Section from a Web published book
(2003) by Professor
Anti-semitism is racial and ethnic hatred against the Jews. Many
books have been written about it over the centuries and modern studies and
institutes are active today. Anti-semitism in
Weiselhas had two areas of influence intellectually: secular and religious. The
influence on secular humanism has been to promote the notion that anti-semitism is a political and moral plague on society,
corrupting it, turning it into sub-human levels of functioning. The only way
society can escape this fate is to constitute itself into a community of hatred
against anti-semitism. Extensions of this idea are
seen in the formation of anti-discrimination agencies and institutes
specifically focused on anti-semitism in society—the
laws, the media, the image, the philosophies, and the practices of it. Wiesel’s religious influence has been felt by Christians
who desire a philosophical explanation of anti-semitism
in relation to the Christian Church. There seems to be a need for alleviating
feelings of guilt for the role of the Christian clergy in contributing to anti-semitism over the centuries. One commentator on Wiesel writes:
The second
part explores the theological and ethical questions involved in the journey of
those who hear Wiesel. The author confronts Wiesel's assertion: "The sincere Christian knows that
what died in
(William A. Hartfelder,
Jr. “Review of: Elie Wiesel:
Messenger to All Humanity” by Robert McAfee Brown Notre Dame,
The modern
Jewish perspective on God has become influential with Christians since the
Holocaust literature has become prominent in seminaries and an official
ecumenical relationship has been formed between Christian Church leaders and
American Jewish Rabbis. One of the best known author and critic in the
holocaust literature is Elie Wiesel,
a survivor of Nazi extermination camps, and honored with a Nobel Peace Prize in
1986 for his humanitarian activities in relation to “remember the holocaust”
which he argued was a great human failure, not merely a Jewish tragedy.
Christian theologians began to argue that the holocaust requires a change in
the idea that Christians have of Redemption. Here is one example that uses the
holocaust as a justification for Christian political support for the survival
of
Ellis provides an illuminating overview of what has been
described as "Holocaust theology," that worldview which places Jewish
destiny within the parameters of the Holocaust and the state of
(…)
Like other writers, Ellis attributes the restraint that
generally characterizes Western criticism of
(Book Reviews: Beyond Innocence and Redemption: Confronting
the Holocaust and Israeli Power. By Marc H. Ellis. Harper & Row, 1990. Reviewed by John Dirlik. December/January 1992/93 on the Web at
www.washington-report.org/backissues/1292/9212074a.html
accessed June 2002)
1. Tenets Of Holocaust Theology
Some of the
tenets of “holocaust theology” are expressed here:
Some have
argued that as God granted human beings free will, the terrors of the Holocaust
were manifestations of purely human evil. Others have suggested that God
suffered in the death camps with his chosen people. Radical theologians,
however, have contended that our understanding of God must be altered in the
light of the Nazi terror.
Pre-eminent
among such Jewish theologians is the Conservative rabbi Richard Rubenstein, who
argues that it is no longer possible to believe in a supernatural deity who
acts in history. Jews today, he contends, live in the time of the death of God.
Elie Wiesel described in his autobiographical novel, Night , the evolution of his religious doubt as he
experienced the horrors of the Nazi regime. His rebellion was heightened during
the high holy days when, unable to pray, he turned accuser. On the day of atonement, he refused to fast, rejecting God's
silence in the face of suffering and murder.
(…)
A shift in
perspective has also taken place in Christian circles. A number of Christian
thinkers insist that our theological understanding has been fundamentally
altered by the events of the Nazi era. In Anti-Semitism and Christian Theology , the Christian feminist theologian Rosemary
Radford Ruether argues that the church must repudiate
its traditional conviction that Christianity is the only true path to
salvation.
The Catholic
theologian John Pawlikowski says Christians should
forge a new conception of the relationship between God and human beings in the
light of the Holocaust. In his view, the initial act of creation constituted
the liberation of humankind from its total encasement in the godhead.
Christianity's role is to guide humans in how they use this power and freedom.
(…)
These and
other thinkers have recast the theological approach to the problem of God's
presence and human suffering. In a post-Holocaust world, traditional views of
God are arguably invalid. In his article "Christians and Jews after
(Dan Cohn-Sherbok. “Where was God when evil struck?” This article
first appeared in the Times Higher Educational Supplement,
www.lamp.ac.uk/trs/studyofjudaism/wherewasgod.html accessed June 2002.
