I’m working on a few serious posts, and I’ve been busy with school and life. Hopefully, we’ll have some good stuff coming up, but in the meantime, more snark.
Reuven first introduced me to these guys and their attempts at creation re-education. Ben Resnick shows me they’ve expanded their youth programming with Jesus 4 Kidz.
Some highlights:
The mascot “Lambuel” has a girlfriend “Ruby the lioness” and apparently they want to get married someday. Personally, I think Lambuel would do much better with a wolf.
An elephant character “Habu” is asked: “Wouldn’t you rather have just one God who loves you a bunch than a bunch of gods that don’t love you at all?” Fortunately, “Jesus loves everybody, even the unsaved like Habu!”
Oh, but stay away from Mr. Gruff the atheist:

If you find an Atheist in your neighborhood,
TELL A PARENT OR PASTOR RIGHT AWAY!
You may be moved to try and witness to
these poor lost souls yourself, however
AVOID TALKING TO THEM!
Atheists are often very grumpy and bitter and will lash out at children or they may even try to trick you into neglecting God’s Word.

And if that fails, you can always call his Scottish cousin McGruff. Click on the goat’s head and he’ll say things like, “Coffee’s the only thing that gives me solace” and “Hey Kid, wanna read some Ayn Rand?”
Also check out Hopsiah the Kanga-Jew and Professor Giraffenstein. No word yet on future marketing plans, or the release date for the animated version of The Passion.

Bobby Labonte has a new sponsor for the Daytona 500. His car will plug Mel Gibson’s movie – The Passion

No word yet if he’ll also have a plastic Jesus riding on the dashboard. I wonder if he asked himself what would Jesus drive?
As an aside, the worst pun I saw about this story was in today’s Red Eye Chicago: “Jesus Christ Supercar.”
Just so you know I’m not the worst one out there.

My affinity for theology rarely leads me to places like Grand Forks North Dakota, but Fark linked to an interesting and well written article in the Grand Forks Herald.
The article discusses some modern approaches to an ancient dilemma in Christianity: Which commandments of the Bible are authoritative.

Leviticus not only condemns a man “who lies with a male as with a woman” and the eating of pork. It also prohibits seafood without fins. And tattoos.

So what makes one law still in force and another seemingly obsolete? Particularly when Jesus himself said “not one jot or one tittle” of the law would change?

Or to reverse the argument, if charging interest does not apply anymore because “times have changed,” then why can’t times change for homosexuality? Some Christians distinguish between moral, ceremonial, and civil laws, but these arbitrary categories merely shift the debate. Not only will people argue why some laws immutable and others not, but also why certain commandments are purely “civil” and not “moral?”
Not being a Christian theologian, I won’t attempt to answer this problem, and thankfully, I don’t have to. However, you might notice a similar dichotomy in the development of practical Jewish law. Despite claims of authority and oral tradition, Jews don’t always follow the laws of the Talmud. The popular myth is that Sepharadim follow the Rambam or Shulhan Arukh and Ashkenazim follow Ramo or the Mishna Berurah. Neither assumption is that simple and this formula doesn’t always hold true. R. Tendler summarized it best in one of my discussions with him: “we pasken like the Ramo, except when we don’t.”
Many people lack the education or patience (sometimes both) to appreciate and comprehend the intricacies of Jewish law. It’s much easier to give a congregation a one line sound-byte and say this is the law because X says so. Furthermore, I doubt that many Rabbis follow a coherent system of Jewish law (assuming they have one) beyond the simple, “this is what we do because this is what we do.” Thus, it’s not only easier for the congregation to digest the one liner, but it saves the Rabbis from actually thinking.
When Rabbis appeal to the authority of a text, they provide the simplest explanation for the law. Pragmatically this works for most congregations, especially in the short term. However, as congregants and laity get better educated, rabbis will have to provide better answers. People have already recognized inconsistencies in halakha, and need something better than “he said so.”
Of course, this would also mean training rabbis to give better answers, and that could take some time.

