G-d of Space -
According to an article from Yahoo News written by Irene Klotz, "A small spacecraft en route to Pluto flew past Jupiter early on Wednesday" stopping at the home of the Giant Red Spot's moon (out of several), Europa.
Like something out of the book/movie "Contact," the religious fundamentalists, and even the secular humanists, and yes, the left-wingers, should be angry, for while the world's governments spend tons of money (I haven't done the research on how much) on space exploration, our own planet spins on with its own issues. Now, other than tickling our astronomical fancies, what good will it do humanity to find out if one of Jupiter's moons, Europa, has "strong evidence of a subterranean, salty ocean?" We have a huge yetzer harah (tempting, or evil, inclination) to see what's "in our own backyard," while we haven't dealt yet with the issues in our own home.
Ah, yes, it is the philosophical interests of the elitist few, driven by their misled atheistic evolutionist views, that pushes on this trillion-dollar sojourn into space.
Can it be their desperate hopes to find signs of life on other planets just to demonstrate an inkling of a conclusion that humans are not alone in the universe, or at least in the solar system? Were that shown to be true, such as if a mere worm colony, long frozen, was found under the surface of Mars, they could find evidence that we too evolved from squashable things.
Can it be the arrogant, terrified, egotism of the 21st century's clean-cut intergalactic mis-philanthropists that sends metal to Mars just to prove their fairy-tale logic that we are apes, at the expense of the less-endowed?
"'I'm hopeful that we will get some real clues about the surface of that ocean,' Bill McKinnon, a planetary scientist with Washington University in St. Louis said before the encounter." Of course he is, then we can see if aquatic humans are living there and ask them who their god is. And please don't tell me that we have to go to Jupiter's "European" moon to find out more about our own weather patterns - that's why we had the movie "Twister."
I say this tongue-in-cheek; it's only a short while before the Jew-haters start saying that this is part of a Zionist plot to occupy land! And then, instead of giving extra-terrestial landmarks Roman names, we can call them "Jerusalem" and "Hevron."
But there is something sinister here, to demonstrate the G-dlessness of the universe. In other words, if G-d's grave can't be found on Earth, where He is needed and desired, perhaps they can bury Him on Mars, Jupiter, Europa, Pluto. The sad and true fact is that those exotic burial spots go for a lot these days, and the MIR, sorry, mere, transportation to tug the proverbial casket through the black ocean of the skies would be outlandishly expensive, especially with an apparently unnecessary American-led war going on in Iraq. The "black gold" is blamed as the perpetrator of crime, but what about all the black space between us and the frigid and rigid rocks floating within it? Missions are cast to these planets and moons, which we essentially shape into huge interstellar idols bearing the names of Greek and Roman deities. And what we are constantly finding is that they, like those idols, are equally lifeless. What will happen to us when the extent of our hysterical chimpish paganism reaches its fingers and dollar bills into the distant barren black deserts when our own world is fertile with strife? This isn't a fanatical shout of distopia; nothing more that isn't already happening will not. It's almost funny; acting like apes just to show that we are. Isn't the evidence driven by the assumptions? If so, this is a very expensive and devastating fallacy.
Speaking of the starry-eyed, Bob Marley, to whom I used to listen to a lot, wrote a stellar objection in his song, "So Much Trouble (In the World)." It goes like this:
"Now, they're sailing on their ego trip
Blast off on their spaceship.
Million miles from reality
No care for you, no care for me."
And in another song, "One Love," he wrote:
"Let them all pass all their dirty remarks.
There is one question I'd really love to ask.
Is there a place for the hopeless sinner,
Who has hurt all mankind just to save his own beliefs?"
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
The Logical Conclusion of My Zionism -
In the near future, most likely, a certain question will come up with my cousins, whom I have seen this and last week for the first time in around six years. My two cousins, on my mother's side, have been like brothers to me and my sister since we were born, some of the first people our age we knew before leaving Israel for the States in 1986. Since I and my sister became observant around five years ago, realizing that our family in Israel was not sure of what to think about the change, the time has come for me to finally see our family in Israel after the change. Part of the reason for this post, like many, is to flush out all my ideas, many of which bubble in my mind during times when I am walking or on the bus.
My cousin always knew that I was a Zionist, years before I even fathomed a reality of myself living as an Orthodox Jew. I say with full comfort that nobody in my family knew that I would one day make such a decision, not even myself. My mom told me recently that she realized that I would become observant when I began to speak about Christianity with a degree of anger; why would a young man, around eighteen years old, speak with such fervor about the issues Christianity poses to Judaism. For several reasons the seeds of observance were planted in me, and I thank my mother, father, and my birth in the Land of Israel for basically being the reasons why I could not stay away from that path.
