God's chosenness of the Jews. Chosen people? No more favorites

June 20, 2017

The question: why are Jews the chosen people of God arises among people for two reasons - from a lack of understanding of what it means to be chosen and because of envy. Others, who do not have such questions, simply do not pay attention to why God chose the Jews to be His people. If he chose, then it’s necessary, He knows best.

Envy gave rise to hatred, as evidenced by history, when for two millennia, pretenders to God's chosen people - Christians and Islam - forced Jews, on pain of death, to accept their religion.

Such facts show how difficult it is to be chosen when, because of your chosenness by God, you are destroyed as an enemy of humanity.

What does chosen mean?

The best, the most outstanding, the most selected. Library of Selected Writers. Selected Society. Selected circle of people.

(Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov)

What was special about Abraham? He was the first Jew to be chosen.

1 And Yahweh said to Abram, Get thee out of your land, from your kindred, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.

2 And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

3 And I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse; and all the families of the earth will be blessed by you.

(Bereishit 12)

Already in these verses we see why Abraham was chosen. Abraham was originally named Abram. This name meant father of a strong people . When the treaty was concluded with Abram, his name was changed to Abraham - father of a great people.

Abraham had no children. His new name reminded him of his oath to God. After going through great trials, Abraham gave birth to Isaac.

Why does the Tanakh tell such a long genealogy? This genealogy from Abraham pointed to his promised son, the Messiah. It is through him that the main promise will happen - and all the families of the earth will be blessed by you .

The chosenness of Abraham, and through him and his descendants, is a blessing for all the nations of the world. But, as mentioned above, this chosenness was misunderstood by other religions, which subsequently led to the Holocaust.

Why God chose the Jews to be His people

Why God chose Abraham was because he was qualified for the task. However, at that time, there were already large and small kingdoms, and Abraham was a simple shepherd. He did not have his own kingdom, and he was not a king. His offspring were the fewest and most defenseless.

15 Remember His covenant forever, the word that He commanded for a thousand generations,

16 Which He made with Abraham, and His oath to Isaac.

17 And He made it a law for Jacob,

18 To Israel, by an everlasting covenant, saying, “I will give you the land of Canaan, your inheritance,”

19 When you were few in number, few, and strangers (were) in it.

20 And they went from nation to nation, and from kingdom to another.

21 He did not allow anyone to oppress them, and He punished kings for them.

22 Do not touch My anointed ones, and do not harm My prophets.

(1 Divrei HaYamim 16)

Protecting His people, the Almighty through him preserved for all mankind the blessing of Abraham, which, through the Messiah Yeshua, brought the once lost immortality.

Having chosen an insignificant race, the Almighty formed from it great people, who was to proclaim the glory of Jehovah. All the evil that exists in the world is carried on the shoulders of the chosen Jewish people. Even when the Messiah came, the Almighty sacrificed His people to save the pagans, who, unfortunately, did not appreciate this.

25 But I, brothers, want you to realize the truth that Elohim previously kept secret, but has now revealed, so that you do not think that you know more than what really is. [The truth] that hardness of heart, to some extent, has come upon Israel until the full number of the goyim comes in!

26 And that in this way all Israel will be saved. As the Tanakh says: ‘And a deliverer will come for Tziyon and for those who turn away from wickedness in Yaakov - the word of Yahweh!

27…This is my covenant with them…This is why Jacob’s sin will be forgiven.’

28 In relation to Bsur Tova, they are hated for your sake. But regarding election, they are loved for the sake of the Patriarchs,

29 for the gifts of Elohim and His calling are not subject to revision.

30 Just as you yourselves were formerly disobedient to Elohim, but have now received mercy because of the disobedience of Israel,

31 So Israel is now rebellious, so that Elohim will show mercy to him if you show him the same kindness that Elohim showed you.

32 For Elohim has imprisoned all mankind in disobedience, that he might show mercy to all.

(Letter to Rome 11)

No other people could have endured as much bullying and persecution as the Jewish people endured.

You chose us, Lord, among other people,

He stubbornly established us under the sun...

You see, the boy is standing over his grave

He asks: “Don’t look, my mother!”

The world remembers the treasures of past centuries -

After all, the heritage of our ancestors is priceless.

And the crystal bowls of children's heads

Fanatics are crushing against the walls!

And the crushed flesh seemed to scream:

“God of our fathers, we remember with blood:

Among the nations of the earth you have chosen us, Lord,

You marked us with difficult love,

You, Lord, chose us from millions of children.

We died before you, O God,

You collected our blood in large jugs -

Because there is no one else.

Inhaling the smell of blood like the smell of wine,

Having collected every drop of it, O God,

You, Lord, will exact punishment in full from our murderers.

From the silent majority - too...

The last cry rings: “Mom, don’t look,

This spectacle is not for women.

We are also soldiers on this path,

Just a little smaller.”

And they executed the children at the graves... At this hour

People slept peacefully in the world.

You have chosen only us among the nations under the sun.

You marked us with difficult love.

The block is wet with blood, the ax is jagged,

A Holy Father in the Vatican

Doesn't want to leave the beautiful cathedral -

Look at the pogrom, at the slaughter.

Understanding this, one can see why God chose the Jews to be the chosen people.

Introduction.

As a matter of fact, the “Jewish question” is inextricably linked with the destinies historical Christianity. Nowhere in the rest of the world was it more acute than in Christian societies. Closed, religiously decorated, kagal the system of Jewish compact living was fully consistent with medieval thinking - clan and religious-ideological. Medieval Christianity, purely external, simply needed the kahal as a visual substantiation of “triumphant Christianity” itself. (Thus, the Gospel position “behold, your house remains empty” was “supplemented”, i.e. replaced, to the option “your house remains full of robbery and untruth.” A much more offensive definition for the Jewish people is that from a certain moment they became private people, the same as all others, was replaced by pseudo-Christian mysticism with a special concept of chosenness - not God's chosen one, but Satan's chosen one.)

The global transition of humanity in the New Time from clan and religious-ideological thinking to national and civilizational thinking also completely affected the Jews. World Jewish Revolution has become an integral part of that global revolution, which in our minds is associated with the concept of “New Time”. If we consider that the medieval model of Christianity clearly bore the features of the Old Testament (Jewish) organization, then the special meaning Marx's famous words that the “emancipation of Jewry” is an indicator of the “emancipation of humanity from Jewry” (ie, about Old Testament-medieval thinking). This Jewish revolution pursued the same goals as revolutions in other societies: the transition from a religious organization of life to a national one; this is clearly seen in the example of the main achievement of the Jewish World Revolution - the state of Israel, which was created as a state of Jews (implied: Jews), but which in practice is quite secular (which is especially clearly seen in the example of neighboring Palestine, which exists in the project as a national state, but, like all “decent” Muslim societies, it is a largely religious formation).

Jews are God's chosen people.

The religion of Israel appeared late in the arena of world history. More than one thousand years of cultural history of mankind have been behind us. The Egyptian pyramids had already been built. Sumerian legends were already composed. A labyrinth has already been built on Crete. Strange myths have been told many times in many different countries and tribes about God being overthrown or killed. And in His place sat the current heavenly “lords” - the Baals. This is what the relatives of the Jews, the inhabitants of Canaan, believed. They were convinced that the highest God (they called Him El; hence Allah among the Muslims and El, Eloah, Elohim as the names of God in the Bible) was overthrown by his great-grandson by the name of Baal. The Greeks also believed that the world was ruled by a usurper: Zeus, who overthrew his father Kronos. In Sumer they believed that their current ruler, Marduk, came to power by killing the primary goddess named Tiamat:

People bowed to spirits, which they themselves knew were not God, that is, the Primordial creative Being. Religion was inseparable from magic and witchcraft. And it was not only the weakness of the human spirit that was the reason for forgetting about God in the religions of the peoples of the Earth. Those spirits to which they called in different names were quite real. They could provide some help - but on the condition that human veneration would be confined to them and not seek God.

Humanity already had a long and not very successful religious history by the time of Moses. What happened to Moses cannot be understood if we look at it only from our time and by our standards. When the Sun is shining, the splinter seems unnecessary and produces more soot than light. But let’s imagine that the Sun has not yet risen. And then there will be a reason to say kind word and about the splinter.

The atrocities of the Old Testament seem horrific. But, firstly, if we have just such an impression about it, it means that it still led to the goal for which it was once given. We and our world have truly become better. The moral sense has become more acute. We have become able to resent what at other times seemed to be taken for granted.

Israel's hatred of the inhabitants of Canaan will at least become understandable if we understand what exactly they encountered there. In Canaan, Phenicia and Carthage (the “New City” was the North African province of Phenicia) a god named Baal was worshiped (hence the well-known names: Hannibal “Baal is merciful to me” and Hasdrubal (azrubaal) “Baal helps”). It was the god of the sun and at the same time of fertility. But sacrifices to this solar deity were made at night. These victims were burned in the so-called. tophetah (lit. "place of burning of people"). The remains were buried in the same courtyard in special urns, over which steles were placed. “Anthropological studies of the remains of such victims showed that 85% of the victims were younger than six months... True, the victim was not burned alive; the child was first killed, and already dead they burned statues of the god on bronze hands, and this was done at night to the sounds of flutes, tambourines and lyres. Such a sacrifice was called molk or molek. Misunderstood, it served as a reason for the Phoenicians to construct the god Moloch, who devours human lives: Mostly the children of aristocrats were sacrificed. This coincided with ancient ideas about the duty of those who led the community to the gods: During the siege of the city by Agathocles, more than 500 children were burned - of which 200 were identified by the authorities, and 300 were sacrificed voluntarily: Child sacrifices were performed annually." .

As G.K. rightly noted about these Carthaginian-Phoenician traditions. Chesterton, “The consuls of Rome and the prophets of Israel loved very different, incompatible things. But they hated the same thing.”. Punic Wars of Rome, the call of Cato the Elder "Carthage must be destroyed" have common moral roots with the orders of Joshua, who scorched the land of Canaan from people whose religious minds had become so clouded that they sacrificed their own firstborn to their god: Sometimes it is necessary to cleanse a contaminated environment in order to maintain health. Fanaticism is tolerated in the Bible - in the face of pagan extremes, it is a lesser evil than indifference.

A very dark background precedes the appearance of Israel and surrounds it during its wanderings. The world is infected with paganism and death. Here people are building Tower of Babel. For what? Not in order to fall at the knees of God, but in order to boast both to Heaven and to other people of the achievements of their “advanced technology” and “to make a name for themselves.”

This is the problem: if God is lost, man can no longer find Him. As St. once said. John Chrysostom: how can anyone fix what God Himself destroyed? If God turned away His face, there is no way a person will be able to run around God to look into his eyes again. Greek writers generally often believed that the word “god” (qeos) comes from the verb qeein - to run. But if God runs away, is it possible for a person to catch up with Him?

However, man did not really pursue the lost God. A very important symbol meets us at the door biblical history: Adam, having sinned, hides from God under a bush. But God goes out in search of man and calls out: "Adam, where are you?". This is the main difference between biblical religion and pagan traditions. Ordinary human religions tell us how people searched for God. The Bible talks about how God searched for man. From this first call in the book of Genesis to the final call in the Apocalypse: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock, and I will come in to him who opens and dine with him.” .

