Stoned

When you look at the large number of offenses in the Torah for which the penalty is death, a number of questions arise. First off, is faith in G-d not meant to be beneficial to us? It's a happy thing, right? Why is it that from the outset, from the Torah onwards, the religion of Abraham puts on a scowl? Depictions of people being blessed and happy seem to dwindle into insignificance compared to depictions of G-d's wrath. Perhaps because we so infrequently merit the blessing.

It is not without some justice that believers in orthodox (small o) Christianity and orthodox Judaism and Islam are often viewed as repressive, violent, unduly strict, legalistic and even hateful. This is a severe family of religions, religions of rock and desert. A religion of stone.

First off, I think it is important to clarify: faith in and obedience to G-d does not exist for the sake of our happiness. I firmly believe that faith and obedience is rewarded by blessing and joy, but that is not the same as saying that this is it's purpose. To some degree the purposes may be inscrutable, but part of the purpose is to have relationship with the Lord. Love, in this sense, really does make the world go round.

With that quibble aside, why do the religions descended from Judaism (Judaism, Islam, Christianity) often appear strict, fun-hating, judgmental and violent? Is it not some part of the goal to be united and happy and enjoy those good things that life has to offer?

The fundamental crux of the problem is a disagreement on the priority of sin.

Happiness that is based on a disordered understanding of reality is a happiness that is bound to be turned into misery. Without a reasonably true understanding of the actual reality of the world and ourselves, joy is baseless and unstable. From this point of view, sin is a road map. This is where you actually are, this is where you ought to be. A correct understanding of sin is meant for our construction, not our destruction.

In order to lift you up, G-d must first make you understand that you are low. You think you are kings of the Earth: you must know that you are an infant abandoned by the side of the road, kicking in his own birth blood. And this is something we definitely don't want to understand. We want to think that we rock, we are champions. And we may be by a human understanding. You think Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos does not count himself as a lord of the Earth, an uncrowned prince of the planet? They do, of course they do. They look at the work of their hands and say, "we can do anything." Who can limit us? Who can say no to us? We mold the future with the power of our own minds.

But G-d made them and G-d could unmake them.

Why is the Torah full of "no's" and "do not's?" Is the future G-d means for us a "no?" Of course not. We must encounter and grapple with the "no" in order to become the "Yes." It is not our behavior that G-d is jealous over, but we ourselves; that we not become evil but become good. The Commandments are not meant to scold you, they are meant to change you. These "religions of stone" are not meant to make you stone, they are meant to make you soft, to unclog your ears and reverse the fossilization of your hearts.

The instructions of Moses were indeed severe. You have to bear in mind two things though:

1. The Israelites were meant to be a nation of priests and so the rules on them were harder than the rules on anyone else.

2. Barbaric and nomadic peoples, such as the Israelites of 3000+ years ago, would not have understood or respected any penalty short of death. What, they are going to put them in prison as they wandered the desert? What prison?

And now we are in an inverse situation from the ancient Israelites. Everything is yes. Be gay, change your gender, be atheist, have an abortion? Yes yes yes yes. Unless you murder (those already born,) or assault or steal or defy the government or break traffic laws, the answer is yes. Of course, to modern people, the religion of Abraham is the religion of "no." That is not what is intended.

I wish I could tell you of the "Yes" that G-d has put in my heart. Yes to peace, yes to care and consideration, yes to respect, yes to life, yes to harmony. But I think modern ears are not well attuned to such a "yes."

 I will give you a new heart

and put a new spirit in you;

I will remove from you your heart of stone

and give you a heart of flesh.

~Ezekiel 36:26

They will be my people, and I will be their God.

I will give them singleness of heart and action,

so that they will always fear me and that

all will then go well for them and for their

children after them. I will make an everlasting

covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them.

~Jeremiah 32:38-40

(I speak of Christianity, Judaism and Islam together in this. Anyone who knows me would probably know that I don't regard these three as equals, but they are equally threatened by corrosive modernity. A devout traditional American Christian now has more in common in terms of moral values with Muslims than with liberal Americans or even sometimes liberal Christians. An Orthodox Jew probably has more in common with a traditional Christian than with secular Jews. It is now past time to put the family squabbles in the Abrahimic religions aside. This is not because there are no significant differences: I for instance don't believe Jesus was G-d, a big difference, and I don't particularly believe Muhammad was a prophet. Nor do I believe in Rabbinic authority, which among other things washes me out of the mainstream Jewish camp. But in the context of a secular world that more and more wants us not to exist and certainly wants to push us to the margins, we have more in common than ever. Don't bicker over what we don't have in common, reinforce what we do.)

Climate Change and Hedonism

Some years ago I decided to forgo an automobile for a bicycle. My reasons for using a bicycle for transportation had little to do with climate change, although that was something that made me feel good about the change.

My main reasons were that I had little money, I was tight with the money I had, and I knew from past experience that automobile ownership was a hole where money goes to die. I also could sense myself becoming weaker physically with age, and had come to believe that physical health and strength was to be valued above most things. I had suffered a heart attack back in 2007.

I also had a somewhat anarchistic world view; something so entangled in regulation and licenses and mandatory payments such as insurance, registration and inspection was surely to be avoided. Those were moments in my life and dollars out of my pocket that I did not feel were worthwhile. So I got rid of them. I did not feel that abandoning automobiles was a particularly spartan thing to do because while bicycles were less convenient and slower and sometimes caused discomfort in such things as climbing hills (of which there are many around here,) I knew that riding bicycles were good for me and they were blessedly cheap and free of hassles. If I got pulled over, which really doesn't happen, I knew that I wouldn't have to worry whether my insurance was paid up or my inspection up to date.

Those kinds of hassles are the hassles I like least in the world. I would infinitely prefer to be puffing up a hill on a bike than receiving car insurance premium notices in the mail, or hassling with passing an inspection. To heck with that shit. So I got to be a cheap bastard and avoid regulation I hate, and as a bonus here I am going to turn 61 in a month and I am in pretty good shape and pretty happy, which a bike ride definitely helps with. Your body was meant to be used, was meant to be worked. It doesn't do right when it is not. Comfort and physical ease is not always your friend. In fact it is very often your enemy.

All of which is just a preface to my main point, that the desire for physical distractions and entertainment and pleasure and comfort and convenience and new experiences and superfluous possessions are the real main causes of climate change. A hedonistic philosophy of life, in other words.

Why do automobiles clog the freeways around here? Most people aren't going more than 15 miles to work and back, though some do. It's convenience and comfort, though I personally regard traffic jams as the least comfortable of things. If we turned over most of the in-city streets and freeways over to bicycles, we would not only have less pollution but we'd probably arrive at work at the same time as we usually did before in the traffic, albeit much sweatier. While I am on the topic, that's another fucked-up thing about our society. Humans sweat. Humans stink. And yet people are often expected to show up at work as if they lived in a year-round 50 degree temperature. Perfect little arctic snowflakes.

F0ck that, I am a man. I sweat. I stink. Deal with it.

Why are the factories of the world pumping out shit at record paces? Is most of that stuff a real augment to functional life, or more of the useless consumer crap we surround ourselves with? I am not innocent on this either, but everything we buy has to be made and transported, and that takes resources and pumps carbon into the atmosphere.

Why do we have all this endless meat and milk production, with its cows and sheep and chickens pumping methane into the air through their butts? Because we like these foods, far more than we need these foods. I like them too, I gave up on being vegetarian. I like meat. But I think if I were to eat it every day or every other day, I would be eating it far more than I had any need to. And there are a ton of Americans who eat meat every day, from the bacon at breakfast to the steak at dinner. Industrial agriculture of all kinds is one of the greatest contributors to environmental destruction, and it dominates the land all across the world and in America particularly. Our herbicides destroy native plants while our insecticides destroy insects and birds and our waterways.

