In a world filled with floods, mudslides, tornadoes, oil spills, small airplane crashes, non-stop wars, allegations of political corruption from Harlem to Kabul–Israel still remains front page news.
Today, according to Israeli Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the “Turkish flotilla activists fired first.” The evidence (as seen on live action video, and based on the non-Israeli ammunition, cartridges, and bullets found on board) backs him up. While Israel investigates its right of self-defense, key American (not Turkish) congressmen are calling for an investigation of the Turkish charity that sponsored the Turkish freedom flotilla “for its possible ties to terrorism,” specifically to Al-Qaeda.
Yesterday, The Jewish Press published a small part of a speech I recently delivered in upstate New York at Vacation Village in the Jewish Catskills. I was hosted by my good friends Dr. Morris and Rickie Platt who have been summering there for many years. Chalet-like villas with flowering window-boxes, small gardens, summery trees, sweet breezes, and excellent dinner conversation made the weekend a joy. That—and having an audience which did not heckle or menace me but which warmly appreciated what I came to say.
I took a risk. After describing the dangerous, anti-Israel activism being carried out, not only by Muslim Islamists and western intellectuals but also by Jews—who do so in the name of “ethical” Judaism–I turned to a right-wing Orthodox audience and challenged them to open their hearts to our Jewish brethren, explaining that our refusal or inability to do so was, in Jewish religious terms, even more dangerous that the forces of Amalek. Here is a bit more of my speech.
Dr. Phyllis Chesler’s Speech
Vacation Village
Shabbat Nachamu, July 24, 2010
Our beloved, miraculous, Jewish state—God’s gift to the Jews and through us, to all humanity—is under the most profound, even existential siege. It was assumed that the ceaseless persecution of the Jews in exile would cease once we again had our own sovereign homeland, our own army, navy, and air force.
Now, 62 years later, it is abundantly clear that Israel, the Jewish state, has become the “Jew” of the world: Defamed, demonized, shunned, shamed, accused of countless blood libels, refused the right to defend herself, blamed when she does. Daily, hourly, Israel is cursed in all the world’s languages and presumably, in the most distinguished newspapers. Israel is scapegoated for the crimes and sins of the Arab and Muslim world.
Old-style anti-Semitism is still with us, people still believe that the Jews own and run the world and that we also killed Jesus Christ. Now, the “new” anti-Semitism is coming to us from the progressive left, the intelligentsia, the “good” people. It is also coming to us from the Arab and Islamic world, enhanced by the most sophisticated technology, both on the internet, on television, radio, and in films where people can see actors dressed as religious Jews killing non-Jewish infants, or see Israelis massacring Arabs or killing young Palestinian boys such as Mohammed al-Dura.
Today, anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism. In 2002, when I first wrote this, my editor was alarmed. “Are you sure you want to say this? Can’t we criticize Israel without being called anti-Semites?” I assured him that what I had written was accurate. Clearly, when you criticize only Israel for crimes other countries commit, for crimes that Israel does not even commit; when you criticize and condemn only Israel in every world forum—you are looking at the “new” anti-Semitism, which is the title of my 2003 book.
Zionism does not equal racism–but anti-Zionism does.
I have been challenging anti-Semitism among leftists and feminists since the early 1970s. I first began to document the “new” anti-Semitism in 2000, right after the Palestinians launched the Intifada of that year. At first, I was something of a lone voice. The organized Jewish world either denied or minimized the possible rise of anti-Semitism and the existential threat that Israel might face. As early as 2004, I wrote about the possibility of a Second Holocaust (God forbid!). For standing up for Israel, the Jews, for America, and for the West, I sacrificed my reputation as a politically correct intellectual. I lost many publishing opportunities and most of my former friends and allies.
Why? Because we live at a time when objective truth does not matter anymore, when only Big Lies matter.
For example, Islam is the world’s largest practitioner of both religious and gender apartheid. Say this on most campuses, as I have, and you will be jeered, booed, possibly physically menaced, certain demonized afterwards as a “racist” and “Islamophobe.”
