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.
The attempted assassination of President Donald J. Trump shows us one thing for sure: the globalists want us angry.
They flood our minds with images of impending doom — “climate change;” pandemics; world war; natural disasters; supply shortages; crimes waves.
And the never-popular “threat to democracy.”
They blame specific people for making the world so dangerous. Their list of scapegoats includes:
America
Western culture
Capitalists
MAGA
Russia
Israel
The Jews
Christians
Fossil fuels
“Privileged” white people
Binary people
The “unvaccinated”
“Election deniers”
And of course their arch-villain, President Donald J. Trump.
The globalists would rather we simply roll over and beg for their rule; but they know that will take a long time. Their imposition of tyranny could move much more quickly if they could “justify” their takeover as what is necessary to eliminate the threats posed by these “bad guys.” The past four years, especially, have featured a vast array of prosecutions and persecutions of “the enemies of the State.”
The tyrants depend on our anger to justify these measures, because they certainly cannot be justified from any moral or legal point of view. The world will be a safer place once they:
Get Trump
Get MAGA
(or for that matter, Get the Jews. And Get the “Zionists.” But we will get into that in another essay.)
This tells us that one key to defeating the technocrats, is to not let them get us angry — making anger itself the enemy. If we can prevent them from manipulating our emotions and turning us into savages demanding blood, then they will not be able to commit unjustifiable abuses of civil and moral law on our account.
And it will make their own anger fuel their own demise.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks offers teachings to guide us on this path to self-control in his commentary on Parashat Chukat called “Anger Management.”
Rabbi Sacks starts out by discussing the famous Biblical incident in which God punished Moses for his actions with the rock:
“He and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, ‘Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?’ Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank.
“But the Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not trust in Me enough to honour Me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them.’ Num. 20:10-12
“’Is this the Torah and this its reward?’ we are tempted to say. What was Moses’ sin that it merited such punishment?”
For an answer, Rabbi Sacks looks to Maimonides in Shemoneh Perakim, the “Eight Chapters” that form the preface to his commentary to the Mishnah, Tractate Avot, the Ethics of the Fathers:
“In the course of these chapters Maimonides sets out a surprisingly contemporary account of Judaism as a training in emotional intelligence. Healthy emotions are essential to a good and happy life, but temperament is not something we choose. Some people just happen to be more patient or calm or generous-spirited or optimistic than others. Emotions were at one stage called the ‘passions,’ a word that comes from the same root as ‘passive,’ implying that they are feelings that happen to us rather than reactions we choose. Despite this, Maimonides believed that with sufficient training it is possible for us to overcome our destructive emotions and reconfigure our affective life.
“In general, Maimonides, like Aristotle, believed that emotional intelligence exists in striking a balance between excess and deficiency, too much and too little. Too much fear makes me a coward, too little makes me rash and foolhardy, taking unnecessary risks. The middle way is courage. There are, however, two exceptions, says Maimonides: pride and anger. Even a little pride (some Sages suggested ‘an eighth of an eighth’) is too much. Likewise even a little anger is wrong.”
That was the sin of Moses: he lost his temper — and right when he was in the public spotlight:
“That, says Maimonides, is why Moses was punished: because he lost his temper with the people when he said, ‘Listen, you rebels.’ To be sure, there were other occasions on which he lost his temper – or at least appeared to lose it. His reaction to the sin of the Golden Calf, which included smashing the Two Tablets, was hardly eirenic or relaxed. But that case was different. The Israelites had committed a sin. God Himself was threatening to destroy the people. Moses had to act decisively and with sufficient force to restore order to a people wildly out of control.
“Here, though, the people had not sinned. They were thirsty. They needed water. God was not angry with them. Moses’ intemperate reaction was therefore wrong, says Maimonides. To be sure, anger is something to which we are all prone. But Moses was a leader, and a leader must be a role model. That is why Moses was punished so heavily for a failure that might have been more lightly punished in someone less exalted.
