The Republic (of Plato), Law of Moses, and Western Civilization

The Republic (of Plato) is very important but not the sole basis for Western Civilization. The West was built out of the Mediaeval synthesis of Reason and Revelation. Plato and Aristotle form and important part of that. But so does the Law of Moses.[As Hegel noted this. The Jews gave devotion to the Law part of Western Civilization and Christians the compassion part.] What is the right synthesis is a good question, but that knowledge that such a synthesis is necessary is the  condition for Western Civilization.
[When Rambam talks about Metaphysics he is referring to Aristotle, but his understanding of Aristotle seems to me to be clearly the neo Platonic synthesis of Aristotle and Plato.]
I am no scholar, but from the little I read I saw a great deal of the advancement of the West after 1350 was based on foundations that that were created during the Middle Ages.

Things like parliamentary system of government, universities, water systems that became adapted to electricity, Thomas Aquinas, Maimonides were huge influences with Natural Law. I guess you could disagree but that is the way I see it. 

[It is my impression that  Kant,  and Hegel are as important for Western Civilization as Plato and Aristotle.]
People do not give enough credit to the Middle Ages. The way to put Reason and Faith together is by no means simple as we can see in the many Gnostic schools and also in Philo and Plotinus. Just looking at that you get the idea that there were infinite possibilities of false and wrong and really dumb ideas about whether such a synthesis is possible and desirable at all and if it it then what is it? But only one possible right answer.

The Rambam's four fold way. Learning the Written Law (Old Testament), the Oral Law (the two Talmuds), Modern Physics, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle.

To understand any thinker it is usually necessary to understand their background and what they were reacting against. But then not to limit them to just a reaction.

The idea is similar to Kant. In his city there were people that were very pious and others that were super rational. And on the larger world that he was born into there was a school of the rationalists like Spinoza and Leibniz and another school of empiricists. like Locke and Hume. But I do not limit Kant's insights to mere reaction but that reaction caused a spark to ignite. His search for a ground of validity in both schools gave the spark that created the three great Critiques.

So with the Rambam. He also wanted to find a path that synthesized Reason and Revelation and not just find a middle path. 

In a similar way my own thinking is thus: I want to find out what is the service of God? And after I know that I want to know what is the service of God with מיסרת נפש [self sacrifice]? And after that I would like to share with others my insights. My own conclusions are largely a reaction to the world I found myself in.

That is to say: I was in yeshivas in NY which more or less concertized and personified the Nefesh HaChaim [נפש החיים]of Reb Chaim from Voloshin (disciple of the Gra). That is.-- yeshivas that accepted the basic idea of the Gra that the prime service of God is to learn Torah. Though one must keep all the commandments, still the focus should be on learning Torah and then everything else good will flow from that.

On the other hand I also saw a world of events after my divorce that got me thinking there must some ways that that yeshivish approach is right, and in some ways it is missing out on something.
While this was going on I returned to Israel and noticed the Guide of the Rambam in a Beit Midrash in Ramot Gimel that said something that got me interested  לא הצם והמתפלל הוא הנרצה אלא היודעו (Not he who fasts and prays is desirable rather he who knows Him.). Over  the years I was in Israel at the time the ideas of the Rambam began to crystallize in me and though I might have been vaguely aware of his ideas before that, during my time in Israel it became more and more clear that he was on a slightly different track than Reb Chaim from Voloshin and that his track also had some ground of validity.

So to a large degree my own ideas of what is the service of God come as trying to find what is valid in both approaches. 

My set of experiences I take as a background to understanding this question and I take my own experiences as empirical evidence. Ad Hominem what kinds of people are on one path or the other is not an irrelevant consideration when it comes to the service of God. It cant be the entire  determining issue but it must not be ignored. 

That I hoe gives to anyone reading this a bit of understanding in what way I arrived at my basic approach which more or less centers on the Rambam's four fold way. Learning the Written Law (Old Testament), the Oral Law (the two Talmuds), Modern Physics, and the Metaphysics of Aristotle.
That is to say I did not arrive at this by picking up a rabbit  out of a hat. Not by going "Ei Mini Mini Mo"closing my eyes and picking something that appealed to me at random. Rather this came as a long process of observation of myself and others and close consideration of the different opinions involved.


