An Atheist Haggadah for Zionists

By elias lightstone

There is no god in charge of the universe; we have only ourselves. If Israel falls we shall perish one and all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: elias lightstone
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224076031

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

People turn to religion for many reasons: Fear of death, comfort in bad times, community and fellowship, need for a leader...

I find my solace for these issues elsewhere.

This is my version of the Passover Haggadah, created when I could no longer in good faith, (pardon the expression), participate in the traditional service that I have attended in one form or another every year for more than 70 years with head bowed and opinions safely left elsewhere.

For me, beliefs must be supported by verifiable evidence, otherwise they are simply desperate inventions the mind can only pretend to.

There are Christian preachers who have said (I have heard this directly from the horse’s mouth) that Adolf Eichmann had a better chance of getting into heaven than any of his victims if he took Jesus into his heart before he died. Good deeds won’t get you into heaven, only faith in Jesus.

This kind of fanatical, and outright despicable statement should disgust anybody; but it is a  genuinely held belief and the kind of thinking that informs everything around it.

Once you fall under the spell of this idea, you become a manipulated fool who believes whatever the priest tells you. You drink the kool-aid on command, a le Jim Jones – either literally or metaphorically.

These people carry on protracted serious discussions about whether cremated individuals will get raptured when the time comes.

For the Jews it’s a little more complicated ( but no less idiotic) because our god is not an actual corporeal being,  and is not ...a personal God quaquaquaqua,...(1) but we all wait for him, nonetheless. The consequences of this are de facto salvation. In other words, if the messiah arrived there wouldn’t be anything to discuss; that would be the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of heaven on earth. Or something like that. Only praying almost incessantly over just about everything can hasten the Coming.

Here is ‘God’  in his own words (according to the Pirkei Avot, in English (Ethics of the Fathers):

As is stated (Isaiah 43:7): All that is called by My name and for My glory, I created it, formed it, also I made it.

On the face of it, he seems to be a self-glorifying psychopath.

I have my own hypothesis:

Once upon a time there was ‘God’ and there was ‘Satan’, and they fought a mighty battle for control of the universe.

God lost and the world was born.

It makes perfect sense that Satan would create a civilization of slaves to worship him while he sits up there stirring the pot and laughing.

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled, was to turn people into believers.

Being fair, there is also truth and wisdom in the old writings that should not be thrown out with the bath water, so to speak.

For example: (Republicans take note)

Rabbi Chanina, deputy to the kohanim, would say: Pray for the integrity of the government; for were it not for the fear of its authority, a man would swallow his neighbor alive.

But it doesn’t take long for the usual nonsense to take over.

Rabbi Yaakov would say: One who walks along a road and studies, and interrupts his studying to say, How beautiful is this tree!, How beautiful is this ploughed field!—-the Torah considers it as if he had forfeited his life.

Or this:

On March 1, 2024 The Jerusalem Post reported that two serving IDF soldiers were sent to prison for twenty