And why is it? Because we demand it cheap and we demand it tasty and we demand it now. Meanwhile obesity and diabetes are at record levels.

Why do we have this bucket list mentality when we retire? Like, I have to travel the world or at least the country when I retire to fill out my list so I can die a fulfilled man. Right. And all those air miles add up in terms of gallons of fuel consumed, not to mention highway miles which are now even less efficient than air travel. And of course you are going to be eating out, which probably involves environmentally damaging foods and also isn't usually very good for you.

I don't know about you, but in my retirement I am going to DO things, build things, construct a life for myself that is both more ecologically sensitive AND better for my physical and mental health and peace of mind. And freer of the kind of pointless humiliating hassles that I hate. THAT is a retirement worth doing. I am planning on living, not on filling out a list of what I have seen and consumed before I died.

This, for the lack of a better word a hedonistic worldview, is what is destroying the planet. And it is not an American phenomenon, it is happening all over the world. This sickness is destroying all things everywhere.

Can you legislate against it? I don't see how, not in the big picture. Sure politicians can put a big carbon tax on fuels and risk political suicide. That is how the Yellow Vest protests in France got started. Can you legislate against meat? Can you legislate against travel? Can you tell the farmers not to use pesticides and herbicides? The turmoil in our food prices and food availability were that to happen would not be pretty at all. Can you ask the poor to bear the brunt of all these changes, because they are the ones who are going to be devastated when milk is $7 a half-gallon.

What we need is a moral and philosophical and spiritual revolution, not a legal one. Not exactly a new Puritanism, though at this point there is something to be said for the Puritans. Rather a joyous choice in favor of spending less money and growing better food and buying things for our needs rather than our self-absorbed entertainment or idle status seeking. We need a revolution for more meaningful work. I do not know how a person can be fulfilled in their work if their job is building crap cars or selling crap insurance or fake weight loss machines. You want to know what I would consider fulfilling work? Building a great useful bicycle. Building a hoe or shovel that is durable. That's useful work.

The transition to such a world would require that each of us, aside from a reduced number of people in cities, own some land. The reason for this is that our economy feeds on these vices, this vacuous consumptive nature of the citizenry. Were everyone to suddenly become the inverse of hedonistic little consumers, the economy would tank. If I grow food, I am less dependent on whether you do. If I make things, I might not need you to make things. If I provide my own water and energy, I care much less whether someone else does. If I am more self-sufficient, I am less hurt if the economy deflates to a more sustainable level. So yeah, if we all were to suddenly become more sane and responsible citizens, the economy might tank. In other words, the economy would decrease to the level of our need, not our greed and self-absorption.

It is impossible to imagine such a revolution, even on a small scale, without a belief in G-d. But it doesn't have to be my G-d or your G-d, Christian Jewish Muslim Bahai or Zoroastrian might all work. It would have to be a G-d who cares about human behavior, a G-d of morality. Because in my experience the antidote to nihilism (which hedonism and excessive consumer behavior is driven by tacit nihilism) is prayer.

Pray, then you won't need drugs. Pray, then you won't need alcohol. Pray, and you won't have to stuff yourself with food until you are obese and ill in order to fill the void of your life. Ultimately the solution to our environmental crisis, as with so many of our other problems, is G-d. Prayer and a morally scrupulous life, questioning one's own life choices as a spiritual value, when spread across a population could be far more powerful than any government regulation.

And that second part, questioning your own moral choices, is something that so many religious people have a problem with. Religion that only makes you feel good and doesn't make you do good is of no use and is a false religion.

The problem is, making it spread. Our consumer ideology is a powerful alternative religion, and attention spans are not getting any longer.

Show me your ways, Lord,

teach me your paths.

Guide me in your truth and teach me

~Psalm 25:4-5

And I brought you into a plentiful land

to enjoy its fruits and its good things.

But when you came in, you defiled my land

and made my heritage an abomination.

~Jeremiah 2:7

A Stiff Necked People

Okay, so I went to a Judaism forum and said I was a convert to Judaism. Which, as someone who believes in the Torah and Tanakh and tries his best to put that into practice, I think I should be entitled to call myself.

Whereupon they accused me of being a Messianic Jew or some variant thereof (a believer in Jesus) who was trying to snatch their congregation away from them!

They said I was in no respect a convert and that if I ever wanted to be one, I would have to uproot my life and move to New York or somewhere that a Jewish community exists and get properly processed by a rabbi. Meaning in their mind, not a Karaite rabbi which would be the kind of Judaism I would belong to, but Orthodox or Conservative or something. Karaite Jews aren't Jews, to them. The fact that they are every bit as much children of Abraham and Jacob as they are I guess means nothing, since the Karaites don't conform to their belief that the word of rabbis is equivalent to the word of G-d.

Now, you get all sorts of people on the Internet, and the immediately hostile reaction to me on this Judaism forum might not have been something I would get on every Judaism forum, but it is instructive.

We all like our little boxes in religious matters, and don't like people bending the boundaries of our boxes. Or at least traditionalists are that way. To those Jews, I was not a practitioner of Judaism however much I obeyed the Tanakh. Christians have their little boxes too, I went to Christian Forums which I used to frequent as a Christian and they have all sorts of position statements that you have to sign off on now to post in any of the Christian areas. So I won't be posting anything there.

Christianity the proselytizing faith is now the faith that walls itself off. And who could blame them? There's a lot to wall yourself off from. At least their New Testament tells them to proselytize. The Orthodox Jews are like, "G-d is ours, f0ck off."

I have a little box too, it's just that nobody is really in it but me. It is not so much that I initially wanted to define Orthodox and Conservative Jews out of my box, but they want to. And I will take them at their word and be liberated by it: I have no part with them. I am not their co-religionist. No rabbi's word, however wise that rabbi is, is of the same weight as the Tanakh. The Talmud and the "oral law" is a book of opinions and should be taken as such.

I have ideological differences with Muslims, but how different are they in terms of what they do? They don't observe the Sabbath, true, but in almost every other way we are far more alike than not. Their dietary rules are essentially the same as in the Torah, they believe in more or less the same moral rules. In terms of life practices and moral beliefs I have more in common with them than I would with a lot of Christians. Given the abundance of Orthodox Jewish practices and beliefs that are nowhere in the Tanakh, I might have more in common with Muslims than I do with Orthodox Jews. Aside from, you know, Muhammad and the Quran. I am not with them on that. So whatever the similarities, they are in their box and I am in mine.

So as of right now, nobody is in my box but me. Nobody I know of, anyway.

"No one I think is in my tree,

I mean it must be high or low."
~Strawberry Fields

So, earlier today I put on my tallit (prayer shawl) and asked G-d, "what am I?" If observing the Tanakh does not make me a Jew, what then am I? And I was led to the passage where King David had to reluctantly make war on his son Absalom, who was trying to usurp him as king. Now killing Absalom was the last thing David wanted to do, and in fact he ordered his men to "be gentle with Absalom." But he also ordered his men to fight them and put down the rebellion. And, well, David's men won and Absalom was killed despite the order. And David was beside himself with grief. To the point where his commander had to come and tell him essentially, "hey you are being a huge downer, here the men won this great battle and you act like you would trade all of these loyal men to get your son back. You value the traitor more than these good men who would die for you."

And at the time I had no idea what this meant as an answer to my question, but I think now I know.

