Jewish Atonement Day, RFF & me

R

ruben

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In these days of fear-inspiring stocks free fall, and after two decades of religious extremism by all major religions and at many countries produced by the vacum of the birth of the "FSU", here comes today another Jewish Atonement Day.

As a Jew I am requested to fast and ask for repentance.

But I am not going to do either one. For sure there are many things I have done wrong last year, among them I have launched some insults towards a very few RFF members (which uncounciously absolved me by paying me back with the same) - but this is not a religious sin and for this precise reason I have repeated several times my opposition to those public apologies that we have heard at RFF in the past, with the warm applause of a few friends.

Obviously my life, like all the neighbourhood dwellers, is not reduced to RFF. So I can judge myself and testify that I have not sinned outside either. I judge myself with full confidence because I do not believe in God. I find precisely this day the best opportunity to reafirm it.

Not believing in God doesn't give me a free license to do whatever sin, crime, offense, etc that may be tempting by the way.

Because there are values I do believe in. I do believe man is not a sinner by nature, I believe in full democracy, in social justice, in the brotherhood of men beyond nationalities and in the duty to help each other. I do not need any bible for this, further more since hundred of millions share these beliefs, either partially or by their entirety. And I remain a staunch optimist that these views will conquer the whole world as one day Christendom conquered the Roman Empire. To my opinion, Humanity has no other way out.

To end my sermon of my atonement day, there is a good chance that some Jewish or Israeli fellow may ask me: am I a Jew or what ?

I would like to be crystal clear. Since there are around the globe some pockets (and some times like recently in HUngary - BIG pockets) of racial discrimination against the Jews - I remain a proud Jew. A Jew proud of the golden hystoric contribution of heroic fight performed by Jews on behalf of Justice worldwide.

It is not brilliant but egoist minds of the like of Einstein that I count, but the likes of Joe Slovo - the white Jewish inmigrant who joined Nelson Mandela's freedom fight and became with time into the chief of staff of the Umkhonto we Sizwe, the underground army of the African National Congress.

And what about our fellow Palestinian brothers, who beyond producing some suicide bombers are by the millions under desperate oppression ? It is precisely in Israel where I have seen some Jews wearing the clothes of oppressors. My heart and mind are with the Palestinian people in the hope they achieve a just and fully independent statehood - that will enable me to feel comfortable with my own citizenship. My utter dream is that my tribal breed will truly reconciliate itself with the Palestinians out of broad heart.

Lastly, why do I write all this here, at RFF ? For a simple and sincere reason. At this stage in my life, here is the biggest concentration of fellows whose thoughts and feelings I appreciate most.

Best to all,
Ruben
 
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ruben said:
To end my sermon of my atonement day, there is a good chance that some Jewish or Israeli fellow may ask me: am I a Jew or what ?
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I'm a fellow, but neither a Jew nor Israeli... and I was wondering the same thing after reading your discourse. Some parts make you sound more like a "cafeteria Catholic". :)
 
Unless suffering is the direct and immediate object of life, our existence must entirely fail of its aim. It is absurd to look upon the enormous amount of pain that abounds everywhere in the world, and originates in needs and necessities inseparable from life itself, as serving no purpose at all and the result of mere chance. Each separate misfortune, as it comes, seems, no doubt, to be something exceptional; but misfortune in general is the rule.
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-Arthur Schopenhauer
 
Ruben, You should load some film in one of your Kiev's & wonder about God's landscape & admire His beauty. You never know, you just may find he's real.
 
shalom......

(I'm not Jewish in fact I'm more of a nihilist/atheist but If I had to be religious I'd like to be Jewish from what I've heard it's a very tolerant religion and very logical one.)
 
In the final analysis we are all people seeking a better way of life for ourselves, children and families. Like it or not, there must be room for all. A little compassion, a smile perhaps, a helping hand can go a long way. Thanks Ruben.
 
Just finished fasting and spending most of the last 25 hours in our Shul (synagogue praying). Although we express it in different terms it all is pretty much the same deal. Ruben and the rest of the RFF'ers are my brothers and sisters. Have a healthy, happy and photogenic New Year.
 
