(1) The Sitra Achra [the Dark Side ] can be and often is dressed  what looks like mitzvot. The Sitra Achra dresses and hides itself in Sitra DeKedusha the side of holiness. And holiness is hidden everywhere--even in secular things. Even in bad stuff.
(2) Reb Chaim from Voloshin thought that the only Divine service is learning Torah and everything else is to bring to the level of numinosity that comes into the world by means of learning Torah.
He thought that before the giving of the Torah one could serve God through and with anything. But after the giving of the Torah it is upon us simply to keep the Torah to the best of our ability.
But in the Rambam we see the mitzvot themselves are dependent on their reasons. This indicates that the reasons for the mitzvot are the things to aim for and the mitzvot themselves are to bring to these hidden purposes. (Also Reb Chaim is not taken seriously. Before you give money to a yeshiva ask what they would do if you would show up at their door and all you would want would be to sit and learn Torah and not ask for a penny what would they do? You know what they would do. They would throw you out on your nose. They don't believe in learning Torah. They believe in using Torah to get your money. )
(3)  the Torah is hidden in everything and one can serve God though and with everything.
(4) But the Sitra Achra is dressed and hidden in the side of holiness. When you walk into a synagogue you are going to encounter the Dark Side.
(5) There is such a thing as Torah of the Sitra Achra. Torah of the Dark Side. You go to hear a Torah lesson from a rabbi. The probability is you will be hearing the Torah of the Sitra Achra.
(6) So we see the idea is to find the purpose of your life from the side of holiness. And to avoid the purpose that the dark side has in mind for you.
(7) So we have that in your life there is a meaning that comes from the side of holiness. But there is danger of finding and cleaving to the meaning that comes from the side of evil.
To give a few examples might be helpful. Shmuel Berenbaum you would have no trouble in discerning what was the meaning of his life. Right. Learning and teaching Torah. We don't expect that it would have been better of had becomes a mechanical engineer. As far as we can see in this case he found the meaning and numinous aspect of his life from teh side of holiness.
Albert Einstein would be another example of a person that found the proper meaning and purpose of his life--also from the side of holiness--but in a different way than Reb Shmuel.
(8) On the surface they look like two disparate purposes. But they are not. They both found the aspect of numinous aspect that applies to them from the side of holiness. Just in Physics the numinous aspect of holiness is hidden
(9) Last but not least I might mention my parents. They were not like Reb Shmuel. They did not see learning Torah as the one purpose of life though they had great faith in Torah. My Dad though a scientist was not like Albert Einstein either --not just the genius part but also he did not see science as his one and only purpose. His major meaning and the meaning of life for my mother also was in being good parents. That might not be so obvious to many people what that means. And I would have a hard time explaining it.

Man searches for meaning. Sometimes he finds it in some kind of numinous value [some religious value]. Sometimes he finds it in politics or global warming, or some kind of vendetta he or she has towards someone. I have seen all kinds of varieties. The existentialists  borrowing from Thomas Aquinas thought existence comes before essence. That left them free to find their own values or to deny the existence of value.

Liberal Arts colleges are to some degree appealing to this aspect. They are hoping to find meaning in Shakespeare or more modern novels.

During the Middle Ages it value was for Jews in Torah [the Oral and Written Law--not in Jewish identity nor in Jewish nationalism.] For Christians it was in the church.

The Rambam in the Middle Ages and Saadia Gaon in the early Middle Ages wanted to expand the area of numinosity in Torah to include Physics and Metaphysics or Aristotle.



I think there is such a thing as bad numinous value; the Sitra Achra. The Dark Side. And I think all good values receive their values from Torah. But all good values can be subverted into the Sitra Achra.  The point is how to avoid that difficulty? And how to detect if a group that is on the face of it supporting Torah values but in fact has become  tool of the Sitra Achra?
True holy numinous value is deeply hidden in everything ---even in the Sitra Achra. הסתרה שבתוך הסתרה. He brings that from a verse in Deuteronomy ואנכי הסתר אסתיר פני ביום ההוא That is where God says to the Jews that after they will turn from him he will hide his face. But in the Hebrew you have the infinitive and then the verb. That means He is saying he will hide the hiding. That means people will be so far from God that they will not even know that he is hidden.

Then what can one do in such a case?

My advice is to talk with God as you talk with your father and mother . That is not just to pray to God, but to talk with Him in an informal way. Prayer tends to be formal. And when prayer is formal, then it loses its energy.  It is best to find time with God alone. The best place is a forest, but any place will do as long as there are no people around. Even your own room before you go to sleep at night. Under your covers is a good place to talk with God.
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I would suggest other things, but almost anything I would suggest could be subverted into a tool of the Sitra Achra. Learning Torah, Kabalah. Nothing is immune. But if you talk with God sincerely and ask to be saved from the Dark Side, I think nothing can subvert a sincere prayer.
In fact, it is a rule that what ever organisation claims to be able to save one from the Sitra Achra is itself a tool of the Sitra Achra. That is money in the bank. You can count on this.

There is such a thing as a parallel to Ivy League/MIT/Stanford in the world of yeshivas.

But it is hard to know what are the parallels because without standards of testing, every yeshiva claims to be Ivy League. And in every yeshiva you walk into they will point to this "yougerman" and that one and claim that he is a genius. It is sad because it puts big dent on the whole idea of yeshiva in the first place when downright lies are sold as Divine truth. The same used car salesman that sold to you a lemon is unlikely to be able to regain your confidence a second time.

