JORDAN PETERSON

 

 I gained a lot by being in Uman for Rosh Hashanah with Rav Nahman of Uman and Breslov in terms of learning Torah and music. But that is not to say that this is automatic that everyone ought to be there. To me it seems at this point that it is better to be in Israel.  [עיקר הגלות הוא בגלל חסרון אמונה. LeM volume I section 7. The main exile is because of lack of faith.] And I ought to add that there was a period that I was trying to follow everything Rav Nahman said quite literally-- and that included coming to Israel. And in fact there was a sort of inspiration that I felt during that period which lasted seven years.

Nowadays I am not at all working on that program. Still I can see the great benefit in following the advice and ideas of Rav Nahman.  

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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