Anon asked Staff ago Hello.
There are many religious people whose best proof that there is a G-d, that He rules over the Jewish people, and that the whole Torah is true is, without a doubt, the behavior of the Jewish people throughout all the years of exile.
The example that they give is that the Jews did not kill each other and did not battle each other as the Christians did. English Christians killed French Christians, etc., while between Jews there was peace, in contrast to the gentiles, who killed one another.
I am not a historian, but maybe you could cite sources and quotes which refute this claim.
jsadmin Staff answered 20 years ago
Hello.
Religious people, to strengthen their faith, fall upon every sliver of difference of behavior between Jews and other nations or other religions, and immediately come to the sweeping conclusion that G-d gave the Torah to the Jewish nation, as though the difference leads to any conclusion at all.
And how amazing — they are so anxious to strengthen their faith that they missed a few details from their own sanctified texts:
1. After being given the Torah and the sin of the Golden Calf, at Moses’ command 3000 Jews were killed by other Jews: “The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died” (Exodus 32:28).
2. After the rape of the concubine in Givah, the tribes of Israel fought the tribe of Benjamin, and they slaughtered each other. Thirty thousand died from the tribes of Israel, and fifty thousand from the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 19-21).
3. The wars between the kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judea, described in the books of Kings, inflicted many casualties.
And many other such examples, to the extent that the prophet screamed, “those who lay you waste come from you” (Isaiah 49:17).
4. The wars of Jews against Jews, at the end of the Second Temple period, are described in the books by Josephus, “The Wars of the Jews” and “The Antiquities of the Jew.” See our answer When violence and religion merge, the violent impulse and disgusting acts know no limits.
Even when the Jews were in exile with no territory of their own, weak and powerless to fight the persecution of the gentiles,, with no opportunity to defend themselves by sword, they did not stop their internal religious battles. Thus, for example, when the Chassidic movement began in the 18th century, their opposition, headed by the Vilna Gaon, fought them by excommunication and by turning them in to the authorities. They forbade speaking with the Chassidim, renting homes to them, and ordered their expulsion from their residences. In 5056 the Vilna Gaon issued a statement saying “I will stand fast as I always have. Any who calls himself Jewish…must chase them and persecute them [the Chassidim] using any means possible.” Members of the community, after the Vilna Gaon’s death, wrote, “And since they banished the Chassidim from the community of Jews, one is permitted to hand them over to the gentiles.”
You see that the Jewish people, as all other nations at any time, whether they had independence and territorial aspirations or not, used violence and killed each other. Even when they had no power to use force and their aspirations were limited to virtual aspirations (“the messiah, for whom, though he tarries, I will wait”) did not refrain from strife, excommunication, and tale-bearing.
But don’t think, not even for a moment, that if you make the faithful aware of the facts which contradict their fantasies that they will change their minds. Quite the opposite — they will strengthen their faith while ignoring the facts. That is the way of people who live their lives from within their souls; they tolerate contradictions, love what is vague and mock rationality. To support our words we cite the opinion of the philosopher Francis Bacon (1620): “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion (either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself) draws all things else to support and agree with it. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects; in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate.”
Sincerely,
Daat Emet