Truth Over Tyranny: Biblical wisdom for defeating the Technocrats.
These are my insights for defeating the Transhumanist Technocracy movement, based on the teachings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, on the weekly Bible portion.
If we closely examine the idea of “freedom,” we can see that it has two “dimensions:” an inner dimension, and an outer dimension. Both are necessary to be truly free.
For example, Tibetan monks can achieve a high degree of inner freedom. Their practice of Buddhism can help them achieve mastery over their desires. However, while they can become enlightened internally, they are still oppressed by the Chinese communists. This is unfortunately true for many disciples of spiritual traditions in totalitarian regimes. Freedom in society is but a dream.
On the other hand, we have the oligarchs, captains of industry, and government officials that comprise the “global elite.” These people literally have “all the freedom in the world.” They have the money, power, and influence to do just about anything they want.
But are they really free? I don’t think so at all. Just look at their “inner world:”
Their lust for power is so untamed, they kill people to keep it through wars, scamdemics, and other tools of depopulation;
Their coveting of material goods is so overwhelming, they steal what others have through a “great reset;’
Their need to control others is so out of control, they bully, bribe, blackmail, and brainwash everyone in their way;
Their fear of death is so agonizing, they try to use technology to eliminate it. And we have the monstrous sadists among them who kidnap and torture children for an adrenachrome fix.
These people are nothing close to free. They can move freely about the planet, but they are slaves to their own lusts, fears and desires. Even if they managed to impose their New World Order — which is never going to happen — they would eat each other alive.
External freedom requires internal freedom.
This is the exact point Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes, in his commentary on Parashat Ki Tissa called “The Birth of a New Freedom.”
Initially, the Bible spoke of external freedom:
“… what is the Hebrew word for freedom? Instinctively, we answer cherut. After all, we say that God brought us me-avdut le-cherut, ‘from slavery to freedom.’
“We call Pesach, the Festival of freedom, zeman cheruteinu. So it comes as a surprise to discover that not once does the Torah, or Tanach as a whole, use the word cherut in the sense of freedom, and only once does it use the word, or at least the related word charut, in any sense whatever.
“There are two biblical words for freedom. One is chofshi/chofesh, used in connection with the freeing of slaves (as in Ex. 21:2). That too is the word used in Israel’s national anthem, Hatikvah, which speaks about ‘the two-thousand-year hope to be a free people [am chofshi] in our land.’
“The other is dror, used in connection with the Jubilee year, engraved on the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia,
“’Proclaim liberty [dror] throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.’ Lev. 25:10
“The same word appears in Isaiah’s great words,
“’to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom [dror] for the captives.’” Is. 61:1
But the incident of the building of the Golden Calf called for a new idea of freedom:
“However, the Sages coined a new word. Here is the passage in which it occurs: It says,
“’The Tablets were the work of God, and the writing was the writing of God, engraved [charut] on the tablets’ (Ex. 32:16). Read not charut, ‘engraved’ but cherut, ‘freedom,’ for the only person who is truly free is one who occupies himself with Torah study. Avot 6:2
‘The reference is to the first tablets given by God to Moses just before the sin of the golden calf. This is the only appearance in Tanach of root ch-r-t (with a tav), but a related word, ch-r-t (with a tet) appears in the story of the golden calf itself, when the Torah tells us that Aaron shaped it with a cheret, an ‘engraving tool.’ The Egyptian magicians are called chartumim, which may mean engravers of hieroglyphics.’ So how did a word that means ‘engraved’ come to mean freedom’”?
The new freedom addressed this dilemma: if every person in society is free to do what he or she wants, how do we preserve society?
“Chofesh/chofshi is what a slave becomes when he or she goes free. It means that he can do what he likes. There is no one to order him around. The word is related to chafetz, ‘desire’ and chapess, ‘seek’
”Chofesh is the freedom to pursue your desires. It is what philosophers call negative liberty. It means the absence of coercion.
Chofesh is fine for individual freedom. But it does not constitute collective freedom. A society in which everyone was free to do what they liked would not be a free society. It would be, at best, like the society we saw on the streets of London and Manchester in the summer of 2011, with people breaking shop windows, looting and assaulting strangers.
“More likely it would be what failed states are today: a society without the rule of law, with no effective government, honest police, or independent courts. It would be what Hobbes called ‘the war of every man against every man’ in which life would be ‘nasty, brutish and short.’ Something like this is referred to in the last verse of the book of Judges: ‘In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did that which was right in his own eyes.’
“A free society needs law. But law is a constraint on freedom. It forbids me to do something I might wish to do. How then are we to reconcile law and liberty? That is a question at the heart of Judaism – which is a religion of both law and liberty.”
The answer provided by this new definition of freedom is self-mastery: internalizing the right things to do, so you don’t have to be forced to do it:
“To answer this, the Sages made an extraordinary leap of the imagination. Consider two forms of writing in ancient times. One is to use ink on parchment, another is to engrave words in stone. There is a marked difference between these two methods.
“The ink and parchment are two different materials. The ink is external to the parchment. It is superimposed upon it, and it does not become part of the parchment. It remains distinct, and so it can be rubbed off and removed. But an engraving does not use some new substance. It is carved out of the stone itself. It becomes part of it, and cannot easily be obliterated.
“Now consider these two ways of writing as metaphors for law. There is a law that is externally imposed. People keep it because they fear that if they do not, they will be caught and punished. But if there is no chance that they will be caught, they make break it, for the law has not changed their desires. That kind of law – imposed on us like ink on parchment – is a limitation of freedom.
“But there can be a different kind of society in which people keep the law not because they fear they will be caught and punished, but because they know the law, they have studied it, they understand it, they have internalised it, and it has become part of who they are. They no longer desire to do what the law forbids because they now know it is wrong and they wrestle with their own temptations and desires. Such a law needs no police because it is based not on external force but on internal transformation through the process of education. The law is like writing engraved in stone.”
The Jewish people would be the pioneers of a human society comprised of people who are internally free:
“Hence the brilliant new concept that emerged in rabbinic Judaism: cherut, the freedom that comes to a society – of which Jews were called on to be pioneers – where people not only know the law but study it constantly until it is engraved on their hearts as the commandments were once engraved on stone. That is what the Sages meant when they said, ‘Read not charut, engraved, but cherut, freedom, for the only person who is truly free is one who occupies himself with Torah study.’ In such a society you keep the law because you want to, because having studied the law you understand why it is there. In such a society there is no conflict between law and freedom.
“Where did the Sages get this idea from? I believe it came from their deep understanding of what Jeremiah meant when he spoke of the renewed covenant that would come into being once Jews returned after the Babylonian exile. The renewed covenant,
“’will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt … This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time – declares the Lord – I will put My law in their minds and write it on their hearts …’ Jer. 31:31-33
“Many centuries later Josephus recorded that this had actually happened. ‘Should anyone of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls.’”
This is critical to the cause of true freedom, because elections and political movements do not by themselves male people free internally:
“To this day many still do not fully understand this revolutionary idea. People still think that a free society can be brought about simply by democratic elections and political structures. But democracy, as Alexis de Tocqueville said long ago, may simply turn out to be ‘the tyranny of the majority.’
“Freedom is born in the school and the house of study. That is the freedom still pioneered by the people who, more than any other, have devoted their time to studying, understanding and internalising the law. What is the Jewish people? A nation of constitutional lawyers. Why? Because only when the law is engraved on our souls can we achieve collective freedom without sacrificing individual freedom. That is cherut –Judaism’s great contribution to the idea and practice of liberty.”
I would add this:
I have come across many misconceptions about “internal freedom,” and ways to achieve it. Merely learning religious text by rote, without making it meaningful to you as a person, is not a path to enlightenment. By the same token, simply being told by an authority figure to do the right thing, works for getting children to be obedient; but a more intelligent method has to be used with adults.
It’s no wonder so many people have a problem with “organized religion.”
But that does not change the mission of becoming a nation of “constitutional lawyers.” Religious Jews — and religious Christians — have a lot to learn from their protesting brethren. There are many legitimate ways to be a participate in religious life.
Now, many “dissidents” go too far. They express what they claim are “Biblical values,” but not in the service of the God of the Bible. They support Leftist / Globalist / Marxist ideology. These people are Jews or Christians In Name Only. They are not playing for the same team — actually, they are playing for the opposition.
How do we know this? Because their interpretation of “being” free, means that we are not free. They are part of the Technocracy.