Robert Hanna does a great service to philosophy in showing the flaws of all USA and British ''analytic'' philosophy of the 20th century. And he is quite right about the ''Forward to Kant'' approach, but he does also acknowledge the great contributions of G. E. Moore [who forms the approach of Michael Huemer]
Still, I am waiting for someone to acknowledge Leonard Nelson and Kelley Ross. It must be that too much of the lashon hara [slander] of Husserl stuck. [i.e., psychologism].
It does take a certain kind of sense or intuition to feel the importance of learning Torah and I think that it is something that needs to be nourished, for it can be lost. This is the reason I think that the sages said one should marry only the daughter of a Torah scholar. For (as it was said in the great Litvak yeshivot): "If one's wife wants him to learn, he will learn; and if she does not, he won't." The wife of Rav Kinyevsky one time when he was learning told a visitor to come back at a later time when the Rav was accepting visitors saying "Do you want my husband to be an am haaretz?"[i.e. "ignoramus" ]
I actually wanted to marry the daughter of a talmid chacham [Torah scholar] for that very same reason, but did not succeed. The interesting thing is that my wife [Leah/aka Paula Finn] did have a great sense and intuition about the importance of learning Torah, even though she was not really a daughter of a Torah scholar. But that is not so clear in itself for her father [Bill Finn] certainly had a sense of the importance of trust in God and in learning Torah though he was a working guy.
So, to conclude, I think it is more important to marry someone with a sense of Torah rather than someone who is publicly learning, but might be doing so just because it is a way to make money nowadays.
The major theme of Old Testament is Monotheism and not to do idolatry, You can see this especially in the chapters f Deuteronomy from about chapters 4 to 10 and in the events surrounding the kings of Judah and Israel. I was reminded of this today listening to the events surrounding the anointing of Yehu. [He was anointed king in order to wipe out the house of Ahab --because they did idolatry, Not because of Jewish identity. For King Ahab was as Jewish as can be. But in the eyes of God, Jewish identity makes not the slightest bit of difference. What matters to God is only one question: did Ahab serve idols or not, Of course in those days this was an easier question to answer. Nowadays they dress idols in Jewish garments and that is supposed to make it ok.
For anything besides God can be an object of idolatry, It does not have to be a statue. It can be a person even true tzadikim. All the more so fake tzadikim. This is in fact one of the reasons for the signature on the letter of excommunication(herem). That is the reasons of idolatry.
Spiritual vision is not unknown. If it was totally illegitimate then the Gra would have said so. And Rav Yaakov Abuchazteira used to call the Ari [Isaac Luria] ''our teacher''. But there is something parasitic about mysticism that seduces people away from straight faith and reason. [Sri Aurobindo refers to the danger of mysticism as the "Intermediate Zone"]
Aurobindo asserted that spiritual aspirants may pass through an intermediate zone where experiences of force, inspiration, illumination, light, joy, expansion, power, and freedom from normal limits are possible. These can become associated with personal aspirations, ambitions, notions of spiritual fulfilment, and even be falsely interpreted as full spiritual realization.... Those who go astray in it may end in a spiritual disaster, or may remain stuck there and adopt some half-truth as the whole truth, or become an instrument of lesser powers of these transitional planes. According to Aurobindo, this happens to many sadhaks and yogis
Humans are stupid, and the stupidest think they know how best to run everyone’s lives in minute detail and are bound and determined to force the rest of us to go along with their stupidity.
In the Rishonim [mediaeval authorities] there is an emphasis on Reason and Faith. But they do not mean faith in anything nor any reasonable sounding doctrines. As the Rambam puts it: "Just like one can not add nor subtract from the written Law so one can not add nor subtract from the Oral Law." So he means to eliminate pseudo Torah and books that pretend to be Torah. To him there is a cut-off point when the Oral Law was redacted. That means the Two Talmuds, and the Midrashim are the only real authentic Oral Law and everything else which claims to be Torah is Torah from the Dark Side. [Midrash means two things Midrash Agada and Midrash Halacha]. [Zohar does not count as midrash because of the phrase עם כל ד "although". That way of saying although was an invention of the Ibn Tibon family during the Middle Ages. In the time of the Mishna this was said as "אף על פי" or "אף על גב"
something is odd about mysticism. But I would rather not dismiss it in toto.
When the Rambam refers to Reason he also makes it clear he is referring to Aristotle [and to a lesser degree Plotinus]
How the Gemara approaches this issue of learning in depth. There is brought the event of the teacher that used to review 400 times the lesson with his student and there is also the suggestion of 40 time review, Four times review is mentioned in the Gemara also in terms of how much the Children of Israel reviewed each lesson from Moshe Rabbainu [Moses] in the Sinai desert.
In some great Jewish Philosophers you find the importance of learning Philosophy and Physics . But in those days not much had gone beyond Plato and Aristotle. And the ideas of Plato as regards government I think require a bit of modification. I would like to suggest John Locke's Two Treaties as a better idea of government. Government is an area which is not gone into in the Gemara and in Plato there is a sort of spartan government. I think John Locke provides a better model of government which protects individual liberties.
Other kinds of government do not respect the values of Torah. For example, socialist government does not respect private property. But religious leaders do not either as they tend to be demons as Rav Nahman [in the LeM I:112 and I:28] pointed out about Torah scholars that are demons Part of the reason for that is they want power and money and use Torah to get them. But Torah is transcendental. It has nothing to do with social structures. Torah does not give any significance to group dynamics or forms of government. It i personal between a man and God
My favorite theme about John Locke is that people need to be aware of the development of his ideas in the Magna Carta and the Provisions of Oxford.