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Go Home The Complicated Links Between Mormonism and Judaism

POLITICS FEBRUARY 21, 2012

The Complicated Links Between Mormonism and Judaism

BY MARTIN PERETZ

I commented long ago in The Spine about the courtship between fundamentalist Christianity and Israel.

One of the early signs that it was meshing was the meeting between [Israeli Prime Minister Menahem] Begin and the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Bailey Smith, who had said that God doesn’t hear the prayers of a Jew. That’s a big theological rift already. But Begin tried to finesse the history. When questioned, he said, “Look, about religious truth, we’ll wait and see.  When the Messiah comes, we’ll ask him, ‘Is this your first visit or your second?’ He’ll surely be honest with us.”

Protestantism and both spiritual and temporal Zionism have long been intertwined. In America, it began with the Plymouth Brethren before the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (do you recall the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, a 20th century Scottish evocation of the group?), and it has progressed basically for nearly four centuries from the Mathers, father and son, through Reinhold Niebuhr, who nonetheless worried for the Arabs of Palestine being left behind in history, a salient worry. (But don’t limit your worry to the Palestinians; the other Arabs have had a worse history and will have a worse future.) On the topic of the Jewish restoration, you can read Michael Oren’s masterful Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present for a gripping and textured history. Also, for Britain, Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill. And, if you can’t get enough of this topic, see also Michael Polowetzky, Jerusalem Recovered: Victorian Intellectuals and the Birth of Modern Zionism. Still, maybe enough is enough: OK, if it is, forget about the books and just read below.

The truth is that even historians of American Christianity have mostly omitted the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints from their texts, except that one of the first and most distinguished psychobiographers, Fawn Brodie, did a book (which I read long ago) on Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and wrote other volumes on Sir Richard Burton (no, not the actor, also a “sir”), Thomas Jefferson, and Richard Nixon (!). The unbelievably learned Harold Bloom, who writes about almost everything, wrote also on Smith. I was not lured or allured and nobody made me feel bad about missing it.

In any case, the Mormons are no ordinary Christian faith. And their faith is certainly different from all of the other Christian denominations, in the first place because their basic narrative occurs in America and not in the Land of Israel. But their American narrative is a narrative of a long wandering to a holy land. If you have ever seen what the Mormon elders and their flock saw in their trek—the journey over the mountains onto a desert plain where there is a sea of salt—you can imagine how vividly Utah must have felt first like Moab and then like Canaan. Please don’t ridicule this journey. After all, there were many not less preposterous voyages, like the 40 years in the Sinai and the baby Jesus’s journey into Egypt and Mohammed’s trip on his winged Horse Al-Buraq, right from where the world was founded and where Isaac was almost put to sacrifice all the way back to Mecca. And how about contemporary weirdities of American Christianity, like the president’s former church?

Given the strangeness of what one has to believe to be faithful even to the most mainstream creeds, it’s odd that so many people think Mormonism especially peculiar. So, yes, “we received the Torah at Sinai … Our whole imagined people / stood at Mount Sinai / and received the Torah. / The dead, the living, the unborn, / every soul among us answered: / we will obey and hear.” Or so wrote the Yiddish poet Jacob Glatstein. And what about the magnificat in its various versions! Please don’t tell me that L.D.S. is more outlandish than other faiths. I’ve had many Mormon students over the years, more traditional in some ways: in their politesse, in their personal honesty, in their discipline with work, in their commitment to doing good. It was no surprise to me that the only sane candidates for the Republican nomination were Jon Huntsman and the front-runner, Mitt Romney, both Mormons.

And what is more American than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?

Mormons are also cliquish and clannish. But so are Jews. Which religion is not? Maybe the Unitarians who believe that there is at most one God so that if you or I have a different God it doesn’t matter much to them. Decades ago, I attended the funeral of a neighbor, Adelaide Hooker Marquand, at First Church in Cambridge-Unitarian. The Reverend John Helverson gave the eulogy and said—I kid you not—“…and if perchance there is an afterlife I commit the soul of Adelaide … to your care.” Would the minister have capitalized the “y” in “your”?

As it happens, there is an important place for the Jews in Mormon theology. I found this out years ago when, walking down the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, I happened on a tenderly cared-for plot of land called “Orson Hyde Park.” Hyde was one of the elders of the church, who in the 1840s had gone on a mission to the Holy City. Jews were not only a plurality of the sacred place; they were a majority. (So much for how much Muslims cared for the town back then! Islam cares for Jerusalem only when Christians and Jews are its governors.) Hyde had a vision that emerged from the arrival of increasing numbers of the People of the Book in Zion, that is, in Jerusalem. He prophesied that this was the beginning of the Jewish return. My memory tells me that right there in the park commemorating his long visit was a letter to Joseph Smith envisioning a Jewish commonwealth a hundred years later, just about in 1948, which would make his prediction a revelation. Alas, I can no longer find (a copy of) his text in this epistolary garden. But there is plenty of evidence, real hard evidence that, aside from the dating to 1848-1948, his was a mystical intuition that turned out right, an inspiration if not exactly a miracle.

On the slopes of Mount Scopus, next to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and adjacent to the Mount of Olives where stands a Jewish cemetery that goes back more than two millennia, is a campus of Brigham Young University, dazzling in its architecture and commanding of the surrounding beauty. The university is emblematic of Mormon cohesion with the Jews. Now, some of the Jewish ultra-orthodox have their problems with the Mormons but no more than they have with other Christians. Yet these ultra-orthodox are an ugly stain on Jewry and on Israel. I believe they are nearing their comeuppance, not because of their attitude to any particular Christians but because of their refusal to abide by the civil laws of the civil state.  

