RELIGIOUS FANATICISM
December 14, 2015

Religious fanaticism has become a greater plague on the world. Whether it's Buddhist monks murdering Muslims in Myanmar http://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-violence-specialreport-idUSBRE9370AP20130408

or settlers preventing Palestinians from planting their crops in the West Bank of Israel, or retaliatory murders in Israel against terrorism, or Planned Parenthood murders in the U.S., or the murder of Dr. Tiller in his Lutheran Church in Wichita, or Daesh and al-Qaida, or the Wahhabi Saudis, or even the Branch Davidians, extremist violence among so-called religious people plagues modern societies.

While religious violence has always existed, a philosophical and political condition of modernity was the recognition of the humanity of all those "in the image of God." Modernity proposed that we all accept one another, of whatever religion, on the basis of building a society of mutual recognition and cooperation. Is the deal breaking down?

I claim that much of the violence is coming from groups and people who never agreed to the deal in the first place. Certainly large swaths of the Muslim world never underwent the process of modernity that swept over Europe in the 18th century. Muslims who live in the West have implicitly agreed to the conditions of democracy, but the Saudis support Wahhabism and attempt to export it to many places around the world. The claims that Islam is a religion of peace and that Islam condones violence are both correct, as they are for other religions, depending on the political philosophy where the religion is being practiced. All religions have texts that will support either violence or peace, depending on who is doing the interpreting of the text.

Are Europeans and Americans dealing with unrealistic expectations? I think that the communications revolution is causing an explosion and competition of ideas that will not be settled anytime soon. But perhaps Americans and Europeans, while protecting ourselves from violence for sure, ought also to understand that exclusivism is not dead, that it exists and must be fought in our own countries in the West, and that in societies like the Middle East they may even have rejected our model of human understanding. Sayed Qutab, one of the idealogues of the Muslim Brotherhood, explicitly rejected the debauchery and degradations of Western Society, including our materialism. Even Pope John Paul II called the U.S. a Culture of Death for our focus on guns and unwillingness to support the neediest among us.

Religion is not the source of our hatred and willingness to murder others. It is only a vehicle for spreading, explicating and enacting ideas that are part of the human understanding of our place in the world. All of us must attune ourselves to spreading teachings of acceptance and understanding wherever we can. We are involved in a global competition for minds and hearts. The American turn to isolationism is self-defeating. Only through openness, acceptance and kindness will we win this fight to demonstrate the fundamental equality of all humanity.

DREAMS AND THEIR INTERPRETATION: TRUMPING CIVILITY WITH BASELESS HATRED
December 11, 2015

Dream fulfillment and interpretation stands out in this week's parashah. Joseph interprets Pharaoh's dreams and saves the world from famine, bringing the Jewish people down to Egypt, and starting the exile that leads to Redemption.

Babylonian Talmud Berachot 55b contains a curious observation: "All dreams follow the interpretation [lit.-mouth]" How do we know that? Because it says,[in our Torah portion], "... as he interpreted, so it was." Raba said, "This is only when the interpretation corresponds to the content of the dream."

Most of us read this portion to teach that Joseph foresaw the future famine. But this Talmudic interpretation instructs that how the dream is interpreted affects the outcome.

In the Babylonian Talmud, Yoma 9b the Rabbis famously observed, after discussing the reasons for the destruction of the First Temple, "But why was the second Sanctuary destroyed, seeing that in its time they were occupying themselves with Torah, [observance of] precepts, and the practice of charity? Because therein prevailed hatred without cause [sinat hinam]. That teaches you that groundless hatred is considered as of even gravity with the three sins of idolatry, [sexual] immorality, and bloodshed together. (Soncino trans.)

The Talmud goes on to ask if baseless hatred was present in the First Temple. The answer is, among the princes, but not among the people.

These observations are most cogent to our situation today, as the Talmud teaches, "the deeds of the ancestors are signs for their children." They teach us that the way the signs of the times are interpreted, the tone of the interpretation, the factuality of the interpretation, the emotions and particularly hatred in the interpretations, affect the outcome. Centrist and leftist pundits agree that Donald Trump's pronouncements are affecting the attitudes in the Muslim world, and thus the hatred he observes and the hatred he spreads is increasing the amount of hatred and the violence he claims to seek to mitigate. How we speak about the future helps to determine the events of the future.

Even more important is the concept of sinat hinam, baseless hatred. Notice that the Talmud claims that baseless hatred is worse than the three worst sins: spilling blood, sexual immorality, and idolatry. Why is it worse? Because baseless hatred destroys society as well. Human society depends upon truth, comity, and community. Baseless hatred, rooted in self-serving viscera and nothing more, destroys and uproots all three. Thus, baseless hatred not only destroys society and turns brother against brother and sister against sister, it also destroys the basis upon which society itself rests. It uproots not only the plant but the root that generates the plant.

Mr. Trump desires that we turn against our Muslim neighbors, that we be suspicious of all Muslims worldwide. Why does he not speak about those of any and all religions who hold terrorist ideologies: Christians, Muslims and Jews? Terrorism is the problem, not religion.

You will search in vain among the largest Muslim community in the world, Indonesia, for home grown terrorists against the U.S. Yet, there are many homegrown Christian terrorists in the U.S. who are only too happy to murder, and have done so. Why do bigots like Mr. Trump insist on isolating a small group and attempting to create hatred against all? Such leaders are demagogues, attempting to organize hatred to benefit their political future, not caring about the results in society. They are only too happy to uproot the forces holding society together, because that leaves everyone as an individual dependent for their security on the demagogue.

The Talmud observed this long ago. The Second Temple, they claim, and the Jewish society of which it was the center, were utterly destroyed as a result. We have been forewarned. Demagoguery destroys the social basis upon which acceptance as Jews rests. If we are not the first victims of a demagogue, we are always among the first few groups society will call foreigners and strangers, and insist that we are dangerous.

The interpretation of the future event affects the event. The spread of baseless hatred uproots the society that is the source of peace. Learn from the past, and you will not repeat it in the future.
Ken Yehi Ratzon. Shabbat shalom, Chag Urim Sameach.