Nonsense Posing as Scholarship

I’ve struggled over the past year looking for someone, anyone, who treats Genesis with the seriousness it deserves, yet is not a fundamentalist. I use that term to describe anyone who believes that the Torah is the revealed word of God, the literal word of God, given verbatim to Moses on Sinai. That’s of course one of the thirteen tenets of the Rambam, and is a given for Danny’s boy, A.J. Heschel. And if one accepts that premise, the entire field of biblical study, Torah study, is merely an attempt to understand the meaning of each and every one of God’s words. That’s clearly not my perspective as I read Genesis.

Aside from the fundamentalists, most ‘intellectuals’ find the Bible to be a collection of children’s stories, Aesop’s fables for the fanatical. This perspective is dismissive of the Bible, and doesn’t even begin to try and sort out its meaning and significance. The remainder of the field, at least as far as I’ve found in my year of study, is occupied by a purportedly enlightened Jewish perspective, one that appears to treat the Bible seriously, but looks at it from a fresh perspective, typically informed by what I would call humanism. In oversimplified terms, this is reform Jewish scholarship.

The problem with this perspective is that it quickly devolves into nonsense. Let me give you a couple examples. Jerome Segal is some kind of philosopher, or professor of philosophy, who focuses on the metaphor of Joseph’s Bones (the title of his book), which were carried out of Egypt, and then through the forty years in the wilderness, alongside the Ark of the Covenant, until they were eventually buried in Canaan. Segal suggests that the significance of Joseph, and his bones, is that they represent the forgiving and merciful side of the Jewish God, one that coexists with the angry, retributive God of Genesis, who is so quick to punish any deviation from his prescribed laws and observances. But listen to what Segal says about God:

[Abraham] challenges God to be just, making clear to God that morality … serves to limit what God can legitimately will. (Segal 68).

[In the Eden story] God does not want humanity to be possessed of both moral knowledge and immortality. (Segal 83).

God, it seems, has come to recognize that Moses has articulated God’s deepest needs better than God did himself. (Segal 236).

God simply will not embrace Abraham’s doctrine that the innocent should be spared punishment. (Segal 267).

Without belaboring the point, Segal suggests that it was Abraham who instructed God about justice before the destruction of Sodom, and that the Akeidah was a test of Abraham’s loyalty because God was unsure of Abraham’s obedience. Would Abraham do as God ordered, or would he instead fall back upon justice for his guidance? More problematical is Segal’s discussion of Moses, who supposedly protects the Israelites from God’s wrath on more than one occasion after the exodus. Segal suggests, in fact, that God deliberately chose Moses for this task, knowing the Moses would serve as a buffer, and help preserve the Jewish people from God’s anger.

Even Alan Dershowitz, who normally earns my respect, has this same goofy perspective in his book, The Genesis of Justice. God is, “not a statically omniscient Being Who knows everything there is to know from the very beginning.” (Dershowitz 43). Moreover, during the argument about Sodom, “God too may have learned that He has been insufficiently sensitive to the plight of the innocent….” (Dershowitz 89) Both of these authors posit a God who learned from his mistakes after the flood, and declared that never again would he wipe out all of creation.

When Segal talks of God’s deepest needs, what can that possibly mean? His needs, his anger, his jealousy? Segal and Dershowitz depict a God who doesn’t quite get it right the first time around, whenever he’s dealing with humans. He makes mistakes; he learns from his mistakes; he picks leaders and prophets who will protect his people from his own misjudgments. Imagine for just a second, that this same God made similar mistakes when he constructed the atom, or the nucleus of a cell, or a DNA molecule. How long would that atom survive? How long would beings live without all their delicate cellular functions working perfectly? How come God got all that right, in fact so right that the universe has functioned in perfect balance for billions of years? How did he formulate the laws of thermodynamics, or Maxwell’s equations, or the quantum states for electrons in orbit for each of the elements of the periodic table, but he couldn’t figure out that it was wrong to kill everything on earth, the innocent and the guilty, until Abraham schooled him on the concept of justice? How was it that he made the human eye, or brain, organs so intricate and complex that decades of scientific study have barely begun to understand their workings, yet he can’t figure out how not to kill the Israelites every time he gets angry? And what does it even mean to say that the architect of all the universe is angry or jealous in the first place?

