Jewish History, Jewish Religion - Israel Shahak's shocking revelations

[Laura]

I picked this book up recently and, since it is small - 124 pages - thought I would give it a quick read and find nothing particularly new. Well, I was wrong. There is something I had never read before that actually did shock me.

Chapter 3 is entitled: Orthodoxy and Interpretation. Here are the excerpts:

This chapter is devoted to a more detailed description of the theologico-legal structure of classical Judaism. However, before embarking on that description it is necessary to dispel at least some of the many misconceptions disseminated in almost all foreign language (that is, non-Hebrew) accounts of Judaism, especially by those who propagate such currently fashionable phrases as 'the Judaeo-Christian tradition' or 'the common values of the monotheistic religions'.

Okay, yes, I've studied the Bible for years and years and always thought that Judaism and Christianity and Islam had a sort of "common heritage', and I've used the term "Judaeo-Christian" quite a bit.

Because of considerations of space I shall only deal in detail with the most important of these popular delusions: that the Jewish religion is, and always was, monotheistic. Now, as many biblical scholars know, and as a careful reading of the Old Testament easily reveals, this ahistorical view is quite wrong. In many, if not most books of the Old Testament the existence and power of 'other gods' are clearly acknowledged, but Yahweh (Jehovah), who is the most powerful god, is also very jealous of his rivals and forbids his people to worship them. It is only very late in the Bible, in some of the later prophets, that the existence of all gods other than Yahweh is denied.

Yes, because I've given many years to studying it, I can agree that this is a fair rendering of the facts. The multiple gods issue is a topic of endless scholarly discussion.

What concerns us, however, is not biblical but classical Judaism; and it is quite clear, though much less widely realised, that the latter, during its last few hundred years, was for the most part far from pure monotheism. The same can be said about the real doctrines dominant in present-day Orthodox Judaism, which is a direct continuation of classical Judaism. The decay of monotheism came about through the spread of Jewish mysticism (the cabbals) which developed in the 12th and 13th centuries, and by the late 16th century had won an almost complete victory in virtually all the centres of Judaism. The Jewish Enlightenment, which arose out of the crisis of classical Judaism, had to fight against this mysticism and its influence more than against anything else, but in latter-day Jewish Orthodoxy, especially among the rabbis, the influence of the cabbala has remained predominant. For example, the Gush Emunim movement is inspired to a great extent by cabbalistic ideas.

I wondered right away what did he mean about some difference between Biblical Judaism and this "classical Judaism"; weren't they the same? Okay, he introduces Cabbala, but I understood that to be sort of an "add-on" occupation of some seriously devout Jews, right? Well, Shahak continues:

Knowledge and understanding of these ideas is therefore important for two reasons. First, without it one cannot understand the true beliefs of Judaism at the end of its classical periodl. Secondly, these ideas play an important contemporary political role, inasmuch as they form part of the explicit system of beliefs of many religious politicians, including most leaders of Gush Emunim, and have an indirect influence on many zionist leaders of all parties, including the zionist left.

Okay, he's mentioned this Gush Emunim again so I better take a quick look. Wikipedia tells us:

Gush Emunim

(Hebrew: גּוּשׁ אֱמוּנִים ‬‎, Bloc of the Faithful) was an Israeli Orthodox Jewish, messianic,[1] right-wing activist[2] movement committed to establishing Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights.[3] While not formally established as an organization until 1974 in the wake of the Yom Kippur War, Gush Emunim sprang out of the conquests of the Six-Day War in 1967, encouraging Jewish settlement of the land based on the belief that, according to the Torah, God gave it to the Jewish people.[4] While Gush Emunim no longer exists officially, vestiges of its influence remain in Israeli society.

