I had to write this for a class, and I am still in the process.
Question D. Using at least three examples, discuss twentieth-century skepticism or cynicism about the ability of humans to achieve utopia. What is your opinion about the possibility of utopia?
It would be a lie to say that utopia is not elusive, in any century of human history, and I would also be dishonest to myself to say that it was “easy to accomplish,” for I know that it is not. However, we need a clear definition of what utopia is before we can begin to say how realistic or unrealistic it is to actually exist in the world, and it seems that the vast array of theologies, cultures, ideologies, and philosophies, from which a notion of utopia grows, might just be the factor in making utopia as elusive as it is, and nothing else. In my personal opinion, humanity is headed towards a utopia, but I am not fooled by the belief that this utopia will one day “appear,” or if perhaps we build structures with the right shapes, destroy authority in order to free individuals to their own “Heaven,” or create an authorative structure so rigid and unbending that a few powerful leaders would force people into conforming into the ideal of that utopia, that suddenly everything will be alright. In fact, I am bothered by the notion that humanity will never reach the insight into their existence upon which “my notion” of utopia stands, but I have reasons to believe that it will one day indeed reach its destination.
I have to admit that what I am saying is ironic, because it is in the nature of a utopian vision to contrast that vision from everything else around it. I have fallen perfectly in this pattern by stating that “my notion” of utopia is simply different from all the other visions of utopia taught in this class. However, as I said earlier, a utopian vision grows from the philosophies of which a particular ideology is composed. Therefore, if “my notion” of utopia is realistic or unrealistic depends heavily, almost solely, but not quite, on if what I believe to be true is realistic or not. I am an Orthodox Jew and I believe that G-d exists, and if it can be said that to believe in G-d is realistic, then it opens up the pathway for Judaism’s notion of utopia to also be realistic. But if it is a silly myth that G-d exists, then Judaism’s notion of utopia is also a hopelessly silly myth. Jewish utopia can be best described as “Messianism.” The thing about “Jewish utopia” is that it is not a utopia only for Jews, but it is a vision of a world in which humanity has so thoroughly uncovered the deepest secrets of its existence that it can no longer deny them, which allows “true peace” to take root. It is quite radical to say, but humanity will be able to uncover this secret when it realizes that its Source, and therefore its purpose and state of being are entirely united.
Using Jewish, or one form of religious terms, this is monotheism, but not just monotheism in the sense of the election of one deity to believe in from a pantheon, but the recognition that it is simply untrue to say that anything other than the One Creator exists, one in both quantity and in essential nature. “United we stand, divided we fall” is a modern maxim that can be used to sum up “Jewish utopianism.” It explains that humanity’s summum bonum is related to fixed truths about the nature of humanity and therefore, not only does it suggest proper and wise actions for humanity to follow, it instructs them with the awareness that failure to comply brings social distortion and destruction. Having said that, no punishment needs to be administered for failure to comply, because failure to comply will create its own punishment; torturous human existence. Therefore, Jewish utopianism declares a bold statement, that humanity has the ability to alter its behavior to create a livable world. This ideology, even if not expressed in religious terms, is at the forefront of today’s most progressive strains of thought, that we can and must do the right thing – it places a certain urgency on absolute morality, such as the “Never Again” ethos of the Holocaust, which now also applies to the victims of Sudan’s Janjaweed; the military group belonging to the Khartoum government being charged of killing off the Darfurian ethnic group.
Finally, it is a very simple notion, that we, humanity, are made in G-d’s image, and when and if that is realized, the murder of another becomes virtually impossible. The belief in this One G-d is absolutely necessary, for if there are many gods and goddesses, then it is equally easy to define somebody as an essential other, and we see that this is to blame for humanity’s darkest failings. “Lucky” for us, we have reached a stage of scientific development in which what “the ancients” believed to be true by mere axiom, we are becoming able to “prove” through our amazing developments in the physical sciences, that existence not only teeters on interrelatedness (oneness), but on directed existence versus undirected existence; Creation versus an accident of life. The former brings with it the dignity of the human being, and the latter brings with it the crude belief that we are nothing more than intelligent beasts; it would be much better for us to have remained unintelligent if the latter were true. It is hard to explain or defend a position stating the absolute immorality of murder when the day’s philosophy tells everybody that life came about by accident. When the “basic” rights and wrong, such as murder for example, become “agnostic,” then we will see society do things that are a far cry from basic, such as, for example, sex industries organized on the international level destroying everybody involved – we do not even see animals, the “lower creatures,” behaving in such ways! The human insistence and recognition of the existence of G-d can pick away at the most damaging of human tendencies, but our ignorance or rejection of such a thing can turn our heightened state of being into a gruesome and nightmarish reality. This is as realistic as the ability of human beings to control themselves.
However, how realistic is this, and if it is realistic, why has it not happened yet?
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Sin of Omission
Muslim religious tradition states that "the Jews" falsified the texts of the Torah in order to "elect" themselves as the Chosen People. The content of this fable notwithstanding, this declaration has two problems; 1) who are "the Jews" when it was not "the Jews" that wrote the Torah, but Moses, and 2) what did the "original texts" say and where are they now? I suppose the reply to that would be that they were preserved in the Q'uran, a text that was produced nearly three thousand years later. A Muslim with whom I was once speaking, when I asked him that question, told me that the original copy was most likely destroyed, which would have removed any evidence of its existence and with it the validity of his argument. A third problem with this belief is that one of the primary beliefs of Islam is that the concept of a "Chosen People" is anathema to G-d's Plan: either He chooses everybody or chooses nobody. However, this is fallacious because they believe that "the Jews" cheated Ishmael out of the birthright that was properly his, which would have rendered his descendants "the Chosen People." Therefore, as long as "the wrong people" are the Chosen ones, then the "Chosen" concept does not exist. Nevertheless, Muslims do believe themselves to be G-d's Chosen People.
