I Was A Teenage Camp Counselor

Luke Ford writes:

I was a model camp counselor. I was headed for my junior year of high school and I fell in love with this eighth grade girl under my charge and she fell in love with me. We did not express our feelings in a physical way. We just had a lot of conversation. And then over the next nine months, we wrote each other letters.

Our love was transgressive, but it was so strong that we forsook the bourgeois boundaries that cramped the style of so many of our contemporaries.

Finally, in June 1983, we met up again in person one weekend at Pacific Union College. We sat next to each other in Thursday night Bible study.

There was so much anticipation before our meeting. I remember when I walked in the room, this girl and all her friends turned around to look at me.

Our conversation that night was awkward. Then I went to play a basketball game and invited her to come watch me. She did for a few minutes and then she did disappeared. We never connected that weekend. I don’t know what went wrong.

Jews In Stand-Up Comedy

Luke Ford writes:

Jews account for most of the great stand-up comics in America.

Jews tend be secure in themselves and have no problem making fun of themselves — as opposed to, for instance, Muslims who are always crying about dishonor. If you’re always worrying about dishonor, you’re probably not going to make many jokes in public about your group.

The word “Israel” means “struggle with God.” Jews since Abraham have argued with God. Jewish kids will read the Torah portion at their bar mitzvah and then spend much of their speech arguing with what they just read.

If Jews argue with God, they’re certainly not going to be easily led by some guy from Nazareth who claims to be God. Instead we’d respond, “Josh thinks he’s God. What a nut.”

Why Close Freeway After Accident?

Luke Ford writes:

I was driving west on Palms Blvd around 9 a.m. and as I crossed over the 405, I saw a bunch of people looking north up the freeway.

All lanes of traffic were closed about half a mile up. There’d been an accident.

The 405 North remained closed for hours so they could investigate the accident.

This doesn’t make sense to me. Why waste thousands of hours of people’s time this way? Why not just videotape the scene thoroughly, clean it up and send people on their way?

It reminds me of policeman who frequently stop their cars in traffic and tie up a lane. They have abundant parking spaces to pull over into but they instead choose to stop traffic. It’s obnoxious.

Judaism Most Physical Religion

Luke Ford writes:

In his seventh lecture on the book of Genesis in 1992, Dennis Prager says: “Israel is where it’s at. This is what God intended for the Jews — to build a holy society. You can only build a holy society in a place. Judaism is profoundly physical. It is the most corporeal religion of the monotheist religions. It is bound to land, bound to people, bound to family, bound to law. It is not a metaphysical religion. It has metaphysical elements but the religion is uniquely physical. The mitzvot are physical. The laws of Judaism are very physical. You will take this meat and you will eat this way and you will slaughter this way and you will take this branch of palm and you will take this etrog and you will wash your hands this way. You will wear fringes on your garment. You will go three times a year up the mountain in Jerusalem to bring the sacrifices.

“It is a very physical religion and the reason is that we live in a very physical world. If you don’t invest the physical with holiness, if you separate holiness and the physical, then you will have a bad world. The purpose of Judaism is to sanctify the non-sanctified, to sanctify physical, which is not sacred. You make the land sacred. After all, the land was lived on by the Jebusites and the Peruzites and Canaanites and others and it wasn’t sacred. You make it sacred.”

Judaism On Work

Luke Ford writes:

I remember Conservative rabbi Harold Kushner, in a public dialogue with Dennis Prager, said that Jews had the so-called Protestant work ethic thousands of years before there were Protestants.

Is work a Jewish value?

I’m looking at the Artscroll Stone Chumash on Numbers 22:21: “Surely it was not fitting for a man of Balaam’s stature to saddle his own donkey.”

I notice that attitude a lot in rabbinic literature — that physical work is beneath a man of stature.

This is not an American attitude. Americans think work is ennobling. I remember working in construction and the multi-millionaire boss would often pitch in and get dirty working with us. That’s the American way. We don’t think it is undignified to saddle your own donkey.

Rabbi Rabbs: “America is built on the Protestant work ethic. If you want to be Godly, you have to work. That’s not necessarily the Jewish way. The Jewish way is learning all the time. Judaism doesn’t value working. You can even look at it as a distraction from learning.”

Luke: “The same commandment that says we should not work on the Sabbath says that six days a week we should work.”

Jewish Confidence

Luke Ford writes:

A pretty woman who converted to Conservative Judaism told me once, “Jewish men don’t know their own level. Non-Jewish men know their level and they don’t approach women out of their league but every Jewish male is raised by a mom who tells him he can be president of the United States.”

In his sixth lecture on Genesis in 1992, talking about the Tower of Babel story, Dennis Prager says: “In Judaism, making a name for yourself is not considered a sin. Humility is a virtue, but modesty isn’t, which certainly Jews live up to. Jews are not the most modest ethnic group. If you compliment a Jew, they normally ask you for more. I have it from ten years of Religion on the Line. Jews have a fairly good sense of self while if I compliment a Protestant minister or Catholic priest, they’ll say, oh no, Dennis. No, Dennis. What are you talking about? They don’t want to think well of themselves. It’s the sin of pride.”

Sephardim Vs Ashkenazim

Luke Ford writes:

Whenever I hear the charge of “racism” these days, I’m immediately suspicious because I’m so used to the accusation being tossed around without evidence.

I’m also tired of Jews using their putative Orthodox status to lobby for non-Orthodox positions.

I’m really tired of liberal Jews such as Brad Hirschfield waving their Orthodox rabbinic semicha (ordination) around like a bloody flag while yelling that the normally Orthodox are racists.

If Brad Hirschfield could not call himself an “Orthodox rabbi”, then he’d be just another lefty Jew calling for tolerance. What makes him special is his Orthodox ordination. Everything else appears cliche.

I want you to understand the kind of person Brad Hirschfield is (and I read his book on tolerance and thought it was fine so I had nothing against the guy until tonight when I read his latest blog post).

Here’s the first paragraph of Rabbi Hirschfield’s lengthy and laudatory self-description at the aptly named BradHirschfield.com: “An acclaimed author, lecturer, rabbi, and commentator on religion, society and pop culture, Brad Hirschfield offers a unique perspective on the American spiritual landscape and political and social trends to audiences nationwide.”

What kind of rabbi writes about himself like that? He calls himself “acclaimed.” Why not leave that to others?

Later on in his self-description, we learn that he is a “leader for pluralism and interfaith dialogue.”