The exact quote from the Gra is that proportional to the lack of knowledge of the seven wisdoms one will lack in knowledge of Torah a hundred fold. That is he sees a kind of causality in that relation.

The Middles Ages --the age of faith pretty much ended with the Black Plague and religion seemed useless against it. The Enlightenment had many aspects but one was to find non religious justification for values  and non religious solutions to human problems.
In part this had the great result in advancement in the hard sciences. But it also gave credibility to obvious pseudo sciences--anything that could tack the word "science" onto its ending syllable.

So I ask is that all there is? Just religious solutions to human problems or pseudo sciences?

In the Kant-Friesian School of thought of Dr Kelley Ross we find a spectrum of values. Thus numinous values are found in all areas of the spectrum. Thus in plain English that means "balance."
That is when one tries to have a balance of values each area of value reinforces other areas.

This you find in the sages in many places, One place is the more well known idea "דרך ארץ קדמה לתורה" "The way of the Earth comes before Torah."  The idea is also expressed by the Gra: Proportional to the lack of knowledge in the Seven Wisdoms [Quadrivium, Trivium] one will lack knowledge of Torah.

The exact quote from the Gra is that proportional to the lack of knowledge of the seven wisdoms one will lack in knowledge of Torah a hundred fold. That is he sees a kind of causality in that relation.

The big problem with Torah scholars that are demons is they pretend to be friends, but because they are demons they actually try to cause harm when they are able; and at least never help.

The big problem with Torah scholars that are demons is they pretend to be friends, but because they are demons they actually try to cause harm when they are able; and at least never help.
I mean to say that though the subject of Torah scholars that are demons is not well defined in the Zohar and the Ari, still in the writings of the Ran from Breslov it is easy to see what the terminology means.
For example in the stories of the Ran [from Breslov and Uman] you can see he uses the term as in מזיקי עלמא or what is called "mazikim." that go around trying to cause harm.

One important point that Rav Nahman brings is in his major book vol 1. 61 where he says the major blame is on people that give to these demonic Torah scholars a kind of pseudo ordination.
True ordination stopped in the middle of the Talmudic period. This is the reason Amoraim from Iraq were called "Rav" [as in Rav Yehuda etc.]

The trouble is it is just too easy to ignore this problem. But that just aggravates the situation. To me it seems best to deal with the issue decisively.

To me it seems that this comes under the category of rebuke that one knows will not be accepted. Still in some kinds of cases one is required to give rebuke anyway. I saw this in the אבן שלמה of the Gra where it is brought down that there are situations where one must give rebuke even where there is no chance of it being listened to.
It seems that this is one of those cases, because without at least someone making the problem known, too many innocent people fall into the trap.
[I do not mean that one should always give rebuke as the Ran from Uman makes clear in Vol II:8. Still, there are times when a situation has gotten so out of hand that one must make it known. ]

The problem of Torah scholars that are demons

The problem of Torah scholars that are demons which comes up in the writings of the Ran from Uman and Breslov is not just concerning the issue to avoid certain people. The problem is that from the teachers the decay sets into the whole thing. That is it makes it hard to keep the rules of the Torah at all when the people that you would expect are there to help turn out to be demons.
That makes the entire project of learning and keeping the Torah to be difficult.

Before the time of the Gra I think things were more simple. But after his time and his letter of excommunication was ignored, I think the rot became pervasive throughout the entire structure. And this is the cause of the formation of the Reform Movement that was intended to be able to be true to the principle of Torah without the rot that had set into the religious world.

[Reform however went too far left, and so the Conservative movement started. But it is interesting to note that the formation of the State of Israel come solely from secular Jews.]

[It is obvious that Reb Israel Salanter held that the best approach would be an emphasis on learning Musar [Mediaeval Ethics] and to some degree I have to agree. But just from simple observation or the state of people that do in fact learn Musar, I have to conclude that that solution is highly limited in effect. Even my learning partner said, "I am allergic to Musar." In other words, he also noticed the same thing that I saw. The gap between learning Musar and doing Musar seems too great to be easily crossed.] What I  mean is that often people that represent and are involved in Musar do not seem to have much in the way of human decency. That raises a question on the whole Musar project. So the only solution I can see is to serve God individually at home. [Or your might say that being a "mashgiach" as a paid profession is what ruined it. Maybe it is better to say that the Musar project is right, but only as the way Rav Israel Salanter saw it. Not as Msa becoming a paid business.] 

