Creating Reality as Opposed to Simply Being Part of the Creation

This short essay is part of a collection of essays in a work-in-progress entitled "Prolegomena to a New Spiritual Psychology".

If our own thinking determines, or at least has a part in shaping the reality we live in, that is, in determining the nature of that reality, and is not just a sub-function of a pre-existing reality; if it is possible that we have a part in shaping reality, then there is no stronger argument for pursuing a spiritual life, a life of purpose and meaning, a religious life. Pursuing a religious life means choosing a trajectory towards the good, towards justice and morality, towards Adonai/God. This means that inwardly thru our beliefs and thoughts, and outwardly thru our acts of compassion, justice, and creativity, we are trying to build a human reality that reflects the Jewish conception of Adonai. But tho this conception is quintessentially Jewish, its fulfillment is in no way limited to Jews.

If we accept such a possibility and choose to pursue it, then faith alone is not sufficient. Nor are good works alone sufficient. If we are creating this reality through our thoughts as well as our deeds, then both our beliefs and our actions are critically important. Thus, to reject God or exclude God from our conceptions is to pursue an incomplete, broken, and ultimately dysfunctional model. Without God, one is inevitably left with the Machiavellian/Darwinian world of blind and random nature, devoid of any inherent ethics, justice, and purpose.

[A note on atheism:] While it is undeniable that one can be deeply and consistently ethical without actively believing in God, consistent ethical behavior (as opposed to situational, self-serving ethical behavior) ultimately rests on a belief in values that transcend personal needs and personal gain. And to believe in such “transcendental” values ultimately means our inner logic is founded on some sort of God idea. Many ethical atheists prefer not to pursue the logic of their beliefs, but in the end their atheism really rests on a religious, God-based foundation. Ideas such as “for the good of society” or “for the good of humankind” or “for the good of the earth” are all ways of submerging God into one’s beliefs without having to acknowledge God.

Drash on Shemini, butterflies, and elephants

Drash on Shemini, butterflies, and elephants
23 Adar II, 5776
Shemini, Viyekra/Leviticus 9:1 - 11:47


Todays’ portion is Shemini. ‘Shemini’, '8', refers to the 8^th day in the consecration of the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary. This sidrah is usually known for its two mysteries: the death of two of Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, while lighting incense; and the laws of Kashrut concerning what animals can and can’t be eaten. Neither the reason for the death of Aaron’s sons, nor the reasons not to eat certain animals are explained, and they remain much discussed mysteries to this day.


Since you can find plenty of discussion about those two topics all over the place, I decided to focus on other matters: an extremely minor detail with a butterfly effect, and an elephant in the room.


Butterfly FX:


We read that if a small animal like a mouse or chameleon dies and falls on something, that something will become impure: verse 11:35 (Fox translation):
“Thus, anything upon which their carcass falls shall be tamei, unclean. An oven or 2-pot stove is to be demolished; they are tamei and they shall remain tamei for you. (Thus they cannot be made pure, tahor again.)


Well, a chameleon falling on your oven can be a problem, right? Really! An oven or stove is a major appliance and no one wants to have to destroy the whole thing, take the parts out to the hazmat dump (so they don’t make anything else impure), and then have to go out to some over-crowded, under-pleasant strip mall to buy a new one.


Well, the sages of old were discussing this very problem, and in the process they created one of the most famous, conceptually remarkable, and literarily brilliant midrashim of all time (a real butterfly effect, eh?). We know this midrash now as “The Oven of Akhnai.” It goes something like this:


We have been taught: Say a man made an oven out of separate coils of clay, placing one upon another, then put sand between each of the coils; such an oven, R. Eliezer said, is not susceptible to defilement, while the sages declared it susceptible.


So what’s the issue here? [My answer: an oven’s an expensive piece of equipment; is it possible to make one that can be fixed rather than replaced. But the real problem here becomes a disagreement that leads to a power struggle between the sages...]


            It is taught: On that day R. Eliezer brought forward every imaginable argument, but the sages did not accept any of them. Finally he said to them "if the Halakhah (body of Jewish law) agrees with me, let this carob tree prove it!" Sure enough, the carob tree was uprooted (and replanted) a hundred cubits away from its place. "No proof can be derived from a carob tree," they retorted.
            Again he said to them, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the channel of water prove it!" Sure enough, the channel of water flowed backward. [Visualize frowning and yawning as the sages respond...] "No proof can be derived from a channel of water," they rejoined.
            Again he urged, "If the Halakhah agrees with me, let the walls of the house of study prove it!" Sure enough, the walls tilted as if to fall. But R. Joshua rebuked the walls saying, "When disciples of the wise are engaged in a halakhic dispute, what right have you to interfere?" Hence, in deference to R. Joshua they did not fall, and in deference to R. Eliezer they did not resume their upright position; indeed, they are still standing aslant.
            Again R. Eliezer said to the sages, "if the Halakhah agrees with me, let it be proved from heaven!" Sure enough, a divine voice (bat kol) cried out, "Why do you dispute with R. Eliezer, with whom the halakhah always agrees?" But R. Joshua stood up and protested, "It (the Torah) is not in heaven" (Deut. 30:12). We pay no attention to a divine voice because long ago at Mount Sinai You wrote in the Torah, "After the majority must one incline" (Exod. 23:2).
            R. Nathan met the prophet Elijah and asked him "What did the Holy One do in that moment?" Elijah: "He laughed, saying 'My sons have bested Me; My sons have bested Me.'"


So we have here a number of remarkable phenomena. Perhaps most importantly, the rabbis override the Voice of God, and are allowed to get away with it! Also of great interest, we have an assertion of democratic principles that even Jefferson or Paine might not have been so bold as to make. What else do we have here?


Let me answer this through an example. Suppose we are sitting around arguing matters of Torah. Reb Ramon, our hazan, declares that we need to add Musaf to our Shabbat prayers (we don’t do Musaf at Shirat haNefesh). The rest of us disagree. Reb Ramon makes lots of arguments but we blow them off. Finally he says, if God wants us to institute Musaf, let that oak tree prove it by jumping across the street. What do we do? We immediately pull out our cell phones and dial 911 to get an ambulance for Ramon who must be having a breakdown. When we’re working in realtime, adults don’t usually suspend their disbelief.


Elephant FX:


And so, may I introduce to you Ganesh, the elephant in the room. When reading holy texts we are inclined to suspend our disbelief.


In today’s portion, verse 9:23, we read (using Fox’s translation):
“... and the Glory of Adonai was seen by the entire people. And fire went out from the presence of Adonai and consumed, upon the slaughter-site, the Olah offering and the fat parts. When all the people saw, they shouted and flung themselves on their faces.”


We read this and what do we say? “Oh yeah, I’d have thrown myself down too. Wow. Amazing!”


Two verses later at 10:2 the text describes the demise of Nadav and Avihu:
“And fire went out from the presence of Adonai and consumed them (Nadav and Avihu), so that they died, before the presence of Adonai...”


We read this and what do we say? “Whoa. Why did God kill them?”


Or, way back in Beraysheet/Genesis we read, “God said to Abraham, kill me a son...” (Reb Dylan’s translation) and we think, ‘How could God demand such a thing?’ Etc, Etc.


