Kill 'Em All: God's Prerogative

The Biblical World notes an interesting discussion over Israel's capture of Jericho.

The story is well-known for the part where Joshua and the Israelite circle Jericho, blowing trumpets until the city's walls come tumbling down. My kids used to have a Veggie Tales video that framed the story as one of "doing it God's way, not your own." The vegetable Israelites trusted God by obeying the bizarre orders of Joshua. They brought down veggie Jericho and immediately made their way to the Promised Land.

Not recounted in the kid vid, and hardly ever in polite company, is the actual Biblical story. For example, here's Joshua 6:20-21:

20. And the people shouted, and (the priests) blew with the trumpets; and it was when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, that the people shouted with a great shout, and the wall fell down in its place and the people went up into the city, every man opposite him, and they took the city.

21. And they completely destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.

This is, of course, an orgy of genocide and slaughter. It's indiscriminate--excepting the household of Rahab the harlot, whose aid of Israel is rewarded by their being spared. And it's all God-sanctioned: consider that what arouses God's anger is the later actions of one Achan, who does some looting in Jericho and sets back Israel's army. Achan pays for the crime with his life.

Now, some apologists bleat that Jericho had been warned beforehand. The city foolishly decided to oppose Israel; therefore, God was moral and Joshua was moral and Israel was moral to fuck up absolutely everyone and everything in Jericho.

Today, however, we can hardly accept such a feeble excuse. We know it's unfair to expect a city to surrender to an invading force. There's no way to reconcile the specific events recounted in the this chapter with an all-powerful, all-smart, human-loving deity. Surely such a God could have found a safer, saner method for achieving his divine purpose? For example, why not whip up a wall of sand--Exodus-style--on either side of Israel as they simply pass through Jericho unharmed?

But no, the God-apologists need to protect their idea of God by blaming the victims. Or, as John Piper does, the divine defenders just say genocide is fine...when God does it:

It's right for God to slaughter women and children anytime he pleases. God gives life and he takes life. Everybody who dies, dies because God wills that they die.

God is taking life every day. He will take 50,000 lives today. Life is in God's hand. God decides when your last heartbeat will be, and whether it ends through cancer or a bullet wound. God governs.

So God is God! He rules and governs everything. And everything he does is just and right and good. God owes us nothing.

"May I have another?"

Hallelujah, John! God can fucking kill anyone, anytime. He can stomp and maim until he's satisfied that He's killed enough. Heck, he can juggle the freakin' corpses and gargle their bones, and by definition it would be morally good and right.

And what's more, whatever the hell he decides to do to you, me, your little baby, your dear Aunt Sally, or whomever: we all should just thank him. He owes us nothing.

Piper's demented view is not far off from that of the odious Jewish convert, Jacob Stein. Stein believes that the Holocaust was essentially God's response to the Jewish Enlightenment in Europe.

It is true that I am implying that generally the victims of the Holocaust were sinners who were deserving of their fate however I believe that this is in fact obviously true and we will honor their deaths by learning from this.

In my opinion, the Holocaust is one of the strongest proofs of the truth of Judaism.

Stein has nothing to say about what the other millions of Nazi victims did to deserve their fate. Neither does he explain why American Jews, hardly known for orthodoxy, were spared. All he knows for sure is Haskalah-therefore-Holocaust. Bravo, Stein!

Piper and Stein agree that God uses human brutality to make his holy will known and to achieve his divine design in the world.

It's easy enough to dismiss abhorrent views such as those of Piper and Stein. Most of us, however, are unprepared to tolerate indiscriminate killing, genocide, and wanton violence. This is a good thing.

But come back to the Veggie Tales video I mentioned before. Remember what the decent little tomato and funny cucumber say: the right thing to do is what God tells you to do.

What they don't say is that God has sometimes told people to do some pretty awful and wrong things, if you believe there is a God to tell anybody anything.

Let me close with a modest proposal to leave vegetables for cooking and eating, leave God and the Bible in the fiction bin where they belong, leave moral decisions to rational minds, and leave genocide and slaughter altogether.

Hasidic Pedophiles and Pederasts. Yep, It Can Happen Here.

Hey rabbi, check out the sexy boy in the third row.

Crimes against children by adults who claim to live the word of God are not new. Many religions have demons, and the ultra-Orthodox Jews are no exception. Most deny it could happen in their midst. Child rape and molestation don’t fit their pious image.

"The (ultra-Orthodox) Jews are no exception." That's the point. And by understanding that point, abuse of children and minors can be stopped everywhere.

On the CNN pages, the following part of the story is the most interesting:

The Hasidim in Brooklyn are a powerful voting block. That’s why District Attorney Charles Hynes is accused by victims’ rights advocates of going easy on alleged Hasidic child molesters and rapists. He’s been elected six times, and is accused of appeasing the rabbis in order to get their support and keep his position.

Hynes strongly denies the allegations. In 2009, he established a program and a hotline to help victims called Kol Tzedek (“Voice of Justice” in Hebrew). But critics are outraged because he refuses to disclose the names of the men arrested through the initiative. The Jewish Daily Forward’s request for the records filed under the state’s Freedom of Information Law was denied.

Hynes claims that revealing the names of the suspects could lead to the community identifying the victims and intimidating them. That decision raises concerns about the rights of the public, the legality of shielding the men, and the DA’s motives.

Tuchman asked Hynes how he reconciles instituting a policy for the Hassidim, but no other groups, like the Roman Catholic Church. He says because “there’s never been any intimidation by priests.”

In a May 16 op-ed, Hynes wrote:

Since the inception of Kol Tzedek, we have made 95 arrests; 53 cases have been adjudicated, with a conviction rate of 72%.

I stand by these numbers.

The statistics show how absurd it is to suggest that we cover up, downplay or in any way “give a break” to sex offenders in the Orthodox Jewish community. Like any other defendants, they are often arrested in public by the police, and their court appearances are open and available to the public as part of the public record. I welcome scrutiny of these cases.

The suggestion that I have ever condoned the practice of first seeking a rabbi’s advice before an Orthodox Jewish community member reports sexual abuse is a distortion of my record. I have never suggested that someone seeking the advice of a rabbi is then relieved of the obligation of reporting sexual abuse to the appropriate authorities.

While some may persist in protecting the community ahead of justice for the young victims, there are signs of progress. On June 10, a group of ultra-Orthodox Jews held a meeting in Crown Heights to talk about combating child sex abuse. Hynes was on the panel. Some rabbinic leaders have said anyone with knowledge of abuse should go to the police and do not need to talk first with a rabbi. It will take the courage of the victims and the compassion of the community to make lasting change.

Hynes ought to disclose names of people arrested through Kol Tzedek because ultra-Orthodox Jews are no exception. What's more, the interests of a single community do not outweigh justice for our society's most vulnerable.