To reply to the cheating claim, did G-d not, at every step of the way, choose the younger brother to be the recipient of His instruction? G-d chose Abraham, not his older brother Nachor, He chose Isaac, not Ishmael (although the Torah says that G-d would make a great nation from Ishmael), He chose Jacob, not Esav, Joseph, not his ten older brothers, and Moses, not Aaron or Miriam (although they did have their purposes). What about Jacob's wanting to marry Rachel, the sister younger to Leah, when it was commonplace to marry off the first-born daughter first? We see a pattern here. Would a Muslim honestly apply the criteria that the Jews twisted the texts in order to elect Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph, and Moses, when it is part of their religious tradition that G-d called upon those people to do great things? As much as Islam (claims) to detract from the concept of a chosen lineage, we see that Abraham's lineage is passed on to every subsequent matriarch and patriarch through him - all of the aforementioned people are from the lineage of Abraham. We also see that lineage plays a big part in Islam when we consider that the two dominant groupings of Islam, Sunni and Shi'a, are based on disagreements as to who was Muhammad's rightful heir - each believed that it was a different person in the royal line. Who came directly after Ishmael that we know about? Muhammad was born thousands of years later, which Muslim tradition explains is a descendant of Ishmael.
Part of the Covenant between G-d and the Jews was the Land of Israel, and the Q'uran as well says that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, "Bani Israyeel," the Childen of Israel, rightfully inherited it. Does the Q'uran say anywhere that Ishmael's descendants inherited the Land? There is almost no basis to the claim that "the Jews" corrupted the "original text" of the Torah to "write Ishmael out" because we see that even the Q'uran insists that the Land of Israel was to be their land as the heritage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - not Abraham and Ishmael. As an aside, Muslim tradition says that Abraham did not take his son Isaac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him at G-d's command, but that he took Ishmael to the future sight of Mecca in order to sacrifice him. We can hardly imagine what, in that place and time, importance Mecca contained, and it is not realistic that Abraham and Ishmael ventured to a place so far out of the locality to make a Covenant with G-d, even though it is noble (and necessary) to think so.
Muslim religious tradition states that "the Jews" falsified the texts of the Torah in order to "elect" themselves as the Chosen People. The content of this fable notwithstanding, this declaration has two problems; 1) who are "the Jews" when it was not "the Jews" that wrote the Torah, but Moses, and 2) what did the "original texts" say and where are they now? I suppose the reply to that would be that they were preserved in the Q'uran, a text that was produced nearly three thousand years later. A Muslim with whom I was once speaking, when I asked him that question, told me that the original copy was most likely destroyed, which would have removed any evidence of its existence and with it the validity of his argument. A third problem with this belief is that one of the primary beliefs of Islam is that the concept of a "Chosen People" is anathema to G-d's Plan: either He chooses everybody or chooses nobody. However, this is fallacious because they believe that "the Jews" cheated Ishmael out of the birthright that was properly his, which would have rendered his descendants "the Chosen People." Therefore, as long as "the wrong people" are the Chosen ones, then the "Chosen" concept does not exist. Nevertheless, Muslims do believe themselves to be G-d's Chosen People.
To reply to the cheating claim, did G-d not, at every step of the way, choose the younger brother to be the recipient of His instruction? G-d chose Abraham, not his older brother Nachor, He chose Isaac, not Ishmael (although the Torah says that G-d would make a great nation from Ishmael), He chose Jacob, not Esav, Joseph, not his ten older brothers, and Moses, not Aaron or Miriam (although they did have their purposes). What about Jacob's wanting to marry Rachel, the sister younger to Leah, when it was commonplace to marry off the first-born daughter first? We see a pattern here. Would a Muslim honestly apply the criteria that the Jews twisted the texts in order to elect Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Rachel, Joseph, and Moses, when it is part of their religious tradition that G-d called upon those people to do great things? As much as Islam (claims) to detract from the concept of a chosen lineage, we see that Abraham's lineage is passed on to every subsequent matriarch and patriarch through him - all of the aforementioned people are from the lineage of Abraham. We also see that lineage plays a big part in Islam when we consider that the two dominant groupings of Islam, Sunni and Shi'a, are based on disagreements as to who was Muhammad's rightful heir - each believed that it was a different person in the royal line. Who came directly after Ishmael that we know about? Muhammad was born thousands of years later, which Muslim tradition explains is a descendant of Ishmael.
Part of the Covenant between G-d and the Jews was the Land of Israel, and the Q'uran as well says that the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, "Bani Israyeel," the Childen of Israel, rightfully inherited it. Does the Q'uran say anywhere that Ishmael's descendants inherited the Land? There is almost no basis to the claim that "the Jews" corrupted the "original text" of the Torah to "write Ishmael out" because we see that even the Q'uran insists that the Land of Israel was to be their land as the heritage of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob - not Abraham and Ishmael. As an aside, Muslim tradition says that Abraham did not take his son Isaac to Mt. Moriah to sacrifice him at G-d's command, but that he took Ishmael to the future sight of Mecca in order to sacrifice him. We can hardly imagine what, in that place and time, importance Mecca contained, and it is not realistic that Abraham and Ishmael ventured to a place so far out of the locality to make a Covenant with G-d, even though it is noble (and necessary) to think so.
Sunday, April 23, 2006
A Flow of Conscious About Morality
The notion of the existence of a disinterested G-d that created the world but does not care about the affairs of behavior of man is incredibly alluring, and that is the basis of a view of evolution that guided the creation of life but is uninterested. It is freeing to believe that nothing “up there,” or anywhere, cares about what you think, say, or do; you are able to do whatever you want, but then anybody is able to do whatever they want to you as well. Those who speak of universal morality fail to realize that there is no universal morality if there is no G-d. They try to replace universal and absolute morality with other social systems that might benefit the current situation, but once the current situation ends, then the need for that specific social system also ends, and we are met again with relativism and chaos. They want to believe in G-d in order to establish a universal and absolute notion of morality, but when they realize that if that same G-d were to really exist, then it would limit the amount of “fun” they are allowed to have; they would gain an unchanging notion of morality that would protect them, but they would also limit themselves to regulations that took their fun away, and in the end, many people choose fun over morality.