We read this book, almost every one of us, like fundamentalists. We read the text, and believe it is true and accurate, and events happened just like what’s written; we believe people said just what’s written; and we believe God talked in human language and said exactly what’s written. Are we out of our minds?


But to mention this, of course, is virtually blasphemous. It got Rabbi Avuya excommunicated for questioning God’s justice, and it got Spinoza excommunicated for questioning the truth of the Torah. Nowadays, of course, we don’t get excommunicated (at least in most congregations), but if we’re asking these questions, we’re almost certainly not spending much time reading Torah (why bother?). We probably don’t come to shul more than a couple of times a year, if that (again, why bother?). Indeed, we probably have no use for religion or God whatsoever.


This is a dilemma! Indeed, it has 70 faces just like the Torah. It’s important now for you, the reader, to try to articulate what the problem is, before you read the four ways I articulate it.


My articulations:

1.         Living in a world of suspended disbelief causes us to become non-credible to many adults, and more troubling, to our children, whose minds are awaking to the productive rigors of evidence-based thinking (multiple sources of evidence or repeatability). On the other hand, if we reject the verity of the Torah, we ultimately reject the foundation of Jewish thought, Jewish practice, Jewish community, Jewish identity. But what if you feel like me: to be a Jew is a privilege and an honor! Throwing out the Torah is not an option.

2.         We are compelled to ask, ‘why are things different these days?’ Why did God talk to people long ago, but not to us? Are we the problem? Is Torah the problem? Is God the problem? I’m guessing most people would say the problem is the Torah. Is it possible to redeem this Torah? Is it possible to make it believable once again? But it needs to be more than believable; it needs to be insightful. Is that possible? But it needs to be more than insightful; it needs to be inspirational, even to a sceptic, even to our kids, if it is to stand as a genuine holy book, and if it is going to continue to be as life-changing and as world-changing now as it was in the past.

3.         How do we create and teach the intellectual and spiritual tools to help us more directly experience and understand God? What are we God-believers doing to open the doors of perception? If God is real we should be able to repeatably open those Divine doors, at least a crack. We’re not doing that now at all. Prayer, for all of its many virtues, is not a tool that can help us to experience God, in my opinion. It may help reinforce our faith; cool our overheated brains; help us develop concentration skills; teach us spiritual and religious insights; help us build community. But I have almost never seen it open the doors of perception

4.         And finally, this corollary problem overlaps our problems with text and God: is God an active agency for justice in the world today? Is there a Divine causality behind all the good and the bad that happens in the world? Is God an active force turning history? The traditional answer is, “absolutely; unconditionally; in everything!” But we moderns then ask, “where was God during the Shoah? And if not then, when?”

Let me offer up a couple of ideas that may help us begin to address these problems.


First: over a half century ago Erik Erikson proposed the theory of the psycho-social stages of human development, a theory that has since become virtually canonical. I think we can use Erikson’s model to postulate stages of growth in human civilization. I would suggest that we, as a civilization, are emerging from childhood into a kind of early adulthood. In our childhood we may have been happy and satisfied to believe in a God that is near, loving, and always enforcing the rules. We were largely credulous, and we had, if I can mix religious metaphors, a Santa Claus view of God. It appears that civilization is growing beyond that now, although, obviously, not uniformly. A more sophisticated understanding of God and the value of faith is concurrently beginning to emerge, although people who have abandoned religion are rarely aware of this.


Second: how can we talk about God if we’ve never really, honestly experienced God? I have no patience for, nor interest in hand-me-down versions of spiritual awakening. People that claim that God surely exists need to provide personal credentials that are more than a collection of feel-good experiences or curious coincidences that have been invested with “the intentions of God.” Consider this quote from Cormac McCarthy’s, The Crossing:

“He heard the voice of God in the murmur of the wind in the trees. Even the stones were sacred. He was a reasonable man and he believed that there was love in his heart. There was not! Nor does God whisper through the trees. His voice is not to be mistaken. When men hear it they fall to their knees and their souls are riven and they cry out to Him and there is no fear in them but only that wildness of heart that springs from such longing and they cry out to stay his presence for they know at once that while godless men may live well enough in their exile those to whom he has spoken can contemplate no life without him but only darkness and despair.”

While McCarthy doesn’t seem to understand that there are many ways to experience the Divine, and many degrees of intensity in this experience, his demand for authenticity in asserting that experience is compelling.


Third: have our spiritual senses grown dull? If so, we need to be teaching ourselves and our children how to sharpen those spiritual senses, and how to appreciate the complexity of what we call God. We need to develop in ourselves a more nuanced, multi-faceted understanding. But we also need to hone our innate ability to sense the subtle workings of God in this world. Every civilization that has emerged on this planet has been grounded in a sense of the Divine. This stands as compelling evidence that we have an innate sense of God and spiritual matters within us. Therefore, if we can make 100 tons of metal fly, we should surely be able to develop tools, physical and mental, to help us discern, even if dimly, the Divine within and beyond us.


Finally, our children need to know that God isn’t going to step out of the sky to tell them what to do. Neither will God come down and spank them when they’re bad. We don’t now have the sensitivity and skill, and we may never have it, to comprehend Divine causality as it works in this world. In any case, harking back to the McCarthy quote above, we may be able to live and thrive in this world with no religion and no sense of God, but our lives will be deeply enriched by a knowledge of our Divine Essence, and we will surely be immeasurably transformed if we have the privilege to experience that Essence in its power and grandeur. Of that I am certain, having been, myself, greatly transformed!


Let us therefore turn our energies to help develop the skills to sense the Godness embedded in this world.



Two out-takes:


So, it seems we stand in two worlds, often at the same time. Now, that wouldn’t be such a big problem if we didn’t care that so many people have walked away from religion, and if we didn’t care about our children walking away from our faith, our traditions, our sense of calling, our community, our identity. But we care. I hope we care. Anyway, I for one, care!


So how then do we tell the story of God talking to our ancestors in such a way that it is still believable, and doesn’t sound like folklore and fairy tale? How do we tell it, not with a stick – ‘you have to understand things THIS way or you’re bad’ – but with real and convincing insight? So how do we read this book in a new way that doesn’t rely on suspending belief, but actually inspires belief? What do we do? You tell me.

Drash on Torah portion Tetzaveh

A drash (an exploration, an essay) on the parashah Tetzaveh to be delivered at Congregation Shirat HaNefesh, 2/20/2016; 11 Adar 1, 5776.

But before I start, for those who are not familiar with Jewish practice, Jews divide the Torah into portions, known in Hebrew as sidrot (singular: sidrah). They are also known as parshiot (singular parashah). The two terms are interchangeable. There are 54 sidrot, and they are read sequentially thru the year, one every week. We begin with the creation story on the holiday of Simchat Torah, and parashah by parashah, complete Deuteronomy one year later.

Let’s begin with a thought experiment.
Imagine you are Moshe (Moses) and God has just instructed you to write the Torah. Naturally, the first thing you do is go to the local stationary store down near Sinai to buy a notebook to start recording things. Once you’ve got your  notebook, what do you do?