G-d's true children are those who heed what G-d says. To be called Jewish doesn't matter, to belong to G-d matters. The one who does what G-d says, is a true son of Abraham and no others are. Absalom was a false son however much a biological son of David he was, he was a rebellious and treasonous son who violated the command to honor his father. 

A true child of G-d, a true son of Abraham, would not place the opinions of men on the same plane as the commandments of G-d. So call me whatever you'd like, as long as you call me "belonging to G-d."

And do not think you can say to yourselves,

'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you

that out of these stones God can raise up

children for Abraham.

~Matthew 3:9

Inconsistent

With apologies to the author of Matthew 5:17, there are a whole bunch of ways in which the teaching of Jesus as presented in the gospels, and the teaching of G-d in the Tanakh (Old Testament,) are inconsistent or contradictory. In other words you must choose: either disregard the teaching of G-d in the Tanakh or disregard the teaching of Jesus. For most Christians, they choose to disregard the Tanakh or else not resolve the inconsistency. In other words, the word of G-d then is nullified, and the word of Jesus now is the new rule. Did G-d change his mind? Far be it from us to think so.

Here is a very small real-life example: imagine someone who committed a grievous sin, I mean a really pretty bad one. This person has shown no repentance before the Lord and they don't believe in Him anyway. Such a person wants to re-establish a relationship with me. What should I do?

According to the New Testament I should forgive and befriend them. 
According to the Old Testament, I should STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THEM.

The Old Testament displays a theory of evil, that evil is like a contagion. This contagion should be given zero quarter. Destroy It. Deuteronomy 17 says it twice: purge the evil from among you. In that context, the command was to kill the one who commits it. Elsewhere in the Tanakh, it says that the righteous man should physically stay away from the unrighteous.

Blessed is the one

who does not walk in step with the wicked

or stand in the way (path) that sinners take

or sit in the company of mockers,

but whose delight is in the law of the Lord,

and who meditates on his law day and night.

~Psalm 1:1-2

Rather unchristian of them, isn't it? ;) Jesus overtly sat with sinners. Of course even if you assume Jesus could not be corrupted, that would still be a bad example according to the OT. His disciples, who are presumably not as incorruptible, are there with him.

Is the Old Testament, the Tanakh, right in saying that evil is contagious? I am sure that each of us could supply examples from their own life. It is not for nothing that careful parents tell their children, "stay away from that one, he is a bad influence." Even if we intend no evil, the unrighteous who we are hanging out with will want to do unrighteous things, and will want to involve us in those things. Evil is contagious, we will tend to want to do what our friends do and ultimately may think as our friends think.

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Okay, another example of contradiction. Jesus says to "love your enemies." Indeed the Tanakh is not totally a stranger to this idea: Jonah reluctantly goes to Nineveh to preach to them about their evildoing. Jonah doesn't want to save them, but G-d does. Note the context of this however:

1. Jonah is going to THEM, they are not living among the Israelites.

2. Jonah is a prophet and protected by G-d and indeed on a mission from G-d, so he is unlikely to be corrupted by the Ninevites. Indeed he hates the Ninevites, but G-d has compassion for them.

G-d does want to save all people from their sin, but He also performs emergency surgery to remove corrupting people from the presence of His own so that His people will not be corrupted. You may indeed experience this in your own life, as I have. You can see that in spades in the book of Joshua where the action commanded by G-d is complete destruction. Not because G-d enjoys killing sinners, but to keep the Israelites from being contaminated by the Canaanites. As it happens, that plan does ultimately fail (because it depends on human decision and human will) and the Israelites wind up living with and being corrupted by the Canaanites.

You can see an explicit command to that kind of removal of the wicked in Deuteronomy 20:

However, in the cities of the nations that the

LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance,

you must not leave alive anything that breathes.

For you must devote them to complete destruction —

the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites,

and Jebusites—as the LORD your God has

commanded you, so that they cannot teach you

to do all the detestable things they do for their

gods and cause you to sin against the LORD your God.

~Deuteronomy 20:16-18

This is severe surgery indeed, and one should not think that the Lord was unmindful of the hurt and death that He was commanding, nor was He without care for these condemned people. This was surgery, cut off the arm to save the patient. G-d knew that His people the Israelites were weak and would be tempted into sinful Canaanite ways, as indeed ultimately happened anyway.

So, love your enemies? That is an expression that can lead to confusion. You can certainly find the command not to be wrathful or obsessed with your enemies, Psalm 37 expresses that especially beautifully. But usually people think of loving your enemies as inconsistent with destroying your enemies. The Israelites are not commanded to love the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They are commanded to wipe them out totally.

But also, punishing your own enemies doesn't matter. Punishing who G-d commands you to, IF he commands you to, matters. The good king Josiah learned the consequences of going against G-d's will by attacking the Egyptians who he was not commanded to kill. The Egyptians killed him. They were his enemy, but they were not G-d's enemy. Heed the words of Psalm 37:

Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him;

fret not when men prosper in their ways,

when they carry out wicked schemes.

Refrain from anger and abandon wrath;

do not fret—it can only bring harm.

For the evildoers will be cut off,

but those who hope in the LORD will inherit the land.

Yet a little while, and the wicked will be no more;

though you look for them, they will not be found.

But the meek will inherit the land

and delight in abundant prosperity.

~Psalm 37:7-11

I could mention many other examples where the teaching of Jesus contradicts the teaching of G-d in the Tanakh. The Sabbath for one: the Torah and the Prophets teach us to respect the Sabbath. Jesus never says one good word about the Sabbath or observing it. It is possible that technically he never broke the Sabbath either, but he certainly never said anything good about observing it. This is one of the Ten Commandments, it is not a small matter.

Jesus ignored the ritual requirement to wash hands, which in addition to just being poor hygiene, was a ritual significant to many Jews. Does the command to wash hands before eating exist in the Tanakh? Not to my knowledge, but certainly washing your hands does good and not doing so does no good and might make you sick.

While the Gospels present no situation where Jesus was munching on bacon, he dissed Jewish dietary laws. While I am pretty sure that eating pork in the present day is perfectly safe, this was not true until relatively recent times. When Jesus was alive, eating pork could have had unhealthy effects. It was an invitation to trichinosis. The pigs could easily have eaten human corpses which would have potentially transmitted diseases. Jewish dietary laws existed for very good reasons: human health. Shellfish, can you imagine eating a clam out of the hot waters of the Red Sea? That would be an invitation to death by shellfish poisoning. Only eat fish with scales? Most fish without scales, like catfish, are garbage-eating fish. That is not at all the healthiest thing you can put in your mouth. G-d gave the dietary laws to help us, to keep us healthy. Jesus dissed them and never said anything good about them.

Jesus in fact said very little about the Ten Commandments. You never see Jesus warning his disciples about lying, for example. According to John I think it was, Judas stole from the money bag which Jesus did not take him to task for. You never see Jesus telling his disciples to honor their parents, actually the opposite.

Jesus in fact sometimes seems almost exactly like a Greek sophist or perhaps a Socrates: he subverts peoples' understanding of the Tanakh and rarely supports it. The statement, "what goes into your mouth does not contaminate you but what comes out if it" is almost textbook Greek sophistry. It totally ignores the purpose of the dietary laws: to keep you healthy. He only points out inconsistencies or loopholes in Sabbath observance, never supports the observance of it. G-d in the Tanakh promises prosperity to those He loves: Jesus says to give it all away to beggars. Which, we are commanded to charity for the less fortunate: Jesus subverts that into a command to totally impoverish ourselves.

