Humble Opinions

Great question, Dani, but here’s a follow up: Who cares?

Many of you might be thinking “I don’t have time for such nonsense. I’m too busy with my job / social life / going to movies / (fill in the blank).” I believe the answer to this question can vastly impact every moment of a person’s life. And with that, I divulge:

In Jewish thought (and many other bodies of thought), a human being is made up of part body, and part soul. The body houses the organs and machinery that allow a person to accomplish action in the world, while the soul is its “battery pack” in a sense. For those that truly believe in evolution, or think a human being is 100% body, I ask the following questions:

• What caused the original single celled amoeba to evolve into an orange in one circumstance, iron in another, and a human being in another?
• What is the factor that gives a human animation, and a table not?
• Where are memories and emotions stored? I don’t recall hearing of a memory cell.
• What makes a person more artistic than another, and where is the source of a person’s creativity?
• Why does a human die and disintegrate? shouldn’t their “lifespan” remain static like a golf ball?
• Why does a body cease to function at the instance of death? it’s the same bunch of cells it just was.
• And why can’t a dead body be brought back to life? seriously, why?

Okay, so what is a soul? Believe it or not, ladies and gentlemen, it is an actual piece of G-d Himself. Though, it’s hard to picture it in terms of a “piece” because what is a piece of infinity? That line of thought is beyond the scope of this post, though I have much to say about it.

A soul is what powers a person’s body. It is what sends messages via the brain and spine. It is what captures the output of our body’s nerves so we can “feel” the physical world. It is what receives the converted rays of light that our eyes filter so we can “see” the physical world. It is you. Your body is the machine that it drives for its 120 year stay in this world.

Yep. Face it. You’ve never even seen your real self, and you never will in this world.

Why does a baby smile when you smile at him/her? Does the sight of another human changing the shape of their mouth actually cause joyous emotion? And if you say it’s out of habit, then why do babies respond in the same?

I hope this post has helped you realize “there is more than meets the eye.” So to conclude, what does one make of all this? Well, there are many things to be learned from this discovery, but an important one I’d like to focus on right now is respect. Have some respect when you talk to another person. Whether they are smart are stupid (by your perfect standards), and whether you agree with them or not, realize you are communicating with a piece of the most ultimately unfathomable.

And if you can’t, kindly keep your lip cells touching each other.

Posted by admin under Philosophical | No Comments »

Short answer: They don’t.

Long answer: On the contrary, Jews are amazing. They defy description on literally all accounts. With a current standing of 1/5 of 1% of world population, Jews find themselves in some of the most prominent positions in many countries, spread out over many continents, in an enormous range of professions.

Jews are leading physicians, surgeons, actors, politicians, musicians, software developers (ahem), scientists, chemists, economists, physicists, accountants, lawyers, and businessmen of all kind, to name a few. In fact, if you look through the ages, Jews have also excelled in many other professions you may not have thought very Jewish (stevedores, agriculturists, poets, and philosophers for example).

Jews are the recipients of over 20% of worldwide Nobel Prizes, which include the Nobel Peace Prizes given to such saints as Yasser Arafat & co. The leading physicist of the 20^th century best known for his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein, was quite Jewish. I would never claim that Jews saved the Western world from Nazi defeat, but in August 1939, Einstein personally urged President Roosevelt to order the development of an atomic weapon in fear of German scientists already having begun to do the same. This effort later became known as The Manhattan Project. (this is the actual letter Einstein sent FDR).

How many nations have been conquered and exiled, only to later re-emerge? And how many nations have done it twice? The answer to both questions is one. How many nations have been marched into gas chambers and ovens by the millions, only to establish a country of their own, not a decade later? One.