The politically correct line is that Israel is the “Nazi, Apartheid state.” Only Orwell would understand this misuse of language, such reversals of logic, which are meant to confuse and brainwash people. Such brainwashing has worked. Sixty years of Arab League and Saudi monies have accomplished the unbelievable: Israel is not only the “bad guy,” it is the “very worst bad guy” in the entire universe.
This is no small victory given the nature of the Arab and Muslims world.
Yes, I am talking about Muslim-on-Muslim crimes, civil wars, both within one’s own family, between families, between Sunni and Shiia Muslims, between al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and Muslim civilians, between one Muslim state and another. Think Iran-Iraq; think Iraq-Kuwait; ah—I have a more interesting example.
Let’s talk about the Palestinians, a people whom western human rights activists care more than they care about the rights of women, world-wide; they care more about the presumed occupation of a country that does not exist than they care about the occupation of women’s lives in this mythical country. Forced veiling, normalized beating of daughters and wives, forced marriage to one’s first cousin, polygamy, honor killings are all blamed on “western influences” or blamed on the Israeli so-called “occupation” of Gaza. Yes, I know, Israel pulled out of Gaza but that’s merely reality. A brainwashed world population prefers Big Lies instead.
Earlier this year, Israel was blamed in the pages of The Lancet, a British medical journal, for an increase in Palestinian wife-battering in Gaza and on the West Bank. The researchers, including the lead Harvard researcher, did not even consider the role that radical Islamification or the fact that Gaza is ruled by terrorist gangsters might have played in escalating violence towards women. Honor killings were not included in their measures of violence against Palestinian women. Why? Because that cannot be blamed on Israel or on the West. I published a letter challenging this study in the pages of The Lancet. This is a little like swimming upstream backwards against the tide. And we must all do it.
Blame Israel first—that’s the mantra. Thus, when Arab countries persecute Palestinians by revoking their citizenship, (as Jordan has recently done, and let’s not forget: Jordan massacred more Palestinians in 1970 than Israel has killed in countless wars of self-defense), by not allowing them to work in many professions, (this is true in Lebanon), by making their travel throughout the Arab, Muslim world exceedingly difficult (as Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan do)—you almost never read about this in your morning paper. The United Nations does not condemn Arab governments for their mistreatment of Palestinians nor does it condemn Palestinians for torturing, lynching, murdering, or jailing other Palestinians.
When the so-called “peace” flotilla to Gaza, in which armed Turkish assasins, “shahids,” were hidden by leftist activists—assasins who attacked the IDF soldiers who boarded the Mavi Marmara with paintball weapons and who were savagely attacked—these peace activists did not denounce Hamas’s repression of intellectual freedom; Hamas’s violent attacks on peaceful young Palestinians, the destruction of peaceful co-ed camps, the savage beatings of young “rap” musicians in Gaza; the torture of the so-called “enemies of Islam.
Long ago, the Arab World decided to use the Palestinians as the permanent, festering human wedge against the “Zionist entity.” And so they have. And now we have five generations or more of people who once lived in small Arab towns and villages in the region, and in Jaffo, Haifa, and Jerusalem, who receive more money and more attention for their suffering than does any other refugee group in the world, more then ten billion dollars in the last decade. And, by the way, many Palestinians aren’t suffering at all. Israel allows in food, medicine, humanitarian supplies but reserves the right to check for military equipment. Many Palestinians drive Mercedes, live in expensive villas, etc.
Israeli soldiers have even been blamed for refusing to rape Arab and Palestinian women—in 2007, a Jewish Israeli researcher at Hebrew University, doctoral candidate Tal Nitzan, claimed this constituted “racism” against Palestinians.
Yes, of course, the Iranian threat, coupled with the world’s passivity, is real. But the war of ideas which rages on is equally important. I am alarmed by how many Jews are in the forefront of anti-Israel and pro-Hamas activism. They are our internal enemies—their own worst enemies.
This month, an organization called Jewish Voice for Peace organized a campaign asking TIAA-CREF, one of the world’s largest financial services companies, to divest from companies it says “profit from the Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.” Caterpillar, Motorola, and Northrop Grumman are just a few of the companies that Jewish Voice for Peace has targeted for divestment. This effort comes on the heels of Jewish Voice for Peace’s attempt last year to get TIAA-CREF to divest from Sudan.
