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Replacement Theology

In the Washington Post's "On Faith" section, a story asks; 'Judaism without God? Yes, say American atheists'. You can have Judaism without G-d, much as you can have an "On Faith" section without anything to have faith in.

It's all a matter of definition. If you define Judaism by its covenantal document as a binding agreement between a people and the Creator of the universe, then an atheistic Judaism is a contradiction in terms. But if you define it as a cultural experience that calls us to social work and spirited debate, then it makes no real difference what you believe, so long as you volunteer at the Tikkun Olam soup kitchen.

What goes for Judaism, also goes for Christianity. The issue is not atheism, it's the nature of religion and what it is and what it isn't. Either religion is a specific belief in a deity accompanied by textual revelations, or it's the Democratic party with its own pulpit. 

The issue comes up every time the left tries to insist that its version of Christianity and Judaism, where the worst sin imaginable is not driving a hybrid is the right one, because it's compassionate and spiritual. A spirituality that consists wholly of compassion and a compassion that consists wholly of following a left of center ideology while claiming that their grab bag of the welfare state, anti-war activism and environmentalism is highly spiritual.

Take Rabbi Arthur Ocean Waskow, please. Waskow, a left-wing activist and a member of a non-theistic movement, and his disciples, are usually found wherever Israel is demonized and the mass murder of Jews by Islamic fanatics is promoted with the beatific smile of the hazed out humanistic fanatic.

The paradox of a paragon of a humanistic un-religion making common cause with men who believe that their specific revelation entitles them to commit genocide is baffling. Or it would be if Waskow really was a humanist. In reality Waskow is a socialist with a pulpit. Even if it's only an imaginary one.

Waskow's idea of Judaism exists only as a metaphor for left of center ideology. The bible is only relevant to the extent that it can be used as a mythological connection to civil rights, nuclear war or global warming. The civil rights movement is just like Passover, nuclear war is just like Noah's flood and Judaism becomes a lens for giving depth to left-wing causes. There is no god but Das Kapital and Waskow is its prophet.

This replacement theology often goes unremarked upon, even as it has become a base for Waskowites to call for Jewish genocide in the name of Jewish values.

The Waskowites, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan's bastard spawn, support Hamas, denounce Israel and join hate groups such as J-Street and Jewish Voice for Peace. Rabbi Phyllis Berman was affiliated with J-Street and a former member of Jewish Fast for Gaza. Rabbi Rebecca Alpert sits on the Rabbinic Cabinet of J Street and the Rabbinic Council of JVP.

And because there's always something worse than worse, there's Jewish Voice for Peace, an organization which supports a boycott of Israel and its destruction through a One State Solution. Its Rabbinic council includes Rabbi Rachel Barenblat of Velveteen Rabbi, Rabbi Brant Rosen, who can never decide if he hates Israel more than he hates the Republican party, and Rabbi Brian Walt, along with plenty of others.

As Rosh Hashana comes along, many of them will mount pulpits to explain why Israel is the enemy and why it must be destroyed in the name of Jewish values. They won't say it in quite so many words, they will dwell on checkpoints and blockades and bring up apartheid and the civil rights movement. They will hardly mention Hamas, except to sigh that it hasn't chosen the path of non-violent resistance, but that won't stop them from supporting its goals anyway.

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan certainly did not mean to found a movement of genocidal apologists and activists. In 1958, at the Rabbinical Assembly of America, he sounded positively hawkish as he warned that Israel might be becoming the Czechoslovakia of this era.

He warned that Western countries would scapegoat Israel through a "futile policy of appeasing Arab nationalism" and that Zionism was the force best qualified to "reconstitute the continuity, spirituality and structure of Jewish life."

Could he have foreseen that Israel would become a scapegoat within his very own movement, which would view Zionism as its sworn enemy? Kaplan sought a larger Jewish unity through Israel, but his divisive disciples are only interested in unity with the agenda of the far left and serve as the public relations arm of the murderers of the Jewish people.

Where Kaplan had envisioned a Jewish rebirth, his movement instead became another vector for the left's replacement theology, hijacking it as thoroughly as its Muslim allies were hijacking planes. It has spawned rabbis whose only religion is the left, whose only god is the left and whose only scripture is the works of the left.

It is entirely possible to be an atheist or a humanist and support Israel-- but what is not possible, is using left wing ideology as your scripture and being anything other than an enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. The Waskows, Alperts, Bermans and Barenblats prove that.