It says "Was" and "no longer exists officially" and "vestiges of influence". So, let's see where Shahak is going with this since he says that what he is going to reveal is "the explicit system of beliefs of many religious politicians". And here we go:

According to the cabbala, the universe is ruled not by one god, but by several deities, of various characters and influences, emanated by a dim, distant First Cause. Omitting many details, one can summarise the system as follows. From the First Cause, first a male god called 'Wisdom' or 'Father' and then a female goddess called 'Knowledge' or 'Mother' were emanated or born. From the marriage of these two, a pair of younger gods were born: Son, also called by many other names such as 'Small Face' or 'The Holy Blessed One'; and Daughter, also called 'Lady' (or Matronit', a word derived from Latin), 'Shekhinah', 'Queen', and so on. These two younger gods should be united, but their union is prevented by the machinations of Satan, who in this system is a very important and independent personage. The Creation was undertaken by the First Cause in order to allow them to unite, but because of the Fall they became more disunited than ever, and indeed, Satan has managed to come very close to the divine Daughter and even to rape her (either seemingly or in fact - opinions differ on this). The creation of the Jewish people was undertaken in order to mend the break caused by Adam and Eve, and under Mount Sinai this was for a moment achieved: the male god Son, incarnated in Moses, was united with the goddess Shekhinah. Unfortunately the sin of the Golden Calf again caused disunity in the godhead; but the repentance of the Jewish people has mended matters to some extent. Similarly, each incident of Biblical Jewish history is believed to be associated with the union or disunion of the divine pair. The Jewish conquest of Palestine from the Canaanites and the building of the first and second Temple are particularly propitious for their union, while the destruction of the Temples and exiles of the Jews from the Holy Land are merely external signs not only of the divine disunion but also of a real 'whoring after strange gods': Daughter falls closely into the power of Satan, while Son takes various female satanic personages to his bed, instead of his proper wife.

Well, at this point I'm rather shocked. THAT is most definitely NOT Biblical Judaism by any stretch of the imagination. And I've read a bit about Cabbala and don't recall coming across anything like THAT! And this guy is saying that this ridiculous story is what a LOT of Jews actually believe? Even including Jewish politicians and modern people with educations???!!!

But it gets even more bizarre.

The duty of pious Jews is to restore through their prayers and religious acts the perfect divine unity, in the form of sexual union between the male and female deities. Thus before most ritual acts, which every devout Jew has to perfrom many times each day, the following cabbalistic formula is recited: 'For the sake of the [sexual] congress of the Holy Blessed One and his Shekhinah...' The Jewish morning prayers are also arranged so as to promote this sexual union, if only temporarily. Successive parts of the prayer mystically correspond to successive stages of the union: at one point the goddess approaches with her handmaidens, at another the god puts hir arm around her neck and fondles her breast, and finally the sexual act is supposed to take place.

As Shahak points out, this sure isn't monotheism and it sure isn't Biblical Judaism. The further discussion along this line in chapter 3 is furiously interesting and I sure hope some forumites will read this book and see if they can add any research to the topic.

For me, reading this passage was truly shocking, especially since I have spent so much time in biblical studies and have never come across anybody saying anything like this before.

 

[Ambrose's Spirit]

The "father" and "mother" sound a lot like Hokhmah and Binah respectively. The son is prolly Tifaret, the righteous one balancing between judgement of Gevurah and unconditional love of Chesed, and the daughter Shekikhinah, which lies at the lower end of the Tree and is among other things the gateway to creation, sort of Parvati of Kabbalah.

The big bang would be Tzimtzum bringing about breakage in those much worshipped divine vessels, who then may become qlipoth, demiurgic deities in need of repair thru Tikkun or recovery and reassembly of the primordial divine light released in the chaos of Tzimtzum by the righteous tzadikim.

This is all standard Gnostic material, and all subdeities are in effect broken parts of the G-d created by the Unknowable Ein Sof. Gershom Sholem is a great mainstream source for the entire wider subject including the rich mythical demonology, but I find Daniel Matt an even better, more emotionally captivating source for the 101 stuff even though he shies away from the unpleasant qliphotic stuff, unlike the more factual Sholem.

 

[Ambrose's Spirit]

Forgot to add, the Holy Blessed One would then in my very constrained reckoning be the rough equivalent of Shiva, give or take a divine arm or a few :)

 

[Laura]

Shahak comments about Gershom Scholem:

The great authorities, such as Gershom Scholem, have lent their authority to a system of deceptions in all the 'sensitive' areas, the more popular ones being the most dishonest and misleading.

In other words, if you don't read Hebrew and have access to the materials, what you know about Cabbala and Judaism itself, is basically zilch.

 

[Aaron r]

Furiously interesting indeed...thank-you!

 

[mkrnhr]

The whole book is shocking and it only gets more so chapter after chapter. I've seen the damages of islamic brainwashing and read about the so-called talmudic judaism a while ago, considering jews to be victims of a worse brainwashing. Wasn't prepared for Shahak's revelations though.

