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.
Every week, I have the privilege of interviewing people who fight for freedom. I post their stories on my Gallery of Freedom Fighters. This is how I describe them:
Who are the heroes of today?
They are expert physicians and scientists speaking out against medical tyranny.
They are lawyers fighting illegal and unconstitutional mandates in the courts.
They are wealthy entrepreneurs forming alternative media platforms to expose the truth.
And they are political candidates taking on the Deep State and all forms of government corruption.
At the same time, today’s war against the dictator-wannabes is being fought on many fronts much closer to home, by many everyday people:
Patients, who have to protect personal health information – and bodily autonomy – from health system surveillance and coercion.
Citizens, who have to protect their privacy — and their private property — against encroaching Digital ID and CBDC.
Parents, who have to push back against disruptive campaigns in schools, including critical race theory and transgender grooming.
Town residents, who have to preserve municipal resources — schools, hospitals, even whole neighborhoods — from invading illegal immigrants.
Everyday people have to become everyday heroes. We have no choice. The forces of tyranny have advanced — not just to our doorstep — but into our minds, bodies, bank accounts, and medical records. We must either rise to the occasion, or we must accept our lot as transactional units in the Technocratic State.
These are the stories of these Freedom Fighters. We can take inspiration and motivation from each and every one of them, to persevere in the fight for our own freedom.
I call them “heroes,” and really mean it. As a matter of fact, they closely resemble the “super heroes” of comic book lore:
They lead everyday lives.
They are committed to “saving the world.”
When duty calls, they tap into “super powers,” that when you think about it, are actually spiritual in nature.
If you were to ask any of them if they considered themselves a hero, they would of course answer with a resounding “No!’ They are simply doing their job as patients, citizens, parents, and town residents; or as physicians, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and elected officials. Personally and / or professionally, they are dedicating their lives to a higher cause. And even though they may not define their mission in these exact words, their purpose can certainly be considered the redemption of the world. In partnership with God.
As you might imagine, the idea of partnering with God to make the world a better place, is Biblical in nature. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks explains how In his commentary on Parashat Ki Tavo called “God of History.”
Rabbi Sacks starts out by describing a yearly ritual conducted by the everyday villager in ancient times:
“The setting: Jerusalem some twenty centuries ago. The occasion: bringing first fruits to the Temple. Here is the scene as the Mishnah describes it[1]:
“Throughout Israel, villagers would gather in the nearest of 24 regional centres. There, overnight, they would sleep in the open air. The next morning, the leader would summon the people with words from the book of Jeremiah (31:5): ‘Arise and let us go up to Zion, to the House of the Lord our God.’
“Those who lived near Jerusalem would bring fresh figs and grapes. Those who lived far away would bring dried figs and raisins. An ox would walk ahead of them, its horns plated with gold and its head decorated with an olive wreath. Someone would play a flute. When they came close to Jerusalem they would send a messenger ahead to announce their arrival and they would start to adorn their first-fruits. Governors and officials of the city would come out to greet them and the artisans would stop their work and call out, ‘Our brothers from such-and-such a place: come in peace!’
“The flute would continue playing until the procession reached the Temple Mount. There, they would each place their basket of fruit on their shoulder – the Mishnah says that even King Agrippa would do so – and carry it to the Temple forecourt. There the Levites would sing (Psalm 30:2), ‘I will praise you, God, for you have raised me up and not let my enemies rejoice over me.’
“The scene, as groups converged on the Temple from all parts of Israel, must have been vivid and unforgettable. However, the most important part of the ceremony lay in what happened next. With the baskets still on their shoulders the arrivals would say, ‘I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come to the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ Each would then hold their basket by the rim, the Cohen would place his hand under it and ceremoniously wave it, and the bringer of the fruit would say the following passage, whose text is set out in our parsha:
“’My ancestor was a wandering Aramean. He went down into Egypt and lived there as a stranger, few in number, and there became a great nation, strong and numerous.The Egyptians mistreated us and made us suffer, subjecting us to harsh labour.We cried out to the Lord, God of our ancestors. The Lord heard our voice and saw our suffering, our toil and our oppression. The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with terrifying power and signs and wonders. He brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I am bringing the first fruit of the soil that you, O Lord, have given me.’” Deut. 26:5-10
This ritual did much more than celebrate the harvest. It made a theological statement:
“This passage is familiar to us because we expound part of it, the first four verses, in the Haggadah on Seder night. But this was no mere ritual. As Yosef Hayim Yerushalmi explained in his Zakhor: Jewish History and Memory, it constituted one of the most revolutionary of all Judaism’s contributions to world civilisation.
“What was original was not the celebration of first fruits. Many cultures have such ceremonies. What was unique about the ritual in our parsha, and the biblical world-view from which it derives, is that our ancestors saw God in history rather than nature. Normally what people would celebrate by bringing first-fruits would be nature itself: the seasons, the soil, the rain, the fertility of the ground and what Dylan Thomas called ‘the force that through the green fuse drives the flower.’ The biblical first-fruits ceremony is quite different. It is not about nature but about the shape of history, the birth of Israel as a nation, and the redemptive power of God who liberated our ancestors from slavery.”