The basis
of all doubts about God regarding the Jewish holocaust is the tendency of
people generally and theologians in particular to apply a nonduality
between historical events and God’s omnipotence. This particular tendency is a
sub-set of the larger issue within which it is discussed: Why does God permit
evil of any kind? The crisis of the holocaust is precipitated by the horrific
number of victims in one historical event. The unprecedented evil unleashed in
the 1800 days of World War II made brought on the death of 6 million Jews, 20
million Germans, 20 million Russians, and millions of Poles, British, American,
Japanese, and others. These people must have had some face off when they
arrived in the spiritual world, as often is the case with victims and their
tormentors (SE 4493). It is significant to note that I could find not a single
reference to this idea in all of my research on holocaust theology. There
appears to be a total and absolute disinterest in following these victims to
their fate in the afterlife. It’s as if the afterlife did not exist and was not
relevant. But to the
2. The Victims In The Afterlife
Jewish and
Christian nonduality are equal in prohibiting discussion of the afterlife of
those 50 million people who entered the spiritual world from deaths caused by
the five-year war. Almost one million people died each month during that war.
Every one of these deaths meant a new beginning and a new future. It’s
irrational to stop the discussion at the point of death, as if these people
disappear from the human race. Nonduality wants to
focus on the size of the numbers—but this remains a natural focus, not
spiritual. The number of deaths has significance for a natural theology and for
politics. Angels do not think in numbers about anything (AC 5291). Dualism from the Writings allow us to go deeper into the
spiritual significance of any event. Not a single death from among the 50
million was caused by human evil as an impotent God looked on. Every death,
and its horrific attendant details, occurred with the Lord’s Laws of
Permissions. Nothing could occur without the Lord giving it power to occur. The
Lord permitted every horrific event and supplied the power for its
occurrence—the power of the trains carrying the victims, the intelligence of
the Nazis in figuring out efficient killing methods for millions, the attitudes
of the world’s leaders who did nothing and were not outraged, the last twitch
of a hand in agony, the last heart beat—every single detail was powered by
Divine Omnipotence through the Divine Laws of Permissions. And it doesn’t stop
there!
Every
individual needed to be awakened in the spiritual world, all 50 million of
them. Each was treated personally by the best possible care: two angels of the
Lord supervising with great care the operations of resuscitation. And my grandparents and uncles and cousins, and all the soldiers,
and all the Nazis who died, and all the Russians, and all the Poles, and so on.
They were all resuscitated within 36 hours into the caring hands of angels. And
from there they carried on, freer than before, with more capacity to enjoy and
discover the deepest desires and delights. There is no way of accurately
telling the holocaust story without going beyond the point of death. There are
two reasons: psychological and spiritual.
Psychologically,
if we stop at the point of the dying of the millions, there is no resolution
possible. The only available alternatives are pathological. There is no
rational resolution possible. People then fall into two main syndromes. One is
to hold on to the memory with hatred for part of the human. This perpetual
reminding and vigilance become possible mechanisms for escaping a
repetition. The other is to forgive and not to want to remember, and not to
want to attribute it to human nature in general. Neither approach gives
satisfaction and resolution.
Spiritually,
if we stop at the point of the dying of the millions, there is no resolution
with respect to why God allowed it. There is a general acknowledgement that God
sees the larger picture we do not, and therefore in God’s unfathomable Wisdom,
there is a justification for it. This is not a resolution but a the creation of a mystery. It prevents the deepening of
our ideas about God, a deepening that we need to advance in our regeneration. The
The world of spirits is not heaven, nor is it hell, but it
is the intermediate place or state between the two; for it is the place that
man first enters after death; and from which after a suitable time he is either
raised up into heaven or cast down into hell in accord with his life in the
world. (HH 421)
Every
individual regardless of race, inheritance, religion, or health, inherits at
birth a mental connection to those evil lusts and cupidities.
These flow in into the will of the natural mind, and each time we carry them
out in thought and action, we experience delight. We are a race delighted with
evil, with lust, with cupidities, and especially can
we enjoy these fallen delights when we justify them in our understanding as
something good and allowable. This is called the infernal marriage and takes us
straight to hell from where we cannot escape to eternity. The Lord cannot
prevent these events on our own account. This is because we are so fallen
that nothing would be left in our delight or animated life if the Lord
prevented the evils from being done. Our delights would instantly cease and we
would have no motive to move or think anything. If we had enough good things we
loved, the Lord could then prevent the bad things we also love, and we would
still feel alive, and in our heaven. But if there are no good loves or
affections left, not a one, then the Lord goes along with the lusts and their
evil acts, and gives Permission. That is, the Lord allows it to happen, doesn’t
stop it, but gives the power and the knowledge for the criminal and cruel act
to take place against the victim.
Further,
the Lord governs these events so that He mitigates each detail, bending but
never forcing, working in the background to make things happen as if by chance
or foresight (AC 4364[2] ). The Lord is present very closely with the
individual’s inner mind of which there is no conscious awareness. Regardless of
the person’s religion or morality, the Lord is there close, governing and
managing and healing. How good it is that He doesn’t leave things to us, for
then hell would be far worse. He only lets us carry on the impression that He
is absent or that we are accomplishing anything from ourselves. The holocaust
is psychologically and spiritually impossible to resolve without knowing about
the Divine Laws of Permissions and the Laws of Divine Providence. These have
now been revealed in the Writings and we can have a perspective on anti-semitism that is rational and purposeful, not random and
abandoned.
