Monthly Archives: July 2012

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Embracing the whole domain of existence, the halachah, far from taking no account of particular situations, has paid due regard to the humanities of life

The halachah has been ridiculed for its preoccupation with texts and hair-splitting minutiae even as criticism has often been levelled against Judaism for its arid legalism. In disparaging the halachah as a system cold, rigid, and impersonal, the critics overlooked or failed to see the ideas and concepts of humanity, sympathy and compassion that are embedded in the Jewish legal system and its literature. Embracing the whole domain of existence, the halachah, far from taking no account of particular situations, has paid due regard to the humanities of life. Indeed, like Biblical teaching, rabbinic legislation has been guided by the highest moral principles, social criteria, and considerations of human welfare.

M.S. Lew, “The Humanity of the Halachah,” Essays Presented to Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie on the Occasion of His Seventieth Birthday, ed. H.J. Zimmels, J. Rabbinowitz, I. Finestein (London: The Soncino Press Limited, 1967), 243.

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People have learned not to rule out any cultural experience in advance

The general understanding of what’s profound and what’s shallow, proper and improper, cool and uncool will change, but the faculty of critical discrimination is never going to go away. Still, some of the edge has come off those distinctions. There has been a levelling of taste in both directions, down and up – a kind of Unibrowism. People have learned not to rule out any cultural experience in advance. They don’t have a problem with the idea that a television series might be as dramatically involving as a grand opera. It’s not that they think that these cultural forms are equally worthy as art, but they respond with less inhibition to the avant-garde.

Louis Menand, “Browbeaten,” The New Yorker (5 September 2011), 76.

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Rejecting Judaism means not only rejecting traditional theologies, but also rejecting this core part of your self-identity

When a group of people share such a rich set of experiences and history, it really doesn’t matter whether or not they all believe the same things about God. The role of Jewish tradition in shaping our beliefs is so powerful, so primal, that it transcends the question of theology and becomes a simple fact about who we are. I can lose my faith in God, but I can’t change the fact that I’m Jewish anymore than I can change the fact that I was born American. Being Jewish is a principal part of what makes me “me.” Rejecting Judaism means not only rejecting traditional theologies, but also rejecting this core part of your self-identity, choosing to turn your back on a tradition that’s shaped your whole life to this date.

Zack Beauchamp, “Judaism Without God,” Tablet (25 June 2012) {http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/104444/judaism-without-god}

The Creation of the Pirate “Arr” in Cinema

‘Tis a rule of health I learned while sailing under the immortal Hawke, arrr!” Spoken by actor Robert Newton in the 1950 Disney film Treasure Island, that line is the ur-arr, the first occurrence of the infamous pirate catchphrase. In Robert Louis Stevenson’s original book, characters used the interjection ah 35 times. As in, “Ah, they was a sweet crew, they was!” The hammy actor Newton delivered his lines for Long John Silver in his Cornwall accent, adding a rolling r sound and thus creating a classic meme.

“Arrrrr,” Wired (March 2012), 58.

“aesthetic preferences are always tied up with anxieties about social status”

People still use words like “middlebrow” and “kitsch” as terms of disapprobation, even if they don’t remember the Marxist tree from which those apples long ago fell. This is because aesthetic preferences are always tied up with anxieties about social status. The connection seems virtually primordial. I can’t help judging you by the novel you’re reading on the plane or the wallpaper in your house. (You have wallpaper?). If we had no social individiousness, we would probably have no art – or, at least, we would have a very different economy of art. People like to debate he merits of what they read and see and hear, and to pretend to think ill of those who differ. It’s part of the game. The college freshman who declares herself a relativist in philosophy class by day will argue all night about whether Band X is better than Band Y.

 

People also like to feel that they know what’s correct and what isn’t, and thus belong to a privileged minority. It doesn’t matter what Webster’s Third tells me: I will always feel superior to a person who says, “I am totally disinterested in that subject” (though I will also strive to treat that individual with the dignity and respect owed to any human being). I can’t help it; it’s the way I was brought up. On the other hand, I don’t believe that the future of the republic is at stake.

Louis Menand, “Browbeaten,” The New Yorker (5 September 2011), 76.

“political scientists have mainly regarded political parties as a healthy way of counteracting the power of single-issue interest groups.”

…because parties are necessarily alliances of disparate constituencies, political scientists have mainly regarded them as a healthy way of counteracting the power of single-issue interest groups. It’s hard not to wonder about an account in which a party is captive to interest groups at some moments but not at others.

Nicholas Lemann, “Evening the Odds,” The New Yorker (23 April 2012), 73.

“All Zionists agree also that an undivided Jerusalem must remain Israel’s capital”

All Zionists agree also that an undivided Jerusalem must remain Israel’s capital. This is a matter of intense importance, not only to Israel and its supporters, but to humanity as a whole. During the nineteen years that Jordan occupied East Jerusalem, thirty-four of the thirty-five synagogues in the Jewish Quarter were contemptuously blasted into dusty rubble. Thirty-eight thousand Jewish graves on the Mount of Olives were wantonly destroyed; many tombstones were used to pave Jordanian army latrines. Even Christians residing in Israel weren’t not allowed to visit their shrines in the Old City.

Roland B. Gittelsohn, Partners in Destiny: Reform Judaism and Zionism (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1984), 10.

“…historic Judaism has been neither religion nor nationalism exclusively, but religion and nationalism organically intertwined”

In truth, historic Judaism has been neither religion nor nationalism exclusively, but religion and nationalism organically intertwined. Whoever attempts to separate them, to make the tradition appear as if it were only religion or only nationalism, will succeed in concocting an aberrant monstrosity, a caricature which won’t even resemble authentic Judaism.

Roland B. Gittelsohn, Partners in Destiny: Reform Judaism and Zionism (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1984), 2.

“Let the Jew really become familiar with this part of his heritage”

Let the Jew really become familiar with this part of his heritage. Let him, through a little effort at learning and devotion, come to know and to understand his faith, even if only in a very simple and elementary manner. He will soon realize that Judaism is a superb religious philosophy of life, a religion which is highly intelligent as well as being emotionally deeply attractive; that it is forward looking and indomitably hopeful; that it is a religion through which mankind can really seek and progressively find its salvation and happiness upon earth.

Leon I. Feuer, On Being a Jew (New York: Bloch Publishing Company, 1947), 76.