PANDEMIC DIARY

THE CURSE OF PRIVILEGE
July 1, 2022

Privilege is defined as “a right, immunity, or benefit enjoyed by a particular person or a restricted group of people beyond the advantages of most”. It is a word that has come into full use of late with greater frequency. I would like to examine what privilege infers socially, how the concept of privilege is being twisted, how this usurpation is linked to religious beliefs, and how religion and politics are coupled.

The derivation of the word privilege is anglo-norman from the middle ages. The middle ages (476-1520) expresses a period ranging from Constantine to Leo X who reigned during The Protestant Reformation and the era of Martin Luther. Leo was a spendthrift and nearly bankrupt the church. His answer: to bestow favors on well positioned donors. These ‘blessings’ were able to restore church coffers to the benefit of the wealthy by increasing their influence. An Ecclesiastic quid pro quo. If ‘privilege’ derives from the middle ages, the word ‘blessing’ is earlier from the Old English, Latin and Greek and contained within the earliest scriptures. Originally, its sense was ‘to speak well of, to praise’. In Hebrew, blessing brk, is “to bend (the knee), worship, praise. A semantic change took place over time and blessing became reference to a special ritual act - ‘to sacrifice’; worship; bless - and, finally, “pronounce or make happy, prosperous, or fortunate”. Now it was an act to “invoke or pronounce God’s blessing upon”.

EVERY BLESSING IS A PRIVILEGE. Blessing is “a special favor, mercy or benefit”. In religious terms, these are “acts bestowed by God in the form of favors or gifts” (thereby bringing happiness) . Blessings, privilege, favor, and benefit are inextricably entwined. Blessings are like human dog treats. “Sit”, says the owner of Pooch…and Pooch sits. What follows is the benefit: a morsel, a reward, an acknowledgement of a task well done. After the heavy panting is done, the dog habitually seeks more of what brought him happiness. The reward is intended to elicit a preferred behavior that otherwise would not be repeated or generalized. If you want the dog to lie down or turn around, you must start from the very beginning.

In every day parlance, God is the source of all good gifts, of all blessings. The Bible reminds us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change” (James 1:17). God is the owner; we are the Pooch. God doles out blessings in order that ‘his children’ shall repeat acts of faith, generosity, healing, etc., God wishes his/her spiritual gifts manifest in us, in this body, in this form, in this life. Therefore, the function of blessings as recipients is to acknowledge God as the source of all blessing. Your gain is not only of profit to you personally, it is also a gain for he/she that bestows the gift. How so? “A person who speaks for God or a deity, or by divine inspiration” is a ‘profit’. God benefits as those who receive the blessings speak the word of the Lord. In fact, the first blessing from God to man appears in the first chapter of Genesis (1:28): “God blessed them and God said to them, “Be fertile and increase, fill the earth and master it.”

Here is where this all goes terribly wrong. God is conveying to us we are special - to multiply, to spread and occupy the Earth, to “subdue” and “master it”. This directive is in violation to Nature itself. It infers being of an ‘exceptional’ nature. It suggests that humans possess a unique and superior place and role on this planet. God wishes for us to be preeminent rulers of the Earth. Of course, this is disputable since it is not stated specifically as such but is an unfortunately unavoidable inference. The word ‘master’ has the regrettable presumption of being overlords. There are those who would wish supremacy, as in an owner of a plantation and slave holder. Mastery is not earned from practice, learning, or earning rather is an ENTITLEMENT. That is what we are witnessing today, that humans are the recipients of an advantage. That advantage is a superiority that makes us ascendant over someone or some thing - all advantage provides one with the “state, circumstance, opportunity, or means specially favorable to success, interest, or any desired end”.

“White Privilege” is a battle being fought on many fronts and is the prime example of the danger within this message. The simple fact is that privilege can become so ingrained, that one fails to see the privilege for what it is worth in the first instance. Privilege can easily decline into a sense of entitlement. If I deserve what I have, there is not guilt, no responsibility, no chance involved. I am special. For those who use religion as a scapegoat, God becomes the proof which confirms the individual as being deserving, “God chose me (us), so he must have intended for me (us) to have these favors and advantages”. In other words, there was nothing random about it. We got it, because we are special and entitled. This is the current state of the religious extremists and conservative right in this country. The sense of entitlement, laying claim or having inherent rights that others do not have, is justified by the very fact that ‘we have it and you don’t’.

