The “Jim Crow” laws are as gone as slavery in the United States. Secularism, as a principle, helps guide the development of laws having to do with human relationships in business, governance, and life, and does not confuse what is human with what is divine nor will it define, nor should it, the relationship between person and God, the experience of the divine, or engagement in ritual or spirituality.

In the Jewish ethos, even Moses is human – merely a man – as is Abraham, whom many wish had questioned God himself over the binding of Isaac.

That invented thing call “The West” is more idea than reality, more built from Greco-Roman esprit, the Judeo-Christian precepts, and the brightening of The Enlightenment that brings to the medieval society a natural humanism and reason. Such things are not exclusive nor exclusively western nor modern nor technological. General Saladin would have known these things in their embryonic stage as well as his personal physician Maimonides. To go back a little further in philosophy attending law and relationships, one might spend some time with the elder contemporary, probably, of Jesus: Hillel, neither and never beatified nor deified.

Some Jews read “The Akeda” and note that God never again speaks directly to Abraham, nor, for that matter, does Isaac.

Is that significant?

If you’re a Jew, the close reading of the Torah elicits passionate engagement in ethical and moral argument, and indeed, though the nodding majority of readers may believe God set out to test Abraham’s obedience, a distinct minority would seem bound to ask whether the ancient lunkhead could not have instead raised his voice to God in argument intended to spare Isaac, which God has to do by sending an angel, a subaltern, or prevent the act and then providing a substitute, a ram, for Abraham to slaughter instead.

At the end of each day, we feel; we question; we reason; we protest – and tyrants, whether with power over body, mind, or spirit, we leave behind us.

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