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| May 31, 2005 |
What would Jesus do?
 Jesus in America by Richard Wightman Fox, just released in paperback, is a comprehensive (almost 500 pages, yikes!) exploration of the vital role that the figure of Jesus has played throughout American history. Yeah, we know, he's not our savior, but this enjoyable book is a must-read for anyone looking to learn why there are so many damn Red States in this country.
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| May 27, 2005 |
Mystical madness
 There are two new books to add to the ever-growing Kabbalah cannon, hoping beyond hope to capitalize on Britney's and Madonna's mystical obsession.
The press release for the first, called Kabbalah for Teens by Louis Belmont, claims that "with decisions to make about everything from sex to drugs to education and a future career, young people can use all the help they can get -- and the study of Kabbalah can provide it."
The second book, called Keys to the Kingdom: Jesus and the Mystic Kabbalah by Migene Gonzalez-Wippler, asks the strange question: Was Jesus a master Kabbalist? The book, which claims to be a beginner's guide to something called "Christian Kabbalah," draws heavily from the gospels.
C'mon people, why are we letting all these people hijack our once- sacred mystical study?
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Sein of the times
 When you come across a book entitled Stories from a Moron: Real Stories Rejected by Real Magazines, confidence in the author's writing prowess does not necessarily exude from the book's 249 pages. After all, if a competent magazine editor nixed this guy's stories, why would we -- the unsuspecting public -- be interested? It's a fundamental question that plagues this new book. The author claims to be an idiot and, when you think about it, how long can you watch a car wreck and actually enjoy it?
The book's saving grace, however, comes from an intriguing rumor that Broth doesn't actually exist, but that it's a pen name for none other than comedian Jerry Seinfeld. Indeed, Seinfled wrote the book's foreword (but stops short of admitting it's his tome). The problem with this theory, unfortunately, is that the writing in the book is not up to par from what we're used to reading from Seinfeld. The book's one-note joke drags along amiably in no particular direction.
If you happen to be in a bookstore, feel free to flip through the book ... but there's no need to buy it.
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| May 19, 2005 |
Bye, bye bar mitzvah?
 As a convert, I never became a bar mitzvah; I became a Jew instead. Not that I couldn't learn a Torah portion and read it out before a congregation, even have a little party for myself afterwards. I simply don't feel a particular need to do either of those things, partly out of my own acute shyness and partly because I engage with my Judaism in very public ways elsewhere in the synagogue and in my daily life.
After all, I've made a career out of writing about Judaism and the Jewish people.
But the lack of such ceremony, with its pomp and its circumstance, remains. Inevitably, after asking why I converted people ask if I "had a bar mitzvah" and if I plan on having one. Prior to my conversion, I knew what a bar mitzvah was. Afterwards, I came to understand how central it is to the American Jewish lifecycle -- or people's perception of it at any rate.
All of which is why Mark Oppenheimer's Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America looked so interesting when it landed in my mailbox.
For more than personal reasons, I've found the centrality of bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies fascinating. In my own synagogue, every Saturday morning is packed with them. Much of the life of the congregation rotates around their weekly presence. I wonder if anybody would ever go to services if somebody's kid wasn't squeaking through a chant.
Yes I am as aware as anybody to the seemingly vacuous quality of the whole affair -- most of the time. These kids study, their are forced into a Hebrew school classroom on Sunday mornings, they learn what they need to in order to survive the affair, and then they get one monster of a party. Most of these kids promptly stop going to Hebrew school, and show up at shul in order to wander the hallways during High Holiday services. I know. I've taught 7th graders. You can time their dropout from Sunday mornings to their big Saturday celebration.
Oppenheimer offers a more hopeful picture, and the best quality of his book is the acceptance of this sad reality alongside an equally powerful exposure to the good side of the rite of passage. He forces us to see the myriad reasons for such ceremonies, the ways in which it can prompt real spiritual exploration, evoke genuine faith, and generally improve the Jewish connection of its subjects. In the end, he's saying essentially, "What's all this kvetching for? So the bar mitzvah isn't perfect, so what? It's got its good, and why do away with that?"
Take this excerpt: "Whatever gives the bar mitzvah its slightly malodorous whiff, whatever makes it an embarrassment, a problem, even for proud Jews, is not the straightforward reality, but reality refracted through our imagination, or our lack of it. So that we take true stories of gala parties and imagine that no spiritual light could possibly have shone on them; we take young, inarticulate adolescents and suppose that they are incapable of profound religiosity, even though they will soon be teenagers, more capable of infatuation and heartbreak than their parents have been for twenty-five years. Or we simply allow our discomfort with being Jews, our fear that the Gentiles are watching and laughing, to focus our attention on the failed bar mitzvah, the one that truly is just an excuse for a party, and to blind us to the hard work of children who -- learning a dead language, reading from ancient texts, and being celebrated for it -- do inch closer to being Jewish men and women."
Obviously it helps that Oppenheimer can write like an artist. Nevertheless, the argument -- however rooted in truth and passion it may be -- rings hollow. I don't want to minimize the impact of such genuine fervor in the life of a child. I know of one of my former students who was a holy terror, but when he found somebody had written notes in their prayer book he immediately booked for the nearest eraser and insisted on cleaning up the book. But for every one of him, there's at least a dozen kids who couldn't care less and just want the party, or rather the presents.
And as this subject goes, we're not really talking about the kid who gets real meaning out of it. We're talking about the vast and growing majority who don't. Which is exactly the point Emily Bazelon's review of the book in Slate.
