Why ‘Real’ Judaism?

Some may be offended by the term ‘Real Judaism’. Surely each individual’s ‘Judaism’ is fine for him? True – except that his version cannot be judicially proven beyond reasonable doubt; proven almost absolutely by the irrefutable Law of Probability; proven by unbroken human direct testimony the probity of which is, again, absolutely proven by your own family, documentary, and archaeological facts and other inevitable evidence that even a lawyer must accept – if he is paid enough – (my bill is on the post.) 

But your version - and that of 12 million other noble secular Jews – has it has a fatal sting in its tail. It answers as many of life’s questions as any other ‘faith’. That is none.

Real Judaism is – as we prove to the court from only non-Jewish, hard, unambiguous evidence - not a faith at all. Non-religiously, without a scintilla of blind or any other faith – it is an historical fact going back and including its inception. It is the rational way of life of the educated, vibrant, contented observant Jews who are deeply knowledgeable about Judaism and every aspect of Life. The centre of their world is scintillating logic, scrutiny and knowledge. This is based on their daily immersion in the encyclopaedic, 1.8 million word text which was hidden from you – the ultimate decryption of the Old Testament – the Aramaic Talmud.

Real Judaism survives everything. It is regenerative. That is the central point. It endures and makes the individual endure. People are at one with their great-grandchildren – there is no generation gap. This is the secret of Judaism which has been concealed from you through ignorance and prejudice.

Yes, ‘Real Judaism’ is a strange phrase. But I use it to highlight the deathly ‘Plastic Judaism’ which has destroyed 90% of us. Below, I gently eradicate the misconception that this ‘plastic’ version - limply bequeathed to you - is the real thing and authentic. It simply is not. 

Sorry, to be so blunt. It is self-destructive. Usually, its grandchildren abandon their vague heritage. However, I never would dream of criticism of the wonderful, decent, honest secular Jews who follow Plastic Judaism. There are no plastic Jews, Heaven forbid. They have been given no alternative. They have been disenfranchised. This book is meant to re-empower them – if they wish.

We will speak in terms of the impossibility, inexplicability, plausibility, probability, believability and a few other ‘…bilities’ of Real Judaism. There are real consequences from the disturbing fact that the unbending Law of Probability alone, as you will discover to your horror, makes its veracity beyond any mathematical doubt – or, if you insist – merely inexplicably inexplicable, as you will learn. 

We must consider those implications very seriously in this judicial examination. The court first must scrutinise this phenomenon which we have discovered. And those suspicious, black-clothed, bearded, inward-looking, fundamentalist madmen who follow Real Judaism really do engage in other things besides business, having thick accents, business, praying, business, ritual, business, consuming chicken-soup, business and chomping bagels, as the world presumes. They are given a vast, panoramic and harmonic view of Life and all its vicissitudes. They are taught to question everything skeptically and scrutinise the answers. From childhood, their brains are honed and stretched in the most difficult academic arena imaginable.12 Why is the world so unfathomably painful? How do you face the worst and darkest tragedies? Why are we here? Can you establish Judaism based on cold logic, strict reason and judicial probity? Can you prove the Deity exists? Is the Torah genuine and true? Can you prove secularism is self-defeating? Can you prove atheism is pure faith?

But the ignorance of this your own and only heritage has cost you dear and thrust him into the empty turmoil of 21st-century ‘life’.