Most people do not consciously realize the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications of evolution, but subconsciously they realize that it is a philosophy of agnostic freedom, and even though they may speak of morality and justice, a world of agnostic freedom can never achieve those things, it can never achieve peace. This is double talk, they want their cake and to eat it too, they want morality but not a complete system of morality that would affect all sectors of life but might limit them.
It is hypocritical to want morality and justice but to say that G-d does not exist, for they want morality and justice just as long as those things sound romantic, but when those things begin to limit their freedom then they abandon them for freedom. They preach morality loudly but only so that it defends their rights and therefore they speak in the name of morality in order to justify their doing whatever they want and to protect their rights to do those things. This is selfish morality, it is a corruption of morality, it is the right thing for the wrong reason, at which point it becomes the wrong thing. It is not based in a concern for the whole of mankind; they do not defend the rights of homosexual union, for example, because they genuinely believe that homosexuals have that right, but they defend it because as long as they do, then they too have the right to engage in any sexual behavior that they desire. As long as homosexuality is acceptable -- the sexual union of two people of the same sex -- they might rationalize, so is any sort of sexual “immorality” that I choose today so as long as it is heterosexual. There are plenty of wrongs committed in heterosexual union and those cannot be left alone simply because there is something less acceptable. It is a call for justice that is based in defending ones own rights to do as he or she pleases, and is not based in fixing the world. The perversion of justice in the name of justice in order to gain freedom.
It is a society of rights then, and not a society of obligation; it is my right to be free and therefore to do anything that I want and this is more important than my obligation. In fact, even smart people who understand and loudly proclaim that the world functions as a whole will refrain from criticizing something immoral, a thing that they are aware is detrimental to the whole, because in doing that they risk appearing bigoted and immoral. They are more influenced by the times than by an unchanging notion of morality; they care more about what the times dictate is proper than what they know to be proper. Didn’t Mom always say, “If all your friends jumped off the bridge, would you?” The five-year-old knows the correct answer.
The “moralists” shout about transcendent, cosmic morality but they protect their reputation before protecting morality. They speak about universal morality and that an immoral act on one person is an immoral act on the whole world, but they will refrain from criticizing an immoral act because they fear that it requires them to become moral, and they are right. The “anti-Holocaust” rhetoric goes as follows, “I will stand up against any evil thing so long that it does not become more evil and so that it does not spread.” Today, that ethos has been replaced by one that says, “I will not stand up to any evil thing in order that I too will be allowed to do it.” This is Nazi logic, this is death, this is dangerous, this is horrible. G-d is not causing this, we are. It is proof that we can live but be dead. Wrong things bring on more wrong things, like a bowl of fruit where one is starting to mold; soon all the fruit will be molded. It is harsh, but either the molded piece must be cut from the fruit, or the molded fruit must be removed. A type of mold gives spread to a more aggressive type of mold. Unfortunately, we cannot see the mold but only its effect, it is everywhere and closely linked to our most positive desires; evil is not personified as a person – we must see that the person acts wrongly but that the wrongness is separate from his or her being. Luckily, thank G-d, a human can be rehabilitated, unlike a molding fruit, and unlike the fruit, we have free will; we can resist the mold for we were molded in G-d’s image.
This type of “morality” is like lust compared to love: lust commands no regulations and no limits, but true love does. Lust is holy in the context of love, while love is trash in the context of lust. Lust is romantic, and many people who love someone find that lust is a part of their relationship more than actual love, and lust has a short half-life, but when one finds true love, the notion of romance is entirely altered; love becomes the pillar of the relationship and lust becomes an added bonus in the context of that love. In the end, lust falls apart and love remains strong; a lust with the world will cause the world to break apart, but a love for the world will cause it to remain together. Love is mature and discerning and daring, lust is foolish and silly and cowardly. The commandment is to “love your neighbor as (you love) yourself” and not “lust after your neighbor as you lust after yourself,” in both cases the latter is easy (or easier) to do once the first is accomplished. Once the latter is accomplished (love/lust yourself), the former (love/lust your neighbor) is almost hard to stop. That is why love is the relationship between G-d and humanity; any relationship between G-d and humanity that frees humanity in any way is not love, it is lust, and it is not G-d.
The notion of the existence of a disinterested G-d that created the world but does not care about the affairs of behavior of man is incredibly alluring, and that is the basis of a view of evolution that guided the creation of life but is uninterested. It is freeing to believe that nothing “up there,” or anywhere, cares about what you think, say, or do; you are able to do whatever you want, but then anybody is able to do whatever they want to you as well. Those who speak of universal morality fail to realize that there is no universal morality if there is no G-d. They try to replace universal and absolute morality with other social systems that might benefit the current situation, but once the current situation ends, then the need for that specific social system also ends, and we are met again with relativism and chaos. They want to believe in G-d in order to establish a universal and absolute notion of morality, but when they realize that if that same G-d were to really exist, then it would limit the amount of “fun” they are allowed to have; they would gain an unchanging notion of morality that would protect them, but they would also limit themselves to regulations that took their fun away, and in the end, many people choose fun over morality.
Most people do not consciously realize the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications of evolution, but subconsciously they realize that it is a philosophy of agnostic freedom, and even though they may speak of morality and justice, a world of agnostic freedom can never achieve those things, it can never achieve peace. This is double talk, they want their cake and to eat it too, they want morality but not a complete system of morality that would affect all sectors of life but might limit them.
