Jews Control Media & Banking Part I

Yesterdays post posits that if the Vanity Fair 100's preponderance of Jews is representative, then why are Jews so disproportionately represented in our society and does this imply anything for the relationship between Jews and "the Nations"?

So today we need to evaluate item #1 - is the Vanity Fair list skewed or are Jews represented disproportionately throughout the top echelons of society?

One of my favorite party tricks is to ask people what percentage of the worlds population is Jewish. I give people a fighting chance by reminding them what the total population of the earth is supposed to be and then asking them to give me a ballpark percentage. Once we dispense with defining Jewish ( the basic understanding being those who answer yes to a census question) I get some very interesting answers.

My nephew, who is highly educated and went to one of the top New England boarding schools, answered 25%. I was sure to put this into perspective by reminding him that he was saying that there were 1.5 billion Jews in the world. He stood by his answer.

When I told him that the right answer was a little more than two tenths of one percent he all but called me a liar. Fortunately, before the conversation turned violent, I opened up a handy World Almanac and showed him that the current world population of Jewish people is approximately 13 million.

Amazingly, his response was not unique. A lot of very intelligent people vastly overestimate the worlds Jewish population. When asked why, they usually respond with an answer similar to my nephews. He said that when attending prestigious institutions of learning, a large proportion of his friends where Jewish.

He was absolutely correct in his assessment - by some counts approximately 25% of Ivy League schools enrollment is Jewish. The number would probably be higher, but most of these schools tend to restrict Jewish enrollment.

Likewise, the number of Jewish people receiving Nobel Prizes is disproportionately high - almost 20%. This is almost 100 times the percent of Jews in the world.

While more statistics would be interesting I think you get the point. Jews are definitely overachieving relative to their numbers in many arenas of world influence. So tomorrow, on to question #2.

Why?

Jews Control Media and Banking?

Bruce Feiler has noted a story regarding The Vanity Fair 100 list and the revelation by the editor of the Chicago Jewish News that at least 51% of the list is Jewish. I predict that the comments left on Feiler's blog will be more interesting than the blog itself.

I think this story begs a couple of questions:

1) Are Jews misrepresented on this list because this particular list is skewed in their favor, or is this a wider social phenomenon that bears consideration.

2) If the conclusion drawn from #1 is that this is a legit phenomenon, then why are Jews so disproportionately represented among the roll of the power elite.

3) Once we understand the answer to #2 we must then ask how we people from "the nations" are supposed to behave in our relationship to the Jewish people.

As these questions bear some serious thought and can't be answered in their entirety in one post, I will break them up into at least tree posts.

Besides, dinners ready!

JEEEESUS CHRIST !?@#?!?!?#

OK, so I have tried to be good and use the white bread Greek method of referring to the guy about whom the New Testament was written – Jesus Christ.

I can’t keep using this name to refer to Him for several reasons:

1) Jesus is some Greek bastardization of Yeshua or Yehoshua. Since his name would have been spoken and written in Hebrew and/or Aramaic, anything we come up with will be a transliterated approximation anyway, but anything is better than Jesus. Some have suggested that the name Jesus (particularly as Hispanics pronounce it) is related to the God Zeus. Be that as it may, I want to call Him something approximating what His friends called Him and they most assuredly did not call Him Jesus.

2) Christ is an anglicization of Christos which refers to one who is anointed. As I understand it, the Greeks anointed all kinds of people including wrestlers, temple prostitutes, etc. The Hebrew term Mashiach, from which we get the anglicized word Messiah, refers to a very special and unique Anointed One. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want any confusion in my own mind or anyone else’s about who I am referring to when I talk about the Anointed One

3) I don’t know how it happened but when I drop something heavy on my toes I am often heard to exclaim Jeeesus Christ!!! I suppose the commonplace quality of that name has lent itself to being used for all kinds of inappropriate reasons. The Hebrews probably used their prohibition of uttering the Name of The Ancient of Days for the purpose of not letting God’s name become common and used for all kinds of common purposes. Fortunately, the majestic sounding name Yeshua Ha Mashiach has never become a part of common parlance and is thus nicely preserved for discussing The Son of Man.

4) While the Greeks achieved some remarkable things in this world, I think their language and world view are ill suited to discussing a first century, Hebrew speaking Jew from Israel. I think language affects understanding and perception profoundly and, while I love Greek flavor in my food, I much prefer a Hebrew savor to my Bible.

