Truth

If we have learned one thing from history it is that Jews can live as minorities in Muslim populations but that Muslims may not live as minorities in Jewish populations. We can tell this by looking at the many Jewish minorities that have lived (and some still do) in Muslim Arab countries. This explains the "Israeli-Palestinian conflict" quite well, Palestinians, who are Arab Muslims, can simply not come to grips with living under Israeli, which is Jewish, rule. Granted, Israel is partially to blame for this due to its mistake in dealing with the Palestinians during the Six Day War of 1967; instead of granting that population limited autonomy after winning that war of promised destruction, it should have removed the Palestinian population from Israeli territory in one swift gesture. Afterall, Jordan did this in 1979 and today we don't see Palestinian suicide bombings and attacks on Jordanian civilians on Jordanain soil; the Jordanians acted with fortitude and saved themselves (and the Palestinians) many lives. Before this, Yasser Arafat was acting out of Jordan, which he treated as a base by which to attack Israel, and eventually the Jordanian government ordered the slaughter of some 10,000 Palestinians, whom made up 60% of the population of Jordan. King Hussein knew that Arafat was attempting to turn Jordan into a Palestinian state, although rights and "homeland" had nothing to do with it, just sheer desires for power and control. In Israel, although it is disguised under a desire for national independence from Israel, it does not take a genius to understand that the ultimate goal of "Palestinian independence" is actually Palestinian dominance, and many an Israeli official understand this, although there are many in the liberal camps that do not.

When people bring up that life for Jews as non-Muslim minorities in Muslim countries meant lack of civil rights, proponents of the politics of Islam insist that even though life for Jews under Islam was not perfect, it was nowhere near the horrors of life for Jews under Christian Europe. True, perhaps, but nevertheless, life for Palestinians (Muslims) in Israel (Jewish) is far better than life for Jews under Islam. The Palestinian attempts to destroy Israel by way of political manipulation, corruption, and suicide bombings is to blame for the unhappines that ensues there. If we imagine that Jews under Islam murdered Muslims while living in those countries as minorities, we know that the "rebellion" would not last more than one day. The truth is that the Muslim government would likely have ordered the permanent exile or full-scale slaughter of Jews there the second it began. When we look at the way Palestinians behave in Israel, it is a wonder beyond my ability to understand that Israel shows as much restraint as it does. There is simply no sane comparison between Jewish life under Islam and Palestinian life under Israel, even though the point of Palestinian propaganda is to make life in Israel as bleak, oppressive, and morbid as possible in order to properly vent the frustration of Palestinians.

A Misdirected Attack
Editorial
Los Angeles Times
August 17, 2003

Opposition parties use the Senate confirmation process to block presidential appointments they don't like, but it's a weapon that has to be used reluctantly and in extreme cases.

In filibustering the judicial nomination of Alabama Atty. Gen. William H. Pryor Jr., for instance, Senate Democrats are stopping a far-right extremist from joining a federal appeals court for life. But in trying to prevent Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes from joining the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) are abusing their privilege.

Pipes has a long record of stirring up controversy on Islamic affairs. Long before Sept. 11, 2001, he warned of the danger of Arab terrorists lurking within the United States. He has been a fervent defender of Israel, including its settlement policy. His stands have earned him the enmity of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which is leading the charge against his nomination.

But however provocative Pipes may be, he is no bigot. In his 2002 book "Militant Islam Reaches America," he states that Muslim immigrants can "bring much of value, including new energy, to their host societies." He has consistently urged Arab Americans to shun radicalism and embrace moderate Islam. Pipes, who earned his doctorate at Harvard and has written 11 books, would bring a lively and inquiring mind to the institute, which is a research organization created by Congress to promote peaceful resolutions of international conflicts.

Pipes would not, in this capacity, have remotely the power of a federal judge. His nomination has been endorsed by a number of distinguished scholars, including Paul Kennedy, Fouad Ajami and John Keegan.

President Bush appointed Pipes to the board April 4 and is reportedly considering a recess appointment, which circumvents the normal Senate approval process. It should not have come to this. Sens. Kennedy, Dodd and Harkin should drop their resistance to Pipes.

http://www.danielpipes.org/article/1205

A little bit of hilarious blasphemy.

http://www.ebaumsworld.com/videos/ten-things.html

This is NOT a reason for Jews to be liberal, it's a reason for Jews to be RELIGIOUS! Wake up, please!!!

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250 C.E. Canhage Expulsion
224 C.E. Italy Forced Conversion
325 C.E. Jerusalem Expulsion
351 C.E Persia Book Burning
357 C.E. Italy Property Confiscation
379 C.E. Milan Synagogue Burning
415 C.E. Alexandria Expulsion
418 C.E. Minorca Forced Conversion
469 C.E. Ipahan Holocaust
489 C.E. Antioch Synagogue Burning
506 C.E. Daphne Synagogue Burning
519 C.E. Ravenna Synagogue Burning
554 C.E. Diocese of Clement (France) Expulsion
561 C.E. Diocese of Uzes (France) Expulsion
582 C.E Merovingia Forced Conversion
612 C.E. Visigoth Spain Expulsion
628 C.E. Byzantium Forced Conversion
629 C.E. Merovingia Forced Conversion
633 C.E. Toledo Forced Conversion
638 C.E. Toledo Stake Burnings
642 C.E. Visigothic Empire Expulsion
653 C.E. Toledo Expulsion
681 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
693 C.E. Toledo Jews Enslaved
722 C.E. Byzantium Judaism Outlawed
855 C.E. Italy Expulsion
876 C.E. Sens Expulsion
897 C.E. Narbonne Land Confiscation
945 C.E. Venice Ban on Sea Travel
1009 C.E. Orleans Massacre
1012 C.E. Rouen, Limoges & Rome Massacre
1012 C.E. Mayence Expulsion
1021 C.E. Rome Jews Burned Alive
1063 C.E. Spain Massacre
1095 C.E. Lorraine Massacre
1096 C.E. Northern France & Germany 1/3 of Jewish Population Massacred
1096 C.E. Hungary Massacre
1096 C.E. Ralisbon Massacre
1099 C.E. Jerusalem Jews Burned Alive
1100 C.E. Kiev Pogrom
1140 C.E. Germany Massacres
1146 C.E. Rhine Valley Massacre
1147 C.E. Wurzburg Massacre
1147 C.E. Belitz (Germany) Jews Burned Alive
1147 C.E. Carenton, Ramenu & Sully (France) Massacres
1171 C.E. Blois Stake Burnings
1181 C.E. France Expulsion
1181 C.E. England Property Confiscation
1188 C.E. London & York Mob Attacks
1190 C.E. Norfolk Jews Burned Alive
1191 C.E. Bray (France) Jews Burned Alive
1195 C.E. France Property Confiscation
1209 C.E. Beziers Massacre
1212 C.E. Spain Rioting and blood bath against the Jews of Toledo.
1215 C.E. Rome Lateran Council of Rome decrees that Jews must wear the "badge of shame" in all Christian countries. Jews are denied all public sector employment, and are burdened with extra taxes.
1215 C.E. Toulouse (France) Mass Arrests
1218 C.E. England Jews Forced to Wear Badges
1231 C.E. Rome Inquisition Established
1236 C.E. France Forced Conversion/Massacre
1239 C.E. London Massacre & Property Confiscation
1240 C.E. Austria Property confiscation. Jews either imprisoned, converted, expelled, or burned.
1240 C.E. France Talmud Confiscated
1240 C.E. England Book Burning
1240 C.E. Spain Forced Conversion
1242 C.E. Paris Talmud Burned
1244 C.E. Oxford Mob Attacks
1255 C.E. England Blood libel in Lincoln results in the burning / torture of many Jews & public hangings.
1261 C.E. Canterbury Mob Attacks
1262 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. London Mob Attacks
1264 C.E. Germany Council of Vienna declares that all Jews must wear a "pointed dunce cap." Thousands murdered.
1267 C.E. Vienna Jews Forced to Wear Horned Hats
1270 C.E. Weissenberg, Magdeburg, Arnstadt, Coblenz, Singzig, and Erfurt Jews Burned Alive
1270 C.E. England The libel of the "counterfeit coins" - all Jewish men, women and children in England imprisoned. Hundreds are hung.
1276 C.E. Bavaria Expulsion
1278 C.E. Genoa (Spain) Mob Attacks
1279 C.E. Hungary & Poland The Council of Offon denies Jews the right to all civic positions. The Jews of Hungary & Poland are forced to wear the "red badge of shame."
1283 C.E. Mayence & Bacharach Mob Attacks
1285 C.E. Munich Jews Burned Alive
1290 C.E. England King Edward I issues an edict banishing all Jews from England. Many drowned.
1291 C.E. France The Jewish refugees from England are promptly expelled from France.
1292 C.E. Italy Forced conversions & expulsion of the Italian Jewish community.
1298 C.E. Germany The libel of the "Desecrated Host" is perpetrated against the Jews of Germany. Approximately 150 Jewish communities undergo forced conversion.
1298 C.E. Franconia, Bavaria & Austria Reindfel's Decree is propagated against the Jews of Franconia and Bavarai. Riots against these Jewish communities, as well as those in Austria, result in the massacre of 100,000 Jews over a six-month period.
1306 C.E. France Expulsion
1308 C.E. Strasbourg Jews Burned Alive
1320 C.E. Toulouse & Perpigon 120 Communities Massacred & Talmud
C.E. Teruel Public Executions
1328 C.E. Estella 5,000 Jews Slaughtered
1348 C.E. France & Spain Jews Burned Alive
1348 C.E. Switzerland Expulsion
1349 C.E. Worms, Strasbourg, Oppenheim, Mayence, Erfurt, Bavaria & Swabia Jews Burned Alive