It is hypocritical to want morality and justice but to say that G-d does not exist, for they want morality and justice just as long as those things sound romantic, but when those things begin to limit their freedom then they abandon them for freedom. They preach morality loudly but only so that it defends their rights and therefore they speak in the name of morality in order to justify their doing whatever they want and to protect their rights to do those things. This is selfish morality, it is a corruption of morality, it is the right thing for the wrong reason, at which point it becomes the wrong thing. It is not based in a concern for the whole of mankind; they do not defend the rights of homosexual union, for example, because they genuinely believe that homosexuals have that right, but they defend it because as long as they do, then they too have the right to engage in any sexual behavior that they desire. As long as homosexuality is acceptable -- the sexual union of two people of the same sex -- they might rationalize, so is any sort of sexual “immorality” that I choose today so as long as it is heterosexual. There are plenty of wrongs committed in heterosexual union and those cannot be left alone simply because there is something less acceptable. It is a call for justice that is based in defending ones own rights to do as he or she pleases, and is not based in fixing the world. The perversion of justice in the name of justice in order to gain freedom.
It is a society of rights then, and not a society of obligation; it is my right to be free and therefore to do anything that I want and this is more important than my obligation. In fact, even smart people who understand and loudly proclaim that the world functions as a whole will refrain from criticizing something immoral, a thing that they are aware is detrimental to the whole, because in doing that they risk appearing bigoted and immoral. They are more influenced by the times than by an unchanging notion of morality; they care more about what the times dictate is proper than what they know to be proper. Didn’t Mom always say, “If all your friends jumped off the bridge, would you?” The five-year-old knows the correct answer.
The “moralists” shout about transcendent, cosmic morality but they protect their reputation before protecting morality. They speak about universal morality and that an immoral act on one person is an immoral act on the whole world, but they will refrain from criticizing an immoral act because they fear that it requires them to become moral, and they are right. The “anti-Holocaust” rhetoric goes as follows, “I will stand up against any evil thing so long that it does not become more evil and so that it does not spread.” Today, that ethos has been replaced by one that says, “I will not stand up to any evil thing in order that I too will be allowed to do it.” This is Nazi logic, this is death, this is dangerous, this is horrible. G-d is not causing this, we are. It is proof that we can live but be dead. Wrong things bring on more wrong things, like a bowl of fruit where one is starting to mold; soon all the fruit will be molded. It is harsh, but either the molded piece must be cut from the fruit, or the molded fruit must be removed. A type of mold gives spread to a more aggressive type of mold. Unfortunately, we cannot see the mold but only its effect, it is everywhere and closely linked to our most positive desires; evil is not personified as a person – we must see that the person acts wrongly but that the wrongness is separate from his or her being. Luckily, thank G-d, a human can be rehabilitated, unlike a molding fruit, and unlike the fruit, we have free will; we can resist the mold for we were molded in G-d’s image.
This type of “morality” is like lust compared to love: lust commands no regulations and no limits, but true love does. Lust is holy in the context of love, while love is trash in the context of lust. Lust is romantic, and many people who love someone find that lust is a part of their relationship more than actual love, and lust has a short half-life, but when one finds true love, the notion of romance is entirely altered; love becomes the pillar of the relationship and lust becomes an added bonus in the context of that love. In the end, lust falls apart and love remains strong; a lust with the world will cause the world to break apart, but a love for the world will cause it to remain together. Love is mature and discerning and daring, lust is foolish and silly and cowardly. The commandment is to “love your neighbor as (you love) yourself” and not “lust after your neighbor as you lust after yourself,” in both cases the latter is easy (or easier) to do once the first is accomplished. Once the latter is accomplished (love/lust yourself), the former (love/lust your neighbor) is almost hard to stop. That is why love is the relationship between G-d and humanity; any relationship between G-d and humanity that frees humanity in any way is not love, it is lust, and it is not G-d.
A Flow of Conscious About Morality
The notion of the existence of a disinterested G-d that created the world but does not care about the affairs of behavior of man is incredibly alluring, and that is the basis of a view of evolution that guided the creation of life but is uninterested. It is freeing to believe that nothing “up there,” or anywhere, cares about what you think, say, or do; you are able to do whatever you want, but then anybody is able to do whatever they want to you as well. Those who speak of universal morality fail to realize that there is no universal morality if there is no G-d. They try to replace universal and absolute morality with other social systems that might benefit the current situation, but once the current situation ends, then the need for that specific social system also ends, and we are met again with relativism and chaos. They want to believe in G-d in order to establish a universal and absolute notion of morality, but when they realize that if that same G-d were to really exist, then it would limit the amount of “fun” they are allowed to have; they would gain an unchanging notion of morality that would protect them, but they would also limit themselves to regulations that took their fun away, and in the end, many people choose fun over morality. Most people do not consciously realize the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications of evolution, but subconsciously they realize that it is a philosophy of agnostic freedom, and even though they may speak of morality and justice, a world of agnostic freedom can never achieve those things, it can never achieve peace. This is double talk, they want their cake and to eat it too, they want morality but not a complete system of morality that would affect all sectors of life but might limit them. It is hypocritical to want morality and justice but to say that G-d does not exist, for they want morality and justice just as long as those things sound romantic, but when those things begin to limit their freedom then they abandon them for freedom, which is more romantic than either morality or justice. They preach morality loudly but only so that it defends their rights and therefore they speak in the name of morality in order to justify their doing whatever they want and to protect their rights to do those things. This is selfish morality, it is a corruption of morality, it is the right thing for the wrong reason, at which point it becomes the wrong thing. It is not based in a concern for the whole of mankind; they do not defend the rights of homosexual union, for example, because they genuinely believe that homosexuals have that right, but they defend it because as long as they do, then they too have the right to engage in any sexual behavior that they desire. As long as homosexuality is acceptable -- the sexual union of two people of the same sex -- they might rationalize, so is any sort of sexual “immorality” that I choose today so as long as it is heterosexual. There are plenty of wrongs committed in heterosexual union and those cannot be left alone simply because there is something less acceptable. It is a call for justice that is based in defending ones own rights to do as he or she pleases, and is not based in fixing the world. The perversion of justice in the name of justice in order to gain freedom. It is a society of rights then, and not a society of obligation; it is my right to be free and therefore to do anything that I want and this is more important than my obligation. In fact, even smart people who understand and loudly proclaim that the world functions as a whole will refrain from criticizing something immoral, a thing that they are aware is detrimental to the whole, because in doing that they risk appearing bigoted and immoral. They are more influenced by the times than by an unchanging notion of morality; they care more about what the times dictate is proper than what they know to be proper. Didn’t Mom always say, “If all your friends jumped off the bridge, would you?” The five-year-old knows the correct answer. The “moralists” shout about transcendent, cosmic morality but they protect their reputation before protecting morality. They speak about universal morality and that an immoral act on one person is an immoral act on the whole world, but they will refrain from criticizing an immoral act because they fear that it requires them to become moral, and they are right. The “anti-Holocaust” rhetoric goes as follows, “I will stand up against any evil thing so long that it does not become more evil and so that it does not spread.” Today, that ethos has been replaced by one that says, “I will not stand up to any evil thing in order that I too will be allowed to do it.” This is Nazi logic, this is death, this is dangerous, this is horrible. G-d is not causing this, we are. It is proof that we can live but be dead. Wrong things bring on more wrong things, like a bowl of fruit where one is starting to mold; soon all the fruit will be molded. It is harsh, but either the molded piece must be cut from the fruit, or the molded fruit must be removed. A type of mold gives spread to a more aggressive type of mold. Unfortunately, we cannot see the mold but only its effect, it is everywhere and closely linked to our most positive desires; evil is not personified as a person – we must see that the person acts wrongly but that the wrongness is separate from his or her being. Luckily, thank G-d, a human can be rehabilitated, unlike a molding fruit, and unlike the fruit, we have free will; we can resist the mold for we were molded in G-d’s image.
