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Jewish Crypsis – Religion – Part 4
Three prominent aspects of the jews’ religion: moser, the Kol Nidre and Purim.
MOSER, JewishEncyclopedia.com:
The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia
An informer, denunciator, or delator; synonyms are “masor” (abstract, “mesirah”), “delator” (), and “malshin” (abstract, “malshinut”), from the last of which are derived the Portuguese “malsim,” and also the Spanish “malsin,” together with the adjective “malsinar” and the abstract nouns “malsindad” and “malsineria.” Nothing was more severely punished by the Jews than talebearing; and no one was held in greater contempt than the informer. On account of the fact that his deeds frequently caused mischief and even entailed death and destruction, the sages of the Talmud compared the “moser” to a serpent.
In Talmudic Times.
The Jews suffered much during the persecutions under Hadrian through informers in their own ranks; especially teachers of the Law were betrayed by the delators.
Moser means specifically a jewish race-traitor, a jew who betrays jews.
Note the attempt to use SUFFERINK! and POISECUTION! to distract from the reality that a moser does not simply betray the jews by siding with non-jews, but informs the non-jews concerning jewish wrong-doing. The jews regard the informing as the real wrong-doing.
A more contemporary source confirms this understanding of the moser concept. Jewish Word | Moser, Moment Magazine:
The Jewish Snitch
Earlier this year, Nechemya Weberman, a member of the Hasidic Satmar community in New York, was sentenced to 103 years in prison for sexually abusing a young girl over the course of three years, beginning when she was 12. The case, needless to say, sparked an uproar within the community. Some were outraged over the 54-year-old Weberman’s behavior, but others were furious for a different reason—that he had been turned over to the police at all. Four men were arrested on charges of witness intimidation, after allegedly offering the girl, who later testified against Weberman, half a million dollars to drop the case and suggesting that she move to Israel. To some, the girl was a moser, a rabbinic term for a Jew who informs on another Jew.
Moser is not a term familiar to many outside close-knit ultra-Orthodox Jewish communities, which often choose to deal with offenses within the fold. This preference has a legal origin as well as a cultural one, stemming from a rabbinic prohibition on mesirah, meaning “delivery” or “handing over” in Hebrew. Rabbinic law mandates that a Jew may not report another Jew’s malfeasance to a secular government, even when the behavior in question violates both secular and Jewish law. Nor can a Jew abet the turning over of another Jew’s financial or physical property to the government.
When recording I voiced my uncertainty whether the girl is a jew. Now I realize that “the girl was a moser” clearly implies she is.
By placing a fellow Jew in mortal danger, a moser takes on the status of a rodef, literally a “pursuer,” or one who is chasing a victim with murderous intentions. An individual or community is permitted to stop a rodef by any means necessary—even if that means killing him before he has the chance to kill his intended victim. What’s more, no formal decree must be issued to declare someone a moser or a rodef, and anyone may take action against the deemed criminal. “If someone is running after somebody else to kill him, I don’t go to a bet din to ask them. I’ve got to stop him right there,” says Steven Resnicoff, professor of law and co-director of the Center for Jewish Law and Judaic Studies at DePaul University and an Orthodox rabbi.
This thinking goes beyond dealing with traitors.
Jewish morality plus jewish identity equals a license for jewish aggression against non-jews. The first half of the equation is the notion that jews are “permitted to stop” whomever or whatever they perceive as a “mortal danger” “by any means necessary-even if that means killing”. The second half is that jews think constantly of themselves in terms of SUFFERINK! and POISECUTION! – past, present and future. Jews perceive themselves in perpetual “mortal danger”, thus justifying their perpetual aggression against others.
Emory’s Broyde explains that the rules against informing don’t pertain to actions that harm the community or endanger others’ safety—in cases of violent criminals, for example, one may inform the secular authorities.
This is telling in light of the example cited. The rabbi harmed at least one member of their community, and perhaps others. Those who fault the girl, calling her a moser, are saying that in their estimation she causes their community more harm than the rabbi.
KOL NIDRE, JewishEncyclopedia.com:
Prayer recited in the synagogue at the beginning of the evening service on the Day of Atonement; the name is taken from the opening words. The “Kol Nidre” has had a very eventful history, both in itself and in its influence on the legal status of the Jews. Introduced into the liturgy despite the opposition of rabbinic authorities, repeatedly attacked in the course of time by many halakists, and in the nineteenth century expunged from the prayer-book by many communities of western Europe, it has often been employed by Christians to support their assertion that the oath of a Jew can not be trusted.
Form of Prayer.
