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The More Successful Movie Studios Become, the Less Risk-Averse They Are

The instinct to retrench and overemphasize strategies that have worked in the past is a common problem in companies as they get bigger and have more to lose, particularly as technologies change. Polaroid and BlackBerry doubled down on their time-tested formulas despite market changes, suggesting that this behavior can undermine even the most successful companies. “The more successful and larger they become, the more antibodies they develop to doing anything new,” said Alan MacCormack, a Harvard Business School professor. And this may explain why summer 2015 will see sequels in the franchises for “Batman,” “Superman,” “Avengers,” “Terminator,” “Independence Day,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Smurfs.”

Catherine Rampell, “Revenge of the Nerds”, The New York Times Magazine (8 September 2013), 16.

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The Jews have an old relationship with wine

…the Jewish relationship to wine has remained rooted in religious practice. Despite challenges in simply finding a bottle [or an amphora] of wine, our ancestors were able to maintain their wine traditions. I would venture to say that we Jews have the oldest codified relationship to wine of any people on earth. In this light, how could wine be anything but critical to Jewish life?

Jeff Morgan, quoted in Rob Eshman, “People of the Vine”, The Jewish Journal (30 August – 5 September 2013), 26.

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Intermarriage is a relationship of power, depending on gender and who negotiated for what

Intermarriage, like all marriage, is a relationship of power. How the power is divided depends on two things: gender and who negotiated for what, either before or after saying “I do.” If intermarriage has the potential to strengthen the Jewish people (along with institutions of education, such as summer camp or trips to Israel), it is critically important to understand the influence of the gender of the Jewish member in the marital union. Analyzing gender—the roles of both men and women combined with the relationship between the two sexes—is key to a full understanding of the meaning of Jewish intermarriage because gender informs how men and women raise children.

Keren McGinity, “The Hand that Rocks the Cradle: How the Gender of the Jewish Parent Influences Intermarriage”, AJS Perspectives (Spring 2013), 42.

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The Different Jewish Approaches of Obama and Booker

When Obama addresses Jewish audiences, he comes across as a liberal rabbi. He presents Jewish values as synonymous with progressive politics and draws heavily upon American Jewish history, name-dropping noted civil rights rabbinic activists like Abraham Joshua Heschel and Joachim Prinz. The American story, he seems to say, is the Jewish story—an ever-advancing universalistic ethic.

Booker, on the other hand, though committed to similarly liberal ends, presents more like his Orthodox mentors. He leans on traditional texts, from the weekly Torah portion to the Pirkei Avot, and is more likely to reference Hillel than Heschel. He keeps a stack of religious books on his desk, including an Artscroll Tanakh—the imprint of Orthodoxy’s most prolific publisher. When speaking Hebrew, his pronunciation sometimes slips into Ashkenazic, rather than the Sephardic-inflected tones of Modern Hebrew favored by non-Orthodox Jewry. And like his Chabad companions, Booker does not conflate Judaism with one particular political platform but rather plays up its spiritual uniqueness.

It would be tempting to dismiss these affectations as accidents of proximity, the incidental result of Obama and Booker being introduced to Judaism by different teachers. But they are not. They reflect deep-rooted divergences in both men’s political outlooks. …

Barack Obama has built his political career on downplaying difference. …

But where Obama conflates, Booker differentiates. He celebrates the sharp edges of identity that Obama works to soften—even when they are in tension with his own ideals. … He respects the dignity of difference, and the integrity of identity, which endears him even to those—like many in the Orthodox community—who do not share his progressive political views.

Yair Rosenberg, “New Jersey Senate Candidate Cory Booker Knows His Torah. So What?”  Tablet (12 August 2013) {http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/140767/cory-bookers-jewish-story?all=1}

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The challenges to Orthodoxy are how to deal with its burgeoning numbers

While the other movements are engaged in soul-searching on how to deal with dwindling and aging membership in synagogues, the challenges to Orthodoxy are how to deal with its burgeoning numbers: how to cost-effectively educate the hordes of children the Orthodox are having, how to expand ever-growing synagogues, and where to establish new communities where housing costs—for large homes—are low. But from college campuses, to urban communities of singles and young couples, to suburban communities with families and empty nesters—the numbers all show that Orthodoxy is an attractive type of Judaism, one that is easily replacing any fall-off, and is actually expanding through a relatively high birthrate and an expanding professional outreach movement.
It would stand to reason that Orthodoxy’s greatest challenge—in America, Israel, and around the world—would be having too much self-confidence and sense of triumphalism.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, “Challenges and Opportunities for a Robust Orthodox Judaism”, Conversations Issue 17 (Autumn 2013/5774), 51.

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Force-backed humanitarianism may have been a more feasible project in the bipolar era of the Cold War

Force-backed humanitarianism, which relies on rational influence over events in other countries, may have been a more feasible project in the bipolar era of the Cold War, with its relatively defined and stable web of alliances and proxies. Today, a multitude of newly empowered actors make a series of choices – the Muslim Brotherhood President appeasing the military, say, or liberal Egyptians backing a coup – that have wholly unpredictable consequences.