In fact, let’s look at some of modern day Israeli military history:

• In the 1948 War of Independence, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria invaded Israel 1 day after its declared independence (with additional troops sent from Saudi Arabia). Not only did Israel survive the invasion, but they captured areas of Arab territory.
• In the weeks leading up to the 1967 Six Day War, Egypt (armed and trained by Russia), Syria, and Jordan teamed up to attack Israel. Jewish Israeli population was roughly 2 million, while the Arab nations were 45 million. Not only did Israel survive, but more than doubled its territory in a record six day war. No military computer simulation can re-enact this war and produce an Israeli victory.
• In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Egypt and Syria simultaneously attacked Israel on its holiest day of the year, when practically the entire population was in synagogue. Syria attacked the Golan Heights with roughly 1300 tanks, and the Israeli forces guarding the area were outnumbered 12 to 1. Egypt broke through Israel’s Bar Lev Line of defense in the Sinai desert with ease. Israel should have been demolished. Not only did they survive, but after making a decisive comeback in the war, OPEC had to resort to an oil embargo of all Western nations in order to force Israel into a ceasefire.

I would be doing you a disservice if I led you to believe this is a modern day phenomena. The Jewish people have been experiencing miraculous military victories its entire history:

• Israel defeats Amalekites in roughly 1311 BCE, in the desert without a single weapon.
• Israel defeats the city of Jericho in 1272 BCE by surrounding its walls while Israeli Priests each blow a Shofar.
• In 167 BCE, the Jewish Maccabean Revolt successfully deters and holds off the Seleucid army in a number of battles while incredibly outnumbered.
• And how could I forget: David slew Goliath.

The Jewish people have survived literally every major empire since ancient Egypt. To name a few: Ancient Egyptian Empire, Phoenician Empire, Canaanites, Philistines, Assyrian Empire, Babylonian Empire, Persian Empire, Greek Empire, Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Spanish Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottoman Empire, British Empire, Nazi Germany, Soviet Union… where’d they all go?

Not only that, but modern day Israel has produced some of the most magnificent advances of our time (agricultural, medical, and technological among many other).

That leads us to the obvious question: What’s your point?

Karl Marx

My point is as follows: Jews are a talented bunch. On the one hand, they have made unbelievable contributions to civilization, but on the other, they have also been the leaders of certain disastrous movements (communism [I refer you to Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, and Rosa of Luxemburg - all Jewish], and the anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, self-hating Neturei Karta to name two).

The Jewish nation was not established to dominate all other nations [even though we DID develop PHP :p ]. Rather, I recall a well-known saying: With great power comes great responsibility. Jews have an ability to repair, and build this world in ways other nations do not. I implore every Jew to ponder this, and consider the fact that their actions have serious impact on the world.

Please do what is right

Posted by admin under Jewish | 8 Comments »

As many of you know, the US, and much of the Western civilized world is going through disastrous financial crises. I believe the situation has a number of implications for Jews, and by looking into history, we can learn a lot about what to expect, and hopefully make wise decisions based on what we learn.

The Great Depression

First, the crisis from my view: Call me crazy, but I saw this coming for months. I knew the US was taking a nose dive of magnitude proportions. I looked around me, read/watched what the media was saying, and talked to many Americans from different walks of life. When your commander in chief hasn’t got much of a background of sophistication, your country is irresponsibly allocating hundreds of billions of dollars a year for a war with no clear end in sight, and the most powerfully rich in the country care only for themselves (ie. Enron, Sub-prime crisis, Walmart employment practices), what are the likely outcomes? Many comparisons are being made to the Great Depression of 1929. While that period of time is great to read about, I think we’re dealing with a bit of a different situation this time around. For one, the global economy that exists in 2008 simply did not in 1929. I believe we can look to a few other times in history for insight:

In Jewish history, the Jews have done best in societies with stable governing bodies, a stable population, and stable economic markets. After the destruction of the 2nd temple, 90% of Jews lived in Babylonia (modern day Iraq) from the year 70 CE until some point in the century of 1000 CE. There, the Romans allowed Jews an autonomous governing body led by a Nasi and Reish Gelusa (a prince, and head of exile, called the exilarch in English). Here, the Jews fared quite well, as we see they had a very stable governing body.