Meanwhile, this month, J Street, which bills itself as the “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans,” called upon the U.S. Treasury Department “to launch thorough investigations into whether or not the [American non-profit] organizations funding settlement activities on the West Bank [described in the New York Times] have broken the law.”
J Street’s President Jeremy Ben Ami, President Obama’s new “go-to Jew,” had previously been Senior Vice President at Fenton Communications—the very company hired by Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Qatari ruler, to launch a campaign to wreck Israel’s reputation. The campaign, known as the “Al Fakhoora Project,” has a very visible Web presence that boasts of rallying 10,000 activists “against the blockade on Gaza.” Today their goal is to prevent the Jewish state from defending itself by creating a mass of public opinion that sees Israeli self-defense as a war crime.
and calling it “collective punishment.”
Meanwhile, many rabbis have been involved in interfaith “dialogue” efforts. Orthodox Rabbi Bradley Hirschfield, for instance, the director of the National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership (CLAL), has been working with the imam of the Ground Zero mosque for a while. In fact, Rabbi Hirschfield is on the Advisory Board of the Cordoba Initiative. He was also involved with Buffalo-based Muzzammil Hassan, the founder of Bridges TV, who turned out to be a serial wife batterer and wife killer. Bridges advertised itself as committed to interfaith dialogue and to the presentation of a positive image of Muslim-Americans. Rabbi Hirschfield also worked together/appeared at the same conference with Imam Abdul Rauf and and former President Jimmy Carter, the author of the infamous book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, at the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions.
Meanwhile, 70 liberal rabbis in Boston have publicly attacked the man who has exposed the Boston mosque’s ties to terrorism—and have not challenged those ties. (Boston Islamic Cultural Center).
But, I am equally alarmed by the steady drumbeat of hatred launched against Israel by countless Western academics, journalists, bloggers, activists, and intellectuals. These are powerful external enemies.
Rashid Khalidi, the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University and former spokesman for the PLO, who also happens to be a friend and former dinner companion of President Obama, has signed an appeal for money to send yet another aid ship to Gaza named “The Audacity of Hope,” the title of Obama’s second autobiographical book. He has publicly challenged the president, saying that “if the name [of the boat] is a problem for the administration, it can simply insist that Israel lift the siege: end of problem, end of embarrassment.”
In 2003 at tribute dinner for Khalidi, Obama said that Khalidi had “challenged [his] thinking” about the Middle East. Khalidi, he said, has provided “consistent reminders…of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around…Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”
There are countless blogs and websites obsessed with Israel and the so-called “Israel lobby,” including ones sponsored by “mainstream” organizations, such as Philip Weiss’ Mondoweiss (a project of The Nation Institute), Glenn Greenwald’s blog on Salon, and especially the ForeignPolicy Magazine blog of Stephen Walt.
As Lee Smith of Tablet magazine has pointed out, “The anti-Israel blogosphere is a dirty little thrill that major U.S. media outfits have mainstreamed for the masses. Whenever anyone writes anything online about Israel, the anti-Israel comments come pouring in: “What is notable about such comments is not that they are original or unusual, but that there are hundreds and thousands of them, each sicker and crazier than the next, appended like a mile-long oil slick to nearly any mainstream news story or opinion piece that mentions Israel.”
Israel and the Jews cannot afford to lose. We must win this war of ideas, outwit and outrun the propaganda, of course hold our own militarily, survive as a people— this time, not only as a “remnant.”
But Jews can no longer afford to trust their own large Jewish-American and Jewish-European organizations who have, so far, failed the needs of the Jewish people today just as they once failed to rescue European Jewry from the Holocaust. Small, independent, poorly funded groups and individuals have stepped up to the task, on campuses, on the streets, on the internet. The large Jewish organizations are following reluctantly and slowly behind us.
Ah, but this is Shabbos Nachamu. What comfort can my words possibly bring us?
If as religious Jews we are not in touch with reality we are doomed. Like Moses we may not live to enter the Promised Land of this next victory but we must play a role in bringing it about, whether or not we ourselves are still alive when it occurs.
