what do you think about my Judaism explanation for human competitiveness?

[Jiengleberreies]

This is the beginning of my ideas for a Jewish Psychology.

I was wondering why G-d would give us competitiveness, and I realized that it is most likely connected to the drive to perform that competitiveness creates.

Competition between individual humans , when placed in a Jewish society, will drive them to compete to perform the most commandments, and to find the best way to serve G-d.

Also, the human identification with groups, and our emotional attachment to the perceived worth of our groups, is what drives us to make Israel as ideal as possible. We are given our group ideals by G-d, and we are driven to make Israel reach those ideals, to satisfy our self-esteem by thinking we are #1.

When things like competition and group identification go bad, it is because the rest of the mitzvot are not being performed. The other mitzvot have to be performed to keep society from making our natures backfire, like if our society idealizes stupid things (which makes us compete not in serving G-d, but driving the best car).
perry: what an a'sshole
J.P. : could you explain a little better
trish: i didn't say it was limited to Jews, but i think it's purpose is for Jews.
trish: i didn't say anything about a jewish flavor either. smh

 

[f_k_alkhalili]

For sure, God gave you competitiveness, and now you are competing; who would kill more Palestinian children and force out more native families. Does that have anything with mitzvot performance? I mean; how worse can your group identification go??!!

"When Yahweh your God brings you into the land that you are about to enter and occupy, and he clears away many nations before you — the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites…and when Yahweh your God gives them over to you…you must utterly destroy them…Show them no mercy…For you are a people holy to Yahweh your God; Yahweh your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be his people, his treasured possession."(Deuteronomy 7.1-11)

Moses certainly took God's orders to heart, as he later told his followers:
"But as for the towns of these peoples that Yahweh your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as Yahweh your God has commanded, so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against Yahweh, your God." (Deuteronomy 20.16-18)

Furthermore, the inhabitants of Jabesh-Gilead, including "the women and the infants" were slaughtered by a 12,000-strong army of marauding Hebrews (Judges 21:10) and, as revenge for waylaying the Israelites as they returned from Egypt, Yahweh ordered his people to "go and strike the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them, but kill men and women, children, infants and suckling, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys." (1 Samuel 15:2-3)

Needless to say, there are many more examples of Hebrew aggression throughout the Bible (read about the exploits of Joshua, Aaron, David, Elijah, and Samson, for example), all of them commanded by the Lord Almighty, and all of them against non-Jews.

Clearly, Yahweh's own battle conventions were closely resemble the tactics of today’s Israeli military.

 

[JePe]

Sorry, but Perry's right. In a Jewish context, it's utterly hogwash.

Wow, there's a word I haven't used in a long time, 'hogwash'. Ah well, I guess I'll let it stand.