What
Are the Two Paths?
Two
roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I
took the one less travelled by,
And
that has made all the difference –
Robert
Frost
"Kennedy
could bring Frost out (1) that doesn't mean anything really, I
mean it’s a nice gesture, but Robert Frost didn't speak to the
masses. Robert Frost as all of the other poets of the past spoke
to the intelligentsia, spoke to a
small minority of the country. Some poets want to, yes, want to
reach everybody. But you see, Dylan
has in fact done this. This is one of the incredible things
about Dylan. He's the first poet to speak to everybody... And it
has been through the vehicle of music—
Phil
Ochs
You're
going to have to serve somebody; it may be the devil, it may be
the lord, but you're going to have to serve somebody –
Robert
Zimmerman (Bob Dylan) quoted in Israel Adam Shamir's "Pardes."
These
quotations provide a long way around path or road for myself
from the title to the subject, Israel Shamir and his first major
theoretical piece in a long time(2), Pardes
(3). In this piece Shamir suggests the two paths from which we
must choose are the
church
of
Christ
(the
church
of
God
)--or the church of "the Jews" (Yisrael)-the church of
no God. I would like to suggest that while it is perfectly
understandable how Shamir, in the fervour of evangelical
enthusiasm (4), would come to this view that the real battle is
between the true
church
of
God
in Christ and the forces of mammon. And my authority here is
ultimately my own "master" who in a piece from which
my title comes, "The Two Paths", concluded his preface
with these words: "...the way divides itself, one way
leading to the Olive mountains--one
to the vale of the
Salt
Sea
. There are few crossroads that I know of from one to the other.
Let him pause at the parting of the Two Paths."
Israel/Palestine
Just
a few years ago I knew nothing more of the
Middle East
than that it was a place of "violence". I had no
opinions on the subject in spite of my historic
"radical" views. And indeed this omission was
understandable for the roots of those radical views and those
radical times were intermingled with Jewish leftists. And the
subject of
Palestine
normally (then, now and in-between) found the "left"
strangely silent. I began to come to some very little
understanding of the situation with the events of the 2nd intifada
and the brutal and escalated savagery of the state of
Israel
against the native peoples (already essentially prisoners,
though I did not yet know this). I was sufficiently well versed
in the situation to have remarked immediately after Sept. 11
2001 that what we would be seeing would be the "Israelization
of America”.(5) But it was only
thru the accidental (and later determined effort to pursue)
access to the writings of the prophetic and eloquent Jewish
dissident Israel Shamir that I learned the deep, true and
historically connected story of Palestine. And why in the words
of John Pilger: Palestine
Is Still the Issue.
Why
that is so may be summed up in this quote (which will be one of
many) from Shamir: "Israel/Palestine
is the model of the world Americans want to achieve. It has
peasants and their flocks dying of thirst,
and on the hilltop there are villas and swimming pools for the
chosen folk. It has a huge army and it has many labourers
without any rights. In order to turn all the
world into
Palestine
they began now World War 3
against the
Third World
."
Note
that at this point Shamir refers to the "world Americans
want to achieve". Later in his evolution Shamir would
progress to Karl Marx's definition of
America
as a "Jewish State". (6)Eventually he would expand
beyond and before the current Judea-American juggernaut to
postulate a perpetual Yisrael, excreted from the true church
seeking to set itself up on the Opposite Hill (7)and turn all
the world to darkness (that is world without God)--with only the
Chosen Folk as God and the Wild Beasts (despiritualized
goyim))as mere background noise.
Secular
World, Spiritual People
At
a dismal academic discussion I had the misfortune to be
attendant upon recently a nominal representative of religious
scholarship thru a fog of institutionally acceptable abstruse
academic discourse seemed to be suggesting to the other
roundtable members that in spite of the intellectual's dismissal
of religion the population seems determined to pursue its
promises and demands however conceived. To which the
representative "market enthusiast" of the panel
replied: of course historically religion was only one of the
"externalities" to economists. He suggested for
religion and "the humanities" generally to
bring themselves into the market. At this point a no
doubt naive and honest audience member asked the obvious
question: well what do you mean by the market? Obvious
because to this point one word, one term had been repeated
endlessly by all the panellists over all others. "The
market" (or just "Markets"). That
definition was considered unnecessary was taken as much a given
as would the term God or "The Gods" before a panel of
theologians. The anti-globalization spokesperson, Doug Henwood,
self described "Unreconstructed Marxist" jokingly
suggested in response to the religious scholars line of
questioning (8)that he would like to see a return to secular
government in the U.S. because it was in the hands of
"right wing religious nuts." To the leftist's
assignment of Christian ideology as the pervading force behind
current aggressive Americans military policy and to the general
intellectuals' rejection of religious content as anything but
"external" to reality, Shamir poses a widely divergent
alternative scenario.
End
of the World or Aberration Ending?
Commenting
on Immanuel Wallerstein’s
"The End of The World As We Know It" Shamir
writes:(9)"He came to the conclusion that a very long
period of human history has reached now an unpredictable end.
Wallerstein thinks the 'world as we know it' came into being
some 500 years ago in
Western Europe
and has come to its crescendo in the
United States of America
. It is characterized by a specific aberration of human
development called "Progress". And Shamir concludes:
"Wallerstein made a heroic effort, not altogether
successful, to describe the end of the world in materialistic
terms. I am not sure whether it is possible. Our world in
general evades such description. Moreover, I do not think it
desirable. We are conditioned to accept materialist reasoning
only, and reject explanations that defer to forces of a
different plane. It is an important part of the aberration that
people came to reject the spiritual component of the world.
Until the Aberration the very idea of a totally materialistic
world, explainable by sheer materialist laws, would have been an
oddity."
The
Mammonites...
Elsewhere
in this same piece Shamir writes: "In the beginning of the
20th century a new social and spiritual force came into being.
In an article of mine I called it "The Mammonites":
the worshippers of Mammon". Note the date Shamir gives for
its origins. Yet a few years before that another eloquent
prophetic speaker with whom I happen to have some acquaintance
was also noticing (already) this same phenomenon. Returning to
and expanding on our earlier note: "Adam Smith formally, in
the name of the philosophers of Scotland and England, set up
this opposite God on the hill of cursing against blessing, Ebal
against Gerizim and declared that all men naturally desired
their neighbours goods and that in the name of covetousness all
the nations of the earth should be blessed..." John Ruskin
urged his companions of St. George to have no concourse with
"such idolatry".
Britannia
of the Market, Goddess of Getting On
John
Ruskin was once asked to speak to the citizens of
Yorkshire
on the occasion of the building of a new "Exchange".
Ruskin spoke but declined to tell them how to build their
exchange (their purpose in inviting him) because, as he said: he
did "not care about this Exchange of yours." You see
said Ruskin: "You cannot have good architecture merely by
asking peoples advice on occasion". After giving a brief
history of styles of architecture of the past in
Europe
and the various "faiths" on which they were founded,
Ruskin then asked his audience, "what we worship and what
we build?" His answer: "the ruling Goddess may be best
generally described as the Goddess of Getting On or Britannia of
the Market". "And all your great architectural works
are, of course built to her."
It
would be convenient for my purposes if Ruskin had here or in the
previous reference to Adam Smith used the term mammonite;
or at least mammon. He does not; but we shall find it present
not infrequently I am confident in future references and these
predating its appropriation by Shamir.
...Or
The Jews
"The
short interregnum of civil society built on the ruins of the
Bastille came to its end with the establishment of the Jews as
the new Priestly caste. The alternative Church of our society,
the Jews, survived in abeyance for hundreds of years. As long as
the Christian Church attended to the discourse, the Jews plainly
had no chance to compete; but when its power was broken by
liberty-seekers, the alternative arrangement came forward."
--
Israel
Shamir, Pardes
Thus
Shamir spells out the theoretical framework whose gradual
evolution we briefly traced previously [10) He follows the
historic biblical path from Hebrew prophet calling on his people
to repentance to a new
St. Paul
calling everyone but especially the unconverted Jew to free
themselves from Yisrael.
Shamir
distinguishes between individual Jews and "The Jews".
He states: "...there is no subjective personal guilt
associated with individual Jews unless their specific actions or
inaction are criminal or sinful per se." In fact, he
states, his primary purpose is to "help an individual to
decide whether he wants to be a Jew or not, in the same way one
may choose whether one wants to be a communist or a
Quaker".
From
Prophet to Apostle
Clearly
his choice of material is selected to convince the individual to
disengage themselves from the sway of the "Judaic
tendency". To join "
St Paul
, St. Teresa, Karl Marx, Trotsky" and
Edith Stein, Alexander Men and Neta
Golan in breaking with "The Jews". In fact in
most of his recent work and short commentaries Shamir seems to
adapt a more benign Anne Coulter approach focused in another
direction. While Ms. Coulter wished to conquer the Muslims by
force and convert them to Christianity Shamir calls on the Jews
to come to church and convert themselves from the
"poisonous ideas of Judaism."(11) We will attempt to,
albeit briefly, examine just what Shamir sees as the
"poisonous ideas of Judaism" and how they have existed
historically in later sections discussing St. George's fight
with the Mammonites. The question for me at this point in regard
to Shamir's recommended stratagem is: what church does he seek
the renegades from Yisrael to enter into.
What
church/Who's God
I
don't know if Shamir is personally acquainted with the peace
activist Kathy Kelly. But I believe the type of church he would
like to bring the Jews into would include the one I heard Ms.
Kelly speak at recently. In a piece written in response to that
event I note the makeup of the crowd as "female, old and
short". Hence, the title of the article: "Little Old
Ladies for Peace". 75% of the audience were women, 90% were
old (as old or older than I am and I,
as Shamir, have been around about half a century). And I wrote):
"interestingly enough , short, as...When the audience
(incrementally the first time) began to stand for singing I
realized I could see clearly out over the entire congregation
without ever meeting anyone eye-to-eye (and I'm only a little
over six feet)!" The service honouring "the victims of
war" at which Ms Kelly was the featured speaker reminded me
of an old bible-school song from my childhood: "Jesus Loves
the Little Children". And, (again I wrote): "And
that's where the old bible-school song I remember from my
childhood came into my head. For as these people took it as
God's word and their mission to save the little children and
love the little children. George Bush and his followers (and
leaders) took it as the same God's word and their mission to
bomb the little children. And poison
the little children with uranium. And shoot them at roadblocks.
And kick in their houses. And scatter their possessions. And
strip their fathers on the roadside. And occupy their lands. And
my question was: how could these two groups of people come to
such different conclusions about the desires and requirements of
the same God. The God of George Bush and of
the Little Old Ladies for Peace.
The
God of George Bush appears to be the more prominent one in a
cursory examination of American surface reality. The
angry "anti-American" American patriot John Kaminiski
mocks this God/Church in his Easter message: "Happy Easter,
2004 everybody. Praise the Lord. And as you sit in your proper
pew this Sunday morning, blubbering out your favourite version
of He is risen, ...Americans, just
like the Israelis, are now known for killing innocent people as
they worship their God in Church. Raise your eyes to the heavens
you prize so highly. And imagine an American B-52 dropping a 500
pound bomb right on your head... splattering you and your
beloved family all over your sacred altar". Quite a
different Easter Vision of He is Risen than Shamir presents in
his description of the Holy Week activities in
Jerusalem
(12).
The
Diary of Expiring Delirium
Which
brings us back to our panel (13). And
Doug Henwood's comment on the
"right wing religious nuts leading
America
." Shamir would, I believe, see
these neo-con Christian-Zionists as a minor element in the over
-all ecclesiastical field and actually only a part of the
greater Yisrael. Shamir seems to suggest in recent works outside
as well as within Pardes that these ones can be segregated out
from Yisrael and returned to the better parts of their Christian
Heritage. (14)
"God
was a poor theologian", so said to me an "individual
Jew", Hebrew scholar, and admirer of Thomas Friedman
recently. What he meant was that the "sacred texts"
could be interpreted in many different and often antagonists
ways. (15) I don't really feel Shamir as well is at his best
when he delves into theology; though that seems to make up a
large part of Pardes.(16) It is not
my intention to follow that theological discussion in this
paper, but only to attempt to present Shamir's conceptual
understanding of the "poisonous ideas of Judaism," its
historic being and its current dominant (thus sayeth
Shamir) status. First, however I wish to examine somewhat more
John Ruskin's views on Shamir's other construct: the Mammonites.
It might be appropriate to restate at this time that where
Shamir sees the dominant false path as being the Jews, Yisrael,
Ruskin and I see the worship of Mammon generally as the dominant
false path with the "poisonous ideas of Judaism" being
only one example of the larger darkness. (17)
Saint
George and the Dragon
"We
begin today another group of ten years, not in happy
circumstances... in much bodily fear; that is to say afraid of
the Russians, afraid of the Prussians, afraid of the Americans,
afraid of the Hindoos, afraid of the
Chinese, afraid of the Japanese, afraid of the New Zealanders,
and afraid of the Kaffirs: and very justly so, being conscious
that our only real desire respecting any of these nations has
been to get as much out of them as we could." Thus John
Ruskin began his long series of letters known as Fors
Clavigera. (Can we
say that anything has changed in the 130 some years since then?)
I use Fors
as the main source for presenting some understanding of Ruskin's
views on Mammon because it is the most convenient for me; though
we will probably reach other works as well in our search for an
understanding of the enemy (18)
We
have here the essence of the matter right in the beginning.
Ruskin elaborates: They have no right to complain of us,
notwithstanding, since we have lately, lived ourselves in the
daily endeavour to get as much out of our neighbours and friends
as we could and having by this means, indeed, got a good deal
out of each other, and put nothing into each other, the actually
obtained result, this day, is a state of emptiness in purse and stomach
."
To
respond to this circumstance Ruskin proposed the
St. George's
Guild. An effort to (ultimately) create a
national store instead of a national debt. But in the
meantime to "do good work whether you live or die" and
to engage in a series of philanthropic, educational and
agricultural acts consistent with his vision of what was
necessary in
St. George's
war with the Dragon; the "very real" symbol of
malignant forces elsewhere described as Mammon. And our treasure
hunt has yielded a fortunate end because on the 325th page of
volume one of Fors
(19) I find: "..if pious people
would understand… that, if there be indeed any other God than
Mammon, He likes to see people comfortable and nicely dressed,
as much as Mammon likes to see them fasting and in
rags..".. In the preceding paragraph Mammon is described as
the "nativity of an adverse god." And we are fortunate
to have found this reference to Mammon so soon because, as
Ruskin interprets Victor Carpaccio
"...the real difficulty in dragon-fights… is not so much
to kill your dragon, as to see him; at lest to see him in time,
it being too probable that he will see you first."
Ruskin
was less optimistic than Shamir on the possibilities of
"orthodox" religion; the existing church providing an
alternative. In volume two; he writes: "after experience of
no fewer than one thousand fives hundred sermons, most of them
by scholars and many of them by earnest men… I now solemnly
state I never heard one preacher deal faithfully with the
quarrel between God and Mammon, or explain the need of choice
between the service of those two
masters. And all vices are indeed summed, and all their forces
consummated, in that simple acceptance of the authority of gold
instead of the authority of God; and preference of gain, or the
increase of gold, to Godliness, or the peace of God."
St
George In
Palestine
I
am ashamed to say that I just recently discovered (20) that
St. George 's
remains reside in
Palestine
. If this is so, the Palestinians are sure to win with
St. George's
help; though our 19th century master of his guild (21) would be
more likely to cite the reason Shamir gives in "The Green
Rain of Yassouf".
"The
Palestinians can't imagine themselves without the land and its
unique way of life. Thousands of years ago, after the Great
Mycenaean Drought was over, their ancestors formed a symbiosis
with the olive, and the vine and the donkey and small mountain
spring and their shrines on the hilltops. This single complex of
the landscape, the people and the Divine spirit was the great
achievement of Palestinians..." Hence the
Palestinians are bound to win because,
the story of Solomon's (or Sheikh Abu Zarad's)
judgment is "but a parable of Divine judgment".
The
death of a Palestinian normally occasions no notice in the U.S.
unless they contrive to take an Israeli Jew with them in the
process (22) The relatively recent death of an American in
Palestine did not receive much better results; but on the
fringes of opinion outside the two party matrix some individuals
perhaps with some personal stakes in the matter did notice and
do try to keep alive the memory of Rachel Corrie. Shamir wrote
an article about her, "The Maid and the Ogre" --and I
happened recently to have had some contacts with someone who was
there at the time and who as part of his pathway to peace spends
considerable amount of his time speaking to Americans about
Rachel's death and the situation in Palestine/Israel. I attended
one of his presentations recently and he described the
occupation of
Palestine
as a
U.S.
occupation. His perspective was the exact opposite of Shamir's.
(23)
Greater
Israel
/Historic Yisrael
Many
commentators have noted the plans for a greater
Israel
laid out rather explicitly by an Israeli strategist sometime
before the invasion of
Iraq
. That invasion being one of the steps to
the remaking of the map of the
Middle East
in the interests of an expanded Israeli
"
Security
State
". For Shamir this is only one
incident in the dreamed implementation of historic Yisrael. A
force that has come close to extinction on more than one occasion,
remained "in abeyance" now upon the ruins of the
"failed revolution of 1968" manifesting itself in the
"Rise of the Jew's to positions of near dictatorial
prominence in several key areas: media, finance, government. At
the very least to a degree of influence altogether inconsistent
with their numbers. To speak of such things was evidently
offensive to Rachel Corries friend (and many others) as he
quickly dismissed as unsavoury my attempt to broach the issue
(24). Shamir anticipates that response and so quotes prominent
Jewish officials themselves such as Stephen Steinlight
(25): "Our present privilege, success and power," says
Steinlight must be maintained. He (Steinlight)
suggests using "The Jewish power disproportionately
concentrated in
Hollywood
, TV and news industry" to that purpose. Of course the
present power, success and privilege of the Jews is amply
documented even though it remains the "elephant in the
living room" to the general American and (to a lesser
extent) European public. What is more contentious is Shamir's
historic analysis of the "poisonous influence of the
Jews" as presented in Pardes.
"Touched
by God, forged by his Covenant,
Israel
was a super-reality in the pre-Christian world. With the coming
of Christ, this super-soul experienced catharsis and its bigger
and better part was baptized into the super-soul of the Church.
But the excreted part did not die. It remained partly in the
spiritual world, partly in the material world" "It
vaguely remembers what it was chosen for and tries to act, but
without Christ, its efforts (Call it Yisrael)
create mischief. From the Christian point of view, Yisrael is in
the state of rebellion against God..." The "sacred
texts" of Yisrael were established after the time of Christ
and as a response to Christ. The church for some time did not
understand this and thought in "The Jews" they were
still dealing with the prophetic Judaism but eventually
understood and various church leaders warned against the dangers
of the "Judaic tendency". Shamir sites multiple
historic examples where Yisrael almost disappeared (through
persecution, assimilation in the church, or intermarriage)--but
with the establishment of the tangible fact on the ground of
Israel the modern nation state and especially with "rise of
the Jews" since the "failed revolution of 1968"
organized Jewry (Yisrael) the church of the chosen folk has
risen to new heights of danger and possibility. "Yisrael
wants to profane the world--save
Jerusalem
. The Jews want to re-enact
on the global scale the feat of King Josiah, who destroyed every
holy place in the country in order to establish uniqueness of
the Jerusalem Temple." Shamir quotes Simone
Weil: "If the Jews of
their better days were to come back to life and be armed, they
would exterminate all of us…" "It is
commonplace that the Jews wish to dominate the world. But they
do not seek the dominion of a King, but that of a church, in the
very end a theocratic church-state. The Jews do not want to
convert Gentiles ...for Jews, it is
as easy as for a cat to become a man as for a Goy to become a
Jew. The demands of the Jewish church on its Gentile laity are
not very strenuous, they may do what they want they may amass
riches and power, provided they give up their soul... "In
the Jewish universe, the Gentile should submit to the
Jews."
For
Shamir (In Pardes at least) Mammon is just a sort of 2nd Class
Judaism For Gentiles. "Mammon is
the Gentile turned face of Yisrael". "It’s a Judaic
attitude for the model relationship outside of the Jewish
community, developed for dealing with the Goyim." "In
plain words, neo-liberalism
is a Godless Judaism."
Ordinary
Jews don't necessarily "...understand the plans of Yisrael.
They are obedient--and this is sufficient." What are the
"plans of Yisrael?"
"In
short, Yisrael like
Israel
before her wants to unite the world under her spiritual
guidance. The
Temple
of the God of Israel is to be located in
Jerusalem
, the center of this Jewish-ordered
universe and all Nations will bring tribute to it. The Nations
will worship God by serving Yisrael."
"In
1962, Look
magazine invited the founder of the Jewish state David
Ben-Gurion to picture the world 25 years into the future. He (mis)-predicted
that World Government would already be in place by 1987, with
the Supreme Court for Mankind (the higher ecclesiastic body) to
be established in Jerusalem, as well as a shrine there,
commemorating the Jewish role in the bringing together of
mankind."
The
Jewish Theologian Saadiya Grama
sums the larger theoretical (racist) explanation for why this
can and must be: "The difference between the people of
Israel
and the nations of the world is an essential one. The Jew by his
source and in his very essence is entirely good. The goy, by his
source and in his very essence is completely evil. This is not
simply a matter of religious distinction, but rather of two
completely different species". (26)
The
Two Paths
For
Shamir
,
Israel
Adam Shamir, of the Pardes, these are the 2 paths: the path of
the
church
of
God
in Christ and the path of Yisrael, the
church
of
No God
by itself. His path to this view importantly runs thru his
conversion which I spoke of early. Here is Shamir's own
description of this (I believe) clearly defining personal event:
I
would like to share with you my elation: today, on
Tuesday, 8 October 2002
, ... I was received into the
Mother
Church
of the
Holy Land
, and became a Palestinian Christian. The baptism was a happy,
joyous and festive occasion, and it took place in the wonderful
ancient cathedral of Mar Yakoub, the
old see of St James, the brother of Lord and the first Bishop of
Jerusalem. It is adjacent to the
Golgotha
and to the great
Church
of
Resurrection
, and it is the home church of local Arab-speaking Palestinian
community. I was baptized in the old deep octagonal Byzantine
font so many saints and bishops of the
Holy
City
were baptized in. My skin still feels the touch of olive oil and
myrrh, soft, supple, fragrant. I was anointed before the full
immersion, and the water in the font also felt like precious
olive oil, this main substance of the
Holy Land
. I was brought into the church by the Archimandrite Attalla
Hanna, Father Theodosius, the highest-ranking native Palestinian
priest of the
Mother
Church
, who was released from his captivity. Instead of
Israel
, the father of Jews, I was given the name of Adam, the father
of all men. It was
midday
when I stepped out into the atrium, feeling like a groom in his
wedding day, and was met by the bells of the Holy Redeemer. It
reminded me of this dream of Theodore Herzl, to bring the Jews
into Church on
midday
with all bells a-ringing. The monks and parish folk blessed me 'mabruk'
and indeed I feel myself much blessed to join my Palestinian
brothers and sisters in their church. I share my witness with
you, and make it known to my brothers the Jews: there is no joy
greater than to be in communion with God and with the people of
the land. Now, I can repeat after John, 'for the Law was given
through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ'.
For
John Ruskin and myself; the two paths are the word of God and
the way of Mammon.(27) A Fors
correspondent describes the incarnation of Mammon in Ruskin's
time:
"It
is no use to be more polite, if we are less honest. No use to
treat women with more respect outwardly,
and with more shameless, brutal systematic degradations
secretly. Worse than no use to build hospitals, and kill people
to put into them; and churches, and insult God by pretending to
worship Him. Oh dear! what is it all
coming to? Are we going like
Rome
, like
France
, like
Greece
, or is there time to stop? Can St. George fight such a Dragon?
You know I am a coward, and it does frighten me. Of course I
don't mean to run away, but is God on our side? Why does He not
arise and scatter His enemies? If you could see what I see here!
This used to be quite a peaceful little country village; now the
chemical manufacturers have built works, a crowd of them, along
the river...The place where this hideous colony has planted
itself is, I am sure the ugliest, most loathsome spot on the
earth."
"The
works themselves, with their chimneys and building make up the
most horrible picture of progress you can imagine. The land, now
every blade of grass and every tree is dead... There is a forest
of chimneys visible, to make up I suppose for the trees that are
dying. We can hardly ever now see the farther bank of our river
that used to be so pretty, for the thick smoke that hangs over
it. And worse than all, the very air poisoned with their gases.
Often the vilest smells fill the house.
It
nearly maddens me to see the trees, the poor trees, standing
bare and naked, or slowly dying, the top branches dead, the few
leaves withered and limp. The other evening I went to a farm
that used to be (how sad that used to be sounds) so pretty,
surrounded by woods. Now half the trees are dead, and they are
cutting down the rest as fast as possible, so that they can at
least make use of the wood. The gas makes them useless."
"...I came away wondering, if this goes on, what will
become of
England
. The tide is so strong--they will try to make money, at any
price. And it is no use trying to remedy one evil, or another,
unless the root is rooted out, is it?--the love of money."
(28)
Ruskin's
"sermon" in reply was on the 14th psalm: "...the
fourth verse of the Psalm declares that all the workers of
iniquity eat up Gods people as they eat bread. Which
appears to me a very serious state of things, and to be put an
end to, if possible...."
Yet
here again Ruskin finds a different assessment of the capacity
of the "orthodox" church to differentiate:
"...but evangelical persons conclude thereupon that the
works of iniquity and the Lord's people are one and the same.
Nor have I ever heard in the course of my life any single
evangelical clergyman so much as put the practical inquiry: Who
is eating and who is being eaten?"
"Again
the first verse of the Psalm declares that the fool hath said in
his heart there is no God; but the sixth verse declares; of the
poor that he not only knows there is a God, but finds him to be
a refuge. Whereupon evangelical persons conclude that the fool
and the poor mean the same people; and make all the haste they
can to be rich. Putting them and their interpretations out of
our way the Psalm becomes entirely explicit. There have been in
all ages children of God and of man; the one born of the Sprit
and obeying it; the other born of the flesh and obeying it.
(29)I don't know how that entirely unintelligible sentence
"There were they in great fear" got into our English
Psalm; in both the Greek and Latin versions it is: "God
hath broken the bones of those that please men". And it is
here said of the entire body of the children of men, at a
particular time, that they had at that time all gone astray
beyond hope; that none were left who so much as sought God, much
less who were likely to find Him; and that these wretches and
vagabonds were eating up Gods own people as they ate bread.
Which has indeed been generally so in all ages; but beyond all
recorded history is so in ours. Just and godly people can't
live; and every clever rogue and industrious fool is making his
fortune out of them, and producing abominable works of all
sorts...material gasometers,
furnaces, chemical works...with spiritual lies ...unheard of
till now in Christendom."
Make
no mistake it is "the Mammon devil" that is the source
of this mischief for when he "gets his bellow put in men's'
ears" (30) the ear is deafened with its own murmuring till:
"He that stoppeth his ears at
the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself and shall not be
heard."
Ruskin
and Shamir are in agreement on the inadvisability of eliminating
the spiritual from our analysis of the world: "Now,
whatever chemical or anatomical facts may appear to our present
scientific intelligences, inconsistent with the Life of God, the
historical fact is that no happiness nor power has ever been
attained by human creatures unless in that thirst for that
presence of a divine King and that nothing but weakness, misery
and death have ever resulted from the desire to destroy their
King and to have thieves and murders released to them
instead."
