The art of keeping the Torah is hard to learn. And it is an art form. And like most art forms you need a passion for it. And it is hard to define exactly what it is. But you need to learn it from someone who is good at it. And this  hard to find.

 
  But religious people in general are strict about ritual mitzvas.   Most people have difficulty in concentrating on more than a small set of rules. And the religious spend a tremendous amount of time and attention on mitzvas that are between man and God.. After all that effort it is hard to be asked to spend the same amount of human interactions also.
My suggestion is that both parts of the Torah should be emphasized, the part between man and God and the part between man and man. And it is this balance that I think brings to human perfection

(1)The God of Maimonides and Aristotle

(1)The God of Maimonides and Aristotle tends to lack personality. (2) The omnipotence and benevolence of God, while happy and comforting to contemplate, generates the Problem of Evil, that the evidence of the world and of events frequently would seem to contradict an omnipotent and benevolent agency.
(3) It seems to me that Yaakov along with Job and King David [עד אבא למקדשי אל אבינה לאחריתם in Psalm 73 ] found some way of dealing with these issues. The way they did this was to project God's goodness out over a longer period.
To me it seems that this was the opinion of Job and God himself who agreed with Job.
The friends of Job said: "God is just". God said they were wrong. Point blank. At point blank range. There is no way to misinterpret this because the entire Book of Job shows this.


 The first statement is that Job was without sin. So trying to fudge the variables here does not work. Trying to make it that there were other faults is clearly not what it says. Then the whole story of how God caused him to suffer in order to win a debate with Satan just shows the point. Because you want to win a debate with someone does not give you cause to make someone else suffer. This is the clear position of the narrator of The Book of Job 



What enrages people is that the Rambam understands the Torah thorough the eyes  and world view of Aristotle. And that he is not embarrassed about that makes it worse. At least he could try to hide where he gets his ideas from like everyone else. And what makes it even worse is that no one can claim to understand the Torah better than the Rambam unless they want to seem like an arrogant, ignorant fool. Thus people just ignore the Rambam when it comes to the world view of Torah.

My approach is different than the generally accepted approach. I say the Rambam was right, and everyone else simply does not understand the Torah.

In any case  the Rambam's approach to Torah is I think about as close to the actual Torah approach as possible. In another approaches there are strong elements of polytheism. They may not reach pure polytheism but they certainly come close. Today  Torah practice often contains polytheist beliefs. In fact it is almost an axiom that the more strict one is in practices the more likely there are underlying polytheistic beliefs. Monotheism is not the same as polytheism except in number. There is more than a quantitative difference. There is a qualitative difference. A difference in world view. And the world view of Torah could not be further away from what people think it is today. It presents a reality that is radically different than what people think the Torah is about.

A Rambam Yeshiva would not be anything like the yeshivas we see today. The books there would be the Mishne Torah and Aristotle's encyclopedic work, Physics and his other encyclopedic work, the Metaphysics.   In the beginning of Mishne Torah he writes that the Mishne Torah contains all the Oral Law and take a good look at his language there when he says "One does not need any other book from among them."  "One reads the Old Testament and then the Mishne Torah and one does not need any other book from among them for any law," i.e. the books that he just mentioned in that paragraph. However he says one needs no other books to know what the law is (that is what among the laws of the Talmud is the halacha. But that does not mean that one understands the meaning of the law without knowing the Talmud. That is how all sages of Israel after him understood him. That is without the Talmud one can not know the meaning of any law in the Mishna Torah of the Rambam. Just like the Guide require background in Aristotle and Plato so the Mishna Torah requires the background of the Talmud.



So you can ask then what to do after you have read the Mishne Torah? You can finish it in two weeks easily. Start at 9:00 AM and go until 5:00 PM. A normal working day. You can finish it in two weeks. Then he explains you learn "the work of Creation and the Divine Chariot which are the Physics and Metaphysics of the ancient Greeks." Here too he explains this clearly in several places in the Mishe Torah and  Guide. And he not ambiguous in any way. You can see what enraged people about the Rambam. He says after one has finished reading the Written and Oral law (as he defines Oral Law to mean his book the Mishne Torah) then he spends all his days learning Physics and Metaphysics.