Appendix:
{1}Getting divorced was very important to this process because it showed me how people act towards someone that has no social status as opposed to someone that has social status and money that they want. Being "down and out' is the best way to see the reality of what people are like as very different from what they say and pretend. 
{2} My path is not only the Rambam. The whole Gra thing is very important in terms of the prime mitzvah being the learning of Torah
Also in terms of learning in depth, not just the Gemara but the Rambam also. That is the whole school of Reb Chaim Soloveitchik and his disciples and Rav Elazar M. Shach.  But I also see the great importance of Rav Kook and the State of Israel--which many great people in the Torah world did  not see.



(3) I learned the hard way that the  religious world is  place to stay as far from as possible in order to survive [Unless we are talking about the great Litvak Yeshivas in Bnei Brak and New York.]. [They talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. Acta non verba.] But I also realized the importance of the Gra and the Rambam and Reb Israel Salanter. I think it is possible that my choice to go to authentic Litvak yeshivas in NY and then to Israel made all the difference. 

T11 Music File

F Minor t11

Divine light

 God's light and salvation is not confined to dogmas and theology.

In any case, my basic approach I would like to define as mainly the path of my parents. That is more or less conservative Judaism, but with a special emphasis on learning Torah. The Jewish religious world itself is believe is filled with demonic spirits, especially the leaders and the books also.
The Litvak world at the time I was there I thought was however very good, but nowadays I try to stay home and mind my own business. Something seems to have gone haywire even with the greatest of the yeshivas.

So my path has is more or less what the Gra, and Reb Israel Salanter, and Rav Shach were teaching. If there is any place around today that walks in that straight Torah path I would have to say that is great, but as I said something seems to have gone wrong.

That is: they have become businesses. Greed has destroyed the yeshiva world.
Th frum world is full of counterfeit Torah.
[One practical thing to do would be to throw out all the books of the cult the Gra put into cherem/excommunication and also any book that quotes them. I am ignored. Fine. But I have said what needed to be said.

Psychology is a profession that attracts mentally ill and sadistic personalities.

I would not out much stock in any particular psychology handbook. I may not know exactly what is wrong with it but that whole so called "science" is mainly pseudo science. Something is deeply wrong with that whole profession. 

One possible problem is that it is the prime example of pseudo science. It is not falsifiable. But that just seems to be the beginning of the problem. The major problem is their main result is to take normal people and make them mentally sick. That is there seems to be some internal evil that characterizes the whole profession. [They seem to have the ability to inject true mental illness into healthy people and by that to force them to keep coming to them for some imaginary cure.]

The main problem seems to be it is a profession that attracts mentally ill and sadistic personalities.

I think the goal is to define all of humanity as psychologically sick except for psychologists.



The disciple of Israel Salanter Isaac Blazer wrote the best cure for sickness of the soul is Musar bringing that idea from the Rambam in the Rambam' Musar book  Eight Chapters. Why Musar? Mainly Musar is about being a mensch a decent human being. It reveals that that is what the Torah is about. This is hard to know and even harder to fulfill. But since the religious world itself is mainly satanic the best approach is to learn on your own or in Reform and Conservative synagogues but avoid the religious world. [Unless you happen to be in the area of an authentic Litvak Yeshiva or a Mizrachi yeshiva.]

If you need confirmation of this view take a look at all the people that count the mitzvot, not just the Rambam and you will see that all there are plenty of the 613 that have to do with good character. So good character is from the Torah itself--not just from the words of the scribes.

In any case the religious world is very evil and very sick and they may hide behind Torah but the essence is wrong. 
[Musar mainly refers to Mediaeval books of Ethics like the Obligations of the Heart. There are also books from the disciples of Israel Salanter which are very good.]

problems in life are spiritual

 From my point of  the problems in life are spiritual, and the solutions come from learning Torah [that is the Old Testament, the two Talmuds and Musar (mediaeval Ethics)], repentance, worship, and holy living. For the secular people the problems of life are material and thus best addressed with money, technology, and good policy. 

 For me  the adversary is Satanic demons and organized well funded demonic charismatic teachers of Torah religion instead of authentic Torah. To secular people the adversary is lack of education and unjust structures and systems. 

