Posted on 12/11/2005 3:20:56 AM PST by TopQuark
Our Battle for the Soul of America
By Rabbi Aryeh Spero
People of faith look around our country at forms of behavior now accepted and wonder how is it possible that during their own lifetime things have so dramatically deteriorated.
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The truth is the A.C.L.U. never believed in separation of church and state as much as using it as a hammer to dampen Christianity, its symbols, its values. The proof? In the last two years it has taken up the cause of defending Islamic “religious rights” – from wearing full-length burkas at community swimming pools to public school recitings from the Koran representing Islamic figures, to its silence on the issue of five-times-a-day-call- to-prayer loudspeaker announcements from mosques on public streets. The A.C.L.U. says, “those are cultural expressions, not religious.” Yet, Santa Claus, carols, nativity scenes, and crosses in military cemeteries…
The secular Left is purposely elevating Islam as a means to neutralize Christianity. It does so for it knows that the only way to destroy the American we’ve known is by destroying the Christianity, the Judeo-Christian ethic, which created it and made it great. It realizes that what stands in its way of molding America into a libertine European country, and a socialist “utopia” with them at the controlling helm, is Evangelical Christianity.
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There is a 2,500-year-old Midrash (Jewish Bible commentary) that reflects on the civic nature of Biblical Sodom. It states: “In Sodom good was called bad; evil was labeled worthy. Cruelty was forced on those deserving compassion, while compassion was extended to the cruel. The pleas from victims of crime went unheeded because of the ‘rights’ granted perpetrators.” Sodom, as the Bible tells us, was a garden-like city and prosperous. Nonetheless, it was pagan.
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As Elijah said: “Who is for G-d stand up: Come.” Now, before it is too late!
As a Jew, I am also glad to see a true Rabbi --- not one of those Leftist "rabbis" that that have foresaken Jewish values for the Democratic Party's plarform --- stand up against assaults on Christianity in this counry, which are increasing by the day.
“Who is for G-d stand up: Come.” Now, before it is too late!
I agree with you! Hooray for a Rabbi with sincerity to the Word of God (I'm a Christian) versus idolization of popular culture.
Too many among the Reformists are, unfortunately, responsible either directly or indirectly for allowing the ACLU, if not lauding and encouraging it, to become as intimidating (to some) as it has.
I've often wondered why the liberal Judaists cannot recognize from history just what extreme socialist governments have done for them...and it isn't good, for starters.
Seeing people like Steven Spielberg visit Cuba was horrifying (Spielberg is a member of a Reformist Temple in L.A.), and talking about Cuba with fascination afterward equally horrifying, given that Castro has put to death so many people, including Jews, with nothing more than a push of their front door as announcement why.
Yes, the story of Sodom was shocking. The lesson equally wonderful, as to God's abundant love for even the animals there and for the one righteous man and his family, Lot.
We are the salt of the Earth.
I just realized my ending comment there (we are the salt of the earth) might be confusing given the earlier mention of Lot and family (Lot's wife having been turned to a pillar of salt for the last disobediant act from among those from Sodom).
The expression refers to a different 'story', concept, for anyone who might be confused by my clumsy mixed-metaphors.
The answer is precisely in your own question: these people are no longer Jews. To be sure, they may have been born to Jewish parents and still retain some cultural traditions. But there is a point beyond which, while leaning Left, one completely forsakes Judaism (or Christianity). All too many Jews in this country --- and most of them are either unaffiliated or belong to Reform Temples -- have gone beyond that point.
They are not different from atheist and other Leftist that were born into Christian families. [This reminds me of how, Many years ago, being much younger, I (a Jew) tried to convince my friend to give Christianity another chance: having grown up in a very religious family and having gone through a Catholic school, he wanted nothing of it; I failed). The principal difference is that atheist Leftists born into Jewish families still beat themselves in the chest, "I am still a Jew," while atheist Leftists from Christian families do not claim, "Hey, I am still a Christian." That's what may be confusing, but make no mistake about it: these Leftists have cultural ties with the Jewish people but cannot be called Judaic.