There is one aspect of Mormonism that rightly agitates Jews, and it is the habit of converting dead Jews to the Church of Latter Day Saints. In L.D.S. theology, there are all kinds of assumptions about cognizant souls in dead bodies. And it’s my impression that Mormons have been saving the souls of many people for many decades. Now, of course, if you don’t believe in church doctrine you also don’t believe that it can save souls at all. But there is real offense to Mormons scouring lists of the dead only to enlist them in their own process of salvation. And, in a way, especially—given their solidarity with Jews—the souls of Jews who are dead. As it happens, it’s not just dead Jews whom they convert. It’s the souls of dead Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust. Frankly, that is nothing less than ghoulish. The church has apparently given up the practice of proselytizing some dead. Is it just Jews? Or just Jews who perished in the great catastrophe of their people? It turned out that recently the father and grandfather of Elie Wiesel, heroic literary figure of the disaster, were added to a genealogical database as candidates for proxy baptism. And the parents of Simon Wiesenthal, another heroic post-Holocaust figure, were actually baptized. This cannot be accidental. The church has to deal with its fanatics. Mr. Romney can be relied upon for real solidarity with Israel. How strange that he must also be relied upon to protect Jewry’s dead from the salvationist impulses of his church.

Martin Peretz is the editor-in-chief emeritus of The New Republic.

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70 comments

"On the topic of the Jewish restoration, you can read Michael Oren’s masterful Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present for a gripping and textured history. Also, for Britain, Gertrude Himmelfarb’s The People of the Book: Philosemitism in England from Cromwell to Churchill." There are also some very interesting asides on this topic in her book 'The Roads to Modernity" http://www.amazon.com/Roads-Modernity-British-American-Enlightenments/dp/1400042364 Even enlightened and non religious thinkers like William Godwin believed that Jews would return to Judea. http://www.amazon.com/Roads-Modernity-British-American-Enlightenments/dp/1400042364

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 12:25am

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I also agree that Romney is the only Republican in the race who is sane. However, i attribute this to his business ethos as much as to his religious upbringing (or combination of the two.) You can't be successful in business and be as loony as Santorum.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 12:28am

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As to Mormons "converting the dead" that is an insane and ghoulish practice. I hope Romney sees that.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 12:29am

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And so Martin Peretz begins his inexorable journey to an full endorsement of Mitt Romney for president.

- AaronW

February 21, 2012 at 6:16am

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I've been subscribing to TNR off and on since I was given a Bar Mitzvah subscription by one of my aunts in 1961. If the current owner should--God forbid!--endorse the weasel Romney, Shalom! I am a Mass native and have lived there all my life. I sat in more than one room in 2002 and listened to Mitt promise that he would uphold Roe v. Wade and that he was a great fan of Planned Parenthood, that he would support gay rights, that he was a proponent of gun control, etc. I also well remember Mitt's many out-of-state nasty comments stabbing Mass in the back once he got the Presidential bug in 2004 or 5. You can say that that's just politics, but I have been a senior appointee of Dem(Dukakis) and Rep(Weld and Celluci) governors--I have never seen a bigger snake than Mittens. Also, I find it very ironic that the people of Mass, among the most secular and liberal states in the nation, elected a Mormon with his religion barely being an issue. Meanwhile, Mitt's "friends" on the right make their suspicions about Mormons all too apparent. You'd think that Mormons would see that the Democratic Party is a more welcoming home. Instead, Mormons have veered sharply and viciously right, even as they become its victims.

- bufatutu

February 21, 2012 at 7:20am

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I would never have guessed that MP would write a "some of my best friends are Mormons" article for TNR, but here it is. Anyway, to continue with MP's analysis (about the similarities between the history of Jews and Mormons), I assume he is aware that the Gospel of Matthew has the same structure as Torah. Jesus was a Jew, as were his Twelve Apostles, who are sometimes referred to as Apostles of the Jews (though some recruited Gentiles), as distinguished from Paul (Saul), who is referred to as Apostle of the Gentiles, an offense for which he was executed. It seems that in every religion it's difficult to distinguish friend from foe.

- rayward

February 21, 2012 at 8:24am

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My mother was gassed with the French ZYKLON-B upon arrival to Auschwitz. My father lasted a few months until he too probably suffered the same extermination by the French produced gas. Two of my cousins were baptized by the Catholic church that saw the shoa as an opportunity to steal Jewish kids while their parents burned in Hitler's ovens. Compare this with Capitaine Riom of the French Salvation Army that hid me to the end of the war and made sure that I would remain a Jew. So if the Mormons baptized my parents long dead by now, I don't care. In Comparison to what the Nazi and their French allies did to my family it doesn't amount to anything since they are long dead with no known burial place. I will follow them in that. I gifted my body to train surgeons one day, hopefully not too soon.

- Poupic

February 21, 2012 at 9:34am

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What has Mr. Romney said that suggests how he will faciliate peace for Israel or is this an endorsement of all Mormons who run for office?

- Nusholtz

February 21, 2012 at 10:08am

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The republican nominee will not be Romney, nor Santorum. The republican nominee will be Jeb Bush. Watch my words. Do not insult or you will be punishes.

