What infuriates the contemporary Left is the undeniable historical fact that our modern concept human equality (as expressed in the American Declaration of Independence) derives from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The doctrine that all human beings are equal in the sight of God was the first step in a long and torturous process that produced a general philosophy of human equality. The Abolitionist movement in England and America was deeply influenced by ideas of Christian morality; the commitment of American Jews to the cause of civil rights was likewise influenced by Jewish religious teachings and commentary going backs centuries if not millennia.
Dostoevsky said that without God everything is permitted, and twentieth-century history bears out the truth of his prophetic words. And it may be said with equal truth that without God, nothing is validated. If you say to me that all men are created equal and I respond, “Says who?”— what’s your answer? The evidence of our eyes and ears goes to show that there is no such thing as human equality. Obviously, therefore, the claim that it does exist can only be supported by an appeal to some higher power.
Baseline human equality and natural rights: There are the concepts that the contemporary Left rejects, because they deprive the Left of agency. The comrades believe that they’re the makers and bestowers of rights, which is why their ideology is so focused on sorting human beings into groups. Some are to be reviled, some are to be exalted; some are to be cast down, some are to be uplifted. There’s only so much equality to go around, and the comrades will be handing our the ration books.
This, I believe, is the deep explanation of the antisemitism of the contemporary Left. The miracle of Israel’s rebirth, the Jewish people’s reassumption of their rightful place among the nations, was in the eyes of the comrades an intolerable piece of hubris.
They also hate the Jews for being so mysteriously resilient in the face of historical forces that have returned so many nations to the dust. A merciless clock is ticking for many national identities while the Jews keep on keeping on.
“…if you don’t like Christian America, just wait until you get post-Christian America.”
There was a Rabbi, I believe in the early 1900’s probably in Poland, who was riding in a horse and cart driven by a non-Jew. When they passed by a church, the driver spit on it. The Rabbi asked the driver to stop. He then got down off the wagon, saying he would make the rest of the journey on his own.
Although the last 2000 years Jews have experienced Christian hatred, the alternative, as you have said in your article, is much worse.
I was glad to see the distinction drawn between "Christian" and modern secular antisemitism.
The latter sees Judaism not as incomplete without Christ, or to blame for rejecting Christ, but as inherently bad from the start. It is the idea of a moral God in whom we should believe and whose laws we must obey that inspired the scorn and hostility of Kant, Voltaire, and a legion of modern anti-Jews who care nothing about Christ.
Also, since it is God's will for the Jews to be regathered into the land, there is satanic opposition from various angles (Revelation 12 verses 1-6 and 13-17).
It’s a death cult. The purple haired and the radical Islamists have enough in common to be allies. That commonality is a love of death, seeing no purpose in life, lack of value for human life.
You know Judeo Christian culture? Or judeo Christian values? There isn’t any islamo Christian anything. Or judeo Islamic anything. Islam is in its own canoe.
I have to preface this with I stand with Israel and with its right to defend itself. I stand with the Jews against anti-semitism. That needs to be said because you are not going to like what I have to say. Jews are not the moral paragons you make them out to be. They are not the origination of the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are a step along the path in man's evolution of thought. There were laws governing morality that preceded them, including thoughts on war. No they did not prohibit rape of war captives, they just added a few extra steps. In Davarim it is stipulated that if a city does not surrender to you, you are to kill all the men and take the women as, effectively, slaves. If you find one you are attracted to you can take her home, shave her head and let her mourn for a month. Then you can marry her. When you no longer find her pleasing you can simply put her out. With what, and to go where it doesn't say. That is rape with a few extra steps. Jews were as intolerant of the religion of the region as others were to theirs. Again in the Torah Jews must destroy their temples and shrines and burn the asherah poles of the people of Canaanan. Yes outsiders could live among you as long as they submitted to you and didn't practice their religion in public, and you had to treat them well, but they were not equals. Christianity was a further step along that thought evolution, but Judeo-Christian ethic has had to further evolve over time to get to where we are. The nihilism of today is as you rightly point out, lacking in a coherent moral code and that makes it extremely dangerous, and the enemy of human flourishing. On that we agree. Judeo-Christian ethic, with input from other systems of ethics that teach us to live together, are the only way forward for a world full of billions of people all bumping up against one another. It has been a long slow evolution in our way of relating to, and treating one another, with many groups playing their parts, including Islam. Nihilism is truly a step backward. We have come so far together, in part because of what we have done to each other in the past. Even Nihilism is an outgrowth of Western Civilization and thought. It shows us that when we whitewash our own sins we do a disservice to ourselves and that evolution.
First - i never said Jews were or have been perfect ethical animals. Jews are people like all others.
