IMAGINE and the jews

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Link to Transcript here: https://madlik.com/2024/12/27/imagine-and-the-jews/

I don’t want John’s vision to be fulfilled speedily and in our days. I don’t want it to be fulfilled…ever. My objection to his program is not that it is overly idealistic – but rather that there is nothing at all ideal about it. Because John’s beautiful ballad is in reality a death-march, a requiem mass for the human race. His seemingly lovely lyrics constitute in truth the single most hideous and unfortunate combination of syllables ever to be put to music. The realization of his dream – even in large part – would inevitably entail the wholesale destruction of the dreams, hopes, happinesses and very reason for living of yourself and every single person you know.

Whoever tells you to love all people equally – and s/he may be entirely unaware of this, and should therefore be enlightened as rapidly as possible – is really advocating the removal of all love worthy of the name from the face of the planet.

(preferential love, socio-cultural diversity)

Preferential love is the most powerful love there is, the only truly motivating love there is. It is by means of that love – the special love we harbor for those who are closer to us – that we learn how to begin to love others, who are farther away.

Prefer your family, and you will have something genuinely in common with all decent, caring, feeling, loving human beings the world over, an experience to share with almost everyone. Imagine all the people…showing each other pictures from their wallets! Sting put it well (much better than Lennon), when he sang near the end of the Cold War: “I hear the Russians love their children, too.” Their children, you see – not ours – but…“too.” And there’s the real common ground for you: we all love preferentially. There’s the real basis for cross-cultural understanding. There’s the only potential for peace.

Maghen, Ze'ev. John Lennon and the Jews: A Philosophical Rampage

Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us, only sky

Imagine all the people
Livin' for today
Ah

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too

Imagine all the people
Livin' life in peace
You

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world
You

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

Imagin - John Lennon

That the Sabbath and eternity are one - or of the same essence is an ancient idea.' A legend relates
that at the time when God was giving the Torah to Israel, He said to them: My children! If you accept the Torah and observe my mitzvot, I will give you for all eternity a thing most precious that I have in my possession.

-And what, asked Israel, is that precious thing which Thou wilt give us if we obey Thy Torah?
-The world to come.

-Show us in this world an example of the world to come.
-The Sabbath is an example of the world to come."

An ancient tradition declares: "The world to come is characterized by the kind of holiness possessed by
the Sabbath. Sabbath possesses in this world .. a holiness like that of the world to come."

The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel pp 73-74

Unless one learns how to relish the taste of Sabbath while still in this world, unless one is initiated in the appreciation of eternal life, one will be unable to enjoy the taste of eternity in the world to come. Sad is the lot of him who arrives inexperienced and when led to heaven has no power to perceive the beauty of the Sabbath. ...

While Jewish tradition offers us no definition of the concept of eternity, it tells us how to experience the taste of eternity or eternal life within time. Eternal life does not grow away from us; it is "planted within us," growing beyond us. The world to come is therefore not only a posthumous condition, dawning upon the soul on the morrow after its departure from the
body. The essence of the world to come is Sabbath eternal, and the seventh day in time is an example of eternity.

Heschel ibid

1 Maccabees 2:34–41:

But they said, “We will not come out, nor will we do what the king commands and so profane the Sabbath day.” Then the enemy hastened to attack them. But they did not answer them or hurl a stone at them or block up their hiding places, for they said, “Let us all die in our innocence; heaven and earth testify for us that you are killing us unjustly.”So they attacked them on the Sabbath and they died, with their wives and children and cattle, to the number of a thousand persons. When Mattathias and his friends learned of it, they mourned for them deeply. And each said to his neighbor: “If we all do as our brethren have done and refuse to fight with the Gentiles for our lives and for our ordinances, they will quickly destroy us from the earth.” So they made this decision that day: “Let us fight against every man who comes to attack us on the Sabbath day; let us not all die as our brethren died in their hiding places.” (Schiffman trans., Outside the Bible)

See: https://www.thetorah.com/article/an-ancient-precedent-for-the-yom-kippur-war

and: https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-maccabean-victory-explained-between-1-and-2-maccabees