Ping
Thanks for that, and yes, I agree with you. So, as what I also read recently, are Reformists not...please overlook my lack of knowledge about these specifics, I will try to piece together the words here as best I can...are Reformists not Judaists because they are not in devotion, study with the Talmud? That the Reform movement, if that's what it's called, is a cultural one, a "racial" one and not Jewish in the religious sense?
My guess is this rabbi is an Orthodox Rabbi.
The reformed and conservative rabbis are to Judaism as Methodists, Epsicopalians and Presbyterians to the Christian faith.
Jews and Christians can do much good together. I am at a loss for why so many secular Jews endorse socialism and wish to do to Christianity what has often been done to them.
I think a lot of it has to do with the Jewsih experience in eastern Europe and Pogroms by the Czars and other tyrants there.
They associte Christianity with these experiences in Europe and these feelings are culturally transmitted to later generations.
But I believe there is a large movement within the Jewish Community to the right. Look at Krauthammer, Mark Levin, Drudge, Savage, Mancow, and Crystal. Things are changing.
Great article...thx for posting it.
Yes, and the Nazis but even much later in the 50's and 60's there was a lot of overt anti-semitism in North America as well as Europe. When I was a kid there where limits on how many Jews, if any, many universities would accept; many, many organizations and even communities were closed to Jews ("restricted" was the code phrase - sometimes even used in ads and promotional literature); unabashed antisemitism from the Christian religious 'right' although it was not called that those days.
I understood my parents distrust of conservatives which was seen as the political stance of not only conservative but also extremist Christians, and supported the then JADL (Jewish Anti-Defamation League), now the ADL but then really concerned itself with fighting defamation and persecution of Jews, not the anti-Christian and anti-religious garbage it does now. Also a lot of Jews in the USA and Canada those days were struggling refugees and poor people tend to be on the left of the political spectrum.
However this is a different age and I am mystified as everyone else on why so many Jews continue to support liberal political parties that do not in turn support them and their interests in virtually every area.
Why not just declare the ACLU as an Anti-American organization, pull any federal funding that it is given and run with it in the media.
The ACLU works to strangle Christianity with the very constitutional clause that guarantees freedom of religion.
We the people, our congressmen and presidents have allowed a single organization, the ACLU to nearly corrode away a bedrock principle of our way of life. Our Constitution would never have been written without the Christianity of our founding fathers.
The ACLU's goal is to destroy these United States as we used to know it. I don't know for sure what the solution is, but it must begin with exposure of the history and works of the ACLU.
By Rabbi Aryeh Spero
People of faith look around our country at forms of behavior now accepted and wonder how is it possible that during their own lifetime things have so dramatically deteriorated.
I refer not simply to the decadent sexual realities that have become so de rigueur but to the political positions and mouthings spewing from politicians who appear to care more about our enemies than the plight of our soldiers, and profess a worldview more internationalist than American.
The elitists in media, academia, Hollywood, government – especially the Courts – have united to reconstitute the Founding Fathers’ vision of a nation conceived in G-d We Trust, One Nation Under G-d, into a secular, hedonistic version of France and Sweden. They seem to be succeeding. Why?
It is because people of faith, along with patriotic Americans, have responded tepidly and not mightily, as is required in such a battle. Many remain silent and complacent because our goodwill and naiveté have stood in the way of our apprehending how those forces have had as their mission – for decades – the erasing of Judeo-Christian influence in American civic life and the diminution of real patriotism that is its twin.
What motivates these elitists is anti-Christianism and anti-historic Americanism. But to destroy America one must first destroy serious Protestantism, for the Judeo-Christian ethic is America’s founding rock. And to destroy America’s unique brand of Christianity, one must first destroy the specific American ethos that spawned it.
Secularists have been successful for, apparently, they are more zealous in their crusade than we have been in our beliefs. Their religion is left/liberalism, fanatic liberalism: today’s neo-paganism. Animated by the fervor of paganism, they have managed, through intimidation, to disparage and squelch true public religiosity while spreading – missionary-like – their creed of secularism, hedonism. Simply answering with love is no match for those using the stick of intimidation, weapons of mass cultural destruction (WMCDs).
We, believing and patriotic Americans, were caught off guard since we assumed that the face arrayed against Christianity and love of country would be an ugly face. But that is not so, for throughout history pagans have most often been charming neighbors. No doubt those false prophets who followed the wicked King Ahab and Jezebel dined in ancient Judea’s finest restaurants, attended the theater, dressed well, were fashionable, and comported themselves with ingratiating, amiable manners. Look at the French!
