Old Testament

My feeling is if the Old Testament occupies a central place in national life, then God, home, school and government are kept together, everything else good and right will happen. Remove the Bible, and civilization topples and crumbles into dust.

Brett Stevens: The question then becomes whether the Bible is the cause of that unity, or merely a common conduit that unites the other necessary parts.

Avraham Rosenblum says:

1. I would have to go with the former option based on the little I know about European and Roman History. I know this can be argued both ways, but it is simply my impression. Personally, I just can not see Western Civilization without the Bible [and Plato and Aristotle] as the foundation stone.

Early America felt also the Bible to be the main thing.  Americans up until 1920 saw the USA as Bible territory and wanted to defend it in that way. 

The trouble is with people that want to wipe out God and the Bible from the Earth.

[Just for the record, I am not against the New Testament. I think rather that Christians have misinterpreted Jesus. That is they go with Paul instead of with Peter and James as you can see in the Recognitions of Clement, the first pope of Rome. Furthermore, I see Jesus in a positive sense. This positive sense is not hard to define for myself because I learned the books of Reb Nachman from Uman, so I have a idea of what a "tzadik" (Jewish saint) means. But that concept can be hard to explain without that background.  In short, let me try to explain. It means a person that is in connection with some Divine trait in the world of Emanation. Thus, that person brings a certain kind of light or revelation into the world. Thus, I see Jesus as being a kind of Jewish Tzadik along the lines of Shimon Ben Yochai, Chanina Ben Dosa, or the Gra.

This idea I base mainly on a mystic Avraham Abulafia. [The favorite subject of Professor Moshe Idel at Hebrew University.] It has been awhile since around 1992 the first night of Hanuka that I was going through the micro films that had the writings of Avraham  Abulafia, and I came across this opinion of Rav Abulafia. I was so shocked that I could not move out of my seat, even though I had to go and light the Hanuka lights. [I was aware that Rav Abulafia himself was subject to debate. Still the opinion of Reb Chaim Vital (who quotes the books of Rav Abulafia at length) weighs a lot with me. And besides all that,-- I was aware of the opinion of Rav Yaakov Emden in his famous essay on this subject. Another important consideration is: acta non verba, deeds not words count. That is to say,-- that if I had not gone through a whole set of difficulties before that time, I would probably not have been open to the ideas of Rav Abulafia. I had to have seen where  deeds  did not correspond to words, and then seen where deeds corresponded to words. After seeing that clearly on a statistical significant basis, not a random basis, then I was much more open to accepting the words of Rav Avraham Abulafia.


Appendix: (1) I am aware that the Recognitions of Clement has a good deal of debate on it. But I am basing my opinions about this on much more. In my opinion you can see this in the NT itself.

(2) You can nowadays check up the opinion of Rav Abulafia since in the meantime someone made a printed edition of all of his works. You could also simply get the first book of Professor Moshe Idel at Hebrew University which  was in fact his Ph.D thesis. 

(3) The literal meaning of verses of the Old Testament is important. אין מקרא יוצא ידי פשוטו. Still sometimes its meaning is not literal. Like when Kind David said in Psalms "I am a worm and not a man."

(4) For what I mean by Emanation: the idea is based on the Ari Isaac Luria, but it is rather simple. It means a higher world (or pipeline) of God's holiness. One should not worship any tzadik, however belief in a tzadik brings a kind of blessing or flux into oneself. It is the same kind of thing that we believe in the prophecy of Moses or Samuel, but we do not worship them.

Some people are not very happy about Jesus because of the massacres of Jews during the Middle Ages,[e.g. 1240-1246 in Germany until stopped by Innocent IV on July 5, 1247 by letters he wrote to all German and French bishops demanding a stop to the persecution and redress of the wrongs..] There were a lot and they were horrific. Still abusus non tollit usum. If not then little could be justified.

The approach of the Rambam (Maimonides)

The approach of the Rambam (Maimonides) is pretty clear. The Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics. I mean that it is easy to miss this message if one learns only the commentary on the Mishna and the Mishne Torah יד החזקה. But you can not miss this message in the Guide for the Perplexed. (It is in the Mishne Torah also but you have to know where to look.) The thing that makes this hard for people is they think if they do not understand every word they can not go further. Or they think it is only for smart people.
But as the Rambam makes clear, the mitzvah of learning Torah is for everyone young and old smart or dumb. The only way I can see however that this is possible for myself is by the method of learning brought in the Gemara Shabat,, to say the words and go on and not even care of you understand on the first reading. For you will understand after reading the material a second and third time etc.

[What I do with some texts is to get to some point in the middle an then do the chapters in reverse order as a kind of review. That is let' say the book has 600  pages. What I do with some books is to get to page 100 and then do the section in reverse order but still in the way of just saying the words and going on. For example lets say the last chapter I did was chapter 10 with ten sections. What I dd is 10.10. Then 10.9; then 10.8, etc. This I found best for texts in Math and Physics and I also did this for the writings of Isaac Luria.

T3 E flat major  [T3 in midi]

objective morality and Torah

My approach to Torah mainly depends on the idea of Kant and Schopenhauer of the Ding An Sich. That is an area of value in which pure reason [un -derived from experience ] can not enter.

