Michael Davidow's Blog: The Henry Bell Project - Posts Tagged "judaism"
Milk and Honey
“Life has no sense of human frailty. So when it taps your shoulder, it’s heavy, and it hurts. If you haven’t noticed by now. But I don’t like ignoring that pain. I might not succeed, but I still aim for the heart of things. The fire that burns, while the world revolves around it. The burning bush itself. See?”
She shook her head. She was being honest.
Today marked the first full day of the Jewish holiday Shavuoth, also known (a little obscurely) as the Feast of Weeks.
Like many of Judaism’s original observances, Shavuoth is an amalgam of sorts. It came about when that austere faith carved by Moses from the hard stones of the desert– shockingly pure, ascetic, and demanding– came into contact with the agricultural cults of Canaan — priest-ridden, homely, and sympathetic to human needs. It celebrates both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai; two in one blow. It celebrates both the high and the low, the stuff of the body and the stuff of the soul; it mingles the here and now with the spirit and the flame. The one can’t exist without the other, says this holiday. Revelation is made a human affair.
Which means, perforce, it’s a messy affair, too. And it’s the genius of the Jewish religion to accept that mess on its own terms. To talk of revelation, after all, is to aim at the core of man’s search for meaning, and man’s search for meaning has never been tidy. Judaism exalts the resulting struggle. It anticipates participation by forgiving all failure. It treats the plain futility of our efforts not as any rebuke to mortal ambition, but rather as the surest manifestation of the divine hand in our world.
SPLIT THIRTY doesn’t concern the grain harvest. But it does concern the nature of revelation. And politics. And advertising. The here and the now; the spirit and the flame.
‘“Well. See lots of things. Don’t you think?’ Kahn leaned back and addressed his apartment’s ceiling. She looked there, too. It was dark. This room’s lights were recessed, discreet, and concentrated in the corners. ‘They came to me for new school, which is funny, because I’m an old school guy.’”
Happy Shavuoth to Bertie and his clan– and to the many rabbis I have had the pleasure to learn from.
She shook her head. She was being honest.
Today marked the first full day of the Jewish holiday Shavuoth, also known (a little obscurely) as the Feast of Weeks.
Like many of Judaism’s original observances, Shavuoth is an amalgam of sorts. It came about when that austere faith carved by Moses from the hard stones of the desert– shockingly pure, ascetic, and demanding– came into contact with the agricultural cults of Canaan — priest-ridden, homely, and sympathetic to human needs. It celebrates both the grain harvest and the giving of the Torah to the Israelites at Mount Sinai; two in one blow. It celebrates both the high and the low, the stuff of the body and the stuff of the soul; it mingles the here and now with the spirit and the flame. The one can’t exist without the other, says this holiday. Revelation is made a human affair.
Which means, perforce, it’s a messy affair, too. And it’s the genius of the Jewish religion to accept that mess on its own terms. To talk of revelation, after all, is to aim at the core of man’s search for meaning, and man’s search for meaning has never been tidy. Judaism exalts the resulting struggle. It anticipates participation by forgiving all failure. It treats the plain futility of our efforts not as any rebuke to mortal ambition, but rather as the surest manifestation of the divine hand in our world.
SPLIT THIRTY doesn’t concern the grain harvest. But it does concern the nature of revelation. And politics. And advertising. The here and the now; the spirit and the flame.
‘“Well. See lots of things. Don’t you think?’ Kahn leaned back and addressed his apartment’s ceiling. She looked there, too. It was dark. This room’s lights were recessed, discreet, and concentrated in the corners. ‘They came to me for new school, which is funny, because I’m an old school guy.’”
Happy Shavuoth to Bertie and his clan– and to the many rabbis I have had the pleasure to learn from.
The Problem of Prayer
Paula and his sons had frequented this area, once; Stevie had made it his own as a boy. Had always turned west at this same marker, too. The zoo was nearby, and a pretzel stand, and that dirty pond, with its grimy swans. Bell had no idea, what lay beyond. To his own recollection, he had never kept walking.
Bertie Kahn had always sat here, too, whenever Selma had wanted to pray. Temple Emanu-El was right across the street.
Bertie might be found there later this week. The Jewish High Holidays are early this year. They start on Wednesday night.