In yet another Sunday in the Library I randomly found yesterday’s Dear Abby:

DEAR ABBY: I’m 19. My boyfriend and I have been together for a year and a half. Eventually we want to be married. Our relationship is great. We are committed to each other in every way. Of course, we have our disagreements, but neither of us has ever cheated.
I’m considering marriage now rather than later because I will be moving to Florida for school next fall, and he won’t be coming with me right away.
Abby, is it silly to think about marriage as a way to ensure that the distance between us won’t tear up apart? Or should I wait till I finish school? — THINKING ABOUT MARRIAGE
DEAR THINKING: Wait until you finish school. The college years represent a significant intellectual and emotional growth spurt for most people. There is the possibility that by the time you’ve graduated, you won’t be the same person you are today — and neither will he. Please don’t be afraid of this. Growth is positive.

Rebbetzin Jungreis she isn’t, but more Jews follow Dear Abby’s advice than you might realize.
Although the trend is to marry young, the society does impose a minimum standard of development. For most of Modern Orthodox, the most drastic changes occur during “the year in Israel” before college. Based purely on anecdotal research, yeshivot and seminaries often (but not always) encourage students to end existing relationships so that they may concentrate on their own personal development. Only afterwords could the student adequately know what is appropriate to look for in a spouse.
If a person is about to enter a personality changing experience, it does not make sense to commit at that time. Although everyone changes (hopefully matures) over the course of their lives, some periods are more formative than others. People who get married too early would have greater risk of feeling stifled later on in their marriage.
Of course you can argue just how developed one is after 10 months of intense yeshiva/seminary life, or if one is really ready to get married at that point. I’d say that the logic is in place, we just need to work on the details.

If you were following Protocols a while ago, you might be familiar with Douglass Rushkoff and his recent book Nothing Sacred. I know I’m a little late with this, but there is one point of Rushkoff’s thought which I would like to address.¹ Specifically, Rushkoff suggests a Judaism modeled after a popular software movement which he calls, “Open Source Judaism.” (OSJ)

According to Rushkoff:

An open source religion would work the same way as open source software development: it is not kept secret or mysterious at all. Everyone contributes to the codes we use to comprehend our place in the universe. We allow our religion to evolve based on the active participation of its people. We internalize and engineer Jewish laws and ideas as adults, rather than following them by rote, as children. We come to realize that the writings and ideas of Judaism are not set in stone, but invitations to inquire, challenge, and evolve. Together, as a community, we define Judaism as the ongoing resolution of our individual sensibilities.²

Superficially, OSJ is nothing more than a restatement of Reconstructionism. However, through his analogy to open source software, (OSS) Rushkoff actually offers a different model, one which requires its own analysis.

To understand OSJ, we must first understand the culture it’s supposed to emulate. As its name states, OSS programs’ code is “openly” published and is freely available to the public. This allows users to modify programs to suit their specific needs, add functions to the program, and find bugs or security holes.

However, OSS is more than just a programming model, but it is a culture unto itself. According to the GNU Foundation, OSS is about free software. By “free,” GNU primarily means autonomy. Licenses may not restrict the implementations of a program – a user may run a program in any way s/he sees fit. Users are free to study and modify the code to suit their needs. Although they advocate the ability to redistribute software, GNU insists, “‘Free software’ is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of ‘free’ as in ‘free speech,’ not as in ‘free beer.'”

With these freedoms, developers have created stable and secure operating systems, advanced web browsers, powerful graphic manipulators, and absurdly powerful text editors. Developers create projects and publish code on sites like Sourceforge where other programmers may download, test, and debug their programs. Developers, therefore, share their code with an entire community, the totality of which in turn promotes creativity and innovation.³

Since the strength of OSS is its dependence on the community’s voluntary contributions, its anti-model would be Microsoft. All of MS’s software is proprietary and available only through purchase. Normally, we would simply call this “capitalism.” But companies who choose themselves to MS software also commit to MS’s fickle licensing policies and costly forced upgrades.

Furthermore, MS refuses to release its code to the public and is constantly responding to several various security holes. That MS uses their ubiquity to create their own programming standards and blackmail other companies does not endear them to the public. Unlike the communal nature of OSS, MS’s culture dictates that MS is the supreme software vendor, and clients must only go through them.

As Eric S. Raymond writes, the differences between MS and OSS are comparable to a cathedral and a bazaar. The cathedral is hierarchical and monolithic whereas the bazaar is democratic and diverse. This distinction echos various denominations of Judaism which promote individual autonomy over institutional authority.

