Have you ever considered doing something immoral, such as being a serial killer/rapist? Even if you haven't actively considered doing it, has the thought entered your mind? Have you thought about the best way to do it so as to outsmart the police.
What stops you from carrying this out? Is there a sense of morality? based on what? Is it religion? Do you believe you will burn in hell if you do something that God doesn't want you to do? Do you believe in societal norms, without which the world as we know it cannot exist. Have you thought about this aspect as much as you have thought about the other aspect.
I went to lunch yesterday with some colleagues from the former Soviet Union. They aren't religious and the conversation (not initiated by me) went from the weekly Torah portion , to Buddha to Marx and Engels to how religious Jews would relate to a UFO if it were provable that it were from outer space and the beings inside were not from this planet.
After the conversation one of the guys said, in what must be the most Jewish of all expressions, It seems like being religious would be very difficult. (shver tzu zein a yid). I answered him back that being religoius wasn't very difficult and it is much more difficult being Jewish without being religious.
2 comments:
I just read an interesting article on aish.com. It talked about he parallels between superman and the Jews. There were several different parallels, but one specifically related to this post. It talked about how superman is an alien from another planet with super powers. He can jump over buildings, fly has x-ray vision...However, kryptonite is absolutely deadly for someone from his planet. Another person from his planet can try as best as he can to fit in (Clark Kent) He can deny all his super-powers and behave like a totally normal human being. However, kryptonite is just as dangerous for him as it is for superman. The only difference is the other guy is living a meaningless life, not jumping over buildings and saving people. I dont remember the exact wording, but I thought the article was interesting.
It is no coincidence that Superheroes, and Superman in particular, were created by Jews who had come to America after escaping pograms and religious persecution in the early 1900s from Europe. There are a lot of parallels between the Jews leaving their homes and coming to America and Superman leaving his planet behind. As for all the superpowers he had, well, some of that is wishful thinking on the Jewish creators' parts.
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