Encyclopedia of Wisdom and Jewish Mythology

By Rabbi David Rabeeya

This book is a compendium of ideas based on wisdom gathered by the author over many years of life in Iraq, Israel and the United States. It also explores the mythology surrounding the beliefs and practices of Jews in America. With sharp critical insight, this writing confronts life with biting realism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 2, 2003
• ISBN: 9781477179130

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Copyright © 2003 by Rabbi David Rabeeya, Ph.D..

ISBN : Softcover 1-4134-0274-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Contents

Forward

Acknowledgements

BOOK ONE:

Me, the Philosopher: Salt and Pepper

Introduction

Chapter 1 Maligned Monotheism: Judaism, Christianity and Islam

Chapter Two The World of Absurdity

Chapter Three The Bible, the Only Book of Human Wisdom

Chapter 4 Reflection on September 11, 2001

Chapter 5 Love in Post-Modern Times

Chapter 6 Puns and Pundits

Chapter 7 Curses and Insults

Chapter 8 Blessings and Good Wishes

Chapter 9 Food for Thought

BOOK TWO:

Encyclopedia of Wisdom

Introduction

Age

Aging

Arabic

Bar and Bat Mitzvah

Birth

Boss

Capitalism

Childhood

Communism

Conclusion

Confirmation

Diet

Dreams

Evil

Family

Forgetfulness

Friends

God

Hebrew, Modern

Holidays

Home

Humor, Sense of

Hypocrisy

Israel

Laziness

Laughter

Men

Models

Money

Monotheism

Palestinians and Israelis

Pan—Arabism

Parenting

Peace

Pets

Politicians

Psychology

Scriptures, Holy

Sex

Shopping

Socialism

Sociology

Teenagers

Terrorism

Women, Modern

War

Weddings

Zionism

Epilogue

BOOK TREE:

An Arab-Jew in Quest of american Jewry and Wisdom

Statement of Personal Conviction

Introduction

A Note to the Reader

Chapter 1 The Way It Is

Chapter 2 Economy and Religion—Who is winning?

Chapter 3 The Real Story

Chapter 4 The Hebrew Language, Israel and Diaspora

Chapter 5 American Jewry and Judeo-Arabic Culture and Language

Chapter 6 We’re All Human

Chapter 7 Time to Change

Epilogue

BOOK FOUIR:

Jewish Mythology Marches on

Introduction

Chapter 1: Superstition versus Logic

Chapter 2 The Illusive Land

Epilogue

This book is a compendium of ideas based on wisdom gathered by the author over many years of life in Iraq, Israel and the United States. It also explores the mythology surrounding the beliefs and practices of Jews in America. With sharp critical insight, this writing confronts life with biting realism.

Forward

All my life, I have dedicated myself to the preservation of the Judeo-Arabic culture of Iraq through my writing, teaching, lecturing and singing. My culture was swept away by historical events outside of my control. Uprooted from Iraq, landing in Israel and spending the last three decades in America summarizes the brith of my triple identities due to the insistence of human beings to engage in wars and conflicts. My reactive mode to life as an individual without an iota of political power has brought me, by means of dedication to the Judeo-Arabic culture of my childhood, to be pessimistic about physical, psychological and spiritual survival. Over the years, many metamorphoses have occurred and many adjustments were needed, but the core of my soul remains in the Arab culture of Iraq.

My Jewish faith has always intertwined easily with my Arab culture, forming a well-balanced and rich harmony of humanity. Now, so many years from the time the seeds of my Garden of Eden scattered to find new soil, my passion to teach others about my Arab-Jewish background has become stronger and clearer. Since time can not only heal, but also help us to remember, my remembering Iraq after many decades is both an expected and natural phenomenon. Knowing that my Judeo-Arabic songs and prayers are facing extinction because of the enormous amount of dust which covers my archaeological past can be a source of sadness and desperation. However, it can also signal a time for a new passion and dedication before the disappearance of all traces.

Acknowledgements

I wish first to thank Arlene for her encouragement and support of my writing. I also would like to thank my daughter, Naomi Abigail, for challenging and inspiring me. I further wish to thank Ms. Lydia Wilson for her typing, editorial work, intelligence and dedication to this project. Without her, this book’s completion would not have been possible. Thanks also to Ms. Oliva Cardona for her ability to, once again, capture the essence of my ideas in illustrations for this publication. Lastly, I wish to thank all of my students who continue to assist and challenge me with their observations about issues related to reality and faith.

Me,

the Philosopher: Salt and Pepper

Dedicated to my daughter, Naomi Abigail,

for her sensitivity, integrity and care

Introduction

In the minds of many, the term philosopher is linked to one of two extremes: the word is conceived either as a uniquely academic term, associated only with a few intellectuals, or as a popular term, used freely by different individuals in order to impress their audience. In our modern, materialistic world, where people are impressed with the I have and not with the I am, philosophy and philosophers are either ridiculed or ignored. Nevertheless, every individual is either a philosopher or conceives himself/herself to be one. In this context, Me, the Philosopher is a personal contribution to our shared attempt to make sense out of the world’s nonsense.

Chapter 1

Maligned Monotheism:

Judaism, Christianity and Islam

The followers of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have all utilized violence and oppression in pursuit of their faiths and practices. The Torah is filled with many statements about the need to physically destroy the pagan inhabitants of the land, stripping these individuals entirely of their humanity. The Qur’an does not waste words in its ugly descriptions of the non-believers and their well-deserved mortal fate. Neither is the New Testament exempt from strong anti-Jewish sentiments; in one statement attributed to Jesus, the sword is invoked to eliminate those who refuse to see the light.

In their public presentations, many monotheists prefer to select verses that conveniently present their faith in a positive light, thereby neglecting the many negative and embarrassing references to destruction and conflict. This process has often led to unjustifiable feelings of superiority and self-righteousness when making comparisons to other religions or theologies. As a result, incredible intellectual and economic energies have been invested by many monotheists both to degrade the legitimacy of other religions and to legitimize their particular claim to divinity.

On an abstract theological level, all three monotheistic religions are Abrahamic prophetic religions that share a common heritage. All of these religions share the Semitic heritage of the ancient East, but the different reconstructions and interpretations of this heritage have created an incredible gap between their origins and their manifestations in Asia, Africa, America and Europe. Indeed, on the surface, all three monotheistic religions preach equality (among them), but their actual performance is frequently hypocritical. In actuality, political situations affect and influence the attitudes and the behavior of many people who adhere to these religions, both consciously and unconsciously. In allegorical terms, monotheism is a state but not a nation.

It is a fact that many monotheists refuse to allow other monotheists to reach their God in their own particular and unique ways. For one reason or another, there is a psychological barrier that prevents many who recognize the concept of oneness of God from allowing others to draw their own personal chart on the road to the infinite. Often, the idealistic views of monotheism are made into a monstrous and dangerous platonic tool, forcing abstract ideas on real, flesh-and-blood people. In the process, they violate the principle of religious diversity. The prevailing notion is that absolute purity of man can be achieved through intellectual study and teaching. However, when people on earth cannot accept the idealistic concepts and ideas of monotheism, violence is frequently justified in order to achieve this supposedly desired harmonious universe. Somehow, the dictatorship of the unachievable egalitarian and idealistic views in the mind of many monotheists often become the destructive force implementing monotheistic ideals and expectations. After all, monotheism adheres to one focused and exclusive idea of the nature of the Divine, leaving the areas of time and space both unexplored and untouched. In other words, non-monotheistic religions pursue many aspects of various gods, forming pluralistic, multifaceted dimensions of the Divine through inclusive realities and possibilities. This approach does not exclude the utilization of force and violence in non-monotheistic religions, but, on abstract level, it can sometimes offer some measure of certain tolerance towards people with different creeds and beliefs.

It is both intriguing and interesting that after the establishment of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire and the foundation of Islam in Arabia during the seventh century, Jewish people experienced both hostility and persecution by other monotheistic religions. While it is true that Jews also suffered at the hands of pagan societies of the ancient East, the intensity of their difficulties pales in comparison with the harsh treatment meted out by various Christian and Muslim societies. Often, the Church has considered the existence of Jews and Judaism a direct theological challenge to the legitimacy of Christianity; this frequently resulted in disastrous consequences in the form of exile and death for Jewish communities in medieval Europe. While Jews in Muslim domains had the benefit of more tolerant attitudes of Muslim rulers and laymen, Muslim society did not entirely exclude the Jews from degrading humiliation and suffering. Furthermore, the ongoing religious wars and conflicts between Muslims and Christians have not stopped in more than one thousand years. Expressions of hostility materialized from the time of the Christian Crusaders to the Muslim Ottoman conquest of territories in Europe.

It seems that the followers of the monotheistic religions are not exempt from the human need to control others. Somehow, subjective and irrational interpretations about the supposed superiority of one religion over the others are based upon the number of the faithful, the size of the territories in which they reside, and the latest reconstruction of their sacred text. It can be summarized in a disturbing thought: we have the might; therefore we are right. No effort is spared in order to prove that the ultimate truth is in the hands of only one religion. No manipulations are excluded in order to bring members of the supposedly wrong religions to see the absolute truth of the one true religion. Indeed, various monotheistic groups, in their zeal, are prepared to spend any amount of money in order to pursue their only true religion.

Even biblical criticism based on linguistic, archeological and historical analysis is not able to determine with great certainty the message beyond the message. Reconstructions, assumptions and speculations are not excluded, even in the academic disciplines. While biblical criticism can shape a more realistic picture about the meaning of the original texts, it cannot reach a final resolution, due to the ongoing research and discoveries in the field. Allegorically speaking, biblical criticism is like an orphan who is placed in an orphanage and who cannot yet find adopting parents. Reconciliation of the belief in revelation with the actual text can turn out to be a futile exercise. Learning about the history of the language and the culture beyond the biblical texts may be both interesting and challenging, but it does not guarantee definitive answers as to the authorship of the books and their interconnections. After all, certain books were included in the canon, while others were not. There is no doubt that the exclusion or inclusion of sacred books was based on political and economic considerations that were rationalized with religious and cultural arguments. Many monotheists are now aware that there are dissimilarities between the original message of the original texts and the existence of commentaries based on subjective considerations of various interpretations, which may either partly convey or entirely change the meaning of the supposedly original texts.

The Bibles and the Qur’an pose their own traditions, which offer the point of view of the religious establishment, while ignoring opposing voices in the interpretive process. After all, the sacred texts may be understood on literal, mystical or philosophical levels, often in a manner altogether detached from the original texts. The lack of a central church in Judaism or Islam, as well as the existence of many Christian denominations outside the papal religious authority, adds more complexity and confusion to the meaning of the term Bible and its accepted textual structures and orders. Catholics, though divided by many cultures and ethnic groups, may accept the official interpretations of their Church, but they often differ in their specific explanations of the texts based on their local mores and customs.

In short,