“ The beauty of Thora is like a beautiful princess furtively appearing at her window. Only the passionate lover will be able to see her. ”

ZOHAR, The book of lights (cabbalah)

Through the spectacles of the Jewish doctor I am, Jewish community life seems to slip aside the essential, and that is why I would like to give my own way of looking at the essential values of Judaism.

Without having practiced Jewish religion according to the rigid prescriptions formulated by rabbis, I remain still very sensible to the messages send by the bible, just as other non-practising Jews did, such as Herzl, Weizman, Ben Gurion, Chagall or Einstein…

I didn’t study extensively Jewish writings, which gives me some virginity in front of the Jewish writings and gives me the opportunity to make commentaries without first thoughts.

Don’t misunderstand the thoughts that will follow. They are not intended to destroy values that are cherished by thousands of people, and for which thousands of people sacrificed everything, even their lives.

No, the main reason, justifying this reflexion, is to start a constructive dialog with all the people interested in the Jewish people and its contribution to mankind.

This means of course also orthodox religious Jews, in order to inspire new ideas based on the bible itself. I think especially of the youth, squeezed between the anxiogenic reality and at first sight incomprehensible understanding of modern science and the anachronic religious practice completely out of phase with modern life and society.

Completely unexpectedly I found myself sustained in my reflections, which could be very badly seen by the rabbinical establishment, by reading a book written by the former president of the official French Jewish representative centre (CRIF) M. Theo Klein: “Free the Thora”. Written without knowledge of each other, some of the reflections could be superposed word by word.

M. Klein’s reflections are mostly limited to the part of the bible involving law and justice. Personally I tried to find essential messages in the bible confronted to nowadays’ scientific and historical knowledge. Knowledge, which is actually accessible to anyone trying to find new and original ways of reflexion about a people and a culture crystallised in a great message: the bible.

The main vocation of the Jewish people is the transmission of a message from generation to generation. This gave the surname to the Jewish people: People of the book.

A remarkable fact is that the delivered message was adopted in a modified way by several religions and philosophies. Unfortunately the daily life of Jews is sometimes miles away from the transmitted message, and worse, people having adopted those messages transmitted by the Jews, use those messages to harass and oppress the Jewish people. It is as if anti-Semitism was caused by the disappointment of people, failing to recognise in every-day’s Jews, with their good and bad sides (making them so human) the idealised figure of martyrs, saints and even gods (Or weren’t Jesus and mother Mary ordinary Jews?).

What were the messages and what were the means to transmit those messages?

These are the questions I will try to ask, and by doing this, also try to answer them in this reflexion. But before doing so I will first recall a few elementary laws of physics (the Fourier’s principle applied in undulatory mechanics for those who are interested in details) that say the following things:

“ Every complex undulation is nothing more than the sum of simple undulations which can be recognised individually”. For example a piano chord of three notes can be recognised as a chord or as every single note of the chord. In the chord of sounds formed by the mouth one can recognise a word.

A second law of physics says that independently of the matter crossed by an undulation, this undulation keeps all its proprieties. Whatever the crossed matter, the sum of simple undulations giving complex undulations remains unchanged when they come back in their original matter. And even if there is no matter to go across (undulation of energy intensity such as in radio waves) undulation propriety remain unchanged.

Speaking everybody’s language: music, whether sung, played, recorded, on any support vinyl, magnetic, digital, will be perceived the same way by the ear of the listener. And after reaching his mind will give the same emotional reaction.

Making it clearer: Whatever the paper quality, the used figures in a book, the delivered message will be the same.

Without trying to defend or to fight the idea of “God” and its laws, or of “the messenger” and his laws, it must be stressed that open minded lecture of the bible reveals a considerable amount of common sense in a historical and scientific perspective.

I don’t want to open a discussion about the divine origin of the bible or the importance of understanding or not understanding the laws in order to practice them. I just want to show essential values and making conclusions based on elements everybody can read in the bible.

In the first book Genesis one doesn’t tell us in a simple minded way that God the father made a man. Although this text, at first glance even a little childish, tells us that genesis of the earth succeeded in 6 days. Which seems incredible in the light of nowadays science and which is leading us to close this book thinking that if the rest is so little credible, this book must be one more legend. But still, it is based on a reality. This reality is the creation of life on earth. Although described in a syncopated chronology, it is – unlike most of the legends – without fundamental contradiction with scientific observation. And when we read the text very carefully one is struck by something very peculiar:

That is that between the creation of the universe and the god figure which is according to the bible at the origin of the universe, there is the verb: “…Vayomer Elohim yehi or…” “…And god says let light be…”

Without trying to define the role of neither a god nor what he has done or not done, the message is clear:

The message, the verb, the divine word is the key element of the story of genesis.

Indeed, and as we know today all the miracle of life is part of one and only language steering the living world, whether animal or vegetal, i.e. the language of the combinations of ribonucleic acid (DNA and RNA) recorded on the chromosomes.

And all the miracle of matter is part of the language steering the world of matter, the table of elements.

Thus the first message of the bible, as it appears from genesis, is one that let us know that a message, a word, a code is fundamental for the entire universe and for all kind of life.

This code, this message, this language can be perceived around us continuously. It causes emotions, conducts our deeds, but most of the time remains unaware.

The main merit of the bible is to have understood the unity of the message leading to life 5000 years before our technology was able to allow the unravelling of the genetic code. John the Baptist in his gospel also mentioned this interpretation of the divine message.

But the importance of messages are also found in other places of the bible:

An angel prevents Abraham to sacrifice his son.

In the original Hebrew text “angel” is written in the bible as “malach”. The suffix “ma” added to the root “lach” which means “walk” becomes the composite word “malach” or “messenger”. So the Hebrew word “Messenger” was translated in Latin by “angel” which is something completely different.

Anthropomorphism (natural tendency of man to project his image on everything, severely condemned by the bible prohibiting to make images of god) will show us an angel with a human body and wings coming in front of Abraham. This image has nothing at all to do with the Hebrew significance of angel or messenger, but originates from Mesopotamia where every god had wings to show that it came from heaven (the winged lion of the Ishtar gate, etc…)

The key element here is again the “message”

A “ Message ” has been delivered to Abraham. How it was delivered has actually no importance. Just as in physics the nature of the matter where the message came through has no influence on the perception of the message.

And the message is clear: God does not ask men to sacrifice their children, even if Abraham was ready to do so as did all men of his time.

