Category Archives: Hebrew Testament

UPDATED: ‘ILANA’ With An Aleph

Christian Right, Christianity, Etiquette, Hebrew Testament, Ilana Mercer, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Judaism & Jews

SO JEWS SUCK; I GET THIS ALL THE TIME. BUT WHAT ABOUT MEMBERS OF THE CHRISTIAN TRIBE? Emails flood this blog spot on a regular basis pointing to the machinations of Jews and to their tribal nature. As you know, I often publish these tracts. “Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” and all that stuff.

On the other hand, I’m totally tactful—and more than gracious—about Christian tics, despite my dismal experience with the decency and grace of this group’s individual members (one or two stellar individuals excepted.)

A kind word or a helping hand from a Christian? What’s that? Not in my world, although Christians do spend a lot of their time shouting “Praise the Lord” from the rooftops. Then again, perhaps Jews are not Kosher; don’t qualify for decent treatment? Who knows? All I know is that, in my experience, Christians are the quintessential tribalists. You’re either in or out.

The other day, a snippy, self-professed Christian, having befriended me on Facebook, wrote to demand imperiously that I justify the letter Aleph near the URL of my website.

I know better than to expect readers in “The Age of the Idiot” to have researched the object of their scorn, and thus to know that she is Jewish and grew up in Israel. That’s too much like fact-finding. So politely, I responded with a link to the Hebrew alphabet, explaining that my name begins with an Aleph.

But information was not what he was after. Judging from the obnoxious, follow-up on my Facebook Wall—a forum which is supposed to be collegial—some rude, distinctly theological routine was the man’s aim.

The chutzpah of this investigation into the legitimacy of an ex-Israeli, Hebrew-speaker’s use of her Hebrew name! What’s up with that?

I’m curious, truly. Where does he get off judging/commenting on my use of my native tongue, Hebrew? Can he speak the language? Can he even read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew? Did he spend his formative years debating/conversing/conducting life in Hebrew? Did he take all his school exams in Hebrew?

I did. For the first 19 years of my life, I was “ilana” with an aleph.

It’s who I am.

UPDATE: Compassionate Fascist’s posts are an example of the collectivist, contempt-filled comments I’m pretty patient with. Isn’t it time to kick CF off BAB? Here he is below, maligning Jews again. At the same time, he is a recipient of my hospitality in cyberspace, where he is permitted to vent his disdain for the likes of his host. The way I treat Compassionate Fascist provides a measure of proof against his theorizing about how bad Jews are. In effect, by bad-mouthing Jews as a group, and posting here quite happily, for the most, he finds himself in self- contradiction.

Writing on the topic of Western Civilization, historian Alan Charles Kors once observed that avoiding self-contradiction is the touchstone of truth—being mired in self-contradiction, the touchstone of error. To the Greek philosophers, to be mired in self-contradiction was to be “less than human, less than coherent, less than sane.”

UPDATED: Liberty Vs. Libertinism

Classical Liberalism, Founding Fathers, Hebrew Testament, History, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, libertarianism, Liberty, Morality, Political Philosophy

Is there a name for the error of viewing history through the prism of contemporary moral standards (or sub-standards)? I had hoped that John Stossel would prod his guest, the progressive historian Thaddeus Russell, with his Socratic method of questioning, to tell us why it is that he, Russell, conflates libertinisim with liberty.

Russel’s banal history-from-below has it that we owe our freedoms less to the Founders’ political philosophy, than to the “saloons and speakeasies, brothels and gambling halls, to antiheroes such as drunken workers who created the weekend; prostitutes who set the precedent for women’s liberation, madams who owned land and used guns, and provided cutting-edge of fashion, … criminals who pioneered racial integration, unassimilated immigrants who gave us birth control, and brazen homosexuals who broke open America’s sexual culture.” (HERE.)

Yes, to listen to this progressive historian, the unions, and not the Hebrews, “created” the Sabbath. Actually, the Founders had quite the affinity for the Hebrew Bible—some of them even spoke Hebrew. (Horrors, that would have required a lot of that Puritanical mindset and discipline Russell bashed as regressive on the Stossel segment—as Hebrew is HARD.) They would not have needed “drunken workers” to teach them about the spiritual and ethical significance of some sort of Sabbath.

Walter Block makes clear in “Libertarianism And Libertinism,” that “as a political philosophy, libertarianism says nothing about culture, mores, morality, or ethics. To repeat: It asks only one question, and gives only one answer. It asks, ‘Does the act necessarily involve initiatory invasive violence?’ Libertarianism doesn’t have a position toward “pimping, prostituting, drugging, and other such degenerate behavior,” writes Block.

What then is the precise relationship between the libertarian, qua libertarian, and the libertine? It is simply this. The libertarian is someone who thinks that the libertine should not be incarcerated. He may bitterly oppose libertinism, he can speak out against it, he can organize boycotts to reduce the incidence of such acts. There is only one thing he cannot do, and still remain a libertarian: He cannot advocate, or participate in, the use of force against these people. Why? Because whatever one thinks of their actions, they do not initiate physical force.

Walter attests that he came to regret his earlier “enthusiasm about the virtues of these callings.” “Marriage, children, the passage of two decades, and not a little reflection,” he writes endearingly, “have dramatically changed my views on some of the troublesome issues addressed in this book. My present view with regard to ‘social and sexual perversions’ is that while none should be prohibited by law, I counsel strongly against engaging in any of them.”

Myself, I’m not so much a social conservative as my friend Prof. Block is. Rather, I believe in the paramountcy of privacy. If “civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy,” in Rand’s magnificent words, then sexual exhibitionism – homosexual or heterosexual – is anathema. The heroic and creative inner struggle is what brings out the best in man. My heroes are in the Greek tradition: Silent, stoic, principled yet private. Which means the Founders, and not Russell’s philanderers.

On the Fox Business website, Stossel promised that Russell would tell him “why his beloved founders actually wanted to keep the people docile and timid,” and why “Americans owe really overdue thanks to the libertines – the prostitutes, drunkards, and musicians.” Russel failed to deliver.

It is hardly surprising, or cutting edge history, as Russell would have you believe, that the American Founding Fathers did not favor prostitution, homosexuality, and infidelity. But it is worse than stupid for this progressive historian to cast these men, with their traditional mores, as enemies of progress. It demonstrates why we are losing liberty: Most people don’t even know to what they owe the peace, plenty and prosperity this country was blessed with and now risks losing.

UPDATE (MARCH 12): Robert Glisson, as penance for wasting your money on this progressive’s piss-poor output, you will have to buy a few copies of my new book for handing out (it’s due out on May 10).

Barack And The Biblical Job

Barack Obama, Crime, Free Will Vs. Determinism, Hebrew Testament, Individualism Vs. Collectivism, Judaism & Jews, The State

Obama’s prose is flowery and facile. But I am told that this is what appeals to a vast number of Americans. “Healing,” having “national conversations,” hoping and dreaming, reaching for the sky and for the best of America: such meaningless meandering turns this writer’s stomach—at least as much as George Bush’s word salads did.

(By the way, Obama’s remarks in Tucson I read thanks to the New York Times’ civilized habit of providing transcripts. Not even the White House website offers text. So much for encouraging literacy. News sites are becoming a nightmare for those of us who still value the written word over the darting image. “Watch the President’s address” is what you get at Fox News’ website, where print is fast being phased out.)

In any event, the president went light on his base. He did not specifically berate the “blood libel” (a good and appropriate usage by Sarah Palin) perpetrated by the Left against the Right after the Tucson tragedy. I will, however, give him a Brownie point for citing my favorite book among the 39 Books of the Hebrew Bible: Job.

As I wrote in “Job: Jewish Individualist”: “The book of Job is still the quintessential theodicy, precisely because it entertains and reconciles the possibility of a fallible God. Then again, Jews have a tradition of arguing with God. Jacob wrestled physically with the angel of God. And Abraham haggled for the sinners of Sodom and Gomorrah because he disapproved of the verdict God pronounced upon them. Job, in a manner, also argued with God and prevailed, a very unorthodox concept, considering the times.”

Obama invoked the righteous Job thus: “Scripture tells us that there is evil in the world, and that terrible things happen for reasons that defy human understanding. In the words of Job, ‘when I looked for light, then came darkness.’ Bad things happen, and we must guard against simple explanations in the aftermath.”

Palin pointed out that “acts like the shootings in Arizona begin and end with the criminals who commit them.” Unlike Palin, however, whose address earlier today rightly and precisely located the source of evil in the individual perpetrator, Obama here refuses to leave it at that, for this is a man who believes in the role of an interventionist central authority to shape society in politically pleasing ways. If you do not believe in free will, and fail to recognize evil in individuals—then you will be more likely to see a role for the State in the transformation of individuals before the fact:

OBAMA: “We must examine all the facts behind this tragedy. We cannot and will not be passive in the face of such violence. We should be willing to challenge old assumptions in order to lessen the prospects of violence in the future.”

Look out.

Update II: The Genius Of Ancient Hebrew Law

Anti-Semitism, Ethics, Hebrew Testament, Ilana Mercer, Judaism & Jews, Justice, Law, Natural Law, Reason

I’m not a religious Jew; I’m a Hebrew—of the civilization that invented equality under the law; a principle that is dictated in Deuteronomy and Exodus centuries before classical Greek philosophy. I believe the passion for justice is in my genes, as transmitted to me by a father—a rabbi—who’d repeat the phrase most repeated in the Hebrew Bible: “Justice, and justice alone, you shall pursue.” (Deuteronomy 16: 18-20)

While the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi, “the first written code of laws in human history,” put in place different laws for the aristocrat, the slave, and the commoner; my tribe, commensurate with the ethical monotheism it was instructed to practice, was being hammered about applying the same laws to the king (Samuel advised the people against having one), the commoner, the alien, the orphan, the widow, the slave, the rich and the poor.

One of my favorite injunctions comes from Exodus 23: 2-3. I know you’ll share in my admiration for its unadulterated exhortation of individualism and justice:

“You shall not be led into wrongdoing by the majority, nor when you give evidence in a lawsuit, shall you side with the majority to prevent justice, nor shall you favor the poor man in his suit.”

How wonderful; how brilliant! And how modern-day religious sects—the churches and the Jews—flout the law of immutable justice by demonizing, for example, those who possess the ability to accrue wealth while deifying those who don’t.

Update (May 24): One of the ignoramuses who frequent the site accuses me of “Jewish supremacy.” That, after I wrote a post explicitly extolling the “teachings” of the Torah as a pioneering text—not the Jewish people.

As I commented hereunder to a reader; then, as now, the stiff-necked people did not often heed the classical prophets.

Against Posting Policy, I’ve posted “Dan’s” missive even though he did not provide a valid email address, so you’ve not been spared his post. But let us provide the evidence of my “Jewish supremacy” for the research-averse Dan, in the form of my writings on matters Jewish:

Your Godless Government At Work (The teachings are praised, not the people.)

Jews Against Judaism

Chronicle of Jewish Community Omits Capitalism

Soul and Moral Tradition (Here I am quite scathing about the contribution of Jews to the popularization of psychology.)

More here.

Clever Anti-Semitic writers often point out that Jewish thinkers are chronically critical. I fall into that category, in as much as I find it impossible to refrain from pointing out contradictions and corruptions wherever I see them, irrespective of tribal affiliation.

Dan’s logic works in the Age of the Idiot, where making clear distinctions is obsolete.

Update II (May 25): This is getting a little personal for my taste, however, to reply to my friend, The Judge: I’m not sure I love my own, as you put it. In fact, I very much doubt that. I am not part of a Jewish community, don’t have Jewish friends, and am married to a WASP. What I am positive about— crystal clear, in fact—is that I love, and know a bit about, the Hebrew Bible (is it 39 books?). I can read it in the original prose (Hebrew). And as a writer, I have to agree with historian Paul Johnson’s assessment that very many of the biblical writers were geniuses, with a unique, pioneering creativity.

As for the principles of justice that are found in the early books we’ve been discussing and are developed by the classical prophets: this is the stuff upon which our concepts of justice rest. What else?

I’m not a person of faith, but for those who are: who other than the ancient Hebrews brought into being the “concept of a single non-corporeal God and its ethical and moral commandments”?

When Jews went into the diaspora and became a sickly, disembodied, landless people, the rabbis took over, implementing a faith dominated by particularist, legalistic, ritualistic elements.