Were not the ancient pagans who extolled beauty and grace charming? The elites of their day? The face of paganism in ancient high society as well as today’s is often a pleasant one and, therefore, dangerously disarming. Rarely is it the face of Genghis Kahn.
Pagan secularists did not want to kill their neighbors, rather invite them into their multi-cultural, pantheistic circles. Retain your God, they proclaimed, so long as your God assumes his pitiful position among the many gods and cultures. Continue your Americanism and Christianity here in America, the multiculturalists assert, so long as it is not dominant, simply a limp ingredient in the overriding multi-cultural edifice.
It would be silly in a modern society to frame an argument in language speaking of multi-gods, pantheism. The appeal is made, therefore, in terms of multiculturalism, a code-phrase, an undertaking for diminishing the Old-Line Protestant Christianity that produced America’s historic culture.
Diversity in different segments of society is enriching. The intent, however, of professional multiculturalists is to weaken America’s civic culture by relegating its fount, Old Testament Christianity, to a low rung; by ordering Christians of Faith to the back of the bus.
As in any culture war, it is won by those who define and, therefore, command, the moral language. American liberals did this by employing terminology they knew good-willed people – us – would readily accept: compassion, sensitivity, inclusion, tolerance. Especially tolerance, for who wishes to be called intolerant, the deadliest of the neo-pagan seven sins.
Limitless tolerance – a fanatic tolerance – is the very essence of paganism. It accepts everything, including decadence. Out of a desire for appearing good – and we have allowed liberals to decide who in this society is considered “good” -- we’ve been intimidated into accepting that which our forbearers, even non-religious, would never have accepted.
Every person needs a doctrine or set of guiding principles from which to order his life. Historically, ours derived from the Old and New Testament. Rejecting the constraints demanded by the Bible, liberals created their own deities, mirroring, almost to a tee, the virtues assigned to respective pagan gods. They worship these deities with an absolutism surpassing, often, our own to our G-d.
While we’ve allowed ourselves to be intimidated or embarrassed into silence, fanatic liberals have never flinched from relentless public chanting of their deities: “separation of church and state,” “racism,” “non-judgmentalism” – except when judging Christians of Faith.
Sin and virtue in our society have been re-categorized to reflect a hierarchy of liberal values instead of the ones enunciated in the Bible and displayed by America’s past everyday citizens. Liberals have instituted a new type of Replacement Theology, even corrupting mainline Protestant and Catholic denominations. What one hears from the pulpits today in many Jewish temples is akin to what was heard at the Temple of Zeus. It is delivered by clergymen who are modern-day versions of the ancient False Prophets.
America’s liberals have co-opted the moral language. We are to tolerate all lifestyles, except that of the traditional family. Tolerate every “religion,” except Evangelical Christianity. Tolerate every culture, except that of the unique American civilization.
We are to have compassion for America’s enemies but be “ho-hum” about our soldiers and those beheaded by our enemies. We must show compassion to criminals while caring not how victims and society live in fear.
We must be sensitive to the needs of those following Haitian witchcraft, Ramadan and Kwanzaa, but do our best to prohibit nativity scenes and crosses. Sensitivity to every group, not however to white, Christian evangelicals – and their wives.
We must never be racist, but bigotry is welcome when denigrating Southerners. Equality should mean no double standards, yet certain segments of society are exused for behavior that are not tolerated when done by the mainstream. In the name of anti-racism, we are asked to accept reverse racism. For example, affirmative action is forced on a society that clearly wishes to reward merit and character rather than color of skin.
We must be inclusive, except when it comes to excluding principled practicing Christians of Faith who go before the Senate Judiciary Committee as nominees for Federal judgeships.
The A.C.L.U., the legal arm of pagan America, has convinced us all that George Washington fought at Valley Forge to found a nation predicated on “separation of church and state.” Unfortunately, they have succeeded.
The truth is the A.C.L.U. never believed in separation of church and state as much as using it as a hammer to dampen Christianity, its symbols, its values. The proof? In the last two years it has taken up the cause of defending Islamic “religious rights” – from wearing full-length burkas at community swimming pools to public school recitings from the Koran representing Islamic figures, to its silence on the issue of five-times-a-day-call- to-prayer loudspeaker announcements from mosques on public streets. The A.C.L.U. says, “those are cultural expressions, not religious.” Yet, Santa Claus, carols, nativity scenes, and crosses in military cemeteries…
The secular Left is purposely elevating Islam as a means to neutralize Christianity. It does so for it knows that the only way to destroy the American we’ve known is by destroying the Christianity, the Judeo-Christian ethic, which created it and made it great. It realizes that what stands in its way of molding America into a libertine European country, and a socialist “utopia” with them at the controlling helm, is Evangelical Christianity.
Liberals are today rewriting our religious heritage by now referring to "our” Judeo-Christian-Islamic heritage, as if George Washington and John Adams spoke Arabic.
When one observes the sheer absurdity of how these terms are today – through political correctness – employed and enforced, the phrase that comes to mind is absolutism, extremism. That liberals don’t question their reckless application of those terms is a sign of their blind faith. They are the religious Left.
When one beholds the mean-spiritedness behind each of these “virtues” created to exclude Christians and true-blue Americanism, the intent is obviously to destroy. What began as the goal of marginalizing Christianity has evolved into a desire to vanquish, from within, John Adams's America. For the two are symbiotic. For the neo-Communists to control all power, they know they must first topple the twin pillars.
The Jews and Christians of antiquity knew paganism for what it was and fought it. We, however, have been blindsided, and suckered. We have compartmentalized our lives by retreating into the private all the while allowing the purveyors of secularism to reign over the public. We now find that the public domain controls our private realms. In the process, we have almost forfeited America, the America extant from the Pilgrims' arrival until 1963.
In our defense, we had assumed that paganism would attack the church frontally. It did not. Instead, it cleverly came through the door of government, courts, schools, our institutions. The media and press facilitated it, collaborated. We expected paganism to ride at us in blatant anti-religious garb. Instead, it arrived on a Trojan horse, a benighted political horse: liberalism.
We had thought that those living within the geographic boundaries called America were brothers, sometimes with slight differing views. We’ve learned, however, that country is more than geography but a set of core beliefs and values.
Had what is being done to America today from those within its borders been enacted by people outside its shores, we would have recognized it as an invasion with intent to destroy our way of life, and liberties. We would have raised our swords. It is time we recognize that there are battalions living in America who, as if foreigners, share nothing of our American core beliefs and values. They are not brothers. To them, we are an enemy. Even some who hail from American blue-blood families have tossed aside their heritage for internationalism, preferring to be citizens of the world.
We’ve seen this phenomenon before. During ancient Israel’s Second Commonwealth, there arose (circa 185 B.C. – 10 B.C.) an elitist, pagan class called Hellenists. Though some were from Judea’s ancient families, they chose internationalism over the security and indigenous culture of their people, Israel. They abandoned the G-d of Israel for the culture and gods of the world. Internationalism has always been the enemy of David’s God. No wonder a recent poll showed that Evangelicals are by far this nation’s most patriotic.
The Hebrew term for paganism, idol worship, false gods, is avodah zarah. The ancients who engaged in avodah zarah, especially the Canaanites, never worshipped the objects per se but the ideal each object represented: excessive passion, self-indulgence, lust, nature, environment, gluttony, pantheism. These idols, especially in pre-Mosaic Canaan, represented the base in man, not the Divine. The pull and power of idol worship was enormous, as is neo-paganism today. One of the most popular and seductive gods was Baal, the Molech god.
Molech, a fire god, demanded the sacrifice of a mother’s child. It was a fashion of the time, just as is today the sacrifice of one’s fetus to Mother feminism: abortion at any time, for any reason, even partial birth abortion. It is the sacrament.
It has become the sophisticated mantra of our day that “a woman’s right to her own body” constitutes enlightenment. Are we any less guilty of fashion-obsession than were the ancient fashion-conscious idol worshippers? How many in America are, like Elijah of old, willing to endure the out-casting “high society” confers on those standing up to today’s False Prophets of Liberalism?