So clearly a Rambam approach to Torah  would be a radical departure from what people think today compromises a Torah approach. And he writes in a letter that the only reason that his book was not accepted as the final decision is because of the arrogance and pride of people wanting honor and power. So when the final redemption comes and arrogance and the evil inclination will be eliminated from the world then his book will be accepted as the objective truth. In the future the Mishne Torah of the Rambam will be considered as the truth and final decision. The son of the Rambam who became the Rav of the city after the Rambam in fact taught the Mishna Torah instead of Mishna or other things that had been customary to teach between the afternoon and evening prayers.

 My personal opinion is that Physics today (and Metaphysics) has gone considerably beyond Aristotle and that today the Rambam would hold to learn the Old Testament, then the Mishne Torah and then modern Physics and Kant. (I must admit I  have not gotten far in Mathematics or Physics. My impression is they both need about the  same amount of time and effort as knowing the Talmud even at the most amateurish level.  That is about 20,000 hours each. That is you have the normal 10,000 hours for just barely scratching the surface. Then the next 10,000 hours for gaining expertise. That was in any case my own experience with Talmud and it seems to me that Math and Physics are not all that different.)

And I should mention that this is the way I have accustomed myself to be learning for some time now. The only thing is I admit I do learn Talmud as I thing it is the only way to understand the Mishne Torah. Without knowing from where the Rambam gets his decision, people always misunderstand what he is saying. [And they think they understand.] For that reason, one should also learn Talmud and Rav Shach's commentary on the Rambam together with the Rambam..

[I should mention that this is not how Litvaks go about learning. And for myself if I have any time for learning at all I go straight to the Gemara. Being limited to what you can get I would say get a Bava Metzia (one full Talmud Tractate with Tosphot Mahrasha and Rif.). One Musar book and one of Jewish world view like the Guide for the Perplexed.

Reb Shmuel Berenabum- loved the Gemara and learning and living it is what he was about.
He lacked the highly negative traits of  dogmatic believers.

But let me just say for now that the few short years I was at the Mir were an amazing experience. So I want to put down a few memories that are not on the other essay.
First in the home of Reb Shmuel there was little in the way of ornaments. Mainly there were walls lined with books. And he really lived a Talmudic type of existence. I used to come over there on Shabat and on Motzai Shabat [Saturday Night] with my violin and play for the family and also tell bedtime stories to the children. But his basic entertainment was to learn Gemara. The rebitzin [his wife] would clear the table and after havadala and he would learn Talmud.
The music I played on the violin was in general classical music. [Mozart,  Handel, ]




I have not said much about how he learned. It is true that it was very much based on Reb Chaim Soloveitchik. But he had a depth to him. Once I was in a shiur in Zevachim and he was giving over some idea--a "yesod" type of the type that you see in the Chidushei Harambam of Reb Chayim Soloveitchik. And one person brought in another way to on the surface seems also to fit. But Reb Shmuel showed how it would not work. I.e. to use the "foundation" idea of Reb Chaim, you need a great deal of depth that most people don't have.

Reb Shmuel was very strict about Lashon Hara. Let me just say that he was not judgmental. He was not interested in being a frumy [religious] policeman.




I did not go to university at the time but after some years I asked him about university, and he said if it for parnasa (making a living) it is fine. I tried to say that it is a mitzvah in itself. I tried to bring sources from the Guide For The Perplexed and the Gra, but he simply said, "Only if it is for parnasa."

I might mention that sometimes the questions and issues that he raised were the same as you find in the Mishna Lamelech on the Rambam.

Don't get the impression that I was good disciple.-I am a barbarian. I live and eat like a bear. If I learn Gemara it is not because I think it is scientifically accurate. It is rather because I think it contains a holy core which I like. I am no where near the idea that all truth is in the Talmud. Nor is it infallible. It greatness lies to two areas. One is explaining verses of the Torah. The other area it is great in is  Law.

But though I admire Reb Shmuel let me just say that I am basically Reform. I have great interest in the Divine truths of the Torah and Talmud, but my real teacher was my father and his copilot my mother. It is his understanding of God and Torah that informs my beliefs. It is the understanding of Torah and what it means to live a decent upright life that I gained from my parents that is determinate. I know from my parents and their friends what it means to be a Jew. And the world of the Talmud to me is an important part of that if it is done with "Daat" common sense and equilibrium with Music and science and other aspects of life that constitute being a full human being, a mensch.