AmericanJewish.Blog 2004

(Comments may be directed to AmericanJewish.Blog@NCEJudaism.org)

BIBLE MUSINGS This is a saga of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. Thus it differs from the Greek and Christian concepts. Creation: The pinnacle of creation is leisure.

EXPLORING THE BIBLE A great glory is that Jews can openly ask what everything in the Hebrew Bible means. Questioning is routine. The Bible is a great saga of people trying to understand the unknown, in a search for a unifying principle. What a great difference between its folk and the perfectionism of other faiths, whether focusing on a Buddha, a Jesus, or a Mohammed.

WELCOME, WELCOME, WELCOME IS THE NAME OF THE FLAME Synagogues that aren't welcoming, either of their members or strangers, are inviting their own end. The importance of welcoming the stranger lies in its indication that the synagogue welcomes its members, too. They are not just meal-tickets for "professional staff." Synagogues can of necessity ask that members pay to belong, and to maintain the institution, but they need also to ask what they must supply, in return.

PSYCHOLOGY OF FEAR Why have Jewish institutions gone the general fear of violence in the U.S. a big step further? Understandably, violence done by Arab sympathizers to Jewish institutions in Argentina and elsewhere is a stimulus. But do we need to give into that fear? Do all Jewish institutions need barricades, and offduty police officers, to feel safe? The search for security stirs insecurity.

IS ANTI-JEWISHNESS MOTHER'S MILK? A columnist for the New Republic asks why two Jewish executives allowed a violence-filled film to be made. He then apologizes. And the magazine says this was a fluff, he's not antisemitic. He wrote what he wrote. It was in his mind. We go on-but we know what kind of a slip this was.

WHAT CAME FIRST ON THE JERUSALEM HILL? Editorialists and reporters are so evenhanded. They refer to the Temple Mount as the Noble Sanctuary, as though both had equal claim. But what came first? And why did Mohammed choose to narrate his reported ascension to Heaven from the rock of Abraham on the Temple Mount? Here, as in the stories in the Hebrew Bible-if it were not in that Bible it would not be in the Christian New Testament and the Islamic Koran.

CHRISTMAS IN BETHLEHEM, WHOSE OBLIGATION? The once-Christian Arab Bethlehem complains its Christmas business is down because of the war between Palestinians and Israelis. And whose fault is that?

WHOSE FAMILY IS IT, ANYWAY? Why do so many Jewish publications play up and glamorize achievers who came from a Jewish background but who do not today profess Judaism or have a Jewish family? Is it enough just to have come from a Jewish base? Jewish media need more emphasis on items Jewish.

WHO IS THE MESSIAH THESE DAYS? Jews are the Messiah. When countries freely have Jews observing their faith, they are in Messianic times. Jews are the measure & messiah of freedom. When all nations let Jews freely be, the messianic era will be on its way. Reaching out to non-Jews to invite them to learn about Judaism helps prepare the way.

IS THE U.S. IN A RELIGIOUS WAR? The U.S. is not fighting a religious war. But its enemies are. Striking, the people who don't want us to have done anything in Iraq, but do want the U.S. to do something in Israel-against the Israelis. Boys are throwing stones and other items (bombs?) against American tanks in Iraq. Strange, that newspapers bewail the loss of stone-thrower lives, but don't rail against the parents who let the kids out to do their fighting.

HOW TO REVIVE JEWISH POPULATIONS Is the Jewish population in your area declining? All the more reason to hold Taste of Judaism or Introduction to Judaism classes, to invite non-Jews to learn about Judaism, and leave them free to become Jewish if they want.

WELCOMING IS THE BIGGEST NEED OF SYNAGOGUES

Not money—welcoming. If synagogue rabbis and leaders welcome everyone who comes into their synagogues to inquire, to learn, to worship—they’ll find that their rolls will increase…and with that their institutions’ income. We’ve heard of one family with a child in Jewish preschool, where the non-Jewish male head was not allowed to attend Torah Study at a Conservative synagogue, as he requested—and the family now goes to a Unitarian church. What a loss. (1/03)

JUDAISM IS NOT SECULARISM, NOT INTERFAITH—BUT JUDAISM.