Jesus cannot be understood except as a critic and rebel against Judaism. He doesn't complete the law. He subverts the law. Now, many of these criticisms are very clever, and no doubt many of his criticisms against the religious people of that day were spot on. The Jewish priesthood and authorities were likely often corrupt, as were many who supported them. That the infamously evil King Herod financially supported the rebuilding of the Temple speaks volumes on the toxic combination of temporal power and religion. The fact remains though that you cannot resolve the differences between what Jesus teaches and what the Tanakh teaches. Jesus uses the Tanakh to subvert the Tanakh. The Tanakh is consistent within itself, with very minor deviations. The New Testament is not entirely consistent with the Tanakh (though the highly excellent James, brother of Jesus, might be seen as the exemplar of what Christianity might have been without Paul.)

However, be that as it may, we are all in debt to that renegade Jew because without his Gentile followers, the Tanakh would not have spread throughout the world and to non-Jews as it has. Christianity is like a virus but for a good cause: it spreads throughout the world with an outer shell of falsehood (a triune god, god who became a human, cheap grace, no harsh rules like circumcision or dietary laws,) but within is the genetic code of the truth, like a package of DNA. Because the world hates truth and would not accept it if it were expressed plainly, it would not have spread on its own. Jews are terrible at proselytizing, and in fact generally don't do it at all. Instead, because the Tanakh is wrapped in the more palatable coating of the New Testament it can spread. It is thanks to it that someone like me could have discovered the Tanakh at all. No doubt that is exactly what G-d intended. That Greek sophist of a heretic made the Bible the most popular book of all time, and in it is the Tanakh, which teaches us an alien code to the teaching of Jesus. It is amazing that Christians do not see the contradiction between the New Testament and the Tanakh, but also thank G-d for it because they keep the Tanakh spreading throughout the world, like a cuckoo in the robin's nest.

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To my Christian brothers and sisters I say this: contrary to popular opinion, G-d expects us to think and to think hard. He expects us to question the questionable. We must think and question with a godly mind, a mind of faith, but we must do so. We must not fear the traditions of men but only fear G-d.

Answer me this: can G-d die?

Who then died on the Cross? Jesus did. Not G-d. Jesus was not G-d. If you say that Jesus did not die on the cross, then your plan of faith fails because then Jesus did not die for anyone's sins. If you say Jesus DID die on the cross, then he was a man and his death is no more effective than any other mans' death.

Moreover, since when was sacrifice ever required for the forgiveness of sins? Since when was Jesus required for the forgiveness of sins? G-d forgave all kinds of people in the Tanakh. When David was forgiven, what was required of him to be given that forgiveness? Repentance. Not sacrifice.

When I kept silent,

my bones wasted away

through my groaning all day long.

For day and night

your hand was heavy on me;

my strength was sapped

as in the heat of summer.

Then I acknowledged my sin to you

and did not cover up my iniquity.

I said, “I will confess

my transgressions to the Lord.”

And you forgave the guilt of my sin.

~Psalm 32:3-5

Jesus hadn't been born yet when David was forgiven! So much for the idea that the cross is needed for forgiveness!

Indeed Isaiah 1 states exactly this most eloquently: what G-d requires is a repentant heart. Blood sacrifice does not get sins forgiven: G-d will be merciful to those who truly repent.

Stop bringing meaningless offerings!

Your incense is detestable to me.

New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations—

I cannot bear your worthless assemblies.

Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals

I hate with all my being.

They have become a burden to me;

I am weary of bearing them.

When you spread out your hands in prayer,

I hide my eyes from you;

even when you offer many prayers,

I am not listening.

Your hands are full of blood!

Wash and make yourselves clean.

Take your evil deeds out of my sight;

stop doing wrong.

Learn to do right; seek justice.

Defend the oppressed.

Take up the cause of the fatherless;

plead the case of the widow.

“Come now, let us settle the matter,”

 says the Lord.

“Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow...

~Isaiah 1:13-18

So reason with me, Christian brothers and sisters. How is the man Jesus OR his death necessary to the forgiveness of sins? The Father forgave David directly.

Moreover, is not the idea of G-d being a man directly in conflict with the Second Commandment? It says, do not represent G-d as a created being! A man is a created being! Moreover, in the book of Exodus who was G-d rescuing the Israelites from? A man who called himself god (Pharaoh.) Did G-d in the Tanakh ever say that he was coming as a man? That seems like an important thing for Him to have mentioned. A passage from Isaiah is quoted, but that quote in fact refers to Israel as the suffering servant, not a particular man. Indeed the Jewish people have suffered beyond all reason for thousands of years. There is nothing in Isaiah 53 to indicate that the suffering servant is G-d. Indeed, the suffering servant is afflicted by G-d.

Think. Think righteously, think with faith, but think clearly. The triune god is not clear and not true. G-d as a man is not clear, indeed it is against the Torah. The doctrine of salvation through the blood sacrifice of a man-god and only through that, is contrary to the Tanakh and indeed deeply wrong. There are clear counterexamples everywhere. G-d did not want us to live in a spirit of confusion and contradiction but clarity. There is no G-d but G-d, and he is One and not in any way three. Only G-d is G-d, only the Father is G-d.

Man the Outlaw #10: You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me

"I am יְהוָ֣ה your God,

who brought you out of the land of Egypt,

out of the house of bondage.

You shall have no other gods before Me."

~Exodus 20:2-3

Virtually no gods of the ancient world were exclusive. They were in fact part of a pantheon, a Mount Olympus of sorts full of gods. Deities had families, they had power struggles within those families. Very often the fathers of the gods got sidelined for their promising new children, as happened to the Mesopotamian god Anu and the Hittite god Ouranos. The primordial pre-Moses Hebrew deity El may have indeed been their version of Anu and Ouranos, or at least absorbed some part of that role. And before Moses and indeed after as recorded in the Tanakh, most Israelites consorted with lots of other gods despite the prohibitions against it in the Torah.

Many scholars believe that Judaism was not originally monotheistic but monolatristic: that it was not so much that other gods didn't exist as they were forbidden to the Israelites who owed a unique debt to יְהוָ֣ה. Regardless, pretty early on at least among the priests of יְהוָ֣ה in Jerusalem, it was not so much believed that other gods are just forbidden so much as they are unreal, only wood and stone, unliving. Not potent. Not real gods at all. The punishment in the Torah for idolatry was no slap on the wrist: banishment or death.

Nevertheless it is clear that a "culture war" waged in Jewish lands between this strict interpretation and other much looser interpretations until at least the late 6th Century b.c. and quite possibly much later than that. If you look at the books of 1st and 2nd Kings, the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah were pagan-friendly to varying degrees and sometimes far more loyal to foreign gods than their own. As early as Solomon, from the time the first Temple was built, pagan idols cohabited in it. Solomon himself, son of David, was no stranger to foreign gods.

Great reformers such as the prophet Elijah and King Josiah of Judah very often had to pave the road of their reforms with buckets of blood and gore, because the common people were clearly fond of these other gods and actually not at all loyal to the Lord and wouldn't be short of blood and fire. The belief in the Lord seems as if it could have been easily extinguished altogether. Rulers like Ahab and Jezebel certainly tried. Indeed it seems an act of divine intervention that the Torah and the worship of יְהוָ֣ה continued to be preserved at all.

All of the above is by way of explaining that the religion of the Torah and Tanakh is an extreme religion. It is not user-friendly, people didn't like it. From the instant that the Israelites entered the promised land they totally blew the G-d of Moses off and did their own thing. As I mentioned, the majority of the kings of Israel and Judah were pagan-friendly so while Moses might have put the death sentence on idolatry, it wasn't often carried out. Indeed few of the commandments in the Torah were carried out. The monotheism of Moses is severe, it is strict. G-d's way or the highway, if by the highway you mean death. It was unpopular even among the Jews. Why should such a severe religion ever catch on at all?

