Brian Welch of Korn Accepted Jesus

How are we supposed to understand testimonies, like Brian Welch's, formerly a member of the alternative metal band Korn very popular in the 90's? Welch is open about his previous addiction to methamphetamines, apparently using it for 700 days straight before accepting Jesus.

As frum Jews, what are we to make of such a testimony? One thing is for sure, you won't ever find me knocking somebody's decision to improve his life, especially when it comes to quitting drugs and straightening out. I am a serious proponent of peoples' dignity and self-respect and find it very encouraging when people break bad habits and become better people.

What is strange to me is that while Jesus may be the reason Welch found himself free of the desire to take drugs, it may also be that when a person commits to a position of self improvement, deliberately detaching himself from harmful influences, what often follows is a lack of a desire for the things that previously ensnared him. And all of this happens without Jesus.

For example, when I started becoming observant 21 years ago, I too found myself in a renewed positive frame of mind where I desired good things and was repulsed by bad ones. While it's true that I was not addicted to hard drugs, my decision to turn my life in the more positive direction of observance changed me from the inside-out. I can assure you that accepting Jesus had nothing to do with that very pivotal set of transformations.

Committing to a track of self improvement while eschewing harmful influences turns out to be very relevant. According to the Rambam, teshuva is encapsulated by the following four steps:

1. Regret
2. Cessation
3. Confession
4. Future resolution

When the Beis HaMikdash stood, the fifth step required bringing a sacrifice.

Notice that the "rock bottom" effect that many former addicts experience lines up with regret and cessation (stages 1 and 2), and that committing to a track of self improvement lines up with future resolution (stage 4). This means that a person can experience a sense of renewal and liberation from his sin without Jesus stepping in to help him. The above process was designed to break a person away from his sin, and if he engages in it, he shouldn't be surprised that it works.

Having said that, and I've seen this happen with people who've come Christians for this reason, accepting Jesus is an important step in helping them to knock a very bad habit. It helps get them out of the proverbial mud or destruction into which they've fallen. However, while it does wonders in the short run, in the long run it requires them to accept that their nature as human beings is wretched and underserving of redemption. They sign on the dotted line to become free from whatever mental or spiritual ailment they're suffering from, while committing to a theological position that describes them as being fundamentally corrupt and disgusting in the eyes of God. The medicine seems just as bad as the disease.

And so it doesn't actually pave the path to genuine rectification - it simply enforces the destructive self image that subconsciously drove them to sin in the first place. It doesn't actually teach them that they are good people who are capable of actual change, but that they are helpless against their evil human nature, and hence need Jesus. It is for this reason that I reject the testimonial repentance narrative.

In Genesis 4:7 God says to Cain very clearly, "Sin rests at the door, it's desire is toward you, yet you can conquer it." You actually possess the ability to change, not in the way that Christianity proposes, i.e., in your acceptance that you cannot change and therefore need Jesus, but rather that you inherently possess the ability for positive change. And if you possess this ability, as God seems to be imploring Cain, you are expected to express that ability.

Salvation Is Free, Or Is It?

March 15, 2021 - Nisan 2, 5781

Three Scenarios of Forgiveness

Let us imagine a situation in which a person is brought to court before a judge for committing some sort of infraction. The judge looks the person up and down and then in the eye, and decides to waive his fee. The person gleefully leaves the courtroom with his spirit renewed with a great sense of appreciation for the judge and his mercy.

Let us now slightly adjust the situation by introducing another variable. Let us imagine a situation in which a person is brought to court before a judge for running a red light. As in the first case, the judge considers the situation and waives the offender's fee.

Let us now add another variable into the equation to see what happens. Let's take the example of the man who ran the red light, but in this case let's say that he struck another car and killed a family of four. As before he is brought into the courtroom to stand before the judge, and the judge waives his fee.

What is our intuitive reaction to each scenario?

In the first scenario we may be apt to feel appreciation and warmth toward the judge for what seems like undeserved mercy. This is an appropriate reaction when the person's infraction affects only him. However, when we consider the second scenario, in which the person's action was potentially dangerous to somebody other than himself, we may be more cautious when applying mercy. In the third situation, in which the person killed four other people due to negligence, we may consider applying mercy to be a gross perversion of justice. The application of mercy must be determined by the outcome of the event(s).

Is It Really Merciful to Forgive?

The very definition of mercy is to show favor to someone undeserving. Merriam Webster's defines mercy as "compassion or forbearance shown especially to an offender or to one subject to one's power" and "lenient or compassionate treatment." Note that we are not speaking about the judge's right to waive the fee, but whether or not it would bring about the best possible good.

Waiving a fee can only be considered in relation to the offense committed. In the second case above, waiving the fee may be favorable to the offender, but depending on his attitude it will have one of two different effects. If the offender is appreciative of the judge's mercy, it may prompt him to be more careful and to avoid running red lights in the future. If the offender is crass and not appreciative, he may have learned nothing from the experience and may continue to drive dangerously.