Jews then began to emigrate to Spain (and soon after to France) due largely to economic issues which I won’t go into here. There, Jews experienced a “Golden Age” where Jews became the heads of the banking system, leaders of the Spanish military, leading physicians, poets, and even ran the finances for the Spanish government. That period of Jewish history ended in disaster in the 1400’s with the Spanish Inquisition, and ultimately in 1492, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decreed that all Jews leave Spain immediately (the Alhambra decree).

From Spain, Jews emigrated largely to Germany and Eastern Europe (Poland, Lithuania, Russia), and portions to Turkey, Palestine, and other areas. The Western European Jew excelled greatly in the British empire and in Germany, while the Eastern European Jews were by large forced to live in Jewish ghettos (see the Pale of Settlement).

The Cossack rebellion of Ukraine in 1648 - 1649, referred to by Jews as Tach V’Tat (Hebrew for the Jewish years 5408 - 5409) utterly destroyed Jews. Another example of how uprising led to disaster for the Jews. I recommend reading about it (unless you don’t want nightmares).

In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Jews of Russia were absolutely destroyed by Czarist decrees, and later by the communist revolution, led by the Bolshevicks and Menshevicks. This is a perfect example of how instability affected Jews, as the Russian Civil War claimed over 100,000 Jewish lives. Fast forward to modern day Germany, where not 2 generations ago, as a result of extreme economic and political upheaval, Jews, who were considered part of the German aristocrat, were marched into cattle cars, and transported into mass slave labor and killing camps, destroying millions of Jews.

Why do I bring all these up? We are living in very historic times here in America. America is going through a turmoil of which we have seen only the beginnings of, and due to the global economy that exists, the entire Western world is being hit because of it. As Jews, we need to keep our eyes open for a few things:

In times of trouble, many Jews dealt with the problems by becoming so to speak “more Catholic than the pope.” In Spain, a prominent leader of the Spanish Inquisition was Tomas de Torquemada - a Jew. In 1832 Torquemada’s tomb was ransacked, and his bones stolen and burned.

In Russia, the Yevsektsiya was the Jewish communist faction that took upon them the responsibility of destroying the Jewish religion (as well as all religions). They felt they could be more communist than the Bolshevicks, and would obviously be rewarded for such. They made sure people lit fires in their homes on the Shabbat, they checked Jewish babies for circumsition, they waited at shuls to ensure they were not being used for Torah study. They were eventually executed entirely by the Bolshevicks.

In Germany, the Judenrat were the Jews that represented the Jewish ghettos and slave labor camps. The Germans forced them to enforce Jewish slave labor, and other horrific brutalities. They felt at the very least, they and their families were be spared. They were wrong.

There are many other examples of this in Jewish history (read up on Moses Mendelssohn and Edwin Montagu for 2 such examples).

That brings us to America. Last week, Jon Stewart slammed Jews in Congress for not coming into work on Rosh Hashana to be able to re-vote on the bailout plan. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge Jon Stewart fan, but I saw his anti-Jewish rant as unfortunate. Now go look at October 9th’s New York Times. The front page ran a huge article that continued to an entire sub-page about how much of the financial crisis is the fault of Alan Greenspan. If that isn’t enough, watch these videos, which point out high profile Jews of yesteryear like Rockefeller and Rothschild as having been robbing America blind from day 1: http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_14910.cfm

My advice: Let’s not act more American than Americans, and forsake our heritage and traditions (or as they said in Germany, “We are Germans of the Mosaic Persuasion”).

The US pulled out of the 1929 depression by selling arms to Britain, France, and Russia during WW II, and later by the employment that joining the war added to the American economy. Let us hope they have a different plan in mind this time.

Posted by admin under Financial Crisis | 7 Comments »