one is not supposed to intend to be connected with dead people.

You can see in the Mishna Seder Purity that there is a certain kind of uncleanliness that emanates from a dead body. This is called father of fathers of uncleanliness. In fact you can see in the Book of Numbers  that this is the most severe type of uncleanliness that there is. All other types are fathers of uncleanliness or the derivates.

[I spent a lot of time on this while at Shar Yashuv and the Mir in NY but I have forgotten most of it.] But even though I have forgotten most of this subject, it does occur to me to mention that there really is no reason to go to graves of the righteous. 

In Torah, one is not supposed to intend to be connected with dead people. This is well explained in the Nefesh HaChaim of Rav Chaim of Voloshin [a major disciple of the Gra.]] Rather, one is supposed to intend to be connected with God. To intend to be connected with the dead is an extremely disgusting sort of idolatry. 

Rav Avraham Abulafia from the Middle Ages

If one looks at Rav Avraham Abulafia from the Middle Ages you will see he held that Jesus was "the seal of the sixth day." [Clearly a reference to the idea of messiah the son of Joseph.] 

However, this does not imply much along the lines of Christian theology. Already Saadia Gaon noted the two basic issues in which Christians got the whole thing wrong. One is that one can be a great tzadik and still not be God. But there are many levels of tzadikim. The greatest are thought to be the patriarchs, Moshe [Moses], Aaron Joseph and David. These are all thought to be souls of Emanation. [But not the only ones. ]And Emanation is something like a cup of water flowing forth and down. That is the Light of God flows forth from him in Adam Kadmon, Akudim, Brudim Nekudim until Emanation. So all these worlds are pure Godliness--in that there is no division between them and God Himself. Even though they are all very far from God and not God himself. So souls of Emanation also are pure godliness but not God.

This applies to Jesus also.

And clearly there are plenty people who have souls whose root is much lower. They might be from Creation, Foundation or Action.[Asiah].

Another issue is "bitul HaMitzvot"--i.e. that Christians think Jesus came to say that the commandments of the Torah no longer are applicable-which contradicts what Jesus said openly about this very issue.

And further, they think Jesus came to disagree with the Oral Law. That also contradicts what Jesus said openly in Mathew chapter 23. "The Scribes sit on the seat of Moses and so everything they say to do that you must obey and do..." And then he goes on to say a very clear fact that the religious tend to be hypocrites. But there were some of the Pharisees that were evil and hypocrites just like today. That does not mean all. Nor does it imply a lack in Torah, not the Oral or Written Law. 

Most of what passes for "Torah" is false.

 Most of what passes for "Torah" is false. The way you know this is by the Mishna in Sanhedrin [perek Chelek] where it lists those who have no portion in the next world. Then there is added to this category "he who reads outside books." The Rif and Rosh both explain "outside books"  as books that give explanations of Torah  that are not from the sages of the Mishna and Gemara.

[What are books of Chazal (the Sages) that explain verses of the Old Testament? The Midrash. e.g. Midrash Raba. Tanchuma, Sifrei Sifra, Mechilta, etc.]

Therefore most of what passes as "Torah" nowadays thus comes under the category of "outside books". 

So outside books do not refer to Natural Sciences. Rather this refers specially to books that claim to be books of Torah but give different explanations from what is brought in the Midrash and Gemara.

"devakut" [attachment with God]

There is an aspect of attachment with God that is not understood in  philosophy. This is the advantage of the Friesian School of thought that has an approach that sees that attachment with God is in the node of value that is all content but no form.

It is a lack in philosophy that does not see "devakut" [attachment with God] this as a legitimate area of value. However a lot of religious inspiration is from the Dark Side.

So I can see the point of avoiding the issue. However I would like to suggest that devekut is a valid area of value.  

[There is an area of value that is all form, no content like logic. Another that has less form and more content. Math which can not be reduced to logic as per Godel. Other areas like music have more content and less for. You can go on until devekut which is all content and no for,

most of what passes today as "Torah "is in fact Torah of the Dark Side.

 You can see in the LeM of Rav Nahman of Breslov [vol I .perek 33] that there is such a thing as "Torah of the Sitra Achra (Evil Realm.)" And most of what passes today as "Torah "is in fact Torah of the Dark Side.  And even further, you can see in the LeM that there are many teachers of Torah who are demons. תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים. So to me it makes no sense to listen to the idiots that spout out what they think is "Torah".

Either you get the real thing--learn authentic Torah at a Litvak Yeshiva based on the Gra, or nothing at all.

my earnest hope to merit to walk in his holy ways of learning and keeping Torah and trust in God.

 Gra. I thought to take away the name of the Gra from my blog because I can not really claim to be representing his approach or walking in his ways. But that does not mean I do not want to. So I think just to put the name back to show my earnest hope to merit to walk in his holy ways of learning and keeping Torah and trust in God.

I mean, after all I am not exactly walking in the ways of my parents either- I never went to Cal Tech, nor the USAF, nor invented the infrared telescope, nor was I much of a father, brother, husband. In all these things my dad excelled, but not me. But still I mention my parents as the title of this blog because I want to walk in the ways of my parents.

Mathematics and Physics are not ""Secular Learning"

 To learn Mathematics and Physics one has to have an awareness that there is in this a sort of service towards God. It is not ""Secular Learning" [man-made abstractions ], but rather the wisdom of God as revealed in His Creation. This is  an opinion that you can see in the Obligations of the Hearts in Shar HaBechina cha. 3 where he distinguishes between the wisdom of God that is revealed in the physical objects of Creation, and the Spiritual aspect of them. The Spiritual aspects are what the Ari {Rav Isaac Luria} brings in the Eitz Chaim about the Divine names of the physical universe. [listed in order in vol 4 of the large sidur of the Reshash ] But that is not the same thing as the Divine wisdom that is revealed in them.

 And "to speak out and proclaim the Wisdom of God" is brought in Psalms 77, and 105 [and other places] as being a great mitzvah. שיחו בכל נפלאותיו "Speak of his wonderous works." Psalm 105

This is well accepted by many of the medieval authorities, but not all. The one that would be for learning Mathematics and Physics and Chemistry would be mainly Saadia Gaon, Ibn Pakuda of the Chovot Levavot and Rav Moshe ben Maimon and the many authors that go with their approach. Even though Nahmanides did not agree with Aristotle, that does not seem to indicate that he disagreed with the Rambam. He might have thought that Physics and Metaphysics are important to learn, but that they are not contained in Aristotle. Maybe Physics and Math  are a bit different from what you might find in Aristotle. And that seems to be the case,- as we can see there are more elements than the four elements. The four elements seem to be able to broken down into more basic components. So they can not be .unreducible. For example, water can be broken down into hydrogen and oxygen. So water is not an element.

Of course it is always possible to see the true ideas in Aristotle in somewhat different form as I have noticed. One example that I saw recently is the idea that the Earth stays in the center of the universe of the ancients. Aristotle disagreed and came up with the idea of spontaneous symmetry breaking--showing that a hungry person sitting in the center of bread will at some point decide to break the symmetry to go and pick one piece of bread.

But I can see that the Wisdom of God is deep and hard to understand. So people can be discouraged and go off into other pseudo sciences that are false. To reach the real thing can be hard. But I ask: Why give up? If it is hard, is that a reason to give up? and turn to pseudo sciences? They might pay well, but does that make them legitimate.  Rather, it is better to grit one's teeth and go through the Mathematics and Physics textbooks word by word, from start to end. Say the words in order. Do not worry if you understand because you will eventually understand if you persevere.