My collection of Quotes

I've come to the conclusion that the main purpose of writing or doing most things is to give others pleasure. So if I've given you some pleasure I have been rewarded for my efforts, which I confess are quite strenuous.

I don't think that wise sayings are meant to be practised, they're only indications of a person's opinions and guidelines to thoughts. They aren't dogmatic beliefs and a person can change his opinions about life and daily events. 

Some sayings appear to be wise, others are plainly nonsense, but these are things I have thought about or that I've heard tourists say while guiding tourists around the places which are holy for them.​

The Bible

Many peoples will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the LORD from Jerusalem. Isaiah 2:3

Pirke Avot (Jewish Book of Ethics)quotes

Everything is in the hands of God, excepting the fear of God. 

My friend's quotes Interpretation: (By my friend Sid Gordon) 

God doesn't make decisions for man (like being righteous or wicked) every person makes his or her own decisions in life. God allows this because He does not force anyone to be righteous and holy or to be wicked. Man is responsible for these decisions.

Sid Gordon Fri 13th Nov 09

"I didn't know that calvary and the tomb of Jesus were so close to each other" 

Tourist Bob Thur 3rd Dec 09 

Never give up on the internet. Keep at it untill you get it right.

Candy 

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Always be willing to let go of the life you had planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for you.

My Quotes:

Be patient with people, everybody, especially those close to you. People need time to come round to think about what they have said or done. 

People will criticise themselves much more fiercly and effectively than you can ever do, but you need patience untill they think about the things they've done or said. 

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Social order is maintained by the spread of myths which Plato calls "Noble LIes and maimonides calls "necessary and useful beliefs." 

Sun 15th Nov 09 

What is the light at the end of the dark path of Jewish HIstory which illuminates every step we take? it is the light of Torah. 

It's important to enjoy something beautiful each day. 

Tues 1st Dec 09

looking back at the light and shade of Jewish history we’re hopeful that whatever tragedies the future may bring, joyous events will follow.

Western (Wailing) Wall quotes 

Tues 17th Nov 09 

Jews pray at the wall for God not to destroy the world 

The wall is the closest we can come to the place where holiness used to come down to earth without standing on the place itself. 

Temple sacrifice quotes 

God used to send holiness down to earth when the priests used to sacrifice at the temple, now we aren't worthy to recieve the holiness because we're not holy, because we have defiled ourselves with war and blood and in any case there aren't anymore priests. 

Because of this we live in darkness and just as people sleep in the darkness and dream so the temple has become a dream

Leon's War quotes 

We’ll win the war when we stop fighting. 

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"you move to violence by blaming someone for nonsense. You move people to peace by not blaming anyone." 

Leon's interpretation quotes

Puccini’s opera Manon Lescaut is the tragedy of a woman who takes love from one man and money from another. 

Leon's quotes about Jesus 

Sat 14th Nov 09 

Jesus was not the saviour of the Jews neither was he their king or god.

Leon's Calvary Quotes

Calvary and the tomb of Jesus weren't close to each other. The closeness was artificially contrived by Constantine to facilitate pilgrimage . 

Winston Churchill 

Truth is incontrovertible. Panic may resent it, ignorance may deride it, malice may distort it, but there it is."

Ed Morrissey

"Mass murderer in Norway gets 99.5 days in prison per victim" 

"scary but it would help if other nations make sure that this guy stays in Norway and never enters another country." 

beena sarwar 

If clerics can hold forth from pulpits, move crowds to be violent in religion's name, they should also be able to move crowds to be peaceful.

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More of My Quotes:

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worries take up too much thinking space in my brain and I am very worried about its capacity. 

Jews mourn at the Wailing because the destruction of the temple signified the imminent destruction of the world. 

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You don’t have to hate someone just because you disagree with him.

the Jews are the guardians of the temple and God will give them back that task. 

Moslems will agree to Jewish sovereignty of the Holy Land if they become Moslem.

