[obligations of the Torah that are between Man and God and other obligations that are between man and man.

There seems to be some kind of equilibrium point where you maximize the בין אדם לחבירו ובין אדם למקום. 
[obligations of the Torah that are between Man and God and other obligations that are between man and man.]



For we see groups that are not religious at all. Then there are groups that are more religious and then even more until you get to the ultra religious. And the measure of menshichkeit/human decency seems to take a nose dive according to the degree people are religious.There seems to be a kind of inverse proportionality.

But to be not religious at all is not an option for there are plenty of obligations of the Torah that are בין אדם למקום between Man and God. [And being totally secular has already been noticed also seems to affect obligation between man and fellow man adversely. So what I suggest there is some middle point. Perhaps Conservative Judaism where you maximize both sets of obligations without detracting from the other.



Therefore you have to say there is some middle point where both functions are maximized.
[The fact of the religious being dismal in obligations between man and fellow man is something they will rigorously  deny  though anyone outside of their immediate close friends and family will admit this to be true after any degree of experience with them. Unless he happens to be one of the naive rich secular Jews that they make  a whole song and dance to impress. Other than that everyone knows the frum world is a nightmare when it comes to human decency.]


I wish I could say the more religious the better but the facts overwhelmingly point towards this terrible problem that the religious will vehemently deny and try to hide. You might not believe me now, but after letting them into your life, and seeing the  infinite, irreparable damage they cause, you will see my point.

People are now being taught: Do not resist. Do not question them. To point out the problems is considered lashon hara  You must comply. Go along, to get along.  

World of the religious. Worship of corpses.

 Torah scholarship undoubtedly moves in fads, and  much of the literature has received less attention than it deserves. The general rule of thumb about the Rishonim (mediaeval authorities) is quite true--that they form the backbone of explaining the Torah. 

While some Achronim (later authorities after 1520) are very valuable, but a lot of trash got thrown into Torah thought in since the times of the movement the Shatz. [That is from around the time of 1660.]





While to some degree bad cults are weeded out over time, but sometimes not. Sometimes they just change form.

Nowadays to find out what authentic Torah thought says the worst place to go is to the religious. The world of the religious has sadlly become an epi-phenomenon of the Shatz and in fact uses the Torah as a cloak to disguise their anti Torah teachings and demonic essence which is Worship of corpses.  ["Kivrei tzadikim"]

The main problem with the cult that the Gra put a Cherem {חרם} excommunication on is idolatry. That is: people have a natural tendency to worship some idol. It does not really matter which one it is. That cult made worship of its leaders as a kind of supposedly kosher idolatry and created a sophisticated system to show how it is kosher based on the kabalah and also used ideas from the Shatz and also makes sure to look kosher in dress and rituals to try and get away with this fraud. 






[There are some islands of authentic Torah like Ponovitch in Israel and the NY yeshivas Mir, etc. But as a rule of thumb it is best to stick to Mesorati or Conservative and Reform in  order to avoid the kelipot (demonic forces) that fill the world of the religious.]

Vocabulary:
Mesorati means Conservative but it is roughly the same as Religious Zionism or Mizrachi or Bnei Akiva.--All very good.

Rishonim means the great sages from the time after Rav Hai Gaon until the Beit Joseph.
Achronim means from the Beit Joseph and on. That period in itself ought to be divided into two. The achronim before Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and after him. The reason is that after Reb Chaim Torah scholarship shifted in a way I can not describe but you can see easily if you compare  the achronim before him and after him. All the great yeshivas after Reb Chaim teach in more or less the basic approach of Reb Chaim.

I want to add that borrowing or finding the same themes and ideas does not mean identity nor does it mean conscious borrowing. The fact that the religious teach the doctrines of the Shatz does not mean they are doing it with intention nor that there are some variations. For example no one could consider Reb Nachman anything but  as  completely sincere and devoted to God and the holy Torah. Sincerity however does not mean there are no mistakes.  But Reb Nachman is the exception, not the rule and was not in fact under the excommunication of the Gra at all as you can see by reading the original documents.



