Presence

Documentary on the Resurgence of Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century

Last night (edit: Monday night), PBS aired a documentary entitled "Anti-Semitism in the 21st Century: The Resurgence." It was quite an interesting show; despite my familiarity with most of the major incidents, such as various prime ministers making public anti-semitic statements, the overall affect of their presentation in documentary form was quite disconcerting and shocking. The NY Times has a review of the program.

Many of the clips shown during the documentary were from MEMRI.org and MEMRITV.org. Search MEMRITV.org for al shatat, the name of a documentary in which a dying Baron Rothchild discusses the Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, and Hasidim kidnap and slaughter a Christian child in order to obtain blood for their matzah. Or read this transcript from an Iranian TV special on The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Or, for giggles, read this transcript of an Iranian TV show that claims Tom and Jerry (yes, the cat and mouse) was created to bolster sympathy for Jews:

The Jews were degraded and termed "dirty mice." Tom and Jerry was made in order to change the Europeans' perception of mice. One of terms used was "dirty mice"...Tom and Jerry was made in order to display the exact opposite image. If you happen to watch this cartoon tomorrow, bear in mind the points I have just raised, and watch it from this perspective. The mouse is very clever and smart. Everything he does is so cute. He kicks the poor cat's ass. Yet this cruelty does not make you despise the mouse. He looks so nice, and he is so clever... This is exactly why some say it was meant to erase this image of mice from the minds of European children, and to show that the mouse is not dirty and has these traits.

It's amazing, unbelievable and terrifying.

MEMRITV is an amazing site; in my opinion, they should be uploading their videos to YouTube to increase public awareness.

In case you missed it, the documentary will be airing again tonight (Thursday night/Friday morning) at 2AM (if you have a TiVO...) on WETA 26 (in Baltimore) and on Sunday on WHUT 19 at 11PM.

Against Scientific Interpretations of Genesis

From Understanding Genesis, by Nahum Sarna:

It should be obvious that by the nature of things, none of [the creation] stories can possibly be the product of human memory, nor in any modern sense of the word scientific accounts of the origin and nature of the physical world.

Biblical man, despite his undoubted intellectual and spiritual endowments, did not base his views of the universe and its laws on the critical use of empirical data. He had not, as yet, discovered the principles and methods of disciplined inquiry, critical observation or analytical experimentation. Rather, his thinking was imaginative, and his expressions of thought were concrete, pictorial, emotional, and poetic. Hence, it is a naive and futile exercise to attempt to reconcile the biblical accounts of creation with the findings of modern science. Any correspondence which can be discovered or ingeniously established between the two must surely be nothing more than mere coincidence. Even more serious than the inherent fundamental misconception of the psychology of biblical man is the unwholesome effect upon the understanding of the Bible itself. For the net result is self-defeating. The literalistic approach serves to direct attention to those aspects of the narrative that reflect the time and place of its composition, while it tends to obscure the elements that are meaningful and enduring, thus distorting the biblical message and destroying its relevancy.

See also my previous thoughts, somewhat similar but much less eloquently articulated.

Kudos

In the Letters to the Editor section on The Jewish Press website, I noticed that all the correspondents used their real names. Cheers for The Jewish Press.

The Truth about Mishulachim Drivers

AlanLaz posts on the economics of the mishulachim drivers, which brings to mind an issue I've been meaning to look into for some time now.

Seeing as how the Baltimore Jewish News has pretty much abdicated the role of provider of substantive, informative journalism to the community (actually, this past Shabbos' issue was not horrible, but it's going to take a lot to make up for the weeks previous), I'm going to take it upon myself to get the story on the mishulachim drivers; the who, what, when, where, how and why (well, I think we know the why...). If anyone has any information, please email me (greggersh AT yahoo DOT com). We'll go from there.