- JAIMECHUCH

February 21, 2012 at 11:12am

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Mitt has been giving the most unfocused and lackluster campaign speeches in Michigan that I've ever seen (admittedly a couple of clips on Jon Stewart isn't an excessive amount of data, but still, they were weird). At this one place he started talking about why Michigan is great, and noted that "the trees are just about the right size" (seriously), then he went on to talk about the Great Lakes and "all the little lakes too" and then he switched in mid-sentence to "and I like cars!" As Stewart said after the clip, the trees are indeed just the right size in Michigan: small enough to build a tree-house in, and tall enough to hang yourself from after you lose your home state primary.

- ironyroad

February 21, 2012 at 11:51am

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"Mormons are also cliquish and clannish. But so are Jews. Which religion is not?" Technically, Catholics are not because they are of every race and ethnicity, and being that there a different rites even the experience of the Mass can be different. I am with Poupic on the baptism of the dead. I could give a rats ass if they decide to baptize me after I am dead. It is not binding in any real sense, and if perchance it is (which I find utterly preposterous) then it is a good thing. Christians are all about saving souls of the living, this has led to a whole shitload of trouble. As this Mormon kind is for the dead and no one is bothered, I really don't care. I have no right to tell Mormons not to engage in a truly harmless and private act.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 12:21pm

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I must say this is the first time that I actually agree with Poupic about something (and Blackton as well, though that's more common). The dead are dead -- just like they can't be slandered under the law, they can't become something that they are not just because this or that religious sect said so. As a Jew, I don't believe my dead ancestors (whether they perished in the Shoah or not) have had their souls converted into Mormonism and are now residing on their own planets in the celestial sphere. I also don't think that they are in Hell or in Limbo due to their rejection of Christianity, as Catholics or some Protestants believe them to be. I believe, as the Rabbis interpreted the Torah, that their bodies have turned to dirt and dust but that their souls (hopefully) are with God in Gan Eden, beyond the boundaries of this world. I have a right to believe this, and the right to think that those who try to convince me otherwise are wasting their time. Are Mormons, or Baptists, or Catholics weird for thinking that my ancestors have enjoyed some other fate? I don't really care and neither should others. Theological weirdness is rife in this land and always has been, and attempts to rationalize theology in the manner of Marty's Unitarian minister just substitute one set of weirdness for another.

- wildboy

February 21, 2012 at 12:45pm

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"I have no right to tell Mormons not to engage in a truly harmless and private act." There was a case in Italy in the nineteenth century where a Jewish child was secretly baptized by his Catholic servant. When he was six, he was removed from his Jewish parents by authorities of the Papal States and raised as a Catholic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgardo_Mortara Perhaps we Jews are a bit touchy about these kind of conversions and playing around with the identities of our dead parents, with our history. They are not private acts or "truly harmless". They harm the families of those who were too helpless to resist conversion, either babies or dead.

- noga1

February 21, 2012 at 12:49pm

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Noticeably missing from the article is the allegation found in the Book of Mormon (and so accepted by Mormons as true) that the “ancient peoples” of the Americas are Jews or descendants of Jews from (some of?) the lost tribes of Israel, who supposedly sailed to the New World. Of course, some of these Jews became Christians long before Christ made a (supposed) appearance in the New World and repeated the message of the gospel that he had delivered to the Jews in the Holy Land. So, the Mormon-Jewish connection is a lot closer than the article makes it out to be.

- gnathan

February 21, 2012 at 1:03pm

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noga, come on, that is a far cry from this. If Mormons start digging up bodies and lugging them down to the river, then we can get up in arms about it. What happened in Italy was kidnapping, that was the crime, not splashing some water on the kids head. If an Atheist sneezes and someone says "God bless you" should they get aggrieved, even worse, what if the person says "God bless you" without the atheist hearing it which is what most of these Baptisms are. I was circumcised as a baby. I was mutilated because of some Jewish ritual that was adopted by many Americans. And today all Jewish baby boys are mutilated because of it. That directly harms the baby boys who are too helpless to resist. Yet, I don't care that I was circumcised because the damage is done. That was a direct harm to me with all the sensory loss that came from it. Would you find it an intrusion on your faith if I advocated making circumcision a crime? It is child abuse. It creates a harm far worse than being a bit touchy.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 1:11pm

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oh, and noga, I don't want circumcision to be a crime. It is barbaric but the cost to make it a crime would be far too costly. That mutilation ritual will be around forever now.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 1:14pm

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Thank you noga. Proselytizing or forced conversion of the living, and/or the dead, into a different religion are indeed "...not private acts or "truly harmless". ..." irony: hope you also watched Colbert's sequel to Jon Stewart last night - made for a lovely double-dunk on Romney and his right-sized trees, because Colbert also got the dissident dog into the satire :) I usually do not watch all of Colbert, but thought his interview with the writer-turned-bookstore owner was a treasure. I do question Peretz's definition of "sane" as being perhaps solely an attribute of Mormons amongst those who are registered Republicans. I guess Peretz only assigns sanity to those who never talk about their religion? Did Peretz not notice that Huntsman always qualified his Mormon upbringing with the caveat that he had also absorbed his wife's Episcopalian, and a bit of Eastern Buddhism-Confucianism as an adult? Yes, I would love to vote for a Buddhist for president! Give the right-to-life absolutists something to get really riled up about :)

- K2K

February 21, 2012 at 1:30pm

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Romney's gonna win Michigan and Arizona as Santorum more and mor lets out his inner Newt. On this: ...the Unitarians who believe that there is at most one God so that if you or I have a different God it doesn’t matter much to them. Decades ago, I attended the funeral of a neighbor, Adelaide Hooker Marquand, at First Church in Cambridge-Unitarian. The Reverend John Helverson gave the eulogy and said—I kid you not—“…and if perchance there is an afterlife I commit the soul of Adelaide … to your care.” Would the minister have capitalized the “y” in “your”?... I don't get it. With God, I figure either you're in or your out, private spirituality aside. I don't get religious-lite. Me, I'm out.