Rabbi Shmuley on the Disabled

A collage to illustrate a bit of the man.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach is a celebrity clergyman, notable mainly for an ignominious association with pop-star Michael Jackson and for a best-selling advice book called Kosher Sex. His latest book, Kosher Jesus, is causing some undulations in the worldwide Orthodox Jewish community because the orthodox don't want to hear anything having to do with Jesus--and Boteach is apparently running as a Republican for a spot in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Recently, he wrote in the Huffington Post on why God allows some to be born with mental or physical disabilities. This seems to be the payoff paragraph:

I have no idea why G-d would allow any child to come into this world with severe mental or physical disability. What I do know, however, is that He shouldn't. Children deserve to be born with all their faculties and with all their abilities. All children deserve to be healthy. Those who come into the world with mental handicaps are, of course, beautiful children, the equal of every healthy child, deserving of infinite love, equality and rights. Indeed, given their special needs they require more of our love, more of our attention. What they do not deserve, however, and what they certainly have never earned, is our contemptuous effort to justify their suffering and their challenges by ascribing them to some unknown and lofty divine purpose.

This explanation is remarkable for several reasons:

1. "I have no idea." This line of thinking might be considered refreshingly honest. Nevertheless, the statement runs counter to what religion is fundamentally supposed to offer: resolution into a larger, purposeful order. This statement confesses total ignorance where many others would soften the admission to "The Lord works in mysterious ways." I cannot see how such a confession would satisfy many people, who generally want to think of their clergy as knowing the intentions of the supreme being. Perhaps Boteach thinks confessing ignorance allows him to relate better to a person in pain, but I imagine that one reason a person would consult a rabbi is to be led from pain to a better sense of normalcy.
2. "He shouldn't." I imagine that many Christians raise their eyebrows at this statement. They cannot handle criticizing the supreme being because it violates the celestial hierarchy. People have no standing and insufficient knowledge--allegedly--to challenge anything the Yahweh does. I find the audacity of the statement silly, mainly because it contradicts the earlier "I have no idea." You cannot claim that X is morally wrong while not knowing God's reasons for doing X--unless you care to admit that God can commit wrongs.

3. "Children deserve to be born with all their faculties and with all their abilities. All children deserve to be healthy." This is bullshit. When Boteach says "All children deserve to be healthy," I hear the response from Clint Eastwood's character in the movie Unforgiven: "Deserve's got nothin' to do with it!" None of us deserves health, just like none of us deserves tallness, a zit-free adolescence, natural gifts in music, or x-ray vision. We "get" health by a fortunate convergence of body development, mental and physical traits, and external social perception of normal health.
4. "Those who come into the world with mental handicaps are, of course, beautiful children, the equal of every healthy child, deserving of infinite love, equality and rights." I don't believe Boteach here. Maybe I'm unfair, but he comes across like the person who professes not to be racist--just before launching into a vicious black joke.
5. "What they do not deserve, however, and what they certainly have never earned, is our contemptuous effort to justify their suffering and their challenges by ascribing them to some unknown and lofty divine purpose." Boteach is just posturing here with trumped-up moral outrage. Trying to justify suffering--and I by no means grant that disabled people by and large experience life as suffering--can hardly be called contemptuous. Many people justify suffering as a way to cope: we sympathize with a person or their family but don't feel like it's enough. I have no idea by what right Boteach describes disabled children as "suffering." Surely, he's projecting, but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Disabled people and their families find and make happiness. It happens all the time. What's more, plenty of so-called "normal" people are very unhappy.

Boteach's is a muddled and ill-conceived article, and while the man tries to position himself as bringing religion's reason to modernity, what he delivers is essentially a secular ethics that retains reference to traditional religion:

Why does God allow the innocent to suffer? I have no idea. He shouldn't. But our job is to fill in the empty spaces G-d seemingly vacates in His universe and to act in G-d's stead, being as human and loving as we can.

The notion of God here ends up as a huge, unnecessary distraction. People need to step up and act, Boteach says. People must assume the role that otherwise would be reserved for God because God is apparently out of the picture. Boteach is but a scintilla away from jettisoning God altogether: God's not protecting innocents and not minding the store here on earth. Why keep the fucker?

Theology or atheology aside, Boteach's passage above shows the unfortunate fact that he focuses not on the disabled and the realities of their lives but rather on "normal" people like himself. He preaches to "normal" people, for "normal" people, teaching them how to sound properly enlightened. With this focus and armed with religious opinions, he wrote an article that he thought said something, maybe even something profound. The article actually added nothing but detritus.

The Jews Are a Race, Geneticist Says

Bar Refaeli: She's my race.

Harry Ostrer is a medical geneticist and professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. His new book, Legacy: A Genetic History of the Jewish People, argues that Jews exhibit a distinctive genetic signature that is central to Jewish identity. Jews are, in other words, a race of people.

Personally, I am not surprised at this because insularity seems to be a common historical factor across Jewish populations worldwide. Yet, the book aims partly to counteract a general uneasiness with the concept of "race." In particular, Ostrer seems to argue against a view that racial differences are purely social constructions. Yes, Ostrer says, human beings are 99.9 percent similar, but that 0.1 percent difference is important because that's where Jewish distinction emerges in physical features, ancestral origins, genealogies, communities, traits, and shared identification.

I have no problem with the notion of race as "population" and "region of ancestral origin." The problem with race is the problem of using it to express ideas that some human populations are superior or inferior. Ostrter seems to be operating in a post-racial sense of race, where we can talk about race without making it a human competition.

I also think there's no need to attach religious significance to the racial homogeneity of the Jews. It's not as if biological relatedness tells us anything about the patriarchs, the Bible, or God. If the Jews are a race, they are one of many races and sub-races. Humanity is internally diverse. The Jews, too, are racially diverse, and this is perhaps the most interesting and valuable lesson of the subject.

The genetics of the Jewish people (or peoples?) are fascinating. I highly recommend Razib Khan's assessment of a 2010 paper in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The paper, in which Ostrer has an author credit, demonstrated "that European/Syrian and Middle Eastern Jews represent a series of geographical isolates or clusters woven together by shared IBD [identity by descent] genetic threads" (see figure, right).

The paper is very detailed, and Khan does a nice job explaining it. Let me first quote from the paper, where its findings are summarized:

The Middle Eastern populations were formed by Jews in the Babylonian and Persian empires who are thought to have remained geographically continuous in those locales. In contrast, the other Jewish populations were formed more recently from Jews who migrated or were expelled from Palestine and from individuals who were converted to Judaism during Hellenic-Hasmonean times, when proselytism was a common Jewish practice. During Greco-Roman times, recorded mass conversions led to 6 million people practicing Judaism in Roman times or up to 10% of the population of the Roman Empire. Thus, the genetic proximity of these European/Syrian Jewish populations, including Ashkenazi Jews, to each other and to French, Northern Italian, and Sardinian populations favors the idea of non-Semitic Mediterranean ancestry in the formation of the European/Syrian Jewish groups and is incompatible with theories that Ashkenazi Jews are for the most part the direct lineal descendants of converted Khazars or Slavs. The genetic proximity of Ashkenazi Jews to southern European populations has been observed in several other recent studies.The paper here challenges the hypothesis, based on an historical interpretation, that Ashkenazi Jews descend from eastern Europeans and Eurasians who converted to Judaism in the early Middle Ages. The paper's genetic findings indicate that Semitic Jews gained massive Greco-Roman converts much earlier.