And another very important lesson meets us on the first pages of biblical history. The biblical story about the creation of the world in six days characterizes, first of all, the God of the Bible, and characterizes Him with a very important feature: it turns out that this is the God of patience. God knows how to tolerate the imperfections of the world. That the land of the first day turns out to be "formless and empty", God does not use the seemingly failed first creative act as a reason to destroy. The Sumerian god Apsu, already mentioned by us, wanted to destroy his first creations. According to Hesiod also “the children born of Gaia-Earth and Heaven-Uranus were terrible and became hateful to their father at first sight”(Theogony, 155). But although the God of the Bible does not immediately create the world perfect and filled with grateful creatures in an instant, He admires such an imperfect world: "And God saw that it was good"(Gen. 1:12). He unfolds His plan in time. And he blesses even the intermediate days, that is, the states of the Universe.

And then, after the first mistake of people, the God of patience did not turn away from them. He moved further away (people put Him away from their private lives) - but did not turn away, did not become “disillusioned.” One day, however, as human abominations accumulated, it seemed to the biblical writer that God’s cup of patience was full, and he wrote: "and the Lord repented that he had created man on the earth"(Gen. 6:6). But still God is faithful to His unfaithful children: “Will a woman forget her suckling child, so as not to have compassion on the son of her womb? But even if she forgets, I will not forget you.”(Isa. 49:15).

The Bible is a revelation of God's patience. St. John Chrysostom draws attention to the fact that God, so quick in creation, God, who created the whole world in just six days, says to the soldiers of Israel: "Circuit Jericho for seven days". How - exclaims Chrysostom - “Do you create a world in six days, and destroy one city in seven days?”

Chrysostom also compares God with a farmer. “What will an ignorant person say when he sees a farmer throwing grains on the ground? He throws away ready-made things, collected with such difficulty, and even prays that it will rain and it will all rot faster!”. When the sower distributes the grain, he can only wait patiently for the harvest. Christ forbids the apostles to harvest ahead of time. Even heresy cannot be weeded out with a sickle.

The work of a farmer teaches patience. “Didn’t we sometimes receive seeds as children to sow them? Didn’t we then run every hour to see if sprouts appeared from the ground? In the end, we often dug up the ground to make sure that the seeds were sprouting, and we achieved that that the seeds did not sprout. Did we ever press or even open a bud with our hands so that it would bloom faster and were we not very upset when it later withered, spoiled by us? We did not know how to deal with a living one. was patience. That God wanted to create life on earth is a revelation of His patience."(Guardini).

God is a farmer, not a tyrant. “What would we do if we built the world, brought into being a great being and saw that here something has failed, there is only half in order, and here both are out of place? We would intervene now, torn out, destroyed, right? We would not notice the value contained even in the imperfect, the spark of true light in the failed - we would forget how important it is for everything beautiful"(Guardini).

So, God does not turn away from the world - even from a world that has forgotten Him, from a world cut off from the Creator by all kinds of spiritual impostors. God goes out in search of man.

But try reading the Gospel to an inveterate occultist. He will find in him only confirmation of his pagan views. He won’t even notice its novelty; he will interpret everything according to his habits in a flat, “esoteric” spirit. The Word of God did not find an interlocutor among the peoples of the earth: Yes, one more circumstance is important to remember: this was in those days when people had not yet fully realized their independence and personal uniqueness. Man thought of himself as only a part of some whole. The subject of thought, faith, historical action was not an individual person, but a people or a city - a polis. At that time, religion was not yet a personal matter, a matter of conscience. It was perceived as a public, social, state matter. Therefore, it was impossible to find individual people among different nations and through them to proclaim the Truth. In order for people to hear the Word of God, accept His law and really fulfill them, it was necessary to turn not to one individual person, but to an entire community of such people, that is, to the people. Therefore, the Word of God is looking for His interlocutor among the nations. And he doesn’t find it. All nations are already accustomed to listening to night noises. And then the Word decides create Your interlocutor.

We are accustomed to the expression “Israel is God’s chosen people.” But this expression has one connotation that is both unbiblical and simply unpleasant. An association with a store immediately arises: God takes a closer look at the peoples presented before His face and chooses the Jewish one from the many faces - for some reason He liked the Jews more. For certain previous merits, are Jews now granted the privilege of being considered God's chosen people?

But upon careful reading of the Bible, the story turns out to be completely different: Israel is not God’s chosen people, but God’s created one. "This people I am formed for myself"(Isa. 43:21). Israel had no history that preceded its entering into a covenant with God. Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, had no children. God wished to enter into a covenant with the offspring of a childless old man - and for this purpose he gave him this offspring. Moreover, so that Israel will forever understand that it does not have a natural “right to life,” that its entire existence is God’s gift, that it rests in existence on the thread of God’s mercy, and not on the granite of “natural right,” Abraham is commanded to bring the sacrifice of his only son, Isaac. To sacrifice means to give up possession, to renounce property rights. What was donated is no longer mine. Isaac being sacrificed is a break in the natural succession from father to son. Isaac turns out to be no longer so much the son of Abraham as the son of God, His “firstborn.”

This is a people created to hear, to respond to the Word of God. A people who owe their origin to the Covenant. However, what he hears, he will have to tell the others. Israel was created so that what it lives by could gradually absorb the whole world, cleansing it of paganism.

But it would be naive to expect that peoples who have not heard the direct voice of God will suddenly listen to the Jewish nomads who recently appeared out of nowhere. No, Israel is not called to missionary work. And he himself still does not fully understand who he is and why God talks to him so demandingly. He does not yet know the future for which he was created, that future, the threads of which are woven by the hand of Providence in the history of the Jewish patriarchs. The “firstborn” still needs to grow. And it is not yet entirely clear to him what exactly he should give to the world. So first Israel must simply survive.

And so that he has fewer growing pains, he is given a strict “uncle”. The Apostle Paul says that the Jewish Old Testament law is "schoolmaster to Christ"(Gal.3:24). This strange word, which is not present in every dictionary of the Russian language, becomes clearer if we remember its Greek basis. In the Greek text of the Apostle Paul the word pedagogon appears. But it would be a mistake to translate it with the modern Russian word “teacher”. If in modern Russian “pedagog” means “teacher,” then in the ancient world this was not entirely true. A teacher was a slave whose service was to take the boy from home to the gymnasium, while making sure that he did not play pranks or waste his energy and attention. The teacher makes sure that the child reaches the classroom in such a state that he can listen and hear the teacher’s story. The teacher himself is not a teacher. He is a guide, a guy who looks after the boy and falls silent when Mr. teacher finally enters the classroom.

So, Jewish law does not so much teach as it warns. It is no coincidence that among the 613 commandments of the Pentateuch (Torah) there are 365 prohibitions and 248 commands. The number of negative commandments and warnings is much greater than the number of positive commandments and instructions. The teacher will come later. The Teacher already knows from bitter experience that the bright tinsel of witchcraft and magic distracts children, seduces them and does not allow them to gather their attention and concentrate on what the Teacher says. The Teacher also knows that children listen more confidentially to children’s stories. Therefore, He takes one child to raise. Takes a foundling, a foundling. “At your birth, your navel was not cut off, and you were not washed with water, and you were not wrapped in swaddling clothes. No eye took pity on you, but you were thrown out into the field, out of contempt for your life, on the day of your birth. And I passed by you, and I saw you, thrown under foot in your blood, and said to you: “Live!” You grew up and became big. And I passed by you, and I saw you, and behold, it was your time, the time of love; I spread My garments over you, and I covered your nakedness, and you became Mine. I washed you with water and washed away your blood and anointed you with oil. And you were adorned with gold and silver and were extremely beautiful. You trusted in your beauty, and, taking advantage of your glory, you began to commit fornication and squander your fornication on everyone who passed by, giving yourself to him. unbridled harlot! All harlots are given gifts, but you yourself gave gifts to all your lovers and bribed them. Therefore, hear, O harlot, the word of the Lord! I will gather all your lovers and deliver you into their hands, and they will destroy your whorehouses and cut you in pieces with their swords. I will do to you as you did, despising the oath by violating the alliance. But I will remember My covenant with you, and I will restore an eternal covenant with you. And you will remember your ways, and you will be ashamed. I will forgive you everything you did. I don’t want the dying to die, but turn and live!”(Ezek. 16.4 - 18.32).

Israel, once created by God through Abraham, then finding itself in Egyptian slavery, forgot itself, forgot about its purpose, and about God. But God finds him again. And through Moses he explains that this is not the first time he has done this. For the first time, God went out in search of man back when there was only one man, and his name was Adam (Gen. 3:9).

But being a teacher is dangerous. After all, the desires of the student and the tasks assigned to the teacher may diverge. This means that the teacher is forced to be strict: “we were imprisoned under the guardianship of the law until the time when it was necessary to open ourselves to faith... after the coming of faith we are no longer under the guidance of a teacher”(Gal. 3:23-25). “The teachers, according to the testimony of one contemporary, took care of everything related to the vital needs of the pupil, but they also cared about an even more important matter - about chastity; teachers, guards and guardians, a wall of blooming age, they protected the pupils from evil tempters, like barking dogs from the wolves". The teachers monitored the preparation of the students' lessons in the evening and got them out of bed as soon as it was light. What was taught from the teacher was rehearsed with the help of the teacher, and he, encouraging the student, “I shouted at him, showing him the rod, and whistled with my belt, and through this work brought to memory what the student had forgotten” .

But children grow up, fill with strength and begin to rebel against those before whom they humbled themselves yesterday. “The position of a teacher was fraught with troubles. Sometimes the students played the cruelest jokes on the poor teacher. If the teacher aroused hatred in his young pupils, woe to him. It happened that impudent naughty people sat the poor teacher on the carpet, which was usually spread on the floor, and threw up the carpet with those sitting on it, as high as possible, jumped back, so that the teacher fell to the ground; sometimes he hurt himself painfully, and his very life was in danger. But the teachers had to forgive the students, because they were in a slave state ... " .

Likewise, God’s relationship with Israel was not easy. The word Israel itself can be translated in two ways: “seeing God” and “struggling with God.” God-seer and God-fighter. “I remember the friendship of your youth, your love, when you were a bride, when you followed Me into the wilderness... What iniquity your fathers found in Me, that they separated from Me and followed vanity, and did not say: “Where is the Lord?” , who brought us out of the land of Egypt?" I brought you into a fruitful land, but you entered and desecrated My land. The shepherds fell away from Me, and the prophets prophesied in the name of Baal and followed after those who do not help. Have any people changed their gods, although they are not gods? My people exchanged their glory for something that does not help. My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, and have hewed out cisterns for themselves, which cannot hold water. thy yoke, I broke thy bonds, and thou saidst, “I will not serve idols,” and yet on every high hill and under every green tree thou hast committed the harlotry; someone else's vine? You said: “I love strangers and will follow in their footsteps.” I committed fornication with many lovers, and yet return to Me. Come back, renegade children. Return, rebellious children: I will heal your rebellion."(Jer. 2.2 - 3.23).

Therefore, the incident that occurred in 1997 in Israel is understandable: B. Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, speaking to graduates of one of the Jewish schools in Jerusalem, allowed himself to joke and say that he did not agree with Moses in everything: “Moses called the Jewish people “stiff-necked,” but you and I know that in fact we are a very welcoming people.”. The Rabbinical Court of Israel protested. The prime minister was forced to apologize. But the conflict that flared up in his soul is quite understandable: it is a clash of national feeling and religious duty. As a Jew, he is obliged to recognize the inspiration of the books of Moses, but as a Jew he is not always pleased with what these books say about his people.

And yet, no matter how many rebellions Israel had against the teachers sent to it, in the end Israel sincerely fell in love with its “uncle.” In Hindu mythology, there are ideas about "avatars" sent to earth in those eras when people forget the spiritual foundations of their lives. According to Indian beliefs, God comes to people in times of crisis and spiritual deadness - to awaken people from hibernation. And many Christian books, as well as secular ones, say that New Testament came when the Old Testament became weak, when people became disillusioned with it: But this is not so. It is the Gospel times that are the time when the dream of the ancient prophets of Israel finally comes true. The people really became pious for almost the first time in their history. Flirting with pagan gods was abandoned. The thirst to live according to the commandments has become nationwide.