“Classic” Reconstructionism tries to preserve Jewish culture through evolution, and it operates on a macro-social level. Rushkoff claims that the only constant throughout Jewish history was evolution. Generation after generation modified Jewish theology and practice to better adapt to their world. In order to know the needs of the community, the religion depends on the members to participate and contribute. Furthermore, we allow the individual the freedom to “debug” someone else’s “code” or “hack” it such that it best suits himself. For example, Rushkoff created an Open Source Haggadah where people may contribute their own liturgy or rituals to the community. Individuals may use the exact submissions or further alter them as they deem necessary.

My critiques of Ruskfoff’s model come two different perspectives. As a (former) programmer, I find Rushkoff’s OSS analogy flawed. Although OSS is an open community, it succeeds through extensive quality control and programs are held to some objective standard. A program either works or it doesn’t. Once a program is functional, it may then be optimized for superior speed or resource management, or enhanced security as the case may be. Before a program can be useful to a community, it first must meet certain requirements of functionality and efficiency, and to some extent serve as an improvement over its predecessors. Even an “average” programmer will find it difficult to have his/her project “accepted” by the community. The programs which are assimilated into mainstream usage are most often written by superior developers.

OSJ has no such quality control, nor can it. Religion is not an objective science. But if there are no standards or rules of submissions, then the community has no mechanism of policing itself. If anyone can submit anything, and all submissions are legitimate, then OSJ runs the risk of intellectual hijackings. There is neither a system nor criteria for weeding out garbage. Furthermore, if in fact, everything is acceptable for OSJ, then it becomes tautological and subject to the Pluralism Equation.

I partially agree with Rushkoff’s model. Torah is “open source” in that the texts are accessible to everyone; it is neither in heaven nor across the sea (Deut. 30:12-13) and there is no hidden law. Torah is democratic in the sense that kings and water gatherers are all equally bound by the same laws. However, Rushkoff confuses the technical definition of “open source” with “modification.” In the computer world, OSS implies that the users have rights of modification. However, if one were to rewrite Apache web server such that it becomes a word processor, i.e. the primary function changes, s/he could no longer call it “Apache” – or if he did it would not have the same meaning.

Judaism may also change and evolve, but it must stay within certain parameters. Sages may have the authority of interpretation (Deut. 17:11), but even they are subject to its rules (B. Horayot 2a-b). The Torah is complete (Ps. 19:8) and although we have the free will modify some rituals in Judaism, once any commandment is removed, the system is no longer Torah (Deut. 13:1).

Orthodox Jews might be able to salvage something from Rushkoff’s model by reaffirming some objective standards. Following the OSS analogy, God should be the “project owner” who opens the project to the community. People may contribute but must follow certain rules of submission and modifications. Or to put it succinctly, the Torah’s source is open, but God retains the copyrights.

Although the MAPPS program offers unparalleled academic freedom, the directors of my program require one particular survey class, “Perspectives in Social Science Analysis.” Over the 10 week quarter, Dr. John MacAloon and various other professors present 9 different perspectives with Dr. MacAloon presenting an overview and another scholar discussing contemporary applications of that perspective.

In week 8, we covered “Structuralism,”¹ and I was surprised to see the similarities between this perspective and ” lomdus” – specifically the Brisker Derekh. There are several decent summaries of Structuralism on the web and some more on one of its main advocates Claude Levi-Strauss.²

For those too lazy to click the links or God forbid do your own research, I’ll give you the short attention span summary.⁴ Levi-Strauss, an anthropologist, utilized aspects of linguistic theory to interpret social phenomenon beyond language.³ Linguists, like Saussure, distinguished between the words used in language and the effect, the symbol and the meaning, the langue and the parol’. How did they do this? After analyzing how speech works throughout all cultures, they realized that some phenomenon repeated themselves and they explained the different phenomenon through polar binary opposites.

Levi-Strauss applied this methodology to social phenomenon like myths. In his work The Structural Study of Myth, Levi-Strauss demonstrates that the Oedipus myth contains elements found in myths from other cultures. He identifies the patterns by breaking down the myth into atomic elements, and “re-structures” these elements into classifications. Once Levi-Strauss classifies these elements into categories, he then uses his categorization to compare the Oedipus myth with similar myths. Although the categories are arbitrary, Structuralists like to formulate categories in binary opposites. E.g. symbol and meaning, personal and communal, etc.