SPLIT THIRTY is a god-soaked book. You might have to go back to On the Road or the stories of J.D. Salinger to find an ensemble cast with members so devoted to chasing the divine. That said, though, there isn’t much in the way of conventional religion to be found within its pages. Sal crosses himself whenever he passes a church, true, but he himself would call that superstition. Selma apparently went to services, but Selma is dead by the time this book opens. Not even Paula is interested in church.
How does that square with the story’s preoccupation, then? When its central question involves whether any of its characters ever succeeds in managing a single prayer?
I can tell two stories from memory to explain. Both come from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Chasidim; I simply can’t recall which rabbis they concern. And in retelling them, I’m sure I will change them. But that’s okay. It comes with the territory.
In the first, a young rabbi attends services with his new father-in-law. This wealthy man has been bragging about his son-in-law’s learning and piety. The whole congregation looks forward to seeing him preach. He takes the pulpit and stands in silence. A moment or two pass. Things turn awkward. Then he sits down again. His father-in-law is livid. “Why didn’t you pray for us?” he asks. “People expected more from you!” “I intended to pray,” the young man replies. “But I saw that pride had decided to pray with me. I could not pray myself without letting him pray, too. So I considered it best to keep my mouth shut.”
In the second, a great and learned rabbi stops at a small synagogue for evening prayers. He sits in the back so as not to disturb anyone. He finds that he can barely comprehend what is happening. He tries to pray, but it feels so wrong, he stops. He is so ashamed, he closes his book. He sits with his eyes closed. He barely manages to say “amen” at the end of the service. In a rush to leave after that happens, he is stopped by the local rabbi. “You must tell us your great secret,” says this man. “What secret is that?” “The secret of such powerful prayer. Your single word, amen, nearly toppled me over with its awful strength.”
To try to pray, and to fail, is prayer itself. Words to the wise, from Martin and his friends.
Bertie Kahn had always sat here, too, whenever Selma had wanted to pray. Temple Emanu-El was right across the street.
Bertie might be found there later this week. The Jewish High Holidays are early this year. They start on Wednesday night.
SPLIT THIRTY is a god-soaked book. You might have to go back to On the Road or the stories of J.D. Salinger to find an ensemble cast with members so devoted to chasing the divine. That said, though, there isn’t much in the way of conventional religion to be found within its pages. Sal crosses himself whenever he passes a church, true, but he himself would call that superstition. Selma apparently went to services, but Selma is dead by the time this book opens. Not even Paula is interested in church.
How does that square with the story’s preoccupation, then? When its central question involves whether any of its characters ever succeeds in managing a single prayer?
I can tell two stories from memory to explain. Both come from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Chasidim; I simply can’t recall which rabbis they concern. And in retelling them, I’m sure I will change them. But that’s okay. It comes with the territory.
In the first, a young rabbi attends services with his new father-in-law. This wealthy man has been bragging about his son-in-law’s learning and piety. The whole congregation looks forward to seeing him preach. He takes the pulpit and stands in silence. A moment or two pass. Things turn awkward. Then he sits down again. His father-in-law is livid. “Why didn’t you pray for us?” he asks. “People expected more from you!” “I intended to pray,” the young man replies. “But I saw that pride had decided to pray with me. I could not pray myself without letting him pray, too. So I considered it best to keep my mouth shut.”
In the second, a great and learned rabbi stops at a small synagogue for evening prayers. He sits in the back so as not to disturb anyone. He finds that he can barely comprehend what is happening. He tries to pray, but it feels so wrong, he stops. He is so ashamed, he closes his book. He sits with his eyes closed. He barely manages to say “amen” at the end of the service. In a rush to leave after that happens, he is stopped by the local rabbi. “You must tell us your great secret,” says this man. “What secret is that?” “The secret of such powerful prayer. Your single word, amen, nearly toppled me over with its awful strength.”
To try to pray, and to fail, is prayer itself. Words to the wise, from Martin and his friends.
The Jungle Book
“He got business here. Or so he say. There ain’t no man a delegate to this convention who stays his own boss.” “That’s right,” Bell agreed. “That’s why I fly solo.” Pullman Porter was waved away by another marcher then, he nodded goodbye to Bell, and Bell double-checked the other notes he was keeping in his breast pocket, too, the ones from his morning telephone talks. Hawaii, correct. The Knickerbocker. That was north of this sidewalk, by two good miles; nearer to the Drake and the California delegation. If only Rocky could see him now. Gone ahead to scout the terrain, with feathers and hatchet in hand.