Orthodox Jews believe that god wrote the bible and hence the bible is perfect. By doing so they have the illusion that everything can be discovered in the bible. And they are wary about every other source of science. But the bible is a message, important of course, but a message with limits. This attitude is not specific to orthodox Jews. Integrist Muslims too don’t accept science beside the Koran. There exists some difference anyway. In the book of Jewish wisdom “Pirkei Avoth” (Tales of the Elder”) one asks: “Who is intelligent? And the other to answer: “The one who is able to learn from everybody” This implies that intelligent people are not limited to the bible to learn something…

Personally I consider the bible as our heritage, our “pyramids”, our “cathedrals”, our “Parthenon”. But opposed to the messages of stone, our historical monument is indestructible, because it is carved in the collective memory of the Jewish people.

It teaches our roots to us, Jewish people. It teaches us how we used to cope with god. The god of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It teaches us how to behave in human relations within the Jewish people but also with other people and with god. It teaches us the history of the Jews without indulgence. If king David sends his general to the front because he has an eye on his wife, these facts are related without indulgence. Men are showed as they are, with all their weaknesses. It teaches us the rules of hygiene. And above all it teaches us how to be correct and fair in every conflict.

But trying to live only through the biblical perspective leads straight to inquisition, pogroms and Auschwitz. Because living in a closed community without perception of other human relations than Jewish human relations can lead to misfit behaviour. Try to imagine somebody wishing to take a plane by consulting the railway guide. It’s as he was driving his car by looking to the map instead of the road. A frontal collision is inevitable!

Psychological models exist in which acts follow only interior perception without correction after environmental adaptation. You can observe this in the floatation tank or isolation tank. In such a tank all external stimuli are neutralized. There is no tactile sensation, no sound, no light, and no weight. The mind functions only by relying on inside perception. In some rare cases this could even result in psychotic behaviour!

One question remains: where are those messages coming from? I will try to formulate those messages and try to answer to that question in the following chapters.

The bible doesn’t describe God. It is revealed by a very vague definition which is: YE-HO-VE-H (or Jehovah) which is the acronym of the phrase” Yech Hou Veyiyeh Hou ”, “The one who always is and always will be”, (The eternal one).

Our anthropomorphic tendency wants us to imagine a kind of “God the father” who imposes his will like a man, like a father, like a king, like a tyrant. The French word for God, “Dieu” is the French pronunciations of the Greek word for the god Zeus, archetype of God the Father. In English, the word God is derived from the Indo-European root “gheu” = to invoke, and “gheu-tu” = the invoked. So French and English don’t mean the same when they talk about god. God in English could mean “mother” as often seen on battlefields where the last invoked person in mortal agony is “mother”. Opposed to that, “Dieu” means “father”, the one who rules and has to be obeyed.

But what has always existed, and will always exist are the biological and physical codes.

The second message of the bible is that it is wrong to be anthropomorphic and understand God as a man or a woman figure, but understand deity as what has always ruled things and will always rule things.

The unique feature of what has always been and always will be, associated to the forbidden representation of an anthropomorphic God, is the essence of the biblical heritage, which is found back in Islam but not in Christianity. Since God in Christianity has a son, a mother and a father, it isn’t anymore God, but the result of an anthropomorphism introduced by conquering Christianity in order to recuperate the adoration of pagan gods. And if the father, the mother and the son are not enough, all the saints are added to the Christian mythology in order to recuperate all the pagan gods like in the South-American Santeria.

And so state authority was reinforced, in casu the Holy Roman Empire in which the emperor, image of God on earth has been replaced by the pope, his court by the clergy and the so important vestal virgins by the nuns.

Nowhere in the bible God speaks like a man. He is always addressing himself to one person in particular, often within a dream. Or his message can be delivered by a messenger (angel), or by an object (a burning but not consuming bush (If you like science fiction: that’s how an alien in the bushes could call a television screen or a flashy loudspeaker?!…), or by extraordinary phenomena (miracles)

So there is never a witness attesting the presence of an anthropomorphic God. One exception was the reception of the 10 commandments so frightening for the people that they asked Moses to receive it for them.

Divine biblical messages are usually transmitted by one medium. In the bible 4 of the 5 books refer to Moses. So it is very probable that Moses reveals the laws of the Pentateuch.

It is interesting to notice that the name of Moses can’t be found back in any Egyptian text. It is astonishing that this Egyptian prince who has such a tremendous weight on the Jewish destiny does not appear on any Egyptian hieroglyph.

Nevertheless the radical “Mosis” can be retrieved in Egyptian names for example in Tut-mosis. “Mosis” means “son of…” in ancient Egyptian, or “taken out of the water” But the father in law of Joseph, Putiphar, is mentioned in a tomb in the Nile delta: “Pa-di-pa-re” which means: the one the God Re has given.

Other arguments for biblical evidence in ancient Egypt is the presence of foreign princes also called Hyksos +/- 1650 b.c., period mentioned by the bible as the beginning of Jewish presence in Egypt. According to the bible Jews remained about 400 years in Egypt, the Exodus happening in 1250 BC.

A possible explanation for this absence of Moses in Egyptian literature is the different way Hebrews and Egyptians used names. An example of this difference is cited in the bible: The Hebrew name of Joseph son of Isaac is well known. But in Egypt he was called Zaphenath-Paneah (41-45), which means “God speaks, he lives”. Such was common practice towards Asians or Hyksos at the service of Egyptians. The real Egyptian name of Moses is thus unknown because Moses is actually a nickname meaning “saved from the waters” or the more common Egyptian suffix “son of…”. He could have been the son of Tout , like Tout-mosis, or just an orphan Mosis of nobody. A nice name would have been: Ra-mosis meaning… son of the Nile: Ramses!

Akhnaton was the most likely Egyptian prince resembling Moses as suggested by Freud. Akhnaton was bad shaped. Moses had also some elocution problems according to the midrash (the oral tradition). Another possibility is that Aaron, the brother of Moses was Akhnaton? The suffix –on relates to the veneration of the sun. “On” is the biblical name of Heliopolis (the city of the sun).

What is making all this speculations vain is the fact that Akhnaton lived 100 years before the exodus…

According to Roger Sabbah, Moses (or Ramses) killed Akhnaton, the vain pharaoh who thought he was the only god, and not the first to believe in one god. He then fled to his stepfather Jethro (Jeth-ro = father of the Nile) that is father Ay or Adon Ay.

One could see the exodus during the reign of Ramses III. Indeed the mortuary temple of Ramses III in Luxor shows a battle between the pharaoh and Jews. The well carved typical details of the pictured Jews are so genuine that one could have taken them for a photography of Hassidic Jews in the Pelican street in Antwerp. Even the typical dread locks in front of both ears are present.

