The Torah is the covenant of the People of Israel.
Lots of people use torah and that book existed well before Israel even existed. No one owns what torah is or teaches.
It gives the ethical underpinnings of our culture.
Ethical? The rules/commandments are the importance of torah. Not the blood line.
Although yes, I have personal responsibility to keep the Torah, it is more than that. There is a communal element to it.
Sure, the use is flavored depending on the individual groups. Just like bible and quran.
Again, all I can do to help you understand is to give you analogies from other tribal peoples.
Now you want to compare yourself to the indigenous of north america.
Funny stuff.
I think I went over this earlier in the thread, but I will repeat it. ISRAEL is a word that has a number of definitions/usages.
And I have added my own. What IS REAL is what is true. Jacob arguing with an angel in a river did not make a religion, people or state.
1. It can refer to the man Israel aka Jacob, one of the patriarchs of the Jewish people.
2. It can refer to the united kingdom of Israel under Saul, David, and Solomon.
3. It can refer to the northern kingdom of Israel, which had Samaria as its capital.
4. It can refer to the modern Jewish state of Israel, which came into existence in 1948.
#4.... The UN created israel in 1948. That is true.
5. It can refer to the Hebrews aka Israelites aka Jews, the PEOPLE of Israel, who are a tribal people consisting of 12 tribes. Membership in this People is determined by Jewish law.
I am aware of the variety of uses for the term. They dont make it right as I will not condemn Jews to be israel (the dross) of tanakh.
All of these usages make for good topic for RF, first because (except of #4) they are all in the Tanakh aka Old Testament,
I know but you skip the label claimed to be by god, the dross!
a sacred text for both Jews and Christians,
I know and why i enjoy pointing out, that israel DOES NOT OWN the text of torah or the tanakh.
and second because part of religion is the discussion of ethics,
The best part and usage of the torah/tanakh are the ethic, morals and as I point out PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY
so for example, someone may wish to discuss the ethics regarding the current war in Gaza.
There is nothing ethical about that war. Israel is ticked and imposing retribution. The apartheid created that concentration camp.
The most important thing in this life is to be a good person.
MY point exactly, the state is not important. The claims of a tribe is not important and most definitely not the focal importance of torah.
One does not have to be a Jew to be a good person (nor are Jews always good).
You step on your own toes with that one.
But it is not the only important thing in life.
The most important choice a person can make is maintain personal responsibility and the commandments are about universal to help any human being to be moral, ethical and good, with or without any state, tribe or concern of the state of israel.
One of the things that is also important is what group you belong to.
belong? The slaves belong to a people, here in the USA the people are self determined and capable to be as good or bad as any on the earth, by their own choice.
It can be a group that you voluntarily join, or it can be a group that you are born into, such as citizenship of a country.
If you were born here, then you are US before israelis, ite, hebrew or slave to a tribal law.
Jewish identity is very important to Jews.
OK but what is more important is keeping the rules, the commandments over any choice.
You continue to use the word bloodline inappropriately. Bloodline is an expression that means genetics. I have stated numerous times that Jewish
identity is NOT based on genetics
but claiming Mother is the importance of who is Jew, is about blood line without ever using the word genetics
-- there are plenty of people of Jewish decent who are not Jews.
I know, they do not accept the guideline of the biased.
Please excise the word bloodline from our conversation.
Then dont use the term israel as a tribe and try to compare the label to north American indigenous tribes.
Too many errors here -- I wouldn't even know where to start.
Exactly. The dance is constant. You expect me to conform to a model that is not religious.
I will simply reiterate my point. The word Yehudi (Jew) was first used by teh Babylonians to refer to all their captives from the kingdom of Yehudah (Judah).
Ah yes, the change of terms moving again. One minute jews are israel (line of jacob) the next Jew is from a kingdom of judah, the next not all israelis are Jew and then the children of a jewish mother are jew but do not use blood line as a term.
THE importance? You keep treating this like only one thing can be important.
The most important aspect of torah is the knowledge to enable personal responsibility, the information is the importance, not the historical claims, not the tribal ideas and most definitely not that a single group is more important than the rest of mankind.
I cannot become a bigot just to appease the biased. I comprehend the religion, the dialogue and the importance without being told that unless I am jew, i have no right and other are authority over being capable without an authority trying to force capitulation.