The Origin of Anti Semitism

It always comes as a terrible shock for someone who sees themselves in one way to find that everybody else sees them in a completely different way, even in a way diametrically opposed to the way they see themselves.

The Jews see themselves as being kind, humane, generous, peace loving, sympathetic and more. The world sees them as aggressive, stubborn, sly, ambitious to the point of trampling over others, money grabbing and more.

A question about these negative characteristics was put to me quite bluntly by a charming lady tourist who hadn't had much contact with Jews untill her visit to Israel on bussiness. Her question came naturally after she had visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Memorial. She asked why the Jews were so hated.

Basically the only source of information available to most people about the Jews, untill they visit Israel is the Bible, specifically "The New Testament" which contains many references about the Jews taken from the "Old Testament" all these references describe the Jews in very negative terms. So most people who read the "New Testament" understand why the Jews are hated.

Obviously my lady tourist hadn't read much of the "New Testament". This is more common today than in past centuries, so she had no pre-concieved ideas of Jews, as people used to have in the past.

Today also the State of Israel does a lot to present the Jews as a positive, good nation, being quite a successful country, quite well known for it's contribution to science, agriculture, medicine etc and it's readiness to come to the aid of other countries in need as in Africa or in the wake of a natural disaster. In many cases Israel is the first country to send aid.

Before the "New Testament" appeared on the scene in about the 4th century of the Christian Era, at the time of St. Jerome and Constantine the Great the only book available that told about the Jews was the Tanach, known as the "Old Testament", since the advent of the "New Testament".
  

The Tanach had been read for at least 1000 years befor the "New Testament" appeared. It was a best seller already long before the time of Jesus. It was read extensively throughout the Greek and Roman world and was just as popular as other books of the time like The Illiad and the Odyssey or Plato's Dialogues.

The Tanach contains descriptions of both good and bad deeds performed by people in general and the Jews in particular. This is as it should be in a book that purports to give a true account of history as it related to the Jews and the Land of Judea,

Before the "New Testament" people who read the Tanach knew that there were many good Jews, like Abraham who sometimes faltered because of temptation and did bad things, like sending his wife Sarah to Pharoah in exchange for good treatment from the Egyptians, or Jacob who did many good things like having mercy on Esau, but who erred in being decietful and taking his brother Esau's birthright.

Nobody appears perfectly good in the Tanach excepting the Angels and nobody appears completely bad even Satan who tries to prove that Job is loyal to God only because of his wealth and large family.

Ant-Semitism didn't exist untill the "New Testament" appeared. Nobody saw the Jews as better or worse than any other nation. In fact according to the large numbers of converts to Judaism in 1st century of the Christian Era it's quite clear that people admired the Jews and wanted to be a part of the Jewish Nation.

The "New Testament" by it's very name presents a new alternative negative description of the Jews by means of bringing only Tanach quotations that describe the Jews as sinners and people diobedient to their own God, who in the "New Testament" becomes the father of Jesus, making those who believe this the protectors of the honor of the Father and the judges and rightful persecutors of those who have been disobedient to Him, namely the Jews.

The "New Testament" takes the place of the Tanach as the official description of the Jews and their history and the Tanach is relegated to the secondary position as the "Old Testament".

According to the "New Testament" the Tanach is at best only a description of the future true book which is to come, namely, the "New Testament". The Jews are at best a group of people whose sins have made it necessary for God to send His own son to absolve them.

The more sinful the Jews appear to be, the more pure the Christians. The New Testament cannot describe the Jews as being good and kind etc because then Christianity would be a secondary religion. Belief in Jesus would only be the secodary way to qualify as a child of God. The primary way would be to be a Jew.

It's an honor to be a Jew but it requires a more strict adherence to righteous behavior than is required in Christianity or in Islam.

Every prophet warns Jews of their special task and they even call curses down on us if we don't observe the high moral behaviour set out in the Tanach.

The prophet's censure of backsliding applies to backsliding from a very high moral standard to a lesser moral standard, not from morality to immorality as presented in the "New Testament".

The day of Judgement is for moral people who must constantly be careful not to lessen their morals. It's not a day of judgement for a bunch of criminals. It's a day of Judgement to review our current moral level.

We don't need a day of Atonement for crimes like theft or murder, God forbid. Only punishment can atone for those crimes. We need a day of Atonement to help us go higher on the ladder of moral behaviour, to help us reach out even to the ultimate high standard of morality of God Himself.

According to the "New Testament" those who believe in the saving power of Jesus on the cross are perfect and don't need a day of judgement or a day of atonement.