The
There are
thousands and thousands of arcana, of which scarcely
a single one is known to man, whereby a man is led by the Lord out of the life
of hell into the life of heaven. (AC 9336)
There
are many like Elie Wiesel
who see the holocaust as God’s failure, Christianity’s
failure, humanity’s failure. These represent a continuation of the struggles
for him and others. But we know from the Writings that in reality there is
never a failure by the Lord. What is happening is that the Lord manages everyone’s
fate and biography in accordance with His Perfect Divine Order and with a
constant focus on the individual’s regeneration and preparation for spiritual
life. The style by which we live in war and in peace is something we ourselves
insist on, even as the Lord manages to work around it so that all things
contribute to the individual’s spiritual salvation and eternal life. There has
been no failure of anything, only man’s cruelty at work prior to regeneration.
Jewish nonduality as it is manifested in Christian thinking is
exhibited in the popularity of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s bestsellers read by
millions of Americans.
Question: This year is the 20th anniversary of your hugely best-selling book, When
Bad Things Happen to Good People. Did the response to that book surprise
you?
Answer: It still surprises me 20 years later that so many people, Christians,
Jews and agnostics, were comforted by that book, that it is used in college
courses and taught at Christian seminaries.
Question: What is it about us that craves significance?
Answer: Once we come to understand that
we're not going to live forever, we feel the need to leave our mark on the
world, so that when we are gone, people will know that we were once there. It's
not mortality that frightens us, it's invisibility,
the dreadful feeling that neither our living nor our dying will make a
difference to the world. Religion tries to help us conquer that fear by giving
us good things to do and by reassuring us that our choices matter at the
highest level. We may not be famous, but we matter to the people close to us
and we matter to God.
(BookPage interview with the
author. Rabbi
Harold Kushner Living a Life That Matters: Resolving the Conflict Between Conscience and Success (Knopf 2001) On the Web at www.bookpage.com/0109bp/rabbi_kushner.html
Accessed June 2002)
Note the
inability to consider the continuation of life as a normal part of assessing
the “significance” of our life on earth. Nonduality
restricts an individual’s significance to a strictly natural property—that of
“leaving a mark” in the physical world. In the Eulogy at funerals Christians
often take solace in affirming the rock bottom fact that the individual who
died will yet continue life “in the memories” of those he or she influenced for
good. This is considered equivalent to immortality. But it is not. The
individual continues life in the spiritual world and has nothing to do with the
memories of those left behind. Dualism grants us freedom from the oppressive
ideas of nonduality.
I once sent
a copy of this book to Oprah after she had devoted a series of shows to what is
spiritual. Of course I never received an acknowledgment from the producers who
open her mail. After teaching a history of psychology course focusing on
Swedenborg I was delighted to read Part 1 of the students’ reports which was
divided into two parts: What the book says, and What I
think of it. The majority did an excellent job of representing one of the three
books being considered (Heaven and Hell, Divine Love and Wisdom,
Divine Providence). Their summaries were
accurate and they picked up important threads which they were able to render
precisely in their words.
But when I
got to Part 2 of their report I was shaken a bit to see that they did not
accept what they summarized, though they all had a favorable view of the author
whom they deemed sincere in his intentions. So I learned of the futility of
merely exposing others to the Writings and expecting instant acceptance. I
believed this naively because that’s how it happened to me. I was a seeker of
truth and meaning in life. I hated the idea of dying and disappearing. I felt
it was such a colossal waste—all the effort I put into my life going poof! What’s
the point? No I did not care much about living “in the memory” of others.
What’s that to me? I wanted immortality. I loved it when I first read the New
Testament in 1980—overcoming my long standing aversion of it, as it was
forbidden for an Orthodox Jew to read it or touch it. I especially loved the
parts that promised eternal life. This was my first rational duality. It
was given as a gift from the Lord through His New Testament Word. From an
Orthodox Jew I instantly became a Jewish Christian. But a year later the Lord
gave me the rest of the gift to complete the whole that He wished to give me
about Himself and from Himself. I found the books of the Writings in our
university library as I was browsing for “Bible commentaries.” Then my mind was
immediately changed again into full living dualism. Now I have a New Church
mind and I can write this book from it.
I realize
that it is not possible to believe Swedenborg’s accounts of the spiritual world
without reading and understanding the rational explanations given for all the
experiences and observations he was able to make directly. There were many
illustrious readers of Swedenborg among the intelligentsia of the 18th , 19th and 20th century (for the long list see Note 5 at
end). They generally divided what he wrote into two parts: philosophy-theology
and fantasy-spiritism. It’s astonishing to me that they were able to separate
these two and to admire one for its enlightening rationality, but to dismiss
the other for its childish and rather unimaginative inventiveness. I was
puzzled.
