Maof

Does the world need the Jews?
The Jews are absolutely indispensable to the world, asserts Liora Ziv-Ami, author of the book “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment.”
It is not because the Jews are better than other peoples that they are necessary to the world but because its future survival depends on the Jews.
This statement is likely to immediately trigger thoughts about the volatile situation in the Middle East and the possible threat of World War III, associated with the use of certain types of weapons.
The subject matter of this book, however, is totally different.
 “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment” is a conceptual piece of writing, which presents a rather convincing rationale on the role of the Jews in the destiny of world, and why and in what way they accomplish it.
Precisely because of its conceptual approach, the events and phenomena depicted in the book, which may be familiar to many of us but are perceived as unrelated and disconnected, suddenly present themselves in a new light as part of a single whole.
We all know about the relentless confrontation between the Islamic world and the Christian civilization of the West. Israel plays such a vital part in this confrontation that many have come to accept the thought that the mere existence of this state, which supposedly provokes such a conflict, is undesirable. Has it ever occurred to us that maybe it is the return of the Jews to the Promised Land and the rebuilding of the Jewish state that offers the resolution to the conflict between Christianity and Islam?
We have also accepted the idea that central to the “Jewish question” today is the animosity of the Arab world and Muslim fundamentalists to Israel. But do we know enough about what is going on inside the Jewish state? In fact, we may discover that it is the country’s political leadership which has created this situation, so detrimental to the Jews. Why did this happen? Why does the state of Israel persist in making fateful mistakes over and over again?
The book “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment” uncovers the connection between all these events and phenomena … which lies in the Monotheistic Idea.

The mere mention of the Monotheistic Idea may lead us to conclude that we are dealing with a religious work. However, the only way in which this book is religious is that the author accepts the basic tenets of the Holy Scripture that have given rise to modern civilization and that, until more or less recently, were not questioned. Here are these tenets:
The world has a Creator, Who has designed the world on the basis of Law.
The first monotheist, Abraham, who was able to accept the Idea of One G-d (the Monotheistic Idea), only appeared after mankind made a series of mistakes, showing its inability to understand its own Creator.
Abraham, his son Isaac (in Hebrew, Yitzchak), and grandson Jacob laid down the foundations of the monotheistic family, in order for mankind to learn how to raise individuals who are capable of understanding the Creator.
The Creator met with the descendants of the first monotheists Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, to pass on His Law to the people through His Revelations.
Other peoples, with the assistance of the Jews, joined the Monotheistic Idea, thus becoming Abramaic nations, so as to use their joint efforts to prepare mankind to a new meeting with the Creator;
Acceptance by all of mankind of the power of One Creator is the ultimate goal in the development of the Monotheistic Idea.
Thus, the author leads us to the issue of global order, which is shaking up the world today. Only she does it in an unusual, unexpected manner.

The religious nature of “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment” is limited to the fundamental religious tenets of monotheistic faith but they nevertheless characterize the main feature of the concept presented in this book, i.e., the historiosophical concept.
Mankind’s history interpreted in this light gives familiar facts, connected to form a single picture of the world, the kind of logic which we have lost a long time ago. The ideas behind this concept will be clear to any religious person, no matter what denomination he or she may belong to, and even to a non-believer, because the author Liora Ziv-Ami bases it on nothing but logic.

The history of humanity is presented in “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment” as the process of the development of the Monotheistic Idea. This process consists of several stages – epochs of the Jerusalem Temple.
During the epoch of the First Temple the Israelites demonstrated by their own experience the complexity of the process through which the Monotheistic Idea becomes established in the people’s minds and their experience, and this was entered in writing in the Holy Scripture. That is precisely why the history of the Jews became sacred.
During the epoch of the Second Temple the Monotheistic Idea took such firm root among the Jewish people that the second stage in its development became possible: the Monotheistic Idea broke through the boundaries of the “chosen people,” separated from the rest of mankind, initiating the process by which this Idea became established in the minds and experiences of other nations.
This initiated the beginning of the new, 2,000-year-long epoch of preparation for the epoch of the Third Temple, in the course of which various peoples of the world accepted monotheism. But because these peoples have descended from different forefathers, their monotheism came in a variety of forms. Due to this, these peoples, on the one hand, presented the diversity of human experience, and, on the other, became united by their acceptance of the G-d of Abraham, and therefore they are called Abramaic peoples.
As for the direct descendants of Abraham-Isaac-Jacob, for the past 2,000 years they have been doing other work: living in Diaspora, dispersed among other peoples, the Jews accumulated this varied experience, processed it and selected only that which was in tune with the Monotheistic Idea.
Viewed that way, the Hebrews, Christians and Muslims become equal partners in working toward a common cause – the preparation of mankind to achieving the ultimate goal of the Monotheistic Idea – the power of One Creator.

The problem of the Christian-Muslim-Jewish conflict, therefore, does not exist because each is responsible for its part of this shared goal.
Actually, the another problem does exist.
It is born of the special monotheistic mentality, which is developed within every person in whose mind and experience the Monotheistic Idea takes root: they begin to view different peoples as part of one mankind, and their own versions of monotheism as the basis for a unified global order.
That is why every monotheist inexorably faces a problem which the book’s author refers to as “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment”, i.e., the problem of building communities.
So the issue is how to bring together all of mankind, provided that different peoples have different forefathers?

This problem is born of the Monotheistic Idea.
The Creator Himself passed on to us the Ten Commandments, which are accepted by all monotheists and, therefore, create the foundation for mankind’s unity. It is arguably only the Fifth Commandment, Kibud Av V'Em (honoring one's father and mother), i.e., the tradition which one’s forefathers pass on to their progeny, which makes such unity possible, since different people have descended from different forefathers.
This is what creates the Paradox of the Fifth Commandment, which cannot be resolved but it is possible to go around it.

The Christians have evaded the Paradox of the Fifth Commandment by announcing the principle “…there is neither Greek nor Jew.” Leaving the secular world for the monastery they were able to sever the blood ties between the forefathers and their descendants. Blood brothers were replaced by brothers in faith.
Thanks to this, a Christian acquired freedom from the tradition of his forefathers as such, and this circumstance gave birth to a special kind of Christian individualism. As the result of this obtained freedom, it was the Crusaders who, on the one hand, found themselves in the vanguard of humanity, since all innovations developed deep in the Christian world, but, on the other, Christians relatively easily rejected the G-d of Abraham.

The Muslims have evaded the Paradox of the Fifth Commandment by imposing the Arab family code, which strictly regulates all relations between people in the entire Muslim world. Due to this, tradition has completely suppressed the individual and has deprived society of its ability to develop, on the one hand, but, on the other, it has made the Muslim unwavering in his faith, since his faith is protected by tradition.

This incompatibility of the results of the Christian and Muslim experiences of adapting the Monotheistic Idea only came to the foreground when the realities of the “global village” raised the issue of a unified global order.
The main battle is being waged between “monotheistic” nations. That is why the new war, which we have termed “the war against terrorism”, is, in fact, a monotheistic war. Anyone who rejects the principles of western individualism because it destroys all norms of collective existence, which are sanctified in Islam by the Name of the Creator, is likely to become a soldier in this war.

According to the book’s author Liora Ziv-Ami, it is these problems, which signal the beginning of the epoch of the Third Temple.
Two factors confirm the beginning of this new epoch: all the world’s nations have become united in a single “global village,” while the Jewish people have become united in the rebuilt state of Israel after 2,000 years of Diaspora.
What happened to the Jewish people during this period has finally become apparent in Israel – it has turned into a community that has no parallel in the world.
The Jews are members of one family, and descendants of the same monotheistic forefathers.
The Jews are a people that has not lost its national self-identity, a common language and connection with the land of its forefathers.
But the Jews are also a mixed multitude of “peoples” joined together by a single faith. In the past 2,000 the Jews have developed common features with the peoples of their host countries. Turning into “Russians,” “Englishmen,”  “Moroccans,”  “Iraqis,” etc., these Jews brought with them to Zion the spiritual experience of these respective peoples, from which, according to the words of the Prophets, the teaching will spread around the world.
But that is not all. Jews also self-identify themselves as Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, in other words, as Jews from the Christian and Muslim worlds. That is because over 2,000 the Jews became transformed into “a mankind” of sorts, within which the spiritual experiences of Christianity and Islam have met each other.
The transformation of the Jewish people who had lived separately, according to the Scripture, and were not counted among other nations, into a unique community, unlike any other, has come about as the result of 2,000 years in Diaspora. Thus the Creator Himself has turned “the chosen people” into a special instrument, with the help of which mankind will be able to resolve the otherwise irresolvable Paradox of the Fifth Commandment.
Joining together in their rebuilt state, the Jews have made this state into a world-wide experimental lab, where all the world’s problem areas are highlighted. Now, during the epoch of the Third Temple, the mission of the Jews will be to generalize the experiences of all nations so that these nations can accept the power of their Creator.

