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Shavuot Tikkun Leil 2016 - Is Socialism Jewish?

Is Socialism Jewish?

Socialism is an insidious doctrine because Socialism falsely appeals to the better side of our natures as Jews and as human beings. By dishonest and deceptive means, Socialism co-opts the Jewish concept of Tikkun Olam, the command to repair the world, to do good works, a virtue that, while innate to human beings, reflects a person’s character and is something that is learned and promoted by faith family and culture. Socialism exploits and, as such, perverts this natural human tendency, one that offers the individual the gift of a sense of meaning and purpose in life, by replacing volitional and moral human action, Tukkun Olam, with the godless man-made state. Socialism turns Tikkun Olam into an agenda to change human nature and, as such, to create, ultimately, a collectivist one world ant colony.

A free and, as such, a moral society is one that consists of an imperfect system of laws that encourage and aid the individual who seeks to repair the world by preserving, protecting and defending the inalienable right of individual to repair himself. A free society establishes parameters and provides infrastructure by which the free citizen can repair himself and, as such, repair the world. At the same time the free society regulates excesses and corruptions that are associated with free will and freedom of action and, as such, a free society tempers and restrains the darker tendencies of human nature.

Human nature does not need to be changed and, at any rate, human nature cannot be changed. We are imperfect beings created in the image of God but we are not God and, as such, we will never be perfect or, at the end of the day, we will not be changed at least not by the hand of man. We are capable, however, of change as individuals and we can, as such, repair the world. We can engage in Tikkun Olam as individuals or by working with others.  Individuals and voluntary groups thus engage in Tikkun Olam as a reflection of personal values and in order to fulfill an innate inner need.

God gave us a blueprint, a constitution if you will, for how to repair the world and that is the Torah.  The Torah identifies names and separates all basic elements of existence physical as well as spiritual and abstract. The Torah offers a guidebook in terms of proper and improper means of interacting with each other in all basic aspects of our relationships personal and business as well as a code of conduct and rules of interaction for sovereign nations. By learning the ways and the means of the Torah we are set free, within these guidelines, to live our lives, to create, to invent, to influence and to determine the course of our own lives and our own destinies within the concept of what is possible.

We can repair the world, as we have often done in the United States, by creating a society of law that recognizes and fosters freedom so that the citizen is free to improve himself to the extent that he chooses to do so. Tikkun Olam can have a concentric effect, like a drop of water in a pool the ripples outward. Tikkun Olam, Mitzvah, Tzadakah, Rachmanos, these affect others and hold the potential to create wider circles which could reverberate across the world. We do not need the gun-backed state to effect Tikun Olam, even if that state is controlled, in fact especially if that state is controlled by imposters who pose as enlightened ones who promise to change the world and human nature.

This is the lie of the Garden of Eden. The serpent promised Eve that she and Adam could know all things, could be all things, by partaking in the forbidden fruit.  Adam and Eve turned their backs on God, indeed they performed an act that attempted to overthrow God, when they partook in the forbidden fruit. Since that time, men and women have had the option of choosing God, with all of the mystery and imperfection that accompanies this choice, or Man, which is a godless rule by a clique of men and women who claim to be enlightened, who feel justified in the use of force to change human nature and, as such, to try to redefine existence and, essentially, to try to become God.

The Socialist promise is intoxicating and alluring, a claim that man is the originator of all things and that man can be a god. The problem with the Socialist promise is that it is false while the belief in God, a supernatural being that exists outside of the human mind is, to use the phrase founding father Thomas Jefferson put in the Declaration of Independence, self-evident. The Socialist lie and deception has existed in every generation since the days of Adam and Eve. The idea of being part of replacing the creator of the universe, the law-giver, the supreme being whose laws are beyond human manipulation with a clique of humans taking the law into their own hands and defining reality is indeed alluring. This has been the religion of every socialist movement from the Reign of Terror to the Communists and the Nazis, all of which called themselves progressive and all of which sought earthly control in the name of science.

