I noticed that President Trump was in a press conference in which he was insulted. He had discussed taxes. Then as he was walking out one of the reporters yelled and screamed at him at him, "Why did you not pay any taxes?!!!" Besides the fact  that that is an obvious lie, what was the most interesting thing was that President Trump did not answer. He just kept on walking.

The reminded me of the LeM of Rav Nahman of Breslov עיקר התשובה שישמע בזיונו יידום וישתוק "The main repentance is to hear your insult and to be quiet and not answer." 

I doubt if President Trump learns the LeM of Rav Nahman, but still it is interesting that he must understand this fact intuitively.

Good Midot

"Good character" is too amorphous. 

That is one reason I found being at the Mir in NY helpful for me in the emphasis on Musar. Not that they learned a lot of Musar. As compared to the five hour "seder" (session) in the morning of Gemara in depth and the four hour seder of gemara with "bekiut" [fast learning], the Musar was short. It was 20 minutes before mincha and 15 minutes before the evening prayer. That is just 3% of the time. Still that short time was enough to give me a good idea of what "good character" is as defined in Torah.

Maybe some examples might be helpful.

But I am not so sure I am one to be giving "musar". The best idea is to take the basic set of Musar of the Rishonim [אורחות צדיקים מסילת ישרים שערי תשובה חובות לבבות ספר היראה לר''ת מעלות המידות]

But I also should add that this does not work very well without being coupled to the Gemara. By itself Musar tends to go off into tangents. For that reason Rav Haim of Brisk did not want it introduced into the yeshivot. But to Rav Israel Salanter, Musar is importnat for everyone. So eventually a kind of sytheneis came about when there is now short sessions of Musra in Litvak yeshivas. Not too much. Not too little. Just right. [Goldilocks.]

 x31 F minor mp3

x31 midi file

x31 nwc file

 x33 G Major mp3 x33 midi  x33 nwc

 Rav Nahman in the end of the LeM brings this statement "This that tzadikim [saints] do tremendous sins is for such and such a reason." [In the השמטות]

.....זה שצדיקים עושים עבירות גדולות הוא בגלל וכולי

That is to say there is some point that a person works on himself. He does avodat hashem [the service of God] even sincerely. He learns and prays and is a "masmid" continually learning. Then reaches some spiritual level. Then the sitra achra  [Dark Side] spends a good deal of time and effort to subvert that person. 

That is with a region called "היכלי התמורות" palaces of delusion.

That is that it takes a lot of effort even to get to the palaces of delusions. But to come to the Light, it is necessary to go through that intermediate stage. And there people get ego inflation. Plus the Sitra Achra gives insights and miracles that  are traps.

I have to admit I owe great gratitude to many people in the Ukraine who showed me kindness when no one else would. But I also noticed some of the types that can be problematic. So I have not written much about it since there seems to impossible to generalize. 

The doctor the operated on my foot Sergey Alexivitch and his whole staff, showed not just competence but even something I would call "Mesirut nefesh" absolute determination to do a good job. But that is just one example. They wanted to be so careful that they only used local anesthesia. The nurse Irina held my hand the entire time and called me Avraham Philipovitch -a meaning of respect to call me by the name of my father. 

 So it is hard to make sense of things there.

 The test of men nowadays is divorce. When the woman he loved turns into a determined desperate enemy fixated on doing everything in her power to destroy him. This can wear down a person's mental state.

The test of women is talking neighbors. 

In all these cases Reason does little or nothing to protect one from the evil inclination.

For as Benjamin Franklin wrote making fun of the human condition: "How wonderful it is to be a reasonable person because then you can find reasons to do anything you want."

Or as Kelley Ross [The Kant Fries School] puts it. Be careful when people start talking about reason or as when Spock says "Logic dictates...". Reason does not tell us much.

That is the source of the idea of the Kant Fries school of "immediate non-intuitive knowledge." Or what Rav Nahman calls "faith".