TWO DIFFERENT LIFE PERSPECTIVES

Although various ethnic groups live in the most disputed land today, formerly called Palestine as we saw in another article, the entire conflict there boils down to two main groups: Jews and nationalist Arabs. Among the former, we find practitioners of religious Judaism or not, as well as total support from other ethnic groups, including Muslim or non-Muslim Arabs; while the latter is limited to Islamist Arabs who increasingly become Jihadists.

And although in another series we will address the history and differences between Muslims and Islamists, here we will only say that the former seeks to submit to Allah for protection in everything, while the latter seeks to protect everything related to Allah themselves. Meanwhile, Jihadists are those who aim for a union of all Muslims for a “holy war” (where terrorism is their main weapon) in the name of Allah, against the rest of the world to subject them to their religion.

From this context, we will take a look at the Jewish perspective mainly to establish the necessary differences that will allow us to more easily understand the two perspectives of life (Jewish and Islamist), and in turn understand many of the things that happen in that region, thereby better classifying and not allowing ourselves to be manipulated by the complex news arsenal of these times in which we live, where there is not only a lot of authentic or false information, but in most cases, an added and also biased interpretation from the same source.

For example, when we analyze the festival of Purim, we see that it is celebrated on the 14th of Adar. However, the text tells us that it was on the 13th of Adar that the Jews’ victory over all those who wanted to kill them in the times of Queen Esther occurred. Why is it celebrated on the 14th and not the 13th? Simple, because death and wars are not worthy of celebration. The 13th of Adar is a fast, because it is the highest expression of love for one’s neighbor, where the right thing to do is to forgo personal food, the most basic human need, to give it to the needy, as well as lamenting to the extreme the fact of having had to kill to survive. So, what is celebrated on the 14th? The return to peaceful life, the joy when there are no longer any dangers. Unfortunately, one had to go through the 13th to reach the 14th, but that 13th is not celebrated because it is rather mourning for the enemies, a desire to do the opposite by serving one’s neighbor.

Something similar happens with the festival of Hanukkah, the days before which were the war against the army and occupation of Antiochus IV, requiring the killing of thousands of his soldiers. However, those military victories, which were produced by God, are not celebrated, but the miracle of the temple Menorah that remained lit for the eight days needed to prepare more oil is celebrated.

Any other culture would have taken advantage of any of those dates to at least hold a military parade, the world is full of examples, but the people of Israel learned through the biblical text itself that the unpleasant act of having to kill, even when it was completely necessary to save lives and subsequently brought very good things, should not be celebrated in itself. It should be learned from but not celebrated.

If you look at Scripture, God never exalts or details the bad things, neither about someone nor about a specific event. For example, why did the flood come? The text says: “The earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.” (Gen 6:11). He does not give details to explain, He just says “it was corrupt” and “filled with violence.” And even when He gives details about someone specific or a community that is sentenced, and later we access more information through parallel historians or archaeological finds, we realize that the text given by God tells us perhaps the least negative value about that person or community. It is as if the Lord said: “You just need to know that My judgment is true, but I will not give you more details because so much unpleasant information can corrupt your behavior, and even I Myself do not find it pleasant or delightful to describe the details.” Neither for God nor His people is it pleasant to have to kill anyone, much less to recount the details of how it was done in a way that enjoys the act itself. And even when God gives some detail, you can be sure that much, much more happened, and He is only telling what is necessary to tell, whether to teach or to warn.

God taught the people of Israel through Scripture to enjoy positive things that truly contribute because they enrich life, fill it with virtue, hope, and good challenges. Having to kill someone is a situation that some must go through, but to desire it, enjoy it, or recount its details with pride is something to be avoided always, because it can make us cross the fine line that separates killing from murder, which God explicitly condemns in His Word, and also corrupt the future of those around us, transforming them into what we might most reject.

Something similar happens with vengeance. Everyone thinks of revenge, and some even expect God to take revenge for them and spend their whole lives waiting for that vengeance. And some, when the slightest bad thing happens to the other person, immediately start to assume that it is the wrath of God on them for doing wrong, and in a very subtle and sometimes shameless way, they even celebrate or make their opinion public as if they knew the mind of God. However, the Lord taught the people of Israel that He is the one who takes vengeance because only He, being the eternal and perfect God, can assume the effects that act has. He is the only one who can do something like that without suffering anything negative from such a disastrous situation. But how will that terrible vengeance of the Lord be? Scripture says: “YHVH, God of vengeance, God of vengeance, show yourself.” (Ps 94:1). That is, the mere divine presence is enough to produce vengeance. The person upon whom the divine sentence falls has fought against Him and in their eagerness has even faced His children, but when the Lord shows Himself in His Light, that will be enough to cast them down like Saul on the way to Damascus. Only God, in His omniscience, will know whether to show Himself for salvation or for eternal sentence. Then God’s people have learned that one does not kill for revenge, one does not kill out of anger, one does not kill for enjoyment; all of that falls into the range of murder. Instead, when killing is necessary, it is to eliminate an enemy who has shown that their very existence is conditioned and focused on destroying them. There is no way to save lives and keep walking if this act is not done. Therefore, even in prayer and cry to God when going through such a situation, it is to ask for His vengeance, for Him to show Himself to them, and for what only God in His omniscience knows to be best to happen.

So, when you watch the news about what is happening and see a group that does completely the opposite of the above, whether because it is what their leaders say or because it is the best they know how to do, who are capable of massacring with all the hatred possible, including newborn children who are dismembered and left to die slowly, who are capable of killing parents in front of their children and children in front of their parents, and of doing every incredible thing there is, which, as I have explained above, I should not recount further. They record and publish videos of everything for people to see what they do. When you see a son calling his father to tell him how many people he has managed to kill and the father, proud of his son, encourages him to do more. When they take the victim’s mobile phone and go live so that their relatives can see what they are doing to their family members. And in addition to this, thousands doing the same thing at that very moment. Then you realize that something at the root of them is wrong. It is not the degenerate behavior of someone who has reached their climax, it is something ingrained in that group in the essence of their worldview and life paradigms, something different and completely misguided that has made them believe that this is the right thing, and they articulate their whole being in that function.

So, when you see a group that celebrates life, tries to focus more on it and its repercussions. And you see the other group more focused on the importance of dying to enjoy heavenly pleasures, which in the end are not even different from what many of them enjoy here on earth. Then it is not very difficult to understand that the perspectives on life are very different and even antagonistic. One of the groups is interested in life before death being an expression of the abundance that will be in eternity, while the other wants to die quickly and have a merit of revenge or struggle that allows them to enjoy in eternity what they could not enjoy temporarily before death.

I think the facts do not merit much analysis. If the person who has this evidence before them is not able to differentiate between one group and the other, perhaps their worldview and perspective on life do not differ much from the group that is wrong, even if they disguise it with a humanistic costume, even if they disguise it with apparently just words. The reality of their heart and actions has nothing to do with what their mouth expresses.

Final

Author: Dr. Liber Aguiar