- basman

February 21, 2012 at 1:48pm

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| wildboy " must say this is the first time that I actually agree with Poupic about something (and Blackton as well, though that's more common). The dead are dead -- just like they can't be slandered under the law, they can't become something that they are not just because this or that religious sect said so." I think you are missing the point, wildboy. Harmless mass delusions can have less than harmless outcomes. In itself a groups of deluded people sitting in a room "baptizing" dead people into their religion is a harmless lunatic venture. (Harmless until a this group comes to power and demands that the progeny of converted dead be converted also even against their will. This of course a hypothetical outcome but it puts the practice in a different light.) Moreover, if a Presidential candidate believes that this lunacy is real then you have to ask yourself what other lunatic believes he holds From what i have read Romney is rational (for a Republican candidate---not that I would vote for him) but he should be asked his views about this ghoulish practice.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 2:03pm

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"Perhaps we Jews are a bit touchy about these kind of conversions and playing around with the identities of our dead parents, with our history. They are not private acts or "truly harmless". They harm the families of those who were too helpless to resist conversion, either babies or dead." Uh, Noga, there is a world of difference between "baptizing" someone who is dead and doing it to someone who is alive. Literally a world of difference. As Jews, we are free to be offended and to refuse to believe that posthumous baptism is anything other than the narrishkeit of an eccentric Christian sect. After all, it's not like the dead are going to come back to us as Mormons -- and if they are, then I'm with Menachem Begin in agreeing to believe what I will see.

- wildboy

February 21, 2012 at 2:03pm

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k2k, I distinguished specifically from "Proselytizing or forced conversion of the living" with a ritual done in some Mormon Temple unseen by unbelievers. Believing in the efficacy of that is akin to believing in magic or witchcraft. Are you offended when Christians pray for the dead in church?

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 2:06pm

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"Harmless mass delusions can have less than harmless outcomes." Arnon, I think we should all be on guard against those "less than harmless outcomes", but it's not necessary to actively worry about them before they start mutating into the "less than harmless" state. And, in the case of asking Romney whether he believes this or that bit of strange LDS doctrine, I think we are setting up a false choice. Sure, from our perspective, LDS has a whole host of weird doctrines, of which posthumous conversion of Holocaust victims is only one part of a larger whole. After all, is it really weirder than believing the the righteous dead will inherit their own planets, that the current head of the LDS is a prophet who speaks directly to God, that God has a spouse/companion called the "Holy Mother", that men who have entered the priesthood should wear special undergarments as symbols of their faith, that ancient Jews sailed to America 3,000 years ago and created dueling civilzations that disappeared without a trace? On the other hand, is this weirder than believing that the souls of the righteous dead are transported into God's presence in another physical dimension, that Abraham and Moses spoke directly to God, that men should wear a little woolen pullover with fringes under their shirts and cover their heads all day, that God personally intervened 3,500 years ago to allow over 600,000 Jews to flee slavery in Egypt? The weirdness is attributable more to distance than to difference. When Joe Lieberman was the Vice Presidential nominee in 2000, and when he ran for President in 2004, I don't recall anyone asking him whether he subscribed to any tenets of his Jewish faith that may seem "strange" to the average person -- tzitzid, niddah, the laws of Shabbat, kashrut, etc. I think we can do the same courtesy to Mitt Romney today. If antying about his views suggests that he will make it official government policy to posthumously convert Holocaust survivors, or that he will condition US aid to Israel on its willingness to assist Mormon missionary efforts, I will be the first to object. Until then, I will just object to his stupid views on economic and foreign policy rather than the weirdness of his faith.

- wildboy

February 21, 2012 at 2:17pm

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"Harmless until a this group comes to power and demands that the progeny of converted dead be converted also even against their will. This of course a hypothetical outcome but it puts the practice in a different light" Arnon, but this is a slippery slope argument. You are dictating to Mormons how to conduct their own religion when the action has absolutely zero effect on the supposed victims, those baptized dead. Again, Jewish people are allowed to mutilate their male children when they are most helpless, yet Mormons can't do some silly pretend ritual that affects no living Jew lest they start forcing living Jews to convert? Now I grant that no one here is arguing to make the practice of Baptism of the dead illegal but I would hesitate to call something "ghoulish" when one practices ritual mutilation on ones own infant boys. And Muslims do the same thing so I am not working on singling out Jewish people. Americans used to do it to the 90% range but now it is done only at about 30%. Circumcision has some minor useful benefits, such as phimosis, otherwise it really is pretty nuts in the modern age.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 2:20pm