The big problem with Torah scholars that are demons is they pretend to be friends, but because they are demons they actually try to cause harm when they are able, and at least never help. 

music file U45

U-45 F Major   [U-45 in midi format]

Even though numinous value is important, it does not replace other areas of value.

There is a tendency in religious circles to imagine themselves superior to others in all possible ways. That is in mental ability, in moral actions etc. And in areas that it is clear they are not any better than others the tendency is to minimize the significance of those areas.




The only way I have been able to make sense of this is  by Dr Kelley Ross's Polynomic Theory of Value where he builds on the insights of Kant and Schopenhauer. That is to say: even though numinous value is important, it does not replace other areas of value.

[It is basically a Neo Platonic system which works well for me as that is the basic world view of the Rishonim and Geonim like Saadia Gaon and the Rambam. I mean that even though the Rambam leans towards Aristotle he still is pretty firmly in the Neo Platonic School.]

[For some reason Dr. Ross has not published a book on his system, but I have found his Ph.D thesis on his site to fill in the details.]

In any case, I tend to be skeptical about claims to moral superiority when actions seems to indicate the reverse.  That is to say even though numinous value is important, still in every area of value there seems to be a kind of  Dark Side that surrounds it. 

Religious obsession most often turns into obsession with the Dark Side

Religious interest is often just a kelipa--force of evil. That is to say most often it is just a way to get a person off track.
Though to learn and keep Torah is important, however the area of religious value tends to decay and become its exact opposite.
That is: religious obsession most often turns into obsession with the Dark Side; - even though it started out with obsession with doing good and holy works.
This is the reason that secular Jews tend to put all religious obsessions into one basket. They tend to be justified in doing so as the Ari says that עולם הזה (this world) is mostly kelipa--sitra achra.
This also accounts for the basic nature of Litvak yeshivas to discourage religious fanaticism. Sure they learn Torah all day, but the emphasis is to do so in a balanced fashion.

The best way to understand this I think is with Dr. Kelley Ross and the Kant-Friesian School. That is at least what helped me put things into context and perspective. Even thought the Kant-Fries School does not openly deal with the problems with the Sitra Achra it does have the Polynomic theory of Value which for me helped to understand "the Big Picture." [The big picture is after all what is needed in order to understand one's place in the Big Picture. ]
[Dr. Ross is mainly ignored since the focus is far from mainstream academia.  This is I think in part because mainstream academia has been off the path of reason for  long time as John Searle himself noted about  Analytic Linguistic, [Continental versus British] philosophy of the last century. As John Searle himself puts its so eloquently, "It is obviously false."]   

ראשיה בשוחד ישפוטו וכהניה במחיר יורו
"It's [of Zion] heads judge for pay, and it's priests teach for a price."

In one of the less known later prophets, מיכה, פרק ג' פסוק י''א  is brought this verse  in which the doom of Jerusalem is predicted because Torah becoming a paid profession and judges also were getting a salary.

If you look there you can see that that is the major reason the prophet there is predicting the fall of Jerusalem.
This goes along with what we find in the Gemara  כל דיין שנוטל שכר לדון כל דיניו בטילים
"Every judge that receives a salary for judging, all his judgments are null."
The law is that this is the case even if he takes an equal amount of money from both parties.
The only allowed way is if the judge has an honest job and two people come to him for judgment and give שכר בטלה for his time שכר הניכר. Not if he [in theory] might have a job, but rather he has at present a real job that he is willing to take time off of.

The issues are divided into three: (1) judging for pay, (2)teaching Torah for pay, (3) learning Torah for pay.
The Gemara already says teaching Torah for pay is forbidden as God says מה אני בחינם אף אתם בחינם Just as I taught Torah for free so you must teach Torah for free.
Learning for pay also the Rambam deals with in Avot chapter 4 where he says one who learns Torah for money loses his portion in the next world. He repeats the same idea in Mishne Torah