I do not see anything wrong with slavery. You have it in Exodus and in Leviticus. In Exodus it discusses the laws concerning a Hebrew slave. Six years he serves and is let go in the seventh.  In the end of Leviticus, it also goes into the laws of a Hebrew slave that sells himself in order to pay for a a debt. Then it also brings the law of a gentile slave--who must not be let go of. 

In the New Testament also this issue is brought up several times. There the exhortation is for  slaves not to rebel but rather to serve their masters faithfully.  No where is it suggested that a owner of slaves should let them go.

Beside this I might mention that one who does  a favor for someone who does not appreciate it is as he threw a stone at Markulit, an idol that its worship was by throwing stones at it. Few black people feel gratitude towards the USA. Just the opposite. Most are determined to destroy the USA.

 In the LeM of Rav Nahman of Breslov, there is brought the importance of learning with understanding. [Le.M vol. I chapter 74.]. /This seems to disagree with Conversation of Rav Nachman chapter 76. But I did notice today that the chapter in the LeM is not saying to be sitting  on the same page for a long time. Rather the implication is by learning fast, one can come to deep understanding.  

But this does not seem to be the Litvak Path. [Lithuanian Yeshivot based on the Gra.]    I recall Rav Shelomo Freifeld emphasizing reviewing  everything that one learns ten times.

And over time I discovered that people that do not get the deep learning approach of the Litvak Yeshivot right away when they are young, never get it afterwards. But on the other hand I realize it takes a lot of fast learning to discover what one ought to concentrate on.

 z79 music file

 I find insights in the great philosophers when I get a chance to read them. But I am not saying everything they said was right. One example I recall from a few years ago was when I was reading Hegel and noticed when he wrote that matter is energy--point blank relativity! Another  time I was reading Hobhouse  in his critique on the Metaphysical State. [That was an attack on people that were building  a co we do not know nception of such a state and to do so were borrowing some ideas from Hegel.  Some of the attacks were true but one I recall was that Hegel had said matter is gravity. I do not remember exactly this minute what Hegel had said but it seemed to me to indicate that matter bend space and creates gravitational waves .

I might look this up to give you a better idea of what I mean. 

Another  place I noticed where a great philosopher had a great idea was where Kant said we can not know matter itself, only 0characteristics. Matter in Quantum Field Theory by itself is well understood. It is the "m" in the Lagrangian density or the Hamiltonian. But when it interacts it becomes infinite-an absurd conclusion.
 

I find also in tzadikim that it is not always the best idea to follow everything they say but rather to find the things that make the most sense and leave off the rest. 

And Leibniz said something similar about the followers  of Descartes -that they were not following his path by following every word he said. That in fact dishonored him. It was more people like Spinoza that were following his path  of rigorous logical inquiry that were really following his path.

You might say the same about Rav Nahman.

 During the time of Kant there was a debate whether to close the universities which had been mainly for teaching theology combined with secular studies on the side. One side of the debate was to have only tech schools. --i.e. vocation schools. The other side won--the liberal arts. To the determent of all.

 I say it is time has come for the vocation schools. Learning how to weld, solder, do the jobs that civilization depends on is worth a million PhDs in sex studies.

The right balance between faith and reason. Sinai and Athens.

 There was a great deal of effort during the Middle Ages to strike the right balance between faith and reason. Sinai and Athens. But after Kant, it seems that balance would have to find a different sort of synthesis.  In spite of the Rambam's noble efforts in the Guide for the Perplexed,  it is clear that that sort of balance is unsatisfying. (You might notice that when you read it.) This left me in a state of bewilderment until I discovered Leonard Nelson [founder of the second Kant-Friesian School]  and Kelley Ross.  The issue is that there are a great deal of questions in faith that do not get answers based on reason, nor on empirical evidence. Some seems answerable if you go with Rav Isaac Luria. That is if you put the simple explanation of the Torah into the world of Emanation and let this world be a poor shadow of that perfect world. But that still needs justification for it very existence. And justification that grasping it is possible by means other than reason or sense perception. And that is possible through the Kant Friesian School.  See the paper by Peter Sperber

I have been thinking about Hegel and Jacob Fries for a few days. I think both have been sadlly neglected.

The reasons I think for Hegel are that he was clear that he was in a middle position between the Left {progressives} and the Right - Throne Evangelicals. And the middle is always a hard position to hold onto since it can easily be construed and  tilted to one side or the other by those that do not want to understand.

The major new idea  of Fries of non intuitive immediate knowledge was neglected for reasons having nothing to do with the merits of that approach. For this idea gives a basis for the categories of Kant that otherwise  have weak justification. [And this can be expanded into faith. This is a better justification for faith than Kant's somewhat weak making room for it.] And it is better than Hegel's also since  faith really is not the same kind of thing as logical deductions. Hegel however was right that he did not think feelings were a good justification. [As many thought so in Berlin at the time. To those Hegel directed his criticism.] So that leaves us with  knowledge that is not based on reason and not on the senses--i.e. faith