This type of “morality” is like lust compared to love: lust commands no regulations and no limits, but true love does. Lust is holy in the context of love, while love is trash in the context of lust. Lust is romantic, and many people who love someone find that lust is a part of their relationship more than actual love, and lust has a short half-life, but when one finds true love, the notion of romance is entirely altered; love becomes the pillar of the relationship and lust becomes an added bonus in the context of that love. In the end, lust falls apart and love remains strong; a lust with the world will cause the world to break apart, but a love for the world will cause it to remain together. Love is mature and discerning and daring, lust is foolish and silly and cowardly. The commandment is to “love your neighbor as (you love) yourself” and not “lust after your neighbor as you lust after yourself,” in both cases the latter is easy (or easier) to do once the first is accomplished. Once the latter is accomplished (love/lust yourself), the former (love/lust your neighbor) is almost hard to stop. That is why love is the relationship between G-d and humanity; any relationship between G-d and humanity that frees humanity in any way is not love, it is lust, and it is not G-d.
The notion of the existence of a disinterested G-d that created the world but does not care about the affairs of behavior of man is incredibly alluring, and that is the basis of a view of evolution that guided the creation of life but is uninterested. It is freeing to believe that nothing “up there,” or anywhere, cares about what you think, say, or do; you are able to do whatever you want, but then anybody is able to do whatever they want to you as well. Those who speak of universal morality fail to realize that there is no universal morality if there is no G-d. They try to replace universal and absolute morality with other social systems that might benefit the current situation, but once the current situation ends, then the need for that specific social system also ends, and we are met again with relativism and chaos. They want to believe in G-d in order to establish a universal and absolute notion of morality, but when they realize that if that same G-d were to really exist, then it would limit the amount of “fun” they are allowed to have; they would gain an unchanging notion of morality that would protect them, but they would also limit themselves to regulations that took their fun away, and in the end, many people choose fun over morality. Most people do not consciously realize the philosophical, theological, and ethical implications of evolution, but subconsciously they realize that it is a philosophy of agnostic freedom, and even though they may speak of morality and justice, a world of agnostic freedom can never achieve those things, it can never achieve peace. This is double talk, they want their cake and to eat it too, they want morality but not a complete system of morality that would affect all sectors of life but might limit them. It is hypocritical to want morality and justice but to say that G-d does not exist, for they want morality and justice just as long as those things sound romantic, but when those things begin to limit their freedom then they abandon them for freedom, which is more romantic than either morality or justice. They preach morality loudly but only so that it defends their rights and therefore they speak in the name of morality in order to justify their doing whatever they want and to protect their rights to do those things. This is selfish morality, it is a corruption of morality, it is the right thing for the wrong reason, at which point it becomes the wrong thing. It is not based in a concern for the whole of mankind; they do not defend the rights of homosexual union, for example, because they genuinely believe that homosexuals have that right, but they defend it because as long as they do, then they too have the right to engage in any sexual behavior that they desire. As long as homosexuality is acceptable -- the sexual union of two people of the same sex -- they might rationalize, so is any sort of sexual “immorality” that I choose today so as long as it is heterosexual. There are plenty of wrongs committed in heterosexual union and those cannot be left alone simply because there is something less acceptable. It is a call for justice that is based in defending ones own rights to do as he or she pleases, and is not based in fixing the world. The perversion of justice in the name of justice in order to gain freedom. It is a society of rights then, and not a society of obligation; it is my right to be free and therefore to do anything that I want and this is more important than my obligation. In fact, even smart people who understand and loudly proclaim that the world functions as a whole will refrain from criticizing something immoral, a thing that they are aware is detrimental to the whole, because in doing that they risk appearing bigoted and immoral. They are more influenced by the times than by an unchanging notion of morality; they care more about what the times dictate is proper than what they know to be proper. Didn’t Mom always say, “If all your friends jumped off the bridge, would you?” The five-year-old knows the correct answer. The “moralists” shout about transcendent, cosmic morality but they protect their reputation before protecting morality. They speak about universal morality and that an immoral act on one person is an immoral act on the whole world, but they will refrain from criticizing an immoral act because they fear that it requires them to become moral, and they are right. The “anti-Holocaust” rhetoric goes as follows, “I will stand up against any evil thing so long that it does not become more evil and so that it does not spread.” Today, that ethos has been replaced by one that says, “I will not stand up to any evil thing in order that I too will be allowed to do it.” This is Nazi logic, this is death, this is dangerous, this is horrible. G-d is not causing this, we are. It is proof that we can live but be dead. Wrong things bring on more wrong things, like a bowl of fruit where one is starting to mold; soon all the fruit will be molded. It is harsh, but either the molded piece must be cut from the fruit, or the molded fruit must be removed. A type of mold gives spread to a more aggressive type of mold. Unfortunately, we cannot see the mold but only its effect, it is everywhere and closely linked to our most positive desires; evil is not personified as a person – we must see that the person acts wrongly but that the wrongness is separate from his or her being. Luckily, thank G-d, a human can be rehabilitated, unlike a molding fruit, and unlike the fruit, we have free will; we can resist the mold for we were molded in G-d’s image.