Gambling is stealing honestly from people prepared to pay for the chance to steal honestly. 

God wants to destroy the world but desists because of devout Christians, Jews and Moslems.

Offering animal sacrifices Jews thought they were saving the world from destruction which God was preparing to carry out after Adam's sin.

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Israelis have lost patience with the Arabs and aren’t interested in fighting extended wars. Leon Gork

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Jewish idealism established the State of Israel to reach for the top of an ideal society

Hanlie Gordon

advice for folding bike enthusiasts CAREFULL THAT THE THING DONT FOLD UP WHILE YOU ARE TRAVELING! MOOI BLY.

Rabbi of Kotzk

horses follow the middle of the path humans always walk along the edge.

More of my very own quotes:

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why is it important to know that there is a god? won't i be just as happy not knowing that he exists as knowing?

levels of society are joined to each other, like mountain climbers struggling to reach the peak. Leon Gork

the Garden of Eden is the world we leave behind after we die, our lives are a once in a lifetime opportunity to make it more perfect Leon Gork

The Death of Sigmund Freud Mark Edmundson P.232

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to renounce the visible in the interest of the unseen is an enormously difficult task.” 

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for all to go well, he needed to have a close friend to confide in and a spirited enemy to oppose.

My Quote:

why is it important to know that there is a god? won't i be just as happy not knowing that he exists as knowing? 

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The animal is capable of achieving pure joy because it can't think. I am capable of achieving it because I can think.

My tours in Jerusalem and Israel are the closest one can come in Israel to the situation in Hyde Park, where everyone can speak his mind freely.

Leon's No Newsletter 237 Hesitating with a mind full of thoughts

While writing the title above, the association between “mine” and “mind” occurred to me; just as material substances like gold, silver, coal etc. need to be mined so thoughts need to be mined. Gold is mined by digging into the earth while thoughts are mined by digging into our memories.

I think that the Torah meant us to dig into our memories to revive the thoughts which we’ve had during the past year and in all our past lives, on the festival called New Year (Rosh Hasahana) and that’s why the Torah called it “the day of remembering” (Yom Hazikaron)

Although the results of mining is very satisfying, the work involved in producing those results is so slow and arduous, that, now as I struggle to rouse my thoughts, I feel as if I’m sweating and should wear my new sweat absorbing shirt, which I use, to protect me from the sun during my long distance walks along the many wonderful paths of Israel.

These walks are just a continuation of the walks I started in June; my first walk was in the Gardens of Rothschild’s tomb, near Zichron Yaakov. I wrote about that in my last no newsletter (236).

Since then I’ve been doing a long walk of about 10 KM each week with my friend Avram, who I met at the bus stop, while waiting for the bus to take me to the beginning of a walk, always a problem because there were never any bus stops exactly where the walking path begins and it is usually necessary to walk a km or so along some busy road until finally reaching the beginning of the walking path. Avram was at the bus stop also intending to reach the beginning of a walking path. He’s been doing this for years and has walked practically every path in Israel. Since that day in June I defer to his superior knowledge of walking paths and let him choose the walk and I only find out where exactly we’re going to walk to when I get to the bus stop.

You can see pictures and descriptions of my walks on my website, Jerusalemwalks.com > do it yourself tours> Gorkswalks.

The above mentioned shirt is one of many things I brought back with me from our holiday in Britanny. I went there with Ettie, Avishai, Ittamar and Anat and their little daughter, my cutie pie granddaughter, Noga.

What a job we had getting to the house of Ettie’s friend Irina, who kindly invited us to stay there for 10 days.

Britanny is a massive farming area and we were in the midst of it. Rivers pierce the land so that boats sail from the English Channel deep into the heart of Britanny. Wherever you turn there’s a harbor, like Tréguier, between the Guindy and the Jaudy rivers, or Lézardrieux, upriver on the Trieux, or Paimpol the famous fishing harbor and many more.

We turned off road, D786 and found ourselves in pitch dark, on a small road, nothing more than a narrow tarred track, even smaller than the secondary roads like D70 or D33 where mostly farmers move from their lands to the small villages nearby, like Pleubian or Lezardrieux etc. which was okay because the house is on one of these, a street named Keralis. It was literally like looking for a needle in a haystack in the dark.

Very few cars travel on these roads, but one stopped to offer help. Out stepped a Frenchman (who looked tall to me, although Bretons seem to be quite short) his wife and two sons, good farming people of Britanny, but they spoke nothing but French and I suppose Bretan, the language of the ancient Celts from whom they are descended, in fact they are the native British people who at some early time in history settled Great Britain. Later William the Conquerer returned to conquer Britanny and many of the towns are named after English aristocrats who ruled the farmlands in Medieval times, like Treguier, named after Count Stephen of Tréguier, the second Earl of Richmond. 

I regretted that I didn’t speak French. The mother, drew a map on the back of a copy of a lecture that my friend, Prof. Haim Marantz had given me to read on the flight, but that didn’t help. I spoke a bit of German to one of the kids, who said he was learning German at school, but that also wasn’t much use. We all raised our hands in exasperation and decided that the only thing for it was to call Irina, in Israel, who speaks French, to explain to the kindly Bretan farmer how to get to her house. This done he happily told us to follow him and his family all piled back into his car and in a few minutes of following we reached Keralis and the charming, little farmhouse, which Irina had named Chez Shai, after her granddaughter.

I had another occasion to ask directions of a friendly Bretan, when Ettie and I were trying to find the Glann ar Mor whiskey distillery in the village of Pleubian, overlooking one of the river inlets from the sea, named Sillon de Talbert because of a long, narrow geological formation, called a Sillon.

I understood that he was in a great hurry and couldn’t stop to direct us, but he waved in the direction we should go and we soon found the distillery. Disappointingly it seemed closed and we decided that they were out to lunch, because everyone in Britanny eats lunch between one and two. So we decided that we too would have lunch and then return to try and enter again. One doesn’t easily give up the chance of visiting a whiskey distillery.

We parked at the edge of the Sillon to eat our bread rolls and cheese and drink wine, while we watched for the incoming tide, one of the especially beautiful scenes to enjoy in many places in Britanny, but it was early and all we could see before us were boats lying scattered on the dry rocky river bed, waiting for the tide to come in, which would be at about 6 PM. I passed the time walking among the boats and taking pictures. When we thought lunch time had ended we returned to the job of finding the whiskey.

I tried the door of the distillery again, this time a lady appeared and showed me how to push the door hard and it opened. The owner is a friend of Ettie’s friend Irina (she knows how to pick her friends) and being thrilled to meet us opened every possible kind of whiskey for us to taste, I tasted and tasted and tasted, all good 50% but amazingly remained sober. I purchased a bottle for my son Ariel, who appreciates good whiskey and who I usually join for a drink on Fridays at his home in Kiriat Ono.

I had planned to go for a walk each day, as is my custom at home, but everyone else planned to go to the farmers market which took place in a different village each day. This was an excellent way to see the country so I decided to compromise and went along.

I watched the family make purchases and roam the market, which was full of all kinds of food, straight from the farmer; big, round cheeses, roasted meats, fresh red radishes, bright orange carrots, red fish, grey fish, silver fish, still squiggling in the vain hope of returning to the river. Avishai, our chef, was making his choices for our evening meal.

I never cease to be amazed at how much time my family is capable of wandering around markets and shops. Even Noga has taken to the habit and loves it. When we were in the beautiful town of Dinan, I chose to lie on the lawn under the famous Magnolia tree by the church of St.Malo, where some musicians played Bach on their bass and violin.

I usually left the family like this and mostly started walking from whichever market we happened to be, in whatever direction seemed attractive, hoping that I would reach the sea, which was very near, but somehow eluded me and mostly I found myself walking through avenues darkened by the covering like a tunnel, of great oak trees or between corn fields and cabbage patches.

After a call from Ettie wanting to know my where I was, which wasn’t a good question because mostly I didn’t have any idea where I was, I only knew that I was enjoying my walk along these quiet country roads. The only way I had of knowing my location was Google maps on my smartphone, so I sent her a link to my location, which she picked up on her “Waze”, then Avishai and Ettie to rolled up in the BMW to pick me up. They really did me a great service and saved me from walking greater distances than I had already walked.

One day Avishai took me to the beginning of a great coastal walking path known as Port le Chain, which took me along the beaches to Sillon de Talbert. This time my smartphone was dead and they couldn’t find me, so I spent the whole day walking home from there to Pleumeur-Gautier, the vicinity of Irina’s house. It was great.

This was all before I had purchased my new hiking shirt, mentioned above. I only got to use that after I returned to Israel. I bought it at Decathlon, a wonderful sports good store near Lanion another beautiful town, where later, while lunching in the town square with Avishai, I also had my first Galette, a kind of crispy pancake wrap with mushrooms, cheese and other tasty, but unmentionable morsels.

One day I walked to Treguier, about 5 KM away to shoot some pictures with my Cannon Powershot S30. I didn’t know what I was going to shoot. I really went only for the exercise and there, as I crossed the bridge over the Jaudy river, disappointingly a cloud covered the setting sun and dulled the yachts anchored in the little harbor, spoiling any hope of a sharp shot. Then suddenly the cloud moved and the river, the boats, the grassy hill and the houses all turned into gold and I clicked away and have pictures that I love. You can see some of these on my website, jerusalemwalks.com.>Do it yourself tours>French holiday 2016>day4

I maintain that memory is man’s most useful ability. On Sunday night 2^nd Oct the Hebrew date will be 1^st Tishri 5777 and we are called to exercise this ability and to remember everything that has happened to us until this date. By remembering we can go back to those times in our minds. This way we can enjoy the good things over and over again and we can work to have more of them in the future. We can regret the bad things and try to avoid them in the future.

By exercising our ability to remember we create the tools for a better future.

We can choose to be happy in the coming year by reliving the good experiences we remember of our past.

My wish for you is that you remember the good times and relive them and forget the bad times forever. That way you’ll have a happy New Year and all your years will be happy.

Wishing a great no news day

Yours truly

Leon Gork 

The Nation Lives - A Poem by Leon

Jerusalem Fri Aug 12th 2005

The Nation Lives.
I'm a Jew you are a Jew.
Because the Nation Lives.
Abraham died.
Moses and David all died.
I will die and so will you.
We are all parts
of a nation called the Jews.
Parts may come and parts may go.
Parts replace parts.
There are parts and parts and parts.
But the nation Lives.
Look how the parts have suffered.
In Jerusalem, Massada, Mainz,
Speir, Cologne and Auschwitz.
The suffering has become a part.
The people and their suffering
keep the Nation alive.
Defeat is individual like death.
But Victory is national like life.
When the Torah say "choose life not death"
it means join the nation don't live alone.
We join the nation by learning
about the history of the suffering
of individual parts of our nation,
in Egypt, Jerusalem, Babylon and Germany,
and passing this on to our children.
We pass it on and
The Nation Lives.

Son of the High Priest - Inscription

Did Caphias the High Priest Have a Son?

Son of the High Priest inscription from between the years 30-70 on display for first time

A fragment of a large sarcophagus lid found in excavations north of Jerusalem on display for the first time in the Davidson Center in Jerusalem. The lid is engraved with an inscription in square script that is characteristic of the Second Temple period. The lid is meticulously fashioned and the carved inscription on it reads: "Ben HaCohen HaGadol" (son of the high priest).

Numerous high priests served in the temple during the latter part of the Second Temple period and there is no way of knowing which of the high priests the inscription refers to. However, it should probably be identified with one of the priests who officiated there between the years 30 and 70 CE. Among the high priests we know of from the end of the Second Temple period are Caiaphas known from the New Testament as the high priest who arrested Jesus and had him handed over to the Romans, Theophilus (Yedidiya) Ben Hanan, Simon Ben Boethus, Hanan Ben Hanan known from the great rebellion of the Jews against the Romans that brought about the destruction of the temple and the city, and others. The high priests of the Second Temple period were members of the upper and priveliged classes of Jewish society. Excavations in the last 40 years in Jerusalem have revealed the extend of their wealth. The contrast between the difficult conditions of most of the population and the priesthood and royal families of Judea was one of the reasons for the rebellion and maybe even the main reason.

The excavations were conducted by the Unit of the Archaeological Staff Officer of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, under the direction of Naftali Aizik and Benyamin Hareven, within the framework of the salvage excavations along the separation fence that were conducted with funding provided by the Ministry of Defense.


2009-12-11From Eretz Magazine

Son of the High Priest - Inscription

Did Caphias the High Priest Have a Son?

Son of the High Priest inscription from between the years 30-70 on display for first time

A fragment of a large sarcophagus lid found in excavations north of Jerusalem on display for the first time in the Davidson Center in Jerusalem. The lid is engraved with an inscription in square script that is characteristic of the Second Temple period. The lid is meticulously fashioned and the carved inscription on it reads: "Ben HaCohen HaGadol" (son of the high priest).

Numerous high priests served in the temple during the latter part of the Second Temple period and there is no way of knowing which of the high priests the inscription refers to. However, it should probably be identified with one of the priests who officiated there between the years 30 and 70 CE. Among the high priests we know of from the end of the Second Temple period are Caiaphas known from the New Testament as the high priest who arrested Jesus and had him handed over to the Romans, Theophilus (Yedidiya) Ben Hanan, Simon Ben Boethus, Hanan Ben Hanan known from the great rebellion of the Jews against the Romans that brought about the destruction of the temple and the city, and others. The high priests of the Second Temple period were members of the upper and priveliged classes of Jewish society. Excavations in the last 40 years in Jerusalem have revealed the extend of their wealth. The contrast between the difficult conditions of most of the population and the priesthood and royal families of Judea was one of the reasons for the rebellion and maybe even the main reason.

The excavations were conducted by the Unit of the Archaeological Staff Officer of the Civil Administration in Judea and Samaria, under the direction of Naftali Aizik and Benyamin Hareven, within the framework of the salvage excavations along the separation fence that were conducted with funding provided by the Ministry of Defense.


2009-12-11From Eretz Magazine

Boats on the Sea of Galillee. Replicas of boats from the time of Jesus.

Actors and Actresses Léa Seydoux

Movies: Spectre 2015(Madeleine), The Lobster 2015 (Loner Leader)2014 Saint Laurent
(Loulou de la Falaise) Beauty and the Beast 2014 (Belle) The Grand Budapest Hotel 2014
(Clotilde) Blue Is the Warmest Color 2013(Emma) Grand Central 2013
(Karole) Sister 2012 (Louise) Farewell, My Queen 2012(Agathe-Sidonie Laborde)Inglourious Basterds 2009(Charlotte LaPadite)

My memory of her is in Diary of a chambermaid.( Journal d’une femme de chamber)2015, which I saw at the Jerusalem Cinemateque. Watching her at work, running at every beck and call of her mistress, silent and uncomplaining, never overdoing her enthusiasm to be obedient. She does a brilliant job of portraying the perfect chambermaid. She never appears proud, knows the intimate secrets of her mistress, always ready to socialize with other servants, but unlike them is tight lipped. She suppresses her natural beauty and so it shines much more than if she would have made an effort to emphasize it. She convinces her  mistress, a very sharp and demanding lady and us, the audience, that she is a natural, excellent chambermaid, innocent in every way and this heightens the surprise that comes at the end of this excellent movie.

Marty - My interpretation

Marty. (1955) .Dir:  Delbert MannFrom the Third Ear at the Jerusalem Cinemateque. Seen. Dec 2015

Leading one’s own life

A man can’t make up his mind because he tries to please all the people who are important in his life, like his mother and his friends. Yet they don’t give him clear directions regarding important decisions in his life, like deciding whether to buy a business or to marry a girl that he likes. 

Each of these people advises him according what it good for them and not what is good for him. Both his friends and his mother like him and look to him for friendship and support. Their advice, not to buy the business and not to marry the girl he loves, is based on their need for him as a solid person who gives their lives support. 

I think that Ernest Borgnine shows himself as a brilliant actor in portraying Marty.  Esther Minciotti gives a wonderful portrayal of a typical Italian mother and Augusta Ciolli gives a very convincing performance at the hysterical aunt.The movie succeeds in keeping us in suspense regarding the outcome of his inner struggle to come to the correct decision. 

The Revenant - My interpretation

The Revenant. (2015) Dir:  Alejandro González Iñárritu. Seen at Ayalon Mall. Sat 30th Jan 2015

Although the movie is called “The Revenant”, which means “The one who returned from the dead”, this movie does not show someone returning from the dead.

When people say that someone has returned from the dead they’re only speaking metaphorically. Anybody who really believes that a person can actually return from the dead is foolish.

But when we meet a living person who has endured suffering which is so terrible that we are sure it has killed him, we tend to say “he has returned from the dead”.

This movie, by vividly and realistically showing a man enduring terrible suffering, helps us to understand how the saying “he has returned from the dead” develops and is repeated so often that some people begin to believe that the person really returned from the dead.

This saying is therefore a myth and no matter how realistic the death appears to be we should understand that it’s a myth to say the man returned from the dead.

A Prophet.- An interpretation

Dir: Jacques AudiardSeen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque Sun 3^rd Jan 2016.

This is the first movie I saw of 2016. I certainly hope that it’s not prophetic.

I think that movies depicting people being locked up in prison hold us in rapt attention because most of us have conscious and sub-conscious fears of being locked up. I certainly identified with the prisoner in this movie because of my fear of being locked up and my fear of people in authority.

They’re all copies of an authority figure which my father represented to me. Every scene shows the prisoner interacting with authority figures and throws him into deeper complications with authority. His first struggle against authority is striking a blow at a policeman. For this he is convicted to spend the next 6 years in prison.

Here he encounter a worse authority figure  than the policeman, who is a criminal authority figure, namely of the underworld who makes harsher demands on his obedience than the authority of the law.

His obedience to underworld authority ends when he’s ordered to murder a Moslem leader. This and the illness of his best friend, also a Mowlem bring him to a realization that there is, after all only one authority to whom he must show obedience and that is Allah.

In fact this movie shows the path followed by a prophet according to the Koran:

'We hear, and we obey. We seek Thy forgiveness, Our Lord, and to Thee is the end of all journeys.'" (2:285)

The message of the movie is obey and seeing that you must obey someone it might as well be Allah, otherwise you’ll find yourself having to obey murderous commands given  to you by law enforcement personnel or by criminals.

Chronicle of a death foretold. - An Interpretation

Cronaca di una morte annunciata (original title) Dir:
Francesco Rosi Seen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque Tue 5th Jan 2016

Not having read the book I can’t say how close this movie sticks to the story by the great author, Gabriel Garcia Marques. The scenes in this movie are works of art, joined together and put in a sequence that gradually reveals a multitude of plots all woven into one. Long after seeing the movie, the scenes, of their own accord come back into my mind, like a tune that once heard is never forgotten, demanding to be considered the main plot.

A man, on the prow of a river boat looks at the approaching land. The scene, without words, only the thudding motor of the boat, feint sounds of voices coming from the land, the brilliant white of an elegant mansion, contrasting with the dark gold of the water and a glimpse of narrow alley ways opening on to a wide plaza, hints to us that dramatic events, now memories, are going to be revealed here.

