Plagued by Passover

As both a Jew and a rabbi the week before Passover is for me one of the most painful times of the Jewish liturgical year. While my friends are cleaning their homes of chumetz, the foodstuffs and products forbidden to Jews during Passover, and preparing for their Passover Seders commemorating our people's exodus from Egypt, I find myself agonizing over the terrible misfortune this week held for the ancient Egyptians.

This past Wednesday at sundown, the anniversary night before our exodus from slavery, Jews all over the world gathered to celebrate our god and good fortune. Yet that very night is the anniversary of a horrifying mass murder as well. That night our god slaughtered thousands upon thousands of innocent first-born Egyptians boys and men to make a point: that Yahweh alone is God (Exodus 7:2-5). As the Ten Plagues are read during the Seder Jews diminish the wine in their cups so as to take no joy in Egyptian suffering, but this is an insufficient gesture in the face of the needless horrors inflicted upon the ancient Egyptians.

The plagues in general and the tenth plague in particular are examples of collective punishment unparalleled until the time of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the Holocaust was not punishment but genocide). It was Pharaoh, not the Egyptian people who enslaved the Hebrews. It was Pharaoh, not the Egyptian people, who ordered the death of the newborn Hebrew boys. The murder of the first-born sons of Egypt, the innocent along with the guilty, is not an act of justice, but of madness perpetrated by a god whose thirst for blood, both human and animal, seems endless. Is this the god I race out of Egypt to follow?

Those of you who are Christians may imagine you have escaped the clutches of this brutal god, following instead the Prince of Peace who made love his creed (Matthew22: 37-39), and the hallmark of his followers (John 13:34-35). But who is the god behind Good Friday? Is it not the same god whose thirst for blood can only be slaked by the murder of his Son? Isn't this what Jesus' death ransoms us from: a god who demands blood, whether it is the blood of Jesus or of all humanity? Isn't Jesus' death supposed to ransom us from eternal damnation? And even if it does, the god who creates such insanity remains unchallenged. While the Easter resurrection may prove the truth of the Son, it does nothing to change the nature of the Father who sent him. Indeed, the very notion that failure to accept Jesus as one's Lord and Savior results in eternal damnation makes plain to anyone with the eyes to see and the ears to hear that the god of the Passover is unrepentant and unchanged, and that his followers, by whatever name, are still trapped in a system of unsurpassed brutality.

Why? Because the gods we worship have nothing to do with God, and everything to do with us. We create god in our image. The god we create is the god we desire, and the god who sanctions our desires. And what we desire above all else is to impose our will on the world that we might grasp what we want when we want it. We create a murderous god along with a way to shield ourselves from being murdered even as we stand idle while the murder of "the other" is done in our name and by our hands washed clean by our god who revels in it.

I am ashamed of the silence of Moses in the face of Egyptian horror. I am ashamed of the willingness of Jesus to be the Lamb of God, to die for us rather than challenge the cult of death his Father relishes.

What we need today is not another Moses leading his people to freedom over the corpses of their neighbors. What we need is not another Jesus who submits his will to god's will and takes his place upon the cross (Matthew 26:39). What we need today is the Abraham who dared to confront God's madness and injustice, insisting that the Judge of all the world act justly (Genesis 18:25). What we need is the indignation of the Hebrew prophets whose God has no need of blood and death, and desires only justice, compassion, and humility (Micah 6:8). But we will not get what we need; we will only get what we are. And what we are is a species enslaved to enslaving others whether in this world or the next.

My prayer for this Passover Week and Easter Sunday is not one of praise and thanksgiving, worshipping the god of my own insanity. My prayer is this: "May steadfast love and faithfulness meet, may righteousness and peace kiss" (Psalm 85:10), and may humanity be free of gods that we might at last hear the call to justice and compassion for all life that is the hallmark of the true God.

Plagued by Passover was written for Passover and Easter by Rabbi Rami Shapiro.
Rabbi Rami is widely recognized as one of the most creative figures in contemporary American Judaism. A graduate of the Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, he also holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Union Graduate School. An award-winning poet, liturgist, and essayist, his prayers are included in worship services across the denominational spectrum of American congregations.

The Back Cover of the Bible

[Please allow me to apologize to Roman Catholics first. I do not write this particular post against Catholicism nor Catholics. I have the utmost respect for them, myself having come from this background. Any apparent antagonism against Catholicism is illusionary at most. I express my following opinion and thoughts simply due to the fact that I have began my 'journey' - if you will - from a Catholic paradigm which I no longer hold. It is simply part of my story].

The Back Cover of the Bible

As in all religions, Catholicism also has its source material and its source authority structure. In Catholicism there is Holy Scripture and there is Holy Tradition. Both are authoritative.

Holy Scripture is the bible. That one is pretty straight forward.
Holy Tradition – for all intent and purposes – includes any rulings of the various Church Councils (believing to have also been divinely revealed, guided, inspired, and protected), and Papal Infallibility (also divinely revealed, guided, and inspired). In short, after Jesus Christ, divine revelation began and continues to this day.

(It is obvious to me that the Church (capital “C”) has come off the rails at some point.
Although I am sure we will all share this particular opinion, I think I have a perspective no other within our group does, and thus can bring a very different 'angle'. Although not Catholic, I come from a Roman Catholic background, was essentially brought up through a Catholic education system, and was left with little options (at least in my earlier years) at viewing all things theological or spiritual through a Catholic lense.)

The next question becomes when did the Church come off the rails? It's really a rhetorical question. I'm not interested in pursuing this line of thought. But the point itself is important.

Maybe a better question should be, where is the dividing line between Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition? Well, that one isn't a rhetoric question and it's easy to answer. That dividing line is clearly the back cover of the bible.

...Going off on a slight tangent; Martin Luther never wanted to do away with the Catholic Church or make it defunct; only correct certain problems. He created a Frankenstein's monster, didn't he? He, more or less, gave birth to the Protestant Reformation.

The Reformation realized that the Church had come off the rails and rather than become bogged down with attempting to determine when, dropped the “cutting edge” down at that clean decisive point between Holy Tradition and Holy Script; the bible's back cover. Done away with was Holy Tradition and Papal Infallibility in an attempt to return to the original, the first century church.

~

1) The bible is not a book. It is a library of books wrapped in a man-made cover. (Couldn't it be said that this “man-made” cover was divinely revealed through a church council (Holy Tradition)?)

2) Holy Tradition (and church history) did not begin after the back cover of the bible, but began within the confines of the bible.

3) The Protestant Reformation had in effect removed the validity of the doctrine of Papal Infallibility from all Popes (including the first Pope, Peter) yet allows “Papal Infallibility” under the disguise of Biblical Inerrency to apply to Paul's writings.

I personally am of the opinion that the Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth preached the Kingdom of God but got the Church instead... or maybe it was that Yeshua preached the Kingdom of God but the Church preached Jesus...?

So we go back past the Pauline Epistles and directly to the Gospels themselves.

...and here lies the problem. The Gospels were all written significantly after the Epistles by members of the first century church.

I find myself in a dilemma. I find myself at a dead end with no obvious way forward.
The way forward would seem to me to be to listen to where God's voice leads?

Truth Claims

God is so exalted beyond the capacities of mortal men that it is impossible to describe God or even hint at the nature of God's essence. Consequently it is impossible for humans – even scholars and theologians – to capture God's glory in words. All descriptions then are limited by the viewpoint of the making them. No matter how hard a person strives for knowledge of the divine the only achievement will be better knowledge of one's own self.

Using the metaphor of a compass: No matter how far the compass travels, it is only going around the point at its center and, similiarily, however much men may strive and achieve within the realms of spiritual knowledge, ultimately they are only achieving a better and greater knowledge of themselves (or of the Absolute manifested within themselves), not of any exterior Absolute.

[I know this sounds like monism, which would seem to contradict a dualistic belief. (Dualism says, “there are fundamental differences between the human and the divine”. Monism says, “there are no fundamental difference between the human and the divine”.)

We must give up the rational laws of non-contradiction and the excluded middle.

The apparent contradiction arises only because of our limited capacity which prevents us from seeing them both as correct. This can be intuited but not known conceptually or logically.]

Understood this way, all theology is partial and relative (hence the theory of relativism which effectively deals with conflicting truth claims between the religions).