For me  the world is an "enchanted place," full of secret connections where the central issue is how to do God's will. (How to get right with God according to the holy Torah.) For the secular, the world is a material place that can be improved by reason and science. 

 For me the best human future (for all people) is being in accord with God's will  and loving one's neighbor. For the secular, the better human future is some form of material well-being. 

Christians are uniformly against the Talmud

Christians are uniformly against the Talmud for little reason. They might not burn it for the same reason they do not burn the Communist Manifesto. But the attitude is roughly the same.
This comes directly from a statement in the NT, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees."
Then comes a long tirade against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. A well deserved tirade, I must add. 
The prushim פרושים in fact are considered highly related to the Baali HaTalmud [authors of the Talmud] as we can see in many historical documents (Hippolytus) that people in general divided Israel into three parts Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees. The curious thing is that the gentiles did in fact distinguish between the different groups of Essenes. But here between the Prushim and the people that were involved in keeping the Oral and Written Law they seem to have not made any distinction. [Christians in fact were generally considered just a subsection of the Essenes]. 
 From my point of view this all seems curious because the פרושים (Pharisees) and the Baali HaMishna and Talmud ([authors of the Mishna and Talmud]) are not the same group as we can see all the time in the Talmud itself. The Prushim may have held by the validity of the Oral Law, but so did the Essenes, and so did Jesus himself.  Some braitot (outside teachings, i.e. teachings outside of the Mishna) brought in the Talmud in fact were borrowed from the Essenes. [This type of thing gives rise to the constant occupation of the Talmud to figure out which braitot (outside teachings) were legitimate and which were not.]

At any rate, the clear critique of Jesus was against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, not against the Oral Law as close examination of his statement will show. Plus his little noticed statement "The Pharisees sit on Moses' throne,- so all that they say and teach that you must fulfill." (I should not neglect to mention that the Talmud and Mishna have parallel critiques of the hypocrisy of the Prushim which I mentioned in other essays.)

The thing which bothers me about all this is that one is required to keep the Law of Moses. It was not replaced, nor done away with. So along with throwing out the Law of Moses, there seems to be little or no concern about what it actually means -- until it gets into an area that Christians are particularly sensitive about because of their level of disgust at certain a practice forbidden in the Law of Moses.   

Natural Law comes into play here as Aquinas did by using the ideas developed by Saadia Gaon and Maimonides (the Rambam).  Still, all in all, neither Natural Law nor Divine Law have had much popularity in Western Christianity for  along time. Christians as a rule go to Paul to decide what is forbidden according to "Scripture." They certainly never go to the OT (Old Testament) nor to the actual words of Jesus, since the actual words of Jesus would just make things a million times more strict than the Law of Moses. That is something no one wants even to consider.)

In any case, my basic position is that the Christian distaste for the Talmud is completely uncalled for, and based on a simple mistake in understanding the NT.


On the other hand, if their critique was on the charlatans and demonic teachers that pretend to teach and keep the Talmud, then their critique would be justified. For that reason I avoid the religious world like I would avoid a leper colony. But that is people misusing the Talmud. Abusus non tolit usum.  Abuse does not cancel use.  If  you have authentic Lithuanian types of yeshivas in your area, then fine. But if not, then I would avoid the religious world at all cost. Go to Reform, Conservative, or Mizrachi synagogues.



What does this mean in a larger Christian context? I admit that from my point of view, I see Peter and James as more valid than Paul. Still issue of the Talmud is a separate question.
Most Christians see Paul as representing the most valid understanding of Jesus, while Peter and James are basically lukewarm. Still that does not seem to have any bearing on the issues I discussed up above. [ See this book which goes into the issue. But this was already noted by many authors that I have seen. Not the least the Recognitions of Clement.] However it is clear from the New Testament itself that Peter and James disagreed with Paul completely and held his approach of anti Torah was against Jesus himself. James could not have been more clear: one is required to keep every single command in the Old Testament from A to Z. And that means all the commandments not just the Ten. There are lots of commandment in the Old Testament that are not in the category of the Ten and they were openly told to Moses that they are for all time for example the commandments pertaining to the Building of the Temple and the bringing of sacrifices.