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wildboy, the difference is that Romney is a High Priest of the Mormon faith, akin to a Roman Catholic Archbishop so he does deserve far greater scrutiny. Do you really want a head of state, head of government, and head of a religion to be one and the same? I would never vote for a RC Archbishop, or a Chief Rabbi, or an Ayatollah, so why give Romney a pass? But Huntsman (while technically every male member is a priest) is not a high church official, so he does deserve that kind of pass.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 2:25pm

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"but I would hesitate to call something "ghoulish" when one practices ritual mutilation on ones own infant boys." I was circumcised and I don't consider it a mutilation since it had no adverse effect on my life either physical or mental. Again, to call the Jewish practice of circumcision a mutilation is a stretch as it didn't stop Jews as a people from achieving excellence in sports, military campaigns, intellectual pursuits, and judging from the many Israeli films I have seen amorous entanglement to rival the any Pagan nation. The Muslim practice of male circumcision isn't the same since I am told that boys are circumcised when they are much older. I am sure there is some literature on the effects of such practices but since I am not familiar with them I won't comment.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 2:53pm

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"Protestantism and both spiritual and temporal Zionism have long been intertwined. In America, it began with the Plymouth Brethren before the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony (do you recall the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, a 20th century Scottish evocation of the group?)..." Is it too much to ask Peretz to use Wikipedia once in a while? The Plymouth Brethren have nothing to do with the Massachusetts Bay colony. Peretz is confusing the departure of the "Pilgrims" from Plymouth, England in 1620 with something else entirely. The Plymouth Brethren were a conservative, evangelical group originating in Dublin in the 1820s--200 years after Massachusetts Bay--and then spreading to Britain. Their first meeting in England was at Plymouth which subsequently gave its name to the group. Chariots of Fire also has nothing to do with the Plymouth Brethren. Eric Liddell, the runner and missionary to whom Peretz is probably referring, was a Presbyterian.

- ccarrick@vzavenue.net-old

February 21, 2012 at 3:08pm

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"wildboy, the difference is that Romney is a High Priest of the Mormon faith, akin to a Roman Catholic Archbishop so he does deserve far greater scrutiny. Do you really want a head of state, head of government, and head of a religion to be one and the same? I would never vote for a RC Archbishop, or a Chief Rabbi, or an Ayatollah, so why give Romney a pass?" I'm not sure if Romney's designation of "High Priest" is something that is actually official in LDS, but let's just assume that he is a high-ranking LDS official -- just like a Catholic archbishop or the head of a Baptist convention is a high-ranking official in their churches. Any of those people can and should run for elected office in the US if they want to do so, and we should ask them the same question -- will their positions in the church hierarchy cause them to take specific actions in office that would be different, or beyond, those actions they would take as laymen of the same faith? And is there anything in their record in public or private life that would allow us to evaluate the sincerity of their obvious denial of that question? In Romney's case, the only thing I can recall is his alleged urging of a Mormon woman in Massachusetts not to terminate her pregnancy when she couldn't afford to care for the child. Given his shifting stands on abortion, I'm not sure what to make of this. Otherwise, there is nothing in his record of public or private life that indicates that he would somehow attempt to put specifically Mormon doctrine into practice as government policy or to unduly favor the LDS church. BTW, there is no such thing as a "Chief Rabbi" in Judaism. That is a purely civil office in Israel and connotes no religious or moral authority in and of itself. In other countries where it exists, such as the UK, it is a congregational office where the Jewish community selects a religious figure to represent itself in relations with the civil government, although at this point it is little more than a formality. Outside of Hasidic sects (where the titular Rebbe of the sect is a member of a particular dynastic family and thus revered by adherents of that sect above other rabbis of the same sect), there are no hierarchies within the Rabbinate in any Jewish denomination other than hierarchies of learning -- similar to the differences in status between tenured faculty and junior faculty in a university.

- wildboy

February 21, 2012 at 3:14pm

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Wildboy, you are working very hard at proving your previous position rather than thinking fairly and logically about this issue. I am not going to argue with you the comparative merits of religious myths. All religions (and not just religions) introduce into the world sets of myths. Most people can distinguish between these myths and daily life. Moreover the “beliefs” you attribute to Lieberman: “I don't recall anyone asking him whether he subscribed to any tenets of his Jewish faith that may seem "strange" to the average person -- tzitzid, niddah, the laws of Shabbat, kashrut, etc.” These are practices and not beliefs. It’s also strange that you should consider “Sabbath” laws strange in a “Christian country” where the Sabbath is not unknown and many Christians have their own Sabbath laws. This is weak liberal tea, Wildboy; trying to justify one strange practice because others also have strange practices. More to the point, the practice of making people of one faith become people of another faith is at the very least a rewriting of history. This isn’t a trivial or harmless outcome. It’s also not a bubba meise (fairy tale) that happened thousands of years ago: it’s an ongoing practice which rewrites recent personal histories. If government did this you would be up in arms (at least I would hope so). One’s reaction shouldn’t be any different because a religious institution does this. Now I have no problem with Mormons seeking the Presidency. If one of them happened to be Democrat I might even vote for them. Anti-Mormon prejudice isn’t the issue. (It seems to me that anti-Jewish prejudice is what is at stake here---why can’t Mormons accept that Jews as Jews would also be “blessed with an afterlife?” Many Christians did finally accept that proposition. The condoning of the Mormon practice of baptizing the dead because it’s “no big deal” is wrong for the reasons I stated above and for some other reasons: it rewrites personal history, it lies about the past, and it tells us that facts don’t matter. This should a problem for all rational human beings.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 3:15pm