3. The Spiritual Meaning Of Anti-Semitism
I believe
that future research in theistic science based on the Writings could uncover
the reasons for the history of anti-semitism. We
already know that it has a spiritual cause, because all historical events on
earth are effects while none of them are causes (HH 89). What are the spiritual
causes of anti-semitism? There may be many, general
causes and specific causes. General causes fall into the category of love of
self and love of dominion by those who make use of any social or political
situation to make victims. This is what they love. But there are also specific
causes that relate to evils of religion by those who make use of religion to victimize
others. Other specific reasons relate to the states of spiritual development,
what is inherited down the line of one’s ancestors (DP 277). The Writings tells us that all historical events in the Old Testament
took place as described and that only those were permitted by the Lord that
could be for the benefit of the people involved in the events, and could also
serve for the Word and its representations by correspondence. The inner content
of the Old Testament is its spiritual content, and this content is arranged in
infinite rational series which the angels marvel at (AE 112[4]; NJHD 260). The
historical events were allowed to take place so that they could serve to
represent and contain these heavenly truths. These truths are for the salvation
of humankind, and without them, no one could be saved (TCR 318).
The Jewish
history in the Old Testament had a Divine purpose for its every detail. This
purpose was related to the evolution of the human race. This evolution is
accomplished by means of the Divine Truths contained by correspondence in the
historical events of the Word, in every geographic name, in every number, in
every animal mentioned, in every miracle, in every poetic expression (AC 66[2] ). The Jewish people did not go through these events
merely for their own sake but for the sake of the entire human race. This
is the meaning of the “Chosen People of God.” They were accepted to the Divine
task of being the living events of what the Lord needs to accomplish to save
the world. Every detail in the Old Testament is about the Lord and His work of
Redemption. It appears on the surface that every detail is about the Jewish
people and their land. This is true. But much more than this, it is also the containant of the universal meaning—the latter within the
former, by correspondence (DLW 221, AC 1886).
For
instance, when we read about Abraham and the events recorded about him, we are
reading in the spiritual sense, the events about the Lord when He was on earth
and accomplished His work of Deliverance and Redemption. And further, these
very same details about Redemption are also the details about the spiritual
evolution of the race, and the spiritual development of every individual. This
is the level of theistic science. At this level of thinking we read about
Abraham, but we think about the Lord. We read about Esau and Jacob, but we
think about our own states of regeneration. Esau represents the good of faith,
Jacob the truth of faith. When we read about Jehovah telling Abraham to hearken
unto Sarah, we are thinking about the external rational mind being in obedience
to the internal rational mind. When we read about the prophet who was ordered
to eat dung, we are reading about the profanation of good and truth in our
mind:
In Ezekiel, the Spirit of Jehovah said to the prophet:
Take
unto thee wheat, and barley, and beans, and lentils, and millet, and spelt, and
put them into one vessel, and make thee bread thereof. With the ordure of man's
dung shalt thou make a cake before their eyes. Thus shall the sons of Israel eat their bread unclean
(Ezek. 4:9, 12-13);
where the
profanation of good and truth is treated of; the "wheat, barley, beans,
lentils, millet, and spelt" denote the kinds of good and its derivative
truth; the "bread" or "cake" "made thereof with the
ordure of human dung," denotes the profanation of all of them. (AC 3941)
Similarly
in the New Testament and in the Writings because the Word is always written in
this style, and without this, it would not be Holy and would not be able to
conjoin heaven and earth, and thereby save the human race. The Writings were
given for the entire universe, for the earths, and for the heavens. Many
nations and historical figures are mentioned in it. All these are
representations of spiritual things that correspond to them. These spiritual
things are human states that apply universally. The Laws of Divine government
have been revealed but not understood, hardly studied. But the future will be
different as the human race gradually returns to its state of wholeness and
pristine perfection (Coronis Summary LIII).
As the
Writings become more widely known the issue of anti-semitism
in it is inevitably going to crop up. I recall when I first read the New
Testament at around age 40 I accepted it without hesitation as the continuation
of the Old Testament, with which I was raised as an Orthodox Jew. But despite
this, I sometimes got the feeling that it was anti-semitic
in certain places where it refers to the Jews in derogatory terms. This
reaction is inherent in every Jew. I started examining the exact expressions to
see if it could have been written differently. For example, instead of saying
“the Jews” should it not have said “certain among the Jews” or “the Jewish
clergy” and so on. But later, through the Writings, I
gained the perspective of the Word as the Divine Truth with its inner spiritual
meaning in every expression and word. Then it is clear that the Word is
universal and above sectarianism. But real historical events and people are
involved in the surface literal prose of the Word. These names, places, and
events are to be transcended or seen through so that they disappear altogether,
and what is perceived then is the spiritual universal sense. This has nothing
whatsoever to do with the people or places mentioned.