1349 C.E. Heilbronn (Germany) Expulsion
1349 C.E. Hungary Expulsion
1354 C.E. Castile (Spain) 12,000 Jews Slaughtered
1368 C.E. Toledo 8,000 Jews Slaughtered
1370 C.E. Majorca., Penignon & Barcelona Mob Attack
1377 C.E. Huesca (Spain) Jews Burned Alive
1380 C.E. Paris Mob Attack
1384 C.E. Nordlingen Mass Murder
1388 C.E. Strasbourg
C.E. Prague Mass Slaughter & Book Burning
1391 C.E. Castille, Toledo, Madrid, Seville, Cordova, Cuenca & Barcelona Forced Conversions & Mass Murder
1394 C.E. Germany Expulsion
1394 C.E. France Expulsion
1399 C.E. Posen (Poland) Jews Burned Alive
1400 C.E. Prague Stake Burnings
1407 C.E. Cracow Mob Attack
1415 C.E. Rome Talmud Confiscated
1422 C.E. Austria Jews Burned Alive
1422 C.E. Austria Expulsion
1424 C.E. Fribourg & Zurich Expulsion
1426 C.E. Cologne Expulsion
1431 C.E. Southern Germany Jews Burned Alive
1432 C.E. Savory Expulsion
1438 C.E. Mainz Expulsion
1439 C.E. Augsburg Expulsion
1449 C.E. Toledo Public Torture &. Burnings
1456 C.E. Bavaria Expulsion
1453 C.E. Franconia Expulsion
1453 C.E. Breslau Expulsion
1454 C.E. Wurzburg Expulsion
1463 C.E. Cracow Mob Attack
1473 C.E. Andalusia Mob Attack
1480 C.E. Venice Jews Burned Alive
1481 C.E. Seville Stake Burnings
1484 C.E. Cuidad Real, Guadalupe, Saragossa & Teruel Jews Burned Alive
1485 C.E. Vincenza (Italy) Expulsion
1486 C.E. Toledo Jews Burned Alive
1488 C.E. Toledo Stake Burnings
1490 C.E. Toledo Public Executions
1491 C.E. Astorga Public Torture & Execution
1492 C.E. Spain Expulsion
1495 C.E. Lithuania Expulsion
1497 C.E. Portugal Expulsion
1499 C.E. Germany Expulsion
1506 C.E. Lisbon Mob Attack
1510 C.E. Berlin Public Torture & Execution
1514 C.E. Strasbourg Expulsion
1519 C.E. Regensburg Expulsion
1539 C.E. Cracow & Portugal Stake Burnings
1540 C.E. Naples Expulsion
1542 C.E. Bohemia Expulsion
1550 C.E. Genoa Expulsion
1551 C.E. Bavaria Expulsion
1555 C.E. Pesaro Expulsion
1556 C.E. Sokhachev (Poland) Public Torture & Execution
1559 C.E. Austria Expulsion
1561 C.E. Prague Expulsion
1567 C.E. Wurzburg Expulsion
1569 C.E. Papal States Expulsion
1571 C.E. Brandenburg Expulsion
1582 C.E. Netherlands Expulsion
1593 C.E. Brunswick Expulsion
1597 C.E. Cremona, Pavia & Lodi Expulsion
1614 C.E. Frankfort Expulsion
1615 C.E. Worms Expulsion
1619 C.E. Kiev Expulsion
1635 C.E. Vilna Mob Attack
1637 C.E. Cracow Public Torture & Execution
1647 C.E. Lisbon Jews Burned Alive
1648 C.E. Poland 1/3 of Jewry Slaughtered
1649 C.E. Ukraine Expulsion
1649 C.E. Hamburg Expulsion
1652 C.E. Lisbon Stake Burnings
1654 C.E. Little Russia Expulsion
1656 C.E. Lithuania Expulsion
1660 C.E. Seville Jews Burned Alive
1663 C.E Cracow Public Torture &. Execution
1664 C.E. Lemberg Mob Attack
1669 C.E. Oran (North Africa) Expulsion
1670 C.E. Vienna Expulsion
1671 C.E. Minsk Mob Attacks
1681 C.E. Vilna Mob Attacks
1682 C.E. Cracow Mob Attacks
1687 C.E. Posen Mob Attacks
1712 C.E. Sandomir Expulsion
1727 C.E. Russia Expulsion
1738 C.E. Wurtemburg Expulsion
1740 C.E. Liule Russia Expulsion
1744 C.E Bohemia Expulsion
1744 C.E. Livonia Expulsion
1745 C.E. Moravia Expulsion
1753 C.E. Kovad (Lithuania) Expulsion
1757 C.E. Kamenetz Talmud Burning
1761 C.E. Bordeaux Expulsion
1768 C.E. Kiev 3,000 Jews Slaughtered
1772 C.E. Russia
C.E. Warsaw Expulsion
1789 C.E. Alsace Expulsion
1801 C.E. Bucharest Mob Attack
1804 C.E. Russian Villages Expulsion
1808 C.E. Russian Countryside Expulsion
1815 C.E. Lubeck & Bremen Expulsion
1820 C.E. Bremes Expulsion
1843 C.E. Austria & Prussia Expulsion
1850 C.E. New York City 500 People, Led by Police, Attacked & Wrecked Jewish Synagogue
1862 C.E. Area under General Grant's Jurisdiction in the United States Expulsion
1866 C.E Galatz (Romania) Expulsion
1871 C.E. Odena Mob Attack
1887 C.E. Slovakia Mob Attacks
1897 C.E. Kantakuzenka (Russia) Mob Attacks
1898 C.E. Rennes (France) Mob Attack
1899 C.E. Nicholayev Mob Attack
1900 C.E. Konitz (Prussia) Mob Attack
1902 C.E. Poland Widespread Pogroms
1904 C.E. Manchuria, Kiev & Volhynia Widespread Pogroms
1905 C.E. Zhitomir (Yolhynia) Mob Attacks
1919 C.E Bavaria Expulsion
1915 C.E. Georgia (U.S.A.) Leo Frank Lynched
1919 C.E. Prague Wide Spread
Pogroms
1920 C.E. Munich & Breslau Mob Attacks
1922 C.E. Boston, MA Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard, calls for Quota Restrictions on Jewish Admission
1926 C.E. Uzbekistan Pogrom
1928 C.E. Hungary Widespread Anti-Semitic Riots on University Campuses
1929 C.E. Lemberg (Poland) Mob Attacks
1930 C.E. Berlin Mob Attack
1933 C.E. Bucharest Mob Attacks
1938-45 C.E. Europe Holocaust

