Litvak yeshivas tend to be a mixed bag.

Litvak yeshivas tend to be a mixed bag. Not all perfect,  but they have a lot of good. The main good is they introduce one to authentic Torah,- Torah as opposed to Torah of the Sitra Achra (Torah of the realm of Satan). [i had the great good fortune to have been in to great Litvak yeshivot, the Mir and Shar Yashuv]
But if you realize from where the good energy of the great yeshivas derives from--the Gra, you ought to be able to bypass any institution and simply work on Torah yourself with the need of any group.--Just by following the path of the Gra yourself.

The trouble seems to be that they really do not follow the Gra fully--which anyway I understand can be hard to do. After all the signature on the letter of excommunication is a start. Next would be the individual to get through the two Talmuds with Tosphot, Pnei Moshe, Maharsha and the two sets of midrashim, legal and agadic.]

[I would also add the Hidushim of Rav Chaim of Brisk and the Avi Ezri of Rav Shach.

In high school, communism and Leftist ideas were being introduced way before people knew that the education system had been infiltrated and seeded by the Frankfurt School.

In high school, communism and Leftist ideas were  being introduced way before people knew that the education system had been infiltrated and seeded by the Frankfurt School. So on one hand American Classical  Education retained some of its structure. For example: as a senior, I took English Literature, and we learned Chaucer. And as a sophomore we learned, The Book of Job. But also Camus!! How did he replace Shakespeare?
[Note--my teacher for Chaucer said in the short story about the cook that used lots of spices, the intent of Chaucer was to be ironic. [Meaning-- that he was a incompetent cook covering it up with spices]. I think this is incorrect. In the Middle Ages a bag of spices was worth a small fortune. Spice was the reason for going to India, and later was the motivation of Magellan to find a fast route to the Spice Islands. The average diet was bland. People would pay tremendous sums for spices especially pepper.


So how did Marxist ideas take over the Department of Education in the USA?

I had a friend who used to be in the KGB, who told me that he thought the KGB simply did not have the means to cause all that on its own. And I tend to agree. It had to have been native, naive Americans.

But after my own studies over the years, I was pretty sure that Marxism simply did not hold water.
[It is based on the Labor Theory of Value. That theory says that the amount of value something has depends on how much labor went into it. Since that value comes only from the physical labor, therefore the owner of the factory is extracting excess value from the workers to feed himself and give them low wages. However that theory is false. If a worker works on making a needle 24 hours a day. That does not make people want the needle more than if he worked on it for two minutes. ]

However being in the former USSR, I realized that there was a stabilizing element to the chaos that existed before and after the collapse.  No one ever told me things were better after the fall of the USSR. No one. So I realized that a lot depends on the people and situation. When things are in chaos and you need wide agreement of people to a central authority, then Marxism, though false, gives a core belief that will unite people--kill the filthy rich and take their stuff. At least you get the vote and then can impose order.
And being in Ukraine, I noticed a lot of people like to steal just by force of habit. It is not at all a kind of place that an American Constitution could have worked. Once you get a certain percentage of the population that like to steal, then the fact that the majority are angels makes the whole system fail. 

So I can see the point of the Bolsheviks in the USSR.
But the same system that the Left is trying to impose on the USA will result in the collapse of the USA. Personally, I would arrest every single rioter and put him on trial for treason.

x4 B Flat Major. This surely needs editing but I have been  sick and not putting any music on the internet. So at this point it seems to me it about time I put just anything on line.

[Some thoughts---  the last 6-8 time needs development. The measures need trimming. I also think the cello needs to be in part B. not just part A. Lots of other things that I just can not decide right now.]


x6

Universities  had their origin with Plato's Academy. But there was no way to get to the truth of things back then by experiments. Still truth was the goal. [The only tool was logical analysis started by Socrates.] And that goal remained the prime value in universities in the West. But also there were small study groups that collected around people like Peter Abelard. And in the High Middle Ages these small groups coalesced to become the Medieval University. Their prime goal was the furtherance of Christ.[Still the official motto on some American universities]  But that was thought to be compatible with Reason--at least possible. [But this marriage was always  shaky. From around 200 AD up until 1200 AD they were going with Plato and Plotinus, but that never worked well. It brought multiplicity into the God-Head, and that according to Torah completely out of the question. So Aquinas made a radical break with the past, and started on the path to combine Faith with Reason based on Aristotle's . [I.e imminent realism--that universals are real and they depend on individuals, Ex. There can not be blue without a blue object. But blue is real. Also are trees. and lots of things which have "universals in common." Furthermore there are formulas which are a different kind of universal. ]  In so doing he was borrowing from the Muslims who had already been going with Aristotle as opposed to Plato for a good long time. [However Aquinas also added a great deal of body to the idea of natural law.]  [The Muslims I imagine probably found the simplicity of God a lot easier to deal with in an Aristotelian framework. and I guess that Aquinas just came to the same conclusion.]

In any case, modern universities no longer value truth except in certain specific STEM departments. Now the major ball player on the field is the VICTIM. And how does one qualify for the greatest victim? By making false accusations. And when the Greatest Victim changes, the old victim gets forgotten. Or more often actually deposed of after he (eer.. I mean "it") has lost his credibility and usefulness.

