People that are religious seem to think that they are morally superior to secular Jews. Though I do not know people inner thoughts or motivations, still this seems apparent in their speech and actions. [And experience generally show the opposite.] If you need a kindness, the last person that will help is religious. Thus to me, it seems the message of Torah of the prime importance midot tovot [good character] is lost. For me it reached the point that what ever damage the religious could do to me, they would do. [These same people asked me to get money for them from John Factor my neighbor because these people were supposedly learning Torah not for money--while asking me to get money from my neighbor John Factor for millions of dollars. Clearly they [and all the religious world ] want money, and especially for the fact of their learning Torah not for money. The hypocrisy shouts out to the heavens.]
Rav Israel Salanter tried to correct this fault, but I have not seen that people that learn Musar are all that more decent than anyone else.
But this is not possible to see or know by learning. In the religious world all the words are right. But the actual acts of kindness are lacking. [Except to themselves]. It is only the shock of reality, of how people actually act that shoes the religious illusions of moral superiority to be lacking in all substance.
What the lesson is this. There is something about the religious world that is off kilter. [Seethe LeM of Rav Nahman vol II chapter 8 That even the kindness of the religious is really cruelty. It is the same kindness of the fisherman that gives a worm on his hook free of charge to the fish. It is not really from the motivation of kindness that teh fisherman gibes a worm to the fish but rather to catch it in his hook. The kindness if of the religious is really cruelty as Rav Nahman puts it in the LeM vol II chapter 8.
