Not all cults are created equal. Some cults are great for keeping people out of worse cults.
And if this is all that would be good about some cult  that would be enough but sometimes a cult even has positive value.  "tzadik"s are often some delusional leader who has enough magnetism to delude others.


The best scenario I can see is not to join any of the cults. But even if one does that is not always a bad thing. I was for example a  part of Rav Shick's {Moharosh} group for about 6 years and I think I got positive benefit out of it. But if I had been smart I would have just stuck with the basic Litvak Mir Yeshiva --straight Judaism approach-- .

Songs of thanksto God for his Kindnesses on me and also for the things that were from his judgments.

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The major concern of the Torah  is in commandments between man and his fellow man. I get this idea from a few places. The Chafetz Chaim, Rav Shalom Sharabi, and some of the disciple of Israel Salanter like the Alter of Slobadka, and Rabbainu Yerucham of the Mir.

In the Alter of Slobadka you can see this in I think the first or second chapter of the book of his collected writings.
The Chafetz Chaim said this on the verse והלכת בדרכיו ותשמור מצוותיו. First walk in his ways (which we know that means "Just like  he compassionate so too must you be compassionate.") and then keep his mitzvot.

Shalom Sharabi gives a deep explanation of this in his book the נהר שלום:  We know the Torah and mitzvot are compared to clothing and bread and wine. The Torah is drink and food of the soul. The mitzvot are the clothing of the soul. So then what is the soul? It is one character traits--the מידות. And that is the meaning of the  verse חסרון לא יוכל להמנות what is lacking can't be filled. We can do repentance on lack of Torah and miztvot. But we can't repent on the lack of a good character trait because that is like the soul is lacking a limb. It can't be replaced.

This was the idea of Israel Salanter [the Musar Movement]--that Torah has these two aspects and I think he saw that too many people sacrifice one aspect for the sake of the other.


I think that my father and mother were better at the between man and one's fellow man than anyone I have heard of. But they did not talk about it. And they did did not advertise it. Nor did they preach it. They just did it and by their actions showed me an example of human greatness that I have not seen surpassed or even heard of anyone that has done better.  Thought when it comes to other aspects of Torah I have great respect for people that were able to learn and and pray. But as far as keeping the  Torah as a whole--not just some parts and ignore the rest-I think my parents were beyond anything I have heard of or seen. 

The Rambam and Creation Ex Nihilo This is a good essay about this important topic and I thought to bring it to others since I have mentioned a few times the basic characteristics of Monotheism as understood by Maimonides and never brought my sources. So here for those interested is the essay from which  I based my views.  See the son of the Rambam for more details about this.

Ideas in Bava Metzia-I made new corrections--in grammar etc.

Ideas in Talmud This has a new section at the end where I had a debate with my learning partner about  a Rambam

There are two aspects of Torah--the between man and his fellow man part and the between man and God. My parents excelled at the former. And I admit this is hard balance to keep. Some people - mainly Reform and conservative Jews are  mainly interested in the aspect of Torah that is between man and his fellow man. And they are right about that. That is the most essential aspect of Torah.

The problem is that part does not cancel the other part. And that is where the troubles begin. Some people notice that in fact there are plenty of things that the Torah requires of us that are strictly between man and God. E.g. the whole Temple service which takes up  a good part of the book of Leviticus, Shabat, etc.

The trouble is that when people start to notice these other parts of Torah,  the between man and his fellow man parts tend to disappear.

 I don't think there is any good solution to this problem because men are programmed to be able to concentrate of only a very small set of principles in their daily lives. 613 principles are just too much.
So people try to distill the essence of Torah and package it. And they don't usually get it right at all.
The approach that was tried by Israel Salanter seem was intended to address this problem. That is he looked at the books from the Middle Ages that addressed both of these aspects of Torah and he saw that they were in fact very effective in helping a very great tzadik, Shmuel from Salant, to reach the kind of balance that the Torah intends.

So the Musar approach I think I would have to agree with.--with one addition. That is books of השקפה also from the Middle Ages. That is the Rambam, and the other thinkers that were interested in defining the basic world view of Torah.  But if there is much today that reflects this I doubt. To some degree the Religious Zionists have this approach but only approximately. While they do try to find this balanced approach still, I am not sure if they have reached it. The Mir Yeshiva and the normal straight Lithuanian yeshivas where I learned also seemed to be close to it, but not exactly. But these last two approaches seem to be about the closest I can imagine to striking this balance.


[The Religious Zionists are right that the Torah is very interested in getting Jews to Israel. That is the reason the Red Sea was split and it also is the subject of prophecies of all the prophets. The normal Litvak yeshivas however are lot better when it comes to learning Torah. But the fact that one group emphasizes one good trait and the other emphasizes  another good trait is no reason to complain about either group.

In Kant we find  a kind of "apperception" perception that sees oneself . From this we know the unity of consciousness. It is the same faculty of synthesis by which we know universals {synthetic a priori.}  This forms the basis of the transcendental deduction. (note 1) So now we can understand the Rambam about knowing God, who is the thing in itself, the ding an sich. That is knowing God is a kind of knowing that we know things in themselves. That is why it is called knowing. It is the faculty by which we know unconditioned realities.





Let's call this apperception. It can't be the thing which recognizes universals as we know the Rambam holds God has no universals. So it is the kind of knowledge by which we know our inner self. And that implies a strong connection. We have more than an emotional connection with ourselves; we are ourselves. So this connection with God is more than an emotional connection. It means a kind of oneness with God, as if we and God were one.

[I know I am borrowing from Schopenhauer. ]

In any case what we have here is good use of the faculty that Kant says gives us direct knowledge of the existence of the ding an sich, but not its characteristics. So when Maimonides tells us we can know that God exists he can be understood in this Kantian type of way.

And this resolves a conflict about Maimonides. There are people that think the Rambam limited reason. {"Rather in the Guide and elsewhere in his ethical writings, Maimonides goes to great pains to deny that human beings have any innate metaphysical, and especially, moral intuitions." Mark R. Sunwall.} There are others who pointed out the proofs of God's existence as showing that the Rambam did not limit reason. Well as far as God's existence is concerned we can use Kant's idea of a perception to show he did think reason puts us in direct contact with the ding an sich.






When I saw in the Rambam this remarkable statement לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו I was struck with it power. {It is not the one who prays and fasts who is desirable to God but rather the one that knows God.}

To understand this statement I think one needs the anonymous commentary on the first four chapters of the Rambam's משנה תורה Mishne Torah. He asks one verse says do the mizvot in order to love and fear God. Another one says love and fear God in order to do the mitzvot. This is a contradiction. Answer: There are two kinds of Love and Fear. For example there is fear of God's punishment and there is awe of God's greatness. So one verse tells us to have the  lower love and fear in order to do the mitzvot and the other verse tells us do the mitzvot in order to come to the higher love and fear.
Thu the mitzvot have a purpose. They are not the goals in themselves. And the purpose is this kind of love and fear.
So it seems to me that what we  call דביקות "devekut" [attachment with God] is at least some component of what The Torah requires of us.

(note 1) Synthesis is required to explain the mineness and togetherness of one’s mental states, and by linking synthesis to the application of the categories, Kant argues we could not have the experience of the mineness and togetherness of our mental states without applying the categories. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy