ten times review

 When I was in Shar Yashuv I heard this idea about review ten times and I am seeing that this helps. It was how I used too do the Maharsha and Pnei Yehoshua and the other achronim like Rav Chaim of Brisk and Rav Shach I have started to see that this idea help also for  Mathematics. [I do not mean to diminish the importance of fast learning also- but I think the main emphasis ought to be on lots of review and in depth learning as my son Izhak told me 

children need a wholesome environment

 One reason to obey the excommunication of the Gra is that children need a wholesome environment that you just can not find anywhere outside of the straight Litvak world.  You might be inspired by Rav Nachman and that is fine. But there is a difference between what you can learn and the  environment in which children ought to be raised

[Anyway my opinion is that Rav Nahman himself was not an object of that "herem" because that  was more specific than most people realize. To see this you ought to look up the actual language of the herem which I found in one book that contained  the actual language plus the testimonies that were collected in Villna before the publication of the herem.

It should not matter what the herd thinks. What should matter is what is objectively true

 I was going to Uman Ukraine every year for Rosh Hashanah and staying for some months and sometimes longer. They used to have a very nice celebration on may 9. Every class in the local schools would put on its own presentation for the victory over the Nazis. This went on the whole day. But at one point, that was silenced. Then one after the other, all the statues of WWII heroes were taken down. Then even the central Russian orthodox church that was packed every  Sunday was locked and shuttered.  

It is almost as if they regret their victory over the Nazis 

 I think the  approach of the Litvak world is the right thing: to learn in depth in the morning and to learn fast in the afternoon. The learning in depth I think should be with ten times review of every section. Even though learning with depth and understanding should be the main emphasis still there is a place for fast learning--jut saying the words and going on. 

Counterfeit Torah

 Most of what is sold as Torah nowadays is not Torah at all. It is a fake and not authentic. This is the very reason for the signature of the Gra on the famous letter of excommunication--to warn people to stay away from Torah of the Dark Side.  The is idolatry which dresses up in Jewish rituals in order to seem kosher

Politics is not a part of Torah thought

 Politics is not a part of Torah thought. I do not know from where the Reform get the idea that "social justice" is somehow a part of Torah While on one hand, I can see some slight indications of some kind of   government in Torah, but these are only slight. Even for a king that is made by a prophet, there is an argument in Tractate Sanhedrin what powers he has. To one opinion all the threats of Samuel were legal. To another opinion they were just threats, but not actual legal powers.

Note: Samuel got angry at Israel for asking for  king,  and even made  a miracle to show the people of Israel that God was angry at them for asking for  king . Then he told them all the terrible things that a king would do to them, To one opinion, these threats were just Samuel telling them what in fact a king would do, not that they be legal. To another opinion these things that a king will do would be legal.

In TORAH the mitzvah of making a king is only when people ask for a king. But the prophet Samuel showed that asking for a king is a terrible sin. It is like brining a sin offering. There is a mitzvah to bring a in offering if one has sinned, but it is better not to sin in the first place.

 i was reading Robert Hanna' works and his blog and noted that he thinks all American so called "Analytic Philosophy" is destined for the trash bin and instead advocates a Forward to Kant Approach. This makes a lot of sense except for one particular problem--that Kant's solution to  the synthetic a-priori never really worked that well. There were lots of different approaches after him trying to answer the same problem and later there was the Neo Kant approach- all of which fell into oblivion.

[One problem in Kant was noticed right away by a close friend of his Scholz and his critique was printed  and Kant claimed after that that he would answer. The question was about the Transcendental Deduction--not at all a trivial side issue, but rather the fulcrum upon which the entire Critique of Pure Reason revolves.

And my mind there is another flaw. It is that philosophy is supposed to help us understand the world and ourselves-not create a system that is not credible without a lot of evidence. I mean, in natural sciences or mathematics, you do not start with assumptions that sound good but are not very obvious, You start with simple things. The shortest line between two points is  straight line, Not a set of questions based on Berkley and Hume.

By this I do not mean to trivialize Kant, but rather suggest the modification of Fries and Leonard Nelson to Kant in which the realm that reason can penetrate is limited but that by immediate non intuitive knowledge there is knowledge of the 12 categories  and possibly even faith a per Otto

[hume made a mistake for some reason Kant did not pick up and which was a stumbling block for him i.e that reason can tell us only when a definition entails a contradiction--a per Euclid. ]