"True Jew"

[John D. Brey]

. . . Oh, wait...are you going to pull one of those "True Jew" arguments where you decide that only a Christians is a real Jew and those who call themselves Jews don't count?

Why don't you start by telling us what you think a "Jew" is? ------Before determining who is or isn't a Jew, it would be nice to know what a Jew is?


John

 

[rosends]

Why don't you start by telling us what you think a "Jew" is? ------Before determining who is or isn't a Jew, it would be nice to know what a Jew is?


John

A Jew is not a "what". So asking what a "Jew" is, is meaningless. A Jew is a person who has the qualifications defined by Judaism for membership -- proper conversion or proper descent.

 

[Augustus]

Some Arabs say that Jews 'can take many forms'...

 

[metis]

Why don't you start by telling us what you think a "Jew" is? ------Before determining who is or isn't a Jew, it would be nice to know what a Jew is?


John

This has been discussed before, and it can be rather contentious even between us Jews, but I will state that, to me, a "Jew" is a nationality that had gone by different names in our distant past, such as "Israelites" and "Hebrews". One can be an atheist or even a member of another religion and still be a "Jew" because of cultural heritage.

However, "Jew" is an abstract term devised by us humans that tends to be highly subjective, therefore conjectural.

 

[John D. Brey]

A Jew is not a "what". So asking what a "Jew" is, is meaningless. A Jew is a person who has the qualifications defined by Judaism for membership -- proper conversion or proper descent.

The "qualifications" no doubt qualify as some kind of definition of what it is to be a Jew. For instance, a Jewish father is irrelevant since if a Jewish man father's a child through a Gentile that child is Gentile. He's incapable of passing on his Jewish identity through the male organ of procreation. Perhaps that's why it's fair to say the very sign of Jewish identity, ritual circumcision, is spiritual emasculation. Jewish law recognizes this by establishing the fact that Jewish identity cannot come through the male organ. . . And it cuts deeper than that since a Jewish woman can father a Jewish child even if the father isn't Jewish. -----It's the Jewish womb, separate from the male organ (which can be Jewish or Gentile since it doesn't matter if ritually it ain't going to contaminate a Jewish womb anyhow: brit milah).

Genesis 17:4-5 says: "As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be a father of a multitude of nations; you are no longer to be called Avram, but your name is to be Avraham, for I have appointed you as father of the multitude of nations." To this verse, Rabbi Hirsch replies:

What is the meaning of this latter phrase? To maintain that it refers to Avraham's physical descendants is difficult, for they are mentioned only in verse 6. The name "אברהם" also shows that, here, the phrase is not to be taken in the physical sense. Were אב meant to be taken literally, in the physical sense, the form of the name would be "אבהם" and the ר would be meaningless and disruptive.​

Rabbi Hirsch is clear that the sons of the covenant aren't the physical descendants of Abraham. And to ensure that the world knows this, Abram sacrifices the organ associated with physical descendants as the signature act of the covenant. Jewish law recognizes Abraham's circumcision by saying that a Jewish male can't pass on Jewish identity. It's not something physical that comes through normal human procreation. It's something metaphysical. The actual Jew is a Metaphysical Jew. He can come from Abraham's physical lineage or non-Abrahamic lineage. Abraham's physical seed adds nothing to what it is to be a Jew. At best, being born of Abraham's physical lineage, through Sarah, makes a person a Token Jew, a Jew who is Jewish through ritual and certain ritual practices (as well as being Abraham's phallic-offspring) but not a Jew in the most clear and obvious sense of what the practices and ritual represent, i.e., what the qualifications qualify: a birth not associated in any way with phallic-sex.

