I have been looking at the situation in the USA with woke-ism and it occurred to me at first thought to blame Paul. The reason is that he first introduced "no Torah law" [anti-nomianism] into Christianity  But then I took note of the Catholic Church which did try to keep Natural Law for centuries. And that is not so far in principle from Torah Law which also has this idea that the commandments are given with a purpose. Only in Torah Law there is an argument whether you go by the reason for the law דורש טעמה דקרא or by the law as stated [I recall this from Bava Metzia page 119 but it is a famous argument found all over the place.]

Still it is hard to imagine that things could have gotten so wrong without Paul introducing the idea of  no law anti-nomianism in the first place

The Torah and the religious world are opposites. This can be known by experience. But it is hard to know why? But if I can express the question clearly, perhaps that might go a long way towards gaining an understanding of the issue.  

The first thing to note is that there is an complicated process by which people people accept certain belief system, and it rarely has anything to do with their stated motives for it.

And these belief system interact. They do not exist in isolation. If the USA would  have been destroyed by wokw-ism, then other systems would not have a foot to stand on.

So to express the problem properly I would like to say what are the major principles of Torah. These are Fear of God, good character, learning Torah. Attachment with God  the Land of Israel. What does good character mean? The Torah goes into detail about this. For we know to desire the money of another is a terrible trait. Yet people still do it  and excuse themselves because they do not know the laws of Torah concerning what truly belongs to one and what does not.

The religious world on the other hand hand is tribal religion with group identity being the prime directive. But in that is the trap. For the Sitra Achra (Dark Side) disguises itself in mitzvot as Rav Nahman brings in the first chapter of the LeM. היצר הרי מתלבש במצוות The Evil Inclination is dressed in mitzvot. But it is all in order to destroy one. Thus we find that many times the very teachers of religion themselves are demons as we also see in the LeM of Rav Nahman concerning תלמידי חכמים שדיים יהודים 

 Torah scholars that are demons. The idea is this: there are people that want to serve God but do not know how. But because of their previous sins, even when they want to serve God, the Satan sets up religious teachers from the Dark Side

 z-54 midi file music file

I have a few principles that I try to stick with at all cost.  Part is because I think these are important in themselves, but also I believe that sticking with these basic principles  protects me from all pit-falls and unforeseen traps that life is full of. (1) Speaking the truth at all cost. (2) Not to touch that which does not belong to me. Not just not to steal, but not to have in my possession anything which does not belong tome according to "din Torah" the law of the Torah.  (3) To learn Mathematics, Physics and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach, The reason for his last one i that is somehow how things have worked out for me. If I would have a Gemara Bava Metzia or Bava Batra, then I would be doing that. Whatever comes under the category of authentic Torah is the main thing. The emphasis is on the word "authentic".

 A lot of my dad's career was spent trying to avoid WWIII with Russia. First there was the U-2 project which was commissioned by Eisenhauer specifically because we did not know what was going on in the USSR. After they had the A Bomb, and then the H-Bomb, some people in the Eisenhauer administration [e.g sec. of the Navy] thought to strike a pre-emptive strike first. Thank God, Eisenhauer thought that was a dumb idea. But we still did not know what was going on there. Maybe they were preparing a first strike against the West? No one knew. The only way to find out was to go and look. ,We could not just ask them. Thus was born the U-2 project. [After my dad's creation of the camera, he went to invent a super sharp copy machine and marketed that for 5 years.] Then the USA needed his expertise in making infrared satellites -mainly for the same reason--to see what was going on there after the U-2 flights over the USSR were impossible.

After those satellites were launched, they got him to create a system of laser beam communication between satellites. Even though this last one is a major achievement, the reason for it was mundane--simply it was so the Soviets could not eavesdrop on our communications.  All this took the major portion of my dad's professional life.

Here is my dad working on the U-2 project

 I wish I could remember the page in Tractate Avoda Zara where the issue of "joining" comes up. I just recall that the issue had to do with the fact that gentiles are not commanded concerning joining [i.e  joining the name of Heaven with another.] An example is brought in the Gemara there of Gideon "A sword to God and to Gideon". There you see Gideon himself joining the name of Heaven with his own name This the Gemara concludes is forbidden to a Israeli but allowed for gentiles.

Why is that page important? Because of the Tosphot there that brings up the issue of Christianity   and I thought it is such an important Tophot that I asked my learning partner to skip what we were doing at the time and instead concentrate on that Tosphot.

From what I recall Tosphot seems to have three different approaches there.

 On one hand I can see the point of the South. We see in Exodus that there are certain laws that apply to Jewish slaves.  Later on in Deuteronomy we find other kinds of laws that apply to gentile slaves. As for Jewish slaves, they must be let go after 6 years. Gentile slaves are not to be let go of, but they can be if their master wants to set them free. But some of the most interesting points are made later in the books of Solomon. אי ארץ כשעבד ימלוך "Woe to the land when a slave rules."