The main point of this post is for me to give written form for how my love of Israel and Zionism found their fullest expression in Judaism. There were several emotional factors in my choice of becoming an observant Jew, but Zionism's relation to this choice is perhaps one of the only factors that was totally tied to a faculty of logic - I saw no real way to continue holding Zionist views if I was not able to back them up with something more than the "run-of-the-mill" secular-backed explanations of Zionism's validity. For years during college I was an avid supporter of the pro-Zionist argument, and I still am, although I've developed my understanding of what it is a bit. Speaking to scores and scores of anti-Israel detractors, I was exposed to piles of ridiculous argumentation about the evils of the State of Israel. I had to strengthen my argument in order to efficiently cut through the falsities of their arguments and the result was that I learned a lot about the nature of the conflict, what was defensible, and what was not. Mind you, I am not using the word "defensible" regarding moral matters - I was and am convinced that Israel has the moral upper-hand; what I am referring to is what the world was ready to hear as valid defenses of the State of Israel, the Land of the Jews. Looking at it from my secular perspectives, which were also relatively Leftist, there were certain dead-ends in the defense of the State of Israel that I could not logically pass without contradicting my own views, the things that I demanded for myself. For example, and perhaps this is the singularly most important realization I eventually had, the nature of our claim to the Land of Israel, as strongly as surely I knew it to be true, was on equal footing with the publicized Palestinian claim to the Land, and the crazy Liberal anarchists with whom I argued knew it and exploited it. Despite that most of their arguments were emotional in nature and gave little attention to ideology that wasn't pseudo-Marxist, I began to realize that my arguments for the fundamental democratic nature of the State of Israel did nothing to provide it with any solid defense. If I was arguing for a democratic state, then I too should have been angered by Israel's declaration as being a Jewish state, for what would be the logical nature of a stance that there is a Jewish right of return, the hallmark of Zionist ideology, simultaneously "flaunting" how well Arabs had it in Israel. It was a crock, and it took me a while to see that. Democracy my elbow - Arabs on campus metaphorically gritted their teeth at me that I had the audacity to stand up there sporting a big Israeli flag telling people that Israel was a democracy when Arabs were unhappy in Israel. What kind of flaky democracy can I claim Israel to be when Arabs have limited opportunity and rights here? The answer? A democracy for Jews, not for Arabs. Israel was dancing around the middle ground of trying to appease its Arab citizens and grasp tightly on to the Zionist ideology, but this was a walking contradiction, and the supporters of Palestinians, who favored the democratic argument, exploited that strange and impossible attempt to please everybody. Even though their motives were driven by dislike, resentment, and evil, from a secular democratic paradigm, I would be forced to support a secular democratic Palestine. I knew in my heart of hearts that that was wrong, and so I had to contemplate my refurbish my understanding of the situation. What line of argumentation could I find, one which I believed to be true, for I had always been a horrible salesman of things in which I did not believe, that I could present to people?
The historical argument seemed especially strong to me; Israel rightfully belonged to the Jews because it was our cultural stronghold, defining who we were, and this transcended our long exiles and total loss of sovereignty in the Land, remaining transfixed even though as the Land lay nearly empty of Jews for long periods of time. This seems interestingly parallel to the religious argument, although I was making basically the same argument without buying into the religious ideologies. What this really shows is that the history and religion of Judaism are inseparable, but my mind was not yet ready to grab on to such an idea. That I couldn't make that particular case from a Jewish cultural standpoint points out the inherent limitations of culture in the acquisition and maintenance of land, for not only had we developed culture in other parts of the world, the culture of Israel had neutered itself of anyway to make a truth-backed defense of its own right to exist, for culture was ever-changing. The Arabs were on to this, being a deeply religious people (as the majority of Jews used to be), and this reason, along with the reason that the Jews in Israel had no genuine way to regain the justice of truth with culture as their only weapon, Israel would be forced to make concession upon concession of its Land to them. In the end, religion is stronger than culture, for religion is a moderator of values while culture just allows for values to seep out and to be replaced by new ones. There is no eternality with culture, for what rights does the Jewish cultural argument have to Israel? We can have a Jewish culture in Tucson, Arizona or New York, New York, or any other coastal city to which Jews have traditionally been drawn like moths to a lamp - why do we need Israel for that? The Israeli culture itself is deeply disconnected from its inherent right to be there, with many Israeli's not being entirely convinced or especially resolute about the Jewishness of the Land. On the other hand, the Arabs are convinced of their religious right to live in and have sovereignty over the Land - is this even a fair competition? Even if secular Israeli's do care, they are not in the right for making any solid argument if they are not prepared to a) stand up for what is theirs, or b) sacrifice some levels of personal comfort and peace of mind in order to achieve a measure of lasting happiness and security.
My mother told me a story when I was little kid. It went like this: during the year, a colony of ants had stored up large amounts of food through consistent work. When they saw the grasshopper, who was lazy, they asked him why he was not also storing food while he was able. His answer was that he would begin storing during the winter, which is when he would really need the food. As long as it was abundant, there was no reason to worry about having it. Come winter and the grasshopper began to starve. Remembering that the ants had a stockpile of food stored up from their work during the year, he asked them if he could stay with them and eat. The ants knew something and were willing to sacrifice a certain level of comfort and untroubled ease of mind in order to live in comfort at a later date. The grasshopper on the other hand, chose immediate satisfaction and the easy path, and the result is that when the hard times came, he had nothing (and his life was at risk). Many Jews are not willing to put forth the energy and to take up the cause of the future of their own country of residence and well-being, choosing immediate satisfaction over future guarantee. In this scenario, the Israeli's are the grasshopper, but the sad thing is that the Palestinians have not merited to be the ants, consistently saving up, for the lazy grasshopper is not a threat to anybody. Israeli's have withered and long since become ensconced in the attempt to have all the things that are currently being promoted as valuable all over the world, primarily the luster of American culture. But American culture will not promise Israel a future and then we will have no place to implant any culture, except for one that we will have to communicate in the Arabic tongue. Further, we are scared, and the more we ponder our situation, the more scared we become yet run around like caged "shtetl Jews," to borrow a friend's term. We act pathetically and the Palestinians smell our fear and yearn for it.
In the end, after a hefty amount of debating myself, I realized that the religious argument was the only one that held water that could not be spilled. The modern politics of democracy would ensure us nothing, not over the religion of Islam, and certainly not over the tactics of violence the Palestinians were enacting, which only served to sparkle the eyes of its victims - such is the nature of abuse, especially on a traumatized psyche; the abused always runs to the abuser. But for secular Jews to make the religious argument as a mere tactic for the defense of Israel would not only be dishonest and therefore a lie to everybody around, including the self, it would turn truth into an unbelievable mockery. Making the religious argument from a secular standpoint is like shooting deafening blanks; the Arabs would know it was a bluff and wouldn't even flinch. The key then is to believe the religious argument, but how could a Jew believe the religious argument without being sold on it, without really believing it? Therefore, we would be required to familiarize ourselves with the nature of the religious argument, in the same way we familiarized ourselves with the democratic one. Our religion holds the key to our survival, but should we become religious in order just to ensure our survival; would that not be dishonest foolishness? If religion holds the key to our survival, perhaps it deserves a measure of attention and analysis; what it is about religion that establishes one in eternality? Perhaps there is an element of truth in the religion of Judaism, and if so, independent yet related to the State of Israel, if it is truth, we should pursue it. But if we pursue it, we should pursue it for its own sake, and if survival of the State of Israel and its citizens will benefit from this truth, then it is only logical that we take steps in embracing it. Through Judaism we could have the real solidarity we Jews so desperately needed with each other, driven by love, for G-d and for ourselves, and so we would choose the religious path for its truth because truth can only yield good things. The Catch 22 however, would be that in order to make the only truly valid argument, after all arguments were exhausted and shown to be unworkable, we would have to cleave to our religion as solely a means for survival. That is, after all, the story of why we are still here. In other words, G-d has sent us a great test; only by cleaving to the truth can we survive, and this means a return to and revival of our religion, i.e.,dedication to G-d, our only support beam in the world. To lean on G-d for survival is the most honest thing a person can do.