Today, Abraham's physical offspring have for the most part come to believe that the physical rituals and practices are the spirit of what it is to be a Jew. So it serves them well to drain those rituals and practices of any meaning outside the mere physical practice of the ritual (which is what they think makes them Jewish). The ritual has become the reality, since the reality has been drained of its blood leaving only dead rituals and practices.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

This has been discussed before, and it can be rather contentious even between us Jews, but I will state that, to me, a "Jew" is a nationality that had gone by different names in our distant past, such as "Israelites" and "Hebrews". One can be an atheist or even a member of another religion and still be a "Jew" because of cultural heritage.

In a plain sense, the pshat sense, yes. A Jew can be whatever you want to make that word mean. But ritual circumcision is the sign of what a Jew is in the spiritual sense (an absolute sense). And yet ritual circumcision "ritualizes" what circumcision is in fact and in reality. . . . Nevertheless, serious Jewish scholars acknowledge that there has to be a relationship between the ritual, the sign (of circumcision) and the reality it ritualizes, symbolizes? Furthermore, most Jewish sages admit that Jews don't as yet know what the ritual of circumcision ritualizes, symbolizes, but that they will when Messiah arrives.

Well, a would-be Messiah arrived on schedule, was born of a conception that cut off the male organ (milah) so that he was virgin born. A would-be Messiah, writ large in the history books of humanity was born of a circumspect pregnancy, since allegedly the father's organ was circumcised, eliminated, from the pregnancy (milah). Furthermore, this would-be Messiah, having had his father's organ bled out of his conception, found himself forced to open the membrane that sanctifies a human body (male or female) with the fingernails in his hand (periah) since his father's Gentile organ of procreation (ritually removed to make him a Token Jew, and actually absent in the conception of the first actual Jew) hadn't opened the mother's veil of sanctity, hadn't contaminated it making her Gentile, hadn't torn the female curtain, hymen, that caused the first actual Jewish firstborn to "open the womb" still sanctified by an intact veil in the temple of his mother's body. Since he "opens the womb" (Ex. 13:2) of a still sanctified temple (the veil--hymen--- is intact) he is himself sanctified by "opening the womb" of a yet sanctified temple (Ex. 13:2). He is the true circumcision that retroactively activates all ritual circumcisions. What does it mean if the one ritually circumcised rejects the reality that actually activates the ritual (retroactively or eschatologically or merely logically)?


John

 

[John D. Brey]

Some Arabs say that Jews 'can take many forms'...

. . . I would say antiSemites can take many forms and often hide in the shadows cast by so-called Arabs.



John

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Don't feed it ...

 

[metis]

In a plain sense, the pshat sense, yes. A Jew can be whatever you want to make that word mean. But ritual circumcision is the sign of what a Jew is in the spiritual sense (an absolute sense). And yet ritual circumcision "ritualizes" what circumcision is in fact and in reality. . . . Nevertheless, serious Jewish scholars acknowledge that there has to be a relationship between the ritual, the sign (of circumcision) and the reality it ritualizes, symbolizes? Furthermore, most Jewish sages admit that Jews don't as yet know what the ritual of circumcision ritualizes, symbolizes, but that they will when Messiah arrives.

Well, a would-be Messiah arrived on schedule, was born of a conception that cut off the male organ (milah) so that he was virgin born. A would-be Messiah, writ large in the history books of humanity was born of a circumspect pregnancy, since allegedly the father's organ was circumcised, eliminated, from the pregnancy (milah). Furthermore, this would-be Messiah, having had his father's organ bled out of his conception, found himself forced to open the membrane that sanctifies a human body (male or female) with the fingernails in his hand (periah) since his father's Gentile organ of procreation (ritually removed to make him a Token Jew, and actually absent in the conception of the first actual Jew) hadn't opened the mother's veil of sanctity, hadn't contaminated it making her Gentile, hadn't torn the female curtain, hymen, that caused the first actual Jewish firstborn to "open the womb" still sanctified by an intact veil in the temple of his mother's body. Since he "opens the womb" (Ex. 13:2) of a still sanctified temple (the veil--hymen--- is intact) he is himself sanctified by "opening the womb" of a yet sanctified temple (Ex. 13:2). He is the true circumcision that retroactively activates all ritual circumcisions. What does it mean if the one ritually circumcised rejects the reality that actually activates the ritual (retroactively or eschatologically or merely logically)?


