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  1. What counts as Idolatry to you?

    I am curious as to what fellow DaoBums count as Idolatry. I was watching Tenak Talk on Youtube today from a (supposedly) famous Rabbi and am just flabbergasted at the level of ignorance he's portraying about Daoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. Especially when it comes to Yoga and Nei Gong work. All 3 of these 'religions' are steeped at their very root in idolatry according to Rabbinic Orthodox Judaism. The whole talk - to me at least - came across as a One-Upsmanship of how superior Rabbinic Orthodox Judaism is to all 3 of these "idolatrous" religions. Judaism (and Christianity and Islam for that matter - the apple doesn't fall far from the tree) seems to really have a robust time slinging the judgment "idolatry!" at anything not found or practiced in it's own tradition. This Rabbi even attacked Karate and other forms of Martial Arts that pair it with spiritual Daoist principles, etc as idolatrous. Not kidding on that. Karate, Kung Fu, Judo, etc came in for a long segment of attack because they all peddle 'witchy woo', 'pagan' idolatry from Daoism while one is learning those martial arts. I've been following various Jewish channels on Youtube lately because I've always been of the belief by setting aside personal prejudices (not always successful but I try) I can discover new nuggets of wisdom that might not have come my way any other way. That's how I discovered The Cosmic Doctrine in fact. But I'm beginning to (sadly) come to the conclusion a lot of current Orthodox Judaism (or at least the ones on Youtube) doesn't have many even partially realized teachers anymore. When I went in I understood being a Rabbi was because this person was a 'guru' or 'lama'. Someone who had at least a modicum of 'self-realization' (or G*d realization as Judaism puts it) from implementing Torah/Tenak (Tenak = scriptural + oral Torah ie scriptures + oral teachings handed down from a G*d-Realized Tzadik (aka Rishi) lineage) - but from what I can tell the tradition has waaaay too much emphasis on reading texts and debate and is stagnating there. Intellectual debate is so far the only 'fruit' I'm seeing the Orthodox tradition transmitting well. I'd place many of these Orthodox Rabbis I've been listening to of late on Youtube at the same self-realization level as the very same Christian and Islamic fundamentalists they criticize. However, since Judaism is so fond of throwing the judgment "Idolatry!" around at any tradition not its own I've begun to wonder what exactly would other spiritual practitioners consider genuinely idolatrous.