PERSPECTIVE ON THE RELIGIOUS-SECULAR CONFLICT

By Aharon Feldman(An Address Delivered at the Agudath Israel Convention, November 1999)

This article can be found here --- http://www.jerusalemletter.co.il/conflict.htm

Liberal Conservative G-d

There is no such thing as exclusive liberalism or conservativism; both are after the same thing – truth. However, each defines truth in a relatively different way, but we can tell that they share in certain essentials when we look at where the extreme polar opposites of each ideology fall on the political spectrum; it is the far left and right extremists that begin to see eye-to-eye on certain issues. For example, an extremist liberal and conservative might both ferociously oppose abortion on grounds that it is murder; the liberal has his secular humanist paradigm and the conservative has his religious sacredness paradigm, but they both agree with absolute conviction that abortion is murder. As they move further down the ends of the political spectrum they believe more strongly that abortion is murder and are less flexible to viewpoints that deem it acceptable. In that, they begin to agree with each other almost completely; that abortion is absolutely intolerable. As they move away from the edges and towards the center, they begin to disagree more and more, until they start to near the center, where they begin to reach neutrality and even apathy. Why does the unseemly occur? Why do people begin to agree on fundamental issues the more they move towards the fringes of the political spectrum and to disagree the more centrist they become? The answer must be that the closer to the center one is, the more he is subject to pulls from both sides, i.e., the more he is influenced by truths upon which each side insists. This leaves him in a state of confusion or flux, moving back and forth around the center area and teetering between both sides of the spectrum and yet feeling pulled further to one edge or the other. The center extremity seems to be the location on the spectrum in which relativism of all types occur – the place where no truth and all confusion exist – it is “tohu vavohu,” chaos. The center extremity is not marked by any specific paradigm, there is nothing, other than a “happy medium,” for which the perfect center can attest, and the “happy medium” usually is marked by a lack of a stance rather than a stance; it is a netherworld of ideology. The closer to the edges that a person gets, the stronger he feels that neutrality and apathy are damaging and the more he feels that absolute truth is a must for society.

But even though a fringe lefty and a fringe righty stand face-to-face at opposite ends of the spectrum (in which the spectrum curves around like a ring and meets, with a space in the middle), they are still on opposite ends of the spectrum; they each stand for entirely different paradigms. How can they possibly agree on an issue? For example, both the fringe liberal and conservative feel with absolute conviction that abortion is murder, but one feels it on the grounds of a rational secular humanism and the other feels it on the grounds of a sacredness essential to G-d; are these not two opposing and contradictory viewpoints? No they are not; the fringe liberal has a solid and unwavering conceptualization of human value and dignity, not to mention a powerful conscious based on these notions, while the fringe conservative has a solid and unwavering conceptualization of the holy and sacred, not to mention also a powerful conscious based on these notions. It is at this point on the spectrum where a truth can be fostered, the type of truth that yields genuine peace, because an unwavering notion of human value and dignity and an unwavering notion of the holy and the sacred are the same thing! The secular humanism of the left reaches so far into the extremities that on its own it idolizes the human being to the status of G-d; it has the notion of human dignity down pat, but it is G-dless and therefore it cannot last and becomes what it detests. The sacred religiosity of the right too reaches so far into the extremities of the right that it stamps out all that is beautiful and harmonious about the sacred and becomes rigid and frozen; it removes the human element from the equation almost entirely – it can last, but only by force. In this spot is where the overt love of the human and his worth meets the overt love of the holy and its worth, and it is here, and only here, where the human being becomes holy. This is “G-d’s Spot,” this is where G-d intends for humanity to reside, and this is the intent of each of the commandments; at once they establish dignity towards human beings (and animals) and to the consciousness of the Divine, which is our G-d. That is why you cannot have a secular form of the Divine commandments and it is why you cannot have a form of religious piety divorced from the human condition. This is the Equilibrium of existence, which is the Torah, which is peace.

