“The speech of his mouth is evil and deceit; he fails to reason, to improve.” Psalms, 36:4

“The ego does not always tell a person to stop learning Torah. Sometimes it encourages the student to restrict his studies to abstract Talmudic subjects and to avoid those books that would inspire change [in personality.]” – Rabbi DovBer of Mezritch commentary on above verse.

The Meiri comments on that verse: “So entrenched is he in his heretical ways that he does not even want to learn the ways of the Torah, which would cause him to better his ways.

#Chayenu app for studying book of psalms by King david. #NextSelf

“The ego does not always stop a person from learning Torah; sometimes it keeps him learning abstract Talmudic parts that do not ask him to change his personality.”

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Related guides:

Generational trauma causes awareness/compassion to be replaced with survival thinking like narcissism: https://nextself.ai/spirituality/trauma-hurts/

Rav Shach misguided 100k+ orthodox jews: https://nextself.ai/spirituality/rav-shach-misguided-more-than-100000-orthodox-jews/

the source of all wisdom, order, and intelligence cannot be blind in the same way a rock is blind, there are beliefs about the source that are logical and emotionally healthy – https://nextself.ai/spirituality/beliefs-are-not-only-an-idea/

religious narcissism mistakes performance for relationship with the Creator: https://nextself.ai/spirituality/religious-narcissism/

Explore the NextSelf 2026 Index and 2025 Index.

They organize the core ideas on awareness, compassion, boundaries, and how they build real relationship and responsibility with The Creator.

All information is for educational purposes only.