If I can give you a little direction on what I’m thinking about here, and naturally, there are other ways to address this problem, but what I’m thinking about is this: what kind of information does Moshe need to write this book? Or, if you prefer, what information did the later writers and editors need? (My question isn’t, ‘who wrote the Book?’ My question is, ‘what information were they interested in reporting?’)  I’m asking you to address the problem of “what are the pieces of this book?” What kinds of texts have been compiled into it? Torah isn’t just laws and mitzvot dictated by God or God’s agents here. It’s a lot more than that. What kinds of documents and oral histories does Moshe need to collect, and where does he get them?
{To the reader; at the end of this drash you can find a partial answer, much of which was compiled in a former drash I wrote on sidrah VaYekhel}

Well, we can see this is a multi-textual document, but I don’t think anyone would argue that Torah is primarily a cookbook or a text on dream interpretation or a map of Canaan and Sinai. What is Torah primarily?
{your thoughts?}
I would call it a marriage contract between us and God, but such a summary doesn’t do justice to the multi-textual nature of the contract.

If we can’t really agree on what Torah PRIMARILY is, can we at least agree on what the most important narrative/story is?
{your thoughts?}

How about this to try to hone in on some DEFINABLE measure of importance: what is the most important narrative based on the number of verses or pages devoted to it in Torah? What do you think that would be?
{your thoughts?}

Well, this is a bit crude, but based on the Kaplan Living Torah, the narrative that gets the most pages is... Here’s the breakdown:
Abraham story: .................................... 48pp; Lekh Lekha, VaYera, Khiya Sarah
Joseph story: ....................................... 46 pp; VaYishlakh, Miketz, VaYegash (less Tamar story)
Exodus story: ....................................... 72 pp; Shmot, VaEra, Bo, Beshallakh
Giving of the Law: .................................. 26 pp; Yitro, Mishpatim
Kinds of sacrifices/rituals: ....................... 30+ pp; ViYikra
Building the Mishkan and its parts: ............. 85pp; Terumah, Tetzaveh, Ki Tissa, VaYakhel

The building of the Mishkan and the making of all its sacred components gets decidedly more parchment real estate than any of the others. Surprising, eh? Why isn’t this obvious, and common knowledge?

Part of the reason is that the human mind is a narrative-creating engine. It’s what we do; it’s how we think; it’s how we organize and remember. We like stories and we need stories: Adam and Eve, Abraham and the 3 visitors, Eliezer and Laban, Dinah and Shkhem, Joseph in Egypt, Moses and the plagues, the golden calf. The building of the Mishkan, however, is not what we commonly call a narrative. It’s more like one of those indecipherable and aggravating booklets you get with a piece of furniture from Ikea. Or you can think of it as a set of blueprints; or as an art history lesson.

So tell me, why is the most extensive narrative unit in the Torah an art history lesson, and why is it almost always ignored?
{your thoughts?}

Last week everyone sitting in this synagogue agreed that this art history lesson gave clear instructions on how to create the Mishkan and it’s sacred objects. You said the instructions were clear so we didn’t have to worry about process, so that we could dive in and get to work. It was a brilliant interpretation. But, with all due respect, I totally disagree. The instructions are confusing; the materials are often inappropriate for their use; and there is hardly a single description of what the end products actually looked like. We have no idea what the keruvim looked like, or whether the designs in the woven walls looked like an oriental rug, an art deco pattern, a starry sky, a landscape, or a flat field of color, stripes, or polka dots.  Indeed, even Aaron’s robe, with its bells and pomegranates is argued about in the Talmud. Do the bells and pomegranates alternate around the fringe, or do they hang together as a unit. And we hear Moshe complain in frustration, “show me the candelabra; Your description is incomprehensible!”

All we have is an incomplete blueprint; a set of vague instructions. And we NEVER hear what the Mishkan ultimately looked like. Dare I suggest that THAT wasn’t what the authors (or the Author) was concerned with. I would postulate that the concern was not about end products, but to inspire a people to go out and build; go out and create; go out and take a chance and see what happens! That’s the direct opposite of what we commonly think Torah is trying to do. We commonly think it’s trying to direct us, constrain us, set a clear path for us to walk. Here we’re being told: it’s on you. Go figure it out yourselves.

Normally, a drash concludes in such a way that the congregation thinks, ‘aaah, of course, that’s how God wants me to behave’; or, ‘oooh, so that’s the meaning of that indecipherable word or that grammatically strange construction’; or, ‘hmmm, so that’s why bad things happen to good people’. Etc. Well, I don’t have a nice wrap-up to this drash. It’s more like one of those really aggravating TV shows that ends with the 3 contemptible words, “to be continued”. I’m much less concerned with having you come to neat, clear conclusions than in having you realize that this section, so often introduced as being boring, perhaps isn’t so boring, especially if you’re an artist, an art historian, or someone who values arts and crafts. Or someone who values creativity in general.

I urge you to re-read this series of sidrot with an understanding that this is perhaps as crucial and valuable a section of Torah as the giving of laws, or the telling of remarkable sagas, or the careful execution of sacred rituals. I want you to think about these parshiot and elevate them to their actual importance, an importance that the Torah makes clear by devoting so much time to them. This is not just some instruction manual from Ikea, l’havdil. Creative endeavors are one of the most essential defining features of being human, and not just being human, but being a spiritually and morally elevated human being. Creative endeavors are perhaps the most direct route from earth to God, from Babylon to Jerusalem, from our common, selfish, morally ambiguous state to a place of compassion, openness, and wisdom.

Shabbat Shalom.

Some answers to Question 1, above:

Question 1. What kinds of texts are compiled in this book?
cosmogony, cosmic origins
phylogeny, human origins
mythology of the origin of nations
genealogy
saga and history (inextricably intertwined)
contracts (eg purch of Machpelah)
poetry
dreams
blessings (Balaam)
mystical experiences
basic corporate (Bezelel) and judicial (Yitro) management trees
descriptions of sacrificial and other rites
legal rulings and precedents
census
job descriptions (most of Viyikra)
architectural blueprints
templates for furniture, weaving, cast and beaten metal objects
menus (Abe and 3 angels; Pesakh meal)
recipes (incense and anointing oil)
want-ad (for inspired craftsmen)
mapping, geography
geological surveys
field guides of flora and fauna
etc...}

From my drash on VaYakhel:
I believe Torah was consciously composed as a multi-document text.  It was not intended to have the traditional kind of singularity of perspective and subject found in most other sacred or literary texts. Torah was revolutionary in this way, along with its other revolutionary features:
1. its understanding of God's unity,
2. its ethical code that shattered all cultural norms of the day;
3. its establishment of a whole people as a priesthood;  and
4. its conception of history as having a direction and a purpose.
Torah casts its net over every detail of life and brings it into the sacred realm. Aside from encyclopedias, the only other document that I'm aware of with equal breadth, is... the Talmud, a worthy successor in the Jewish canon.

ISIS: Rooted in Islam

ISIS: Rooted in Islam
Why Obama and most liberals fundamentally misunderstand Islam and ISIS


This essay will cover the following points:
1.   Islam and Enlightenment: Inherent Conflict
2.   Islam and the World: Shared Values
3.   A Review of Muslim-Majority nations and their Political-Social Center-points
4.   Selected Infographics


A Brief Introduction


The issue of terrorism and ISIS, a terrorist state, and their relationship to Islam is a fraught subject that walks through the minefields of bigotry and xenophobia on one side, and self-destructive ineptitude and delusion on the other. Anyone who walks this field will step on mines and antagonize people. I write this article to inspire discussion and a fuller understanding of the issues. Therefore, I welcome your amplifications and expansions of my topics and points, and your critiques. However, I am only interested in data-driven analysis. This article attempts to compile verifiable and reliable data. Too many of these discussions, including Obama's speech of 12/6/15, are nothing but fluff, emotion, and sermonizing, urging us to either play-nice with our friends (liberals) or punish those bad guys (conservatives).


This article first outlines three pillars of Islam that are in conflict with the Enlightenment, pillars that both Muslim and non-Muslim sources agree are foundational. Then I look at some shared values that will tend to ameliorate conflict, and which may eventually lead towards greater understanding and respect. Finally, I look at a wide range of Muslim-majority countries to assess the current state of Islamic ideology as reflected in political and social values.


A note on terminology:
First, I use the acronym ISIS, although ISIL is a valid alternative. Second, I talk about Islamist thought, Islamism, and Islamic fascism. They are all the same thing to me. Some may object to my use of "fascism," as this term is generally used to describe non-religious dictatorships and ideologies. However, Islam, unlike other major religious ideologies, is very forthright in integrating the political into the religious sphere. Therefore, I believe "Islamic fascism" can stand as a term that means "repressive, intolerant, fundamentalist Islamic ideologies applied to politics and social organization." I am NOT making the argument that Islamic governments are inherently fascist. Far from it. Islam has many faces, but like any political entity, it can incline to fascism. In this era, that inclination has become common, and therefore, many people, lacking historical perspective, imagine Islamic fascism to be normative.


1. Islam and Enlightenment: Inherent Conflict


When I say "Enlightenment" I am referring to the ideas of democracy, universal equality of individuals, and the endorsement of multi-cultural values without favoritism towards a specific ethnicity. As is only too obvious, these principles are incompletely realized even in the most "enlightened" communities and societies.


The Enlightenment, as it emerged in C18, posed a direct challenge to Christianity, Judaism, and Western monarchies, and led to a long history of violence and vitriol. While the West continues to struggle to implement full and well-functioning versions of enlightenment-inspired governments and social institutions, most regions of Islam are only now, for the first time, facing the confrontation with these principles. As we look across the Islamic world we can see it begin to struggle with the Enlightenment just as Christianity, Judaism, and Western monarchies did over the period 1792-1945.


Consider this excerpt from the Middle East Values Survey of 2013:
In the second half of the twentieth century, a dominant trend among the indigenous intellectual leaders portrayed an image of the West that was militarily aggressive, economically exploitative, and culturally decadent. They forewarned their audience against Western cultural invasion and conspiracies against Muslims. Such perceptions have gained considerable traction in the seven countries [in this study], as 85% of Egyptians, 80% of Iraqis, 64% of Lebanese, 30% of Pakistanis, 83% of Saudis, 54% of Tunisians, and 83% of Turks consider Western cultural invasion to be a very important or important problem. More liberal countries like Lebanon and Tunisia tend to be less concerned with Western culture.


This is why I don't see ISIS as a reaction to American policy in Iraq, western economic interests in the Middle East, and/or British and French colonialism. Its roots are much deeper and reflect the massive turmoil generated by Enlightenment principles in conflict with deeply entrenched and calcified medieval Islamic ideologies and models of government based on Islam. While ISIS is also a product of long standing internal Islamic conflicts, dysfunctional economies, and the power vacuums created by the meltdown or dismantling of inveterately dysfunctional governments, these problems simply add complexity to the underlying trajectory that has brought us worldwide terrorism, numerous implementations of Islamic fascism, and ISIS. That underlying trajectory is a product of the clash of Islam with the Enlightenment.


This conflict centers around three anti-Enlightenment pillars in Islam. Those pillars are:
1.   Dar al Islam and Dar al Harb
2.   Jihad
3.   Dhimma


Any understanding of Islam and its trajectories in world politics, including ISIS, requires a careful appraisal of these three pillars. When I say "pillars of Islam" I am referring to concepts that are embraced by the vast majority of religious Muslims in the world today. They are as essential to defining Islam as Messiah and Trinity are to Christianity.


Dar al Islam means "region of peace." Dar al Harb means "region of war." While there can be allegorical and metaphorical interpretations of these terms by liberal and mystical-minded Muslims, in main-stream Islam the terms are understood in a very literal sense. Dar al Islam is the place where Islam predominates. The rest of the world is the Dar al Harb, the region of war, were Islam does not yet predominate. [To verify this for yourself, you might begin at en.islamway.net, Dar Al-Islam And Dar Al-Harb: Its Definition and Significance.]


This is classic, medieval supersessionist thinking, identical to Christian supersessionism. It is the belief that Islam is the only true and correct understanding of God, and that Islam will, and must, prevail over all other religions. This view directly conflicts with the Enlightenment ideas of free-choice and religious relativity. [See the infographics at the end of this article, especially the two about tolerance for teaching other religions to children and tolerance for criticizing religious leaders.]


Jihad is probably the only one of the three pillars that is widely known outside of Islam. Like Dar al Islam, it can be interpreted as an allegorical or spiritual striving with self or with evil tendencies, but most Muslims in Muslim-majority countries understand this term literally. [Quoting from Wikipedia's article on Jihad: According to orientalist Bernard Lewis, "the overwhelming majority of classical theologians, jurists", and specialists in the hadith "understood the obligation of jihad in a military sense."[15] Javed Ahmad Ghamidi states that there is consensus among Islamic scholars that the concept of jihad will always include armed struggle against wrong doers.[16]] Jihad is the means whereby Dar al Islam will conquer Dar al Harb. Jihad elevates conflict and war to a holy obligation, to be pursued whenever it is politically and militarily feasible and expedient. It is the basis of Islam's "golden age of expansion" from 630-750 CE. You can see a map of this expansion here: Islam's Expansion.


Jihad is, ironically, the foundational principle of Islamic colonialism. I find it odd and hypocritical to hear and read rants by Muslims against Western colonialism, including Said's Orientalism, when, in reality, Islam has been a colonialist ideology from its origins. The principle of jihad, sadly, is a guarantee that conflict between Islam and the rest of the world will persist into any foreseeable future.


Finally, dhimma is the formal legal implementation of Islamic supersessionism over all non-Muslim peoples in the Dar al Islam. It is, quite literally, Islamic apartheid. While many Muslim scholars try to sugar-coat the dhimma, saying it established "protections" for non-Muslims under Sharia law, we have to ask, why would non-Muslims need to be protected, and from whom? Dhimmis who emerge from dhimmatude have a very different story to tell. From the horror stories of the Yazidis escaping ISIS, to the imprisonment of the founder of Bahai by the Ottomans, to personal and social histories of Jews and Christians who lived in Arab lands [see, for example, Dhimmis and Others: Jews and Christians and the World of Classical Islam, edited by Uri Rubin and David Wasserstein], dhimmatude as seen by its victims, its dhimmis, is oppressive and hateful.