At the very beginning of Exodus 20, G-d places His claim to respect. He, uniquely, acted to save them. The Canaanite gods of wood and stone didn't save them. The Egyptian gods sure as hell didn't save them. So G-d's claim to be respected is mentioned up front: G-d frees. G-d saves. G-d parted the Red Sea and destroyed Pharaoh's armies. Try getting your wooden idols to do that.

What is more, He offered something revolutionary to them. He didn't merely free them from one captivity so that they could create some other decadent human kingdom of their own. He tried to free them from captivity to their fellow human beings altogether. Initially no human king was envisioned for Israel, G-d Himself would be their king. Keep the Commandments: then you would not need a king. Of course they didn't, but that was the plan. A nation governed by divine law, not men. The Lord G-d of Israel was utterly unlike any pagan deity, He was revolutionary and unexpected. He freed them and then gave them a plan to keep them free. Being human, of course they fell far short of that.

And of course, the problem with pagan deities and polytheism is, it's all so vague and indeterminate. Why should you believe in Thor rather than Brahma or Asherah or Molech or Odin or Zeus? Why would you believe any of them existed rather than something else? It's all rather wishy washy. Whether you believe or pay attention to one versus another comes down to pure superstition or the traditions of your ancestors.

In contrast, the G-d of Abraham inserts some clarity in the situation:

1. He is One (there is only one real G-d, all others are figments or demons or other things that should not properly be called gods.)

2. He is indefinable and transcendent (there is no arguing over whether your god has one eye or two or a pointed hat rather than a round one.)

3. His instructions are pretty clear and precise and not open to a lot of human invention (although of course humans have interpreted and reinterpreted and misinterpreted everything since it was written, but that's because that is what humans do.)

4. No other gods are G-d.

5. He is active and supporting (you will have much more well-being in your life because of His involvement in it.)

6. He strongly dislikes human innovation in religion. It's what He says, and He has been saying the exact same thing for 3000+ years.

So just on a super basic level, polytheism doesn't make a lot of sense. Monotheism does.


**************************************************

Still, I don't think I am capturing with my words the importance of that second part: no gods but G-d. No gods before Him. In order to understand it, we have to bring in that unpopular concept from the second Commandment: G-d is jealous. G-d is impassioned. G-d cares. Why?

The worship of other gods is inherently idolatry, because you are either worshiping a created being (in the sense that gods were often considered celestial objects or heavenly entities) or a thing that is not a thing at all. Or you are cutting out the middlemen of pagan idols and worshiping carnal things directly. And what does that idolatry bring? The celebration of our basest nature. Food becomes our god, sex becomes our god, money becomes our god, fame becomes our god, drugs become our god. These are the gods that humans will choose, more often than not. Indeed the Calvinists believe that on our own we cannot choose otherwise, that every act of turning towards G-d is an act of divine intervention.

This was not the purpose for which we were created. Idolatry is the subversion of the spiritual man in favor of the carnal man. G-d's intention was for the harmony of Man's spiritual and earthly nature. We were intended, in fact, to be the intersection where heaven and Earth join harmoniously. Earthly overseers and divine children both. G-d cares because he has definite intentions towards us. He has a plan. He intends it to be carried out. None of your wishy washy modern religion here,

He is a jealous G-d.

Why did that plan fail? Because it some sense it clearly did. Does G-d plan things that fail? Well for starters, in the long run it won't fail. But G-d wished for us to be free to choose, He is treating us like free beings not serfs, and so all paths good and evil are open to us. Evil brings curses and death, goodness and love of יְהוָ֣ה leads to health and life, but it is yours to choose. You are free. In the end, G-d will sift the wheat from the tares and those who are approved by Him will live in the Kingdom.

*************************************

Ultimately, I cannot tell you what is in my heart and mind when I read Exodus 20:2-3 so I cannot explain this commandment to you. My desire to explain this commandment to you must fail. I can tell you of the history of religion and the history of the Jewish people. You can read the Torah any time you like, but I don't know if that will open anything to you. While I don't admire the Muslim prophet Muhammad and don't believe he even was a prophet, I do admire the Muslim purity on one topic: there is no G-d but G-d. There was always ever only one G-d and he opened His ways unto Moses on Mt. Sinai and He alone is G-d and there is no other.

The Eternal our LORD was never a man and could never die, on a cross or otherwise. To suggest otherwise is blasphemy. I understand, there's a lot of it around, but it still is.

If you want to meet Him, crack open a Bible (or better yet a Tanakh) and dig in, and pray that He opens your eyes. There is reading enough and wisdom enough to last you a lifetime.

When I first started studying the Old Testament in earnest, honestly it offended me. It will offend you too. It will offend the sin in you. Like most of us, I was so immersed in modernity and our relativistic ways that I could not see it truly, I only saw atrocities and religious hard-asses stoning people. It will require a revolution in your sensibilities and your understanding of the world. It did for me.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל 'הוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ 'הוה אֶחָֽד׃

Shema Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Echad

Hear, O Israel: the Lord your G-d, the Lord is One.

~Deuteronomy 6:4

Man the Outlaw #9: Do Not Make Any Graven Image

You shall not make for yourself an image,

or any manner of likeness, in the form

of anything in heaven above or on

the earth beneath or in the waters below.

You shall not bow down to them or worship them...

~Exodus 20:4-5

This is another Commandment that actually means more than people usually think it does. People think this merely refers to carving some idol, say of Baal or Asherah or some pagan entity, and then bowing down to worship and sacrifice to them. They say that this is not an issue anymore for most people at least in the West so keeping this Commandment is unproblematic.

Oh, foolish people. Most people are completely unaware how deep this Commandment goes, and what a condemnation on our modern society it represents. Let me see if I can break it down some.


Part I: What Is Idolatry
An idol in the broadest sense is anything that you place more value on than you do G-d. In a very limited sense ancient idol worshipers were more perceptive than idolaters today because they placed the focus of their attention on a spiritual plane. A demonic spiritual plane, but still spiritual in a sense. The idols were middlemen to the satisfaction of desire: sometimes desire to have a good crop this year or to have your sheep multiply or to get the love object of your desire or money or to kill your enemies. Modern man, he cuts out the middleman and pays no attention to the source, he just gets straight to the object of desire. He's way more businesslike in that way.

Advertisers use images to seduce to desire. Like a prostitute in a brothel window, they show their stuff in advertisements so as to arouse unthinking primitive urges. As far as G-d is concerned, there is no difference between a sexy ad trying to get you to buy a product, and an idol to Dagon (the fish-man god of the Canaanites.) The idol to Dagon is actually more subtle and less overt. But if what is desired is the corruption of the soul, why do you need Dagon or the rest? Get directly straight to the business at hand: getting people to value created things more than they do the Creator. Dagon and the rest are a spiritual appendix, they aren't needed anymore. People don't need their gods to make their corruption decent to themselves anymore.

I was actually conflicted about even showing these images, this is the visual whoring used to advertise these days, but I feel it is acceptable to do so for an educational purpose. I hope the more refined among us can forgive me for showing these, I know they turn my stomach. What feelings are aroused by these advertisements? Do they have anything do to with the actual products being sold? THIS is idolatry, these are graven images:

These are images designed to please your most unregenerate self. The third image almost looks like the beginning of a choreographed gang rape. The message sent by these ads have little to nothing to do with the actual products being sold. They are designed to please our demonic impulses. The evolved idolatry of today does not call Dagon or Asherah or Moloch or Baal gods. Human appetites are the modern gods, humans make themselves their gods. Their belly and parts lower than that are their gods.

