THE CAUSE OF ANTI-SEMITISM

It’s been a number of years since I tried to track down the true reason or cause of anti-Semitism. But I did. And the reason I succeeded is because I went to the only true source to find the answers to my questions. That source is the Hebrew Bible, or TORAH.

 

I learned that Torah is not only the source of anti-Semitism, but that Torah also reveals the resolution to the problem, and I learned both from reading the sections of the Torah that tell the story of how the Jewish people began. That is the story of Abraham’s life, and his relationship with his God. (Notice that I did not say “where the story of the Jewish people ‘first’ began,” which I’ll address at another time).

 

Reading about Abraham’s life many times, and afterward considering the “practical” purpose of Torah as it relates to Jewish life from generation to generation (which is to maintain a strong and close relationship with Abraham’s God) I began to understand the meaning and purpose of Abraham’s God choosing the descendants of Abraham’s son Isaac to deliver a very specific message to the world. I learned that Torah’s message holds the key to achieving the dream of all people, in other words, the message discloses what mankind must do to live in a world of peace and brotherly love. That key is to live a “moral” life, because a moral life is to live a life built on humility and goodness and compassion for others. As such, to live a moral life is to preserve and protect a future that is following the pathway that empowers mankind to achieve world peace built on brotherly love.

 

I learned that Torah’s purpose is to set forth how such a high standard of life can be achieved and preserved from generation to generation, thus, ensuring a society that it is following the certain pathway to actually fulfilling that elusive dream. I learned that to live such a life, is to understand not just the story of life, but also the meaning and purpose of life. This is why the message of Torah must be heard. It is the key to living a happy and peaceful life, regardless of a person’s religion, even if a person has no religion, and regardless of a person’s race, or cultural background, or political beliefs, and regardless of an individual’s economic standing. Torah holds the secrets to achieving “everlasting world peace.” For these reasons, this Torah message must be heard.

 

However, to deliver that message with a loud enough voice, God demanded of Abraham, and the descendants of Abraham’s son Isaac, absolute loyalty to God. In other words, the entire Jewish community must live a “Torah observant life” to not just deliver that message to the world, but for the world to hear the message. For without keeping the high standards of a moral life according to Torah, as a community, as a nation, the Jewish people will become divided from within, causing the message to get lost. Torah’s message–the key to achieving world peace and brotherly love–is the key to unifying the Jewish people as a nation, and the key to unifying the world. But as a divided nation, the Children of Israel must fail, and the dream of all people must remain no more than a mere elusive dream, thus, insuring that human suffering will continue.

 

Standing together as a unified nation, bonded through time and space through living a Torah moral life, from generation to generation, is the only way to assure that the message would not get lost. As such, if the Jewish community became divided, scattered among the world’s peoples, for sure the message would get lost. The point is, to deliver the message, the Jewish community must show the world how to unite as a nation, standing together “as if a single heart and a single mind,” in order to achieve the purpose of the Children of Israel, to be “a light unto all nations of the world.” Thus, for the world to unite in peace and brotherly love, first the Jewish community must unite as a nation, and must appear to stand on the highest level of humanity, which is to lead a Torah moral life, for the message to be heard. Torah demands a religious, Torah observant nation to deliver God’s message.

 

But to unite as a people, standing together on the loftiest of plateaus of morality, is to appear to the world at large as if the Jew believes he is on a higher level of human worth, and so to deliver God’s message to the world, a message of hope in the future (because the message is a pathway to achieving peace and brotherly love for all of the nations of the world) is to also cause human jealousy, even hate. As such, built into the very fabric of God’s message to the world, and the way the message must be delivered, is the full spectrum of human emotion: hope, love, peace and goodness, as well as the emotions of jealousy, hate, anger and evil.

 

Thus, it is through God’s promise to Abraham, that God establishes a certain future for His chosen people, a four thousand year journey built on hope and goodness and compassion for others. At the same time, it is also a future built on jealousy and hate from some of those same others–both a future built on anti-Semitism and a future built on the salvation of the world, a world that is empowered to fulfill the purpose of man, to achieve world peace and brotherly love, thus, the Kingdom of God.