I have more respect for the fundamentalist who accepts all the Torah as the literal word of God, and then tries to explain God’s anger, than I do for the purportedly enlightened scholar who suggests this imperfect God who can’t quite get things right the first time around. As a result, I have found all this scholarship to be less than useful, in fact, silly; foolish; nonsense.

Of all the explanations of Genesis I’ve read this past year, the only one that appealed to me was Bloom. (Are you surprised?) Bloom starts with the book - namely the Torah - and asks what did the author intend; why was this text written? I would like to move that inquiry back in time. I would like to start with the ideas that are represented in the text, and ask, first of all, where did these ideas come from? I’ve suggested that Abraham was the source of these ideas, and that it took a millennium for his ideas to become reduced to writing. But that’s nothing more than my own uninformed speculation. I’m searching for some support for this idea – some scholarship that traces the intellectual history of the Jewish people, from its source, to its text, and then to the practices we know of today. I’m still searching. Mike says that Joel Rosenberg writes from this perspective, but I’ve not had the time to read him. Still, that won’t keep me from my musings. And I’m hoping to post, before long, on the most important event in Jewish history, the event that I believe marks the beginning of western thought as we know it today – Abraham’s call. Stay tuned.

It's All About the Marketing

How dumb of me. I’ve been critical of the Yankees for signing A-Fraud to the most expensive contract in the history of baseball. I figured they were wasting millions each year, perhaps hundreds of millions over the length of the contract, to sign a guy who may have great individual numbers, but has never played in a single World Series game, let alone on a championship team. He’s a guy who won two MVP awards the past three years, and in that same time managed a single post-season RBI. His cumulative post-season average in the last three years is .159. And that was only after he broke out of his slump, so to speak, in the ALDS against the Indians. So why throw all that money at him; why not find a kid who can actually deliver when it counts? And in the process save twenty million dollars a year, money that could spent signing pitchers?

But who am I to criticize the most successful franchise in sports history? Furthermore, I’ve come to learn that it’s not about winning; it’s about running a business. Here’s what Danny said in a recent comment to set me straight:

“A-Rod is worth every penny he will be paid. The Yanks will make a huge return economically on that contract (which means they will actually have a net cost much lower) and so will A-Rod. Baseball is a business to those involved and religion only to its fans.”

News from the holiday weekend has proven Danny right. A-Rod and the Yankees have signed a marketing agreement worth another $30 Million. That’s above and beyond the $275 million they’ve already agreed to pay. Under the new contract, the marketing contract, A-Rod will get five million every time he passes a home run milestone – Mays, Ruth, Aaron, Bonds, and the record. (He gets paid twice for passing Bonds, and setting the new record at the same time. That’s a two for one milestone, an extra five million for good measure. Five million here, five million there – what’s the difference?) So it’s win-win; the Yankees sell out the stadium as A-Rod approaches and then surpasses each of these historical numbers (like 714, which needs no explanation to fans); A-Rod makes gobs of money, and gets his picture on the back page of the Post over and over; and fans get to witness all these historical events. Everyone is happy, except of course those few fans who want to see the Yankees in the World Series, and don’t really care so much about individual accomplishments. Hey, maybe the agreement should toss in an extra million every time he gets photographed coming out of a strip club with a new bimbo. One million per Bimbo; no repeat payoffs. After all, that’s good publicity for the Yankees; the Post will run the photo on the back page.

But if it’s just a business, there’s only one measure of success; it’s determined not by the final standings, nor the World Series, but by the Financial Statements. The accountants can all get together at the winter meetings, and declare who was the best team – i.e., who made the most money. And if signing A-Rod helps the Yankees accomplish that, who am I to suggest they do anything different? What do I know?

A Year to Remember

No, not that year. I'm not talking about the year that ended with seven straight post-season wins. I'm talking instead about the year that ended last night in the dome, with Cincinnati scoring 52 points against the Orange, and handing them their tenth loss of the season. That's the second time in three years the Orange have lost ten games, and incidentally, those were the only two times in over a hundred seasons of football, that the Orange lost ten games.

But let's put that season in the proper perspective. We didn't just lose a lot of games; we lost a lot of games by a lot of points, and managed to do that playing in the Big East, which may have had some success this year, but still isn't the SEC, or the Big Ten. We had seven losses where we were outscored by 20 points or more.