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Wildboy your comparisons between Mormonism and Judaism or other religions is besides the point. If a Jewish Rabbi or a Catholic Priest were also running for office than it might be pertinent. If not, not.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 3:18pm

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I was trying to find that clip from a famous 1970s BBC comedy series "Rising Damp." I couldn't locate it, but it went something like this. Phillip the African student is explaining the coming-of-age ritual circumcision in his country to Rigsby, the cheapskate (and gullible) landlord of his bedsit: Phillip: In my country a boy is brought into manhood when around 14 he's taken out by his father and uncles to a clearing in the jungle, and the operation is performed at midnight without an anesthetic by a tribal elder, chanting the ritual words and using the traditional 18-inch curved sword. Rigsby [fascinated and horrified]: My god, that must have been agonizing! Phillip: Well, now that I think about it, it did tend to make the eyes water.

- ironyroad

February 21, 2012 at 5:11pm

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Arnon, it's hardly "weak liberal tea" for one to think that it is inviduous for voters to presume that a person is disqualified for public office because his religion has strange tenets. I would posit it is the essence of respect for religious belief in a democracy, where the beliefs and practices of a candidate should only disqualify him or her if those beliefs would somehow affect their governance and policies. So it is legitimate to ask Romney if his Mormon faith would lead him to want to ban or restrict the procedure, the way it was banned in Utah prior to 1973 due to opposition from the LDS. It is legitimate to ask Santorum if his Catholic faith would lead him to want to ban or restrict the sale of contraceptives, the way contraceptive sales were banned in some Northeastern states prior to 1964 due to Catholic Church opposition. It was legitimate to ask Lieberman in 2004 if his devout Jewish faith and support for Israel would lead him to favor Jewish settlement in Judea and Samaria and to oppose a Palestinian state there. It was even legitimate to ask Lieberman -- as some did in 2000 - whether being Shomer Shabbat would preclude him from fulfilling his duties as Vice President or President. And by the way -- yeah, most Americans intuitively understand the concept of the "Sabbath" in which you don't "labor", but you and I know that the laws of Shabbat go way beyond the simple concept of resting from physical work and that refraining from turning the lights off, ripping toilet paper or carrying your keys beyond your garden gate unless there is a rabbinically-designated boundary line in your neighborhood are not concepts that the average Christian American can really understand and accept. Trust me, I know this from wide experience in discussing my faith with Christian Americans, and their responses range from admiration for dedication to one's faith to wondering why Orthodox Jews put up with it, but none of them have an intuitive understanding of it. While some might have found the above questions to seem intolerant or in poor taste, they were actually quite legitimate things to ask a devout politician on issues where a religious community takes certain stances on political issues of the day. But asking a politician to comment on unusual or seemingly bizarre religious practices that don't harm living people is something else entirely. And to assume that such strange religious practices should be questioned by "rational" human beings because they "lie about the past" or "rewrite personal history" is to assign oneself a rather self-important role in determining which religious beliefs are rational and which ones are not, and which ones do justice to facts and which one's don't. It is great fun to question the "factual" bases of all sorts of religious faiths and, if you are an unbeliever, you are free to base your voting preferences on how stupid you think a politician's faith may be. On the other hand, if you are religious and take your faith seriously, it is more than a little unbecoming for you to decide that you won't vote for a candidate of another faith because it sounds dubious to you.

- wildboy

February 21, 2012 at 5:16pm

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When I am dead, I will cease to exist, as if I had never been. I've told my family to do with my body as they wish, as I will cease to care. They will probably use the cheapest cremation available (a non-profit co-op in the Seattle area). As far as I am concerned they can bury me in the five acres of woods behind our chicken coop, where they worms will crawl in and crawl out (though this may violate environmental and land use laws on Whidbey Island) and grow fat and nutritious for the chickens to consume. However, if someone wants to pray for me or convert me to Mormonism (or anything else) retroactively...well, everyone needs a hobby until the worms get a chance at them.

- skahn

February 21, 2012 at 5:16pm

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arnon: I was circumcised and I don't consider it a mutilation since it had no adverse effect on my life either physical or mental. But you don't know how different your life would have been had you had your foreskin. My understanding is that it adds much pleasure to your sex life, which is not small thing. Beyond that though it is unnatural. You are cutting away a part of a persons body for no other reason then ritual, a body that is not your own. And yes, it is a mutilation, there is no other word for it unless you choose to redefine the word itself. I was born partially color blind. I can honestly say I can't understand some people's reaction to sunsets but it really has not adversely effected my life either physical or mental. I don't know what I am missing, but I do wonder what it is like to see a sunset as others do. So I also wonder how different my own sex life might have been. My color blindness was an accident of fate, my circumcision an act of tradition.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 5:37pm

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wildboy "Arnon, it's hardly "weak liberal tea" for one to think that it is inviduous for voters to presume that a person is disqualified for public office because his religion has strange tenets." It is a weak argument to say that the Mormon belief in converting the dead should be allowed because other faiths too have "weird beliefs and practices. For the rest, I never argued that Mormons should not be allowed to become President because they hold certain beliefs that most Americans do not share. In fact I said the opposite on many occasions.Setting up straw man is pretty weak, Wildboy. The practice of converting the dead is distinct from their other beliefs since these do not infringe on the rights of others. I made my ;point above and will not repeat it here. I would add though that by rewriting my parents and grandparents life story they infringing, at the very least on copyright law. A person's birth certificate is or ought to be a copyrighted document. For the rest I have no idea who you are arguing against.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 7:04pm

