Greg Leake writes: Hi Luke,
Another great session with ZZ Top and the Spaceman.
The Torah Corral was a funny bit and so was the list of 10 pejorative things to say about Luke. Cruel, but amusing nonetheless.
Quite a period of this week’s talks dwelt on the idea of a Jew having a hamburger from the point of view of the Torah. I’m pleased to see that Judaism is not lying down on the crucial subjects of our day.
Let me give the goy’s reaction to a Jew walking into a hamburger joint.
1. Absolute indifference.
2. Look at the guy in the funny suit. Wonder if he’s in a band?
And for the one out of a thousand who actually knows some small amount about Judaism,
3. Hey, a Jew eating a hamburger. At least he’s got some sense.
I think this summarizes the average goy’s reaction fairly well.
I appreciate Rabbi Rabbs actually saying something sympathetic about Christian conservatives. I don’t seem to recall him singling out this group in a positive way previously.
However, I wanted to remind you both that Christianity is essentially a Jewish in-house creation. If the Christian world is unsettling, you have no one to blame but yourselves. Naturally, Jesus bin Joseph was a Jew and so were all of his disciples. These men all came from Jewish families. In fact, Jesus’s brother James and his group of fellow travelers all spent the entirety of their lives as observant Jews. They were so indistinguishable from the Jewish community that it wasn’t until they were elderly that authorities came to them and asked if they really believed this stuff about Jesus. Finally, after a lifetime of being observant, the authorities felt there was some reason to question them. Then, of course, there were some beheadings… religion being what it is and all.
It wasn’t until Paul the Apostle came along and received a revelation from Jesus that this religion began to be spread to a wider audience. As a consequence, Christianity in its origin is completely a Jewish in-house construction, originated, founded, and practiced by observant Jews. As a consequence if Christianity produces some discomfort in the Jewish world, it is something that you will simply have to take responsibility for.
I also would like to mention that although Judaism constantly references itself in contradistinction to Christianity, this is somewhat behind the times. Today all the religions that used to be exotic and far-flung are part of the fabric of American life. In California, I would not be surprised if there were as many Buddhists as Jews. My doctor is a Sikh from the Punjab, and I know people who go to receive acupuncture from someone whose background is Japanese Shintoism. I drive past a Hindu temple almost every day.
So frankly, my feeling is the constant contrast between Judaism and Christianity is short-sighted in light of the religious mixture alive in the Western world today. Lord knows that Islam is, regrettably, a rapidly growing religion in the US. And when you get down to it, Christianity tends to see Judaism in a favorable light, and some Christian ministers are fervent supporters of a variety of Jewish causes. All of which suggests to me that there are a lot more urgent religions to contrast Judaism with than staid old Christianity.
LUKE SAYS: I have some thoughts on the ideas in this email.
* About the absolute indifference Greg would feel about an observant Jew dressed in Jewish garb eating a non-kosher hamburger at McDonalds. Greg is saying it does not matter what you eat. But we know it does matter what you eat. Certain foods are good for you and certain food are not.
More than at any time in history, I believe, we are a nation of finicky eaters who often pay tremendous attention to what they eat.
The idea that what you eat does not matter is ludicrous. It clearly has profound implications for your health. Why should it not also have profound implications for your sense of self and your morality? If you are disciplined about what you eat, you are more likely to be disciplined in other areas of your life. If you desist from eating food slaughtered in a cruel fashion, you are less likely to be cruel in the rest of life.
How can anyone seriously argue that you should not take God into account when you eat? Even Christians with their contempt for Jewish law believe in saying grace before meals. That’s a ritual. That’s a way of bringing God into their meals.
I have another point about your indifference to an observant Jew betraying his way of life with what he eats. I find that non-Jews have much more respect for you when follow your own tradition than when you trash it. When you know where someone is coming from, it is easier to deal with him. If somebody is rootless and has no discernible identity, it is troubling. Think how weirded out you feel when you can’t tell whether somebody is male or female.
