In many Jewish homes you could find, besides the Old Testament, some book that would describe Judaism in a plain way. One such book I recall was the Duties of the Heart [by Ibn Pekuda] which is considered part of the set of Musar [Ethics] books. The Reform Shul we went to [Temple Israel of Hollywood] had the Star of Redemption by Rosenzweig. [I tried to read it with no luck.]

My mother gave me a book called The Ten Commandments which was a good introduction.

I wanted to suggest here the Horev of Shimshon Raphael Hirsch which I think gives a little more detail. [He tends to emphasize Torah with work.]

Also the books of Avraham Kook [like the Lights of Repentance] I think are good as an introduction and an orientation.[He does think settling in Israel is a good thing;-- which is clearly the approach of the Torah.]


I should mention that in my first yeshiva [Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaway. Reb Shelomo Friefeld's place.] they did not believe in orientation at all. They threw me into the raging sea of Gemara, Rashi, and Tosphot, [Talmud] the second I walked in the door. Sink or swim. And I tend to agree with this later approach. But I have come to see that some people are working or in university, and so need some kind of orientation.
And at some point myself felt some need for Musar. My first yeshiva did not learn Musar [Ethics] at all. That was a good degree of my motivation for going to the Mirrer Yeshiva which is a Musar yeshiva.

The Guide for the Perplexed by Maimonides was written for this express purpose of orientation for people and so was the book by Saadia Geon, the Emunot VeDeot, but I found them both to be difficult. But  both are written by the greatest sages since the time of the Talmud, so both are worthwhile looking at. 


I would recommend avoiding books written by cults that tend to be mental traps. And you don't need me to explain to you what a cult is. You can tell at one glance. Mainly they will present themselves as teaching some mysticism.There are groups who have insane doctrines that are not Torah but try to convince others that they are legitimate. I can't even begin to describe how damaging these groups are. And I recommend doing everything possible to stay as far away from them as from a ticking time bomb. Even more so, I would like to see them disappear because of the damage they cause to the unsuspecting.

I am just dirt under the feet of the Rambam. But I have to call it like I see it.

The new moon would seem to be the time to make rosh chodesh. This is at least the opinion of Tosphot in Sanhedrin 10 along with how Rashi explains the opinion of Rava and Rav Ashi. That is I am saying Rosh Chodesh does not depend on when the new moon is seen but when it actually is. This is how I have celebrated the festivals for a few years. And it makes a difference in how you set the dates. From what I can tell this puts Passover this year on April 3. This is counting from when the actual second of the new moon occurs.
Th Rambam would obviously disagree with this. But this is how the Gemara in Sanhedrin looks to me. The Rambam is probably based on the Gemara in Rosh HaShanah which clearly goes with the idea that when the new moon can be seen is what determines Rosh Chodesh. And even in Sanhedrin the Tosphot does not go with the opinion that the second of the molad determines it. So the only thing that makes my opinion interesting here is the fact that there is no Sanhedrin to sanctify the new moon and Hillel II never did so either. The fact is the Talmud never claims that he did and this is a big omission.  And there are dates during the period of the geonim which are not like the present day calender showing this calender was not known even by the geonim themselves.
The idea of basing ones view of halacha on the Talmud mainly comes from the halacha authorities themselves. For example when the Shach and Taz disagree with the Shulchan Aruch as they do most of the time, they always base themselves on the Talmud. This is the universal approach of every single halacha authority from the Rif until the achronim like the Chazon Ish.  The place this is stated openly is by  Chaim from Voloshin.

Sanhedrin 63a The Tosphot at  the top of the page.

My learning partner noticed that the Rashi in front of Tosphot is significantly different than our Rashi. And he was suggesting that if Tosphot had had our Rashi his questions on Rashi might disappear. I tried to convince him that there is one possible way to look at Rashi to make him make sense but he did not like it. But what I suggested that if this is the case then perhaps Rashi would in fact agree with Rabbainu Tam and everything will be good.

So it seems to me right now to try to explain RT  (Rabbainu Tam) and maybe Rashi at some further date.
Rabbi Ami says if one sacrifices, burns, or pours in front of an idol (in one space of time where he forgot that idolatry is forbidden) he is liable only one sin offering (a she goat).
Abyee explains Rabbi Ami that his idea comes from the verse not to serve other gods--it put all services into one group.