The nature of representatives becomes clear from the
historical parts of the Word, where all the acts of those forefathers, that is
to say, the acts of Abram, Isaac, and Jacob, and later on of Moses, the judges,
and the kings of Judah and Israel, are nothing other than representatives. As
has been stated, 'Abram' in the Word represents the Lord, and because he
represents the Lord, he also represents the celestial man. 'Isaac' too
represents the Lord, and from that the spiritual man, while 'Jacob' likewise represents
the Lord, and from that the natural man corresponding to the spiritual.
[4] But the
nature of representatives is such that no attention at all is paid to the
character of the representative person, only to the thing which he represents
For all the kings of Judah and Israel, no matter what kind of men they were,
represented the Lord's Royalty, and all the priests, no matter what kind of men
these were, His Priesthood. Thus bad men as well as good were able to represent
the Lord, and the celestial and spiritual things of His kingdom, for, as stated
and shown already, representatives were entirely separate from the person
involved. So then all the historical narratives of the Word are representative,
and as this is so it follows that all the words of the Word carry a spiritual
meaning, that is, they mean something different in the internal sense from what
they do in the sense of the letter. (AC 1409)
Since this
nation, although of such a quality, represented the Church; and since the Word
was written among them and concerning them; therefore Divine-celestial things
were signified by their names, as by Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Ephraim,
Joseph, and the rest.
In the same
way we can deal with many passages in the Writings that appear to be anti-semitic to the Jewish reader. The Jewish reader will not be
convinced that it makes a difference that there is also an internal spiritual
sense. The fact remains to their eyes that the literal says negative things
about Jews and some of the ancestors they consider part of their holy
worship—King David, Judah, and Jacob, for instance, and many others. The
Writings speak of them as not being among the heavenly persons. Their
importance is not their personal character, which could be either good or evil.
Their spiritual importance is that they represented something spiritual, just
as the High Priest may represent the Lord while in his robes at the altar in
the temple, but when not in his robes, and in private life, he may be a wicked
and unlawful man. His personal wickedness does not interfere with his priestly
representation and office. So even though Jacob represents the Lord in His
Divine Natural, he is described in dishonorable terms in terms of his inherited
character (e.g., SE 37; NJHD 248).
In fact,
the Writings state that the Jews are entrusted with keeping intact the Word of
the Old Testament and it is through this that there is connection between
heaven and earth. Without the religious motivation of Jews to safeguard the Old
Testament text, the world could not survive and the entire creation would be
destroyed!
The Lord saw to it that to prevent the Word being lost, the
Jewish race, which possesses the Word of the Old Testament in its original
language, should survive, and live scattered throughout much of the world.
Although they deny the Lord to be the Messiah or Christ who was foretold by the
Prophets, and although they are wicked at heart, still their reading of the
Word creates communication with certain heavens. For correspondences open up
communication, whatever sort of person the reader may be, so long as he
acknowledges it as Divine. This continues today as in the past. For when they
reverence as if minor deities Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, David, Elijah
and many others who are named in the Word, then the heavens perceive instead
the Lord, being unaware of the person in the world who is the origin of that
holy element in their worship. That is how heaven is linked with people by
means of the Word. (DE VERBO 16)
4. The Old Testament’s View Of The Chosen People
It’s also important to remember that the Old Testament from Moses to all
the prophets is replete with passages that describe the Jews in very negative
terms. Remember what
God says about His chosen people:
the
iniquity of My people is become greater than the sin of
Woe to the
sinful nation, to a people laden with iniquity (Isa.
1:4). (SS 86)
Because this
people have drawn near with their mouth, and honored Me
with their lips, but their heart has been far from Me, and their fear of Me has
been a commandment of men that has been taught to them.... Isa.
29: 13. (AC 2826)
your new moons
and your appointed feasts My soul hateth; therefore
when ye spread forth your hands I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, if ye make
many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of bloods. (Isa. 1:10-18) (Life 30)
I was angry
with My people, I rendered My heritage unholy, and I
gave them into your hand Isa. 47:5, 6, 9. (AC 1368)
I will hide My faces from them, I
will see what is the last of them; for they are a generation of perversities,
sons in whom is no truth. I would exterminate them, I would cause their memory
to cease from man, were it not that I feared the indignation of the enemy. For
they are a nation that perisheth in counsels, and
there is no intelligence in them; for their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and
their grapes are of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are hemlock, the
clusters are bitter to them. Their wine is the poison of dragons, and the cruel
head of asps. Is not this laid up in store with Me,
sealed in My treasures? (Deut. 32:20, 26-34);
The Lord,
through Moses, describes the children of Israel in highly negative terms—does
that and the passages quoted above make the Old Testament anti-semitic? Does the following passage from the Writings make
Swedenborg anti-semitic?
This tendency
and proneness to evils just mentioned, which is transmitted from parents to
their children and descendants, can only be broken down by a person being born
anew by the Lord's help, a process called regeneration. Without this not only
does the tendency remain unbroken, but it is reinforced by a succession of
parents, becoming more prone to evils, and eventually to every kind of evil.
