The Jewish Answer
My diagnosis of the hatred of Jews
There Was No Avoiding This One
Before I begin, I would just like to make a few things clear. For starters, this was not something I had planned on discussing. I was hoping to avoid it, as I had to come to Substack to talk about God and humanity—but the topic of Jew hatred is truly an inseparable part of the West’s relationship to God.
This post is about the parts of the world that have been shaped by the Abrahamic mythos. These observations do not extend to civilizations formed outside of the the ideas of which I am addressing, as Jew hatred is a problem for the children of Abraham to contend with—or as you might say, “it’s a family matter.”
That being said, let’s go back to the beginning…
Once There Was A Construction Project
A foundational story in the Western canon is the story of the Tower of Babel.
The story, as most of you probably know, is about a group of people who unite in defiance of God and build a tower to the Heavens. The exact details of this were hazy, as the Bible didn’t go too in depth, but essentially God told people to go out and populate the Earth. Instead of venturing out to follow God’s commandment, people congregated in Lower Mesopotamia to build a giant monument to themselves. The world’s largest middle finger, if you will, pointing directly at the Lord almighty.
God then changed people’s tongues, creating a diversity of languages, and—with the project halted by linguistic barriers—people set off to their separate corners of the world.
And although the languages and ethnicities changed, human nature remained very much the same.
The root of Jew hatred is an expression of the Western relationship with God. In order to discuss the relationship dynamics, we must first profile those involved.
Human Nature
I’ve covered this before, so I won’t get too into it, but I believe two fundamental elements of people inform our behaviors:
1.
We all feel an inherent psychospiritual lack by virtue of being incarnated into physical form. Life cannot be fully satisfying, even if every itch is perfectly scratched. People will live their entire lives trying to survive but will most certainly die anyway, and that feeling will stay with us. There is a pain to existing. (I personally would go one step further on that lacking front by saying the soul is homesick, but I want to approach this topic from a psychological standpoint, not a religious one, as to make this point more universal.)
2.
We’re all prone to religiosity based on how we try to fill that hole; this doesn’t mean everyone is theistic, although many are. For some, that religion could mean politics, culture, or a mission-driven community. The point is that we’re drawn to collections of ideas and behaviors that comfort the part of us that agonizes over being. Between the comfort of meaningful explanations and the safety of ritual, we can often become very protective of our chosen religions—sometimes violently so.
We’re definitely the more complicated partner in this relationship.
Who Is This God Guy, Anyway?
You don’t have to believe in God to understand that God is a presence in the world—the New Atheists were defined by their opposition to very concept of God, not by their beliefs in Him. To describe the Western relationship to God, we have to acknowledge that everyone has some sort of relationship with the concept, theist or not. Some people think He’s the monarch of the universe who deserves our love and respect; some think He’s a dangerous myth that must be left behind for progress to flourish. Either way, almost everyone has opinions and feelings about God.
The profile of the God of the West (I’m going Christian, as it’s the foundation of western society):
God is the one who created the universe and populated the world with life. He made a deal with a man named Abraham in which Abraham and his descendents would be righteous, numerous, and the inheritors of the land of Canaan. Abraham’s children, the chosen people, went on to become who we all know now as the Jews.
Many years on, God would be born into the world as Jesus. Jesus was born to a Jewish mother, Mary, in Bethlehem (or as they called it, Beit Lechem), and was raised as the son of a Jewish carpenter named Joseph.
From there, Jesus performed some top-notch miracles, gave some great sermons, taught His apostles, had a lovely Passover dinner with His friends, and then was sacrificed on the cross as an atonement for the sins of mankind. Three days after dying, Jesus rose from the dead, tied up some unfinished business, and ascended into Heaven. He’s a real one.
Nowadays He does God stuff; God, the King, the Judge, the Creator. The One who giveth and taketh away. The One who sees your every sin, hears your every dark thought, and then takes note of it. He also will most certainly forgive you, but you have to let Him, which requires you meeting Him halfway through accepting Him and His self-sacrifice on behalf of you. Grace is a gift and you must be open to receiving it if you are to fully obtain it.
But We Aren’t Open To Much
People don’t like the idea of being accountable for their actions, nor do they like being beneath someone else.
The thought that someone threw us into an uncaring universe while judging our every move as we flounder around in the suffering is irritating at best. It’s so bad down here that Buddhism built its entire belief system on the premise that life in physical form is suffering, and Gnostics built their worldview on the premise that whoever created this world is evil.
So people get mad.
Hell, I get mad. I’m sure you get mad. Who doesn’t? And very often that anger and need for power over our circumstances informs our personal religion. Sometimes our worldview forms around those feelings to justify our hatred and need for power, delegitimizing an ‘other’ to put ourselves on top. And who better to knock down a peg than the demographic God is a member of—the group God repeatedly called His chosen people in His number one bestseller?
The Skyline Of Babel
People build their personal power-oriented religions on the foundations of their identity (an identity based on how we attempt to fill the hole left by physical existence, and vice versa, a never ending process of cyclical self-characterization).
If self-identified with a career in academia, one may come up with all sorts of pseudo-intellectual theories on why Jews are a burden on society, an illegitimate race, or somehow worthy of experiencing violence due to some unforgivable human transgression. If books are too much but you like money, you could perhaps get on board with the idea that the Jews control the world’s banks. If math is also a bit much and you want to get in touch with your inner warrior, then just an enemy to militarize against will suffice.
It feels good to be righteously angry and better than someone; the ego tells you that you’re important, and have agency. As a result, the Tower of Babel is being replicated in a wide variety of styles, but all of them lead in the same direction: down.
Your Feelings Are Your Problem
The hatred of Jews is not about the Jews. It’s about rebellion against the very framework of which we live in.
But the rebels make it about the Jews. The people who would like nothing more than to be left alone become the only tangible target for the angry, impotent masses with misguided deicidal rage.
If you’re angry because you can’t live the life you want, that’s something you need to deal with yourself. If you think you can elevate yourself somehow by building a Tower of Babel using Jewish corpses as bricks, you’re in for a miserable existence. It’s easier in the moment to race to the top, but you gain no altitude when it causes the world to plummet.
Your Crusade Will Not Serve You
Incinerating your fellow man to build your throne upon the ashes does not make you lord of anything.
Why has every society that has ever tried exterminating the Jews failed to survive? It’s not because of the Jews, or God. It’s because that society became rabid—sanity and virtue being replaced by depravity and an abdication of personal responsibility.
The autocannibalism of collapsing societies always serves up the Jews as the appetizer. When you’re complaining about the Jews, you’re simply anthropomorphizing whatever you’re angry about, because you can’t lynch your inadequacies or society’s shortcomings (though that’s never stopped us from trying).
You cannot kill the lot you were given in life and come out on top, and you most certainly cannot take full responsibility for yourself while feeling good about it. The world is a mess, and we are all to blame. I know, it feels yucky to take that into consideration, but please do.
If your personal religion—your thoughts, worldview, community, and actions—is built around the hatred of others, you are not part of the solution.
If you find yourself piling bricks onto your own personal Tower of Babel, take a moment to reflect. Your life, and the world, can move in the right direction, but it’s not going to start with anyone else.
It’s not about the Jews: it’s about you.