Gas Chambers vs. Refugee Camps

Hopefully this post is useless; hopefully the argument can be laid to rest, but just in case it can’t, here goes. The difference between Germany’s treatment of the Jews and Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is so evident given the scope of history that the contrast doesn’t even need to be made. For the most part, I feel, lots of people already understand that such a comparison is futile and baseless, however, there are always those outspoken and mindless few whom are energetic in making their parallels of the Nazi regime and the Israeli state; some of them are Muslims. I think that to even cover this topic is kin to flogging a dead horse, but certain people never cease to amaze me, and it is to them that I dedicate this piece.

Before I get into the mechanics of the fallacious comparisons between Germany’s gas chambers and the West Bank’s and the Gaza Strip’s refugee camps, I must point out a bias that damages the entire analogical attempt before it is even constructed. There are many, many more numerous and more valid comparisons that a person can make to the Nazi regime’s gas chambers than the State of Israel, but the fact that the mindless individual whom chooses to make the comparison davka (spitefully) chooses to make the analogy to Israel, a Jewish enterprise, shows his eagerness to compare “the Jewish victim” to his aggressors. It is no ironic mistake of history that Israel is similar to Germany, in fact, it is not real at all; the entire comparison is founded simply on a desire to eradicate Jewish dignity and morale by comparing Jews to their worst oppressors and by comparing the Palestinians to Jews. It is a narrative of sorts, a narrative with no basis in reality. If you are a liberal radical Anglo-American, you make this analogy because you want something to strive for and are likely silly; if you are an Arab-American, you make this analogy because you come from a long tradition of Jew-hating, so deal with it.

Having said that, we can now examine the logical reasons as to why the comparison is flimsy. The Nazi’s carried out a vicious and systematic attempt to eradicate the entire Jewish population of Germany (and Europe). If I have to explain further how Germany and Israel are different thus far, I suggest that the reader open up a few history books before even reading on, or you can just take my word for it. Israel is not trying to eradicate the Palestinians by any stretch of the imagination; in fact, and if you like irony, it is the Palestinians that are trying to eradicate Israel -- just consider Hamas’ charter, which calls for, guess what, the eradication of the State of Israel. There are more comparisons between the Nazi Party and Hamas than between Germany and Israel, but cognitive dissonance is a favorite of people with hate in their blood.

There is no reason for the Israeli state to want to eradicate the Palestinians; all of the ideological conundrums of the Nazi war machine, backed by a long tradition of the European Christian anti-Semitic psychosis, simply has no parallel with Israel. The Israeli’s do not believe themselves to be a superior race of people, which they go to great lengths by providing bogus scientific “evidence.” They do not have a campaign in place to ship Palestinians into concentration camps where they can dispose of them in huge bonfires. They do not view them as so inhuman that even when eradicating them they try to save bullets. They do not believe that the Palestinians are vermin that are taking over the world and are by nature despicable mongrels. However, in epileptic pseudo-intellectual outbursts, the Palestinian propaganda machine attempts to mold the Palestinian into the image of the ghettoized Jew of the second World War, an appealing parable for heartless bleeding hearts, yet at the same time it denies that the Holocaust occurred or insists that it was hyped up. What then is the rationale for this comparison? Cognitive dissonance and ignorance, inability to properly process information or to think freely, the deep cultural internalization of propaganda from a very young age – these are the answers. Indeed, all of these are the same telltale forecasts predicting the morbid cloud hanging over Germany in what has become this century’s universal tale of the effective power of mental monopoly. Contrast this to the freedom of thought and speech that exists in the Israeli media circuit and the Israel-Germany analogy dematerializes and is replaced by a “Palestine”-Germany structure.

Further, this propaganda tries to transform the refugee camps into the concentration camps, which acts as fodder driving the Palestinians to "take up arms" against Israel and justifies the wholescale murder that they then take against its citizens. Note that even in the Jewish Ghetto Uprisings of the Holocaust, where the Jews were really being eradicated, resistant Jews did not prey on German civilians; they were so far removed from all civilian life that even had they wanted to kill civilian Germans, they were in totality separated from them and could not reach them. The Palestinians, on the other hand, are a rock's throw away from Israeli civilian society, a testament to the difference between Israel and Germany. It would be more accurate to compare the State of Jordan's 1979 "Black September" slaughter of some 3,000 to 5,000 Palestinians (although the killing was mutual) to Germany's elimination of Jews. Some people term the Jordanian massacre a genocidal attempt. The terrorist group whom kidnapped and murdered the eleven Israeli's during the Munich olympics named their group "Black September" after the Jordanian massacre.

*Note; Jordan's Palestinian population, behind Yasser Arafat's lead, was trying to create a Palestinian state within a Jordanian state, which led Jordan to expel him and according to Wikipedia, "The number of casualties in what resembled a civil war is estimated at tens of thousands, and both sides were involved in intentional killing of civilians. It was a turning point for Jordanian identity, as the kingdom embarked on the program of "Jordanization" of the society." It seems that both Israel and Jordan have had similar problems with the Palestinians, yet Israel acts, and is expected to act, radically different.

