Atheism

Christopher Hitchens' Great-Grandfather Debated Atheists

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The best facts are often the least known. Here is an example: Most are unaware that the late and renowned atheist Christopher Hitchens had a great-grandfather who defended religion! Revd Edward Athanasius Hitchens (1839-1906) was curate of St. Guinefort the Holy Martyr, an Anglican parish in Gloucester, England. He was also an active participant in debates on religion as publisher and editor of the Anglo-Catholic newspaper The Invincible Aspergilium.

Judaism

Torah Commentary Perashat Tzav- Burning Desires

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I. Prelude, regarding speech and sacrifice:
This week we will discuss sacrifice, failure and speech. We’ll precede the longer theme with a short teaching that seems to forwshadow the Freudian slip (parapraxes). We will then present an unusual approach to the central Jewish concept of Teshuva, of rapprochement, particularly surprising given the rather ritual text sounding from which it is derived. Our starting text, Leviticus 7:12, (following the interpretation of Rashi), describes the ritual procedure for the shelamim sacrifice, a peace offering, brought in a spirit of thanksgiving, for an arduous journey or a difficult cure after illness.

Culture

Some Thoughts on Good and Evil

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Seriously, don’t you wonder if anything can be written about this topic that hasn’t already been said many times over? I did, too, until I encountered Nonviolent Communication while I was in graduate school pursuing a doctoral degree in sociology. I wasn’t studying good and evil, at least I didn’t think I was. I had no idea, at the time, that my interest in the relationship between reason and emotion was intertwined with the deepest and most perennial questions of human nature, hence with matters of good and evil which I had set aside for years. I never liked the Medieval belief that human beings are innately evil, bad, or sinful, because I intuitively couldn’t fathom why and how nature would give rise to sinful creatures.

Culture

Discovering New Frontiers on My Path

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Over the many months of writing this blog, I have alluded many times to having chosen vulnerability as a path of spiritual practice for myself, most recently when I wrote about the freedom of committing to a path. As I’ve been on this path for almost 16 years, I wasn’t expecting to be bumped back almost to the very beginning. This is precisely what happened to me over this past weekend as I was sorting out a painful reaction I had to something said about me. In the past few weeks, I was exposed to quite a number of statements about me that took some effort to digest. I am grateful to years of practice that enabled me to go beyond old habitual ways of taking things personally.

Judaism

Torah Commentary: Pershat Vayikra- Consumption and Commodification

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This week we begin reading the book of Vayikra, which is so different from Shemot that one almost feels a need to undergo an entire conceptual transformation. Now we shift from discussing themes of narrative and liberation, matters which speak to us directly, to dealing with concepts relating to “holiness”, a term which needs to be so radically redefined in our time that it almost has no meaning (a history of meanings of the term holiness in Jewish thought will be attempted for Perashat Kedoshim). My initial temptation was to play the phenomenologist, to compare our conceptions of sacrifice with those of other cultures, the use of language in Indian ritual, etc., but I was wary of the danger of explaining “away”, that is trying to give a good “excuse” for all this talk of korbanot, sacrifices. Rather than attempting to justify practices out of practice for two thousand years, and keeping in mind the suggestions of R. Kook that we may never sacrifice animals again, I was more challenged to try to find some readings that might make these texts meaningful to us, today, in our lifeworlds. So let us ask the central question of these questions, as does the Mei HaShiloach directly-
How can it be that if a person sins, he or she gets absolved from the sin by killing an animal?

Judaism

Torah Commentary Perashat Vayakhel-Pekudei (double reading, two essays)

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On Art, Technique and Critique:
This week’s perasha recounts the repeated (or continued) call to erect the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary built to house the ark and the sacred utensils, after the debacle of the golden calf episode. In previous weeks I have attempted to demonstrate that despite the grandeur and holiness of the endeavor, there within the edifice itself one can read a monument to the failure “built in” to the walls, so to speak. Holiness meant to be readily available and unmediated is now hidden behind walls, behind text, in every way distanced from totalizing accessability. This week, I would like to continue this approach by recognizing the same implicit distancing within the process itself of any artistic enterprise, the same dialectic of presencing and lack which typifies the aspect of technique in art. This week, we are once again introduced to Betzalel son of Uri son of Hur, the master craftsman who is to design the actual construction of the Mishkan.

art

Weekly Torah Commentary Perashat Ki Tissa: Overcoming Edifice

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Things have a past and a present, but only Gd is pure presence….    A.J. Heschel, God in Search of Man pp 142
I’m proud to share with you all what is likely the “trippiest” piece I’ve ever written. In weeks past, we have discussed the inherent failure of artistic endeavor as perceived by contemporary theorists and earlier Hassidic masters. Every building, beautiful or sacred as it may be, is on the one hand subject to critique as a result of its being a “finished product”, and on the other hand, no matter how beautiful the edifice, it is also from some perspective also a barrier, a set of boundaries, a marked off perimeter. We have seen that in the Hassidic masters this problematic arises with regard to the  texts surrounding the Mishkan, the Temple, and identifies the barriers as being erected due to sin, specifically that of the golden calf.

Culture

Rush Limbaugh, Verbal Abuse, and Objective Violence against Women

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When radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh called Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute” who ought to post sex videos on-line, he not only revealed his own crass, crude ignorance, but he committed acts of verbal abuse. His comments were a kind of violence against women. Violence is a violation. It is a hurtful demonstration of a basic lack of respect. Those of us who are concerned about intimate violence, violence in personal relationships, tell our sisters and brothers to walk away from a partner the moment they call you out of your name.

Christianity

Think the NYPD is infiltrating Pat Robertson’s church?

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Listening to this latest example of a prominent American evangelical Christian leader declaring a natural disaster a punishment from on high for America’s sins, I reflect on how selectively political red lines are applied post-9/11. As I wrote elsewhere a while back in connection with the destruction of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina, I don’t find this genre of dime-store theodicy credible – indeed, I have to admit that atheists often have a point when they complain about how religionists seem to only detect God’s hand in events that happen to conveniently reinforce their own worldview; is God not equally in charge when the “wicked” prosper on the other side of the globe, or even right next door? – but on the other hand I don’t find such sermonizing, simplistic though it may be, inherently threatening, provided it doesn’t cross the line into demonizing those with whose moral choices one disagrees with. For people who subscribe to traditional religious values, believe that God has expressed his preferences for our lives in no uncertain terms, and prefer their homilies to be tame and intellectually bite-sized, viewing history through such a black & white prism is near self-evident and perhaps even inevitable. I don’t think respectfully admitting to harboring such beliefs is–or should be viewed as – a political matter (not that this is all that Robertson has done historically).

Judaism

Torah Commentary-Purim: "Until One Doesn't Know the Difference between Cursed and Blessed"

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No image of torture? I want to proceed as Raphael did and never paint another image of torture. There are enough sublime things so that one does not have to look for the sublime where it dwells in sisterly association with cruelty; and my ambition also could never find satisfaction if I became a sublime assistant at torture…. Nietzsche
Purim is an unusual holiday in the Jewish calendar in that as opposed to the solemnity of most holidays, it is one which phenomenologically appears as one of unbridled levity. Children and adults dress in costumes, one is meant to drink until “Blessed be Mordechai” is confused with “Cursed be the evil Haman”, a large meal is held which frequently was accompanied by itinerant comic and satirical theater performances.