It’s weird when you see an observant Hindu eat a hamburger. It’s weird when you see an observant Muslim eat pig. It’s weird when you see an observant Jew enter a strip club. It’s weird when you see a woman use a men’s room. It’s weird when you see a kid publicly correct and embarrass his parent. It’s weird when you see an employee tell a boss to “f*** off.”
Our brains crave order in the universe and these actions upend that order and create chaos.
So yes, what you eat is important. It says a lot about you.
The only way you can be truly indifferent about how others behave and dress is if you don’t give a damn about them, yourself, and society.
We know from history and from the world around us that what Jews eat and won’t eat is frequently not regarded with indifference. When you say “Jew”, people don’t yawn, notes Dennis Prager. “Jew” is such a charged word that many Jews and non-Jews don’t even use it. They’ll say “Jewish person.” Few people say “Christian person” or “Muslim person.”
“Jews” are a charged subject and part of what distinguishes Jews from non-Jews and hence makes people nervous are the Jewish dietary laws. These laws make it impossible for an observant Jew to eat in a non-kosher restaurant and at the home of somebody who is not observant of Jewish law. I haven’t found that the following statement are a matter of general indifference — I can’t eat at your home, I can’t drink at your home, I can’t eat at your favorite restaurants.
* Greg writes: “Look at the guy in the funny suit. Wonder if he’s in a band?”
Greg says it doesn’t matter what you wear. It is a matter of indifference to him. But we’ve already established that “Jews” are a charged matter. The last year we have for hate crimes in the U.S. is 2008. These statistics show that about 66% of hate crimes for religion were committed against Jews.
A Jew who dresses in an identifiably Jewish way and who refuses to eat non-kosher food is standing out from the crowd and marching to the beat of his own drummer. He appears to put God first in his life. By every statistic we have, observant Jews lead higher quality lives. Thus Jews challenge the laws, national identities, gods and mores of the goyim. This is something the goyim (and non-observant Jews) rarely react to with indifference.
As someone who dresses in a distinctively Jewish way and used to dress in an indistinguishable way from the goyim, I can say with confidence that what you wear makes a profound difference in the way people relate to you. If it didn’t, why wouldn’t people wear shorts to the Oscars or to see the Queen of England? Why do the best private schools generally require uniforms? Uniforms help create a cohesive identity.
* Greg writes: “I wanted to remind you both that Christianity is essentially a Jewish in-house creation. If the Christian world is unsettling, you have no one to blame but yourselves.”
That Christianity came from Jews is no more significant to the Jewish religion than that Islam came from the Jews and that feminism, socialism, communism, the labor movement, the peace movement, the environmentalist movement also came disproportionately from Jews. What Jews create is not necessarily compatible with Judaism.
Greg writes: “As a consequence if Christianity produces some discomfort in the Jewish world, it is something that you will simply have to take responsibility for.”
Why? I don’t take responsibility for communism. It is completely incompatible with Judaism as is Christianity (for a Jew to adopt). Christianity was created 2,000 years ago. No Jew alive today bears responsibility for that.
Greg writes: “I also would like to mention that although Judaism constantly references itself in contradistinction to Christianity, this is somewhat behind the times.”
As Judaism is the only ancient culture still in tact today, the way that Jews have learned to relate to the majority culture (which has been Christian for the past 2,000 in the Western world) has been effective and proper. Until the creation of the modern state of Israel, most Jews have lived for the past 2600 years as a minority and thus to preserve their own identity they have learned to make sharp distinctions when necessary with the majority culture. This is a practice that other minority groups who want to preserve themselves should adopt or they will disappear.
While there are many other religions in the United States aside from Christianity, none of them have similar levels of power and influence. Also, I have no comparable expertise in them as I have in Christianity (growing up as the son of a Christian evangelist and theologian who was required to study hundreds of books of Christian apologetics).
RABBI RABBS EMAILS: I might point out that last week, Greg wrote that “Goys do not wear uniforms. We simply dress for comfort and fashion.”
