7 de junho de 2013
5 de junho de 2013
The Spielberg Jewish Film Archive
O primeiro filme feito em Israel:
"Scenes of the Holy Land" (1911)
4 de junho de 2013
3 de junho de 2013
2 de junho de 2013
1 de junho de 2013
30 de maio de 2013
An Atheist’s Synagogue Search
By Jonathan Zimmerman
Though I grew up in a typical vanilla
Conservative synagogue, I have been fortunate to attend services that
reflect many flavors of Judaism, from centuries-old Sephardic
congregations in Spain to reggae-infused hippy-dippy “prayer gatherings”
in Los Angeles. Still, none of these services ever came close to
expressing my own beliefs, or lack thereof, as a Jewish atheist.
I thought I might have finally found that place when I attended my
first Shabbat at a Humanistic congregation in Manhattan this winter. At
Friday evening services, my wife and I sat on plastic folding chairs in
the back of the Lower East Side Y’s multipurpose room. We were the
youngest people by a couple decades in this group of about 20. The next
youngest sat in the back with us, sipping something from a brown paper
bag. Everyone else was praying.
Turning to the Shema in our prayer books, my wife and I glanced at one another uncomfortably. We had heard and chanted the Shema thousands
of times in our lives, and it was always exactly the same. This time,
though the tune was familiar, the words were jarringly different: Shema Yisrael, echad ameinu, adam echad. Hear, O Israel, Our People is One, Humanity is One. Hearing God replaced by “humanity” in this version of the Shema—authorship was credited in the prayer book to Rabbi Sherwin Wine, founder of the Humanistic Judaism
movement—felt something akin to hearing Christian heavy-metal: The
words and the music were so incongruous, it was impossible not to
giggle.
I’d come here hoping to find that Humanistic Judaism felt like home:
After years of trying to reconcile my Jewish identity with my atheist
beliefs, I’d discovered an entire Jewish denomination dedicated to
addressing the very issues I’d been struggling with; its guiding
principle, according to the congregation’s mission statement, was to
“celebrate the centrality of human reason and responsibility from a
uniquely Jewish perspective.”
I looked back down at this new Shema’s words, which still
seemed so profoundly odd, and then checked other prayers I knew—only to
find that they, too, had been reworded, with God’s name replaced by such
notions as “humanity,” “life,” and “nature.” Of all the prayer books in
the world, this was likely the only one with which a
Jew-who-happens-to-be-atheist could find not a single word to disagree.
For perhaps the first time in my entire life, I literally believed every
prayer I read.
And yet, even though every word was true, the prayers rang false.
And yet, even though every word was true, the prayers rang false.
I was raised in a suburb of Philadelphia, in a bastion of committed
East Coast, Conservative Judaism: large synagogue, summers at Camp
Ramah, and a social life based around USY dances. My Jewish upbringing
allowed me to develop a strong Jewish identity without having to think
much at all about God. While I kept kosher, observed Shabbat, attended
services, and engaged with Jewish texts and rituals, I scarcely gave
second thought to my own beliefs about the protagonist around whom all
of it was based: this “Hashem” character.
As a child, I experimented with various immature conceptions of God—the old man in the cloud, Ariel’s father from The Little Mermaid, the booming voice in The Ten Commandments—but
I always abandoned them quickly and without much concern. Neither my
parents nor my Hebrew school teachers ever tried to impose a singular
God explanation on me, so I felt free to largely bypass the issue.
Growing older, my questions about God interested me purely on a
philosophical level: Why did God flood the earth? Why didn’t God allow
Moses to enter Canaan? Why does God allow good people to suffer? On a
theological level, the accepted aphorism that “God is everywhere” seemed
innocuous enough that I didn’t have to spend my time looking for Him.
Over time, without even knowing when it happened, I began to view God in
the same way my overripe teenage imagination viewed all other
fascinating literary figures: as a fictitious character full of symbolic
importance.
My first clear moment of atheistic thinking came at camp shortly after my bar mitzvah. In an informal learning group, one of the counselors professed that she considered God her “best friend.” She spoke to God every day, she said—not symbolically, or through prayer or actions, but literally; in her mind, she spoke to an unseen-but-real-being she called God. To my surprise, she was not the only one who admitted to this belief. It seemed nearly everyone in the group had developed something they called their “personal relationship with God.” I believe this was the exact moment of my first teenage eye-roll.
My first clear moment of atheistic thinking came at camp shortly after my bar mitzvah. In an informal learning group, one of the counselors professed that she considered God her “best friend.” She spoke to God every day, she said—not symbolically, or through prayer or actions, but literally; in her mind, she spoke to an unseen-but-real-being she called God. To my surprise, she was not the only one who admitted to this belief. It seemed nearly everyone in the group had developed something they called their “personal relationship with God.” I believe this was the exact moment of my first teenage eye-roll.
As the conversation played out, I realized that my practiced disinterest in God as a being—as opposed to a concept or metaphor—made me somewhat of an outsider within the Jewish community. Though I continued to pray, read Torah, and practice Judaism as before, from that day forward a tiny ember of skepticism burned within me. My skepticism was further fed and nurtured by a burgeoning knowledge and appreciation for the deep history of Jewish doubters; from Elie Wiesel to Albert Einstein to Woody Allen, I read their work and marveled over the richness of their disbelief.
Judaism, I found, was a remarkably easy religion to engage with
skeptically: It’s been coded into our DNA ever since Jacob literally
wrestled with God. When I was a teenager, teachers and religious leaders
alike approved of and even encouraged my harsh interrogations. As I
moved from one Jewish community in high school to another at Brandeis
University, I remained steadfast and secure in my identity as an
“engaged Jewish skeptic.” It wasn’t until I truly fled the nest and
moved to Los Angeles for graduate school that I felt challenged to
decide, once and for all, what my answer to the “God question” was.
Oddly, it was being around a vast majority of non-Jews for the first
time in my life, and seeing myself through their eyes, that caused me to
realize I was still carrying around this unresolved issue from my
childhood. And so I thought and read, replacing the Jewish skeptics with
the truly polemic standard-bearers—Christopher Hitchens, Richard
Dawkins, Bertrand Russell—and finally emerged from my incubation period
as a fully realized Jewish atheist, an identity I maintain to this day.
Because my Judaism was handed down by birth and is not contingent on
any personally held beliefs, I feel comfortable continuing to identify
as Jewish and even practicing Judaism’s rituals without compunction.
However, being that from the earliest years of maturity my belief in God
was basically metaphorical, and that any conception of God I might have
held is probably more akin to a healthy spiritual awe for both
science/nature and humanity, the most accurate and appropriate label for
my beliefs would have to be atheism. And so there I am: a Jew by
identity and practice, an atheist by logic and belief.
As a Jew, I was quick to reject the aspects
of atheism that labeled religion entirely unnecessary or pernicious. I
knew that there was much richness in Judaism that I had no interest in
abandoning, and I found some atheists’ glib dismissal of religion
laughably reductionist. But at the same time, as I embraced my
disbelief, I found myself slowly but perceptibly slipping in my Jewish
observance. I tried a number of new synagogues and communities, opening
myself up to all denominations, from Reform to Reconstructionist. I was
dismayed to discover that the less-traditional services often had an
even stronger God-focus than my Conservative upbringing—they had simply
removed conventional ritual and substituted a vague spirituality in its
place: talking about “God’s presence,” or turning off the lights during
prayers so we could “feel God.” I couldn’t find a community that felt
“just right.”
Daniella, my wife, took a position of patient indifference toward my
journey. A committed believer, she smiled and nodded through my strident
epiphanies and discursive rants, only cutting in to make sure I
wouldn’t try to brainwash any prospective children we might have.