ANY image that invites to idolatry, whether that is the worship of pagan gods or of sex itself, is included under the ban against graven images. Think about it: the idol is just wood or stone. It is nothing of itself. What matters is the mentality behind it and the intent. That mentality doesn't even need to be overt as it is in these images. What it needs is a wrong heart, a wrong spirit and a wrong intent. It can even be a very little thing in our minds, as I will show.


Part II: What Images Are Proscribed?
If you are very careful, you will see the wording of Exodus 20:4-5 above, and that some Bibles and perhaps your Bible does not express it in exactly that way. The words above are the closest transliteration from Hebrew. You can see a word-for-word transliteration from Hebrew here: https://biblehub.com/interlinear/exodus/20-4.htm

Now lets compare that to the NIV. The Christian Old Testament was translated from Hebrew into Greek and then into English, whereas the Tanakh is a direct translation from Hebrew, but I don't think this is the fault of the original translation into Greek (the Septuagint.) I think this is the fault of the compilers of the NIV:

You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below.

~Exodus 20:4 NIV

Notice that the language is specific: an image. One image, not some other. Not all images. That is not at all what Exodus 20:4 says. Exodus 20:4 says:

any image, or any manner of likeness.

What does the KJV say? "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness." Which aside from the archaic thees and thous, is just about right. So this is not a problem with the Greek Septuagint. It's a problem with the NIV. Why would it be translated this way? Well, because Christian churches are tolerant of images, some more than others.

What would be included under this ban against images? Let's take it down from the most obvious to the least obvious.

Would images of Mary and the Saints be included? Yes.

Would any image of Jesus Christ be included? Yes. Jesus Christ is believed by Christians to be the incarnation of G-d, so any image of Jesus is intended to be an image of G-d. It's not, but that is the intent.

Would the representation of the Cross itself be included? No with qualifications. It is technically not included under Exodus 20:4 because it is not an image of a created being. It is arguably still an idolatrous image, but not technically under Exodus 20:4

Okay, hold on to your hats, things are about to get real.

If I paint a painting of a tree in my front yard, just a normal painting of a tree, is that included?

YES.

Why should that be so? I am not going to argue that this is not what Exodus 20:4 says, it clearly says ANY image or ANY manner of likeness. I am just going to ask the question, why should this be so?

It is said, "only G-d can make a tree." And that's absolutely true. Humanity in all its technological power could never dream of making anything like a tree, it is the expression of a genius far beyond our ken. Now by manipulating the stuff of life we might create something similar, but that would be plagiarism. We didn't create the fundamental machinery, we're just hacking it. Such a thing would also be an abomination.

Now a painting of a tree is not merely a matter of plagiarism. This is going to be a hard concept, bear with me.

What is one big difference between my painting and a real tree?

The tree is alive.

It is a being of some kind. Metaphorically, the breath that animated us animates them. What human beings are fond of doing all the time is turning living things in the world into dead concepts in our minds. Capitalism is great at this, turning living forests into so many cords of wood, ignoring the living world that is being destroyed in the process. My painting is a way of making that tree dead, of not recognizing its livingness which was given to it by G-d. Now you may still think I am full of stuffing, bear with me.

In ancient Hebrew, vowels were never written. We have the consonants for the name of G-d but not the vowels; if the vowels were ever known they have long been forgotten. What is the difference between consonants and vowels? In consonants, the breath stops. Say the sounds of these letters: t, k, b. Your breath is stopped short, isn't it? Not so with vowels. For the ancient Hebrews, breath represented life itself and the unwritten vowels represented the flow of life which is always dynamic, always moving. So the consonants, being static and unliving like rocks, can be written. The vowels, the breath, which is living were not written. This was a primordial understanding of the Hebrew people that Life should not be represented, it was beyond representation. And it is also said that G-d Himself IS life and the origin of the same. The life, the breath (and even trees breathe) is from G-d and transcends human representation. How much more G-d himself?

The Muslims are right on this part: representation of any living being is to some extent idolatry.

Part III: Who is G-d?
The 2nd Commandment ultimately addresses how we should respect G-d, even if it has application to all these other things. G-d is unrepresentable. You shall not make an image intending that image to in any way represent Him. Indeed you should not make an image of any created being, but especially not an image of a created being that is meant to represent Him. So pics of Jesus are straight out; G-d was never a man and an image of a man intended to represent such man as G-d is straight out of the question. It is a flagrant violation of the 2nd Commandment.

Indeed it says in Exodus that the Israelites originally did not even know G-d's name. Arguably we still don't, He is beyond naming. Devout Jews call him Hashem: The Name. The unknowable name. They also call Him Adonai, which simply means "Lord." When Moses asked G-d at the burning bush what he should tell the Israelites His name is, G-d did not answer directly. He said,

"I Am that I Am. Tell them 'I Am' sent you." 

What the Lord was saying, was that His reality cannot be expressed through anything other than His existence: His livingness and power transcends any attempt to encapsulate it. He is the rushing living water that utterly destroys any attempt to enclose it in banks. He cannot be represented in any way whatsoever, not even a name.

And ultimately this is what this commandment is saying. We derive from it prohibitions on idolatry, but the inverse of idolatry that is being aimed at here is our acknowledgement and reverence of the living moving unnameable indefinable unrepresentable G-d.

Part IV: A Jealous G-d?
The part right after the prohibition against images states: "I your G-d YHWH am a jealous G-d" and also that G-d will visit the iniquity of the fathers on their sons and also show mercy to thousands of those who love Him and keep His commandments.

Whoa. See, this is the sort of thing that people have a problem with.

Let's deal with the first part first: G-d is a jealous G-d. Elsewhere it says that G-d is an impassioned G-d. This is the first sort of thing that liberal-minded churches are going to edit out or otherwise explain away. Something like:

"Naw son, that ain't a thing. G-d is love and loves everybody and forgives everybody and ain't putting the smite down on no one. That's just those bronze age idiots in the Middle East talking."

Yeah, well if you say that you might as well throw out the entire Tanakh (or Old Testament if you are a Christian,) because an impassioned G-d is entirely consistent with everything the Tanakh says. G-d is an impassioned G-d. Deal with it, or toss your Old Testament in the trash, because that is what you are doing when you deny what the Tanakh actually says. What stupifies me beyond belief is so many churches who essentially do that very thing. It's mind-blowing, the churches that condone what G-d forbids. I blame Paul for that, once you start saying that the message of the Tanakh can be modified or watered down for the masses, it can be modified out of existence.

In any case, what does our aversion to the idea of an impassioned G-d say about us? That we would prefer a G-d who does not give a damn? That would be very convenient for the worldly. But that is clearly not the G-d of the Tanakh: he is an impassioned G-d, a consuming fire. Praise be to Him. Who the heck wants a G-d that doesn't care? Someone who wants to break that G-d's laws, that's who.

Now, an even worse thing to modern sensibilities follows: that G-d visits the iniquity of the fathers on their sons. But is that not what we actually see? Abusive fathers create abusive sons. Drug-abusing fathers make drug-abusing sons. Now this is not to say that the son of a man who hates the Lord cannot be redeemed from that condition. What it means is that there is always a price paid, that son will always have to deal with the baggage that his father brought down on him. I know that full well, my own dad hated religion with a passion. He never formulated it to me in precisely this way, but if I had ever spoken to him about the Lord G-d of Israel, he would have expressed hatred towards Him. He definitely expressed hatred towards Christianity (which I am not a Christian but I was once.) Whether you consider it a direct expression of a natural law (evil and corruption sows evil,) or a direct act of G-d, the result is the same. Children suffer consequences for the iniquities of their parents. That's a fact.

