"Perfect" Jews

B"H

I know I'm slow on the uptake when it comes to news (this is because I'm not a news hound and I depend on my best friend to keep me abreast of anything important). I just heard from her about Anne Coulter and her comment about what she considered a "perfect world". She said that to her, the NY Republican convention was the perfect place, everyone happy, republican and Christian (mind you, I can't imagine there would be anything that big in NY without any Jews, but we'll go on from here.....) The interviewer, who just happened to be Jewish, asked her about Judaism and Jews and she said that they needed to "perfect" the Jews.

"Perfect" us? If I didn't know this was code (J4J code, that is) for "converting" us, I would be wondering what in heck she meant. Well, for those of you who didn't know, "perfecting" Jews means converting us to Christianity. After all, in their eyes, it doesn't matter how you live your life. It doesn't matter if you are a good person or a bad person, if you accept JC as your "personal savior" then you will go to heaven when you die and if you don't accept JC as your "personal savior" then you will burn for all eternity in the pits of hell. (Mind you, Dante, in his book "The Inferno" -- part of his "Divine Comedy" -- shows most of hell as being icy and cold, like evil people's cold hearts, but I digress).

A Rabbi I know told a story about a cousin of his who was a Rabbi in Jerusalem and he was walking with his students on Ben Yehuda Street, a pedestrian mall area in the center of Jerusalem. It was the "holiday" season (that is, the winter holiday season). There was a man in middle of the pedestrian area talking about the "Good News" he wanted to share. The Rabbi decided to talk to this man himself, rather than have one of his students "shoo" the man. He went over and engaged the "Good Newsler". "So," the Rabbi asked, "what is this 'good news'?" "Oh," said the Good Newsler, "that 'he' died for our sins. And if you accept 'him', you will go to heaven!". "Oh, that's interesting," said the Rabbi. "I have a question for you -- the Neurenberg criminals, who were responsible for the murder of millions of people, went to mass before they were hanged. Where did they go after they died?" "Oh," said the Good Newsler, "they went straight to heaven." The Rabbi continued his question,"and the 1.5 million Jewish babies who the Nazis murdered, where did they go?" The Good Newsler answered, "they went to hell." The Rabbi smiled. "Well, I have to tell you, if I have a choice between going to heaven with Nazi war criminals and going to hell with 1.5 million Jewish babies, I'd rather be in hell."

As I said in my last blog entry, Christians don't seem to get it. It's funny (that's funny ironic, not funny "ha,ha") that Christians don't seem to realize that without Judaism there is no Christianity. Christianity is based on Judaism. But Christianity contradicts the Tora, so it can't be true.

I ask Christians (who are open to talking to me about it) if they believe in the "Old Testament" and they generally tell me that, yes, they do. And I ask them if they believe in the "New Testament" and they generally tell me that, yes, they do. So I tell them that if you believe in the "New Testament", you must believe that an Omniscient, Omnipresent G-d changed His/Her mind. If G-d changes His/Her mind, how do you know when (S)He stops? How do you know that the Muslims aren't right, or the Mormons?

I then tell them that I know what I believe is right because G-d doesn't change His/Her mind. The Tora is it.

So in our mind, "perfection" or "perfecting" ourselves (tikkun in Hebrew) means moving the observances of our lives more into sync with the Tora, not less. We perfect ourselves and the world (tikkun olam) by trying our hardest to do what Hashem (G-d) wants of us as stated in the Tora.

Perfection in the Tora view would be achieved only when the entire world starts keeping the Tora, the Gentiles keeping their mitzvot (laws) and Jews keeping our mitzvot.

Check out my article about Hanuka:
Hanuka