HP 18 On the Way

It was a long season, but so far all that’s been accomplished is the right to play in the post-season. And winning the AL East was sweet, but won't count for much of anything come November. How many wild cards have won the series since 2001? Including, of course, 2004. There is a bottle of HP 18 on the way, and the nice part about that is that it has to be hand-delivered. So sometime before the snow falls, G-Man will make an appearance here in Rochester. He and Danny can give each other the secret Yankee handshake; we’ll have to grill steaks and drink some select malt whiskies; perhaps if it isn’t too cold yet, we’ll find time for a cigar. And between now and then, we’ll learn who among us, if anyone, gets to look back on the post-season. Who knows, maybe it will be the Cubs’ year after all?

One other quick note. Cuse vaulted almost fifty places in the SI power rankings this week. That might be a record. Can they make it two in a row tomorrow against Miami? The fake Miami, the one from Ohio. But this year, better them than the Hurricanes. On Sunday I’m off to Cortland for a week, and there won’t be much news on the blog. Jews don’t have a purgatory, but if we did, I think it would be a lot like Cortland. It’s not the worst place on earth, but who isn’t looking forward to getting out of there? Fortunately for me, this blog isn’t widely read in small towns. By the time of my release, we’ll all know more about all of this – the post-season, the Cuse; as a matter of fact, by the time I recover from the trial, it will almost be hoops season.

Back to the Akeidah

My earlier discussion of Abraham’s genius began with the Akeidah, mainly because it is the most familiar story about his life. But more than that, the Akeidah is the clearest suggestion of the novel and remarkable thinking of the father of our traditions. But only if we look at the Akeidah from a fresh perspective, because the traditional explanations of the Akeidah are for the most part, unsatisfactory. I’ve concluded that what really happened is far different from the story told in Genesis. To get to that point, however, let’s look more carefully at the conventional wisdom surrounding this troublesome story.

Traditional Judaism teaches that the Akeidah was Abraham’s ultimate test. After being told that he will father a great nation, after receiving the gift of Isaac late in life, the son through whom this nation will survive, after sending Ishmael off into the wilderness, Abraham is asked to slay his son, his only son, the son he loves, for no purpose other than to demonstrate his love of God.

But why was it necessary for God to test Abraham at this point in his life? Abraham had already done everything that God asked of him: he answered God’s call by leaving his family and his land; he circumcised himself and his sons; he banished Ishmael. What more could he be asked to do? Sarna claims that the Akeidah bookends Abraham’s life; it is the final act of obedience, similar to his early response to go forth from his own land and people. That’s not much of an answer, when you think about it. And then the fact that Abraham obeys God, and does so in silence, as contrasted to his vocal protests over the destruction of Sodom, persuades Sarna that Abraham understood that this sacrifice was “irreconcilable with his concept of God.” (Sarna 159) But if Abraham knew that God really wouldn’t allow him to kill Isaac, how did his ostensible obedience mean anything? What did that acquiescence prove? Lastly, Sarna somehow concludes that the Akeidah is proof of God’s non-capricious nature, despite the fact that up until this point in Genesis, God has been nothing but capricious. His solution for many of the world’s problems is to wipe the offenders from the face of the earth. The only traditional explanation that makes any sense is that God is demanding unconditional obedience from his one prophet, who seems perhaps to have outgrown the master in his understanding of ethical precepts. And that’s a pretty weird story when you think about it.

This conflict between obedience and ethics is the departure point for the more modern explanation of the Akeidah found in Segal’s book, Joseph’s Bones. Segal contends that God is testing Abraham anew, because after Sodom, where Abraham argued in favor of Sodom’s innocent residents, God isn’t sure whether Abraham will follow God’s command, or his own internal ethical compass. In other words, can God really count on Abraham? This interpretation paints a portrait of a petty, small-minded God, not the God of justice and compassion, and not even a God that would seem to merit Abraham’s faith and loyalty.

