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.)