2 Elul 5774
When I was a (technical) atheist, I used to get really offended when bigots would use G-d to justify their hate. I found it offensive not just because it was hate, but because their reason for being hateful was so completely illogical to me.
I didn’t expect it to become more offensive when I became religious, but it did. Today, my partner asked me if I’d heard about this:
Pastor calls to imprison gays for ‘ten years hard labor’ with new constitutional amendment
Of course I had. And I was livid. My partner said “How can people believe that G-d believes that?”
And out of my mouth came words I did not expect. “That’s not the G-d I believe in, that’s for sure.”
For me that’s a sea-change. It used to be I was offended because they had a non-logical reason for their hate. But now, I’m offended because they’re besmirching the G-d I believe in, and love, and worship, and find meaningful. How dare they? How dare they take my G-d, or even their imitation of my G-d, and denigrate him that way? Who does that?
Hateful people, of course. They’ll do whatever they have to do to justify their hate.
I just find it very sad that one of the things they do is drag G-d through the mud to justify their hate.
I find that very, very sad.
Wrestling With God 
::hugs:: For what it is worth…I am proud of you.
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Sooner or later, you’re going to have to contemplate Jehovah’s injunctions with regard to Amalek. I’m not challenging you or telling you what to think, but the material is there in the Bible, and it gets kind of hard to ignore after a while.
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I already have. I also know that much of the Torah and the Tanakh is allegorical, not literal. Moving on now.
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I expect that most of it is both literal and allegorical, if only because the universe is so self-similar, with a relatively small number of patterns recurring at all levels. The ancient commentators didn’t have access to fractal geometry, so it was easier for them to choose between the literal and the allegorical, especially when one or the other displeased them.
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