Thus, we must know when things are getting bad for the Jews and not be lulled by false words: “Oh, it’s not that bad, Jews have had it worse, don’t be an alarmist, you’re becoming paranoid.” The Jews who left Nazi Europe early on survived. Those who did not, and who could not, perished. Jews are now on the move again. They are leaving France, Sweden, Belgium; they are sha-shtilling all over England.
We are, so far, lucky in America. If our luck holds, this time, we must risk it in order to save the Jews of Israel and the Jews everywhere else in the world. If not us—who? And if not now, when?
But, as religious Jews we have an even greater task. Especially at this time of year, can we open our hearts to all those Jews whom we fear—whom we know—are behaving recklessly, selfishly, self-destructively, can we try to understand, really understand, that they, too, are “b’zelem,” that if we cannot find ways of connecting at some level to each other, that our failure to do so may doom us most fatefully? Can we dare overcome our own sense of what’s “right” in order to become “shalem,” whole, without which “shalom,” peace, is not possible?
I am asking us to envision doing something very difficult, very large. We view the actions and ideas of certain other Jews as dangerous to Jewish survival. I myself do. I have just said so. I—we–may be right.
Can I actually sit in a room with J Streeters, or with Women in Black or with every Jew I personally know who has been demonstrating against Israel, signing petitions against Israel, arming the rogues at the United Nations with ammunition against Israel—probably not. I’d walk right out. Moses broke the first set of tablets at just such a moment. But he also begged God to forgive us, his people, God’s people, for our sins, for the very sins that drove Moses himself to break the tablets.
Moses breaking the tablets at Mt. Sinai
We are all in Moses’ position now. In Moses’ merit, and for God’s sake, let us have less “hate” or even dislike for other Jews, even as we strengthen our resolve and gird our loins for battle.
Good Shabbos.
For the wider world Jews represent Judaism. Even when an individual Jew has abandoned every speck of Jewish identity or practice for the rest of the world he is still a Jew. That is the root of Jewish self hatred.
Judaism is hated because it is proof that G-d exists. That He is real and that ultimately there are consequences for behavior. Human beings bridle at rules and regulations that are imposed upon them. That is natural and in some cases good and can lead to a better world. Yet when people ignore the rules for life given by the Almighty the outcome is always the same- disaster.
Those on the left or on the right share one trait in common- their desire to impose their will on others. These leftists or rightists are challenged by the reality that a G-d exists whose rules for mankind are beyond their manipulation. Try as they can neither leftists or rightists can fully impose themselves on others as long as Judaism proclaims, Jewish existence proves and the state of Israel confirms that there is a Judge beyond their influence and control. That is why Judaism, the Jews, and now Israel, are hated, because we represent a Truth that can not be overcome.
Israel is hated because it represents the Truth of Judaism.
” The most significant aspect of the establishment of the state of Israel is the fact that Jews through the ages knew it was to come. ”
Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits, Faith after the Holocaust
This is an excellent and moving sermon. However, I have to disagree with with the sentiments inherent in:
“…can we open our hearts to all those Jews whom we fear—whom we know—are behaving recklessly, selfishly, self-destructively, can we try to understand, really understand, that they, too, are “b’zelem,” that if we cannot find ways of connecting at some level to each other, that our failure to do so may doom us most fatefully? Can we dare overcome our own sense of what’s “right” in order to become “shalem,” whole, without which “shalom,” peace, is not possible?….”
I would just as soon spit in the eye of a member of Independent Jewish Voices as sit and try to reason him/her out of his/her wrongheadedness. I also know that the person who is perceived to have caused one great hurt and pain is not necessarily the most appropriate to offer one healing.
I am sick and tired of trying to “understand” Muslims who hate me and want to kill me, out of their murderous inclinations (a ill-conceived course advocated by successive spineless UK governments) and likewise some Jewish conduct and opinion is so beyond the pale in its giving support and specious legitimacy to persecution of their own people that it cannot be forgiven. The only way it can be countered (and this is where Jewish people score above Muslims) is by ostracising from decent society those who exhibit it, rather than obliterating them outright.
