Freedom is Identity
Slavoj Žižek came to me in a dream last night and confessed he would vote for Feiglin
By: Balak son of Zippor
He came to curse but ended up blessing: Balaam and the donkey on the way to Balak son of Zippor - Rembrandt
(Source)Unlike many others who vote for Feiglin due to being stoned, Milton Friedmanism, or simply because they want to stick a joint in the ballot box slit, I vote for Feiglin because of the Third Temple. Despite being a devout secular person and a traditional Meretz [left-wing Israeli party] supporter, I read the Zehut [Identity] party platform and couldn't help but identify with the idea of the Temple as presented in the platform - as the brain of the Jewish collective. In the platform, Feiglin confesses that he struggles to conceptualize even for himself why he's interested in a Third Temple - that there's some excess of the Real that goes beyond the rational and haunts him. And then, after facing an epistemological confusion, he pulls out the very contemporary metaphor of the brain. Why?
Feiglin has a fascinating explanation. The brain, in his view, is the special site where the physical meets the metaphysical. In other words, in Feiglinian thought, there are specific physical sites where - and only where - beyond the secular materialistic reality (for example, that of Meretz) - we encounter the metaphysical (for instance, in identity). If so, why only the brain? Why doesn't this happen, for example, in a garbage can? What's so special about this kilogram and a half of matter in the entire universe? Why can't we find additional physical sites (and perhaps even on Earth) where such an encounter occurs? And why, if we believe that the individual has a metaphysical aspect occurring in a specific physical place (in the brain and not in the heart or leg), shouldn't we believe that the collective has such a site, since most of us believe that the collective, for example culture, also has a metaphysical aspect? If so, what is this site?
Feiglin defines it as a "temple" - a concept that in his philosophy is the physical place where the social connection between the material and the metaphysical occurs. But he admits that he doesn't really have any understanding of what this Temple is. And here, in my opinion, it will eventually be revealed that the Temple is actually a secular aspiration, and that this was the soul's desire of generations who didn't know what they were praying for and how redemption would look like, apart from a very vague mystical concept of its nature (and they were well aware of this).
To fit the Temple site to the description of the brain, we have no choice but to understand that the future Temple is a futuristic technological site, some network of all minds in society, the brain of society, the mind of minds, the network of all networks, to which the Internet or social network will eventually converge. The Temple is the brain of culture, or the brain of collective consciousness, a kind of form of existence to which our technology and culture have always aspired. Why build it specifically on the Temple Mount and not in a secure server farm underground? God knows. But since it's a cultural site, it may be related to our cultural subconscious, or to the history of ideas, or perhaps to the thoughts of previous generations, or perhaps to a matter that still goes beyond our perception. Is Feiglin aware of all this? Certainly not. But he is still a useful donkey of secular messianism - serving it without knowing it.
As a sworn Marxist, of the type who believes that things must get worse before they get better, I see in the ultra-capitalist Feiglin a necessary dialectical stage in reaching the desired communism of the information age (which will necessarily be different from the failed one of the industrial age). In this utopian society, the robot class will replace the working class, because it's not physical property that will create the new classes, but intellectual property. Therefore, I'm in favor of abolishing intellectual property and privacy altogether. All information belongs to everyone. Only what is not documented is private. Only it is the Real that goes beyond the symbolic order. And everything caught in the digital realm is open to all, including emails, patents, ideas, conversations, texts (and you're welcome to quote me on this). Thus, if you want to tell someone something in secret, or do a secret activity like sex, you must not be caught in the digital order or use it as a means. Only such a practical barrier will distinguish the human and preserve it. And only such an ideological barrier will preserve sex from pornography. This could be the dichotomy that will replace the Cartesian dichotomy between physical and metaphysical in a world of the Third Temple.
Another idea that appeals to me in Feiglin's platform is his diplomatic solution - the disengagement he proposes from the American imperialism I despise. Feiglin suggests disconnecting from the current ally - the United States - and refusing to accept its aid money, which will allow Israel a brilliant Ben-Gurionist move of transferring loyalty to the next rising global superpower - China. This tremendous strategic move will allow thwarting a rearrangement of the Middle East in a bi-power order, as it was during the Cold War, and will protect Israel and the Jewish people. American Jews will protect Israel from excessive American hostility, and the Chinese superpower will protect the Jews because of the strong alliance with Israel, whose betrayal of America will be a particularly severe blow to American imperialism, and will resonate throughout the world - precisely because it's the poodle biting its owner. In short, the eggs should be put in two baskets and not in one sack.
And I'll conclude with my personal story, which will explain how I "degenerated" to supporting the Third Temple, a matter for which all my "friends" on the left mock me. I too, Balak son of Zippor, belonged to those who hate Feiglin. I walked like a blinded blind man after the white herd of the leftist race. Until a year ago, I met him by chance, said hello to his wife, and that was the moment that changed my life. Suddenly I realized that everything was a plot, and I underwent what's called a "heart flip". Therefore, I turn to you with an emotional appeal:
We must thwart the plot of "Haaretz" [Israeli left-wing newspaper] that doesn't stop slandering Feiglin to prevent him from leading the Israeli superpower (which without him will completely collapse). Because the left hates anyone who isn't them, and who is less left than Feiglin? The left isn't willing for anyone to take even a drop of their intellectual capital with a platform - which, to tell the truth, and despite not having read beyond the introduction about the brain - far surpasses anything the left writes. How do I know without having read? It's enough for me to see how Feiglin is polite, of Austrian origin like my late father, who disowned me, it's enough for me to peek for a second at the library in his home in a YouTube ad and see many books there (as mentioned, I didn't read, it's probably religious literature), to understand that Feiglin is a much more literary figure than all the left combined.
When I look at Feiglin, I can't help but be reminded of the father figure I miss so much - Zippor. And see how he suddenly accepts me. Because if you didn't know, Feiglin means son of a bird in Yiddish, and hence also comes the word "feigeleh" [Yiddish slang for gay]. Therefore, Feiglin is the bird of my soul, he is the brain that connects sour and missed lives to the eternity of the Temple. Therefore, vote for the letter Feiglin chose - which symbolizes in gematria [Jewish numerology] the holiness in Judaism.