Sad to say it's our own learned rabbis who have forgotten to explain what is meant by a sinner standing before God. Sinners who've committed really bad crimes don't stand before God, only moral people who want to be more moral.

Our rabbis have been teaching us incorrectly and Christians have followed their way of teaching for thousands of years.

By considering ourselve a stiff necked people it shouldn't surprise us that Christian priests teach this to their flock. They enhance the goodness of Christianity by doing that.

As long as our rabbis and Christian priests continue to teach negative descriptions of the Jews there isn't a hope that Anti Semitism will vanish.

In my opinion the State of Israel is the most righteous nation in the world but nobody's going to acknowledge that because it's a Jewish state and everybody, especially devout Christians have learnt about the Jews from the "New Testament" and the Koran and "knows" the lie that "the Jews are liars, cheats, betrayers of God etc etc."

We need a dialogue with Christianty and Islam at long last. This dialogue must start with putting our cards on the table. We must start explainng the "New Testament" as the second Bible and the Tanach as the first Bible.

We need to explain what the prophets mean when they "O you nation of sinners,when will you return to the Lord." We have to start figuring out what really was the sin that that the prophets are referring to.

We must stop teaching non Jews the traditional rabbinic interpretation of the Bible. The time is long overdue for a complete revue of Jewish Biblical teaching.

If we don't explain what the Bible means then the non Jews are going to give their explanation. We must first see ourselves in a good light before we can expect non Jews to see us in a good light. It's not enough to demonstrate how humane and peace loving is the state of Israel. We need to explain how this humanitarianism harmonises with the dastard, disgusting picture portrayed in negative verses of the Tanach and the "New Testament" which presents only the negative verses.

It's all very well for our leaders to quote from Isaiah and Micah about their dream of world peace and say "look these guys were Jewish". 

Non Jews didn't learn that chapter in Sunday School, it's not even quoted in the "New Testament", at best most people think that Jesus said it and  don't believe the Israeli leader who quoted it.

They learned the curses in Sunda school. We always read those qurses quietly as if they won't be noticed and that's the part of the Bible they notice most. It's about time we started explaining what those curses are all about.

We owe Christians and Moslems an explanation of how we appear to be such sinners in the Bible and the Koran yet such humanitarians today. We must explain that there's no difference between the morality of the Jews living today and the morality of the Jews at the time of Jesus. We've always been a moral nation. We didn't suddenly become moral when the State of Israel was established.

Sad to say Jewish scholarship as great as it is, has let us down in this respect. It hasn't addressed itself properly to the Christian world. I look for explanations in vain. When asked why people hate the Jews we get shrugged shoulders and side stepping answers.

It's about time we called a spade a spade and put the "New Testament" descriptions of Jews in their correct perspective.

I apologise if this attempt doesn't do the job but that's the only thing I'm capable of, being just a simpleton from Krugersdorp, trying to explain something that is difficult to people who don't want to hear. That is the way of simpletons, they don't understand that nobody really wants to hear these things.

love and atonement in the three monotheistic religions

According to Judaism there is only one doctrine:the law to love God and to keep His commandments (the “Shema” prayer), Deuteronomy 6:4, and this is man’s response for God’s creation.

Adam, the first man God creates, the first one to benefit from the wonders of creation, more than anybody else should be grateful for God’s bounty and should love God and carry out His commandments, doesn't and thereby becomes the first sinner.

As far as I know, nowhere in the Bible (Old Testament) does it say that man has to atone for Adam’s sin.

Yet,Man’s sin and atonement is the reason d’etre of Christianity and Islam, in Judaism it is the creation.

Christianity and Islam have turned the idea of loving God and carrying out His commandments into a punishment to atone for Adam’s sin, whereas in Judaism it's a way of showing joyous gratitude for creation.

Christianity’s attitude towards sin, atonement and love, is most clearly stated in the famous verse, John 3:16 that teaches that love is the way to atone for Adam’s sin, the opposite of Judaism's idea, above, that love is a form of gratitude:

According to Judaism God never stopped loving man or never even threatened to do so. Even though Judaism requires atonement, it’s got nothing to do with our love of God or with God’s love of us.

Love is pure and simple the reason why God created the world and love is a way man has of showing gratitude for this creation.

This idea is most beautifully expressed in Psalm 100

1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
2 Worship the LORD with gladness;
  come before him with joyful songs.
3 Know that the LORD is God.
  It is he who made us, and we are his,
  we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving
  and his courts with praise;
  give thanks to him and praise his name.
5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever;
  his faithfulness continues through all generations.

God showed His love of man by creating the world. The crucifixion of Jesus was a tragic event but was not God’s way of showing love.

