The major thing which I found compelling about the Litvak yeshiva world was its authenticity.
That is more or less if you put the Gra, together with Rav Israel Salanter, and Rav Shach and Rav Haim of Brisk, you come out with a kind of path that struck me as being "the real thing."
Why was this important to me? I really do not recall very well. Mainly, I think it was that in those days, finding the Truth was the big thing. And to find to Truth was perhaps for me more than intellectual interest.
But you do need a certain kind of common sense to be able to tell in any area of value what is the real thing,-- and what is not. As Steven Dutch says for every area of knowledge there is a pseudo science that corresponds to it. [Authenticity was not mentioned a lot in those days, but it was implicit that in the search for the truth, you did not what to settle for half baked measures.]
The aspect of Rav Israel Salanter is an important aspect of this, since without that, it is easy to get sidetracked about what Torah is really about. His emphasis on Musar [Ethical books] of Torah brings out what is really important in Torah (character, fear of God, trust in God), and what are just side issues.
[In truth, however I find this path hard to stick with, and hard to keep, and hard to understand. There is some kind of aspect of the whole thing that became institutionalized. So for this to work at all you need to be part of a place that really is authentic.--Something like Ponovitch, or Brisk, or the Mir--or along those lines.]
That is more or less if you put the Gra, together with Rav Israel Salanter, and Rav Shach and Rav Haim of Brisk, you come out with a kind of path that struck me as being "the real thing."
Why was this important to me? I really do not recall very well. Mainly, I think it was that in those days, finding the Truth was the big thing. And to find to Truth was perhaps for me more than intellectual interest.
But you do need a certain kind of common sense to be able to tell in any area of value what is the real thing,-- and what is not. As Steven Dutch says for every area of knowledge there is a pseudo science that corresponds to it. [Authenticity was not mentioned a lot in those days, but it was implicit that in the search for the truth, you did not what to settle for half baked measures.]
The aspect of Rav Israel Salanter is an important aspect of this, since without that, it is easy to get sidetracked about what Torah is really about. His emphasis on Musar [Ethical books] of Torah brings out what is really important in Torah (character, fear of God, trust in God), and what are just side issues.
[In truth, however I find this path hard to stick with, and hard to keep, and hard to understand. There is some kind of aspect of the whole thing that became institutionalized. So for this to work at all you need to be part of a place that really is authentic.--Something like Ponovitch, or Brisk, or the Mir--or along those lines.]