Furthermore, the faithful’s zealotry is far greater than the general population since their interpretation leads the fanatic to believe this is God’s inheritance. That representing God in this way is ‘good’. It is God’s work. This is God’s directive to adherents. There is nothing that can convince them otherwise. This commandment makes warriors of a segment of the population that has pitted them against the rest of us, a battle between their perceived good against evil.

Religion is politics now more than ever before. A recent Supreme Court ruling has allowed a coach to have his team kneel at the end of a game and pray in the middle of a stadium. It has allowed certain religious thought to be taught in schools and is allowing other subjects to be restricted that are in conflict with certain people’s religious beliefs. This movement is dangerous and toxic. We must guard against this because it is leading to the institutionalizing of religion in our everyday lives. Worse, this license has given permission to hate speech, bias, prejudice that is condoned under the guise of religion.

From marriage equality, to gun control, to immigration reform and the threat of war, religion
plays a fascinating and crucial part in our nation's political process and in our culture On a Florida State road, Rte. 207, hangs a banner that proclaims. “Work Hard, Trust in God, Vote Republican”. At a conference where this was noted, a Chinese student responded by declaring, “All this superstition can’t be a good thing for American life”. I agree.

PANDEMIC DIARY

MYTH IS ALL THERE IS
(dedicated to my friend in Montana)
JUNE 7, 2022

We are approaching an anniversary. The anniversary date is June 21, 1988, and since June 21 is the day Adele and I leave for Martha’s Vineyard and The Berkshires I thought it important to commemorate the the momentous meeting and discussion between Bill Moyers and Joseph Campbell - Bill Moyers having been the highly regarded and trusted news anchor and current events reporter for the Public Broadcasting System; and Joseph Campbell, the prolific author and expert in comparative mythology and mythology’s ongoing role in human cultures and societies.

Bill Moyers (left); Joseph Campbell (right)

Loosely speaking, myths are allegorical narratives. Beyond that simple definition things can get fairly hairy because there are different categories and types of myths - fables, fairy tales, folk tales, and legends. The myths I am referring to today are more in the category of epic myths or parables that appear throughout history, have a universality in that the fundamental story-line is repeated amongst varying cultures and possess relatively coincidental timelines. The similarities suggest preexistence, as if the stories are inherent in our brain stems, for so long in our history have myths been related and retold. Maybe, aside from what we know of human consciousness, there is something to the notion of a cosmic consciousness. (I am not prepared to get into Quantum theory just yet)

Campbell defines mythology in “The Power of Myth”, the companion book to the interview and television series as “the provision of a cultural framework for a society or people to educate their young, and to provide them with a means of coping with their passage through the different stages of life from birth to death.” This definition, to my thinking, is highly esoteric in nature and does not address the origins and functions of myths. It deals with the more ‘cosmic’ nature of myth and not the practical. I sense that at their most basic level, myths answer a need. “The need exists before the myth, which arises to fulfill the need.” (Robert A. Segal - Sixth Century Chair in Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen) Hegel suggests that myth is appropriate only for the “childhood in mankind” and when reason has grown up and matured, they become obsolete. If that is so, given myths have persisted for thousands of years, is mankind still in its infancy, childhood, teens? Have the needs that fostered the creation of the myths not been met? Do we need so deeply and beyond any power of myths’ ability to satisfy our cravings? Or, do we simply find the need addictive and would rather look to the future with wistful hope than face our demons and grow out of the need.

A mythology is inevitably bound to the society and time in which it occurs and cannot be divorced from this culture and environment. By this measure, contemporary society has failed to pay attention to the great myths of yore - the Hero Myth; the Journey Myth; the Myth of Reconciliation. Campbell in dealing with the universality and evolution of myths in the history of the human race and the place of myths in modern society suggests “that modern society is going through a transition from the old mythologies and traditions to a new way of thinking where a global mythology will [eventually] (my addition) emerge.”

This may be true, however, what immediately grabs my attention is the importance of keeping level-headed regarding the passage of time. It has taken tens of thousands of years and throughout the history of upright beings that walked the Earth, and before language, that there exists evidence of the presence of myths, no matter which era, which region of the globe, which culture or which society. These stories are regenerative, handed down from generation to generation, and form the practices, observations and rituals that still go on today. At the core of these stories are the recurrence of certain themes that portray universal and eternal truths.