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blackton: Whatever your inclination is, the fact that you scoff at the way Jews balk at this kind of intrusion and appropriation of their ancestors and insist on refusing to understand the insult and the pain that this practice inflicts upon the families tells me more about the limitations of your sympathy, not your broad-mindedness. Imagine any Christian practicing a similar ritual on a dead Muslim. I doubt you would be so sanguine about it then. But when it comes to Jews, any emotional injury is deemed acceptable. They should be used to it by now. Indeed they are. "What instrument do you play?" "Oh, I play the Bruce Harp." "The Bruce Harp? I've never heard of it." "Oh they used to call it a Jew's Harp but you know how those Jews are! You say anything remotely antisemitic and they start sending letters to the editors." (Woody Allen, "Scoop")

- noga1

February 21, 2012 at 7:11pm

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blackton “arnon: I was circumcised and I don't consider it a mutilation since it had no adverse effect on my life either physical or mental. But you don't know how different your life would have been had you had your foreskin.” I do know that I would have been shunned by a lot of Jewish woman and some woman who are not Jewish. The one’s I would go for would have shunned me. I know males (not Jews) who got themselves circumcised because their non-Jewish woman wouldn’t marry them otherwise. Circumcision as color blindness; I’d have to give it some thought.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 7:19pm

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noga, that is not fair. I am just as subject to this kind of Baptism as anyone else is. And I would feel the same way if Hindus did it, or Buddhists or Muslims. If some Hindu Brahmans pray that my soul comes back as a man and had some ritual for it, I am fine with that as long as they don't bother me. How are you injured? This is just hocus pocus by a bunch of Mormons, it is not anymore binding on Jewish people as it is on Catholics or anyone else. I would agree it would be offensive if Mormons made a big show of it, because then it almost becomes a taunt, but this is not the case. It was found out because ex-Mormons reported that it is happening. And I noticed how you ignored my point about circumcision. So Jews can mutilate baby boys and that is alright, but Mormons can not do some fairy tale ritual which is considered by them an act of charity and devotion and not meant to provoke? I am not saying what Mormons does is right, I consider it nonsense and when an act that is meant to be charitable brings offense then don't do it. There are billions of other dead people from different faiths who don't give a rats ass, waste your time doing it to them. And no, no emotional injury is deemed acceptable but to refer to it as "ghoulish" is way too overboard. Elie Wiesel asked for them to stop, the church said they would, that strikes me as being more than fair. If a few Mormon zealots ignore their church then ignore them. I think Poupic had it right above.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 7:38pm

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"And I noticed how you ignored my point about circumcision." I initially decided to ignore it because my immediate response was pretty furious, but since you ask: So, to the insult Jews feel when their ancestors are being used to promote some religious good by complete strangers who have no business deciding who is a Jew, alive or dead, you respond by claiming that at least those Christians do not inflict any bodily harm, unlike those barbaric Jews when they circumcise their 8 day old baby boys. Interesting analogies. How and why they spring from, one can only wonder.

- noga1

February 21, 2012 at 7:51pm

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arnon, that shunning would have been because those woman wanted to be sure they were with a Jewish man, I doubt it was because they would have taken one look at an uncircumcised penis and shrieked in terror at the aesthetics. And there are many boys who are subjected to circumcisions that go wrong. One famous boy was then made into a girl and treated as a lab rat, finally killing himself much later as an adult. I knew one guy who had a nasty looking unit because he was snipped a little too tightly. Since my first two sons were born in China no way was I going to risk circumcision there, and when the third was born I just said to hell with it so they are all natural as God made them. If people like Noga want me to be broadminded enough to accept ritualistic baby mutilation in the name of a religion (and believe it or not I am, I am not calling for it to be illegal nor will I advocate Jewish people stop the practice) then I have the right to be broadminded enough not to give a rats ass that some Mormon might one day baptize me after I am dead. (and yes, my own ancestors face the exact same intrustion and appropriation, but for some reason it is ok if it happens to non Jews....or maybe I realize that since it is hocus pocus my ancestors are neither intruded upon nor appropriated)

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 7:54pm

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"So Jews can mutilate baby boys and that is alright, but Mormons can not do some fairy tale ritual which is considered by them an act of charity and devotion and not meant to provoke?" I am confused, blackton. You said to me that "arnon: I was circumcised and I don't consider it a mutilation since it had no adverse effect on my life either physical or mental." Now you are saying that it is mutilation. So which is it? btw: Jews consider circumcision also "an act of devotion and charity," but above all as a sign of belonging to the Jewish people. If that practice had had adverse effects it would have been stopped a long time ago. I view circumcision as a kind of extrinsic trait I inherited like being named or being forced to enter life with the English language and not say Chinese. Perhaps in a few generations being an English speaker will become a handicap should we then force parents not to speak English to them? Again, it's not a trivial practice to me if someone steals my family birth certificates or some other document and changes their faith. It's an infringement and a theft. It6 seems to me that your reaction to the Mormon practice is condescending. You consider them a harmless bunch of naive yahoos. But if that is the case how can you take seriously Romney's candidacy? He is one of them, isn't he? Being critical in this case is also a sign of respect. A sign that you treat them as mature rational people.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 7:58pm