Before sunset on the eve of the Day of Atonement, when the congregation has gathered in the synagogue, the Ark is opened and two rabbis, or two leading men in the community, take from it two Torah-scrolls. Then they take their places, one on each side of the ḥazzan, and the three recite in concert a formula beginning with the words , which runs as follows:
“In the tribunal of heaven and the tribunal of earth, by the permission of God—blessed be He—and by the permission of this holy congregation, we hold it lawful to pray with the transgressors.”
Thereupon the cantor chants the Aramaic prayer beginning with the words “Kol Nidre,” with its marvelously plaintive and touching melody, and, gradually increasing in volume from pianissimo to fortissimo, repeats three times the following words:
“All vows [], obligations, oaths, and anathemas, whether called ‘ḳonam,’ ‘ḳonas,’ or by any other name, which we may vow, or swear, or pledge, or whereby we may be bound, from this Day of Atonement until the next (whose happy coming we await), we do repent. May they be deemed absolved, forgiven, annulled, and void, and made of no effect; they shall not bind us nor have power over us. The vows shall not be reckoned vows; the obligations shall not be obligatory; nor the oaths be oaths.”
The Kol Nidre amounts to a preemptive oath to forsake all subsequent oaths. Thus the oath of any jew who engages in this ritual cannot be trusted. Naturally the jews regard those who object as more at fault than themselves.
PURIM, JewishEncyclopedia.com:
Jewish feast celebrated annually on the l4th, and in Shushan, Persia, also on the 15th, of Adar, in commemoration of the deliverance of the Persian Jews from the plot of Haman to exterminate them, as recorded in the Book of Esther.
Nevertheless Purim has been held in high esteem at all times and in all countries, some even maintaining that when all the prophetical and hagiographical works shall be forgotten the Book of Esther will still be remembered, and, accordingly, the Feast of Purim will continue to be observed (Yer. Meg. i. 5a; Maimonides, “Yad,” Megillah, iii. 18; comp. Schudt, “Jüdische Merkwürdigkeiten,” ii. 311). It is also claimed that Purim is as great as the day on which the Torah was given on Sinai (“Mordekai” on B. M. ix., end; comp. Lampronti, “Paḥad Yiẓḥaḳ,” s.v. “Purim”). In Italy the Jews, it seems, have even used the word “Purim” as a family name, which also proves the high esteem that the festival enjoys among them (Vogelstein and Rieger, “Gesch. der Juden in Rom,” ii. 420; but comp. Steinschneider in “Monatsschrift,” 1903, p. 175).
The Book of Esther does not prescribe any religious service for Purim; it enjoins only the annual celebration of the feast among the Jews on the 14th and 15th of Adar, commanding that they should “make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.” It seems, therefore, that the observance of Purim was at first merely of a convivial and social nature. Gradually it assumed religious features.
Significance: Remembers the defeat of a plot to exterminate the Jews
Observances: Public reading of the book of Esther while “blotting out” the villain’s name
The Book of Esther
The story of Purim is told in the Biblical book of Esther. The heroes of the story are Esther, a beautiful young Jewish woman living in Persia, and her cousin Mordecai, who raised her as if she were his daughter. Esther was taken to the house of Ahasuerus, King of Persia, to become part of his harem. King Ahasuerus loved Esther more than his other women and made Esther queen, but the king did not know that Esther was a Jew, because Mordecai told her not to reveal her identity.
The villain of the story is Haman, an arrogant, egotistical advisor to the king. Haman hated Mordecai because Mordecai refused to bow down to Haman, so Haman plotted to destroy the Jewish people. In a speech that is all too familiar to Jews, Haman told the king, “There is a certain people scattered abroad and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your realm. Their laws are different from those of every other people’s, and they do not observe the king’s laws; therefore it is not befitting the king to tolerate them.” Esther 3:8. The king gave the fate of the Jewish people to Haman, to do as he pleased to them. Haman planned to exterminate all of the Jews.
Mordecai persuaded Esther to speak to the king on behalf of the Jewish people. This was a dangerous thing for Esther to do, because anyone who came into the king’s presence without being summoned could be put to death, and she had not been summoned. Esther fasted for three days to prepare herself, then went into the king. He welcomed her. Later, she told him of Haman’s plot against her people. The Jewish people were saved, and Haman and his ten sons were hanged on the gallows that had been prepared for Mordecai.
The book of Esther is unusual in that it is the only book of the Bible that does not contain the name of G-d. In fact, it includes virtually no reference to G-d. Mordecai makes a vague reference to the fact that the Jews will be saved by someone else, if not by Esther, but that is the closest the book comes to mentioning G-d. Thus, one important message that can be gained from the story is that G-d often works in ways that are not apparent, in ways that appear to be chance, coincidence or ordinary good luck.
