faith of the Torah

 The basic tenet of faith of the Torah is that God made the world from nothing. Not from Himself.😊

I have gone into this a few years ago. But what I wanted to add is that the religious accept pantheism and that besides being not what the Torah holds-it is also hard to see why a good and wise God would reincarnate Himself in a world of infinite torture. We might look at the surface of the sea as calm and benevolent. But underneath the surface everything is waging total war to the death against every other creature. It is a realm the insane torture of chemical warfare. God who by the basic understanding of that word is someone infinitely  kind and wise would find no better better way to spend his time than be incarnated in creatures that torture others? And all the more so that vicious of all creatures mankind?

While on the other hand I can see that a wise and kind God would create the world with some deep purpose in mind. But that He should be spending his time torturing all creatures is absurd and contradictory to Torah  as you can see in any and all Rishonim who wrote about the faith of the Torah.

{Where did the rishonim write about this? you might ask. Mainly in the books of Musar and world view issues like the Guide. Besides that, the Ari brings at the beginning of the Eitz Chaim that God made the world from nothing --not from Himself. So there is in fact no argument on this point.]

There are plenty of Jews which worship dead people

 There is no good reason to assume that idolatry is limited to non Jews. There are plenty of Jews which worship dead people- and hang their portraits all over the place. We know that to marry a worshiper of idols is forbidden, but  that does not mean a gentile. Rather all religious Jews worship dead people. \[The fact of their worship of dead people does not help them to be considered Jewish even though they might make a show and dance of their adherence to rituals. The  religious Jews that worship the pictures of dead people shows they are idolaters. [In fact the overly strict adherence חומרות יתירות to rituals might be thought to hide an intension to pretend to be kosher, while in fact hiding some hidden agenda to entice others to their worship of dead people. []

to stick with the path of straight Torah requires a test

I think that to stick with the path of straight Torah requires a test. Or at least that might have been the case with me. For I certainly tasted the taste of Torah in Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY. But all that time I would say the book of prayers of Rav Natan, the disciple of Rav Nahman. So I was aware of the light of straight Torah of the Gra , but also had a feeling for the teachings of Rav Nahman.

The most obvious approach would have been to hold onto the good in each path. I however got off on a tangent. So today I would like to correct that fault--but that apparently is easier said than done.  And furthermore, it still seems to me to be unclear how to strike a proper balance. Still the rule seems to be that if one has merited to be in a straight Litvak yeshiva that walks in the path of the Gra, one should never leave that under any circumstances. For that is where the real light of Torah is. But on the side I see learning the ideas and good advice of Rav Nahman to be helpful.

 It seems to me that in the religious world there are many people that pretend to learn Torah for the sake of money or to get some sort of stupid job. But these are not people that have tasted the light of Torah. --even though these are the vast majority of the religious world that  need their show and public performance of their great devotion in order to make money. For simple people like me, we might ask why is there such a tremendous need of the religious to show off their great religiosity? Perhaps because it is not for God, but rather for men to gain jobs using Torah as their means of making money.

i might mention that Rav Nahman himself made a point to warn people about the Torah scholars who are demons which are the vast majority or the religious authorities.] And it is well known in Breslov the problem of the מפורסמים של שקר the famous and great religious authorities who are in fact demons.--even the authorities in Breslov itself.]

{This explains the serious problem that the religious world is quite lunatic(as is all too obvious). The reason is not from any lack of sincerity, but rather that they follow leaders who are demons. sadly, the true Torah scholars in the Litvak yeshivot do not object. --so secular Jews think that everyone agrees with the demons. That reminds me of the incident of Kamtza and Bar-Kamtza in which you see there is a need to object against the Torah scholars that are demons--even if you know that no one will listen.

Baali teshuva [newly religious] are probably the reason the religious world is somewhat insane. The problem is this: how can you trust anyone who has abandoned the path of their parents? If they can betray once, they can betray again.

 

I must state for a fact that my dad developed laser communication between satellites for that was the exact thing he created at TRW and I knew from first hand knowledge.

