The ancient feast of Sukkoth or Booths was originally a harvest feast celebrated throughout Canaan and Lebanon and perhaps much further away. It predates Judaism and Abraham by at least a thousand years. It is the one eternal feast as it has always been a feast in Judaism and will be a universal feast during the Messianic Era. See Zechariah 14:16.
Sukkoth or Temporary Structures are built of wood and branches so that we learn the dependence on G-d. When we were traversing the wilderness of Sin, we had to leave in tents and temporary structures and during that time we learned that G-d would provide us with food and water as well as a place to stay. The feasts of Judaism always help us to contemplate the important things in life and this feast powerfully demonstrates the need to be dependent on the Divine. During the feast in Israel, the people live in temporary structures for seven days and eat better than usual food. The first two days are Shabbot and no work is done, but much prayer and joy is manifested. The remainder of the days while not full Shabbot are still more important than regular days and the activity is limited. This is a time for many families to go on vacation.
The feast is also called the Feast of the Ingathering. Now, the normal meaning is harvest and farmers throughout the world are harvesting food at that time, whether from winter or summer. The spiritual ingathering is of the believers as this is the prime feast of the Lord. It is believed that the Meshiach will return on this day to regather Israel together.
The feast is also called the Feast of Gentiles because Scripture tells us to offer 13 bulls in the Temple on the first day, 12 on the second, and so on, 11, 10, 9, 8, and 7. When the numbers are added together, we find that there are a total of 70 which is the number of the nations in the world - 69 from Genesis 10 and 1 being Israel, the latest in time. So this feast was to ingather the believing Gentiles, the G-d-fearers as well. And Zechariah says that in the Messianic Age, all nations will come to Jerusalem to celebrate the feast.
This feast is ended by Shemini Atzeret, a feast uniquely Jewish and in thanksgiving for the blessings of the Jewish people. It is followed by Simchat Torah, which means, rejoicing in the Torah. The Jewish People rejoice that G-d in his infinite Mercy wrote down the 613 Mitzvoth or Laws on the Tablets of Stone with his Own Finger and gave us the Law that would direct us in this world. It is the covenant that G-d made with us, that we would keep these Mitzvot and He would be Our God, that makes us Chosen, makes us special, makes us the latest nation, a nation set apart, a royal priesthood.
It is appropriate at the end of this small sermonette to say Happy Thanksgiving, because the feast is all about Thanks.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
Social Darwinism
Social Darwinism in the political sphere is defined as:
A term not widely used in Europe and America until after 1880 and then almost invariably employed as a pejorative tag, to mean the belief, based on a (?mis-)reading of Darwin, that natural selection entails the elimination of weak societies, or people, by strong ones. Popular in the innocent 1890s, social Darwinism seemed wholly discredited after Nazism. Some have seen its recurrence in sociobiology, which has therefore been controversial; but the ‘new social Darwinism’, if that is what it is, is based on the new genetics, which shows that Darwinism entails none of the racist or eugenicist inferences that were widely made between the 1890s and the 1930s (that one part of the human race is genetically superior to another, or that it is feasible and desirable to breed exceptionally good offspring from exceptionally good parents).
Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to ‘survival of the fittest’ entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A ‘social Darwinist’ could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist. Many of the foremost thinkers conventionally labelled ‘social Darwinist’ established their arguments independently of the findings and methods of Darwinian biology. This is the case, for instance, with Spencer and W. G. Sumner, the former being an unrepentant Lamarckist and dedicated believer in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the latter an enthusiastic disciple of Malthus. With all of this in mind, it may very well be that the term ‘social Darwinism’ has merely a narrow rhetorical and ideological usage and consequently is of only passing historiographical interest.
Conservative Republicans and fundamentalists in every religion tend to look at spiritual things from a social Darwinist perspective. Darwinism says that the race progresses by eliminating the weakest members of society. In America, we have gone to extreme to prolong life, to keep alive those who cannot survive on their own, and to encourage those who pass on recessive and destructive genes. These ideals are supported by liberal and moderate politicians and voters because they value each individual life. They see a responsibility to allow each person to develop to their own potential.
The Scripture makes clear its position. It supports the intervention of G-d and the Holy Spirit to heal and to perform miracles. Miracles ignore Darwinism and support the ideal that every individuals interaction with the world will bring something of importance lost if that individual is gone. Healing is a vital method of frustrating Darwinism. There is no question that many of the diseases that use to kill are now controlled and, theoretically, those least able to survive are allowed to live. Paul goes so far as to say that if we give even our organs, our bodies, to the support of others with love we have done a good act. Organ transplanting is the absolute antithesis of Social Darwinism.