Accompanying me from one dissatisfying service to another, she was the
one who first recommended I search online to see if there were any
congregations dedicated to serving Jewish atheists.
That’s when I learned about one fringe denomination that sounded
fascinating: Humanistic Judaism. Unfortunately, there was no
congregation in Los Angeles, but when Daniella and I moved to New York
last fall, I found that one of the most active Jewish Humanist
congregations existed in the city: the City Congregation for Humanistic Judaism,
which meets at the Lower East Side Y. Many of City Congregation’s
talking points, presented at a fall open house by the congregation’s
Rabbi Peter Schweitzer, fell right in line with the same ideas that had
been brewing inside me for so long as a Jewish atheist. I could not wait
to try out my first Humanist service.
***
After attending that first Shabbat at City Congregation, and laughing uncomfortably with my wife at the revised Shema,
I was dismayed by my inability to feel any connection with this group
of fellow atheist Jews. Schweitzer agreed to speak with me, offering an
explanation that I found challenging and persuasive: My giggle-stifling
reaction was natural, he explained, because I remained beholden to the
customs and traditions that nurtured me, from Hebrew school to Jewish
summer camp. I still found comfort in these words even though I no
longer believed them, just as a child finds comfort in the myth of his
parents’ protection long after he’s discovered that they are fallible.
Part of maturity into adulthood—for myself and for Judaism as a
whole—was learning to abandon these comforting fallacies and reconcile
our beliefs with our actions: “Say what you mean, mean what you say,”
one of his guiding tenets of Jewish Humanist belief.
What gives us the right, I asked, to change the words, and the
meaning, of prayers and sacred texts? This was yet another kind of
superstition, he contended, an unhealthy fetishizing of certain words
while ignoring their troubling moral and historic fallacies. How can we
claim to be humanists, let alone atheists, if we allow our reverence for
archaic texts to outweigh our most deeply held beliefs? In his view, it
is our duty as Jews to remove anything from our traditions that we do
not believe in, as assuredly as one would remove a splinter.
The more I argued with Schweitzer, the more I realized I was actually
arguing with myself. I could no more find fault with his logic than I
could talk myself into believing in God. I left our meeting even more
conflicted than when I began. Was my inability to find meaning in his
God-free service a reflection of my latent superstitions? Having heard
Schweitzer’s challenge, could I ever practice traditional Judaism
again—with its innumerable celebrations of God, angels, prophets,
biblical violence, and sexism—without feeling like a complete fraud?
I reached out to the closest person I have to a spiritual adviser: my
former camp counselor, Rabbi Joel Seltzer, now the new director of Camp
Ramah in the Poconos. He listened with growing excitement as I
explained the predicament I found myself in. Not only had he wrestled
with these same questions as a rabbinical student, but he continued to
wrestle with them to this day. He spoke of his conception of God as one
that vacillates constantly, stretching from the biblical understanding,
to “Godliness,” to certified atheism. Yet, he contended, none of this
impeded his ability as a rabbi; it informed and strengthened it.
As I considered and compared the words of both rabbis, it became
increasingly difficult to tell who was the skeptic and who was the
believer. The only difference I could find was that while one chose to
sublimate his doubt to serve his religion, the other chose to transform
the religion to conform to his doubt.
I’d gained much respect for Schweitzer and his beliefs, but I didn’t
belong in the congregation he leads. Who really wants to pray from a
book that has nothing disagreeable in it? Who wants to follow only
rituals that make intellectual sense? It seemed so shortsighted to me.
If I hadn’t been given a God to wrestle with growing up, I wouldn’t be
half the cynical, pestering, relentlessly questioning nudnik I am today. In other words, I wouldn’t be Jewish.
I needed my experience with Humanistic Judaism to relearn what I
intuitively understood from a young age: There is inherent value in
saying words I do not mean, praying to a God I do not believe in, and
kissing a Torah I do not believe was written by him. There is a poetic
richness as a non-believer participating in this tradition, in being an
“Israelite” named for a mythological story about wrestling with a
fictional deity that birthed a very real people.