Rabbi Zakei one page back [62a] said the same thing but added bowing according to our Gemara.

RT thinks that the word bowing appears in the statement of Rabbi Zakei but not in the statement of Rabbi Ami. And this makes sense because we have a verse in the Ten Commandments that says not to do service and not to bow to other gods. So what we have is  a verse that puts all service into one category and then takes bowing and pulls it out. So it makes sense to say that all three inner services [the three that were done in the Temple in Jerusalem] are considered as one and bowing would be separate. After all the verse itself separates them. In what way would bowing be separate? In that it has its own sin offering. So if one does all four kinds of service (in one space of time where he forgot that idolatry is forbidden) to an idol, then he would be required to bring two female goats to the Temple in Jerusalem.
And Rabbi Zakei would have said that in that case he would bring only one goat. And that would be why Rabbi Yochanan to Rabbi Zakei "Get out of here!" Because Rabbi Yochanan  certainly considers all four services to be separate. But he would be happy to concede that, "Do not serve other gods" could conceivably put all three services together;-  but not bowing. It is the fact that Rabbi Zakei put in "bowing" that made Rabbi Yochanan upset.
[We already know that Rabbi Yochanan separate all four services from one page back and he learns it from bowing. For bowing was in the category of serve and yet was mentioned separately and we have a general principle that whatever was in a category and yet came out of the category to be mentioned separately comes to teach something about the whole category.
There are no new ideas here. I am just saying over the end of Tosphot where he explains Rabbainu Tam. To deal with the beginning of Tosphot I am not sure how to do right now. I had a way of explaining it a little bit but my learning partner did not like it much.

Here is this basic idea in Hebrew.

סנהדרין סג. ר. אמי אמר שמי שזבח קיטר וניסך בהעלם אחד חייב אחת. אביי פירשו שטעמו בא מן הפסוק לא תעבדם. הכתוב עשה כולן עבודה אחת. בדף סב. רבי זכי אמר אותו דבר אלא שהוסיף השתטחות. ר. תם אמר שמילת השתטחות מופיע במשפטו של ר. זכי לא במשפטו של ר. אמי. הסיבה לכך היא שיש פסוק בעשרת הדברות לא תשתחווה להם ולא תעבדם.  הפסוק אסר כול מין עבודה  והוציא השתטחות להזכר בפני עצמה. ולכן כל עבודות פנימיות נחשבות עבודה אחת, והשתטחות נחשבת בפני עצמה ואם עשה כולן בהעלם אחד חייב שתיים. אחת בשביל השלש ואחת בשביל השתטחות. ועכשיו מסתבר למה ר. יוחנן אמר לר. זכאי פוק תני לברא שיש סברה לומר שלשת  עבודות פנימיות אחת אבל לא השתטחות


If you are curious to what is the argument between my learning partner and me is that Tosphot is understanding Rashi to mean that of bowing has come out of service then it can come only for two things--to divide or as a mere prohibition like fire on the Sabbath day.
So with Rabbi Ami we see it is not coming to divide so it must be for a mere prohibition. To me this makes sense. We have at least one example of something that gets the death penalty [murder] but that does not bring a sin offering. To my partner, this makes no sense or as he puts it "It is untenable." He actually have some harsher language for this idea, but I would rather not mention it in public.


Appendix:
Just to let you know the problem here that I mentioned at the beginning about Rashi:
The version of Rashi that the author of Tosphot had in front of him  says that the word bowing does not appear by R Ami and therefore does not appear in the statement of Rabbi Zakei. (Tosphot is going to be bothered with this because if so then what was Rabbi Yochanan bothered with?) But that particular Rashi tries to defend this idea with saying that since bowing is not a service and it can't be coming to divide, therefore it must be coming for a mere prohibition.  Those are the words in Rashi that my learning partner, David, and I are arguing about. I say it can mean there is no sin offering even though there is the death penalty. And David says that is untenable.