"As Oppenheimer points out, the paradox of the bar mitzvah is that it's flourishing as a coming-of-age ritual among Jews who generally don't take religious maturity seriously," she writes. She also points out, as Oppenheimer does, that the history of the bar mitzvah is quite recent and not exactly sacrosanct when it comes to modification.
So why not modify it? I don't mean in the way some are clamoring for. I'm a little miffed by those who say we should give every kid who wants one a bar mitzvah, regardless of whether or not he's a student in the Hebrew school or has made any commitment to being a member of the community. A party is not a bar mitzvah, and as much as inclusion and openness are important points, to make such an argument is missing the point entirely. You have to study to be a bar mitzvah. You have to know enough to take on full adult responsibilities in the community and the synagogue. It's not about a party, and just because some 13-year-old putz went to a friend of a friend of a sister's party and thought, "Gee I want one of those," doesn't mean they deserve one.
But I digress.
I'll actually second Bazelon's recommendation. "Why not do away with the age requirement? After all, as a recent American innovation, the bar mitzvah is surely ours to improve upon," she concludes. I also second a larger discussion on ways we can make this more meaningful, even if it means "fewer b'nai mitzvahs -- but they'd be more deeply felt. And that's probably a trade-off worth making."
That larger discussion can and should surely start with a thorough reading of Oppenheimer's book, so I'll go ahead and second that too.
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| May 18, 2005 |
The case for Shmuley
 Ever since the publication of his controversial 1999 book Kosher Sex, Rabbi Shmuley Boteach has been criticized as nothing more than a media whore, constantly clamoring for the public's attention and the shine of the spotlight. His detractors claim that the prolific author is only exploiting whatever is on the pop culture radar for his own professional benefit as a cable news pundit. And, in my humble opinion, that's a good thing.
While other spiritual leaders have been writing about how to achieve peace in the Middle East, Shmuley has written about Madonna's ridiculous fascination with Kabbalah. While other rabbis have pontificated about lofty topics like why bad things happen to good people, Shmuley has pontificated on Britney Spear's influence on teenage girls. And while some pundits deal with ho-hum topics like the war in Iraq, Shmuley has kept us entertained with his off-the-cuff remarks about the Academy Awards.
Shmuley, to his credit, is a man of the people. He's a rabbi who finds a way to make a connection with the latest in celebrity gossip. In other words, he's a rabbi that speaks to us on our level, not from an ivory tower. He's a rabbi that unabashedly, and with open arms, embraces the best and worst of pop culture. Janet Jackson. Kinsey. Santa Claus. Michael Moore. Joe Millionaire. Whatever ... and that's what makes him an enjoyable read.
So it was with great pleasure (and I don't mean that in the sexual sense) that I read a copy of his latest book, controversially (what else?) titled Hating Women: America's Hostile Campaign Against the Fairer Sex. In it, he discusses Gwen Stefani, Victoria's Secret, and (surprisingly) Greta Van Susteren. He discusses his now infamous spiritual smackdown with Jewish Playboy playmate Lindsay Vuolo. And, of course, he discusses Madonna, Britney, and Janet.
As well, and as always, Shmuley is wildly and welcomingly unafraid to talk about topics most rabbis wouldn't touch with a 10-foot lulav. Just read through chapters titled "The Portrayal of Women as the Walking Male Orgasm" and "Becoming Lesbians to Get Away from Men".
Turn on the TV today and you'll see Shmuley all over it. He's experiencing a relevancy renaissance as a Michael Jackson expert, wisely exploiting his past relationship with the king of pop for his own benefit. I wouldn't expect anything else from Shmuley. And that's a good thing.
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| May 13, 2005 |
Idiot savants
 By now, we're all familiar with the ubiquitous "Idiot's Guide" series. They've covered everything from oral sex to home buying. And the series has never shied away from explaning loftier subjects like Judaism and spirituality. Now, we're happy to report, there are three new editions to add to their ever-growing religious cannon: The Complete Idiot's Guides to Prayer, Jesus, and (our personal favorite) Mary Magdalene where we discoved that although it is fairly well-known that Jimi Hendrix wrote Wind Cries Mary after a breakup with his girlfriend, some Mary Magdalene enthusiasts believe that it perfectly reflects the new "lost feminine" mythology of Mary Magdalene. Hmmm ... maybe they should think about publishing a Complete Idiot's Guide to the Idiot's Guides.
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| May 12, 2005 |
This chow ain't so tasty
 Hoping to capitalize on the unexpected runaway success of last year's Candyfreak (just released in paperback), Steve Almond's hysterical trip through America's candy factories, Algonquin Books has just published Almond's next book The Evil B.B. Chow and Other Stories. What's not mentioned anywhere on the book jacket, though, is that these stories are not new: They are merely a compilation of Almond's short stories from various literary magazines and other publications. Mind you, we're not knocking Almond's writing prowess (he's talented and a fine, upstanding member of the tribe), we're just feeling a little buyer's remorse. Ok, not really, the publishers do send us free review copies. But you get the metaphor. We hope. Ok, I'll shut up now.
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| May 3, 2005 |
Movie mogul madness
 Just in time for the summer movie season comes a new book, released this week, which shreds years of stereotypes against one of Hollywood's legendary studio chiefs: Louis B. Mayer. The father of MGM, Mayer has, until now, mostly been remembered as an "immoral, insensitive ogre who ran MGM with an iron hand and a considerable lack of conscience."
But a new biography of the Jewish immigrant weaves a much different yarn. In The Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer (Simon & Schuster) by Scott Eyman, Mayer is revealed to be a complex man -- fiercely devoted to the bottom line, but also a man with a soft touch. This is a must read for any film buff.
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