Post by tshilo12 on Aug 24, 2006 1:18:01 GMT -5
Linda,
My recommendation was genuine... the best way to get to know Jews is by getting your hands dirty with Jews...whether in a hospital or on a kibbutz, it makes no difference... you're more likely to find religious Jews in a hospital, more likely to find non- or anti-religious Jews on a kibbutz... the whole point was that if you want to learn about and understand Jews, talk to Jews who aren't [excuse this, if you can] "compromised" by other religious influences. Interacting with secular Jews will give you a much better picture of who Jews are [with all our warts...which are obvious even in the Bible...Moses would never be regarded as a "saint" today...], than hanging out with Messianic [i.e., "ignorant of Jewishness and Judaism"] Jews ever will.
Without intending any disrespect, it's my judgment that Christians suffer from, at the very least, a case of cognitive dissonance when it comes to "the Law"... it was given by God, yet their "god" [Jesus] supposedly denounced it [although it was actually only ever Paul and John who denounced Torah...Jesus actually condemned anyone who spoke a word of denigration against Torah]...
That said, Christians trying to understand Judaism come to the subject with a severe lack of insight... Christians tend, overwhelmingly, to regard Judaism only through the eyes of the worldview in which they have been reared. Keep in mind...while the earliest Church was comprised overwhelmingly of Jews, _very_ early on, Jews were marginalized w/in the Church, long, in fact, before Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Empire. When Constantine adopted [not converted] Christianity as the religion of the Empire, it was his mother, not him, who was a Christian... I have no desire to rewrite the way Christians have written history, but given the way Constantine "implemented" Christianity, it is almost transparent that his desire was to prevent his mother from being sent to the lions, rather than any great reform in his heart--the biggest change he made was to stop sending Christians to the lions, and instead to substitute Christians loyal to him with Jews and Christians who disagreed with those bishops loyal to him. Take that for what it's worth...to understand it requires an analysis of history rather than a direct reading, and so detractors and doubters [who are more than content to detract and doubt the successors of the philosophy of the Church whose development he guided] are legion. The fact of the matter is, that Jews have, consistently, chosen exile and martyrdom from the beginning [even before the foundation of Paulinist Christianity] rather than acquiesce to the Jesus religion and its pagan predecessor.
Modern Western Christians imagine that the paramount importance of safeguarding and guaranteeing the sanctity of Life, is a fundamental historical part of their religion. This is an inaccurate view of history, in which, in fact, only _Christian_ lives were ever regarded as sacred. It's nice that Judaism has finally had a positive impact on Christianity, after these many centuries, but the fact remains that it was Judaism that paved the way for Christianity to become "popular", when Jews comprised, according to _conservative_ estimates, 10% of the 70million people living in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus... and it was Judaism that suffered when Christianity became warped into a persecutorial religion in the 4th century... going back to the beginning of this thread, and the "wondering" about what ever became of the Jews, I remember when I was a kid, before I found out about my Jewish ancestors, thinking that Jews were some historical people like the Etruscans, who had long since ceased to exist, some Satan-spawn who had denied and spat upon God Almighty, God forbid, and been wiped out of existence for their "crime"... and then I read the Bible... and realized, with about 3 seconds of rational thought, that the Jews/Israelites, who had numbered far in excess of 3 million coming out of Egypt, were reduced, only a few centuries later, to "7,000 who ha[d] never bent their knee to Ba'al"...and yet a millennium later, were 10% of the Roman Empire's population, with untold millions in domains further east. [In fact, in those days, there were more Jews than there are today...but no bother, during the time of the Crusades, when the loving wonderful Christians were slaughtering Jews by the tens of thousands, there were fewer than 2 million Jews in the world...] The fact of the matter is, that the sanctity of life is precisely the reason why there are so few Jews in the world today. Christians might not like to hear it, but it has only been within, in many places, less than the past 100 years, that it has not been punishible _by death_ for a Christian to convert to Judaism. So, Jews discourage converts. To this day, in muslim countries, it remains punishible _by death_ for _ANYONE_ to convert to Judaism [although Jews are free to convert to Christianity]. Unlike Christianity, however, Judaism stresses "proper action" rather than "proper belief", so while we discourage converts, in order to avoid people bringing threat upon their lives, and instead encourage them to live according to the Laws of Noah...which is all that is required of non-Jews to be regarded as "righteous" be`einei Hashem [in the Eyes of God]. Jews have long since ceased "compassing land and sea in search of a single proselyte."...Christians have taught us long since that to do so endangers not only our own lives but those of the prospective proselyte to take up the torch of being salt and light to the world. For those of you who think this is admirable, congratulations, and shame follow you all your days.
Now...all due apologies to you, Linda, since about half of this was directed toward other posters, I wish you the best, and hope that upon your return from Israel, you can help dispel the insanity most people regard as "the truth" about how things actually are in Israel. May the One and Only God watch over you, and give you blessings on your way.
