Free Speech Only For the Followers of Muhammad?

ב"ה

Maybe it's because I'm an American. Maybe it's because I've seen, in my life, what suppression of Free Speech has done around the world, the repressive, anti-equality, anti-Freedom, anti-feminist, anti-Jewish, anti-American regimes it has created. But I cringe when I hear about groups of people trying to kill others based totally on something that the other group believes or said.

That's why my feathers are ruffled. That's why I'm incensed that Hillary Clinton is talking and other people are talking about mobs attacking US embassies and talking about the Ambassador being killed in an attack in Libya over a movie that THEY see as being uncomplimentary about Muhammad.

It is time for the talking and the rhetoric and the speechifying to stop. It is past the time of asking Muslim leaders to control their people. It is past the time of diplomacy and negotiations. It is time for us to protect our rights to create a movie that is controversial. It is time for us to protect our television producers and our movie makers. It is time for us to show our enemies that we can "talk their language", that we can fight back and that we have just as much of a right to our opinions as they do.

The only way to do this is to fight for our rights, literally. And, while I don't for one moment underestimate the sacrifice our military people make, but the reason we have a strong military is to protect our freedom, our way of life and our lives. I appreciate the brave men and women who protect our freedom and our lives, but we are not being fair to them if we send them in to do a job and many of them lose their limbs or lives and then we pull out before the job is done. It's sort of like having a virulent, life-threatening infection and only treating part of it. By doing that, you create antibiotic resistant bacteria. By only fighting part of the war, we create an enemy that thinks we are weak and that strengthens them.

We, unfortunately, have a long history of striking hard and moving out. This started with Carter and his washy-washy way of handling the Ayatollah. It continued with Bush hitting but not finishing off Saddam Hussein. And it's still going on today with our indecisive handling of Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Al-Qaeda, post 9-11.

This embassy attack is a symptom of the problem. It's a symptom of the entitlement that men in the Muslim world feel. It's a symptom of the Muslim world's belief that they are better than everyone else. As long as we appear weak to them, they believe that G-d is on their side. And we can't allow them to believe that. We have to fight for the real Face of G-d, the G-d who gave us an equal chance to succeed, an equal chance to shine in His/Her world. If we allow them to define G-d, if we allow the worst opinion of G-d to hold sway, we do ourselves and this world a disservice. Let's stand up for our values. Let's show our strength. Let's prove to the Muslim world that freedom is something we think is worth fighting for.

Evolution, Revolution

B"H

I am currently reading a book about the Darwin awards. These awards are given to people who, by their own stupidity, take themselves out of the gene pool. It's a generally enjoyable and informative book that is easy to read in the facilities. But I got to a segment this morning that really bothered me. The authors of this book decided to use this chapter as a platform to make fun of people who don't treat the theory of evolution as "halakhat Tora mi'sinai" (the law of the Tora given "on high" to Moses on Mount Sinai).

I'm as scientific as the next person (Math and Science were my best subjects in school -- with history a close third), but I have a problem with people acting as though evolution (a theory, remember?) is definitely true and the Tora is definitely false (they then act, by extension, as though anyone who believes in G-d or follows any religion is a fool).

Granted, most of the people who are acting this way have only been exposed to the Christian version of the creation story and the fundamentalist interpretation (which is that the Tora version is totally literal).

I have to admit that I wasn't there when the world came into being, but, then again, neither were any of the scientists who bow down at the altar of evolution. So my version of what happened is no less valid than their version. (Keep in mind, science thinkers, our knowledge of science is far from complete -- much of what we "knew" just 50 years ago has been debunked or replaced. How do you know we won't find something in the next 50 years that will make people who swallowed the "evolution" theory whole look like fools?)

This is my version, more or less. G-d created the world. Over time (which was short for G-d but long for us) G-d created the stars and the planets, the nebulae and the galaxies, the sun and the stars and the moons. Then (S)He turned to Earth and began creating life on earth. G-d started with plant life (because that would be food for animal life and it makes sense to put the food on the table before you invite the guests). Then G-d moved on to the animal life, the lower animals, creepy crawlies and water life, then reptiles (in there, at some point, was the age of the dinosaurs), then birds, then mammals and then people. When G-d wrote the Tora to describe all this, (S)He used time terms that people could comprehend, using the model of a week, so that (S)He could give people a forced rest on the 7th day by saying "even G-d rested on the 7th day". This, of course, is metaphorical. G-d doesn't need to rest (and, for all intents and purposes, can't since G-d is the One who runs the show, so to speak.)

Now, I have to tell you. I don't label people who don't believe this version "fools" or "heretics". Nobody who is alive today was there then, so no one knows for sure. I believe that G-d wrote the Tora, so I believe that every word in the Tora is true. But I also know that the Tora is made up of two parts -- the written and the oral Tora. Without the Oral Tora, the written Tora doesn't make sense. It's as though you read your roommates notes to a lecture class -- you really don't understand the notes without the lecture.

My point in all this is why do people feel that it's either one or the other? Why do people think they have to reject one story for the other? I suppose this comes down to the fundamentalist way of looking at the "bible". There are people out there who believe the "bible" is meant to be taken literally (something that is nearly impossible to do, IMHO). The strangest part of this is that they believe that it is meant to be taken literally as it is translated, into English, in the King James version! That is, not only is it meant to be taken literally, but it's meant to be taken literally in a language it wasn't even written in!

Hebrew is a very rich language, with nuances of meaning that just can't be captured in a translation. For example, it says that the Children of Israel came out of Egypt "Hamushim". The commentaries come up with at least two meanings for this word -- armed, or 1/5 (from the same root as Hamesh, which means 5, Hamsa, which is supposed to represent the hand of G-d, and Humash, the Hebrew word for the 5 books of Moses). Another example is the Hebrew word "Et". "Et" is a preposition that really has no meaning in English (or any other language I've been exposed to except Hebrew). I can't come up with a translation for it, but I know when I'm writing or speaking where it belongs in a sentence. In the Tora, there are usually additional meanings gleaned from the word "Et" -- as in the commandment "Kabeid Et Aviha V'Et Imeha" "Honor your father and mother" -- the "Et"s there are said to represent grandparents or older siblings.

So what is the "take home" message I'm aiming for here? I guess it's threefold:
1) The Tora (and "bible") are not meant to be taken literally
2) There is no reason one can't believe in both the Tora ("bible") version of creation and evolution
3) The Tora and Science are parts of the same whole -- G-d created them both. And, therefore, they can't be contradictory. I agree with Maimonides on this -- if you find a contradiction, you must be misunderstanding or misinterpreting either the science or the Tora.