"Do not do good to an evil person, and evil will not reach you."

 There is a point in not doing a favor for someone who will use it against you. In the Midrash i brought a story about some one who came from Israel to Persia and saw a dead bird. Then came another bird with a leaf from a plant, and put it on the dead bird, and that bird came back to life. Then he went to that same plant and picked a leaf from it, and said to himself,
"This will come in handy." On the way, he saw the carcass of a dead lion. He put it on the lion, and it came back to life and ate  him. From this the Midrash learns: "Do not do good to an evil person, and evil will not reach you."

And this is the reason the religious people commonly refer to secular Jews as "crazy." כל הפוסל במומו פוסל

 A lot of religious motivation is from schizoid personality defects, not from strong faith in God. [video lecture by Sapolsky (start at minutes 8:00 and onward. And in particular minute 1:15:16 [i.e. one hour and fifteen min.]) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEnklxGAmak] [See : Alfred Kroeber] Thus it is easy to see why the religious world seems so unhealthy. Clearly, this was noticed by Rav Israel Salanter who saw that the essence of Torah is Monotheism with good Midot [good character traits], not religions fanaticism. But that did not help after the first few generations of Musar. Eventually, it became  another sort of religious fanaticism. [See: Geschwind Syndrome]

And this is the reason the religious people commonly refer to secular Jews as "crazy." כל הפוסל במומו פוסל." ''All who calls names calls with his own name." [ Gemara and brought in many Musar books.]

learning in depth. that is with lot's of review

 The major lesson that I learned from my son Izhak is that of learning in depth, that is with lot's of review until I understand, and even then to keep on reviewing. I had of course been introduced to this at Shar Yashuv and the Mir yeshivot, but the lesson did not really sink in until Izhak explained this to me. But it still seem to me to be unclear how much review to do. I have been thinking of the idea of focusing on one subject and kind of expanding out from there. 

Even though Rav Nahman is known for advocating the fast kind of learning, see his book Le.M vol I chap. 74 where learning with iyun [review and depth] is considered to be a higher level.

to rav nahman there are two kinds of judgment: (1) from the realm of holiness, (2) from the realm of uncleaniness. The last is understood: sickness, tragedy, etc. The first i when one tries to come into the realm of holiness and just then troubles begin. These come as tests of faith, or because one was not fit in the first place. And learning without understanding is the same essence as judgment of the realm  of holiness. But when one learns with understanding that mitigates and weakens that all the judgments. 

 There was on Friday afternoon an Arab with a blue id card [i.e. Israeli Citizenship] plowed into a bus stop and wiped out a whole family. Aristotle wrote that two people's that are not getting along, there is no solution but separation. the idea of Israeli Arabs maybe was an ok idea at first, but after 70 years of experience that is clearly unreasonable already. 

The evil inclination uses false mitzvot to bring people into the paths of darkness.

 I was in a local sort of Litvak kind of Beit Midrash and worked on some sugia there for a while. Then I noted that they had there a book of a collection of ideas if the Gra on the Five Books of Moses [Chumash]. There I noted a comment by the Gra that reminded me of the very first lesson of Rav Nahman (in his book the Le.M vol. I, chapter 1). That is that the evil inclination uses false mitzvot to bring people into the paths of darkness,

This is why the straight path of Torah of the Gra is important--, it is that it is too easy to be distracted and fall by pseudo mitzvot, and they lead from one thing to another until one's whole life is ruined. [Breslov itself, while based on the teaching of Rav Nahman, tends to have that same sort of aspect [being a half way house] between holiness [kedusha] and anti-holiness.  It is like a door by which people leave the straight and narrow path of the Torah [the Litvak Yeshiva world],  and by which some people come into Torah after being outside.. Rav Nahman has great and powerful advice, but also there is there things that can be (and are)  misunderstood from how he intended them.

People in Ukraine are afraid to say their true feelings

I can imagine that people in Ukraine are afraid to say their true feelings, but when I was there in Middle Ukraine [not the East] people told me openly that they were upset that the USSR was gone. The vast majority of people in Uman went to the Russian Orthodox Church [near the local bazar]. Now you might counter that that was because it was in the city center, while the large Ukrainian Orthodox church was out a bit from the main city. But even so, that does not answer it, because there was also a small  Ukrainian Orthodox church on Sadova  Drive [also city centre], and that was open just a few hours on Sunday. But the Russian Orthodox Church was open all the time--from morning to evening every day, and always had plenty of people in it. And on Sunday, it was packed--hardly room to move.

Of course, now the government has closed it, and made it illegal. Even the Communists never did that during the entire 70 years they were in power. [I admit that there was talk among the Communist officials during the 1980's to close it, but they never did.]

superiority attitude in the religious world

The Litvak Yeshiva world really was a great place for me for some period, but I did not have the appreciation for it and the straight path of the Gra as I should have had. Even so I find it important to show respect of it's tremendous value, even though I did not manage to stick with it. And I think that is an important lesson--that Rav Nahman pointed out: "Even if I can't be "איש כשר" kosher person, I should at least want my friend to be one." 

[However, there is a kind of  superiority attitude in the religious world. Gentiles are not considered human and baali teshuva [newly religious] are thought to be sub human. This attitude displays itself in subtle ways at first when they are love bombing teen agers with rich parents. Only later when they have no more use for you, does this attitude become apparent.