That being said, the passage your paraphrase in Dvarim is exactly as I said - it prohibits the rape of women on the battlefield - of the city you conquer. We may consider what the Bible allows rape, but that was not the case in antiquity. Read the ancient myths and read ancient history - Greek, Roman, Near-Eastern even Indian/Vedic (although less bad, I think).
My claim is that the Jews limited what can be done in warfare. You or I may not think it "moral" today - but rules of warfare it is. The same has to do with slavery. Personally, I don't accept slavery in any form, yet the Bible took it and humanized it in ways no other people did.
Destroying the temples and shrines are part of the fight against the amorality of ancient pagan life. Many times the Bible states that the Israelites should not do that which is custom in Cana'an or Egypt - this is not just bowing down to idols - but not behaving as they did in their temples and in their wars and in their cities.
No person or peoples are perfect - but there are those who at least try to do things in a better way.
This is not whitewashing sins but understanding that we live in THIS world and not in some spiritual world to come.
It was not my intent to say the Jews and Judaism played no part in the evolution of ethic. They most certainly did, in many important ways. My point was Judaism, in the beginning, was an evolution of existing and ever evolving human morality not an imposition of it on a wholly amoral world. This is where you and I seem to disagree.
Would that we all practiced our religions in a more perfect manner. I think this would be a more peaceful and kinder world on the whole. I do not expect any group to have a monopoly on perfect practitioners, but nor do they have a monopoly on inhumane monsters. We are all flawed. Humanity, as a whole, is both beautiful and terrible, both noble and savage, but together we do seem to strive to get better. Unfortunately it is often a very bumpy ride.
I do not know if there is a World to Come. One of the ideas of Judaism and Judeo-Christian theology/morality that I truly appreciate is the idea that we should strive to make this world better. One of the things we must do to do that, is to look back at where we have been and say, in unabashed humility, we were wrong. Not that we were bad, but simply that we were wrong; that we can be better.
After spending much of the last few years reading ancient myths and legends, reading ancient history and what there is about "pre-history" I have come to the conclusion that the pagan world from the ancient near-east to Egypt to Rome and Greece to the Norse and Mongolian steppes - with the possible exception of India- was a religious world without a moral sense. If the Bible is one thing - it is a revolt against all of that. If Abraham existed or if someone like Abraham existed, the "discovery" of One God was the discovery of a moral code. The world has been fighting against it ever since.
Then you and I will have to disagree there. Having spent a life being fascinated by religion and religious thought (this includes myth and legend) I have found that we all desire a way to live together. To do that we must have some common moral code. It may not be your moral code or one you understand but you benefit from that striving none the less.
I urge you to look through a different lens and ask yourself, “what does this show me”. Look at the similarities to your own as well as the differences. Take the epic of Gilgamesh and the relationship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. It goes from animosity and conflict, to understanding, to great love. We tell that story in so many ways across so many cultures. It means something important, fundamental to us. Look at the Spartans, a brutal and often ruthless culture, but they also gave us duty, honor, and bravery in the face of terrible odds. To our detriment we often call that toxic masculinity today but it has at its core a commitment to others as well even to our brutal end. Across cultures, our characters are often flawed, sometimes terribly so, yet they find a way to redemption. Again this is something important and fundamental to us. We are all capable of great evil but we are also all capable of great love and great good/divinity.
It is one of my biggest criticisms of postmodernism as it is currently in practice. We take the past and view it only through what we are today, instead of taking it in context to the times it existed. Men who strove to bring us forward, the giants on whose shoulders we stand are taken as wholly bad or evil because they did things we now consider bad but were normal at the time, slavery and slave owners being the topic de jour at this time. Without them you do not get to here. We did not pop into existence with the moral code we currently have. We evolved by learning from their steps and their missteps.
The deal with both Judaism and Christianity is that they both evolve and change and are open to dialogue and apostasy and reform. Just like nature. Islam is not open to any change And a complete lack of flexibility makes it, essentially crazy
i don't mean to state a reason for antisemitism, rather a reason why seemingly opposite ideologies converge in antisemitism. T
As for meaning being in the depths of the victims pain - that could be.
But the reason we need to face up to the "destroyer" is to avoid more destruction.
The new cliche is "hamas is an idea and can't be destroyed" begs the points. The point is to make the idea powerless - to remove all its actual threats, much as the allies did to the Nazis in WWII.
What infuriates the contemporary Left is the undeniable historical fact that our modern concept human equality (as expressed in the American Declaration of Independence) derives from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The doctrine that all human beings are equal in the sight of God was the first step in a long and torturous process that produced a general philosophy of human equality. The Abolitionist movement in England and America was deeply influenced by ideas of Christian morality; the commitment of American Jews to the cause of civil rights was likewise influenced by Jewish religious teachings and commentary going backs centuries if not millennia.
