Intensity of religious devotion can be a great thing if one is on the path of truth and light and a terrible thing if one is on the path of darkness and evil.So the first thing one must do is to learn to discern between the holy and the unholy, though the unholy is easy to discern in fact. The more they are religious in appearance, the more you know they are from the Realm of Evil and Darkness. The prophet asks: "What does God ask from you? but to love compassion and justice הצנע לכת עם אלהיך to walk modestly with your God." (note 1) So if people are making a public announcement about how religious they are, then you know they are not doing the prime directive of God. Therefore it is easy to discern that they are from the Realm of Darkness.
(note 1) The entire verse is this: מה השם אלהיך שואל ממך כי עם אהבת חסד ועשות משפט והצנע לכת עם אלהיך.
However the basic question remains for oneself: how to discern between good and evil, right and wrong, in the same area of value?
What are the minimum or maximum requirements of the Torah. Clearly the fanatic religious world is off on some lunatic LSD trip, but still that leaves the question open. The fact that many do Torah wrong does not tell me how to do it right. The best approach in my opinion is that of the Rambam who at least stated clearly his four fold approach of learning the Written and Oral Torah [the two Talmuds,] the Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle. This seems to be close to the path of my parents. Most other paths I have seen as producing really evil people is religious disguise.
There is nothing wrong with intensity of devotion if one is on a basically good path. For example, let's say that one is in a straight Lithuanian kind of yeshiva that goes strictly by the path of the Gra. In that case there would be nothing wrong with being a fanatic. Being fanatic is learning + keeping Torah is a good thing. There are dangers there also, but still the idea is once one is on a good path, one must stick with it and not leave--even for other paths which seem to be good.
(note 1) The entire verse is this: מה השם אלהיך שואל ממך כי עם אהבת חסד ועשות משפט והצנע לכת עם אלהיך.
However the basic question remains for oneself: how to discern between good and evil, right and wrong, in the same area of value?
What are the minimum or maximum requirements of the Torah. Clearly the fanatic religious world is off on some lunatic LSD trip, but still that leaves the question open. The fact that many do Torah wrong does not tell me how to do it right. The best approach in my opinion is that of the Rambam who at least stated clearly his four fold approach of learning the Written and Oral Torah [the two Talmuds,] the Physics and Metaphysics of Aristotle. This seems to be close to the path of my parents. Most other paths I have seen as producing really evil people is religious disguise.
There is nothing wrong with intensity of devotion if one is on a basically good path. For example, let's say that one is in a straight Lithuanian kind of yeshiva that goes strictly by the path of the Gra. In that case there would be nothing wrong with being a fanatic. Being fanatic is learning + keeping Torah is a good thing. There are dangers there also, but still the idea is once one is on a good path, one must stick with it and not leave--even for other paths which seem to be good.
The contemporary Jewish religious world is an occult practice. Although varied in its beliefs from group to group, the occult usually encompass the views of honoring corpses of their leaders as sacred, monism (all is one energy), polytheism (many spiritual powers), and pantheism (all is God/Goddess), or panentheism (God/Goddess is contained within the world), communing with the dead.
This is in steady and stark contrast to Torah which is Monotheism, which is the belief that God created the world and He is not the world.
