I was fortunate. Being a ships Engineer enabled me to travel, interact with various people and learn of laws affecting their freedom.
In the Middle East I visited countries where law created a failure of freedom. The people were controlled, limited by law, in what they could think and become. This control or limit created failure in learning the freedom of thinking. I also visited the only Middle Eastern country where thinking, learning, and law, created freedom, Israel.
The Israelites began their freedom of thinking, learning and law, during their transition from bondage to freedom that began at Mt Sinai. A thinking of law limiting behavior without limiting freedom and the development of freedom. A thinking to develop adhering to the law, into the freedom of becoming their own. A thinking of the freedom of their faith.
My problem with thinking began as a failure in the learning of self, and resolved through a thought process. The writing of an interaction of thinking and learning, of ideas and thoughts of the self. This process, accompanied with learning an insight from professional help, began the learning needed to resolve the problem I created. The thinking needed to change failure into again becoming me.
Later, when talking with my cousin Ruth, she said, " Did you know our Great Grandmother was High German and Jewish?" The family had repressed our Jewish heritage because of a fear of antisemitism. I decided to learn instead. I registered for a course on Jewish Law at a local Synagogue.
My involvement with additional courses on Judaism and writing my thoughts created learning. I also chose to live within the limits of law, of not committing murder, adultery, stealing, lying, or coveting. This choosing became a learning of keeping my thoughts and actions within the limits of what is good and true, a learning that began a freedom of becoming my own.
I learned too, a reason for antisemitism was a fear among those in power of the people learning the freedom of the thinking and learning of Judaism. Antisemitism began as a way to control association with, and then learning from the Jewish people. How does someone in power control another that is free? While the powerful were trying to understand control, the Jewish people were giving to the world the freedom of learning to think.
My initial exposure to religion was being raised in The Protestant Episcopal Church in The United States of America. This church came into existence with the American revolution. During the revolution we began to separate ourselves from England, politically and religiously. The people then, and with a few changes, created their own church. The American church didn't tell people what to do. They made suggestions. An interest of the people was in becoming their own, the freedom of self.
Ernest G Jackson 2024 All Rights Reserved. 486 Words.
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