The early history matters greatly, and Khan neatly encapsulates the paper's cultural and historical assessment:

In the time of Augustus Jews were divided between different sects and persuasions, and there was a welter of diversity. Additionally, in the marketplace of Roman religion Jews were a moderately entrepreneurial group. The dynasty of Herod himself was of convert origin. There was a wide spectrum of Jewish religious practice and belief, from the near monastic isolation of the Essenes, to the engaged but separatist Pharisees, and finally to the wide range of more syncretistic practices which fall under the rubric of “Hellenistic Judaism.” Many scholars assert that it was from the last sector which Christianity finally arose as a Jewish sect, and that Christianity eventually absorbed all the other forms of Hellenistic Judaism. Judaism of the Pharisees, which became Rabbinical Judaism, and more recently Judaism qua Judaism, was shaped in large part by having to accommodate and placate the dominant Christian and Islamic religious cultures in which it was integrated by the early medieval period. Conversion to Judaism from Christianity or Islam was often a capital crime (though conversion from Christianity to Judaism was not forbidden in Muslim lands, while presumably conversion from Islam to Judaism in Christian lands would not have been, though few Muslims lived in Christian lands). So after 500 A.D. it seems that what may have occurred was that a Jewish Diaspora characterized by geographically determined genetic diversity, despite some common original Levantine origin, was genetically isolated from surrounding populations. This explains why there seems relatively little influx of Slavic genes into the Ashkenazim despite their long sojourn within Poland-Lithuania and later the Russian Empire. In contrast, the Roman Jewish community was already large in the days of Julius Caesar, and presumably intermarried with the urban proletariat of diverse origins. In an ironic twist these data suggest that modern Jews, in particular the Ashkenazim, but to a lesser extent the Sephardim as well, share common ancestry with gentile Europeans due to the unconstrained character of the pagan Greco-Roman world which Jews were to a great extent strident critics of.

Genetics, culture, history: all are intertwined. The lesson is that to call a human population a race is not--or should not be--tantamount to calling them a different species of human. We all know, however, that race has often been used precisely to separate and politicize groups of people. Postmodernist analyses of race focus on the ways race is politicized and used to political ends. The political, politicized race is often the fiction pointed to by postmodernists. I am, like many, a postmodernist about the interpretations, not about the facts. Now, a postmodernist might snidely question how/whether one separates interpretations from facts--and it is an interesting philosophical discussion that may amount to little else than sophistry--but the clear target is interpretation.

I would be interested to read informed challenges to Ostrer's thesis.

Footnote: The image of model Bar Rafaeli and the caption are an ironic--and attempted humorous--comment on the racial politics I discuss in this post.

"Judaism is opposed to sexual equality"

Jacob Stein, the Jewish or Torah Philosopher:
Accused sexual harasser and unrecognized sage.

 "Judaism is opposed to sexual equality."

So says the self-styled Jewish philosopher, or Torah Philosopher, or whatever he wants to call himself these days. He then states: "Within the Orthodox Jewish community, the primary decision makers should be men."

The philosopher, Jacob Stein, has a history of hating women. He made inappropriate, sexually-laced comments on other people's blogs--leading to his firing once his employer found out how Stein spent company time. Stein was then dismissed from a nursing program at the Rockland Board of Cooperative Educational Services for comments to students that were deemed to constitute sexual harassment.

Of course, Judaism is no different than many religions before and after that view men as fundamentally superior and therefore entitled to privileges unavailable to women. These religions also set norms than make certain behaviors and duties prohibited to men--on pain of being seen as effeminate or less-than-manly.

These same religions also stratify the religious community and outsiders. The outsiders are intrinsically immoral, two-faced, and untrustworthy. One can behave toward them in ways that would not be appropriate with another member of the in-group.

The Torah philosopher gives only the unvarnished core of religious thinking, unconflicted by conscience and reason. The more liberal of his co-religionists have a harder time: they know that religions like Judaism are essentially unjust, but they cannot accept it.

The proper response to the Torah's philosopher's statement is to mock it, and then walk away. The man is negligible and his stupid, archaic worldview deserves only enough attention to make fun of it.

So, go over and comment at Stein's blog. Mock the fucker.

And laugh with me as we think about this joke on the all-powerful Jewish man:

A Jewish boy comes home from school and tells his mother he's been given a part in the school play. "Wonderful. What part is it?" The boy says, "I play the part of the Jewish husband." The mother scowls and says, "Go back and tell the teacher you want a speaking part."

You Should Abandon Your Religion Now

Is your religion really the way to "true happiness"?

You should abandon the doctrines and beliefs of your religion. If you must, go to church, synagogue, mosque, or community center. But stop advocating for religious beliefs.

You no longer need to say Jesus died for anyone's sins, or that Israel received the Torah from God, or that Mohammed wasn't a delusional asshole. I know that you know religious traditions are bunk. I know that you suspect no clergyman or theologian has any real idea about God, gods, supernatural beings and realms, and so forth.

But I am not focusing here on the falsity of religions. Instead, I want you to try dropping the pretense of belief. I want you to imagine what would happen if you simply acknowledged to yourself that religion altogether stops or retards your personal growth .

Here's how we know that religion is poisonous. First, have a look at the top five regrets of the dying, as summarized by Hank Fox:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
5. I wish I had let myself be happier.

Now, let's consider each regret individually.

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
The sine qua non of religion is to tell you how to live your life. Religion tells you the values and expectations to which you should adhere in your life. Yes, some values and expectations are good in some contexts, but the point is that religion has no intrinsic claim on how you live. Don't give religion authority that properly belongs to you.

2. I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.
The regret focuses mainly on professional work--one should scale back on the 80-100 hour weeks and so forth. Those who wish they had not worked so hard tend to feel they missed time with children, spouses, and friends. But the practice of religion doesn't always offer time for relating with others. On Easter, for example, the family may go to church together, but then everyone is just sitting or standing there while the people up front yammer at them about zombies. The actual relating that's done on Easter is the egg stuff and the traditional meal. The public worship aspect of many religions is antithetical to individuals communicating with one another and relating. The real interpersonal and social activity that people love and need have no special dependence on religion, and religions often serve only to defer that activity.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
Religions by and large traffic in the suppression of feelings and intuitions. Are you uncomfortable with God's anger, misogyny, and penchant for killing (and see Exodus 4:24-26)? Are you in love with someone who does not share your religion or who is the same gender as you? Are you incredulous that so many animals and eight frakking humans could exist for 40 days on a single boat? Are you pretty sure that virgin birth is impossible for humans, and same for physical resurrection days after death? Do you think Pope Ratzi and Bernard Cardinal Law should be in jail? If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, then you must know that religion is not particularly interested to delve deeply into these questions today. The sages and fathers of bygone days tended to assume the orthodoxies were true, and reality would bend to accommodate. But now it's best not to think too hard about all the poop that would have been on the poop deck of Noah's Ark. It's impolite to say out loud that a sitting pope enabled pederasty and valued his "church" over the suffering of real people. Religions do not advise you to share your feelings. No, they tell you "to keep an open mind" about it all. They tell you God will help you carry your burden. In other words, they are telling you to shut the hell up and deal.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
Religions cast suspicion on anyone who is not part of the in-group. You are encouraged to stay in touch with friends only insofar as you talk to them about the Lord Jesus Christ or the wonderful way Allah has provided clarity in your life. Religion sets its own terms on your relationship with anyone and everyone: that's pernicious.

