I was fortunate. Being a ships Engineer enabled me to travel and interact with various people, to learn the thinking needed for a person in becoming their own.
In the Middle East I visited countries where law limited thinking. There were no changes to correct thought. I also visited the only Middle Eastern country where law created thinking. There was a freedom in the development of thinking and ideas existing within each person of their society.
The Israelites began their learning of the freedom of thinking 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 that developed adhering to the law, into the freedom of becoming their own.
My problem with the freedom of thinking began as a failure in learning of the self. Eventually, writing an interaction of the thinking and learning of ideas and thoughts of the self, accompanied with learning an insight of my failure from professional help, began the thinking needed to resolve the problem I created. It was an experience of learning the thinking needed to become more.
Later, when talking of this experience with my cousin Ruth, she said, “Did you know our Great Grandmother was High German and Jewish?” The family repressed our Jewish heritage because of a fear of antisemitism.
Throughout much of my life I have had Jewish friends. I decided to learn. I registered for a course on Jewish Law at a local Synagogue.
My involvement with Judaism, taking additional courses, writing my thoughts, attending holidays, and becoming friends with the Rabbi and the congregation, was an enjoyment of thinking and learning.
I also chose to live within the limits of law, of not committing murder, rape, 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 the freedom of becoming my own, a freedom of self.
This learning of self, affected thinking. I learned, a reason antisemitism began was because of a fear among those in power of the people learning the freedom of Judaism. Antisemitism then, began as a way to control association with, and of learning from the Jewish people of being free.
My experiencing the freedom of religion began, while being raised in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. The church came into existence during the American revolution, when we separated ourselves politically and religiously from England. The people then, and a reason for the revolution, were interested in becoming their own. When I was a child this church still existed. They didn't tell people what to do. They made suggestions, like adhering to law. This created, while learning the freedom of thinking, the learning of being free.
©Ernest G. Jackson 2025 All Rights reserved. | 486 words.
Copyright © Ernest G. Jackson 2025 All Rights reserved - All Rights Reserved.
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