[lbo-talk] Jews and Revelation

[C. G. Estabrook]

Sandra Bernhard on TV last night explained her devotion to Qabbalah to a
rather bemused but game Warren Sapp.  That aside, the Abrahamic religions
(Christianity, Judaism, Islam) have at least two things in common: (1) a
unique idea of God, amounting to atheism in the usual conception of the
gods, and (2) the notion that this non-god has somehow spoken.  They
differ on what they see as the preeminent example of God's
self-communication -- Torah, Jesus, or Qur'an.  And all three allow for
but are uncomfortable with mysticism (which according to the old Catholic
bromide, "begins in mist, centers on I, and ends in schism"). --CGE

On Thu, 12 Feb 2004, andie nachgeborenen wrote:


> Moses was the last non-Chassidic Jew to have a direct line to God. He
> gave us the Law, which God gave to him, and from then till now, the
> Chassids aside, that's what we have have had. There's no Revealed
> Truth beyond the Shema (which says that Adonai is the one God of
> Israel, and no more), there is a book of rules. Unlike Christians, for
> whom revelation is an important force in the hisrorical and current
> life of religion, it has not been for Jews, the lunatic fringe of the
> Chassids (and the Kabbalists) aside. Really truly! Btw I hear Madonna
> has become A Kabbalist, is this true, Doug?
>