5. I wish I had let myself be happier.
This is the big regret, and the one where religions obstruct people the most. All religions talk about offering transcendence, a way to commune with something "bigger than yourself." They promise happiness as if it were a secret that only they knew. To religion, happiness is only defined and sanctioned by them. All else is not "true happiness."

And it gets worse. No religion is in the business of letting you be happy all by yourself. To religion, your happiness is selfishness. Your fulfillment is one step toward a society of Jeffrey Dahmers. Your independence is confusion. Your curiosity is foolishness. Religions are admittedly and decidedly opposed to your being happier; they favor instead your "voluntary compliance" to god-inflected happiness.

*  *  *  *  *

Religion is bad, not just untrue. The happiness it offers is happiness you can generate yourself. The happiness it scorns is none of its business.

Can you imagine lying on your deathbed saying "I wish I had gone to church more often"? Who could possibly utter, "I sure regret not having davened a few more times"?

Life is for doing stuff, folks. And it's for engaging others, talking and sharing adventures with them. It can't be about denying bacon and making solitary wishes for blessings.

Lose religion. Let it go. This is not about hating religion or being an angry atheist. This is about life. Your life.

Don't you at least owe it to yourself to consider it?

Passover/Easter Reflections

The other Jesus and Mo.

The rites of spring are come and gone again.

My family held two seders this year, the first with only the nuclear Tanners and the second involving a fuller Tanner clan. In both cases, we conducted the seder briskly to skip all flummery and to keep the kids entertained.

My dad's seder talks about the Exodus a bit more than mine. He presents the liberation of the Hebrew slaves as a basis for believing all people should have political and religious freedom. I focus more on self-advocacy and self-determination.

For the Easter part of the weekend, my wife and I hosted a meal with her family. First, however, I went to my wife's church to see my son and older daughter sing in the holiday choir. The kids were very cute, but the Easter service was insufferable. The music was so douchey, with the basic message that Jesus is Superman.

The sermon was also dreadful. The pastor asserted again and again that Jesus REALLY DID die on the cross. Really, he did. He died.

And how do we know he really really died?

Because the details of the Gospel of Mark are not what we would expect if the story was made-up, says the pastor. Here's the passage we covered together:

1 - When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.

2 - Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb

3 - and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

4 -  But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.

5 - As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

6 -  “Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

7 - But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

8 - Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

The pastor was trying to dispel the idea that Jesus perhaps fainted and didn't die. He was also arguing against the hypothesis that the corpse was moved.

I won't go into the specific points the pastor made, but I want to dwell for a moment on the idea that only Mark's accuracy is at issue here. In fact, we are dealing with reliability at many levels in the Marcian account, where a fuller reporting sequence is as follows:

The young man in the tomb
↓
[time]
↓
The three women
↓
[time]
↓
The first people they finally told
↓
[time]
↓
The people who heard the story from the first people
↓
[time (decades?)]
↓
The person or group who wrote down Mark into manuscript form

Add to this a muddied bed of Christian interpretation and re-interpretation, and you see my point: between whatever might actually have happened and us are layers of re-tellings, time, cultural and linguistic nuance, and beliefs based on a very different and more limited understanding of reality.

Therefore, whoever produced Mark was decades away and between two and five people-layers removed from the reported events. So, what is it that is REALLY, REALLY true in the story?

Clearly, we don't know what's true. Yet many of us remain comfortable with assigning high probability that of all life forms in the universe, this one human being reversed death.

Fortunately, my home was filled with turkey, vegetables, and milk chocolate to make everyone forget the amount to cognitive dissonance required to muddle through the Jewish and Christian rituals.

And so this is Pesach, and what have you done?

Arguing together. It's enough.

I look forward to holding a small Passover seder with my wife and children tonight. Tomorrow, we will all go to my parents' condo and have a larger seder with my brothers and their families.

I love the seder. I like that we always have to think about the order of events as well as how to execute them properly. Performing the seder is never rote. Indeed, I always appreciated this in synagogue, say at Shabbat: there was always checking and double-checking at the bimah to make sure sure the service was going off correctly, even f everyone there had done 1,000 Shabbat services apiece.

I love the food of the seder, but I enjoy the songs most of all. The kids always get a kick out of "Dayenu." I cannot decide whether I like "Adir Hu" or "Chad Gadya" better. Mostly, I love the sound of my Dad's voice, and the knowledge that my Mom is happy to hear us all.

That the Exodus story is fictional matters not so much. If it comes up, we can discuss it. The Passover table is meant for serious discussion. Many households prohibit politics and/or religion at the dinner table. But at the Passover table, no subject is off-limits and no argument can get too heated.

Let's have at it, then. However you give meaning to Pesach, even if you give no meaning, I wish that you make it happy and get happiness in return.

Kuzari Principle, Round 3

Another round of discussion on Kuzari.

Is it rational to believe that a nation of former slaves, the Hebrews, experienced a mass Divine revelation at Sinai?

Frankly, I don’t know. I do know, however, that the so-called Kuzari Principle is insufficient as a basis for said belief. I have written many posts on the Kuzari Principle and I have answered many challenges. Let me briefly summarize these posts:

Round 1:

• The Kuzari Principle: Ultimate Proof of God’s Existence? – An introduction to Kuzari with background and applications.
• The Sinai Argument – A sketch of how Kuzari gets used to argue for Sinai.
• Definitively Refuting the Kuzari Principle – An analysis of Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb's Kuzari arguments that concludes Kuzari fails to prove either Sinai or Judaism.
• Kuzari Keeps on Giving, or Pay No Attention to the Assumptions Behind My Principle! – A review of early emails with Rabbi Dovid Gottlieb on my Kuzari refutation.
• Kuzari: Final Thoughts – A bullet list of key disagreements between Rabbi Gottlieb and me.
• Are Divine-Human Interactions Possible? – A meditation on establishing the possibility of the divine.
• Going Nuclear on the Kuzari Principle – An extended treatment of Rabbi Gottlieb's call for false NETs and a presentation of a real NET: the dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.
• Kuzari Principle: Index of Posts – Summation of important conclusions on Kuzari, and a list of all posts to date.

Round 2:

• Kuzari Returns! – A clarification and defense of the “evolving myth hypothesis,” which Kuzari defenders routinely mis-characterize.
• Belief and Evidence (and Bias, Oh My!) – A definition of a task I will take on: explaining the Sinai story.
• Deuteronomy Doesn't Validate the Sinai Revelation – An examination that concludes Deuteronomy 4:9-40 presents a later account and interpretation of the Sinai event.
• Three Sinai Stories – A presentation of the Sinai stories from the J, E and P biblical sources.
• Why Aren't There More Sinai-Like Stories? – An inquiry into the alleged uniqueness of Sinai.
• On Evidence and Hypotheses – A discussion on identifying evidence as evidence, with further points on using evidence in hypotheses.
• How the Sinai Story Originated and Developed – An opinion explaining the Sinai story as “a fabrication using pre-existing narrative elements which may have been factual at some point in the distant past.”