Aspects of the dhimma are integrated into the law in many Muslim countries. They include such laws as: 1. the death penalty for any Muslim who converts, or who espouses atheism, and 2. strict controls, limits, or outright prohibitions on building or repairing churches, synagogues, and other non-Muslim religious buildings. The implementation of the dhimma by ISIS is but a more extreme version of these laws. Indeed, the onerous taxes, beheadings, and massacres by ISIS fit squarely into the long and troubled history of the dhimma in Islam.


A Few Sources:


'The Dhimma's Return', by Mark Durie (excerpted from his book, The Third Choice): http://www.newenglishreview.org/Mark_Durie/The_Dhimma's_Return/,
Bat Ye'or's The Dhimmi, V.S. Naipaul's Among the Believers, or search the internet on such terms as "dhimma" or "Islam and Copts/Yazidis/Bahai/Jews/Hindus/etc"


2. Islam and the World: Shared Values


While there is substantial reason to be pessimistic, Islam shares many core values with all the other major world religions and cultures. Muslim holy texts, beginning with the Koran, provide many and consistent endorsements for the Biblical Prophets, for Kings David and Solomon, for Jesus, and for many Jewish and Christian holy texts. Further, the ethical foundations of Islam are virtually identical with every other world religion. The primacy of compassion, hospitality, generosity, and peace provide a viable counter-weight to jihad and dhimma.


Just as Judaism and Christianity struggled with, and are still developing a common ground with Enlightenment principles [indeed, just today, 12/10/2015 a Vatican commission issued a new document declaring that Catholics should not try to convert Jews] , so we can expect, over the course of the coming 100-200 years, that Islam will find solid common ground with Enlightenment principles, and thus develop compatibility with multi-cultural values. But this will be a slow and non-linear process, just as it has been in the West.


3. A Review of Muslim-Majority nations and their Political-Social Center-points


The following terse comments are based on research using the following sources.
World Values Survey
http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSContents.jsp?CMSID=Findings
Religion, Society, and Politics in the Middle East, by Robert Lee and Lihi Ben Shitrit
http://www.cqpress.com/docs/college/Lust_Middle%20East%2013e.pdf
Middle Eastern Values Study: A Comparative Assessment of Egyptian, Iraqi, Lebanese, Pakistani, Saudi, Tunisian, and Turkish Publics
http://mevs.org/files/tmp/Tunisia_FinalReport.pdf
Pew Research Center: The World's Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-overview/
Pew Research Center: Chapter 1 (of above study): Beliefs About Sharia
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/04/30/the-worlds-muslims-religion-politics-society-beliefs-about-sharia/


Morocco:
A monarchy. Among the most moderate countries on this list, but that belies the general tenor of society. The ruling party of the country, the PJD is a moderate Islamist party, and the prime minister is an Islamist. In other words, the general population is deeply conservative.


Algeria:
Wracked by a civil war through the 1990's between Islamists and a military dictatorship, a war that cost 150,000 lives, recent years have seen much less violence, but Islamism is still strong in this very conservative nation.


Tunisia:
Considered the most moderate Middle Eastern Islamic country, it started the "Arab Spring" and remains the only democratic survivor of that movement that was about as successful as the French Revolution. Even still, as of March, 2015, according to Hassan Mneimneh of the Middle East Institute: From Yemen to Syria, Afghanistan to Tunisia, the Islamist civil war is global. Three main protagonists are engaged in it in Tunisia, with distinctly different approaches on method and increasingly divergent views on the end goal.


Libya:
Shattered by an Arab Spring turned self-destructive, the country is a hotbed of Islamism and fundamentalist thinking.


Egypt:
The Sisi coup overthrew an elected government overwhelmingly represented by the Muslim Brotherhood. The Brotherhood, if you don't remember, is the father of modern Islamism and its many incarnations. ISIS and its like are now very active in the Sinai, and regularly orchestrate terrorist outbursts around this very conservative country. The Copts, an ancient Christian sect, are constantly under dhimmatude pressures.


Nigeria:
Boko Haram, an ISIS affiliate, has waged war in Northern Nigeria for 10 years. 17,000 dead and 2 million homeless, as this group attempts to subjugate non-Muslim Nigeria, while ruthlessly controlling the Muslim "region of peace".


Lebanon:
54% Muslim (half Sunni, half Shia) and 40% Christian, this country is divided along many fault lines, all active. The government has been usurped by Hezbollah, an extremist puppet of Iran, which runs its own government and army within the country. As the BBC reports (Five missing Czechs found in Lebanon, 2/1/2016), “Some areas of the Bekaa Valley, east of the capital Beirut, are notorious for lawlessness and drug trafficking.” Lebanon is also a Palestinian hotbed, where hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are confined to squalid, lawless refugee camps and denied citizenship. Don't look for moderation here any time soon.


Jordan:
Like Morocco, moderate on the surface, but with a seething fundamentalist undercurrent that probably represents 50% of the population. The Palestinian majority is disenfranchised by the Hashemite monarchy.


Syria:
Multiple ethnicities and Muslim sects had been ruthlessly ruled by a small Alewite minority for decades. That control continues to crumble after 5 years of civil war, now driven by a host of competing Islamist militias. Perhaps exhaustion, but not moderation will follow in the wake of this disastrous conflict in which hundreds of thousands have died.


Saudi Arabia:
Ruled by the Saudi family which follows an extremist version of Islam, Wahhabism, there may be dreams of moderation here, but the prevailing ideology is not very different from ISIS.


Turkey:
Once the paragon of a Muslim secular nation, the country took a sharp right turn in 2002, electing the AKP, an Islamist party that has slowly implemented a deeply conservative, anti-Western agenda. Traveling through Anatolia in 1977 I was stunned by the degree of conservatism that prevailed outside of the 3 main cities. I recorded those thoughts in a short story, 'A Pilgrimmage (sic) to Mecca', which I renamed 'A Pilgrimmage to Jerusalem' so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities. That conservatism has only expanded its hold since them. The country has harshly suppressed a Kurdish separatist movement and insurgency, at the cost of over 40,000 deaths, 4000 destroyed villages, and a half a million to a million Kurds forcibly evacuated. Outside of Istanbul and Ankara, don't look for moderation here.


Iraq:
I don't need to tell you about this disaster and the extremism that prevails through innumerable religious, ethnic, and social fault lines. Genocide and ethnic cleansing leave a deeply scarred society.


Iran:
Self-proclaimed leader of the rise of fundamentalist Islam since the revolution in 1977, this country has promoted anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist hatred and violence as a core organizing principle of its ideology. A secular, democratic undercurrent has been harshly suppressed, but Western optimists continue to hope for a successful counter-revolution. I share that hope without optimism.


Afghanistan:
Extremist to the bone. Period. And it has been like that for hundreds of years.


