Comment 26 by Rob W.

I still think that the intellectual heritage and the traditional heritage are part of the same package deal.

You can't use words so loosely and hope to clarify the situation. Its not a "package deal". I proposed that there were pre or extra-cultural drivers (elements that could not be thought of in any way as a part of a culture itself, to whit, a scattered, reviled people..i.e. something has been done to them) which resulted in two entirely divergent cultural responses. Their common cause is not the culture. Divergent means that they were once not distinguishable, but that does not mean that one cultural tradition caused another only that they had a common cause.

Pale Christians often claim the Enlightenment was a product of Christian thinking because many at the time were Christians......Well of course they were....but even at the time they were mostly dissenters or non orthodox, dismantling the dogma, merely unsure of how far they needed to go. The drive was always specifically anti hyper tradition and pro the simple power of truth. Christianity did not bring about the Enlightenment, partially or wholly dissenting Christians did.

The two strands of Jewish heritage are the self protection of blind hyper-tradition grouping and the self protection of knowing better than others. One is the evil twin of the other. The relationship is non-cultural for all the nostalgia involved.