the "IDEAL" person

Above all qualities that a human being possesses, the most important is having faith in yourself, others and God. For the Jews and their Rabbis this faith is bases around the ideas than can be found in the Torah. The book of the prophet Amos states “Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the LORD, the God of hosts, will be with you, as you have said. Hate evil, and love good, and establish justice in the gate; it may be that the LORD, the God of hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph” This one line, above all others, best describes the ideal person.

However after reading Pirkei Avos it is clear what the ideal person is for a Rabbi...himself. Pirkei Avos is a collection of ethics that was created by Rabbi’s as a way to show people how they should live their lives. But, most of these ethics are ridiculous and unrealistic. No matter how “good” a person is, they could not live up to these standards set in front of them.

It is easy to understand why. It’s simply about power. If everyone was able to be this “ideal” person and follow life to the Torah 100%, be good all the time, and commit no wrong doing then they would be equal, if not greater than the Rabbis themselves. The fear of losing power has been a natural fear of man through out time. This idea is no different in the institution of religion. This is why they set impossible standards. In order for Rabbis to keep their power, they must keep everyone else scared. People believe that they must seek guidance from what they have been lead to believe is the only true “ideal” person, the Rabbi, to tell them how to live their lives.

A Rabbi would never tell a common man that he is the ideal person. He would tell the man to "Look up to me, So that I can teach you the ways of the Torah.” Although, this is far from what they actually teach about was is right and wrong. The fact remains the same that power always wins over faith, even if it means that one would have to contradict their own faith. This is why the only man a Rabbi would say is “ideal” is himself.

Welcome to the class weblog (or "blog") for History 100, Western Civ Sect. 034 at George Mason University. I'm stealing a good idea, and much of the language of this post, from my colleague Mills Kelly.

This weblog will be the place where each of you publishes your weekly essays. Because the Blogger software does not provide a spell-check function, you need to write your work in a word processor first, then cut and paste it into the Posting box Blogger provides. To get started, read Mills's Guide to Blogging. It's really quite simple.

In addition to being the place where you post your weekly summary, this weblog is also a place where you can leave announcements for the group, post questions, pose problems, etc. It is not a public weblog, so only members of our class have access to it.

Allan