Yes, I am angry. Reasoned anger is an excellent motivator for change.
I think your anology of the golden calf and the apostasy, so to speak, of the children of Israel at Sinai is so on target. Remember God did swallow up as many of the apostates as possible before condemning the rest of Israel to wander in the desert for 40 years. Not sure we should suffer because of the stupidity of a few. however, if we do allow them to take over the discussion then we do have only our selves to blame. Time to change the tone of the discussion, it is possible to marganilze these people, it only takes willpower. Hopefully we can find some.
http://www.ravkooktorah.org/PSALM_3B.htm
Thank you for the link. It seems that fighting the “enemy within” is as old as Judaims itself.
thank you, phyllis, for continuing to write and think this through. it is overwhelming. in the past, the craziness and the hatreds and blood lies and sick accusations were limited to people with obvious mental conditions and their sweaty pamphlets, monitored by the ADL and the FBI and the DOJ.
islam, the enemy of freedom and democracy, the attackers of the world trade center in the heart of new york city and the murderers of 3,000 innocents, is engaged by every western society, just as the nazis were welcome everyhere in the western world.
i suppose the shadow side will always be with us, given the west’s strange fascination for evil. Jews fasciation with it, not so much. but that’s another story of biblical proportions.
1. It is an ideological Battle. One Ideology or the other. That’s it.
Just “none” would be fine.
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Anyway, the Matter is obviously very complex and I’m not even directly involved in it:
I’m whether a Jew, nor an Islamic, nor an Arab.
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2. From outside (in Case Opinions from outside have a Value),
I immediately note that, which I have/dare to criticize (according to Point 1.):
. “… Jewish state—God’s gift to the Jews and through us, to all humanity- …”
Humanity is very vast. A Gift to the Jews means NOT a Gift to all Humanity, this must be clearified.
Not because of Jews, who are part of Humanity, but because of Humanity, who is vaster than a part of it.
Practically, a Gift to a part means not a Gift to the whole.
. “… of a Second Holocaust (God forbid!) …”
No one want a second Holocaust, this must be clear.
Most of Westerners experienced II. world War and, please, enough is enough!
We (Westerners) grew up.
Anyway (!), I know that there have been many other Catastrophes in the World,
and ’till we talk only (!) about Holocaust,
forgetting the (past and/or present) Suffering of other People,
this creates an Injustice,
which (paradoxically) get projected on … Jews selves.
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The Solution might be a universal Thinking,
not an ideological, or sectarian, or lobbist, or partial one,
that is written on “a(n holy) Book (of the Past)” or not.
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Lovliest Regards.
The lack of unity amoung the JEwish people is amazing.Personally I think the problem is not the hatred that the world has for us but rather the hatred we have for each other.Our willingness to cut each other loose,sell each other out, to say “your not a Jew” . It’s like a contest amoung the JEws, ” Who is the Jewiest JEw of them all?”. The HAredi beleive they are the Jewiest Jews of them all the most machpid of the machpid. COnservative and Reform Conversions are treif might as well been written on pigskin while dining on lobster Cantonese. “Your not really a JEw!!” The leftwing think they are the JEwiest JEws of them all because they care about HUMAN RIGHTS inc. IF you care more about women’s elbows being covered than you do about DArfur then “your not really a JEw!!”.
We may or may not be facing a physical holocaust but we are for sure facing a spiritual holocaust. There is more than one way to obliterate a people chas v’shalom. You don’t have to kill them physically, just erase minimize and rewrite their history culture and religion.