David thinks that there might be some way to get the Two Rashis to correspond, the one in front of us does in fact say that to R Ami bowing is not coming to divide. And he says bowing does come out of the three services. This might very well be as Tosphot understands him to be saying that then bowing comes to tell us a prohibition alone. Or not. It could be like Rabbainu Tam also.

In any case we got into a discussion about what is in the category of serve before you take out bowing? He suggested serve according to its way and the three inner services. I suggested maybe on serve according to its way and sacrifice and the other two come from the fact that sacrifice was mentioned separately. This gets into a whole discussion of how to apply the 13 principles of the Braita we say in shacharit.

In straight Litvak (Lithuanian) yeshivas there is a period devoted to halacha. Jewish law.

And I have an idea of how to go about halacha. I was confused about this issue for some time for the same reasons that most people have problems about halacha.

  But I think I have come to a kind of solution or resolution of the matter that I would like to share.
I suggest starting with the Tur and Beit Joseph. And then the regular Shulchan Aruch written by the Beit Yoseph with the commentaries on the page. Then, if you have time, the Aruch HaShulchan- which I think is very great Halacha book.

  I wanted to mention why my idea is important. The idea here is that the Shulchan Aruch was never written to a represent a decision. It was written as a short reminder of what Joseph Karo wrote in the Tur. And the Beit Joseph on the Tur was also does not represent the actual opinion of the Beit Yoseph. He wrote in his introduction that he would not be writing his actual opinion but instead would say over the ideas of the rishonim and conclude with telling people what the majority opinion between the Rif, Rambam, and Rosh was. This was his idea of a feasible compromise but not his actual opinion of the halacha. The Mishna Torah itself needs the background of Talmud as the Rambam wrote at the beginning of the Mishna Torah that it  is what one should learn after finishing the Old Testament. "One needs no book between reading the Old Testament and this book." But the actual authority resides in the Talmud Bavli and he writes that that is the final court of law--not his book but the actual decisions of the Talmud. When questioned about his decisions by the wise men of Luniel, he never claimed divine spirit but rather showed how his decision flowed naturally from the treatment of the Talmud. And he admitted a mistake when confronted with it as brought in his letters.

I can't see much good in  cults. To me they seem negative. Not just are they enemies of Israel but the worship of human beings instead of the worship of God seems to me to be trickery.

I mean if they want to worship some human beings then fine, let them. But why try to trick people and claim that they are following Torah. To me it seems like fraud.

I hope this does not count as anything negative towards any true tzadik. For true tzaddikim [saints] are important. But in general  tzadikim are not true tzaddikim. It might all have started out well with the Baal Shem Tov but it did not take long to deteriorate.  

The Gra saw it is kelipat Noga the kelipa of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. That is in modern terms the intermediate zone. Mainly  tzadikim get caught up in this zone which they interpret as enlightenment. This realm gives them powers and miracles. But it is all seduction to give them power to seduce others and pull them in. 
In fact this all boils down to the argument between the 'Rambam and the Ramban' about idolatry. To the 'Rambam there is nothing there. The Torah forbids it because it is dumb. To the Ramban' there is something there--very powerful forces. But the Torah forbids this because it is wrong. And furthermore the Ramban's approach is not dependent on whether those forces are good or evil. He divides idolatry into different parts. Worship of forces of evil. Worship of angels. Worship of humans. But all still come under the prohibition.  

How to understand the Torah. Most people reading the Torah are not Jewish.
So how does one with limited background understand Torah? Simple. Sefer Hachinuch, and the Horev from Shimshon Refael Hirsch. Also Rav Kook, if you can find his books.
These three people give a good idea of what the Old Testament is about in an accurate way that is not watered down, and yet understandable. And they deal directly with the question of "How to live according to the Torah?" and show this from the Torah itself.
They also are far from cultist doctrines that are so much a part of the world of the insane religious world  today.

The first step towards understanding Torah is to run away from anything that smells like a cult where people are long practiced at falsifying Torah. Things that smell like cults as a rule are cults.[And I am unhappy with cults. Jewish or not. My recommendation is to get rid of them with as much force as necessary. I could make a list but I am sure no one needs one. What is a cult is only too abundantly clear,]

"Scripture alone" and or individual interpretation is not  a principle in understanding Torah.  