In the near future, most likely, a certain question will come up with my cousins, whom I have seen this and last week for the first time in around six years. My two cousins, on my mother's side, have been like brothers to me and my sister since we were born, some of the first people our age we knew before leaving Israel for the States in 1986. Since I and my sister became observant around five years ago, realizing that our family in Israel was not sure of what to think about the change, the time has come for me to finally see our family in Israel after the change. Part of the reason for this post, like many, is to flush out all my ideas, many of which bubble in my mind during times when I am walking or on the bus.
My cousin always knew that I was a Zionist, years before I even fathomed a reality of myself living as an Orthodox Jew. I say with full comfort that nobody in my family knew that I would one day make such a decision, not even myself. My mom told me recently that she realized that I would become observant when I began to speak about Christianity with a degree of anger; why would a young man, around eighteen years old, speak with such fervor about the issues Christianity poses to Judaism. For several reasons the seeds of observance were planted in me, and I thank my mother, father, and my birth in the Land of Israel for basically being the reasons why I could not stay away from that path.
The main point of this post is for me to give written form for how my love of Israel and Zionism found their fullest expression in Judaism. There were several emotional factors in my choice of becoming an observant Jew, but Zionism's relation to this choice is perhaps one of the only factors that was totally tied to a faculty of logic - I saw no real way to continue holding Zionist views if I was not able to back them up with something more than the "run-of-the-mill" secular-backed explanations of Zionism's validity. For years during college I was an avid supporter of the pro-Zionist argument, and I still am, although I've developed my understanding of what it is a bit. Speaking to scores and scores of anti-Israel detractors, I was exposed to piles of ridiculous argumentation about the evils of the State of Israel. I had to strengthen my argument in order to efficiently cut through the falsities of their arguments and the result was that I learned a lot about the nature of the conflict, what was defensible, and what was not. Mind you, I am not using the word "defensible" regarding moral matters - I was and am convinced that Israel has the moral upper-hand; what I am referring to is what the world was ready to hear as valid defenses of the State of Israel, the Land of the Jews. Looking at it from my secular perspectives, which were also relatively Leftist, there were certain dead-ends in the defense of the State of Israel that I could not logically pass without contradicting my own views, the things that I demanded for myself. For example, and perhaps this is the singularly most important realization I eventually had, the nature of our claim to the Land of Israel, as strongly as surely I knew it to be true, was on equal footing with the publicized Palestinian claim to the Land, and the crazy Liberal anarchists with whom I argued knew it and exploited it. Despite that most of their arguments were emotional in nature and gave little attention to ideology that wasn't pseudo-Marxist, I began to realize that my arguments for the fundamental democratic nature of the State of Israel did nothing to provide it with any solid defense. If I was arguing for a democratic state, then I too should have been angered by Israel's declaration as being a Jewish state, for what would be the logical nature of a stance that there is a Jewish right of return, the hallmark of Zionist ideology, simultaneously "flaunting" how well Arabs had it in Israel. It was a crock, and it took me a while to see that. Democracy my elbow - Arabs on campus metaphorically gritted their teeth at me that I had the audacity to stand up there sporting a big Israeli flag telling people that Israel was a democracy when Arabs were unhappy in Israel. What kind of flaky democracy can I claim Israel to be when Arabs have limited opportunity and rights here? The answer? A democracy for Jews, not for Arabs. Israel was dancing around the middle ground of trying to appease its Arab citizens and grasp tightly on to the Zionist ideology, but this was a walking contradiction, and the supporters of Palestinians, who favored the democratic argument, exploited that strange and impossible attempt to please everybody. Even though their motives were driven by dislike, resentment, and evil, from a secular democratic paradigm, I would be forced to support a secular democratic Palestine. I knew in my heart of hearts that that was wrong, and so I had to contemplate my refurbish my understanding of the situation. What line of argumentation could I find, one which I believed to be true, for I had always been a horrible salesman of things in which I did not believe, that I could present to people?
The historical argument seemed especially strong to me; Israel rightfully belonged to the Jews because it was our cultural stronghold, defining who we were, and this transcended our long exiles and total loss of sovereignty in the Land, remaining transfixed even though as the Land lay nearly empty of Jews for long periods of time. This seems interestingly parallel to the religious argument, although I was making basically the same argument without buying into the religious ideologies. What this really shows is that the history and religion of Judaism are inseparable, but my mind was not yet ready to grab on to such an idea. That I couldn't make that particular case from a Jewish cultural standpoint points out the inherent limitations of culture in the acquisition and maintenance of land, for not only had we developed culture in other parts of the world, the culture of Israel had neutered itself of anyway to make a truth-backed defense of its own right to exist, for culture was ever-changing. The Arabs were on to this, being a deeply religious people (as the majority of Jews used to be), and this reason, along with the reason that the Jews in Israel had no genuine way to regain the justice of truth with culture as their only weapon, Israel would be forced to make concession upon concession of its Land to them. In the end, religion is stronger than culture, for religion is a moderator of values while culture just allows for values to seep out and to be replaced by new ones. There is no eternality with culture, for what rights does the Jewish cultural argument have to Israel? We can have a Jewish culture in Tucson, Arizona or New York, New York, or any other coastal city to which Jews have traditionally been drawn like moths to a lamp - why do we need Israel for that? The Israeli culture itself is deeply disconnected from its inherent right to be there, with many Israeli's not being entirely convinced or especially resolute about the Jewishness of the Land. On the other hand, the Arabs are convinced of their religious right to live in and have sovereignty over the Land - is this even a fair competition? Even if secular Israeli's do care, they are not in the right for making any solid argument if they are not prepared to a) stand up for what is theirs, or b) sacrifice some levels of personal comfort and peace of mind in order to achieve a measure of lasting happiness and security.
