The Jewish Philosophy Primer By Mr.

Chawnaw Hershel Kahn Copyright 2012 All rights reserved The material you are about to read has been accumulated well over twenty-five years of learning Jewish philosophy from the Torah, through Heaven, asking many questions and expanding the answers, as well as hearing ideas and concepts that would evolve into long dissertations. The information will be presented in a manner that will hopefully be understood, although the reader should be aware that some of these concepts are very difficult and as such has not been meant for everyone to read as one may become confused by what my intent was. The subjects discussed are three fold: Our service to G-d, an understanding of the differences between men and women and an understanding of what motivates children and how to raise them. If there any questions or comments please address them to me at: goodbookspub@juno.com In order to properly understand our relationship with G-d and how we should serve Him, one must first understand the very basics. The first is an understanding that a person either serves G-d or they serve themselves. This means that either our actions and thoughts are properly directed to the service of G-d or what we do is motivated through selfishness. The second thing to know is what motivates us to either serve G-d properly or to serve ourselves? To begin to understand what motivates us we must know what motivates all human life and what makes life function? We are motivated by one of two things; either we strive for truth or falsehood. These two concepts motivate life. Truth is being defined from G-ds perspective as the ideology that is written in the Torah and taught by the Rabbis, and not how an individual perceives truth. I call this type of truth, universal truth, as it is bound by all life to follow and individual truth is how we decide what is best for ourselves regardless of any other boundaries. One is able to know universal truth simply by doing that which would take a person close to G-d as G-d is absolute truth. Falsehood is simply doing that which takes a person away from G-d. For example a person talks on their cell phone while driving without using a hands free device, even though it is against the law. The person does this action to benefit themselves regardless of the danger that may be involved, regardless of the desecration of G-ds name. This would be an act of falsehood. Or a person could pull off the road and make the phone call. This would be an act of truth. The third thing that motivates life is change. Change is a motivated process that takes a person either in the direction of truth or in the direction of falsehood. Why is change at times so difficult and how may it be made easier? The following most people find difficult to understand so please read the material very carefully. There is a concept in Judaism of a spiritual world and a physical world. We will be discussing both of these worlds as they affect us here and not in the world to come or after a

person dies. Out entire existence is either doing Torah commandments or sinning. There is no in between with one exception, which will be discussed later. When a person follows the correct path they create spiritual purity in the world, which has a positive effect on the person and many other things as well. When a person sins they create spiritual impurity that has a negative effect on themselves and many other things as well. These forces will help motivate us to either do good or bad, but ultimately we choose the path to take! On this note we have freedom of choice not freedom of action so that if a person wanted to do a commandment in the Torah or a good deed, but could not, one should not feel bad as the thought of wanting to do it will be credited to your account in the next world created for reward and punishment. However if a person were able to do the action and preferred to have the proper intent of performing the deed without doing it, then the reward will be much less. Our entire purpose in this world is to do the commandments in the Torah and good deeds as well! One who learns Torah for the sake of learning without a full knowledge of every aspect of Torah is not learning properly! In order to learn for the sake of learning, one must first accustom themselves to learn for the sake of doing! Learning for the sake of learning will come automatically as an outgrowth of doing. Remember all knowledge is from G-d and if you demonstrate that you deserve knowledge by doing to the best of your ability, knowledge will be given to you! One may falsely think that the biggest commandment in the Torah is to learn and therefore learning for the sake of learning is preferred. It is true that if one has a choice of doing another commandment or learning, with some exceptions, one should choose learning. The reason that learning the Torah is the biggest commandment is not for the pleasure of learning, a side benefit, but to know what G-d wants us to do and to act accordingly! The nature of the physical world as perceived by us is either truth or falsehood, meaning that we place a value judgment on everything either good or bad how it relates to us. Another way of determining if our actions and thoughts have been motivated by universal truth or individual truth, (falsehood as this is selfishness), would be to see if our actions are consistent or inconsistent with Torah values. As such we may understand truth as consistency or falsehood as inconsistency. To explain, all non human life strives for consistency; such as trees grow the way they are supposed to unless interfered with. A person themselves feels comfortable when they have consistency in their life. We label someone as being mentally ill, because this person is not consistent with the norm. The spiritual world as it affects the physical world is change in that it motivates us to change either for good or for bad or towards truth or falsehood. Pay close attention now; the process of change that a person makes is always bad and of importance to the reader when change is being discussed it is not referring to the end result or goal which may be either good or bad, but only the process which gets you there! Why is this so that the process of change is always bad? As truth is consistent with what G-d wants us to do, it creates a spiritual purity for good. The process of change is a type of inconsistency or falsehood and as such creates a spiritual impurity that will make a person feel that they cant accomplish the change. This is why most change is difficult to do. Once a person reestablishes a consistency in their life then they feel comfortable again. For example a person moves to a new location. It may take them up to a year to feel comfortable in their new surroundings. Why is it that change is difficult in various degrees depending on how much change is needed? G-d did this to give us a challenge so that we would receive a greater reward after 120 years of our life and to make our

