Joe Zeff <ahnkna...@zeff.us> wrote:
> We consider ourselves "a nation of priests, and an example to
> the nations," and the fact that "we answer to a higher
> authority" isn't *just* an advertising slogan. We don't expect
> everybody to live as we do, but we do try to show the world
> that it's possible for people to live in peace and in
> reasonable harmony with each other. Believe what you want,
> worship as you please, but try to follow our example and live a
> righteous life. (BTW, the very first of the 613 commandments
> is, "Be fruitful and multiply.")
>
> Please note that the Israelites had no problem with the people
> of Edom, Amor or Moab worshiping other gods, because they were
> righteous. The Amalikites, OTOH, who were in effect amoral,
> were an entirely different matter. (They had, apparently, no
> concept of Divine Retribution, either now or in an afterlife.)
Joe,
I wish I could be as sanguine as you are about our fellow Jews
but, alas, I think there is just as much and as little
intolerance among Jews as among Christians or others.
There are more than a few Orthodox Jewish rabbis and their
followers who treat women as second class citizens, consigning
them to the balcony of the synagogue and, quite literally, to the
back of the bus (there's a big fight going on in Israel right now
about the fact that public funds are subsidizing buses that go
through Orthodox neighborhoods and require that women sit in the
back - and get insulted or even assaulted, if they don't.)
There are also more than a few Orthodox organizations in Israel
that take the view that God gave all the land of Palestine to
Jews and Jews only, and that Christian and Muslim Arabs can just
bloody well get out or should be thrown out. No discussion,
negotiation, compromise or compensation is warranted. God told
these people directly, through the Bible, that they can take this
land. These people, tens or hundreds of thousands of them, are
the mirror image of Hamas. Read Robert Littel's very impressive
novel, _Vicious Circle_.
You might say that these people aren't real Jews, but I can
assure you that's what they would say about you and, pretty
accurately perhaps (though the Nazis wouldn't agree), about me.
As for biblical times, I think that Jewish history has many
tendencies in it that are reflected in the Old Testament. Some
are extremely intolerant, prescribing death for the Canaanites in
order that the people of Israel could take their land. I haven't
read the passage on Joshua and Jericho in a long time, but I seem
to recall it being a pretty bloody minded story. The plagues
visited on Egypt weren't overly tolerant of poor and innocent
Egyptians either, or the destruction of Job's wife because Job
lacked the discipline to not turn around.
I believe that there are fine, humane, tolerant leaders and
followers in all of the world's great religions, and also their
opposites. If I had to pick one religious group from the ones
I've known as best exemplifying "... that it's possible for
people to live in peace and in reasonable harmony with each
other...", I think I'd probably vote for the Unitarian
Universalists. Maybe the Quakers would come in second. I don't
know if Buddhism qualifies as a religion, I don't know much about
it, but it might also be among the leaders.
For myself though, I'm content to belong to no religion at all.
--
Alan Meyer
amey...@yahoo.com
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