Antizionist Jews and the Apikoros:

Lessons in Jewish History

(Epicurus, the founder of of the Hellenistic school of thought known as Epicureanism)

As a rule of thumb, whenever you encounter a word that is borrowed from another language, you should pause and ask why it was borrowed.

“Coup d’etat.”

Why would English steal a French phrase to describe a violent overthrow of the government?

Well, as English historians like to joke, the reason English had to steal a French phrase is because the English system of government was so good that they never had any coups – so they needed a foreign word to express a foreign concept.

(Sadly, it looks as though that 1000 year old nation may be losing its grip on good government, but that is a piece for another time.)

In the Rabbinical literature I have read, there is one word that stands out from all of the others – both because of its origins and because of its usage: Apikoros.

At the surface level, an Apikoros is a heretic – someone who rejects the teachings of the Torah.

They are not ignorant of the Torah – that is called an “am haaretz,” a man of the earth – the Apikoros is a learned person who has chosen to forsake the Torah, and, what's more, they do so publicly.

The word “Apikoros” is Greek and comes from the Hellenistic age, when Jews were assimilating to Greek culture right and left.

The “Apikoros” were the Jews who would try to convince other Jews to assimilate and break faith with their people.

Tensions between the religious Jews and the Apikorosim and the assimilated Jews eventually came to a head when the assimilated Jews began using Greek influence to disparage and denigrate religious Jews.

The religious Jews, however, prevailed – we celebrate their victory every year on a holiday called Hanukkah.

The Apikoros has always been with us – it is a Jew who thinks the goy’s culture is better than his own.

But the actual word “apikoros” is very strange.

It is not a direct translation of the word “heretic;” it is a direct translation of the word “Epicurean.”

An Epicurean is a follower of the philosophy of Epicurus, called Epicureanism, and Epicureanism was a Hellenistic philosophy.

Why the hell would the rabbis call Jewish heretics Epicureans?

Well, we have to understand who the Epicureans were.

In the Hellenistic age, philosophy was split principally into three groups: the Cynics, the Stoics, and the Hedonists.

Cynicism, founded by the most disagreeable and unpleasant man to have ever lived and personal hero of mine, Diogenes, taught that life was full of suffering and man’s only hope to avoid or minimize that suffering was to try to live as closely in accordance with nature as possible.

That meant sleeping on the floor, eating very humbly, and occasionally defecating in public.

As legendary as Diogenes was, cynicism was not very popular – shocking, I know.

Stoicism, made popular by Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, in addition to being every philosophy-bro’s gateway drug into a lifetime of annoying their friends, taught that there was great suffering in the world, but the best way to live was to face that suffering, deal with it, and try to live as best as one could given the circumstances.

To this day, Stoicism maintains a great appeal because of the agency it gives the individual to deal with his own suffering.

Now Hedonism has always been popular.

Hedonism teaches that life is full of suffering but also full of pleasure, so the best way to counteract that suffering is to enjoy the pleasure of life to the fullest.

In modern parlance, when we talk about Hedonism, we tend to talk about people engaging in all kinds of raucous pleasure-seeking activities.

The symbol of “hedonism” might as well be an orgy – but that is not altogether correct.

For example, there are many elements of Judaism that are Hedonic in nature.

Shabbos is about as hedonistic as it gets – it is literally a commandment to delight in Shabbos – which means that if you are delighted by drinking good wine and eating rich food, you must drink good wine and eat rich food on Shabbos.

Religion is so lame.

The difference, however, is that there is a deeper purpose to the pleasure of Shabbos – a deeper purpose which justifies the pleasure.

Within the school of Hedonism is a sub-school known as Epicureanism.

Epicurus taught that the proper response to suffering was the enjoyment of pleasure, but he specified that there is a moral hierarchy of pleasures, that some pleasures are better than others, and that a noble person ought to seek those higher pleasures.

Higher pleasures like the joy of intellectual pursuits and spiritual satisfaction.