All religions are equally valid in that they embody equally valid human responses to the divine (although we shouldn't rule out that some small religions and cults may be false).

The different religions reflect different stages in a single process, namely, the progressive unfolding of religious truth. Differences between the various religions are regarded as a functions of the different social conditions and receptive capacity of individuals that prevailed at the time and place that these religions first appeared.

Religions truth is not absolute but relative.
Divine revelations is progressive, not final.

~

"The true spiritually achieved one respects the natural spiritual world without having to personify it with a white or purple robe or a gold crown. That is junk. It is really childish. It is not true. Religions fight each other over the conceptual level of life. Once you formalize God with a certain shape and color and robe, you fight over what is in your mind as opposed to what is in someone else's mind. At the true spiritual level, conceptual vision is both all right and all wrong, until you reach the subtle essence...
...There is no separate "God" in the realm of integral truth."
Hua-Ching Ni

Ultimately, when we attempt to force God into a pre-defined box, we are completely in error. Our perceptions of who or what God is is extremely cultural in nature.
Rather then attempting to force God into a preconceived box of definitions we attempt to force others into following these preconceptions is when human suffering, misery, and pain begins.
To me, this is the process of religious conversion.

Lewis Black's ”me of little faith”

I've always enjoyed a comedian's perspective on certain things.
My father had given me a book for Christmas; Lewis Black's me of little faith and I am just reading it now.
Lewis Black says this,

“Can't you just practice what Jesus preaches and live a good and upright life? Isn't that spiritual enough? What if you did do that and because you didn't believe in God, he sent you to hell? Well, for me that would sure justify not believing in him in the first place, especially if he's going to be such a prick”.
Lewis Black, ”me of little faith”.

An interesting question. A question I'm sure many wonder.
Any thoughts, opinions, comments?

(And the answer, “the bible says so”, isn't really a good answer, is it?)

Spiritual but Not Religious

I used to know an older Presbyterian Elder and his wife who would say this.
“We're spiritual but not religious”. It was a conversation opener. Unfortunately it was also a bait and switch tactic to lure you into their 'religion'.

Maybe we should ask the questions, ”What does it mean to be spiritual”? and ”What does it mean to be religious”? What is really at the core of these ideas?

I think religion is about fear.
Fear of pain.
Fear of misery.
Fear of suffering.
Fear of death.
Religion is about control. Attempting to control these fears, or our attempts at gaining control over others through use of these fears.

Religion without fear is tradition. I don't see tradition as harmful.

I think spirituality is about compassion. What Karen Armstrong says is ”that universal principle of empathy and respect at the core of all major religions”; the reason why Yeshua said his yoke was light (Matthew 11:30).


I think spirituality should accomplish solace for the individual and install compassion towards others.

It isn't difficult for me to imagine what spirituality might look like without religiosity. But it is incredibly difficult for me to imagine what spirituality would look like without compassion. I suppose it would be little more than spiritual masturbation. Maybe that's what religion is. Just another addiction. Porn for the soul.

Zen or Zoe?

”Life as an end is qualitatively different from life as a means.”

This line from a book I'm currently reading forced me to stop and give it a significant amount of thought. It isn't important what the book is or who the author was. It also isn't important what context it was stated in. It strikes me as a ”stand alone” statement.

~

What is Life? Is Life a means to an end – and if so, to what end – or is Life an end or purpose onto itself?

If Life is the purpose itself, then Yeshua (among others) becomes a guide into how to live that life. It also leads to another very divisive issue; Is man innately good?

These paradigms drastically shape how we understand, how we choose to interpret, and how we absorb Yeshua's teachings and example.

If Life is only a means to an end – and I am going to presume that salvation of the human soul is that end – then one must believe man is inherently hopeless, corrupt, or worse.

I think this is a fundamental difference between Eastern and Western Religion and Philosophies.

Western Religion (Christianity) lacks faith in mankind. It believes man to be innately corrupt and evil. And by implication, embraces Hopelessness in a certain sense.

Eastern Religion/Philosophies have hope and faith in mankind, but realize it is in need of guidance.

One puts its faith and hope only in a postmortem future while the other believe in the now.