Then Segal suggests that Abraham goes along with God’s demand to slay Isaac, because he doesn’t really believe that God will, in the end, kill Isaac. Abraham wants to know if this is really the God of Justice. (Segal 79) In other words, according to Segal, the Akeidah is a story about Abraham testing God. Segal harkens back to the Sodom story, which he describes as the moral transformation of God. Abraham taught God about justice. While this interpretation might comport with the details of Genesis, it really makes no sense at all. Who is this character God, who has the power to wipe out all life on earth, but has to be taught justice by his first and most loyal disciple? In fact, if any of that were true, what would Abraham have found appealing in this God? What about this God would have caused Abraham to have answered his call in the first place?

Neither of these explanations has much to say for itself; neither explanation seems to make any sense, either in the context of the Genesis narrative, or in the larger, more philosophical context. The only way the story makes any sense is in an unquestioning manner. Just as God demanded that Abraham sacrifice Isaac, and Abraham seemed to obey, in silence and without any question, we are asked to accept the Akeidah at face value, in silence, and without asking questions.

I am persuaded, however, that the real explanation of the Akeidah lies in the originality of Abraham’s thought. If he is the first one to understand that there is only one God, not a pantheon of competing gods; if he is the first one to appreciate that justice should be meted out only against those who are actually culpable; if he is the one who decides that the savage world in which he lives is unacceptable; then he is certainly able to appreciate that human sacrifice is an abomination. J’s version of the Akeidah has been lost over time in the Bible’s editing and revision. The Akeidah story handed down to us was not written for at least 1500 years after Abraham had walked on earth. And by then, Abraham’s originality had been replaced by the dogma of an established religion. His remarkable insight had become a story meant to teach us about the virtue of unflinching obedience to God. By then it had ceased being an expression of the remarkable genius and insight of the patriarch. Too bad for that.

Eden Revisited

It’s my intention to return to Abraham, the hero of Genesis, but before doing that, I’d like first to discuss a couple of the earlier chapters in Genesis, stories everyone knows from childhood. My reading of Bloom’s Book of J, and my efforts to think about the circumstances that gave rise to the authorship of Genesis, have caused me to reconsider some of these very familiar stories. Let’s start with the Garden of Eden – Adam and Eve.

For much of the world, this is the tale of original sin – the serpent playing the villain, and Eve often portrayed as his accomplice. Judaism doesn’t necessarily buy into the concept of original sin, but traditional Jewish thinking characterizes this story as a tale of good and evil. “The story of the Garden of Eden [teaches] that evil is a human product.” Man, through the exercise of his good will corrupts God’s good world and, “puts evil in its place.” (Sarna 24). Now let’s see if I got this right. God’s destruction of Noah’s entire world, including all the giraffes, peacocks and hummingbirds, is just some cosmic mistake, a mistake he admits immediately thereafter, when he gives Noah the rainbow; but Adam and Eve eating the apple in the Garden of Eden introduces evil into the world. Is that right? The more modern and enlightened view of Eden, as explained in Joseph’s Bones is that it’s a story about commandments and disobedience. But I think all these interpretations are wrong.

The Garden of Eden is not a story about good and evil; in fact, it’s not a didactic story at all. Rather, it’s descriptive. Think about the punishment visited on Adam and Even. The woman will bear children through pain, and the man will earn his bread through toil and labor. That’s not a punishment; that’s just a description of our lives. And that’s what the Bible is telling us in the Garden of Eden; it’s a story about the human condition.

Where can we find paradise today? Somewhere east of the Tigris and Euphrates? In Shangri-La? How about in my back yard? The squirrels and rabbits that live in my back yard live in paradise. They have all those tulips and acorns and Susan’s herb garden to feast on all summer long. In the winter, even if they can’t find food, they get to snuggle up with their mates in their respective dens, probably right under my back porch. There are no predators to speak of. And while they may have a sense of the change of seasons, they have no concept of their mortality. For all they know, they’ll live forever, feasting on our flowers, and climbing in our trees.

