Follow up column in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle

 7/3/2021--a guest editorial in the Jewish Chronicle--more on wearing the kippah.

How to Respond to Anti-Semitic Attacks--This Week's Column

 6/23/2021--My column this week in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star was scheduled to be about how to respond to anti-Semitic attacks. Before it appeared, the Jewish Federation issued a warning about harrassment and a possible attack this month in Pittsburgh. I was unaware of these incidents, but of course they sharpen the need for a response. We can all wear a kippah. This is from the column:

Anti-Semitism threatens us all. We are all Jews.

Just as police violence against persons of color is not just violence against them but against us all, just so here. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., taught, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

What is the Future of Secularism?

6/21/2021—I have wondered a lot about the future of secularism. My forthcoming book, The Universe Is on Our Side: Restoring Faith in American Public Life, is about the worldview of secularism. American culture is demoralized by the Death of God. We hate each other because we have no story of meaning in common.

But there is nothing much in the book about the sociology of secularism—what its lifestyle looks like. I assumed that something like religious institutions had to grow in the place of religion.

Austin Dacey, the author of  The Secular Conscience, had the best answer for that back in 2009—he called it the fallacy of decomposition in an entry in Religion Dispatches: “The fallacy of decomposition is the mistake of supposing that as the estate of religion collapses, there must be a single new institution that to arises to serve the same social functions it served—that the social space vacated by religion must be filled by a religion-shaped object.”

It was never going to be that and Dacey explained why pretty sharply: When you think about it, organized humanism is a hard sell. Do you like paying dues and making forced pleasantries over post-service coffee cake, but can’t stand beautiful architecture and professionally trained musicians? If so, organized humanism may be for you. Greg Epstein (the “humanist chaplain” at Harvard and the author of Good Without God) is a lovely person, but I’ve heard him sing, and I think I’ll stick to Bach, Arvo Pärt, and Kirk Franklin for my spiritual uplift. Do we really need an institution for people who find Reform Judaism and Unitarian Universalism too rigid? Yes. It’s called the weekend.  

But I am coming to see that there is one arena in which something like religion is necessary—the raising of children. How is the spirituality of secular children to be addressed? If it is not addressed—and at present it really is not—the culture will substitute consumption and nihilism for any sense of depth of human life.

We Need a Nov. 3 National Commission

 6/9/2021--This week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star: Forget Jan. 6. We need a national election commission to fight the big lie of election fraud. 

Putting the Hallowed Secular Talmud Aside for the Moment

6/6/2021—I have the feeling that the struggles of the rabbis to put Judaism on new foundations after the destruction of the Temple by the Romans is similar to the problem secularists face today after the Death of God. We had an orientation toward reality and now we don’t have that any more.

So, at some point, I will have to take up the Hallowed Secular Talmud. I began to do that in blog posts below.

But I know realize that this is premature. First, it is necessary to address secular society directly. The Talmud has to be one of many ways that secular life is furthered. The first step is to see that as the necessary task.

The Hallowed Secular Talmud

6/3/2021--Further Introduction 

The very first issue discussed in the Talmud is when the Evening Shema can be recited. In introduced the first few lines in yesterday’s blog posting.

The rabbis agreed that the evening Shema could be said only after the stars appeared—but that is not how the Mishna put the matter. There was a disagreement over how long a person have to say it.

Then the Mishna tells a story about Gamliel’s sons. They come how from some kind of event—a wedding?—and report to their father that they have not yet said the evening Shema and it is now after midnight. Can they still say the prayer?

Gamliel responds that the majority rule holding that midnight marks the end point to say the evening Shema really means anytime before dawn. He goes further to opine that this is always the case with a “midnight” rule. The reason the rabbis said midnight was “to keep a man far from transgression.” That is, so you would not fall asleep thinking you would say the prayer later and never say it.

So the sons are “duty bound” to say the prayer.

Think of all the issues this short episode raises. First, why hadn’t everybody already said the Shema at the wedding feast? We have here the question of how stylized the Talmud is. Are these stories true at all? Did the entire population practice the arcane rules of the Talmud?

And why are the sons only duty bound? Is there no penalty for a transgression like failing to say the evening Shema?

Notice also that the Mishna does not conclude this episode with any conclusion. There remain three interpretations. That suggests that something other than law clarification is going on in the Talmud.

Maybe all of Jewish law is an attempt to keep people far from transgression and all of it should be taken with a grain of salt.

Finally, notice that law here is relational. The Talmud does not say what the law is in general. Instead, the law arises out of the relationships of people, here Gamliel’s family.

The Hallowed Secular Talmud

 

5/31/2021

Background

What can the Talmud, the sprawling multi-volume work of the rabbis from around 70-550 CE,  teach the non-Jewish world? If the Talmud is a book of Jewish law, nothing.

But if the Talmud is one of the world’s spiritual masterpieces, a great deal.

There was a Talmud project that had as one of its aims the introduction of the Talmud to non-Jews: the Talmud El Am of the 1960’s. To me, it was the flowering and hope of liberal Judaism to found a new kind of Judaism by studying this ancient text in a new way. This was the hope of Rabbi Arnost Zvi Ehrman. But the project, and perhaps with it this hope, collapsed. Only a small portion of the Talmud was translated.

I have read that the Talmud El Am was also the work of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. That would make sense. The JTS was, in 1965, the great emblem of modernizing Judaism—keeping the best of the old while looking to the future.

I suppose that Talmud El Am means the people’s Talmud, but it might mean the eternal Talmud. (I have to find out). It turned out to be neither.

But why should anyone today care about this wayward Talmud project?  With the destruction of the Temple by the Romans in 70, Judaism faced a crisis that was both theological and political. Politically, the destruction of the Jewish State, which was completed after failed revolts in 115 and 135, meant that Jews were leaderless. Most of the world’s Jewish population even in 70 lived outside Israel. But all Jews had their eyes on Jerusalem as long as the Temple existed. Theologically, there needed to be a way of Jewish life without the rituals of the Temple.

The theological crisis was actually deeper than that. The rabbis sought to create a way of life not directly dependent on God. Efforts aimed at a radical expression of divine will through military action had proven disastrous. The motto of the rabbis would be, “It is not in heaven.” Originally, that line from Deuteronomy indicated that God’s will was present in the world. Now, it would mean that God was defeated.

We today are faced with the destruction of our own Temple—the structure of the creator God. We have not been able to forge a new way of life appropriate for this changed circumstance. We have to be as creative as the rabbis were.

Introduction

The Talmud is a compilation, with later commentaries, of two works: the Mishna and the Gemara. The Mishna was redacted around 200 and represents a kind of overall interpretation/interaction with the Old Testament. It consists of some of the discussions from rabbinical academies from that time.

The Gemara was redacted in Israel around 450 and in Babylonia around 550. The Babylonian version is considered the more prestigious. The Talmud El Am is a translation of the Babylonian Talmud.

The Talmud El Am begins with the traditional starting point of the Talmud, with the Tractate Berakhoth—Blessings.

Here are the first words: “From what time [may people] recite the evening Shema? From the hour that the priests come in to eat of their Heave-offering, until the end of the first watch; says R. Eliezer; the Sages say, Until midnight; R. Gamaliel says, Until the first light of dawn….”

In a sense, this one short paragraph tells the whole story of the Talmud. First, it begins with prayer. And not just any prayer, but with the central premise of Judaism: the Lord is one—the Shema.

For us today, this amounts to a declaration that we do not live in chaos. Everything is part of one whole. We and the universe are one.

The assumption of the Talmud is that we all know that the Shema is to be recited twice a day—when we rise and when we go to sleep.

So, already we learn the centrality of this starting point. Perhaps a secular way of life requires meditation in the morning and the evening on the unity of everything.

There is agreement on when one can say the evening Shema—when the stars appear. But this time is given in terms of the life of the priests of the Temple. In this way, the Talmud connects with that lost way of life. The Temple is always there. The discussion of that lost way of life amounts to a kind of science fiction.