And it was also how we managed to lose those ten games. Emphatically; decisively; ridiculously; not even close. Our rushing offense was 118th out of 119 teams. And for those readers who don't fully understand the nuances of statistics, that means in all of Division 1-A, there was only a single team who was more inept than us at moving the ball on the ground. Our sacks allowed were 118th, again out of the same 119 teams in Division I-A. And our own sack production was 118th, yes, out of 119. We had nine sacks all season. Nine. Somewhere there is another pathetic team that had fewer than nine sacks for the season, but there are games each week where some team's defense has more than nine sacks in one game. That happens every week. I saw the Giants rack up a dozen sacks against the Eagles this year, in one game. But finding an Orange sack in the dome was about as common as a solar eclipse. Now, I had been under the impression that Robinson was a defensive coach. And maybe he was better at defense than offense, because we ranked 110th in total defense, clearly better than the 115th we registered in total offense. But it's hard to lavish praise on the defensive coaching, when we allowed five teams this year to run up over 500 yards in total offense. And, only twice during the entire year did we hold a team to under 400 yards of offense.

Last night's announced attendance was just over 30,000. That's probably the smallest attendance for a football game since the dome opened. But it's also probably double the number of fans who were actually in their seats. See, when they announce the game attendance, they count all the season ticket holders. So I was counted among the 30,000, twice, once for each ticket. The tickets are still here, of course. I tried, but could not even manage to give them away. So if I'm right about the true numbers, the crowd was smaller than almost every basketball game. And for basketball, in case anyone is unaware of this, they don't open the entire dome. Full house is 33,000. Full house for football is 50,000. How many of the 30,000 announced will renew their season tickets next year? And why have I kept buying tickets for these past three miserable years?

OK that's it. I'm done for now. It's on to hoops season. Which resumes on Wednesday night, with the Orange now 3-1. This is a team with promise, but a young team, and a team that needs to play hard every night, not many nights off this year. And a team that needs to figure out how to play the 2-3 zone. And a team that needs to protect the ball better, to cut down on turnovers. But from what I've seen, if they do that, it's a team that could play late in March. Go Orange.

Shalom Bitches

Enough already – time to set the record straight. And we have a record on which we can rely, so there’s no arguing with the facts. For example, my friend Danny told us, in a comment to the October 31 posting, that, “Yankee fans have learned humility, dignity and greatness.” Say what? How exactly do humility and self-declared greatness coexist? Only with another ingredient, which is the chief characteristic of all Yankee fandom – hubris. And once again, the record speaks for itself. Back on April 20, a Friday night, the first Sox-Yankee game of 18, Danny began texting John, who was sitting out in right field in Fenway. It was early in the game, and Danny was crowing about A-Rod’s home runs. Only problem was that Danny spoke too soon. Sox scored five in the bottom of the eighth, and Okajima shut the door in the ninth – his coming out party. See, it was hubris led Danny to spout off before the game had ended. And if you don’t believe this happened, if you think I’m making this up, check the record. Look at the posting for April 21. Once again I have to ask, if that’s a fact, am I lying?

And so it was hubris all season long that led Yankee fans to predict post-season success, or RedSox collapse. I counted no fewer than five occasions when such predictions were made on the record, in the open blog so to speak, for all the world to read. Of course, none of these preposterous predictions came true; what happened, and again these are all established facts, is that the Yankees went home early, so they could begin negotiating their contracts, and the Sox swept the Rockies to win the World Series. But the question we need to ask, the question that’s relevant to this posting, is whether this Yankee hubris was in any way responsible for the Friday Night Plague? And if so, don’t Yankee fans think it would be smarter to keep their mouths shut, at least until they resume accomplishing anything in October? Wouldn’t it be smarter to see your team actually win the Series once again, and then to tell us how great they are?

Or perhaps I’m missing the point here, maybe the fault is mine. Remember early in the year, when I pointed out that Clemens would make more in each inning he pitched than Mays had made in most seasons he played? Yes, I know, everyone makes more today, but this was just throwing money away. And all year, we’ve been talking about what a bitch A-Rod is, with his bimbo shenanigans, with that bush league play up in Toronto, and of course, with his October nonfeasance. Of course he stepped up this year, and had his first post-season RBI since 2004; just one, but it was an improvement nonetheless. Anyway, ever since the Yankees’ season ended, and Boras and A-Rod engineered that ersatz departure, I’ve been delivering a consistent message, which was completely ignored by the entire Pinstripe crowd – first that the Yankees were better off without A-Rod, and second, that you wasted your money resigning him. Now Danny has set me straight. “The Yanks will make a huge return economically on the contract….Baseball is a business.” Well, I can’t argue with the latter; it is a business, but is the purpose of the business to win anything, or just to generate revenues? And even though I’m no economist, and not much of a businessman either, I still figured that the Yankees could save that $275 extra large, find a good young third baseman who could actually get a hit in October, and thereby spend less money while having more post-season success. Am I wrong? OK then.