accomplishment more beloved to us. If change were not difficult everyone would find it easy to stop sinning or to stop a bad habit. How may the process of change be made easier? There are three emotions that utilized in the extreme will help us to change. They are extreme love, hate and fear! For example a man may be so much in love with a woman, not physical, but a total spiritual desire, that he cant think straight, nothing matters, but being with the woman. G-d created this emotion so that a person could build up such a love for G-d that nothing will stand in their way of serving Him. Extreme fear will prevent a person from doing something wrong and changing to the path of what is correct. The emotion of hate will make a person be so disgusted with what someone else did that was wrong that he or she will not do what was done and stop them from sinning as well. Caution must be taken that these emotions do not make the person self destructive! One of the biggest changes a person may make is marriage and it is the emotion of love that makes it much easier, as well as other factors when utilized properly, which will be discussed. What is the biggest obstacle that we face today and how may we overcome it? There are two main problems that we need to overcome. They are spiritual impurity, immodest dress, or anything contrary to the Torah, that we bring into our homes or see elsewhere. The second problem is technology! If one may control patience they may control all of their bad character traits. Technology makes us want to have everything fast and immediate! This desire breaks down our control of patience and causes us to serve ourselves and not G-d! The best way to overcome this problem is simply to always say, please, thank you, you are welcome, excuse me and greet everyone with a smile. Although this sounds simplistic one should know by doing this a person becomes cognizant that there are other people in the world beside themselves and they stop being selfish! It is also a means of making others recognize that you honor G-d. When one will become less selfish they will also recognize that they should be careful with spiritual impurity as well as seeing immodest things, or concepts that are contrary to the Torah. The evil inclination will try and trick a person into believing that G-d does not care, that G-d will still love the person even though they sin, that they can repent on the high holy days and many other deductive reasonings that make a person want to sin. This is why it is so important to know what is truth and falsehood so that one may recognize what their true intent is! A person must realize they are not G-d and they do this by putting their total trust in recognizing that everything that happens to them is for the good and this is what G-d wanted to happen. It is wrong to strive for our own independence, but rather to strive to be a perfect servant of G-d! One should know that we each have our own individual ways of serving G-d and this is good as long as it does not go against Torah values! That which makes life function is recognizing the purpose of something without placing any value judgment on it good or bad. This would be like understanding that a four legged piece of furniture is to be used as a table and not being influenced by how it looks, but only if it will do what it was designed to do. When a person has a strong physical desire, it is beneficial to understand the purpose of something in order to control that desire. By doing so one takes the emotional value out of the desire and of course with other Torah means of stopping the desire one may find it easier to succeed in their goal. One of those means is the acquisition of humility.

