In any case, I found the books of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter to be of the most benefit for me to understand the basic path of straight Torah.

People are not really moral though they have learned to talk in the language of morality. The basic idea of Musar is to awaken the inherent ability of Reason to discern objective morality. One basic idea of the book Light of Israel   is the centrality of Fear of God. His idea there is that it is impossible to enter into the gates of service of God without fear of God. The first time I read this I was looking at it during Musaf on Rosh Hashana at the Mir Yeshiva in NY. And that book was for me somewhat of a revolution in thought. I realized I was spending all my time and effort to get into the depths of the Gemara and here this book was opening up the secret. By fear of God [which comes by learning Musar (mediaeval books on ethics)] one merits to enter into the gates of Torah.

And that had a tremendous effect on me. However I can see why Rav Chaim of Brisk did not want Musar to be part of the learning sessions of a yeshiva.-It can and does get people off track--very quickly. 

So the Litvak yeshiva came up with some sort of compromise. The Goldilocks solution. [Not too hot nor too cold. Just right.] Not -- no Musar. Not hours of Musar. Just 20 minutes before mincha (afternoon prayer) and 15 minutes before arvit (evening prayer).

In any case, I found the books of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter to be of the most benefit for me to understand the basic path of straight Torah. 

Dale Comstock says an interesting idea in this video [around at 28 minutes into the video]. By the time one is 35 years old, 95 percent of one's programming is already built into one. [That is our way of thinking and the information we use to operate on is already set.] But about 50 percent of that is wrong. It is false information.

global warming

 I wanted to mention that global warming is not as high as it was during the time of the dinosaurs. [which was about twenty degrees higher in Celsius which is about 40 degrees higher in Fahrenheit.] Still I think the fact that the oceans are even a slight bit higher seems to cause an increase in parasites.

[I would agree that is the average temperature in Canada was 90 degrees Fahrenheit that there would be cause for concern.]

So even though I go into the water, still I think it is best to do so only once, and to get out of the water since these little parasites seems to get attached to the skin very quickly --and you can not see them.

I do not see others at the sea are worried about this, but still I think this is an issue. The Muslims had a festival last week and were siting in the water for hours. The surfers were out in force today. No one seems concerned about these little parasites. I used to worry more about the jelly fish but after actually touching one as it floated by and nothing happened -I realized that they are not the problem. It is these little parasites that no one seems even to be aware of. 

 

 In The Laws of Plato in book V, the Athenian stranger says the greatest penalty of evil doing is to become like evil doers and to have to hang out with them. We learn something the is brought in books of Musar that one tends to become like those he or she hangs around with.

Also a very interesting observation I found there: that the untrustworthy person ends up alone because eventually it becomes known that he can not be relied on to keep his word

Torah of the Dark Side of the religious world

 The problem with religious clothing is that it is not intended for the stated purpose. Rather the reason is group identification. And that comes under two of the seven categories of Prushim that are the destroyers of the world. [as brought in the Gemara and also in the book by Nisim Gaon Maasei Hagedolim Deeds of the Great in paragraph 740].[See the verse:מה השם אליך שואל ממך   והצנע לכת אם אלוקיך What does the Lord your God ask from you ---and to walk humbly with the Lord your God. That is one must not advertise how religious he or she is. The religious turn this into its opposite to mean that one must advertise one's religious  clothing to show that they are religious. 

והצנע means to hide. The religious advertise their religiosity showing that they could not care less about the Torah but rather the money and power they can make by pretending to seem as if they care.`

Fear of God and keeping his commandments is explained in the books of Musar. But what makes this difficult is the vast majority of the religious world that are into it for money and power and thus the naïve and plain  that do not know better fall into the trap of the  Torah of the Dark Side of the religious world that claim to be keeping Torah .

R. Hanina ben Tradion was killed and the Roman authorities decreed that his daughter must stay in house of prostitution. She was the sister of the wife of R. Meir [of the Mishna]. R. Meir went to redeem her. The owner said, "If I let you redeem her, and the authorities find out, they will kill me." R. Meir said: "Just say this prayer, 'May the God of R. Meir save me.'" The other asked how do I know that will work? RM said lets go and find out. They went to a building that was guarded by savage dogs. The prayer worked. So She was redeemed and later in fact the authorities found out and tried to arrest the owner nd he said the prayer and was saved. Then the authorities found out that it was R. Meir that had caused the trouble and tried to arrest him and he fled to Babylon [in modern day Iraq].

In stories of the sages you see nothing like "stories of tzadikim" that aim to elevate the subject. However in this case there is an aspect of seeing the greatness of one of the sages of the mishna. 

the Prushim [known in the New Testament as the "Pharisees."

I was in the Na Nach Breslov place yesterday  and noticed a book that brings lots of the stories of the Gemara and Midrash. מעשי גדולים. [The third vol by Nisim Gaon paragraph 740] There is brought a statement of the sages that there are seven kinds of Pharisees [Prushim] that are destroyers of the world.[note 1] And there Rav Nisim Gaon brings an event that gives an example of one type of Pharisee that one needs to be careful to avoid. One person was in a foreign country, and had made a lot of money in his work there. Then on his way home, he had to stay over Shabat in one town. He thought to himself, "To whom can I entrust my money over Shabat until Sunday?" He saw someone with all the religious clothing and gear and Talit and Tefilin that advertises that one is religious. He thought to himself "To whom better could I find trustworthy to entrust my money?" So he gave it to the religious guy to hold until after Shabat. On Sunday morning, he went to the fellow's house and asked for his money back. The fellow asked, "Who are you? I never saw you before in my life." 

Since that was all the money he had and for which he had worked for years, he was upset. He prayed to God: "I did not trust that man, I trusted in Your Name, the name of God that is written in the Tefilin. The Elisha the prophet came to him and said, "Go now to that man's house. He is not home and his wife will answer the door and tell her that her husband sent you to pick up the money, and give her certain signs." He did so and got his money back. When the husband returned home and found out what she had done he said, "Enough of this. Let's go back to our original faith"--[They were Samaritans] 

There are other statements of the Chazal [sages] that held the religious hypocrites are to be avoided and they specifically mention the Prushim [known in the New Testament as the "Pharisees." So we see that the groups Jesus was being critical of was not the sages of the Gemara nor their fore-runners. Rather the groups of the super religious just like you have nowadays with their show of religiosity to get money. They have nothing in common with the sages of the Mishna and Gemara.

[Besides that, I might mention that the religious clothing is for me the first sign to run away. ]

[note 1] The actual Gemara starts out that there are seven types of Pharisees that are destroyers f the world and then lists seven that wear out the world.  יש שבעה מיני פרושים שהם מכלה עולם ואלה הם השבעה שהם מבלה עולם. At any rate we see the sages of the Mishna did  not count themselves as part of teh group of the Pharisees. It is common for Christians to put these two groups together, but that is not correct. Nor did Jesus say anything against the sages of the mishna nor they actual forerunners who were the scribes. Not the groups of religious fanatics called the Pharisees. 

[There are however one or two places where it looks as though the prushim are joining with the scribes in being critical of Jesus. However in words of jesus himself you never find a negative word about the scibes. This goes to show what I have always been saying--that true Torah is only in the Litvak world. Not the general religious world which is insane.]