It's an old lesson taught by the Jewish Communists who cheered pogroms as the will of the oppressed peasants and workers, who served the Bolshevik takeover and lined up to turn synagogues into cultural centers and send Rabbis and Zionists to the gulags-- only to eventually end up there themselves when their red masters no longer had any use for them.

As Lenin wrote; "Jewish national culture is the slogan of the rabbis and the bourgeoisie, the slogan of our enemies."

"Whoever, directly or indirectly, puts forward the slogan of Jewish "national culture" is (whatever his good intentions may be) an enemy of the proletariat... he is an accomplice of the rabbis and the bourgeoisie.

On the other hand, those Jewish Marxists who mingle with the Russian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and other workers in international Marxist organisations, and make their contribution... towards creating the international culture of the working-class movement... uphold the best traditions of Jewry by fighting the slogan of "national culture"."

This position is still virtually indistinguishable from that of the Jewish left on Israel today. The Jewish nation is the enemy of the proletariat of "brown people" and the accomplice of extremist Rabbis and the middle-class. Only those Jews who join in an international working class movement uphold the "best traditions of Jewry" as determined by V.I. Lenin.

The modern Jewish left uses "tribalism" or "ethnonationalism" in place of Lenin's "separatism" and "national culture". It uses "materialism" in place of the "bourgeoisie" and "solidarity" in place of the "proletariat", but the "best traditions of Jewry" slogan remains unchanged.

What are the best traditions of Judaism? We have the Lenin and Waskow interpretation. The one that says the best tradition of Judaism is to destroy it, to boycott Israel, join hands with the murderers of Jews and make war on the Jewish people. Anyone who wants to see where that interpretation leads can take a tour of the gulags, where the Yevesktsia's own members ended up, after they were done collaborating in the Communist genocide of Russian Jews. Or they can take a tour of J Street's offices.

The ideological space between them isn't that great. Listen to a JVP speech and you hear echoes of a Yevsektsia (Jewish Section) member ranting about Zionism chauvinism and outmoded religious fanaticism, and the rise of a new generation of Jewish youth committed to the struggle for the working class.

The end of that ideology is a retired gentleman whom I met, with a Jewish last name, who was a former member of the Soviet military establishment, and spoke proudly of training suicide bombers. He was rather disappointed in his grandchildren for moving to Israel, and thought that young people today just don't have the same principles that they once used to when he was a young man. He would have fit in perfectly at Jewish Voice for Peace.

On the other end of the spectrum is Rosh Hashana, the beginning of a new year. To much of the Jewish left, it is a mere cultural event, or a chance to reflect on the traditions of social justice. But though it is a new year, it is not actually the first month of the calendar. That honor belongs to Nissan, the month of the Jewish exodus from Egypt.

Even within the Jewish calendar, the peculiar separatism of the Jews places the month of the redemption from Egypt as its start, recognizing that there is no Jewish peoplehood without the exodus. Rosh Hashana is the beginning of a personal and communal new year, but the era of the Jewish people always begins with their national liberation and the beginning of a national covenant with G-d.

This is not a metaphor for the civil rights movement or the oppressed farm workers of Belize or any of the other nonsense that the replacement theology of the left tries to jam in. Their old shell game of covering everything up and then replacing it with a trojan horse that has nothing but left wing ideology inside doesn't work here. The Jewish people begin here in the trackless desert, in the sacks of unleavened dough and the long journey to the promised land. Not an idea of it, but the reality of it.

Abstraction is the left's game, it turns everything into a metaphor, removes the context, replaces it and dares you to identify whether you're drinking coffee or crystals. But Jewish history is very much a concrete thing. As is Jewish identity. It is simply the history of a people. Jewish civilization is not about working class solidarity or the highest ethical traditions, it is the sum total of our achievements and failures. Our theology is the way that our history has paralleled our relationship with our G-d.

This is who we are. This is how we have survived. The left may try to replace us, but it can never succeed no matter how many collaborators it recruits and how many warped ideas it puts forward.

Lenin was right. Jewish national culture was the slogan of his enemies. And we are his enemies. As we are the enemies of the Waskows. The old Cain and Abel struggle has never ended. But what the Cains always forget is that while they are throttling Abel, Seth will come to take his place. The Cains of the left may think that they have their hands around our throat, only to rise baffled from the corpse to see that the Jewish people still live.