Although I am still unsure how, I know at least that I will continue
to act out this fiction. And if that associates me with a God and
superstitions I do not believe in, I accept that, because I know that
within the fiction of Judaism lie more profound truths than could ever
be attained outside of it.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/126217/an-atheists-synagogue-search
29 de maio de 2013
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Georges Moustaki
"Ma Solitude" (1969)
"Pour avoir si souvent dormi avec ma solitude,
Je m'en suis fait presque une amie, une douce habitude.
Elle ne me quitte pas d'un pas, fidèle comme une ombre.
Elle m'a suivi ça et là, aux quatres coins du monde.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Quand elle est au creux de mon lit, elle prend toute la place,
Et nous passons de longues nuits, tous les deux face à face.
Je ne sais vraiment pas jusqu'où ira cette complice,
Faudra-t-il que j'y prenne goût ou que je réagisse?
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Par elle, j'ai autant appris que j'ai versé de larmes.
Si parfois je la répudie, jamais elle ne désarme.
Et, si je préfère l'amour d'une autre courtisane,
Elle sera à mon dernier jour, ma dernière compagne.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude."
Je m'en suis fait presque une amie, une douce habitude.
Elle ne me quitte pas d'un pas, fidèle comme une ombre.
Elle m'a suivi ça et là, aux quatres coins du monde.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Quand elle est au creux de mon lit, elle prend toute la place,
Et nous passons de longues nuits, tous les deux face à face.
Je ne sais vraiment pas jusqu'où ira cette complice,
Faudra-t-il que j'y prenne goût ou que je réagisse?
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Par elle, j'ai autant appris que j'ai versé de larmes.
Si parfois je la répudie, jamais elle ne désarme.
Et, si je préfère l'amour d'une autre courtisane,
Elle sera à mon dernier jour, ma dernière compagne.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude.
Non, je ne suis jamais seul avec ma solitude."
22 de maio de 2013
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16 de maio de 2013
How Stephen Hawking Is Wrong
By Liel Leibovitz
Now that the Stephen Hawking controversy has died down and the usual suspects have traded their predictable barbs, it would serve us well to examine, coolly and without prejudice, the contours of the affair. If for no other reason, we’re likely to see similar cases pop up in the near future, and rather than being swept anew each time by the powerful gales of resentment and rage, we would do well to try and define the contours of useful conversation. Let us steer clear of the blowhards on either side, whom we’ve lost long ago. Let us also avoid nudging the conversation towards absolute terms like legitimacy, and assume, bluntly, that any human action that is not illegal is a legitimate and permissible one. What we aim for is something much more practical and far less illustrious, namely some common ground for us, the majority of people who see the nuance in this situation and who strive to settle reason, justice, and common-sense. Towards that end, I propose, the following four principles apply:
The Priority Principle: As soon as news broke of the
esteemed physicist’s snubbing of the Jerusalem conference, defenders of
the Jewish State argued that Hawking’s response was nonsensical given
the rush of brutalities surging everywhere from Damascus to the
Democratic Republic of Congo. To the extent that it implies that one
ought to focus on one conflict at a time, the argument is false; as Noam
Sheizaf rightly pointed out
in +972, “the genocide in Cambodia was taking place at the same time as
the boycott effort against South Africa,” and any claim that we ought
not to focus on one when there’s another going on may very well lead to
inaction. This, however, is where the priority principle comes into
play: to the extent that one chooses to be an engaged and responsible
global citizen, one is expected to set priorities and act on them. Such
is the mark of maturity: while we are all surrounded by a constellation
of stimulations, we must, if we wish to lead a morally balanced life,
concentrate our attention on those challenges that are most pressing,
which, as all but the most hardened cynics would agree, means that
priority ought to be given to any crisis involving the loss of human
life. There is little doubt that, for many, living in the occupied West
Bank is cruel and tragic. But 70,000 human beings have been slaughtered
in the last two years just a few kilometers to the north in Assad’s
inferno. Anyone, then, is free to protest Israel’s policies, but as long
as they remain silent on other, and far more pressing, catastrophes,
reasonable observers will be right to question whether singling out
Israel mightn’t be guided by ulterior, and dishonorable, motives.
