Why the Jewish and Messianic arc of History always bends to the Left
There was never any change and never will be any change
Gnostics faced the crisis with explanation of creation. Why would a good God create this obviously bad, cruel and unjust world? The answer was “change”, with a twist. The good God didn’t create the bad world, they said, the world was created by a rogue God Demiurge in Greek or Yaldavaoth (from the root “birth”) in the original Aramaic.
The task of good God is the partnership with the believers in taking back the “sparks”. Changing the world for the better.
The Kabbalists ignored the Gnostic creation myth (they modified it with shviras hakeylim) but kept the “change” part and the sparks. At some point, it was perhaps one Jewish esoteric tradition.
Fast-forward to our time, forget the sparks and the creation, but we still believe in change. In fact, this one idea that people who live in post — Judeo-Christian civilizations believe unconditionally. Not only Obama, but every Miss America contestant swears by one unshakable dogma, change! And they believe that the change of the entire world is up to them individually.
You see, I haven’t used the word Messianic yet. But in fact, it’s the core belief of Messianic civilizations that everyone can change the world. And it is a profoundly false belief. Because there is no change and never will be any change. For the left, the belief in change and progress, it’s not even part of the ten commandments, it is the one commandment at the root of all others. In fact, as traditional religions recede, one commandment still demands a life-defining fervor, the worship of change.
There were never any change and never will be any change. Surely things “change” on the surface, in science, plumbing, dentistry, sometimes even in individual lives, but there is never a change in the human condition.
I would argue that a messianic belief in change in Judaism, Christianity, even Islam and certainly Communism, brought more deaths and tragedy than all other beliefs combined. This seems obvious.
The left, through Enlightenment and Marxism, is the successor messianic religion. The left doesn’t believe in God, but they worship change. And they still believe that one man, everyone, can change the world. A profound utopian Chutzpah!
This also explains the centuries old Jewish romance with the left. The messianic idea is so fundamental to Jews that they have a hard time giving it up completely, they still worship change, and they claim it gives them purpose.
P.S. It also explains why Chabad is such a natural fit with the left, fundamentally it’s one heresy. The urgent belief in change brought about by an individual effort. Light that candle and change the world!
"The left, through Enlightenment and Marxism, is the successor messianic religion. The left doesn’t believe in God, but they worship change. And they still believe that one man, everyone, can change the world. A profound utopian Chutzpah!"
Why is that chutzpah? What about
Talmud, Kiddushin 40b:
". עשה מצוה אחת אשריו שהכריע את עצמו ואת כל העולם לכף זכות. עבר עבירה אחת אוי לו שהכריע את עצמו ואת כל העולם לכף חובה."