The Yevsekstias and Kapos did their damnedest, only to turn around and witness the rise of Israel. Their spiritual descendants are now desperately hammering on Israel, venting their full fury on the Jewish state. But even if Israel is destroyed, the Jewish people will still go on. And the left will not.

Comments

  1. Great article. Couldn't have said it better myself.

    It always amazes me why non-believers feel the need to assume religious ideas and symbols. What is left when you vacuum out the God part? Culture?

    Come on, really?

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  2. Anonymous27/9/11

    1. I wish I could feel as confident as you do about the Jewish people going on, but the threat in the 21st century is at a level never before seen in history (i.e. nuclear weapons).

    2. I wish I could feel as confident about your belief that the left will not go on.

    3. I will try to have as much faith as you do, Mr. Greenfield. But it's pretty hard to do.

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  3. G-d said Israel would go on. His word never fails. If he said it , it will be done.

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  4. I have a problem with such a clear delineation between those who see metaphor and those who take things literally. To see things as an ability to understand as G-d does is to not understand at all. Much is metaphor, but it is not metaphor light. I wear those metaphors heavily. The temple is destroyed Daniel... all of us as Jews live with a certain degree of metaphor. Sadly you just can't scientfically gage the line of truth between metaphor and literalism in the Torah. I had my Bar Mitzvah in a Reconstructionist synagogue and I disliked it, but I also disliked other realms of American institutional Judaism. As a free thinker... even though I was raised in Reconstructionism, I could not involve myself with them. I had no place, but I was open minded enough to never hate the state of Israel. My great great grandfather was the orthodox rabbi in Pittsburgh. His son was banished by his own father because he worked in his chemistry lab on the sabbath. The research this man did led to nuclear power... and CMU where this man did his research was where Israel got it's nukes from. This man's last name was Sivitz. The nuclear knowledge that came to Israel came from Pittsburgh PA and Westinghouse. That knowledge came from the children of the orthodox who refused to rest on the sabbath because their great joy was knowledge. They weren't any less Jewish... and they were Zionists. My family raised money for what became Technion in Israel today. They believed in G-d. They were Zionists, but the context of what is appreciating G-d is very different when the Jews have inherited a code that is already interpreted. None of us are sacrificing animals in a temple... in fact none of us were in the second temple either... or for Moshe Dayan's third temple.

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  5. to demystify that last comment. there was no holy of holies in the 2nd temple... and Moshe Dayan called Demona the third temple. I don't agree with that amusing concept of nuclear energy being something we should worship... what I do believe is that without the knowledge of this science that there would be no Israel. It isn't to be worshiped... it is to be respected like an inheritance is not to be taken lightly... not even for soup... or is that just another metaphor?

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  6. Shana towa umetuka. To you and all your Jewish readers.

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  8. Over the years, I've constantly read or heard that a Jew should always love their fellow Jews, that one should have Baseless / Unconditional Love rather than Baseless hatred for ones fellow Jews.

    At the same time, it has been said for many millennia that one day (perhaps very soon), a final moral and spiritual separation / division between good and evil will take place with that nuanced grey fence being no longer safe for sitting, let alone leaning on.

    I’ve always thought that if one is supposed to love a fellow Jew, than what is the point if there are not going to be any standards beforehand that will make a basic distinction between a self-identified (Erev Rav class) Jew that wishes ill for their own people until they are liberated from the “Sinaic Curse” and a decent Jew that always looks for the good in people whether they are Jewish or non-Jewish, always wishing them the best while believing the Covenant at Sinai is a gift.

    Notice that I did not make a distinction based on religious observance, but on conviction, simple common decency and being a sincere and honest person. I do not see why one should feel represented by a fellow Jew that:

    1- Bares ill-will towards their fellow Jews by even going as far as hobnobbing / compromising with unapologetic genocidal enemies.
    2- Goes against the interests of the very community they claim to represent.
    3- Has typically replaced Judaism for Liberalism / Leftist / Socialism / Communism / etc.
    4- Traded the Torah for Das Kapital believing the former can be summed up as simply “social justice”.
    5- While envisioning repairing the world (aka Tikun Olam) as somehow bringing about a pristine and green pre-industrialised socialist utopia.
    6- And lastly, openly proclaims that there is no god and Karl Marx is his prophet.

    As for the rest of the article, so the Left has now joined other movements in trying to steal Jewish identity, narrative and destiny?