Humility is not saying Im a nothing; Im a nothing, etc. This is false humility and will lead to depression. True humility is recognizing that you are great and may accomplish great things, because G-d will help you. This is not self confidence, which would be selfish and undesired, but rather confidence or trust in G-d! If what you tried did not happen, one should not be disappointed, but believe that G-d did not want it to occur. Every Jew is equally important. This would be like a machine running smoothly as all its parts are working as they should, but if one would take out a small component, like lubricating oil, the machine would eventually stop working. Moses knew he was great, but understood he was chosen as the leader and as such acted accordingly recognizing the importance of every individual person in his charge. The one exception to either doing a commandment in the Torah or sinning is when we do something that is a sin, but not called a sin. For example it is improper to place a prayer book flat on the seat of a chair as this is where a person sits with an area of the body that is used for removal of waste material. As there is a rabbinical opinion that allows this, it would not be a sin to place the prayer book down in this manner. One should know that to do so, one does not get a reward in heaven for this act, and will not gain as the act will not bring them closer to G-d and as such the person will not grow in spirituality, but rather fall! Just by doing a small act of putting the prayer book lying against the back of the seat instead of flat, one gains a tremendous reward in heaven. This is presuming that you still need the prayer book and will put back where it belongs when you dont! Depression is one of the tools of the evil inclination in order to stop a person from serving G-d. A person gets depressed because they are obsessed with something. In order to prevent depression it is important that we focus on G-d as the source of everything and not ourselves. Depression comes from a person obsessing about not being able to get or do something, then they experience a feeling of a lack of control, and then they feel that they have not accomplished their purpose and then they get depressed. This is why one should always strive to smile and be happy and above all work on having patience and trust in G-d! Men are ruled by the physical world or consistency or inconsistency. They function very well in their ability to handle truth or falsehood, but not change. Women are ruled by the spiritual world and are better adapted to change. Men being ruled by the physical world are less emotional, philosophers, leaders and physically stronger. Women being ruled by the spiritual world are intrinsically more spiritual than men, more emotional and as they are ruled by change have more patience. This is one of the reasons that men have commandments that are time bound to help them gain patience, while women who have more patience do not need these types of commandments. A mans spirituality is rooted in finishing something, for example the desire to finish a project such as learning the Talmud and as such feels the pressure of time. A womens physicality is rooted in creating something, giving birth, making bread from flour etc. As creating takes time, a woman does not feel the pressure of time. Women have a desire to change men, while men want to maintain consistency. That is why it is recommended for women to try and make small changes with men and not big ones. What a man lacks a woman has and what a woman lacks a man has. That is why marriage is an essential process for both parties as they will complement each other. That is why it is so important for both parties to recognize each others strengths and weaknesses in order to accommodate each other to achieve

a successful marriage. If two horses are pulling a carriage and each one wants to go in a different direction the carriage is not going to go anywhere! It is of the utmost importance that both a man and a woman must strive to set a good example around children and always be positive about Judaism! A woman should be modest both in and out of the house and always be cognizant that a man is ruled by the physical world and as such should be especially careful to dress modestly outside of the house and not be caught up with the fashions of the day! Because a woman is a creator, making children, and her spirituality is rooted here, a man is attracted to a woman, but may easily distort their attraction into a physical lust. As such a man must not get caught up in the promise of the pleasures of the world that the evil inclination goads a man with. Women must understand that now in the end of days, we are facing many difficult spiritual problems and it is incumbent upon women that they do not wear wigs, makeup and clothing that make them look beautiful when they are outside of the home as a man may easily fall into the trap of being seduced to be with a woman. In truth the only chance we have for the Messiah to come early is if women as an entirety strive to prefect modesty! Children are born without a good inclination and only have the bad inclination of desire. When a child first eats bread they get a specialized bad inclination of bad arrogance for the purpose of surviving. This is utilized through motivating them to learn. That is why children are so curious about things, especially boys. As children are mostly filled with desire they scream and yell and are very possessive of everything stating emphatically; I want, this is mine, etc. When a boy reaches the age of 13 they get not only a good inclination, but the full blown version of bad arrogance, which is also known as a misdirected good inclination. Arrogance makes a person make an incorrect deductive reason about something, an improper excuse, such as talking on ones cell phone while they drive, because everyone else does it or speaking to others while people are praying or speaking during the Torah reading, both a terrible sin! A girl gets the good inclination and the full blown version of arrogance at the age of 12. It is proper to teach children good manners and above all to respect adults, for if not, when they get the full blown version of bad arrogance, they will become arrogant in their relationship with adults. As such it is completely incorrect to allow your child to call you by your first name! Children must be taught knowledge of the concepts of both heaven and hell in order to instill love and fear of G-d into them.