Is Experience Overrated?

Forging a new path in life is my goal. Let's take a look at how experience is overrated. This piece is a supplement to my article on How to be an Iconoclast.

First we will analyze how people started new religions and next how the first Doctorate in America was conferred by the Mathers. We will analyze how I got my break in computer programming, how one of my bosses who was an incompetent kept harping about how he had 25 years of experience and how head hunting firms only deal with experienced workers. All of that needs to change, barriers to entry must be torn down. The only thing that really counts is a person's ability to work and be successful. In other words, I am back to being an iconoclast again.

Moses, Jesus Christ, Buddha, The Holy Roman Church,. Martin Luther, Israel Baal Shem Tov and Mohammed all diverged from the religious systems of their time and started new spiritual paths despite opposition from the established orders of their time. And these religions have billions of adherents now.

According to the Torah ("Bible") Moshe Rabbenu, ("Moses our Teacher") Moses had an experience where he heard God talking out of a burning bush. And since psychoanalysis hadn't been invented yet, he didn't wind up in a psychiatric hospital back then as he might if he made his claims today.

After the initial encounter Moses had with God, he then went up to Mt. Sinai to receive the Torah by a series of conversations that transpired over 40 days and 40 nights. But again if someone said he did that today, well, he would be up against a real barrier to entry roadblock.

Moses founded a new religious order and their was a chain of transmission of the power and authority conferred on him. He received the Mosaic ordination (or smicha).
Moses transferred his power and authority to Joshua and then there was a whole succession of conveying that rulership.

I myself possess a smicha and my mentors Rabbi Fried and Rabbi Yeshua Witt helped me to hold my head up and validate my years of studying the Torah and its commentaries.

Later on came the Sadducees and the Pharisees who vied for leadership among the Jewish people. And of course the battles Jesus had with them is legendary and is a large part of what is contained in the New Testament.

When Jesus didn't wash his hands ritually before he ate, he was confronted by the Pharisees over it. Now, you have to understand that washing for bread is not deraytah, ie it is not a Biblical injunction it's derabbanan or a rule the Pharisees made up.

Jesus simply bucked the existing order and they claimed he had no right to do such. He simply went about doing his business of reforming the world and now Christianity is a much bigger religion than Judaism. It was time for a change and Jesus brought that to a large part of the world although generally speaking the vast majority of the Jewish people don't accept him as the Messiah let alone God incarnate.

Christians claim that Jesus' system is the conclusion of Judaism and that a Jew for Jesus (or a Messianic Jew, or Hebrew Christian) is a completed Jew. But the Jewish establishment still doesn't see it that way.

The Holy Roman Church was created as Rome decided to stop worshipping the pagan gods like Zeus, and Hera. So they created a new order and it is claimed that if you believe that there is only one God, then there should be only one true representative of that God.

Mohammed was next and he created Islam. Moslems believe that Islam is the completion of Judaism and Christianity. Judaism was first, Christianity was second and Islam was third in the natural historical progression of religion according to Moslems. But both the Jews and the Christians don't see it that way.

Buddha bucked the system as per Hinduism but I don't know too much more than that. But Buddhism is a wide spread religion too.

After Martin Luther took the Holy Roman Church to task, he created Protestantism and now there are quite a few versions of that form of Christianity. The world has many different types of religions that are monotheistic in basis.

Later on in Judaism The BESHT or Israel Baal Shem Tov, wanted to breathe new fire into Judaism and he created the Chasidic movement. He downplayed dry erudition and claimed that serving God with joy and fervor is more important than studying books.

The BESHT was criticized by the Vilna Gaon ("The Sage of Vilna") who was considered to be the preeminent leader of world Jewry about 300 years ago and Chasidism was considered to be a kath or a sect. But the Gaon's successor, Reb Chaim Velozin lifted the cherem ("religious ban").

After the BESHT passed on, he was succeeded by the Magid of Mezritch or the "Preacher from Mezritch" and by the next or third generation Chasidism grew and quite a few Chasidic Rebbes started to preach and attract adherents.

One of my mentors and teachers was Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, of Blessed Memory, who some people considered to be "the Rebbe who connects you to all the other Rebbes" and the "Modern day Baal Shem Tov." He tried to open the gates back into Judaism for people who were excluded and got left out in modern time.

Shlomo wrote thousands of melodies in his lifetime in his effort to breath new fire again into modern Yiddishkeit ("Judaism") as the Baal Shem Tov did before him. Now, people all over the world sing his nigunnim, ("songs").

In my case, I left Judaism to go back to Christianity but my knowledge that was greatly enhanced by my association with Shlomo helps me out a lot. He helped me to reconnect with my family after I was almost destroyed by a vicious cult.

Now let's discuss how the first doctorate was conferred in the USA. At a certain point in time, as America diverged from Europe, we had no way of transmitting a degree like that. So, one of the Increase Mather had soemone else lay his hand hands on him and lo and behold, the USA now had its first official doctorate. Of course, we can't do it this way these days but that's how it all first started.

Now we have accrediting agencies and all kinds of standards when it comes degrees and the government supervises all of it. Some states only take accredited degrees and some like CA don't need a degree with that kind of credentials.

Computer programming is a relatively new field. I remember when my father's company was one of the firs to have a mini- computer. Back then, the discipline wasn't even taught in colleges or universities.

When I was a computer programmer at AT&T I had a supervisor who kept bragging about how he had "25 years of experience". It was a cover for the fact that he was somewhat burned out and couldn't function well at the time he worked with me. I judiciously kept him away from many of the systems I worked on so he wouldn't ruin my reputation with my client group, Market Analysis and Forecasting or MA&F.

When I got my Maser of Science in Management degree from the Boston University/Gen Gurion University of the Negev Joint Program in Beer Sheba, Israel, my father kept telling me to go to the headhunting firms. He gave me the advice of "Let them handle it." What my Dad doesn't know even to this day, is that contracting firms only work with experienced workers. They don't deal with entry-level people unless you go to Harvard perhaps.

Now, it is not really my father's fault. I am the first and only child he had who ever went to college. And now he keeps telling me to use my MSM degree but it hasn't done anything for me in 14 years already. So, I took courses in writing and decided to become a freelance writer.

My goal is to crash open the gates so that new scientific inventions, new technologies and new ideas can take root and grow, As America is finding much of its work force being downsized, we need to reevaluate ourselves and find a new way of doing business. We are no longer a manufacturing country and the Information Age seems to be over too. It's time for a new change and I am here to crash open the gates for it to happen.

I am the new Messiah on the block. I will be the new redeemer of mankind as the old redeemer's ideas are being rejected increasingly in the world. People no longer believe in the claims of the supernatural. It is time for an Age of Reason to take root.