In order to accomplish this, the Jews must create a universal culture of the family during the epoch of the Third Temple.
This is, perhaps, the author’s most unexpected conclusion, since we have come to accept as true that the role of the family in society is gradually decreasing and problems are, to a growing extent, being delegated to the government and its institutions, and also to international bodies such as the U.N. or Interpol.

Liora Ziv-Ami asserts the opposite: everything starts with the family. And the Monotheistic Idea, which struck root in the families of our forefathers, has developed, turning an ever growing number of peoples into Abramaic nations, so that in the end all nations shall become united on the bases of universal family values.
All people on earth are both parents and children. This is the one single characteristic that is common to all of mankind.
There is only one way to improve the situation in which all the peoples in the “global village” have found themselves – by improving the interrelationship within the family. If an individual is being crippled since early childhood in accordance with the tradition of the people closest and dearest to him, no outside influence can change this sad state of affairs. If the family is unable to prepare its children to life in a modern civilized society – and this is mostly connected to the position of the woman and the mother in the family – one can expect the children in that family to develop some form of hatred for civilization.
Only the family is capable, through knowledge, to nurture in people a love for the world and its Creator.

And it is only the Jews who are able to create such a family.
The Jews have brought together from the East and the West the spiritual experiences of all peoples. Now, in the Promised Land, they are to “separate the wheat from the chaff,” to sift out the universal elements of this experience in order to build the House of Jacob with it, to which all the nations with turn and say, as is written in the Scripture: “O House of Jacob, come ye….”

Having defined the goal, which is the logical result of the entire course of the Jewish people’s history, the author analyzes Israeli realities and demonstrates how the Jewish state has taken an entirely different course throughout its development.
After their 2,000 years in Diaspora, the Jews of Israel have faced a difficult problem: how to create a new nation out of a dispersed people. And they decided this question on the basis of … Marxist ideology.
The classical advocates of Marxism asserted that the family was an obstacle to the unity of all people since it created the need for private property. They saw the disappearance of the family as the future of mankind. This vision became the Israeli ideal, which the most ardent followers of Marxism implemented in practice in their kibbutzes.
The state of Israel was built on the notion of destroying all traditions which the Jews brought with them from the countries of Diaspora. It is in this that the author sees not only the reason behind the degradation of Israeli social fabric, but also the source of the ideals and ideology of Israeli elite, which with their own hands created a situation in which the killing of Jews has acquired legitimacy.
Liora Ziv-Ami believes that Israeli society has inevitably arrived at this situation, since its ideology is built on a disregard for the Fifth Commandment.

The author draws the reader’s attention to the precise wording of the Fifth Commandment: “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord G-d gives you.” Violating the Fifth Commandment leads a person to a death wish.

Liora Ziv-Ami compares two great Jews – the Apostle Paul and Karl Marx, who saw the blood ties between the forefathers and their descendants as an obstacle on the path toward the unity of mankind.
But the Apostle Paul declared: “….there is neither Greek nor Jew, trying to plant the Monotheistic Idea among the peoples. That is why only Christianity was able to reveal man’s G-d-like creative potential to the world. Marx had announced the idea of the unity of the proletariat out of his hatred for G-d. As the result, he created the most destructive religion, which made entire nations suicidal.
The author sees Israel’s problems in its adherence to Marxism, which has, to one degree or another, poisoned the minds of all those who we consider to be “on the left” and who, to her great disappointment, define the destiny not only of the Jewish people, but the world’s destiny as well.

 “The Paradox of the Fifth Commandment” offers an entirely new approach to the problems facing the world today. Written in a clear and crisp language, this book uncovers the frightful abyss in which these problems are fermented.
It also gives grounds for optimism. If the Jews have been chosen for a clearly defined goal – resolving the paradox of the Fifth Commandment, which they alone are capable of doing – then it is possible that they will change their ways and begin to follow their calling?
As I turned the pages of this remarkable book I was filled with new hope that, perhaps, not all has been lost and things can still get better.

Vladimir Shuster.  New York