My mother told me a story when I was little kid. It went like this: during the year, a colony of ants had stored up large amounts of food through consistent work. When they saw the grasshopper, who was lazy, they asked him why he was not also storing food while he was able. His answer was that he would begin storing during the winter, which is when he would really need the food. As long as it was abundant, there was no reason to worry about having it. Come winter and the grasshopper began to starve. Remembering that the ants had a stockpile of food stored up from their work during the year, he asked them if he could stay with them and eat. The ants knew something and were willing to sacrifice a certain level of comfort and untroubled ease of mind in order to live in comfort at a later date. The grasshopper on the other hand, chose immediate satisfaction and the easy path, and the result is that when the hard times came, he had nothing (and his life was at risk). Many Jews are not willing to put forth the energy and to take up the cause of the future of their own country of residence and well-being, choosing immediate satisfaction over future guarantee. In this scenario, the Israeli's are the grasshopper, but the sad thing is that the Palestinians have not merited to be the ants, consistently saving up, for the lazy grasshopper is not a threat to anybody. Israeli's have withered and long since become ensconced in the attempt to have all the things that are currently being promoted as valuable all over the world, primarily the luster of American culture. But American culture will not promise Israel a future and then we will have no place to implant any culture, except for one that we will have to communicate in the Arabic tongue. Further, we are scared, and the more we ponder our situation, the more scared we become yet run around like caged "shtetl Jews," to borrow a friend's term. We act pathetically and the Palestinians smell our fear and yearn for it.
In the end, after a hefty amount of debating myself, I realized that the religious argument was the only one that held water that could not be spilled. The modern politics of democracy would ensure us nothing, not over the religion of Islam, and certainly not over the tactics of violence the Palestinians were enacting, which only served to sparkle the eyes of its victims - such is the nature of abuse, especially on a traumatized psyche; the abused always runs to the abuser. But for secular Jews to make the religious argument as a mere tactic for the defense of Israel would not only be dishonest and therefore a lie to everybody around, including the self, it would turn truth into an unbelievable mockery. Making the religious argument from a secular standpoint is like shooting deafening blanks; the Arabs would know it was a bluff and wouldn't even flinch. The key then is to believe the religious argument, but how could a Jew believe the religious argument without being sold on it, without really believing it? Therefore, we would be required to familiarize ourselves with the nature of the religious argument, in the same way we familiarized ourselves with the democratic one. Our religion holds the key to our survival, but should we become religious in order just to ensure our survival; would that not be dishonest foolishness? If religion holds the key to our survival, perhaps it deserves a measure of attention and analysis; what it is about religion that establishes one in eternality? Perhaps there is an element of truth in the religion of Judaism, and if so, independent yet related to the State of Israel, if it is truth, we should pursue it. But if we pursue it, we should pursue it for its own sake, and if survival of the State of Israel and its citizens will benefit from this truth, then it is only logical that we take steps in embracing it. Through Judaism we could have the real solidarity we Jews so desperately needed with each other, driven by love, for G-d and for ourselves, and so we would choose the religious path for its truth because truth can only yield good things. The Catch 22 however, would be that in order to make the only truly valid argument, after all arguments were exhausted and shown to be unworkable, we would have to cleave to our religion as solely a means for survival. That is, after all, the story of why we are still here. In other words, G-d has sent us a great test; only by cleaving to the truth can we survive, and this means a return to and revival of our religion, i.e.,dedication to G-d, our only support beam in the world. To lean on G-d for survival is the most honest thing a person can do.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
What is Judaism? -
You can study the Torah and come to a score of conclusions; it's seemingly open enough and enough in certain points that you can get what you want from it. If you read the Torah for just half an hour you would understand that the connection between Judaism, Jews, the Torah, and Israel is crystal clear.
Let's start like this; Abraham is the father of the Jewish religion through his revelation by G-d. He settled in Israel vis-a-vis a commandment by G-d, upon leaving Egypt the Jews received the Torah and settled in Israel also upon a commandment from G-d. G-d commanded King David to build a permanent abode for His Presence and that was the Temple in Jerusalem, where Abraham went to bind and sacrifice Isaac. All of that is in the Torah.
Judah is one of the twelve tribes of Israel, whose original name was "Jacob." In English, from the name "Judah" we drive "Jew." As history has it, the ten northern tribes of Israel were driven from the land during the Assyrian invasion in 722 BCE and the rest during 586 BCE by the Babylonians. The tribe of Judah, the tribe from which King David is, remained intact and so the rest of the Israelites intermarried with them (which was already occuring) and gradually took on the name of Judah. This is how it came to be that the Israelites took on the name of Judah, "Jew." For example, my family traces its lineage to the tribe of Levi, but I am still a Jew; it's a nomenclature. Since we now use the word "Jew," we use it interchangably with "Israelite" and "Hebrew," and so we say that Moses and Abraham were Jews.
So who are the Jews?
The Jews are technically Israelites, but this is just a physical, biological understanding, which ultimately is irrelevant in defining a Jew, whose being is bound up in his soul. For example, is Jewish blood different than any other blood? Is there Jewish DNA? The first Jew was Abraham, a Hebrew, but that ethnicity is more-or-less lost to us today; does that matter? A Jew is charged with infusing the world with the unified knowledge of G-d through observing the commandments and teaching the world how to live G-dly lives as well. Ultimately, the genetic formation of his flesh is of no consequence - it is a physical paradigm that Judaism does not condone, nor is there any foundation for it in the Torah.