What was different about Adam and Eve was that they came to understand the human condition. This is a story about the development of consciousness, and with it, the awareness of human mortality. The Adam and Eve story depicts that point in history, in pre-history really, when our ancestors separated themselves from the animals with whom they had lived. J, or whoever sat down to write this story, tried to describe what exactly it is that makes us human. And she did that three thousand years ago, six hundred years before Plato. We’ve all relegated Genesis to the Sunday school teachers. But J was writing wisdom literature, not stories for kids. We’ll return to that topic when we get back to Abraham, but considering the time, and the nature of the world in which she wrote, J’s vision and her originality are startling.

Backlogged

G-Man attributes my recent silence to despair over the Sox meltdown of the past week. And while it’s been hard to find creative inspiration amid this recent disaster, I haven’t been ignoring the blog entirely. I’ve just not been able to find the time to compose. As a result I have a long backlog of items I need to address. And just to keep my readers from losing faith entirely, I want to give everyone a preview of postings to come.

On the baseball front, I have developed two theories about Eric Gagne, or Gag-me as I think his name is properly pronounced. The first theory is that he is a Trojan horse, a Yankee sabotage; and that while he wears the RedSox uniform, and is paid a salary by the Sox, his Swiss bank account is growing exponentially, thanks to cash deposits funded by Steinbrenner, and carried abroad by Carl Pavano. They’re making a movie about this theory; I think Matt Damon will play Gag-me. The other theory is that Tito Francona is using Gag-me to destroy RedSox complacency. Tito worried that with a big lead, the Sox would become lazy and lack motivation. They needed to stumble, and to fight their way into the post-season in order to play well come October. Just don’t forget to get up after stumbling, huh Tito? The validity of this theory will only become known a month from now. Suffice it to say that this strategy, as wise as it may seem, has give the Nation a collective heart attack, or at least a chronic case of heartburn.

Another baseball posting concerns the overall inconsistent season for every team vying for a playoff spot. I spoke to my friend Matt the other day – a die-hard Mets fan – and he was not only despairing, but talking of drastic measures to wreak vengeance on those among the Mets organization, who have aided and abetted their recent collapse. This pattern is pretty much true for all the teams who look likely to play in October. The Yankees are the only team that seems to have engineered this inconsistency in the correct fashion. They got most of their crappy play out of the way in April and May, and look to be in the best position coming into the post-season. But as the past few years have shown, it’s going to be about the pitching more than anything else, and that hasn’t been the Yankees strong suit. How about the Padres in the World Series?

When I get back to writing about whisky, and I have continued my research efforts on a regular basis, despite the recent lack of postings, I want to talk more about Aberlour. Maybe I’m beating that topic to death, but I can’t get over this whisky. Right now, although the 12 is my regular malt of choice, the A’Bunadh, the cask strength whisky, seems to call out to me at all hours. It has more flavor, glass after glass, and sip after sip, than any other highland malt, and perhaps almost any other malt, period. Matter of fact, as soon as I finish here, I’m pouring myself one.

But the biggest backlog has arisen from all the Biblical literature I’ve been reading. Danny got me to look at Heschel; I’ve been reading Bloom’s Book of J; and more recently, I acquired two volumes of scholarship, or exegesis, or analysis, whatever you want to call it, of Genesis. One is Joseph’s Bones, by Jerome Segal, and seems to stem from the modern or reform tradition. The other is Understanding Genesis, by Nahum Sarna, from quite the other end of the spectrum, at least our modern American spectrum. I’ve read a bunch of Bloom, and only a bit of the other two, but I can report that I’ve yet to find any satisfactory explanation for the Akeidah, my personal departure point for trying to understand the wisdom of Abraham. In other words, even though I’m hardly a scholar when it comes to Biblical matters, I’m finding that my understanding of the Akeidah is better than any of the traditional interpretations, all of which fail to withstand even cursory examination. But there’s hardly time for all of this right now, and there will be even less time, as we move through October, unless of course the Sox continue their free-fall, and miss the post season entirely. If that happens, I will need Abraham to distract me from my despondency, and will undoubtedly fill these pages with endless commentary on the Patriarchs.