That is to say that there is an area of objective morality that is not dependent on the observer. That is to say,-- that even though this world is radically subjective [The electron has no value, spin or otherwise, until measured.] that does not bear on objective morality. Objective morality is rules --universals. Those are objective.]

Thus I look at any person doing an act that is objective good and moral as a good person. So I look on Torah as revealing morality, not as creating morality. This is very much along the lines of the Rambam that has two levels. First Natural Law as revealed to Abraham and then later to the Ancient Greeks. Then the Law revealed at Mount Sinai.--That is a higher degree of Revelation.

But that also means that I do not negate all spiritual experiences at all. Rather I believe that sometimes God can inspire a person in unforeseen ways in unforeseen paths. Prophecy and the Divine Spirit do not have to follow human ideas of what is proper. Just the opposite. However as I wrote in the last few essays, most of spiritual experiences are from the wrong side of things. Still there are such things that are real and from God.

religious world

In the religious world there is something seriously wrong.  What it is, is not at all clear,, but there seems to be some underlying problem that many have noticed, but offer different suggestions about what is the problem and what to do about it.  That makes it hard to recommend Torah as a practical path since keeping Torah for most people means to join the religious world and that is clearly a terrible mistake because of the aforementioned previous problem that no one seems to be able to define. 

I myself have offered a few suggestions, but I have not really gotten to the basic problem. The best suggestion I can see is to stick with authentic Torah as taught and practiced in the well known great Lithuanian yeshivas, like Ponovitch, Mir, Chaim Berlin, and Torah VeDaat.

If you are not in the area of an authentic Litvak yeshiva, the best thing is to stay home and learn Torah on your own. That is getting through the Old Testament, Two Talmuds, Musar books [medieval ethics based on Torah]. 


But even though the religious world claims to be doing Torah, there is something under the surface that is clearly not kosher and very very wrong --even though there is no clear indication of what it might be.


Part of the problem is fake religious organizations which undermine authentic Torah values.  [Most Jewish religious organizations are pure poison, and thoroughbred cults of the most pernicious type.]

[Once I was part of the yeshiva of Rav Freifeld, Shar Yashuv in NY, and later the Mir. I soaked up the words of Torah like a fish that can not be out of water. But that world is what is called the "Yeshiva world." It is very different than the religious world that is the home of the Dark Side. But there is no well defined border between them, so the demonic forces of the Dark Side have also penetrated in to many yeshivas.] Nowadays I go to no synagogue, since I think they have been taken over by the Dark Side.
[New comers are largely unaware of this, and thus become victims of the cult by not being street smart.  תקרובת ע''ז אסורה בהנאה. By becoming victims of the cult or the Leviathan, they no longer can escape and their lives are finished even if they do manage to escape in time. As the Sages said "things sacrificed to an idol remain forbidden forever."]

 In fact, most yeshivas today I would have to say are cults. The best thing is to follow the basic path of the Rambam at home on your own- learning the Old Testament, and the Oral Law [the Two Talmuds plus the books of Musar {Torah ethics}, Modern Physics and the Metaphysics of Aristotle.] 

For an introduction to the Law of Moses it is good to learn the Mishne Torah of the Rambam page by page along with the Keseph Mishna of Rav Joseph Karo, and in a separate session to go through the entire Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.  As for the ethics of Torah, the main thing is the book of the Middle Ages, Obligations of the Heart חבובות לבבות by Bechayee Ibn Pakuda.

As for Physics, the main thing is String Theory, but it takes some background to get there. The main background is Quantum Field Theory. (The best way to get to that I am not sure of. As for myself, I learned a lot of Joos's book Theoretical Physics, and I think it was good preparation for me, because it did a very thorough job on waves, and in fact I used it to help me in my talks  at Hebrew University on Differential Equations.)

Concerning Metaphysics, obviously the Rambam was referring to the books of Aristotle by that name, but I also recommend the books of Kant and Schopenhauer.

The Torah itself--the Old Testament should be read in Hebrew and finished at least once. 
In fact that is my idea about mitzvot. That there is such a thing as doing a mitzvah completely. Thus the mitzvah of Torah learning means to finish the entire Oral and Written Law at least once. [Tenach, Two Talmuds with Tosphot and Maharsha, Tosephta, Sifra, Sifri, Torah Kohanim, Midrash Raba, the Rambam with Avi Ezri and the Keseph Mishna, Tur, Beit Yoseph and all the books of Musar of the Rishonim and the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter

All the above I believe ought to be in every public school and be taught as part of the curriculum. [They already teach The Book of Job  very well, but the whole Old Testament should be taught as they do in Israeli public schools.] The aspect of the Oral Law that should be in public schools is mainly Tosphot. That is to learn how to analyze a sugia with Tosphot. [That is "to learn how to learn."] But I do not believe in tests when it comes to Torah, because I believe that is using the Torah for personal gain. [Most everything else they teach in public schools should be thrown out. Especially the Humanities and Social Studies departments as already mentioned by Allen Bloom in The Closing of the American Mind.]

So I foresee  a kind of religious revival that is necessary, but not one based on the Bible alone but rather this Four Part System: The Old Testament, the Oral Law, Metaphysics and Physics.  But this revival would have nothing to do with the present day religious Jewish world which is pure poison. Rather it would be in connection with Reform and Conservative and Zionist Judaism.