Let us remember the famous gospel scene with the harlot (John 8). Let us remember how the crowd, just ready to execute a sinner “according to the law,” reacts to the words of Christ: “He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone at her.”. The crowd quietly dispersed. What a marvelous, instant and massive conscientious transformation. And these were the same “scribes and Pharisees” (John 8:3), whom we are accustomed to condemn for their pride and restlessness: But if today, twenty centuries after those events, the protesters near Red Square are asked: “Let the stone be the first Yeltsin will be thrown by someone who is without sin!" - then the paving stones will be dismantled in an instant:

Those same “scribes and Pharisees” whom we so often meet on the gospel pages are a previously unprecedented fact of an amazing spiritual awakening among the people. After all, “scribes and Pharisees” are not professional clergy. These are people from the people, lay people. But it turns out that for these laity, issues of spiritual life, issues of correct implementation of the norms of the Law have become close and vitally important issues. The scribes and Pharisees of the era of the turn of the Testaments are akin to the Ukrainian “brotherhoods”, which, during the era of the imposition of Uniateism, defended Orthodoxy at the behest of their hearts. At the time of Jesus, the Pharisee community already numbered about 6,000 members (however, we know of only two people who called themselves Pharisees: Josephus and Apostle Paul).

The people loved the Law. But this love turned out to be just inappropriate, belated. If a child begins to act up on the threshold of a school to which he has been led for a long time and without any problems by the teacher, if he does not let go of this “guide” and does not want to be left alone with the teacher, then he risks remaining ignorant. We are all familiar with children's tears on the threshold of school, when parents leave, leaving the child alone with the teachers. If we take these tears too seriously, if we give in to a momentary childish whim, then we will only harm the child and deprive him of his future.

It also happens that the “guy’s” stories differ from the basics of “scientific science” that are taught at school. And then, too, a conflict may arise in the child, and he may reject the story of a teacher he is unfamiliar with, preferring to remain with the stories of his beloved teacher. The teacher himself admits: it’s time to leave me, not everything I tell needs to be taken literally: "Give them commandments that are not good"(Ezek. 20:25; glorious translation). But the child in love stands his ground and forbids even obvious blots and typos in the stored “pedagogical” notes to be corrected.

In general, one day Israel's rebellion against the will of God was successful. The plans of the God of Israel diverged so unexpectedly and so strikingly that Israel did not believe that the will of God could be such. And since then, for many centuries, Jews have been saying: “The followers of Yeshu were people not experienced in the law, and therefore gullible and susceptible to miracles. After all, from the point of view of Judaism, the Messiah is not obliged to have supernatural powers. It must come from royal dynasty David and bring liberation to the Jewish people from the foreign yoke. It is not at all the job of the Messiah to worry about the salvation of the souls of his flock." “It is impossible to believe in his messiahship, because the prophet says about the messiah that “he will rule from sea to sea and from the river to the ends of the earth.”(Ps. 71:8). Yeshu had no power at all, for during his lifetime he himself was persecuted by enemies and hid from them... And the haggadah says: “They will say to the Messiah-ruler: “Such and such a state has rebelled against you,” and he will say: “Let the invasion of locusts destroy it.” They will say to him: “Such and such an area is not subject to you.” And he will say: “The invasion of wild beasts will destroy her"" .

The teacher they were waiting for was supposed to give power over the outside world, and not over the inside. He was supposed to save not from spiritual death, but from political oppression. It was not intended to extend the unique privileges of Israel to all other nations, but to immeasurably elevate the Jews above other people:

For the sake of such a Messiah, such a teacher, it seemed unnecessary to part with the teacher. Most of Israel remained in the preparatory class. “The image of the Messiah was doubled among the Jewish people, the expectation of Christ was mixed with the expectation of His enemy, and therefore Christ in humanity was a Jew, and a Jew to the depths of his being was Judas, who betrayed Christ.”(Berdyaev N.A. Nationalism and anti-Semitism before the court of Christian consciousness). And to this day, excuses are being sought for Judas: it turns out that "Jesus was arrested by the Jews to protect him from the Romans" .

Well, if someone moves on to the next grade, and someone stays “for the second year,” there is no big problem in this if it happens in a regular school. But the school in which Israel was brought up is unusual. In it, the teacher is strict not only in relation to his immediate pupil. He is even more strict, even to the point of cruelty, towards those of his “senior comrades” who invite him to take part in their games.

Any person who has opened the historical books of the Old Testament knows how much blood there is, how many blessings there are for the murders and plunder of pagan cities: “And in these cities you shall not leave a single soul alive, lest they teach you to do the same abominations as they did for their gods, and lest you sin against the Lord your God.”(Deut. 20:16-18).

The cruelty of the Old Testament world was so amazing that later people of a “humanistic” bent asked the question: is the God of Moses really a good Creator God? Is this really the Creator of Life? Or is it some kind of spirit of death, sowing death around itself and around its Israel?

Already the first Christian apologists (including Clement of Alexandria and Origen) had to come out with a defense of the sacred books of Israel. For Gnostics and pagans, under the name of Jehovah, a certain cruel and stupid god, the bearer of evil, addressed people. Christians asked those who wanted to identify God and Satan: listen to the Bible. Just look at these commandments of the biblical God: “When you reap in your field and forget the sheaf in the field, do not go back to take it; let it remain for the stranger, the beggar, the orphan and the widow. When you pluck your olive tree, do not look back at the branches; let it remain for the stranger, the orphan and for the widow. When you gather fruit from your vineyard, do not gather any leftover for yourself; let it remain for the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.”(Deut. 24:19-21). “Thou shalt not offend a hired hand, a poor and needy one, one of thy brethren, or one of thy strangers who are in thy land, in thy gates. That same day thou shalt give him his wages, lest the sun go down first, for he is poor, and his soul waiteth for her. “so that he does not cry out against you to the Lord, and there is no sin on you.”(Deut. 24:14-15). “When you begin the battle, let the overseers announce to the people, saying: “Who built new house and he did not renew him, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle, and another renew him; and whoever planted a vineyard and did not use it, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle, and another should not take advantage of it; and whoever got engaged to his wife and did not take her, let him go and return to his house, lest he die in battle and another take her." And the overseers will announce to the people and say: "If anyone is fearful and cowardly, let him go and return to his home, lest he make the hearts of his brothers timid, as his heart was."(Deut. 20:2-8).

Can they really such commands coming from the mouth of a foolish and evil spirit? But why then does the One who commands to take care of the poor and strangers command to beat up entire cities?

And again we must return to the situation that was the starting point for the entire history of Israel. God became lonely on earth. "There is no righteous man on earth"(Eccl. 7:20). The radiation of sin and death scattered throughout the earth after a series of first catastrophes (from the events in Eden to the Babylonian Pandemonium).

Let's imagine that a nuclear war has occurred on Earth. A number of people survived. But they found themselves in a world in which even bomb shelters could no longer save them from death. All earth, water, and air are permeated with deadly radiation. There is a small chance of saving at least a handful of future generations. During the war, a space station operated in orbit. Experiments on growing plants in zero gravity conditions were carried out on it. Since she was outside the Earth, the storms of a nuclear war did not affect her. On it and only on it remained healthy seeds, a handful of uncontaminated soil and a container with clean water. And now this station is being landed in order to take advantage of its now unique resources. If you simply give away the grains that are on it, it will not help anyone.

The government leading the remnants of humanity makes a tough decision. One small plot of land (“six acres”) is elected. The top contaminated layer of soil is cut off from it. The exposed depths of the earth are burned out and calcined with fire - so that no spores of mutated dope remain in this earth.

Healthy soil from the space station is poured onto the cleaned area. Healthy seeds are sown in it. They are sparingly watered with healthy water. And a guard is placed around the perimeter so that none of the people or animals break in and trample this unique plot. To prevent even pollen from mutants from flying here and to prevent the winds from bringing radiation dust, the plot is surrounded by a transparent tent.

And yet, with groundwater, through holes in the dome, with people entering, with background radiation from neighboring areas, radiation penetrates here too. Plants here get sick less than in unprotected areas, but they still get sick. And here mutants appear from time to time. When one or another shoot of the plant of hope shows a tendency to the same sad mutations, the gardener mercilessly cuts it off and burns the dried or mutated spikelets and branches. The first harvest is not distributed to people. It is all sown again (remember how Robinson Crusoe created his garden). Someone is dying of hunger - but even he is not given even a handful of these precious grains. And so on for many generations in a row. Until, finally, a seed is created so resistant to radiation, from which it will be possible to make an antidote and heal all the plants - both under the tent and beyond - throughout the earth. In the end, among these initially many thousands of shoots, one branch bore the fruit for which this strange agriculture existed. This fruit can be taken outside the experimental station and distributed to everyone who wants it, so that a new, now good mutation will occur in them, who have been sick for many generations.

Likewise, all the cruelties in the history of Israel are determined not so much by the cruelty of the people of Israel and their God, but by the globality of the Gift that must enter the world through Israel. So that “the new generation of Israel does not choose Pepsi-Cola” - a wall of isolation is created around it. Every person and every nation carries paganism within itself. If people's religious feelings are allowed to develop independently, it will create precisely “paganism” - a cozy religion of spiritual communication. If there is also external influence emanating from the pagan culture of life, this will become completely inevitable. This means strict quarantine.

And all in order for one single branch, one single branch to appear on the tree of Jesse. So that a soul of such purity, such openness before God appears on earth that when she says "Behold, the handmaid of the Lord. May it be done to me according to Your word", - in it the Word of God will become human flesh. That Heavenly Bread will appear on earth, which can now be distributed to all people, to all eras.

This is the fundamental difference in the Christian understanding of the history of Israel and the Jewish one. From a Christian perspective, Israel's history has a purpose. This is a difficult but necessary path that must end one day. And what will be gained at the end of the journey will be given not only to Israel and not for the sake of Israel alone. Through Israel it will be given to everyone and for everyone. This means that Israel kills pagans not only for the well-being of its children, but also for the salvation of the descendants of those who now oppose it and its mission.

Christianity values ​​Israel's historical mission more highly than Israel itself. Israel does not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of all humanity. The measure of intimacy with God that he has is given to him not in order to forever contrast him with other nations, but so that over time the unique privileges of Israel will extend to everyone. But the eldest son from the parable of the prodigal son did not want the Father to accept his younger brother:

Israel missed the moment in its history when it should have revealed itself to the world. He gave Christ to the world - but he himself did not notice it. He himself did not realize who exactly was preaching on his sacred land.

And in the end, according to the true words of the Catholic theologian, "when, at the end of her providential mission, Israel desired to retain her privileges, she became a usurper" .

Moreover, some Jewish publicists are now demanding that Christian peoples, in repentance for the crimes of pagan German Nazism, adopt a view of Israel as a people that still preserves its chosenness of God in absolute uniqueness. A strange way, however, to fight nationalism is through the inculcation of another nationalism. Christians are accused of daring the words with which Israel is exalted above other nations ( "chosen race, sacred race"), take it to yourself. The roots of anti-Semitism, it turns out, are that non-Jews dared to look at themselves through the eyes of Jews. It would seem that if you have already come to the conclusion that a nationally exalted view led to blood, then fight to ensure that no one (including Jews) looks at themselves or others with such eyes. But instead, the liberal press demands recognition of Israel's enduring uniqueness.