Granted that after the stars appear, one may recite the evening Shema, how long does one have to recite it—before, in other words, it would become the morning Shema?

But there is a disagreement on this ending point. Eliezer—there is the view of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanos, one of the leading figures of the Talmud—the evening Shema may be recited until the end of the first third of the night. There is the view of the Sages—presumably the conventional and majority view—until midnight. And then there is the view of another vaunted figure, a contemporary of Rabbi Eliezer, Rabban Gamliel, the head of the Assembly in Yavne shortly after the destruction of the Temple.

We learn later that this disagreement is not really resolved. So, the second point is that a way of life can be reasoned about but probably not definitively determined. Law is not what it seems. Later, Gamliel will assert that whenever the Sages said until midnight, it always meant until dawn.

Finally, there is the juxtaposition of these two giants: Eliezer and Gamliel. It is their clash over the Oven of Aknai in another book of the Talmud that ends with the declaration that it is not in heaven. God’s attempt to intervene directly in matters of law under discussion is not authoritative. Indeed, God himself accepts this limitation. God calls it a human triumph.

We’ll have much more to say about that. But it is certainly worldly. Worldly enough for secularists.

Finally, there is Gamliel himself. Gamliel essentially sets the Talmud going by attempting to ensure that there is a full set of instructions for life after the destruction of the Temple. This is how the people will be kept together.

Because it is to be a way of life for all, Gamliel will contest against the more difficult interpretations of Eliezer. That will lead to their break.

But Gamliel will go further in enforcing a unity of interpretation. It is Gamliel who provides the final form of the Amidah, another central prayer. Gamliel adds the Blessing on the Heretics—presumably the early Christians. Thus, Gamliel is associated, by myth at least, with the final break between Judaism and Christianity. This would have occurred at the end of the first century.

One last point, association Gamliel with the break is exquisite irony. It was Gamliel’s grandfather who, in the Book of Acts, warns the other members of the Sanhedrin not to molest the Jesus movement because it may be from God. His grandson breaks with him on this point seventy years later.

 

 

I Might End Up Voting for a Republican--This Week's Column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star

 5/26/2021--This week's column. Those amendments were also aimed at the Pa Supreme Court.

What Difference Does It Make If We Need God?

 5/25/2021--Read this review of  THE UNBROKEN THREAD, Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos, by Sohrab Ahmari and you will see the problem. Yes, modern life is a mess and we need God. But we don't have Him. And need is not enough. It has to work.

A Closer Look at the Pa Ballot Questions

 5/12/2021--This week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

Opioids "make the world appear more meaningful"

 5/6/2021--I often have trouble explaining how the Death of God leads to the deaths of despair--that it, addiction, suicide, overdose etc. Helen Epstein had a very helpful insight in that regard in the New York Review, the March 26, 2020 issue, reviewing Deaths of Despair by Anne Case and Angus Deaton and We're Still Here, by Jennifer Silva.

Epstein writes of the power of opioids that they stimulate teh dopamine system in the brain, which "helps make the world appear more meaningful."

That is the point of the Death of God. Under its influence, we lose our sense of a meaningful world/universe. Drugs, and much else, rushes in to fill the void.

We need to fill that void in healthy ways.

No, We Will Not Find God, But We Might Find Something Else

 5/4/2021--I respond today to Ross Douthat's column, Can the Meritocracy Find God in my column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

The "America is racist" Controversy

5/3/2021--Some years ago, the legal thinker Ronald Dworkin asked whether America was a religious country that tolerated non-believers or a secular country that tolerated religious believers. Every year I tell my students it was the worst question in the history of American public life. 

All such a question can do is divide people. It really means I'm an American and you're not.

The insistence that America is a racist country reminds me of the Dworkin question. It is equally divisive and useless. 

And its uselessness in undoing structural racism is related to its divisiveness.  