 

[genero81]

considering jews to be victims of a worse brainwashing

There does seem to be a special focus and effort on the Jews to dominate their free will and subsume them with these particularly outlandish beliefs. I've noticed that as well.

 

[Laura]

The whole book is shocking and it only gets more so chapter after chapter. I've seen the damages of islamic brainwashing and read about the so-called talmudic judaism a while ago, considering jews to be victims of a worse brainwashing. Wasn't prepared for Shahak's revelations though.

You can say that again. It's shocking all the way through, but somehow not in the usual ways, and not anti-Semitic either. Well, of course, part of the operation has been for Jews to make any criticism of them or their beliefs/actions to be labeled anti-Semitic, but that's not what Shahak is doing.

 

[Martina]

50 shades of Judaism?I'm honestly not surprised since famous people connected with Cabbala include Madonna, Lindsey Lohan, Rihanna etc. What spirituality can you expect from silly goats?
Yeah I know we usually take things for granted but there are many different currents in every movement or religion most of us don't know about.
Within a year so many information was brought up on forum about jungism and darwinism and other isms that really helped people say: what the hell is really going on around us? Thank you for such eye openers.

 

[BlackCartouche]

Judaism is by far the most ritualistic of all Earth's religions. They have rituals within rituals within rituals. Almost every hour of every day of every week there is a particular ritual for what one can do/touch/eat/enter at any given 'time'.

Years ago I was invited to attend Passover at the house of the Chabad chief-Rabbi for my city. Between every bite and ceremonial cup of kosher wine (cup literally runneth over to represent the shedding of negative aspects of alcohol) was a prayer/remembrance and deliberation of traditions (I can't remember the details). It lasted over 2 hours to eat a simple meal... I was quite spent.
Upon learning I have a line of Jewish descendancy on my mother's side, the Rabbi proceeded to tell me I'm "very speshul" and would induct me into Judaism if I so wish. I admit at the time I was tempted because I wanted to 'belong' and they seemed eager to have me, but the "speshul" comment bugged me. He also said there is so much more about Judaism to learn only Jews are privy to (like an inner circle of knowledge). Basically, I understood there are texts approved for translation from Hebrew into goyim languages... And then there are texts that ARE NOT for goyim and its knowledge remains hidden and guarded by the Rabbinic priesthood, like a secret society!
There is A LOT of the ritualistic occult nature of Judaism we know nothing about (though this is changing gradually), and, also in conjunction with heavily indoctrinating Jewish peoples being superior to all other peoples - being of God's chosen - is psychologically AND physiologically a very powerful coupling indeed.
This combination of extreme ritualized indoctrination ingrained mindset heavily grooved down through the ages effects and affects actual DNA over the generations. Psychology can alter physiology, as with diet and environment. A fixed systematic mindset through strict ritualistic living actually can alter genetic code, to create and instill notable 'markers', over time.
This, I think, is where the perplexing issue of how Jews are both a religion AND racial group come about: Race and Religion create, and serves, each other - and there is no other peoples on Earth than that of the "Jewish peoples" where such a process is made clearest (as can be). I'm certain the whole "Semite" schtick is to muddy the waters.

I think this is what we are seeing happening today perverting Western civilization with the Dionysian thing - an attempt by 4D STS to create "a new race": It can be done through ideology alone! (though biological tampering speeds the whole process up). All it needs is the right cataclysm for it to seal the deal and firmly take root.

 

[Approaching Infinity]

In other words, if you don't read Hebrew and have access to the materials, what you know about Cabbala and Judaism itself, is basically zilch.

The same is true for the more 'traditional' books of the Talmud. The original Hebrew contains many 'embarrassing' passages, which are glossed over in most translations.

 

[Laura]

The same is true for the more 'traditional' books of the Talmud. The original Hebrew contains many 'embarrassing' passages, which are glossed over in most translations.

Shahak gives quite a few specific examples of exactly that.

 

[Mike]

When reading the excerpts and this thread at the end I was wondering why all of the secrecy?

BlackCartouche touched on some things I was thinking, but in much more depth and information, such as a it sounds like secret society type business. And it reminds me of the set up in Scientology where a person is lead through indoctrination and revealing of information and supposed secrets along the way as they are supposedly ready.

