It looks obvious

I was able to convince my wife to post a comment she was writing to a guest post here. Hopefully this will be the first step in more writing from her. So without additional interruptions here is Anna’s first post.

I have read your post "An Illicit Love Affair" with a certain degree of sadness as well as recognition.   I am also not a Christian.  I am, like you, a Jew.  And I am, like you, an atheist.    There are friends of mine for whom these last two statements, taken together, create a cognitive dissonance; but I warrant, not for you.  Much of what you said is true – in the sense that it is factually correct and yet I take issue with your conclusions, or more precisely with the sense of life that comes across from your view of the tension between Judaism and Christianity. 

I feel, and I imagine you’ll agree, that there is something primitive, elemental, brutal even in the narratives of the Old Testament – the product of a tribal people groping toward a transcendent ethical standard, a divine spark, while still fully connected to their earthly and earthy existence.   I however, think that this is its magnificent virtue.  Because through the narrative of that primitive reaching for the divine we have a fully textured portrayal of the human struggle: the real, messy, sometimes ugly often sublime passions of human beings.   We are shown the great Noah, whose virtue alone saved the earth from total annihilation in the vulgar position of the naked drunk… And seeing it we are not asked to condone it, but to exercise both respect and compassion.   We see sexual passion, not always lauded , but certainly pervasive and sometimes celebrated.  We are shown human horror, and rejoicing and despair - and these are all given true and personal voice.

I too am appalled at the pettiness of the Jewish God; but of course, as an atheist, I see Him as a literary device and ask instead, what life vision the people who created Him were trying to reach or portray.   I understand that you see a terrified population prostrate before a jealous and spiteful deity.  I disagree.  The notion of submission to the will of the divine exists in all religions – and in nowise to a greater extent in Judaism. To the contrary, Jewish lore presents such a compellingly textured view of the relationship of the people to their God, that I defy you to produce its equal in any other tradition.  We are a people who argue with God, bargain with Him,even defy Him – and ours is a god that will occasionally yield and acknowledge our superior claim. 

Furthermore, adherence to any religion is designed to bestow on the faithful a sense of moral superiority.  Judaism is not unique in this.  It is however unique among the monotheistic faiths in entertaining the notion that salvation is available to those who are not members of the fold or the tribe.  Reading your essay one has the frustrating sense of a person who clearly sees the "mote" in his own eye, but is unable to observe the "beam" in his brother’s eye.

You are right, Christianity is different from Judaism.  There is an apparent preference of Mercy to Justice, in Christianity.  But I argue that both the origin and the resultant world view of this inclination to mercy are far from benevolent.   There are 613 mitzvot, or commandments in the Jewish biblical text and (with the exception of those which require the Temple to be in existence) they are theoretically and technically doable.   Most of them are laws designed for the specific purpose of providing guidance for real, flesh and blood human beings to exist on this earth: to resolve disputes, to conduct commerce, to care for the less fortunate, to carry of the activity of living. 

Christianity, as you know, was born of political and social despair and during its infancy and childhood had its adherents awaiting the End of Days.  Consequently, during the formative years, not much trouble was taken by the faithful to create concrete laws to govern mundane matters like property exchange, armed conflicts, farming etc.   In Judaism, of course, these laws, guidelines and codes would unfortunately morph into the stultifying minutiae of Orthodox observance.  In Christianity, their absence would lead its modern adherents to do inane thought experiments such as wondering aloud and publicly "What Would Jesus Drive?" 

Instead, in preparation for a New Jerusalem, and so dealing almost exclusively in the most abstract terms, the Christians set about creating a philosophical system the practical demands of which far outstrip any Jewish precepts in terms of their sheer impossibility. 

No, the Rabbi from the Galilee did not extend Hillel’s Golden Rule to the gentiles, as you say.  He turned it on its head.   "What is hateful to you, do not do unto your neighbor" asks me to behave like a decent, thoughtful human being, respecting my neighbor and his individual personhood.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" asks me to spend my time anticipating the needs of other and substituting my judgment for theirs.  I will fail at this (unless I am an insufferable busy-body) and then inevitably have to think of myself as sinful.    

My Rabbi, in elementary school, frankly acknowledged that any demand for me to love my neighbor as myself would be pure nonsense if interpreted to mean that I should love all people as much as I love myself or those close to me.   Instead, he said, we are meant to love our neighbor in the manner in which we love ourselves – that is despite our faults.  Christianity, on the other hand, required you to strive for the preposterous "ideal" of an all embracing love that makes no distinction between your neighbor and your mother – and then tells you that, "well; of course you cannot reach this great ideal because you are inherently sinful".  (Incidentally, I consider notions of universal love far from ideal, but actually repugnant – but of that elsewhere.)

You must not marvel that, under these circumstances, Mary – and her quality of compassion – rose to such prominence in Christianity.  Without her, and under the Christian doctrine of original sin coupled with impossible demands from human beings, existence would be unbearable.  So whereas you seem to see the ascendance of Mary as the cultural embracing of the virtues of mercy and kindness as well as a recognition (however subconscious) of the importance of the divine feminine – I see her rise as an inescapable psychological necessity for the prevention of mass Christian suicide!

You speak of "Mary, the suffering mother" and her rise to the position of "a figure protecting all human beings."  It is almost trite to point out that no one needs to teach the Jews about suffering.  But it is ironic that Christianity and not Judaism is responsible for elevating suffering as such to the status of supreme virtue.  I see nothing enviable in that.    So, in the final analysis, when presented with the choice between Mercy bestowed on humanity after casting the lot of us in the roles of wretched, hopeless sinners; and the Justice demanded of people who are invited to be partners in creation with god, I choose the latter.

I am sorry for your experience.  I am grateful that I did not have to go through that.  Believe me when I tell you that I fully understand your revulsion and your anger at the rigid, narrow-minded orthodoxy.  I remember that as a small child I heard a Chabad Rabbi instruct us to destroy (or perhaps he specifically said "burn") any book obtained from an organization of Christian missionaries targeting Russian Jews.  The idea if it – of book burning -   filled me with such horror that it is possible that I was then, at the age of seven, immunized from ever being able to fall for the comfort of faith offered by Judaism (or any other religion).

I agree with you that there is attractiveness in Christianity’s "false beauty" but I cannot see the universal kindness without seeing that it was arrived at by first defining humanity as unworthy and wretched.  As an aside, with respect to "beauty" itself, I bet that we can agree that in terms of artistic expression – having liberally borrowed from the Greeks – the Christians have us Jews utterly beat!  (This is no small matter.  The rejection of aesthetics generally by Jewish orthodoxy is a separate and significant issue).  However, I would say to you with certainty that , if I could ever succumb to the lure of  the comfort of faith, I would fall for the system that offers me the assurance of an ultimately Just universe in which I, as a single human being,  could play a powerful, even magnificent role – as a partner with God Himself.

Shana Tova.