In the Christian world this, in fact, was a principle. The only authority for the radical reformers was scripture, sola scriptura, scripture only. Then they start realizing that different people can interpret scripture differently. They were very familiar with medieval Christian ways of interpreting scripture to have several different meanings and layers of meanings. And so they say, well the predominant guide of scripture isn't going to be just scripture; it's going to be one particular meaning of scripture. And that's sensus literalis.

Now it's rather debatable what they meant by "the literal sense" because some of these reformers said that the literal sense of scripture could even be a prophetic sense, so they still said that the literal sense of scripture could be in a Psalm when the Psalm says, "The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at my right hand.'" Well they knew that the text if you're interested in an ancient text would be referring to the Davidic King, but they also said that Psalm also could refer to Jesus, even in its literal sense. The literal sense that they were talking about in the Reformation was not necessarily what we would call the historical critical sense. It was what they took it to be the most fundamental plain sense meaning of the text. So that was the literal sense. Then again they realized the more they did this that Protestant churches started splitting all over the place. Presbyterians and Calvinists split off from the Lutherans, the Anabaptists split off from the Reformation. And then you have a rise of so many Protestant movements that the idea that scripture alone could settle debates and give you a foundation started becoming questionable.

There is a lot to talk about here but the advantage of Rav Kook and Rav Shimshon Hirsch is there is a basic idea that the laws of the Torah were meant to be obeyed. That is a good step in understanding Torah. And they don't read into it what they want. No eisegesis.

On the other hand there still has not come any book that deals with the problem of cults in a Jewish context. The reason being that the insane religious world  as it exists today is a large cult with lots of sub cults within. Many of these sub cults in the insane religious world  are utterly and clinically insane. even though they have vast sums of money with which to scam people.


  Furthermore most are enemies of Israel.

Appendix:

(1) To understand Torah in a more detailed way if you have finished the books of the Old Testament, Shimshon Refael Hirsch, and Rav Kook. then it is time to do the Oral Law.
That means to do a 1/2 page of Talmud in order every day with Rashi and Tosphot. [This should take no more than ten minutes per day.] You should just say the words and go on. If you don't understand at first, don't worry because eventually you will understand when you review the material again. And if  there remain some things you don't understand, so what? For the greatness of a lot of learning goes above and beyond everything else.
And what you don't understand in this world you will merit to understand in the next world.
Then at that point you should start the Jerusalem Talmud. After that then the Sifra, Sifi, Tosefta and Midrashim. In this way you will have finished the entire Oral Law after a couple of years. All in an easy simple way that leaves you time for your other important activities. [And in fact, if you could expand on your learning Torah time, that might be recommended as Torah is above everything.]
(2) The idea in this essay is how to understand Torah. I am not dealing here with how to answer questions on Torah after you have understood it.  Reason perceives universals. Universals as applied to the human realm are moral values. But desire for social acceptance and other things makes that people ignore reason when it comes to moral values. So we need some kind of non intuitive immediate knowledge in order to maintain any kind of moral standard. That is what Torah is.
But to defend Torah in more detail I think would take a larger process than  a short essay. And to do so I would have to trace my own thought in this matter over  several years.
Mainly I came to Torah by means of two things. One is I was raised Jewish. But of course that is not enough. I was also something I saw in my parent's home that impressed me. Some kind of wholesomeness and love and purity. Something amazing. And then there was a certain amount of philosophical reading outside my regular courses in school. Buddhism, Dante, Spinoza, Plato, Karl Marx, Sartre, Camus, Herman Hesse and the little known 1001 Chinese philosophies.  After all that there was something about Torah.  

White Anglo Saxon Protestants.

If there is  a kind of hatred towards Wasps, is it justified? In any case in America there seems to be a  visceral bias against White Anglo Saxon Protestants.
Is this justified? To me it seems not. While I can hope that everyone would just keep the Written and Oral Law, I don't think harboring  a grudge against people that are at least trying to keep Torah to the  best of their understanding is very good.
I find an attitude towards Wasps that is hostile and toward Muslims as friendly to be strange. The way I see it Muslims are sweet and wonderful until that second that they decide to lock out the captain and crash the airplane, with all passengers on board. Muslims are ticking time bombs.