The Birth of Guilt

Two things:
1. I think I'm slow on the uptake here, but am realizing more and more how little I know about the history of the Jews. Even Holocaust-era stuff. I know things happened and that they were bad and I've read Night and other books and I've seen the movies, but I'm still not sure what happened and when. I feel like that part of history has been so present for so much of my life that I haven't taken any time to make sense of it. But more specifically before that. Even very early Hebrew history I'm not super comfortable with.
The reason why I want to remedy this: someone (Randy?) pointed out that we talk about the lack of American culture. But really, we're entrenched in the Judeo-Christian tradition. We try and deny it and reject it (leave the homeland behind), but we can't deny it. What a shame that I'm fuzzy about a big chunk of the history of the culture that is or defined or gave birth to my own. Weird that I'm claiming my Jewish roots?

2. In my class we're talking about the Hebrews historically. How this sternly monotheistic culture was born of a melee of pluralistic polytheism. One of the points I thought was interesting is that in Mesopotamian polytheism the chaos of the pantheon reflected the chaos of the culture. That is, life was unpredictable, the climate was unpredictable, leaders were unpredictable, and so were the gods.
Judaism steered away from this by establishing God as a constant and loving being. Vengeful, yeah, but essentially (in the truest sense of the word) good. Suddenly, the savage unpredictability of the world is thrown into sharp contrast with the creator. This conceptual rift was the impetus for several important developments in Hebrew culture. 1: history was seen not as a random assortment of events, but as a story. You could study history to see the workings of God--when people were good they prospered, and wars and famine happened because of wickedness or inattention to the covenant. 2: the need for a Messiah. Someone to reconcile our experience with God's. Also the need for the coming of a Messiah to bring order to the world. 3. the need for an afterlife--a place where everyone could just sit and rest and be rewarded for good-doing. 4. guilt. I want to think about this more. But it seems very important and very much like it's shaped the person I am...