The religious world is anti Torah. But they are anti Torah in a way that is disguised.

The Gaon of Villna issued a warning and then later Rav Shach. In fact on the actual letter of excommunication --the top signature is of the Gra. So why is the supposed religious world completely filled with what both these great tzadikim warned against? Because the religious world is anti Torah. But they are anti Torah in a way that is disguised. They camouflage themselves with things that seem  Torah-dik.

However, I do not think the excommunication applies to Rav Nahman for reasons I mentioned elsewhere. So I feel free to follow his good advice and even bring on this blog ideas from him.

My tendency to to make peace between scholars of I can. However there are times when you have to draw a line. The Jewish religious world though it presents this facade of holiness, is very much on the opposite side--the Sitra Achra as can be easily attested for by the countless of people that have been burnt and destroyed by it --those that were seduced by its appearance of holiness.

I usually like to make peace, but for peace you have to be able to tell when something really is a Trojan horse.

I think my own motivation for going to learn in a NY yeshiva was a philosophical quest for the truth.And to some degree I think I found that in terms of numinious value [as per the Kant Fries School]. Learning Gemara is important--but I lost a sense of balance. Getting involved in the religious world tends to make one crazy.

beginning of Reform Judaism.

Rav Nahman was the only one that warned about the Dark Side in the religious world openly. The more I see of it, the more I am alarmed. But it is hard to know what to do. I thought at one point to mind my own business, but it gets worse at an exponential rate and it is "in your face".

Even if you just try to avoid the religious world in total, they still get in through the cracks.

This is probably not a new problem as you can see in the Bible and the false prophets of Ahab. further warnings are given in the Gemara. But Rav Nahman was the first to pin point the issue: "Torah Scholars that are Demons." That would be  right in the beginning of his major book in section 12 and 28. But it comes up in lots of other areas. So what does it mean? In a practical sense I think the meaning is clear. Avoid the religious world. But could Rav Nahman have meant that? Maybe when he was alive he was able to warn his disciples about whom to avoid. But nowadays? How can you tell?

So it is possible to understand the reasons for the beginning of Reform Judaism. It was probably for these exact reasons.

I was thinking of King Yoshiyahu who got rid of all the idolatry in Israel during his reign. He must have been alarmed at the same kind of phenomenon that I am seeing nowadays.


[After I wrote that above essay, it occurred to me why Rav Nahman used the terminology of demons for religious leaders. He must have been referring to their malevolence. -I mean to say that clearly Rav Nahman was basing himself on the Zohar and the writings of the Ari where the subject of Torah Scholars that are demons comes up. But my question is why did Rav Nahman choose to concentrate on that issue and in such a way that sounds not nice? It must be that he noticed what i noticed. In the Jewish religious world the leaders tend to rejoice in doing harm to innocent people that they feel they can hurt without repercussions. While being extra nice to secular Jews they think they can get donations from.

The main subjects emphasized by the Rishonim -that is the Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.

The main subjects which I would like to do are the main one emphasized by the Rishonim especially the Rambam--that is the Oral Law, the Written Law, Physics and Metaphysics.

As I am having trouble getting through the basic material I thought at least I might share the idea with others in case they might succeed where I have not.

The Written Law--that is clear.

The Oral Law is the actual written account of the written law in the two Talmuds. Sifra Sifri, and the  Midrashim. But even though I did manage to get through Shas -a lot of it was done without Tosphot. If I could go back and try again today I would do every single Tosphot.

Physics --even though the Rambam was talking about the Physics or Aristotle still I think it applies to today's  also. So that would go through classical, the Quantum, and then Strings. Strings is important because it seems to be the only way to make sense of things like quarks.

Metaphysics would be Plato Aristotle, Plotinus, Kant Hegel.

The way I would do this would be the idea that is brought in the gemara and a book of Musar the אורחות צדיקים and Rav Nahman's idea of just saying the words as fast as possible and going on.

To that I would like to add the idea of שיעורים כסדרם sessions in order. That is you take one book and go through a few pages, then put in a place marker and then take a different book and go through a few pages, etc.
[Not all the above sessions every day. You have to work out how it might work for you. For example you might want to get through the Jerusalem Talmud with the commentaries. So that is something like 40 minutes on one page alone. Then you might want a session in Physics. That might be a math session in Algebra which is a part of Physics. As Michael Humer noted--there are no bare facts. Nature expresses herself in Math and by math. As Heidegger put it: nature itself allows herself to be understood only by a priori knowledge. (And that is a puzzling fact all and in itself.)


But the main goal is to try to finish Shas and all the Oral Law and Physics and metaphysics at least once,

Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report?

Eliyahu and Elisha crossed the Jordan River before Eliyahu was taken up into Heaven. They were coming from Jericho. So they crossed into an area that was outside the original border or Israel as defined in the book of Numbers. But was that area occupied by the tribe of Reuben and Gad?