But the world of religious Judaism is totally wicked and depraved. The Torah is desecrated there in deed while honored in word.

Witchcraft and heresy and political desire to overturn the government are related.
The rise of witchcraft was oddly enough after the middle ages at the beginning of the age of Enlightenment and was highly connected with the desire to undermine the rule of kings and princes.

To see this documented look here

What I wanted to bring out is that this was highly related to the enlightenment project of overturning the rule of kings.

That is witchcraft became subsumed into political movements which were directed to overturn the established order.

And this has continued until today. The KGB in fact was very aware that in the USA and in any society there are always a good number of malcontents that want to overthrow the established order.
The policy of the KGB was to encourage these elements in the USA and to give them funds in the hope of overturning the USA.

In any case even after the KGB is no longer around their effects are still apparent.

crackpots

The main trouble in the religious world is crackpots that try to bring you into their "thing."
And they always target people that are interested in that particular area, but not able to tell the difference between authentic value and pseudo value and fraud.
But this problem is pervasive and ubiquitous in the religious world.  

The main job of  a Jew is not to get fooled by these charlatans and their groups, no matter how respectable they try to make themselves seem. In fact, the more respectable they try to make themselves, all the more dangerous they are. 

Some groups, which are  content   with being  fringe  groups are  mainly OK, because they do no pretend to be other than what they are.

But in any case, for the sake of one's soul, it is best to avoid all the crackpots.
[The religious world  is prone to this for the exact same reason that make them religious. Most religious people have schizoid personality disorder. That is they are sensitive to that area of value of holiness and unholiness. But since most of this world is evil as the Ari (Isaac Luria) says therefore the vast majority of the religious are open to the areas of value of unholiness that they mistake for holiness. Thus their favorite slur is to call someone they do not like as "insane." Not "evil". It is  a classic case of projection." 
The best approach to Torah is balance. That is,-- one ought to learn and keep Torah, and be sensitive to the holiness area of value. But with balance along with the other areas of value.

T1 D Major  t1 in midi

nationalism

 I really hate to be arguing for Hegel, but nationalism makes sense in his context and only in his context. I just can't see it anywhere else in Kant or anywhere in the German idealists. But since Hegel has limitations the only way I can salvage him is with Howard Bloom and his ideas about the social meme and the super organism. That is nationalism built around the basic set of values of Judaeo-Christian Civilization. [That is revelation in the Bible and reason {Aristotle}.]




That is nationalism based on a certain social meme is justified. But nationalism based on evil is not justified.  --So it would not be like Hegel. It might what Hegel was really thinking but it would not be that the "State" is the Divine ideal embodied on earth. Rather it depend on what the state is built on. Moral principles? Then fine. But if built on some false or evil meme, then No.

In other words, there is no idea here of self determination. Rather people that are savages should be set far away.


[I have no idea what the power that Hegel has over people is. I can see a  lot of good. I still feel he is an important part of German idealism. I would not dismiss him so off hand like Schopenhauer did. That is to say when he says things that seem to make no sense, I would prefer to try to find what he was getting at instead of dismissing him.]

So I am really arguing for states that are based on Torah principles. For example  Israel, the USA. That includes states that have a balance between church and state like Russia and England where Torah principles are embodied in the fabric of the state. 

But people whose sole ambition is the destruction of Western civilization ought to be sent far away. That pretty much means any groups that are against Western civilization.


Or as someone said on the blog Amerika: When someone comes for you, you have a moral responsibility to your woman and your offspring to put their asses in the grave 1st. But before it gets there, do everything possible to maintain peace without being enslaved yourself.

I can not speak for Communists. I think they were thinking in terms of “progress” and Hegel. I just do not think that the flaws in communism were all that apparent to good hearted people. At any rate, I did notice people like Richard Epstein, and Pamela Geller that are on the right track. They seem to be are invincible when it comes to defending Western values.

s100 F major  [S100 in midi]

a mark of the spiritually deceived

As a principle a kind of spiritual deception is a accompanied by a material, passionate warmth ; the behavior of  religious fanatics embraced by deception, has always been ecstatic, by reason of this extraordinary material, passionate warmth. This warmth, a mark of the spiritually deceived, is to be
distinguished from true attachment with God.

These people are merely reacting to the
presence of an invading spirit, [a result of the Intermediate Zone].  Thinking to find  God in consoling feelings, they are seeking not God but themselves, that is, their own feelings of a spiritual "high", while they avoid the path of authentic learning and keeping Torah. To give several examples of such physical accompaniments of spiritual deception: one person trembled and made strange sounds, and identified these signs as the a sign of spiritual awakening ; another  as a result of his ecstatic method of prayer felt such heat in his body that he needed no warm clothing in winter, and this heat could even be felt by others.

