I Am Convinced Orthodox Rabbinic Judaism Is A Cult | אני משוכנע שיהדות רבנית אורתודוקסית היא כת

העברית עוקבת אחר האנגלית

I don’t say this lightly. I am so frustrated, that this may be my last post. This will be a mixture of personal rant and blog post. 

I haven’t posted in a while. I struggle to come up with something worth posting about. My focus has been on other matters. I realized that after 2 1/2 years of this blog, I am nowhere near where I thought I would be. I don’t make a cent (or agorot) on this. I don’t have many followers or subscribers. What followers I do have are an equal mix of Christians, Jews, and anti-Semites. I can’t reach the people I really want to reach with my message because I don’t speak Hebrew. But in the end, it doesn’t seem to matter. Because whatever I do, the response from Jews is always the same. Who do you think you are? You think you know more than the Rabbis? The Sages? The Rambam? Are you a posek?

No One Can Argue With Me On Torah

All they do is regurgitate what’s in the Talmud or Mishna Torah, or this or that Rabbi. Even when I hear other people ask religious Israelis their opinion, it’s always either I don’t know, ask a Rabbi, or they quote what the Rabbis say.

No one has a mind of their own to think critically and say, you know what, that makes sense. Or, the Rabbis say this, but I think this. No, they are all too afraid to go against the Traditional Way. Even Rabbis who claim to think critically, still can’t acknowledge basic Truths about the Noahide Laws (like Rabbi David Bar-Hayim) or Rabbi Asher Meza, who can’t acknowledge you don’t need to separate meat and milk. So I’m called a Karaite, kofer, or heretic.

I’ve often thought I might be able to be more convincing if I just made a normal video putting my face out there. Then I could speak with emotion. But for several reasons, I thought it would detract from the actual message and put the focus (and criticism) on me personally. I think I made the right decision. Now I know it’s not me, it’s my message.

Why Should Anyone Listen To Me?

I left Christianity because I could see with my own eyes and used critical thinking to question the contradictions and logic of the narrative and commentaries of the New Testament. I use the same logic and critical thinking in Judaism. I am not obligated or bound to follow anyone else’s commentary. They are all opinions, with no divine authority. Just because they are a majority opinion, doesn’t necessarily mean that is Truth. Remember, the Second Temple was destroyed during these original authors of the Mishna and Gemara’s watch. So instead of thinking they were wiser than us just because they were older or closer in generation to Moses or prophets, we should actually be questioning the integrity of their decisions based on the reality of their time and the outcome of their decisions.

What I Originally Wanted This Post To Be About

My Revelations After First Reading The Torah

What I wanted to write about, before getting so fed up, was going to be about how I came to have my revelations about Judaism and specifically about Israel. So I will go into it now, because it’s all related.

I want to compare my experience to when King Josiah read the Book of the Law in 2 Kings 22. Both the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah were worshiping idolatry and the Temple was neglected. The Temple actually had idols inside. When King Josiah realized the curses God gives for worshiping idols and not following the Law of Moses, he is distraught. He immediately sets out to tear down all the high places of idolatry, cleans the Temple and gathers everyone together to read the Torah. And everyone agrees to follow it. Then they observe Pesach for the first time since the days of the judges.

That’s another thing. Both here and with Ezra and Nehemiah, the stories don’t mention any dissent about following Torah. No protests, riots, or rebellion. I just realized that. It seems implausible. Everyone is worshiping idols, and just like that, their king or leaders tell them the Torah, and they all agree to follow it. But as soon as the next king comes along, they all go back to idolatry. That would never happen today. If Israel’s Prime Minister just said, let’s all follow Torah, there would be a civil war much like the days of the Maccabees.

But I digress.

My point is, that how King Josiah felt, is how I felt the first time I read the Torah, then looking at the current State of Israel, and thinking, “Why aren’t they’re doing this?!” They KNOW this! Why aren’t they obeying Torah in the Land?! You HAVE THE LAND! You are not in exile anymore! The world is upside down! Israel is supposed to be the center and light to the world, not America! The future is not good! Israel’s future is not good!

It took me years, after learning about the history of Zionism, that they were actually Secular, and the dynamic of the different religious and secular groups in modern Israel, to understand how it got to this place. And it’s easy to be sucked into all the reasons Rabbis say all this happened. We’re waiting for the Moshiach they say. We need to wait until the majority of Jews are here in the Land. Really?! I don’t recall that being a Commandment. When the small number of Jews came back from Babylon, they set out to build the Temple. Ezra came to begin instituting Jewish Law. Haggai the prophet told them they need to build the Temple in order to prosper. Not one leader said, wait! We can’t do that yet until more Jews come back!. I say, as long as there is ONE Jew living in the Land, that Jew needs to obey the commandments.

The Zohar And Jewish Mysticism

Then, when you add in the Zohar and Jewish mysticism to the mix with its own explanations as to the notion of Tikun, to me, excuse my language, but it all becomes just mental masturbation. It makes you feel good thinking about it, esoterically, rather than actually doing anything about it practically and physically. When the plain simple explanation is right there in Deuteronomy 28 The Blessings and the Curses. Obey Torah in the Land of Israel, you will be blessed. Don’t, and you won’t. All the problems we are having, both domestically and internationally, are a direct result of not obeying Torah in one way or another. Our success is likewise directly attributed to how much we obey Torah. But not one Rabbi will say that in a political setting, because they are in the minority.

Current Events

As an example, imagine my shock, when confronted with the possibility of having to form a government with an Arab party, the Haredim parties would prefer to align with Arabs, rather than Secular Jews on the Left. Their reasoning was, at least Arabs respect religion. Are you kidding me?! Yeah, they respect THEIR religion. Do they really respect OUR religion? And, they are not realizing that it’s the Secular Jews that ALSO want to align with Arabs for “Peace”. So what do we see now? Arabs threatening to topple the government if they don’t have control over the Land in the form of uncontrolled illegal building. It’s self sabotage in the name of religion, even though the Haredi parties agree that the Land is ours. All because we are waiting for Moshiach, or a majority of Jews, because that’s what our sages say in the Talmud.

And speaking of the Talmud, when you read about King Josiah in II Kings, does it mention an Oral Law? No, it only mentions an actual book. Everyone understands he read the book of Deuteronomy. Did he need a Sanhedrin to explain to him how to keep Pesach? Did he need to understand the levels of remez, drash, and sod? Did he need to understand Noahide Laws or Midrashim? NO. Yet, God is pleased with him and grants him grace to not see Israel’s destruction in his lifetime. And when anyone, a non Jew, would bring this up as a contradiction to the current narrative that the Oral Law was always there, from Moses, they will look at you with arrogance and disdain. Who do you think you are? You know nothing. Of course they already knew the Oral Law, they just were not following it. This is gas lighting to the highest degree. So who told King Josiah the Oral Law? Did the priest Hilkiah know it? If he knew it, then I suppose he just ‘forgot’ too, given the warnings not to forget? Do you think something so important would be left out of the description of the story in the written Tanakh? Never once does it mention ‘remembering’ anything. It explicitly and repeatedly mentions reading only an actual book. Actually, a more reasonable explanation would be that Hashem gave them grace just for showing remorse and intent on following the Law, if not perfectly according to Halakha. I just made that up, but if these same words came from a Rabbi, you would believe it. You would say, Oh, that’s so profound! What a wise teacher you are Rav! But if it comes from me, a nobody non-born Jew, I am mocked and scorned. 

And that’s why you all are in a CULT. 

So, I have really lost my interest in pursuing this blog any further. Maybe if I spend money to promote it, I could get more traction. But I made the decision in the beginning not to spend money unless I start getting donations. Well, no donations. I don’t have a Facebook page, and maybe that will help, but I absolutely hate Facebook and their censorship. I want to take some time and upload what videos and posts I already have to other platforms, and also to translate it all into Hebrew. I haven’t done it previously because I just don’t have the energy due to my personal health issues.

Also, since this “pandemic”, I have been much more interested in talking about current events not related to Rabbis. And now, since this last Gaza flare-up and riots within Israel by Arabs, I am really wanting to focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. So I’m thinking of starting a new blog or YouTube channel, or even going on Telegram. I haven’t decided in what form or forum I want to focus, and whether I should make actual videos showing myself. I may still post on this blog, but it may not be as often as before.

So I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my current followers for joining, sharing and liking my content. Let me know in the comments your suggestions of how you think I can best spread my message, or any other thoughts on this post.

Shalom