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6.2.22

["Whosoever accepts on himself the yoke of Torah, the yoke of government and the yoke of the way of the earth (work) is removed from him."

   In a time when there is so much stuff going on, you might ask what to do? I discussed this with David Bronson a few times (over a few issues) and his answer was always along the lines of,  "Let's sit and learn Gemara".  Or one time I was asking such questions, and he brought up the mishna  כל המקבל עליו עול תורה מעבירים ממנו עול מלכות ועול דרך ארץ. ["Whosoever accepts on himself the yoke of Torah, the yoke of government and the yoke of the way of the earth (work) is removed from him." [That does not mean to be begging  for money.]

  When I asked a question, "What can a father do for his children to guide them?" he brought this idea of Rav Nahman that when a father repents on his sins, thoughts of repentance enter into his children.

  Another time I brought up this subject and he brought an event mentioned in the Gemara. There was an extreme tax brought on the city where  Judah HaNasi lived. He said, "All problems come from people ignorant of Torah." [You can ask on this from the Gemara in Shabat that says all problems come into the world because of "judges of Israel"] There is no contradiction as we see in Hulin. perek 7 that  all problems in the world come from תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודאיים Torah scholars that are demons.[Le.M I:12 and I:28]

So how do you tell?  By the criteria of "Lishma" [those that learn Torah for its own sake]. Some people accept money to learn Torah, but their intension is to learn. They only accept money because that is the only way they can spend their days learning Torah. These  are the true good  Torah scholars. They are the Litvaks. [Those that walk in the path of the Gra.]--(However I admit that even in the Litvak world there can be phonies. But the general type--the group characteristic is that of Torah for its own sake.]


there are things that are not worth the trouble to argue with people about.

 David Bronson explained to me that there are things that are  not worth the trouble to argue with people about. It is that certain things are set in their DNA. {I was asking about the conflict between Israel and the Muslims.] But this can be applied across along long lines of issues.

It is best just to learn Torah and see what the Law of God has to tell us and to recommend to others to do the same.


Stll, with all that there is an "inyan" [a thing] about to "object". That is even if no one will listen, still one must object to wrong--at least to make one's position clear. [That is from the event of the Concubine of Giva. What I mean is on the second day of the war, (end of Book of Judges) God was asked if to continue to make war on Binyamin, and He agreed. Why? Because no one in Binyamin objected to the murder of the concubine. To punish the evil doers was not the issue. The issue was to punish the whole tribe because they did not object to evil.

However, I still think this is a one time event. You object and make your stance known and then get back to learning Torah.]   

5.2.22

authentic Torah and Gra [Eliyahu of Villna]

 The importance of the Gra [Eliyahu of Villna] is that he defines  pure straight authentic Torah with no additions or subtractions. This is very different from the religious world which worships dead people; but does it with religious clothing so that it looks authentic 

4.2.22

the religious world is idolatry.

 One of the not so minor problems with the religious world is idolatry. This may not be obvious at first to people that are sunk into it, but if you think about it you can see that worship of graves of tzadikim is a problem. I am not saying this is easy to be gotten rid of. You really need someone like king Yoshiyahu that went all over Israel destroying every last remnant of idolatry. And of course the problem with fighting evil is that one suffers for it.  Somehow after that, he got a dumb idea in his head to fight the king of Egypt and lost. And his kingship was pretty much the end of kings of the house of David. His children were the ones that the king of Babylon killed and destroyed the Temple, and the glory of that Temple has never returned.

That shows how powerful the kelipa of idolatry is. Still if the Torah stands for anything, at very least it stands for not doing idolatry. There is no choice but to fight it, no matter what the consequences are. 

My parents definitely saw the evil of the religious world, but I did not understand what they were saying. I wanted to go to an authentic Litvak yeshiva based on the Gra, but did not see how the religious counterfeit religiosity that the Gra us against, had seeped into it.


just by saying the words one can come to understanding of the Torah in its depths.