Many people have been given descriptions of Judaism that classify it as a pseudo-cultral-ethnic phenomenon; that's not what it is at all. There are Jews of all "races," and people can convert to Judaism, which would be impossible if it was not a religion. When a person converts to Judaism, it is said that his/her entire being goes through a change, including the body and the soul.
The Temple in Jerusalem, called the "Bet Hamikdash," destroyed the second time in the year 70 by the Romans, is where the animal sacrifices took place. The sacrifices were used to atone for sin. It is also the courtyard where the Jewish court took place in order to carry out legislation, such as dealing with disputes and carrying out sentences, i.e., the application of the Law. It was also the seat of the Torah-based Jewish monarchy and according to Torah belief, will be again when the Mashiach, Messiah, comes.
Judaism is a way of life totally surrounding the Will of G-d in every aspect of existence; if you want to call it a religion that would technically be accurate if you understand religion to mean a composite set of both practice and doctrine encompassing all of life, originating from G-d's Mind. Through observance of the 613 commandments, the Jews bring the world to the state that G-d desires; part of that desire is to inform the nations of the world, the Gentiles, that they too have obligations to G-d. These are encapsulated in the Seven Noachide Laws. All of these things are kept intact in Orthodox Judaism. That itself is a name (meaning "right" "thinking") that has been given to it, but that's fine, it does the job. In other words, Judaism is the Torah, which is the blueprint of existence. That is Judaism.
This is a very general and simplistic description of what Judaism is, you can find more intellectually probing perspectives in a series of good books, such as "If You Were G-d" by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, a personal favorite, "To Be a Jewish Woman" by Lisa Aiken, who lives not very far from me, "The Other Side of the Story," by Yehudis Samet, and a really fascinating read, "The Science of G-d," by Gerard Schroeder.
One particularly good book on Jewish philosophy is "Path of the Just" by Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto (the Ramchal). A very good work called "The Thirteen Principles of Faith" is a short compendium of Torah doctrine written by the Sage Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, also known as "Maimonides" or "the Rambam."
Enjoy and have good day, Yaniv...
You can study the Torah and come to a score of conclusions; it's seemingly open enough and enough in certain points that you can get what you want from it. If you read the Torah for just half an hour you would understand that the connection between Judaism, Jews, the Torah, and Israel is crystal clear.
Let's start like this; Abraham is the father of the Jewish religion through his revelation by G-d. He settled in Israel vis-a-vis a commandment by G-d, upon leaving Egypt the Jews received the Torah and settled in Israel also upon a commandment from G-d. G-d commanded King David to build a permanent abode for His Presence and that was the Temple in Jerusalem, where Abraham went to bind and sacrifice Isaac. All of that is in the Torah.
Judah is one of the twelve tribes of Israel, whose original name was "Jacob." In English, from the name "Judah" we drive "Jew." As history has it, the ten northern tribes of Israel were driven from the land during the Assyrian invasion in 722 BCE and the rest during 586 BCE by the Babylonians. The tribe of Judah, the tribe from which King David is, remained intact and so the rest of the Israelites intermarried with them (which was already occuring) and gradually took on the name of Judah. This is how it came to be that the Israelites took on the name of Judah, "Jew." For example, my family traces its lineage to the tribe of Levi, but I am still a Jew; it's a nomenclature. Since we now use the word "Jew," we use it interchangably with "Israelite" and "Hebrew," and so we say that Moses and Abraham were Jews.
So who are the Jews?
The Jews are technically Israelites, but this is just a physical, biological understanding, which ultimately is irrelevant in defining a Jew, whose being is bound up in his soul. For example, is Jewish blood different than any other blood? Is there Jewish DNA? The first Jew was Abraham, a Hebrew, but that ethnicity is more-or-less lost to us today; does that matter? A Jew is charged with infusing the world with the unified knowledge of G-d through observing the commandments and teaching the world how to live G-dly lives as well. Ultimately, the genetic formation of his flesh is of no consequence - it is a physical paradigm that Judaism does not condone, nor is there any foundation for it in the Torah.
Many people have been given descriptions of Judaism that classify it as a pseudo-cultral-ethnic phenomenon; that's not what it is at all. There are Jews of all "races," and people can convert to Judaism, which would be impossible if it was not a religion. When a person converts to Judaism, it is said that his/her entire being goes through a change, including the body and the soul.
The Temple in Jerusalem, called the "Bet Hamikdash," destroyed the second time in the year 70 by the Romans, is where the animal sacrifices took place. The sacrifices were used to atone for sin. It is also the courtyard where the Jewish court took place in order to carry out legislation, such as dealing with disputes and carrying out sentences, i.e., the application of the Law. It was also the seat of the Torah-based Jewish monarchy and according to Torah belief, will be again when the Mashiach, Messiah, comes.
Judaism is a way of life totally surrounding the Will of G-d in every aspect of existence; if you want to call it a religion that would technically be accurate if you understand religion to mean a composite set of both practice and doctrine encompassing all of life, originating from G-d's Mind. Through observance of the 613 commandments, the Jews bring the world to the state that G-d desires; part of that desire is to inform the nations of the world, the Gentiles, that they too have obligations to G-d. These are encapsulated in the Seven Noachide Laws. All of these things are kept intact in Orthodox Judaism. That itself is a name (meaning "right" "thinking") that has been given to it, but that's fine, it does the job. In other words, Judaism is the Torah, which is the blueprint of existence. That is Judaism.
This is a very general and simplistic description of what Judaism is, you can find more intellectually probing perspectives in a series of good books, such as "If You Were G-d" by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, a personal favorite, "To Be a Jewish Woman" by Lisa Aiken, who lives not very far from me, "The Other Side of the Story," by Yehudis Samet, and a really fascinating read, "The Science of G-d," by Gerard Schroeder.
One particularly good book on Jewish philosophy is "Path of the Just" by Rabbi Moshe Chayim Luzzatto (the Ramchal). A very good work called "The Thirteen Principles of Faith" is a short compendium of Torah doctrine written by the Sage Rabbi Moshe Ben Maimon, also known as "Maimonides" or "the Rambam."
Enjoy and have good day, Yaniv...