For example, according to the main preacher of Jewish nationalism in Russia, Sergei Lezov, the anti-Semitism of Christianity is based on the fact that it "usurped Israel's claims" on the exclusivity of his relationship with God. Christianity applied those rights and responsibilities of God’s chosen people, which the Old Testament proclaimed to Israel, to itself - "once not a people, but now the people of God"(1 Pet. 2:10). In this perspective, Israel no longer has a creative religious role to play in the New Testament era. “The Apostle Paul gave universalism to Christianity and, at the same time, contrasting the saving Gospel with the non-saving Law, interpreted Judaism as a “passed stage.” Thus, he began the theological debasement of Judaism.” .

Christians, by the way, see the possibility of a bright and creative future for Israel as a people. If Israel one day accepts its Christ, he will again become the firstborn of God's love. If Israel steps over the ancient institutions that prescribe a double standard for it in relation to other peoples, it will make a great revolution in its history.

When Christians call Jews to accept the Gospel, it shouldn’t be called "theological debasement of Judaism". There is no need to demand that "Christianity has changed its missionary guidelines". After all, no one will be indignant if some mission calls on some African tribe to abandon its traditions of human sacrifice and move on to other ways of expressing their religious feelings. But the transition from human sacrifice to the burning of sacrificial animals is not the only step on the path of spiritual progress. The transition from Old Testament nationalism to evangelical universalism is also a step on this path. To resist it means to stand up precisely in defense of nationalism. So why is it that Jewish nationalism is considered today the only one in the democratic world that is not permissible to hide, permissible to cultivate, and even moreover, it is prescribed to be indignant at those who do not agree with this exception?

Until Israel imposes a ban on its own nationalism, it has no moral right to condemn the nationalism of other peoples. There is too much of a log sticking out of his own eye for him to have the right to talk about the thorns and thorns of others.

How come the guardians of “universal human values” do not notice the amazing statements being circulated in synagogues today: “With effort, a Jew can reach a higher spiritual level than a non-Jew... If peoples and governments were given the ability to see the truth, they would place a policeman next to every Jew to force him to learn the Torah without raising his head! days, understanding of this will come to all nations... Question: What else needs to be done? Answer: Should we love every Jew? Question: Should we love the non-religious? Answer: Yes, because they are also created in the image and likeness of the Almighty. the current government of Israel? Answer: Those who contribute to the shedding of Jewish blood are no different from our enemies... We, the Jews, are the brain, the head of the world, its conscience and reason." .

Given the current fashion for talking about Christian anti-Semitism, two fundamental facts should not be overlooked. First: the Jewish diaspora for centuries lived for some reason only in the Christian and Muslim worlds. Why did the Jews not move away from “Christian oppression” under the protection of “tolerant” paganism? If Christians are full of anti-Semitism, then why not leave them not to the West from Palestine, but to the East, to India, to China? No amount of petty skirmishes can obscure the enormous fact that Christians helped Jews survive.

One must have a fairly darkened conscience and reason to accuse Christians of allegedly stealing the Bible and the prophets from the Jews. They didn't steal it, they kept it. Because if the Bible had remained only in the hands of Jews, if it had not been read anew by Christians (and partly Muslims), then neither Jews nor their national books would have existed in the world long ago. Christians saved the Bible and Israel by giving them an interpretation that was more sublime than the Jews themselves gave it. Christians saved the Jews by instilling in the “barbarians” reverence for the Hebrew Bible and giving a non-literal, non-bloodthirsty meaning to many of its verses.

Let's take the very first line of the Bible. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Here is a Jewish commentary on this passage: according to the most authoritative interpretation in Judaism, Rashi, “The Almighty told his people the story of the creation of the world so that the Jews would know how to respond if the peoples of the world dispute the right of the people of Israel to their country, saying: they say, you are invaders who have appropriated someone else’s country! The Jews will answer them: “The whole land belongs to To the Almighty. He created it and gave it to those whom He wished. And then He took it away from them when He deemed it necessary, and - at His will - gave it to us." As we see, the level of claims and understanding among the Jews has not changed over the past three thousand years. The meaning of Shestoday is the same for them: "Palestine - for Jews, not for Palestinians" .

So how should a pagan, that is, a person for whom nothing in the Bible is sacred, view Israel's aggressive nationalism? For him, the Jews who settled on his land are a ticking time bomb. If the Jews were left alone with their literal understanding of Scripture, they would be surrounded by the unmoderated and natural hatred of all peoples. For how else can one treat a people who considers everyone their potential slaves and actual enemies? Without Christ, the Old Testament is perhaps the most terrible book in the religious history of mankind. Just one example is how men from the tribe of Dan are looking for land for themselves: “And those five men went and came to Laish, and saw the people who were in it, that they lived peacefully, according to the custom of the Sidonians, quiet and carefree, and that there was no one in the land who would offend in any way, or who would have power: they lived far from the Sidonians, and they had no business with anyone. And they (the five people) returned to their brothers and their brothers said to them: “Why are you?” them; we saw the land, it is very good. And you thought: don’t hesitate to go and take that land as an inheritance; When you go, you will come to a careless people, and that land is vast; God is delivering it into your hands."... And they went to Laish against a calm and careless people, and beat them with the sword, and burned the city with fire. There was no one to help, because it was far from Sidon."(Judges 18:7-10).

There is an impassable line between two understandings of national messianism: does the chosen people exist in order to serve all humanity, or so that all humanity, having come to its senses, serves it... And one can understand this ambiguity in the history of Israel only if one agrees with the deep Oscar Kuhlman's remark: "There are really two stories of Israel: own story Israel and the history of Israel to its salvation and the salvation of others" .

Christian thought values ​​Israel's mission more highly than Israel itself. Christians see the history of Israel more sublimely than the Jews themselves, since they see in it not Israel’s self-service, but its service to humanity, the New Universal Testament. Israel exists not for itself, and not for its own narrow national triumph, but for everyone: the one hoped for by all nations will come. Without the Gospel, without a supranational plan, the historical books of the Old Testament are the most stuffy books of humanity. There is no justification for that blood, those convulsive cauterizations. Or is it for our sake everyone man, or is it just nationalistic lust. Therefore, one cannot read the Bible as a simple national chronicle, that is, through Jewish eyes. Only by taking (snatching) the Bible from the hands of the Jews can mankind maintain respect for it. Christians did not steal the Bible, but kept it.

Christians did not inflame anti-Semitism, but extinguished it for many centuries. Let's remember antiquity: “They say that when Marcus Aurelius passed through Palestine on his way to Egypt, he, disgusted by the smelly and often troublesome Jews, mournfully exclaimed: “O Marcomanni, O Quadi, O Sarmatians! Finally I found people worse than you"(Ammianus Marcellinus. Roman history. 24,5,5). But Marcus Aurelius is "philosopher on the throne", an educated and tolerant person: “Antiochus Epiphanes was truly a madman, but everything that he did to the Jews was not at all perceived as monstrous atrocity by the society and “people” around him - he obviously relied on deep-rooted traditional opinion. Anti-Semitism was already a respectable age.”. In the end, it was not Christians who destroyed Jerusalem, but the army of the Roman generals Titus and Vespasian, who had not yet heard anything about the Gospel.

In general, before thinking about the surges of anti-Semitism in the Christian world, it is worth familiarizing yourself with the study by S. Ya. Lurie “Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World. Attempts to explain it in science and its causes” (Petrograd, 1922). According to his conclusion, “the cause of anti-Semitism lies in the Jews themselves... Anti-Semitism is not an accidental phenomenon, it is rooted in the difference between the spiritual appearance of a Jew and a non-Jew”. There is not a single nation that is anti-Semitic in itself. First, Jews settled on his land - and then national strife broke out. Moreover, often these same people were calm about the colonies of other tribes living in their territories. It is also significant that each time pogroms follow a wave of assimilation of Jews into the local culture. This means that the feeling of alienation of the Jews itself was not the cause of anti-Semitism. Rather, on the contrary, when people became more aware of the Jewish worldview, they organized anti-Jewish riots.

Ancient anti-Semitism could not have had economic reasons. If the Alexandrian merchants were afraid of Jewish competition, then in order to use this fear to incite the people against the Jews, there must already have been an anti-Jewish sentiment among the people. Also "It is impossible to see the reasons for anti-Semitism in the reactionary nature of governments: the government can only play on anti-Semitism when it already exists as something fully formed among the people. The Roman emperors willingly dedicated themselves to the cults of all kinds of barbarian gods; they proudly bore the titles of Dacius, Sarmaticus, etc. But when Vespasian and Titus, after the victory over the Jews, were offered the title of Judaicus by the army, with what indignation they rejected it! .

And, of course, it is completely stupid to see the cause of anti-Semitism in "intellectual superiority of the Jews". Russians, for example, consider the Germans or English smarter than themselves - but no anti-Germanism is born from this.

In general, anti-Semitism existed in antiquity. All peoples on earth in all centuries had the same reaction to Jews when they settled among them in sufficiently large numbers. Christianity restrained and softened this reaction. When (alas, not without the help of Jewish “liberals”) Christianity was shaken up and overthrown in Germany, paganism again showed what the fate of the Jews would be if they were not looked at from an evangelical perspective.

And the second fundamental fact from the history of Christian-Jewish relations: one of the first themes of Christian theology is the defense of Israel. “The Church of God, avoiding the extremes of both (Jews and Gnostics), follows the middle path - and does not agree to submit to the yoke of the law, and does not allow him to be blasphemed and after its termination because it was useful in its time"(St. John Chrysostom). It is enough to recall the mockery of Celsus and Julian, the wild escapades of the Gnostics against Old Testament history and religion - and it will again become clear that it was the Church that averted the threat from Israel.

It was theologically necessary for the Church to defend the Old Testament. If she rejected him, she would question the most precious of her tenets: "God is love". If the Gospel had no background, then the Gospel story would look like a random improvisation. God, who once created the world, forgot about it. His earthly children grew up without supervision. But when they became at least a little prettier, Heavenly Father suddenly remembered us and stopped by to visit. In this case, the Evangelist John is wrong when he said about Christ: "He came to his own, and his own did not receive him"(John 1:11). No, He came not to His own, but to strangers - if He had not visited them before. And, then, by the way, there is nothing strange or tragic in the fact that strangers did not accept the stranger. The whole tragedy of the Gospel is that they did not accept their own:

If we reject the Old Testament prelude to the Gospel, we will not have confidence in the most important thing: Love - is it always in God, or was it a random feeling? Maybe one day it hit Him. And just as He did not care about His earthly children before the Gospel times, He can also forget about them after. The question about Israel is, after all, a question about ourselves. Can we We be sure that God is with us now and will continue to be? Or does He, who after the very first sins of people turned away from them and abandoned them for millennia, also react to our iniquities? Is there constancy in God, in His love and in His patience? Human heart requires hope. Hope requires the conclusion: Yes, God is the same. "Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever"(Heb. 13:8). “And until your old age I will be the same, and until your gray hair I will bear you; I created, and I will carry, support and protect you.”(Isa. 46:4).

While defending the Gospel, the Church had to defend the world of the Prophets. Not only for ethical, but also for theological reasons, the Church took the history of Israel and its books under its intellectual protection.

Now, I hope, it is clearer why Christians are concerned that the Jews remained “for the second year in the first grade,” in the Old Testament class: in this class they taught some pretty cruel things. And if the Jews remain with their Old Testament “letter book”, then we can expect the most unprovoked outbursts of aggression from them. Well, they just like someone’s land or wife again - and again they will start slaughtering the “pagans”:

In the Church (with the exception of a handful of fringes) there is no religiously motivated anti-Semitism. But there is something else: there is a bitter memory that in the pogrom of Russian Orthodox life, which stretched over most of the twentieth century, Jews took an extremely active influence. And there is a perplexed glance at the faces of modern power (even not so much banking or political, but journalistic): why is it that every time Russia’s back is broken, this event is accepted active participation and it is the Jews who admire him most of all?

Alexander Galich, rightly standing up for Pasternak, had the right to threaten: “We will remember by name those who raised their hands!”. Well, can we stand up for Russia, for Bunin, for Gumilyov, for Akhmatova and Yesenin? However, as soon as you begin to remember “by name” those who destroyed the Russian empire, the Russian church and Russian culture, it soon becomes boring: it’s a very monotonous picture. Here is a completely symbolic episode: “Shterenberg, head of the arts department of the People’s Commissariat for Education, when the lists of artists to receive cards for paints and brushes were compiled, crossed Nesterov out of this list,” in whose work there was too much “Holy Rus'” .

It’s true that Russia’s collapse would not have happened if she herself had not been sick. But imagine that a sick, unbalanced person decided to commit suicide. He stands on the windowsill, wondering whether to jump or wait. And then his friend enters the room and begins to egg him on: “You know, all great people committed suicide. Even the great ancient philosopher Empedocles did so. And remember Stavrogin! Don’t allow yourself to feel sorry for yourself and your loved ones! Show them that you capable of action! The petrel asks for a storm! Open the window, feel the romance of the Revolution!..” And the unfortunate man jumps down. The disease had been gestating within him for a long time—it was true. But is the one who has been itching for decades in hundreds of newspapers really so innocent? And are these conspirators really so disinterested if the results turned out that the “friend” moved into an empty apartment from his basement (from the “Pale of Settlement” - and straight to the “children of the Arbat”).

There is a very recognizable parable in V. Soloukhin’s dying book: “Here lives in a strong and bright house a large and prosperous family. Even if it’s a peasant one. The father is still strong, there are five sons, each son has a wife, the mother-in-law, as expected, children. A passer-by asked to shelter him for a few days. He humbly asked, somewhere near the threshold, so that he could be sheltered. If only it was warm and dry. He sits near the threshold and watches how they work, how they eat, how they talk to each other. “Ivan, and Ivan.” , - the wanderer tells him. “Is this your wife Marya?” - “Mine.” - “Why is the old man looking at her? Is it your father? He will look at her, and she will immediately blush. And he smiles somehow strangely.” “Look at me,” Ivan waves his hands in anger. - I’ll break you!” - “What am I doing? I'm nothing. That's just me. And they have nothing, I know it myself. I blurted this out stupidly, stupidly." "Stepan, oh Stepan!" - "Well?" - "Your father loves Ivan more, I notice. I heard the conversation. First, he says, I’ll separate Ivan and give him the best field, and Stepan will wait.” Then Ivan’s wife passes by the wanderer: “Marya! Stepan's wife is looking at your Ivan. She's jealous of you. This is understandable. Stepan is so frail and weak, and your Ivan is a flint. But she clings to him. And you beware. Pelageya went to the old woman Matryona yesterday for some potion." To Stepanova's wife. Pelageya will say something else: "Marya has more dresses than you. Apparently, her husband loves her more. And why are you bad? " He whispers and tells everyone individually: " Your father is robbing you. You work and work, and he puts money in a box. And you have the same right. and he became the master of the house. Or maybe he drove her away, defenseless. And he brought in another woman from the outside. And, by the way, all revolutions took place on earth according to this simple scheme.” .

Let us also recall the impression of the “liberal-Jewish press” of the pre-revolutionary years, formed by the fierce defender of Jews Vasily Rozanov: “They will whisper to our children, still high school boys and girls, that their mother is a thief and a slut, and that now, when they are too young to stab her with a knife, they should at least stick pins in her bed, in her chairs and sofas ; put nails everywhere on the floor... and let the mother walk and bleed, lie down and bleed, and sit down and bleed. The Jews will now give them “literary earnings” and will pay them in full rubles for any slander against their homeland. and for any malice against the homeland... "Revolution" is a "pogrom of Russia", and emigrants are "pogromists" of everything Russian, Russian education, Russian family, Russian villages, Russian villages and cities...". “How these scoundrels crushed Strakhov, Danilevsky, Rachinsky... crushed everything modest and quiet in Rus', everything thoughtful in Rus'. It was like in Egypt - the “coming of the Hyksos”. The devil knows, where did the “Hyksos” come from, “the people shepherds", shepherds. Historians do not know where they come from or who they are. They came and destroyed the already established Egyptian civilization, which had existed in the Nile Delta for two thousand years; they destroyed it to the ground, with religion, classes, improvement, laws, pharaohs. Then, after one and a half centuries, they were driven out. And it began to recover from ruin; with difficulty, slowly, but it was restored. “The 60s were ours” - such an invasion of nomads came from somewhere and essentially destroyed everything. state (in ideas), morality, family, estates." "Was serfdom. They carried him out. Was Tatar yoke. And they carried him out. "A Jew has arrived." And we will take it out. What to do? what to do? what to do?" "So, to the complete satisfaction of our modern press, the last phase of Christianity will be completed and destinies will be concluded world history. “Chiliasm” will come, “1000 years” of bliss, when only liberal articles will be written, only liberal speeches will be pronounced, and the hydra of “nationalism” will be crushed... It’s a bit boring. Ah, it’s a little boring everywhere..." .

Let us remember the diary entry of Alexander Blok: "Melancholy, at least hang yourself. Liberal detective again. - Jews, Jews, Jews"(7 March 1915). “History is going on, something is happening; and the liquids are liquid: stubbornly and skillfully, tirelessly sniffing the air, they adapt so as NOT to create (i.e., they themselves are deprived of creativity; creativity is a sin for the Jews). And I GOOD I UNDERSTAND PEOPLE, whose example I myself will never be able to and will not want to act, and who act like this: hearing these relentless fractional steps behind them (and the smell of garlic) - turn around, swing and punch them in the teeth, so that for a minute they lag behind with their attempts, semi-harmful (= destructive) grabbing by the coattails" (July 27, 1917)" .

And yet this inescapable revolutionary enthusiasm of the Jews has religious roots. The fact is that when the Lord created Israel, He created it so that it could survive among older and more powerful (both culturally and politically more powerful nations and empires). Israel was given an amazing talent for resistance, a talent for revolution. In order for Israel to survive in the Empires - Egyptian and Babylonian, Greek and Roman - it was given the penetrating power possessed by a blade of grass breaking up asphalt. This gift remained with Israel even when the prophetic and spiritual gifts were taken away from them. But now this talent began to work against Christian empires and cultures. In any revolution aimed at the destruction of canons and traditions, national forms of being and consciousness, Jews take an active part - either directly creating it, or provoking it with constant grumbling about “this country” and “these dogmas,” or organizing information advertising support.

Each nation develops its own national ideal. This could be the ideal of a noble knight, a wise jester, a hardworking plowman, a successful merchant: The ideal of Israel is the Prophet. The prophet denounces the vices of both the pagans and his people. He rebels for the sake of the desecrated or dusty-forgotten Truth. The secular version of the Prophet is an “opposition journalist.” This Jewish ideal is best expressed in Galich's call: “Can you go out to the square at that appointed hour?!” .

The Orthodox Russian ideal was completely different. This was the ideal of the quiet righteous man. a kind person Ancient Rus'- this is a prayer book, a person who silently and unadvertisingly creates goodness in himself and distributes it to those around him. Not a fire, but a candle: a light reaching towards the sky and shining on those around us.

But in Russia by the beginning of the twentieth century there was a change in the national ideal. First, it captured the intelligentsia, and then even church people forgot about their ideal and began to look at church life with Jewish eyes, evaluating the service of church pastors by completely non-church standards. “The emigration thought of every struggle, every feat on the part of the Church only as a political conspiracy, a call for an uprising, for the overthrow of the external rule of the Soviets. The cause of spiritual cleansing of the people, awakening the best in them human properties- a cause for which they worked so hard under the Tatars and St. Alexy, and Venerable Sergius- the refugee consciousness attached almost no importance... When the threat of execution hung over the head of His Holiness, some circles of emigration, not involved in the great work of the Church and the personal feat of the High Hierarch, it’s scary to say - secretly wanted the execution to be carried out, for they They hoped that after such a blow, a wave of popular indignation would sweep away Soviet strongholds." .

And so strong is the revolutionary pathos in Jews, the prophetic pathos, repeating “we are responsible for everything,” that even in baptized Jews, in Jews who have accepted the priesthood and even monasticism, it continues to flare up. Quite often one has to notice that an ethnic Jew who becomes an Orthodox priest becomes a man of the “party” and extremes. He cannot limit himself simply to the circle of his parish or monastic duties. He needs to “save Orthodoxy.” And he either goes into experiments, modernism and ecumenism, demanding “renewal”. Or he carries out a “conservative revolution”, quite pharisaically demanding the unwavering fulfillment of all the instructions of the Typikon and ancient canons and being indignant at the fact that modern church life does not fully correspond to them. And, of course, in the second case, he himself does not notice that he has become a modernist. For it is modernism for a seminary or academy student to write a denunciation of a professor who allegedly deviated into heresy. For this is modernism - when a novice teacher-monk goes around the classrooms and bedrooms of seminarians, pitting them against senior professors. For this is modernism - to turn to the Patriarch not with “petitions”, but with “statements” in which “humble monks” “join the demands.”

It is almost impossible for a Jew not to consider himself the standard of truth and Orthodoxy. Anything that differs even one iota is certainly a threat to democracy, or a threat to humanity, or a threat to Orthodoxy. Sooner or later, a Jew, timidly humble at first, will still feel like a censor. The "Grand Inquisitor" of all times and peoples - Torquemada - was a baptized Jew.

Conclusion.

The history of modern times quite clearly shows the attraction and repulsion of Russians and Jews. If the unambiguous ideal of a Jew is an open, dynamic, progressive society, then Russians have two such sympathies: a revolutionary-dynamic society in the American spirit and at the same time a pompous and monumental empire in the spirit of the “Third Rome”. Russian history of the 20th century has clearly oscillated between these two preferences; Accordingly, Russian-Jewish relations changed - from quite warm and even fraternal (suffice it to say that the core of Soviet intelligence in the 20s were Jews) to a policy of state anti-Semitism. Similarly, the attitude of Jews towards “this country” immediately changes, since for them the greatness and splendor of the state-bureaucratic machine, so close to the heart of the Russian person, causes nothing but contempt and irritation. At the moment, our society is once again at the stage of perestroika, so now the Jewish question (if it is not artificially inflated) has practically been removed. However, obviously, not far off new stage"imperialization" of society, which will again cause a negative reaction among Jews. A new round of Russian-Jewish confrontation is therefore inevitable, and it can be compensated for by a number of points, among which the most important are: maintaining the maximum possible reasonable freedom of movement (i.e. emigration) and a good relationship with the State of Israel

Bibliography.

1. S. Dubnov. "A Brief History of the Jews." 448 pp. M. 1992

2. M. Auerbach. History of the Jewish people. M. 1986

3. A. Oksman. History of Jews in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.

4. M. Goncharok. The Age of Will. Russian anarchism and Jews (19th-20th centuries). Ufa 1979

5. R. Ryvkina. Jews in post-Soviet Russia - who are they? Sociological analysis of the problems of Russian Jewry. 240 pp. M. 1993

6. M. K. Polyakov "Judaism" M. 1983

And so, at the decisive moment of the coming of the Son of God, the devil was allowed to achieve enormous success, which introduced a special tension into the course of history: he seduces into the greatest possible crime - deicide! – the leaders of God’s chosen people, playing on their materialism and national pride. Under the influence of the devil, they lost faith in the immortality of the human soul and therefore rejected the Messiah, since He brought His promises of the Kingdom of God not on earth, but in Heaven, and not only to Jews, but to all people ready to follow God's Law.

The Jews themselves admit this in their own way: “This is a common and characteristic worldview of Judaism, for which true spirituality always realizes itself in material", Christ transferred salvation "to mystical areas inaccessible to the perception of the ordinary person,” explains the International Jewish Newspaper in the article “Why Jews do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah.” Even the obvious miracles of Christ and His miraculous resurrection were not accepted by materialist Jews.

Only a small part of Jewry, faithful to the law and the prophets, understood the true meaning of their chosenness by God and, becoming the first Christians, conveyed this chosenness to all Christian humanity. These Jewish Christians also became the first martyrs to fall at the hands of the Jews. The majority of Jews, not accepting Christ, continue to wait for the “other”, the earthly “Messiah”, who will lead to earthly dominion, chosen precisely for this purpose, in their opinion, by the Jewish people. As Christ said about this: “I came in the name of My Father, and you do not receive Me; and if another will come in his name, you will receive him"(John 5:43; emphasis added). The Church calls him the Antichrist.

Thus, the devil stole from God His chosen people and made from them his own people and his own materialistic religion in humanity, which became the basis for the development of the “mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7), that is, for the establishment of satanic domination on earth. “You know neither Me nor My Father... Your father is the devil and you want to do the lusts of your father; he was a murderer from the beginning” (John 8:19,44; emphasis added) - such is Christ’s sentence to the Judaizers who rejected Him. (It should be noted that the very word “Israel” in Hebrew means “fighter of God,” which providentially indicates the proud obstinacy of the chosen people in their relationship with God.)

That is why, under the influence of envy and pride, the Jewish high priests, scholars and elders condemned Christ in violation of their own legal process. The accused was not given a defense lawyer, he was convicted without testimony based on a false interpretation of the words of the Accused Himself, the accusers themselves were the judges, and they held the trial at a prohibited time on the eve of Saturday, they beat the Accused, they did not wait the required day for reflection between the interrogation and the verdict, were not given the opportunity to appeal their decision.

They condemned Christ to crucifixion on a trumped-up charge, the falsity of which they themselves recognized(we give below quotes from Matthew 25–27; Mark 12–15; Luke 20–23, highlighting confirmation of this in italics). Anticipating their murder plot, Christ told them a parable about the evil vinedressers who killed the Son of the Owner of the vineyard, after which the high priests wanted to kill Him even more, “for understood that He spoke this parable about them. And watching Him, they sent wicked people who, pretending pious, would have caught Him in some word in order to betray Him to the authorities and the power of the ruler,” but they did not succeed. Then " Satan entered into Judas"and through him taught the Jewish leaders to "take Jesus cunning and kill", "many bore false witness on him". They could have arrested Christ during the day, because He openly taught the people, but they preferred to arrest Him at night, because they were afraid of the people. They handed Him over to Pilate with the false accusation that Christ “corrupts our people and forbids giving tribute to Caesar, calling Himself Christ the King.”

The high priests knew perfectly well the Old Testament and God's prediction that the Messiah would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver that would go to the potter (Zech. 11:12–13), and they paid exactly that amount to Judas for his betrayal. They were not stopped even by the repentance of Judas, who returned the money to them with the words : « I sinned by betraying innocent blood. They told him: what do we care??; but, realizing the sinfulness of their act, the pieces of silver did not dare to “put them in the church treasury, because that's the price of blood", and bought land with them from potter.

Neither Pilate nor even Herod found “This man guilty of anything of which you accuse Him.” Pilate "knew that the chief priests had betrayed Him" out of envy”, and three times invited the assembled people to release Christ, “This Righteous One.” But three times the people, prompted by the high priests, shouted: “Crucify, crucify Him!”; “Let him be crucified!.. His blood be on us and on our children»!..

As can be seen from the description of the execution, the words of Christ: “Father! let them go, they don’t know what they’re doing!” (Luke 23:34) - referred more likely to the Roman executor soldiers who nailed Him to the cross than to those Jews who, by deliberate lies, achieved His crucifixion. Christ said about them: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin... If I had not done among them deeds that no one else had done, they would not have had sin; but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father” (John 15:22-24).

“How will you escape from condemnation to Gehenna?.. I am sending you prophets, and wise men, and scribes; and some you will kill and crucify, and others you will beat in your synagogues and drive from city to city; May all the righteous blood shed on earth come upon you, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, ... whom you killed between the temple and the altar. Truly I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to you! how many times have I wanted to gather your children together, as a bird gathers its chicks under its wings, and you did not want to! Behold, your house is left to you empty” (Matthew 23:33–38).

An empty house is the deprivation of the Jews' chosenness, which, according to the Apostle Paul, passes to Christians: “If you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise” (Gal. 3:29). This meaning of the transition of chosenness to other peoples who have adopted Christianity is expressed in many parables of the Gospel: about the transfer of the vineyard to other winegrowers - “the Kingdom of God will be taken away from you and will be given to a people who bear its fruits” (Matthew 21:41-43); about the Master of the house, closing the gates for those in whose streets He taught, but dissolving the gates for those who “will come from the east and the west, and the north and the south, and will sit down in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29); about the Kingdom of Heaven, which is like a wedding feast: “those who were called were not worthy,” which is why it was commanded to invite “everyone you find” (Matthew 22:2–14); the same meaning of the parable of those invited to supper (Luke 14:16–24).

This is what the rational logic of the Jewish high priest Caiaphas, who falsely condemned Christ to death, turned out to be: “It is better for us that one man should die for the people, than that the whole people should perish” (John 11:50). The Son of God died for people and rose again, defeating death, and the people who doomed Him to death perished spiritually.

From this amazing tenacity with which the Jewish leaders insisted on the crucifixion of the Son of God - who performed miracles obvious to everyone, preached love between people and attracted many people (this is the reason for the envy of the leaders!) by preaching salvation in the Kingdom of Heaven - it becomes clear that even then The devil managed to raise conscious liars among the chosen people, who, because of their pride, were ready to serve evil and make lies their weapon in the struggle against God Himself for earthly power.

After the resurrection of Christ, they tried to silence this miracle with lies and bribery, slandered Him and made Him their main enemy. They crossed out from the Old Testament all the fulfilled prophecies about the coming of Christ and reinterpreted these texts into their own main source The “law” that stands above the Bible is the racist Talmud. He claims that God's promises apply only to the Jews, who are promised dominion over all other nations of the world, and they must serve the Jews like cattle.

And especially Talmudic Judaism is directed against Christianity. A well-known Jewish historian admits that the Jews “ranked Christians much lower... the pagans... A curse was pronounced over the Christian scriptures... The formula of a curse over the Menaians (Jews who converted to Christianity) was introduced into daily prayer. The reason for this: Christianity teaches that the promises of God are intended for all people, regardless of nationality - Thus, Christianity was perceived by the Jews as an existential enemy, abolishing the Jewish national chosenness of God with all its desired privileges of earthly domination.

Thus, hatred of Christ became an integral part of Judaism, which continues to this day. Christians are prescribed to be treated worse than cattle. This hatred permeates the entire Jewish code of conduct, compiled in the 16th century on the basis of the Talmud - “Shulchan Aruch” (translated as “The set table” with the “selected dishes” of Judaism). This book can be downloaded for free using the link provided.

In this code, Christians are equated with “idolaters” (Akum) and, upon seeing their temple, Jews are ordered to pray to “God” for the destruction of this “place of idolatry,” as well as to destroy objects of “idolatry” and “call them shameful names.” “Whoever sees the houses of Akums is obliged to say, when they are still living in them: “The Lord will destroy the houses of the arrogant” ...” And if these dwellings have already been destroyed, one should praise the Jewish “god.”

Gentiles are compared to feces; “it is forbidden to save them when they are close to death... they cannot be treated, even for money, except in cases where hostility can be feared... it is permissible to test medicine on Akuma to see if it is useful.” The marriage of Jews with Akums is not recognized: “this is only fornication”; the seed of a Gentile is “considered as the seed of beasts”; If a non-Jewish servant dies of a Jewish owner, the owner “is not given words of consolation,” but must be told: “May God compensate you for your loss,” in exactly the same way as they say to a man when his ox or donkey dies.” It is forbidden for a Jew and a non-Jew to cook in the same pot, but “it is permissible to add food for dogs in the pot in which they cook for themselves.”

“There is no deception in relation to a non-Jew... it is permissible to deceive him in a calculation or not to pay him, but only on the condition that he does not suspect this, so as not to desecrate the Name [of the Jewish “god”]... the money of Akums is, as it were, the property is ownerless and everyone who came first will take possession of it.”

Of course, in achieving his goals, the main methods of the new Jewish “father” are also recommended - lies, slander, provocative methods towards non-Jews to lure them into a trap. But all this must be done secretly, “so as not to desecrate the Name of G‑d.” That is, the Jewish “god,” whose name is forbidden to be written in full, allows and even recommends to his “children” any crimes against non-Jews, as long as this does not become known. To disguise such an attitude in front of non-Jews, hypocrisy is prescribed: outward display of friendly feelings (“on the holiday of Akum, rejoice with them in order to avoid hostility, because this is only a pretence”) and hiding one’s true intentions with distracting maneuvers. In particular, to destroy an unwanted person, “one must look for ways and means to drive him out of the world”, “one must entangle him in every possible way in order to cause his death. For example, when you see that one of them has fallen into a well and there is a ladder in the well, then hurry to pull it out, saying: “Here is my concern - I need to get my son off the roof, and I will now bring it back to you,” etc. P.".

A Jew is allowed to take a false oath to a non-Jewish court - he only “must declare the oath invalid in his heart.” A Jew is forbidden to testify against a Jew in court, and the violator of this prohibition “must be driven from the world... it is a good thing to kill him, and everyone who kills first gains merit”; “all residents of the area are guilty of participating in the expenses made in order to drive the traitor out of the world,” - apparently, this mutual responsibility even in crimes, it strengthens Jewish solidarity in opposition to the non-Jewish world.

(We will show further how this morality was manifested among Jews in politics and in wars - in contrast to the traditional Russian: “I’m going to attack you!” Where Jewish forces operate, one should always keep in mind the possible use of such morality, deception and provocative traps. Many authors refer to the so-called “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” - from our point of view, this is not an authentic Jewish document, but an anti-Jewish one, introduced into circulation by fighters against the dominance of Jews to discredit them, but at its core it correctly reflects the morality of the Shulchan. aruha". Therefore, it is better to refer not to the “Protocols”, but to the indisputable texts of the original source.)

“As a reward for such faith, the Messiah will come and pour out his wrath on the Akum.” On the eve of the Jewish Passover, a special prayer is read to the Jewish “god” about the “shedding of wrath” on the non-Jewish peoples: “Pursue them, O Lord, with wrath and destroy them from under heaven”...