Really, what’s going on is that the Yankees and their fans are reduced to this – “Wait till next year.” We in the Nation know all about that, having lived by that motto for years and years. It’s what makes us look forward to each spring; it’s the hope everyone carries through the long winter; it’s what makes spring sweet for sports fans. But that hope is often like whisky in a barrel. Sometimes it improves with age, but sometimes, it gets bitter after a while. Be careful for that.

And speaking of ‘wait till next year’, I’m happy to do the bet with any of my readers. Here’s how we did it this year – best regular season record won a bottle of Highland Park 18. The particular whisky can be negotiated each year, as I suppose, can the terms of the bet: for example, who goes farther in the season, or post-season if we’re both lucky? And again for the record, the 2007 bet was made early on; G-Man and I agreed in principle before the season even began, and the stakes – HP 18 – were settled on by April 9. But thanks to Beckett, and Manny, and Papi, and Pedroia, and Pap, and Oki, and Youk, and even J.D. Drew, I’m one bottle to the good as of today, and happy to double the stakes in 2008.

Mike Lowell

What was the first topic on which we posted last night? What did we say was the first order of business for the Sox? Tonight the Boston media are reporting that Mike Lowell and the RedSox have agreed in principle to a three-year deal. If that's true, everyone who's anyone is signed up, not just for next year, but through 2010. And unlike 2004, when the front office decided they needed to rejuvenate an aging team, and they allowed some key players to defect (e.g., Damon), and traded away, or just declined to sign some others (e.g., Cabrera), this year management paid attention to the old adage: "If it's not broke, don't fix it." And with Ellsbury stepping up in the biggest series of the season, and Drew finally living up to the fans' expectations, there's really no position where anyone could even want much of a change. Plus, we can look to Lester and Buckholz joining the rotation full time next year. So maybe we'll need someone to replace Mike Timlin, who after all will begin collecting social security any day now; and we could still use another left handed reliever; but with Coco as trade bait, and considering that Okajima and Pap will still be anchoring the pen, that's not a huge hole to fill.

Meanwhile, the Yankees are doing pretty much as I suggested back in early October. What was it that the Emperor said in Return of the Jedi? "Everything has transpired according to my design." Check it out : the young Steinbrenners are piloting the ship, acting as though they have some idea what they're doing; the front office is still the same, but Torre is gone; A-Rod has been resigned. I know exactly what those guys are thinking - "when he's breaking the home run record five years from now (and he will break that record, for sure), we'll have a full house every day. We'll get back every penny we spend on his contract." Morons! They'd have a full house every day anyway, just so long as they kept putting a great product on the field. How many empty house have the Yankees played to in the Torre era? But even if A-Rod puts fans in the seats, or wins another three MVP awards, he's yet to show he can put rings on anyone's fingers. So I guess they didn't realize my advice was tongue in cheek.

In any event, Ill be a happy man with Lowell back in Boston, and the Yankees spending close to thirty mill every year to keep A-Rod at third. And I'll trade all those individual accolades - A-Rod's MVP; Sabathia's Cy Young; the Three-Six Mafia's Oscar; for another couple championships. Go Sox.

Back to the Blog

So much to post about, and so little time. In no particular order, here’s what needs to be addressed in the next few posts:

Mike Lowell. When is Theo going to get off the dime and sign this guy? I don’t quite get how we draw a line in the sand for Lowell, who led the team in RBIs, and was the World Series MVP, but we didn’t draw the same line for J.D. Drew. Now I know Drew hit well after Labor Day, and had that grand slam to kick off Game Six of the ALCS, announcing to the Indians that they weren’t in Kansas anymore, or wherever Cleveland is supposed to be, but still, Drew was an unknown, who had half the run production of Lowell. Really, give him the extra year already.

