"Ask A Jew" Wednesday

[u/AutoModerator]

It's everyone's favorite day of the week, "Ask A (Anti-Zionist) Jew" Wednesday! Ask whatever you want to know, within the sub rules, notably that this is not a debate sub and do not import drama from other subreddits. That aside, have fun! We love to dialogue with our non-Jewish siblings.

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[u/verrma]

This is more of a religious question. I also recognize that it’s not limited to Judaism, but it also applies to Christianity, Islam, and the other Abrahamic faiths. So if any Christians, Muslims, etc. see this, feel free to answer this as well.

I also want to emphasize that I mean absolutely no disrespect, I just want to understand other people’s beliefs.

I know the God of Abraham is considered merciful. However, some things I had read about the Torah have me confused (I have only seen summaries of the books, so I recognize that I may be missing context). In particular, I’m confused about the Binding of Isaac and the whole situation with Pharaoh. God telling Abraham to sacrifice his son just to test his loyalty definitely rubbed me the wrong way. Also, I can accept that Pharaoh enslaved the Israelites and that he needed to be held accountable for it, but why did God harden Pharaoh’s heart further? It did lead to his downfall, but it made things worse for both the Israelites and the Egyptians, correct? And then there’s the 10 Plagues, and killing the firstborn sons of all Egyptian families. Was it really necessary to punish all of Egypt just because their ruler was evil?

Again, I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I’ve basically been agnostic my whole life, and I want to understand other people’s beliefs. If I got anything wrong, please let me know

[u/lweinreb → u/verrma]

Most of religious Judaism is puzzling over the answers to questions like these. My half-joking pessimist answer is that God is not actually a merciful being, but a vengeful, two-faced villain who the Jews have had to contend with in order to survive under their hateful, tyrannical thumb. But we also can’t admit that to God or in our religious texts, or they’ll make our lives much, much worse as punishment.

But when I’m feeling more optimistic, I think of God as a catalyst, a nudger but not a driver. They test Abraham to give him self-reflection, but Abraham’s the one who took up the knife. They harden pharaoh’s heart, but pharaoh was the one who used it to ignore the cries of the hebrews rather than ignore the whispers of his advisors. God lights us with sparks to start something within us, but they’re not the master of our destiny, we are. And we just have to decide for ourselves what those sparks mean.

And then there’s the cynical, atheistic answer that these were texts written by powerful men who were trying to keep people in check by promising them that if they just fell in line, it would all work out in the end, even if it doesn’t make sense initially. But to me, that doesn’t mean people can’t gain some philosophy and wisdom from these stories for themselves. People with bad intentions can inspire the good, even if they didn’t intend to.