Even now, more than a week since seeing the movie, I ask myself, what I can learn from this tragic story.

The town’s folk have just celebrated a fairy tale marriage of a young woman. Immediately her prince like husband reveals her lost virginity on her marriage bed and returns her to her mother as spoilt property.

The lesson I learnt from this movie is that a woman whose honor has been taken away has the right to name the price for its recovery. Her price is the life of the most popular young man in town, full of the joy of life and hope in the future. It doesn’t matter whether it really was he who had robbed her of her virginity. The fact is that a fallen woman is dangerous; she can name the price of her lost honor. She chooses him to be the sacrifice, because he is worthy.

He is killed just like a sacrifice, stabbed to death in the town’s main square, while all the people of the town, his friends look on.

I wouldn’t have come to this conclusion had I continued, like most viewers, I suppose, to dwell on the mystery of whether it was really he who had taken away her virginity. If it wasn’t him, then who was the true defiler? Why didn’t she give him up to be murdered? Was she protecting someone? Who was she protecting? Was it the doctor? Or was it someone in her immediate family? Maybe even her father or one of her brothers?

The Night Porter - An Interpretation

Dir:  Liliana Cavani 1974 Seen at the Jerusalem Cinemateque. Tue 12^th Jan 2016

This movie shows us that once a Nazi always a Nazi, but Nazis, like all humans make certain concessions to their lust for pleasure, especially the pleasure to be had from a woman, especially when she is at their mercy.

From the woman’s point of view her gratitude for the mercy the Nazi has shown her, knows no bounds and she is ready to place herself, once again, but this time voluntarily at his mercy, when she meets him after the war and she suffers the consequences.

These actually could have been good, that is she could have ended up having a happy marriage with the Nazi who had rescued her. 

But loyal Nazis still thrived even after the war and a pure blood German living with a Jewess was intolerable in their scheme of things. 

Their pursuit of the couple creates the tension that makes this movie an excellent thriller. 

This added to raising the question of how we are to relate to Nazis who had mercy on their subjects, makes this movie great.

The Purpose of Religious Belief

I'm sure that the perpetrators of terror attacks carried out by Muslims are motivated by the thought of punishing the infidel or something like that, based on instructions in the holy books and beliefs.

From the little I know about Islam, Muslims want to convert the whole world to Islam or to destroy it in the process; redemption or destruction. But this is the basic agenda of all monotheistic religions; this is Judaism's intention also, only Judaism has a method of “wait and let events take their natural course”. Islam and Christianity have a more active approach to reaching this absurd goal. 

I emphasize that I don't consider these beliefs absurd. I consider the goals based on these beliefs as absurd. 

I consider those beliefs very wise. Mohammed, Jesus, Moses and a host of others were very wise people and logically figured out what the world needs to survive forever. It's a very attractive idea. But it's not practical or realizable..

They've produced wonderful books with beautiful, powerful words. But these ideals are only good in theory. It's absurd to try and realize them. They are beautiful dreams.

We make a big deal out of wisdom, which is as it should be. I love wise words. I try to fill my days with them. I love them and they are mostly what I think and dream about.

But should I try to apply that wisdom to my life? God forbid. By no means. Wisdom must be kept in libraries, cinemas, theatres, art galleries etc. even churches etc. But God forbid that we should ever be so mad as to try and realize them. Their reality is in their creation. I will never dream of trying to turn my life into the painting of a beautiful scene I happen to see in an art gallery.

We love creativity and wisdom so much and they are expressed with such force that we forget to consider whether it's feasible. We humans must decide what is feasible and what is not. God gave us laws and we must choose which to keep and which not to keep.

For God's sake don't think that God means us to obey all His laws. That is ridiculous because we will get crazy in the effort.

It wouldn't make sense for God to command us not to keep His laws. The best He could do to help us is to give us the example of Adam. God commanded and Adam disobeyed and that's what He expects us to do.