Part V: Personal Note
I am actually an artist, so obeying this Commandment has very personal implications for me. Since coming to understand fully this Commandment, I cannot make art that represents created beings. I could still technically make abstract or geometric art, I just haven't thus far. You may regard this as a shame, that less art will come into the world. I honestly regard the simplest weed as a far greater work of art than anything I could ever make. Things that we disregard and trod under our feet all the time. All honor is due to Adonai, He is the only real Creator.

Man the Outlaw #8: Do Not Take the Name of the Lord in Vain.

Very often the 3rd Commandment (I am using the Talmudic counting here) is simply interpreted to mean don't cuss, or at least don't cuss with words invoking the Lord. Cussing is a nasty habit, one I am all too guilty of, but that is not what is meant here.

What this really means is, "don't misrepresent G-d."

How do you even know if someone IS misrepresenting G-d? Well the relevant interaction here is between the person who speaks and G-d, and of course G-d knows the truth of the matter, so if someone says, "making giant statues of Satan's wee wee and bowing down to them is godly," it is absolutely irrelevant whether anyone believes him or even if everyone believes him. Even if that were completely accepted and normal, G-d knows the difference and will not hold blameless one who distorts His teaching so.

On a trivial level this is pretty straightforward. Don't intentionally misrepresent G-d's teaching. But did G-d only mean intentional and conscious lying about Himself?

When you start to wade into this Commandment, you start getting in deep waters pretty quickly. How much of what we are taught, by wise and pious leaders I am not doubting, is actually dead wrong? They are not I am sure intentionally distorting anything. They received falsehood along with the truth, and now are passing it on to you. I personally believe this is essentially institutional in Christianity, and likely is in the other Abrahimic religions. You pass along the received truth and the received falsehood alike. The clarity and force of the original teaching is lost.

Who is responsible for sorting the wheat from the chaff here? You are. This means you can never accept received wisdom unquestioningly. You must question it. If you question it with a worldly mind, of course you will draw worldly conclusions and probably forget about the whole thing and probably go to a bar for a drink. If on the other hand you truly want the truth about G-d's teaching and pray to G-d for a true understanding of His teaching to Mankind, you will begin to remove the weeds of past human tradition. G-d is not unwilling to teach you. What you require, however, is a mind and heart that loves G-d first and with all its strength. If you regard other things as more important, you will understand a distorted teaching because your sin and weaknesses will distort it.

We see this a lot in mainstream Christianity, particularly Protestant Christianity. Some of the ways that G-d challenges human sin are unpopular, so those churches completely ignore such teachings. Some of the things G-d asks are hard or at least inconvenient, like observing the Sabbath, so we don't want to do them. The more such weaknesses dominate your life and mind, the harder it will be for you to understand a true teaching.

Why is easy grace such a popular thing in Christianity, especially Protestantism? That derives from a simple and common fact: people acknowledge that certain behaviors are sinful, but they don't want to stop doing them. Many otherwise conservative Protestants will acknowledge that something like pornography is harmful, but when they watch it anyway, they will rationalize that their intentions are not evil. Just their actions. This is a psychological disconnect that nowhere belongs in the true understanding of G-d's teaching. You are what you do, what you actually do speaks to where your heart is. You don't get to claim, as St. Paul does, that you don't really mean it and you don't want to. You want to, or you wouldn't do it.

However, we must take hope in the fact that G-d will give us true knowledge if we truly want it and if we won't put our own weaknesses and sins and desires in the way of receiving it. King Solomon became a king when he was young, and he was overwhelmed by the difficulties and magnitude of his duties. He asked G-d for wisdom:

"Now, Lord my God, you have made your servant king in place of my father David. But I am only a little child and do not know how to carry out my duties. Your servant is here among the people you have chosen, a great people, too numerous to count or number. So give your servant a discerning heart to govern your people and to distinguish between right and wrong. For who is able to govern this great people of yours?”

The Lord was pleased that Solomon had asked for this. So God said to him, “Since you have asked for this and not for long life or wealth for yourself, nor have asked for the death of your enemies but for discernment in administering justice, I will do what you have asked. I will give you a wise and discerning heart, so that there will never have been anyone like you, nor will there ever be. Moreover, I will give you what you have not asked for—both wealth and honor—so that in your lifetime you will have no equal among kings. And if you walk in obedience to me and keep my decrees and commands as David your father did, I will give you a long life."

~1 Kings 3:7-14

There is also another historically significant aspect to this commandment, which is essentially "don't tell G-d what to do." In ancient times, people would invoke the name of their gods in their battles with enemies. "May G-d strike you!" or even "G-d will strike you!" In the Psalms you actually see a lot of instances where the psalmists are asking G-d to smite on people or saying G-d will smite on people, or even complaining to G-d that He didn't smite on someone. This is not something that happens a lot these days.

It is totally legitimate to ask G-d to protect you or to protect others. As the quote from 1 Kings above suggests though, it actually isn't very kosher to ask G-d to unload some whupass on someone in particular. You have no idea what the Lord's intentions are towards that person or what His plan is.

While ordinary cussing is a nasty habit and unbecoming, and I do it all the time so I am very guilty of it, it is not specifically what is meant in this Commandment. It is essentially saying that G-d says something he doesn't say, that G-d's teaching is something that it is not, or that G-d intends something He doesn't intend.

Man the Outlaw #7: Remember the Sabbath Day, to Keep it Holy

Of all Commandments, this one is perhaps the most out of step with the modern world. It's also a bit of a mystery what it is really even about, and what qualifies for Sabbath observance and non-observance. In Exodus it says that it is a celebration of the 7th day of Creation in which G-d rested, and in Deuteronomy it says it commemorates the freeing of the Israelites from bondage in Egypt. Christians moved it from Saturday to Sunday (sort of) and now really disregard it pretty much altogether in most cases. But Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Amos as well as Moses are unanimous about one thing: its importance. Whatever else it is, and it is many things, it is a once-weekly reminder to observant Jews both of their history and their uniqueness as a people bound by their relationship to G-d.

In its simplest form, the rule about the Sabbath that matters most is don't work and don't make anyone else work. Don't buy or sell. Don't do commerce-related activities. If you have employees or in the time period, slaves, they cannot work. If nonbelievers are hanging out at your place, THEY cannot work on your premises. If you raise animals or plants for a living you can do things related to keep them alive and unsuffering but that's about all the work you can do.

The clearest thing that the Sabbath is hearkening back to is not the seventh day of Creation but the Exodus. They were slaves; now they're free. They ate the bread of hard labor, grinding the straw into the mud to make bricks. Now in Sinai, they ate manna from heaven. Contrary to His reputation in some circles as the cosmic bully in the sky, G-d's first public act on the stage of history was to free people. In traditional Jewish society, it was the one day a week when even the lowest slave is free.

I think that manna is one of the things that unlocks our understanding of the Sabbath. People tend to believe that they alone are responsible for any good fortune they have. Funny how that works: we regard our good fortune as all our own hard work, but for our misfortune we shake our fist at the fickle finger of fate. ;) The biblical truth is different: you have nothing that was not given to you by G-d. Your capacity to do hard work, if you do, was given to you by G-d. Your very life was given to you by G-d. Manna upends our understanding of the importance of our own input into our success: free holy bread from the sky. You can't buy it. You didn't earn it. You couldn't even make it if you wanted to.