(And on a side note, I am not convinced the “religion” the Jewish Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth taught was necessarily a “western” religion in its original form, nor am I convinced that it was what Western Christianity has today become).

~

I am going to leave you with two questions to ponder. Please don't confuse what I am asking you. I am not asking you what your interpretation of your religion teaches. I am asking what you think:

Is Life a means to an end, or is Life the purpose itself?
Do you believe man is innately good?

What Happens When You Die?

I've been thinking alot about how I'm going to teach my children about the after life when they are old enough to start asking questions. I've been thinking about it because I do NOT want to leave this up to whatever church I happen to be going to at the time. I think I will use the following parable:

When you die you go to a road that stretches out in two directions. One goes to Heaven, the other goes to Hell. You are free to choose the path that goes to Hell but before you get there you will encounter the body of Jesus blocking the path. You will have to step over Jesus' body and jump into Hell. No one will force you to jump in, but you must step over the body of Jesus and jump in yourself.

If you choose the path that leads to Heaven, then all along the path you will encounter the times you hurt others and hurt yourself. Each encounter will have a lesson for you to learn. Once you have learned all the lessons of all the times in your life that you hurt others or hurt yourself you will be able to enter Heaven.

Evil and The Devil

The Devil has been coming up in different conversations recently and caused me to do some thinking about what I think the Devil is. Humans have always had impulses they have a hard time controlling. Humans will want to do one thing but do another and later feel guilty about making the wrong choice. Before there was the language of psychology and neuroscience humans needed some way to talk about the impulses they had that they found difficult to control. In ancient times they used the language of the Devil and demons. When I hear people talking such a way at church or on TV I usually try to translate it into something that is personally meaningful for me. Probably my favorite way of talking about evil and the Devil is the Jungian idea of the shadow.

I like the idea of the shadow because it allows people to own their own "evilness" without the threat of being squashed by God. It also allows  people to realize their "evilness" is coming from somewhere within and  if they "own" it they can diffuse its power. I think people that are  busy externalizing evilness and sin and condemning it are people that  have not owned their own evilness - i.e. Ted Haggard. (Not that  homosexuality is evil. Ted thought his desires were evil and was not  able to own them so they got the better of him).

I like the idea of the external personification of evil (Devil with  horns and pitchfork) because it allows people to disassociate their  "evilness" if it is to threatening to own it. It also just helps to externalize  things and blame them on something to be honest. The most important thing is for people to begin a dialogue about the evil they see within themselves. The can begin this dialogue just with themselves personally or with someone else. If externalizing evil to a literal sentient Devil is what they need to do to begin thinking about it then I say it is a good idea.

For example if  someone is really self-condemning or just hard on themselves you can  suggest that it is the Devil telling them these things because they  are really meant for great things and when the Devil tells them they  are lazy/ugly/whatever they should tell themselves what a lie that is  and immediately tell themselves the opposite - that they're worthwhile/beautiful/etc.

What are your thoughts on the Devil? Is he a literal sentient being? Has the idea of the Devil outlived its usefulness and is more destructive than anything?

Oranges and Mangos

Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ".

“It is good that an orange is an orange and a mango is a mango. The color, the smells, and the tastes are different, but... we see that they are both authentic fruits.
If religions are authentic, they contain the same elements of stability, joy, peace, understanding, and love. The similarities as well as the differences are there. They differ only in terms of emphasis”.

I think this is a very good analogy and understanding of Religious Pluralism.

However, this understanding runs into a direct problem, a direct confrontation with Jesus. No, strike that. The problem isn't with Jesus. The confrontation and problem is with mainstream Christian theology, Doctrine, and ideology.

I think the following statement from Pope John Paul II's book, “The Threshold of Hope”, summons up the collective voice of Christendom's concern best:

“Christ is absolutely original and absolutely unique”.

answers Thich Nhat Hanh, "But who is not unique? Socrates, Muhammed, the Buddha, you, and I are all unique. The idea behind the statement, however, is the notion that Christianity provides the only way of salvation and all other religious traditions are of no use. This attitude excludes dialogue and fosters religious intolerance and discrimination.”Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ".

“Of course Christ is unique."