Israel’s media’s and liberal intelligentsia’s gravest sin is the guilt-ridden attempt to “prove” that Israel is the polar opposite of Germany, an internalization of all of the worst claims leveled towards it. The relationship between this heaping evidence and the effectiveness in reaching its desired goal is a transverse relationship; the more Israel provides evidence for its innocence of this charge, the more its accusers believe it is guilty. The reason for this is because Israel approaches its “trial” as if it is indeed guilty; you cannot convince others of your innocence if somewhere inside your troubled psyche you believe that you are guilty, and perhaps somehow deserving of such a fate. This particular Israeli (Jewish) ideology needs a whole new paradigm shift.

Can I Have the "Hate Your Neighbor as Yourself" and Pass the "Love your Enemy!"

He is an “older Jew,” coming from a pre-State of Israel world, and like all Jews, lives in a post-Land of Israel world. He is one of the Jewry’s responses to and products of thousands of years of Exile, as we all are. I say this as an Orthodox Jew myself; he is a Chassidic Jew from Europe awaiting Messianic Redemption of the Land of Israel, and in 1948 we got (some of) the actual land back, but the Redemption was not there. Therefore, to some degree, his response is that of sharp honesty, a view of the bigger picture, that much is to be improved when it comes to Jewry, independent of the fact that we have established a (relatively) sovereign state in some of the borders of the land that belongs to us. In his mind, he is making the sharp contrast between the Land of Israel as the place that G-d delivered to the Jewish people to live out their lives in accordance with the commandments, and the State of Israel that was a response to the German Holocaust, and even though many religious Jews came there with the waves, there was a right of return, but no religious return. Their central thesis is that Zionism, a modernized (and thoroughly secular) conceptualization in its original form in the late 1800’s, is a bastardization of the real reason to return to the Land, real Torah living, real Judaism. The view is that G-d has not yet decided to return the exiled to their Land, and even though they may perhaps come on their own accord, they must come for reasons of Torah, not for reasons of escaping oppression. To some degree, Israel was erected as a safe haven for Jews to live freely, and there was no other place in the world where this could have been done, but years of the accumulation of other societies’ cultures, philosophies, and ways of life were superimposed on many of those same Jewish people and the State of Israel became a manifestation of those two things; safe haven and internalization of ways of life adopted in Exile. Any sort of awakening will be to begin touching on what it really means to be a Jew, the task of trying to remember what it was like before the thousands of years of Exile in which we’ve been, the fog that has haunted our memory, obstructed our knowledge of self, and is keeping us from the righteous living of the Torah.

But it also ignores the situation at hand and refuses to understand it. The creation of the State of Israel in 1948 was no Messianic Redemption, although it was miraculous and definitely implicative of G-d’s Hand behind the scene. It is true that G-d desires effort before perfection, and Israel, the State, seems to be one of those generational tests that the Jews receive; how will we respond to the next fork in the road? Will we take the right path or the wrong path? There has been a mixed response thus far. Other religious Jews, no less devout and committed to the Torah life than others, while understanding the shortcomings of the State notion, see the significance and potentiality of the State of Israel. Large groups of Jews congregating and creating their lives in (some of) the borders of the Land of Israel, reviving the language into spoken form (what did our sovereign ancestors speak on the soil of the Land?), and having at least some sovereignty, although making many concessions to the neighbors. The scenario is not as good as it should be and seems like a page right out of history, but the ability for growth is there, in the face of institutionalized secularism. We see that it is imperfect, but we cannot ignore the signs, we do not have the luxury to do so; we are less than halfway there and it is time for the people to speak – we want what is ours, we want to live right, we want to say what will we do and what we will not do – why is it acceptable to speak up for any ideal except the religious ideal? What makes any one ideal inherently better than another, or than the religious ideal then? Why can we not see that a wise return to proper living will provide equilibrium for us, give us our compass, and orientate us to our path? Why have we rejected such notions as the very existence of a compass; if we do not believe that we are lost then we do not need to be found – but our primal nature as human beings screams it, “We are lost!” We fear being like our neighbors in their religious extremism, and fear being like our own religious extremists. However, the cognitive dissonance here is astounding, for those secular Israeli’s that spurn the religious right, those who dream of a Greater Israel, completely and thoroughly ignore the religious kaleidoscope, that is, the segments of honest-to-Torah and G-d that radically reject the State. It is acceptable to reject the State in the most vociferous of forms as long as you are an atheist or an agnostic, but the secular Torah-spurning Israeli Jew that hates his country’s policies will never align himself with his “religious counterpart” because he just can’t stand how he looks. What is the difference between a secular anti-Israel Jew and a religious anti-Israel Jew, and if “anti-Israelism” is so the motivating factor of these two ideologies, why cannot they find room for alignment? The strangest truth is that each finds it more viable to align themselves with anti-Israel Palestinian groups than anti-Israel Jewish groups; each rather don the red, black, white, and green and stand at a pro-Palestinian rally than with each other. Each rather align with the enemy than with the friend, of whom the enemy they each see as a tool in our destruction (like Babylon or Assyria), a mark that we are giving ourselves to defeatism, that we embrace our enemies and spurn our friends; we love the enemy and hate our neighbors as ourselves.