Saturday, February 10, 2007
A Third Intifada? -
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Stone-throwing youths have clashed with Israeli forces in Jerusalem and across the West Bank as protests flared again against Israeli building work near the holy city's most contentious site.
Muslim leaders have vowed to press on with demonstrations against the repair work near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem that has angered Muslims across the world.
Israel has mobilised more than 2,000 police to quash any further unrest after rioting in Jerusalem on Friday left 15 Israeli policemen and at least 20 Palestinians wounded.
Cracks have appeared within the Israeli government about whether to continue with the renovation work, which the Arab League condemned Saturday as a "criminal attack" on Islam's third-holiest site.
The prospect of further unrest loomed, with Muslim leaders warning that work near the site which Jews call the Temple Mount and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary could trigger a third intifada, or uprising.
"We have a full programme of protests for the coming weeks in order to stop the Israeli crimes against the Al-Aqsa mosque," said the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, on Saturday.
"Continuing the work will increase the tension and anger among Palestinians and in the Arab-Islamic world," he added.
Six protesters were arrested outside the Old City's Flower Gate on Saturday and police had to rescue Canadian tourists whose bus came under attack from Palestinian stone throwers, police said.
In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians who were hurling rocks at Rachel's Tomb, an army spokesman said.
Clashes also erupted in the flashpoint city of Hebron and at the Qalandiya checkpoint separating Jerusalem from the West Bank, where two Palestinians were wounded, according to witnesses.
Leaders of Israel's left-leaning Labour party called for the work on a stone ramp leading to the compound near Dung Gate to halt but others insisted that Muslim leaders would not dictate policy with street violence.
"There is no reason to yield the country to a handful of extremists from the Islamic movement who want to escalate the violence," Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said.
"This ramp will be built, it is a done deal, and there will not be a third intifada as a result," said Dichter, the former chief of Israel's internal security agency, Shin Beth.
The United States, Israel's closest ally, urged the Jewish state to take the "sensitivities" of others into account over the work.
And Labour leaders called for the government to stop it altogether.
"We must reconsider this issue, even if we are right from a legal and archaeological point of view," Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said.
"We will only defeat the Islamic extremists if we have the support of the moderate ones and this is why it is necessary to act intelligently."
The renovations are scheduled to resume next week after being suspended for the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.
At a meeting on Saturday, the Arab League described it as a "criminal attack" on the compound and urged the United Nations and the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to act to stop what it said was threatening efforts to revive the peace process.
Israel insists the works, expected to take months, pose no risk to the holy sites and will strengthen an access ramp for the "benefit and safety of visitors" after an earthquake and snowstorm damage in 2004.
The compound, whose fate is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is where the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 after a visit by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
In 1996, more than 80 people were killed in three days of Palestinian riots after then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened a new entrance to a controversial archaeological tunnel near the holy sites.
Yaniv's commentary:
"At a meeting on Saturday, the Arab League described it as a "criminal attack" on the compound and urged the United Nations and the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to act to stop what it said was threatening efforts to revive the peace process."
The only crime here is the perpetuation of a lie which says that the Temple Mount does not rightfully belong to the State of Israel. Israel repairing an area of land that should be rightfully internationally recognized as its own is well within the bounds of what is legal. Further, I have been at southeastern corner of the Temple Mount where the Israeli government is repairing the bulge, and it is absolutely impossible to even consider that repair of that area of land that would threaten "Arab interests," which are malevolent towards Israel anyway. To situate you, the area of land is adjacent to a public street with cars whizzing by and is near a huge valley and mountain, known as the "Mount of Olives." Just like the Palestinian Authority Minister of Communications communicated to an excited audience of Palestinians that they planned the second intifada and that Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 200o was an excuse to start it, this talk of a "third intifada" is exactly the same thing. Here's the video of that.
The Palestinians want war, the Israeli's want to repair an area of land that could possibly damage the larger infrastructure of the Temple Mount area. If the water damage continues there, according to a tour guide I know who took me and my yeshiva to that site, the entire southeastern region of the wall could collapse, and that in turn, just so the Muslims know, would likely damage the Dome of the Rock, which is located nearby.
I hope Israel stays firm to this policy:
"Leaders of Israel's left-leaning Labour party called for the work on a stone ramp leading to the compound near Dung Gate to halt but others insisted that Muslim leaders would not dictate policy with street violence.
'There is no reason to yield the country to a handful of extremists from the Islamic movement who want to escalate the violence,' Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said."
This might give you an insight into the seemingly irrational behavior of Palestinian mobs:
"In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians who were hurling rocks at Rachel's Tomb, an army spokesman said."
Rachel's Tomb is a on a hill overlooking the east side of Bethlehem, I've been there, and that site too has absolutely nothing to do with anything happening in Jerusalem, except for a desire to demonstrate violence on the part of Palestinians. To tie that into another example, when Israel pulled its citizens out of Gaza more than a year and a half ago, the Palestinians, whom were formerly screaming and shouting and killing Israeli's in order to make them leave, screamed and shouted and killed more Israeli's for them to come back! I commented on that in my previous blogs about the Gaza pullout. Why did they change their mind so quickly? Because the Palestinian national identity, which is really just a euphemism for an Arabist war tactic, realizes that Israeli cooperation with Palestinian demands means that the Palestinian "government" can make no more demands. With that realization, Palestinian attacks actually escalated in order for Israel to call off the pullout, come back to reign control over them, and then to be forced into negotiations where it could be suckered into giving back even more land. In Gaza, just like at Rachel's Tomb, legal Israeli land (a bit different from Gaza, which is considered to be "occupied"), the rock-hurdling has the intent of driving Jews away. The overall goal is, wherever Palestinians are successful in driving Jews out of, that place receives a status of "contested" and then opens up to "negotiations." Please note, Bethlehem has nothing to do with Jerusalem, it's basically an arbitrary site for Palestinians to attack, other than a strategic intifada tactic, i.e., "desperate man's invasion."
"'We have a full programme of protests for the coming weeks in order to stop the Israeli crimes against the Al-Aqsa mosque,' said the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, on Saturday."