Christianity will tell you that this position not only denies the divinity of Christ, but denies Christ Himself...
... but I'm not convinced that it does.

I have come to the conclusion that the New Testament as we have it today was shaped by the 1st-Century Church and not the other way around. The 1st-Century Church was not a product of the New Testament.

The four canonized gospels were written significantly after the rest of the New Testament books. Is there any way of knowing whether they were written as a supplement to the Pauline Epistles and possibly influenced or tainted by them? Are the four canonized gospels historically accurate or are they a rewritten and reinterpreted history?

I am at a point where I believe the evidence is inconclusive. Although I believe Jesus is the Truth, I no longer believe he is ‘accessible’ through the bible. It is because of the canonized bible that he has become isolated in a hidden and inaccessible part of history.

I believe the eternal and divine "Cosmic Christ" (Logos?) is a projection (and undeterminately a construct) of the church and also (emperically) inaccessible.

The real issue comes down to one's understanding of what the Incarnation is.

John Hick, "The Metaphor of God Incarnate"

"...the idea of divine incarnation,... in which both genuine humanity and genuine deity are insisted upon, has never been given a satisfactory literal sense; but that on the other hand it makes excellent metaphorical sense. When, for example, Gandhi, asked what his message was, said that his life itself was his message, he was saying that his message was embodied, incarnated, made visible, in his life. For a human life can 'incarnate', or live out, truths and values".

Thich Nhat Hanh, "Living Buddha, Living Christ".

"It is a natural tendency of man to personify qualities like love, freedom, understanding, and also the ultimate... The true body of Jesus is His teaching. The teaching of Jesus is His living body, and this living body of Christ manifests itself whenever and wherever His teaching is practiced".

I can say with all honesty and a clear conscious, that I believe Jesus was a perfectly accurate reflection of the divine; a metaphor of God at least/for certain. I can also honestly say I believe the Jewish Rabbi Yeshua of Nazareth was fully, wholly, and completely human.

But was he literally God incarnate? I had struggled with this quesiton for in excess of 8 years.

Must he be literally God incarnate?
I've stopped asking this question. I think the answer to that question hinges soley on choice, is inconclusive, but damningly divisive and destructive. I have come to leave it unanswered.

Many will tell me this means I cannot be a Christain. It isn't a title I've proclaimed nor treasure anyway.

Others will begin launching biblical verses at me, demanding that I account for their meaning while in actual fact, only attempting to defend their personal positions.

Well, what is the most important thing a Christian believes in?
The Bible? A man? His teachings? Or what He represents?

When we force the question of, "Was Jesus literally God" to be answered, we begin a journey down a path that cannot end in any other way but intolerance, discrimination, suffering, and a counterfeit religion. It ceases to be authentic – and some might argue – even valid.

"Worship me or burn" is not the core message.

Please don't misunderstand me. I am not denying your Christian God. I am simply not willing to force a belief into a fact.

I'm through with posing, or pretending, or allowing others to think I'm something I may, or may not be.

This is who I am and where I find myself today. I am not forcing it upon you. You can take it or leave it. You can accept me or reject me for who I truly am. But I am what I am and I'm extending to you the open honesty I usually reserve for God alone.

Am I fearful of the possible consequenses? Yes. But I refuse to wear this mask any longer

Windblown

I have never been comfortable with this statement, or profession of “faith”, because it is professing faith in the wrong thing – a book. Not only is it blind faith and circular thinking, it misplaces faith in a book and not God (and I don’t care if it’s the Torah, the Bible, or the Qur’an). It is the first step towards idolatry - biblio-idolatry to be specific.

The fact of the matter is, there are conflicts, inconsistencies, and incompatibilities between the Old Testament and the New Testament (if there wasn’t we’d have never heard of Gnosticism), most especially when Christians narrowly focus only on the bible’s words as ultimate and absolute authority.*

Admittedly there are conflicts and incompatibilities between the Bible and the Qur’an as well*, but, once again, only when viewed (by both sides) through the paradigm of a book as being the source of authority and not God.