As Jews, we seek to change ourselves by looking for guidance to the Torah, which we consider to be the word of God. The importance of believing that the Torah is the word of God, a concept that is central to our faith, is that the laws, the morals and the ethics that are contained within the Torah are, as such, immutable and are beyond the power to be manipulated and corrupted by the imperfect and corrupted mind and hand of man. The Torah is, as such, the blueprint for how we are to live our lives, how we are to engage with each other and how nations are to engage with each other.

Judaism is not compatible with Socialism. While we believe that God created us in his image, Socialism holds, as the first tenet of its political faith, that man is an evolving animal. We believe that the human being is a spiritual being with a soul. Socialism holds the material view that man is a human resource and that the individual exists at different rungs of the evolutionary chain and is, as such, not created equal. We believe the in the volitional ability of the individual to reason and, as such, to understand right and wrong. Socialism holds Collectivism, absolute equality, the one world ant colony as the true goal of human society and as the ultimate virtue.

We believe in God, they believe in Man.

8th Annual Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot in Brookline - Is Socialism Jewish?

"Shavuot is the time when the community gathers around the mountain, and makes pilgrimage to a holy place, for the ultimate transformative experience."  
—Reb Zalman Schachter-Shalomi ז׳ל

8th Annual Community Tikkun Leil Shavuot in Brookline

All Night, June 11-12, 2016
Starting at 9:00pm with special pre-session at 8:15p.
384 Harvard Street and 100 Centre St. in Brookline, MA

Let us know you’re coming!  RSVP and/or sign up to volunteer here!

THIS IS A DRAFT SCHEDULE: SUBJECT TO CHANGE (check back for updates)

• Schedule
  
• Speakers
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Chuck Morse

Chuck is the author of "The War against Judaism" and other non-fiction books and the host of a weekday radio talk show, "Chuck Morse Speaks," which broadcasts Mon - Fri 10am - Noon on the USA Radio Networks.

My Speakers Sessions

Saturday, June 11

11:50pm

Is Socialism Jewish?

Parshat Emor: Why we are the Chosen People

Parshat Emor: Why we are the Chosen People

Chuck Morse

May 21, 2016

The word “emor” means to speak and this is one of the portions of the Torah by which G-d speaks to the world through Moses. In this Torah portion God delivers special laws and regulations to the sons of Aaron, the Kohanim, the priests. These special laws, which constitute an extra layer of laws, are given by God on top of laws that God gives to all of the children of Israel and, by extension, to all of mankind.

The special laws for the Kohanim are meant to raise their level of holiness and purity so as to enable them to serve in the role of a priestly caste. By this means, the Kohanim, having been given an avenue to achieve an extra level of holiness and purity, prepare themselves to represent mankind more directly to God. These special laws allow the Kohanim to serve God on behalf of all of mankind and to advocate to God on behalf of mankind.

These special laws pertain to that which is permitted as well as to that which is forbidden in professional personal and sexual relationships. They pertain to Temple worship and to the humane treatment of animals. They pertain to the observance of the Holy Days for all of Israel, particularly Passover and Sukkot, and they include Temple ritual including specifically the lighting of the Menorah.

Emor concludes with the execution of a man who had committed blasphemy which establishes laws pertaining to the death penalty. Emor also concludes with laws that punish those who violate the laws of private property ownership.

This gets to the question of the Israelites, and their heirs, the Jewish people, as the Chosen People. Why were we, the lineal descendants of the children of Israel, therefore chosen by God? What were we chosen for and what were we chosen to do?

By accepting the extra layer of laws that God conveyed to our ancestors through Moses, and by accepting a layer on top of that extra layer for a chosen sect of priests within our ranks, we entered into a covenant with the Holy One, Blessed be He, to serve him on behalf of all of mankind. We accepted a special mantle and a special burden, one that would require a heightened level of holiness, or purity, or spirituality. We thus were placed in the position of lawyer advocate defending the sins of mankind to God and offering all of mankind the avenue of redemption and forgiveness through our example.

Anti-Semites have woven conspiracy theories since the days of Haman, false and libelous conspiracy theories that claim that the idea of the chosen people is one that was manufactured by Jews to justify our alleged aspirations to rule the temporal world. By this means Jews have been blamed for the real conspiracies of history, conspiracies that did, in fact, seek global conquest either through the force of arms, trickery, subterfuge or subversion.

