I know I have not been clear about trust in God. I am sorry about that but the ambiguity comes from experience. That is,-- the ambiguity of experience creates ambiguity in my thoughts. I am not even sure is there is any lesson that can be learned.
The major events were that I decided to go and learn Torah in NY somehow trusting that God would take care of "parnasa" [making a living]. And that attitude basically paid off with dividends until at some point it stopped (or more accurately I stopped trusting). One way or the other the whole thing collapsed. So, while I agree in principle, I can also see it is a delicate principle. But it is a terrible mistake to associate trust in God with the religious world which puts on a facade of righteousness to bilk naive secular Jews out of their money.
While trust in God is a great thing, it is an error to think it has anything to do with kollel. Most kollel people are enemies of Torah and of Israel. They use Torah as a disguise. I have therefore tried to be very picky about which yeshivas to recommend which I believe learn Torah for its own sake
To get to Torah requires getting through the major obstacle--the pseudo religious world. As soon as one can get over the illusion that thy have anything to do with Torah at all, that is when one can begin to come to true Torah.
In terms of funding, I think it is the best approach to not punish the innocent with the guilty. Thus the vast majority of religious organizations which are scams should be cut off from all funding. Especially those in Israel. And the clearly honest places like Ponovitch and the great NY yeshivas should continue to get even more funding. But with proper care taken to insure the good institutions, the rest of the 99% of the religiosity parasites and institutions should be cut off from all funding, private and government.
[Even though the pure Litvak Yeshivas that keep out all nonsense are pretty good, there are enough there also that are just playing games. As a rule the religious world has pitted itself against the State of Israel and thus should be thrown out. Getting the massive amounts of funding they get from the state is ridiculous. I never saw such insane hypocrisy in my life as this. And then they go to the USA to beg for charity from rich American Jews that they stab in the back if they dare to come to Israel.
[The good places are not just Ponovitch but also branches of Ponovitch. Same with the great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. Rav Montag's yeshiva in Netivot I think is also very good/
The major issue is to direct funding to the proper places that are doing good work and to cut off all funding to the cults that pretend to be learning Torah. That type of knowledge is hard to come by except by experience. The main guidelines should be whatever comes under the category of the חרם of the Gra should be eliminated. Nowadays appearance counts for ore than substance. So these cults make a lot of effort to appear Torah'dik [of the Torah] while in fact being agents of the Devil.
You fun these cults in Israel or in the USA, you give them power to seduce ore and more innocent Jews into their insanity.
I should mention also the Merkaz HaRav of Rav Kook at teh general Mizrachi yeshivas which are very good.
The major events were that I decided to go and learn Torah in NY somehow trusting that God would take care of "parnasa" [making a living]. And that attitude basically paid off with dividends until at some point it stopped (or more accurately I stopped trusting). One way or the other the whole thing collapsed. So, while I agree in principle, I can also see it is a delicate principle. But it is a terrible mistake to associate trust in God with the religious world which puts on a facade of righteousness to bilk naive secular Jews out of their money.
While trust in God is a great thing, it is an error to think it has anything to do with kollel. Most kollel people are enemies of Torah and of Israel. They use Torah as a disguise. I have therefore tried to be very picky about which yeshivas to recommend which I believe learn Torah for its own sake
To get to Torah requires getting through the major obstacle--the pseudo religious world. As soon as one can get over the illusion that thy have anything to do with Torah at all, that is when one can begin to come to true Torah.
In terms of funding, I think it is the best approach to not punish the innocent with the guilty. Thus the vast majority of religious organizations which are scams should be cut off from all funding. Especially those in Israel. And the clearly honest places like Ponovitch and the great NY yeshivas should continue to get even more funding. But with proper care taken to insure the good institutions, the rest of the 99% of the religiosity parasites and institutions should be cut off from all funding, private and government.
[Even though the pure Litvak Yeshivas that keep out all nonsense are pretty good, there are enough there also that are just playing games. As a rule the religious world has pitted itself against the State of Israel and thus should be thrown out. Getting the massive amounts of funding they get from the state is ridiculous. I never saw such insane hypocrisy in my life as this. And then they go to the USA to beg for charity from rich American Jews that they stab in the back if they dare to come to Israel.
[The good places are not just Ponovitch but also branches of Ponovitch. Same with the great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. Rav Montag's yeshiva in Netivot I think is also very good/
The major issue is to direct funding to the proper places that are doing good work and to cut off all funding to the cults that pretend to be learning Torah. That type of knowledge is hard to come by except by experience. The main guidelines should be whatever comes under the category of the חרם of the Gra should be eliminated. Nowadays appearance counts for ore than substance. So these cults make a lot of effort to appear Torah'dik [of the Torah] while in fact being agents of the Devil.
You fun these cults in Israel or in the USA, you give them power to seduce ore and more innocent Jews into their insanity.
I should mention also the Merkaz HaRav of Rav Kook at teh general Mizrachi yeshivas which are very good.