But, in a world with so much suffering, how can one possibly protect himself enough from the vicissitudes of the outside world to focus on his higher pleasures?

He must sequester himself in his garden.

The Epicurean’s favorite place to be was his garden – a place he had built for himself, with all of his most treasured things, completely cut off from the outside world.

Of all of these philosophies, why did the rabbis think Epicureanism was so dangerous? And why do they associate it with heresy?

Surely, the libertinism of pure Hedonism should be more disturbing to the rabbis than the intellectualism of Epicureanism?

The answer is quite profound.

The rabbis were not worried that people would be torn away from Judaism by Hedonistic orgies or Stoic self-denial – they were worried that people would be torn away by the selfishness of Epicureanism masquerading as righteousness.

The Epicurean is not involved in the political world, although he may criticize it, he is not involved in the business world, although he may deplore it, and he is not involved in the military world, although he may think it is beneath him.

He seeks only his own pleasure in a world of pain – he is not interested in helping the pain of others.

To the Jewish mind, nothing could be more heretical.

Shabbos is about pleasure – but it is about shared pleasure. A true Shabbos table always has a Tzedakah box in the corner, enough food for a small army, and room for one more.

The Epicurean garden is an oasis from the pains of the material world; the Shabbos table is the threshold between the material and the spiritual worlds.

But most dangerously, the Epicurean is his own judge of righteousness. Since the world is divided into pleasure and pain, and he is the actor moving between the two, he is the ultimate judge of what is right and wrong.

It is not surprising, then, that so many Jews found Epicureanism so appealing.

The Jewish mind is ethically obsessed. Even the Jewish renegades, the ones who have most forsaken our religion and our people, have done so in the name of what they thought was ethics. Karl Marx, Leon Trotsky, Jesus of Nazareth – these were all ethically-minded Jewish renegades.

So of course today’s antizionist Jews would be nothing other than modern-day Epicureans.

Look at their lives.

They were raised in a Jewish world, probably in a reform or conservative shul, grew up believing that Jewish values and progressive values were one in the same, and they enjoyed the privileges of upper-middle-class American life

Meanwhile, they were being inundated with messages that the world is dying, racism is everywhere, and everything is bad.

So of course they retreated into their social media echo chambers to hide from the painful vicissitudes of public life.

Didn’t we all?

The difference is that now, post-October 7th, many Jews realize that sequestering ourselves in our pleasure gardens is no longer an option.

We must either fight for our people, or we must accept the possibility of another Holocaust – if you are reading The Zionist Voice, you chose the former.

But for Epicurean Jews who just want to enjoy the fruits of their sheltered garden, it is easy enough to retreat behind the ivory walls of social media and accuse other Jewish people of violating Jewish values from afar.

The Apikoros is someone who puts himself before his people.

More than that, he uses his people as a stepping stone to rise up in the goyish world.

His attainment of worldly pleasures, be they material or intellectual, comes before everything else.

And political smugness is a worldly pleasure.

The antizionist Jew who stands in judgment of his Israeli brethren for dealing with issues he could not even imagine is a disgrace.

He has reached a level of self-centeredness and self-satisfaction that is actually nauseating.

Antizionist Jews who live within the sheltered garden of American prosperity yet have the audacity to criticize Israelis whose real homes and fields have been destroyed are an embarrassment to themselves and those around them.

What is most nauseating about it is that, when that sheltered garden inevitably burns down, it will be the Israelis who offer the antizionist Jew safe haven – something he would never have offered them.

It breaks my heart when I think about how many antizionist Jews I have known in my time – but I take some comfort in knowing that this has been going on for 2500 years.

I have said it once, I will say it again – antizionist Jews have no right to celebrate Hanukkah – and why they would even want to is truly baffling.

But I am sure they have found some way to mutilate the story of Hannukah to fit into their self-serving ideology.

Afterall, an Apikoros never concerns himself with hard truths.

~

As always,

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai