Merry Christmas

Published On: December 24, 2024|Categories: MRFF's Inbox|2 Comments|

From: (name withheld)

Subject: Merry Christmas

Date: December 24, 2024 at 10:51:44 AM MST

Counselor Weinstein,

I hope 2025 is a good year for you and your family. I will pray that the Lord through His Holy Spirit convicts you and saves you from the punishment you face if you continue to attack God to His face.

You may profess to not believe Him as many do but you know the terror of the certainty of mortality in this world. Better to surrender than to be cast into Hell for eternity. It is a loving thing to warn someone before they go over a cliff that’s exactly what real Christians should be doing for people like you. Just like you, we are wretched sinners deserving of the same fate.

I also find your view of the country fundamentally flawed since the dis establishment clause as you know, it was popularized in the 1940s by rogue justices. The founders clearly intended this nation to be based upon the principles of Christendom can you explain Moses on the rotunda of the Supreme Court? The original moral law is written in your heart and you know you’re guilty as am I. Saul of Tarsis was learned in all aspects of Jewish law and customs even he was spared and chosen by God.

Those professing to be Christians if they truly were, should not be smearing feces on your mailbox or hateful letters or threats. Likewise, those supporting your cause are apart from Christ, and are not counted amongst us.

In conclusion, I do pray for your salvation or that at least members of your family should come to no Christ and be saved. Review what happened to the sons of Kora.

May God continue to have mercy upon you and bring you to salvation.

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Response from a MRFF Supporter Rabbi Joel Schwartzman

From: Rabbi Joel Schwartzman
Subject: Merry Christmas (Regardless)
Date: December 24, 2024 at 3:59:54 PM MST

Dear (name withheld):

Mikey Weinstein asked that I might respond to your email to him. I did not have to give my response a lot of thought because for over seventy years I have had people like yourself threatening me, a Jew, with the eternal fires of Hell.  Given my weariness with this whole approach to convince me that I was filled with sin that would qualify me for everlasting punishment, I somewhat flippantly cultivated a “fine, I’ll meet you there” attitude.

However, given the intense spirit of your attempt to save Mikey, me and the rest of the Military Religious Freedom cohort and convince us of the rectitude of your road to salvation, allow me to point out a few things to you.

First, you claim that we are all sinners.  It is important for you to know that many of us do not subscribe to the theological construct of  “Original Sin.”  Rather, we Jews, for example, have understood our Bible as having Adam alone being responsible for his sin.  Nothing genetically adhered to the rest of humanity who sprung from Adam and Eve that condemned us as carrying the mistake that Adam made. 

Also, in point of fact, we do not define “sin” in the same way that you do.  Sin, for us, is falling short of our capabilities as human beings.  When we ask God for forgiveness, it is because we haven’t live up to the potential that God has placed within us.  Thus, from the very get-go, we reject the box into which you have attempted to put us.

Secondly, you accuse us of attacking God to God’s face.  As a Jew who has been castigated as a rejector of Jesus, I can say that I and my fellow religionists do not spend our seconds, hours and days thinking about how to attack the Christian trinity.  The fact, which you may find surprising, is that we concentrate our lives in how to comport ourselves according the mitzvot, the commandments God gave to the Israelites and that the rabbis received and continued to interpret and apply to life.

Where the conflict exists, if any, is in the attempts that people like yourself attempt to force your religious beliefs on the rest of society.  As you might have understood, many people have rejected the threats that you level against them and many more have left the fire-and-damnation aspects of what I shall refer to as an older, more out dated form of Christianity in America and have gone on either to accept a more joyous and celebratory form of Christianity than that which tries to scare them into believing.I find a particular part of your email confusing if not altogether annoying.  You wrote, “Those professing to be Christians if they truly were, should not be smearing feces on your mailbox or hateful letters or threats.”  But are you not aware that the entirety of your email is conveying a threat?  What you have said is that if Mikey and friends don’t repent, we are all condemned to the eternal fires of Hell.  Sir, if that isn’t a threat, then I surely do not know what one is.  It is as if to say, if you don’t do things my way, then you will surely suffer.  The difference is that you aren’t acting out this threat in this world.  Your threat points to the afterlife, something that neither you nor anyone else has ever been able to prove.

We Jews have varying beliefs about what happens after we die.  Some of us believe in a Day of Judgment and an ultimate resurrection and a rejoining of body and soul before one can enter Heaven.  This, for all practical purposes is the origin of the concept you are using except that Judaism has no real concept of Hell, fiery or not.  Others believe that only the soul returns to the One who has formed it.  The body returns to the earth.  That is the origin of the phrase, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”  Some of us reject the notion of an afterlife altogether.  If it’s all the same to you, we would appreciate the freedom to choose what we believe, and not have it jammed down our throats through fear mongering and dire predictions about an afterlife.

Just as we defend your right to believe as you do, we would hope that you would reciprocate and permit us to practice our beliefs.  This, however, I shall profess to you.  The MRFF will continue its fight to preserve the freedoms its adherents seek.  We shall abide by the Constitution of the United States which protects military members from people like yourself who would force a particular version of religion upon them, all the while thinking that you are doing them some favor by imposing, interpreting (falsely) and threatening what you do.

I trust you’ll have a Merry Christmas.  However, for this year, I wish for you a more thoughtful and loving one as well. 

Respectfully,

Rabbi Joel R. Schwartzman

Ch, Col (Ret), USAF

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2 Comments

  1. Tom O December 24, 2024 at 7:49 pm

    This asshole claims that to prevent grossly unconstitutional active support of one religion by the US government is to “attack God to His face.”
    “The founders clearly intended this nation to be based upon the principles of Christendom, ” Which ones? The Treaty of Tripol, which was negotiated by emissaries appointed by Pres. George Washington, was signed by Pres. John Adams, and ratified UNANIMOUSLY without debate by the US senate in June 1797, says “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.”
    “can you explain Moses on the rotunda of the Supreme Court?” Yes, the Ten Commandments were an important step in the development of written laws.

  2. Synergy January 19, 2025 at 12:53 pm

    Does God have a face? Oh, wait a minute, we were created in his likeness. Eeeew, that might not be so good! Isn’t he dark complected? Or am I thinking of his son?

    It’s confusing. His son is actually him but in brown skinned human form, sacrificing himself to himself, didn’t really die on a cross, just had a bad weekend before he went back to being God again.

    White people think he’s white, the Jews don’t think he was anything special, the Muslims think he was a minor prophet, but not divine, the Hindus believe – what do they believe? The Buddhists think Jesus was influenced by the Buddha … damn, this is too hard to figure out.

    When ya’ll make up your minds, will you let me know please?

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