In most Western countries with Christian orientation, the question itself is pretty obvious. ‘Belief in God’ for a typical American would usually be accompanied by some common Christian behaviors, and since many of these are optional, it could be translated into simple everyday habits. Nothing special that can be recognized by an outsider, unless they specifically ask.

Not so for an observant Jew. The amount of strict rules enforced by Orthodox Judaism is enormous, many of which are directly related to how one is dressed, how they talk, what they eat, you name it. Hence, asking a Jewish person ‘are you religious’ – seems unnecessary. If they are, you quickly see it without asking.

So far, the minority of Israeli citizens of Jewish origins would answer ‘yes’ and be classified that way. Yet, a recent survey revealed 80% of Israeli Jews ‘believe in God’… What is the meaning of this? How can one define him or herself as ’secular’ and believe in God at the same time?

I suppose the explanation has to do with both the way we are brought up and the way our mind has evolved, but whatever the reasons are, the road from ’secular but believe in God’ to ‘religious’ is pretty clear. It is that road that poses the real danger to the future of modern Israel.

Try to criticize religion, especially the Middle-Eastern ones. Soon you’ll find yourself as the target of various accusations, which may start with ‘hatred’ and end with ‘Anti-Semitism’ and ‘Islamofobia’. Religions are not very tolerant of criticism, and that is an understatement.

The issue has two different aspects. One of them pertains especially to Orthodox Judaism. While extreme Islam simply tells you to fight the heretics, there are several ancient Jewish rules that tell you to hate them. You are explicitly told to hate those of your own people who do not follow divine orders. You are supposed to hate those who do not ‘believe in God’, and so on. In fact, since the verb ‘to hate’ is so often mentioned, it gets a whole new interpretation, more associated with behavior than with feelings.

The other aspect even looks more important to me. I have many love ones with whom I sometimes argue. Show me one person who doesn’t. When we do argue, we often do so because of some occasional ‘hatred’, so to speak, to something someone just did or said. Some of my love ones also possess certain long-lasting qualities that I specifically hate. On the other hand, there are a few people I really hate, literally. For all that, I can put my finger on specific qualities associated with them that I actually like.

To sum it all up, there is a clear distinction between people and their specific behaviors. Between the actual persons and the contents. My criticism of religions is rarely of the people themselves, it is much more of the religious contents. I hereby declare I truly hate some of these contents. There are some I also love, I admit not too many.

But please do me a favor: Don’t blame me for things I don’t do!

The origins of this absurd rule are not necessarily the same as its current strict interpretation. It was probably aimed at some specific prayer (not that this meaning was somewhat more justified). Still, nowadays it has evolved to forbid any male Orthodox Jew to listen to a woman sings. It’s still ok to listen to a woman talks. Yay.

One wouldn’t really care that much about religious oddities, but it seems once you try to avoid them – they chase you wherever you are. The recent huge debate in the IDF (Israeli army) is not ‘how to tackle terror’ or ‘what to do with Iran’s nuclear effort’, but rather: Are male soldiers allowed to leave official ceremonies where and when women sing? The strongest and most modern army in the middle-east is developing high-tech anti-missile defense, but is afraid of songs. Perhaps this should be the new Hammas weapon at hand – it seems more effective in driving away soldiers, than the old fashioned ballistic pipes filled with explosives.

One should also research the unclear boundaries defined by modern technologies: Is a woman’s voice still forbidden if distorted by audio-processing software? Is a man’s voice ok if made higher in pitch by the same software? What about artificial text-to-speech results? Rest assured, there will be a good religious verdict for each. God’s taste in voices cannot be left to coincidence.

Of course there are things I strive to change, like the separation of “church and state” and of course the history of this place has been very chaotic. Yet, looking forward into the future, I will generally look for political solutions along the above-described lines. That doesn’t mean I’m not ready to compromise on things, but as long as the main theme is preserved, and as long as the so-called “other side” is ready to compromise as well.

Many Israelis regard the Arab-Israeli conflict (and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in particular) as “the” most important issue to be solved, this way or the other. I have two important observations about this:

1. I think the internal problems of Israel, especially its gradual falling into religion, are much more dangerous to its existence. Not only an ever decreasing portion of the population actually contributes to progress, but soon the main issue will be not “who will defend the country” but rather “will there be anything worth defending”.

2. Very naively, if “both” sides somehow become convinced to shift from fanatic religious world-views into more rational and educated opinions, it looks as if the conflict is going to dissolve naturally. Instead of fighting over whose god is stronger, people may, just may, talk some sense into things.

