Lomed Mkol Adam-
Yitayningwut: You got it all wrong. Deveikus is a unique concept exclusive to Judaism. No other religion believes that man can actually be connected with God.
I don’t believe the mods would let me quote sefarim hachitzonim here, nor should they. However, you are wrong, do some research if you are really interested and you’ll see you are mistaken about this. Just a simple proof that I don’t think crosses a line is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of mysticism – “1: the experience of mystical union or direct communion with ultimate reality reported by mystics.”
I don’t think you are familiar at all with Litvish Hashkafa; the Deveikus concept is absolutely the foundation of Litvish Hashkafa. According to Litvish Hashkafa, being ‘Daveik’ to Torah is in essence being Daveik with Hashem, because the Torah is an impartion from God Himself as GAW quoted from the Gemara/Midrash [see previous page].
You are missing my point. I did not say that the Litvishe Hashkafa does not believe in d’veikus, I said that your typical yeshiva bachur rarely if ever hears a shmuess on this concept and it is certainly not “central.” True, R’ Chaim Volozhiner, the primary source of the Litvishe Hashkafa, emphasizes that by being davuk to the Torah one is davuk to Hashem, but as I heard it from all of my Litvishe rabbeim his point is punkt fakert, to take away the focus from d’veikus baShem, as our mesorah is that the Nefesh Hachayim was meant as a polemic against the Chasidic ideology of d’veikus in general being central in a person’s life. The hashkafa of my rabbeim has always been clear, that d’veikus is a peripheral concept that’s true but isn’t our concern right now. And as I said, I really don’t believe that there is such a thing as a Litvishe Hashkafa in truth. A Mehalech, certainly. But not a Hashkafa. The only true Litvishe Hashkafa is that we don’t focus on Hashkafa because it isn’t “the fleish and potatos.”