Pakistan:
Quickly rejecting a secular path after its establishment in 1947, Pakistan has progressively implemented the dhimma. Christians and other minority faiths and sects live in danger, having suffered numerous pogroms and suicide bombings. Blasphemy laws are commonly used to oppress the Christian minority along with liberal Muslims. Now, like Afghanistan, large tracts of this country are outside any central rule, and are governed by local Islamist warlords.


Bangladesh:
Aspires towards moderation.


Indonesia:
The most populous Muslim country in the world, it is a working, pluralist democracy. "Most Indonesian Muslims are probably conservative in their beliefs and practices, but don't think they need to vote for a Muslim party or politician to live in the society they prefer," said R William Liddle, a political science professor at Ohio State University, who studies Indonesia. (Al Jazeera, 12 May, 2014)


A Few More Sources:


World Almanac of Islamism:
http://almanac.afpc.org
Institute for Social Policy and Understanding: The Moroccan Path to Islamism,
http://www.ispu.org/pdfs/ISPU_Brief_MorPath-4.pdfThe Middle East Institute:
http://www.mei.edu/
MEMRI, The Middle East Media Research Institute:
http://www.memri.org/
Al Monitor, the pulse of the Middle East
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html


4. Selected Infographics:

Estimates of Islamist activity:

Wife Must Obey Husband - Percentage that Disagree

Preferences for Women's Dress:

Don't Teach Children Other Religions:

Don't Criticize Religious Leaders:

Don't Allow Criticism of Islam:

Two myths about Jews; Part 1

Two myths about Jews that distort nearly everyone’s thinking about Judaism and Israel.

The following essay discusses two important ideas that shape the myth of Jewishness. Those ideas are defined in Part 1 and their impacts on thought and behavior are discussed in Part 2. The core issue I discuss in Part 2 is how these myths are operative in nearly everyone’s mind, but that the more unconscious they are, the more likely they are to incline one towards anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. (Anti-Zionism: the compulsion to hold Israel to double standards and to blame Israel as the cause of many or most problems in the Middle East. Anti-Zionism culminates in the belief that Israel does not have the right to exist.)

1. The Myth of Chosenness
This can be summarized with the two canards that “1. Jews are chosen and others are not chosen; 2. that being chosen means Jews are inherently better than non-Jews.”

2. The Myth of the Jew-As-Victim
This can be summarized with the canard that “Jews are supposed to be victims,” and when Jews don’t act like victims they need to be blamed, punished, and suppressed to return them to the status of victims. Sometimes the blame and suppression is a response to Jews being successful in various fields, but just as often it is simply a matter of a society that is failing or dysfunctional that needs to divert attention away from itself towards a scapegoat.

Part 1.

The Myth of Chosenness:
Discussing this concept, a friend of mine said:
“I grew a soft spot for Judaism after sharing hearts with [a friend]. But a Buddhist bud grew in me because they (Buddhists) don't choose, certainly not themselves, for the best jobs!”

My friend just put his finger on one of the great historical myths, and it looks like he didn't even know his finger was on it -- the idea that only Jews are chosen, and/or if you want to be chosen you have to be Jewish.

Jews as a ‘chosen people’ has its origins in the Bible, and it has become an important theological pillar in Rabbinic Judaism.
Here’s how I see it:

I do believe Jews are a "chosen people" although that's a term widely misunderstood and often used as a stick to beat us or a stick we use to beat ourselves. When someone hires you to do a job (teach a class, build a house, write a book), they've chosen you. They think you can do the job, and assume you'll do it well, but they may be critical along the way about your work or attitude, and perhaps even be unhappy in the end with the job you do.

So, we Jews believe God chose us. Those 7 simple words imply a vast mythology that has been translated into millenia of living history. We Jews have been chosen to do a job, NOT because we're inherently or genetically better than other people, although history and oppression may have done a fair amount of natural and unnatural selecting over the last 2000 years to make us into a fairly formidable intellectual cohort. We've been chosen (which translates existentially into "we have chosen ourselves") to be a priesthood people, to be a holy people for the sake of upholding and elevating our God and that God's morality, and in bringing that God and that God’s morality to the rest of the world. And if you want to strip God from the picture, nothing much changes. We’ve chosen ourselves to advocate for a universal morality, and for the principle that organizes that morality (a Divine “organizer”).

This is the basic idea, but it doesn’t mean that all or most Jews are actively pursuing these goals. It does mean that for 3000 years this has been one of the principles driving the thoughts and actions of many Jews, especially the rabbis and leading thinkers of most Jewish communities throughout most of these years.

The theology of chosenness and the existential act of self-choosing evolved together. We Jews took on the job (and continue to take it on). Others, mostly, didn't (and don’t). Christianity absolves the individual of the need for works and law. This is one of the primary arguments of the Christian Bible – Christians are absolved from carrying the law (eg. Epistle to the Romans). Instead, Jesus, as Savior does it all once you accept Him. Nonetheless, plenty of Christians, in spite of that, realize that even if Jesus does it all for them, they still have to do it all, too! Read your Kierkegaard, Barth, Niebuhr. Or read your Epistle to the Romans carefully - it still requires being good (law) and doing good (works).

Nonetheless, most Christians (and Muslims, etc) realize that they have to do at least SOMETHING for their own salvation. When they choose to devote themselves to being ethical, compassionate, educated, and/or helping the weak and the poor, they are choosing themselves in a specifically Jewish way even though they do not self-identify as Jews. In the end, history confirms that Christians have chosen themselves to promote virtually the same universal morality as that defined by Jews and the Hebrew Bible.

Buddhists, also are serious self-choosers in this Jewish sense, even though there’s absolutely nothing (to my knowledge) about being “chosen” in Buddhism, and there is little evidence that Judaism has had a significant influence on Buddhist theology. One chooses this particular Buddhist path for the sake of seeking higher states. And those higher states ineluctably include acting with higher standards of morality and compassion. Buddhists who choose this kind of path are not choosing to be Jewish. They are choosing to be Buddhists in a way that broadly overlaps with the Jewish sense of being chosen.

Thus, it is obvious both theologically and existentially that the Jewish idea of chosenness is not limited to Jews.

Now, some Jews will argue that the idea of being chosen is uniquely Jewish, and one can only be chosen by being part of the Jewish people. I disagree. I am distinguishing between the general act of taking on spiritual/moral leadership (chosenness) with the specifically Jewish form of this act. Paul sought to open the Jewish doors of chosenness to Gentiles. Although I don’t agree with Paul on many matters, I think he got that right. (See John Gager’s The Origins of Anti-Semitism, Part IV: The Case of Paul for a careful and insightful analysis of this position.) Just as the Torah is a text for all humanity, and not just for the Jewish people, so the task of chosenness, though spearheaded by the Jewish people, is not, nor should it be exclusive to Jews.

And let me repeat, the Jewish sense of being chosen has NOTHING to do with a belief in genetic or religious superiority. And unlike Muslim and Christian aspirations for establishing their faith as the one, true, and only faith, the Jewish sense of being chosen utterly rejects religious coercion. Nor does it depend on popular acclaim for its substantiation. That Jews are a distinct minority is irrelevant to the importance we place on the idea of chosenness.

