Fundamental Islam exposed

I look at the picture of Gilad Shalit on my fridge and I hate G-d. I have never met the boy, I know nothing of his life, his family, his temperament; all I know is that in some way he belongs to me, he is one of mine. The tears come from time to time, and my thoughts move from his mother to the political echelon, to Nasralla (may his name be wiped out), and then finally to the greater mechanical workings of the spiritual world. There is no resolution. Neither his mother nor the current Israeli political entity as it stands today can do anything. Nasralla like Darth Vadar is a slave to the Emperor of Evil – the Dark Force. The Force of light and good unfortunately rests on the shoulders of mere humans while G-d slumbers away the remainder of his 6000 year creation.

There have been times when the Primal Universal Force has been forced into response – the Holocaust was not one of those times, but it is said in Chassidic thought that the miracle of Purim lies in the fact that the King (an analogy for G-d) woke up. After waking, he couldn't get back to sleep so he called for his diary to be read to him and was reminded that Mordechai the Jew had saved him and had not yet been rewarded; the rest is the Megilla.

What fascinates me about Nasralla and his merry men of disillusioned followers of Global Jihad in the name of Allah, is that they have managed to get it so wrong. I know it's naive to assume they have anything other than Global Power in mind, but they do present at least in their public persona, a perception of a higher cause. They are not merely out to take over Israel and return all of Palestine to the Palestinians. They are part of a bigger plan to bring down the western world and convert the entire world to Islam: To bring about the ultimate prophecy of Mohammed, when the entire world will follow the teachings of Islam.

If this is the ultimate goal, how on earth does kidnapping our children and thereby creating hate and anger make anyone want to love and worship Allah? How are they reaching us, how are they connecting to our soul in a way that may make Islam tempting? How are they spreading the word of a possibly better and more conscious world?

Perhaps they believe if they can convert the Jews, they can convert anyone, because we are the most stubborn when it comes to our own religion. Christianity couldn't convert us after two thousand years violently chasing us out of every country on the face of the planet. Russia couldn't suppress us into non existence, even Buddhism ultimately sends us back to discover our own spiritual roots, so what makes the proponents of fundamental Islam think they can kidnap our children and hold us hostage to their G-d ? Do they really think this is the way to our hearts and souls? There must be another agenda. Political victory, fame and glory are too ego centric for a so called spiritual leader of Nasrallas stature unless he's suffering from a serious chemical imbalance, a possibility I haven't yet ruled out.

The only other conclusion I can come to is that in the big picture at least, what is going on is the painful evolution of the greater family soul of fundamental Islam. Like fundamental Christianity fundamental Islam must also come to learn that forced conversion, even Dimmitude (allowing a lesser nation to live under Islamic rule without entirely annihilating them) is a highly unevolved spiritual path. You can't force humans to love G-d. You can't force Allah on man. You can try, you can impose, you can kill and wound and damage and lie, you can manipulate the masses to believe that their only salvation is your religion, but a relationship with G-d can only come from personal individual contemplation and choice.

The Chareidim are right in some way to remain insular, they know that they can't force Jews to keep the Sabbath; all they can do is protect themselves from external influences and pass on the inherent wisdom of Torah to the next generations. Chabad on the other hand spreads joy and simcha with such exuberance and speed around the globe that secular Jews are inspired to be part of this vibrant energy, to reconnect to a Spiritual Force they never knew existed in their ho-hum drab religious past lives. If fundamental Islam's true reason d'être is to spread the word of Islam, it could take a page from the Rebbe's book, and spread some joy and some kindness, instead of tainting all of Islam with pain and hate.

All this does nothing for the sacrificial lamb; the vessel for the evolution of the unevolved. But why does it always have to be the lone Jew or the tiny Jewish nation that shows humanity the cruelty of which it is ultimately capable, until it has seen too much of its own ugly innards that it is motivated to evolve into something more human. Perhaps that is what is meant by the Jews being a light unto the nations. The light of a camera that exposes - in this case, the ugliness of mankind to itself- that is the light of the Jew. The filthy dirty blood sucking rat referred to as the 'Jew' by fundamental Islamic doctrine is nothing other than what is exposed when the light is shone into the crevices of fundamental Islam itself. Gilad Shalit, sits in the dark shining a light on the inherent ugliness and cruelty of those who hold him in captivity.