That is why the Jews are still copies of their ancestor Judah, who married a
Canaanite wife, and fathered three lines of descent by adultery with Tamar, his
daughter-in-law. This heredity has become so amplified in the course of time
that the Jews are unable to embrace the Christian religion and believe it in
their hearts. I say they are unable, because the inner will in their minds
resists, and it is this will which creates the impossibility. (TCR 521)
A spirit
himself also is nothing else than his own quality; on this account everyone in
that world drops his baptismal name, and the name of his family, and is named
according to his quality. Hence it is that "name" in the Word does
not signify name, but quality. (INV 41)
This is
not anti-semitism but spiritual psychobiology of the
unregenerate person. It is true of every individual’s inheritance regardless of
ethnicity, race, or religion.
Anti-semitism is an evil of society because it is the hatred of
others instead of love of neighbor. The negative things
the Word says about the Jews is not anti-semitism
because the Word is only love. The Old Testament, the New Testament, and the
Writings say similar critical things about the Jews, as about the Christians,
and still others. Everyone who is not regenerate is evil regardless of the
religion one belongs to. As a Jewish boy growing up in Rumania I was raised to
fear and despise Christians, to view with suspicion dark skinned races, and to
believe that Jews are a superior race, superior in intelligence, superior in
holiness. I was not taught to love my neighbor. I was taught all sorts of
superstitious nonsense about other groups. The point is that Jews are filled
with hatred for those who hate them. And this is natural. People of all
religions also feel this way and act this way.
If
Swedenborg had been anti-semitic he could not have
discussed Christians in the same spiritually negative terms as he discussed the
Jews, and yet this is what he has done:
That the Lord enters into a covenant, or conjoins Himself by
charity, with Gentiles also who are outside the church, shall now be shown.
The man of the church supposes that all who are out of the
church, and are called Gentiles, cannot be saved, because they have no knowledges of faith, and are therefore wholly ignorant of
the Lord, saying that without faith and without knowledge of the Lord there is
no salvation, and thus he condemns all who are out of the church. Indeed many
of this sort who are in some doctrine, even if it be heresy, suppose that all
outside this, that is, all who do not hold the same opinion, cannot be saved;
when in fact the case is not so at all. The Lord has mercy toward the whole
human race, and wills to save and draw to Himself all who are in the universe.
[2] The mercy of the Lord is infinite, and does not suffer
itself to be limited to those few who are within the church, but extends itself
to all in the whole world. Their being born out of the church and being thus in
ignorance of faith, is not their fault; and no one is ever condemned for not
having faith in the Lord when he is ignorant of Him.
Who that thinks aright will ever say that the greatest part
of the human race must perish in eternal death because they were not born in
Europe, where there are comparatively few? And who that thinks aright will say
that the Lord suffered so great a multitude to be born to perish in eternal
death? This would be contrary to the Divine, and contrary to mercy.
And besides, those who are out of the church, and are called
Gentiles, live a much more moral life than those who are within the church, and
embrace much more easily the doctrine of true faith, as is still more evident
from souls in the other life. The worst of all come from the so-called
Christian world, holding the neighbor in deadly hatred, and even the Lord.
Above all others in the whole world they are adulterers.
[3] It is not so with those from other parts of the world.
Very many of those who have worshiped idols are of such a disposition as to
abhor hatred and adultery, and to fear Christians because of their being of
this character and desirous of tormenting everyone. Indeed Gentiles are so
disposed as to listen readily, when taught by angels about the truths of faith,
and that the Lord rules the universe, and to be easily imbued with faith and
thus to reject their idols. For this reason Gentiles who have lived a moral
life and in mutual charity and innocence, are regenerated in the other life.
While they
live in the world the Lord is present with them in charity and innocence, for
there is nothing of charity and innocence except from the Lord. The Lord also gives
them a conscience of what is right and good according to their religion, and
insinuates innocence and charity into that conscience; and when there is
innocence and charity in the conscience, they easily suffer themselves to be
imbued with the truth of faith from good. The Lord Himself said this, in Luke:
And
one said unto Him, Lord, are they few that be saved? and He said unto them, Ye
shall see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of
God, and yourselves cast forth without; and they shall come from the east and
the west, and from the north and from the south, and shall sit down in the
kingdom of God; and behold, there are last who shall be first, and there are
first who shall be last (Luke 13:23, 28-30).
By
"Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob" are here meant all who have love, as
shown above.
(AC 1032)
(Italics added for emphasis)
This
passage declares the Christians to be “the worst of all” the spirits that come
from this earth into the afterlife. Clearly, Swedenborg could not have been
anti-semitic and pro-Christian. He merely described
what he saw in the spiritual world regarding the spiritual character of people
from different nations (see LJ 2-24 and other places). It’s also clear from
this and other passages, that religious membership is not the basis for
spiritual judgment. Rather, how one lives—morally or not, as a matter of
conscience and religion, determines one’s spiritual fate in the afterlife.