Pankaj Mishra, “Unholy Alliances”, The New Yorker (23 September 2013), 114.

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A possibility of Open Orthodoxy’s niche

It may be that Open Orthodoxy’s niche, and the important role of the hundreds of future ordainees of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, the Modern and Open Orthodox yeshiva in Riverdale, New York, will be not only to open the tents of Orthodoxy to anyone interested—and in a sense of mutuality, learning from each other—but to go beyond welcoming to actually making the journey to where our fellow Jews are. Both Hareidi and Chabad outreach welcome all Jews to come to Orthodox homes, Orthodox Shabbat tables and Orthodox places of prayer—and that is admirable connecting. A confident, self-assured Orthodox community will be able to go even further and connect with students, young adults and families where they are. This means learning together with Reform, Reconstructionist, and renewal teachers and students; it means being willing to be on panels even with other rabbis or leaders who will be saying things that are not consistent with Orthodoxy; it means being willing to have Orthodox students spend time with non-Orthodox students, and then Orthodox families find ways of going to the non-Orthodox homes for Shabbat. All without compromising the beliefs or the practices of Orthodoxy!

Rabbi Asher Lopatin, “Challenges and Opportunities for a Robust Orthodox Judaism”, Conversations, Issue 17 (Autumn 2013/5774), 57-58.

Just like the Internet, cognitive entanglement is the rule of life, as does cognitive exasperation

Cognitive entanglement, after all, is the rule of life. My memories and my wife’s intermingle. When I can’t recall a name or a date, I don’t look it up; I just ask her. Our machines, in this way, become our substitute spouses and plug-in companions. Jerry Seinfeld said that the public library was everyone’s pathetic friend, giving up its books at a casual request and asking you only to please return them in a month or so. Google is really the world’s Thurber wife: smiling patiently and smugly as she explains what the difference is between eulogy and elegy and what the best route is to that little diner outside Hackensack. The new age is one in which we have a know-it-all spouse at our fingertips.

But, if cognitive entanglement exists, so does cognitive exasperation. Husbands and wives deny each other’s memories as much as they depend on them. That’s fine until it really counts (say, in divorce court). In a practical, immediate way, one sees the limits of the so-called “extended mind” clearly in the mob-made Wikipedia, the perfect product of that new vast, supersized cognition: when there’s easy agreement, it’s fine, and when there’s widespread disagreement on values or facts, as with, say, the origins of capitalism, it’s fine, too; you get both sides. The trouble comes when one side is right and the other side is wrong and doesn’t know it. The Shakespeare authorship page and the Shroud of Turin page are scenes of constant conflict and are packed with unreliable information. Creationists crowd cyberspace every bit as effectively as evolutionists, and extend their minds just as fully. Our trouble is not the over-all absence of smartness but the intractable power of pure stupidity, and no machine, or mind, seems extended enough to cure that.

Adam Gopnik, “The Information”, The New Yorker (14 & 21 February 2011), 126.

Rava had difficulties dealing with Jews in his city, but was able to navigate issues

While relations with the government and non-Jews were full of potential dangers and pitfalls, Rava’s need to deal with dissidents in his own community was no less delicate and complicated. As the Maharsha recognized, Rava’s community also contained people who were skeptical of the authenticity of Torah she-be’al Peh and of rabbinic authority (amei ha-aretz; see Maharsha on Mak 22b s.v. kammah tipsha’ei, where he points to Sanh 99b-100a), and Rava had to deal with such people as well. As the Gemara testifies, he kept them in the community by responding to their arguments when necessary, but also by employing a certain ironic humor at times (Sanh 99b-100a), and veiled threats at other times (Shab 133b). It would seem that Rava succeeded, at least in his own lifetime, but it may be significant that none of his talmidim stayed in Mahoza after his petirah; R. Nahman b. Yitzhak reestablished Pumbedita as a place of learning, R. Papa moved to Naresh, and Ravina apparently went to Mata Mahasiya, a suburb of Sura. It may be that none of them felt able to take up the challenge of dealing with Mahoza’s Jewish community, or as one of Hakirah’s editors suggests, they felt unable to deal with the royal court  across the river – or both.

Yaakov Elman, “Rava as Mara de-Atra in Mahoza”, Hakirah 11 (Spring 2011), 68.

Rava was able to expound mi’utim and some of the other middot…

We do not find an Amora in all of the Bavli expounding a vav after the time of Rav and Shmuel, who, as members of the transition generation between the tannaitic era and that of the Amoraim, were in a special category (Rav Tanna hu’ u-palig, Ket 8a, Git 38b, BB 42a, Sanh 83b). The system of midrash halakhah was already closing down, though we find that Rava could still expound mi’utim and make use of some other middot.

Yaakov Elman, “Rava as Mara de-Atra in Mahoza”, Hakirah 11 (Spring 2011), 78.