Judaism and Buddhism

how would you know someone is "the messiah?" or, rather, how do you define "the messiah?"

 

To claim any one religion as being the "closest to right" or better than any of the others is useless. My grandpa used to always say: almost only counts in horseshoes and handgrenades. If you cant actually conclude that one religion is the "truth", then following it is a blind leap of faith, pun intended. To merely read something and believe it as the word of god/thruths of the universe is niave at best.
Im not here to bash religion, well actually yeah i am here to bash on religion. Its fucking terrible. I mean to say im not here to bash on god, should "it" exist..If ever such a being existed i dont think he would let his words be misconstrued and stretched for thousands of years. Religion =/= god.

 

i can never really have that much respect just based off how much dumb shit happened in the old testament. any religion that uses that as a basis for teaching is one i will be staying far far away from.

 

Judaism is a pretty interesting religion. I grew up in a Reform congregation, but my interest in it started to wane after my bar mitzvah. If you take the time to read the Talmud I'm sure there are some very good teachings.

 

I agree that Buddhism is a great way to live life, but I am not so sure with Judaism because they expect a God. Gods are not debate worthy, their main characteristics purposely put them outside the realm of Human senses.

What the Human race must realize eventually is that we all come from the same building blocks of life so ultimately we are the same. And beyond that we are an extension of the Universe itself, without us there would be no experiences to be had.

Today's cultures are destructive and diseased, they have set us on a path for the destruction of our only true friend and our home earth.


All this God shit, and race shit, and bull shit are all distracting us from what the only real truth that has been exposed up to now. That we are all we have got out here, we are alone in this solar system and we'd rather kill each other then to be friends with everyone. Any space faring creatures that see us will be deeply disturbed.

 

In mystical Judaism, Moshiach, the Messiah, is not a person but a potentiality. All people can be Messiah, and eventually the world needs redemption through One Messiah (all people coming to peace with each other and the environment and working together to fix the shit we have gotten ourselves into).

The Talmud states that the face of the generation before Redemption will be "as the face of a dog," and by that it means that selfishness will rule over human action, just as a dog's sole drive is to keep itself alive. The reason for this is simple: the work of Redemption is to change from a selfish being into a selfless being, and it's a work that is often pleasureless, thankless, and fraught with all the bullshit of the world anyway, so why try?

So, the work of Moshiach ben David, THE Messiah (again, not an embodied figure) is the dissemination of one essential truth, that when one values selflessness over selfishness life takes on a brand new meaning and a person's inner and outer worlds begin to change. When you spread this message (through right action and living) you are engaged in the work of Messiah, because it is only this message, according to Judaism, whereby a human is freed from the shackles of oppression and then has the Divine commission to free others from those same shackles.

Isaiah 60:22 (I believe...I'm positive that it's 20 something. Going from memory) states of the Messianic era "hakaton yiheyeh la'elef vehatsa'ir legoy atsum ani Adonai be'itah achishenah" which means "the smallest one shall become a thousand, and the least will become a mighty nation; I, God, will hasten it in it's time." How can the Messianic era arrive "in its due time" but also be hastened by the Hand of God? Seems contradictory on its face, but it's not when you understand the "Messiah" is an unfolding process in the world, rather than God come to save creation, or a political ruler.

Messiah arrives "in it's time" because it is us who must do the work of repairing the world by repairing ourselves first, but the process is hastened by God once enough people jump on board.

 

I don't know anything about Judaism but Buddhism is the shit

 

It all depends on what 'form' of Judaism you are talking about. I actually nearly converted to Judaism in the past. At the time, my beliefs were vastly different than they are now. I was planning on converting to Orthodox Judaism, and basically following it in the absolutely most 'old-school' and original form possible, even beyond the majority of Orthodox Jews. There are just certain things that are very rarely known within the Jewish community, and therefore not followed...I also planned on moving to Israel...

Aaaanyways, that form of Judaism is very different from Buddhism. As I got more into 'Eastern' philosophy, I drifted away from the 'Western' religions like Judaism and Christianity. As I went very deep in my understanding of Eastern philosophy, like Buddhism, an interest to re-investigate certain things of Western religion arose. As I looked into Kabbalah, 'Jewish mysticism,' I found that it was very consistent with the deep truths of Buddhism/the East, at least from a certain perspective.

It all depends on your personal way of looking at these things...

 

Thanks for taking the time to explain it cookiecrisp. So you say it is not a personified being like most other religions? I read it was a monotheism.

 

I'm just giving the mystical Jewish interpretation of Messiah. I come from a Jewish movement called Chabad Lubavitch, which is an ultra-orthodox Jewish sect that practices Hasidism, which means "piousness" but is often referred to as "mystical Judaism."

Hasidic Judaism is Orthodox Judaism informed by the practice and study of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a system of revelatory insight into Torah and other Jewish works. Kabbalah is, according to Judaism, literally the science with which God created the universe.

For that reason, quite a few concepts differ when they are found in Hasidic Judaism. Messiah is just one of them. While most Orthodox Jews are still looking for an embodied Messiah who will be a military leader that brings peace to Israel and the world, most Hasidim have given up such a search because it doesn't make sense when you read the whole of the Old Testament in context, and it certainly doesn't make sense when you read the works of the great Medieval Kabbalists.