How is this like the Brisker Derekh? Unfortunately, there isn’t much directly written on the methodology of how to do “Brisk.”⁵ However, I picked up a few things from my numerous years in yeshiva, and I can say that the analytical methodology is similar – though perhaps not identical.

Like structuralists, Briskers tend to explain several sources and rulings though binary comparisons. Some popular ones are heftza (object) and gavra (person), shem (name) and halos (legal status), mitzvah hiyuvi (obligatory commandment) and mitzvah kiyyumi (fulfilling a commandment), or simply “qualitative” and “quantitative” differences. Although this might apply to other areas of “lomdus” I’ve noticed that Briskers tend toward the binary opposites more than others. Just about every shiur I can remember from Gush involved a two-way mahloket and tannaim, amoraim, rishonim, and achronim neatly fitting into one of two arbitrary abstract categories.

Some Briskers also apply this perspective to areas of Jewish Thought. R. Joseph B. Soloveitchik, perhaps the most famous descendant of the “Brisker Rav” and his tradition. In “The Lonely Man of Faith, R. Soloveitchik contrasts the personalities and religious attitudres of “Adam One” and “Adam Two” from the creation narratives. Elsewhere, R. Soloveitchik’s rational “Halakhic Man” stands in opposition to the more emotional “Homo-Religiosus.” Again, his thought leads him to present theological and religious ideas through manufactured binary oppositions.

Methodologically, Briskers construct and categorize the concepts in ways similar to the structuralists. Specifically, they first remove the sugya from the original context of the gemara. The sugya becomes the unit of analysis as opposed to a chapter, or even a page of talmud. Consequently, Briskers will not concern themselves with literary analysis or even finding the correct version of the talmud,⁶ because the details are not as important as the structure or the concepts. Like structuralism, these concepts are arbitrary and subject to the whim of the scholar. Unlike structuralism, yeshivas have canonized the scholars i.e. the rabbis, and therefore artificial structures become sacred and part of the “tradition.”⁷

I am not surprised that the Brisker Derekh attracts so many followers, nor am I surprised at the criticisms. Structuralism can be useful, and often it may be the best method for explaining a particular data set. Critics, however, will note that as a standalone system – as an “ism” if you will – structuralism assumes and imposes too much on the data. Furthermore, in the social sciences critics will complain that structuralists remove the human participants from the analysis. Social interaction becomes a bloodless game of abstract categories with no attention to human emotions. Similarly, critics of the Brisker Derekh deride the lack of attention to detail of the sugya in its original context. Literary approaches and historical evidence may often contradict the structures imposed on the text of the talmud.

I am not going to speculate on who got what from whom. Levi-Strauss was born and raised Jewish, and it’s likely his background influenced his scholarship. I also don’t think I’m saying anything radical or new here, it’s just an interesting similarity I noticed in class. Take it as you will.

1. Unfortunately, the laptop was in limbo then, so I don’t have typed notes from the lectures.
2. Not to be confused with the guy who made jeans.
3. See Structural Analysis in Linguistics and in Anthropology
4. I.e. don’t cite this description for anything useful.
5. When I was in Gush, a small book called “The Brisker Derekh” came out and it was pretty close to a “How To Brisk.” As I recall, most of the ramim and students dismissed the book as too simplistic, which was probably as good of an endorsement as it could get. At any rate, I can’t find a link to it on the web.
6. The standard “Vilna” edition is loaded with errors. See Dikdukei Soferim or the Lieberman Project for other versions of the Talmud Bavli – and manuscript work is ongoing. If this sounds too heretical for you, consider that a passage may appear in several places throughout rabbinic literature (Bavli, Yerushalmi, Tosefta, Mishna, Midrash Halakha…), but there will be significant changes in their presentation. See for example, Dr. Elman’s Authority and Tradition and many, many, other works.
7. For some ramifications in education, see Hakirah or Mehkar: The Religious Implications of an Historical Approach to Limmudei Kodesh by Rachel Furst and Mosheh Lichtenstein, “What Hath Brisk Wrought: The Brisker Derekh Revisited” Torah U-Madda Journal, volume 9, 1-18, 2000.

Got a link for a quiz on 80’s music. No surprise on the results.

(And that’s without using Google to cheat)