Robert Sapolsky {Stanford} brings the idea that overwhelming religious interest is the sign of schizoid personality.
This seems to account for a common-place observation about the unreliability and general lack of sanity among such groups.
The issue is not the importance of religious value. Let's take it for granted that closeness with God is important. Rather the issue is that for every area of value there is an equal and opposite area of value. And since this world is mostly evil as the Ari (Isaac Luria) says, therefore the tendency is for religious people to fall into the Sitra Achra even if their intentions are pure.
[The idea here I think I did not state clearly. Let me rephrase this: There is a spectrum of values. When or if they decay, they decay into their opposite. When some area of value is not so great, then it decays into something not so bad. But when a holy area of value decays, it becomes something really horrific. ]
Thus learning Torah and trust in God are important, however self reliance also is--that is not to be relying on other people's handouts.
People that make their living off of Torah are often of this schizoid type. To add to the problem they also desire power and demand others pay their way.
This seems to account for a common-place observation about the unreliability and general lack of sanity among such groups.
The issue is not the importance of religious value. Let's take it for granted that closeness with God is important. Rather the issue is that for every area of value there is an equal and opposite area of value. And since this world is mostly evil as the Ari (Isaac Luria) says, therefore the tendency is for religious people to fall into the Sitra Achra even if their intentions are pure.
[The idea here I think I did not state clearly. Let me rephrase this: There is a spectrum of values. When or if they decay, they decay into their opposite. When some area of value is not so great, then it decays into something not so bad. But when a holy area of value decays, it becomes something really horrific. ]
Thus learning Torah and trust in God are important, however self reliance also is--that is not to be relying on other people's handouts.
People that make their living off of Torah are often of this schizoid type. To add to the problem they also desire power and demand others pay their way.