In Islamic society, “suicide bombing” is the sacrifice more and more mothers are proud to offer to the god Allah. Imams have elevated the purposeful death of a woman’s child for the sake of Allah as a surefire step to social standing and prominence. This, too, is Baal worship, paganism. (This itself affirms how all “holy books” are not equal, and that the true G-d we worship is defined not simply by being One but by His teachings. Their god is not our G-d.)
The fact that many on the Left, in Europe and America, have begun establishing “Endowment/Charity Funds to subsidize these “martyr” mothers is indicative of the symbiosis developing between the Left and Islam. You may ask, what unites these western sophisticates with Middle East barbarians? Anti-Christianity, anti-Americanism, paganism: the devotion to avodah zarah.
Unfortunately, we, too, have become seduced by a form of Molechism. It is the sacrifice of our children to an absurd, neo-morality. In the name of neo-morality we ask our soldiers not to fire until Islamic terrorists first fire on them. We ask our soldiers to go house-to-house in search of terrorists instead of bombing from above. The reason being: to “spare the innocents.”
Look how Israel unnecessarily forfeited 23 soldiers in Jenin by sending them house-to-house in search of Arab terrorists so that “innocents” – who all wished them dead – could be spared from helicopter bombing from above. Many Leftist Israelis, as liberals here in America, felt a “spiritual” joy that their own were sacrificed in behalf of the new “higher” morality.
While historically the U.S. tried to protect non-combatants, when did it become the goal of war to let our own truly innocent die so as to spare the enemy’s “innocents?” The morality the Bible demands for war is quite simple and direct: Do not plunder, rape and ransack for the satisfaction of lust; rather, limit war’s purpose to the defense and security of country. Protecting one’s soldiers was considered paramount. Sacrificing them on the altar of “look how nice we are” was and is never Biblical, instead a form of self-worship.
In fact, a secular newspaper editorialized how wonderful this neo-morality is for without it, the editor asks, “What gives meaning to us in this land?” Well, religious Christians and Jews already have meaning in their lives, thank you. Only a secularist is forced to fashion a neo-morality to supply personal meaning.
Only someone who doesn’t believe in his own country’s way of life and ethos would require ersatz meanings to life. Michael Lerner, one of this country’s most vocal and influential Leftists, Hillary Clinton’s former guru, announced that the United States must create a “Politics of Meaning.” I’m certain that Rev. Pat Robertson and Rev. Jerry Falwell and Brit Hume have no such need!
The ubiquitous “compassion” phrase has been invoked in numerous editorials to justify the unnecessary deaths of our own military men and women so as to spare Moslem “innocents.” Only a twisted pagan view of what constitutes true compassion could make such an assertion. But even good men, religious men, have fallen sway to the new morality and definition of compassion being shoved down our throats. The political correctness police have begun their indoctrination. It is hard to defy this brainwashing even while the heart murmurs “It is not so.”
To me, none of this is genuine compassion, rather a disregard for the sanctity of our young soldiers’ lives. It places a higher value on others than our own. It is perverse internationalism, a disease infecting many in high places.
There is a 2,500-year-old Midrash (Jewish Bible commentary) that reflects on the civic nature of Biblical Sodom. It states: “In Sodom good was called bad; evil was labeled worthy. Cruelty was forced on those deserving compassion, while compassion was extended to the cruel. The pleas from victims of crime went unheeded because of the ‘rights’ granted perpetrators.” Sodom, as the Bible tells us, was a garden-like city and prosperous. Nonetheless, it was pagan.
While paganism boasts of “loving life and all its pleasures,” at its heart it is suicidal, dark, full of self-hate and death-wish. It is cynical, bored. Psychologists might call this “compensation.” Today’s extreme liberalism exhibits that nihilism, imbuing within its adherents a subconscious emotion longing for the death of its own American civilization.
Rarely do societies have a chance to relive the actual Biblical experience. We do! In the form of extreme liberalism, high-society paganism in America and Europe is marching to conquer Biblical values. If we wish to transmit to our children and grandchildren the religious heritage we cherish as well as the Americanism we inherited from our forefathers, we must fight now – in the public domain. We cannot afford to lose. We cannot turn the other check, for our Battle is for the Soul of America.