    I always assumed that they considered both Judaism and Christianity to be leftovers from a bygone age that is destined for extinction (except for islam of course), I wonder when the eco-mentalists will get in on the act… perhaps like islam they will go via the arrogated “presessionist” route.

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  9. It's a good time to remember the 12 spies whom Moses sent out to scout the Land of God's promises.
    2 out of 12
    As it is today in modern Israel,the majority then were fearful and faithless and did not believe God.

    The 'evil report' of the 10 spies continues today with the vertically challenged grasshoppers of Israel suiciding the nation by running to their idols of no-peace on the Potomac instead of looking to the God of promise who never lies.
    To call God a liar is as evil as hating Him and that is what so many did then and do now in Israel.
    They would rather trust lying,corrupt,devious US politicians for a peace that never comes than to seek the Lord.
    To better understand what motivates the Waskow's and Kaplan's remember the grasshoppers and mix in their base hatred for God.
    That is why they zealously stand with His enemies against Israel.

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  10. First they changed the definition of marriage to include any arrangement of people including six men and a bulldog.
    Now they redefine religion to include Greenpeace and the DNC.
    Next comes free speech which will mean you will be free to say anything which has been officially sanctioned.

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  11. Anonymous27/9/11

    I truly think with this one you overreach. In your desire to castigate the extreme leftists among the Jewish people you paint all those Jews who question the existence of God as anti-Zionist kapos. Shame on you.

    I have a secular Zionist son who stands alone on most days at his college defending Israel (especially against those Jews who make a big deal about being out for High Holidays) and you have no right to call him such names. Your attitude towards young people like my son is repugnant.I suggest you ask a special forgiveness this Yom Kippur for that one.

    Also, those leftists you mention in your article do believe in a Jewish God. These anti-Israel Jews use their belief in a Jewish God to pummel Israel. It is also some of the "Torah" believing Jews like the Neturah Karta and Satmars who do help Israel's enemies and pray for another genocide against their fellow Jews.

    In you need to support your libertarian, capitalist agenda you have mixed apples and oranges.

    Infact it was the secular-Zionist Jews, remember, who were the original chalutzim not the orthodox who turned their backs on Israel until after the 1967 war. The history of the rivalry between orthodox Judaism and Zionism during the early part of the 20th century was palpable and it was the secular-atheist-zionists that led the revolts and uprisings against the Nazis, (think Warsaw Ghetto and Sobibor)not the orthodox.

    It is also not the left that is in trouble, it is the extreme-left. They not only hate Israel but the USA and everything that western civilization stands for.

    Israel itself was built upon principles of socialism and the concept of shared community. There is nothing wrong with it. Caring for our neighbors is a Jewish concept. tikkun olam, and one I am glad I have taught my children to uphold.I for one will not give up my beliefs simply becasue there are those in the Jewish community who convolute their meaning, you included.

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  12. I write this from the perspective of an atheist. Daniel is right; an atheist can support the existence of Israel and its right to exist. All things considered, it is the sole moral nation in the Middle East.

    In her 1964 Playboy interview, she answered the question of whether or not religion had any value: “Faith, as such, is extremely detrimental to human life: it is the negation of reason. But you must remember that religion is an early form of philosophy, that the first attempts to explain the universe, to give a coherent frame of reference to man’s life and a code of moral values, were made by religion, before men graduated or developed enough to have philosophy. And, as philosophies, some religions have very valuable moral points.”

    The phrases “Just do it!” and “Do the right thing” are Kantian in origin and substance. Kant’s philosophy was an attempt to save religion from reason and science. A central tenet of his philosophy was that one wasn’t perfectly moral if one acted from the least selfish motive; if one saw that an action would benefit someone else, that was the sole justification for acting ( the categorical imperative), and not for any good feelings or any residual benefit one might experience for having acted.

    In the case of environmentalists, for example, it isn’t even an issue of acting for someone else’s benefit, but for a thing (or an animal). Just save the wolves or the spotted owls or the polar bears or the ozone layer, because of alleged intrinsic values in those things, values that somehow exist apart from human values and the conditions for human existence. Our culture is riddled with the consequences of Kant’s philosophy (e.g., recycling). It’s no coincidence that Nazism arose in Germany (Kant was a Prussian).

    So, it isn’t surprising to read about Jews who advocate the destruction of Israel. They’re “doing the right thing” because their altruist premises compel them to advocate it, and those premises mesh perfectly with those of the active killers and murderers of other Jews, who say the right thing to do is to erase Israel from the map of the Middle East. Reason would lead to an individual’s support for Israel. The Kaplans and Waskows of Judaism (like the archbishop of Canterbury and the Pope), if they are to remain consistent with their faith, must say, “Palestine for the Palestinians, and no Jewish state,” because their reason has been wholly and negated. An individual who has negated his mind is open to advocate the most horrendous causes, because he no longer has a mind to judge good and evil. That is a Kantian end and accomplishment. Just do it. Never mind why. Because someone says so. Period.

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  13. I neglected to mention her name. It was Ayn Rand's 1964 Playboy interview.

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  14. Anonymous27/9/11

    After five thousand years of Jewish history, there remain but 15 million Jews. Most have learned the lessons of the pogroms, the Holocaust and, most recently, Arab/Islamic terrorism. They are the vast silent majority.

    Sadly, there are other Jews/Jewish NGOs who have not learned a damn thing. They are the socialists, communists, anarchists and so-called “human rights” junkies and “peace and justice” activists. The well-being of Israel is the very least of their concerns. What they lack in number they more than make up in noise level. These Jews/NGOs are funded by Israel’s eternal enemies.

    Yes, a few of these Self-Hating Jews may be well-intentioned but grossly misinformed… call it brainwashed by wave after wave of anti-Israel propaganda. But most of them know the Truth but hate their heritage to such a degree that nothing else matters to them except bashing Israel right out of existence.

    In an October 22, 2004 Jewish Press Letter to the Editor, Isadore Frank got it 100% right when he wrote, “Unfortunately, the vast majority of American Jews… utterly secular, thoroughly liberal, abysmally ignorant of their heritage… are beyond redemption. Not only are large numbers of them unaware or apathetic about the inroads made by “Palestinian” propaganda, many are actually in agreement, at least to some degree, with [those scurrilous] ‘Palestinian’ claims.”

    Self hating Jews are worst than the Kapo collaborators of Nazi Germany. They are the scum of the earth. Worse than the Sicarri of the 2nd Temple era.

    The Bible has a good description for such traitors: Dogs "pissing on the wall". Dogs that bite the hand that feeds them, they poison the well that they drink from.

    In WWII over 150,000 half Jews, Quarter Jews and Converted Jews joined the Wehrmacht to defend the "Fatherland". Most of them fought bravely to prove their loyalty and worthiness to their Aryan commanders. Eventually all were sent to concentration camps to be gassed by the order of Hitler himself.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcDpptCdYY0

    For Antisemites Jews are Jews even if they have converted to Catholicism 500 years ago.

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  15. to IP, no I don't paint atheists as anti-zionist kapos, though I understand how a casual reading can give that impression

    I paint anti-zionist kapos as anti-zionist kapos

    "It is entirely possible to be an atheist or a humanist and support Israel-- but what is not possible, is using left wing ideology as your scripture and being anything other than an enemy of Israel and the Jewish people. "

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  16. IP 2, Orthodoxy is not homogenous. Orthodox Jews were among the first to pioneer a return to Israel.

    Different denominations within OJ have and continue to react differently to the state.

    As for Tikkun Olam that embodies the whole concept of left replacement theology entirely usurping Judaism.

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  17. Rashi's commentary on B'reshit, concerning the very first pasuk. He cites Rabbi Yitzhak as follows:

    It was not necessary to begin the Torah, [whose main objective is to teach commandments and mitzvot, with this verse] but from This month shall be unto you the [beginning of months] [Sh'mot 12:2], since this is the first mitzva that Israel was commanded. And what is the reason that this begins with B'reshit? Because of [the verse] The power of His works He hath declared to His people in giving them the heritage of the nations [Tehillim 111:6]. For if the nations of the world should say to Israel: 'You are robbers, because you have seized by force the lands of the seven nations' they [Israel] could say to them, 'The entire world belongs to the Holy One, Blessed Be He, He created it and gave it to whomever it was right in His eyes. Of His own will He took it from them and gave it to us.' [Yalkut, Sh'mot 12:2]

    Finally, a section of Tanakh -- Tehillim 105:44-45 states:

    And He gave them the lands of the nations and the labor of the people did they inherit. That they might keep His statutes and observe His laws.

    If indeed these are the facts, if Jewish thought rests upon the validity of the Torah being true, then the halakhic decisions derived must conform to these truths. Why cannot a Jewish polity be formed in Lithuania or Brooklyn?

    Simply put, G-d gave the Jewish people a place and that place is the Land of Israel. The question of why the Land of Israel is thus answered.

    If a Jew is to accept one tenant of the Torah, he must, in order to be logically consistent, accept the whole of Torah. Likewise, if a person is to accept that he is Jewish then he must define this concept upon viable and authentic Jewish sources and render precise his own actions accordingly. Any other alternative to this is something other than Judaism. That is, a person may, given free-will, live according to what is right in his own eyes, however, he must be rationally forced to understand that it is of his own devise and should be so called as such.

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  18. IP, finally I'm sorry that I offended you, but the differences between the left and the extreme left are increasingly non-existent today. Its attitude on Israel is only one sign of that.

    Israel was not created by the left, it was however almost destroyed by the left who were willing to appease the Arabs endlessly while murdering Jewish patriots and it is being destroyed by the left today.

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  19. Edward, yes the postmodern faith in atonement for capitalism and materialism through altruism

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  20. Anonymous27/9/11

    The only thing that explains Jew-hatred and persecution is that the Bible is true.

    If you believed in some foolish superstitious religion, the left would think you were darling and cute in your primitivism.

    In my experience as a missionary, I found that many people give various intellectual pretexts for not believing which are but masks for not wanting to accept or be bound by moral standards.

    The Romans called the Jews, "the people of the book", long before Muhammad came along because they recognized and respected the morality that Judaism upheld.

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  21. Just some thoughts, comments, question or two:




    Is tikkun olam a strictly liberal concept? I used to think if was something central to Judaism, but I suppose the whole idea of reparing/perfecting the world depends on what you think it wrong with it and how you think it should be repared.

    Torah makes it clear what the problem is and how to repare the world. Liberals.....???????


    Am Yisroel Chai! True. Hashem said it and He is true to His word always. It isn't just a nice catch-phrase or song lyric. but the following Od avinu chai is where a lot of people get lost. They forgot that our forefathers were real people who made a very real convenant with G-d. Once people forget that it reduces the entire Torah into folklore:(

    Is it true that in the Torah Rosh Hashanah is only called Yom Teru'ah?

    That would make understanding the blasts of the shofar critical to understanding Rosh Hashanah.

    I never really understood the shofar, only that it is kind of scary to me. And is there a difference between the sound representing march/repentence and battle/spirituality?

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  22.  Daniel says :
    "... a spirituality that consists wholly of compassion and a compassion that consists wholly
    of following a left of center ideology while claiming that their grab bag of the welfare state,
    anti-war activism and environmentalism, is highly spiritual..." (quote)

    I remember years ago, in our Ygroup group, we had as a member a young lawyer actively working for
    the South (Southern?) Poverty Law Center, repeatedly referring to Tikkun Olam etc, in his posts,
    and we had discussions and disagreements quite often for his support of democrats ...
    Daniel's description of these Jewish leftists fits him perfectly, in my memory. I must add that I have the greatest contempt for them.
    K.

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  23. cruft27/9/11

    Daniel, What is your point as a Jew concerning the use of "Replacement Theology" which is a Christian heresy stating that the christian have superseded the jew and the Mosaic covenant is void. Surly a more appropriate example could have been used. Or was I missing something? I tend to do that alot.

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  24. P.S.
    To unhappy fathers of left-bending children, I suggest reading at least parts of this essay, on Rosh Hashana during the family reunion - with the wishful thinking that it might work as a mind-opener...
    K.

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  25. My point was that liberals have their own replacement theology which they've imposed on Judaism.

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  26. Anonymous27/9/11

    To anonymous #1, not to worry, we went through 3500 years of dispersion, pogroms, expulsion, killings, Holocaust, etc. and we are still here and we will be here in the future. Of course an atheist would not belive it, but even logic shows it.
    To Keli, the voice of the shofar is our breath reaching to G-d, just like he blew into Adam's nostrils his essence. There is a small voice (different from speech) inside every Jew, that reaches G-d with the shofar.
    Sultan, wonderful essay, but please don't call them rabbis, they don't believe in
    G-d and it doesn't mather what they call themselves, they just want to be "in your face".
    To the independent patriot I feel sorry for your lack of knowledge of your own religion. Yes, leftism has taken the place of Judaism in the Jewish assimilated community.