5) Hebrew is much more lyrical than Greek. The patterns and rhythms of Hebrew words are just inherently more beautiful. A songwriter I met who wrote most of his songs in Hebrew told me that he read Hebrew and melodies revealed themselves. If you listen to his melodies, (Shabbat Menucha is a good one to listen to) you will be astonished at their beauty.

6) Discussions can be had with Jewish people regarding Mashiach without having to argue about Jesus. Jews generally acknowledge that a Mashiach is to come and it is not really necessary to argue about whether he has been here before. Back when I used to think I was supposed to talk to my Jewish friends about Jesus, a good Jewish friend said to me:

When The Messiah comes I am going to ask him if he has been here before. If he says yes then you win. If he says no then I win.

One of the things I like best about this story is that it captures the fact that, in large measure, our desire to convert is about winning a personal victory. I have decided to try to win victories for the King of The Universe instead.

In the final analysis the name Yeshua Ha Mashiach has so much more power and poetry to it than Jesus Christ. I hope using it from now on won't be too confusing.

What The Bible Says About Healthy Living

Ten years ago I had a weekend to kill before going to a Natural Food Expo in L.A. and decided to tour the Crystal Cathedral. While not a fan of Robert Schuller, I was the son of an architect and wanted to see the work of Philip Johnson. I was intrigued that a gay architect was chosen to design a cathedral for such a prominent protestant pastor. Perhaps Schuller was more compassionate than most Christians as regards gay people.


Anyway, I wandered down to the bookstore and found a book on the shelf whose title instantly captured me: What The Bible Says About Healthy Living. I was so inspired by the book that I wrote the second review to appear on the Amazon site back in 1998.


The book chronicles a Doctors railing at God after reading Psalm 139:14. The good Doctor was having one health crisis after another and had a real beef with a God that said that we were "beautifully and wonderfully made." The answer he got was essentially "Are you sure you read the instructions?"


The doctor spent several years pouring over the bible finding ways that God was trying to tell us how to live in a way that would assure good health and relative freedom from pain. In addition, the doctor looked for ways that science was beginning to validate the biblical dictums.


While he received some high profile accolades from top evangelicals, he definitely had to walk a tightrope with regard to giving so much credence to OT "laws" regarding diet and lifestyle choices. After all, mainstream Christianity long ago determined that "them laws done been nailed to the cross." Forgive me but I am unable to write those words without lapsing into a Texan dialect.


Despite a good effort to argue his case, I think he missed the main issue which is that Christianity "threw the baby out with the bathwater." Jesus was tweaked with the Pharisees not for trying to follow God's instructions, but for sitting in judgement of those they felt weren't.

After all, Jesus would never have said his Father's words were stupid. Regardless whether you believe that Jesus was the son of God or not, you have to agree that if He believed it he would never have said his Dad was dumb!

In any case, revisiting this book has caused me to decide that one of the missions of this blog will be to encourage other scientists to promote research that will help validate Torah. I say this not because I need proof, but because the world clearly does. In an age when trusting God is only a trite slogan on the back of our money, it is clearly time for people to be convinced, even by as imperfect a vehicle as science, that they need to trust God for everything.

Is America Overtreated?

"I don't always go into details about the possible side effects of drugs. I tell them all drugs are poisons with possible beneficial side effects."-Dr Jay Gordon

Last Friday's Talk of the Nation on NPR had a compelling story regarding the overtreatment of American patients.

Perhaps one of the most important points it made was that the onus for overtreatment often rests on the patients and not of the medical professionals. As an RN I can vouch for the fact that often it is the patient demanding drugs, procedures or treatments that they have seen on TV that, while not medically indicated, are what the patient is convinced will save them.

An ER doc friend describes how she has patients come to her Emergency department and ask for the "miracle pill" that is supposed to fix whatever ails them. This doc will call out to the ER nurses and say "do we have any of that miracle pill left." The nurses will reply "no - we're all out this week."

Needless to say, the patients are crestfallen.

The biggest problem with our broken medical system is not the cost of the various treatments, but that we think those treatments are the answer.

Messianic Judaism by Carol Harris-Shapiro

So I have been meaning to buy this book for a couple years and finally got around to it. I have just started reading it and it seems like a remarkably even handed book on a subject Jewish people tend to get a little crazy about.