Some people treat Jewish history culture and religion like a bargaining chip that interferes with their greater view of palestine !!!!!!! They hate the grrr settlers. THey hate how those grrr settlers natter on about silly stuff like how HEbron is where Avraham buried Sarah how it is sacred land to the JEws. How the Judean Hills are the territory of the tribe of YEhuda. SOme people hate flying spaghetti monster fairytale believing hocus pocus religion. BUt it’s not fairytale stuff it’s real life. Hebron Be’or SHeva these are places that exist now and that existed then this is our HISTORY.Here is a truly radical idea: TReat JEwish history culture and religion with RESPECT!!!!!!DOn’t treat it like it’s a bargaining chip or like it’s something that interferes with your greater view of palestine. Oh Palestine ! A magical land of peace and butterflies unicorns and little ponies! WHat do you think it will be like if the one state solution zombies get their way? YOu don’t have to be a prophet to see how reality can potentially unfold. Lets say the majic fairy actually brings “peace” i.e. a cessation of violence. What then? Well they will write history books saying things like this: the zionists stole the land from the palestinians.THe zionists were Holocausters of the palestinians. In fact many of the JEws weren’t even JEws they were Khazers . In fact there is no real JEwish connection with the land of Israel.THe zionist used the so called holocaust as a way to genocide the noble palestinians. Etc.etc. So maybe a left wing type JEw will muster up the courage to say, “hey wait calling JEws nazis now that’s a bit much. BUt they sure won’t stand against rest of it, the complete rewriting of history , the redefining of Jews themselves and the erasure and trivialization of our history our oppression out culture our spirituality and religion.
But if the leftwing doesn’t get us the right wing will. Squeezing all into the chumra box . How about those women in Beit SHemish who wanted to wear burkas? WHew! Good thing the rabbis nixed that amiight? BUt let’s face it, if it weren’t or the muslims and the security risks posed by burkas than guess what? JEwish women would be wearing burkas.Woo hoo! IT would just be a matter of time before more and more super machpid frum de la frum ladies started taking it up and next thing you know it’s halacha and the modesty patrols are throwing rocks at the lesser JEwish women. Extreme modesty is lauded but women praying at the Kotel with a Toiyrah ? Spit on them, throw chairs at them, curse them.
G -d Help Us!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JEws pointing their fingers at each other. IT’s the chiloni it’s their fault. Ham eating SHabbat desecrator that’s why this is happening. It’s women’s lack of tznius that’s why missiles are falling.It’s those stinking feminazis. IT’s the gaaaaays. It’s those HAredi racists. It’s those crazy fascist settlers. Everyone pointing their finger at someone else.
POINT THE FINGER AT YOURSELF!
IF you are a right wing JEw who loves to talk about the ERev RAv or other JEws who you think are sellouts treif or aren’t really JEws-stop it!!!!!
IF you are a liberal JEw who likes to talk about the grrr settlers or grrr HAredi Stop it! TOne down the viciousness !!! WOrk on achdut on unity.
IF you are a right wing JEw who thinks RUsh Limbo is a great frien t othe JEwish people remember thie difference between a Yakov and a Yisrael is that Yisrael said “save me from my brother, save me from Esau”
IF you are a left wing JEw who thinks that peace is possible I will give you some basic radical feminist insight. THEY HATE US. Don’t make allegiences with them. DOn’t participate in their historical revisionism .THey are perpetrating classic reversal. Like how the rightwingers ignore woman hatred and call feminists “man haters’ leftwing ignores Jew hatred and calls JEws palestinion hates or racists or whatever. Don’t buy the hype.
Peace out Shabbat Shalom from a grrrr settler.
The world and humanity are going through their greatest upheaval ever. It is obvious that, under the present circumstances, human beings will destroy the earth and themselves. There is never enough for the ego. He, the ego, is the problem, the illness, the insanity, verily the devil at times. All hate and turmoil comes from the unconsciousness of the ego. Only a profound change to a higher consciousness can save us, as Sri Aurobindo and the Mother (Mirra Alfassa, herself 100% descendant of Sephardi Jews) constantly reminded us.
It will get darker, much much darker, before the light shines through. Alas, even the light at the end of the tunnel may recede and leave us. Success is definitely not vouchsafed.
Tiny, and mighty, Israel, is an island surrounded by that sea of insanity, violence, and turmoil called the Middle East.
and ah gittn shahbiss to you-
please i implore you to keep up your good works
obviously agreeing with every single word youve
written-you are incisive erudite and most perceptive
–we are morally ruptured-and therein lies the
overall problem-completely disengaged from any moral
understanding-we are in big trouble–and thats the
way it is–gezint und shtarrek otto sherman
I don’t think that just Sri Aurobindo and The Mother reminded that to us.