As Elijah said: “Who is for G-d stand up: Come.” Now, before it is too late!
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Complete article in post 15.
The quote from message 17 is from the article.
The Reform movement originated in Germany, in 1800s. Enlightenment and greater religious tolerance open secular life for German Jews. This created a conflict between the Jewish identity and the need and desire to become a part of a larger, mostly Gentile world.
How does one reconcile that? Well, one may take a conservative position and say, "You are called to serve G-d. If that comes at a cost of your not becoming a lawyer or artist --- so be it. Be a Jew." And many, of course, have taken that position and remained Orthodox.
When great multitudes of people are moving in a new direction, however, there always appears a spiritual "leader" that rationalizes that movement, who says it's OK to do so. And so Reform Judaism was born. It's OK if you violate SOME of the prescriptions for traditional life; it's OK if you don'f fulfill all of over 600 good deeds that a Jew must perform, it's OK if you omit SOME prayers --- what remains still makes you a Jew! So, go into professions, drive on Sabbath (that is a classic: "Isn't it better to drive to the Temple on Sabbath rather than not come at all?") -- and don't worry, you are still a Jew.
Naturally, what starts as SOME omissions and restrictions gradually expands. WHat remains at the present time, in my humble opinion, is largely a cultural movement.
One of G-d's prescriptions to Jews is tikkun olan -- to repair the world, to right the wrong, to mend and repair. As you can imagine, that is easy to confuse with political action. Here is the essential difference. In one of the daily repeated prayers, to wit, "...you shall take of the stranger, the widow and the orphan in your midst for you too were once strangers in the Land of Egypt." Note: THE widow, THE orphan, THE stranger -- never in plural. And it is YOU in the singular --- you personally, not by the hands of the government or some such. Well, that is were the major deviation has occurred: with the good intentions of doing good deeds and repairing the world, these Jews became vulnerable to Leftist ideology that, as you know, also talks about righting the wrongs. But not personally, of course --- through the government; and with respect not to individuals but whole groups of people --- workers, women, homeless, etc.
In sum, some Reform Temples are difficult to differentiate from a social/political action committee. You have an Ivy League student recently answering to "What is it to be a Jew?" with "To be a Jew is to be a good person; it does not matter which church [sic] you go to of whether you go at all." Good intentions...
So, the answer to many of your questions is in the affirmative: some of the fundamental Jewish values, transitions and observance have been lost in the Reform movement. The Orthodox, of course, carry the flag. And there is a movement in between --- Conservative Temples.
This is just a brief sketch of what little I know; I am no expert on theology.
Nuclear Option Ping
Slapping the donkey...
If you want to be added or removed from this list, please notify me...
Originally, the Nuclear Option Ping List started out as a practical joke. With all the vitriolic response I received from certain un-named individuals, I figured it would be a great idea to do it for real...
I have observed here on Free Republic, a never ending flaming of religious folks and conservatives by people who promote things such as drug abuse, homosexuality, the ritual murder of abortion and other garbage.
Not being an orthodox or ecumenical atheist, it has really stretched my patience. I do not think policemen are jack-booted thugs, nor do I look at people who want to protect their families from filthy scum as brownshirts.
The purpose of this is to alert people to the cultural Marxism run amok... Drugs, sex perverts, pornography (in film and in music), marijuana, liquor, bashing the religious people, destroying social institutions (like marriage and the Boy Scouts), etc., etc.,... ad nausea...
The druggies like the sex perverts can only perpetuate an ever increasing market for their filth by molesting the minds and bodies of the young ones... this is the only way they get new Demo-rat voters... CHEMICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE!
It is no coincidence Islamic pagans hate Israel, Jews, Christians and Western Civilization. The entire basis of Western Civilization is Mosaic Law, something both the Neo-Pagan Left and the pagan Islamic thugs cannot abide and wish to destroy.
The very idea that human beings have individual rights not subject to the whims of a monarch, but subject to the laws of Yahweh, is directly from Moses.
Historically, this is proven over and over again with the succsessive conflicts between the forces of paganism and the Judaic culture. It is being played out here and all over the world today...
Observing this as an atheist, I prefer the paradigm of a Judaic culture to the chaotic death cult of New Age neo-pagan absurdity.
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