But this doesn’t fit with the knowledge that dreadlocks in front of the ears where prescribed in the Sinai after the exodus. Or are these prescriptions only a recuperation of common capillary traditions? Other Jewish traditions where of pagan origin: for example the candle lighting of Hanukkah in commemoration of the Temple. The lighting of candles during 8 days, one more every day, was of common practice in Rome during their festival of Saturnus. It is logical that one tries to make light during the darkest winter days.

As one can see, there is no concrete reminiscence in Egyptian literature of the exodus. But the context as described by the Egyptians is very real: Hyksos period with foreign kings, monotheist period during the Akhnaton reign, and destruction of all remnant of his predecessors by Ramses II destroying all remains of monotheism.

The brothers Sabbah in their book “ Les secrets de l’exode ” go far more beyond in their relation Moses, Akhnaton, Egypt and the Jewish people. They demonstrate a much closer relation between Hebrew scripture and pronunciation of hieroglyphs than between Hebrew scripture and other languages. Unfortunately their demonstration has several weaknesses, which will not be discussed here.

In a second book “Les secrets de la bible” Roger Sabbah shows that the bible is filled with Egyptian culture. The Decalogue is based allowing to him on the 42 commands of Osiris, including the interdiction of robbery, killing, etc…He stresses that the original Egyptian bible text was camouflaged in order to resist the exile in Mesopotamia. The Egyptian Pharaoh had to be a bad guy, although worshiped and mourned as Adon-Ay (the pharaoh Ay) when reading the bible.

To close this parenthesis on Moses in this chapter related to try to define what the bible means by God, I think it is very important that nothing remains of Moses.

As idolatry is the worse thing in the biblical message, the absence of worshiping of Moses is a fundamental aspect of Judaism. I think this is the biggest difference between Islam, Christianity and Judaism.

In Judaism no man has the right to be worshiped. In Christianity and in Islam two men, Jesus and Mohamed, are worshiped more than their actual message is (which is still the biblical message).

So let’s talk about God. There is no single word to say God in the bible, there are three: The first word for God as red in Genesis is “Elohim”. In this word one recognize the radical El or Eloh (Allah), and the suffix of plural “- im”. This could be translated as “All the Gods” such as in the Greek “Pantheon”.

To confirm the use of the plural, one finds in the episode of the tree of knowledge the following sentence: “If man was to taste the fruit of the tree of knowledge he would be like us (in plural!) i.e. Elohim (= the gods).

And only when the episode of creation in 6 days ends, the second word for God is used i.e. the tetragram YHVH (Ye-Ho-Va-H) or “The one who is and always will be” (The eternal one).

So the God of creation and the God of men and of Moses in particular is not the same. And this is obvious, because “the one who is, and always will be” can only follow the normal evolution of the world, as we know it. Elohim is probably the résumé of all the ancient beliefs about all the gods and all the forces of nature. A nice illustration of this interpretation is the episode of Jacob leaving his stepfather Laban in an eastern country (Haran) to go back to Canaan. His wife Rachel takes her “Elohim”, her gods (plural) with her. They are called Teraphim,

The third word used for God in Genesis is the one used for Jacob: “El Chadai”. The singular form El (one god) cha- (who) -dai (enough). One god who set the limits or one God who rules. For Moses as quoted literally in the second book of the Pentateuch, Exodus (6,2) “El Chadai” is not the real divinity, but the name of a great and mighty god revealed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. For Moses the only God is “YHVH”, “the one who is and the one who always will be”. Actually in the 10 commands god is not the one who created earth. No, god is first the one who pulled the Jews out of their slavery in Egypt. This means that there exists a very tight relation between the Jewish people and this “eternal one”. It was the eternal Jewish spirit that forced Jews out of slavery and that proved stronger than idols and material satisfaction. It is only later in the law of Shabbat that god relates to the creation in 6 days under the YHVH form, not the Elohim form..

In Jewish symbolism one finds the strength of “the god who sets the rules” in the phylacteries which are worn on the head and on the left arm. The nods of those phylacteries compose the word Cha-Da-I. “Cha” on the left arm, “Da” on the left arm at the level of the heart, and “I” on the head. Meaning that the divine strength can be found in the association of the head, the heart and the arm.

Phylacteries (tefilines) are leather boxes attached to the head and to the left arm by leather ropes. They contain bible excerpts about the Jewish credo “Chema Israel IHVH Elohenou, IVHV e’had”. In this bible excerpt one insists on loving in three ways: with the heart, with the body and with the soul. (Head, Heart, Arm).

Phylacteries are worn every morning and tied around the left arm and the head. This practice which goes back to the pharaohs as shown by the brothers Sabbah on the mummy of Toutankhamon in their book “Les secrets de l’exode” has maybe a medical purpose. By tying the leather ropes for about a half hour at the level of the arteria brachialis and the arteria jugularis, one increases the workload on the arteries going to the brain and the left arm. One could ask him if this daily exercise could not strengthen the heart muscle and open the arteries leading to the brain? I don’t know medical research about this exercise, but it would be worth trying. An Israeli study comparing religious and non-religious kibbutzim where able to show that religious kibbutzim had a higher life expectancy and a lower morbidity rate. This could of course be caused by psychological factors, but the practice of phylacteries should deserve medical attention.

When you analyse the different forms of god representations in the world one realises that the common denominator of all those gods is “fear”. Idols where shaped to cause fear or to sublimate natural fears.

And this gives power to the one who is able to manipulate this fear.

Usually gods have the appearance of snakes, lions, wild animals feared and respected by men.

Now phobias about snakes appear systematically around puberty. Like many phobias these are not acquired, but congenitally present since birth in order to preserve people against danger. A sexual connotation around puberty causing dreams about phallic symbols with the snake representing the phallic object of course is well known since the work of Freud. Other classical phobic images are teeth, horns, insects, skeletons, etc…All those phobic images are found back in idols.

Even the mental representation of the snake divinity is present in Genesis. But he loses all his powers in face of the god of creation.

The devil as represented in Christianity does not exist in the Pentateuch. Satan is actually an Egyptian divinity: late prophets adapted Seth by adding the suffix “-on” which means “like”. Satan means “like Seth”, which means very naughty. Proof for this is the use of Satan to characterise two very awful and sanguinary tyrants in the bible, which really existed: The first one was Hadad, master of Cairo, and the other one was Reza master of Damascus. Only late apocrypha like Zachary and Job show anthropomorphic angels like Satan sitting next to god, which remembers a certain kind of mythology.