Let us emphasize that these are not private statements of individual Jewish “sages” (one can also find more aggressive instructions among them, for example: “kill the best of the goyim”), but officially recognized laws, mandatory for study in Jewish schools and for implementation, which pre-revolutionary “Jewish Encyclopedia" calls "a prescription of the rules of life", it is "an invaluable reference book due to its clarity and accuracy." (And now the head of the Executive Committee of the Congress of Jewish Religious Organizations and Associations in the Russian Federation, Rabbi Z. Kogan writes, addressing his fellow tribesmen, that this is “a textbook of the Jewish civilization of our time... You absolutely need this book. You can act as it is written , and be sure that we have fulfilled the will of the Almighty.” Chief Rabbi of the Russian Federation A. Shaevich confirms: “The interest in this book has exceeded our wildest expectations. A huge number of grateful responses from a variety of people have been coming to us throughout this time. An even greater number of letters contain urgent requests for help in purchasing...” Examples from this modern edition we will give in chapter V.)

That is why at all times, and especially in the Middle Ages in Christian Europe, the “unfortunate Jews” were expelled from almost all countries. Even some Jews, like the philosopher M. Buber, realized that the cause of anti-Semitism was in themselves: “We only say “no” to other peoples, or, perhaps, we ourselves represent such a denial and nothing more. This is why we have become the nightmare of nations. That is why every nation is obsessed with the desire to get rid of us...”

And that’s why the Jews expelled from Christian Europe played “an outstanding, not to say decisive, role” in the creation of the United States, stated the Judophile scholar W. Sombart; At the same time, during the exterminatory privatization of the “no man’s” continent, tens of millions of indigenous inhabitants were destroyed - “like cattle.”

(In fairness, we note that part of Jewry, trying to get rid of racist pride, created in the 19th century “reformed Judaism”, which applied God’s commandments to all people, and not just to Jews, but it remained an insignificant movement, which is very indicative of the prevailing spiritual state Jewishness.)

Of course, such a people, who chose the devil as their father and, through their lust for earthly domination, served to build the kingdom of the Antichrist, could no longer be for God an environment suitable for the embodiment of the proper order of earthly life. The transition of chosenness to Christians (Matt. 23:33–38; Gal. 3:28–29) also meant the formation in Christian peoples of a special type of statehood serving God’s purposes - this will be discussed in more detail later.

Now let us note that the entire drama of human history develops between these two opposite spiritual poles and ideals of earthly statehood: Orthodox, serving the Law of Christ, and anti-Christian, serving the “mystery of lawlessness” of the Antichrist. Without realizing this, the direction of human development in the last two thousand years is unclear. That is why, and not at all because of so-called anti-Semitism, we, together with other Orthodox authors, are forced in our book for the historiosophical analysis of any era, including ours, to constantly turn to the role of extremely influential anti-Christian Jewry - also for the benefit of the Jews themselves, identifying from among them those capable of realizing the essence of this phenomenon, for their salvation. Its satanic essence was noted even by such intellectual philosophers (not at all “anti-Semites”) as Father Pavel Florensky, Father Sergius Bulgakov, A.F. Losev. The latter, for example, directly stated:

“The historical carrier of the spirit of Satan is Jewry... Jewry with all its dialectical-historical consequences is Satanism, the stronghold of world Satanism... Israel is the principle of falling away from Christianity and the stronghold of all world malice against Christ.” For this “anti-Soviet” work, in 1930 he received 10 years in the camps.

In connection with Christ's words about the "father" of the Jews, it should also be noted that the Talmud was supplemented by the occult teachings of Kabbalah. Any occultism is a connection with demons; in this case, it became a means of contact between the Jewish “wise men” and the new father Satan in order to attract his help in earthly affairs. Ritual human sacrifices are also connected with this (which has been indisputably proven by famous scientists) in order to appease the “father” and bring the Jewish kingdom of the “messiah”-Antichrist closer.

Already in the Old Testament, God Himself and His prophets often condemn the ritual sacrifices of children to the idols Baal and Molech, which were performed fallen into lawlessness Jews: they “sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons” (see: Ps. 106:37–38; Ezek. 16:20; Isa. 57:5; Jer. 7:31; 2 Kings 17:17 and etc.). It is not surprising that after the greatest Jewish lawlessness - the crucifixion of the Son of God - such sacrifices were again demanded by the new Jewish “father”, who hated the image of God in people. And, apparently, Satan is most pleased with innocent and pure victims, like babies in general were in pre-Christian times, and then Christian children became.

Kabbalah places the Jewish desire for world domination on an “absolute” basis: the “God” needs the Jews and is embodied in them to dominate the world through them. This occult side of Judaism, which justifies evil as a product (along with good) of the same “god,” is kept a special secret by Jews...

The onset of the “mystery of lawlessness” in the earthly world was facilitated by another important feature of Judaism. Not believing in the immortality of a person’s personal soul, the Jews saw all their values ​​only on earth and, more than other peoples, rushed to possess them and to usury. The consequence was the dominance of Jews in world trade and world finance since pre-Christian times, which is why they settled around the world along trade routes and “lines of monetary power” in more what they lived in Palestine; The words “Jew” and “usurer” have become synonymous among many peoples. All this is proudly recognized by many Jewish authors, for example, the mondialist ideologist J. Attali. In his new book “Jews, the World and Money” he gives this phenomenon the following explanation (we quote in translation, preserving the features of the original):

“The Jewish people made money a unique and universal instrument of exchange, just as they made their God a unique and universal instrument of superiority... In this cruel world, ruled by force, money gradually finds itself highest form organizations human relations which allows all conflicts, including religious ones, to be resolved without violence. The authors of the Talmud were themselves, for the most part, traders and economic experts...”

“Isaac and Jacob confirm the need to get rich in order to please God... God blesses Isaac's wealth and allows him to buy the birthright from his brother Esau - this is proof that everything has a material price, even in the form of lentil soup... Money - a machine that transforms the sacred into the secular, liberates from coercion, channels violence, organizes solidarity, helps to resist the demands of the Gentiles, is a wonderful means of serving God.”

About usury, Attali cites the teaching of Rabbi Yaakov Tam: “This is an honorable profession, usurers earn money quickly and enough to abandon other professions and devote themselves to religious pursuits.”

For Jews, hired labor is considered reprehensible: “An important point: everyone must at all costs avoid agreeing to forced labor that makes one dependent, since obeying someone is tantamount to returning to Egypt... This prohibition explains why, for centuries, Jews have been the most often refuse to enter large organizations and prefer to work for themselves."

Yudophil V. Solovyov wrote that “Jews are attached to money not at all for the sake of its material benefits alone, but because they now find in it the main instrument for the triumph and glory of Israel.” However, the very Jewish goal of earthly triumph was materialistic - that is why the devil managed to saddle the Jewish people to steal the earthly world from God and establish the kingdom of the Antichrist. In this sense, anti-Christian Talmudic Judaism can be called the most materialistic religion, in which “service to God” so merges with the passion for profit that one is replaced by the other: money becomes the Jewish “god” - the prototype of this was the worship of the Jews of the horned “golden calf” described in the Old Testament. . It is no coincidence that Attali, in the first of the above quotes, compares money with the Jewish “god”.

For more than one century, the theme of God's chosenness of the Jewish people has haunted the minds of mankind. The paradox is that Jews, recognizing the right to be called “chosen,” often refuse the imposed label. There is no uniformity on this score in the scriptures.

Controversial topic

For Jews, the topic of being chosen by God has always been special. But lately she has become painful. Representatives of Jewry complain that other nations see chosenness as a doctrine of superiority and thirst for world domination.

Indeed, the cornerstone of many conspiracy theories is the idea of ​​some kind of world government consisting of Jews, exploiting the rest of the Earth's population and striving to reduce its number as much as possible.

But even for the average person who is not a Jew or a supporter of conspiracy theories, God’s chosenness of the Jews causes, if not irritation, then at least bewilderment. The rabbis here take a dual position: they believe that the concept of “God’s chosen people” in its current sense is a product imposed by Christian ideology, but at the same time they recognize that the chosen mission of the Jews remains in force, since the Covenant of Moses with God has not been canceled.

However, even in the latter there is no unity among the Jews. In the religious circles of Judaism, there is a position that only strict adherence to the commandments makes Jews the chosen people, while the Orthodox claim that even a Jew who leads an exclusively secular lifestyle can be considered “chosen.”

For what merit?

A person inexperienced in religious knowledge may ask the question: for what merits did the Jews acquire a privileged position in the eyes of God? To do this, you need to turn to religious texts.

In the Torah (Book of Breishit, chapter 12:1-3) God says to Abraham: “Get out of your country, from your kindred and from your father’s house to the country that I will show you. And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”

The very concept of the chosenness of the Jewish people was first voiced approximately 1300 years BC (500 years from the time of Abraham) on Mount Sinai by Moses, who conveyed the words of God: “So speak to the House of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel... If you obey Me and keep My covenant, then you will be My chosen one from all nations” (Exodus, chapter 19: 3-6).

According to Judaism, a Covenant was concluded between God and the Jewish people, which can be interpreted both as a blessing and as a huge responsibility placed on the Jews. Orthodox publicist Sergei Khudiev writes that God’s election differs from man’s. If we choose for something, then for God it is an act of pure, freely given grace, which is not associated with any merit.

This idea is conveyed by the Bible, which emphasizes that the Jews were chosen not for merit, but in order to save all humanity. According to the Old Testament, the pagan peoples were unable to accept the incarnate God, and therefore the people of Israel had to prepare them for the coming of the Messiah.

Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov clarifies this issue. The Lord, in his opinion, did not choose the Jewish people. God chose Abraham. While many representatives of the human race were mired in pagan cults of worshiping a whole host of gods and deities, Abraham was faithful to the one God - the creator of all things on earth. And only later was chosenness related to the whole people.

Not elected, but appointed

Upon careful reading of the Bible, you will notice that the word “God’s chosen” does not accurately convey the meaning of the relationship between God and the Jewish people as reflected in the Holy Scriptures. “I have formed this people for Myself,” it is said on the pages of the Old Testament (Is. 43:21). It turns out that the people are not chosen by God, but created by God.

As one rabbi wittily remarked regarding the chosenness of his people: “Jews did not participate in the elections, no one elected them, they were simply appointed.”

The Apostle Paul says that the Jewish Old Testament law is “a teacher for Christ” (Gal. 3:24). This strange word becomes clear if we establish its Greek basis. In the original Greek the word is “pedagogon”, but it is not equivalent to the word teacher, which is close to us. In the ancient world, a teacher was a slave who closely monitored the child so that he got to school on time, did not play pranks and did not waste his energy.

Likewise, the Law of Moses, which the Jews were entrusted to implement, in its true sense does not so much teach as it warns. It is no coincidence that among the 613 commandments of the Pentateuch there are 365 prohibitions and 248 commands. The original mission of the chosen people of the Jews was to warn other peoples from abusing dangerous beliefs.

One of the attributes of the pagan cults practiced in Canaan, Phenicia or Carthage was such a terrible rite as infant sacrifice, confirmed by modern archeology. In these circumstances, Joshua’s orders to scorch the land of Canaan no longer seem so terrible from people whose religious minds had become so clouded that they sacrificed their own firstborn to their god.

“Fanaticism is tolerated in the Bible - in the face of pagan extremes, it is a lesser evil than indifference,” notes Russian theologian and philosopher Andrei Kuraev in this regard.

No more favorites?

Thousands of years have passed since those distant times. Are the people of Israel still forced to fulfill their mission? In the New Testament era, many deprived the Jews of this creative role. The Apostle Paul, endowing Christianity with universalism, contrasted the saving Gospel with the outdated Law. The Christian Saint interpreted Judaism as a “passed stage,” thereby diminishing the theological significance of Judaism in New Testament times.

In 2010, Middle Eastern bishops meeting at the Vatican passed a resolution demanding that Israel stop using the Bible to justify injustices against Palestinians. “The rights to the “Promised Land” are no longer the privilege of the Jewish people. Christ abolished this right. The Chosen People are no more,” the Vatican resolution stated.