 על ידי אמצעות הדיבור יכולים לבא לתבונות התורה לעומקה  This is is an amazing insight from Rav Nahman that just by saying the words one can come to understanding of the Torah in its depths. [Le.M.vol I:11]

If you combine this with Le.M vol I 61 על ידי אמונת חכמים יכולים להוציא משפטינו לאור  [by means of faith in the wise, our judgment can come into the light.] then you get this: Start with the fact that the Rambam was wise. And that he included Physics and Metaphysics in the category of learning Torah [in laws of learning Torah], then just by saying the words of your Mathematics and Physics textbooks, you come to understand them.  [This does not diminish the importance of review as Rav Nahman himself brings in sefer HaMidot. Rather it leaves the question of how much review and how much of "girsa" {just saying the words} as an open issue.]  

So why do people not do this? Because they do not have faith in themselves. See the LeM of Rav Nahman 86 where he talks about that when people have little faith, they need hard services. I.e., just like when there is a time when government is is trying to destroy faith that one needs even to give up his or her life on the slightest infraction, So when there is little faith one needs hard services.

Rav Nathan [a disciple of Rav Nahman] asked him "then what about me who I think I has faith?" Rav Nahman brought the Chazal [statement of the sages] מיעוט אמונה בעצמן גורמת בזבוז שחלונם של צדיקים What causes the destruction of the table of saints in the next world? The lack of faith they have in themselves.

[In our context that means one does not need hard methods to become a rocket scientist. But why people do not do this is because they think they do not understand--when in fact they really do. Just that the understanding is hidden inside and absorbed until much later it is fruitful.]

Of course we all know that "Girsa" is brought in the Gemara itself and is widely known in all he great Litvak Yeshivot. It is more or less practiced as such in the afternoon session from 4PM to 8PM. Yet Rav Nahman adds an emphasis and the further insight that just by saying the words, the ideas are absorbed


See the verse in Proverbs chapter 8 verse 11 concerning Wisdom"כל חפצים לא ישוו בה"".And the Jerusalem Gemara explain this thus: Even the desirable things of Heaven are not equal to it. And the Gra {Eliyahu from Villna] shows that everyone word of Torah (an wisdom) are more than equal to even all of the other commandments combined together.



3.2.22

music file z63

z63  I would try to put the orchestra instruments in this where they belong here but I have no midi to mp3 access. z63 in nwc format 

Musar [i.e. the classical books on Morality] But it is hard to say that one can just get the basic world view of Torah without it.

 I may not have a lot of trust in God, but I try to renew my trust in him when I wake up in the morning and repeat to myself the opening paragraphs of the Level of Man [Navardok] in the section on trust. And this practice I recommend to others, to learn Musar [i.e. the classical books on Morality from the Middle Ages]. Then when you find something that you know needs reinforcement, to repeat it to yourself right when you get up in the morning. Over time something has to sink in.

The major works of Musar are , מסילת ישרים, ספר היראה, חובות הלבבות, שערי תשובה, אורחות צדיקים Book of Fear, Paths of the Righteous, Ways of the Just, Gates of Repentance]

But I would like to add the books of the disciples of Rav Israel Salanter as they deepen one's understanding of these principles of Fear of God and good character traits.


[However if you really want Fear of God and good character, you must runaway from the religious world since they assume the appearance of Torah, while are in fact ruled by the Sitra Achra (the Dark Side).] 

Where did the break occur between authentic Torah and the false world of the religious? The break happened when the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication was ignored. And the result i that the entire religious world is wicked.

On a side note: The path of Musar is great but has some drawbacks. That is why the Litvak world introduced it in the yeshiva but only for 20 min in afternoon and 15 at night. The danger is that it can get one off the path of learning Gemara,-and even going off on some tangent. But it is hard to say that one can just get the basic world view of Torah without it. In fact it seems clear that without Musar people go off into terrible delusions . But even so you can see that there was a god reason that the actual time for learning it became much less than what was desired by Rav Israel Salanter.