The first glaring generalization I see is on page 15 when the author says that "Messianic believers consider it their special calling to convert Jews." I will concede that many do but, back when I was a Messianic Jew (or as Rabbi Harris-Shapiro would have called me a Messianic Gentile), I early on decided that conversion was the Almighty's business. I wanted to encourage Jews to embrace what God called them to be - a light to the Nations (Goyim).

At that time, back in the beginning of the decade, I found First Fruits of Zion to take a similar view. Their main focus was converting Christians. Rabbi Harris Shapiro apparently was not aware of FFOZ because I do not see them sited in the index. I must add that FFOZ appears to have changed their perspective considerably during the past few years and they may have recently adopted a more "missionary position", if you know what I mean.

While this general tendency on the part of Messianics to try and convert Jews is what seems to enrage Jews most, Rabbi Harris Shapiro notes an interesting sentiment as she spent several years among congregants in a Messianic congregation:

When their altar calls went by with nary a response, I was pleased. When a new person of Jewish birth "came to the Lord", I grieved. Clearly there were times when I would have liked to change their minds and "bring them back to the fold," much as they were trying to do with me. (12)

I respect her honesty and hope that Jewish people can see this and realize that this desire to convert is universal even if misguided. I also hope they can relax their bunker mentality and know that the Almighty will bring them to the place he wants them with or without missionary efforts by Christians.

I note the recent conversion of a Hollywood star from Catholicism to Judaism with joy. Not because of my dim view of Catholicism or because of my unnatural affinity for Judaism, but because this person is seeking intimacy with the King of The Universe and apparently isn't concerned about the politics of her religious choices as much as the desire for relationship with the divine.

I think what flavor you are is less important than that you have flavor. People joining religions in order to have a safe pigeon hole to hide in don't seem to be doing God or anyone else any favors.

As I savor this book (she appears to have ferreted out some great sources regarding the first couple of centuries of strong Jewish flavor to "The Church" - one of my favorite subjects) I will probably use this forum to review and reflect on this work.

Rabbi, if your are out there, you have a free pass to come out to the Rockies and have a vacation as long as you are willing to eat drink and discuss the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Disavowal of Google's Jews for Jesus Ads!!!

Whilst sitting in rapt admiration of this beautiful blog I noticed that the Google Adsense Advertisement appearing at the top was peddling Jews For Jesus.

I was aghast! My beautiful little blog schilling for an organization with which I want no affiliation.

I now face a moral dilemma. Do I continue to let Google post ads on my site (that will probably generate only enough revenue to buy a latte once a year) hoping that their algorithms get smart enough to know that JFJ and this blog are completely antithetical, or do I take the moral high road and kick Google off the site?

I think I am leaning towards hoping people don''t see it and associate it with The Gourd or that they see this article and ignore the ads.

I guess if I get flamed about JFJ it will at least offer a place to start a conversation.

Black Hole Discovered In The New Testament?

Well the plot gets sicker - a black hole has been discovered in the middle of the New Testament!

While no response is forthcoming from one of my new hero's, A.J. Jacob, I did get an earth shaking comment on the challenge from a "Bill in Harvard Square." Perhaps this means that Jesus really has come to Harvard after all.

Bill's perspective is identical to every other Christian interpreter, i.e. "the disciples decided you didn't have to become a Jew in order to become a Christian."

So Bill in Harvard Square, without giving you what I believe to be the answer to my challenge (after all I am still trying to lure Mr. Jacobs into this twisted little game), you will get a consolation prize of one cheap beer in the Cowboy Bar of your choice in my neck of the Rocky Mountains for publicly circumnavigating the aforesaid black hole.

Your interpretation almost works if you leave out verse 21. I believe that this verse is actually made of antimatter and that is why every Christian misses it. I am just stumped on what neurological warpage or mutation allows it to be visualized by others.

If Bill in Harvard Square is game, lets see if he will train his Ivy League wit specifically on verse 21 to see if the antimatter can be overcome. Consider that the word Christian had only just been used in Antioch to define this particular group of Jews and that James in Jerusalem may not have even heard this term applied to the group he was leading.

Further, keep in mind that the word synagogue appears 10 times more frequently in the New Testament than does the word Christian. If you put yourself in the councils shoes as first century Jews, then it might become more apparent why four such strange requests were made of these "gentiles" and what Moses being preached every Sabbath has to do with the price of tea in China.