But assuming that doesn’t happen, it will take some time for me to wade through J, and to explain why both the traditional and reform understanding of what happened on Mt. Moriah are incorrect. Talk about hubris.

We're Number One (oh-Seven)

This just in, news for the New Year: Cuse is ranked number one hundred and seven in Division 1-A. That’s 107, out of only 119. Which means that there may be as many as twelve teams worse than us, if the rankings are accurate. We’ll have a chance to see that in week eight, when we play Buffalo, presently ranked below us at 109, but sporting a heady 1-1 record after a dominating victory over Temple, which finds itself at 118, second from last in all of Division 1-A. Too bad we don’t have them on our schedule anymore. Instead, we face three ranked teams, all in the top thirteen nationally, over the next five games. By the time we play Buffalo on October 20, the Orange could still be looking for their first win.

Every year since I can remember, fall meant college football. Not that we don’t have NFL games, but fall afternoons in Archibold, with the leaves turning, and Floyd Little breaking tackles; and later on games in the Dome, fifty thousand strong, the crowd roaring. The noise was absolutely deafening when Kirby DarDar returned the opening kickoff for a score against Florida. Can you imagine that today? The Orange led the Gators by something like 31-7 at halftime. What are the chances we’ll ever see that again?

Anyway, the hopes this fall are for a late baseball season, the RedSox playing when the temperatures drop, and you can see the breath coming out of Beckett and Schilling as they blow on their hands to keep them warm. And if all goes well, it will only be a couple weeks after baseball ends, before the hoops season starts, and Cuse plays in the pre-season NIT. That’s where we finished last year, Josh Wright tossing up an ill-considered three, which seemed to symbolize the year’s shortcomings. But even as disappointing as last season was, we still saw some good games in the Dome; we had our first look at the new PH; and we were left with hope for the coming year.

I know we’re supposed to reflect on weightier matters as the New Year approaches, but we’ll have time for that in the coming days. For now, Go Sox, and let’s hope the Orange live up to expectations.

Smokin

I fired up the smoker yesterday, for the first time all summer, thanks to our friends Mickey and Carolyn. They had been kind enough to send five racks of ribs, frozen and packed in dry ice, as a most generous thank-you for having stayed here a couple days. It hardly seemed necessary, as the pleasure of seeing them both was more than enough thanks for the modest hospitality we had been able to show.

Still, it was just the right motivation to clean the smoker, soak the chips, prep the ribs with dinosaur red rub, and then spend yesterday afternoon in the barbeque pit, keeping an eye on the temperature, stoking the smoker with coals and wood chips, all the while keeping a book and a glass of beer nearby. We won’t know until later today, after we’ve reheated the ribs, and slow cooked them some more, how they turned out. Let’s say we’re guardedly optimistic. But for now, it was fun enough to have had the smoker running all day yesterday.

And speaking of smoking, how about that Clay Buchholz? Just a few weeks past his 23^rd birthday, and in only his second major league start, he tossed a no-hitter against the Orioles on Saturday night. An assist to Dustin Pedroia, another kid, who made a sparking play in the seventh to keep the no-hitter alive. But with nine strikeouts, and a number of lazy fly balls, Buchholz was well in command all night long. Now the big question is whether Tito finds room for him on the roster, or if he’s just filling in until Wake is healthy again. I guess these are the kinds of problems, if we’re going to have problems, which we’d prefer to have.

So check back here to find further news on how the ribs turned out, and whether Buchholz sticks around to help the Sox in their quest for the post-season.