If one of the main secrets of cabala is the praying for the sexual union of the Son and Daughter, then I’d imagine that rituals related to this and even sexual rituals wouldn’t be far off in terms of speculating about.

And that reminds me of the movie ‘The Davinci Code’ in terms of the big secret and reveal being the sexual ritual. So just now searched around and wow it does seem to connect to this.

That Da Vinci sex code

May 24, 2006

That Da Vinci sex code

In the beginning, Judaism was a faith built on sacred sex.

At least, that's what Dan Brown told 60 million readers in "The Da Vinci Code," speaking though a fictional Harvard University scholar named Robert Langdon. And while the characters are fiction, the novelist continues to affirm the statement that opens his book: "All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in this novel are accurate."

One of those "secret rituals" is an eye-opener.

"Langdon's Jewish students always looked flabbergasted when he told them that the early Jewish tradition involved ritualistic sex. In the Temple, no less," wrote Brown, in one of many long speeches that explain his iconoclastic plot. "Early Jews believed that the Holy of Holies in Solomon's Temple housed not only God but also His powerful female equal, Shekinah. Men seeking spiritual wholeness came to the Temple to visit priestesses ... with whom they made love and experienced the divine through physical union."

For most people, the big news in "The Da Vinci Code" story was its message that Jesus was a brilliant and charismatic man – but not the Son of God – who was married to St. Mary Magdalene, had a child and tried to start a church built on secret truths and goddess worship. But Jesus was killed and, after a few centuries, powerful men crushed the Gnostic Christians. Meanwhile, the secret bloodline of Jesus lived on in Europe.

That's the side of the book, and now the movie, that makes headlines. But there is a message in the novel that is even more controversial and, for traditional Christians and Jews, more radical, according to philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi, who was born and educated in the diverse religious culture of India.

"The Da Vinci Code" is absolutely right when it states that the Judeo-Christian tradition, through the ages, did everything that it could to suppress sexual mysticism, fertility rites and goddess worship. The early church, he stressed, emerged in a world that was packed with pagan sanctuaries filled with scores of temple prostitutes.

The Judeo-Christian tradition emphasized the holiness of marriage, but never taught that sexual intercourse was – in and of itself – a sacred rite in which the spirit escapes the body and is able commune with some all-embracing deity.

"Dan Brown is right about the following: some pagan converts to Christ did bring sexual mysticism into the early church," said Mangalwadi, in a speech he delivered this week at Hollywood (Calif.) Presbyterian Church. In fact, the Book of Revelation condemns two early churches that tolerated believers who "practiced religious sex. It is possible that before becoming Christians these women and men had participated in prostitution in pagan temples. ...

"Given the fact that Christianity was an ascending religious force, they may have found it to their advantage to attract customers in the name of Christ. Some may well have re-written the life of Christ in the light of pagan spirituality to justify their preferred 'religious' practice."

In "The Da Vinci Code" itself, Brown stresses that the use of sexual rituals to create union with the gods and goddesses is older than the Christian faith and could, he claimed, be seen in Judaism. A one point, a central character witnesses a modern ritual in which a couple has sexual intercourse while surrounded by a circle of other members of the secret society that is preserving the true Christianity.

Thus, Brown's alter ego explains: "Historically, intercourse was the act through which male and female experienced God. The ancients believed that the male was spiritually incomplete until he had carnal knowledge of the sacred feminine. Physical union with the female remained the sole means through which man could become spiritually complete and ultimately achieve gnosis – knowledge of the divine. ... 'By communing with woman,' Langdon said, 'man could achieve a climactic instance when his mind went totally blank and he could see God.' "

The key is that this experience is the "sole means" for transformation. This theme is explicit in the novel, even though the movie does not stress it.

"Dan Brown is promoting a mystic experience in which our mind goes 'totally blank' – beyond words, thoughts, ideals, beliefs and values," argued Mangalwadi. "This is a non-rational experience. Mystics promote it because the consider the intellect to be the source of ignorance, not a means to gaining knowledge."

It is interesting that the book and movie were such a big success. Maybe Dan Brown was let in on some of the Cabal business inner secrets, so that it could be widely popularized.