{I suspect that this kind of deceiving spiritual high got to be accepted as a sign of true spirituality in the religious Jewish world because of being affected by the Charismatic revival where it is considered an essential aspect of spirituality.}


Such phenomena of the experience of a spiritual high are undoubtedly provoked by an attitude of extreme spiritual expectation, maybe of remorse, or fear of hell, accompanied by a repetitive, yet inspiring singing, by the cadence of the teacher's words, and by the general ambiance and atmosphere of spiritual expectation in the crowd. This is merely a universal pseudo-religious experience. Such things can be observed happening all over the world, in quite distinct circumstances. The nature of such events, both then and now, would from all appearances seem to be identical. This is true whether we are discussing Samadhi of Hindu Yoga or the so called "fire baptism" of Protestant charismatics or the so called "stirring of the Spirit" or "rekindling of the Spirit" of the present day Catholic Charismatic theologians. Such happenings bear little or no
resemblance to the  true and sanctifying presence of the God, anymore than do the almost identical manifestations among the Kundalini yogis of Hinduism, or those of cult Adi Da or Muslim cults.

Still I do not want to negate any and all manifestations of God. My basic approach is that of Kant that God is the area of the dinge an sich or as Schopenhauer puts it the "Ding an Sich." Thus I am aware of true and an authentic attachment with God. 

Maybe the fall of Rome I think is a good example of total collapse. I learned in history that that is the reason for the rise of the Feudal system of the Middle Ages that I think deserves a lot more study that it gets. Even on this blog the emphasis seems to be on kings but the Feudal system was certainly not Monarchy. Rather a very complex system of balances between princes kings and the church.


Many on the Alt right think Western Civilization is on the verge of collapse. While I am encouraged by some good signs, I still think it is important to learn survival skills and to be prepared.

I think the American system was mainly meant for Wasps. I mean to say from the beginning with Hobbes and John Locke I think all their thought was based on the idea that their system would be for people that accepted the Old Testament and the New. Maybe not openly but I think that underscores everything they wrote as an unconscious assumption. The trouble with some blacks I have noted is they do not accept that basic moral system. Many seem to believe it is their moral obligation to bring down the USA.

The Constitution simply was not designed to protect against a population intent on its destruction. That seems to be the main problem with blacks and Muslims.

There is a need to define a specific set of writings as being fundamental  Torah.  Most of the set is well known.The Old Testament. The Two Talmuds. The Rishonim (medieval scholars).

It is just for the record I wanted to write here the basic achronim [later authorities] that are considered a fundamental part of Torah and are important to learn. R. Akiva Eiger, the Pnei Yehoshua, the Kezot HaChoshen, and the school stemming from Reb Chaim Soloveitchik that forms a commentary on the Rambam: Reb Chaim, Shimon Shkop, Baruch Ber, Naphtali Troup, Rav Shach.
The best of this last list is the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach which one can more or less learn straight. It is a very deep book but it is self contained. In fact it is so well done that I wonder if perhaps I could make the two books that God granted to me to write on the Talmud a little bit more self contained also.

You can see that there is some way to do this even with the kind of comments I did on the Talmud. for Rav Yaakov Abuchatzeira also wrote a book of learning on the Talmud that also you can simply pick up and read straight without having to look up anything. [I used to read it in Israel. but no longer have it.]




[This list should not be needed except for the fact that outside of the Yeshiva world it is virtually unknown. Also I have seen an enormous amount of confusion about this very issue so it seems like a good idea to make it known to the general public.]

S99 D major  [S99 in midi]

כישוף [witchcraft 'kishuf'] has become accepted. It goes by nicer names. Euphemisms. As סגולות. I mean to say we don't call it witchcraft anymore. We call it magic. Or even further we consider it kosher by naming it segulot--charms.And we turn commandments of God into lucky charms.

How this got to be so widely accepted is beyond me. Once it was well known that witchcraft, magic charms, astrology were forbidden by the Torah.
Nowadays you can find the religious world is filled with such things. [Whole books are devoted to segulot and charms and magic, but are considered kosher because they are in Hebrew.] You find that even mitzvot are made out to be charms.


If it could be proved that one had used a charm, he  was burned at the stake in England under Elizabeth I-- if the intent was to cause death. If it was  to find a lost object, the punishment was a year in prison.

However, I consider Reb Nachman to be one of the  best and most sincere. He was not a part of the group that the Gra put into Cherem [excommunication] as you can see if you look at the original documents. Rather, is a mild critique on the group that the Gra condemned  though the real facts of the matter are that that criminal group is infinitely worse than anything I care to describe since for my own mental balance I try not to deal with groups that are truly evil and criminal. There are good blogs that deal with that side of things and they are very good if have the stomach for that type of thing.

Worship of dead people is not a new form of idolatry. We are used to thinking of ancient idolatry as being directed towards images, however kivrei tzadikim [graves of the righteous] was also an ancient form of worship as we see in the Clemintine Recognitions [Book 10: 25]:
Chapter XXV.-Dead Men Deified.
"But if they choose to argue, and affirm that these are rather the places of their birth than of their burial or death, the former and ancient doings shall be convicted from those at hand and still recent, since we have shown that they worship those whom they themselves confess to have been men, and to have died, or rather to have been punished; as the Syrians worship Adonis, and the Egyptians Osiris; the Trojans, Hector; Achilles is worshiped at Leuconesus, Patroclus at Pontus, Alexander the Macedonian at Rhodes; and many others are worshiped, one in one place and another in another, whom they do not doubt to have been dead men. Whence it follows that their predecessors also, falling into a like error, conferred divine honor upon dead men, who perhaps had had some power or some skill, and especially if they had stupefied stolid men by magical fantasies¹¹

When I got to the yeshiva of Rav Freifeld, Shar Yashuv, Motti Friefeld [Rav Freifeld's son] always stressed review and learning in depth.
And thus until this day I am always torn between review and going on.
In the Mir Yeshiva there was already a system in place of doing in depth learning in the morning [10 A.M.-2 P.M.] and fast learning in the afternoon [i.e. 3:45-8 P.M.].