Lastly, Bill retorts, "Circumcision is not necessary, but clean living is." While you could say that the second bit about sexual immorality might fall into the "clean living" pigeon hole, the other three (food, meat and blood) requirements are altogether different birds. C'mon Bill, do the Harvard Pilgrims proud - onward to Veritas!

The excitement builds! Stay tuned for the next installment.

P.S. Bill - your location put me in mind of one of my Dad's favorite jokes:

A Pittsburgher is in downtown Harvard Square. He sees a person who clearly seems to be a Harvard student–small, nerdy, wearing a Harvard beany cap. The Texan says, “Hey, Harvard kid, where’s Harvard Yard at?” The Harvard man answers back, “One never ends a sentence with a preposition, would you care to try that again, sir?” The Pittsburgher thinks for a second and replies, “Okay. Hey Harvard kid, where’s Harvard Yard at, ASSHOLE?”

Of course Dad was a Princeton Man from Pittsburgh!

Have You Seen This Man?

So here is my promised challenge to Mr. A.J. “Know-It-All” Jacobs. (I know you are on a book tour Mr. Jacobs, but you need to get your priorities straight - get cracking on this so I don't end up looking like a total schlemiel!)

He should read the passage (from Acts 15) below and tell us what it means. The scene is the famous council of Jerusalem with James (whose name was of course Yackov until King James decided he needed a namesake in the NT) the brother of Jesus presiding.

This big group of Jews is trying to decide what to require the of the non-Jewish people who were starting to hang out with Paul, Barnabas and other Jews in the area. Some men from Judea showed up and started saying that salvation depended on being circumcised. A great debate ensued and "the brothers" decided Paul and Barnabas should go back to Jerusalem and get the final word from all the apostles and elders who had first hand knowledge of Jesus.

19"It is my judgment, therefore, that we should not make it difficult for the Gentiles who are turning to God. 20Instead we should write to them, telling them to abstain from food polluted by idols, from sexual immorality, from the meat of strangled animals and from blood. 21For Moses has been preached in every city from the earliest times and is read in the synagogues on every Sabbath."

The traditional Christian understanding of this passage is that it put in writing the idea that "Jesus nailed 'em Laws to the Cross" to quote my Texan Evangelical brethren. The only difficulty with this understanding is that when they get to verse 21 they haven't the foggiest what to make of it.

I am betting that Mr. "Know-It -All" Jacobs will get it. Anyone care to take that bet or take a shot at its interpretation? A final hint to any Christians who want to finally get the meaning here - the word synagogue appears 23 times in the book of Acts alone.

The Year of Living Biblically

My cynical side was convinced that Fresh Air's interview of an Esquire editor who set out to live out every "law" in the bible would be a mocking yuck fest.

Was I ever wrong.

Terry Gross did a credible job of asking fairly objective, if ill informed, questions about the bible. I don't fault her in this. For someone so secular she at least has some familiarity if little understanding of the bible. She is otherwise a really good interviewer.

The really impressive thing to me was the interviewee, A.J. Jacobs. This guy convinced me that he had a genuine interest in better understanding "religion" and, while not getting the full story during one interview, it seems like he was transformed to a degree by "going through the motions" of trying to live out the Torah.

I am going to get the book to find out what blessings Mr. Jacobs experienced as he walked in derek Ha Torah or the way of the Torah. In just the few ways I have walked in its paths, I and my family have experienced blessings that I know are fulfillment of God's promises to those who try to listen to him.

If more people tried to do what Mr. Jacobs did I suspect they too would begin to understand that The Almighty didn't just speak the Torah to hear himself talk. Not did he do it so we could all walk around with a Torah yardstick measuring each others browny point quotient. Rather he spoke clearly many times in the bible saying that if we would listen and obey He would shower blessings on us and our progeny.

Stay tuned tomorrow for the throwing down of a gauntlet. I am willing to bet that this formerly secular Jew would "get" Acts 15:20 & 21 out of the new testament. This is significant to me because I have never met a Christian that does. When asked about verse 21 every Christian I have ever asked has been struck dumb.

I think Mr. Jacobs will get it because he just spent a year trying to live it. And I am going to bother the snot out of him until he renders and opinion.

Christians Anti-Gay?

So today we get the shocking revelation that Christians are perceived as judgemental, hypocritical and anti gay by the 16-29 year old crowd. And we needed the Barna Group to tell us this? Didn't anyone realize that there was a slight affiliation between Mr Anti-Gay himself and the face of Christianity in America?