The classic virtues love, generosity, prudence, humility as all gone, out with the do-do bird.
Now its is power is the prime goal and the way one gets to super-power is by playing the Super Victim.
The psychosis of lust for power has an origin in Nietzsche.  So that does not make much sense. e.g. You are a roommate. You want everyone to share the responsibilities and also the benefits. But that does not mean that is the Reason for being roommates.

The Left always wants one and the same thing. Tear down the old system and put a "Dream Land" in its place. All the benefits also with all your freedoms. How nice if true! But everywhere and everything the Left has brought into it Utopia it been at the cost of mass murder. 100, million just between Mao and Stalin alone. And totalitarianism. ]
The lust for power is not nice. If you meet someone on the street and ask them "What do you value most in life?" And let's say he answers you, "Power. I want power. Absolute Power. And to stop at nothing to get it." You would take a few slaw steps backwards to get away from them as quickly as possible."
But He wins in the election because he promises everything that everyone wants: guaranteed income food medicine. But what you might do is to emphasize the classical values--not promise more money

My high school teacher brought up a hypothetical question. They had discovered a point in the brain that if stimulated brings one bliss.. Let's say you could just carry around a small transistor and stimulate that place any time you wanted? Would you want that?

In the very first Star Trek this was the exact theme. Better to have reality, or a blissful dream world--but not a real world?

I find it unlikely that the Gra would have agreed to making Torah into a shovel to dig with, a money making machine. To receive money thankfully that is offered is one thing. To demand it is another.

Even though going with the Gra I think is important, that does not mean that everything in the Litvak yeshiva world would be thought OK by him.
For example we know in Torah there is such a thing as "Hamas" חמס which is someone takes something that belongs to someone else, but then pays for it. That is to say there is a difference between giving willing as opposed to having something taken for you..
So when a religious party can force the government to give them money which is in clear violation of this Torah rule. [You can not use Torah to make a living with. Much worse is if one used Torah as an excuse to do Hamas (Violence).
The fact that the system of government is flawed in such away that allows this kind of abuse does not make it morally correct. If the form of government would make something correct the Nazi Germany would be above reproach.]

Rather, there is such a  thing as objective morality which does not depend on what people think or how they vote. Right is right and wrong is wrong.

The signature of the Gra on the letter of excommunication is also ignored and that does not make it any less valid or relevant now than it was then. People ignore it, and lose their divine souls and become demon possessed.

[A slight exception is Rav Nahman would is OK]
I find it unlikely that the Gra would have agreed to making Torah into a shovel to dig with, a money making machine. To receive money thankfully that is offered is one thing. To demand it is another.

Authentic Torah is what one gets in the path of the Gra

Authentic Torah is what one gets in the path of the Gra [Eliyahu Gaon of Villna]. This path became the basis of the Litvak Yeshiva world. But there are  areas where the Gra is ignored even there. The reason is that people tend to put feelings above thinking. So when they ignore reason because of feelings  this leads to losing real Torah. This is how the religious world today is mainly going with the Torah of the Sitra Achra. [Dark Side].
What I recommend is to stick with the path of the Gra as closely as possible. To get back to authentic Torah.
Now in the path of the Gra there are two aspects. One is fast learning and the other is in depth. This is thankfully in fact a regular part of every Litvak yeshiva. The morning hours for in-depth learning and the afternoon for fast learning. Fast learning means to get through the basic set of the Oral Torah at least once. That is the two Talmuds, and the halachic and agadic midrashim. [Sifrai, sifra, mechilta are the halachic midrashim. Midrash Raba, and Midrash Tanchuma are the midrash agada.]

The Gra also emphasized the [seven wisdoms] as the criteria for understanding Torah, That is the natural sciences. Not the pseudo sciences taught in American universities. Psychology is an example of pseudo science. Social studies are are not even that. The humanities and social studies are both pure garbage. And produce pure garbage]

Lemaitre discovered the big bang before that in 1927 but in his article in Nature wrote that time and space could only begin to exist after their were already enough quanta around to justify their existence.

Space is an odd kind of thing as Kant noticed. And Lemaitre also in 1931. Lemaitre discovered the big bang before that in 1927 but in his article in Nature wrote that time and space could only begin to exist after their were already enough quanta around to justify their existence.

You can see this in the EPR experiment that shows that time and space do not exist for particles until they are measured. [Some people think it shows non locality. But that is wrong. It might show that or that time and space do not exist before measured. But we know locality is right because of GPS satellites which are a dramatic proof of relativity.]

You can also see this in protons. Protons must know that they travel in space since they originate at some point and when they collide with something they cease. So they know they are going somewhere. But they also know they travel at the speed of light so time for them does not pass. So from their point of view they get from here to there instantly. But they also know they can not travel instantly anywhere. Even at the speed of light they still do not get anywhere instantly. Therefore from the point of view of  a proton, space does not exist. There is some sub-layer underneath space that space is superimposed on.

[ In String theory you have extra dimensions. But these dimensions are all directions of space and time. They are all coming out of a deeper level  that comes before space and time.