two positions-heresy for Christians

 Christians gravitate towards one of two positions-three gods,- or one God with three different aspects father, son, holy ghost. [The first is not okay.] But both positions are considered heresy for Christians.[Sabellianism, Arianism] With Boethius, they came up with what they think is a middle position: One essence and three persons. But regardless of this being thought to be correct, an individual Christian in his or her thought gravitates towards either of the first two positions, i.e. three different powers, or just One Power with different aspects.

I think a lot depends on which gospel they read first--Mathew or Luke. The first is deeply imbedded in the Old Testament ;, and  Old Testament theology is Monotheism: One God only, and who is totally beyond anything that humans can conceive. Totally :"other". 

Paul is  more along the lines of the later approach which is not very rooted in the Old Testament. And Luke and Acts were written by a disciple of Paul.      

[I am not very happy with the idea of aspects of God, however you do find this in the Ari and Moshe of Cordoba.]

[I should add here that not only the issues mentioned above but also the role of Jesus is an argument between the authors of the \gospels.] 

 There is one major thread of thought that goes through and ties together the existentialists. They would not agree with the label but never the less it applies to all. Kierkegaard,  Husserl, Heidegger, Japers, Sartre,... That thread is the ultimate, absolute  importance of  "ME".  And to claim that this thought did not get accepted throughout the entire West is simply to be blind to the facts. Responsibility towards others, especially family is simply not even a thought that might occur to anyone. "It is all about me". It does not matter what religion anyone is. That is just the window dressing on what really matters to people; the ultimate, absolute "ME.

You might see this in all of them, but it becomes particularly clear in Heidegger-''Being'' instead of God. Responsibility is only to :"My Being" :i,e., to be authentic to  ME.

 

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. ]