I heartily recommend that all the evangelicals take all the money they're going to spend on consultants that can tell them how to restyle the facade that Christianity presents to the world and just contribute half of it to the care and feeding of this blog site when they realize I have the answer to their problem.

Are you ready for it? Here it is in two part harmony:

1) Stop thumping your bibles and try reading them - homosexuality is not rated as any greater a falling away from The Creators of The Universe's loving instructions (a long and perhaps more politically correct way of saying Torah) than a whole host of things that Evangelicals are regularly guilty of.

2) Instead of pointing out other peoples difficulty in walking a narrow path, perhaps your focus should be on your own difficulty in keeping on the The Way. You wouldn't want to end up getting compared to the Pharisees after all.

While this train of thought gets me fired up to open the steamer trunks worth of baggage attached to the word sin, the better angels of my nature bid me delay.

Evangelical's Bad Jewish Joke

I recently heard an evangelical tell a joke that really puts a twist in my knickers. To spare myself the agita of relating it word for word, I offer the following synopsis:

Two Jewish men bemoan their sons becoming Christians and go to their rabbi who , it turns out, has the same problem. They all fall on their knees to exhort God on this subject when God of course says he has the same problem. You can read a smarmy version verbatim at an equally smarmy Christian jewelry website which is probably one of many websites schlepping such tripe over the Internet.

While Jewish parental sentiment probably often runs along these lines (relax Jewish parents - garden variety Christianity will ultimately leave them wanting and then they will become Buddhists) the bit about God's son becoming a Christian is what really pisses me off.

The telling and retelling of this joke by evangelicals proves they don't get that Jesus and his disciples ( he probably would have referred to them as his Talmidim and not used a foreign word) weren't Christians but rather Jews. While this may seem a small matter, it is really huge. It begs the question when did we start using the term Christian and why?

More importantly, it should force us to ask ourselves why a culturally Jewish phenomenon morphed into something so un-Jewish. Then we need to examine what was lost in this transmogrification. And, finding ourselves so caught up in heavy questions, we should open a bottle of wine and settle in for a lot of soul searching.

Those who find themselves surprised to discover that Jesus was Jewish shouldn't feel too bad. James Carroll, in his book Constantine's Sword, cites an unnamed college professor who routinely asks his incoming freshman students "What Religion Was Jesus?" The majority say one or another flavor of Christianity.

What have we lost through such ignorance? Many would probably say very little. I will beg to differ.

Quotes to Bolster My Sense of Self Righteousness

Since I plan on ranting about all of my odd ideas I figured I would post some quotes that I could come back to when my flame proof underwear are wearing thin and my but is feeling sore.

Kind of like Preparation H for pundits.

So here go a few that have given me solace. I have not vetted them, but even if they are improperly attributed, I feel that the authors ascribed to the utterance would take credit for them anyway because they are so great.

These were lifted off an antivaccination site and so some of them address the seriously deranged field of medicine that I toil in every week.

“All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self-evident."… Schopenhauer

“We have not lost faith, but we have transferred it from God to the medical profession" … George Bernard Shaw

“What good fortune for those in power that the people do not think.”
"Tell a lie loud enough and long enough and people will believe it."
“It also gives us a very special, secret pleasure to see how unaware the people around us are of what is really happening to them." … Adolf Hitler

"When you once see something as false which you have accepted as true, as natural, as human, then you can never go back to it" … J. Krishnamurti

"Fear of disease, fear of microorganisms, fear of the unknown, is the tool of the clever that keeps the weak in line" … Tim O'Shea, DC

"The doctor of the future will give no medicine, but will interest his patients in the care of the human frame, in diet and in the cause and prevention of disease." …Thomas Edison

“The Laws of Ecology: "All things are interconnected. Everything goes somewhere. There's no such thing as a free lunch. Nature bats last." … Ernest Callenbach

“What a strange religion medicine makes. It's the only religion that is federally backed, and even amid scientific controversy, cannot be questioned openly without persecution or ridicule." ...unknown

“A good rule of thumb: Vitamin C should be given while the doctor ponders the diagnosis." … Frederick R. Klenner, M.D., F.C.C.P.

"HARM" seems to be intrinsic part of "pHARMa" ... unknown

“MD's are those who think we have an excess of organs and a deficiency of drugs” … Donna C.