Excuse me, how exactly is Israel's repair a crime on Al-Aqsa mosque?
"The prospect of further unrest loomed, with Muslim leaders warning that work near the site which Jews call the Temple Mount and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary could trigger a third intifada, or uprising."
It's not called the Temple Mount, it is the Temple Mount. It was the Temple Mount at least 700 hundred years before that mosque was erected. Doesn't anybody care about history?
The second paragraph said that it angered Muslims across the world! The truth is being exposed, it is Muslims, not Arabs, who feel effected by this - this is a religious conflict, not an Arab one, and it is sad that the majority of the world's Muslims feel obligated (and pressured) to support the "Palestinian cause" as if it were synonymous with the religion of Islam itself! For Heaven's sake, there are Orthodox Jews who oppose actions of the State of Israel, and a fringe group that rejects the existence of the State itself! Yet non-Arab Muslims feel it their duty to support "Palestine," an historically false entity. And of course, it's unacceptable for world Jewry to support Israel.
The only people who should be protesting are Israeli, and anyone who hates injustice.
I live twenty minutes away by bus from the site about which they are talking.
JERUSALEM (AFP) - Stone-throwing youths have clashed with Israeli forces in Jerusalem and across the West Bank as protests flared again against Israeli building work near the holy city's most contentious site.
Muslim leaders have vowed to press on with demonstrations against the repair work near the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in the Old City of occupied east Jerusalem that has angered Muslims across the world.
Israel has mobilised more than 2,000 police to quash any further unrest after rioting in Jerusalem on Friday left 15 Israeli policemen and at least 20 Palestinians wounded.
Cracks have appeared within the Israeli government about whether to continue with the renovation work, which the Arab League condemned Saturday as a "criminal attack" on Islam's third-holiest site.
The prospect of further unrest loomed, with Muslim leaders warning that work near the site which Jews call the Temple Mount and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary could trigger a third intifada, or uprising.
"We have a full programme of protests for the coming weeks in order to stop the Israeli crimes against the Al-Aqsa mosque," said the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, on Saturday.
"Continuing the work will increase the tension and anger among Palestinians and in the Arab-Islamic world," he added.
Six protesters were arrested outside the Old City's Flower Gate on Saturday and police had to rescue Canadian tourists whose bus came under attack from Palestinian stone throwers, police said.
In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians who were hurling rocks at Rachel's Tomb, an army spokesman said.
Clashes also erupted in the flashpoint city of Hebron and at the Qalandiya checkpoint separating Jerusalem from the West Bank, where two Palestinians were wounded, according to witnesses.
Leaders of Israel's left-leaning Labour party called for the work on a stone ramp leading to the compound near Dung Gate to halt but others insisted that Muslim leaders would not dictate policy with street violence.
"There is no reason to yield the country to a handful of extremists from the Islamic movement who want to escalate the violence," Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said.
"This ramp will be built, it is a done deal, and there will not be a third intifada as a result," said Dichter, the former chief of Israel's internal security agency, Shin Beth.
The United States, Israel's closest ally, urged the Jewish state to take the "sensitivities" of others into account over the work.
And Labour leaders called for the government to stop it altogether.
"We must reconsider this issue, even if we are right from a legal and archaeological point of view," Deputy Defence Minister Ephraim Sneh said.
"We will only defeat the Islamic extremists if we have the support of the moderate ones and this is why it is necessary to act intelligently."
The renovations are scheduled to resume next week after being suspended for the Sabbath, the Jewish day of rest, police spokesman Mickey Rosenfeld said.
At a meeting on Saturday, the Arab League described it as a "criminal attack" on the compound and urged the United Nations and the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to act to stop what it said was threatening efforts to revive the peace process.
Israel insists the works, expected to take months, pose no risk to the holy sites and will strengthen an access ramp for the "benefit and safety of visitors" after an earthquake and snowstorm damage in 2004.
The compound, whose fate is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is where the second Palestinian uprising erupted in 2000 after a visit by then Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon.
In 1996, more than 80 people were killed in three days of Palestinian riots after then Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu opened a new entrance to a controversial archaeological tunnel near the holy sites.
Yaniv's commentary:
"At a meeting on Saturday, the Arab League described it as a "criminal attack" on the compound and urged the United Nations and the Middle East diplomatic Quartet to act to stop what it said was threatening efforts to revive the peace process."
The only crime here is the perpetuation of a lie which says that the Temple Mount does not rightfully belong to the State of Israel. Israel repairing an area of land that should be rightfully internationally recognized as its own is well within the bounds of what is legal. Further, I have been at southeastern corner of the Temple Mount where the Israeli government is repairing the bulge, and it is absolutely impossible to even consider that repair of that area of land that would threaten "Arab interests," which are malevolent towards Israel anyway. To situate you, the area of land is adjacent to a public street with cars whizzing by and is near a huge valley and mountain, known as the "Mount of Olives." Just like the Palestinian Authority Minister of Communications communicated to an excited audience of Palestinians that they planned the second intifada and that Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in 200o was an excuse to start it, this talk of a "third intifada" is exactly the same thing. Here's the video of that.
The Palestinians want war, the Israeli's want to repair an area of land that could possibly damage the larger infrastructure of the Temple Mount area. If the water damage continues there, according to a tour guide I know who took me and my yeshiva to that site, the entire southeastern region of the wall could collapse, and that in turn, just so the Muslims know, would likely damage the Dome of the Rock, which is located nearby.
I hope Israel stays firm to this policy:
"Leaders of Israel's left-leaning Labour party called for the work on a stone ramp leading to the compound near Dung Gate to halt but others insisted that Muslim leaders would not dictate policy with street violence.
'There is no reason to yield the country to a handful of extremists from the Islamic movement who want to escalate the violence,' Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said."
This might give you an insight into the seemingly irrational behavior of Palestinian mobs:
"In the West Bank town of Bethlehem, Israeli troops arrested 30 Palestinians who were hurling rocks at Rachel's Tomb, an army spokesman said."