Charles Blow's column in the New York Times today is a perfect example. He doesn't deny America's progress in fighting racism. He just wants everybody to acknowledge historic crimes and current conditions. 

But why does it follow from, "much American wealth was gained from slavery" and "America was stolen from the native peoples who lived here before Europeans came" and "racism still prevents people of color from fair treatment" that "America is racist." 

And if I feel loyalty to my country and believe that it may be the least racist county in the world--well, maybe after Canada--why can't I affirm that?

The old song "Whose Side Are You On?" is stirring, but it is not fair.  

The Pro-Choice Case for Retaining the Hyde Amendment--This Week's Pennsylvania Capital-Star Column

4/22/2021--My column here. It is possible that there might be some common ground on Hyde.

AALS Gets It Backward--This Week's Column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star

 4/8/2021--You have to excuse my taking an author's prerogative. The AALS is putting on a program about the 2020 election and its lessons. See here. But the emphasis seemed to me to be backward. Democracy had to be "rebuil[t]." But democracy was just another way to criticize Republicans. Actually, democracy did pretty well in 2020. 

In contrast, the AALS feels that the rule of law merely needs to be "strengthen[ed]."

I argue in this week's column that the rule of law is threatened by the belief, most notably in law professors, that judges rule by party, or want to. That there really are Obama judges and Trump judges, just as Trump once said.    

I tried to raise this issue by becoming a speaker at the conference, without success. Of course maybe I just don't express the issue well. Or I am flawed in other ways. But judging by how the conference turned out, I would say the AALS just doesn't want to look at law professors and our role in what's wrong.

  

Happy Easter

4/4/2021—C.S. Lewis used to say that Christianity is one great miracle. This is true and important because it measures the difference between religion and the secular very precisely.

Lewis meant the incarnation, not the resurrection, but they are all one story, as he also said. The divine comes into nature and then rises, bringing nature, including us, with it.

I have a stubborn streak—like Dr. McCoy in Star Trek. I cannot accept miracles—any interruption in the usual causal natural processes.

This is not a logical position. The Big Bang was a miracle. We don’t really understand anything about it. So, I have to admit that I don’t want to accept the possibility of a miracle.

Nor is this really experiential. I have experienced inexplicable interventions in my life—spiritual events without any sensible explanation other than divine action. But forgiveness of sin is not a miracle.

Accepting this stance as a choice not to believe is helpful because I now have no reason to look down on religious believers. We have all made commitments, just different ones.

The argument for the resurrection rests on a lot of evidence actually, not the least of which is the fact that 20 or 30 years after the death of Jesus, Jews are eating pork—about as likely as the Taliban putting on cocktail parties.

But it’s not for me. Nor for many others. In fact, we now live in a secular culture.

The question going forward is a simple one—how to build secular civilization instead of the mess America is now. The answer is simple too but hard to do. First decide what flourishing secular civilization has to be—it has to be hallowed. (Hence the blog and book). Second make peace with religion as part of the resources to do that. (Hence American Religious Democracy), Third, accept that building secular civilization is a communal task, not an individual one. (Hence Church, State and the Crisis in American Secularism). Fourth, commit to a positive view of the universe as the basis of secular civilization—my upcoming book. Fifth, design a new secular life—with an eye toward calendar, the ritual of daily life, prayer and repentance. (my next book) Finally, adopt love as the basis of all life. This last step brings the secular right back into the neighborhood of religion.  

Learning to Love One-Party Rule

 3/24/2021--this week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

The Future of Mail-in Voting in Pennsylvania--the week's column

 3/9/2021--Republicans really misunderstood the lawsuit challenging mail-in voting after the 2020 election. They supported it, but the conservative Justices on the USSCt would have had to oppose it under the independent state legislature doctrine. 

It's an unhistorical doctrine to be adopted by originalists, but we appear stuck with it. 

So, what is the future of mail-in voting in Pennsylvania--this week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star.

A Hallowed Secularism Way of Life

 3/6/2021--In a New York Times column, Leigh Stein today raised the issue of a non-believers way of life--The Empty Religions of Instagram. Millennials who have abandoned organized religion are getting spiritual guidance from the Internet. And it's bad guidance.