The Freshmen Orange. I went in to see Cuse beat St. Joseph’s, after having surrendered the first ten points of the game. It was the night after Jonny Flynn had scored 28, and torched Siena. This night Flynn was cold, until the last minute, when he iced two foul shots, and then drained a three-ball from a mile beyond the arc, that shot making the difference in the game. PH was all over the court, around 15 boards, and his second double-double of the young season. Now last night, against Fordahm, Flynn was quiet; PH missed a double double; but Donte Green had 25. The kid is six-eleven and hits threes with ease. Could be a fun year.

From Orange to Green, how about KG? The Celts are ripping through the NBA east, although they really haven’t yet been tested, and SI or ESPN or someone reported on how KG is playing like a man possessed, every night. He’s so intense he’s scaring his teammates. Red-Orange-Green, this is a weird color combination.

There’s more to say about Genesis. I’ve finished Joseph’s Bones, another unsatisfactory look at the origins of Judaism. And I want to return to Abraham and post about the call. I’ve concluded that Abraham’s call is the most important event in Jewish history, more so than the Exodus, more so than Sinai. This runs completely counter to all Jewish learning and tradition, but the fact is, without Abraham answering the call, there is no Jewish learning or tradition.

Finally, we have a governance issue to discuss. Rico asks why we don’t grant posting rights to the Yankee crew. It seems like a reasonable suggestion, but at the same time, doesn’t it seem like a desecration of RedSox values to allow equal standing to the Yankee perspective? I also wonder if it wouldn’t bring the Sox some bad Karma. How about this idea? Why not a sister blog dedicated to the rivalry? Red and pinstripes could post, or could comment; everyone could have their say right on the front page of the blog, right there for all the world to see. Whatever happens, I think the family needs to be of unanimous mind on this important issue. So, John, and Mike, let’s hear what you think. And in the meantime, Theo, get the guy signed already.

Fine Whisky and Suburban Sprawl

We were in Jacksonville, surrounded by sprawl, traveling on endless highways or six-lane roads, lined with one strip center after another. More KFCs and fast food establishments than the mind could comprehend. And somewhere in the middle of all that sprawl sits an enormous outdoor mall, designed as an ersatz village, with phony storefronts, and cheesy little town squares. And picture us in those surroundings, while the gals were all shopping, trying to find someplace to drink good whisky. What chance did we have for that?

We looked in three or four restaurants, probably all chain restaurants, with the same generic bar, each featuring the usual blended scotches and maybe a lone bottle of Livet for the cognoscenti. Nothing doing, until we peeked into PF Chang’s. Now figure this. Here we are in a shopping mall of epic proportions, checking out the bar at a chain restaurant, an Asian restaurant to boot. And what did we see behind the bar at Chang’s? Nothing less than the full compliment of Glenmorangies and Macallans, and maybe ten or twelve other malts besides. We quickly found a couple seats at the bar, and glanced through the whisky listing.

Chang’s bar carried the hard-to-find Macallan 17, my new flavor of the month, not to mention its pricier cousin, the 21. But wanting to start more modestly, John ordered a glass of Glenmorangie finished in Madeira casks, and we watched as our bartender poured one, two, three and maybe more ounces of whisky into the tumbler, a huge pour, at a rather reasonable price to boot. I’ve had a number of the Glens finished in wine casks, and although they are interesting, they can quickly become tiresome. Not so this Madeira finish; a bit drier and less cloying than the port or burgundy finish, the Madeira flavor being more subtle, less overpowering. Glenmorangie is a delicate malt, and it’s easy for the wine finish to overwhelm the understated characteristics of the whisky. This was a fine choice on John’s part.

But it only whetted our appetite for the main course, another enormous pour, this time the Macallan 17. There’s nothing new to add to my recent posting; G-man and I shared the 17 at Keen’s last week. But just in case I was wondering whether the atmosphere at Keen’s, or the good fellowship of hanging out with G-man, or the anticipation of Keen's fabulous porterhouse steak, had influenced my perceptions, this visit to PF Chang’s set those concerns to rest. Here we were in the midst of sprawl, surrounded by suburban shoppers all engaged in conspicuous consumption and still the Macallan 17 was breathtaking. There was nothing in the ambiance that could possibly have contributed to our enjoyment; this was all about the whisky. And right now, certainly for the modest price we paid at PF Chang’s, it’s difficult to imagine a more enjoyable drink.

A-Fraud Retrospective

The first image is courtesy of Uncle Rico, the rest are my own contributions.
















And finally, Pops insisted on the following: