I have been arguing in the comments with B about Judaism, and in the course of this argument, my position shifted considerably.
Judaism was a theocratic national religion, state religion, and ethnic religion, a nation state religion. Just what the doctor ordered, just the kind of thing reactionaries like, just the kind of thing that makes a people strong.
Upon the Jews being exiled, the Sadducees lost their power base and Rabbis remade Judaism to be an exile ethnic religion, inherently hostile to, and subversive of, the host nation and host society.
This has become a paradoxical and psychologically unhealthy religion, since the Jews are no longer in exile, but Judaism is still in exile, still subversive of the host nation even when the host nation is Israel, and still subversive of the host society even when the host society is Jewish.Â
Orthodox Jews are still in psychological exile. The Rabbis won and the Sadducees lost, but to come home, to once again be a religion of nation and state, Judaism has to change once again, has to cease to be a religion of exile and become less Rabbinical and more Sadducee, something that even the most reactionary Rabbis do not much like, preferring to concentrate on ever more extreme expansions of Deuteronomy 14:21
On the one hand, there seems to be very little taste for reaction in Israel – even the religious right is not very rightist, though B has high hopes for them. On the other hand, if they stay the course with the leftist program, they are all going to die.
So I rather think they face a choice between remaking their religion, and being killed by the Arabs, and will probably choose, to the great horror of American progressives, and to the great delight of Christian apocalyptics, to radically, and somewhat coercively, remake their religion.
I do not believe in scriptural prophecy. I do however believe that Israel faces a choice between annihilation through self inflicted defeat, or adopting a nation state religion that looks suspiciously like making a good start on fulfilling their scriptural prophecies. They need to be at least as theocratic as those who would destroy them. They also need the soldiers in charge of the priests, like the theocracy instituted by Charles the Hammer, not the priests in charge of the soldiers. If priests get too uppity, they are apt to go holier than thou, and rabbis have a bad record of holier-than-thou disease, at least as bad as puritans, perhaps worse. Soldiers tend to be more effectual in defending the land than priests.
And B, when you do get started on the nation state religion, ease up on Deuteronomy 14:21. It will be time to issue new antibodies against new antigens, the number one such antigen being those precepts and practices of progressivism that make a Jewish state illegitimate unless gerrymandered to indefensible borders resembling the spots of a mutant leopard.
Never underestimate the masochism of the Jew. They may be willing to face the annihilation.
The Hebrew religion as documented in the “Old Testament” (and even the “Apocrypha”) is not the same as the Talmudic religion documented in, er, the Talmud. If you haven’t already read Michael Hoffman’s researches into the various works comprising the Talmud, Jim, I suspect you will find them very interesting.
I know that there are big differences. B gave me some homework, which I dutifully read. Have not seen Michael Hoffman’s research on this topic.
After exile, the Rabbis made up a bunch of stuff more fitting to an exiled people. Some of that is going to have to go, now that the Jews are no longer exiled.
Either it is going to go, or they are going to get re-exiled.
Did he tell you to read E. Michael Jones’ The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and its Impact on World History?
This is a great Big History book that helps clarify the origins of the WASP-Jewish alliance as well as the nature of Jewish revolutionism. It has a theological bent, but even for an atheist, this would not interfere with the way he unfolds the history of the relationship between Jews and the West.
That is a twelve hundred page book that lists every one of the bad things any Jew has done in the last two thousand years. I am not inclined to think about Jews that much.
Bah. The last hundred page is footnotes.
The book, btw, is about the “Jewish Revolutionary Spirit” not “the Jews” as an ethnic group or religious group per se. Some of the most interesting chapters are on the Munster Rebellion and Frederick Douglas.
I am not going to read an eleven hundred page book on my own ethnic group, let alone someone else’s.
You might notice that all we know of the Sadducees is what the Rabbis tell us (plus a but from Josephus, who is also from the Rabbinical line.) There is a reason for this-Sadduceanism is maladaptive, and Rabbinical Judaism is adaptive.
This is why I am not worried about entryism. The right way is adaptive, the wrong way isn’t. In the process of entry, the entryists will either change or disappear. You might notice that despite leftist entryist attempts like Reform Judaism, Women of the Wall, etc., the Reformists are dying out, and there is a massive return to Judaism by secular Jews, in other words, movement rightwards.
B,
What’s up with Jews in Europe? I’ve heard from a couple of sources that they’re being driven out of existence by Muslims with the approval of the elites.
Yes, that is the case. If you want my opinion on the whole thing, G-d doesn’t want us to be in exile and really frowns on Jews setting up a comfortable existence in exile, thus attempting to defeat the purpose of exile (bringing us to repentance) and desecrating His name among the nations. So he sends punishments on those who do this, often using the very society they tried to become a comfortable part of.
We shall see.
I rather suspect that Rabbinical Judaism has adapted to exile much too successfully, but then, you know it from the inside, and I only know it from the outside.
Things are a-changing.
[…] So I rather think they face a choice between remaking their religion, and being killed by the Arabs,… […]
Off Topic: Jim any idea what’s up with attacking Syria? America’s got an outstanding propaganda machine and it’s basically just spinning it’s wheels when it comes to attacking Syria.
Our ruling elite is genuinely split on which side they want to support. Obama wants to attack Syria, but fears being left high and dry.
[…] on Judaisms, past and […]
– Jim
You did not read the book, but you are an expert about it.
One does not have to eat the whole apple to know what it tastes like.
Is it just me, or are there old powerful rich Jews who have taken over the Anglo sphere, particularly in the USA but other places too? Think George Soros and Bill Ackman.
There are a lot of Jews doing a lot of damage, but I would say that Jon Corzine, Angelo Mozilo and Kerry Killinger have done more damage. Of course if Soros turns New York into Detroit, he will outdo them all.