I think the World has seen many of Beings, enlightened People, telling/explaining that to us.
Now, most of them DO NOT FOLLOW ANY DOCTRINE at all. They’re free from Doctrine.
Well, Judaism as other institutional(ized) Beliefs, just … nurish the Ego.
They don’t free People, they make Personalities out of them, not Beings, enlightened People.
Ask The Mother what did she do with her Sephardi Judaism, if you know what I mean.
So other enlightened Guides of our Humanity: they simply (first of all, or at last) rejected established Doctrines,
and started “thinking” by themselves, meditating, freeing their Beings from doctrinal Teachings,
freeing themselves from Clouds in order to see the Sky of their true immense Self.
(In order – not to feel but – to become an Elected, I would read Patanjali rather than other Sources …).
Regards.
God only talks to the Jewish People. God does not talk to Moslems, Christians,or anyone else. Because Jews have the right ear of God, they not only will be saved, they will lead the Nations and have led the Nations for well over three thousand years. Christians are not saved, they worship idols, and pray to false Gods. Moslems are even worse. There is a reason why the world hates the Jews. The real reason is the success that all Jews enjoy regardless where they are from, or what color their skin is. Once one becomes Jewish, and accepts the Torah as being from God’s lips, one then climbs the mountain of success, regardless of occupation. This success is what makes the world hate the Jews so much. Who really cares about Israel if there were no Jews there? A speck of sand in the middle of nowhere. No oil, no water, just sand and wind. Yet the Jews came and turned this nothing of a place into another Garden of Eden. Likewise the surrounding warring Arab neighbors with lands that are hundreds of times larger than Israel, abundant with Oil and other natural resources only want to live in the 7th Century. All successful people are hated world wide, however the Jew leads the list. He/she talks to God directly, God listens, and responds. When you possess that power, you are either feared or loathed. The real fear that Christians have and Moslems possess is simply, if you kill the Jew, you in effect Kill God. When God dies, we all perish.
God talks to anyone who can open her or his heart to Divinity. I think that religious Jews would benefit from exploring Jewish mysticism, and many who do might find there is some shared experience with mystics in other religions. This a merely a gentle suggestion from a Gentile.
Christianity is based on the cultic worship of a man up man who incarnates himself into being born of a “normal” mother, yet is the son of God. Christianity is formatted Roman and Greek Mythology that magically appears and reappears in the Christian bible. Jesus’s name really is Joshua as no respectable Jew would give a Latin name to a Jew, and Christ means “worldly” in Greek. First he is born of a virgin mother (all Roman emperors were born of a virgin mother) next he dies on the cross in a rather bizarre way. Here is where the idolatry comes into play. Christians bow down to the cross, as they bow down to every Saint imaginable. This is pure paganism carried to the highest level. In Jewish theology none of this cultish worship exists. How can God hear your prayers if you are prostrating yourself to a doll like idol?
Now, I guess, you have a Problem with (modern) Christianity or institutional Christianity = Ideology?
Or do you simply hate Christians = People?
In any Case I see that you – at least – suffer of a hipertrophic Ego. I couldn’t even imagine that such of an Ego could exist!
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You appearently decided why do People criticize Judaism = Ideology (as they do with other Doctrines),
and you talked about “Others” (“the World”) as if they were one? (From Blacks to Whites, from Non-jewish Believers to A-theists, from Aborigines to high thecnologized People, …?)
This is a heavy Lack of Knowledge: don’t you know what does Diversity mean? “God talks to Jews and to Others not”?
It’s hard to believe that one may really say Something like That, and Today is (August 14) 2010 AC (Note: AC wasn’t not meant to offend “your Sensitivity”).
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I dare to remember (you, and here), that Humanity is far vaster than (you or your Community, only).
[Same goes for other Individuals and (their) Communities.]
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I’m amazed: how old are you, who talks like that?
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Verily, MiamaMan’s Words were really of Gold.
[How can God hear your prayers if you are prostrating yourself to a doll like idol?]
Aren’t we limiting God here? Why a sincere prayers would not be heard? Since everything is God, the essence of the doll-like idol is also God. At the end, there is only one substance, consciousness, space.