Mercy as well has a ripple effect on those observing the case. When people see that the judge unequivocally waives penalties associated with running red lights, they may think to themselves that if they ever get caught running a red light that this judge will be lenient with them as well. In turn this leads people to be less careful while running red lights, endangering themselves and others, culminating in an increased disregard for law and order.

Now let us consider another variable. Let's reason that this judge has earned a reputation for mercy in the public eye. In general the public is said to have a great love and admiration for this judge and therefore actively seek out to avoid committing offenses, such as running red lights. However, the entire set of possibilities available to most people will inevitably lead to committing other offenses, either big or small. In the complexity and dynamics of personal, social, and business interactions, people will find it impossible to avoid committing a range of offenses, even though they may admire this judge. It therefore becomes necessary to impose particular penalties to prevent the greatest amount of people possible from committing offenses. In fact, such penalties would not be punitive in nature, but would set in place to establish order and to prevent injury and death. The core motivation for these penalties is the judge's love for the citizens.

But we cannot overlook those individuals who are motivated to avoid offenses borne of admiration for the judge. Inevitably when such individuals commit offenses and are brought before the judge, he will consider their record and will exercise leniency with them in accordance with their past and with their attitude while in the courtroom. He acts in this way because of a conviction that they will be more cautious in the future, and so he trusts letting them go with either a light sentence or no sentence at all.

However, those crass individuals who have demonstrated apathy and recklessness must receive harsher sentencing in order to prevent them from persisting in their offenses, which harm them and the people around them. This is certainly true of people who show no remorse at all for their offenses, so calloused through repetition or a non-functioning conscience that they experience no regret or shame for their actions. The judge is both merciful and just, and exercising mercy to recalcitrant offenders is to exercise cruelty toward undeserving victims. The purpose of the judge's sentencing is to bring about the greatest sense of good for all involved; both the offender and all related parties, which in certain cases requires the suspension of mercy.

A Real Life Example

A good real life example of this is the case of Gary Ridgeway, known as the Green River Killer, who murdered 49 girls and women between the 1980s and 1990s.

In a video titled The Power of Forgiveness - Gary Ridgway, the father of one of the victims is seen responding to Ridgway in an unexpected manner:

A person capable of regret would have cried during the drawn-out and painful process of reading off a list of 48 names in succession of people that you killed. The well-placed Schindler's List music coupled with the image of a grown crying man does a good job in evincing an emotional response. However, over the ten-year course that this man murdered, raped, and dumped girls and women into the lake, did he stop to cry once? Did he consider for a moment the future that he was creating for himself, and the future that he was taking from these girls and women and their families? Did he think about repenting once or getting help, or was he happy enough concealing his illness and continuing in his revelry?

It was awfully nice of the father of the victim to apologize, but it is the prerogative of the wronged party to forgive, not of people in the periphery, even if they are closely related. It was unsettling to see this father become an accomplice with Rigdway in the murder of his daughter; Ridgway may have killed her body, but her father killed her memory, which is must worse. 

While this footage is heart-wrenching, we can not let emotions cloud our judgment; offering mercy to an individual guilty of repeated, heinous crimes demonstrating no intent or ability to stop a) permits evil to continue, which creates more victims, and b) perverts justice towards for the victims who have already been wronged, extending to their families and friends. Throughout his case, according to Seattlepi.com, Ridgway referred to "the young women he strangled and dumped along the now-notorious river or in wooded ravines..." "as garbage." The fate of the guilty party cannot take precedence over the fact of the innocent, and to do so would not be mercy.

Further, we should distinguish between the example above and the thing that we are trying to compare. In the case above, Ridgway was sentenced even though being forgiven by the parent of one of the victims. In the case of mercy through Jesus, the transgressor is released from sentencing entirely. Therefore the demonstration above is not really comparable, for the judge saw it appropriate to sentence Ridgway regardless of his being forgiven by a relative of one of the victims.

Some of the comments on this video express the type of attractive, yet incorrect, intuition. I wouldn't want the following people ever to be put in a position of presiding as a judge:

1. Christ and God puts a major emphasis on forgiveness and instructed their followers that true forgiveness is vital to a healthy spiritual life. True Christians are supposed to apply this notion in everyday life, other religions may say the same, others say otherwise.


2. That´s the hardest part of being Christian. This guy nailed it. It takes massive courage to do that.


3. Forgiveness is stronger than hate. Forgiveness heals, it liberates, its compassionate but most of all its a sign of Love. Love conquers all.

The following is the type of approach more correct for forgiveness:

I think most people reach a point, where forgiveness, empathy and compassion turn to anger, even if for a while. Especially when the compassion and empathy are not returned. I know a friend whose other friend of 15 years slept with his wife behind his back, in their home the first friend was paying mortgage for, for over a year. And it led to divorce and some serious blues for the first friend. And the cheating friend never apologized, he never showed remorse. How do you just forgive that? Ultimately, the forgiveness in my opinion comes after a long time of anger, internal struggle, etc. and it's done because the forgiving party realizes it will only benefit their mental health.

Conclusion

What we should strive to realize is that forgiveness and mercy are not the same thing. Forgiveness is important as an attitude of the victim and his family, and is central to mental health, but is a perversion of justice and a corrupting force if exercised towards serious and repeat offenders. It may help the recipient of mercy, and it may help you in getting over loss, but it doesn't help anybody else, and everybody else matters, too.

Mishlei says:

"He who vindicates the wicked and condemns the righteous-both are an abomination to the Lord." (17:15)

"It is not good to be partial to the wicked, to subvert the righteous in judgment." (18:5)

Let us remember King Solomon's words inspired by the ruach hakodesh:

---

Everything has an appointed season, and there is a time for every matter under the heaven.

A time to give birth and a time to die; a time to plant and a time to uproot that which is planted.

A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to break and a time to build.

A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time of wailing and a time of dancing.

A time to cast stones and a time to gather stones; a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing.

A time to rend and a time to sew; a time to be silent and a time to speak.

A time to love and a time to hate; a time for war and a time for peace.

Koheles 3:1-8

---

What time is right to hate if not for those who have committed unspeakable evil on innocent people? Shall we render the above null and void?

Meet Joe Black and Judaism

March 15, 2021 - Nisan 2, 5781

Meet Joe Black

The Angel of Death figures prominently in many movies as an inescapably interesting character. While many of them depict him in an either distinctly Christian fashion or entirely exaggerated more akin to a Marvel comics character or fan-fiction creation, there is one movie that I have seen containing a scene with what seems like an astonishingly accurate portrayal according to Jewish sources.

The depiction of the Angel of Death in this movie accords with Judaism in the following ways:

1. He refuses to reveal his name to the person he materializes to.
2. He is not a rebellious angel committed to overthrowing God.

That movie is Meet Joe Black, in which the Angel of Death makes a deal with a multimillionaire head of a corporation whose time on earth has come to an end. The Devil strikes a deal with this man to permit him to live as long as he lives up to sufficiently capturing his interest with worldly matters, such as business and peanut butter.

The Angel of Death in Judaism

Before proceeding, a quick background on the Angel of Death in Judaism. What may come as a surprise to many readers, according to the Talmud (Bava Basra 16a) the Angel of Death is actually Satan; they are the same being. How, you ask, does the angel tasked with ending life have anything to do with tempting humanity to sin?

Given the terse writing style of the Talmud, I copied and pasted an excerpt in both English and Hebrew for those interested in cross-referencing. Both come from Sefaria.

Reish Lakish says: Satan, the evil inclination, and the Angel of Death are one, that is, they are three aspects of the same essence. He is the Satan who seduces people and then accuses them, as it is written: “So the Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with vile sores” (Job 2:7). He is also the evil inclination, as it is written there: “The impulse of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continuously” (Genesis 6:5); and it is written here: “Only upon himself do not put forth your hand” (Job 1:12). The verbal analogy between the various uses of the word “only” teaches that the evil inclination is to be identified with the Satan. He is also the Angel of Death, as it is written: “Only spare his life” (Job 2:6); apparently Job’s life depends upon him, the Satan, and accordingly the Satan must also be the Angel of Death.

אָמַר רֵישׁ לָקִישׁ הוּא שָׂטָן הוּא יֵצֶר הָרָע הוּא מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת הוּא שָׂטָן דִּכְתִיב וַיֵּצֵא הַשָּׂטָן מֵאֵת פְּנֵי ה׳ הוּא יֵצֶר הָרָע כְּתִיב הָתָם רַק רַע כׇּל הַיּוֹם וּכְתִיב הָכָא (רַק אֶת נַפְשׁוֹ שְׁמֹר) [רַק אֵלָיו אַל תִּשְׁלַח יָדֶךָ] הוּא מַלְאַךְ הַמָּוֶת דִּכְתִיב (רַק) [אַךְ] אֶת נַפְשׁוֹ שְׁמֹר אַלְמָא בְּדִידֵיהּ קָיְימָא.

A scene occurs in this movie where the Angel of Death introduces itself to William Parish, the owner of a large company. During this interesting and awkward interaction between the two, the Angel of Death slowly, gradually, and only implicitly reveals its identity to Parrish through their conversation. The most striking element of this interaction is that the Angel of Death seems to be deliberately avoiding revealing its name or identity to Parrish, instead opting to drawing it out of him through innuendo.

This immediately brought to mind the struggle between Jacob and the angel in Genesis:

And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn. When he saw that he could not prevail against him, he touched the socket of his hip, and the socket of Jacob's hip became dislocated as he wrestled with him. And he (the angel) said, "Let me go, for dawn is breaking," but he (Jacob) said, "I will not let you go unless you have blessed me." So he said to him, "What is your name?" and he said, "Jacob." And he said, "Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed." And Jacob asked and said, "Now tell me your name," and he said, "Why is it that you ask for my name?" And he blessed him there. (Genesis 32:25-30)

According to Rashi on verse 25 above, "Our Rabbis explained (Gen. Rabbah 77:3, 78:3) that this was the prince (guardian angel) of Esau." According to Judaism, every nation has a "guardian angel," an angel that rallies on behalf of its nation and manifests God's will towards it on earth. The angel Michael is the guardian angel of the nation of Israel, i.e., of Jacob.

How do we know that that the Angel of Death is Esav's guardian angel? Yalkut Shimoni 110 says the following:

"And the children struggled within her," they were struggling over who would inherit this world and the next. At that moment Samael sought to kill Jacob in his mother's womb, but Michael stood before him when he sought to. Michael stood to burn Samael until God judged set up judgment between them. And God said to her (Sarah), "through Shem, the son of Noah," (as is written in the verse "and Sarah denied" [Genesis 18:15]).

ויתרוצצו הבנים בקרבה שהיו חולקין בשביל העולם הזה והעולם הבא באותה שעה רצה סמאל להרוג יעקב במעי אמו אלא שעמד מיכאל כנגדו באותה שעה עמד מיכאל ורצה לשרוף לסמאל עד שהושיב הקב"ה בתי דינים ביניהן. ויאמר ה' לה על ידי שם בן נח (ככתוב בפסוק ותכחש שרה):

During that cosmic wrestling match, when Jacob asks the angel for its name, it apparently refuses and says, "Why is it that you ask for my name?" For some odd reason in Meet Joe Black, the director sought for the Angel of Death to avoid saying its own name. This leads me to think that the director of this movie may have been familiar with the sources described above, and hinted to them in this scene. If the angel that wrestled Jacob was Esav's angel, and Esav's angel is the Angel of Death, and the Angel of Death refused to reveal its identity, this scene makes perfect sense.

Progressive Revelation

February 15, 2021 - 2 Adar 5781

What Is Progressive Revelation?

According to Blue Letter Bible, "The things that God revealed to humanity were not all given at once. His revelation was given in stages." This essay addresses four issues with the concept of progressive revelation. The first is that there are no indications of progressive revelation occurring within the Torah. The second is that progressive relation prevents people from knowing the truth in the present. The third is that the Trinity, a product of progressive revelation, is too similar to polytheism for comfort. The fourth is that once such a claim is made, it is repeatedly claimed by subsequent religions.

Issue 1 - One Does Not Observe Progressive Revelation In The Tanakh

It's easy to believe that progressive relation occurs as one crosses over from the Jewish Scriptures to the Christian Scriptures; this is exactly the argument you would expect somebody to make to authenticate their own scriptures. But progressive revelation indicates that it occurred either gradually or at certain intervals, with the Christian Scriptures being the final stage. That would mean that one would be able to identify progressive revelation occurring within the Tanakh, of which there are no genuinely satisfying examples.

The Blue Letter Bible says that the Tanakh is incomplete because it contains prophecies that remain unfulfilled: "In addition, the Old Testament records predictions that were still to be fulfilled. For example, the Old Testament ends with the promise of the coming of Elijah who will prepare the way for the promised deliverer - the Messiah." The unfulfilled status of the Tanakh's prophecies does not mean that it is flawed, it just means that those events have not occurred yet, and that their occurrence will not be canonized in the Tanakh. This is like saying that a teenager isn't perfect because they haven't reached maturity yet.

Out of a genuine respect for the Jewish Scriptures, the Blue Letter Bible assures us that being incomplete is not synonymous with being less true: "Progressive revelation does not mean to say that the Old Testament is somehow less true than the New Testament. The progress was not from untruth to truth - it was from less information to more full information." While this is a gracious nod to the Tanakh, equating "more" with "more correct" is nevertheless not always true. Sometimes less is more: "Do not add to the word which I command you..." (Deuteronomy 4:2)

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Issue 2 - It Prevents People From Knowing God In The Present

If God seeks people to know Him, why would He keep His true nature from His people and from the entire human race until a relatively late point in history? One explanation provided by Catholic.com relates the advice given to the author by a college professor: "A college professor of mine once said to be leery of someone who tells you everything about himself in the first five minutes you know him. Jesus did not do this, and neither has the Father."

While this may be true of strangers that you meet on the street or in the doctor's office, it isn't true of people with which you have a serious and intimate relationship. Nominally speaking, it's critical to discover the most important aspects of a person before, say, getting married to them. Insofar as the relationship between God and the Jews is like a marriage, it would be critical to have an accurate conception of God's Nature before going to the chuppah, which was Mount Sinai. It would be highly unfortunate to discover ten years into the marriage that your spouse was schizophrenic. Isaiah 55:8 says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." The way human beings do things is not necessarily the way that God does them.

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Issue 3 - The Trinity Is Too Similar to Polytheism

Perhaps God withheld the Trinity from the Jews due to the concern that they would confuse it with polytheism. This is another explanation advanced by Catholic.com: "In the Old Testament God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions that abounded. Monotheism was almost unheard of, and if Yahweh had tried announcing that he is three Persons the people of the day might have misunderstood it as Tritheism, which is a heresy."

It does not evince much confidence in the Trinity to suggest that the Jews (or anybody else) would have mistaken it for polytheism. Surely the Jews had enough experience with said transgression, both from observing it all around them in a variety of forms, and from experiencing it first hand, to know the difference between polytheism and genuine monotheism. It is patronizing and insults peoples' intelligence to suggest that "God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions" only to invite them into a relationship that was almost just as scandalous. If polytheism is prostitution, the Trinity is an escort service.

This site also argues that today "we have enough trouble trying to get people to believe in the one true God, let alone many. Thus the New Testament was a better time for God to have revealed his true nature, now that the danger of a polytheistic misunderstanding had been eliminated." What this ignores is that while polytheism is arguably not in fashion today, it was abundant in the era in which the New Testament was written and in the places that the Roman Empire occupied. The Trinity found itself in good company during that era and region and didn't overtly conflict with polytheism as Judaism did.

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Issue 4 - When Does Progressive Revelation Stop?

How do we know that progressive revelation has stopped on the Christian Scriptures? While Jews contend with Christians over the impossibility and error of progressive revelation into Christianity, Christians contend with more than one group, namely Muslims and Mormons. While the Muslim claim precedes Mormonism, Mormonism claims to be the correct understanding of Christianity. Each of these groups advances the notion that progressive revelation continued after the Christian Scriptures into their own scriptures; the Book of Mormon or the Q'uran. There is an old joke that Jews like to tell; Why did God create Mormons? So Christians would know how Jews feel.

According to the Mormon site The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, "'The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ and confirms the truths found in the Holy Bible. Far from undermining the Bible, the Book of Mormon supports its testimony of Jesus Christ. One passage says that the Book of Mormon “shall establish the truth” of the Bible “and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved' (1 Nephi 13:40)."

According to Islamweb.net, "Allah, The Almighty, revealed the Quran to be His last, all-embracing Scripture containing the final manifestation of the Divine Law. This necessitates that it has to be safeguarded from the mischievous hands of men and from all corruption. This protection has been a reality from the time the Quran was revealed until today and will remain so forever." It also says that the "'Islamic Law is lasting, remaining suitable for every place and time, and embracing the goodness of the previous manifestations of the Law. Allah Says (what means): “And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it.' [Quran 5:48]"

The above explanations sound structurally similar to Christianity's description of the relationship between the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. According to Christianity.com: "The religion of the Old Testament is the embryo of Christianity. The Old Testament is the gospel in the bud. The New Testament is the gospel in full flower. The saints in the Old Testament saw many things through a glass darkly. But they all looked by faith to the same Savior and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves." It also says, "The relation between our Lord's teaching and that of the Old Testament is cleared up by our Lord in one striking sentence. He says, 'Don't think that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill' (Matthew 5:17)."

What does the Torah say about this matter? Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." While Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all understand this verse as a prohibition of adding to their own own scriptures, Jews see it in its original context of not adding anything to the Torah.

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Conclusion

A religion claiming to have received an updated vision will by definition reject all of its predecessor's objections. It rejects their objections on the grounds they were not the recipients of the new revelation. If they had received the new revelation then they would have no objections to it. This is a circular argument designed to prevent people from analyzing the contents of a prophecy critically.

There is therefore no good way to prevent new religions from forever claiming that they have received a new revelation, but there is a good way to prevent people from believing them. God explicitly inoculated the Jews against this form of deceit in two verses: Deuteronomy 13:1 through 6 and Deuteronomy 18:20: "Now if you say to yourself, 'How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?' If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him."

In the latter verse, God legitimizes the Jews' suspicion that a prophet may be lying. This is demonstrated by the fact that He provides them with the criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets. Claiming to have received prophecy to substantiate prophecy is considered to be an illegitimate means of verification. The only legitimate means of verification is empirical. In contrast to the Jews' complaining and rebelling against God in the desert, He does not see this question as a sign of stubbornness or rebellion, but as a sign of their willingness to follow Him.

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What is Anti-Semitism?

Anti-Semitism is:

• A designation used to describe ideas rooted in the intent, or that have the effect of, disenfranchising Jews. This is often characterized by applying standards to Jews that are not applied to other people or groups when they can be, or ignoring them when found among other people or groups.
• Denying or falsifying Jewish history with the intent of disenfranchising Jews.
• Ascribing to the perspective that Jews secretly collaborate, and deny attempts to, infiltrate, manipulate, and influence a society’s ideas or values as a means to exercise control over political processes. Charging Jews with an unfounded lack of loyalty to their country of citizenship is an expression of this perspective.
• Ascribing to the perspective that the nature of being Jewish is financial greed, immorality, perversion, and sinfulness.

Anti-Semitism is not:

Any criticism of Jews or Israel in a manner consistent with criticizing other parties and based on the same or similar principles. For example, criticizing an Israel lobby is not Anti‑Semitic if one understands that lobbies are designed by nature to exert influence or control over political processes. It is perfectly reasonable and just to criticize an Israel lobby in this manner. Another example: claiming that the Jews run Hollywood if one considers that the role of Jews in Hollywood is not reflective of the entirety of American Jewry.

How We Know that the Trinity is Not in the Torah?

September 7, 2020 - 18 Elul 5780

Introduction

The first and most basic answer is that God did not explicitly reveal the Trinity in the Torah.

What Christians claim to be God's explicit revelation of the Trinity in the Torah are in fact implicit references to what they assume to be explicit revelations. There is a difference between the words "explicit" and "implicit." God explicitly tells the Jews that His Nature is Unified. He explicitly tells them that He expects them to keep His commandments, and explicitly tells them what will happen if they do not. He does not explicitly tell them that He is a Trinity. When God wants to make something understood clearly and imminently He explains it in an explicit fashion so as to remove any possibility of doubt of what He is referring to. He does not leave it up to conjecture or interpolation. This does not mean that the Torah is low on mystery or enigmatic passages, for any student of the Tanakh knows it contains many. Instead, those passages tend to be found in association with particular details related to narratives and not when describing His true Nature, or His expectations of the Jews or humanity.

The question becomes, if God wanted to reveal Himself as a Trinity why did all Jews up until the first century fail to realize that God had revealed Himself as such?

Some Christians like to make the claim that appearances of particular angels throughout the Torah are in fact appearances of the Second Person in the Trinity before he manifested himself as Jesus. Some common examples are Genesis 18 (and 21) in which three angels visit Abraham's tent, and another is Judges 13, each of which will be examined independently.

1. Genesis 18 - Point 1
2. Genesis 18 - Point 2
3. Judges 13

Documentary Hypothesis - How Many Authors Does The Torah Have?

July 31, 2020 - 10 Av 5780

What is the Documentary Hypothesis?

The Documentary Hypothesis is a form of Biblical Criticism that according to some scholars dates back to the German Enlightenment. A version of Documentary Hypothesis (also known as the DH), attributed to the German scholar Julius Wellhausen, posits that the Torah as we know it today was written by four distinct Jewish authors living a different (perhaps overlapping) times and belonging to different social or religious groups within the Jewish body. This contrasts against the Orthodox Jewish view that Moses was the sole author of the entire Torah (including the description of his death), revealed by God and written down over the forty year sojourn in the desert. 

According to Wikipedia, the Documentary Hypothesis, also known as the JEDP theory, is explained as follows:

The documentary hypothesis posited that the Pentateuch is a compilation of four originally independent documents: the Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomist (D), and Priestly (P) sources. The first of these, J, was dated to the Solomonic period (c. 950 BCE). E was dated somewhat later, in the 9th century BCE, and D was dated just before the reign of King Josiah, in the 7th or 8th century. Finally, P was generally dated to the time of Ezra in the 5th century BCE. The sources would have been joined together at various points in time by a series of editors or "redactors."

This hypothesis is based on a few approaches. The first is that the appearance of different Names of God in the Torah (Elokim and Hashem, which is spelled Yud-Hay-Vav-Hay) indicates different Jewish sects, cults, or institutions that knew God by different names. This is an assumption that overlooks the Jewish tradition’s stance that different Names of God are associated with different attributes, which also explains why two or more of God’s Names are sometimes used in the same sentence.

The second, as quoted above, places all four categories of text much later than the life of Moses (who may not have even existed according to this hypothesis).

An Experiment

Let us assume, for a moment, that four different authors did indeed write the Torah at different points in time, which was later compiled together by later redactors.

To that end I propose a little experiment designed to see if we can accurately and correctly identify unnatural breaks in the flow of a story. If so, we should be able to identify multiple categories of text that have been stitched together based on the methodology used by the Documentary Hypothesis, and more broadly, by Biblical Criticism.

The methods that you should use in this experiment are the same proposed by Biblical Criticism, which according to Wikipedia are “grammar, structure, development, and relationship of language to identify such characteristics as… literary structure, its genre, its context, meaning, authorship, and origins.” In other words, pay close to attention to shifts in style and inconsistent wording and terminology.

I have taken the text below from different short stories about hippos written by different authors. I will divulge how this experiment works. I have rearranged, edited, and combined the text of these stories into one longer story. In terms of the Documentary Hypothesis, I am the redactor, and the original authors are the different authors of the Torah. As the redactor I have smoothed out any unnatural transitions created by stitching the stories together. I have done this by editing, removing, and adding a few words where necessary to make the transitions appear more natural.