In sum, Jews didn't take the best jobs (ie the priesthood tasks, and particularly the jobs of promoting one law and one moral standard for all people), leaving none for anyone else. There are as many “best jobs” as people to take them. Indeed, there’s a “best job” waiting for every single human on the planet. All you have to do is step up!

Nonetheless, the Jewish idea of being a chosen people is bound up with an extremely negative and hate-filled set of counter-ideas. As with every powerful, world-changing idea, chosenness casts a dark and dangerous shadow behind it. From it devolved the idea of Jewish superiority and its negative amplification, that Jews are diabolical and seek world domination. It is bound up with the belief of Jewish spiritual arrogance, as expressed in both Christian and Muslim texts; that Judaism is intolerant of other faiths; that Jews seek to eliminate other religions; that Jews believe there is only one way to know and find God. All of these are false theologically (and also, for the most part, existentially), but they nonetheless maintain a psychological grip on our thinking, Jew and non-Jew alike. The psychological and social impact of this reality is discussed in Part 2 of this essay.

The Myth of Jew as Victim:
Unlike the former myth, this one does not arise from any theological foundations. It is a product of the long history of Jewish exile, with Jews living in a state of social otherness and political disenfranchisement. And in that sense, this is not a myth at all. It has been a primary theme in Jewish reality, a theme that only fairly recently has began to be challenged by the counter-history of modern Zionism. But Zionism has not brought an end to the history of Jew-As-Other and Jew-As-Victim. It has simply brought on another chapter in the story, with different dynamics. The Jew remains vulnerable to victimization around the world, as we read in the newspaper regularly, from the bombing of the Argentine Jewish Community Center in 1994, to rocket fire from Gaza into southern Israel (a daily matter for over 10 years until the Gaza war of 2014), to the targeting and murder of Jews from Mumbai to Kenya to Bulgaria to Belgium to France to the US. This is all ugly living history. It is not myth.

The Jew-As-Victim becomes a myth when it morphs in the human mind to “the Jew is supposed to be a victim.” This insidious transformation has taken on a life of its own, distorting nearly everyone’s thinking. From this perspective, Jews are not supposed to act with self-confidence, and Israel is expected to tolerate Arab terrorism and hatred, and is held to be inherently blameworthy when it responds militarily to such violence.

In Christianity this myth had taken hold by the time of Augustine, who at least in part helped establish as dogma the belief that Jews should be allowed to survive, but as a subjugated and humiliated people, as an example of Christian supersession. It took nearly 1400 years for Christians to begin to seriously question the morality and integrity of this position. It still remains an active ingredient in much Christian thought and in some Christian attitudes towards Israel.

In Islam this myth has been institutionalized in the apartheid-like laws of the dhimma (in which Jews and Christians have a legally inferior status to Muslims; also note that in the dhimma some other religions have an even lower status than Jews and Christians), and I would argue it is a central factor in the Muslim world’s intolerance for an independent Jewish nation.

In the west we see this myth working in the widespread popularity of Woody Allen’s movies and the way he caricaturizes Jews. We also see it politically in the left’s and far right’s double standards for Israel, and in their aggressive misrepresentations of Israel and those who support Israel.

In Part 2 I will expand on the way this myth subtly and unconsciously distorts our understanding of Jews, Judaism, and Israel.

Parashah Yitro - an exploration

The following is a short discussion, aka a dvar (a word), or a drash (an exploration), on the Torah portion Yitro, Exodus/Shmote, 18:1  to 20:23. I will be presenting this discussion to my congregation, Shirat HaNefesh tomorrow, 2/7/15.

Yitro and the building of national identity

Yitro, Jethro, is a parashah, a sidrah that most of you probably know quite well, although it often gets mixed up with Ki Tisa (tablets, golden calf) 4 sidrahs later. What are some of the salient things that happen in this sidrah?

Yitro comes out to meet Moshe, acknowledging the God of Israel as the greatest deity.
Yitro advises Moses on how to govern better, building a judicial hierarchy.
In the 3rd month, on the 1st day, the Israelites arrive at Mt. Sinai.
Moshe goes up Sinai, and God informs him He wants Israel as His special people.
Moshe returns to inform the people and they/we agree to the terms.
Moshe again ascends and is told to prepare people for experience of God on peak of Sinai.
Moshe instructs people to purify themselves for 3 days, and set a boundary around Sinai to keep people away.
God appears at peak amidst clouds, thunder, ram’s horn blasts, and summons Moshe up.
God tells Moshe to go back down to warn people to stay away.
God declares the Ten Commandments while Moshe is among the people.
Moshe enters mist of God’s Presence and God tells him not to make idols but to make an altar for sacrifice.
In sum, Moshe goes up Sinai 3 or 4 times, but the Commandments are given when he is down with the people.

A traditional drash starts with something far, something apparently unrelated, and then shows how it is near, that is, relevant.

I would like to start with a mashaal, a parable. It's about a king who wanted to marry a beautiful and strong and wise and noble woman. When she gladly accepted his offer of marriage, he had a very special ketuba, a marriage contract, prepared.  In it, among other things, he described all the wealth he was transferring to her.  Such and such tracts of land; thus and many chieftains for an honor guard; what well-trained handmaids and servants; which buildings in the capital city; abundance of garments of this and that sort; special cuisine and cooks; and so on.
The problem was, just after the wedding the king was called away to a distant land across the sea. After many months, he hadn't come back yet, and secret desires began to stir. 

How do we complete this mashaal, this parable? Of course, before you can complete the parable, you need to postulate what the nimshaal, the underlying story is, since a parable is a story meant to illustrate and clarify another story. Take a few minutes to postulate the ending to this parable. If you already know the parable, imagine a new ending.

While your mind is composing the parable’s ending, let me seed your imagination with some ideas.

First, what is illogical about Yitro’s advice about forming a hierarchical judiciary?

This is hard, so let me give you another mashaal. A parent said to her 5 year old, “I want you to obey all the laws of this household.” The five year old of course agreed, but a moment later she did something that angered the father, and he yelled at her. Sound familiar? What’s illogical here? Do you have a written set of household laws that you can refer to? Do you read those laws to your 5 year old every night so that she will know them well?

So now, what’s illogical about Yitro’s advice? [My answer: Israel does not yet have a body of laws to adjudicate!]

So the rest of the sidrah is about getting the Laws, right? Wrong! All that Israel obtains is 10 laws, not even a bare minimum to actually govern a functioning society. There’s no civil or business law here, and only a couple of the most extreme criminal issues are covered, without any discussion of procedure or punishment. Further, one commandment is about outlawing certain thoughts, coveting, which is unimplementable and was never intended to be implemented (it seems to me), at least in a human court.

So what’s missing here? What remains illogical?
1. The build-up of case law over 40 years is what ultimately becomes the Law of Moshe.
2. Much of the law emerged as a response to human need in the face of human conflict and confusion about what to do.
3. A nation needs to build an identity if it is to implement a functioning judiciary. The values that form a nation’s identity also shape a nation’s laws, and vice versa, a nation’s laws, and the way they are implemented, shapes a nation’s identity.

So when does Israel really assume a national identity?

The issues of national identity building are ongoing. Read the news. Much of what you read is about national identity building. Look at the problems in the Middle East, in Africa, in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Look at our national debates about abortion, immigration, racism and affirmative action, corporate profits, history textbooks. The list of issues concerning national identity building is endless. Yitro is the first sidrah in which we, the Jewish people take the first steps towards our national identity building.

The rest of the Bible and then the compilation of our other canonical texts, Talmud, Midrash, Kabbalah, and now in this era, all the documents and historical events leading to the establishment of Israel, and now continuing in the building of Israel, are mostly about national identity building.

So let us return to our mashaal of the king. Now that you have composed your version of the ending, let me tell you how the original author completed it:

After a year, the king still hadn't returned, and the whispering grew louder.  After 2 years people began to be bold enough to ask the queen why she didn't seek out a new royal husband. There were many to be had! But this noble and devoted queen cast them out of her presence.
    The king didn't return for a very long time. But finally he did return. And his wife rushed out to greet and welcome him. The truth is, the king was amazed, and he asked her, "You are truly more noble than I could have imagined! How were you able to withstand your doubts and remain loyal to me?" And she answered, “every time I worried or despaired, I pulled out our ketuba, our marriage contract, and I would read about all the gifts that you bestowed upon me, and my faith in you would return."

    Naturally, it is the nature of a parable that the story refers to something other that its literal meaning. So, who is that king, and who is that queen, and what is that ketuba?

    The king is God, and the queen is the Jewish people, and the ketuba is our Torah. Throughout the ages people have tried to claim that our God has abandoned us, and that we should turn away to another faith, or to no faith, but when we study our Torah, we realize what an incredible privilege it is to be Jewish, to be chosen to be a priesthood people. And that has renewed our faith and courage, in spite of everything.

In sum, parasha Yitro may be seen as a wedding ceremony, in which the Jewish people are married to God, and the Torah is our ketubah. It is in this sidrah that the idea of the nation of Israel is born. It is here that Jewish peoplehood starts to emerge, both through law, and through the willingness to take on an enduring purpose -- to be a priesthood people, to be a holy nation.
This drash was composed in honor of the new ketubah, the new Torah scroll that Shirat HaNefesh is getting, that is indeed being repaired and prepared right now, and which we will take possession of in the coming months.

Concerning the sacred and profane

Prolegomena to Rebuilding our Moral Foundations

A fundamental distinction that human beings make
     is between the sacred and the profane,
     the moral and the evil,
     that is, between what is holy and “Godlike”
     and what is merely animal.
I believe it is a presumption and a lie
     to claim to know God's will, God's “desires”.
     But by evolving our understanding of the holy
     and pursuing its manifestations in our life
     we can approach, to some degree,
     a certitude of God's being
     and a sense of awareness of God's Presence.
The primary value in being aware of God's Presence
     is that it may help inspire us
     to higher ethical standards
     and it may help support us
     in times of grief and trouble.
Thus:

The Category of the Profane:
There is nothing holy about hatred.
There is nothing holy about anger.
There is nothing holy about violence.
There is nothing holy about bitterness.
There is nothing holy about cynicism.
There is nothing holy about controlling others.
This core of destructive emotions and behaviors
     all incline us towards the profane.

All of these emotions and behaviors
     are part of our being and part of our life.
We will express them sometimes, or often,
     And we must process them constantly,
     but there is, literally, nothing holy in them.
There will be times when such feelings
     may be an appropriate response
     to the world and its events,
     but because they may be appropriate responses
     does not make them holy,
     and therefore, they can never serve
     to elevate us towards the moral,
     and towards God's Presence.
     They are essentially degenerative.
Indeed, the more we feel and express them
     the further we will move away from God's Presence.
Finally, although there are times and situations
     when these feelings may be appropriate,
     even necessary,
When they become the guiding light
     of a person, a group, a nation, an ideology,
     they not only degenerate us morally,
     but they become a marker of a degenerative ideology
     and they can be called evil, unequivocally.
     As such, they become a dangerous enemy
     to the individual, the group, the species.

The Category Between Sacred and Profane:
This is the general realm of the existential,
     the psychological, and the social,
     and is the topic of many, if not most, books.
Most of what we feel and do
     is not inherently sacred or profane.
     Neither does it inherently move us
     towards evil or the moral.
Nonetheless, most of what we feel and do is driven
     by our sacred and profane feelings and motives,
     even though those motives
     may be hidden from our awareness.
Feelings and experiences such as
     fear, pain, suffering, and despair
     tend to damage the individual
     and stunt one's growth towards the sacred.
     It is uncommon for them to generate
     healing and growth
     although, in an environment of healing,
     later growth may occur.
This category of feeling, doing and experiencing –
     the human sitz-in-leben between sacred and profane –
     however compelling a topic of discussion,
     is not my topic here.

The Category of the Sacred:
Compassion strongly inclines us towards the holy.
Charity strongly inclines us towards the holy.
Love strongly inclines us towards the holy.
Prayer inclines us towards the holy.
Self-control inclines us towards the holy.
Respect inclines us towards the holy.
Gentleness inclines us towards the holy.
Some rituals will incline us towards the holy.
Art and creativity can incline us towards the holy.
Joy and pleasure can incline us towards the holy.

All of these emotions and behaviors
     are part of our being and our life.
We may express them sometimes, or often.
They seek to be constantly processed
     and integrated into our being
     although we may be largely unaware of them
     some or much of the time.
They do not originate from animal needs and drives,
     but animal needs and drives
     can sometimes express or further them.

               As an aside:
               The common scientific blindness
               to that aspect of being
               that is not animal,
               but rather of the holy, of the divine,
               is a fundamental stumbling block
               to scientific accuracy
               in theory and practice.

Yet none of these feelings and behaviors
     are inherently holy.
Neither can these feelings and behaviors
     be purely and exclusively holy
     even if done in the most exemplary manner
     by the most exemplary person.
These feelings and behaviors are always mixed
     with profane feelings and behaviors,
     particularly the profane desire to control others.
For this reason, even these feelings and behaviors
     that incline to the holy
     can become a means to do profane and evil things.
For example:
     to claim that there is only one correct way
     to do sacred behaviors
     is a blatant falsehood,
     and an active means of controlling others,
     and is therefore, profane, and inclines to evil,
     even though the conscious intention
     is to guide to the holy.

Shaping Communities to Incline towards the Sacred:
It is appropriate to punish profane action.
It is inappropriate to punish profane feelings and thoughts.
It is appropriate to critically challenge
     profane feelings and thoughts by exploring their motives
     and their potential consequences.
Proper education will incline
     away from profane thoughts and behaviors
     and towards the sacred,
     but no education, however exemplary,
     is capable of eliminating profane feelings
     and behaviors.

It is inappropriate to punish a failure to do sacred actions.
It is appropriate to critically encourage
     sacred feelings and thoughts
     by exploring their mixed motives,
     and their potential consequences,
     sacred and profane.
It is appropriate to encourage sacred action
     so long as care is taken
     to understand and evaluate
     the non-sacred motives within every sacred action.