With that in mind I wish everyone a happy Jewish new year and Shana Tova!

Let’s take Belgium for instance: You can be a Belgian citizen, while from the ethnic point of view you may be Flemish or Walloon, or perhaps an African immigrant. From the religious point of view, you may be a Christian, or perhaps you are a Muslim. Of course you may be an atheist and enjoy a healthy set of values. All these words are different, each set reside on different axis.

The same goes for other lucky groups of people. If you’re an Arab, statistics show you are most likely to be a Muslim, but there are many Christian Arabs and those with other religions. Again there are also some lucky atheists.

However, things come to a total confusion when talking about Jews. Many people call themselves ‘Jews’ while declaring they are not religious at all. Some insist there’s no way of being Jewish unless you believe in the Jewish god, obeying his alleged commands. I’ve found out at least five very different definitions for the term:

1. The Orthodox Jewish definition is trying to be very clear: You are a Jew if your mother was a Jew, or if you so-called “converted” to Judaism in the Orthodox way. This of course is a recursive definition, because now we have to examine your mother’s Jewishness, which is essentially the same task. Not to mention some awkward situations that arise when the two parents hold different religions, which have different rules for this topic.

2. The linguistic definition determines you are “Jew” if you are a descendant of the old tribe of Judea. Hence, perhaps many of the “Cohen’s” and “Levi’s” are not Jews, as they’re known to be descendant of the old Hebrew tribe of Levi. Yet this is from their father’s side… How confusing…

3. The Nazis had another clear-but-recursive definition of what a ‘Jew’ is. It was more-or-less someone with Jewish ancestors 2 generation before. Thus someone could be a ‘Jew’ according to Hitler, but not according to the Rabbi.

4. And there is the common definition: The Jewish “people”, from the ethnic point of view. Not clearly defined, certainly has nothing to do with “religion”, but very practical. The problem? Someone can be a Jew according to this definition, while know nothing of Jewishness, have no Jewish friends whatsoever, and be a total stranger.

Personally I think the best definition is the cultural one. The Jewish culture is many things: It contains the various branches of the Jewish religion, the Hebrew language, the geographical linkage with Israel, the Jewish holidays and literature, etc. I would easily define someone as a ‘Jew’ even if he/she has Christian parents, he/she has never “converted” and not religious at all, but truly shares the same culture with me. I would not define a total stranger as a ‘Jew’ just for having a Jewish mother by some chance.

“In India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood. Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of ‘respect’.”

– Salman Rushdie

In took the Unites States ten years or more to settle the score with Osama bin Laden, the number one terrorist of the new era. In the US, just like other places around the world, people went out celebrating in the streets. Still, every commentator bothered to explain the already-known: The fight against terror is not over, and a new spiritual leader will probably pop up to fill the gap.

– * — * –

Whoever experienced talking to people who had undergone some kind of brainwashing, knows the feeling of talking to a brick wall. A sort of infertile discussion that reminds the attempt of selling a used car to someone you’ve just murdered his family in front of him. A hopeless effort to conduct a rational argument with a brain that is apparently open for emotional considerations only.

During the first Israeli-Lebanon war, IDF soldiers became aware of the phenomenon of Shiite Muslim suicide bombers. Later on, many Israeli civilians learned first-hand about the horrors of suicide bombers, who are about to embark – from their point a view – a journey to a Heaven swarming with virgins made to serve martyrs, a.k.a ’shaheeds’. In days to come, the whole world witnessed some apparently educated people – language-speaking pilots – fervently navigating their airplanes into towers and buildings, equipped with similar motivation and goals.

And here is tactics vs. strategy for you: During the first Israeli-Lebanon war, the Israeli Chief of Staff – the late Rafael ‘Raful’ Eitan – expressed himself in the media: “We shall help them reach Heaven”. The State of Israel within its private struggle, like other countries of the Western World in their similar struggles, did help some potential suiciders to reach Heaven earlier. The problem is similar to a known Hebrew phrase discussing the issue of threatening a whore with rape: It is not really clear how effective it is to threaten a suicidal person with death.

– * — * –

In the end of the Nineties, a small Israeli organization named ‘Daat Emet’ (’Knowing the Truth’) was established. In its beginning, Daat Emet approached ultra-Orthodox ‘Haredi’ Jewish population, using some pretty good knowledge of their target audience. One may say they succeeded in doing the allegedly impossible, managing a rational discussion with irrational negotiators. The reason for their partial success is a fascinating topic by itself. In some way, Daat Emet’s contents approached the believers using their own language and mindset.