We now enter Round 3, a discussion of a new logical proof (rKP) developed by Sam Lebens at Philosophy of Judaism. Lebens is a philosophy doctorate and, based on our online exchange, a decent fellow. His proof, however, doesn't sway me.

Here is the full proof, which I will comment on afterward:

(rKP1) A myth will not initially find any traction with a culture who know it to be historically inaccurate, although once it has been adopted and becomes culturally significant, then a culture will not abandon it merely because of its historical inaccuracies.

(rKP2) The generations of a g-chain will not accept a g-narrative about them unless:

1. The generation is the first in the g-chain and witnessed the events for themselves, or
   
2. The generation received the g-narrative as an inheritance from their parents, although each generation after the first may have members outside of the core of the g-chain who adopt the g-narrative as they join or merge with the community and adopt its history as their own, or
   
3. The entire generation becomes convinced, presumably only with a large amount of evidence, that a g-chain that was supposed to have reached them was broken – this doesn’t seem to be the case with the small number of Jewish g-narratives, all of which seem to stretch right back into the mist of Jewish pre-history.

(rKP3) G-narratives can be subject to slow corruption and exaggeration. Thus, the fact that a g-narrative is widespread among a contemporary generation of a g-chain is no reason to believe that that g-narrative presents an accurate history.

(rKP4) The original g-narrative, before any corruption or exaggeration, must have been sufficiently impressive in and of itself to have initiated a sustained desire to transmit the story down a g-chain.

(rKP5) There are a small number of remarkable and widespread g-narratives about the Jewish people, about mass revelation and divine deliverance. These narratives are still transmitted to the majority of Jewish children by their parents at events like the Seder Night, in which Jewish parents recount the exodus from Egypt for the benefit of their children. This ritual retelling is even conducted by a very large number of Jews who no longer believe in the historical accuracy of the narrative.

(rKP6) Given (rKP3), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread among the living members of the Jewish g-chain is no reason to trust the historical accuracy of the stories.

(rKP7) But, given (rKP2) and (rKP4), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread does provide good reason to believe that the story wasn’t initially adopted by a generation to whom the story didn’t actually happen, and that the story is grounded in fact even if it’s been distorted, and that the facts, in and of themselves, were sufficiently impressive to generate the very long lasting feeling of cultural obligation to pass the story on down the g-chain.

(rKP8) We have no reason to believe that the details of Jewish g-narratives are historically accurate, but we do have reason to believe that they are grounded in extraordinary facts witnessed by an entire generation of the g-chain.

(rKP9) Therefore, we have good grounds to believe that an entire generation of the forbears of the Jewish people, or an entire generation of a tribe that would later amalgamate into an emergent Jewish people, were collectively witness to an extraordinary sequence of supernatural events, and events that would have been collectively understood as Divine revelation

In discussions with Lebens, I pointed out immediately that rKP1 made me uncomfortable. We have no reason to think it's true and we probably have better reason to think it's false. Some clarity may be gained by defining the term "myth," but otherwise I don't know what to do with rKP1.

At this point, Lebens wanted to shelve the issue of rKP1's possible vagueness (and falsity) and move to whether, given rKP1, the whole rKP argument worked. I appreciate his desire to move on, but I think it's a mistake to do so. I have had many conversations with Kuzari proponents, and I've always been struck with the willingness for vagueness on terms such as "myth" and "acceptance." To me, any argument using Kuzari should require specificity because myth evolution and cultural development are complex forces. If we cannot be sufficiently clear in our terms, how can we hope to say anything true and useful?

One quick example to illustrate: If I talk about the role of the King of England, that role is very different in the twentieth century ( I know we are now in the 21at century) than it was in 1520 or 1214. The term means very different things across the three dates. Consider, then, how we might assess whether a myth, story, or meme gained "traction" (see rKP1) in an ancient Near Eastern culture? Any point we want to make about "traction" would need to consider what the term meant in that world and then meant later. Thus, if "traction" meant something like "repeated approvingly by the priesthood" and then later developed into "a tenet of orthodox belief," we would want to know--the validity and soundness of our arguments would depend on it.

Throwing my discomfort with terminology and anachronism aside, let me use the following table to introduce my view of the rKP. The right-hand column offers my "translation" of Lebens's revised Kuzari argument. I have translated it to make clear my understanding of rKP's essential arguments. I have translated "myth" as "meme" because I think "meme" has less semantic baggage and actually names the essential part of what "myth" seeks to convey.

Revised Kuzari Premise (Lebens)	Larry's Translation
(rKP1) A myth will not initially find any traction with a culture who know it to be historically inaccurate, although once it has been adopted and becomes culturally significant, then a culture will not abandon it merely because of its historical inaccuracies.	A meme will "stick" if it contains some historical factuality.
(rKP2) The generations of a g-chain will not accept a g-narrative about them unless: The generation is the first in the g-chain and witnessed the events for themselves, or The generation received the g-narrative as an inheritance from their parents, although each generation after the first may have members outside of the core of the g-chain who adopt the g-narrative as they join or merge with the community and adopt its history as their own, or The entire generation becomes convinced, presumably only with a large amount of evidence, that a g-chain that was supposed to have reached them was broken – this doesn’t seem to be the case with the small number of Jewish g-narratives, all of which seem to stretch right back into the mist of Jewish pre-history.	A special meme will stick if it has some historical witnesses, if it is told to children by parents, or if it is subject to whatever rKP2c means.
(rKP3) G-narratives can be subject to slow corruption and exaggeration. Thus, the fact that a g-narrative is widespread among a contemporary generation of a g-chain is no reason to believe that that g-narrative presents an accurate history.	Special memes can change in their content.
(rKP4) The original g-narrative, before any corruption or exaggeration, must have been sufficiently impressive in and of itself to have initiated a sustained desire to transmit the story down a g-chain.	Special memes must be originally impressive.
(rKP5) There are a small number of remarkable and widespread g-narratives about the Jewish people, about mass revelation and divine deliverance. These narratives are still transmitted to the majority of Jewish children by their parents at events like the Seder Night, in which Jewish parents recount the exodus from Egypt for the benefit of their children. This ritual retelling is even conducted by a very large number of Jews who no longer believe in the historical accuracy of the narrative.	Some special memes are still transmitted today.
(rKP6) Given (rKP3), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread among the living members of the Jewish g-chain is no reason to trust the historical accuracy of the stories.	Widespread prevalence of special memes doesn’t tell us about their historical accuracy.
(rKP7) But, given (rKP2) and (rKP4), the fact that these g-narratives are widespread does provide good reason to believe that the story wasn’t initially adopted by a generation to whom the story didn’t actually happen, and that the story is grounded in fact even if it’s been distorted, and that the facts, in and of themselves, were sufficiently impressive to generate the very long lasting feeling of cultural obligation to pass the story on down the g-chain.	Widespread prevalence of special memes does tell us that they were accepted--in whatever form they originated--by a first generation.
(rKP8) We have no reason to believe that the details of Jewish g-narratives are historically accurate, but we do have reason to believe that they are grounded in extraordinary facts witnessed by an entire generation of the g-chain.	Widespread prevalence of a special meme gives us reason to think that the first generation found the special meme sufficiently impressive.
(rKP9) Therefore, we have good grounds to believe that an entire generation of the forbears of the Jewish people, or an entire generation of a tribe that would later amalgamate into an emergent Jewish people, were collectively witness to an extraordinary sequence of supernatural events, and events that would have been collectively understood as Divine revelation.	The first generation witnessed something impressive.