Can it all be an illusion? Human existence is a struggle. God told us from the time of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden (myth) that humankind will pay a high price for consciousness, that is awareness of one’s own presence as distinct from other things in the universe. At that moment, humans acquired an internal existence…self-reflection. And, that internal awareness separated mankind and womankind from the rest of the natural world. That phenomena of consciousness was ‘selected’ for survival, as Darwin along with Materialists, would point out. But, all consciousness, as we know it, is allegory, metaphor, a representation of a reality, not the thing itself. And, that’s where language comes in to play. “Speech is more plastic than wax and other such media” (Plato’s Republic IX, 588 D) We spend a lifetime in our brains ‘describing’ experience, ex post facto, translating into words the lived experience.

If “function is the flip side of origin”, as Segal indicates, “the need that causes myth to arise is the need that keeps it going. Myth functions as long as both the need continues to exist and myth continues to fulfill it at least as well as any competitor. The need for myth is always a need so basic that it itself never ceases.” Included in those needs are basic needs such as the need to eat, and no less basic to the conscious mind the need to understand and explain the world we live in, to express one’s unconscious in the material world, and, to provide meaningfulness to life.

These latter needs are panhuman or apply and affect all humanity. It is these needs from which religion arises. However, unlike food which physically and literally can satisfy a need and thusly eliminate the need for myth, religion’s whole raison d’etre is to accomplish the impossible. That is, fulfill a human need with myth or an insubstantial attempt at a satisfying answer. For many throughout the world the gathering of like-minded individuals provides a level of confirmation of truth. Yet, while the myth has been historically powerful and unifying, it remains inadequate to satisfy the need. In other words, the need from which the myth arises is the need that keeps it going, like the ‘Duracell’ battery.

Will the need for myth be with us always? Here is a poem I wrote a paper on in college that (by the way) go me an “A”. It is by Stephen Crane, author of The Red Badge of Courage. It will not go down in the pantheon of great poems but is marvelously applicable here.

A Man Saw a Ball of Gold in the Sky
Stephen Crane

A man saw a ball of gold in the sky;
He climbed for it,
And eventually he achieved it --
It was clay.

Now this is the strange part:
When the man went to the earth
And looked again,
Lo, there was the ball of gold.
Now this is the strange part:
It was a ball of gold.
Aye, by the heavens, it was a ball of gold.

The need for myth seem basic to human life’s attributes - striving, ambition, pursuing, inquiring, seeking - while the answers do not always appear evident. However, even consensus reality may not satisfy a particular human need. In the poem, the answer is obvious - a ball of gold - right there in the sky. That should satisfy and quell a need. But, all is not as it seems. For all the effort to achieve the intended goal and satisfaction, nay, it was a deception. Or, was it? Was it, indeed, a ball of gold, and we, the seeker, could not appreciate it? Was it devalued the moment it was held/owned? Was it worth all the trouble in the first place? Yet, there the answer remains, oh so near.

As long as the need does not cease, myth itself will never cease. One has to ask, is what we are witnessing today in the world the expression of a need without a myth capable of any satisfying answer? Is that the origin of upheaval, revolution, terrorism, even international crime? Will science, which itself can be likened to modern-day religion, supplant myth? Is the concept of myth already obsolete in this modern society?

Myth has been a reliable resource for mankind and should not be dismissed “as mere myth” as Segal states. If you read myth literally and in an historic context, it may provide meaningful insights into human desires and even provide insight into a course of action. Myths can certainly have a hold on large portions of the population worldwide…and do. The problem is that once a myth takes hold and there exists consensus agreement, true or otherwise, the story holds strong for those who accept it; they are not willing to let the myth go. The resistance to giving up or the absence of persuading one to give up a myth is a clear testament to its power. Richard Dawkins, famed atheist, renowned scholar, author, Biblical scholar tells us, “Religion is about turning untested belief into unshakable truth through the power of institutions and the passage of time”, but insists “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”

Is that the bottom line of existence? Is Dawkins suggesting we should give up the ghost. Absolutely not. I believe he is saying that we are making a mess of things. Our inability to fess up to the truth about life and death keeps us attached to myth, illusion, false gods, and hope. These dependencies shift our reliance from the love and trust in one another to the unattainable ‘pedastelized’ virtues of a Christ and Brigadoon-like places akin to heaven, which is like moving the goal-posts to another city from where the game is being played.

Will humankind be able to break away from our own actions and their creations cannot supersede the needs and beliefs we impose upon ourselves. Our lives mirror our beliefs, projections and structures we create. Maybe it is time to look at our creation and write new myths? Maybe we need to examine our needs and determine what among them is vital and necessary, not merely desired as ‘pipe-dreams’? Until we satisfy our human needs, anticipate more myths, stories and conspiracy theories to fill the void.

Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish. Richard Dawkins

Religion institutionalizes mythology. Religion is the intentional manipulation of myths to control populations.
David Roth

PANDEMIC DIARY

Part 2 : “THE PROMISE” : MINUTIAE

September 8, 2020

[Sorry, I failed to make my deadline by a mile. Here is Part 2 which took me considerably longer to organize and write. Simply too much going on in my head]

Several days ago, I wrote about a segment of the book, “The Promise” by Chaim Potok, in which a elderly and admired Talmudic scholar attempts to ply his stature and influence on a young student, his father, and his community, by demanding adherence to a strict interpretation of ancient texts. This is not new to us. We see this battle going on today, as an example, in our U.S. Supreme Court, where ardent, so-called ‘Constitutionalists’ (whatever the hell that is) claim constancy and faithfulness to an ‘original’ document written over 250 years ago. It is here where I would like to start today.

“It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life… It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, until they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will.”
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America

Rav Kalman poured over texts for the whole of his life believing there is no higher calling than the study of Torah. Studying! Not living Torah. To be fair, I don’t know how many Rebbe ‘live’’ their Torah. What I do know is that a life of parsing words, seeking historical contexts, desiring to discover the ‘true meaning’ of a phrase within the true meaning of the phrase, is like a man with a hand on his genitalia, it feels good in the moment but doesn’t end in relationship.

We are, and approvingly so, being deluged with minutiae, all in the name of ‘information’. Information was going to save us. It was to provide truth, immediacy, and relevance. The internet was to be an ‘information highway”. Except, as is often the case with innovation, the change came too quickly and we didn’t anticipate the highway crashing at the intersections. A pile up of data and noise. A cacophony of pointless drivel and nonsense combined with hateful rants and, of course, pornography which established the internet in the first instance. And, yes, as a concession to you admirers, the internet allows you to buy 13 pairs of shoes, try them on, select the one pair you most like, and ship the rest back. Convenience - a word I am beginning to hate. Convenience at what price?

We have been acculturated to the marketing and advertising industries like an addict who is weaned on small doses of opioids, at first for the legitimate use of pain reduction, only to have its power and allure enslave us. You cannot go to a website without a “pop-up” ad, banner ad, video ad or some other ‘hook’ on the page that forces you to step over or otherwise avoid its imposition. Worse, they are targeting you and your behavior, so if by chance you purchase an anal thermometer, you will receive persistent offers for the latest in anal thermometers for the next 6 months.

There's a saying in Artificial Intelligence that: “most of the time, intelligent agents do what they do most of the time”. That is to say, we only tend to do--and be good at--those things that we systematically practice throughout our lives. I would contend that humans have a powerful tendency toward ‘doing’ minutiae. Furthermore, minutiae has developed into the world’s main industry. That is, aside from armaments, oil, drug trafficking and human trafficking.

Minutiae is always distraction. It is, by definition, the opposite of “the big picture”. It is readily available but removes us from seeing what is important and of value to our society. The sheen of your lip gloss or the kick from a super-caffeinated drink bestow absolutely no insight to race, poverty or war. Its as if the scales have tipped in favor of nonsense having rejected reality. Or, our government has so effectively disregarded the needs of its people and their prevailing suffering that avoidance, denial, and obfuscation allows a population to absolve themselves of any responsibility to act on their own behalf. Minutiae is money. Minutiae is propaganda. Minutiae is a politicians’ “three-card-Monty” scheme. Minutiae is religion’s intermittent reinforcement.

[Caveat: I am not referring to minutiae such as details in scientific research; not to NASA as it seeks to coordinate and execute a precise and safe mission; not to an Olympic competitor whose every performance aspect is viewed by international judges seeking perfection. None of these are picayune. These pursuits are not trivial or trifling. The are exacting efforts demanding diligence, practice, commitment, and dedication to a goal. The big picture.]

Turn on the television any Sunday morning and you will witness the ultimate “sales job” and scam in America. It is the world of “preachers” who, like archeologists, each week dive into the depths of Bible verses with holy hammers, dusting brushes and tweezers plucking fine hair-line distinctions from Biblical verses to find a nugget of a word or verse that they can turn into a fable filled with analogy and philosophy able to turn even the less ardent into blathering ‘salvationists’. And one fellowship member touches another and exaltation spreads virally until a hall of thousands are diving into these dangerous caves of darkness with Bible in hand and a pencil for notations in the margins of the ‘good book’ in the other hand to be saved by the light of the ministering.

