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Notes -
So, what are you reading?
Still on The Eternal Dissident: Rabbi Leonard I. Beerman and the Radical Imperative to Think and Act.
It seems strange that a Rabbi would proclaim himself agnostic and have his first sermon be about how Adam ought to have eaten the whole fruit of knowledge and not just part of it, but I have to agree with the introduction that there is an authenticity to it. Beerman, if he is to be believed, was inspired by the Spinozan God-as-nature idea, and argued that authentic doubt can be a religious stance.
The tropes fit perfectly into today's leftism: social justice, activism, inequality, racism, oppression, but these things must have made a different impression before Current Year. Various dubious aspects pepper the narrative, like support for the Rosenbergs. If there's one thing I've taken away from it, it is the reminder that I'm not exactly a church-goer myself, and that perhaps a renewed study of my relation to God is in order.
Curiously enough, I've been reading the Old Testament.
Uh... I'm doing a lot of noticing. Like the entire story is just Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and then Joseph ingratiating themselves with wealthy and powerful people, then running off with all their shit. Possibly their daughters. Joseph really takes the cake, where he convinces the Pharaoh to tax his people exorbitantly, and then sells their grains back to them at such insane prices, they have to sell themselves into slavery to him in order to not starve. But you know, they're happy to do so. That's what the book says after all. So anyways, the next book starts with the Egyptians unjustly turning on Joseph and his clan as soon as the Pharaoh dies and they lose his protection, for some reason.
Like, bronze age morality, I get it, Odysseus is quite the scoundrel too and he's still a hero. But, uh... that is the single most Jewish origin story I could possibly imagine. Like if the most antisemitic person you'd ever heard of tried to write a story about where the Jews came from, I'm not sure he'd do it any different. And that's the first book and change of Moses.
Anyways...the bronze age, amirite?
Well, yeah, how do you think things worked at that time? Or, to be honest, in any other time until maybe 20th century when industrial warfare had been invented and private atrocities no longer interest anybody? Of course if you have a small clan that needs to survive, you need to make friends of bigger clans and destroy other small clans before they destroy you. I'm not sure though on the details - which part of Abraham's story you interpret as "then running off with all their shit"? Abraham did try to make friends with the Pharaoh (who was really into his wife, and you can guess what powerful people did to lesser people who had undeservedly pretty wives - if you don't, the Bible has some chapters on that too), but I don't see any mention of any, let alone, all their shit being lost as the result. Other episodes don't seem to match either.
I think the only part where "then running off with all their shit" is appropriate is the Exodus story - but the first part "ingratiating themselves with wealthy and powerful people" is no longer true - by the time, Jews were slaves, so not much ingratiating were happening.
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