Walking Away From Judaism

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton

I want the reader to be assured that while what I have written below is very critical of Judaism and the influences of the majority of the Jewish organizations and power players in the Western world, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants, particularly Jewish giants, that I have come to see these things as I now do. Sure, it’s certainly possible – maybe even probable – that I would have eventually come to this position without their help, but I owe a large debt of gratitude to them for my path having been made smoother, more direct, and far better cleared of ambiguities. Most of these Jewish “giants” have been those who express great satisfaction in the massive antagonisms and subversion of Western culture that they partake in while the other giants have been giants of soul and integrity, the few who have shared my exasperation and have provided many invaluable insights into the nature of the problem. I know full well that what I have written here will offend and distress people. To my true friends in the Jewish community, I assure you that my respect for you and my friendship has not abated. To those who will criticize my decision, all I ask is this: given my values, which I know you hold as well or at least understand, what practical alternative could you possibly suggest?

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As most of my friends and all of my family know, my wife and I converted to Orthodox Judaism about 5 years ago. And while I want to make it emphatically clear that there are

Good Without Religion?

As someone whose thinking about God is far more akin to deism than anything else – and deists can be very good at dismissing religion (!) – I think it’s wise to have an accurate assessment of the limits of deism and of what are even its disadvantages compared to traditional or organized religion.

Deism can be a very lazy position to take; you can affirm a belief in God and you can debunk supernatural religious revelations and debunk many of the purposes allegedly served by those revelations while at the same time feeling enlightened. When somebody asks you what this “revealed-through-reason” God’s will is for human beings, you can offer the popular line about “just being a good person” used by all kinds of deists, agnostics, and atheists, and be done with it. Or can you?

ANOTHER POINT AGAINST KUZARI

I think it’s clear that Kuzari proponents like Aish or Rabbi Gottlieb are relying on strawman arguments when they insist that no nation would believe such a grand story as the Revelation on Har Sinai were it made up from whole cloth. They insist that the masses are too skeptical, too resistant to fairy tales, to just accept a “history” where just a moment before none had existed (or a different one had existed). In my previous article on the Kuzari argument, I mentioned a few significant examples of just such a thing happening. Recently, though, I came across an amazing combination of examples which, in my opinion, is very powerful in the refutation of the Kuzari Argument or Gottlieb’s National Experiential Tradition idea.

The examples are the invention of the bathtub in the 1840s (a famous hoax by H. L. Mencken) and Chief Seattle’s speech on environmental stewardship. Both of these cases are illuminated expertly (and rather entertainingly) by the historian/economist Tom Woods, in a lecture he gave about American history.

Zman Herutenu – an Anarchist’s Haggadah

As is evident from the other things I’ve published, I am not somebody who has the complete and orthodox faith in the compound factuality of all the events and ideas described in the Bible and all the things which tradition tells us regarding those events and ideas. I’ve written elsewhere what my understanding of the Bible is, so I don’t want to devote too much time to it here when it is not necessary.

Let it suffice to say that, even though I understand the story of the exodus to be largely legendary, it is still extremely important, not only to Jewish culture, but to all of Western Civilization. It is a story brimming with wisdom and profound lessons. Moreover, it is familiar to a very large portion of the world’s inhabitants, and as such, provides a teaching moment that is accessible to multitudes from many walks of life.

What can I say? I am a flesh-and-blood human being. A paradoxical mixture of faith and reason, skepticism and hope in that which is greater than myself. Sure, there are some facets the story of the Exodus that stretch the bounds of my credulity and challenge the understanding of justice that I have pursued relentlessly. But what I want here is not to get caught up in certain details, but to look at the big picture and take hold of a powerful tradition that has been a heritage and treasure of freedom-loving people for millennia.

Pesach, or Passover, is a great occasion to become inspired about liberty. I hope my “Haggadah” here will serve to that end.

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Pesach is called “Zman ha-Herutenu” – “the Season of our Freedom.” I ask, is it truly our

THE KUZARI ARGUMENT

The following has been adapted from a written correspondence I made to a rabbinical scholar.

In describing your views on human nature and saying that a person can go from being religious one day to being something else the next, you made a reference to me, i.e., that I am off the derech now whereas before I had converted to Judaism. Yes, that is true, as far as it goes. However, I have never decreased in my faith in God and my commitment to striving for a better and better life. I believe that our purpose in life is to continually pursue that which is good and to turn away from that which is evil. The reason I bring this up is because to make an example of me as a person who is changeable in their religious attitudes is inadmissible for your argument [a la Kuzari Principle]. Why? Because, my underlying religious attitude has not changed at all. I have simply acquired better information, more life experience, and therefore better reasoning than I once had, all of which has lead me to reevaluate the fitness of Orthodox Judaism as the best means of living out a conviction of God’s realness that I have held since being very young.

MORE ON RIBBIS AND TZEDAKAH VS. JUSTICE

The following has been adapted from a letter to a friend who is a Chabad Shaliach. The original letter covered many subjects, but for the prupose of this post, I have omitted most of the things that don’t relate to economics or justice issues. Some minor editting has been done to help with the flow. For the convenience of the general readership, Hebrew terms have been supplied with brief definitions in brackets.

Charity vs. Justice, Capitalism vs. Judaism

The following has been adapted from a letter to a friend, wherein I shared my impressions on Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’s Book To Heal a Fractured World. Besides recommending this book, my friend recommended an article or two from the Chabad website dealing with charity and capitalism in the light of the Torah. This letter takes aim at those as well.

TO HEAL A FRACTURED WORLD 

Rabbi Sacks’s book has the encouraging subtitle “the ethics of responsibility.” However, chapter three, which you especially recommended, I found to be quite disappointing.

To be sure, I enjoyed a good many things that Rabbi Sacks included in this book. And, I’m not saying this just to sound nice before I get around to criticizing it. I’ve always enjoyed all accounts of the triumph of the human spirit over adversity – something which is highlighted many times in this book. His selection of stories of people doing magnanimous things is enough to make it worth the read. However, frequently enough I find scattered among these gems a certain tendency which I cannot help but disagree with. In short, it is the unmistakable plague of contemporary liberalism.

VACCINATION / FORCED MEDICATION

Lately, a measles outbreak in California has been getting a lot of press. Vaccines are a hot issue and the feelings people have about them cross party lines. It might seem natural to suppose that the better instincts of “small-government” political Conservatives would make them sympatheic to those who oppose mandatory vaccinations — but this would be a mistake. Among the conservatives I know, there is no consensus. Likewise, you might think that the better instincts of Liberals would make them sympathetic to those who oppose mandatory vaccinations. You know, they make themselves out to be the keep-your-laws-off-of-my-body folks, but I have seen no shortage of liberals also who take a dim view to those who refuse to be vaccinated. (Although, some evidence suggests Liberals may be slightly less prone to push for mandatory vaccination than their Conservative counterparts.)

IS GOD OMNIPOTENT?

Nearly everybody assumes that God is omnipotent, or, as the more popular wording has it, “Almighty.” But does it make any sense to say so? No, it doesn’t. I’ll get straight to the point: God’s alleged [unqualified] omnipotence is an erroneous notion which cannot help but muddle peoples’ thinking.

In fact, what has motivated me to write this is seeing, in conversation last week, how much a person’s thoughts can be led to confusion and error by the belief in, or more likely, the passive acceptance of, God’s so-called omnipotence.

WHAT KIND OF GOD?

It seems to me that the most important question in religion is: Why is God to be worshipped? For me, every other religious or spiritual quest is determined and understood by this fundamental question and one’s relation to all other spiritual matters is either enlightened or limited by this one mother of all questions. (And while I cannot say for sure in which order the rest of my intended topics should be presented, I am confident that the nature and great significance of this question demands that it should come first.)

To word our question in ways that more specifically address the two “attributes” of God most central to everybody’s understanding, we could phrase it thus:

Is God to be worshipped because God is the ultimate source of truth and benevolence? or because God can punish and destroy anyone?

Is God to be worshipped because God is the author of all virtue? or because he is the King of Kings – the ultimate executive power?