Rachel's Tomb is a on a hill overlooking the east side of Bethlehem, I've been there, and that site too has absolutely nothing to do with anything happening in Jerusalem, except for a desire to demonstrate violence on the part of Palestinians. To tie that into another example, when Israel pulled its citizens out of Gaza more than a year and a half ago, the Palestinians, whom were formerly screaming and shouting and killing Israeli's in order to make them leave, screamed and shouted and killed more Israeli's for them to come back! I commented on that in my previous blogs about the Gaza pullout. Why did they change their mind so quickly? Because the Palestinian national identity, which is really just a euphemism for an Arabist war tactic, realizes that Israeli cooperation with Palestinian demands means that the Palestinian "government" can make no more demands. With that realization, Palestinian attacks actually escalated in order for Israel to call off the pullout, come back to reign control over them, and then to be forced into negotiations where it could be suckered into giving back even more land. In Gaza, just like at Rachel's Tomb, legal Israeli land (a bit different from Gaza, which is considered to be "occupied"), the rock-hurdling has the intent of driving Jews away. The overall goal is, wherever Palestinians are successful in driving Jews out of, that place receives a status of "contested" and then opens up to "negotiations." Please note, Bethlehem has nothing to do with Jerusalem, it's basically an arbitrary site for Palestinians to attack, other than a strategic intifada tactic, i.e., "desperate man's invasion."
"'We have a full programme of protests for the coming weeks in order to stop the Israeli crimes against the Al-Aqsa mosque,' said the head of the Islamic movement in Israel, Sheikh Raed Salah, on Saturday."
Excuse me, how exactly is Israel's repair a crime on Al-Aqsa mosque?
"The prospect of further unrest loomed, with Muslim leaders warning that work near the site which Jews call the Temple Mount and is known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary could trigger a third intifada, or uprising."
It's not called the Temple Mount, it is the Temple Mount. It was the Temple Mount at least 700 hundred years before that mosque was erected. Doesn't anybody care about history?
The second paragraph said that it angered Muslims across the world! The truth is being exposed, it is Muslims, not Arabs, who feel effected by this - this is a religious conflict, not an Arab one, and it is sad that the majority of the world's Muslims feel obligated (and pressured) to support the "Palestinian cause" as if it were synonymous with the religion of Islam itself! For Heaven's sake, there are Orthodox Jews who oppose actions of the State of Israel, and a fringe group that rejects the existence of the State itself! Yet non-Arab Muslims feel it their duty to support "Palestine," an historically false entity. And of course, it's unacceptable for world Jewry to support Israel.
The only people who should be protesting are Israeli, and anyone who hates injustice.
I live twenty minutes away by bus from the site about which they are talking.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Zionism is the Main Cause of Anti-Semitism Throughout the World?
This picture appeared on the page of an intelligent, humorous, insightful, and compassionate individual on MySpace. -
If Zionism truly is the main cause of anti-Semitism throughout the world, why did it exist before Zionism?
The Pharaoh's hatred of the spiritual was easily manifested in the hatred of the Jews; they stood for understanding the depth of a person vs. the Egyptian understanding of the exaltation of the body, and so he tried to destroy them, all the Torah sources explain this. Did the Pharaoh hate them because they were Zionists or because of what they stood for? So my main question is, if Zionism truly is the main cause of anti-Semitism in the world, why did anti-Semitism exist before Zionism? What caused people who hated Jews to hate them before the State of Israel existed? And an even juicier question if you can connect the dots, why are there people who hate Jews after the State of Israel came to being? What's the only constant in this historical equation?
Phew! Now that I know that Zionism is really the cause for anti-Semitism in the world I can rest my conscious.
We also should wonder, is Zionism also the reason why the "Arabized" Janjaweed hate the African Sudanese? Or is it the reason why the Chinese oppressed the monks of Tibet? Is it why the early Americans basically killed off the Native Americans? Is it the reason why the Palestinians hate the Israeli's? Zionism is a form of nationalism; were the aforementioned groups driven to hatred due to nationalistic movements, or was there another reason that they hated those groups? Is Zionism the reason anti-Semites hate Jews, or perhaps is there another reason?
Think about it.
This picture appeared on the page of an intelligent, humorous, insightful, and compassionate individual on MySpace. -
If Zionism truly is the main cause of anti-Semitism throughout the world, why did it exist before Zionism?
The Pharaoh's hatred of the spiritual was easily manifested in the hatred of the Jews; they stood for understanding the depth of a person vs. the Egyptian understanding of the exaltation of the body, and so he tried to destroy them, all the Torah sources explain this. Did the Pharaoh hate them because they were Zionists or because of what they stood for? So my main question is, if Zionism truly is the main cause of anti-Semitism in the world, why did anti-Semitism exist before Zionism? What caused people who hated Jews to hate them before the State of Israel existed? And an even juicier question if you can connect the dots, why are there people who hate Jews after the State of Israel came to being? What's the only constant in this historical equation?
Phew! Now that I know that Zionism is really the cause for anti-Semitism in the world I can rest my conscious.
We also should wonder, is Zionism also the reason why the "Arabized" Janjaweed hate the African Sudanese? Or is it the reason why the Chinese oppressed the monks of Tibet? Is it why the early Americans basically killed off the Native Americans? Is it the reason why the Palestinians hate the Israeli's? Zionism is a form of nationalism; were the aforementioned groups driven to hatred due to nationalistic movements, or was there another reason that they hated those groups? Is Zionism the reason anti-Semites hate Jews, or perhaps is there another reason?
Think about it.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
From African Royalty to Judaism -
“The café owner has been eavesdropping. Now he interrupts us. He wears a baseball cap with the letters USA, but his London accent gives him away. ‘I am a convert also,’ he says, ‘and we converts see things so much clearer than you confused Jews from birth. Perhaps there should be a special prayer in the morning where we thank God for having made us gentiles who had to convert .’”
*You can find the rest of the recording at www.youtube.com under the keywords "Rabbi Natan Gamedze," or "From African Royalty to Judaism." Enjoy!
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