The Gemara in tracate Shabat 63 talks about the importance of just saying the words and going on. And this is discussed in depth in the Musar book אורחות צדיקים.

For others I can't really say. For me I find different methods seem to apply to different kinds of learning. For example once you have finished Shas at least once I have found it helpful to stay on one Tosphot for weeks and even months. In the Ari that was printed by Rav Ashlag with paragraph divisions I found it helpful to repeat every paragraph twice and then to go on. That was very similar to the way I was doing the Gemara the first time around. I would repeat the section of the Gemara twice with Rashi and go on.
[Later the way I would do the Gemara is this: every sentence together with Rashi. That is I keep one finger on the gemara and one on Rashi and read them in exact correspondence.]



[I have mentioned before the importance of Physics and Metaphysics so here I wanted say what I found helpful in these subjects. In Physics I found it helpful to do about a hundred pages and then go back to do review in reverse order. [that is backwards chapter 10 then 9 then 8 etc.] I might explain this in more detail but I figure you anyway have to find what works for you best.  Reverse learning I found in three places, the Ari, a medieval book of Musar from the school of the Jewish German mystics, and also the Ramchal [Rav Moshe Chaim Lutzatto.].

In the prayer book of Rav Saadia Gaon the first blessing of the Shema is about two lines.

In the  prayer book of Rav Saadia Gaon the first blessing of the Shema is about two lines. That is the opening יוצר אור ובורא חושך and then the next sentence. And then it finishes יוצר המאורות.

This is just one example of how over time, people just keep adding and adding things that were optional, but eventually people that came later thought they are obligated.

One source of misunderstanding is the statement of the Chazal {sages} כל המשנה מטבע הברכות אינו יוצא ידי חובתו. ["One who changes the form of the blessings has not fulfilled his obligation"].
This does not mean one who adds or changes words. It means that when a Bracha starts and ends with a Braruch, it always has to start and end that way. When a bracha has no 'baruch'' at the end,  it has to always end that way. It has nothing to do with the middle. However sometimes Chazal specifically state what has to be in the middle.

An example in Birachat HaMazon. The blessing after bread. In that the second blessing has to have ברית ותורה and the third has to have מלכות בית דוד.
Thus ברכת המזון could be said in short: ברוך אתהה'..הזן את העולם כולו בטובו בחן בחסד וברחמים הוא נותן לחם    לכל בשר כי לעולם חסדו. ברוך  אתה ה' הזן את הכול. נודה לך ה' אלקינו על ארץ חמדה טובה ורחבה שרצית והינחלת
לאבותינו ברית ותורה. ברוך אתה ה' על הארץ ועל המזון רחם ה' על ישראל עמיך ועל ירושלים עריך ועל מלכות בית דוד משיחיך ברוך אתה ה' בונה ירושלים ברוךאתה ה'  הטוב והמיטיב
four short lines

s98 C major   s98 in midi

Traditional Torah

Traditional Torah is what the world of religious Jews are supposedly offering. What makes clear this claim is a lie is the worship they offer to their leaders. The fact that they emphasize rituals does not make them traditional. Idolatry is not traditional Torah. The fact that they deny they are in fact worshiping their leaders does not make it any less true.

They use sophisticated means to reinvent Torah to mean that their leader ought to be worshiped. Sometimes this is worship offered to corpses [Kivrei Tzadikim] Graves of the righteous they call it. Sometimes it appears in other forms. But, in short, there is almost nothing in the religious world that corresponds to traditional Torah.

I myself am prone to being mixed up in this regard. I hear and listen to compelling speeches or read religious propaganda and get convinced easily. 

There seems to be little that can provide immunization from such influences.  This is because it is common for the religious to cloak their deceptions in traditional garb. All the better to catch naive people like me.

The truth is the religious world is demon possessed. I do not know how this happened. But for this reason it is best to avoid the whole scam. Or one could at least be sure to learn authentic Torah only. That is the Old Testament {Tenach}, The Two Talmuds, straight Musar of the Rishonim. And don't give the Sitra Achra a place in your heart to hold onto. 

[I don't have any test for authenticity but I think the signature of the Gra on the excommunication should at least provide a starting point. If we know to exclude Torah from Sitra Achra, that can at least help to steer us in the right direction.   But paying attention to the Gra would anyway exclude the entire religious world as I mentioned above.]

I did not want to make a list but authentic Torah mainly means the books of the Talmudic sages which are more than just the two Talmuds. The Rishonim also are legit. Achronim tend to be problematic. The best among the Achronim is Rav Rav Shach and Reb Chaim Soloveitchik with their commentaries on the Rambam and the Musar school of thought of Reb Israel Salanter.