Is this a "better" Kuzari-based argument than others, such as Gottlieb's? It depends on one's criteria for better. To me, it's great omission is that it doesn't account for memes that change their importance or their meaning over time. My earlier Kuzari posts addressed this matter. Some memes acquire a place of centrality years after they first "stick," and this acquisition can  happen for any number of reasons. With respect to the Bible, I recommend my reading of James Kugel's How to Read the Bible because the book focuses on how Israel's ancient library of texts became the Bible.

Personally, I think Gottlieb's argument is more forceful:

In modern language the principle that the Kuzari uses is as follows. I beg you to look at it, hear it, and pay close attention to all of its details. Let E be a possible event which, had it really occurred, would have left behind enormous, easily available evidence of its occurrence. If the evidence does not exist, people will not believe that E occurred. [Emphasis in original]

If you buy Gottlieb's argument, Jewish belief about Sinai almost must be correct. If you buy Lebens's argument, the most you get is that the witnesses thought they had seen something miraculous. Of course, how much should we care about what illiterate, scientifically ignorant former slaves thought about miracles? I do not use the descriptors to belittle these people, but to set some context on what we are being asked to accept and to rationalize.

So, rKP doesn't work for me. It's a series of assumption after assumption that gets us not to reasoned belief but to a question of trust: do we or do we not believe according to what the Torah tells us illiterate, scientifically ignorant former slaves believed?

In rKP, the Kuzari Principle is neutered, but I think Lebens understands that it must be so. He says:

As far as I'm concerned, that is the only power that the Kuzari argument could possibly hope for: the power to justify our belief in Sinai, or something like Sinai, without direct historical evidence. But you'd still need something like 'indirect' historical evidence; i.e., evidence about how myths were formed in ancient times. I'm not claiming that we can arrive at justified historical beliefs a priori. I look forward to continued discussion with you, and to your answers to these questions. I'm certainly far from convinced that the Kuzari argument is even as strong as I suggested in this post.

Neither Gottlieb's not Lebens's Kuzari justifies belief in Sinai, in my opinion. I still hold to the view from my piece on Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

With Sinai, we have one report given from one perspective. We don't know the report of the people closest to the mountain. We don't know the observations of witnesses in the very back. We cannot hear the voices of the women, the outsiders, and the opponents. We have no documents from the nations closest to Sinai telling us about something most unusual having happened. The strongest inference we can draw from Sinai is that something--a natural event or some other fantastic occurrence--may have happened out in the wilderness. We may even be able to justify saying something must have happened. We cannot, however, say with any confidence that Sinai happened. Kuzari changes nothing about this because even if the principle itself is 100 percent true, it doesn't tell us anything about what exactly happened at Sinai, how, to whom, over what time period, and at what stakes. It's a believer's reason to believe, a "nice to have." But it's not especially compelling to a neutral observer.

And that's why at this point it's best to leave the discussion because, with Sinai, the one thing we have not talked about is the one thing we should have been talking about all along: The actual evidence that we have for the actual people we think correspond to "Biblical Israel." Although this has been a fascinating discussion on logic, belief, and classification of events, we cannot get very far without a collection of real evidence and data. I have already shown that the pro-Kuzari side is not forthcoming when it comes to direct, positive evidence. We cannot derive a clear picture of Biblical Israel, Sinai, or the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki based on a principle. If we truly want to understand the events and these people, we need to study the writings and the physical data, and we need to remember not to get carried away by the existence or non-existence of evidence. The evidence often means what we want it to mean, and the non-evidence doesn't tell us much of anything.

I also think that Kuzari proponents need to go beyond new Kuzari syllogisms. My challenge from an earlier posts still stands:

If the Kuzari discussion is to continue and be productive, it now falls to Kuzari's champions to delve more deeply into the reality of the Torah--the reality of the Torah as a cultural document that emerged in historical time in certain cultural contexts.

Sam, I'm interested in your thoughts. Do you think that Kuzari-oriented discussions will benefit from bringing in historical data, biblical criticism, and sociological studies?

Everything Rests on Sinai: Final Thoughts on Kugel's How to Read the Bible

If you are a Jew, a Christian, or a Muslim--or a theist in the Abrahamic vein--your foundational belief is the revelation at Sinai. This claim may surprise you, but bear with me for a moment.

Maybe you don't believe that 600,000 or 3,000,000 (depending on who you ask) Jews gathered at the base of a mountain. Maybe you don't believe the event took place at a mountain. Maybe you are not sure when it happened. But you believe something miraculous happened in the desert. You believe that divine and human communed there. What's more, you believe this event inaugurated the force behind the Torah, Israel, the First and Second Temples, Jesus, Paul, Peter, the New Testament, the Church, Mohammed, and the Qu'ran.

Sinai is unique in the Bible: it's the one thing that must have some kernal of real, historical truth.You don't need Adam and Eve to be a believer. You don't require Babel, or the deluge, or even Abraham's binding of Isaac. The Exodus is almost indispensable. Belief can survive without these. All these stories can be fictional or metaphorical, even wholly so.

The Sinai revelation is different. There is a limit on how metaphorical, poetic, or embellished this story can be. If it is total fiction, then all Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are fictions too. Jesus cannot be God-incarnate if God never gave Israel the two Torahs. Jesus cannot have died for anyone's sins, even his own, without the precedent of God's holy instruction to humanity. Mohammed cannot be a prophet if there was no prophet at Sinai. If nothing truly miraculous happened in the desert, then nothing miraculous happens in minyan, in church or mosque, and in history. The end of days will surely happen, but it too won't be miraculous.

Absolutely everything about Judeo-Christian-Muslim religious belief comes down to Sinai.

This is the lesson taught me by the series on Chapter 36 of James L. Kugel’s How to Read the Bible. It was not Kugel's lesson, as he did not dwell too much on being a believer except for that final section of the chapter. Nevertheless, as we leave Kugel's book and look at the world, the question that people have to answer and deal with is "What is it you think happened out there in the desert?"

I've given my answer. I don't know Kugel's, unless I have skipped over it. I imagine he thinks that something divine happened out there.

The more important question--that is, the one that has real consequences in the world--is why one would think something happened (or didn't) in that wilderness. The why is the more telling, for what happened merely separates us while why do you think that determines whether we are friends or enemies.