Note: what the heck? http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/331


These Jews are real juicy nuggets for Palestinians, affirmations of all the propaganda they’ve been screaming for thirty eight years, but they have no clue as to the internal workings of the Jewish mind. This works to affirm the Muslim concept of triumphalism; the belief that Islam has replaced Judaism, which for the Muslim is the basis of such an allegiance. However, in this picture, we see a man standing in the name of what he deems to be authentic Judaism and a man that Muslims can’t even privately support as an authentic Muslim.

* I'll add some pictures later.

I am in correspondence (kind of) with this Muslim student in Chicago. She sent me a video of Yosef Cohen, the Jew that converted to Islam (known now by 'Yusuf Khattab'), I responded with this -- http://groups.msn.com/WhyILeftIslam -- and she responded with this -- Occupation is a crime, from Israel to Palestine! -- and then I responded with this.


If you have the time, grab a map and help me find Palestine. If you knew your history, you'd know where that term comes from and to whom it was applied. And if you knew your Middle East history you'd know how the term came to usage and who coined it and why, but you don't, and like all other Muslims suffering from cognitive dissonance and an intellectual lack of honesty, you like to make "the Palestinian cause" out as if it has something to do with Islam, or something horribly false and insulting like that. There are Orthodox Jews today that stand against the State of Israel, and not on any moral basis, for morally they think that all the Arabs should leave Israel. Rather, they base their views on the fact that Israel is not a religious state and therefore not only do they view it as an insignificant harbinger of the Torah's Messianic expectations, they believe with all of their hearts and souls that it is pushing his coming away. I do not completely agree with them, but I have yet to find a Muslim so noble and honest as to be in utter rejection to the "State of Palestine" lie, which goes against the essentials of Islam in every fiber of its being. Muhammad didn't want states, i.e., countries, he envisioned a vast empire (Umma) where Sharia Law ran every aspect of life (as you probably know), this notion of "Palestine" that you hold in your head makes a mockery of his expectations and if any "real Muslims" had the guts to stand up and speak out for what was right, they would talk. What about the some twenty two Muslim majority countries of the Umma (or is it more?), surely those should be "Islamically" improved before "ya Falesteen" reaches the Islamic ideal? Yes? No? Please respond. Yaniv...

For some the truth is an enemy - they spurn his presence - he is an unwelcome guest, an unwanted visitor - his voice is annoying - his appearnce is improper - they do not want him in their midst

For some the truth is a friend - they welcome his presence - he is a dear friend - his voice is melodious to the ear and calming to the eye - he gives them a feeling of propriety - his stay is welcome - they have missed him

For some the truth is a stranger - they feel neither joy nor irritation at his presence - they look at him with a blank face, not speaking to him, not looking at him, hearing nothing from his mouth, throwing him the smiles and frowns of a friend's guest, but ultimately asking him to leave, for he is a stranger

Either G-d exists or He does not.

When one is searching for an answer to a perplexing question, he can be led in the right direction in order to find the answer.

Sometimes this occurs to a person; he is led to a specific scenario in which he finds his answer. "Ha-mechin mitzadey gaver," "He (G-d) prepares the steps of man."

But what if a person uses G-d as a "tool" by which to calm his nerves when he is perplexed by a matter? He might say, "I do not know the answer now, but G-d will help me find it."

What if we were to imagine G-d as a mental structure existing in our minds to help us with this anxiety, but not a real Being (G-d forbid)?

If this were true, how could a mental structure "prepare the steps of man?"

If it were true, it would mean that the brain, somehow, has access to all information, that it knows everything.

However, if the brain knows everything, why is it that the person whom possesses the brain in his head does not know everything?

Does the brain know everything but also create a barrier to keep information away from our consciousness?

If so, then the brain is not "our brain," it is a living being with its own consciousness!

Either way, it is either the brain or G-d that has access to all information and "leaks" it to us; do we really believe that the brain is its own entity?

There is evidence for this, for the brain controls many human bodily functions without our control, permission, or authority; is this not fascinating?! Nothing a human being does is reason for the brain's behavior as such.

If we can concede that the brain controls our body (digestion, reaction, etc...), why do we vociferously reject that it can control our thoughts, or mental functions?

The brain is an outside actor planted in our head; why can we not believe that there is an outsider Actor Whom acts upon our brain?

If we reject both propositions, that the brain controls itself (and us) and that G-d leads the brain to information, then we are left with an unanswered proposal, that there is nothing.