The Bible (Old Testament) recounts the wonders of creation as being sufficient evidence of God’s love of mankind.

Atonement of Adam’s sin is taken care of, in the Bible (Old Testament), in a completely different way that has nothing to do with love or performing God’s commandments.

Atonement is dealt with extensively, in the Book of Leviticus, only in relation to sacrifices of animals in the temple. Atonement is only limited to sacrifices of certain specific animals, performed only by Priests and not the general population, only in the temple and nowhere else. When the temple was destroyed prayer took the place of sacrifices.

According to Maimonides, the Spanish, Jewish scholar of the 11th century, sacrifices were introduced because the Bible is aware of man’s natural inclination, on the one hand to sin and on the other to want to atone for sin.

Even though atonement serves a purpose it’s a negative activity and, like any negative activity, can’t be permitted without setting bounds to it.

Unlimited atonement is like unlimited sin; both can lead to the performance of terrible acts of suffering even murder and self inflicted death.

The specification of sacrifices is so clear and precise (one turtle dove for this, two for that, a lamb for this, another for that, this burnt completely, that burnt partially etc. etc. see Leviticus) that it’s clearly intended to limit man’s boundless need for atonement to those specific sacrifices at specific times and a specific place and performed only by the Priests.

Atonement needs to be limited. Its function is to limit sin and it, like sin must be limited. Through the many laws of sacrifices atonement acquires a confined method, time and place, making it unnecessary for man to be continuously worrying about atoning for sin.

In any case there wasn’t anything the individual could do about atonement because the priests did it for him. The people weren’t allowed to make sacrifices themselves.

Love and obedience are boundless. All people are obliged to show love and to be obedient, not only the priests and Levites, as in sacrifices. All people can love and be obedient anywhere and everywhere and at any time. They don’t need to be confined to a temple or any other place and it can’t be done for them by priests. People have to love and obey God themselves.

It doesn’t make sense to Love and be obedient as an act of atonement or to make a sacrifice as an act of love. A sacrifice isn’t an act of love. How can slaughtering an animal be considered an act of love?

Atonement takes the form of destroying something or causing suffering (this is why it takes the form of slaughter and it’s carefully restricted), love and obedience take the form of creating and bringing happiness, that’s why everybody must do it, everywhere, at all times.

After he’s given the Priest or Levite the animal or bird for the sacrifice, he has done his duty and doesn’t need to do anymore.

(today, without the temple, Priests and Levites don’t have this function and the individual makes a prayer instead of bringing an animal or a bird to the priest.)

If he does more than this, for example by making himself suffer and calling this love and obedience, he is being foolish because he’s bringing unnecessary destruction to the world which God has created. The key word here is “created”. We are obliged to create not to destroy.

The idea of a boundless activity, Loving God and keeping His commandments, is the complete opposite of atonement.

Man isn’t required to punish himself; he’s required to make the sacrifices (through the Priest) or prayers as specified and to love God and do His commandments boundlessly and this isn’t done as a punishment to atone.

A person who forever punishes himself, fasting, not eating certain foods, not marrying, not listening to music, not wearing fancy clothing, wearing special kind of clothing not suitable to the time and place, not going to the theatre, not admiring art and myriad other activities that are available in the world which he denies himself to make himself suffer as atonement for Adam’s sin, causes misery to be the natural way of life.

On the other hand a person who shows gratitude to God by loving Him and performing His commandments causes happiness to be the natural way of life.

In my opinion atonement by admiring the suffering of someone else is the same as suffering oneself.

Judaism cannot accept the Christian adoration of the suffering of Jesus on the cross, considering it to be atonement for their sins or the sin of Adam.

Therefore the statement in John 3:16 is unacceptable to Judaism.

Judaism believes that we show love by bringing life in joy, not by slaughtering the object of our love. Christianity has erred in making Adam’s sin central to creation and so forgetting creation itself.

The central point of the story of Adam is that he didn’t show enough love and obedience in gratitude for creation.

The conclusion to come to isn’t that we must atone for his sin but that we should love and be obedient, lest we too fall into sin.

Obviously atoning for sin is a part of life but not the most important part of life.

Unfortunately Christianity and Islam have exaggerated the importance of atonement.

Christianity does this by encouraging monasticism, asceticism, penance etc. considering this praiseworthy behavior.

In Islam non believers are the guilty ones and must atone for their sin by converting to Islam.

Many Jews also, mistakenly, observe the laws as if they were punishments but this isn’t the way of Judaism as it says in Psalm 100: Serve the Lord with Joy. Do His laws with joy in the way of joyful gratitude for a wonderful world.