Reconciling Torah and Science

The preferred approach by most quasi-rational Orthodox Jews to reconcilling Genesis with a scientific account of the age of the universe seems to be what I call a Schroederian approach (named for Dr. Gerald Schroeder, a quantum physisct who authored several works attempting to reconcile modern science with the Biblical text). Typical of this type of approach is an acceptance that the Biblical narrative does not literally correspond to the actual truth of the creation of the universe, but, when properly interpreted metaphorically, the cosmogony presented by the Bible is in congruence with the accepted scientific theory. The most basic example of this, as Dr. Schroeder explicates in his book, is the non-literal interpretation of the word "yom" (day), allowing it instead to signify a stage of universal development , which may or may encompass a significantly longer period of time (such as millions or billions of years) than a single day. By interpreting the text of the Torah as metaphoric, while at the same time aligning the interpretation with modern science, the conflict between reason and belief in the Biblical text is done away with.

I have a serious problem with this approach. As I will demonstrate, I believe that taking a Schroederian approach to interpreting the Genesis narrative requires one to affirm one of two positions, both of which I believe to be untenable for anyone with an honest intellect and a serious sense of religion.

When taking a Schroderian approach, one must affirm one of the two following assertions. Either that the text of the Torah, when given, was incomprehensible to all previous generations that did not have knowledge of modern science, and that only now, in our time, do we have the means to properly understand the true meaning of the text; or that the Torah, being divinely composed, was written in such a way that the science of each generation would be able to be read into the text. So, in the times of Artistotle, Genesis would be reconcilled with Artistotle; when Newtonian physics became the dominant theory, the interpretation would be revised to match the current understanding. The same would apply to quantum physics, and any other theory that should arise in the future.

My objections to the first approach should be obvious: to affirm that all previous generations had an incorrect understanding of Genesis is, to me, an unacceptable position to take. In addition, the nature of science is that, while we have a workable system today, as time goes on, revisions and adjustments will be made to that system, and, quite possibly, an entirely new paragidm will become accepted. Science is a moving target, to assert that the Torah was given and that our current understanding is the correct understanding is both arrogant and illogical.

Regarding the second approach: I find the idea that God composed a text with such exquisite nuance that it could encompass any past, present or future scientific explanation to be a bit unreasonable; if, however, we are accepting the concept of an omnipotent deity, I suppose it is possible. But still, if we take this approach, what we are saying is that knowledge of the universe comes not from the Torah, but from a combination of our reason and experience. Only once we have come up with a system using science as our guide do we go back and read it into the Torah. The Torah, from this perspective, becomes irrelavent in teaching us anything about the universe; rather, it is just an outline into which we place the fruits of our own reason. For this reason, I find this position as well to be untenable.

If this approach, namely re-reading the current scientific cosmongy back into the Genesis narrative, is untenable, what other approaches are there? One could believe that the Torah itself is the literal truth of the creation of the universe (i.e. that things really happened about 6000 years ago, and only took six 24-hour days), but this runs contrary to reason, and so is not a rational position. Another option is to understand Genesis as referring to some other metaphorical type of creation, such as the creation of society or of civilized Man. Yet another approach is to presume that the Genesis narrative reflects the best available information from the time in which it was composed, and to accept that what we know now may very well conflict, even contradict, the biblical text.

Today's Sign of the Apocolypse

WND: Al Aqsa official: Jewish temples existed.

I'd like to take a moment to point out that a serious commitment to historical accuracy is a double-edged sword. In other words, you can't have your Temple Mount and eat it too.

(For more, go here; register/log in and vote/shmooze, and let me know what you think).

A Little Lie Never Hurt Anyone

I don't often congratulate myself (well, actually, yes I do). But I just left a really good comment on GodolHador's recent post on "truth." To fully get it, watch the Mormon episode of South Park (the last two minutes are the best; warning: some harsh language, but totally worth it).

If Charedim are guilty of anything, it's a lack of sensitivity to the reality of the world outside their conceptual shtetl, and perhaps a smidgen of misguided enthusiasm. Labeling them as sheker is, however, nothing short of a patent falsehood.

Things don't have to have happened to be True

Exhibit A:

I'm pretty sure the events dramatized in this video never took place, and that the characters are completely fictional. Never the less, every second is pure, unadulterated Truth.