John

An uncircumcised Jew is still a Jew. Even though there is obviously an overlap to a certain extent, we need to keep in mind that there really are two words at play here: "Jew" and "Judaism", and they're not exactly the same. "Judaism" is a religion, "Jew" is a nationality, but there is often a connection between the two.

 

[John D. Brey]

An uncircumcised Jew is still a Jew. Even though there is obviously an overlap to a certain extent, we need to keep in mind that there really are two words at play here: "Jew" and "Judaism", and they're not exactly the same. "Judaism" is a religion, "Jew" is a nationality, but there is often a connection between the two.

A person who is not born of circumcision, actual circumcision, not merely ritual circumcision, cannot be anything other than a Jew in an ethnic or humanistic sense: a Token Jew. To be a Jew in the spiritual sense demands that one has been born twice; once in the flesh, by means of the physical serpent, the phallus, and once after the serpent has been rendered helpless, bled to death, his flesh removed.



John

 

[metis]

A person who is not born of circumcision, actual circumcision, not merely ritual circumcision, cannot be anything other than a Jew in an ethnic or humanistic sense: a Token Jew. To be a Jew in the spiritual sense demands that one has been born twice; once in the flesh, by means of the physical serpent, the phallus, and once after the serpent has been rendered helpless, bled to death, his flesh removed.



John

No can buy as a ritual is a ritual, not a nationality. Going by your approach, a woman cannot be considered a Jew.

So, again, you're conflating "Jew" with "Judaism", and they simply ain't the same in my book. If they are in yours, so be it.

 

[Tumah]

The "qualifications" no doubt qualify as some kind of definition of what it is to be a Jew. For instance, a Jewish father is irrelevant since if a Jewish man father's a child through a Gentile that child is Gentile. He's incapable of passing on his Jewish identity through the male organ of procreation. Perhaps that's why it's fair to say the very sign of Jewish identity, ritual circumcision, is spiritual emasculation. Jewish law recognizes this by establishing the fact that Jewish identity cannot come through the male organ. . . And it cuts deeper than that since a Jewish woman can father a Jewish child even if the father isn't Jewish. -----It's the Jewish womb, separate from the male organ (which can be Jewish or Gentile since it doesn't matter if ritually it ain't going to contaminate a Jewish womb anyhow: brit milah).

Genesis 17:4-5 says: "As for Me, this is My covenant with you: You shall be a father of a multitude of nations; you are no longer to be called Avram, but your name is to be Avraham, for I have appointed you as father of the multitude of nations." To this verse, Rabbi Hirsch replies:

What is the meaning of this latter phrase? To maintain that it refers to Avraham's physical descendants is difficult, for they are mentioned only in verse 6. The name "אברהם" also shows that, here, the phrase is not to be taken in the physical sense. Were אב meant to be taken literally, in the physical sense, the form of the name would be "אבהם" and the ר would be meaningless and disruptive.​

Rabbi Hirsch is clear that the sons of the covenant aren't the physical descendants of Abraham. And to ensure that the world knows this, Abram sacrifices the organ associated with physical descendants as the signature act of the covenant. Jewish law recognizes Abraham's circumcision by saying that a Jewish male can't pass on Jewish identity. It's not something physical that comes through normal human procreation. It's something metaphysical. The actual Jew is a Metaphysical Jew. He can come from Abraham's physical lineage or non-Abrahamic lineage. Abraham's physical seed adds nothing to what it is to be a Jew. At best, being born of Abraham's physical lineage, through Sarah, makes a person a Token Jew, a Jew who is Jewish through ritual and certain ritual practices (as well as being Abraham's phallic-offspring) but not a Jew in the most clear and obvious sense of what the practices and ritual represent, i.e., what the qualifications qualify: a birth not associated in any way with phallic-sex.