And here is a very long sentence: If such a small organization succeeded in transforming itself into a well-known brand, and even demonstrated considerable achievements in changing people’s mindset, up to the point of re-educating them into more skeptic and productive thinking… then one can only assume that a similar effort based on more serious resources (like the opposite effort using much of our tax money to educate little children into irrational religious thinking), would achieve a much more significant success.

Hence the question: Why not taking the same measures to encourage skeptical-rational thinking among religious fanatic audience, but not necessarily an Orthodox Jewish audience? The Orthodox Jewish nonsense does not have exclusivity in controlling human minds, and even the greatest deniers of evolution tend to define many of the Muslims as cousins of the Jews.

Yes, it takes considerable knowledge in Islam and its rituals. It also requires time and money resources. C’mon… for the price of four ‘Iron Dome’ missiles one may finance a significant and focused educational effort, targeting both Islamic knowledge and emotions, encouraging healthy skepticism and rational thinking.

– * — * –

Bin Laden’s extermination is a pain relieving medication while fighting cancer. A touch of good feeling for a couple of hours, not very much beyond it. The right way to tackle the “Islamic threat” is, if you will, an “Islamic Daat Emet” — Curing the roots of the problems rather than its occasional symptoms. Yet what is known as ‘The West’ (Israel included) will not select the right medication, for the simple reason it suffers from the very same disease: The Western countries have not yet been able to distinguish ‘religion’ from the alleged need to ‘respect’ it. Culturally and politically they largely believe in parallel nonsense. It is possible, perhaps even probable, that if and when they are released from this complex, it will be too late for them.

Note two specific members of this sequence. First, there is the famous prominent rule that deals generally with observing the Sabbath – let us assume it has the sequence number i. Then, there is another famous rule delaing with saving the life of a jew – let us assume it has the sequence number j.

In order to enrich our model a little bit, we note that all those rules carry with them some considerable importance, at least from a religious point of view, since God is supposedly checking us on a daily basis for keeping them. At this stage of the model we still do not know the amount of importance assigned to each rule, so let us use a mathematical function called v to mark it. For example: v(j) is the importance of the rule that deals with saving lives.

Now let us remember some Jewish statements about the importance of these rules. One of them claims that “saving a life overrides keeping the Sabbath”. Using our notation:

(1) v(j) > v(i)

Another famous statement claims that “observing the Sabbath is equivalent to all the other rules combined”. Using our notation:

(2) v(i) = SUM [k≠i] v(k)

Now, from joining (1) and (2) together we conclude:

(3) v(j) > SUM [k≠i] v(k)

Since j≠i, we can subtract v(j) from both sides and get:

(4) 0 > SUM [k≠i,j] v(k)

Thus we arrived at a partial sequence of P, which is not empty, and whose sum of members’ importance is negative. Hence there exists at least one member of P, call it m, for which:

(5) v(m) < 0

Or, using the terms of our model, it is important not to follow the religious rule number m.

You have been warned!

“And call ye on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord; and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God” (1 Kings, Chapter 18, Verse 24)

The meaning of ‘Hezbollah’ in Arabic is “God’s party” (’party’ as in ‘political party’). The meaning of Nasrallah’s name in Arabic is no less than “God’s victory”. ‘Allah’, so it seems, plays a major role in the recent conflict on Israel’s north border, between the State of Israel and the Lebanese-Iranian terrorist party that resides in several bunkers in the south of Lebanon.

Using an idiom set by Israeli Channel Two’s Amnon Abramovitch, we have a Muslim-Haredi politician in the land of cedars, recruiting his ‘Allah’ for fighting the Zionist heretics. The Lebanese politician, who sells arrogant preaching with pathos as tactics for raising reliability among certain people, doesn’t have exclusivity on the arrogant preaching tactics, nor on recruiting this ‘Allah’ for his private goals. He was preceded with both things by many other “good” people, some from the same era and region, such as Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden, as well as many other mythological figures of the region.

There’s not much difference between the ancient world, where when two nations that fought each other brought their own gods into the battle, and the modern world, where when two nations that fight each other bring God into the campaign. For that matter, it would be interesting to compare the many speeches made by Saddam Hussein and George Bush (Sr.) in the beginning of 2003. If the Christian God is the same entity as the Islamic one, he must be suffering from a split personality.

In practice, almost every politician given a microphone in front of him performs this sin of cheap godly demagogy. One should hear the speeches in almost any modern parliament (including the Israeli ‘Knesset’) in order to realize how God is recruited, often with great purpose, many times unintentionally, for the benefit of the speaker.

‘God’, ‘Allah’, ‘Elohim’, and ‘El’ penetrated not only the names of strict believers, but also our day-to-day language and purely secular names. Starting with “Thank God” and ending with names like Eliyahu, Elhanan, Emanuel, Michael and their many linguistic sibs. A similar thing happened to God’s remote relative ‘Jehova’, ‘Yehova’, ‘Yahweh’ and ‘Yah’ with names such as Ovadia, Yehonathan, Yehoram, Hallelujah, John, Judy and many others.

‘El’, as we know, was the top god of the ancient Canaanite-Phoenician pantheon, also revealed in the excavations of Ugarit from the 14th century BC. We don’t know for certain how did these ancient Lebanese inherited El’s name, and from which even more ancient civilizations, if any. We do know how its name later evolved into ancient Israel’s ‘Elohim’, and ‘Allah’ of the Muslim world. How ironic it is that “El’s party” and the terrorist preacher named “El’s victory” appeared nowadays in Middle East history in the same geographical region where their name had originally showed up, to the best of our knowledge.

“El’s victory” and the victorious ‘El’

Recruiting “force majeure” for the benefit of man is a result of our characteristics, and a natural thing to do under many circumstances and difficulties. When we endure great suffer, we tend to call every god upon which we were brought up, even upon its name alone. We may do so silently in our heart, or we may do so explicitly and loudly. There’s nothing wrong with that, and nothing to criticize. This is how we are built.

The much-needed (and often absent) criticism is about the cold manipulative and well-planned usage of these “super forces” to justify horrible acts on behalf of the user/recruiter. Sometimes meant for the ears of the audience, and many other times as self-justifications for the preacher himself. ‘Allah’ in this sense has turned into just another weapon in the arsenal of war politics. And those who use various weapons should not wonder when these weapons lose their high position together with the results of using them.

There are many words of wisdom in the Old and New Testament, as well as in the Koran and the Talmud. The Jewish Mishnaic tractate of ‘Eduyot’ says: “Your actions bring you closer, and your actions bring you further”, which simply and most wisely implies, “Judge things individually”. There are good things done by various religious people, and there are bad things performed by religious people. There are good things done by various secular people, and there are bad things carried out by secular people. If someone acts in a way that deserves criticism according to your opinion, then it’s okay to criticize that someone, whether he or she is a religious person or a secular one.

A somewhat related topic, but of a different ilk, has to do with associating the religious behavior of a group of people with having special protection from God. Religious Jews will generally tell you that it’s specifically their religious habits (especially following the Bible and keeping the Sabbath), which have kept the continuous existence of the Jewish people over the years. This follows the idea that it pays to be faithful, because it guards your community. Many Muslims will boast the fact that Islam has united them and their peoples, and will also claim divine safekeeping.

In a way, the above statements are right. A group’s tendency to live in relative isolation has always contributed to the survival of the group as a whole, with or without relation to any religion. Nevertheless, there are a few important points to note in this strange competition for celestial protection:

• Religion contributes to its own survival. There’s no wonder it works – this is what religion is built to do. A large part of religious content is tailored especially to protect the religious belief against external influences, regardless of them being true or false, good or bad.
• The survival and protection of the group is not the same as the survival and protection of the people. Many ancient nations have not survived, but their descendants live happily among us today as Muslims, Jews, Americans, French, Germans or whatever, time and again being very proud of their current people’s history.
• Furthermore, even groups and nations that have survived are generally different from their ancestors. During the years, habits and customs have changed. Some have changed slightly and others have been drastically altered. In most cases even the genes (i.e., the race) have been mixed with those of other peoples and groups.
• An old culture may wonder about its own survival and seek reasons for it. However, by definition, there will always be only those who survived – that is what survival is all about. Those who didn’t make it, for whatever reasons, are not here with us to philosophize on the matter, regardless of their original belief being more right or wrong. In other words: Where there is a finite set of nations, there must be a most ancient one. There is no reason to wonder that something that must happen has happened.
• For a group of people, being more ancient than another group does not entitle them to anything more or better. There are no points collected and no game to win. Just a little bit of pride (which is not bad in itself). Generally speaking, it should be more important to look ahead and plan for the future than to advocate the past.
• If keeping religious commands is associated with things happening to the group, then why only connect it to the survival of the group? It can be associated just the same with the suffering of the members of the group over the years, which has been unfortunately true in the Jewish case as well as (recently) in the Muslim case.
• And finally, with our modern world becoming amazingly and rapidly smaller, it seems that given enough time – perhaps hundreds even thousands of years from now – the ethnic issue will simply die of natural causes. That is, if mankind does not succeed in exterminating itself sooner.

