A master race is a work in progress.

This is the big confusion between people who call zionism racism and Jews who scoff that there's quite a polyglot of races and cultures inside the acceptable parameters of Judea. Who chose us from all the nations, some from that nation, some from that, to here, Israel, at the end of the world.

I was visiting with Areyeh the Kohen Gadol of Jerusalem the other night. Maintaining that he is the high priest of El, and the reincarnation of Moses, Aaron, and Samuel, he lights seven lamps every day according to the biblical injunction, along with slaughtering his own lambs and maintaining his own mishkan in the backyard. Also, he smokes fat bowls of homegrown grass, in home carved hemp pipes, whenever guests come by, for as long as they can handle.

He holds strongly by mystical choseness, namely that he was chosen from all the world to be God's prophet, the arch-foe and redeemer of the American Federal Government, which knows of him and fears his wrath. He speaks in the prophetic style; statement of truth that cannot be argued or clarified very much. He bagen reading to us exceprts of old egpytian hermetic texts speaking of the emergence of God's chosen people into the world, ushering in an era of love, light, and revelation. The friend who drove me to his house whispered to me rhetorically: "What's this he's reading? Nazism."

I suppose the main difference is who can join. As far as I understand it, there's no way someone who isn't Aryan can become part of the Nazi family, although he can be listed in the phone book

from www.redress.binternet.co.ukm:

Brenner believes that similarities between the Nazi and Zionist ideologies

were the main reason for the collaboration,

and many of his readers tend to overestimate this resemblance.

But they should not forget

that all nationalist ideologies

possess in various degrees traits like Blut und Boden

(blood and soil).

Therefore, resemblances among many nationalist movements are not surprising.

In addition,

persecuted people tend to internalize the attitudes of their oppressors,

as the famous psychoanalyst Franz Fanon argued in his book The Wretched of the Earth (Grove Press, 1965).

The Zionist-Nazi cooperation was in fact based less on common ideology and more on common interests:

both movements,

for different reasons,

worked towards removing the Jews from Europe.

This was the main reason for the Transfer Agreement of the 1930s, which established the JA as the general importer of German goods in the Middle East and helped the Jewish Agency to cope with an economic crisis.

Judaism and it's modern expression in Zionism, on the other hand, exludes and judges according to committed affiliation, not just blood. Is this really true? There's been some push to convert russian immigrants to Israel, who, hell, are here already, so we might as well. This is a concept rooted in traditional Talmudic law, the main qualifier for conversion to Judaism is not stam belief in the one God (although it does kinda say that too in Mesechta Megillah,) It's commitment to the tribe, and identification with. Your land is my land, your life is my life.

What's the big deal about being chosen? What power does knowing this give you?
Once you feel like you have a right to something, be it land, toys, or love, it's suddenly Ok to take it from someone who "doesn't" and not feel bad. Areyeh Hakohen says, that's the non-secret of the biblical injunction, not to charge interest from your brother, but to charge it from gentiles instead.

This is the central evil of Judaism, one that may not be overcomeable for as long as anyone cares to worry about it.

If by being chosen
We are more obligated to The Other
We may neglect our own children
chas v' shalom

If we must take care of our own
at the expense of the other
we will be doing wrong
To them
and they might notice

Lord!
please help us to only do good
somehow

If the good I depend on
came from evil
It might not make me depend on it any less

Please
let our survival and our growth
come not from atrocity
but from good deeds
no matter what

So, there's a conflict sometimes, between Truth and Peace, both of which are names of God.

Ever feel like there was something so wrong with the way your family, your community, your religion or government was doing something? Don't tell them. It's forbidden.

Not really. Unless they already did it. After someone got ripped off on a deal, you have to tell him, "wow! what a great deal!" Because it doesn't help to bum him out afterwards. But if he's going to go do it again, or for the first time, or if he can get restitution somehow, then it's ok, you can actually be honest with him.

This is a big Machloket/conflict within chassidis, notably between the Kotsker and the Apter, but deeper, between the Kotsker, and to some degree, the Izhbitzer.

The respective torahs of Izbitz and Kotsk on the surface are pretty similar. Eli Wiesel did a nice piece contrasting the subtle but dramatic differences between the two. He boiled it down to few percieved compromizes that the Izbitzer makes, notably re: sex and conception.

The Izbitzer holds
That in order to make babies
you have to forget about god
just for a moment
and from that forgetting
comes lack of godliness
that gives the newborn a yearning
for the divine that he never knew

The Kotsker holds
how can you ever let yourself forget god?
how dare you accept such a thing?

In that question,
is the challenge to anyone who would dope themselves away from one reality
in order to be at peace with the work you're doing
which is the whole working world
chas v shalom

It's a challenge to Judaism and it's acceptable delusions, this idea. You think you're in yeshiva all day in order to serve god? This is a very mean and acid thing to suggest, that all our mythic pleasures are not nessesarily as sacred and important to God as we may pretend, for the sake of community.

For the sake of comm-unity, all kinds of lies are not only accpetable, they're encouraged. Mottleh, that was the highest davening ever! Your dead grandparents are looking down at you with so much naches right now! Every time we attach an "is" "was" or "are" statement to something that is not experienced directly, we become liars for the sake of something. Maybe peace. And the meanest thing you can do to someone is cut them down for it.

Famous Kotsker story
The guy sitting at the shabbos table
lovingly lifts up a spoon full of chulent
and with a pious joyful sound, proclaims:

"Lkavod shabbos kodesh!"

Which the Kotsker followed up with
lifting a spoon full of stew to the air
and testifying:

"Lkavod my gut!
you liar."

The radical truth of Pshische
That God is bigger than you ever knew
and ultimatly
Is not impressed by nothing nessesarily
as far as you know
That true service depends not
on knowing that he's going to do anything for you
and that he's not going to love you more
because you are pious
according to the law
is reflected in both rebbes.

The difference is in how to relate to that truth.

The Izbitzer seems to maintain
we're all liars
and that's ok
it's not our fault
And that worse than lying
is getting angry
Play the game
knowing it's just a game
and don't worry too much
about winning or losing

The kotsker
is really bothered by that compromise
(more on that soon.)

rainbow pic: my favorite!

From this year's national gathering in West Virginia. For more info on Rainbow gatherings, check out www.welcomehome.org