The Germans hate the Jewish religion less than their race, less their peculiar faith than their peculiar noses. - Moses Hess, Rome and Jerusalem The most assimilated and preeminent Westerners of Jewish lineage still preserved in their physical physiognomy, if in nothing else, the unmistakable and eternal stamp of Israel. And this inevitable fact has again and again infuriated the pagan peoples of the world. - Ludwig Lewisohn I found the reductio ad absurdum proof of the above sentiment in a blog comment posted by an Internet beauty queen: Plenty of people object to Jewish looks/appearance, not just WNs…Jews tend to be very physically ugly. Actually, the vast majority of Jews aren’t just ugly, many are FRIGHTENINGLY UGLY, so much so that most normal and healthy people of all racial/ethnic backgrounds are immediately repulsed or even instinctively scared (women and children, mostly) of them and as such avoid contact with them. Full-blooded Jews, especially unmixed Ashkenazim, are quite
Interesting. I haven't read Herzl yet I believe I can share this thought. The difference between Herzl and Christ is the difference between the outer and the inner (freedom, kingdom...) which is great. Correlation with elements of your analogy is telling. Also zionism as an ideology values the earthly end (thereby justifying the means) while Christ outlines a path whose end may not be reached within one's lifetime.
ReplyDeleteThe key to Christ's kingdom is love which is not embodied within his teachings but within his being, the cross being its supreme statement as sacrifice/giving is love.
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
"Sex is return"
From a mystical point of view, definitely. This directly echoes the canticle of canticles. But one should be careful with the wording as sex is mostly considered today in a very degraded form, as a mechanical act almost. The flesh without the spirit, which is worse still than the spirit without the flesh when one should not go without the other.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.
1 Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the LORD, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the LORD of hosts.
2 But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap:
3 And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
4 Then shall the offering of Judah and Jerusalem be pleasant unto the LORD, as in the days of old, and as in former years.
5 And I will come near to you to judgment; and I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith the LORD of hosts.
6 For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.
7 Even from the days of your fathers ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you, saith the LORD of hosts
Sadness after sex is the intimation that purely physical lust is degraded, that the flesh is insufficient. What links body and spirit, sex and love, politics and religion, Herzl and Christ is the mystical principle: as above, so below. The Lurianic idea that we repair the cosmos through human action is an expression of this insight.
ReplyDeleteThe cosmos may be repaired/reunited through love only (in the jewish tradition, you do have mystics who seem to understand this quite well, i.e. Baal Shem Tov and his early followers) Love is not so much an idea or a truth one should believe in, rather a truth one should live according to. Thus what matters most is not the mind but the heart and spirit. In fact one has to be careful not to get trapped in the intellectual plane as much as in the physical one. (and it is not sufficient to have an intellectual understanding of this :) which is sadly the only thing such an argument may convey)
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