ModernGnosis.org

I went to the Museum of Art today. I rather like the museum and usually am quite captivated by the Dutch and Italian paintings. However, this time there were some new pieces that really hit me. Down this long hallway, there were photographs of the segregated South. Photo after photo showed you the poverty and injustice of a separate but equal which was anything but equal. Then…. you turn a corner into a side room…

And there sits a swastika on a field of black. Inside the swastika is a familiar figure…. 6,000,000… the number of Jews who died in the holocaust. The effect of this painting is to cause the breath to immediately catch in your throat…and then you notice that the swastika is backwards…. as if you’re inside the emblem looking out…..looking out on a world that’s missing six million people.

The effect for me was to link those two things in my mind..,,and perhaps that was the intention for placing it where it was. While our soldiers were flying over the sea to confront an enemy abroad… soldiers who would liberate what was left of a people and affirm their humanity…. they had their own subhumans back home. Of course, that is the power of art… to make you face uncomfortable truths about reality. The soldiers who were the liberators of the Jews were the oppressors of the African Americans…

It really makes you think…. for Hitler and really, much of the world then (now in many places), Jews were seen as subhuman. In the US, they added virtually all non-whites to that list. Many would like to think that we’ve progressed as a country. Jews have it better in the US than anywhere else in the world…possibly even better than Israel (depending on the movement you identify with). We have a black president. We’re living in a Utopia, right?

Wrong. Of course, there’s more than enough racism to go around. The rightwing foamed at the mouth when they saw Obama standing under an umbrella held by a white soldier – when all presidents and heads of government have had soldiers hold their umbrellas… so, for many, blacks are still seen as subhuman… Jews as well depending on the individual… but now, we have more politically correct targets…. atheists… pagans… homosexuals… immigrants…

We have not progressed as a society. By liberating the Jews we did not show ourselves to be progressive forward thinkers.. If we were, we would not have stood by and let six million Jews be murdered. We would not have sent boatloads of Jews back to Hitler. We would not have had segregated society then… and we would not have the less-thans now.

PREFACE: My very early childhood was spent in a Pentecostal movement that was very much like the Charedi movement in Judaism. By the time I became a teenager, the movement had changed a lot, so it didn’t resemble the Charedi as much. Those who are as old or older than me that were involved with the Pentecostal movement at that time know what I am talking about… women couldn’t wear makeup or cut their hair, friendships outside the Pentecostal movement were discouraged, you had to wear long-sleeve shirts or else you were showing too much skin, males and females couldn’t swim in the same pool (mixed bathing), etc.

Your synagogue is like an extended family. Our Torah study fits that bill especially. We talk to each other during the week, send emails, attend functions the others are involved in, etc. This is one such email that I sent out today because we spent the entire Torah study talking about the women of the wall and the recent disturbances at the Kotel (Western/Wailing wall) directed at them.

I’ve been thinking about this all morning and I’ve come to a conclusion. When I was a kid, we were Pentecostals and, at that time, they were a very insular community. If you were a Pentecostal you weren’t supposed to have friends outside the community, etc. The thing that brought the fundamentalists out was their perception that the outside was threatening their way of life. They had seen the role churches played in the civil rights movement and knew they could affect change in the society at large.

The same thing has happened with the charedim. But, their turning their gaze outward is not the problem. They are simply acting as they have always acted within. Inside their community they oppressed women, had absolute control etc. The reason it’s seen as a problem now is because it’s no longer some unknown charedi woman being victimized. It is our daughter, our wife, our mother.

Did we object when they extended the mechitza [wall separating women from men in Orthodox synagogues] from their synagogue to their community? Did we object when they set up different programs of study for men and women? Did we object when they silenced women in their own community and turned them into a faceless minority? We really can’t make an excuse of religious freedom for a country that, less than a month ago, was jailing women for praying in a manner they did not approve of.

The charedim did not change. We did. We had a social contract with them. Our silence and complacence ensured our complicity. Now, the charedim are showing us the dirt on our own hands. They are showing us the horrors we have allowed to fester in their communities by attempting to foist it onto ours. Was it right when they did it to women in their communities? No, but we looked away and shirked our responsibility to our fellow human beings. We allowed their deviance to become a new normal and now they are fighting to keep their normal way of life that we worked with them to build.

They are not so much trying to change outside society as they are fighting to keep their own society intact and operating normally. They are a problem for Israel because Israel allowed them to isolate themselves and then turned a blind eye to their activities only to later decide that they want to change them. Their anger in this situation is entirely reasonable and justified. However, their cause is not. Of course they would fight. Anyone in their situation would. The outside community has changed. They have not. But, what they’re fighting for is a shanda [shame/disgrace]. It didn’t just become one however. It always has been.. even when we refused to acknowledge it.

It might seem weird for a Jew to be commenting on Tebow, but it’s not if you know me well. I don’t have a problem with Christians, but people who act anti-Christian in the name of Christianity is a pet peeve of mine. Tim Tebow is such an individual. Today, they announced he was cut from the Jets.

Now, why does what or what doesn’t happen to Tim Tebow matter to anyone else? Normally, it wouldn’t….except for a little habit Tim Tebow has…

Yes…. Tim Tebow has a habit of making a mockery of Christianity by kneeling down and pretending to pray after making a good play. (more…)

Something a little different than normal: me showing off OpenSuse Linux 12.3. Watch it on YouTube in HD HERE

I found a wonderful article on Judaism and the Occult and it can be found here.

The article goes into some detail about how Judaism influenced and really made Occultism as we know it. Of course, Occultism is not the media portrayal of it as Satanism, black magic, etc. Wikipedia gives a great definition of it:

The occult (from the Latin word occultus “clandestine, hidden, secret”) is “knowledge of the hidden”. In common English usage, occult refers to “knowledge of the paranormal“, as opposed to “knowledge of the measurable“,usually referred to as science. The term is sometimes taken to mean knowledge that “is meant only for certain people” or that “must be kept hidden”, but for most practicing occultists it is simply the study of a deeper spiritual reality that extends beyond pure reason and the physical sciences.The terms esoteric and arcane have very similar meanings, and the three terms are interchangeable.

Basically, as you can see from that definition, Occultism is knowledge of the workings of the spiritual world. Jewish Kabbalah is actually considered Occultism and, nowadays, is the core of most Occultism. The main difference is that the Jewish person will tie the Kabbalah into Torah and the non-Jewish person will take it as just knowledge of the spiritual world without tying it back into Torah. Also, non-Jewish Kabbalah, often called Qabalah, will usually tie in Pagan mythologies and Christian concepts. Thus, you have the fall of man in the Garden of Eden, redemption by Jesus, etc. expounded upon in Qabalah.

But, the core is the same and the influence of Judaism is unmistakeable. All in all, it was a delightful read from Tablet Magazine – a website I usually find to be rather boring.