"And
now--but one word more--either for you, or any other readers who
may be startled at what I have been saying as to the peculiar
stress laid by the Founder of our religion on right dealing with
wealth. Let them be assured that it is with no fortuitous choice
among the attributes or powers of evil that "Mammon"
is assigned for the direct adversary of the Master whom they are
bound to serve. You cannot, by any artifice of reconciliation be
Gods solider and his. Nor while the desire of gain is within
your heart, can any true knowledge of the
Kingdom
of
God
come there."(31)
Ruskin
learned about Mammon from his master, Thomas Carlyle: "Oh
it is frightful when a whole Nation… has forgotten God, has
remembered only Mammon and what Mammon leads to."
"Laissez-faire, supply and demand--one begins to be weary
of all that. Leave all to egoism, to ravenous greed of money, of
pleasure, of applause--it is the Gospel of Despair. Man is a
Patent-Digester then; only give him Free Trade, Free digesting
room; and each of us digest what he can come at, leaving the
rest to Fate. My unhappy brethren of the working Mammon, my
unhappier brethren of the Idle Dilettantism, no world was ever
held together in that way for long." "…truly it is
beautiful to see the brutish empire of Mammon cracking
everywhere; giving sure promise of dying, or of being
changed."(32)
Why
spend so much time on an obscure Englishman that no living
persons besides myself probably cares
about? Well, Shamir acknowledges Tolstoy. (33) Therefore, we
will let Tolstoy answer: ""Ruskin was one of the most
remarkable men, not only of England and our time, but of all
countries and all time; he was one of those rare men who think
with their hearts …and so he thought and said not only what he
himself had seen and felt, but what everyone will think and say
in future."
Tolstoy
thought so, also; Ghandi, and Berdyaev,
William Morris and Burne-Jones and (20 some odd years after
Ruskin's death) the members of the British parliament who in
their annual survey voted Ruskin the most influence individual
on their own lives.
So
as Ruskin's words are as true today as yesterday; so Mammon is
as virulent an opponent, a false path "strewn with leaves
of another kind" today as ever. The individual actors (such
as "the Jews"…) come and go but the "Powers and
Principalities" remain the same.
It
is not only in defining the "false path" that I
disagree with the Shamir of Pardes. On the true path, I tend
more to Tolstoy's (and Ruskin's )
(34)definition of the Church than Shamir’s more
"orthodox" or mainstream one. "Only deeds of
truth, by introducing light into the conscience of each
individual can dissolve the cohesion of error and detach men one
by one from the mass united together by the cohesion of error.
This work has been going on for 1800 years. It began when
Christ's commands were first given to Humanity and it will not
cease till, As Christ said, all things be accomplished. The
Church composed of those that sought to unite men in unity by
the solemn affirmation that it alone was the truth, has long
since fallen into decay. But the church composed of men united
not by promises or consecrations but by deeds of truth and love,
has always lived and will live forever. "
-Tolstoy
I
must admit I miss Israel Shamir the wonderful Hebrew Prophet and
care not so much for the rather ordinary occasional and
uninspiring proclamations of Adam Shamir the orthodox Christian
evangelical. I hope again for some more lovely Galilee
Flowers along my own path. But I don't begrudge
him his own perspective much less his own happiness in the
"Peace that passeth all
understanding." As I wrote in my own Easter message two
years ago: "It’s not a matter of politics. .... It’s
really quite simple: Anyone who opposes (
U.S.
permanent war) must work together with everyone else who also
opposes no matter how much ideological or personal disagreement
may exist. The other side is united and monolithic. One mantra
blared thru speakers of TV and newspapers and government
briefings. If any of us survive we can work out our differences
then."(35)
There
are many individual ways to that dominant fork in the road.
There is room equally for the "anti-semite" Shamir and
the anti-communist Lew Rockwell. For
the lamenting patriot Diane Harvey and, the "Anti
American" American John Kaminiski ....
For the New Age Jean Hudson and the civil
servant Scott Ritter. For the Indian
Goddess Ahrundhati Roy standing in
the way of the rivers of water of Mammon's making and the
Argentinean women banging their pans in the street. For
the Palestinian and Iraqi resistance, the true religious person
of any faith, the Great Concourse of the Dead, and certainly
for: : "the rural people whose huts they pillage, whose
farms they ravage and over whose art they reign (who) must still
be diligently silently and with no time for lamentation,
ploughing, sowing, cattlebreeding.
Else how could Frank or Hun, Visigoth or Roman live for a month
or fight for a day". (36) For: "The two ignored
powers, the
Providence
of Heaven, and the virtue of man--have ruled and rule the world,
not invisibly, and they are the only powers of which history has
ever to tell any profitable truth. Under all sorrow there is the
force of virtue; over all ruin, the restoring charity of God, to
these alone we have to look, in these alone we may understand,
the past and predict the future destiny of the ages." (37)
notes:
1.
At his inauguration.
2.
Really since his "conversion" or the full effects of
it manifest.
3.
Sometimes listed as The Pardes, alternatively as Pardes: an
etude in cabbala It
is available from the author – just write to Shamir@home.se
with subject Pardes.
4.
Not unlike that of Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman) after his
similar experience in the 1980s. I owe this suggestion to my son
Lee Allen.
5.
"Think of it as the Israelization
of America. With the
U.S.
A....as
Israel
. And the rest of the world as
Palestine
" (Sealing the Crack in History).
6.
"Marx concluded: 'The practical domination of Jewish spirit
over the Christian world has achieved in
North America
its unambiguous complete expression."--Israel Shamir
quoting Karl Marx in "Cornerstone of Violence"
7.
"...Adam Smith formally in the name of the philosophers of
Scotland
and
England
, set up the opposite God, on the hill of cursing against
blessing, Ebal against Gerizim..."--John Ruskin, Fors
Clavigera
8.
Religious Scholar was attempting to suggest globalization as a
form of secularization.
9.
In
"Apocalypse Now".
10.
See section
Israel
/
Palestine
; final paragraph.
11.
It is interesting to note that while Ms. Coulter's violent views
receive best seller status in the west; Shamir’s books are
banned or forced to marginal publishers--perhaps he could try a
blonde wig and mini-dress.
12.
Three incredible days passed in
Jerusalem
. On Friday night, burial processions carried out the shroud of
the Lord from the small ancient
church
of
St James
into the parvis of the Holy
Sepulchre. Yesterday, tens of thousands of native Christians and
pilgrims flocked into the great edifice of the Holy Sepulchre to
celebrate the annual but always new and surprising miracle of
Holy Fire coming of the Tomb of Christ. It is a beautiful and
colourful feast, when processions of various denominations march
in and out, while young Syrian and Armenian boys throw wild and
inspiring dances.... And with sunrise on Easter Sunday came a
beautiful day, a day of new hope and new promise
13.
The panel in general being in the sum of their speech a prime
example of the title of this section borrowed from Ruskin.
14.
One of the more curious things to me is how Shamir seems to
place great positive value on the Mel Gibson film as returning
(perhaps these) Christian -Zionists to "the church".
15
As the little old ladies for peace vs. George Bush above.
16.In
his second "book" collection (unpublished but
available on the internet: Our Lady of Sorrows)--Shamir actually
tears apart some of his earlier works to inject additional
theological comment which I feel is a direct consequence of his
conversion, and do not feel adds to but rather detracts from the
quality of the work.
17.Ruskin
himself barely mentions the Jews; obviously because as Shamir
would be the first to point out the "Rise of the Jews"
is a recent phenomena.
18.
It may prove something of a treasure hunt to see if that term
actually is used anywhere.
19.
What I suppose is a quite unusual modern printing from the same
year curiously as the "failed revolution of 1968".
20.
I can't off hand find the reference to confirm this.
21.
Sometimes himself referred to as
Saint Crumpet.
22.
See "If Americans Knew" website for comparison of
coverage of Israeli and Palestinian deaths in U.S. Press.
23.
For my part I tried to argue Shamir's perspective as I felt the
"
U.S.
imperialism" analysis given to be too far in the opposite
direction from reality.
24.
And (of course) anti-Semitic--worse "Conspiracy"
focused.
25.
This in "The Sparrow and the Beetle" from
Galilee
Flowers.
26.
Quoted by Shamir in Pardes
27.
Of course Yisrael was in "abeyance", to use Shamir's
phrase at this time, yet no one is a more thorough and
knowledgeable historian of classical and Christian i.e. European
history and basically "the Jews" do not enter into
Ruskin's analysis there either.
28.
Fors Clavigera
volume two Sept. 18/ 1873
29.
Here Shamir and Ruskin are in agreement.
30.
Comment here on Holbeins Dance of
Death.
31.
Time and Tide, John Ruskin.
32.
Past and Present, Thomas Carlyle.
33."..the
tragedy of Leo Tolstoy's last days."--Pardes.
34.
Ruskin expressed a similar view tho,
by fors appointment no doubt, I
can't find it at the moment it. It will have to be trusted to my
assertion that it does exist.
35.
Palestine
and Beyond, Apr. 2002.
36.
John Ruskin.
37.
John Ruskin.