The Challenge

Your challenge requires you to do the following to the best of your ability:

• Identify how many different authors (or different stories) the text below has been taken from.
• Identify each place where the stories have been stitched together. The stories may transition in several different places.
• Identify which words I have added to smooth out the transitions, and if you think I've removed any words.

In general, try to recreate the original stories as best as possible.

Please take this test and post your comments. Once this experiment has received a sufficient amount of attempts I will post the original stories for you to check your results.

The Story

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A very long time ago in Africa, when all the animals lived together in the bush with the Creator, most animals lived on the land, and only a very few lived in the water.

Now the hot sun baked the earth every day, and all the animals suffered one way or another. But the animals had strong skins to protect them against the sun, either fur, feathers or scales.

During that time, the hippopotamus was one of the biggest kings on the land; he was second only to the elephant. The hippo had seven large fat wives, of whom he was very fond. Now and then he used to give a big feast to the animals, but a curious thing was that, although everyone knew the hippo, no one, except his seven wives, knew his name.

As his wives were well aware, every day the hippo suffered, as his skin dried and cracked, causing him a lot of pain and discomfort. One day when then hippo could not endure it anymore, one of his wives suggested that he go to the Creator and ask him permission to live in the river. The hippo agreed and asks: "Please, may I go live in the river?" The Creator’s response was: “Yes, but only if one of the animals at the feast can guess your name.” The sullen hippo agreed.

At one of the feasts, just as the animals were about to sit down, the hippo said: "You have come to feed at my table, but none of you know my name. If you cannot tell my name, you shall all of you go away without your dinner."

As they could not guess his name, they had to go away and leave all the good food and tombo [palm wine] behind them. But before they left, the tortoise stood up and asked the hippo what he would do if he told him his name at the next feast. So the hippo replied that he would be so ashamed of himself, that he and his whole family would leave the land, and for the future would dwell in the water.

Now it was the custom for the hippo and his seven wives to go down every morning and evening to the river to wash and have a drink. Of this custom the tortoise was aware. The hippo used to walk first, and the seven wives followed. One day when they had gone down to the river to bathe, the tortoise made a small hole in the middle of the path, and then waited. When the hippo and his wives returned, two of the wives were some distance behind, so the tortoise came out from where he had been hiding, and half buried himself in the hole he had dug, leaving the greater part of his shell exposed.

When the two hippo wives came along, the first one knocked her foot against the tortoise's shell, and immediately called out to her husband: "Oh! Isantim, my husband, I have hurt my foot."

At this the tortoise was very glad, and went joyfully home, as he had found out the hippo's name.

When the next feast was given by the hippo, he made the same condition about his name; so the tortoise got up and said, "You promise you will not kill me if I tell you your name?" and the hippo promised. The tortoise then shouted as loud as he was able: "Your name is Isantim," at which a cheer went up from all the animals, and then they sat down to their dinner.

When the feast was over, the hippo, with his seven wives, in accordance with his promise, went down to the river, and they have always lived in the water from that day till now; and although they come on shore to feed at night, you never find a hippo on the land in the daytime.

But the river animals were a bit selfish, and also worried. After thinking about it for a short time, they said to the hippo: “No, we cannot allow this! Look at you! You are so big and will eat all the fish in the river. There will be no more food for us."

The hippo said to the river animals: "You do not have to worry, as I do not eat fish. I will only eat the grass and river plants." The river animals were very skeptical and did not believe this.

So the hippo told them: "I promise: Every day I will open my mouth wide, so that you all can see there are no fish bones or scales in my mouth. And I will spread my dung with my tail, so that you can see there are no bones."

This convinced the river animals. So, from that day, the river animals allowed the hippo to live in the river, and the hippo would open his mouth always wide open, and spread his dung with his tail.

Can People Judge God?

July 23, 2020 - 2 Av 5780

In an interview titled Neil deGrasse Tyson on God with CBS Sunday Morning in 2017, Tyson (astrophysicist, cosmologist, author, science communicator, and television host) was posed the following question:

Interviewer: Do you believe in God, a Creator?

Here was Tyson’s response:

So, the more I look at the universe the less convinced I am that there is something benevolent going on. So, if your concept of a Creator is someone who is all-powerful and all-good, that’s not an uncommon pairing of powers that you might ascribe to a Creator, and I look at disasters that afflict earth and life on earth - volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, disease, pestilence, congenital birth defects - you look at this list of ways that life is made miserable on earth by natural causes and I just ask, “How do you deal with that?” So philosophers rose up and said, “If there is a God, God is either not all-powerful or not all-good.”

It seems that Tyson’s argument here operates on an assumption that is as common as it is demonstrably false. That huge assumption is that one can know the internal workings of God's mind sufficiently to accurately re-characterize Him. Let us explain this by way of a metaphor.

So for instance, let's say that your company fires 20 employees overnight. Do you have sufficient insight into that decision-making process to determine that it was either a bad, wrong, or even an evil decision?