Today, Abraham's physical offspring have for the most part come to believe that the physical rituals and practices are the spirit of what it is to be a Jew. So it serves them well to drain those rituals and practices of any meaning outside the mere physical practice of the ritual (which is what they think makes them Jewish). The ritual has become the reality, since the reality has been drained of its blood leaving only dead rituals and practices.




John

Considering Rabbi Hirsch's life accomplishments, I'm pretty sure he doesn't agree with your interpretation of his commentary.

 

[rosends]

The "qualifications" no doubt qualify as some kind of definition of what it is to be a Jew. For instance, a Jewish father is irrelevant since if a Jewish man father's a child through a Gentile that child is Gentile. He's incapable of passing on his Jewish identity through the male organ of procreation.

That is, of course, not entirely true. Patrilineal descent has precedent in the text (Moses' kids for example). Your fascination with connecting everything to the male genitals is disturbing.

Perhaps that's why it's fair to say the very sign of Jewish identity, ritual circumcision, is spiritual emasculation.

But it is not fair to say that. Circumcision has nothing to do with emasculation. Just because you say it doesn't make it reasonable.

Jewish law recognizes this by establishing the fact that Jewish identity cannot come through the male organ

Well, later on, Jewish law codified matriliniality exclusively for textual and sociological reasons, so the woman passes Judaism. You connect that with the womb, strangely, not the genitals. Maybe you mean "cervix."

To this verse, Rabbi Hirsch replies:

What is the meaning of this latter phrase? To maintain that it refers to Avraham's physical descendants is difficult, for they are mentioned only in verse 6. The name "אברהם" also shows that, here, the phrase is not to be taken in the physical sense. Were אב meant to be taken literally, in the physical sense, the form of the name would be "אבהם" and the ר would be meaningless and disruptive.​

Rabbi Hirsch is clear that the sons of the covenant aren't the physical descendants of Abraham.

You mean "ONLY" the physical descendants. Abraham went around creating converts as well. As did Sarah.

And to ensure that the world knows this, Abram sacrifices the organ associated with physical descendants as the signature act of the covenant.

Sacrifices an organ? That's disgusting.

Jewish law recognizes Abraham's circumcision by saying that a Jewish male can't pass on Jewish identity.

Except where, as I showed, it did. Making the actual Jew an actual Jew, a result of natural procreation. Good thing you aren't going to claim that an actual Jew is something else, the result of something not physical.

It's not something physical that comes through normal human procreation. It's something metaphysical. The actual Jew is a Metaphysical Jew.

Oh. Oops.

He can come from Abraham's physical lineage or non-Abrahamic lineage.

Sure, via conversion.

Abraham's physical seed adds nothing to what it is to be a Jew. At best, being born of Abraham's physical lineage, through Sarah, makes a person a Token Jew, a Jew who is Jewish through ritual and certain ritual practices (as well as being Abraham's phallic-offspring) but not a Jew in the most clear and obvious sense of what the practices and ritual represent, i.e., what the qualifications qualify: a birth not associated in any way with phallic-sex.

Completely irrelevant. You are trying to connect a situation with Abraham with an enduring truth about Jewish lineage. That's ridiculous. Abraham circumcised himself at age 99, and yet we don't. Why don't you focus on the age issue? Because it doesn't play into your agenda.

Today, Abraham's physical offspring have for the most part come to believe that the physical rituals and practices are the spirit of what it is to be a Jew.

Nope, and no one has said that in answer to your question. The promise to Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's children is set through lineage and proper conversion, and exists regardless of physical rituals etc. You have completely struck out here.

 

[Unification]

Why don't you start by telling us what you think a "Jew" is? ------Before determining who is or isn't a Jew, it would be nice to know what a Jew is?


John

Textually, from the Egyptian word "Jeu" which means one inward or one who goes within.