In a nutshell Purim is the celebration of the triumph of jews over their enemies. Specifically, it is a victory achieved by means of deception, seduction and exploitation of others – whereby a single wiley crypto-jewess manipulates one group of goyim into warring on another group of goyim in the service of jewish interests. The moral of the story and righteousness of it all rests upon the jewish license noted above: proactively exterminating “mortal dangers” “by any means necessary”.
These three things have little or nothing to do with God, or serving God, unless God is understood as the people who are being served, the jews themselves.
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Carolyn, Tan and Hadding confab on “The White Question”
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Glenn Miller and Andrew Anglin On White Organization
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Dr. Levy, a Jew, Admits His People’s Error – Episode 61
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Jewish Crypsis – Religion – Part 3
Concerning jewish peoplehood.
Continuing commentary on the article briefly mentioned and linked in the previous installment, Can There Be Judaism Without Belief In God?, Moment Magazine (emphasis added):
Avraham Infeld
Judaism is not a religion and was not a religion until the emancipation and our encounter with modernity. Rather, it’s the culture of the Jewish people. Like most ancient cultures, it was a religious culture, and the relationship between God and the Jewish people as a whole—not the individual Jew—was an integral part of the basis of that culture. Does an individual Jew have to believe in God to be a part of Judaism? I don’t think so. I believe that practicing Judaism demands recognition of the fact that you’re part of a culture with a narrative that has God as a central player, part of a people that have had a love affair with God for thousands of years. The narrative of this relationship is probably the central theme in the culture of this people. Being a people means identifying with a shared memory and narrative and having responsibility for its future, its renaissance, its well being. That’s what Jews are. It’s like asking “Can a Frenchman be French without being Catholic?” Of course he can, but he has to understand that being French was built on the Catholic tradition. We are taught that a Jew—never mind how he sins, even in the sin of apostasy—always remains a Jew. Jewish culture is not based on the individual Jew’s relationship to God, but rather on his relationship to his community and the community’s relationship to God: We pray in the plural. We need a minyan.
. . .
Membership in the people is the necessary condition for being a Jew (I don’t know if it’s sufficient), while saying, “your God is my God,” is not a requirement.
. . .
Avraham Infeld is a senior scholar and advisor at the NADAV Foundation and President Emeritus of Hillel International.
Masha Gessen
The concept of Jewishness as a religious affiliation is a recent one. It’s a post-World War II American idea, which will take years to unpack, but essentially it’s a cultural reaction to the need not to think of Jews as an ethnicity. The rest of the world thinks of Jews as an ethnic group, and to maintain a separate and cohesive population it’s useful to have a religion, but it’s not necessary, as other groups have demonstrated. The Roma have adopted whatever religion is dominant in the society in which they’re living, an unusual story for a small population in the diaspora, but possible. Same with the secular Jews of the Soviet Union. For nearly seven decades, Jews maintained a separate identity without religion and without a common language. The common experience of discrimination forged a common identity that bound them together.
. . .
Masha Gessen is a Moscow-based journalist and the author of several books, including Blood Matters: From Inherited Illness to Designer Babies, How the World and I Found Ourselves in the Future of the Gene.
Leora Batnitzky
It is difficult to conceive of Judaism as a long-term, sustainable tradition without belief in God, or, at the very least, belief in the Jewish people. For example, one of the questions about Zionism is whether or not, as a belief in the Jewish people outside of God, it is sustainable over the generations. I’m not sure it is. I’m not saying that all Jews do believe in God, and I don’t think God fills a void in any kind of easy way, but the notion of God gives some kind of trans-historical, or trans-subjective dimension to why we think we ought to do what we ought to do. The question comes down to what it means to sustain a belief in God in Judaism, and that’s a complicated issue. One interesting example of someone who struggled with this issue is Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. He rightfully recognized that defining Judaism just in terms of God was problematic, and he also claimed that, in many ways, modern science made notions of God obsolete. But he continually struggled to think of a notion of God that infused Jewish peoplehood with meaning.
The question is, why be Jewish? One thing I think most Jews would agree on—and there aren’t many things—is that it’s not easy to be Jewish alone. It’s communal. So what sustains the community? Answers about history and culture are important, but without a God that somehow transcends human history, Judaism becomes just one cultural option among many. It becomes like ice cream flavors; different people like different flavors, but why should we force our children to like our flavor? Without God, arguments for Jewish continuity—that there should be Jews in the future—end up resorting to ethnic chauvinism.
Leora Batnitzky is chair of the Religion Department at Princeton University and author of How Judaism Became a Religion.
Jack M. Sasson
Especially before the fall of the Ottoman Empire, belief in God was generally not a troubling issue for Mizrachi Jews in the Middle East, as there was little differentiation between the religious and social spheres.
