Dark Zone, the Intermediate Zone and the secular world.

There is an aspect of value which one gets from the Law of Moses (learning and keeping Torah). The easiest way to see this is in the Kant-Fries school of Dr Kelley Ross. The term that Otto coined for it is numinous value. The West seems to lack that value.
But in this need to get beyond this secular world is the danger of the Intermediate Zone which gives great visions and powers from the Dark Side. 

So which is worse? The Dark Zone, which give no hint of holiness, or the Intermediate Zone which mimics holiness? Or simply the secular world with no hint of transcendence?

Abuse leaders have no compassion, they reveal your secrets, they are constantly at war, they have an entitlement complex they feel they are entitled to other people's money, They use Torah for their own aggrandizement. No wonder Reb Nachman called them Torah scholars that are demons. But that does not mean the Dark Side. It mean the intermediate zone as the Ari goes into detail.

So what can you do? Admit to yourself that you were part of an abusive group and know it is true. Do not listen to stupid religious people that deny that it happened. 
You also should know that the religious world is one gigantic fraud. They have nothing to do with Torah. They use rituals to make it seem as if they do and to keep the money rolling in.
Another problem with the teachers of Torah today is that they simply found a way of using Torah to make money but do not believe any of the basic principles. An asking them usually does no good because they simply will lie about their beliefs. But of all the religious teachers of Torah I would say fewer than 1% actually believe in Torah in the 13 principles of faith.

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Spiritual abuse

Spiritual abuse rarely occurs on purpose, as those involved generally start out with the best of intentions. That does not make it harmless.

Unlike physical abuse that often results in bruised bodies, spiritual and  abuse leaves scars on the psyche and soul. It is inflicted by persons who are accorded respect and honor in the Torah world by virtue of their role as  models of spiritual authority. They base that authority on the Holy Torah, the Written and Oral Law,  and see themselves as endowed  with a holy trust. But when they violate that trust, when they abuse their authority, and when they misuse  power to control and manipulate other Jews, the results can be catastrophic.

The perversion of power that we see all the time in the religious world disrupts and divides families, fosters an unhealthy dependence of members on the leadership, and creates, ultimately, spiritual confusion in the lives of victims.
Just like former cult members, people who have suffered spiritual abuse often describe their experience in terms of “psychological abuse” and “spiritual trauma.”

This theme comes up in Tenach with the false prophets and in the Mishna and Gemara also. Reb Nachman however goes into some detail about the problem basing himself on the Zohar and the Ari. The main idea of Reb Nachman is that a large majority of pseudo teachers of Torah are in fact demons. [That is to say they have spiritual powers and even miracles but those powers come from Satan.]
Which brings us to the basic question of spiritual authority. Who has the authority to teach Torah? How does one go about avoiding the false leaders.
Obviously, the simplest way is to avoid the entire religious world;- lock, stock and barrel. But a slightly better alternative solution is to confine oneself to authentic Lithuanian kinds of yeshiva which go solely by the path of the Gra. That alternative solution has the advantage of being able to learn and keep Torah and be relatively safe from the cults.

One aspect of spiritual abuse goes along with the idea of false trust. --an idea also mentioned by Reb Nachman which he brings from the book of Job "מבטח בוגד". That is most of the Litvak world is really pretty great. But there are people whose entire message to the public is: "We are so great that everyone should give us money." And at the same time seek to enslave baali teshuva to create  a kind of slave population of working class to support themselves. They create this image that all people need to do is join up with them and all their needs will be taken care of. Thus comes the trouble that the main characteristic of the religious world is based on the question, "How can we get secular Jews to give us money?"

The path that made the most sense to me when I was in yeshiva was that of Musar [learning the books of Medieval ethics] and I heard as much from the daughter of Bava Sali. I became close friends with Shimon Buso, one of the grandchildren of Bava Sali, and one of his daughters told me how in her school she arranged a Chafetz Chaim group. [That is the Chafetz Chaim is the book on the laws of gossip and slander].That is she would sign up everyone that was willing to learn the Chafetz Chaim everyday and made a list of all their names and everyone on that list got prayed for to find their proper Zivug [match]. A lot  of the girls on that list had gotten married last time I checked.

But that is just one example of the force and power of Musar to correct human troubles.

The idea really come from the Gemara in Shabat. אין יסורים בלי עוון. There are no trouble without sin. Thus working on one's own faulty character traits --even when not successful, still shows an effort to be going in the direction of תיקון המידות correction of one's own bad character traits.

I prayed with the sidur of the Reshash for many years. That is the small red one in three volumes, and then around the end of my second time in Israel, I bought the large one from the grandson of the Reshash which was being sold privately in Mea Shearim for some ridiculously low price. I forget offhand what the advantage was in the large sidur except that it was more complete. Vaguely I recall the big one had the intentions of the Omer and the Hagada of Pesach. [Rav Mordechai Sharabi said the one from the grandson of the Reshash is more accurate. and that is probably the reason I preferred it to the red  three volume one.]

The main advantage of using the sidur of the Reshash is mainly if one has already the Divine light shining on himself. It does not bring down the Divine Light, but can only channel it.

In any case, at some point I decided once I had pushed off the Divine Light (for reasons known to me) to stop using it because, after all, what was the point? It just made myself more visible to the Sitra Achra.

I should mention that it is not at all obvious what the Reshash is all about until you read דרוש הדעת and you get to the end of the עץ חיים (Tree Of Life) of the Ari. [That is the last 1/4.] That is where he starts to modify his system. Up until that point, everything looks fairly simple. But that is where he starts to include the worlds one in the other, and that highly modifies the whole system. Still, the more basic ways of understanding the Ari which come from Rav Yaakov Abuchazteira [grandfather of Bava Sali], the Gra, and the Ramchal seem to me to be perfectly fine as far as the simple explanation goes.

I have to issue the usual warning however, that to ignore the signature  of the Gra on the letter of excommunication is to invite the Dark Side. And inviting the Dark Side, is like inviting Hell's Angels into your home. Once they are there, you can not get them out. 

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In terms of Kabalah I  was pretty impressed with the Kabbalah Institute for a few reasons.
The first is that the only edition of the Eitz Chaim that I understood at all is the edition of the Kabalah Institute. Also when I was in Tzefat {Safed} [In Meor Chaim the kirya of Rav Ernster]  I use to see them by R. Pinchas Ben Yair once every month when they came up from Tel Aviv. They seemed to be a very nice and wholesome group.
They do not have a good reputation in the religious world but as far as I can tell that is in itself one of their best points.The religious I think are jealous of people that have authentic spirituality.

My own experience  was to learn the Ari outside of the yeshiva schedule. I was part of the yeshiva Mir in NY at the time so I was doing Gemara during the regular hours. On the side I learned the Eitz Chaim. But when I got to Israel I did very little kabalah (if at all). Still I think the little I did of the Ari was helpful.[I am sad to say I did very little learning Torah in those days. If I could rewind the tape I would have learned in the kollel of Rav Ernster of gone up to the Litvak Kollel of Rav Fivelson and sat and learned Torah.
The Ari is a good explanation of Torah, but learning the Ari does not take the place of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot.
[The Ari has the problem of all systems--it is liable to abuse. People however will always find a way to abuse any system. Abusus non tolit usum.]

The kabalah as developed later than the Ari is only from the Realm of Holiness from these basic people, Yaakov Abuchatzaira, Rav Shalom Sharabi,  the Ramchal and the Gra. The rest of it is sadly all from the Sitra Achra and very damaging to an astounding degree. The grandson of the Reshash wrote  a very nice sidur base on the Reshash but I think it is only sold in Mea Shearim. At least that was the only place it was available  few years ago.


The advantage of the Ari is that he gives a nice understanding of the Torah. The disadvantage is he is more liable to abuse than almost any other system-to the degree that is amazing. Still without him, I see no way to understand the Torah.