For All Of Us

Just a couple things so I can lay my head down. The pain and heartbreak and terror of too many people I love is so palpable it’s keeping me up.

I’m a Christian and here’s not-a-newsflash about this Christ guy.

Whatever Jesus/Jeshua/Yeshua was or wasn’t, he was DEFINITELY and unequivocally a Jew. Deeply. Reverently. He lived his Jewishness way out loud. Sure, he pissed off some members of the Sanhedrin with his sometimes scandalous ways of living his Jewish life and newfangled ways of interpreting scripture, but he was a Jew, through and through. Went to all the parties, read the scrolls in the temple, said all the prayers, observed Jewish rules and tradition with his food and his hygiene…all of it, sometimes joyfully, sometimes solemnly, usually vigorously…he practiced his faith in whatever manner the moment called for in order to best serve what he needed to get across. He was so Jewish that his Roman torturers mocked him with nothing less than a mean-spirited extra kick in the crotch by posting a “King of the Jews (neener neener)” sign over his head while they killed him. So to be a Christian and not claim a Jewish inheritance and shared rich socio-religious-cultural history is just absurd crazy talk. Sorry bigots.

And also, as my Muslims out there know, the Qur’an honors that same Jewish Jesus, yep Jewish Jewish Jesus, as a highly revered prophet. And not only that, this sacred text also honors his mother…his JEWISH mother. A woman!!! Mary. Or Miriam if you prefer. It’s anecdotally said that she gets more attention in the Qu’ran than she does in the New Testament, but I’d have to fact check that to be sure. Point is, to read the Qu’ran is to read about Jesus and Mary and what importance they hold within Islam, these Jewish Jewish Jews. Therefore, we don’t get to call ourselves Christians or Muslims without embracing Jewishness as our heritage, woven into who we are. We can’t even tease our ancestry apart (send your DNA out for analysis and just see what comes back). We’re bound together.

I’m not saying all this to try and simplify or trivialize the literal hell going on in The Holy Land, or to pretend that I can wrap my head around the depth and endless facets of the conflict, or the intensity of the vile, atrocious hatred that’s slaughtering innocents by the thousands. I’m saying it so that my Jews and my Christians and my Muslims and any of you otherwise-affiliated or non-affiliated ones who walk in the Light know that I’m with you. Threats of violence against Jews worldwide is a threat to my people, and likely yours. And it’s utterly irrational. It’s an invented hatred spawning wars that benefit filthy rich overlords we’ll likely never even know the names of, and who could most assuredly buy and sell each one of us many times over. Trying to wrap your mind around anti-semitism is like trying to understand what makes a Nazi a Nazi. Knowing the inextricable link amongst all of us makes this hatred and violence and amorphous ancient grudgery create a Mobius strip in my head.

But that’s the intention of evil. Hatred and violence doesn’t need to make sense when it’s being fomented by evil for evil’s sake. And we’ve got to fight it because it’s here and it’s real. Deep, dark forces that keep to the shadows are rubbing their hands together with glee at the murderous chaos they're causing in the name of a Force none of us have a monopoly on. The Force is the Something that truly loves AND likes us all the same, no matter where we live, who we were born to, or what land we think is ours. The ones in the dark are thrilled with the monsters they're creating and the violent death they're inspiring. It feeds them, can't you see? Without us killing and torturing each other so effectively, this darkness would shrivel up and die, because we'd have starved it. Consult the logical part of your brain, link it to your heart, and KNOW that.

So to all of you living in this heartbreak and fear, Jews that have been my sisters and brothers since we were kids, and those who’ve come into my life wherever and how ever, I’m sending love and compassion and hoping it somehow miraculously helps. And now I’ll sleep, maybe.

And I Love you.