What he wrote is of itself a fashion statement. Dressing for comfort and fashion is the uniform of the Goyim as opposed to the uniform of Jewish wear. Jews don’t place comfort and fashion first, we place dressing Jewish first.
Goyim make fashion their priority. When a Jew dresses that way, they are emulating the Goyim, wearing Goyishe clothes, and trying to blend in with the Goyim. That actually is a good thing to do when eating non-kosher food at a Goyishe restaurant. But, in general, it has never served the Jews well to try to blend in. Jews don’t blend. We make lousy Goyim.
GREG LEAKE RESPONDS:
Hi Luke, Hi Rabbi Rabbs,
I’m flattered that both of you felt a desire to respond to my post. Rabbs, I hope you’re out surfing today as you suggested on the Torah talks. I’ve had similar experiences while being alone in the ocean. You had better be careful — you might have the nascent makeup of a mystic.
Rabbi Rabbs — LOL
If only we had a little more uniformity in dress in the Gentile world. You live in LA, so you cannot have avoided seeing these chicks with tattoos on every square inch of their bodies, piercings through their faces and ears and even unmentionable places.. some kind of insane piercing through their tongues. Recently Sandra Bullock divorced her husband because he was fooling around with this chick who modeled for biker magazines. Have you seen pictures of her? She looks like some kind of snake. If I were single and found her in my bed I would run screaming into the street.
Anyhow, the word uniform implies uniformity, and you guys are the ones with uniformity in dress. If you can look at one guy walking down the street in an Armani suit and another guy with an orange-spiked mohawk and call that uniformity, then G-d bless you. Just don’t think you’re ever going to get any Gentiles to understand your position.
Luke
I don’t regard hamburgers as unhealthy.
When we are in a New York style deli, Jews do not seem to regard us as unusual. I don’t see anything amiss with a Jew having a hamburger. I realize that you do. But I’m not a Jew. If I’m ever in LA, I’ll invite you guys to dinner. I presume it would be at a kosher restaurant. I hope the Jewish patronage would not freak out over a goy sitting in their establishment. Should you ever be in Texas, I would advise dropping the costuming, and I could show you some barebque that would make you feel like you had already transcended to the world to come.
Obviously, you worry a lot more about what other people think than I do. Both of you seem to overestimate the amount of attention that goys give to Jews. But that is partly because of your views of orthodoxy (the only ones who suit up). As a Gentile, I view Judaism as a continuum, some preferring Orthodox, some preferring Conservative or Reform. I do not see the gradations that you would as a Jew looking at it from the inside. In college, my best friend was a Conservative Jew, and I don’t believe he ever wore a conspicuously Jewish piece of clothing in his life.
Interesting story. Small town in Texas. They were going to an award. The house with the best Christmas lights, with some kind of prize. The judges really liked the decoration of one house that had all blue Christmas lights. When they started to award the prize, a controversy erupted, because naturally this was a Jewish family and the lights were for Hannukah. I don’t know what happened to the prize. The point is that when you’re in small-town America in fly-over country, often Jews are just your next door neighbor who goes to temple instead of church and outside of that there is little to distinguish him from the rest of the town.
Suggestions for cultivating female possibilities.
1) Find a way to put some kind of cultural poster that is tasteful and classic as a background on Torah Talks. Just some backstage set device that has you and Rabbs sitting in front of a scene of the Mediterranean, or someplace in Israel, as long as it conveys an upward-mobile tone. (You know, artsy.)
2) Rig up some device to give you a theme song, like William F. Buckley had for firing line, or some other evocative yet culturally elevating instrumental. Then the music goes for a couple of minutes while you and Rabbs are apparently talking with each other, then you dial the music down, Luke looks at the camera and says, “Welcome to Torah Talks. Today we are privileged to have as a guest the distinguished comedian and rabbi, Rabbi Rabbs. We are discussing…. and then when done, bring the music back up while you’re quietly talking to each other, and then cut, it’s a wrap. See, elevate the tone of the thing for the benefit of the lady viewers. It’s just an idea.