The Categorical Imperative Principle: Arguably the
foundation of much of our moral and legal system, Immanuel Kant’s
categorical imperative states that one must only act if one’s action may
apply as a universal law. Hawking, then, is welcome to boycott these
regimes that are engaged in what he believes are severe violations of
human rights. But, as the Israeli political scientist Shlomo Avineri insightfully argued,
if Hawking was following his own logic, not to mention Kant’s, he would
have to place similar constraints on his relations with official
parties in Britain and the United States, having famously called the
military campaign in Iraq a “war crime.” If this is what Hawking
believes, and there’s no reason to doubt him, then President
Obama—patron of predator drones, which have killed, by some estimates,
anywhere between 3,500 and 4,700 people, of whom at least four were
Americans shot without trial—must be equally as morally tainted as
President Shimon Peres, whose invitation Hawking refused. This, of
course, wasn’t the case: Hawking was pleased to receive the Presidential
Medal of Freedom in 2009. Avineri is absolutely correct in claiming
that in turning down one invitation and embracing another, Hawking
violated not only the categorical imperative but also good,
old-fashioned common sense.
The Principle of Consequence: While on the subject
of common sense, advocates of any political cause mustn’t lose sight of a
simple realization, namely that actions have consequences, and that if
one is engaged in a pursuit to improve conditions here on earth—any
other sort of political undertaking is messianic, and is almost certain
to inflict wounds rather than heal them—one should be concerned with
outcomes just as much as with abstractions. The theory among supporters
of BDS holds that massive isolation of Israeli society would eventually
lead to the Jewish State’s downfall, just as it had ended the
segregationist regime in South Africa. Without discussing the merits of
comparing the occupation to apartheid, it is not too difficult to admit
that, under the existing geopolitical conditions, attempts to isolate
Israel internationally are very likely to have an adverse effect. With
strong American support in the foreseeable future, Israel is never
likely to suffer a blow crucial enough to undermine its well-being;
boycotts, then, serve as little but fodder for the worst elements in the
Israeli political landscape, already grim. The narrative that posits
Israel as a small and persecuted nation having no choice but to
sacrifice all hope on the altar of vigilance is, arguably, a greater
threat to that nation than all of Tehran’s missiles. It’s a line of
thinking that leads to nothing but despair, and Hawking, in his refusal,
feeds right into it. He might’ve used his clout to travel to Jerusalem
and offer some harsh and inconvenient truths from his podium. He
might’ve taken the opportunity to urge his pal Obama into playing a more
decisive role in pressing for the rekindling of negotiations. He
might’ve even met and spoken with young Israelis, promising them—as the
American president had during his recent visit to Jerusalem—that a
better tomorrow is possible if only they held their leaders accountable.
Instead, Hawking wasted all his clout on a purely symbolic, utterly
useless act. It’s more than just a shame.
The Proust Principle: Too often understood, often by
people who had never read him, to be a chronicler of high society for
whom the aesthetic always trumped the political, Proust offers us as
many insights into politics as he does into any other realm of the human
experience. One in particular resonates: political convictions, he
argued, are like kaleidoscopic visions, constantly shifting and
intricately linked to a host of other emotional, social, even artistic
criteria. Rather than seek absolutes and fortify barriers, he advocates
keeping in mind that the next shift in focus is just around the corner,
and that we, if we’re alive at all, are constantly changing creatures.