“Death looms large for those who seek solace in ‘the word’”.
David Roth

“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, its thinking of yourself less.”
C.S. Lewis

Ah, to be saved! “‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wish’d.” The Sunday missionary or cleric has much in common with Rabbi Kalman. It looks different because of the outer garbs. It sounds different because of the distance between Birmingham, Alabama and the shtetl’s of Eastern Europe, the drawl and cadence of the South and the ‘sing-songy’ complaint of the pogroms. But, it is the same. It is the same as Trump filling the airwaves with drivel. Our news is like pellets you buy at the zoo, feeding a starving animal just enough so it keeps on returning for more. This intermittent reinforcement produces the most powerful, habit forming behavior. Just ask the casino owners in Las Vegas, or watch the widow/er sitting at a slot machine pulling that one-arm bandit like a frenzied morphine addict.

“It is a truism that almost any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.”
Robert A Heinlein

I found the following analysis of minutiae and the techniques of distraction on the website www.philosophyinaction.com. These are also the tools of authoritarian leaders and Fascists.
See if you can relate these to our current circumstance.

Fallacies of Distraction

...related to personalities

• ad hominem: rejecting or dismissing another person's statement by attacking the person rather than by disproving the statement.

• creating misgivings: stirring up suspicions about a long-forgotten (and possibly completely unsubstantiated) charge against one's interlocutor.

• tu quoque: trying to dismiss or downplay an accusation by demonstrating that the accuser himself is guilty of misconduct.

• poisoning the well: (damning the origin) arguing against an idea by showing that one's interlocutor has a non-rational motive for holding the idea.

• forestalling disagreement: attempting to make an opponent or audience unwilling to debate an issue.

• argument from intimidation: asserting that believing or arguing for a certain idea indicates immorality, in an attempt to intimidate a person into renouncing the idea without discussion.

• self-righteousness: confusing good intentions with actual good or truth.

• special pleading: refusing to apply the same principles to oneself that one applies to others.

• presenting the "good" reason: selecting, as the explanation for one's actions or ideas, a credible fact when other explanations could be had.

Here are the ways minutiae distract and deceive:

• oversimplification: reducing a complex situation to a simple, inaccurate statement.

• many questions: (plurium interrogation) posing a complex question and demanding a simple answer.

• vague similarities: asserting that two situations or ‘existents’ are similar without specifying the properties they share.

• diversion: attempting to support one proposition by arguing for a different one entirely.

• strawman: attempting to refute one's opponent's proposition by attacking misrepresentation of the his/her position.

• wicked alternative: attempting to support one proposition by denouncing another, when the second is not the opposite of the first.

• false dilemma: representing a situation as having only undesirable alternatives when the facts do not support such a judgment.

• all-or-nothing mistake: presenting a naked dichotomy when such an evaluation is unwarranted.

• slippery slope: arguing that if one event were to occur, other harmful events would result without showing how the events are linked.

• impossible conditions: contending that mankind should be changed or even perfected before any remedy for a problem should be considered.

• nothing but objections: continually objecting to any plan proposed to assure that nothing is done.

...related to minutiae

• wishful thinking: constructing false expectations though ignoring unpleasant facts.

• lip service: verbal agreement unsupported in action or true conviction.

• prejudicial fallacies: representing whatever position coincides with whatever prejudices the speaker perceives in the audience.

• red herring: diverting the attention of the audience from the discussion of the real issues to irrelevancies.

• pomp and circumstance: permitting the setting in which the argument takes place to affect the attention paid to the argument.

• humor and ridicule: using inappropriate humor to deflect attention away from the discussion.

I wish you all a week of continued health, peace of heart, joy with your children and loved ones and an abundance of charity. Be well.

Part 3: “THE PROMISE” : Cultism

PANDEMIC DIARY

Part 1 : “THE PROMISE”

September 7, 2020

I have just completed reading, for the second time, the novel by Chaim Potok, “The Promise”. Originally published in 1969, it is the second of two novels following the lives of friends, Reuven and Danny, religious Jews growing up in an orthodox Brooklyn community. They are both the children of Jewish scholars. Danny, belonging to the more traditional, ultra-religious Hasidic household, chooses to become a psychologist, breaking with the strict fundamentalism of his Hasidic community and its laws. Reuven, a brilliant student of Talmud, chooses to study for the rabbinic, oddly electing a more traditional path given his more liberal, contemporary orthodox upbringing.