Underlying Conservative and Tea Party philosophies of triumphalism. We have made it, say the Tea Partiers, and we want to keep what we made. As a group they would allow the poor to die, would help only those within their church, and would condemn the oppressed to slavery. President Johnson said that America, the richest country on earth could spend enough to eliminate poverty. Yes they could, but they did not and now poverty ranks higher than ever before numerically. Over 45 million people are poor in America; that number is greater than most nations and Khruschev said what good is our democracy if people are dying and starving in America. What would Jesus do? What would Moses do?
The issue is best put before us when Cain asks G-d, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9. The answer for G-d was yes. We are our brother's keeper and we owe it to him to help without destruction of his dignity. Social Darwinism is the religion of Cain. It ignores the duty to care.
This is not a political statement. I am a libertarian, not a conservative, but I do not like what is going on in America either. However, the solution is not to turn our backs on the poor, but to stop our adventurism in foreign countries.
A term not widely used in Europe and America until after 1880 and then almost invariably employed as a pejorative tag, to mean the belief, based on a (?mis-)reading of Darwin, that natural selection entails the elimination of weak societies, or people, by strong ones. Popular in the innocent 1890s, social Darwinism seemed wholly discredited after Nazism. Some have seen its recurrence in sociobiology, which has therefore been controversial; but the ‘new social Darwinism’, if that is what it is, is based on the new genetics, which shows that Darwinism entails none of the racist or eugenicist inferences that were widely made between the 1890s and the 1930s (that one part of the human race is genetically superior to another, or that it is feasible and desirable to breed exceptionally good offspring from exceptionally good parents).
Part of the difficulty in establishing sensible and consistent usage is that commitment to the biology of natural selection and to ‘survival of the fittest’ entailed nothing uniform either for sociological method or for political doctrine. A ‘social Darwinist’ could just as well be a defender of laissez-faire as a defender of state socialism, just as much an imperialist as a domestic eugenist. Many of the foremost thinkers conventionally labelled ‘social Darwinist’ established their arguments independently of the findings and methods of Darwinian biology. This is the case, for instance, with Spencer and W. G. Sumner, the former being an unrepentant Lamarckist and dedicated believer in the inheritance of acquired characteristics, the latter an enthusiastic disciple of Malthus. With all of this in mind, it may very well be that the term ‘social Darwinism’ has merely a narrow rhetorical and ideological usage and consequently is of only passing historiographical interest.
Conservative Republicans and fundamentalists in every religion tend to look at spiritual things from a social Darwinist perspective. Darwinism says that the race progresses by eliminating the weakest members of society. In America, we have gone to extreme to prolong life, to keep alive those who cannot survive on their own, and to encourage those who pass on recessive and destructive genes. These ideals are supported by liberal and moderate politicians and voters because they value each individual life. They see a responsibility to allow each person to develop to their own potential.
The Scripture makes clear its position. It supports the intervention of G-d and the Holy Spirit to heal and to perform miracles. Miracles ignore Darwinism and support the ideal that every individuals interaction with the world will bring something of importance lost if that individual is gone. Healing is a vital method of frustrating Darwinism. There is no question that many of the diseases that use to kill are now controlled and, theoretically, those least able to survive are allowed to live. Paul goes so far as to say that if we give even our organs, our bodies, to the support of others with love we have done a good act. Organ transplanting is the absolute antithesis of Social Darwinism.
Underlying Conservative and Tea Party philosophies of triumphalism. We have made it, say the Tea Partiers, and we want to keep what we made. As a group they would allow the poor to die, would help only those within their church, and would condemn the oppressed to slavery. President Johnson said that America, the richest country on earth could spend enough to eliminate poverty. Yes they could, but they did not and now poverty ranks higher than ever before numerically. Over 45 million people are poor in America; that number is greater than most nations and Khruschev said what good is our democracy if people are dying and starving in America. What would Jesus do? What would Moses do?
The issue is best put before us when Cain asks G-d, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9. The answer for G-d was yes. We are our brother's keeper and we owe it to him to help without destruction of his dignity. Social Darwinism is the religion of Cain. It ignores the duty to care.
This is not a political statement. I am a libertarian, not a conservative, but I do not like what is going on in America either. However, the solution is not to turn our backs on the poor, but to stop our adventurism in foreign countries.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
City Life
"Cain also became the founder of a city, which he named after his son Enoch." Genesis 4:17.
Nomads, which we call hunter gathers today, lived together in small groups of a family or at best a clan and moved with the wild herbivores and with the changing seasons. They spent roughly 3 hours per day in getting the food for the day, four hours preparing it, and ten hours sleeping. The spent the remaining seven hours of the day contemplating nature, talking to each other, exploring, and leading a life-style called happy-go-lucky today.
The first real effort to organize nomads to do something was at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. There, aliens, the sons of heaven from Genesis 6:4, induced the nomads to build a temple. From that organization flowed the idea of settling down and tending crops. Cain was a farmer and lived in an organized society. Genesis 4:4. The inevitable result of farming and sedentary lifestyles is technology. See Genesis 4:20-22. The sedentary lifestyle is subject to many things which we like today, but which G-d calls evil. Evidently some thought that the city life was so reprehensible that G-d would destroy that world with water in the great flood. There is nothing left of that great civilization which lasted from 9500 BCE until 7200 BCE. It was swept away by some cataclysm, may be a flood, but whatever it was the people about 7200 years ago decided to bury the cause of their troubles and buried Gobekli Tepe with many tons of earth.
The situation in the Americas was no different. At least three civilizations were destroyed by climatic events: the Mayans, the Anasazi, and the Mississippians. These people built great cities and multiplied due to much increased crops, but G-d sent drought or other cataclysms and destroyed their civilizations.
It is amazing that in every case, the very same people who once lived in a sedentary lifestyle made use to luxuries and order easily devolved after the destruction and that devolution in most cases was worse than the problems which justified the destruction of their civilizations.
In cities of today, we see those who live in trailers, in trailer parks, as the most itinerant and most red-neck. We much fun of them and say bad things about them. And yet, I just witnessed the descendants of the Anasazi in the four corners area of the United States. Many descendants of the Anasazi have opted for an American lifestyle complete with city life and high incomes. They in giving up their devolved lifestyles and returning to city life like their ancestors live in fine houses and enjoy the benefits of modern society. While their country cousins live in squalor, complete with trailer houses, broken trucks and cars, trash, and garbage, they claim to be spiritual people following the teachings of their ancestors. Apparently, they do not mean their Anasazi ancestors of the high culture, but some devolved ancestor who was a rube even to the Anasazi.
What I conclude from my High Mountain is that G-d must be the center of your life and then it does not matter where you live.
Nomads, which we call hunter gathers today, lived together in small groups of a family or at best a clan and moved with the wild herbivores and with the changing seasons. They spent roughly 3 hours per day in getting the food for the day, four hours preparing it, and ten hours sleeping. The spent the remaining seven hours of the day contemplating nature, talking to each other, exploring, and leading a life-style called happy-go-lucky today.
The first real effort to organize nomads to do something was at Gobekli Tepe in Turkey. There, aliens, the sons of heaven from Genesis 6:4, induced the nomads to build a temple. From that organization flowed the idea of settling down and tending crops. Cain was a farmer and lived in an organized society. Genesis 4:4. The inevitable result of farming and sedentary lifestyles is technology. See Genesis 4:20-22. The sedentary lifestyle is subject to many things which we like today, but which G-d calls evil. Evidently some thought that the city life was so reprehensible that G-d would destroy that world with water in the great flood. There is nothing left of that great civilization which lasted from 9500 BCE until 7200 BCE. It was swept away by some cataclysm, may be a flood, but whatever it was the people about 7200 years ago decided to bury the cause of their troubles and buried Gobekli Tepe with many tons of earth.
The situation in the Americas was no different. At least three civilizations were destroyed by climatic events: the Mayans, the Anasazi, and the Mississippians. These people built great cities and multiplied due to much increased crops, but G-d sent drought or other cataclysms and destroyed their civilizations.
It is amazing that in every case, the very same people who once lived in a sedentary lifestyle made use to luxuries and order easily devolved after the destruction and that devolution in most cases was worse than the problems which justified the destruction of their civilizations.
In cities of today, we see those who live in trailers, in trailer parks, as the most itinerant and most red-neck. We much fun of them and say bad things about them. And yet, I just witnessed the descendants of the Anasazi in the four corners area of the United States. Many descendants of the Anasazi have opted for an American lifestyle complete with city life and high incomes. They in giving up their devolved lifestyles and returning to city life like their ancestors live in fine houses and enjoy the benefits of modern society. While their country cousins live in squalor, complete with trailer houses, broken trucks and cars, trash, and garbage, they claim to be spiritual people following the teachings of their ancestors. Apparently, they do not mean their Anasazi ancestors of the high culture, but some devolved ancestor who was a rube even to the Anasazi.
What I conclude from my High Mountain is that G-d must be the center of your life and then it does not matter where you live.
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