A Religious Poet Slays Murderous Religion
Let us start today to teach our children the significance of religious freedom.
by SHMUEL KLATZKIN
November 4, 2023, 10:35 PM
In his philosophical dialogue Kuzari, the poet Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi portrayed an imagined series of talks between a Khazar king and religious representatives of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as with a philosopher who did not identify with any of those traditions.
The king had had a dream in which he had been informed that his intentions to serve the highest good were fine but that his actions were not acceptable. Accepting the experience of the dream as genuine, the king sought out the religious communities to see what they had to say. But first, he met with a skeptical philosopher, perhaps because, as a man of the world, he thought it best not to seek supernatural solutions before he had explored the wisdom the natural world had to offer. (READ MORE from Shmuel Klatzkin: This Evil Will Not Stop With the Jews)
The philosopher was predictably skeptical of the king’s dream and treated it as unimportant. The king knew by his experience this was not true, and that the philosopher’s knowledge had limits the philosopher didn’t admit. The king challenged the philosopher to explain why, if rational philosophy were so right, so many people are willing to put their life on the line for the truth of their religion.
The ones who raise their children to murder Jews … are the ones who accuse Israel of genocide.
The philosopher gave a classic answer, one that still challenges everyone who is a member of a religious community: “The philosophers’ creed knows no manslaughter, as they only cultivate the intellect.” We don’t murder each other and rationalize it by a religious creed.
https://spectator.org/a-religious-poets-faith/