Sin of Omission II

There are sections of Biblical history which the Q'uran must re-interpret. For example, the Q'uran is content enough leaving much of the Tanakh as it is, but if we do a side-by-side comparison of occurences recorded both in the Tanakh and the Q'uran, we see minor and major differences in the was those occurences were recorded. For example, the Q'uran has Moses saying saying things in a different manner than the Tanakh has him saying them. Which theory is more credible; that Moses said something and the Q'uran records it differently, or that the Q'uran's record is the genuine record and the Torah's account is the falsified version of the "original?" Keeping in mind that the Q'uran (and Islam) appeared in 722 CE and Moses lived some 3,000 years before this, I have never heard of a claim declaring that the newer document is original and the older document is the falsified version. Apparently, for Muslims, time travels in the other direction. The only sections which Muslim tradition claims the Jews falsified are sections that, if they were true, would validate Judaism, so they must be false if Islam is to command any credibility. Other than these sections, the Q'uran accepts the validity of the Tanakh's writings. It must because from where else would the Q'uran gain information about the figures and events of the Tanakh? It is not the Torah which has falsified the "original text," but the original text is the Torah and the Q'uran records what it needs how it needs in order to create a Muslim narrative. This had (and has) implications for Jews, otherwise I would say that Muslims can believe whatever they want. You cannot change a person's past into yours by chopping it up like a series of newspaper clippings. When I read the Q'uran, I realize that most of it is new material, save for some parts, which are altered sections of text from the Tanakh. These sections are "quotes" from the Tanakh, but they have been slightly altered and interjected with the new material, and this is the Q'uran, a relatively simple text, exluding the fact that it brought monotheism to the Arab world.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

In the Name of G-d

Some people have the constant tendency to exalt the part and abandon the whole; this is the oldest and most pervasive truth of humankind. Take an eco-system for example, which not only the physical but the spiritual is likened to, where everything has its part and its role, even if the human eye has difficulty discerning it. This is probably why G-d tells of Creation as a Garden; every tree and plant in it has a purpose. Settling with the part and abandoning the whole would be like standing in this Garden and choosing a tree over the Garden. The sheer “size” of the Garden in relation to us, and the infinitely intricate complexity and inter-dependency of everything in existence makes the choice and exaltation of one separate thing particularly alluring; it is easier for us. Reverence for the parts, or one part, becomes a good option when the intricacy and complexity of the whole is recognized, considered, and deemed to difficult to make the focal point of one’s life. When this occurs, a person generally focuses in on one part of existence and attempts to transform that thing into the whole, at least in his or her head. This puts that person entirely out of whack with the rest of existence because G-d created existence as a whole, and we exist in tension with G-d and His Creation, the world, and with each other. Suffice it to say that many people do this, many people choose a path in life that does not recognize the existence of a whole picture, and this is the very reason why humanity exists in such a troubled state. Even the spiritual people of the world, who recognize and believe in a wholeness, are satisfied with selection and exaltation of one part in this mosaic; this explains polytheism. Polytheists were people who believed in deities; gods and goddesses, and they perceived that the nature of existence was oneness, but they also believed that this oneness was segmented into many other forms, all essentially independent, so that all of the forces of existence were separate, but related. In their belief systems, gods or goddesses were assigned to each one of these separate forces of nature, and hence all forms of polytheism choose the parts, and their alluring variety, over the whole. Abraham, the patriarch of the Jewish people, saw beyond the fragmentation of that Oneness and in doing so merited a special relationship with that Oneness, Who them revealed Himself to Abraham; that Oneness is a living Being and He is G-d. His role, and after him, the role of this descendants was to bring the truth of that Oneness out into the open. Even today, in societies where real polytheism does not exist, and theism in general is not taken seriously, there are secular forms of this breaking the Oneness into many; it is especially true that a god or goddess does not need to be the subject of one’s worship in order for a person to be worshipping something; spirituality can be tied into almost anything. Here again we see that many people choose the part over the whole; they attach themselves to a specific or particular goal, a movement maybe, a cause of some sorts, even if it is a worthy, just, and noble cause, and make that the focal point of their understanding of life. It is not bad to choose a goal and to stick to it, but if one chooses such a goal for its own sake and not for the sake of the whole, then whatever it is that they are attempting to improve in the world will not come to fruition. Of course, it is not the easiest thing to contemplate the whole all of the time, and that should never stop a person from doing something positive, because surely the world (and the individuals involved) benefit from any positive action, but the person should not fool him or herself into believing that this one endeavor is the world in which he or she lives, for that would be to ignore the whole. What negative though could possibly come from simply ignoring the whole and choosing a part? Surely it is not bad in and of itself? It is not bad because it neglects the whole, because there is only so much that one human being is able to accomplish, but it is bad because if a human’s efforts are not directed at the whole, then whatever endeavor he or she is involved in, that endeavor becomes a manifestation of that person’s desire to please him or herself, it becomes a means for self-aggrandizement; it is concerned with the self and not with the whole, and therefore it is done for the wrong reason. Still though, we can say that even though a person does a good thing for the wrong reason that the world still benefits because he or she is doing something good. However, a person’s intent in an action determines the actions that he will take from then on, and if his intent is to do something good in order to please himself or to gain acknowledgment, then eventually his desire to please himself will come through, and he will not do a sufficient job in whatever task he has chosen. In other words, if his goal is himself, then even though he has chosen a noble task, if his goal is not the improvement of the whole, then he will have limited success in his endeavor, which could be ultimately damaging to that endeavor and to the people involved. That is why the sake of the whole, or “shem Shamayim,” in the name of Heaven, is necessary when living in the world. Everything that one does should be in the name of G-d, and it is also why people should only do good things then.