From the earliest of school ages, these sects of Jews study Talmud. The Talmud is the comprehensive written version of the Jewish oral law and the subsequent commentaries on it written in two parts ... The Mishnah is the original written version of the oral law and the Gemora is the record of the rabbinic analysis and discussions over the Mishnah, known as the Commentaries. Exegetic in nature, these annotations, historically written on the margins of the page on which the Mishnah or law appears [like a university student might do], attempt to elucidate or provide further dimension to the complexities and sometimes seeming contradictions of the law. Oftentimes, they merely produce further discussion in the form of debates around a single phrase or even a single word’s meaning. These “discussions” can be sufficiently animated as to cause rifts among the various sects.

A Page from Talmud showing the Mishnah [boxed in red], the oldest portion of Gemora below and the Commentaries encircling the center.

There is a beautiful segment in the book in which Reuven’s teacher, Rav Kalman, a great and revered Jewish scholar and Talmud expert, asks Reuven to help him understand a complex series of texts and commentaries on Jewish law. Reuven is asked because the segments of Mishna and their interpretations are from a newly published book written by Reuven’s father, Rabbi Malter. Rav Kalman is exhorting Reuven to explain to him his father’s method of arriving at his understandings of the law and subsequent commentaries.

Reuven obliges having assisted in the editing and proof-reading of his father’ book and himself becoming highly familiar with and proficient at the total body of research. At issue is Rav Kalman’s claim that the Mishnah is the word of God, and therefore cannot be changed. Reuven explains that the Mishnah was written about the 4th century, two centuries following the oral tradition. As well, the Greek philosophers who lived in the 2nd century BC are known to have highly influenced the writers of the original oral tradition. Passages were cited that effectively were literal translations from the Greek sources, including Aristotle and Plato. “The similarities between the Mishnah and these Greek sources are palpable…the Mishnah offers a reasonably accurate reflection of the Platonic or Aristotelian teaching, suggesting some kind of influence. [Greek Philosophy and the Mishnah: On the History of Love that Does Not Depend on a Thing. Gabriel Danzig]

In many instances the Mishnah passages are nearly literal translations from the Greek, originally transcribed in Aramaic then written in Hebrew where the letters are merely transliterated from the Greek. Of course this will cause confusion as to original meaning. But, let’s not distract ourselves with truth. Like many ‘originalists’ today, Rav Kalman would not be swayed. The Aramaic of our people is the true word.

“I will no longer mutilate and destroy myself in order to find a secret behind the ruins.”
Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

Rather, he instructed Reuven, “Do you know yourself? You must know yourself first.” This is the Conservative Rabbi telling his student that in order to receive his degree and final ordination as a Rabbi, he must demonstrate his adherence to ‘Yiddishkeit’ or the whole of the Jewish way of life. This not so veiled threat is a demand that Reuven, no matter his intelligence, his openness to deeper understanding of original texts, or regard for modernity, fully accept what is written and, worse than ignore, actually reject vociferously his new insights and their implications. He must become a ‘faithful’, an uncompromising disciple of what he knows not to be true.

So, why did I go to this length to relate a segment of this wonderful book? (And, if you are interested in reading this, please read “The Chosen” first.) This is an example, a meager, small-scale example of “cult of personality”. By dint of his credentials, by the impression of his knowledge, by the force of his arguments, and by the staunchness of his commitment, Rav Kalman has divided his community into those who affirm or, at least and cowardly, accede to his positions and are therefore disciples and true to the word of god; or, you are intellectual dilettantes who feels at any time can interpret the writing of ancient books and scribes to your liking and to fit into an altering modernity.

This is not so described in the book as I am now interpreting it, written those many years ago. Nonetheless, from the inception of religious thought, among the obedient of all faiths the world over, it is our differences that are the hallmark of our lives and not our shared experiences and commonalities; not our love of country and commitment to a way of life; not shared human rights and the dignity belonging to us all. Oh yes, Jewish and Christian (and all other) scriptures advance a ‘lip-service’-style unity of humankind message while really envisioning a world in their “fold” — ardent followers who live a committed life of conviction to their truth, their belief…and no other.

Part 2 : “THE PROMISE” - I sincerely hope to get that out for publication tomorrow.