With this statement, it established people as partners with God in the redemption of the world:
“This is what was new about this worldview:
“[1] Jews were, as Yerushalmi points out, the first to see God in history.
“[2] They were the first to see history itself as an extended narrative with an overarching theme. That vision was sustained for the whole of the biblical era, as the events of a thousand years were interpreted by the prophets and recorded by the biblical historians.
“[3] The theme of biblical history is redemption. It begins with suffering, has an extended middle section about the interactive drama between God and the people, and ends with homecoming and blessing.
‘[4] The narrative is to be internalised: this is the transition from history to memory, and this is what the first-fruits declaration was about. Those who stood in the Temple saying those words were declaring: this is my story. In bringing these fruits from this land, I and my family are part of it.
“[5] Most importantly: the story was the basis of identity. Indeed, that is the difference between history and memory. History is an answer to the question, ‘What happened?’ Memory is an answer to the question, ‘Who am I?’ In Alzheimer’s Disease, when you lose your memory, you lose your identity. The same is true of a nation as a whole.When we tell the story of our people’s past, we renew our identity. We have a context in which we can understand who we are in the present and what we must do to hand on our identity to the future.”
We can see the importance of maintaining this national partnership identity, when we review the “identity crisis” that have have plagued the Western world:
“It is difficult to grasp how significant this was and is. Western modernity has been marked by two quite different attempts to escape from identity. The first, in the eighteenth century, was the European Enlightenment. This focused on two universalisms: science and philosophy. Science aims at discovering laws that are universally true. Philosophy aims at disclosing universal structures of thought.
“Identity is about groups, about Us and Them. But groups conflict. Therefore the Enlightenment sought a world without identities, in which we are all just human beings. But people can’t live without identities, and identity is never universal. It is always and essentially particular. What makes us the unique person we are is what makes us different from people in general. Therefore, no intellectual discipline that aims at universality will ever fully grasp the meaning and significance of identity.
“This was the Enlightenment’s blind spot. Identity came roaring back in the nineteenth century, based on one of three factors: nation, race or class. In the twentieth century, nationalism led to two World Wars. Racism led to the Holocaust. Marxist class warfare led eventually to Stalin, the Gulag and the KGB.
“Since the 1960s, the West has been embarked on a second attempt to escape from identity, in favour not of the universal but the individual, in the belief that identity is something each of us freely creates for him- or herself. But identity is never created this way. It is always about membership in a group. Identity, like language, is essentially social.
“Just as happened after the Enlightenment, identity has come roaring back to the West, this time in the form of identity politics (based on gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation). This will, if allowed to flourish, lead to yet more historical disasters. It is a major threat to the future of liberal democracy.”
Telling the story of who you are – a partner with God in the world’s redemption – is the key to maintaining national identity and purpose. It has served the Jewish people well. And it has encouraged others inspired by the Hebrew Bible, to make the world a better place:
“What was happening in Jerusalem when people brought their first-fruits was of immense consequence. It meant that that they regularly told the story of who they were and why. No nation has ever given greater significance to retelling its collective story than Judaism, which is why Jewish identity is the strongest the world has ever known, the only one to have survived for twenty centuries with none of the normal bases of identity: political power, shared territory or a shared language of everyday speech.
“Clearly, not all identities are the same. Characteristic of Jewish identities and others inspired by the Hebrew Bible are what Dan McAdams calls ‘the redemptive self.’ People with this kind of identity, he says, ‘shape their lives into a narrative about how a gifted hero encounters the suffering of others as a child, develops strong moral convictions as an adolescent, and moves steadily upward and onward in the adult years, confident that negative experiences will ultimately be redeemed.’ More than other kinds of life story, the redemptive self embodies the ‘belief that bad things can be overcome and affirms the narrator’s commitment to building a better world.’
“What made the biblical story unique was its focus on redemption. In partnership with God, we can change the world. This story is our heritage as Jews and our contribution to the moral horizons of humankind. Hence the life-changing idea: Our lives are shaped by the story we tell about ourselves, so make sure the story you tell is one that speaks to your highest aspirations, and tell it regularly.”
I will add this:
The stories of the freedom fighters I interview inevitably follow the same pattern. They initially focus on personal feelings of outrage and violation:
They don’t want to be forced to take the shot.
They don’t want their kids groomed.
They don’t want their local election stolen.
And so on.
But after a while, the focus becomes wider:
They want to save the country.
They want to make the world a better place for the next generation.
They want to fight for our God-given freedoms.
Even if they do not refer to God, or consider themselves very religious, they feel “called upon” to act. The stories they tell “speak to their highest aspirations.” By posting their interviews on the Gallery, I help them tell their stories regularly.