And all of the above also reminds me Jung’s involvement in such things. Here is the relevant discussion with the C's about Jung. Decided not to cut it since it kind of all goes together with this topic.

Q: (L) Is this book that I just read about Carl Jung fairly accurate as to the historical details and some of the interpretations of those details?

A: Close enough.

Q: (L) Was Gurdjieff influenced by Carl Jung?

A: Small bit.

Q: (L) Was Carl Jung possessed after his extensive therapeutic encounter with Otto Gross?

A: Not at that point, but later, yes.

Q: (L) Possessed by what?

A: 4D STS.

Q: (Pierre) How did he get possessed?

A: Asked for it.

Q: (Joe) Was he into some kind of mysticism or black magic or cultism as it was called?

A: Yes, though it was not called such.

Q: (L) Who was that guy that was hooked up with L. Ron Hubbard? He was kinda similar. He was involved in space projects. Does anybody remember his name?

(Niall) Parsons.

(L) Yeah, Parsons. So, was it similar to what Parsons and his bunch was doing? Sex magic and all that?

A: Yes, and there was Jungian influence there too.

Q: (L) Well, is it accurate or correct to derive from this Jungian business some of the philosophical or psychological foundations of the current American liberal postmodern movement?

A: Indeed!

Q: (L) So some of Jung's ideas of the anima and animus and the hermaphroditic nature of the soul and so forth were foundational to the current liberal paradigm of sexual fluidity?

A: Yes. And notice well that this conflicts directly with objective reality.

Q: (L) Well, according to the postmodernists, there is no objective reality. They say that everything people think is completely culturally conditioned, and one truth is no more true than another truth or whatever.

A: That will backfire tragically. Think "Tower of Babel."

Q: (L) So, in other words, this whole postmodernist conception of there being no objective truth is similar to the attempt to build a Tower of Babel?

A: Yes.

Q: (Joe) The Tower of Babel was to be unable to speak the same language.

(Andromeda) It was to reach heaven.

(L) They were joining together to build this tower in order to reach heaven, and then God made them all speak different languages and scattered them all over. So the “unification of the masses” under the umbrella of Postmodernism has its own seeds of destruction of society contained within?

A: Right. Think of the strong fascist trend of the modern left.

Q: (L) Like the anti-smoking thing and trying to force vegetarianism, and “cultural diversity” and so forth. They have decided that they will arbitrate what people shall and shall not do under the guise of accepting all and anything that people might or might not do. It’s utterly bizarre. I'm trying to get through this Detmer book I'm reading about it but it’s difficult to imagine people coming up with things that are so retarded; I think it’s safe to say they are schizoid psychopaths because the thinking style is so characteristic. And they miss the big flaw: If everything is culturally conditioned or if there is no objective truth, then what a leftist says is equally culturally conditioned and as subject to the same conditions that what they say is not true either...

(Andromeda) Right. It should be...

(Pierre) The similarity with the Tower of Babel is that those people got together to become gods. It's the same as what the left is doing because they deny nature and the objective nature of the universe. And then they create “their” truth, and what they say is the truth, so they replace god.

(L) So in other words, this whole left attempt to take over our world is sort of what 2nd Thessalonians referred to as man attempting to take the seat of god in the temple, so to speak?

A: Yes. The Beast.

Q: (L) Okay, well that's pretty interesting; there’s a lot of beastliness in our world today. I was reminded when I was thinking about all of this postmodernism and this Jungian business about something that was said in a session back in 2002 or 2001 or whenever; it was about frequency resonance vibration. And then there were mentions in the transcripts about frequency resonance robots and frequency resonance pied pipers. Basically, then it was said that the plan was to get bodies to resonate in such a way that 4D STS could download directly - if only temporarily - into this reality. So, is that what is happening with a lot of these groups of leftists and postmodernists inspired by Jung and the postmodernist philosophers and sociologists?

A: Indeed. But do not get misled by labels because the right has similar tendencies.

Q: (Joe) In terms of downloading or getting possessed by something or other, you'd imagine that that would be facilitated by someone who willfully asserts or accepts that they have no fixed identity. You'd think an impediment to something taking you over would be a strong conviction that you have a strong identity from a sexual or cultural basis.

A: Recall the context of the "Pied Piper" remarks.

Q: (Joe) What were you saying about the Pied Piper?