. . .
The Latin word religio (from which we derive “religion”) has to do with connectives, attaching people together. In that sense, an increasing investment in communal acts—synagogue worship and joyous occasions such as engagement, marriage, bar-mitzvah and brit milla—give moments in which members of the community renew their commitments to each other as well as distribute rewards to loyal members.
Jack M. Sasson is the Mary Jane Werthan Professor of Judaic and Biblical Studies at Vanderbilt University.
In this article even the jews arguing in favor of God do so ultimately out of their concern for the jews, not God.
The consensus in response to the question, “Can There Be Judaism Without Belief In God?”, was yes, of course. The respondents seemed to interpret the question as: Can the jews continue to exist without Belief in God?, or, Is God good for the jews? The whole point of the exercise was to examine the two most fundamental questions of group identity: Who is us? What’s best for us?
Jewish peoplehood, Wikipedia:
Jewish peoplehood (Hebrew: עמיות יהודית, Amiut Yehudit) is the awareness of the underlying unity that makes an individual Jew a part of the Jewish people.[1]
The concept of peoplehood has a double meaning. The first is descriptive, as a concept factually describing the existence of the Jews as a people. The second is normative, as a value that describes the feeling of belonging and commitment to the Jewish people.
The first significant use of the Peoplehood concept was by Mordecai Kaplan, a 20th-century Jewish thinker, who was searching for a term that would enable him to describe the complex nature of Jewish belonging. Once the State of Israel was founded, he rejected the concept of nationhood, as it had become too closely identified with statehood, and replaced it with the Peoplehood concept.[11]
Kaplan’s definition of Judaism as “an evolving religious civilization” illumines his understanding of the centrality of Peoplehood in the Jewish religion. Describing Judaism as a religious civilization emphasizes the idea that Jewish people have sought “to make [their] collective experience yield meaning for the enrichment of the life of the individual Jew and for the spiritual greatness of the Jewish people.” The definition as a civilization allows Judaism to accept the principles of unity in diversity and continuity in change. It is a reminder that Judaism consists of much that cannot be put into the category of religion in modern times, “paradoxical as it may sound, the spiritual regeneration of the Jewish people demands that religion cease to be its sole preoccupation.”[12] In the sense that existence precedes essence and life takes precedence over thought, Judaism exists for the sake of the Jewish people rather than the Jewish people existing for the sake of Judaism.[5]
Kaplan’s purpose in developing the Jewish Peoplehood idea was to create a vision broad enough to include everyone who identified as a Jew regardless of individual approaches to that identity.[13]
Kaplan saw and struggled to serve the best interests of the jews, collectively, as a people.
The term “jewish peoplehood” is found wherever and whenever jews advocate and discuss their group interests.
The Impact of Strategic Philanthropy
Here is an example of rich jews, selectively investing in what they think is good for the jews. Their two main “Grant Program Areas” are Initiative on Jewish Peoplehood:
Jewish Peoplehood
Love of education. Respect for hard work. Appreciation of community. And pastrami on rye. Mix together in equal parts and you have the makings of a people – the Jewish people.
For thousands of years, the concept of Jewish Peoplehood has inspired, intrigued, vexed, and perplexed Jews and non-Jews alike.
and Initiative to Combat Anti-Semitism.
Why the Jewish Community Should Fund Peoplehood, by Misha Galperin, Forward.com:
Prominent Jewish sociologists have identified the declining bonds of peoplehood as one of the most significant challenges posed by modernity and by a culture of universalism. Having been raised in a world of pluralism and tolerance, Jews younger than 45 do not necessarily privilege their Jewish brothers and sisters above others when it comes to friendship, marriage, volunteerism and charitable giving.
What’s the difference between jewish peoplehoodism and “racism”? “Racism” is White peoplehoodism, which is demonized and pathologized by jews.
The Shelf Life Of Jewish Peoplehood, The Jewish Week:
Leon Wieseltier once wrote that being Jewish is not like other identities, and “perhaps there is a relief in allowing it to be different.
“I think to be Jewish is not to be an American or a Westerner or a New Yorker,” he wrote. “To be a Jew is to be a Jew. It is its own thing. Its own category; its own autonomous way of moving through the world. It’s ancient and thick and vast, and it’s one specific thing that is not like anything else.”
Wieseltier’s articulation is both comforting and obfuscating. It implies in a privileged, almost condescending way that we are beyond explication. We can almost hear an adolescent whine: “But no one understands me.”
Wieseltier is literary editor of The New Republic, a putative “liberal”.
Jewish World Homepage. The source for the image above.
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B’nai B’rith Leader Discusses the Jews – Episode 60
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