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Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!lanl!unm-la!unmvax!nmtvax!wildstar
From: wildstar@nmtvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Beacon from a lost sheep from 11 lightyears away.
Message-ID: <808@nmtvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Oct-85 03:28:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: nmtvax.808
Posted: Thu Oct 10 03:28:56 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 06:16:35 EDT
Reply-To: wildstar@nmtvax.UUCP (Andrew Fine)
Organization: New Mexico Tech, Socorro
Lines: 99
Summary: 

References:


     I was just reading the mail in the news service, and I came across this
particular net.  I take this to be the computer Jewish Community.

From any who care to answer, I request opinions, flames, etc. about the way
I currently am vis. the religion/culture/etc.

Perhaps I should begin from the beginning....

     Suffice it to say that my bloodlines are Jewish on both sides.  I was
raised as Conservative from a very young age, as were my siblings. I was
required to attend synagouge, Hebrew school, and to go to the barmitzvah.
However, no dissent on my part was allowed, and I was forced to do these
things no matter if I liked it or not.

     Also, in the Hebrew school, we were all showed films from a very
young age concerning exactly the literal ugliness that happened.  The
teachers were very militant about traditions, obligations, the Deity,
and it was pounded into our heads again and again not to trust outsiders,
namely Christians, Protestants, Buddists, agnostics, and even Reforms.
We were also strongly advised that all the Arabs wanted to do was destroy
"our race".

     Around the same time, I was also watching prime time coverage of
the Vietnam War, getting physically beaten by my father and by "classmates"
in grade school.

     In the face of all this, I felt it was not worthwhile being born
Jewish.  Even more so, I felt it was not worthwhile being born human either.
And at the same time, I could not feel the presence of a Deity that everyone
was claiming was a vital part of everyone's life.

     So exactly the week after I finished the barmitzvah, since there was
no alternative but to stay alive, I decided that I did not deserve to be
a Jew since I was not capable of belief. So from that moment I renounced
my ties to that culture. Also, I felt that what with the cruelty and sheer
evil that humans did to each other, and what with the fact that people I
knew where having thier pleasure and power at my expense, I decided that
I did not want to be a human anymore.  So from that moment on I renounced
the human race as well, and became an alien.
 
     At the time, it was the best thing to do, and being alien gave me
a lot better ability to concentrate on important stuff like schoolwork,
and to understand the world from a detached viewpoint, on a higher plane
of ethics than "don't do as I do, do as I say" sort of thing.

     I survived for many years in that state, and did well in the areas
I restricted myself to. But in the coming years of college, the very 
powers I gained as a non-human were telling me that those powers were a
dead end in the long run. I was becoming depressed since my colleages were
enjoying themselves, dating around, even being religious, wasting time,
and getting very high gpa's where all I did in life was study and do my
duty to my family ( which was fighting, seperating, getting divorced,
slashing wrists ), and keep a moderate gpa.

     It took many more years, and many psychologists, to adjust my
personality to a point where a little luxury could be tolerated in my
life.  I am at the point now where I have regained about 7/8 of my
humanity back, but there are still the old defenses, weaponry, and
analysis systems that somehow I am not being permitted to release.  Perhaps
it is just as well.  I can live a little, and even love a little, and
that is all I can really expect.

     But I never did become even partly Jewish again.  I am afraid that
if I did, I would no longer be able to control my own destiny, and
I would be obligated to look from a very narrow viewpoint of "tradition",
"chosen people", "siege mentality", "holocaust", and all the other things
which have kept the Jews at odds with the rest of the world, and which
have guaranteed that there will never be a peace in the Middle East.
It seems that the Palestinians ( Feleeshteem ) ( Philistines ) ( Canaanites )
and the Jewish lineage even before the religion was adopted, have always
hated, despised, and killed each other for the past one hundred thousand
years. Sort of like the Hatfields and the McCoys.

     Besides, I also like lobsters, clams, shrimp, beef Stroganoff, sushi,
sirloin steaks, croissants, and all the other non-kosher things.  I tend
to be color blind, race blind, and creed blind.  I welcome the diversity
of ideas from all people, I tend to make friends based on my respect for them
as a person.

     But sometimes I wonder. It is as if I were a colony starship that left 
during WWIII, lost
and adrift 11 years from home ( that is how long it has been since I
cashiered my commission from my bloodline ), crashed on a rocky and 
hostile planet, where the crew and passengers lost everything and built
a civilization over many centuries.  And one day, an archeological dig
finds the remains of the ship and of lost treaures in the vault. Scrolls,
books, technology so archaic as to be nearly untranslatable.  The books
and the technology were salvaged, but the big scroll with silver metal on
the handles and over the cover is yet to this day an unsolved mystery.
Right now the big scroll is located in the planetary government's museum.
(-:)

     So, would anyone want to contact and advise a castaway civilization trying
to re-establish contact? I'll read postings on the net as replies.

Sincerely,

Andrew Jonathan Fine.