For Jews, such a statement became another reason to declare that the idea of ​​​​God's chosenness was adopted and transformed by Christianity. According to the concept of medieval theologians, the mission of Israel ended with the birth of Jesus Christ in its midst. “Israel in the flesh” was now the Christian Church.

Perhaps the numerous troubles that befell the Jewish people with the advent of the Christian era are evidence that Israel’s mission is over? In the 19th century, the Russian saint Theophan the Recluse expressed his interpretation of this theological question: “Whoever God has chosen will punish him for correction, will deprive him of His mercy for a while, but will not completely reject him.”

One of the documents of the World Council of Churches of Protestant Communities for 1988 states that the Covenant between G-d and the Jewish people remains in force. Anti-Semitism, like any teaching that condemns Judaism, must be rejected.

Compensation for humiliation

All the complexity and inconsistency of the issue of God's chosen people in the modern world lies in the dilemma: dogmatically, the Jewish people remain the chosen people of God, but how should this manifest itself in real life, except for declaration, no one can explain.

In the eyes of the anti-Semitic part of the public, God's chosenness of Jews is expressed in their disdainful and arrogant attitude towards other peoples, in the privileged possession of rights and opportunities that are not given to mere mortals.

Stepping away from anti-Semitic rhetoric, one can try to understand what the special status of modern Jewry is. The famous translator of the Koran, Valeria Prokhorova, writes that “after a slave existence in Egypt, the sons of Israel became free, received abundant lands and prosperity, each of them was like a king.”

This aspect was also considered by the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev: “There is a Jewish conceit that irritates. But it is psychologically explainable: this people was humiliated by other peoples and they compensate themselves with the consciousness of being chosen and their high mission.”

The desire to gain self-esteem after many years of deprivation and humiliation was imprinted in the genetic memory of the Jewish people and was expressed in gaining protection, including through a sense of superiority and the achievement of status and wealth.

Andrei Kuraev sees a prophetic pathos in Jews, repeating “we are responsible for everything.” Quite often one has to notice, writes Kuraev, that an ethnic Jew who becomes an Orthodox priest becomes a person of the “party” and extremes. He cannot limit himself simply to the circle of his parish or monastic duties. He needs to “save Orthodoxy.”

Interfaith conflict

The Russian writer Yakov Lurie, explaining the Jewish phenomenon, noted that the issue here is not the Old Testament or nationality. “It is something intangible and elusive as a whole,” Lurie writes, “it is an extract from all elements that are fundamentally hostile to the moral and social order established on Christian principles.”

Indeed, the modern idea of ​​Jewry being chosen by God can also be explained through a conflict with Christianity. After all, Christianity, in fact, applied those rights and responsibilities of God’s chosen people, which Moses presented to Israel, to itself - “once not a people, but now the people of God” (1 Pet. 2:10).

One of the preachers of Jewish nationalism in Russia, Sergei Lezov, sees the anti-Semitism of Christianity in the fact that it has “usurped Israel’s claims” to the exclusivity of its relationship with God. At the same time, fighters against anti-Semitism go further and demand that Christian peoples, in repentance for the crimes of pagan German Nazism, adopt a view of Israel as a people that still preserves its chosenness of God in absolute uniqueness.

For the Protestant theologian Oscar Kuhlman, there are two understandings of national messianism, between which there is an impassable line: does the chosen people exist in order to serve all of humanity, or so that all of humanity, having come to its senses, serves him.

Covenant under duress

The Talmud says that when the Jewish people stood at the foot of Sinai, God announced to them that if they refused to recognize Him, He would order the mountain to cover the entire Jewish camp with its mass, and the Jews, out of fear, against their will, feignedly agreed to serve Jehovah. The Law of Moses was therefore a great bondage for the Israelites (Shabbat 88:1).

If we were called to court, says Rabbi Solomon Yarhi, and asked why we do not adhere to what was told to us at Sinai, then we could answer that we do not want to know what was imposed on us by force. So, should the Covenant received by the Jews under duress be considered valid?

God-fighting motives were noted back in the days of the first Patriarchs. It is no coincidence that when Jacob was blessed, he received the name Israel - “He who wrestles with God.” “You have fought with God, and you will overcome men” (Gen. 32:27,28), the Creator admonished him.

The desire for freedom also manifested itself in the heirs of Jacob. They were interested in everything that the Torah prohibited. This is how Kabbalah arose - preaching magic and astrology and denying the One Personal God-Creator. The pagan doctrine of the transmigration of souls also found a place in the house of Israel.

Jews created a religion of self-deification, says Andrei Kuraev about Kabbalah. They finally gave in to the desires of their hearts, which the Prophets had forbidden them to do. The Prophets are gone, and the Grace of God is gone. "Jerusalem! Jerusalem! you who kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! how many times have I wanted to gather your children together, as a bird gathers its chicks under its wings, and you did not want to! “Behold, your house is left to you empty,” Christ addressed the children of Israel (Matthew 23:37).

Israel, for whom the Covenant turned out to be a heavy burden, having given in to the temptations of secret knowledge, has largely abandoned God's chosenness. Christianity values ​​Israel's historical mission more highly than Israel itself, wrote Catholic theologian and French Cardinal Henri de Lubac. – Israel exists not for its own sake, but for the sake of all humanity.

Henri de Lubac compared the Jews to the eldest son, who in a famous parable did not want the Father to accept his younger brother. Israel gave Christ to the world, but they themselves did not notice it. As a result, according to the theologian, when, after completing its providential mission, Israel wished to maintain its privileges, it became a usurper.

The theme of the chosenness of the Jewish people raises many questions.

1. How did the Jews end up being chosen? Who elected them?
2. Why were the Jews chosen among the nations of the world?
3. What is the meaning of being chosen?
4. Does being chosen presuppose an elevation above other peoples?
5. Isn't this kind of selectivity racist?
6. And if they are the chosen ones, why is it not noticeable?

We will answer in order.

How did the Jews become the chosen people?

The idea of ​​the chosenness of the Jewish people did not appear in the world as a result of their hidden ambitions and secret desires. The Jews did not elect or single themselves out. The Jews were chosen by G-d. The source of knowledge about this is in the Divine Desire, in the Torah, the book Shemot(19.5) and is mentioned three more times in the book Dvarim: “And now, if you obey me and keep my covenant, you will give me chosen ones of all nations..."

Why were the Jews chosen among the nations of the world?

The Jewish people were honored to be chosen because their forefathers, Abraham, Isaac and Yaakov, were the first to discover the Creator in the world, correct themselves and pass on the entire heritage to their descendants. They were pioneers in the service of G‑d and revealed the purpose of Creation. Subsequently, the Creator turned to all the peoples of the world with an offer to be the bearer of this goal, but they refused. And only the descendants of these forefathers unconditionally pledged to be bearers of the will of the Creator and entered into an alliance with Him on Mount Sinai. That's where they became the chosen Jewish people.

Why do you so openly rise above others?

Indeed, the chosenness of the Jews unnerves everyone who hears about it. Why? Firstly, the concept of “chosen” is automatically understood as “better” and “higher”. Secondly, in principle, every person there, in the depths of his heart, considers himself and his people chosen, but it is not customary to talk about this out loud. And these Jews brazenly and openly declare this. The result is envy and hatred. So why rise up?

It may be easier to answer this in the form of dialogue. One day I met John Abrash in a dark corner.

Oh, bastard, I heard that you consider yourself the chosen one, do you rise up?

But Abrasha was not at a loss:

Do you want to be chosen too?

John thought for a moment and agreed with apprehension. Then Abrasha asks him: do you know what our chosenness means?

Listen. First, you need to get involved with girls - no, no, there is only kosher food, then - study the Torah from morning to night, pray for a long time three times a day, strictly observe the laws of the Sabbath, fast during Lent...

Nope, I don’t want any chosenness!!!

Well then…

What is the meaning of being chosen?

The Creator chose the Jews to be an example for other nations in order to lead the whole world to correction. They must reveal to the world the reality of the One Creator, the absolute morality of G-d, and the ways of serving Him. But the correction of the world begins with... correction of oneself, therefore G‑d obliged them to observe 613 commandments, including 365 prohibitions and 248 commands. In contrast, for other nations it is enough to follow the 7 commandments.

The chosenness of the Jews lies in their colossal demands on themselves and responsibility for themselves and for the whole world. It is not higher or lower, not better or worse, it is a different role in the world.

Is the idea that Jews are chosen racist?

Apparently, having not encountered anything like this in your life, you used the most familiar word - “racism”, but Jewish chosenness is something else. Judge for yourself.

1. The meaning of racism is the biological superiority of one race or ethnic group over another. As a consequence, this superiority provides them with special rights and advantages, justifying their right to dominate other peoples.

   What special rights and advantages do Jews have? Who do they dominate? A? Except it's the other way around. There are “rights”, but to constant and well-organized bloodletting. There is an “advantage”, but to be forever persecuted by the people! And even in modern history, Israel is the only country where, after more than 60 years of history, it is not clear where its borders lie, it fights every few years and the legitimacy of its existence is still openly questioned.

2. Racist doctrine states that national identity is determined by the purity of blood. Therefore, racism creates a closed ethnic group of people where outsiders are prohibited from entering.

   And the Jewish people are not a closed club of a chosen race of descendants of the Forefather Israel, it is open to everyone who wants to accept the commands of the Creator and join the service of G-d, becoming the same Jew. That is, any person from any nation, having undergone conversion, can become the same chosen one.

3. Racists, as a rule, proudly and joyfully carry their feeling of being chosen. But the Jews, as you noticed, are not very eager to be chosen and are even embarrassed about it...
4. The racists themselves decided that they were the superior race, but the Jews did not choose themselves, it was the choice of G-d.

So, being chosen is not racism, but responsibility and being demanding of oneself.

And if they are “chosen”, then why is it unnoticeable?

Indeed, you are right, looking around, you just want to shout: “Where are these high moral standards of the Jews that you are talking about? Who saw them? We are even worse than others!”

Your outrage is rightful. But the only question is, why we do not meet these high standards, we must turn first of all to... ourselves. Who are we complaining about?! After all, we are the heirs of this chosenness! In the daily bustle, we sometimes forget that we are called the people of the Book, and not the people of Newspapers and TV! Jewish uniqueness and chosenness are in our Torah and only in the Torah, and not in...

Although, I must reassure you, in fact, “chosenness” does not come automatically. If we turn to the source of knowledge about chosenness, the Torah, and read it more carefully, we will see that Jews are awarded this title only conditionally. It says there: “and now, If you will obey me and keep my covenant, then you will obey me chosen ones of all nations”... As you see, “if” you live the life of G-d, then only then will you be the chosen ones, and if not, then you will, as you noted, “worse than them”... After all, when they build life according to the laws and customs of others peoples, then the original is always preferable to a parody of it.

Tragicomedy

In a sense, the theme of chosenness for secular Jews is simply a tragicomedy. This reminds me of Abrash, who runs around in a wrinkled, oversized general’s uniform, not understanding who put it on him. The comedy is that, despite his ridiculous appearance, Abrasha loves to hang around among people and from time to time convinces them that he belongs to them and is not a general at all... But the result is nothing but contempt, because if you are not a general, then what are you wearing for? this title... And the tragedy is that despite all this, it doesn’t even occur to Abrashka to find out where this uniform came from and what it obliges...

Conclusion

So, in order to lead other nations, to be an example for them and to truly be the chosen people, you just need to be yourself, live the real life of our Torah and observe the mitzvot.

Share this page with your friends and family:

In contact with