The problem tends to be circumvention of the Torah. Most often what people in power are doing is finding ways of getting out of keeping the Torah according to its simple meaning. In general the text of the Holy Torah and the Talmud is perfectly clear.The religious in order to get out of things  they do not like simply ignore the Torah. In Torah we do not trust those in power and we always check the text. That is what the text of the Oral and Written Torah is for.
There seems to be some kind of equilibrium point where you maximize the בין אדם לחבירו ובין אדם למקום. For we see groups that are not religious at all. Then there are groups that are more religious and then even more until you get to the ultra religious. And the measure of menshichkeit/human decency seems to take a nose dive according to the degree people are religious.

brainwashing

The History of teaching  History is important to know. In the span of time from 1960 until today teaching history has become a kind of brainwashing meant to subvert the values of democracy and undermine the Constitution of the USA and the free market system. Allen Bloom in his very important book the Closing of the American Mind went into a detailed description of how the social studies and humanities departments of universities have become brain washing factories. Though it is easier to learn History than Math and more fun also still that does not give either of these departments much value. So be careful.  It is best to learn books of history that were written before 1960.

This IDF Soldier shuts off the lights for Islamic Terrorists.

this-female-idf-soldier-fights-off-23-Islamic terrorists-in-ambush-attack-after-being-shot/

I should mention that  the best approach to the State of Israel that I have seen is in the book by the Gra קול התור.

In short that is the approach of basically what later was developed by רב אברהם קוק  

Rav Kook's approach itself was highly related to Hegel as is well known.

My own interest in Israel however began with my noticing the opinion of Nachmanides [The Ramban] that includes settling in Israel as part of the 613 commandments. I would have to say that that formed a lot of my motivation for actually making Aliya.

The approach of the religious [which is anti Israel] in this regard I think is nefarious and despicable.

Almost everything the religious do or think is exactly against the holy Torah

Shaari Teshuva by Rabainu Yona

Ethics. {Musar}. I think  one of the most important Musar books to read is the Shaari Teshuva [Gates of Repentance] by Rabainu Yona. It occurred to me that it contains all the basics of Torah in a small, thin volume. Just think about it. It goes through the stringency of לאווין [prohibitions] that is a very important aspect of Torah. Then it goes through pretty much all the aspects of Torah that are relevant today that most people do not know about. And then it gets into the ארבע כיתות that deals with the four types of people that will never see the Divine Countenance. Those that speak lies, lashon hara, ליצנות, flattery.

If you think about it you can see it contains most of the basic facts that one needs to know in order to understand and keep the Torah. That is pretty remarkable for one small book to do.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

I have dealt with the issue of Rav Avraham Abulafia before today and he still seems to me to be important enough to bring up again. Professor Moshe Idel at Hebrew University has written about him already, and Rav Abulafia's  many books as a set are for the first time available in Mea Shearim.  Some would call him a kabalist, but he was not a kabalist. He was a mystic, and there is a big difference. I discovered his writings in the basement of HU, and spent a lot of time trying to decipher them --before they were actually printed in the modern edition. I was not sure myself what to think of him until I found him quoted by Reb Chaim Vital and the Remak and even the Chida.

You can get Professors Idel's books on him, but nothing quite compares to the impact and shock of actually reading his own words and visions. 


It might seem I am not in favor of mystics, but that is only partially true. I am against kabalists and mystics from the dark side as all of them are today. But a true tzadik like Rav Abulafia I have only the greatest respect for.

[The Chida writes very positively about him and adds "The Rashba (a Mediaeval Torah scholar) treated him as a common and empty person, and I do not know why? He was clearly a great man.]


The thing you have to know when it comes to mystic things is you need to get it from the realm of holiness. The trouble with the cult the Gra put into excommunication was  they are from the Devil and therefore can not be trusted even when they say seemingly right things, and do what seem to be kosher deeds on the surface.  

[Just for public information I ought to mention the aspects of mystic tradition I  think are OK: Sefer Yetzira, Rav Abulafia, the Ari (Isaac Luria), the Gra, Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira and  his current day descendants, and the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi)), the Remak. ] Outside of these one must run from what disguises itself as Jewish mysticism but is actually from the Satan as almost all modern day kabalists are. Not to mention the cult the Gra put into excommunication because he saw they are from Satan, though  they try to cover up their unkosher, unholy inner essence with Jewish rituals. You need to burn whatever they touch.





