In the strictest sense of keeping Torah, we do find that attachment with God is a primary principle in Torah--along with the Ten Commandments.  We  find the major things the Torah is concerned with are: (1) Bringing the Jewish people into the Land of Israel,  (2) Attachment with God, (3) Fear of God, (4) Love of God, and (5) The Ten Commandments. Now there are lots of commandants in the Torah besides the  ten, but the ten are considered to be the roots of all the others.


"What does God want from you but to fear and love God and to walk in his ways and do his commandments?" (Deuteronomy)

"לדבקה בו" to be attached with God is mentioned twice in Deuteronomy as a command. Though in a practical sense this means to be attached with 'Torah scholars" תלמידי חכמים still אין מקרא יוצא מידי פשוטו and that is how the author of Sefer Yeraim  a disciple of Rabbainu Tam describes it.

Lithuanian Jewish world

 Now in the book of R. Chaim from Voloshin, Nefesh HaChaim, we see a definite emphasis on learning Torah specifically.









 people make a mistake in making a tzadik and his ideas the center of attention instead of the Law of Moses which should be our focus.

But once you get the idea that the Law of Moses should be the center of our attention, it is hard to get away from the Lithuanian approach.. After all, there are lot of laws in the Old Testament and the book itself obviously requires a logical analysis. And so far I have not heard of anyone who has come up with a more rigorous logical analysis of the laws of Moses outside of the Babylonian Talmud. For example we have several verse in Exodus discussing the obligations of  a person that  guarding something and the object is lost. Another example in Shabat. Clearly we need a good definition of what it means to keep  Shabat. And in this area it looks like  that driving on Shabat is a problem because driving involves of the use of a combustion engine.

If Christians would come up with a better analysis of the Laws of Moses than the Talmud then I would be happy to discuss this. But in general Christians do not feel under the obligation to keep the laws of the Torah, and so do not spend a lot of effort in defining them.

We Jews however are under the obligation to keep the Laws of Moses and so it is in our best interest to understand how to keep them.
If there is any group that seems to take a balanced approach to Torah it seems to be Conservative Jews. Mesorati Jews seems to take these obligations more seriously than other Jewish groups.

I have heard different explanations for the Holocaust

One that seemed promising to me was Judicial positivism. If you add this to ethical relativism and Nietzsche who was the prime philosopher in Germany from about 1890  and onward, then you get a powerful mix that could contribute to World War Two and the Holocaust. That means that I have sought reason for the Holocaust from the failure of philosophy. Recently it has come to my attention that there is  another more obvious reason-- anti-semitism. At some point it is possible that people just stopping thinking of Jews as worthy of life.

And the cause of antisemitism seems to me to be anti goyism (or anti gentilism). This is what I think is clearly the implication of a verse in Mishlei [Proverbs], "like the face is reflected in water so is the heart of man towards another man."

And the cause of Anti-Goyism I think is bureaucracy. That means to say some people get comfortable in rabbinical  jobs and cease to worry about the implications of their actions. So religious leaders are a similar position as a government bureaucrat. They become comfortable in their positions and cease to worry if their preaching is in any way reflective of the real world. After all they do not need to deal with the real world since they are insulated by their "shtele' [position ]. They are in that way like a government bureaucrat.

This is along way to get around to what is already stated in the Talmud [at the end of Tractate Shabat]--all problems that come into the world only come because of the judges of Israel.


 What passes for morality is in general the evil inclination dressed up in some mitzvah.  Nietzsche picked up on this theme  and held that all human morality comes from the human basement.
I do not think  all morality is from the human basement. Maybe most of it,- but not all. Some morality should be  attributed to the human attic. [The  urge to do good.]

Lev Tahor (Heart of Purity), which was founded by Moshe Helbrans

I knew this fellow. The problem I think is that anyone that people listen to [in any religion] is liable to start thinking of himself as more than what he really is. Moshe Helbrans was a disciple of Rav Shick of Breslov. I have written about him on my blog a few times and I don't feel like repeating it all here. But he was simply a person that people liked to listen to and Rav Shick also liked him very much. Rav Shick had a small group of followers in Safed at the time and I was one of them. Halbrans was the leader of the group appointed specifically by Rav Shick. (I was just some no good for nothing baal teshuva.) And it was all pretty nice. But at some point Halbrans left Rav Shick as I did also. In spite of problems involved with Rav Shick I think it was a mistake for me to leave him. He has a kosher path--except for the anti Israel stuff which he picked up from satmar

Hanuka was the last time our family was together under happy circumstances.