 There does not seem to be much I can do about making the record clear, but I must state for a fact that my dad developed laser communication between satellites for that was the exact thing he created at TRW and I knew from first hand knowledge. I saw that laser at TRW itself, and knew from conversations with my dad and his coworkers and friends what it was for. [The USA had been struggling to catch up with the USSR during the 1960's, and that creation of laser communication between satellites was an essential part of that. It was so that the Soviets would not be able to eavesdrop on USA communications. But  there are a lot more advantages to that than just keeping communications secure. Still my dad, Philip Rosten, ought to be mentioned as the inventor .[This is the same principle of fiber optics. and is what is used even now for Internet connections.] [He had been brought in at first because TRW was developing infrared satellites. Only when these were launched he started work on laser communication. 

[The adopted name Rosten was changed from the family name Rosenblum at the time he started work at TRW. But when in the USAF and when he invented the Infra Red telescope his name was Philip Rosenblum.] [He had vowed to himself to change his name to a shorter one because after WWII he had to interrogate Germans to see if they were part of the Nazi Party. When it was clear they were not he had to sign his name Rosenbloom to their release papers. That meant singing his name thousands and tens of thousands of times.]

You can imagine that I admired my dad a lot and wished to walk in his ways, but I simply found that I had zero ability in Mathematics and Physics subjects that came as naturally to him as drinking water.  

Eventually I discovered the idea of "Girsa" just saying the words and going on brought in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים and that helped a lot towards gaining some small understanding, but not much. Just enough I guess to get me in a the Polytechnic Institute of NYU, but that doesn't change my basic lack of ability. 

the USSR stood for the union of soviet republics. Yet the actual soviets were defunct after 1920. There were no more trade unions.

 It is an odd fact that that the USSR stood for the union of soviet republics. Yet the actual soviets were defunct after 1920. There were no more trade unions. Trade functions were incorporated into the Bolshevik party and under the control of political commissars. While strikes were the prime tool to bring down the previous government, a strike during the time of the USSR was straightforward  treason-and punished accordingly.

bitul Torah

Rav Nathan,  the disciple of Rav Nahman made his way to Israel about 11 years after Rav Nahman died. The first stop after was Istanbul where he encountered a middle man that cheated him. He was aware of this but since he could not speak the language he had no choice but to go along with it. People there in Istanbul told him later the story of a fellow who was a tremendous "matmid" [diligent] in learning Torah. (Leib Ashkenazi) who some years before that also had been cheated. He bought a ticket and entered the ship to wait for its departure. He waited for a long time until he decided something was "off". He went to find out, and it turned out that that ship had been out of service for years. So he went to the person that sold him the ticket and said, "For the loss of the money I forgive you. But for the bitul Torah I do not, and surely God will give you what you deserve." [Soon after that the cheater died.] {Autobiography of Rav Nathan vol II. paragraph 105] [Bitul Torah refers to the sin of being able to learn Torah but not doing so. A loose translation would be "wasting  time from learning."]

You can ask why did this catch my attention? It is because you usually do not hear about the problem  of bitul Torah anywhere except in the Litvak world. And in fact in most of the Litvak places I have hung out in, most people would be learning Torah even if there was no such sin as bitul Torah. The people that I knew in Shar Yashuv and the Mir would be learning Torah even if they would have no reward for it at all. There is some inner essence of Torah that one can be connected to that goes beyond the borders of this world. The reason for this is that one needs to be connected in some sense to the Gra.[as are  Litvak yeshivot]. When one is connected with the Gra, the light of Torah gets through to one's soul.

asking secular Jews for money

 The religious world asking  secular Jews for money is the greatest of all possible spiritual levels. Even though they say that "learning Torah" is their goal, the actual  goal is to get money from secular Jews --i. e that means  the show and pretense of keeping some rituals of  Torah. Emphasis on rituals provides a disguise for this fraud. And there is a tendency to present their leaders as super smart,  where as reality shows the religious leaders are stupid, and use the appearance of Torah to provide a a show

You can count on religious Jews begging for money--and why? For the purpose they they uphold the whole world in their merit. [Thus they say.]

Religious Jews have discovered that by a show of religiosity, they can get money from secular Jews. Therefore the main emphasis is on a show of rituals.