Stein cannot resolve the issue of course. She's not going back to any actual church. She refers vaguely to "something like church."

I had the same problem in Hallowed Secularism--the book. What will a hallowed secularism way of life look like? There are, for example, Humanist groups that operate like churches. They don't seem to be growing, but maybe they will.

There is a cultural Judaism organization. 

People with children especially need a structure to be part of.

None of that seems sufficiently holy or challenging to me. I've been drifting since I left Judaism more than fifteen years ago.

Once my new book comes out--The Universe Is On Our Side--I intend to return to this issue. Even my wrong answer might be part of answering this next big question.

It Is Not Clear Whether Republicans Really Believe the 2020 Election Was Stolen--This Week's Column

2/24/2021--I tried to take a nuanced view of the Myth of the Stolen Election in this week's column in the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. Many do. But research shows that losing partisans often feel elections were unfair, even without specific showings of fraud. We do need to be vigilant. One place to emphasize that the election was lawful is in the coming debate in the General Assembly over election integrity.  

The San Francisco School Board Was Wrong to Remove Washington and Lincoln--this week's column in the Capital-Star

 2/10/2021--The SF School Board forgot that we are all subject to the crimes of the age. My column.

God and the Pandemic

 2/9/2021--It has gone out of style to conceive of God as sending COVID-19 as a way of punishing humankind. We don't believe in that kind of God anymore--which means we don't believe in God at all. A God who could never do that no matter what is just not God. A culture that believes in only natural processes is no longer in the Biblical tradition.

If we were going to think of God that way, however, what sin would the virus be punishing us for? Karl Barth used to say that God punishes simply by leaving us along to do as we will. If so, we have so degraded the natural world that the emergence of a novel virus seems a fitting natural response. 

But try a different idea. What if God were showing us just what virtual life is really like. In other words, we wanted to live online and now we do. 

It turns out that what we really need is human contact. What is the virus signals the beginning of the end of our fascination with the Internet and social media? Now that would be a creative God. 

 

    

New York Review Letter to the Editor Concerning Originalism

 2/5/2021--Back in December, I read a review of The Essential Scalia in the New York Review. The review was by Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman. I sent the letter to the editor below to the Review. Professor Feldman even tried to help me get it published, but the NYR publishes hardly any letters to the editor anymore, let alone one by a non-famous person.

The point of the letter was that originalism gets much too much credit as a theory of interpretation. In practice it is not. That is the point that needs to be emphasized.

****************************************************

To the Editors:

Professor Noah Feldman felt he was stuck with the self-professed terms of Justice Scalia’s jurisprudence in his review of The Essential Scalia [NYR, Dec. 17]. Nevertheless, it was a mistake for him to treat Originalism as if it were an actual theory of constitutional interpretation. In practice there are no “principles” of Originalism.

It is easy to see this. As Professor Feldman points out, a major promise of Originalism is that it constrains judges from imposing their policy preferences on the rest of us in the guise of interpreting the Constitution. Therefore, if conservative Justices abandon originalism in pursuit of ideological commitments, Originalism would lose any claim of legitimacy, or even coherence.

In practice, this is what conservative Justices, including Justice Scalia, have routinely done. Just as examples, Originalism plays no role in free speech jurisprudence, anti-affirmative action cases or the crucial rules regulating who can sue for what, known as justiciability. These examples could be multiplied.

Probably the most dramatic example of the selective invocation of Originalism is the line of Free Exercise cases, beginning with Trinity Lutheran Church v. Comer, requiring states to include religious institutions in government spending programs. As Professor Feldman has shown in his academic writings, this line of cases amounts almost to anti-Originalism. 

The danger of treating Originalism seriously as a theory of interpretation is that it allows conservatives to pretend to neutrality rather than defend their ideological commitments on the merits. As a living constitutionalist myself, I agree with many of the above decisions. But Originalism they are not.