Hanuka  was the last time our family was together under happy circumstances. My mother had been sick but she was home again, and I was staying at home reluctant to go back to NY. But the second night I decided I had to return to NY because Reb Friefeld had made many overt hints that I was to be his future son in law. Mom suggested that maybe I did not really have to go back, but this fact of a possible shiduch/marriage prospect swayed my decision. So my brother David drove me to the airport. Then Mom got sick again and I was home on Shavuot until Sukkot. At any rate Hanuka was always a special time for me.
Today I see the wisdom of my parents, but then I was a very stubborn kid.



. My wife and I went to the Sochnut/Jewish agency to make arrangements for Alyia to Israel. The representative of the Israeli government was a religious Zionist and saw that we were a Charedi  family so he spent the entire meeting trying to dissuade us form making Aliya. After that meeting on the way home I remember my wife crying literally. She was upset and I had no words to comfort her.


 We did go to Israel and it was great. I have no regrets on that account except that I wish I had keep learning Talmud.[Talking with God is important, but you also need to learn Torah to hear what God is saying to you.. Talking with God is only you telling God what you want him to hear, not the other way around.]






[I do not try to use the general approach of the Rambam based on Aristotle, because I think Aristotle is just too problematic. I know lots of people read Ann Rand and secretly use her approach but her approach also I find way too problematic and incoherent.] [Neturai Karta I know uses Nietzsche to form their world view but this also I find to be problematic. Nietzsche had some points but as a logical world view he has much to be desired.]

I admit that do not myself have the intellectually ability to come up with my own unified approach.and there are plenty of areas in which I use idea from the Intuitionists like Dr. Michael Huemer in Colorado and Prichard and also Aristotle and the Rambam. [I have mentioned before what problems I see in some of these world views. Against Kant the best rival is Prichard, but [to turn the tables] it seems to me that there were some issues that Prichard clearly did not think out, as opposed to Kant.] [for example he thought that to Kant no action is right unless motivated by the moral imperative. That obviously is not Kant's view. To Kant no action is good unless motivated by the moral imperative]

Pesachim 29b

Tosphot- -the commentary on Talmud has many layers of depth. The first layer is the the one which after you get what Tosphot is saying there seems to be some obvious question . That is the first layer you need to get past in order to start understanding Tosphot properly.
Just for a example of this first level. Pesachim 29b
In the Talmud there is an argument what happens if one eats leavened bread that belongs to the Temple on Passover. Is he required to bring a sacrifice? This is a debate. Rav Ashi says the reason for the one who says one must bring a sacrifice is because he hold one can derive pleasure from leavened bread on Passover.[That is everyone, not just the Temple.] [So he was נהנה (had pleasure) from הקדש (something that belonged to the Temple) so he brings a sacrifice]
Rav Ashi says that everyone is agreeing that one can't redeem the leavened bread on Passover. But the reason one brings the sacrifice is that since the leaven only has holiness of monetary value, it can be used to lite one's stove. That is the first level of Tosphot which seems to not make sense. Leaven seems more like holiness of body that can't be redeemed.
The next level is to understand that to the Temple, the leaven does have monetary value. So it makes sense to say it has holiness that applies to monetary value on Passover itself. We do not find that even on Passover that the Temple can't derive benefit from leaven. So it makes sense to say the Temple can sell it to be used to lite ones stove.

During the 60's the U.S.S.R. needed American wheat to feed their population. Here is an anecdote on a Russian web site.
[Historical note: this actually happened. The USA did send wheat to the USSR at the height of the cold war to save them from starvation.]

The General Secretary of the Communist Party and the President of the USA (Kennedy) are in a summit meeting. The General Secretary asked the President  to send wheat to save the lives of starving Russians.  The President agreed.

Then the General Secretary mentioned that they have a problem with producing  good tractors. Can the Americans send tractors also? The President agreed.

Then the General Secretary mentioned it seems that there was also a shortage of cattle in the USSR. Can the Americas send cattle? The president agreed.

Then the General Secretary mentioned that the are having trouble implementing a perfect Communist society. Can the Americans send over some advisers to help with that also?