Ruben, I didn't fast yesterday, I don't go to schule, I don't wear a yarmulke. My grandfather was a devout Jew, facing east and saying the ritual prayers every morning. My dad was an agnostic. I haven't believed in a god since before my Bar Mitzvah, but somehow my son ended up following his mother's faith and graduated from Presbytarian seminary. He met a Jewish girl, found his Jewish roots and converted, ending up a rabbi, always wearing his yarmulke. Like his great grandfather he gets up each morning, faces east, and prays. We don't discuss religion and we get along just fine. There's only one thing we argue about. He has a Rollei 35 and a Leica CL with 21, 40, and 90mm lenses. His wife is a journalist and pretty adept with a camera herself. They never send me enough pictures of Gabriella, their two year old daughter. That's worth argueing about!

Happy New Year and good health to all of you.
 
kshapero said:
Just finished fasting and spending most of the last 25 hours in our Shul (synagogue praying). Although we express it in different terms it all is pretty much the same deal. Ruben and the rest of the RFF'ers are my brothers and sisters. Have a healthy, happy and photogenic New Year.
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Dear kshapero,
there is greatness in your soul

Cheers,
Ruben
 
Al Kaplan said:
Ruben, I didn't fast yesterday, I don't go to schule, I don't wear a yarmulke. My grandfather was a devout Jew, facing east and saying the ritual prayers every morning. My dad was an agnostic. I haven't believed in a god since before my Bar Mitzvah, but somehow my son ended up following his mother's faith and graduated from Presbytarian seminary. He met a Jewish girl, found his Jewish roots and converted, ending up a rabbi, always wearing his yarmulke. Like his great grandfather he gets up each morning, faces east, and prays. We don't discuss religion and we get along just fine. There's only one thing we argue about. He has a Rollei 35 and a Leica CL with 21, 40, and 90mm lenses. His wife is a journalist and pretty adept with a camera herself. They never send me enough pictures of Gabriella, their two year old daughter. That's worth argueing about!

Happy New Year and good health to all of you.
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Hi Al,

for a long time I haven't read a story keeping me laughing for so long. And being it a true story - hmmm.... perhaps I am wrong and I should visit a synagogue some day

Cheers,
Ruben
 
Reuben,
As Rabbi Max Kaufman wrote,
Follow any thread
And you will be led
To its beginning and end;
Both blend,
And are curled
With the heart of the world.
John E.L.Robertson
 
Al - Kaplan,

Not being sent grandchildren's photographs in regular intervals, should be considered a capital crime punishable by exclusion of the offending parent from one's will!!!
 
eia41, nah, I can't cut him out of my will. The paucity of photos of Gabriella is more than made up in other ways, and my daughter is already cut out of my will for suddenly deciding five or six years ago that I was the cause of all of her problems with relationships, the reason that at 37 she's still a childless old maid (do they still use that term?). She hasn't spoken with me or replied to an email since. She does make a good living though, as an attorney specializing in executive benefits compensation at the Atlanta office of a huge law firm. I'll resist interjecting humor at this juncture lest she sue me.

Ruben, thanks for the complement on on my droll convoluted humor. It's not easy being crazy!
 
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Alan Watts' sez:

"Man is a little germ that lives on an unimportant rock ball that revolves about a small star at the outskirts of an ordinary galaxy..."

"For there is a growing apprehension that existence is a rat-race in a trap: living organisms, including people, are merely tubes which put things in a one end and let them out at the other, which which both keeps them doing it and in the long run wears them out. So to keep the farce going, the tubes find ways of making new tubes, which also put things in at one end and let them out at the other. At the input end they develop ganglia of nerves called brains, with eyes and ears, so they can more easily scrounge around for things to swallow. As and when they get enough to eat, they use up their surplus energy by wiggling in complicated patterns, making all sorts of noises by blowing air in and out of the input hole, and gathering together in groups to fight with other groups. In time, the groups grow such and abundance of attached appliances that they are hardly recognizeable as as mere tubes, and they manage to do this in a staggering array of forms. There is a vague rule not to eat tubes of your own form, but in general there is serious competition as to who is going to be the top type of tube. All this seems marvelously futile, and yet, when you begin to think about it, it begins to be more marvelous than futile. Indeed, it seems extremely odd."

I'm a non-observant Jew but you're a great big nutjob, Ruben. Those Palestinians would like to eat you for breakfast and throw your bones to the dogs.