After the destruction of the second temple the rabbis, who introduced prayer to replace the sacrifices, introduced images of animals, seraphim’s that we know from Mesopotamian mythology and other mythological inhabitants of the angelical pantheon, in the blessings of men as a mirror of the blessings of heaven. Maybe this is very poetic, but in complete contradiction with the first message of the bible.

A big inconvenience of idols is that they can be destroyed. Once they are destroyed they lose all their power. Hence the ingenuity of an omnipresent unique and invisible god. How strong you are, you can’t destroy that invisible god. The only way to destroy the power of the invisible god, as the Romans learned to their expense, is to adopt him.

Fear of the invisible is a very strong kind of fright as was so well exploited by Alfred Hitchcock, the master of suspense in his movies. If the invisible god of the Jews exists, he must be incarnated in the irrational fear anti-Semites have for Jews.

Albert Cohen in his roman Solal demonstrates very well this idea with his typical sense of humour. His hero says at a certain moment: “I was hired by my boss because he was sufficiently anti-Semite to believe in my qualities”.

God is also incarnated in the existential fear of Jews. An innate fear, witness of intelligence, like any fear of death. And so fearful believers realise the transmission of the biblical message from generation to generation by following biblical prescriptions at the edge of neurosis.

The first man to override this fear of the gods is Abraham on mount Moriah at the instant he was ready to sacrifice his son Isaac. The bible says textually that Elohim (the ancient gods, those responsible for the sum of all fears, representing all the forces of universe) asked him to sacrifice his son. And we know that it was a custom to all the inhabitants of the Middle East to sacrifice the first son to “Moloch” one of the pagan gods. At the moment he was to put the knife in the flesh of his son, a “Malach”, a messenger, not from “Elohim”, the old gods, but from “I.H.V.H”, the eternal one (the eternal Jewish spirit), calls: “Abraham, Abraham”. Actually anybody could have been the “Malach”, the messenger. It could even have been Ishmael, imploring for the life of his brother. Evidence is that at this precise moment Abraham realised the gravity of his act and realised “I.H.V.H.”, the eternal one, i.e. “reason”, and decided: enough is enough! no more children sacrifice! And he sacrificed a goat instead. Even today one can find thousands of urns containing remains of sacrificed Punic children in the neighbourhood of Trapani in Sicily. Punic culture comes from the region of nowadays Lebanon with a language very similar to Hebrew and whose main city of Cartage near Tunis is well known.

Ironically commentators of the bible preach that Abraham was an example of blind faith to god. But in my eyes Abraham is an iconoclast fleeing his elderly house in Ur (near Baghdad) after he destroyed the idols his father Terah made as was told by the Midrash, the oral transmission of the bible.

Abraham refuses idols, Abraham refuses sacrifice of children and Abraham refuses also the destruction of a city by the will of god. He says that if the city contains only 10 righteous men, this destruction is unfair. And Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed. And every city destroyed by a natural catastrophe contains probably more than 10 righteous men, and thus is unfair. Abraham is bargaining with god. If a catastrophe kills righteous and innocent men, something is unfair with that kind of reliance in that kind of god.

So the correct attitude to follow is to foresee possible risks and to build an arch in a region that could know floods, and to flee a region that knows a lot of earthquakes like Sodom and Gomorrah, or to garner 7 years of grain for the next 7 years of famine in Egypt.

Don’t forget if Jacob was called Israel, this was because he was fighting god. Israel means fighting against the god El, or fighting against all odds!… This episode is described in Genesis at the moment that Jacob had to fight his older brother Esau. Although stronger and bigger, Esau was twice hooked by his younger and smarter brother Jacob. First when Jacob bought his right of first born for a plate of lentils. And the second time when he received the blessing of his father to be his heir instead of Esau. Coming back from the East with his wives and children he was afraid from Esau. So he sent his family in separate groups as several scouts and stayed behind alone. Someone then attacked him, wrestling all night with him and catching his loin (I would say this is very suggestive literature). And then he said he saw the face of god (pniel) (This had to be very pleasant indeed). Afterwards he realised this was not a messenger from Esau, but a messenger (angel) of god. And at that moment Jacob was named: the fighter against the god El, or Israel, and his children became the children of Israel. The Jewish credo “Chema Israel IHVH Elohenou, IHVH e’had” could be translated as: ” Listen Fighters against the El (Israel), the one who is and always will be (the eternal) is our El, the eternal is one”

Interesting philosophy: what was and what will be is one. Everything is an eternal resetting because the past and the future are one. This philosophy is shared by king Salomon in his book Kohelet (Ecclesiast) in which Kohelet the hero of his book says: Nothing is new, every generation discovers the same things, and every new day sees the same sun rise. Every effort to discover new things is vanity. And later Lavoisier says: “Rien ne se gagne et rien ne se perd”, “Nothing is gained and nothing is lost”.

The passed and the future are one. It is as if life was like a cycle in a software program. Every cycle giving a variation of the program. But the program remains eternal.

This way we can understand why the god of Israel is not the creator of the world, but the god of the exodus as it is written in the Decalogue. The god of Israel is the eternal Israel revealed at the exodus. A Jew’s life is short, but Israel’s life is eternal. Or as an Arab proverb says: The water drops go by, but the stream remains. And the eternal program is what was revealed to the Jewish people by the bible and later to the world by the monotheist religions.

How can we define a religion?

A religion is a code of conduct specific to a group. Erich Fromm in his book ” To Have or to be” says that codes of conduct can exist completely out of a divine context. This was the case in the communist countries.

According to Maimonides in the “guide for the lost”, religion has a goal. The main goal of religion is to keep peace in a society.

Religious codes of conduct are acquired in the family and at school. Even lay people present conduct and convictions acquired during their education. It’s only when lay people are confronted with different cultures that passively instilled conduct and convictions related to a religion become apparent because different from other cultures.

An example is nudity. Although communist regimes where atheist and nudity was only explicitly prohibited by the bible, nudity was not permitted in communist regimes. Although this regime was atheist, this regime was not able to change religious institutions from the bible like marriage, Sunday, etc…

Opposed to the idealist proposing a code of conduct keeping peace in a society, people blinded by their own passions will use those idealised codes to make war. And what is worse than a war driven by religious passion? The singer Moby gave a nice explanation for religious zealous behaviour. He said that religious fanatics are so fanatic because in the deepest of their mind they are afraid to be wrong….

A religion is good as long as its code of conduct is acceptable to everybody and does not oppress anybody. But once religion is misused to serve power (politic or sexual) it becomes dangerous. It is enough to look at all the massacres perpetuated in the name of god: …Gott mit uns…. The sword of Christ….Allah hou akbar…..

In our modern societies ruled by civil laws, the notion of good and evil follows the evolution of technology and the evolution of cultures present in a population. For this reason the separation of state and church was one of the greatest achievements in the evolution of mankind.

In certain countries separation of church and state still didn’t take place because religion is used by those states to oppress populations. This was also the case in Europe before the French revolution. Nowadays conflicts between church and state or between mosque and state are fundamental to understand the evolution of our society and nowadays politics.

A very interesting conflict to follow actually is the one between Sunna Islam and Chia Islam. This conflict is the consequence of the worshipping of a man in Islam. When you analyse the Muslim credo: “Allahou akbar, la allah illalah, Mohamed razoul Allah” which means: “Allah is the greatest, there is no other allah (god) than Allah and Mohamed is his prophet” the germ has been sown for a perpetual conflict. The reason for this conflict is the presence in the Muslim credo of a man and his worshipping: Mohammed. Just like Christians worshipping the man Jesus.

In the original biblical credo there is nothing else but “what always existed and always will exist” is one. No men are allowed in what belongs to the divine. All the conflicts in contemporary Islam are the result of a war of investiture between the heirs of Mohammed. Mohammed had only daughters. Chia Islam follows the heirs of the stepson and cousin of Mohammed, Ali, who was killed at the battle of Kerbala. The Sunna Muslims follow the heirs of the stepfathers of Mohammed, Abu Bakr and Omar, and his other stepsons Othman and Ali.

At the beginning Islam tried to stop idolatry of the tribes of the Arabic peninsula. The 360 gods of the Kaaba in Mecca where destroyed. But the place of idolatry remained untouched. Instead of the idols, the black stone of the Kaaba was worshipped. The Hebrew bible was adapted to those tribes in the Koran. But by reducing the biblical message of liberation to blind submission (Islam means submission) to the caliphs, heirs of Mohammed, a long history of wars between small and big tyrants started.

Thanks to the religious zealous behaviour of Muslims, it was enough that a tyrant could prove that he was a legitimate heir of Mohammed to deserve absolute immunity. Because blasphemy or injury of the prophet is punished by dead – worse by perpetual damnation – nobody can or dares criticise a descendent of the prophet.

And in the absence of physical descent it was the possession of attributes of the prophet giving power: the hair and hand of the prophet in the Topkapi palace in Istanbul or the coat of the prophet claimed by the Taliban in Afghanistan…

Jews have their own codes of conduct. These are very specific to the Jewish people and try to help Jewish people to live the best life possible, as long it does not harm others. To resume Jewish religion according to Hillel: “Don’t do to others what you don’t want others do to you”

The interdiction to represent god as a man or an animal had of course the aim to prevent anthropomorphism. And thus avoid coping with the laws of life the same way one copes with laws of men with all the misconceptions raising from that attitude. For example the sacrifice of children by early idol worshippers.

Unfortunately when one reads the prayers written by the rabbis, which were literally translated by Christian priests and later by the Koran, these prayers as poetic and wise as they can be, are full with anthropomorphic misconceptions in flagrant contradiction with the biblical message. The interdiction of anthropomorphism is a major interdiction, present in the 10 commandments: “You will not make an image of god!” and you will not bow before any representation of creatures presents in the air, the earth or the sea. Major commandment set aside by Catholicism (but restored by Protestantism) hair of the Greco-Roman traditions of Zeus (the etymology of the French word “Dieu”) god the father of the half-god-half-man Hercules

And yet in the prayer “ Avinou malquénou chebachamaim ouvaaretz… ” translated in Latin by “ Pater noster quod est in coelum… ”, in French by “ Notre père qui êtes aux cieux… ” and in English by “heavenly father who is in the skies” god is pictured as a father, with the character of a father, severe and protecting as a king.

As nice as this prayer can be, the simplistic interpretation of it is able to let the biblical notion of deity to be misunderstood: What is and will be, and not the projection of man’s character, on the laws ruling the universe.

One of the worse emanations of anthropomorphism is prayer.

Prayer gives the illusion you can talk to god, anthropomorphic projection. Worse, it introduces flattery, just as if god could be reduced to a man sensitive to flattery. Just as if god was corrupt and could be bribed to change ones destiny.

But we are all tributary to the destiny written in the book of our genes.

It is not possible to bribe our genes responsible for our character or our diseases to come. It is not possible to bribe the fate of the earth around the sun responsible for the changing of the seasons.

Amin Maalouf a French Lebanese writer says in his book “ Les identités meurtrières ” that destiny is like the direction of the wind, and that the science of the sailor is able to bend destiny by directing his sail to bring his ship safely to its harbour.

We are thus masters of our knowledge or science, which we can acquire by study and observation. And it is our freedom to use this science for good or for evil.

The bible doesn’t ask to pray. The bible asks to be humble and to accept the universal laws ruling the world. Every biblical law reminds us of submission to eternal codes. The only way to honour deity is to live in harmony with our surrounding, men and nature. The bible asks respect for all kind of life, human or animal. But as life is cruel as it is, namely “life” is necessary as food for another life, the bible teaches us to avoid unnecessary suffering.

Prayers can have their importance in the rallying of people, in the conservation of the cultural heritage and in the catharsis after the emptying of one’s soul. Psychological conflicts can be resolved just like psychoanalysts do in their office. But instead of telling secrets to a non-answering shrink leading to the well-known projection of feelings and catharsis, one tells his secrets to a non-answering god, actually with the same results, insight in feelings, projection and catharsis.

It was not a hazard that prayer was introduced after the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem. Prayer was introduced by Yochanan ben Zakai to replace the sacrifice of animals by the sacrifice of time

Notice that Jewish prayer is a community performance. Synagogue is a Greek word translated from the Hebrew “beth haknesset” or house of parliament. Prayer has to be done by at least 10 people, a minian as it is called. It is like in the auction talk Abraham had with god in Sodom and Gomorrah. 10 righteous men are enough to avoid a cataclysm (righteous men, not praying men). If it were only to speak with god, one is able to do that alone anywhere. A very important rabbi once said that if you imagine somebody you are talking to when you pray, you are actually committing idolatry. So prayer is more than begging. Prayer is a social event around the Jewish heritage, a meeting place and a peacekeeping place for the heart, the spirit and the soul. And now you understand why synagogues are so noisy.

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This notion of “touma” does not only apply to men but also to houses. A cohen (priest) has to check a patch on a wall with an interval of one week. If he notices growing of the patch he can ask for the demolishing of that house. The stones of that house are not allowed to be reused but have to be thrown away at a “touma” place.

It is only with the invention of the microscope and the work of Pasteur and Koch that the abstract meaning of “touma” acquired a visible reality explaining all the notions of washing, quarantine, ritual bathing, etc…

A remarkable thing was the transmission of those elementary hygiene rules from generation to generation preserving the life of so many people during epidemics.

Today the weekend or sabbatical or better the Sabbath holiday is a universal notion found back in all western cultures. It is a time with several functions: time for social activities, spiritual activities, affective activities, and familial activities. Whether we talk about the Sunday of the Christians, the Friday of the Muslims or the All-American weekend, all western societies practice a weekly sabbatical.

Even Ovidius who was not a Jew but Roman gave the following advice in his book “Ars amatoria”: “Choose the day of Sabbath from the Syrian Jews to courtship young girls”.

In spite of this the application of the resting day became a stress day due to the prohibitions derived from the interdiction to work and create. The litteral application of the rabbinical rules prevents the mind and the body to blossom on that day. This is completely in contradiction with the first aim of this day. This same ctiticism of the way of performing the sabath rest is also found back in the gospels with the known phrase: “Men are not made for sabath, but Sabbath is made for men” .The bible asks only one thing, to respect the 7th day, the resting day. Compared to the actual notions of chronobiology, this corresponds completely with our biological cycles (the menstrual cycle of women for example).

Creation in six days according to genesis installs the base of the sabbatical system (Sabbath = seventh) present in Europe and Asia. American cultures know another system in their calendar, the decimal system (Maya calendar). The decimal system is also mentioned in the bible, but is introduced by Jethro, the father in Law of Moses. It was introduced in order to organise the judges under the authority of Moses: 10 judges under the authority of one and so on in order to delegate the judiciary system under Moses.

The sabbatical system seems to be correlated to the natural capacity of human neurones to remember spontaneously 7 digits.

Another explanation for the interdiction of mixing milk and meat is the medical fact that Mediterranean people stop digesting milk sugars (lactose) at the age of 2 years.

This could be interpreted as following: from the moment children start eating meat it is better to stop feeding them with milk. If not, severe digestive problems could develop.

A next explanation could be that milk, not being sterile, could contaminate the sterile meat. This is also true for the intestines of the animal, which are not allowed to touch the meat.

A last explanation could be that a society that is prone to famine considers that the accumulation of two sources of proteins such as milk and meat are actually a kind of waste. The combination of protein and carbo-hydrates give a much more efficient quantity/quality ratio hence the dissociated diet to lose weight.

So tradition became law including cheese and butter in the ruling, which as we know are not that good neither for the cholesterol level.

An anecdote that happened in our city illustrates this reasoning:

A Jewish butcher opened a pizzeria where only kosher dairy meals were served. They served also self-made ice cream. One day several people having consumed their ice cream had to be hospitalised for Salmonella food poisoning. One must know that Salmonella is an omnipresent germ present in animal excrements. A butcher manufacturing ice cream can easily contaminate this ice cream by carrying Salmonella germs on his hands. So had the spirit of the bible been respected asking to butchers not to manipulate milk instead of avoiding the serving of milk and meat according to the strict interpretation of rabbinical laws, this accident would not have happened.

The interdiction to consume meat from non-ruminant animals is especially known for pork meat.

Pork are known to be very parasitogenic and allergenic. Besides that, pork is immunologically very identical to men. This allows us to use pork extracts as medicine, for example insulin and allografts.

Another reason for the reluctance to eat pork is the inherent reluctance of men to consume human meat. Both kind of meat seems to have similar taste. Cannibalism is a known cause of transmission of prions causing Kuru disease, a degenerative disease of the brain in Papua cannibals. Closer to us we know the disease of Creutzfeld-Jacob that was caused by the injection of human pituitary extracts used for the treatment of growth hormone deficiency (but prohibited today) that contained prions causing a degenerative disease of the brain. And last but not least, cow’s cannibalism causes bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) or mad-cow’s disease… By the way, as men are not ruminating they are not kosher…

Molluscs and crustaceans (non-kosher) are known today for their allergenic proprieties but also for the frequent presence of Salmonella germs, hepatitis viruses and toxins.

What is less known is that fish without scales (non-kosher) often contain toxic viscera. A well-known example is the Japanese Fugu fish causing dead within an hour if not properly eviscerated.

Fasts and abstinences give a better insight and empathy with poor and hungry people. This interpretation of the fasting traditions is the one used by the prophet Isaiah and read on the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur.

Contact with menstruating women is discouraged, and a ritual bath is proposed before new intercourse. The risk of infection of the Fallopian trump leading to sterility is one of the severe complications of intercourse during menstruation. Another severe complication of intercourse during menstruation is the risk of transmitting blood carried vectors like AIDS and hepatitis.

After delivery sexual intercourse can only resume after ritual bathing.

These are a few examples of elementary hygiene, which was only generally admitted since the 19th century.

Before the 19th century bathing was considered to be depraving and responsible for weakening of the body.

During the inquisition bathing before the Sabbath could result on being burned alive during an autodafe.

Washing after touching corpses was considered ridiculous by doctors in Semmelweiss’ time and resulted in many cases of puerperal fever.

3. Circumcision is a little surgical intervention that was already known by ancient Egyptians as witnessed by the Hieroglyphs.Abraham and Sarah were childless until an advanced age. Three malachim (“angels” but actually messengers) came to Abraham’s’ tent. They ate and drunk and after the meal announced merrily that Sarah would become pregnant. So Sarah started laughing (= tso’hek, which is the root of the name Its’hak). My interpretation is that those three messengers were probably medicine men advising to Abraham that circumcision would be the way to have children with Sarah. The fact that those three men ate and drunk shows they were no angels but malachim (messengers).And the message they brought was that Abraham would become a father. And as Abraham was a very important man, his descendents would count nations and kings amongst them.

We know that foreskin problems can cause impotence. The simple surgical procedure that consists of removing the foreskin can relieve this problem as was known by the Egyptians. And indeed, Abraham and Sarah had a son called Its’hak (= laughed at) better known in the English spelling as Isaac.

The decision was thus made to circumcise everybody, as this little intervention was able to increase fertility. And so circumcision became the hallmark of a nation.

The bible is very precise as to the age of circumcision i.e. the 8^th day. We know today that this is the ideal moment. The first reason is that 8 days after birth hepatic function as related to coagulation returns to normal. The second reason is that at that age psychic trauma equals almost zero as the genitals are not yet recognized in the body projection. Myelinisation involves only the head at that age and circumcision does not remain in your memory (I can personally confirm this).

