The great thing about the Litvak yeshiva as built on the ideas of the Gra and Rav Israel Salanter is that it provides that context to live a life devoted to Authentic Torah- that is the sort of idea of the superorganism that Howard Bloom brings.

 Now to live according to Torah is hard from many aspects. One is that the religious world itself tends to be sort of insane. So to find a place that in fact is loyal to straight Torah is by no means simple or easy.

[The nice thing about the Litvak yeshiva world is that it is motivated by love of Torah, not hate of gentiles and secular Jews.]

So to merit to be part of an institution that stands for straight unadulterated Torah is an amazing thing.  

[It is hard to know what is worse. The Social Studies departments of universities or  religious psychos? I imagine one could go into STEM departments of universities. The difficulty with STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics] is that there are too many pseudo sciences. And if you really want real science, well, not everyone has the talent  and IQ for that.] 

Avraham Abulafia,

To speak of Jesus in nice terms. If you say something nice, you are suspected of meaning more. In spite of that, I would like to say that there are some misconceptions about the whole subject. ביטול המצוות nullification of the commandments was clearly not in anything he said or did. That was a later stance of the church based on Paul-but not Jesus. As for the problem with worship, he even made it clear that one is not even to call him good. That was the incident when someone called him ''good master.'' He said not to call him good. Only God is good. So the church has one advantage that they respect a great tzadik. Yet, they take that respect way over the line.  

And the opposite approach has the disadvantage of wildly unreasonable disrespect of  a tzadik, and the seeking of every possible negative thing to say. That is also not right, and even worse than the former mistakes.

Better to have an accurate view. 

[The positive opinions are Avraham Abulafia, Rav Yaacov Emden, the Meiri.]

fear God is the key to everything, all good.the first step to coming to fear of God, I think is in fact just as Rav Israel Salanter thought--by an emphasis on the classical books of Ethics of the Middle Ages. And after that, the Physics and metaphysics.

To fear  God is a positive command. Even though it is not included in the Ten Commandments, it still is one of the many other commandments that are in the Old Testament. And one of the original sages of  Musar, Rav Isaac Blazer shows in his book "Or Israel" that it is the key to everything, all good and all holiness. [I have not read that book for some time, but the point was clear.]

However the Musar movement has a slightly different approach to this than what I have seen in the Rishonim. 

Most Rishonim go with the idea that to contemplate the works of God brings one to love and fear God.

This is explained in the Guide for the Perplexed that  it means learning Physics and Metaphysics. [That is what the Rambam says in a round about way. You have to put it all together. Start from the Introduction where he defines the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot as means the subjects of Physics and Metaphysics as the ancient Greeks understood them. Then later in the Guide he says that by learning the work of creation one comes to fear of God and by learning Metaphysics one comes to love God.

But this is not apparent because what people say they believe is different from what they actually believe. You can tell what a person actually believes based on his or her deeds, not their words. people with real fear and love of God do not look religious and make a point of keeping their love and fear of God internal.

They do not make a public show of their fear of God because they value it.

But what I would like to add here is that the purpose of this learning ought to be directed towards Fear of God and not towards understanding. So the way to go about this learning is to direct one's attention to love and fear of God, not towards getting good grades of making a living.

However to get back to the original point of Israel Salanter and Isaac Blazer, I would say that they are right about the emphasis on Musar in terms of orientation. That is to get a proper idea if what Torah is all about is only through the Musar of the Rishonim and Achronim. So the first step to coming to fear of God, I think is in fact just as Rav Israel Salanter thought--by an emphasis on the classical books of Ethics of the Middle Ages. And  after that,  the Physics and metaphysics.

[But I must add that Physics means real Physics, not layman's books. Metaphysics books means as the Greeks understood it as Ibn Pakuda [author of the Chovot Levavot] and the Rambam make clear.]

