The Gra himself was the path of straight Torah.

Rav Shach a representative of the path of the Gra, but not the essence of the path itself. The Gra himself was the path of straight Torah.
There is a difference between a representation of something and the thing itself.

The Musar Movement (Musar itself means works of Ethics)

The Musar Movement has an advantage that by means of going through the basic texts of classical Musar, one comes to an understanding of the world view of Torah. The disadvantage is that even with this one can go off on a tangent.

Musar itself in fact became incorporated into the parallel Litvak Yeshiva idea which had been started by Rav Haim of Voloshin the disciple of the Gra. I imagine that the reason was this exact reason. So the idea of sitting and learning Musar hours and hours every day seems to no longer exist anywhere. But the fact is that without the basic texts of the Rishonim [mediaeval Musar], it seems impossible to come to any kind of world view that in fact is close to the Torah world view.


[Quick note of introduction. Musar itself means works of ethics of the Middle Ages. If one learns the Torah itself and also the Gemara it is hard to come to a rigorous cohesive world view of Torah. It was the forte of the sages of Middle Ages to get to a logical cohesive picture of what Torah is about that is understandable.]  

The difficulty in learning Torah is often the religious themselves.

The difficulty in learning Torah is often the religious themselves. In particular I noticed that people that make money off of Torah are are a problem.
Rav Nahman of Breslov brings up this problem in a few places in his LeM. But one place in particular that I recall says that when one wants to come into the gates of holiness, from heaven there is placed someone that seems like one who fears God to stop him.`
At any rate, this problem is wide spread and pervasive./It is almost a guarantee that anyone who makes their living by using Torah (to make their money) is from the realm of Evil.

I am, however, not saying that this is any kind of reason not to learn Torah. Rather my point is that one ought to learn Torah the right way,-- or not do it at all. Either (1) for its own sake, and not use it for making money as is done in kollel; (2) or not to do it at all. It is like any task. Do it right, or do not do it at all. But what ever you do, do not do it wrong.

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Being against Jesus is considered the main prime directive in the Jewish world. This does not seem to me to be the proper position to take regarding this issue.
I mean to say that if your commitment is towards objective truth then being against Jesus is wrong.
The reason for me to come to this conclusion was that originally my commitment was to get to objective truth. Not to go along with the crowd. Also I should add that I was born and raised in a time that going along with what others think was already thought to be a strike against one. [That is thinking like others was thought to be a highly negative trait.]

The main reason I came to a positive approach towards Jesus was mainly from the books of an ancient mystic Rav Avraham Abulafia who held Jesus if from the root of Joseph HaTzadik. He uses the term "the seal of the sixth day".
But for some reason when I have brought up Avraham Abulafia, that never seems to most people to be an convincing argument.

So I add the Ari Rav Isaac Luria in the few books of commentary on Joseph in the very last verse of Genesis. That might to others seem more convincing, but to me to see this in the words of Rav Abulafia was the one thing that convinced me.

It is not that everything is right. You need the Law and there is a kind of balance between these two areas of value--Law and Grace.

It is possible that what is going on nowadays is a kind of process of "birur" בורר that is taking the good and right and rejecting what is not. This would be like Hegel held that coming to the Truth is a process that happens over time. 

note about colleges nowadays

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I have two USMC sons, and one Army. One of the Marines started college, found he didn't like it (neither the students nor the profs). He dropped out after 3 semesters and joined the Corps. There he learned electronics and worked on Harriers and copters. First job when he got out: engineer at SpaceX, making 30% more than I make with a PhD and 35 years in the classroom. I am proud of the fact that I have steered all of my 9 children away from academia, and I do my best to steer my students away from it also.

Michael Huemer has already mentioned some problems with universities. My feeling about this is that certain ones in STEM are very good like CalTech and MIT and Stanford. But outside of STEM it is all just a waste.

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