This type of “morality” is like lust compared to love: lust commands no regulations and no limits, but true love does. Lust is holy in the context of love, while love is trash in the context of lust. Lust is romantic, and many people who love someone find that lust is a part of their relationship more than actual love, and lust has a short half-life, but when one finds true love, the notion of romance is entirely altered; love becomes the pillar of the relationship and lust becomes an added bonus in the context of that love. In the end, lust falls apart and love remains strong; a lust with the world will cause the world to break apart, but a love for the world will cause it to remain together. Love is mature and discerning and daring, lust is foolish and silly and cowardly. The commandment is to “love your neighbor as (you love) yourself” and not “lust after your neighbor as you lust after yourself,” in both cases the latter is easy (or easier) to do once the first is accomplished. Once the latter is accomplished (love/lust yourself), the former (love/lust your neighbor) is almost hard to stop. That is why love is the relationship between G-d and humanity; any relationship between G-d and humanity that frees humanity in any way is not love, it is lust, and it is not G-d.
Prophecy Examined
How can we understand the prophecies contained within the Torah? Today we might have a hard time with the notion itself that prophecy existed in the first place.
For example, one of the modern “secular” views of the supposed phenomena of prophecy was that the “prophet,” the person making and writing the predictions, were actually examples of hindsight of an event after it had happened and explaining the course of events from that position in order to explain a traumatic disaster. In other words, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, the prophet whom “predicted” it actually lived much later, and with the luxury of hindsight, was able to “predict” it by explaining why it had happened. If this is true, and if we understand this for what it is, the prophet was a true propagandist in every sense of the word; he viewed an event and attempted to tell society that it happened according to his own personal belief, even if that belief was largely shared by the community to which he belonged.
Let us examine this logically. Imagine that in 2004 that I predicted who would win the 2005 playoffs and in 2006 I “published my findings” and revealed to the world that I was right. This is a relatively easy scam; I watched the playoffs in 2005, waited until 2006, and claimed that I actually predicted that the correct team would win back in 2004 and of course my prediction “came true.” Similarly, I witnessed the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE with my own eyes, and hundreds of years later I wrote down a record of the facts and presented them as if I had actually written them down as predictions hundreds of years before the Temple was destroyed; anybody reading what I wrote would be led to think that I actually predicted the destruction of the Temple correctly hundreds of years before it was destroyed and would be motivated to repentance. If this were true, then that would not make me successful at prophecy, but at deceit.
However, there is a problem with this notion. If I really waited until 2005, after the game, to write down the events of that game as if they occurred in 2004, then I would have to remember almost meticulously the events, social atmosphere, and any other pertinent information to 2004 in order to convincingly “place myself” in 2004. If the reader picked up on any out of place events or inaccurate information, it would call my “prediction” into doubt and it might be revealed as a fraud – therefore I would have to remember the events almost perfectly, just enough to fool people that I was right, considering that they too also have an imperfect memory. I would have had to begin meticulously recording events in 2004 so that I could refer to them in 2006 in order to deceitfully re-create those events. And of course, even if I was able to do so, I can never be sure as to what individuals experienced personally in the year 2004 and therefore recorded, an oversight that would potentially uncover me as a fraud.
Having said that, it would be “easy enough” to stage a “prediction” from a mere two years ago, in contrast to, let’s say, an event that happened approximately six hundred years before the time I was actually writing it. If I waited until the year 700 to write down the events of 586 as if somebody living in the year 400 wrote them, I would have to recall the events, social reality, and any other pertinent information from 300 years before my existence, or in other words, from both 586 and 400! Yet in the year 2006 I can barely imagine what life was like in the 1700’s! I would have to not only remember the details of the destruction of the Temple 114 years before my time (through historical accounts, tradition, etc), I would also have to recreate the setting in the year 400 accurately enough to convince people that I was predicting an event that would not occur for another 186 years; this is virtually impossible! It would be like waiting until 2006 to record the events of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America (1776) as if I was writing them from the perspective of a person living in the year 1400! Were the prophets super-genius historians; did they have time machines? As unrealistic as such a thing would be to pull off in either the 8th or 21st century, today we at least have relatively reliable historical documents and technologies that help us to unearth history, a development which did not yet exist (compared to our capacity today) in the 8th century BCE, which is the date that scholars who propose the “Documentary Hypothesis” attribute to Isaiah’s predictions of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. They say that they are not predictions, but rather “retroactive” insight.
Let’s make it more feasible though. Let’s say that I didn’t wait until the 8th century to write down my falsehood, let’s say that I compiled it relatively soon after the destruction, about one or two months after it; this would make the event more fresh in my mind, and we can get around the difficulties presented if I waited 300 hundred years to write it (in somebody else’s name of course, because I can’t live for 300 years). However, if the destruction of the Temple was as traumatic and socially destructive as the records indicate, then it would be hard to imagine that I was in a fresh enough state of mind in which I was able to record things rationally and convincingly; in reality, my writings would be potently tinted by emotion, outrage, and depression. There is no way that I would be able to re-create the events of the year 400 in the present state of shock that I would be in after experiencing such a thing.
Let’s say that in the 8th century that I recorded the destruction of the Temple in a state of wild confusion and attributed it as a work of the 5th century. Reading this “completed narrative” some thousands of years later and perhaps understanding (to a degree) the reality in the 5th century, the reader might point out that there was nothing for me to be so upset about in the 5th century to warrant such emotional, outrageous, and depressed declarations, and through this scope of history, from a bird’s eye view, we would dismiss the work as being anachronistic.
However, we see people acting like this today, people shouting and taking to arms and protest, screaming wildly about impending doom if we are to maintain our destructive tendencies as human beings; why is it so impossible for us to imagine that this was real in the 5th century BCE when we see it happening in the 21st century CE?! Granted, today there are no prophets; G-d is not speaking to these people directly as He did with the prophets in the Torah, but today people are at least able of gaining historical and political insight, even if not perfectly, in order to be able to “predict” the future. And the proof that today’s political rabble rouser is not a prophet is that the events that they talk about do not happen in the way that they said; instead, their opinions are backed by statistical possibility and repeating human tendencies, and therefore their “teachings” are the insights of intelligent, educated, and perceptive people with access loads of information, but they are not prophets.
The same things happen over again and over again in human history not because we are doomed to repeat history due to lack of possessing knowledge of it, because we do possess knowledge, but because we do not sufficiently or efficiently place ourselves in the pages very history that we possess and study. The saying goes, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” In short, this saying means to say that we can learn how to act properly by simply seeing the repetitious waves, cycles, and trends and then avoiding previously taken courses of actions. However, this makes a dangerous mockery of the deeper meaning of this saying. The reason being that, if we merely recognize a “cycle of history,” this does not imply in the least that we understand the reason for the repetition of the waves; we do not understand the inner-mechanics of the waves and what drives them. We are at risk of reducing history to a universally similar set of events occurring over long periods of time and fail to understand that what is true to one person is not true to another. Therefore, we may view a particular wave occurring over and over again, but will probably settle with the superficial perspective that the same thing is actually occurring again and again, when in reality, for the “sides” involved, each is respectively perceiving and interpreting the series of events in entirely different ways than the other. Therefore, we can conclude that “invasion,” for example, is a trademark of human behavior, a constantly recurring wave, but we fail to realize that each side, the invader and the “invadee” define the event in entirely different terms, and most importantly, in light of their past experiences and culture, an ever-important detail that the “wave theory” does not take into account or is even able to sense with its broad lens.
For example, the invader might be motivated by a specific reason to seize land from another peoples, such as that by invading them he is civilizing them. However, were he himself to be invaded by people who want his wealth, and then years later he attempts to recapture his land from his own invaders, he would, at that point in his history, be motivated by a feeling of loss and redemption, and entirely different reason to invade than his original. However, the high-held lens of the “wave theory” equalizes everything to the point where the significant and necessary differences are blurred, simply seeing all events as invasions, and not being able to detect that three very different mechanisms are occurring right before our eyes without our knowledge. Therefore, those who do not know history are doomed to repeating it, but even a knowledge of history is not always sufficient to redeem one from doing so, because there is a difference between “knowledge” and “understanding;” I may be aware of a fact, but I may not understand that fact. I understand that “e = mc squared,” but I do not necessarily understand how that is the formula for energy. We are doomed to repeating our history, not because we do not know history, but because we do not understand the human’s perspective from which the information is recorded, either in the personal sense or in the sense of a broader culture and/or their own specific past as a people. We do not bother with the mechanics of history.
How can we understand the prophecies contained within the Torah? Today we might have a hard time with the notion itself that prophecy existed in the first place.
For example, one of the modern “secular” views of the supposed phenomena of prophecy was that the “prophet,” the person making and writing the predictions, were actually examples of hindsight of an event after it had happened and explaining the course of events from that position in order to explain a traumatic disaster. In other words, when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 586 BCE by the Babylonians, the prophet whom “predicted” it actually lived much later, and with the luxury of hindsight, was able to “predict” it by explaining why it had happened. If this is true, and if we understand this for what it is, the prophet was a true propagandist in every sense of the word; he viewed an event and attempted to tell society that it happened according to his own personal belief, even if that belief was largely shared by the community to which he belonged.
Let us examine this logically. Imagine that in 2004 that I predicted who would win the 2005 playoffs and in 2006 I “published my findings” and revealed to the world that I was right. This is a relatively easy scam; I watched the playoffs in 2005, waited until 2006, and claimed that I actually predicted that the correct team would win back in 2004 and of course my prediction “came true.” Similarly, I witnessed the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 586 BCE with my own eyes, and hundreds of years later I wrote down a record of the facts and presented them as if I had actually written them down as predictions hundreds of years before the Temple was destroyed; anybody reading what I wrote would be led to think that I actually predicted the destruction of the Temple correctly hundreds of years before it was destroyed and would be motivated to repentance. If this were true, then that would not make me successful at prophecy, but at deceit.
However, there is a problem with this notion. If I really waited until 2005, after the game, to write down the events of that game as if they occurred in 2004, then I would have to remember almost meticulously the events, social atmosphere, and any other pertinent information to 2004 in order to convincingly “place myself” in 2004. If the reader picked up on any out of place events or inaccurate information, it would call my “prediction” into doubt and it might be revealed as a fraud – therefore I would have to remember the events almost perfectly, just enough to fool people that I was right, considering that they too also have an imperfect memory. I would have had to begin meticulously recording events in 2004 so that I could refer to them in 2006 in order to deceitfully re-create those events. And of course, even if I was able to do so, I can never be sure as to what individuals experienced personally in the year 2004 and therefore recorded, an oversight that would potentially uncover me as a fraud.
Having said that, it would be “easy enough” to stage a “prediction” from a mere two years ago, in contrast to, let’s say, an event that happened approximately six hundred years before the time I was actually writing it. If I waited until the year 700 to write down the events of 586 as if somebody living in the year 400 wrote them, I would have to recall the events, social reality, and any other pertinent information from 300 years before my existence, or in other words, from both 586 and 400! Yet in the year 2006 I can barely imagine what life was like in the 1700’s! I would have to not only remember the details of the destruction of the Temple 114 years before my time (through historical accounts, tradition, etc), I would also have to recreate the setting in the year 400 accurately enough to convince people that I was predicting an event that would not occur for another 186 years; this is virtually impossible! It would be like waiting until 2006 to record the events of the framing of the Constitution of the United States of America (1776) as if I was writing them from the perspective of a person living in the year 1400! Were the prophets super-genius historians; did they have time machines? As unrealistic as such a thing would be to pull off in either the 8th or 21st century, today we at least have relatively reliable historical documents and technologies that help us to unearth history, a development which did not yet exist (compared to our capacity today) in the 8th century BCE, which is the date that scholars who propose the “Documentary Hypothesis” attribute to Isaiah’s predictions of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. They say that they are not predictions, but rather “retroactive” insight.
Let’s make it more feasible though. Let’s say that I didn’t wait until the 8th century to write down my falsehood, let’s say that I compiled it relatively soon after the destruction, about one or two months after it; this would make the event more fresh in my mind, and we can get around the difficulties presented if I waited 300 hundred years to write it (in somebody else’s name of course, because I can’t live for 300 years). However, if the destruction of the Temple was as traumatic and socially destructive as the records indicate, then it would be hard to imagine that I was in a fresh enough state of mind in which I was able to record things rationally and convincingly; in reality, my writings would be potently tinted by emotion, outrage, and depression. There is no way that I would be able to re-create the events of the year 400 in the present state of shock that I would be in after experiencing such a thing.
Let’s say that in the 8th century that I recorded the destruction of the Temple in a state of wild confusion and attributed it as a work of the 5th century. Reading this “completed narrative” some thousands of years later and perhaps understanding (to a degree) the reality in the 5th century, the reader might point out that there was nothing for me to be so upset about in the 5th century to warrant such emotional, outrageous, and depressed declarations, and through this scope of history, from a bird’s eye view, we would dismiss the work as being anachronistic.
However, we see people acting like this today, people shouting and taking to arms and protest, screaming wildly about impending doom if we are to maintain our destructive tendencies as human beings; why is it so impossible for us to imagine that this was real in the 5th century BCE when we see it happening in the 21st century CE?! Granted, today there are no prophets; G-d is not speaking to these people directly as He did with the prophets in the Torah, but today people are at least able of gaining historical and political insight, even if not perfectly, in order to be able to “predict” the future. And the proof that today’s political rabble rouser is not a prophet is that the events that they talk about do not happen in the way that they said; instead, their opinions are backed by statistical possibility and repeating human tendencies, and therefore their “teachings” are the insights of intelligent, educated, and perceptive people with access loads of information, but they are not prophets.
The same things happen over again and over again in human history not because we are doomed to repeat history due to lack of possessing knowledge of it, because we do possess knowledge, but because we do not sufficiently or efficiently place ourselves in the pages very history that we possess and study. The saying goes, “Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it.” In short, this saying means to say that we can learn how to act properly by simply seeing the repetitious waves, cycles, and trends and then avoiding previously taken courses of actions. However, this makes a dangerous mockery of the deeper meaning of this saying. The reason being that, if we merely recognize a “cycle of history,” this does not imply in the least that we understand the reason for the repetition of the waves; we do not understand the inner-mechanics of the waves and what drives them. We are at risk of reducing history to a universally similar set of events occurring over long periods of time and fail to understand that what is true to one person is not true to another. Therefore, we may view a particular wave occurring over and over again, but will probably settle with the superficial perspective that the same thing is actually occurring again and again, when in reality, for the “sides” involved, each is respectively perceiving and interpreting the series of events in entirely different ways than the other. Therefore, we can conclude that “invasion,” for example, is a trademark of human behavior, a constantly recurring wave, but we fail to realize that each side, the invader and the “invadee” define the event in entirely different terms, and most importantly, in light of their past experiences and culture, an ever-important detail that the “wave theory” does not take into account or is even able to sense with its broad lens.
For example, the invader might be motivated by a specific reason to seize land from another peoples, such as that by invading them he is civilizing them. However, were he himself to be invaded by people who want his wealth, and then years later he attempts to recapture his land from his own invaders, he would, at that point in his history, be motivated by a feeling of loss and redemption, and entirely different reason to invade than his original. However, the high-held lens of the “wave theory” equalizes everything to the point where the significant and necessary differences are blurred, simply seeing all events as invasions, and not being able to detect that three very different mechanisms are occurring right before our eyes without our knowledge. Therefore, those who do not know history are doomed to repeating it, but even a knowledge of history is not always sufficient to redeem one from doing so, because there is a difference between “knowledge” and “understanding;” I may be aware of a fact, but I may not understand that fact. I understand that “e = mc squared,” but I do not necessarily understand how that is the formula for energy. We are doomed to repeating our history, not because we do not know history, but because we do not understand the human’s perspective from which the information is recorded, either in the personal sense or in the sense of a broader culture and/or their own specific past as a people. We do not bother with the mechanics of history.
Monday, April 17, 2006
Kalbin Chatzifin (brazen dogs)
Brazen dogs surround Your Jerusalem;
nothing I do scares them away
No shouts, no stones, no bullets;
I can wave my arms forever
I can wave the flag forever too, but to no avail
I have given them from what is mine too long
hey have learned not to be scared of me
They have learned not to respect me
How can I respect myself after doing this?
They are like bears that visit my campsite
And now that I have fed the bears, they will not leave
They hop like crows with bloody twigs in their beaks
Which they use to make their nests around the ruins of Your Jerusalem
The chicks are born in white eggs, but their feathers become reddened with age
So dark red it looks black
“They have learned not to be scared of Me.”
“They have learned not to respect Me.”
What can I do now?
The morning has come, I must davin Shacharit
Let me prepare a meal for You so that I can eat in Your House
You are always right
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