welfare dollars they have collected from the Federal government since LBJ's welfare state began in the 1960's. Plus give up all the jobs they have gotten from Affirmative Action, and take tests and show competence like everyone else.

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The idea that leaning Physics and Metaphysics as being even more important than learning Torah per se is an opinion that I had to depend on since "sitting and learning Torah" somehow or other was not working out for me. 

Perhaps for lack of trying hard enough. Perhaps reasons that are still unknown or not understood by me. Still if I had had enough commitment I think I would have just sat and learned Torah.

Part of the reason is that while seeing the importance of Physics and Metaphysics (that many Rishonim hold), still there is the numinous aspect of Torah that apparently you do not find in these subjects where the holiness is hidden.

The word "Numinous" comes from Otto based on the the idea of non intuitive immediate knowledge. The idea is the is an perception of holiness that does not depend on reason. [See the Kant Fries school.]

it is important to have a good idea of what real authentic Torah is

There is a kind of continuity of groups or super-organisms {as Howard Bloom would call them}. In the recent world wars, no one from England would say they are fighting for Englishmen. No. Rather they would say they are, "Fighting for England." 

Similarly you can notice  a kind of continuity of the Mir Yeshiva over generations. A kind of DNA of an institution- rather that of the individuals that are a part of it. A kind of modesty, a commitment to whatever the Torah says -not to any doctrines per se, strictness about laws of money  and not to speak lashon hara (slander).

But this, I think, can apply to almost all yeshivas built on the vision of the Gaon of Villna -the Gra.

Even for those of us that are not as strict in every detail that we ought to be , still it is important to have a good idea of what real, authentic Torah is-- as opposed to Torah of the Sitra Acha [Dark Side] which too often poses as the real thing.