Anyway, I have it on good authority I'm already in God's big book and I don't need to go supplicate in schul.

On the other hand,

"In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of
Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed
what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments
of the 20th century. You did not hear about it on the evening
news. In fact, unless you are in the habit of reading
scientific journals you probably have never even heard
Aspect's name, though there are some who believe his
discovery may change the face of science.

Aspect and his team discovered that under certain
circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able
to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of
the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they
are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart.

Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is
doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates
Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel
faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than
the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time
barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to
try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's
findings. But it has inspired others to offer even more
radical explanations.

University of London physicist David Bohm, for example,
believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does
not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is
at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed
hologram."

"I'm Arti Choke, and I'm just a joke"

"Clone me, Doctor Memory!"

- Firesign Theatre
 
but you're a great big nutjob, Ruben. Those Palestinians would like to eat you for breakfast and throw your bones to the dogs.

Ruben, i have to agree with this comment big time. I think you are naive and pie in the sky. nonetheless in the words of Rodney King, "Why can't we just all get along?"
 
Petroleum V. Nasby said:
............ but you're a great big nutjob, Ruben. Those Palestinians would like to eat you for breakfast and throw your bones to the dogs......
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That may be a fact as round as Earth. But is precisely at this point that you have to apply your true belief: 1) Do the Palestinians want it because they are barbarians, or 2) because they have suffered from Israel a massive and multiple process of dispossetion, death, etc. etc.

If 1) is correct, let us exterminate them before they exterminate us.

If 2) is correct, a counter process may take place in different forms, including a change of leadership at the Palestinian side in the next decades. Both Palestinian wings now are in a dead-end.

Many of us in the West and in Israel are used to see either the Arabs or the Muslims as a barbarian mob. This is not the reality although there is an element of truth here.

The element of truth is that so far seldom an oriental leadership has been of the non-racialist and non-sectarian character of the like of Mandela's African National Congress.

Much of the barbarism from the East you see on TV is orquestated by criminal leaderships of every sort, including Bin Laden & Co. And other criminals officially in Government.

I agree with you that by now, the 2) option seems very very far from materializing. Nevertheless, never confuse the barefoot Palestinians with the drunk SS barbarian.

Cheers,
Ruben
 
There are about 12 million Jews on earth. Most not observant, even. Maybe 1.5 billion Muslims.

Murdering all the Jews is preached daily to the vast majority of Muslims. These 12 million Jews, a TINY fraction of the world population (a fraction of 1%) are blamed for everything including running the world's governments, media, banks, along with everything else that's evil in the world.

KILLING all the Jews is a serious Islamic mission, even Muslims who are far from any likelihood of ever meeting a Jew, no less being "oppressed" by them. Palestinian TV teaches children of 3 to grow up to kill Jews.

Look at a world map. Israel is on the tiniest sliver of land in a vast region. So small you could fly over it in a couple of minutes.

Settled by a lot of holocaust survivors.

Is it too much to ask that the 5 or 6 million Jews in Israel be left in peace? Serious military attempts have been made to exterminate them multiple times.

If it was possible to nuke Israel today, the Islamists would suffer no moral qualms, they would do it instantaneously.

Why can't Israel be left alone? Is it too much to ask? It's hardly a case of apartheid or oppression, in reality, it's a matter of keeping people who want to kill you out.

Sadly, I think Israel is eventually doomed to a bloodbath and extermination. You and your children will not be exempted because of your compassionate views, Ruben. You're just another one who will be stabbed and who will have his head exhibited in some demonstration of barbarity.

This is fact. When someone says daily they want to kill you, take it seriously.
 
The German soldiers during the WWII used to have an insignia on their belts which read gott ist mit uns
​
. This is one of those absurd historical ironies but it means in German, god is with us.

Ethnocentrism combined with the idea that "God is on our side" usually have caused all the great atrocities and contracted conflicts in human history. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Scientologists - these are all exclusive clubs defined by their opposition to 'the other'.

Today that markets are in free fall, and foreclosures of homes in US have caused Iceland to go bankrupt, there is one glaring reality facing everyone - we're in this sh..t together.



Ruben is a wise man and I respect his introspective and individualistic attitude ... We need more individuals, not the herd followers and the sheep.
 
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