I am not saying I understood the Reshash. But I think he is very important in order to understand the Arizal (האריז''ל), but I just never got that far with him. It was mainly the Intentions of Sukka (כוונת סוכה) and Drush HaDaat (דרוש הדעת) that I did fairly thoroughly in the Rehash. And that actually went along well with the Intentions of the Omer (כוונת העומר) that I did in Shar Hakavanot and also in the Sidur HaReshash (סידור הרש''ש) by the grandson of the Reshash. 

I should warn people that I do not think anyone should look at even this very important stuff until having finished Shas with Rashi, Tosphot. --a warning offered by the Ari himself in at least two places with surprising severity. [My personal favorites are the עץ חיים of the Ari and almost anything the Remak wrote. Rav Abulafia was not my favorite reading, but I copied down some of his major unifications, and used to concentrate on them a lot as he said to do. I think I would have to say he is my favorite mystic, and my second would be the Ari.] 
[Some of the obvious problems are that people get mixed up with the idea that the mental "high " they get from this is somehow connected with Devekut [soul attachment with God]. But there are a host of other problems.] There are mystics that get attachment with God. But that is rare and it is not the kind of emotional high that people think.

The "Nirvana Fallacy."

 The issue of what kind of system or constitution people choose to live under is not an idle question. And it matter also if  the system is large or small where everyone knows everyone else, and there is a certain amount of confidence in promises and trust in one another.

 This is a issue I have thought about for a long time after seeing the fact that religious people universally assume as an a priori principle that if they were in charge and in control, that everything would be peachy. The "Nirvana Fallacy." Yet we see that when in fact, they gain any power at all, they always manage to destroy good arrangements and understanding between people, and to make bad situations much worse than they would be without their meddling.

Yet we also see some great yeshivas which are great not just for themselves but for the entire surrounding communities like Ponovitch in Bnei Brak and the three great NY yeshivas, Mir Chaim Berlin and Torah Vedaat.

This is an obvious question but one that few people have ever raised in such a fashion. Rather what we see is people take a pro or con approach without  considering that the facts on the ground seem to point in contrary directions even without any interpretation.

The answer to me seems simple-- based on Hobbes. That is the difference between government and civil society. That is government is a monopoly of force. That is the most terrible thing to grant to religious people under any circumstances. But civil society is voluntary arrangements between people and that  is the place of Torah. קיימו וקבלו as it says in Megilat Esther. That they accepted the Torah afresh in the time of Morechai and Esther.
Thus we see in private institutions like yeshiva where everyone is there because they want to be there everything works fine. But when you introduce an element of coercion (כפייה דתית as they call it in Israel)  then the whole pie is ruined. [Plus the problem with the fanatical religious that their word is meaningless. For some odd reason they do not seem to think lying or fraud towards secular Jews is  a problem.]


Another issue is that the religious are exceptionally prone to schizoid tendencies which makes them susceptible to the illusion that whatever they are feeling or thinking at the time must be right and must apply to all people uniformly--since they believe they are in direct contact with the Divine. This leads to incredible levels of self delusions.  The reasons the great yeshivas avoid this problem is obvious--they are Litvaks. That is they go with straight Torah as their guide. 

And their intention is clear -to sit and learn Torah and to keep it. It is not to gain power. The last thing you want to do in grant coercive power to any faction that seeks it, no matter how nice they make themselves seem before they get power. You know they will control everyone for the interest of their own small faction.


Appendix:
Note 1. The importance of what kind of system people to live under you can see from Herodotus when the Persians were deciding whether to live under a democracy or an monarchy, and in the history of the war between Sparta and Athens when what kind of system in place largely determined outcomes. 

Note 2. It should be obvious that people have the right to be free of fraud and force. Thus the existence of  a civil society [where government does not enter into] does not give the right to people to commit fraud. Thus the fraud of the religious ought to be outlawed.
It, at least, comes under the category of dishonest representation of one's product.

Note 3. No one should be able to declare himself a expert in Law without authentic ordination which no longer exists since the middle of the Talmudic period. They do not get to call themselves experts and thus lord over other Jews by means of fiat and their own decrees.