Anti-semitism never takes this tolerant and universal
attitude.
Moses and the
Prophets, that is, all and everything in the Word, in the internal sense,
treats of Him; and that all the rites of the Jewish Church represented Him (AC
2751).
All the rites
of the Ancient Church were representative of the Lord, as also the rites of the
Jewish Church. (AC 921)
External rites
are called "signs of a covenant" for the reason chiefly that interior
things may be kept in mind by them, that is, the things signified by them. All
the rites of the Jewish Church were nothing else. And for this reason they were
also called "signs" that the people might be reminded by them of
interior things-as for instance, the binding of the chief commandment on the
hand and on the forehead, as in Moses:
Thou shalt love Jehovah thy God
with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might; and these
words thou shalt bind for a sign upon thy hand, and
they shall be for frontlets between thine eyes (Deut.
6:5, 8; 11:13, 18).
All the rites
of the Jewish Church were types representative of the Lord,
consequently of love and charity, and of all things therefrom.
(AC 1038)
The things that were represented in the Jewish Church, and
in the Word, are the Lord and His kingdom, consequently the celestial things of
love, and the spiritual things of faith: these are what were represented,
besides many things that pertain to these, such as all things that belong to
the church. (AC 1361)
And it was He who has represented by all the rites of the
Jewish Church, and whom they worshiped. (AC 1607)
All things of the Word in its inmost sense treat solely of
the Lord, (AC 9925)
In the Word "Jehovah" denotes the Lord (n. 1343,
2921, 3035, 5663, 6280, 6281, 6303, 6945, 6956, 8864).
Unless these things had been as if present to the angels,
through the Word, and also through all the rites in the Jewish Church, the Lord
would have been obliged to come into the world immediately after the fall of
the Most Ancient Church … (AC 2523)
5. All Old Testament Details Represent The Lord
In these
passages of the Writings (and many others can be brought forward), it is
declared that every detail of Jewish worship and history represents something
about the Lord Jesus Christ! Anti-semitism hates
Jewish worship and history, while Swedenborg elevates these things to the
highest sacred level possible! Readers of Swedenborg who are not in the New
Church mentality may acquire a superficial impression of anti-semitism in certain passages where the Jews are treated of.
But readers who have a rational and scholarly orientation will be able to see
that Swedenborg describes an extremely close identification between Jews and
the New Church Christians. Every state of mental and psychological development
in the New Church mind is identical with the historical events in the Old
Testament and the minutest detail of worship and prayer. How closer can you get
to someone other than your spouse? This close relationship between the New
Church mind and the Jews is the result of this:
All the rites
of the Ancient Church were representative of the Lord, as also the rites of the
Jewish Church. But the principal representative in later times was the altar,
and also the burnt-offering, which being made of clean beasts and clean birds,
had its representation according to their signification, clean beasts
signifying the goods of charity, and clean birds the truths of faith. (AC 921)
Every
detail of the journeys of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, represents the details of
how Jesus Christ grew up among the Jews and the mental states of development He
underwent to unify His Human with His Divine. Every vision of every prophet was
about Him, how He pleads with the Chosen people to turn back to the
Commandments of Moses. Jehovah the Lord of the Old Testament and Jesus the Lord
of the New Testament are one and the same Divine Person! Of course this idea
may seem irrational or untrue to Jewish readers but it proves to them that it
is not logical to think of Swedenborg as anti-semitic!
The
Writings proclaim that Jews, Muslims, and Gentiles are saved equally with Christians
when they arrive in the afterlife, are instructed, and can accept spiritual
truths:
So in regard
to the Jews and Gentiles; [as for instance] concerning the Jewish children who,
from the persuasion of their parents that the Lord is not the Messiah, are not
instructed to believe it; yet as it is owing simply to circumstances that the
children cannot believe otherwise than they do, this does not abolish with them
the truth, that the Lord is the promised Messiah. And thus as to the Gentiles
who are in ignorance, not knowing that the Lord rules the universe; this
ignorance, being a circumstance, does not preclude their being instructed in
the other life, and thus saved; besides many other things. - 1748, October 11.
(SE 3537) (see also SE 5880)
That the Mohammedan
religion is received by more nations than the Christian religion, may be a
stumbling-block to those who meditate upon the Divine Providence and believe at
the same time that only those who are born Christians can be saved. But the
Mohammedan religion is not a stumbling-block to those who believe that all
things are of the Divine Providence. (TCR 833)
6. The Meaning Of “Jews” In The New Church Mind
Further, to
the New Church mind “Jews” doesn’t mean Jews but the “Jewish state of a person”
which is the state we are all in before the external mind has an internal. No
one is born with a spiritual mind but only with a natural mind and the
potential of having a spiritual mind. This potential is there in equal
measure to every human being. No one is saved by being born into this or
that religion. Those who are born into the Christian Church, those born in
the New Church, those born in the Jewish religion, in the Muslim faith, or none
of these, are all born with numberless inherited evils. They are in an
unregenerate, “Fallen” state. This means they are born without a spiritual
mind, ready made, like the natural mind. A new mind must be created by the Lord
in every individual through the process of regeneration. Until then
religious membership is of no avail to anyone.