Some researchers view monotheism (the belief in a single god) in the Western religions, as a root of arrogance, which leads to racism: Your gods are not legitimate, only ours is, hence we are superior to you.

A famous joke explains how cheap it is to call God on the phone from a certain location, because it’s a local call. The exact location depends greatly on the person telling the joke. It could be Ireland. It could be Jerusalem. It could be Alberta, Canada. It could be other places.

Are we special? Sure! We’re all special! We are human beings!! This is what makes us special. We should not forget and should not violate this uniqueness, by strange and foolish attitudes towards other human beings.

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“Us, and them. And after all we’re only ordinary men.” – ‘Us and Them’, Pink Floyd, Roger Waters

Using passive voice is a great thing, a must for skillful politicians and salesmen. “Promised Land” and “Chosen People” are both amazing expressions without needing to explain who promised and who chose.

So, who are God’s chosen people? In what way are they chosen? The answer depends of-course on whom you ask. Many faithful Christians will say that the Jews used to be the chosen ones, until they abandoned the real faith, thus “the truth abandoned them and took refuge in the Church” (St. Ambrose). Many religious Jews simply know they’ve never ceased to be the “chosen ones”. Some of them may even explain about the myth of the Jewish genius. The faithful Muslims, not very surprisingly, seem to know a whole different story of choice.

Certain Melanists believe that the black pigment called melanin, in our skin, contributes to our intellect and spirituality. Guess who promotes this theory? You guessed right – this theory is promoted mainly by some black people. The Ku Klux Klan (KKK), on the other hand, believes that white people are inherently superior to any other race, and that they are following the Bible in doing God’s work. In fact, they’ve often used the religious symbol of the cross for various activities… The Nazis believed that the Aryan race was superior, and acted to exterminate supposedly inferior races such as the Jews.

Rest assured, each of the above has brought a wealth of evidence to support the appropriate claims. Yet, there are a few interesting questions to be asked in this context.

Does God check your genes? Or is it your behavior that determines your being chosen? According to St. Ambrose mentioned above, it’s clearly the behavior of the Jewish people that disqualified them from being “chosen”. According to the Orthodox Jews, there is a clear option to join the chosen group by going through the process of proper conversion to Judaism. What’s a proper conversion? Ahhh… weeks of Israeli parliamentary activity has been spent on this issue.

According to Jewish Orthodoxy, the definition of a Jew is someone whose mother is a Jew, or someone who has been converted to Judaism the Orthodox way. Every experienced software programmer will tell you the problems concerned with the recursive nature of this definition. In simple words: Verifying the Jewish-ness of the mother is in essence the same task all over again.

It gets more complicated, since, for instance, an Orthodox Jew will not consider the conversion process done by a Reform rabbi as proper (but not necessarily the other way around). Conversely, for Muslims, the chosen genes are generally attached to the father. This may of-course raise various flavors of strange situations when one parent is officially Jewish, and the other is Muslim.

However, if Judaism is generally inherited, it makes one wonder how come Jews from African countries are darker? And why is there a large percentage of Jews with blonde hair in Russia? Evolution doesn’t work that fast. Apparently, whilst the Israeli parliament and its religious parties were not watching, there have been some, well, you know…

Racism is bad – most people will tell you this. Yet this confusion between genes and way of life has been known to produce false accusations of racism. For example: Is it okay to criticize certain religious beliefs and customs, or is it racism? Does Islam, just as an example, represent a race of people (or several specific races), and it is therefore wrong to speak against? Do the ultra-Orthodox Jews constitute a race, or is it valid to claim they’re wrong and criticize their habits? And what about the Amish? The Zulu? Others?

The question is not purely theoretical – it may have practical implications: If I run a factory that needs seven-day shift workers, is it legitimate to reject the candidacy of an Orthodox Jew who refuses to work on the Sabbath? How come it’s considered okay, for the wine industry in Israel, to employ solely Orthodox Jewish men in the wine manufacturing process (in this case, for the employees not to work on the Sabbath is one of the requirements, in order to get the kosher stamp for the wine)?

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