Speaking of struggles
He explains that his struggle is that all his work now amounts to reinstating Athens within his soul while defying Jerusalem, he says If you want to make the West great again, my struggle is your struggle. Defy Jerusalem, say no to authoritarianism, embrace Athens in your heart: learn to speak your mind, tell the truth as you see it and bear the consequences.
andBut even if we slip, or we just manage to keep our promise one time, or let's say we fall back into old habits after the "2 weeks challenge", there's still value in the struggle. I think that such struggles have an immense value, and not just for the results (these can have value too of course). Engaging in such struggles is necessary IMO to become a force of good in the world - otherwise it's "good intentions with bad outcomes" at best. The funny thing though is that we normally don't see this and expect direct results from our efforts, and only much later do we realize how we have become better in completely unexpected ways in serving others as a result of our struggles/doing what "it" doesn't like. Hope I could clarify my thoughts a bit.
i thought this very recent article by Gilad Atzmon would be of relevance here. He explains that there is a battle going on between what he calls 'Athens' and 'Jerusalem', in which Athens stands for democracy, tolerance, freedom of speech, philosophy, Agora, science, ethics, poesis and The Tragedy and 'Jerusalem' is all about laws, mitzvoth, regimes of prescribed and proscribed behaviour. Athens teaches how to think ethically: in Jerusalem, ethics are replaced by the Ten Commandments; rules to obey. Jerusalem is not solely a ‘Jewish domain’ he argues and the Jerusalemization of our universe is apparent in every corner of society: from pop culture, to the work place, to academia and beyond. It is the tyranny of correctness adopted by the new Left and it is at least as infectious within right identitarianism.Challenging yourself with whatever is difficult for you helps you grow, whatever the goal at the moment happens to be.
He explains that his struggle is that all his work now amounts to reinstating Athens within his soul while defying Jerusalem, he says If you want to make the West great again, my struggle is your struggle. Defy Jerusalem, say no to authoritarianism, embrace Athens in your heart: learn to speak your mind, tell the truth as you see it and bear the consequences.
My Struggle
I launched my study into Jewishness two decades ago. It began as a result of my reaction to the relentless attacks on dissident Jewish thinkers who didn’t fit with the ‘revolutionary agenda’ of the so-called Jewish ‘anti Zionist’ Left. I quickly grasped that it was actually the Jewish Left, the...
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