The religious world is mainly idolatry even though there are some areas that are true to Torah. The areas of true authentic Torah would be the Lithuanian yeshivas that are based on the Gra.
That is the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. In Israel that means Ponovitch and Brisk.
However this is not meant to exclude Rav Nahman of Breslov. The reason is simple even though I would rather not go into it here. There was a book that collected all the letters of excommunication pus the testimonies in Villna that I went through and that led to my conclusion that Rav Nahman should be thought of as outside the excommunication and in fact a great tzadik. But to see the subject in detail, you have to see the actual language of the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed.
But the issue is more severe than simple idolatry. This is even though in Torah the most severe thing is idolatry. Still there is an aspect that is adds confusion to what is already a mess. The problem is label. Lets say you would take an idol of Krishna or some other Hindu idol and put a stamp of approval on that. Would that make it OK? Well clearly not. But in the religious world that is exactly what has happened. The label does not make it so.
So it would have been better in the first place to accept the approach of the Gra and Rav Shach before it had to be shown the hard way.
That is the three great NY yeshivas Mir, Chaim Berlin, Torah VeDaat. In Israel that means Ponovitch and Brisk.
However this is not meant to exclude Rav Nahman of Breslov. The reason is simple even though I would rather not go into it here. There was a book that collected all the letters of excommunication pus the testimonies in Villna that I went through and that led to my conclusion that Rav Nahman should be thought of as outside the excommunication and in fact a great tzadik. But to see the subject in detail, you have to see the actual language of the letter of excommunication that the Gra signed.
But the issue is more severe than simple idolatry. This is even though in Torah the most severe thing is idolatry. Still there is an aspect that is adds confusion to what is already a mess. The problem is label. Lets say you would take an idol of Krishna or some other Hindu idol and put a stamp of approval on that. Would that make it OK? Well clearly not. But in the religious world that is exactly what has happened. The label does not make it so.
So it would have been better in the first place to accept the approach of the Gra and Rav Shach before it had to be shown the hard way.