One could argue that circumcision is a remnant from pagan sacrifices in fertility rites. Maybe, But this little sacrifice is compensated by so many advantages that it survived and was accepted by other religions and even by some medical academies.

Once the foreskin is removed, the glans becomes less sensitive. This can become an advantage because it takes longer to reach orgasm. In sexual relations where women need more time to reach an orgasm this becomes a way to develop more harmonious relations between men and women.

Another advantage is the diminished risk of developing sexually transmitted diseases. Research made because of the AIDS epidemic showed that a dry skin as results of circumcision offers less possibility to viruses to fix themselves on the cells. So HIV, Herpes and papilloma viruses, to give some examples of transmissible viruses causing AIDS, sores and tumours, can less be transmitted. Don’t forget that advice given by the bible was aimed at polygamist men.

The only ethic critic one can give is that informed consent is not given to the baby. But this critic is the same for any surgical procedure in infants.

4. Interdiction of homosexualityThe interdiction of homosexuality in the bible can also be related to elementary hygiene rules. Normally children have a natural anxiety for their excrements. They are afraid to sit on the toilet for that reason and will spontaneously try to hide away when defecating. This is a normal anxiety that will be overcome by laughing about caca and pipi stories. This anxiety protects people from contact with bacterial bombs that faeces are actually. Faeces contain 80% bacteria. In military academies one is thought to shoot in the enemies belly to be sure to let him die because intestinal injury gives always fatal peritonitis and sepsis.Faeces contain also a high amount of viruses, which can give several kinds of infections. Fortunately the anal region is very antiseptic thanks to a good blood perfusion and anal relations are not that damaging if a limited number of partners are involved and hygienic precautions are taken. Anyway anal relations with several partners are like Russian roulette, it can give fatal surprises especially in this AIDS epidemic we know today.

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c) INCEST INTERDICTIONWe know that incest was current behaviour at the pharaonic court in ancient Egypt.Akhnaton the bad shaped – Moses, the heavy tongued Egyptian prince. Did they realise the consequences of incest?

This could explain the severe interdiction of incest in the Mosaic bible and the cases of incest in pre-Mosaic episodes: Abraham married with his half sister and Lot having children with his own daughters.

d) THE PESSA’H (EASTER) CLEANINGThe tradition to clean houses before Easter (pessa’h) frees the whole house of any last tiny crumble of leavened bread. We know that yeasts and fungi are very important in the food chain of insects especially in hot climates. So this practice helps to avoid insects in houses. The 8 days of unleavened bread helps change the intestinal flora that offers interesting perspectives in nowadays notions of prebiotic equilibriums in the gut. To me the rabbinical practice of selling warehouses containing leavened bread is an example of a blind biblical lecture of senseless rules instead of trying to understand what is the real sense of biblical rules. e) THE DEFENSE OF BLOODThe interdiction to eat blood, i.e. raw meat, avoids the risk to be contaminated by germs in the blood and meat of the animal.h) THE DEFENSE OF MIXING VEGETAL AND ANIMAL FIBRES (Shatness)I have no explanation for the interdiction of mixing vegetal and animal fibres. A possibility would be that this mix increases the risk of allergic reactions to tissue.

Contrary to the non-Jewish popular belief that blood has to be avenged by blood.

This popular belief is in contradiction with the 10 commands major law: though shall not kill!

Death penalty is always wrong because death is irreversible, and guilt is never 100%. So even if death penalty is described in the bible it was actually never performed as nobody had the right to kill.

Even with all the money of the world one is not able to restore life or an eye, and that’s why corporal punishment is unfair. It can’t be restored after pardon.

Indeed life is impossible without sacrifice. Life nourishes life! But instead of the sacrifice of an animal just for the material purpose of food, sacrifice will take place in a sacralised shrine to let people take the time to realise that nothing on earth can happen without sacrifice.

Not only animal life is sacrificed. A part of the harvest is sacrificed (truma, or the interdiction to cut the edges of a field or to pick up wheatears. They are kept for the poor), and a part of the land is sacrificed (jubilee, or the return of the earth to its owner after 50 years), and a part of the harvest time is sacrificed (the omer, or sabbatical year when land is supposed to remain untouched), and a part of the personal fortune is sacrificed (tsedaka, or charity).

But the loss of the temple abolished animal sacrifice and the loss of the land abolished harvest sacrifice.

And the 3 yearly festivals for the sacrifices in the temple were replaced by a growing number of prayers at the end transforming the diaspora Jew in a prayer mill handling his daily quota of prayers on a mechanical way without trying to think at the content and without acting in consequence.

The only way today to keep in honour the spirit of the temple in Jerusalem is not by praying from dawn to sunset, but by practicing the spirit of sacrifice.

This spirit of sacrifice is called tsedaka, charity. But the charity of money is not enough to keep his conscience clear. The spirit of the temple means sacrifice of time and pleasure in order to help people in need.

It is not by chance that so many Jews choose for humanitarian professions. This is a part of the message delivered by the spirit of Judaism. But the highest sacrifice is the one given by somebody who gives his life to protect life of others. All those sacrifices can only be accomplished in a homogene society where Jews can act at any level of society. This means in an independent Jewish state.

The return of the Jews to the land of Israel can be compared with the migration of Salmons. Nothing can stop the return to the source. It’s the consequence of a need for love, a need for recognition, a need for solidarity, a need for dignity and a need for the sweetness of family. In this context Jews are ready to make heavy sacrifices, because those sacrifices are not in vain. The building of a country even if it requires sacrifices leaves a solid heritage to the children, whereas heritage in diaspora resumes itself to the memory of sorrow and regrets.

A former hero of the Russian army (Trumpeldor) dying in Tel-Hai (border of Israel and Lebanon) during the First World War said those words: “It’s sweet to die for his own country”

To me the solution to the conflict opposing Jews and Muslims around the Holy sites in Jerusalem can only be resolved if applying the principle of sacrifice to the temple mount. Just as the Rabis in their wisdom said that it is forbidden to step on the holy temple, this interdiction should be applied to any person in Jerusalem. This would mean that this sacred place for all believers in monotheist fates would at least stop to be the theatre of fighting and bloodshed, desacralising and dehumanising this place.

The sacrifice of a few square meters could take away all object of religious greed and settle a conflict that separates populations with only one aspiration: Shalom, Salaam, Peace…

Quand un Juif est grand savant       When a Jew is great and smart

De tout peuple il est l’enfant             For all people he’s the star

Mais s’il vient à échouer                  But if it comes out to fail

Juif il sera condamné                       Jew he will hang on a nail

Car Israël tel est ta raison               For Israel this will be your fate

Tu es le souffre-douleur                   A scape-goat you have to be

De toutes les nations                        For the world to be

Quand la peste a déferlé                When the plague kept moving in

Rien était plus grand danger          Nothing more was bigger threat

Que d’être Juif en bonne santé      To be Jew and in good health

Le coupable était trouvé                 Guilty sure he had to be

Car…                                                 For…

Un rabin de Nazareth                      A nice rabbi in Nazareth

Il n’était pas des plus bêtes            Very clever yes indeed

Se prétendait fils de Dieu               Said he was the son of god

Rien après n’allait bien mieux         Nothing’s better after that

Car…                                                  For…

Enfin tu as un pays                          And then you got your homeland

Des déserts le plus petit                 The tiniest desert you can find

Tu en fais un paradis                       Turning it in paradise

Les Arabes une maladie                 For the Arabs a disease

Car…                                                    For…

Le jour du jugement dermier          And then comes  judgement day

N’est pas loin vous y serez            It won’t be long you will attend

Les morts se soulèveront              Deads will rising all around

Et se souviendront                         And their memory is still good

Car Israël tel est ta raison             For Israel this is your appeal

Tu fais vivre la conscience          You give conscience to the world

De toutes les nations                  To live and let live

W.Lip

1973                                                                      2004

The notions of good and wrong are very controversial. According to the bible the possibility to distinguish between good and wrong differentiates man from the animal.

This possibility puts man on the same level as the gods (sic! Elohim, in plural as quoted in genesis, which means the old frightening gods, those at the genesis of the earth)

God decides what is good and wrong. The first “good” described in the bible is the creation of the earth and all that is upon it (…and god saw that it was good….). So we can conclude that creation is something good.

The first “wrong” described in the bible is nudity.

But what is nudity? Nudity is a displeasant sensation that is a part of the secondary acquired sexual characteristics during puberty. This displeasant sensation ( called inhibition) is primarily a function of the great cerebral hemispheres. This inhibition can be neutralised by the absorption of alcohol. This inhibition causing embarassement starts usually with puberty and can also affect other parts of the body. During puberty small imperfections become mountain high and are eagerly masked to the eye of others. If this embarassement becomes too important, it can give a neurotic attitude causing “tics”

Of course the environment plays an important role in the acceptance of his own image. Today the research of Freud and other psychanalysts succeeded in unveiling all kind of diseases caused by the fixation of inhibitions even leading to paralysis in extreme cases. Sexual liberation was able to diminish the cases of nevroses caused by the fixation of inhibitions.

It’s a fact that nudity causes pleasant physiological reactions in the watcher. A blessing for procreation, a feeling of embarrassment for the arousing puber.

Of course, temptation could engender conflicts. But to come back to our first interdiction in the bible, why was nudity a problem for Adam and Eve, assuming they were all alone in the world? Unless they weren’t…. The bible says “Y.H.V.H. (the eternal one) Elohim” wandered in the garden of Eden. The snake proposed to taste from the tree of wisdom. And Eve gave the fruit of the tree of wisdom to Adam.

Hillel (a Jewish wise from the IVth century) resumed the bible for a busy Roman emperor asking him to explain the bible in a lap of time sufficient to keep a man on one leg. So he resumed it as not doing to others what one woudn’t accept from someone else. This is a very good definition of “good” and “wrong”

Not robbing, not killing, not chasing after someone else’s wife is easy to understand.

But once you start trying to understand alimentary rules, sabbatical rules etc… this becomes harder to understand.

When we look at the commands of the bible in a scientific perspective, it seems that a lot of them make a lot of good sense.

The same way genetic codes determine biologic life, it is possible that genetic codes (although not shown yet) determine also social life. This is what ethologists observe in animal life.

Codification of these social rules (rule = lex > legere > relegere > religion) for a particular social group (the jewish people) introduced customs that not only perdured, but also were recuperated by the great monotheistic religions.

But once codified, how can these social appeasing rules be accepted?

One can imagine Moses, prince of Egypt at the crest of Egyptian science, discovering all those principles with the aid of his stepfather Jethro, and wandering if the practice of all these codes would give a more balanced society?

Let’s assume we are Moses, and we want to convince our contemporary people to follow the principles of the 10 commands.

If we say to our neighbour ” you are not allowed to steal” he could answer: “who are you to judge me? Maybe you have your own interests in telling me not to steal”

We can also say: “Someone you respect tells you not to steal”. But as no human being is 100% trustworthy, laws of men are difficult to apply.

Opposed to that if you say: “not me, but the most perfect and thrustworthy person you can imagine tells you not to steal”, this rule or law becomes thrustfull. So people afraid from god accept laws promulgated by god, the most thrustfull person they can imagine.

And that is why the first 5 rules of the decalog are thus formulated that one is obliged to accept the god of Moses in order to accept the next interdictions:

The god of the first commandment is the one who liberated the jews from Egypt. In the second commandment he can’t be described. In the 3d command even his name can’t be described. In the 4^th commandment god is the creator of the world in 6 days and hence the 7^th day is a sabbatical. And in the 5^th command this has to be accepted by every generation as this command asks to respect the parents.

One can notice that these 5 commands settle the jewish ideal for generations in an indestructible pattern. The demonstration of this is easy to make. If you reverse the commandments everything falls apart: Without god you loose your freedom. If you can see god, you can destroy him. If you can write his name you can erase him. If he didn’t create the world we wouldn’t exist, and if we didn’t respect our parents, we wouldn’t receive the message.

It is not of my resort to judge if “god himself”, or the “divine inspiration” as a result of universal laws coded in our genes and expressing in our deeds are at the origin of the biblical texts. Fact is that the acceptation of a superior autority gives a motivation to religious people to execute (or trying to execute) every day the 613 commands of the bible.

And the experience results in a difficult achievement. Moses succeeds to convince the jewish people and the Pharao. He succeeds in the acceptance of those codes by people of the lowest descent, people without own will, without hope, slaves, Hebrews (which means coming from the other riverbank, or “migrants”)

With those “immigrants” of that era, or slaves, he starts a wonderfull adventure.

Those codes not only seem to work, but they result in the establishment of a nation based on these principles. Moreover they will be adopted by all the monotheistic religions.

And finally, it is not because the biblical story of the creation of the earth in 6 days is not credible anymore that the moral principles sustained by this history are not applicable anymore. Even lay people accept the principles of not stealing, not killing etc…

But yet, if we see what happened in Verdun, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, Cambodia, Rwanda, wouldn’t it have been better that the earth was created in 6 days?