z65 music file  [most z files are in midi] z65 nwc

there is a limit to how far any ideas in the spirit realm can be taken as accurate.

 One should not get too impressed with spiritual ideas. That is the whole point of the Critique of Pure Reason. So while the ideas of Rav Nahman are great and important in terms of practical advice, there is a limit to how far any ideas in the spirit realm can be taken as accurate. They can only be accurate in the realm of conditions of possible experience. Outside of that we might have knowledge, but nothing like the religious babble.

The religious world is fraught with talk about spiritual ideas that they know nothing about.

Not that you can know nothing about spiritual reality. But that is immediate non intuitive knowledge that we know, but not through sense nor through reason [to Kelley Ross]. And to Hegel reason can reach even the Absolute. but that is not what religious babble is about. 

The most important responsibility of parents is to make sure their children grow up in a wholesome, moral society.

 The most important responsibility of parents is to make sure their children grow up in a wholesome, moral  society. This is because the influence of parents is highly limited-even in a society of ancient times where the role of parents was highly respected. Nowadays, the role of parents is thought be negative. 

הרבה שכנים עושים The priest says to the wayward woman "Confess your sin for neighbors (the general society) have a huge effect. "

\In a similar vein, one might be in a wholesome moral society like a Litvak yeshiva. The responsibility would be to stay within that context even if the parents think that for themselves a different context would be preferable. In fact, this fact alone shows how right the Gra was.

Parents might be highly motivated to do the best for their children, but if they do not know this principle, they are likely to believe what is good for them, is good for their kids. They do not stop and think what kind of group they are in already that is decent and wholesome.

weight to the approach of the Gra

Even if personal experience is not thought to be a proof of anything, for me it does some weight to the approach of the Gra. In the approach of the Gra, learning Torah, even one single word of Torah, is considered to be equal to all the other commandments of the Torah. [This is actually what it says in the Gemara Yerushalmi on that mishna in Peah.] Thus you would hope and expect that after learning Torah lishma [for its own sake] for some years, one would merit to some sort of "Devekut" attachment with God.

For me this actually happened in an instant as I decided to take my family with me to Israel. The second we got off the plane and the wind blew on me, this kind of Devekut began. 

And during later times I began to see how the Gra was right in many other ways. 

So even if it is desirable not to speak about the depth of one's experience in attachment with God by learning Torah, still if you do not mention it at all, it is kind of like the prohibition of כובש נבואתו.[I forget the actual verse, but the idea is a prophet is not allowed to hide his prophecy.] And one ought not to give the impression that the path of learning and keeping and understanding Torah is intellectual.  The truth is the path of the Gra of learning Torah for its own sake is the highest level of spirituality that is possible. Or at least let me say that that is what I have seen.

 z66 music file  [in midi]  z66 nwc format  [This has just been sitting, and I have not figured out how to develop it, so I thought I should just share it as it is.] Here is another file from a few years ago. w42   [also in midi]  [w42 in mp3][w42 in nwc] I hope to work some more on z66, but at this point I am not sure what to do. 

why not go back to the way things were when Musar was first introduced in the Litvak yeshivot, two forty minute sessions?

 Even though it it seems clear that the Musar movement (to learns the mediaeval books on Ethics)as thought of by Rav Israel Salanter is not all that possible, still I think that it could be given a new beginning with an extra emphasis on this in the great Litvak yeshivot. I suggest instead of the  very short periods, 20 minutes before minha (afternoon prayer) and 15 minutes before arvit (evening prayer), why not go back to the way things were when Musar was first introduced in the Litvak yeshivot, two forty minute sessions?

 Still i must add here, in the Torah there is a commandment not to add or subtract from the commandments. So the religious world which is constantly adding and subtracting can not be considered to be keeping the Torah even in the most  farfetched sense. But they get away with it because most people are not familiar of what the Tora truly says.

שכל הנקנה Acquired Intellect

 In one of the beginning chapters of the Le.M of Rav Nahman of Uman [I forget the number. I think it was around 14] is brought that what is left of a person in the next world is שכל הקנה Acquired Intellect. This concept he brings from The Guide for the Perplexed. What seems significant here is that not every subject that one studies contributes to his everlasting life. For example, how to become an expert at chess would not have anything to contribute to one's life in the World to Come. So just by simple reasoning we can see there is a difference between subjects. So study of how to become a decent person (Musar), we can understand contributes to  one's everlasting salvation, since good character traits are not automatically acquired. One needs to pick up good character traits from parents or friends etc. There is no one that makes up their own value system out of thin air. They get it from TV, movies , Internet etc.

Another point is we can see learning the objective knowledge, knowledge that can be easily seen to be of the way God created the world, this knowledge can  called the works of God. This object knowledge can be Physics or Mathematics or other aspects of Creation that are not man made knowledge, even though they needed to be discovered by Man.