The idea of an embodied Messiah is really only believed by the Orthodox Jews nowadays, while the Hasidim and the more liberal congregations have moved to this idea that Messiah is an unfolding process. The steps each respective side take to bring Messiah into the world are different: Hasidim demand strict ritual observance and complete commandment keeping while the more liberal sects can see the spirit beyond the letter of the Law and aren't as stringent.

 

[quote name='"PassTheGrass"']

The more and more I learn about Judaism nowadays, the more I start to think about attending temple. It seems so, i don't know, accurate to my life i guess. Plus Jews are cool as fuck people, all so nice, great cooks, so traditional. There just is this aura of good about them. Fuck I miss hanging out with Jewish people all the time I just realized that. I might attend temple one of these days, just maybe. I don't need to know hebrew do I?[/quote]

For Reform and Reconstructionist congregations you won't need to know Hebrew. The prayers in the Siddur (prayer book) are in transliterated Hebrew, so it's easy enough to follow along. Some congregations even do complete English services.

For Orthodox and Hasidic congregations Hebrew is a must, with Yiddish being the main language of the Hasidic congregations. By and large, however, these congregations give the sermons in English. It would just be harder to follow along in the Siddur as its likely they only have Hebrew only ones.

 

Well, the more you interact here, the more you get to hang out with them after all.

 

A little while ago I came across a british hasidic rabbi, unlike any i'd seen before. He was being interviewed, and he said something i wasn't expecting to hear. This rabbi believes something he shouldn’t know, shouldn’t feel he can know. Not the generality, many people believe that, but the specific. He believes HE will be taking the Messiah back to Jerusalem, and he has moved to New York from where he believes he will do this.

I almost contacted him the following day as i felt i had something to say, question him about his certainty perhaps, and even composed a letter. But i never sent it. I'm not sure how i feel about the individual Messiah idea. The rabbi is certain this is going to happen. He is in no doubt. When I heard him speak it - I felt certain he was speaking the truth.

The rabbi says there is a man who will choose to accompany him to Jerusalem. He will be seen as the one they’ve been waiting for, and will be supported by those who have been expecting him. This man will not be someone who gets manipulated by those who think he belongs to them, for their own political ends, but will be a man who will take complete control once he truly accepts who he is.

The rabbi may be surprised at who turns up.

 

[quote name='"esseff"']A little while ago I came across a british hasidic rabbi, unlike any i'd seen before. He was being interviewed, and he said something i wasn't expecting to hear. This rabbi believes something he shouldn’t know, shouldn’t feel he can know. Not the generality, many people believe that, but the specific. He believes HE will be taking the Messiah back to Jerusalem, and he has moved to New York from where he believes he will do this.

I almost contacted him the following day as i felt i had something to say, question him about his certainty perhaps, and even composed a letter. But i never sent it. I'm not sure how i feel about the individual Messiah idea. The rabbi is certain this is going to happen. He is in no doubt. When I heard him speak it - I felt certain he was speaking the truth.

The rabbi says there is a man who will choose to accompany him to Jerusalem. He will be seen as the one they’ve been waiting for, and will be supported by those who have been expecting him. This man will not be someone who gets manipulated by those who think he belongs to them, for their own political ends, but will be a man who will take complete control once he truly accepts who he is.

The rabbi may be surprised at who turns up. [/quote]

I am Jewish, and I think people like this are just wanting the publicity and entertainment. Maybe he really believes this, but for someone else to follow is just fucking retarded. There are people like this in every religion. This isn't Judaism, this is idoling another, which is against the religion.

I can see it now, he gets a bunch of followers, then admits its Christ reincarnated... All convert to Christianity.

 

What do you mean?

You sought of glossed over the important bit - Maybe he really believes this.

 

Let's say he really believes this. He isn't going to be alone. The way he said it implied he'd been aware of this for quite some time. It was said very matter of factly, and for a such a thing to be believed, so specifically, it has to have something very real behind it.

Now, remember, this was my experience of him in that moment, not yours. Your reaction is based on how you imagine this might be, and if we went by what you imagine, rather than what he imagines, you would of course be right. Fortunately, I don't have to.

 

The question is:

What if he's right? What if you're right? What if we're all right, and none of us are? Why couldn't it be all that and more? Who says what is possible? If even such an idea at all is possible, why shouldn't someone be aware of it? Just because people have claimed things in the past, and they did not turn out to be what you thought they were, doesn't mean there can be no truth in it at all. That is an assumption that's too easy to make.

Is the idea of something like that, fantastical as it sounds, a good thing for the world? Could it be a good thing for the world if it was real, really real?
Do you have to believe it's possible in order to experience it, at all?
Won't it just happen regardless of what you believe?
and if you believe that, doesn't that allow you to opt out of having to do anything to know?

Isn't it our destiny to realise god? and once this happens, it's only a question of time before others follow. it would only manifest within a few at first, and someone always has to be first, but this is only the leading edge of the wave. There would be a whole ocean behind it.