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 Rav Nahman of Breslov has in one section of the LeM vol II ch 8 that one ought to seek after a true tzadik. While I can see the point of this, but the problems are the straight forward frauds which are the vast majority. And the people that imagine to themselves that they a have "Ruach Hakodesh" so they are not willfully defrauding others, but are close to that. Then there is the most insidious category of people the Sitra achra (dark side) gives miracles to and reveals things in to to gain acceptance and to be able to trick people after gaining their trust.

Can you by these facts deny the validity of all faith healers? I do not think so. 

Rather what I think is this. That one ought not to go after tzadikim. If one merits to it, the tzadik will come to you. but if you go around searching for one, it is 99.9% guaranteed you will find (and be funding) a phony;--  or even worse, perhaps agent of the Dark Side.

I think there is one true tzadik or one true faith healer among thousands of frauds. The best thing is to seek to serve God by by Torah and prayer and good deeds. Then if one merits to be close to a true tzadik then that will  happen.

 Reasons for mitzvot is from the Gemara itself. Bava Metzia page 119 and all rishonim like the sefer haChinuch.

And the reasons are not thought to be mysterious. After all that is the whole point of the argument between R. Shimon ben Yochai against and the sages. he says when the reason does not apply the commandment itself does not apply. If the reason for any command was mysterious then there would be n place for the opinion of R Shimon ben Yochai.

[That is the characteristic of  all arguments in the Mishna. They disagree only about the specific point they are talking about. R Shimon holds we go by the reason for the verse. The sages say we go by the literal meaning. But there is no argument if we know the reasons.

So the commandments are to bring to these basic things: good character traits, peace of the country, to minimize the physical desires, to get rid of idolatry.

In short this could be called natural law of what Rav Saadia Gaon calls חוקי השכל. [Laws of Reason]

So no where in the rishonim do we find Divine command theory. [That is the theory that says: the mizvot are good because they are commanded. Rather they are commanded because they bring one to good.]

 In the Ten Commandments is the command "Honor your father and your mother." That on one hand should not apply when the parents are obviously "off".  They can not command one to sin or neglect a positive command. Yet there is a certain degree that this command sinks into irrelevance. People have almost no idea that they ought to listen to their parents unless they receive confirmation from some other source.

To me it seems that the Torah is saying one must listen to his or her parents unless there is some compelling reason otherwise.  

Yu can see this in most of the Rishonim also that deal with this command like the Rav of Bartenura right there is the Mishna in Kidushin which deals with this commandment.

But clearly the Torah does set limits. We see in the end of Deuteronomy that Moses praised the tribe of Levi for the incident of teh Golden Cal where the tribe of Levi actually killed their own parents when they discovered that they were among the idol worshipers.

 Jews in Yemen had to marry early. This situation arose under Islamic rule because an unmarried girl could be taken by the ruling Muslim prince. However it became the custom of all Sefardic Jews to marry young. [I mean ages 12 to 13.] [Not just in Yemen.]

I see this as a very positive thing. To me it seems best for people to marry young and as much as possible this ought to be encouraged.

To me it seems that fighting against nature is  a lost cause. Puberty is when nature says to procreate. To fight that can only lead to disasters and results in the state of marriage nowadays. When do flowers reproduce? Or any species?

A question of R. Akiva Eigger

קינוי וסתירה [Kinuy U'Stira] Warning a wife not to be alone with someone, and then her being alone. If in fact after the warning and she is alone with that person, then she needs to go to the Temple and drink the "bitter waters". That is water that is mixed with the ink on which the paragraph on this subject is written in the book of Numbers, and a bit of the dust on the Temple. That is to prove her innocence. She can refuse to drink. The only reason for this is to give her a chance to show she is innocent and can continue to live with her husband. 

R. Akiva Eigger  asks: קינוי וסתירה (warning a wife not to be alone with someone and then her being alone) is an argument between R. Eliezer and R. Yehoshua. To R Yehoshua to warn is before one witness and to be alone with the one she was warned about is in front of two witnesses. So if the husband sees her being alone with the one she was warned about she ought to be permitted.

Yet the Rambam says that if he sees her then he must divorce her and give her her Ketubah.

 Rav Shach answers this question in this way. He says the Rambam means the husband is forbidden to stay with her because שוויה עליו חתיכה דאיסורא

I am having trouble understanding Rav Shach here because his seeing her being alone is not the same thing as seeing her actually committing the crime. So while קינוי וסתירה would make her forbidden to him until she would drink the "bitter waters" in the Temple,  but here there was never fulfilled the conditions that would forbid keeping her.

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