(L) The Pied Piper remarks were made in the context of my kids specifically, if I remember correctly. Can we pause and you go find it?

[Break for session search...]

(L) The Pied Piper is the story where he makes a deal that he'll get rid of the rats if they pay him some money. After he got rid of the rats, they didn't pay him. So then he used his flute that he previously used to get rid of the mice or rats to lead all the children away. The mountain opened up and he took the kids into the mountain and they never came out again. I thought that was pretty creepy.

(Joe) Okay, there's only one.

(L) Okay, and it says...

-----
Session May 21, 1997

A: [...] Always be aware of your significance as the possessor and potential purveyor of unusually high level knowledge store. And, what that means to those who would prefer that it not be.

Q: Is there more I could do in terms of protecting my children? That is where I am most vulnerable and I am not sure that they understand the seriousness of the situation.

A: What do signs keep telling you? Who took what positions and behaviors in the dream? Well?

Q: Yes... I realize that it was because of going out to do something ordinary... not thinking... while Ark and Tom and Frank were distracted... and I was just concerned about A***...

A: And what role did V__ play?

Q: I see. Like the Pied Piper?

A: Or maybe programmed decoy, due to FRV?

Q: What is FRV?

A: Frequency Resonance Vibration.

Q: Is there any danger to A* and J* with these kids and church people they have been around the past few weeks?

A: What do you think?!? It is a vulnerable age for anyone, much more so for the children of one on path to super consciousness, and in contact with those who provide advice and data...

-----

(L) Okay, so that leads to the present.

(Pierre) People's lives are at stake in the sense that they can become possessed when they embrace this ideology. For awhile I've been thinking that there is more at stake, literally the souls of individuals. If you remember in Darkness Over Tibet, when the...

A: Smashing

Q: (Pierre) Yeah, they're right but they didn't let me finish the sentence. In Darkness Over Tibet, the wise man said there's not much that is a sin against the soul - except playing god. And this ideology when you embrace, you are playing god. You deny reality.

(L) We have our problems with organized religion, but it's better than thinking that you yourself are god! To understand that the cosmos out there is a bit bigger and smarter than you are...

(Andromeda) That there's something higher.

(Joe) Is it true that people who gravitate toward that idea of relativism and that there's no truth, and then they effectively put themselves in the place of god, is it because they have no real inner connection or appreciation of anything higher than themselves?

A: Yes

So maybe this is related to the C's comment that the right has similar tendencies. And so I also wonder what is the pay off for a person involved in all of this, beside to supposed sexual union with God or whatever? By the way sounds like a great way to get possessed and your soul smashed. What are they getting out of all of this?

[edit added: added a couple comments at the end]

 

[Niall]

Okay, yes, I've studied the Bible for years and years and always thought that Judaism and Christianity and Islam had a sort of "common heritage', and I've used the term "Judaeo-Christian" quite a bit.

This was published today:

Is there really such a thing as the "Judeo-Christian tradition"?

It may come as a surprise to many that it has a very short history. In its current dominant meaning, it is virtually unknown before the Second World War, only really coming into vogue in the mid-1940s. If we look at the peaks and troughs of the usage of "Judeo-Christian" on Google Ngram ― which is useful here simply as a heuristic device ― we can see that from 1800 to 1935 the term is virtually non-existent. Then, we note two surges in its usage, from 1935 to 1951 and then again from 1962 to 2000, with peaks in 1942 and 1992. From 2000, its usage begins to climb again. [...]

Simply put, then, there is no such thing as the "Judeo-Christian tradition." It is a modern invention. There always has been a Jewish tradition and a Christian tradition ― or, more accurately, varieties of Jewish and Christian traditions.

The article suggests that WASPs' philo-semitism, compensating for a guilt complex over their treatment of Jews down through history, spurred its use. But I suspect research would show that its contemporaneous origins with post-WW2 Pax Americana and the state of Israel speak more to Zionist efforts to enlist the anglosphere. See, for example, how the 'war on terror' was transplanted into the West after two decades' incubation in Israel.

 

[mkrnhr]

The term Judeo-Christian always bothered me. From the very very little I know from the history of Europe from let's say the middle ages to the modern era (nation-states etc.), I couldn't find any hint to it. At the same time we are told that the Roman church all powerful and Jews were persecuted right and left, and then "Juedo-Christian". Don't get it.