 

x62 music file

x62 mp3   x62 in midi  x62 in nwc

I gained great advice from reading the books of Rav Nahman. But I think that is not much of a reason to leave off the straight path of the Gra and the Litvak world of yeshivas. The way I see things now, it is best to be in or near a regular Litvak yeshiva in order to learn the straight path of Torah. Then for individual issues that come up it is useful to learn the ideas of Rav Nahman. 

But to go and become "Breslov" seems like a mistake to me.

That is from what I have observed. However for me personally I think, I have gained a great deal by the advice of Rav Nahman and also from my time being in Uman. 

Still if my advice means anything to anyone, I highly recommend to stick with the straight path of the Gra and Rav Shach--at all cost.

[It is however to be noted that not everything within the context of the Litvak path is something I agree with. I am merely saying that there is a array of values in which there is an equal and opposite array of values that attacks it. So while the value of authentic Torah is the path of the Gra and Rav Shach,still on the opposing side there are pseudo Torah scholars that are demons that attack that area of value. However I am not saying that that is the only area of value. For example there is the area of music which is also a holy value, but it has arrayed against it music of the Dark Side. That is to say that every area of positive value has against it a value and forces of the dark side that attack it constantly.

This was cause of the Gra to sign the letter of excommunication. He had in mind to warn people about the forces of the Torah of the Dark Side that were attacking the Torah of Truth, authentic Torah.

[I believe that Rav Nahman would not have been under the excommunication based on the actual wording in that letter.\]

Bava Batra on page four there is a Rashba

In Bava Batra on page four there is a Rashba that is brought in the Shita Mekubetzet that asks why does the Gemara ask "why do we need the mishna? Is not the law of the mishna simple"? The Rashba's question is perhaps it could be  a case of one party says "I built half the wall", and the other party claims "I built the whole wall". Would not the law then be one takes 3/4 and the other takes 1/4? So the law of the mishna would not be simple. We would need it to tell us that since they are both required to build it we say it both 1/2 to each. The answer of the Rashba is that since the place belongs to both, it is simple that we would divide 1/2 for each even if one would say, "I built it all," and the other would say, "I built 1/2."

This seems to go along with the Rambam. While the mishna says since they both have to build the wall, they divide the stones and the place equally if it falls. The Rambam says, since the place belongs to both, therefore they divide the stones. That seems like a contradiction. The mishna hangs the splitting of the place and stones on the fact that they both have to build the wall. The Rambam hangs the splitting of the stones on the fact that the place belongs to both. But it does not have to be a contradiction. It could be that the mishna is just saying the same thing in a shorthand way. And that is apparently exactly what the Rashba and Rambam mean. That the place is known to be of both and that is what causes the stones to be divided equally. [And why would the place be more simple than the bricks? Rav Shach suggests that the Rashba holds like Tosfot that the place is a case of D'rara DeMamona. That would answer why if one says he has 1/2 and the other all, they still divide by half.]

[All this is what I gathered from reading Rav Shach's explanation of the Rashba. ]

[The question that I have is that if this is the idea of the mishna, then it is a round about way of putting it.. It is saying: Since they both have to build the wall, therefore the ground belongs to them both. And then then the bricks belong to both. I mean what does building the wall have to do with the ground? But based on the Rashba I can see what would have forced the Rashba and the Rambam to understand in this way. That is the question of the Gemara, "Is it not simple?"]

 For some reason the great mystic of the Middle Ages Rav Avraham Abulfia is not well known and that seems like a tragedy to me. After all he was highly regarded by Rav Chaim Vital and the Remak רב משה  קורדבירו both. In fact that last gate of the Musar book of Rav Chaim Vital, vol.  4 [שערי קדושה] consists almost entirely of the system of Rav Avraham Abulfia,  and does not even mention the Ari. Plus the Remak quotes the books of Abulafia often in his Pardes [but just the titles of the books and does not mention the author.]

He did have an opinion about Jesus that is not well known. He held he was the messiah son of Joseph mentioned at the end of tractate Suka.  [The subject of messiah son of Joseph is dealt with also in the Kol HaTor of the Gra and the Ramchal. [That is the Tikunim Chadashim of the Ramchal].