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  27. Anonymous27/9/11

    Sorry, I forgot to say to you: SHANA TOVA and thank you for your great site.

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  28. Anonymous27/9/11

    I'm not religious -rather agnostic- but my advise to Jews is: stay away from the leftist, as from the nazi and the islamo-nazi, for the same reasons. Reasons explained by Daniel in this article -and other articles before.

    Leftists -particularly the extreme ones- will always desire to assimilate the Jews, either by force or by making them feel bad about themselves or by denying the need for a Jewish state.

    Fed.

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  29. Joshua and Caleb contended with this same hindrance, in its desert-dwelling exodic manifestation. Nothing new here.
    As a gentile C-tian, I wish you, Daniel-- and those who stand with you in this struggle-- a joyous and prosperous Rosh Hashanah. May you never forsake the G-d who delivered your people from bondage, and may you never return to that slavish serfdom--neither under a Lenin-type, nor an appeasement negotiator.
    Blessings be upon the brave Jewish settlers who have chosen to drive their stakes in the eretz Israel of East Jerusalem. They are merely acting constructively upon Creator-given property rights that were providentially proclaimed long ago.

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  30. If the Middle East conflict were about land, rights or settlements or being politically left or right it would have been solved long ago. It is not. It is Cultural War that means Islamic culture must destroy western culture or western must destroy Islamic culture it is a Genocidal War.

    It also could means that Islamic culture can change us or we could try and change them before we destroy each other.

    The book "Culture and Conflict”, explains it clearly. It shows that current cultural conditions in the Arab Middle East will not support internal development, advancement or peace until there is a major cultural change. “It is critical that we understand our enemy. That is step one in every conflict,” RR. Philip Carl Salzman, INSB # 978-1-59102-587-0.

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  31. Kristin Solo28/9/11

    God made an ETERNAL COVENANT with Avraham, Isaac & Jacob... 'and their descendants for ever'.
    Its unchanging nature reflects on the negatives and positives experienced by the Children of Israel throughout their history to the present day.
    Immediately following the Exodus from the bondage of Egypt, Israel became a nation under God, whose directives were the foundation, set in stone, that ensured Israel's existence, liberty, prosperity and ultimate survival.
    Torah indicates that abiding by God's directive brings Blessing and turning away from it brings Cursing.
    Deuteronomy 11:26:
    ' Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse'
    The Liberal leftist agenda runs contrary to The Covenant and consequently abandons true Jewish identity and heritage.
    It will subsequently inherit the Divine Curse as did Dathan And Abiram > Deuteronomy 11:6
    Joshua chose the correct option
    ' As for me and my house we shall serve The Lord ' > Joshua 24:15
    The Jewish People are The People of The Book. The entire Bible bears testimony to the Eternal Covenant between God and Israel with enormous implications for all the Nations.

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  32. Weren't the founders of Israel (modern Israel that is) somewhat leftist in their ideology?

    Personally I despise the atheists who try to foist on me their ideology that all religions are the same, which really has led to the amorality that has allowed islamonazism to spread like a goddamn cancer all over the world.

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  33. Anonymous2/10/11

    As an aside, we need to mention the election of J-Street member Rabbi Richard Jacobs to the presidency of the Union for Reform Judaism. I was so incensed by this action, I told the rather incredulous leadership of my Reform Temple I would not give one more cent unless I could be assured that none of my monies would go upstream to the URJ. They complied, but I apparently was the ONLY member to object. Our Rabbi had nothing but praise for Rabbi Jacobs. We need to be much, much more cognizant of where our leaders, especially among the Reform movement, are trying to take us.

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  34. Dorothy Margraf3/10/11

    Rabbi Kaplan was a signer of Humanist Manifesto II along with Rabbi Sherwin Wine.
    http://www.scribd.com/doc/55587455/Humanist-Manifestos-Signatories
    Arthur Waskow came from the Institute for Policy Studies, a communist think tank. They are both part of what is called the New Age movement, a 100 year old movement toward one world government (Progressive) and one world religion, the latter not including Judaism or Christianity, but including the Eastern religions and the occult. I've been watching this movement for about 30 years now because of the antisemitism involved. See the Alice Bailey channeled book Externalization of the Hierarchy to see an example of the antisemitism involved. Rabbi Noson Leiter from Monsey knows what I'm talking about as does Rabbi Elliot Gertel in Chicago.

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