Two Examples of Jewish Religious Idiocy

Two recent instances where religious bullies look foolish and petty as they struggle to hold their privilege.

Exhibit one is bigotry-soaked malcontent Jacob Stein, who calls himself the "Jewish Philosopher." The self-appointed philosopher doesn't think Jeffrey Falick, an ordained rabbi, ought to use the title of rabbi.

I have never written a post about another blog before, however I am making an exception in this case. I believe that it is an incredible insult to the rabbinate for an individual like this to claim to be a rabbi. If he simply called himself "Mr" I wouldn't give him a second thought. The Internet is loaded with liars, lunatics, perverts, scumbags and so on of all stripes. That's nothing noteworthy. However I do feel the need to protest when one calls himself "rabbi". I really haven't seen something like that before, surely not such an extreme example. Even Reform Judaism officially accepts a belief in God. A militantly atheist "rabbi" is just absurd. How can a clergyman be openly antireligious? Can one imagine the harm done if some naive person were to approach this man for spiritual guidance? I feel it's as if someone like Ron Jeremy (also Jewish by the way) would start calling himself "rabbi". Imagine the storm of disgust and protest that would provoke. What's next - "The Neo-Nazi Rabbi"? "The Islamic Terrorist Rabbi"?

Falick is more legitimately a rabbi than Stein is a philosopher. But Stein, a convert to Judaism, goes beyond mere intolerance to dangerousness. He surely intends to incite harassment by giving Falick's address, contact information, and employer. Meanwhile, Falick's response is elegant and dignified.

Exhibit two is up-and-coming attention whore Moshe Averick, who talks schoolyard trash attempting to bait a credible intellectual like Jerry Coyne:

Jerry, I apologize, because deep down I really like you, and the thought that I am causing you pain, even if it’s just your tuchus, disturbs me to no end. I did hold out the peace-pipe to you in one of my recent columns on Algemeiner.com where I suggested we meet and discuss our differences about Origin of Life in an adult forum at the lovely Hyde Park campus of the University of Chicago, but you have made it clear in several of your posts at Why Evolution is True that you prefer to have women do your fighting for you. That includes both Terri-Lynne McCormick (the wife of Origin of Life researcher Dr. Jack Szostak), and Faye Flam the Planet of the Apes columnist at the Philadelphia Inquirer. Although Ms. McCormick was mistaken about her accusations against me, I certainly admire a woman who “stands by her man,” as she felt she was defending her husband against unfair representation; and while Faye Flam’s arguments against my position were rather weak, to say the least, I do give her credit for (a) being polite and civil in both her public and private communication with me and (b) at least having the courage to write out some form of measured, coherent argument explaining why the utter cluelessness of scientists regarding a naturalistic origin of life does not imply the existence of a Creator.  It is worth noting that both of these women spoke on behalf of Dr. Jack Szostak. It would be interesting to hear what Szostak himself has to say about the ignorance of science about origin of life and the challenges that ID theorists present to his position. [emphasis added]

Averick has a history of saying stupid and incorrect things, as he himself indicates in his long-winded way of calling Coyne a "pussy." His full intellect and personality revealed, Averick can now slink back in shame to the land of negligibility.

Medieval Jewish Scrolls...in Afghanistan

From The Jerusalem Post:

The scholarly world is abuzz over the discovery of ancient Jewish scrolls in a cave in Afghanistan’s Samangan province.

If the scrolls are authenticated, they may be the most significant historical finding in the Jewish world since that of the Cairo Geniza in the 19th century, Channel 2 Arab affairs correspondent Ehud Ya’ari reported Friday.

“We know today about a couple of findings,” Haggai Ben- Shammai, professor emeritus of Arabic language and literature at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was quoted as saying.

“In all, in my opinion, there are about 150 fragments. It may be the tip of the iceberg.”

The scrolls, which were part of a geniza – a burial site for sacred Jewish texts – date from around 1,000 years ago and are in Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and ancient Persian.

One scroll, a replica of which was shown to the cameras, was apparently a dirge written for an important person whose identity has not been determined.

“Where has he gone?” reads the text. “His family members are now alone.”

Other texts said to have been found include an unknown history of the Kingdom of Judea, passages from the Book of Isaiah and some of the works of 10th-century sage Rabbi Sa’adia Gaon.

In addition, rings with names such as Shmuel Bar-Yosef inscribed in Hebrew on them have surfaced.

The area in which the scrolls were discovered is on the Silk Road, a trade route that connected eastern Asia with the Middle East and Europe, and that Jewish merchants often traveled.

Ya’ari quoted sources as saying the scrolls had first been moved to Pakistan’s Peshawar province, and from there been sold to antiquities dealers in Geneva, London, Dubai and Jerusalem. 

He said the Prime Minister’s Office and several Jewish businessmen had expressed interest in buying the scrolls from dealers and collectors, but the process was in its early stages.

The Cairo Geniza has produced 280,000 texts, providing a wealth of information on almost every aspect of Jewish history.

These texts apparently date to the 11th century and possibly belong to someone in the Karaite community.

Chanukah, Oh Hanukkah

The holiday of Chanukah (yeah, that's how I spell it) begins at sundown tonight. It commemorates the temporary victory of religious zealotry over political tyranny, but lit candles are pretty, aren't they?

Here is one of my favorite songs:

The apocryphal book of 1 Maccabees 4:52-59. provides the earliest account (late second-century BCE) of the origins of Chanukah. The Douay-Rheims text appears below:

52: And they arose before the morning on the five and twentieth day of the ninth month (which is the month of Casleu) in the hundred and forty-eighth year.
53: And they offered sacrifice according to the law upon the new altar of holocausts which they had made.
54: According to the time, and according to the day wherein the heathens had defiled it, in the same was it dedicated anew with canticles, and harps, and lutes, and cymbals.
55: And all the people fell upon their faces, and adored, and blessed up to heaven, him that had prospered them.
56: And they kept the dedication of the altar eight days, and they offered holocausts with joy, and sacrifices of salvation, and of praise.
57: And they adorned the front of the temple with crowns of gold, and escutcheons, and they renewed the gates, and the chambers, and hanged doors upon them.
58: And there was exceeding great joy among the people, and the reproach of the Gentiles was turned away.
59: And Judas, and his brethren, and all the church of Israel decreed, that the day of the dedication of the altar should be kept in its season from year to year for eight days, from the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu, with joy and gladness.

A first-century BCE account is 2 Maccabees 10:1-8 (again, Douay-Rheims):

1: But Machabeus, and they that were with him, by the protection of the Lord, recovered the temple and the city again.
2: But he threw down the altars, which the heathens had set up in the streets, as also the temples of the idols.
3: And having purified the temple, they made another altar: and taking fire out of the fiery stones, they offered sacrifices after two years, and set forth incense, and lamps, and the leaves of proposition.
4: And when they had done these things, they besought the Lord, lying prostrate on the ground, that they might no more fall into such evils; but if they should at any time sin, that they might be chastised by him more gently, and not be delivered up to barbarians and blasphemous men.
5: Now upon the same day that the temple had been polluted by the strangers, on the very same day it was cleansed again, to wit, on the five and twentieth day of the month of Casleu.
6: And they kept eight days with joy, after the manner of the feast of the tabernacles, remembering that not long before they had kept the feast of the tabernacles when they were in the mountains, and in dens like wild beasts.
7: Therefore they now, carried boughs, and green branches, and palms for Him that had given them good success in cleansing his place.
8: And they ordained by a common statute, and decree, that all the nation of the Jews should keep those days every year.