This profound insight is not without its prescriptions: following the
master’s teachings, a Proustian political activist would therefore seek
to establish coalitions not necessarily with those who hold similar
opinions—these opinions, history and Proust’s great novel both show us,
are apt to change—but with those towards whom one feels, to borrow the phrase
Christopher Hitchens and Bill Buckley used to describe their (at times
unlikely) friendship, a “consanguinity of spirit.” It is easy to see all
of Israeli society as playing a part in the occupation, and coarse
arguments insist that as the army plays a major part in the lives of
individuals and institutions in Israel the nation entire is morally
tainted. Proust, as conflicted about the implications of Jewish identity
as anyone, would brush off such dogma, insisting that there are
conflicted, attentive minds inside every political thicket eager to
listen and interact, and that it’s the task of the artist, not to
mention the activist, to make them heard. This is what’s lost when we
stop talking, a loss that makes life poorer.
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/132327/how-stephen-hawking-is-wrong?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=8d02a5eb98-5_14_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-8d02a5eb98-206801785
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/132327/how-stephen-hawking-is-wrong?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=8d02a5eb98-5_14_2013&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-8d02a5eb98-206801785
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13 Princípios de Maimónides
1. Creio com plena fé que D-us é o Criador de todas as criaturas e as dirige. Só Ele fez, faz e fará tudo.
2. Creio com plena fé que o Criador é Único. Não há unicidade igual à d’Ele. Só ele é nosso D-us; Ele sempre existiu, existe e existirá.
3. Creio com plena fé que o Criador não é corpo. Conceitos físicos não se aplicam a Ele. Não há nada que se assemelhe a Ele.
4. Creio com plena fé que o Criador é o primeiro e o último.
5. Creio com plena fé que é adequado orar somente ao Criador. Não se dever rezar para ninguém ou nada mais.
6. Creio com plena fé que todas as palavras dos profetas são autênticas.
7. Creio com plena fé que a profecia de Moshê Rebênu é verdadeira. Ele foi o mais importante de todos os profetas, antes e depois dele.
8. Creio com plena fé que toda a Torá que se encontra em nosso poder foi dada a Moshê Rebênu.
9. Creio com plena fé que esta Torá não será alterada e que nunca haverá outra dada pelo Criador.
10. Creio com plena fé que o Criador conhece todos os atos e pensamentos do ser humano.
11. Creio com plena fé que o Criador recompensa aqueles que cumprem Seus preceitos e pune quem os transgride.
12. Creio com plena fé na vinda de Mashiach. Mesmo que demore, esperarei por sua vinda a cada dia.
13. Creio com plena fé na Ressurreição dos Mortos que ocorrerá quando for do agrado do Criador.
2. Creio com plena fé que o Criador é Único. Não há unicidade igual à d’Ele. Só ele é nosso D-us; Ele sempre existiu, existe e existirá.
3. Creio com plena fé que o Criador não é corpo. Conceitos físicos não se aplicam a Ele. Não há nada que se assemelhe a Ele.
4. Creio com plena fé que o Criador é o primeiro e o último.
5. Creio com plena fé que é adequado orar somente ao Criador. Não se dever rezar para ninguém ou nada mais.
6. Creio com plena fé que todas as palavras dos profetas são autênticas.
7. Creio com plena fé que a profecia de Moshê Rebênu é verdadeira. Ele foi o mais importante de todos os profetas, antes e depois dele.
8. Creio com plena fé que toda a Torá que se encontra em nosso poder foi dada a Moshê Rebênu.
9. Creio com plena fé que esta Torá não será alterada e que nunca haverá outra dada pelo Criador.
10. Creio com plena fé que o Criador conhece todos os atos e pensamentos do ser humano.
11. Creio com plena fé que o Criador recompensa aqueles que cumprem Seus preceitos e pune quem os transgride.
12. Creio com plena fé na vinda de Mashiach. Mesmo que demore, esperarei por sua vinda a cada dia.
13. Creio com plena fé na Ressurreição dos Mortos que ocorrerá quando for do agrado do Criador.
(http://www.pt.chabad.org)
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