 

[John D. Brey]

Textually, from the Egyptian word "Jeu" which means one inward or one who goes within.

That sounds new age.


John

 

[John D. Brey]

. . . Patrilineal descent has precedent in the text (Moses' kids for example). Your fascination with connecting everything to the male genitals is disturbing.

Patrilineal decent doesn't make Moses' offspring Jewish in the sense of the covenant (that's why they were attacked on the way to Egypt). Naturally patrilineal descent occurs. But as Rabbi Hirsch points out, patrilineal descent is the natural birth; birth as a Jew takes place on the eighth day and is not associated with phallic-sex but rather the bleeding of the phallus.

Abraham went around creating converts as well. As did Sarah.

Converts to what? If being Jewish is being born to a Jewish woman, how can someone convert to having a Jewish mother?

Sacrifices an organ? That's disgusting.

. . . Then you're unaware that the sages speak of circumcision as a sacrifice? Are you unaware that Jewish scripture considers circumcision a sacrifice. Do you not know that Jewish scripture considers Abraham's circumcision the precursor to the Akedah? That Jewish scripture says two sacrificial bloods were placed on the doorpost on Passover (lamb and limb)?

Good thing you aren't going to claim that an actual Jew is something else, the result of something not physical.

Rashi says so. Rabbi Samson Hirsch says so. Rabbi Michael Munk says so. And I know so. So I agree with the foregoing (if you will, but you won't).

The promise to Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's children is set through lineage and proper conversion, and exists regardless of physical rituals etc. You have completely struck out here.

Again, how can someone convert to having a Jewish mother if they weren't born of a Jewish mother? Can something passed on biologically (natural procreation) be passed on through converting in the presence of the same Jewish men Jewish law cuts out of Jewish identity when it comes through birth to a Jewish woman?

What is a Gentile converting to when he converts to Judaism? A set of beliefs? How are those related to being born to a Jewish mother unless it's a belief in being born-again not through the flesh of a father (cut off in circumcision, which is part of the conversion process) but through a new conception process that isn't related to the phallus and thus uncontaminated by phallic-sex (which is the original sin) which is why some branches of Judaism dance around the concept of original sin.

If it's conceded that the original sin was phallic sex, and most knowlegeable Rabbis concede as much (see Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan on the subject), then circumcision is the removal of the organ that made the original sin possible. . . How apropos that Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan says circumcision returns the Jew to the time before the Fall, a time before the first human had a phallus. A time before the manufacture of the phallus (Gen. 2:21).



John

 

[Intojoy]

Why don't you start by telling us what you think a "Jew" is? ------Before determining who is or isn't a Jew, it would be nice to know what a Jew is?


John

Sure.
A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob not Ishmael.

End of thread

 

[John D. Brey]

Considering Rabbi Hirsch's life accomplishments, I'm pretty sure he doesn't agree with your interpretation of his commentary.

It doesn't seem like agreement is necessary since Rabbi Hirsch says explicitly and unambiguously that the text seems to imply that the covenant isn't directly related to Abraham's physical progeny: that they are not the primary target of the covenant. Though since that covenant is to the whole world (Rashi) they can participate like anyone else. Such that Abraham's son through Hagar, Sarah, and all his servants, were circumcised.

That Abraham's offspring through Sarah play a unique role in the covenant seems pretty clear in the text. But that doesn't affect the fact they are not the primary or central target of the covenant. It's to be discovered, discerned, revealed, what is the unique relationship of Abraham and Sarah's offspring in relationship to the covenant?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Sure.
A Jew is a descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob not Ishmael.

End of thread

Not necessarily the end of the thread, but rather the beginning and end of the time you spent researching the question. I.e., the depth and breadth of your concern for this topic, and perhaps others as well? What Robin Williams (rest his soul) called a drive-by fruiting.


John

 

[psychoslice]

Galatians 3:28
There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.