[Just to be clear, I do not think Reb Nachman was in the category of the excommunication. So his books are OK and even good to learn. Also I should mention the Ari is very great, and it is a wonderful thing to learn his books. When I was in Safed I did not however learn his books, but I had learned the in NY before I got to Israel and I feel I had great benefit from them. The trouble is with books of mysticism after the Ari. The only good ones are those of the Ramchal, the Gra, Reb Yaakov Abuchatzeira, the Reshash (Shalom Sharabi). The rest are pure Sitra Achra and ought to be avoided at all cost.]

Still I am careful about mystics when the make mistake because, "Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" ("false in one thing, false in everything."⁾ A witness who testifies falsely about one matter is not credible to testify about any matter.

[Reb Nathan the disciple of Reb Nachman created a new religion based on faith on Reb Nachman which mainly borrows from Christian themes but puts Reb Nachman into the center. This was certainly not the intention of Reb Nachman himself who was a sincere Jew and only intended to bring people to Torah.] Still the trouble is divergence from true Torah is like two lines
 that are almost parallel but not quite. At first they are close. but then as time goes on and yo trace the path of the line, it diverges more and more fro the original line.

One can glimpse here the logical development of the
concept of merit and holiness qua faith in the tzadik  in place of the
virtue of  faith in God and Torah, which  is inextricably linked to the higher virtue of menchlichkeit good character and human decency, we have in
its place a mere emotional "trust" in the transfer of the tzadik's merits to ourselves
. This will eventually become, in extremist
circles, a presumptuous "claim"to merit and holiness, and empowerment of Ruach HaKodesh[divine spirit].

For people far from authentic Torah yeshivas,  my recommendation is to get at least one of the following books: The Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. The Chidushei HaRambam by Reb Chaim Soloveitchik, The chiushim of either of the disciples of Reb Chaim Reb Baruch Ber or Shimon Shkop.
Then to have one session fast just reading through  them. And another session  "Beiyun"  review of one chapter for as long as it takes to "get it."
Books that come under the category of what the Gra put into חרם cherem excommunication I suggest throwing out because they are טמא unclean and make unclean anyone that touches them. 

They destroy the lives of the people in whose home they are. 


There is a good reason the Gra signed his name on the Cherem and I am surprised that people ignore it. 


What they do to good honest people is horrific and they hide under a false cloak of pretended sanctity. There is nothing they touch that they do not ruin. If the Gra signed a cherem against them there  are countless of victims that never got a hearing or  a chance to have the crime committed against them heard and addressed. I am shocked that no one stands for justice. When terrible evils are committed against simple honest folk no one seems to care. They say it is none of their concern until it reaches their own doorstep. And then when they ask for help, everyone else says it is none of their concern. The Gra saw all this more than two hundred years ago and still people hide their heads in the sand. 

The only person I heard that understood what the Gra was saying was Rav Sha ch and he also is ignored. [However I have seen a few blogs that deal with this [and they are doing great work]. I tried many times to call people's attention to the crimes with complete apathy as a response. So I gave up. I figure when people start caring about justice, that is when they will find help in their own lives. But as long as they ignore crimes committed against other, then I might as well be knocking on a brick wall. There is another reason I can not write about this. It is the power of the Sitra Acra itself. The Satan. And I am afraid of the powers of the Dark Side. So I avoid the subject as to my up-most ability. I try to write only about positive and happy themes. This is not because I care about people. It is rather because I care about myself and so I only want to think about happy things. I also have begun to wish to find kindness and charity in my heart for all.I saw the disciple of the Gra Reb Chaim from Voloshin said when one has enemies and judges them on the scales of merit-that is he starts to think of them as righteous then their hearts turn to good.
 I would have been happy to pursue justice just like the Gra and Rav Shach, but with no friends and no allies there is nothing I can do.

s96 G major [s96 in midi]  s97 [s97 in midi] s98 C major  [s98 in midi]

straight Torah and Bava Sali

I might not be the one to suggest that learning Torah is important, for I myself have not been much of  a learner." My steps were directed towards two great yeshivas in NY, Shar Yashuv and the Mir and really did not recognize their greatness until long after I had abandoned them. אין קטיגור נעשה סניגור. ("The prosecutor cannot become the defending lawyer.")

Still, I should at least mention that in both places there was (and probably still is) a kind of spirit of learning and keeping Torah that is overwhelming. Just by being there you get something of an intense desire to learn and keep the holy Torah. And this was something that I heard also from the daughter of Bava Sali and his grandson Shimon Buso. His daughter told me quite plainly that Bava Sali was about learning and keeping straight Torah as defined in the books of Musar and the Beit Yoseph. [That is to say the three books of Joseph Karo, the כסף משנה (Keseph Mishna) on the Rambam, the בית יוסף [Beit Joseph] on the Tur and the שלחן ערוך (Shulchan Aruch) with its own נושי כלים (commentaries) the מגן אברהם (Magen Abraham) and the ט''ז (Taz).]

Still it behooves me to say that if I had taken the warning of the Gra seriously to avoid certain groups, I would have saved myself and my family from worlds of troubles. There really is no good reason why the signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication should still be ignored after the fact that time has shown him to be correct.

What I am saying here is that I have a bad habit of abandoning great things to go grazing in foreign fields that turn out to be full of poison oak instead of green grass. But this bad habit has also given me experience and perspective.

Lithuanian Judaism. Who cannot see that thinking is prior to believing? For no one believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed.