Judaism exists because of faith. It is not a recitation of prayers because that’s what people said 2000 years ago or 2 years ago. Yes, one can be a secularist—for one generation.

Nor can Judaism exist if it says it is all right to have this Jewish celebration and that Christian one, or that Buddhist one, or Hindu one—Judaism preaches unity, the one God. Other faiths may celebrate one God, but it is not the same one God—a trinity is not unity, venerating an idol, give it whatever name you will, is not celebrating one God.

THE FAMILY THAT PRAYS TOGETHER….

Why don’t more synagogues encourage whole families to attend services?

CAN THERE BE A PALESTINE WITHOUT LIFE SUPPORT?

Whatever one feels about a Palestine—does anyone ask if it has any chance of being viable?—If it depends on European subsidies, Israeli tax collection, and jobs for its workforce in an Israel that doesn’t want suicide bombers smuggled in with them—why is such a state considered preferable to its being part of Jordan, however that part of the Palestine Mandate is called?

ISLAMIC SUPERSESSIONISM ELEPHANTIASIS

Why do some Jewish leaders think it is so nice to be talking with Islamic clergy who tell them the Islamic version of the Bible is correct and the Jewish version is not? This is longtime Christian supersessionism carried to Jewish burial extreme. There would be no claiming of Abraham as the father, no claiming of the Temple Mount as the holy sanctuary, if the Jews had not reported Abraham and had not built on the Mount site.

MODERNISM, NOT JUDAISM, IS THE CHALLENGE FOR ISLAM

What are called Islamic extremists are calling Judaism and the West Satans. What they are is a challenge—to Islamic fundamentalism to be willing to accept that there are other salvations, and that Muslims can live in peace in a pluralistic society. It’s the question Christianity has not totally resolved, but that more and more of its adherents are acknowledging.

WHY ARE SO MANY JEWS SO DIFFIDENT ABOUT THEIR FAITH?

The question arises when you see Jewish organizations feting celebrities who themselves attack Judaism or Israel or whose families have turned away from Judaism.

And it arises when you see how apathetic so many Jewish leaders are in proclaiming the superiority—not the exclusivity—of their faith in coping with today’s—and yesterday’s—problems.

IS ISLAM LIKE COMMUNISM?

Does it operate in a free society to destroy it?

THE SAME GOD? No. The Jewish God and the Christian God and the Muslim God may all be spoken of as One God, but they are not the same God, they are three different versions. The Jewish God came first.

CHILDREN OF ABRAHAM? No. The Jews are the children of Abraham. Christianity and Islam are not offspring, they are mutants.

ABRAHAMIC COUSINS? No. The Jews came first, the Christians later, the Muslims later. If there were no Judaism and Jewish Bible there would be no Christianity and Christian Bible adopting the Jewish Bible. (The Jews didn’t give it to them and say, You are ours.) If there were no Judaism and Christianity there would be no Islam. Where else did Mohammed get his Creation stories, and Ishmael?

THE U.S. IS A RELIGIOUS MARKETPLACE. So the Jews should be in that marketplace, at least letting people know the door is not locked, while others try to pull people in off the streets.

PLURALISM AND THE JEWISH MESSAGE: Judaism does not say you have to be Jewish to be a good person. Christianity and Islam are both exclusive—you get to Heaven as they see it by belonging to their faith.

THE WAR AGAINST TERRORISM IS A WAR AGAINST RELIGIOUS HATE. The Islamists who hate the West as infidels follow quotations in their Koran. The Christians who kill Jews follow teachings in their Bible. The challenge for our time is to put those hateful messages in storage, just as we have the elements of animal sacrifice and stoning one sees in the Jewish Bible. Can this be done? Don’t ask us.

WATCH OUT FOR EVENHANDEDNESS. Do you notice how often public commentators refer to the Israeli-Palestinian violence, as though both sides broke out into warfare? Or a question like this, Can years of Christian and Jewish separation be halted?

(Comments may be directed to AmericanJewish.Blog@NCEJudaism.org)