“The art of medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature cures the disease” … Voltaire

"Modern medicine" may well be defined as "the experimental study of what happens when poisonous chemicals are placed into malnourished human bodies." … A. Saul - Contributing Editor, Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine

“A truth’s initial commotion is directly proportional to how deeply the lie was believed…When a well-packaged web of lies has been sold gradually to the masses over generations, the truth will seem utterly preposterous and its speaker, a raving lunatic.” … Dresden James

"Nearly all men die of their medicines, not of their diseases." … Moliere

"He's the best physician that knows the worthlessness of most medicines."
"God heals and the Doctor takes the fee." … Benjamin Franklin

"Half of the modern drugs could well be thrown out of the window, except that the birds might eat them” … Dr. Martin Henry Fischer

“If you think that something is right just because everyone believes it, then you are not thinking" … Vievienne Westwood

“Men occasionally stumble on the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” … Winston Churchill

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." … Ghandi

“Your failure to be informed does not make me a wacko." … John Loeffler

“God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.” … 1 Corinthians 1:27

“People change for two reasons, They either learn so much they want to or they hurt so bad they have to.” ... unknown

“If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." ... James Madison

Well there you have them, gems every one. If you find them providing you solace then you too are probably a misfit and miscreant and you can come back any time for comfort and consolation. I will continue posting such pearls and welcome contribution to this list.

Evangelicals Converting Jews?

NPR today reports the influx of evangelical Christians to Israel during Sukkot and the nervousness of Israeli's who like the tourist income but don't like the implications of the conversion plans most evangelicals subscribe to.

Personally I find the whole thing funny. If the Creator of the Universe wants the Jews to be something besides Jews I suspect it will happen. Evangelical plotting is more a sign of hubris than anything - "Lets us Christians do God's heavy lifting for him." If they're from Texas like the yahoo's shown above, they probably think they can do it better and faster than God as well.

Likewise the Jewish fears of disappearing due to the conversion tactics of Christians is ridiculous. If the Almighty intends for there to be Jews until the end of time then there will be. I think they should spend more time reflecting on the role that God has defined for them and less time worrying what a bunch of preoccupied evangelicals are up to.

When I am king (Ha) I will use all my powers of persuasion to get the evangelicals and Jews to sit down, break some bread and crack open a few good bottles of wine and dialog on the roles that are pretty clearly defined in the Torah for them. If we could just do what we're asked instead of informing The Great One that we know better, life would be so easy.

Come to think of it I might try using the same logic on my teenagers.

Healthcare On A Blog About Constantine?

Great question if I do say so myself.

The connection lies in the fact that the cultural shift concretized by Constantine (most obviously seen in the anti semitic results of his various councils) led people away from a true "In God We Trust" mindset to one where this credo only appears on the back of our money. Previously, health issues were viewed relative to The Creator and his instructions as vividly depicted in the story related in John 9:2. This example is by no means intended to demonstrate the Christian view but rather the first century view in Israel regardless of what flavor of Judaism you were practicing.

Once Constantine made official the split between Jews and followers of the Nazarene that Christians refer to as Jesus, the connection between health and adherence to The Creators instructions (Torah) was destroyed. While the heretic Marcion's popularization of the term "Old Testament" didn't help matters, Constantine is the easiest and most prominent scapegoat.

In fact, Constantine should probably become the patron saint of both the Medical and Insurance industries. Once we stopped viewing malady's as often the consequence of deviating from the path of Torah (the real meaning of the word sin before all kinds of nasty baggage got attached to this word) we had to look to human healers to fix us.

My Summer Trip To Jew Alley

The picture at left shows my middle child and I standing at the entrance of Judengasse in Trier Germany this summer. Many of us know that Jews were sequestered into Ghettos throughout Europe but I found out what a difference there is between reading about ghettos and actually walking through one. The first thing that struck me was that in the middle of this picturesque town on the Mosel River was a walled confine with a very public sign proclaiming "Jew Alley". Perhaps it is because in America we try to be so much more subtle and discreet about our ghettoization of people.

Walking down the alley we noted quaint shops and cozy apartments leading out into the alley and kept wondering what it must have been like in 1349 when the entire Jewish population of the town was massacred.

