tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18968172.post2592388051193999023..comments2023-11-03T01:13:22.719-07:00Comments on The Rabbi Is IN with Rabbi Rami: "They emptied Egypt"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18968172.post-56940769573192872922009-04-19T19:04:00.000-07:002009-04-19T19:04:00.000-07:00Nu? So? Of course God gets his cut of the swag. I ...Nu? So? Of course God gets his cut of the swag. I imagine the Jews used the rest to build the Golden Calf.<br /><br />Or no, wait. Here's a different reading. The murder of the firstborn, that's God's deal. The extortion is just a bonus the Jews came up with themselves. When God finds out, he's pissed, so he demands this completely worthless tabernacle be made out of all the plundered stuff, and then rubs it in the Jews faces by never staying in the thing, just hovering over in it in some miraculous cloud, which he makes the people chase around the desert for forty years. Suckers.AaronHerschelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08886387346974535323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18968172.post-9963482769922350212009-04-19T15:29:00.000-07:002009-04-19T15:29:00.000-07:00I simultaneously hate and love the Exodus story.
...I simultaneously hate and love the Exodus story.<br /><br />As a little boy, this story (about the slaughter of all those little babies and kids, and the subsequent plunder of Egypt, and the drowning of all those soldiers) brought the glimmer of awareness that if there were such a god, he was not worthy of any of my attention.<br /><br />Later on I took issue with the story for a different reason. Once the Israelites left, the narrative has them setting up their own bourgeoisie in Canaan.<br /><br />Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is mythology and has no basis in historical fact: How much better it would have been to tell a story about the abolition of the ruling class, the liberation their Egyptian brothers and sisters (who were also enslaved, only in a different fashion), and the redistribution of the wealth to everyone.<br /><br />"I wish Rabbi Dreyfus well, but if this is the Torah of our movement, there is little hope for the future. When Reform Judaism dies, and it will, we only have ourselves to blame."<br /><br />Dying movements spawn new innovations; like a dead trunk in the forest with plants and flowers erupting from it. New movements are being born today, some of them more fit than the old. I don't have much faith, but this is something I hope for.Grégoirehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13610633478542798268noreply@blogger.com