If you want my observations I can tell you easily what is Ivy League. Ponovitch [Bnei Brak], Brisk [Jerusalem], and the three big names in N.Y. the Mirrer, Chaim Berlin and Torah Vedaath.

Do you give truma from cherries?

Rav Elazar Menachem Shach and Rav Isaac Zev Soloveitchik seem to be having an argument about the Rambam in Laws of Truma ch 1 halacha 5.
[That Soloveitchik was the son of Reb Chaim. I think he is the one who founded the Yeshivat Brisk in Jerusalem.]

I have mentioned before today some of the main points in this subject and I might try to go over them again. But right now I wanted just to focus on this argument. I am not sure how to organize this also so bear with me.
The basic Gemara from where this all starts is in Yevamot 16 side a. עמון ומואב מעשרים מעשר עני בשביעית. (Amon and Moav give tithes to the poor on the seventh year.) And down a few lines is says דאמר מר הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית (for the master said many cities were conquered by the Jews coming out of Egypt but were not settled by the exiles returning from Babylonia because the First sanctification sanctified the land only for the time when Jews would be living there, but the second sanctification sanctified the land permanently, and they left those cities in order that the poor would have access to the tithes for the poor on the seventh year.)

Rashi is perfectly clear. The areas of עולי מצרים are not sanctified at all and there is simply a rabbinical decree to give the tithes to the poor and לקט שכחה ופאה. No Truma or any other maasar.

The Rambam writes this same thing as the Gemara but adds a few words. הרבה כרכים כבשו עולי מצרים ולא עולי בבל דקדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד לבא והניחום כשהיו ולא פטרום מן התרומה ומעשרות כדי שיסמכו עליהם עניים בשביעית

"They did not פטר (absolve) them." There is only one way to understand these words as far as I can see. That those areas were obligated and when people returned from the exile in Babylonia they left them in their original state of obligation. And that is exactly how Rav Shach understands this Rambam [I think.] That that land is obligated in Truma and Maasar from the Torah and the whole idea of קדושה ראשונה קדשה לשעתה ולא לעתיד ךבא is relevant only to sheviit.

That is as far as I can get right now.

Let me just add that Rav Soloveitchik holds that the land conquered by Jews coming out of Egypt but left by the exiles returning from Babylonia has all the regular laws of the land of Israel according to the Rambam. This is from what I can see what Rav Shach is about to disagree with. To me it seems at this minute that he is going to say that it has all the laws of the land of Israel only in reference to the laws of truma and maasar but not sheviit.

You can see already where all this is going. Rav Shach is probably going to be saying that those lands were not obligated in Sheviit--but the Chazal [sages] could have made those lands obligated in shevviit if they had wanted to. But they decided not to, and so the only obligation they have is truma and maasar. That explains the language of the Rambam here. And I am guessing that even without reading further that this will end up explains a good many of the other questions that this subject has in it.
I mean what is the most obvious question here. It is the fact that the Rambam holds קדושה ראשונה לא קדשה לעתיד לבא  and yet still holds from  כזיב until Amon is נאכל אינו נעבד and he explains in that very halacha that נאכל  refers to the ספיחים which means he hold the land has the holiness of  שביעית. So that would probably mean it has a law of Sheviit by decree of the Sages until the people of Israel return a third time at which time the full holiness of teh Torah will apply.

 I think you should learn Musar and Torah. Musar means classical books of Jewish Ethics and also books from the disciples of Israel Salanter like Isaac Blazzer. His book Or Israel is very good if you can find it.  Also there is a book חובות לבבות   and the אורחות צדיקים.

That is when you learn Torah, people like you more.
And from doing it not for the sake of Heaven one will come to do it for the sake of Heaven.

e33  [e33 in midi]  [e33 in nwc format] [the notes you can see in midi or nwc]

Israel Salanter was not the person that started the path of Musar. {medieval Books of Jewish Ethics} Rather it was Shmuel from Salant.

Israel was a young kid that saw that Shmuel was a tzadik, and he also saw how he became a tzadik-- by learning Musar. Israel Salanter put two and two together to conclude the way to become a tzadik is by learning Musar.

There were yeshivas and synagogues in those days, but his idea was to create what he called a "Beit Musar" a building devoted only to one thing alone the study of Musar. What I suggest here is to rekindle this idea. Instead of wasting money on things the Torah says not to, why not build a house of Musar in every city and hamlet?


Kollels are country clubs so it is  a waste of time and money to donate anything to them. Besides the  fact that the very existence of any kollel is against halacha. [See the Rambam in Hilchot Talmud Torah.]
Synagogues are generally sectarian, and so not worth giving money to. The best synagogues are Reform and Conservative, but they have not enough emphasis on learning Musar and Torah. [And from ignorance of Torah, they sometimes choose values that are highly destructive towards Jews and the USA. They tend to embrace people that want to eliminate the Jewish people and the State of Israel.] the insane religious world  are satanic cults as a rule. The idea of keeping Torah is right, but that is just the cloak they hide under. They generally follow some satanic leader who pretends to be a tzadik.

So it seems to me that making a house of Musar is the best idea.



I should mention in a way of התנצלות apology that Rav Shach was once asked about the fact that he was critical. But he stuck with his guns. And my impression is everyone word he said was accurate.