The real issue isn’t whether the Torah of the Old Testament and the New Testament are not compatible, nor whether the bible and the Qur’an are in conflict and suffer incompatibility. We are misled and misdirected when we focus on and come into conflict over these issues. We fall victim to pride and seek to answer the question of whose right rather than listening to the voice of the Spirit.

When we decide to follow the Way of Yeshua (or the Holy Spirit for that matter) we must decide whether

A) we will narrowly focus only on a book’s words as our pinnacle of authority, or

B) allow the principles of the Spirit beneath the words to be our guiding force.

It is these two possibilities that are in conflict. It is these two options that are totally incompatible. There is no happy medium between these two points.

You deliberately follow the letter of the law, or you deliberately follow the spirit of the law. You may only do both incidentally. One will shackle and bind you while the other will set you free – whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, freeman, master, or slave.

And it is important to make note that Yeshua was very specific about disregarding the will and direction of the Holy Spirit.



* I suspect these incompatibilities stem from different and varying authors, historic contexts, and cultures btw.

Jet Li's views on religion

"Is there a religion that is superior morally and spiritually with respect to all others? I strongly believe the answer is no. Sure, religions differ from one another in their outward trappings, in the Gods their followers worship, in the customs and rituals which their practitioners observe. But upon closer inspection, the underlying heart and central principle in every religion is the same. Every religion boils down to love, to a respect for all living things, to choosing peace over violence as a means of resolving a conflict. The essence is universal; it is only the means to the end that varies.

"If intrinsically all religions preach the same thing, then why all the different world religions and their numerous offshoots? The explanation, I believe, lies in the fact that people across the world live under very different circumstances. Depending on the cultural, historical, and geographical background of the individual, some religions are easier to understand and practice than others. An individual may opt to follow a certain religion because it falls in place with the way he or she interacts with society at large. Perhaps the religion helps foster and protect the pre-established living patterns along which the individual is used to following. Or maybe the religion helps the individual confront a longstanding fear or personal weakness.

"I like to explain the technical side of the proliferation of such a wide variety of religions through the concept of Bagua, a Chinese form of mathematics. As I've already pointed out, the common denominator of all religions is the concept of love and forgiveness. A tree trunk grows branches; in the same way, the major world religions (such as Buddhism and Christianity) spring from the root source of love. From these major world religions other smaller sects and subdivisions arise, like twigs from a bough. Populations in different regions throughout the world put a differentiating mark on what is otherwise the same religion and make them into unique ones, out of cultural, moral, or sometimes even political reasons. For instance, the Buddhist sects found in India differ from those, say, in China. And from those sub-religions arise another smaller and more specialized set of other sub-religions. It's an infinite process of divisions and offshoots. But if you reverse the process of proliferation and retrace the paths of all these religious sects, you find that they all boil down to one common root - love.

"Another analogy to religion I always like to draw is that of school. In every school, you have different departments that teach different subjects, such as mathematics, English, history, and science. Within each of these departments, you have another set of divisions. For science, there are the divisions of physics, biology, chemistry, and so forth. And within each of these divisions lie another set of subdivisions, and so forth. Different subjects with different areas of specialization - but the purpose is the same - education.

"Why then, one might ask, are there religions that preach evil deeds? Why has religion, in numerous historical instances, been used to promote and justify the acts of terrorism, political propaganda, cult suicides, and so forth? Here, I think it is crucial to draw a distinction between the religion itself and the way with which an individual or group of people may choose to interpret or use such a religion. Sometimes, for political motivations or for a personal agenda, a group of people in power may choose to distort a particular religion to serve their own self-interest. In that case, the essence of the religion - love- is no longer pure and has been warped by a negative outside factor. In the continual proliferation and outgrowth of so many different religions, it is inevitable that distorting factors such as self-interest are introduced and divorce the resulting new "religion" from its original intent.

"Hence, it is important to remember that religion, per se, is a good thing. When one practices a religion, one should be aware of what it is ultimately about and not be misled into blind practice of its specific tenets. I always believe it is important to develop such an awareness. Rote memorization and recitation of a religion's principles and ideas, and perfunctory performance of its rituals mean little if one doesn't live it. Only through a lifestyle of generosity, kindness, and love, and a positive contribution to humankind can one consider oneself a true practitioner of any religion."
Jet Li