new prohibitions in the religious world

 There is a tendency to make up new prohibitions in the religious world. This leads to a situation where simple people that truly want to keep Torah have no way to discern what is real as opposed to what is added and made up out of thin air. Rav Nahman of Breslov addressed this problem [Le.M II 44]. But that does not seem to hinder people that are Breslov from the same sort of tendency.

The thing about this is that the extra emphasis on rituals has nothing todo with midot tovot [good character traits].  If good character -to be a mensch- a decent human being had nothing todo with Torah then maybe i would have little to complain about. But in fact midot tovot are "deuraita" commandments from the Torah a you can see in Sefer HaChinuch. 

Esther was living with Mordechai

A few questions about Megilat Esther. 

(1)Esther was living with Mordechai. The government officials that took  her could not figure out that he was Jewish? They knew Mordechai was Jewish because he told them so.

(2) The verse says: "When virgins were gathered  a second time." Why was there a second time? For the king had found a queen-i.e., Esther. What was the point of keeping on gathering new virgins?[Unless the king just happened to develop a taste for virgins like Mao Dezong or Beria?] 

(3) The king gave the house of Haman to Esther. What was the point of appointing Mordechai over it.?

(4)The verse says Esther told the king "What Mordechai was to her." What was that? Her uncle or her husband as the Midrash says?

 [I think Mordechai might have been the advisor of  the Persian king [Xerxes] that invaded Greece and the 300 Spartans. See the history in Herodotus]. Xerxes had a recurrent dream warning him that he must invade Greece; and his advisor whose name sounds suspiciously like Mordechi agreed.

 There is a sort of contrast between the fact that religious leaders seem to want power as opposed to what you would think would motivate a religious person. I.e. not lust for power, but rather to sit and learn Torah and privately serve God. While lust for power is assumed for politicians, it is not clear to me why one with supposed religious motivation to serve God would be trying to gain power and control over others. It is interesting to contrast this with the book of Meditation of Marcus Aurelius where he is constantly bemoaning his terrible misfortune of being born to be the emperor of the Roman Empire. This book is his private musings that was never meant to be shared. He ordered his servant to burn it after he would die, but by some odd circumstance of fate, one of his servants took a look at it, and  had compassion on all subsequent generations of mankind, and saved it from the flames. [Incidentally, this is Marcus Aurelius Antonius, the friend of Yehuda the Prince, the author of the Mishna.]

Religious leaders are often simply con men. But also many get their powers from the sitra achra (dark side). 

learning in depth

 I have been considering how to implement the advice of my son, Izhak, about the importance of learning in depth. And besides that, the subject came up in a conversation where I pointed out that Rav Nahman of Breslov himself says learning by "just reading the words and going on" is "judgments"[problems and tribulations] while learning in depth is "sweetening of judgments"(lessening of the problems), [Le.M. vol. I, chapter 74] The way [best] is to make a little progress in the book you are learning, and then go backwards to every previous section, Then when you have gotten back to the beginning, then start again at that place you left off at, and then go on one more section.

[But this depends on the subject. If it is the book like the Avi Ezri, or Reb Chaim of Brisk, then the best thing is to review that one section for about a month. That is to go through it from start to finish every day for a month. If it a book like math [where each section builds on the previous] then the above advice applies. Do one chapter forward, and then go backward to the beginning...

[Rav Shick in fact did not hold solely of fast learning as many assume.  There was one student I recall who went through Shas every month [i.e., about 100 pages [per day] and Rav Shick told him "Enough already. It is time to start doing in depth learning.'' And also he told people after they had been through one tractate to not go on, but to finish it 101 times.]

[I think that I ought to bring up here the idea of "Bitul Torah", the sin of not learning when you can. This you must have noticed is not widely regarded as a sin at all, much less a very severe sin. I  myself  think that I might have sinned in this regard. And I think the industrial-spiritual complex that makes money by using Torah as a means to extract money from  the government does not either consider "bitul Torah" as the sin it actually is, They are just using Torah to make money and get power. ]

[However, I do agree that many  Litvak yeshivot are great--but not all. The best obviously is Ponovitch where Rav Shach was.]

[If I could I would also recommend Tosphot, but I am convinced that no one understands Tophot--especially when they thin they do. That is unless you have that ort of head like Naphtali Yegeer in my first yeshiva SharYahuv or the learning partner I had in Uman David Bronson. Or if you commit to doing one Tosphot every day for about 40 days in a row. Then sometimes one can tart to see the depth of Tosphot]

this confusing modern world

 To gain clarity in this confusing modern world I have no better solution that the medieval idea of synthesis between faith and reason but nowadays it would be a bit different than the Middle Ages. For one thing Reason would not mean just Plato and Aristotle, but would include Kant [and I would dare to add Leonard Nelson.] Also the Rishonim like the Rambam that had Physics being an integral part of learning Torah would include modern Physics. [Hegel might also be considered a powerful sequel to Kant but with the Friesian approach Nelson (and Kelley Ross) I found a lot more answers than i did in Hegel. ] 

As for faith, I realize there is a crisis in faith in itself. Rav Nahman of Breslov pointed out the problem of Torah scholars that are demons [in his book Le.M vol. I, ch. 12 and 28].These teachers make getting to authentic Torah problematic. The best thing I can see is to get through the Tenach and the Two Talmuds and Midrashim by fast learning, and to have at least one in depth session in "Iyun" in Tosphot, Maharsha. and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach [or Reb Chaim of Brisk.] [This sort of learning in depth along the line of Reb Chaim was the way of the Mir in NY when I was there. But there is also a way of learning Tosphot in depth that is more difficult to decribe. ]  

  

People need more than knowledge. They need wisdom.

 People need more than knowledge. They need wisdom. And by that I mean an understanding of what life is all about. This is the role that the Bible used to play in the lives of people. But when the Bible became disenfranchised, people find other things to fill that gap in their lives. And the new myths are most often teaching lessons that are pernicious. Thus you find in the Bible the fact that sufferings has  a reason--sufferings are an unavoidable part of the  human condition. We all suffer and cause others to suffer. In the Bible, the reason is simple: What goes around, comes around. But when people lack that wisdom, they find other reasons for their  plights and dilemmas. For women, that is men. For the "woke" it is being born in the wrong body. The list goes on.  

professors of gender, race studies, psychology. ...

 STEM [Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics ] and labor [working people] make a coalition in liberal capitalistic societies. Who is left out?  The Intellectuals, the pseudo enlightened, the Humanities professors that can't compute, can't do the math, can't make anything that people want. So what do they do? They claim secret knowledge that supposedly everyone needs. That is the university professors of gender, race studies, psychology. philosophy. literature, etc., that no one needs  or wants, and can not make anything that people need. Theirs's is the politics of resentment.  Everyone wants people that can do stuff; can go to the moon, can make computers, that drive trucks. Who needs the pseudo intellectuals?