Who was the king of Israel in the time of Elisha? Yoram the son of Ahab? Or Yehu?

Jacob sent Joseph to see his brothers from Hebron to Shechem. That is about a week of hiking at least! What were the brothers doing up in Shechem? And why send Joseph by himself halfway through the land of Canaan to get a news report? And it is not as if the Canaanites were all the friendly by that time after what had happened in Shechem.

Rav Avraham Abulafia

It was a few years ago that I was sitting in Hebrew University and looking at micro films of old manuscripts of Rav Avraham Abulafia and I came across some positive statement  about Yeshua [Jesus]. That was on the day before Hanuka. I kind of froze in my seat because I was not sure what to think of that. I knew that the Rashba [An important Rishon] did not hold of Rav Abulafia at all. But I also knew that the Remak (Rav M. Cordovaro) and Rav Haim Vital were quoting him as legitimate. Also the Chida brings him (Rav Haim David Azulai). It got to be the night of Hanuka and I decided to go with Rav Abulafia even though I knew that would send me on a trajectory that was far from what I had been doing until then.

Why did I decide that? because I figured the Rashba was more of an expert in his particular field of Gemara, while Rav Abulafia was more of an expert in his area.

[Besides that I had been learning the books of Rav Isaac Luria and  Rav Nahman of Breslov already for a few years so I anyway had a kind of mental framework in which it is possible to understand the importance of true tzadikim. I also had been looking at the book of Rav Haim Vital in which the root souls of lots of different tzadikm is brought. That is the book where the Ari was explaining to Rav Haim Vital that the soul of Rav Haim Vital was from Emanation. [Most souls are from Creation]. So I already understood that there can be souls that stem from Emanation.]


I ought to mention that in the meantime someone from Mea Shearim came to Hebrew U. and put all the books of Rav Abulafia into readable script and printed them and you can even buy them in regular Hebrew.

Appendix

[1] Just for some background --the Rashba was a Rishon that had serious issues with Rav Abulafia. But even before I was looking at the manuscripts I was aware of the Rav Haim David Azulai who stood up for Rav Abulafia and that gave a lot of support in that direction. If the Rashba would be expressing an opinion about some passage in the Talmud, that would be more important. But in terms of his opinion about Rav Abulafia, that seems to me to be out of his range of expertise.]

[2] The idea of certain souls being from Emanation is brought down even before the Ari. However Rav Isaac Luria -the Ari- goes into a lot more detail than you can find anywhere else. So there is nothing particularly damming about saying a great tzadik has a soul that is from Emanation (i.e. Divine).

Jordan Peterson

Constellations of belief

Constellations of belief is why people will hold to a given belief even when it goes against common sense--because it is connected with a group he wants to be  apart of or because it is part of a belief system that does have elements of truth.

This is how people fall into evil, but it is also how people fall into good. The reason is there is "out there" lots of constellations of belief. And in no given place is "all truth". That gives a wide range of free will.

In this statement I am trying to give a reason for people holding to things that do not seem to make a lot of sense like the Trinity--because of other things that go along with it like the Golden Rule.
But as Dr Michael Huemer pointed out it is often group identity that determines people's beliefs.

I have had a hard time with this exact subject. And I have no golden rule such as common sense or Reason as to how to judge in this area.
However I do have my own set of rules that I try to hold to in terms of belief systems and rules of conduct. The top one is tell the truth no matter what the consequences are [unless it is a case that can cause harm to others]. I believe that telling the truth always gives me a certain degree of common sense by which then I can tell what world view systems make more sense.

As for world view issues I missed the anti reason movement in the West almost totally. I found rational philosophy to make sense and almost never even saw the 20th century post modern stuff until I already had been learning Plato and Spinoza in High school and elementary school.
But pure Rational philosophy almost has to lead to Kant. It is not just problems in Spinoza himself but also the points raised by Berkeley and Hume. Almost by force one is lead to Kant to find some middle ground. But does that then lead to Hegel as a lot of people thought? I am not sure. To me it seems Hegel is good for Metaphysics and Leonard Nelson is good for epistemology.


 People that are not happy with Hegel I think come from  legitimate complaints about German Nationalism which they think was inspired by Hegel or from complaints about Communism.
But even though Communism as a theory is clearly wrong I can see how it was needed to bring peace and stability to the Russian Empire. You really can not see this unless you have been in former republics of the USSR and see how things really are. If you would be there you would understand what the czars and the USSR were facing. It is nothing like ruling mild mannered white Anglo Saxon Protestants!

[I should add that Kelley Ross also has a Metaphysical approach that is different than Hegel, which is as important as the whole Kant Fries School. But to me it just does not look all that different than Hegel's Metaphysics.]