The story about the oil lamp and the eight days appears first in the Megillat Ta'anit ("Scroll of Fasting"). Follow the link to the relevant passage in Hebrew. The story also is found in the Babylonian Talmud, Shabbat 2 (page 34):

What is 'Hanukah? The rabbis taught: "On the twenty-fifth day of Kislev 'Hanukah commences and lasts eight days, on which lamenting (in commemoration of the dead) and fasting are prohibited. When the Hellenists entered the sanctuary, they defiled all the oil that was found there. When the government of the House of Asmoneans prevailed and conquered them, oil was sought (to feed the holy lamp in the sanctuary) and only one vial was found with the seal of the high priest intact. The vial contained sufficient oil for one day only, but a miracle occurred, and it fed the holy lamp eight days in succession. These eight days were the following year established as days of good cheer, on which psalms of praise and acknowledgment (of God's wonders) were to be recited.

If you thought I was going to include Adam Sandler's hokey Chanukah Song here, you were mistaken. Bah Chumbug!

The Torah Declaration on Homosexuality

Love is not allowed in religion.

According to Jayson Littman, writing at the Huffington Post, some Orthodox rabbis have been asked to sign a declaration of the Jewish response to homosexuality, by which is specifically meant "homosexual Jews." Littman writes:

So this Declaration currently making rounds will serve as their official response in regards to guiding individuals with same-sex attractions. The endorser, Rabbi Shmuel Kamenetsky, of the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, urges all rabbis and mental health professionals to sign this Declaration, which offers modification and healing through reparative therapy as the sole option.

I abhor the secrecy element of this. Aren't we Jews always being targeted as having secret, sinister meetings?

Littman provides the text of the declaration. It's infuriating stuff. Here's the opening:

Over the past few years homosexual activists have infiltrated every aspect of the secular world and have achieved acceptance in the media and most of the general culture. They have been fighting fiercely on issues pertaining to the legitimacy of the homosexual lifestyle in all aspects of society, including homosexual marriage, in order to gain full acceptance. The last line of resistance against acceptance of the homosexual agenda has been mostly from the religious communities.

Although the writer of the declaration wants to demonize "the homosexual agenda," his writing is a bit too clear. As mentioned, the homosexual agenda is for civil equality and social acceptance. These are noble, not demonic ends. These are the good objectives other groups in America have valiantly sought and struggled for. To stand up as one who resists equality and tolerance is to identify as a douchebag. But if the writer really wants to rouse hatred and suspicion against the homosexual agenda, he should have been less specific.

The declaration gets nastier, however, as when it refuses to acknowledge homosexuality as "a genuine identity":

The Torah makes a clear statement that homosexuality is not an acceptable lifestyle or a genuine identity by severely prohibiting its conduct. Furthermore, the Torah, ever prescient about negative secular influences, warns us in Vayikra (Leviticus) 20:23 “Do not follow the traditions of the nations that I expel from before you…” Particularly the Torah writes this in regards to homosexuality and other forbidden sexual liaisons.

Yes, folks you read the above correctly: the implication is that homosexuality derives from the gentiles. It's a goy thing, not a human thing. Here, our fine Jewish leaders sound no less bigoted and naive than Iranian President and psychopath Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who famously declared that Iran had no homosexuals.

The position of the declaration is that homosexuality should be suppressed and re-directed:

From a Torah perspective, the question (sic) whether homosexual inclinations and behaviors are changeable is extremely relevant. The concept that G-d created a human being who is unable to find happiness in a loving relationship unless he violates a biblical prohibition is neither plausible nor acceptable. G-d is loving and merciful. Struggles, and yes, difficult struggles, along with healing and personal growth are part and parcel of this world. Impossible, life long, Torah prohibited situations with no achievable solutions are not.

We emphatically reject the notion that a homosexually inclined person cannot overcome his or her inclination and desire. Behaviors are changeable. The Torah does not forbid
something which is impossible to avoid. Abandoning people to lifelong loneliness and despair by denying all hope of overcoming and healing their same-sex attraction is heartlessly cruel. Such an attitude also violates the biblical prohibition in Vayikra (Leviticus) 19:14 “and you shall not place a stumbling block before the blind.”

Homosexuality, the declaration says, is all and only about behavior, no different from an excessive love of Hostess Cup Cakes. Nevertheless, the declaration makes it clear that one should be ashamed of homosexual "inclination and desire." One should fight one's homosexuality.

My shame is to ever have thought highly of rabbis or their office.

The declaration closes with a focus on "love":

It requires tremendous bravery and fortitude for a person to confront and deal with same-sex attraction. For example a sixteen-year-old who is struggling with this issue may be confused and afraid and not know whom to speak to or what steps to take. We must create an atmosphere where this teenager (or anyone) can speak freely to a parent, rabbi, or mentor and be treated with love and compassion. Authority figures can then guide same-sex strugglers towards a path of healing and overcoming their inclinations.

The key point to remember is that these individuals are primarily innocent victims of childhood emotional wounds. They deserve our full love, support and encouragement in their striving towards healing. Struggling individuals who seek health and wellness should not be confused with the homosexual movement and their agenda. This distinction
is crucial. It reflects the difference between what G-d asks from all of us and what He unambiguously prohibits.

The declaration shows a remarkable lack of awareness of what love and compassion are. How can a person live a "full and healthy life" without being able to express romantic love freely? How can a person be happy and joyous in a community that rejects him or her?

I cry that Jewish rabbis do not see they espouse the same bigotry and ignorance that others have used against Jews in the Christian and Muslim worlds.

If what Shmuel Kamenetsky endorses is Jewish, then I am not Jewish. I will not be Jewish. I do not and will not accept either his authority on what the Torah says. His traditions are meaningless. They hold no weight either in interpreting what the Torah says or in what I should think or feel about subjects.

But this is not a Jewish problem, per se. It's a religious problem. It's a problem of using old books and religious tradition as over-riding authorities for opinions and decisions. Even the relatively benign "Statement of Principles" is unacceptable.

At some point, we have to admit that Halakhah can be wrong and immoral. The Torah can be wrong and immoral. The Talmud can be wrong and immoral. Jesus could be wrong and immoral. The New testament can be wrong an immoral. Mohammed, the Koran. Buddha, Confucius, Bruce Lee, George Clooney, Ronald Reagan, Albert Einstein, Mother Teresa--all of them can be factually wrong and immoral.

When will we grow up? Maybe we won't.

The introduction to the declaration says that questions can be emailed to TorahDec@Gmail.com. I plan to email not a question but a polite condemnation of the declaration.

Circumcision: Cruel and Unusual

Watch the video and see if you agree.