Dostoevsky said that without God everything is permitted, and twentieth-century history bears out the truth of his prophetic words. And it may be said with equal truth that without God, nothing is validated. If you say to me that all men are created equal and I respond, “Says who?”— what’s your answer? The evidence of our eyes and ears goes to show that there is no such thing as human equality. Obviously, therefore, the claim that it does exist can only be supported by an appeal to some higher power.
Baseline human equality and natural rights: There are the concepts that the contemporary Left rejects, because they deprive the Left of agency. The comrades believe that they’re the makers and bestowers of rights, which is why their ideology is so focused on sorting human beings into groups. Some are to be reviled, some are to be exalted; some are to be cast down, some are to be uplifted. There’s only so much equality to go around, and the comrades will be handing our the ration books.
This, I believe, is the deep explanation of the antisemitism of the contemporary Left. The miracle of Israel’s rebirth, the Jewish people’s reassumption of their rightful place among the nations, was in the eyes of the comrades an intolerable piece of hubris.
This is spectacular. I would share it but I don’t know how.
Thank you. There is a SHARE button I think.
They also hate the Jews for being so mysteriously resilient in the face of historical forces that have returned so many nations to the dust. A merciless clock is ticking for many national identities while the Jews keep on keeping on.
Yes!!!! Good read.
“…if you don’t like Christian America, just wait until you get post-Christian America.”
There was a Rabbi, I believe in the early 1900’s probably in Poland, who was riding in a horse and cart driven by a non-Jew. When they passed by a church, the driver spit on it. The Rabbi asked the driver to stop. He then got down off the wagon, saying he would make the rest of the journey on his own.
Although the last 2000 years Jews have experienced Christian hatred, the alternative, as you have said in your article, is much worse.
I was glad to see the distinction drawn between "Christian" and modern secular antisemitism.
The latter sees Judaism not as incomplete without Christ, or to blame for rejecting Christ, but as inherently bad from the start. It is the idea of a moral God in whom we should believe and whose laws we must obey that inspired the scorn and hostility of Kant, Voltaire, and a legion of modern anti-Jews who care nothing about Christ.
Also, since it is God's will for the Jews to be regathered into the land, there is satanic opposition from various angles (Revelation 12 verses 1-6 and 13-17).
Doesn’t Islam have a moral code? Isn’t Islam monotheism? Would you say that jihadis are good Muslims or that they pervert true Islam?
I don't know what true Islam is - but I do know that radical Islam is part of this nihilistic culture.
Islam too has a code of war that is not nihilistic, the question is if they can fight their wars this way.
Hamas and Fatah now don't. The Syrians against Israel never did. The Syrians against their own people don't.
The list, sadly, goes on and on.
It’s a death cult. The purple haired and the radical Islamists have enough in common to be allies. That commonality is a love of death, seeing no purpose in life, lack of value for human life.
You know Judeo Christian culture? Or judeo Christian values? There isn’t any islamo Christian anything. Or judeo Islamic anything. Islam is in its own canoe.
Was not like that in the middle ages... but they have not been able to come to terms with modernity and, as you say, are in their own canoe.
I have to preface this with I stand with Israel and with its right to defend itself. I stand with the Jews against anti-semitism. That needs to be said because you are not going to like what I have to say. Jews are not the moral paragons you make them out to be. They are not the origination of the Judeo-Christian ethic. They are a step along the path in man's evolution of thought. There were laws governing morality that preceded them, including thoughts on war. No they did not prohibit rape of war captives, they just added a few extra steps. In Davarim it is stipulated that if a city does not surrender to you, you are to kill all the men and take the women as, effectively, slaves. If you find one you are attracted to you can take her home, shave her head and let her mourn for a month. Then you can marry her. When you no longer find her pleasing you can simply put her out. With what, and to go where it doesn't say. That is rape with a few extra steps. Jews were as intolerant of the religion of the region as others were to theirs. Again in the Torah Jews must destroy their temples and shrines and burn the asherah poles of the people of Canaanan. Yes outsiders could live among you as long as they submitted to you and didn't practice their religion in public, and you had to treat them well, but they were not equals. Christianity was a further step along that thought evolution, but Judeo-Christian ethic has had to further evolve over time to get to where we are. The nihilism of today is as you rightly point out, lacking in a coherent moral code and that makes it extremely dangerous, and the enemy of human flourishing. On that we agree. Judeo-Christian ethic, with input from other systems of ethics that teach us to live together, are the only way forward for a world full of billions of people all bumping up against one another. It has been a long slow evolution in our way of relating to, and treating one another, with many groups playing their parts, including Islam. Nihilism is truly a step backward. We have come so far together, in part because of what we have done to each other in the past. Even Nihilism is an outgrowth of Western Civilization and thought. It shows us that when we whitewash our own sins we do a disservice to ourselves and that evolution.