Litvak Judaism is sometimes criticized for being head based.[That is Lithuanian Judaism based in the Gra and the prime value of learning Torah].

It is certainly true that Torah is not a mere"intellectualism", and that a dry, philosophical knowledge of the 13 articles of faith of the Rambam alone does not constitute faith. But, just as certain  critics of such "intellectual dryness" speak contemptuously of so called "head faith", it is also possible to take this controversy to the other extreme- as is often done in some circles, and speak of an emotion

based  faith.  Faith is certainly more than intellectual knowledge, but intellectual assent forms an indisputable part of it. For who cannot see that thinking is prior to believing? For no one believes anything unless he has first thought that it is to be believed. It is  necessary that everything which is believed should be believed after thought has preceded. Belief itself is nothing else than to think with assent. For it is not everyone who thinks that believes,- since many think in order that they may not believe. But everybody who believes, thinks.

s95 f major

s95 F major

The West is undergoing a shift in world view.

The Alt Right.  The West has gone through paradigm changes in which one belief system is weakened and another replaces it.The Alt Right is mainly against democracy and rule of the masses and wants something like a return of an aristocracy. They are also not very thrilled with the way Christianity has been absorbed into Leftism. So some are not interested in Christianity at all, but others still want it but not in its current day Leftist Political state of being.
At first I  looked on this as unlikely. But then further thought got me to notice that the Roman Empire had lost interest in the old gods and adopted Christianity at an amazingly swift rate. So changes in world view are possible for the West as a whole.


The introduction of the Enlightenment philosophers took much longer than Christianity to become the ipso facto world view of the West.

In any case I agree that all this is subject to change.

In short the West seems to be rejecting Leftism as a whole, not just Rousseau, but John Locke also, and Christianity also - at least in its present form with a more or less communist Catholic church and highly politicized Protestant church. 

I can't tell where this will go. My own approach is "none of the above". It is the basic idea of Gra, Rav Shach, Reb Israel Salanter and the Rambam. How to put that in a nutshell? To learn Torah. That is the entire Oral and Written Law, every single last word of the Tenach Old Testament, and the Two Talmuds with Rashi, Tosphot, Maharsha. The entire Rambam with the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach. Plus the idea of the Rambam of learning the entire Metaphysics of Aristotle plus basic Physics and Math (i.e. String Theory, Field Theory, Abstract Algebra and Algebraic Topology). [Even though the Rambam only referred to ancient Greek Metaphysics, I would include Kant.]

But this is not to suggest the religious world in itself is so great. There is a problem there with the absence of compassion. And that does not enter by any means that I have seen. Certainly not by Musar--which is the first place you would expect to find it. And with no compassion, there is also no  Torah. The solution to this problem is by no means obvious since it certainly was the primary concern of Reb Israel Salanter [and the reason he launched the Musar Movement]. But to me it seems that if compassion was what he was aiming at, then the whole Musar movement was an abject failure. But I certainly have nothing better to offer.
[The way you can see the problem in the religious world is fairly obvious because of their  aversion of doing kindness. This has given me the strong impression that Reform and Conservative Jews are much closer to the true path of Torah.][Even so this still leaves me wondering what is wrong and what could be done. If Reb Israel Salanter's idea does  not seem to work, then what would?][Reb Nachman incidentally noticed this same problem as you can see in the LM II ch 8. There he says that compassion left Israel, and the little bit that is left has בחינת אכזריות the essence of cruelty. I can't quote the whole piece from memory.]

true attachment with God can be a result of faithful service towards God

There seems to be a lot of confusion as to what the Torah is really about.  I might add also as to the laws of the Torah and questions of life style. What group should one be affiliated with?

Just briefly I wanted to address the first question. The reason for this is that I see the question of ecstatic experience and also the dominance of Meshuga miracle workers [mad, insane lunatic charismatic leaders] is troubling. 

I really just wanted to make one point --that Torah is not about mystic experience. It is not to come to that type of thing. What is usually see with people getting something like a LSD "high" from reading kabalah or coming to some lunatic meshuga supposed miracle worker is not what Torah is about. 
However true attachment with God can be a result of faithful service towards God. As the Torah says ולדבקה בו "keep his commandments in order to love and fear God and to be attached with Him." 

Rashi and the Rabbit

Rashi comments about the verse "God went up from him" at the end of the debate between God and Avraham about what to do with Sdom: תיקון סופרים הוא זה. "This a edit from the scribes." That is,-- Rashi is saying in the original Torah it said "Avraham went away from God." The Sofrim were not beyond making corrections when they saw fit. Therefore I suggest that that is what they did with the rabbit. The original verse given to Moses said the rabbit is not kosher because it does not chew the cud nor split the hoof. Then the Sofrim came along and saw that rabbits chew the cud, so they changed it to  כי גרה הוא יגר ופרסה לא הפריסה. [That is they left out one word "לא".] They, as we know now, made a mistake. The rabbit does not chew the cud. The original version given to Moses was correct. כי גרה הוא לא יגר ופרסה לא הפריסה. It does not chew the cud and it does not split the hoof.

[The idea of this essay is to answer a question that is sometimes brought up concerning the rabbit.]