Religious
rituals, religious prayers, religious sacrifices, fastings,
meditations—none of it can prevail. Only what can prevail is a reformed
character in daily willing and thinking for the sake of God and religion (LIFE
1). No one has the power to attain this. But anyone can turn to the Lord and
ask Him to do it, for He can. And He has laid out in His Word what we must do
in order for Him to regenerate us. This He does to anyone from any religion
with any background universally. In heaven there are no religions, but only
conscious life in accordance with the Word (AR 918).
The Lord
has also laid out in His Word what happens to those who are not regenerated,
those who are unwilling to turn to God and order their life according to His Commandments.
They live out their few years on earth confirming their inherited evils, living
them, becoming them. Their mind is built up through these evil loves and their
falsities. There is nothing in the inmost of this mind except those evil loves.
When they arrive in the afterlife they enter in total freedom within who they are, that is, they enter those evil loves. In the
spiritual world those who are in evil loves see around themselves a hell—ugly
rocky places, foul disgusting sickening smells, full of dangerous and poisonous
animals, full of infernal humans who act like beasts and relate to each other
through dominion and mutual enslavement. These things are not punishments for
sins. They are the character of spiritual nature of evil loves. They are the
exact opposite of good loves. Those in the spiritual world who arrive with good
loves within them see a heaven around them—beautiful palaces with amazing art
work, large complex fragrant gardens, filled with angelic people who act
civilized and with compassion to each other, engaged in sharing their
individual uniquenesses and benefiting everyone
around them.
7. Anti-Semitism Is An Evil Love of the Unregenerate Mind
Anti-semitism is an evil love. It is inherited. Every individual
then has a choice to make in adult life: Do I go along with this cultural norm
or not? All sorts of justifications are learned from societal beliefs and
practices—religious (“They are Christ killers”), socio-political (“They control
the money”), psychological (“They are in-groupish”,
“They are cowards”), pathological (“They are depraved”), and so on. As an adult
every individual can think and reflect whether this attitude is justified or
whether it is a prejudice and an injustice. Every individual can feel the
delight of hatred in being anti-semitic, and then
must reflect on its rightness or wrongness. Conscience will cry out in
condemnation of all prejudice. Few are they who listen to conscience and are
saved; many are they who kill their conscience and are in hell. For conscience
is the voice of God speaking to the individual’s awareness (NJHD 139). To kill
conscience, or to weaken it, is to cut off that source of communication and
interaction between the individual and God. This conscious interaction on a
daily basis is required for regeneration. It is not religion that saves, but
regeneration (NJHD 183). And regeneration is available to anyone of any
background through the Word.
In today’s
world the Word is not known in many places but the Lord insures that every
nation has some religion by which the people know the minimal facts required to
be saved—to believe in God, to obey His Commandments, and to look to Him for
all their daily needs. All individuals who live in this way are saved (AC
2589-2604). When they arrive in the afterlife they are instructed and enter the
heaven of their religion (HH 512). Their mind can exist in good loves to
eternity. But those who do not live their life by acknowledging and obeying
God’s Commandments, are evolving a spiritual mind that can live in evil loves.
When they arrive in the afterlife these evil loves within them reject the
instruction they receive in the truths of religion. They go away on their own
and pick up the falsities that agree with their evil loves. Thus, they enter a
life of hell to eternity.
The
That the
gentiles equally with Christians are saved, anyone can see who knows what it is
that makes heaven in man; for heaven is within a man, and those who have heaven
within them come into heaven. (HH 319)
Experiences
and choices we make in the spiritual world are aligned with the mind such as it
has already been formed. The direction of the spiritual coils
constrain further development. There cannot be a reformation (DLW 263).
This must occur prior to leaving this world. And so those who arrive with good loves, get more and more of them to eternity, while those
who arrive with bad loves, get more and more of those. What about those who
arrive with both kinds of loves? In fact everyone arrives in the afterlife
with both kinds of loves, but with a critical difference—Which
loves are inmost? Those who have their evil loves in the inmost see them drive
out every single good love found in the surface of the character. They then
make free choices that take them further and further into those evil loves, and
permanent hell. Those who have their good loves in the inmost see them drive
out all the evil loves that are still embedded in the surface of their
personality. This purification process is painful but short. They then have a
mind that can live in heaven.
Knowing
this spiritual psychobiology is helpful because it strengthens the motivation
for regeneration and sincerity in life. And these are possible to the extent
that one avoids evil loves and fights against them by looking to the Lord for
help. This process insures that the good loves will be in the inmost when we
arrive in the afterlife.