Kol tov,
TK
My recommendation was genuine... the best way to get to know Jews is by getting your hands dirty with Jews...whether in a hospital or on a kibbutz, it makes no difference... you're more likely to find religious Jews in a hospital, more likely to find non- or anti-religious Jews on a kibbutz... the whole point was that if you want to learn about and understand Jews, talk to Jews who aren't [excuse this, if you can] "compromised" by other religious influences. Interacting with secular Jews will give you a much better picture of who Jews are [with all our warts...which are obvious even in the Bible...Moses would never be regarded as a "saint" today...], than hanging out with Messianic [i.e., "ignorant of Jewishness and Judaism"] Jews ever will.
Without intending any disrespect, it's my judgment that Christians suffer from, at the very least, a case of cognitive dissonance when it comes to "the Law"... it was given by God, yet their "god" [Jesus] supposedly denounced it [although it was actually only ever Paul and John who denounced Torah...Jesus actually condemned anyone who spoke a word of denigration against Torah]...
That said, Christians trying to understand Judaism come to the subject with a severe lack of insight... Christians tend, overwhelmingly, to regard Judaism only through the eyes of the worldview in which they have been reared. Keep in mind...while the earliest Church was comprised overwhelmingly of Jews, _very_ early on, Jews were marginalized w/in the Church, long, in fact, before Constantine's adoption of Christianity as the religion of the Empire. When Constantine adopted [not converted] Christianity as the religion of the Empire, it was his mother, not him, who was a Christian... I have no desire to rewrite the way Christians have written history, but given the way Constantine "implemented" Christianity, it is almost transparent that his desire was to prevent his mother from being sent to the lions, rather than any great reform in his heart--the biggest change he made was to stop sending Christians to the lions, and instead to substitute Christians loyal to him with Jews and Christians who disagreed with those bishops loyal to him. Take that for what it's worth...to understand it requires an analysis of history rather than a direct reading, and so detractors and doubters [who are more than content to detract and doubt the successors of the philosophy of the Church whose development he guided] are legion. The fact of the matter is, that Jews have, consistently, chosen exile and martyrdom from the beginning [even before the foundation of Paulinist Christianity] rather than acquiesce to the Jesus religion and its pagan predecessor.
Modern Western Christians imagine that the paramount importance of safeguarding and guaranteeing the sanctity of Life, is a fundamental historical part of their religion. This is an inaccurate view of history, in which, in fact, only _Christian_ lives were ever regarded as sacred. It's nice that Judaism has finally had a positive impact on Christianity, after these many centuries, but the fact remains that it was Judaism that paved the way for Christianity to become "popular", when Jews comprised, according to _conservative_ estimates, 10% of the 70million people living in the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus... and it was Judaism that suffered when Christianity became warped into a persecutorial religion in the 4th century... going back to the beginning of this thread, and the "wondering" about what ever became of the Jews, I remember when I was a kid, before I found out about my Jewish ancestors, thinking that Jews were some historical people like the Etruscans, who had long since ceased to exist, some Satan-spawn who had denied and spat upon God Almighty, God forbid, and been wiped out of existence for their "crime"... and then I read the Bible... and realized, with about 3 seconds of rational thought, that the Jews/Israelites, who had numbered far in excess of 3 million coming out of Egypt, were reduced, only a few centuries later, to "7,000 who ha[d] never bent their knee to Ba'al"...and yet a millennium later, were 10% of the Roman Empire's population, with untold millions in domains further east. [In fact, in those days, there were more Jews than there are today...but no bother, during the time of the Crusades, when the loving wonderful Christians were slaughtering Jews by the tens of thousands, there were fewer than 2 million Jews in the world...] The fact of the matter is, that the sanctity of life is precisely the reason why there are so few Jews in the world today. Christians might not like to hear it, but it has only been within, in many places, less than the past 100 years, that it has not been punishible _by death_ for a Christian to convert to Judaism. So, Jews discourage converts. To this day, in muslim countries, it remains punishible _by death_ for _ANYONE_ to convert to Judaism [although Jews are free to convert to Christianity]. Unlike Christianity, however, Judaism stresses "proper action" rather than "proper belief", so while we discourage converts, in order to avoid people bringing threat upon their lives, and instead encourage them to live according to the Laws of Noah...which is all that is required of non-Jews to be regarded as "righteous" be`einei Hashem [in the Eyes of God]. Jews have long since ceased "compassing land and sea in search of a single proselyte."...Christians have taught us long since that to do so endangers not only our own lives but those of the prospective proselyte to take up the torch of being salt and light to the world. For those of you who think this is admirable, congratulations, and shame follow you all your days.
Now...all due apologies to you, Linda, since about half of this was directed toward other posters, I wish you the best, and hope that upon your return from Israel, you can help dispel the insanity most people regard as "the truth" about how things actually are in Israel. May the One and Only God watch over you, and give you blessings on your way.
Kol tov,
TK