[Actually I forget where that Rashi is. It might be at the verse of the  covenant that God made with Avraham called ברית בין הבתרים. In any case it is a very famous Rashi.]
I should mention that you can see this kind of thing in the Gemara that says in the Sefer Torah of R. Meir it was written כתנות אור וילבישם not כתנות עור וילבישם as in the modern day version. That is: In the Torah scroll of R. Meir it says  "God made for Adam and Eve shirts of light." Not "shirts of leather."   

גירסה fast learning

I think the idea of גירסה  that is mentioned in the Gemara in Shabat page 63 is overly ignored. [לימוד דרך גירסה](Say the words in order, as fast as possible and go on and don't even look at if you understand or not.) That is,-- what people already know is they ought to be learning Torah. This we already know from the Gemara and the Gra and Reb Chaim from Voloshin. But what makes it hard is people think they have to understand every last word and if not they can not move forward. This I saw in the book of Musar אורחות צדיקים and you would expect people that learn Musar would pay attention.
If people would just listen to this they could finish at least once in their lives the entire Oral and Written Law: the Two Talmuds with the Tosephta, Sifrai, Sifra, and all the Midrashim.
But what I wanted to add to this is the idea of the Rambam of learning also Physics and Meta-physics in exactly the same way. Plus all the Rambam's writings along with Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam. This book, the Avi Ezri really should have top priority because it contains the essence of Torah.

The thing about the Rambam idea of Physics and Metaphysics is there is no basic set. So what I think is the basic thing is the actual set: The Metaphysics of Aristotle, plus basic physics and math. That is String Theory, Field Theory, Abstract Algebra, and Algebraic Topology.

I am not saying not to have in depth sessions also. In fact, I think they are important. But what I am saying is to have a separate session(s) for fast learning.


I neglected to  mention Musar [the classical books of Torah ethics]--that is Ethics of Torah written during the Middle Ages plus the books of the disciples of Reb Israel Salanter. I think thee books also are very important. In fact, Musar was one of the reason I left the yeshiva Shar Yashuv in Far Rockaay and went to the Mir. I felt my soul drying up with Talmud learning alone. I felt I needed at least a little work on fear of God. Plus I should mention the daughter of Bava Sali (Avigail Buso) and the grandson of Bava Sali Shimon Buso both mentioned to me the urgency of learning Musar.

The solution to cults is simple: to learn about them.

People are in cults always from some emotional reason. Never from logic or evidence. But there are two kinds of reasons. One is a reaction against what they experienced in the past by people that they trusted. Another reason is benefit they get like community  and certainty in life.

Therefore logic is useless against cults. And not all groups are the same. The yeshiva Shar Yashuv that I went to had some things that one might considered sort of cultish but it was in fact a great yeshiva because it was devoted to straight Torah. 

You could see this in the great yeshiva Chaim Berlin also. Still to attain the degree of excellence that these places strive for in Torah, a certain amount of discipline is necessary.


To some degree what I think about cults is simple: to learn about them. Information provides a great perspective. It might not take one out of the cult he or she is in at the time but it provides a way of limiting the bad effects. However there is only so much of this kind of thing I can stand reading. Still for myself it was helpful to do research into the problems. It gave me perceptive on my own set of problems. 

Also there is nothing quite like experience to show you the difference between the public image and the actual reality behind the facade.
The best cure is to make straight yeshivas like the Mir and Shar Yashuv. And if not a full yeshiva then at least to have a local Beit Midrash devoted to straight Torah and Musar that excludes rigorously all cults and any and all books or writings associated with the Jewish cults. To exclude what the Gra excluded.
However I should mention that there is no reason to hate cult members. Rather the best thing is to pray for their good, that they should merit to repent and to be save from all the kelipot that have taken over their mind's and to merit to be true tzadikim and Tzadikot  and to merit to all the good in all the world.

Dr. Zimbardo of the famous Zimbardo experiment

Dr. Zimbardo:  "If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything. As basic human values are being strained, distorted and lost in our rapidly evolving culture, illusions and promissory notes are too readily believed and bought--without reality validation or credit checks."

You can see here why learning straight Torah is important. If one does not know what the Torah says he can fall for any one of the demonic Jewish cults that are out there. If one's time is limited, I suggest at least learning Shimshon Refael Hirsh's Horev or Rav Kook's books which give a good introduction to Torah. [Rav Kook's books are usually considered more deep than Rav Hirsh.]

the religious world.

I was thinking about problems in the religious world. The main thing that bothers me is the fraud aspect. That is, there is little that is upfront and honest. They make a song and dance in order to get money from secular Jews. They also try to make secular Jews to be religious, and yet treat them like dirt when they join. The whole problem seems to be aggravated in Israel when the religious try to undermine the State, and yet demand the State pays for their life style. 
There is more to it than that. I have expressed some of the problems in terms of the fact that most of the religious world is made up of cults that make a show of Torah, but are really demonic cults.  So there are a few problems that got me to thinking the religious world really is very far from Torah, and perhaps could considered as a real kelipa and a Dark force of evil. [See L.M. in his reference to Torah from the Dark Side which is what I think is the root of the problem with these cults.] 

This however should not be  considered as a critique on the authentic great yeshivas that learn Torah for its own sake along the lines of the Gra and Reb Israel Salanter and Rav Shach. And of course there are the Bnei Akiva places that combine Torah with work and serving in the IDF that I think are very great places.