Or let us say that the air conditioner in your work building suddenly turns off. Do you have enough information to say that the building’s administration has taken the day of and gone to the golf course? There can be a number of reasons for why the AC has suddenly turned off. If you can't make these determinations with something as simple as a company decision or deactivated AC, you will have a hard time making it with something such as natural disasters.

Now, the Bible does give us some sense of insight into how this type of thing works on a very general level, but it doesn't give us a one-to-one formula for every specific event that occurs, nor does it expect us to even think in those terms. This, by the way, is a mistaken tendency often made by religious people as well - we cannot know or claim to have access to cause-and-effect in terms of current events. This is a practice that is presumptuous and should probably be discouraged. The thing is sealed.

Tyson’s line of reasoning makes another relatively common fallacy that the Bible is interested in providing us reasons for natural phenomenon. If you read or study the Bible you will find that only on rare occasion does it invest any effort in explaining why natural disasters occurred, so that this position is demonstrably false. The Bible places a much heavier focus on interpersonal events than on natural ones. This type of mistake could have been avoided with just a little more insight and perhaps research into the topic at hand.

Tyson’s being an accomplished astrophysicist does not qualify him as a professional in the field of religion, theology, or philosophy. It would have been perfectly acceptable if he had just confessed his ignorance on the interviewer’s question and instead offered his opinion. A little humility goes a long way.

When Right Becomes Wrong

July 20 2020 - Tammuz 28 5780

In a somewhat drastic deviation from the content I typically consider in HashemIsBeautiful, I will be using a movie as the springboard for an analysis of morality.

Notice: This movie portrays graphically violent scenes and is not intended for all audiences.

That movie is called Law Abiding Citizen and is about a father (Clyde Shelton, played by Gerald Butler) whose wife and daughter are murdered during a break-in into their home. The actual murder is carried out by the low-life cocaine-addicted Darby (Christian Stolte), while his slightly more virtuous assailant (Rupert Ames, played by Josh Stewart) robs the house and pleads with Darby to “stick to the original plunderers plan.”

When Darby gets off on a legal technicality and pins the murder on his unfortunate partner in crime (who is executed in his stead), the now widowed Clyde loses faith in the legal system and takes actions into his own hands. Being the engineering mastermind that he is, Clyde begins to unleash a coordinated program of terror beginning with the capture, gruesome torture, and killing of Darby. He gradually broadens his ring of blood-letting vengeance to all people directly involved with his case in any way; the judge, the prosecution, the defense, and even wet-behind-the-ears temps working on their first real job, seeking to “topple the corrupt temple” down on its worshipers in true Samsonite fashion.

While we empathize with the unspeakable misery experienced by the abandoned and forgotten Clyde, it seems that the lesson in this movie is that removing all boundaries (can, and perhaps inevitably) turns an otherwise justified cause into something indistinguishable from the evil it sought to destroy in the first place. In other words, everyone roots for Clyde at the beginning, but observes him almost unperceivably and gradually turning into an indefensible murderer responsible for more deaths and destroyed families than Darby.

Further, his transformation cannot be locked down to any specific action or point in time. Instead, it occurs somewhere in the recesses of his mind when he begins confusing the destruction of the corrupt system with the destruction of the human beings required to uphold that system. While it may be justifiable to destroy a system, it cannot be justifiable to kill the human beings that operate it.

The only morally permissible exception I can think of is killing people directly related to operating the specific part of a system responsible for murder. For example, Jewish partisans in WWII bombing "infrastructure critical to the Nazi war effort such as supply trains," even if it cannot be done without killing the train operator, who may have never killed a Jew in his life. In such a case the failure to prevent such wholesale murder may as well be a moral failure. The train operator may very well be the "unfortunate collateral," but such a designation has to be very tightly defined to avoid the murder of innocents, which may defeat the purpose of acting in the first place.

The principle that an otherwise justifiable cause can be corrupted and actually completely destroyed by overstepping boundaries can be applied to any number of situations. Given events more directly relevant to my community, I cannot help but apply it to what I consider to be a misguided expression and aberration of Jewish values in the form of misplaced zeal. I am referring to the intensified focus of a very specific and localized sector of the Orthodox Jewish community to laws of modesty. It should be understood that I support such laws, deeply believe in them, and view them as imperatives on a practical and ideological level. It should also be understood as my view that zealously upholding such spiritually uplifting imperatives at the expense of sensible and compassionate behavior towards human beings, other religious Jews in this case, endangers the purpose for spiritual commitments to Judaism in the first place.

I apply this principle to other areas as well, some more extreme, such as the unwavering commitment to violence against civilians by terrorist groups such as Hamas in the name of adherence to the religion of Islam. The vantage point of my own experiences limits my ability to conceive of other apt illustrations of this principle, although I am sure that most people reading this will be able to think of many others.

At what point does a justified, noble, morally-driven endeavor lose its direction, thus becoming indistinguishable from the wrong it attempted to right in the first place, and is there a way to avoid it?