As an aside, in my JPS translation of Psalm 127 in the Tanakh (not all translations bring out the meaning of this Psalm as beautifully,) it says:

In vain do you rise early
and stay up late,
you who toil for the bread you eat;
He provides as much for His loved ones while

they sleep.

~Psalm 127:2

I think that very beautifully brings out the idea of G-d's providence, without which all enterprise will fail.

So the Sabbath is the day when we stop being busy about our own work and look to G-d's work in Creation. When we stop being about what we are doing, and start thinking about what G-d is doing. It's a day when the self-centered world that we can so easily get wrapped up in, stops.

There is another factor that Jews historically had to deal with, and Sabbath-keepers today have to deal with. That is, the world wants you to be available to work on Saturdays. The world in many cases kinda regards it as a deal breaker if you are not. So there is a sacrifice involved. You are different from them. They won't like you to be different, and sometimes we ourselves don't want to be different. But to be a child of G-d -IS- to be different, very different. Secularism and Sabbath-keeping are like oil and water. So, it may well be, that to keep the 4th Commandment will cost you trouble at work. It may cost you trouble with others. You will be regarded as a strange person at a minimum. To keep this commandment may well require sacrificing economic opportunity. It could cost you your job. As the history of the Jews abundantly shows, people don't like other people to be THAT religious. People want other people to be very casual about it, like they themselves are. Well, that is not the kind of faith that is on offer from the G-d of Abraham.

I am not sure why people find it surprising. Deuteronomy spells it out very plainly. It's not a minimal commitment at all:

Love the LORD your God

with all your heart and with all your soul

and with all your strength.

~Deuteronomy 6:5

The 4th Commandment is one that really unfolds the more you obey it. It is a foretaste of eternity in the here and now. The word that the Sabbath really speaks to me is Shalom, Peace. It's one of the Ten Commandments, not something buried in Leviticus but front and center. I find it interesting all the places where the Ten Commandments are posted, court houses and churches and elsewhere, but even though it is right there on the list, hardly anyone obeys it or pays any attention to it. Part of that is that Christians like their Jesus have tended to downplay or dismiss the Sabbath. Well I got news, G-d doesn't change his mind about that kind of stuff. If it was a Commandment 3000 years ago, it is a Commandment now. And who made it Sunday? A Roman Emperor, of all people.

It's not Sunday. It's been Saturday for 3000 years and still is. The more you obey it, the more it will open itself to you and G-d will bless you.

"This is what the Lord said to me: “Go and stand at the Gate of the People, through which the kings of Judah go in and out; stand also at all the other gates of Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘Hear the word of the Lord, you kings of Judah and all people of Judah and everyone living in Jerusalem who come through these gates. This is what the Lord says: Be careful not to carry a load on the Sabbath day or bring it through the gates of Jerusalem. Do not bring a load out of your houses or do any work on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy, as I commanded your ancestors. Yet they did not listen or pay attention; they were stiff-necked and would not listen or respond to discipline. But if you are careful to obey me, declares the Lord, and bring no load through the gates of this city on the Sabbath, but keep the Sabbath day holy by not doing any work on it, then kings who sit on David’s throne will come through the gates of this city with their officials. They and their officials will come riding in chariots and on horses, accompanied by the men of Judah and those living in Jerusalem, and this city will be inhabited forever."

~Jeremiah 17:19-25

Man the Outlaw #6: Honor Thy Father and Mother

I'll be honest, sometimes I had trouble with this one. My parents are both dead, and I am getting old now. I think I always viewed my Mom as the best of all possible Moms. I probably idealize her more than her considerable deeds merit. My Dad... not as much.

I had conflicts with my Dad from a young age. Perhaps I shouldn't have, but despite his positive attributes (and he definitely had some,) I viewed him as a bully and a congenital liar. This was compounded by the fact that Dad spent very little time bonding with us kids and much of the bonding time was Dad doing what he wanted to do and letting us tag along. Which sometimes could be very cool. I remember when he took me to an Asian grocery, this was in the early 70's or something when that was a very exotic place for a white kid to explore. He bought me some dried cuttlefish snacks and an Asahi beer (I was definitely underage) and I got my introduction into a weird but exciting world. It was cool. He also took us to New Orleans and let us look in the doors of the strip joints, which probably was not at all good parenting but we liked it. :)

I think it was not at all that Dad didn't love us kids, he did love us. I just think that he was psychologically ill equipped to be a dad in certain ways. He could be generous to a fault, he was gregarious, he could excite the imagination at times. Though he also lied a whole lot. He was a storyteller: often an awful one, but he enjoyed it and some of the stories were pretty good. He could be a tad, or more than a tad, amoral. He exulted in breaking the rules and sticking it to the suckers. He hated religious people, so it was a bit of a disappointment to him that one of his sons turned out to be one. He could be very angry, and often at people who were weaker than him.

He himself admitted to me that he wasn't much of a father. He was in the hospital and he asked me if I loved him. I said "of course I do, you're my father." He said to me, "Your mother was your father" which was really true. Mom had far more to do with our upbringing.

So he was a colorful man, but not always a good one.

But what I am, is always indebted to him. He kept me fed and sheltered in my childhood, bought me presents, raised me as he knew how which he didn't know much. I remember one time, we must have been at best early teen at the time, him buying us porn magazines at a convenience store. So Pious-Dad-Of-The-Month he was not. ;)

But in addition to contributing to feeding, clothing, sheltering and otherwise caring for his children, he also taught me morality - not in the way he would have wished. He taught me by his negative example. He lied far more often than told the truth. He was hedonistic. He pretty clearly hated all religion, and if he did not hate G-d then it was only the lax deistic Bacchus of his imagination that he did not hate. While I wouldn't say that either he or Mom had a super serious problem with alcohol, they certainly celebrated it, and while I escaped the scourge of alcoholism my brothers were not as lucky. And this overall negative example that he set, taught me. If the deacon's son who turns into a hellion is a parable (and I knew one such,) perhaps the reverse is true. I rebelled against my Dad in almost every way, and I rebelled against his slack morals in the end too, though for a long time I imitated them.

I will always remember, I don't want to ever forget. I was maybe 12 years old. One day my Mom had brought home a cake or something for an office party and didn't label it. I snuck a slice. Later, my Mom accused me rather angrily of eating some of it, and I LIED. I said I didn't. She didn't believe me.

Had the matter remained there, I wouldn't remember it now. But my Dad was there, and he said: "Bobby never lies." No doubt trying to back up a fellow partner in crime.

And that phrase struck me in the heart like a knife. I was there confronted unavoidably by the difference between my ideal self, the one that never lies, and my actual self, the one who lied to his mother. Seems like a small thing, but that will stick with me the rest of my life. 

Indirectly and probably for the wrong reasons, Dad gave me one of the best lessons I ever got. I am forever indebted to him for that.

So I guess I am not dealing with the actual topic very much on this one. I can't tell people how to honor parents who are often very very imperfect. I am probably not the man for this job. What I can tell you, is that your parents went through more than you will know. You are indebted to them, and always will be. And what I know for a fact is that if I ever were in trouble, my Dad for all his shortcomings would have been there like a shot. Wild horses would not have kept my Dad from being there for his kids in their time of need. He was my Dad. I did love him, though I didn't always think I did.

G-d wants you to honor your parents. You may not always like them, they may even be terrible examples, but they went the long yard for you and if they are like mine were they would always be there for you. Respect that.

Honor your father and your mother,

so that you may live long in the land

the LORD your God is giving you.

~Exodus 20:12