One of the pleasures of writing is reading; doing the research. And GATE CITY required more than just straightforward historical work (yes, Hawaii really was staying at the Knickerbocker in Chicago in 1960). It also involved learning anthropology. Because after all, Jack Mercer was his agency’s depth man; he himself was an amateur anthropologist.
But just as Thomas Kuhn’s work ran like water through SPLIT THIRTY, references to anthropological classics pop up everywhere in GATE CITY, and not just when dealing with Mercer himself. A non-exclusive list: Baby Robert is found hiding behind a cottonwood tree by his mother; just like Ishi, last of the Yahi, was found by sheriffs upon his entry to white society in Theodora Kroeber’s Ishi In Two Worlds. Mercer prods Bell to accept the dictates of party hierarchy and feels like committing hari-kari when Bell turns him down; one of several sly references to Ruth Benedict’s work on Japan. Stanley Fishbein leavens his critique of capitalism with thoughts borrowed from Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd (Goodman wrote that book on contract for Governor Rockefeller, no less; Rocky did not care for the results) (ha!). And upon landing in Chicago with work to do, for which he only has his own two hands, Bell feels “like a handyman, surrounded by engineers,” one of the central metaphors in Claude Levi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques.
If I had to pick out one book as the most important for an in-depth reading of GATE CITY, in fact, it would have to be that last one. One particular bit of Tristes Tropiques saddened me when I read it, though, and did not make the cut: his description of the coldness of his family’s synagogue, as remembered from his childhood. It seems to have been written without much sympathy. It seems to have been written by a young man.
Selma actually pays a visit to two synagogues in GATE CITY; a big one on Wilshire and a small one in the valley. And though they differ from each other in many respects, neither qualifies as cold. These are also places she goes, however, to connect with the past. And perhaps only in Judaism does that connection so signify warmth and love. And perhaps only Judaism has that as its central problem in the modern age, too: that people no longer wish to connect with the past. I don’t know what to do about that as my wife and I raise our son, except to show him how such bonds have meaning and beauty to me.
One of the pleasures of writing is reading; doing the research. Consider that to be a holy task, and your story comes alive.
One of the pleasures of writing is reading; doing the research. And GATE CITY required more than just straightforward historical work (yes, Hawaii really was staying at the Knickerbocker in Chicago in 1960). It also involved learning anthropology. Because after all, Jack Mercer was his agency’s depth man; he himself was an amateur anthropologist.
But just as Thomas Kuhn’s work ran like water through SPLIT THIRTY, references to anthropological classics pop up everywhere in GATE CITY, and not just when dealing with Mercer himself. A non-exclusive list: Baby Robert is found hiding behind a cottonwood tree by his mother; just like Ishi, last of the Yahi, was found by sheriffs upon his entry to white society in Theodora Kroeber’s Ishi In Two Worlds. Mercer prods Bell to accept the dictates of party hierarchy and feels like committing hari-kari when Bell turns him down; one of several sly references to Ruth Benedict’s work on Japan. Stanley Fishbein leavens his critique of capitalism with thoughts borrowed from Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd (Goodman wrote that book on contract for Governor Rockefeller, no less; Rocky did not care for the results) (ha!). And upon landing in Chicago with work to do, for which he only has his own two hands, Bell feels “like a handyman, surrounded by engineers,” one of the central metaphors in Claude Levi-Strauss’s Tristes Tropiques.
If I had to pick out one book as the most important for an in-depth reading of GATE CITY, in fact, it would have to be that last one. One particular bit of Tristes Tropiques saddened me when I read it, though, and did not make the cut: his description of the coldness of his family’s synagogue, as remembered from his childhood. It seems to have been written without much sympathy. It seems to have been written by a young man.
Selma actually pays a visit to two synagogues in GATE CITY; a big one on Wilshire and a small one in the valley. And though they differ from each other in many respects, neither qualifies as cold. These are also places she goes, however, to connect with the past. And perhaps only in Judaism does that connection so signify warmth and love. And perhaps only Judaism has that as its central problem in the modern age, too: that people no longer wish to connect with the past. I don’t know what to do about that as my wife and I raise our son, except to show him how such bonds have meaning and beauty to me.
One of the pleasures of writing is reading; doing the research. Consider that to be a holy task, and your story comes alive.