After running through a rainstorm to get to the synagogue in Trier we were admitted to the basement where several men were getting ready for Shabbat. One fellow was kind enough to take some time to talk and I hope to reconnect with him on a return trip. He told of lots of interesting pieces anti semitism literally carved into the face of buildings like the blindfolded figure of Judaism cut into the facade of the Cathedral in Köln. Alas, we had already left Köln. I will have to see it on a return trip.

One of my goals after a few more visits will be to organize similar trips for those who want to follow the emperor Constantine's path through Europe as I did. While I wouldn't visit as many cities (11 in 14 days!) it will be the kind of trip that my companions will never forget.

What Is The Point Of This Blog?

To fix the world of course.

Lets face it, the world is seriously broken. Rest assured that it will get fixed even if it is over our dead bodies. I love the hubris of the Greenies who are quite certain with enough benefit concerts and enough scientists, we can put humpty dumpty together again.

The earth is going to do what we do when we get polluted. It is going to throw up, have a bad case of diarrhea, lie in bed for a few days and then get on with the business of being the third stone from the sun.

If any of us are still left then we will get a renewed chance to stop being such buttheads and consider (kind of like teenagers after a hard night of drinking when they finally realize their parents aren't so stupid after all) that The Creator of the Universe has been speaking to us with loving words of instruction and if we would stop minding every one's business for them and listen we could have such wonderfully abundant lives.

This blog is interested with connecting with people who are willing to consider that Constantine, Luther and a lot of other luminaries in the welkin of "Christendom" may have led us in some very screwed up directions and it may be worth reforming the whole enchilada.

In fact, I am for tossing out the whole concept of Christianity and trying to get back to the feet of the Master and really listening for what he wants. I think we will find him pointing to our Abba's words and saying "do these things and live a blessed life."

And how will this fix things between Jews and us "people formerly know as Christians." Well for one we will read the Torah with new found respect and attention. Second, we will see that the Creator's intention for physical Israel is that they are to be a light unto the nations and we might begin encouraging them to continue to fulfill this role.

Third, we might begin to understand why they are the chosen people and perhaps even decide that it is OK if we are not the chosen people. Instead of getting mad at the Jews and trying to conceive supersessionist plans to usurp their place (after it becomes too embarrassing to try and kill them all the time) we might find ourselves, in utter humility, repeating what Ruth said:

...where you go, I will go, and where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God, my God.

Then again, maybe we will just go on watching Monday night football and living the American dream and all will be well with the world. And Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Bill Clinton is still going to bring about world peace by solving the middle east conflict - Ha!

Anyway, the short answer is that my money is on The Creator of The Universe and the instructions he left us in the form of the Torah. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

List You Must Consider Before Flaming Me

0) All of our words are only so much hot air. Jesus and Hillel were both in utter agreement that Love is the important thing and all the rest is commentary. Ultimately you should all come visit me and my family in the Rocky Mountains, have some good bread and baba ganoush and a nice bottle of burgundy with us and speak of life, the universe and love. And while we are at it we can have some good debates too.
0.5) Who do you have the biggest arguments with, total strangers or family members you love? The people you love the most of course! I therefore will take your diatribes as signs of an intimate bond of familial love on your part and you can view my snarky posts likewise. Despite our differences we were all created for a purpose and are all good medicine for each other. Rest assured this is said in the full sense of the word medicine meaning something that is basically a poison to shock your system into behaving. It either does that or kills you. This blog probably won't kill you though.
1) If you believe in a higher being then you surely believe that our relative intelligence on any given subject is counted as nothing when compared to that of said higher being. Therefore, relatively speaking, neither of us are so smart nor are we much smarter than the bug that has crawled up your posterior.
2) Death is not such a big deal. Once again, if you believe in the higher being specified in #1 above then an eternity in his(hers, its, whatever) universe makes our death not such a big deal.
3) Misunderstandings occur easily. Ask 10 people to interpret Paul and see how many shades of meaning you get. The poor man had it coming - a smart Jewish boy educated by the finest Rabbi's who grew up in Tarsus, spoke Greek, Hebrew and probably Aramaic, wrote in at least two of those languages and then gets translated into modern day languages of the world. His writing style is difficult and he was writing to people in his own milieu who presumably knew what he was talking about. Honest scholars confess their difficulty in understanding him and yet people have shed blood over their various interpretations of him. Let it be understood that I will miscommunicate and you will misread and, if we are patient wit each other, we can come to understanding if not necessarily agreement.





P.S. This list will be updated as I see new and unique ways in which my convoluted posts confuse people.