Please, this is not helpful and there are problems with your facts.
For example, the name Jesus is not Hebrew for Joshua but rather the very Hebrew Yeshua; Yeshua ben Yosef was the name of jesus in hebrew (Aramaic also?). In addition, Christianity was not invented to destroy Judaism. That is silly. Christianity is a separate, distinct, and legitimate path to salvation.
Please, I am an orthodox jew myself, your writings are not helpful and does not reflect the feelings and understandings of the jewish people generally.
Let us clean up our own house before we go looking to provoke our neighbors. And we have a lot of work ahead of us !!!
YHWH incarnated in YHSWH (YoHShWaH)- Letter “Sh” in Hebrew looks like an English double-u (W),
appearently symbolizing a Person with his/her Arms opened,
who’s supporting both the World up, that of Ideas (represented by YH)
and the World down, that of Matter (represented by WH)[*],
and Jesus-the-Christ was actually meant to represent the perfect Conjunction between the World up and that down,
the Incarnation (Matter) of divine Spirit (Ideas)[**].
[*]For more Informations about the very Meaning of Word YHWH, please refer to Mikhaël Omraam Aivanhov’s Speeches/Conferences.
[**]For such and other Explanations about the Meaning of Hebraic holy Words, please still refer directly to M. O. A.’s Speeches/Conferences.
Any religion that exists to destroy another such as Christianity or Islam is at best a cult. Nothing good can ve said of the worship of idols or cultish figures. “Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved” Now really, are we equating Jesus Christ with God here? If someone declared:”Believe in God and you will be saved” the meaning would conform to the Jewish Torah. The first meaning is designed to turn peoples worship from a God Like entity to a cultish or idolatry format. God hears all prayers, but does this also apply to the cult figure Jesus? The numerous pogroms, and crusades designed to eradicate Judaism is testament enough to my case. I will not even add the numerous campaigns led by Islam against the Jews. Laws, and mores, customs and traditions practiced by Christians are really based upon pure paganism. If these customs and traditions are accepted universally by the Christian World as fact, what is the basis of their religion? If we think that God gave the law to Moses at Mt. Sinai and that law is the reason why Judaism has survived these many centuries, one has to assume that this law is perfect, if so,then all of the Jews who believe in this perfect law will be saved. What happens then to those who do not accept Gods hold and perfect law? It’s simple, they are damned forever.
Actually Islam says the same about Judaism and Christianity (not to mention what does it says about polytheistic Religions and a-theistic ones).
Well, if you wanted to find an Excuse for eradicating … Others (Jesus-the-Christ himself) … and for existing just yourself
(who has been indoctrinated, I dare to tell you that),
you APPEARENTLY found.
*
Again: Judaism isn’t the only Reality existing on Earth, and Humanity is far vaster than Jewish Community.
(Is that an anti-semite Statement? Or did I offend your Sensitivity? Or maybe is that racist? – … -)
*
Have a joyful Day (if you prefer, a peaceful one. And if you dislike both, no Problem).
Seems like anti-semitism has become a religion in and of itself. There is no justifications for Israel’s terrorist acts on innocents. None. This writer sounds more like the Nazi’s in Germany than Jewish. Has fascism really embedded itself into the culture of the jews? Israel has 700 illegal nuclear weapons and has NOT signed the nonproliferation treaty. Iran HAS signed the treaty, and has not one nuke. Israel makes a terrorist attack on a peaceful flotilla of aid, and then says they are defending themselves? What type of George Orwell book do you live in? Israel kills steals rapes and tortures Palestinians every day. You cannot hide behind your so-called religion any longer. A terrorist act is a terrorist act. 90,000 woman are raped in America every year, and you compare the (alleged) stoning of an Iranian woman, while you ignore the acts of the U.S. and Israel. Lady, your thinking is psychopathic. Just like your Torah states; “And God told them to go into the land, kill all the men women and children; manservant and slave, cattle oxen and livestock, and take the land.” Same policy then as today. But hey, you can just call me an anti-semite, and discount the truth of my words. But… only if I wasn’t a Jew.