לא תעשה לך כל תמונה "Do not make an picture"

 Even though I do not want to be overly legalistic, still it occurred to me yesterday how a lot of the laws of the Torah are ignored or even worse--explained away. לא תעשה לך כל תמונה "Do not make a picture." ''Temuna'' means image or form. It does not say that it has to be 3-d. [In fact, this was noticed by Protestants who then spent their creative efforts in the direction of music instead of the visual arts--as had been the case with the Catholics.]

There are other examples. Interest is well known example, for the banks in Israel have the "היתר עיסקא" (heter iska) which is sort of ok, but also somewhat awkward. This is towards the end on Bava Metzia [I forget the page number.] But the main idea is still that the possibility of loss has to be included in the deal which doesn't seem to happen in practice. 

The Gemara says: אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו "The verse does not come out of its simple explanation." The Gra said this principle applies to all verses. 

[There are lots more: Honor thy father and thy mother. Thou Shalt Not Steal. etc. ]

 I thought to mention that my mother in law, Mrs. Rita Finn was on the Kinder-transport that  her parents sent her on to save her from the Nazis. But though being saved, she was severely abused in England which gave her a lifelong hatred of men.  Still she struggled to be a good wife and raise good children--which she did. After all the only reason my wife got married to me was that I was at Shar Yashuv --an authentic Litvak Yeshiva and she could feel and sense the taste of authentic Torah. 

It is sad  that the difficulties that people go through  can end up defining them.

But I do not think there is any cure for this sort of thing. People's emotional wounds can be much deeper than physical wounds.

Still I do have one suggestion, Musar. That is the idea of Rav Israel Salanter to learn the canonical four books of ethics, חובות לבבות מסילת ישרים שערי תשובה  אורחות צדיקים for learning the right attitudes can go a long way to reliving one from the burden of harmful attitudes.

I found that it is best to have the idea that reason recognizes universals and universals exit in many different areas. For example, principles of morality.  This makes the approach of the Rambam to make sense--that the laws of Torah are meant to bring to objective morality.

So even if there are questions about Torah, one does not have to relay on faith alone but also has a justification based on reason.

"Universals" are characteristics that things have in common. For example: I have two pieces of paper in front on me. Do they have something in common? Yes. They are both white.   But there are other areas where universals apply. Eg-numbers. Things have numbers in common. They can be two pieces of paper or two rocks. Rules of mathematics or Physics also are universals. E=mc^2 applies to two pieces of paper or rocks. Similarly rules of morality apply to different individuals. It is wrong to steal from .Reuven and also from Jacob. And they are also under the rule that it is wrong to steal. 

So where is the role  of reason in this? Reason recognizes more than  contradictions in definitions. This is the whole point of the Critique of Pure Reason.

There are many reasons to base one's faith on reason, but at least one good one is that ones faith is thus more solid. So when one discovers contradictions or "questions" it is easier to say to oneself, I am not relaying on faith alone but rather I have good reasons for my beliefs.--These reasons are that Torah is to bring to objective morality. It does not add or subtract then if other people are moral or not. What matters is that i should be 

I hope this explains why I am not so religious in the traditional sense. I may have found the religious world to be a nightmare. The teachers are vicious Torah scholars that are demons [in that memorable phrase of Rav Nahman] and the followers are lunatics. But Torah has a different basis--reason.

And there is sometimes conflicts between Torah and Reason and in those areas I find answers but my general approach is this is the areas of dinge an sich where reason does not penetrate.   

 Even though I believe Rav Nahman was a very great tzadik, I still regret leaving the world of the Litvak Yeshivot. Part of the reason you can see yourself easily. Where do you find the spirit of Torah? People dedicated to learning and keeping Torah with every fiber of their being? Obviously in the Litvak Yeshivot. 

However my own experience in the Litvak world was mixed. So I find it hard to give this a blank endorsement. 

 I did meet in the Ukraine some people that would have objected to Russian rule from Moscow. One was a very good friend that used to be a KGB agent. But even though he worked for the KGB, he was very much against Communism. And I used to discuss this with him at length. The other was my own landlord  who said is the Russian would ever show up he would shoot them. [He is a Tartar-very nice person, but still he recalled the transfer of the Tartars. That is why he was in Uman instead of his homeland. Stalin had seen in the Tartars a threat and so moved them to new areas.] (This explains also why Russians would shoot at civilians that are shooting at them.) The third person was a very nice girl I knew in the Student Dormitory where I was staying for about 7 years. She recalled to state induced famine of the 1930's. Another was a soldier who prided himself on having burned alive the Russian soldiers in Odessa. [That was a famous incident. He was staying in the dorm a few days before he returned to his hometown.]

I mention these exceptions because they are to my recollection the only four people that objected to the government being from Moscow instead of Kiev. 

Other than these, everyone I met thought things were better under Moscow rather than Kiev.