First - i never said Jews were or have been perfect ethical animals. Jews are people like all others.
That being said, the passage your paraphrase in Dvarim is exactly as I said - it prohibits the rape of women on the battlefield - of the city you conquer. We may consider what the Bible allows rape, but that was not the case in antiquity. Read the ancient myths and read ancient history - Greek, Roman, Near-Eastern even Indian/Vedic (although less bad, I think).
My claim is that the Jews limited what can be done in warfare. You or I may not think it "moral" today - but rules of warfare it is. The same has to do with slavery. Personally, I don't accept slavery in any form, yet the Bible took it and humanized it in ways no other people did.
Destroying the temples and shrines are part of the fight against the amorality of ancient pagan life. Many times the Bible states that the Israelites should not do that which is custom in Cana'an or Egypt - this is not just bowing down to idols - but not behaving as they did in their temples and in their wars and in their cities.
No person or peoples are perfect - but there are those who at least try to do things in a better way.
This is not whitewashing sins but understanding that we live in THIS world and not in some spiritual world to come.
It was not my intent to say the Jews and Judaism played no part in the evolution of ethic. They most certainly did, in many important ways. My point was Judaism, in the beginning, was an evolution of existing and ever evolving human morality not an imposition of it on a wholly amoral world. This is where you and I seem to disagree.
Would that we all practiced our religions in a more perfect manner. I think this would be a more peaceful and kinder world on the whole. I do not expect any group to have a monopoly on perfect practitioners, but nor do they have a monopoly on inhumane monsters. We are all flawed. Humanity, as a whole, is both beautiful and terrible, both noble and savage, but together we do seem to strive to get better. Unfortunately it is often a very bumpy ride.
I do not know if there is a World to Come. One of the ideas of Judaism and Judeo-Christian theology/morality that I truly appreciate is the idea that we should strive to make this world better. One of the things we must do to do that, is to look back at where we have been and say, in unabashed humility, we were wrong. Not that we were bad, but simply that we were wrong; that we can be better.
After spending much of the last few years reading ancient myths and legends, reading ancient history and what there is about "pre-history" I have come to the conclusion that the pagan world from the ancient near-east to Egypt to Rome and Greece to the Norse and Mongolian steppes - with the possible exception of India- was a religious world without a moral sense. If the Bible is one thing - it is a revolt against all of that. If Abraham existed or if someone like Abraham existed, the "discovery" of One God was the discovery of a moral code. The world has been fighting against it ever since.
Then you and I will have to disagree there. Having spent a life being fascinated by religion and religious thought (this includes myth and legend) I have found that we all desire a way to live together. To do that we must have some common moral code. It may not be your moral code or one you understand but you benefit from that striving none the less.
I urge you to look through a different lens and ask yourself, “what does this show me”. Look at the similarities to your own as well as the differences. Take the epic of Gilgamesh and the relationship of Gilgamesh and Enkidu. It goes from animosity and conflict, to understanding, to great love. We tell that story in so many ways across so many cultures. It means something important, fundamental to us. Look at the Spartans, a brutal and often ruthless culture, but they also gave us duty, honor, and bravery in the face of terrible odds. To our detriment we often call that toxic masculinity today but it has at its core a commitment to others as well even to our brutal end. Across cultures, our characters are often flawed, sometimes terribly so, yet they find a way to redemption. Again this is something important and fundamental to us. We are all capable of great evil but we are also all capable of great love and great good/divinity.
It is one of my biggest criticisms of postmodernism as it is currently in practice. We take the past and view it only through what we are today, instead of taking it in context to the times it existed. Men who strove to bring us forward, the giants on whose shoulders we stand are taken as wholly bad or evil because they did things we now consider bad but were normal at the time, slavery and slave owners being the topic de jour at this time. Without them you do not get to here. We did not pop into existence with the moral code we currently have. We evolved by learning from their steps and their missteps.
Disagreeing is good.
The deal with both Judaism and Christianity is that they both evolve and change and are open to dialogue and apostasy and reform. Just like nature. Islam is not open to any change And a complete lack of flexibility makes it, essentially crazy
i don't mean to state a reason for antisemitism, rather a reason why seemingly opposite ideologies converge in antisemitism. T
As for meaning being in the depths of the victims pain - that could be.
But the reason we need to face up to the "destroyer" is to avoid more destruction.
The new cliche is "hamas is an idea and can't be destroyed" begs the points. The point is to make the idea powerless - to remove all its actual threats, much as the allies did to the Nazis in WWII.
"We keep wanting to understand them, as if understanding them we can alter them".
i agree with that statement 100%.
But ... this is an ongoing battle and we have to keep it up or we will get killed by them.