This was why Hitler was able to blame the Jews for Communism, which was a real and identifiable conspiracy to rule the temporal world, while at the same time attempting to deflect attention from his own conspiracy to rule the world. This conspiracy theory, that the Jews had designated themselves as the chosen people in order to rule the world, was the basis by which Karl Marx called for the disintegration of Judaism as he deflected attention away from his own conspiratorial agenda to rule the world.

We are chosen by God not to rule over anyone but rather we are chosen to serve God. We  serve God by our example, by our acceptance of an extra layer of laws and by the heightened level of spirituality morality and ethics that emanates from that acceptance. We are thus chosen to be a light unto the nations. 

T'Tzavveh

I found that this parsha was difficult for me to get my mind around. Firstly, most of the commentary that I studied was mystical and esoteric, in the tradition of the Kabalah, and while I have enormous respect for that discipline I don't really feel qualified to comment on it. I would rather leave that important commentary up to experts who know how to place such speculation into a moral context. Besides such study makes me feel like I was tripping on acid or chewing on a magic mushroom.

Been there, done that!

I would humbly prefer to attempt a look at the Parsha from the standpoint and from the style of a pashat, from the every-man's perspective, the simple and the fundamental meaning if you will.

From that perspective I observe a paradox. 

On the one hand there is Aaron and his sons, the high priests of Israel, the chosen of the chosen, standing there before the Altar of God in their finest linens, their brilliantly colored sacred vestments, their robes and their fringed tunics, their head-dresses, a scene that is described to a tee in this Parsha along with the perfectly arranged and colorful precious stones embedded into the Urim and the Thurim and the richly embroidered and intricately decorated ornaments. All of this is to serve as a magnificent means of praying to G-d on behalf of the children of Israel and all of mankind and all of this is displayed in the bright and brilliant sunlight of Sinai.

Their sashes have been imitated ever since by European royalty and Latin American dictators.

Then, in short order, comes a bloody and disgusting scene of violence filth and anarchy. Two rams are publicly slaughtered, their blood is spattered everywhere, parts of their guts are burned, and their blood is smeared on parts of the bodies of Aaron's sons.

The paradox involves the romantic and the natural images of life side by side in a state of cooperation. The romantic image is the sunlight image, the one of human striving for excellence, for social order and moral clarity. It is a beautiful image of the best elements in the world, physical and artistic, elemental and abstract, organized by the hand of man, in this case the hand of Moses, to serve a higher purpose,  worship of G-d, an approach, on behalf of mankind, to the moral and ethical code of God.

The natural image is one of death, disorder, ugliness, stench, pain, suffering and chaos. We see the dark side of life as the two animals suffer and die and their blood and guts are strewn about. We participate in that ugliness through our priests, acting as proxies, in the same way that we participate in the excellence and the beauty of their preparations before the slaughter. 

This reflects human life in all of its imperfections. We create great and beautiful things, buildings, music, art, communication, much of the work that we do and much the activities that we participate in. We also participate in the slaughter of animals every time we eat a steak or chicken except we don't witness it on an alter as we have arranged for it to be done behind closed doors. We know that, as we congregate in this beautiful sanctuary among family and friends, a person from the outside, perhaps with his face covered by a black and white checkered scarf, could bust through the door and hack us all to death in a minute, chopping off our limbs and spattering our blood. We are aware of the fact that there is a dark side to life, one that is represented by the bloody scene depicted at the altar with the slaughter of the innocent rams.

We are reminded that, in spite of our best efforts, and regardless of how much we cling to and advance that which is right and true, mankind can not be perfected and that human life or human society cannot be made perfect as their is no such thing, nor will there ever be any such thing, as man-made human perfection on earth. Indeed, we know that the person who breaks into our sanctuary and chops off our limbs is engaging in the perverse and un-natural attempt to bring about perfection on earth.

The paradox of the altar, the sunlight and the slaughter, reminds us that only G-d is perfect and that only G-d will determine any measure of perfection in human society and this will only occur his time, not our time. This time will assuredly come, we believe, with the coming of the Messiah may his days be rapidly approaching.