5/25/10
Why I Am so Smart
I feel that when my friends or my girlfriend and I enter a restaurant or a bar or whatever, I feel that we are so smart and witty and cultured and learned, that we raise the average level of discourse in that specific location. See: "Levitation" by Cynthia Ozick.
5/22/10
Jews for Jesus founder is dead
Judaism teaches that no matter one's beliefs, if they are a good person they go to heaven. There is no need, then, to pervert a tradition in order to synchronize it with your own selfish beliefs.
Being a Jew for Jesus simply makes no sense in either tradition: it ignores Judaism's obligations for the Messiah, and ignores Jesus' stance that rabbinical tradition no longer holds value (I think that's what he said--which is also offensive in itself). Will Moishe Rosen go to heaven? I don't know, but touting One True Path to the afterlife isn't an auspicious beginning; he's an offensive moron.
Being a Jew for Jesus simply makes no sense in either tradition: it ignores Judaism's obligations for the Messiah, and ignores Jesus' stance that rabbinical tradition no longer holds value (I think that's what he said--which is also offensive in itself). Will Moishe Rosen go to heaven? I don't know, but touting One True Path to the afterlife isn't an auspicious beginning; he's an offensive moron.
5/17/10
Shavuot is Coming
Shavuot marks the giving of the Torah to the Jews at mt. Sinai. It is a very under appreciated holiday, despite the fact that without the Torah, there would not be Judaism.
But there is a corollary to receiving the Torah: giving it back to God in the form of the Oral Torah, that is, what we humans have divined from His word, what we have learned. This is what truly demarcates us as human beings living rightfully in this world--the ability to think critically and understand stuff around us, and to give back.
I am about to graduate college, and will be presented with a flimsy piece of paper that supposedly shows the world all the hard work I've done. This is not the case. My work was a thing in itself, that found justification in itself in being work. There was no means, only an end. I do not mean to cast parallel aspersions on the Torah, and say that books like the Talmud are more important than their origination.
I think Saul Bellow is a prime example of this 'giving back,' and I'm thinking mostly of his künstlerromane, his 'high art' novels: things like Sammler, Humboldt, and Herzog. These are, appropriately or not, his Jewish books. A strange parallel happens in reading Bellow: we see that his characters, who are often authors themselves, ensconce themselves within a very literary world, and make numerous references and allusions. These men (yeah, never women! jerk) tap into the literary stratosphere/higher unconscious, then present it back to itself with their own work. It's very TS Eliot.
Then the reader comes along, and continues the pattern by reading a text about texts, and finding meaning (or trying to).
But there is a corollary to receiving the Torah: giving it back to God in the form of the Oral Torah, that is, what we humans have divined from His word, what we have learned. This is what truly demarcates us as human beings living rightfully in this world--the ability to think critically and understand stuff around us, and to give back.
I am about to graduate college, and will be presented with a flimsy piece of paper that supposedly shows the world all the hard work I've done. This is not the case. My work was a thing in itself, that found justification in itself in being work. There was no means, only an end. I do not mean to cast parallel aspersions on the Torah, and say that books like the Talmud are more important than their origination.
I think Saul Bellow is a prime example of this 'giving back,' and I'm thinking mostly of his künstlerromane, his 'high art' novels: things like Sammler, Humboldt, and Herzog. These are, appropriately or not, his Jewish books. A strange parallel happens in reading Bellow: we see that his characters, who are often authors themselves, ensconce themselves within a very literary world, and make numerous references and allusions. These men (yeah, never women! jerk) tap into the literary stratosphere/higher unconscious, then present it back to itself with their own work. It's very TS Eliot.
Then the reader comes along, and continues the pattern by reading a text about texts, and finding meaning (or trying to).
5/1/10
"The Greats"
Your greats are not my greats: you read Tolstoy, Goethe, Shakespeare--I read Rashi, Aleichem, the Roths.
4/26/10
Contiuum of Art and Life
The Jewish, Russian language Soviets and their Yiddish counterparts are inextricably linked. Brodsky's mourning of Mandelstam is akin to Ozick's of Glatstein - this last man is, of course, a spectre of Ozick's time - not quite dead, not quite alive.
4/21/10
Some more Jewish things in New York
I will remember the surprise and pleasure on the Hasid's face when I wished him 'gut Shabbes' in the WASPy business tower.
I will remember Williamsburg-Jerusalem and the deserted Shabbes streets and the small Jews with huge peyes.
The Hasid on the train who wished me a good morning; all the yehudim lov'shim kippot
I will remember Williamsburg-Jerusalem and the deserted Shabbes streets and the small Jews with huge peyes.
The Hasid on the train who wished me a good morning; all the yehudim lov'shim kippot
2/12/10
Babel and Shapiro
An interesting comparison, relating Russian Jews, gentiles, and war time. So basically: chaos and anti-Semitism. Both men write haunting stories. Not for kids.
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