أهل الكتاب‎

"People of the Book." We Jews like this designation that we were awarded in al Qur'an. And we have produced a lot of them. Tanach, (the Bible) is already an anthology of 24 books. The Mishnah contains six volumes. The Gemarah is typically published in 70+ volumes. And there are so many more that we consider authoritative -- if not canonical -- by Rashi, by Rambam, by Joseph Caro, and others. There are also esoteric texts to study, like Zohar. A lot of books.

A little thought will suggest that so many books will find ways to offer different viewpoints and approaches: multiple Judaisms, if you like. There is a Judaism that foregrounds the purity laws, a Judaism that wants to restore the Temple worship, a Judaism that stresses our ethical treatment of others, a Judaism that seeks hidden truths in the texts, and a Judaism that highlights the united Kingdom of Israel and Judea.

These are not exclusive. Plenty of observant people attend to all these, albeit to a greater or lesser extent. But that caveat -- "greater or lesser" -- means that not everyone with fringes is dreaming of the same Messiah. Look at the purity laws, such as kashrut. We know that the Torah forbids us only from cooking a calf in its mother's milk. Over the millennia we have adopted various stringencies (chumrot) that "make a fence for the law" in order to avoid accidentally transgressing it. Nowadays, no observant Jewish person would eat cheese with turkey. This despite the fact that turkeys are not mammals and consequently have no milk! But there are common stringencies and there are those that go beyond. Observant Jews eat no leavened bread during the festival of Passover.  But some insist on Shmurah,  or "guarded", matzah which tries to ensure that there is no possibility that the wheat in the matzah be exposed to water even before it is milled. The wheat is raised in areas without rain. The farmworkers may not have water bottles in the field. This is a special emphasis on Exodus 12:17, which reads "You shall guard the matzah." (Although the KJV reads, "Ye shall observe the feast of unleavened bread.) My point is that some people are always looking for additional stringencies.

I grew up reciting the prayer "Restore the service to your sanctuary." I didn't give it a huge amount of thought, and certainly had no great ambition to see animals slaughtered and burned on the Temple Mount where the Dome of the Rock, قبة الصخرة‎ , now stands. I have no interest in rivers of blood and shit in this holy place. When I thought of it at all, I considered it a metaphor for something. The rabbis of the first centuries after the Temple was destroyed by the Romans devoted a lot of attention to discussing the minutiae of that Temple worship. I always thought studying those texts was a perfectly acceptable substitute for actually killing all those animals. As the Prophet Isaiah said (during Temple days!): "Of what use are your many sacrifices to Me? says the Lord. I am sated with the burnt-offerings of rams and the fat of fattened cattle; and the blood of bulls and sheep and he-goats I do not want." Nevertheless, today we have a trend in Judaism that wants to bring all this back. They obsess over the details of priestly robes and utensils and are practicing to perfect the offerings themselves. I find this, too, rather bizarre.

But I think that the sect with the most peculiar reading of Judaism may be the largest one. This is the Judaism that finds its text in the Books of Joshua and Samuel, although most of them haven't read even those books. They seem to believe that the State of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces, the Shin Bet (internal security) and Mossad (international espionage) constitute the highest achievements of the Jewish people. Some of these people are conventionally observant of kosher and Sabbath laws, but many are minimally Bar Mitzvah and know nothing of sacred scripture or thousands of years of Rabbinic literature. You can see their work in TV and film stories ("NCIS", "Covert Affairs", "The Blacklist") that have Israeli agents embedded with every NCIS, SEAL, and Delta team. You can see the young people who take their Birthright Israel tours and return thinking this is the height of Judaism. You can see it in the Jewish Day School graduates taking a gap year in Israel before starting college.

It is evident in the proliferation of Krav Maga schools. It is evident in the little boys who have no intention of serving in the US armed forces running around in their IDF tee-shirts. When high-profile scumbag Harvey Weinstein wanted to erase the evidence of his serial sexual abuse of vulnerable female actresses, he hire a firm called "Black Cube" led by former Mossad agents.

I understand the desire to separate ourselves from the self-image of weak yeshiva boys. The Jewish emigres to Palestine of the early 20th century substituted the imagery of halutzim, pioneers, who were tanned and muscled from outdoor work. But this is a militaristic cult, and - moreover - one to which the American Jews who join it have no legitimate claim. My father, may his memory be a blessing, used to say these were people sitting in the safety and comfort of suburban New Jersey who were willing to fight to the last Israeli.

There is Jewish liturgical and exegetical literature that I find sterile, but there is much with which I am proud to claim my familiarity and kinship. The same with philosophy, science, and fiction. We have a long and rich history that remains worthy of study. I am proud to be Jewish.

But the worship of guns and missiles and warships is a death cult. It is idolatry. It is tref, forbidden. I condemn it.