Letters to the Editor
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Three Threads Part Three; The Importance of PoMos.
3. Bob Freukes argues “I was also suprised (sic) to see a "Cafeteria" approach to the slaying of the Amalekites, and other unpleasaness (sic) like patricide and stoning. If you dismiss a huge amount of old testament cannon as "legend" and "loosely based" ,it seems your argument for the veracity of your belief system suffers the same fate, due to not being able to reconcile your own interpetation (sic) of morality with the universally accepted text that is the genesis of Judiasm (sic), and Christianity.” On the subject of the Amalekites, Joseph Wouk also said “Please Gadi, tell us more about the morality we learn from Saul and the Amalekites!” Well, Joe, that’s easy: what we learn is “when someone rises in the morning to slay you, you rise earlier that you might slay him first.” In short, we learn that when you face in intractable enemy; one who attacked Israel when they were weak, when they traveled on the road out of slavery, and attacked the women and children in the rear, and the weak among the people. The Amalekites were, if you want to believe in the exact words, a people who were bent on the Israelites destruction. What we learn from the actual account is that when you face a foe with whom you have no prospect ever for peace, you must fight them and do so to win. Now, a lot of people (non-Jews and the lunatic Jewish fringe) point to the Palestinians and say they are Amalekites, but this is simply not true. If the Palestinians tomorrow said “OK, we’ve had enough of killing your children and enduring 50% unemployment because we cannot be trusted to police our own. We want peace!” and then they made overtures toward peace (for example, by throwing known terrorists in jail and keeping them there, but overwhelmingly defeating Hamas at the polling places) then Israel would make peace in a heartbeat. You cannot do that with Amalek. With Amalek, you have to destroy them utterly.
But. If you read the chapter on Amalek as a metaphor, which I do, then you ask: what is the thing that attacks from the rear? What attacks where you are weakest and seeks your doom? The rabbis answer that the thing is “unholy cynicism.” And the way to destroy it is to perform good acts without thought of recompense. You cannot negotiate with cynicism, you can never fully assuage your doubts. You must simply ignore them and do what is right (like acts of lovingkindess and justice) – and you must do so without thinking that you will ever be rewarded, otherwise your cynicism will argue that you are not really doing right, you are simply seeking glorification or reward.
So that’s what we learn from the chapter about the Amalekites: 1. protect yourselves from intractable foes 2. do good deeds for no good reason. Are either of these values that you can’t live with, Joe? Or do you just not like the applications of those lessons that you’ve seen?
But let’s stick to the point. Why choose the cafeteria approach? Because I’m a postmodernist, which is of great importance, as I’ll explain in a moment. The thing is, I both am cafeteria and I’m not, because I’ll take that Amalek lesson and learn what I need to out of it. I won’t learn “Do what God says, even if it means killing the innocent.” I learn “overcome your cynicism.”
3a. Really, though, what a lot of people seem to be arguing is still a third thing. Here, again, is Mr. Wouk: “Marxists substituted an ideology of "history" for god and Nazis substituted eugenic "science", but they were the same sort of unchallengeable "truths" as if dictated by the ONE. Sorry Gadi, these are tired old arguments to justify past and continuing misdeeds of Monotheistic motivated/justified murderers and thieves...” It seems as if Joe is arguing against the legitimacy of religions, but when you read it carefully, he is really arguing against all but a postmodernist worldview. He is arguing against any and all metanarratives. And this is my point: religion offers a holistic way of looking at the world. But any of us may choose to recognize that whatever way we look at the world (be it religious or not) is not the only way to see the world. And we can choose to be pluralistic. Both religious people and areligious people can be pluralistic. The reason that I am spending so much time on this post is because I believe that most of us agree on this point: we would have a more civil society if we would learn to stop telling one another “shut up!” and learn to stop shouting (thus necessitating the calls to “shut up.”) Forcing someone into silence cheapens any debate and lessens us all. Still, I should have the freedom not to listen to you if I don’t want to (thus, no ID in schools, where students are captive)
Whatever else, I am a postmodernist. I can be Jewish and a human and a man and an American and a Gen Xer and a Democrat and a Zionist and a husband and a son and snarky bastard concurrently or consecutively. When Joe argues “Sorry Gadi, these are tired old arguments to justify past and continuing misdeeds of Monotheistic motivated/justified murderers and thieves... "Hey, religion isn't the cause... Look! Non religious people can be bad too...." he misses the point. Religion isn’t the cause, the belief in metanarratives is. And that is much, much larger then religion. So, yeah, Joe, I think that religion is no more a force of evil in the world than belief in the flat tax.
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Re: Three Threads Part Two; Taking Religion for a Walk
"Being as religion is a major part in the lives of a majority of Americans, I don’t think it is feasible to “keep it at home.”"
There's quite a bit of exaggeration going on here. Religion may be a part of a majority of American's lives. Religion may be a major part of some American's lives. However, the majority of Americans really don't pay much attention to religion until the pollster comes calling.
Look at the declining church attendances. Look at the difficulty religions are having finding priests and pastors and such. The majority of Americans don't think about religion at all unless reminded of it by others. Many of those that do profess to being quite religious are only giving lip service to the idea. As an exampole, see our lovely Mr. Abrahmoff or Pat Robertson, both of whom claim to be religious yet never seem to act within the tennants of their respective religions.
I'd also like to address the mention of Stalin as the greatest committer of atrocity. The problem here is committing unspeakable acts against mankind from an unquestionable authority. Through most of history, that authority was religious. Hitler and Stalin simply replaced religion with themselves.
I'd also love to see a study of how Hitler and Stalin stack up against the Crusades or Inquisition when adjusted for population and that doesn't even consider technological differences.