“In addition, says Maimonides, by losing his temper Moses failed to respect the people and might have demoralised them. Knowing that Moses was God’s emissary, the people might have concluded that if Moses was angry with them, so too was God. Yet they had done no more than ask for water. Giving the people the impression that God was angry with them was a failure to sanctify God’s Name. Thus one moment’s anger was sufficient to deprive Moses of the reward surely most precious to him, of seeing the culmination of his work by leading the people across the Jordan and into the Promised Land.”
Since Biblical times, many sages have advocated for anger management:
“The Sages were outspoken in their critique of anger. They would have thoroughly approved of the modern concept of anger management. They did not like anger at all, and reserved some of their sharpest language to describe it.
“’The life of those who can’t control their anger is not a life,’ they said. (Pesachim 113b)
“Reish Lakish said, ‘When a person becomes angry, if he is a sage his wisdom departs from him; if he is a prophet his prophecy departs from him.’ (Pesachim 66b)
“Maimonides said that when someone becomes angry it is as if he has become an idolater. (Hilchot Deot 2:3)
“What is dangerous about anger is that it causes us to lose control. It activates the most primitive part of the human brain that bypasses the neural circuitry we use when we reflect and choose on rational grounds. While in the grip of a hot temper, we lose the ability to step back and judge the possible consequences of our actions. The result is that in a moment of irascibility we can do or say things we may regret for the rest of our lives.
“For that reason, rules Maimonides, there is no ‘middle way’ when it comes to anger (Hilchot Deot 2:3). Instead we must avoid it under any circumstance. We must go to the opposite extreme. Even when anger is justified, we must avoid it. There may be times when it is necessary to look as if we are angry. That is what Moses did when he saw the Israelites worshipping the Golden Calf, and broke the Tablets of stone. Yet even when we outwardly display anger, says Maimonides, inwardly we should be calm.
“The Orchot Tzaddikim (a 15th century commentator) notes that anger destroys personal relationships. Short-tempered people scare others, who therefore avoid coming close to them. Anger drives out the positive emotions – forgiveness, compassion, empathy, and sensitivity. The result is that irascible people end up lonely, shunned, and disappointed. Bad tempered people achieve nothing but their bad temper (Kiddushin 40b). They lose all else.”
It takes dedicated work to calm your temper:
“The best way of defeating anger is to pause, stop, reflect, refrain, count to ten, and breathe deeply. If necessary, leave the room, go for a walk, meditate, or vent your toxic feelings alone. It is said that about one of the Rebbes of Lubavitch that whenever he felt angry, he would take down the Shulchan Aruch to see whether anger was permitted under the circumstances. By the time he had finished studying, his anger had disappeared.”
Defeating the enemy within is the first victory in winning life’s battles:
“The moral life is one in which we grapple with anger but never let it win. The verdict of Judaism is simple: either we defeat anger or anger will defeat us.”
I would add this:
I see a big difference between anger and indignation. We all should feel indignant as hell at the extreme violations of the technocracy. Such feelings are righteous, and could and should fuel our opposition to them.
But we can feel indignant. and still be in control of our emotions. It’s when we let ourselves get carried away by our anger, that we let the technocrats seize control for us.
They would like nothing better than to make Thomas Matthew Crooks a martyr; to be the trigger of a massive violent MAGA backlash, to justify locking us all up.
Let’s not give them the satisfaction. They are already out of control. Assassination is a sign of desperation. And tremendous fear and anger.
We are fueled by indignation. It will carry us to victory, in the upcoming election and beyond. We will FIGHT FIGHT as President Donald J. Trump cried in indignation when he got shot in the face, yet stood proud to lead us on.
“Trump yelling ‘Fight. Fight,’ after getting grazed by a bullet in the ear, an inch from ending his life. No panic. No crawling on his knees to safety. The man stands up, faces the crowd, and yells “Fight.” Historic footage. Just incredible.”