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noga, it sprung from the fact I just watched a documentary about a boy who had his penis accidentally cut off while being circumcised, he was then turned into a girl while his twin brother remained a boy. He was treated as a girl, given hormones, etc. but was absolutely miserable, found out what happened and later killed himself. And Mormons are not exactly Christians (not that it matters). Funny how now you are conflating every non jew as being part of the same monstrous group of dedicated anti-semites. (I don't believe this, I am engaging in hyperbole for effect, don't accuse me of bad faith and I won't accuse you) And I never said barbaric Jews. I am not Jewish yet I am circumcised. I said the practice is barbaric. I was mutilated for no good medical reason because of tradition. Since you are not a man you seem to not be willing to admit to the slightest bit of understanding, yet certainly you would be outraged by female circumcision. Male circumcision removes a great deal of foreskin that has never receptors on it. This is simple biology. What is so hard about understanding this?

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 8:02pm

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blackton "arnon, that shunning would have been because those woman wanted to be sure they were with a Jewish man, I doubt it was because they would have taken one look at an uncircumcised penis and shrieked in terror at the aesthetics." No shrieking is necessary. A no, and a sign of disgust will do the trick. I can't speak to the number of circumcision gone wrong since most blogs on the subject are hosted by people obsessed with the subject. The number of circumcision is going down every year because parents are being shamed into not doing it. Freud and other have argues that anti-Jewish feelings were aroused in part by circumcision and if they are right I suspect that in a few generations we will see a significant uptick in anti-Jewish prejudice in the US. People obsessed with circumcision often accuse Jews of being superstitious but it is they are who show a morbid fear of circumcision and circumcised people that borders on hysterical superstition. I only think about about being circumcised when the subject is brought up by others.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 8:19pm

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arnon, I quoted you above. I had the : to illustrate it. I guess I should have put it in quotes sorry for that confusion. I consider it to be mutilation because that is what it is. Mutilation means to cut off or remove a necessary part of. The foreskin is necessary, it was either given to us by nature and has its purpose or given to us by God. You can choose to believe that it was given to us by God so that Jewish people can then cut it off to be distinguished by non Jews, of course God should have realized that non Jews can just as easily get circumcised themselves and therefore render that aspect moot. I do get the ritual of circumcision though. I am not trying to mock or belittle it. It is part of the covenant with God, whether or not others ape the practice it does not have the same sanctity. And I will be honest about this, I had the exact same attitude that noga had when Elie Wiesel protested it. I thought the Mormons had huge stones to do it. I thought it was an outrageous affront to holocaust victims who had their central identity stripped from them by Mormons, an identity that they died for. So I do get it. But I read what Poupic said above and realized I myself wouldn't care, and yes, a lot of it comes from my own condescending attitudes towards Mormons. (Joseph Smith was so much a fraud and the evidence is available to everyone that I have no idea how anyone can believe that, he was a 19th Rev. Moon). So maybe I have decided to take a more live and let live attitude as long as Mormons don't shove it down our throats just ignore it. I honestly think they mean well. (but yes, since people are offended let them do it to me and my ancestors instead, I will bear that "burden" such as it is)

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 8:19pm

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oh, and arnon, again, the only reason it is on my mind is I watched a documentary about intersexed children (children who have features of both male and female) and it included circumcisions gone wrong. And since Muslims still perform circumcisions as part of their faith, I doubt you have much to fear as to Jewish males being ostracized because of it. And I think anti-semitic feeling is way down in the states, far below that of when I was young (except in the Middle east). And noga, I don't want to get in an internet pissing match. I love ya to much for that. I am just trying to present a balanced argument. This baptism is insensitive, it is not meant to be anti-semitic.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 8:26pm

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Arnon: "No shrieking is necessary. A no, and a sign of disgust will do the trick." now that was funny. And thanks for taking this argument seriously. I am really enjoying your posts. (and always have)

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 8:28pm

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"Mutilation means to cut off or remove a necessary part of. The foreskin is necessary, it was either given to us by nature and has its purpose or given to us by God. You can choose to believe that it was given to us by God so that Jewish people can then cut it off to be distinguished by non Jews, of course God should have realized that non Jews can just as easily get circumcised themselves and therefore render that aspect moot." Your first point is moot: there are a number of body parts that are just there with no purpose, like the appendix or the tail bone. The foreskin may not be such a part, but I sure don't miss it. As for why Jews circumcise, some do so because of it's a religious duty other like me do so because it's part of my Jewish heritage; "not because it's commanded by God." From another angle the idea that one should not circumcise is also shot through with superstitious lore: the desire for "wholeness" is one such myth. There are others. If the practice were harmful to Jews they would not have continued it. Others can do as they wish. That's my main point here. Last post on the topic?

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 8:35pm

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Thanks, blackton, I enjoy your posts also.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 8:41pm

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yep, and good night arnon. and you never know when humans will regrow a tail, so don't sell that short.

- blackton

February 21, 2012 at 9:00pm

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"If that practice had had adverse effects it would have been stopped a long time ago." Not necessarily. It is possible that sexual intercourse is less enjoyable for circumcised men than it would have been had they not undergone the procedure. Because no man circumcised at birth can ever experience sex with an intact foreskin, none of them ever thinks to question whether sex would have been better without the snip. Of course, one way to answer this question would be to survey men who underwent circumcision as adults. Adult circumcision is being rolled out in southern Africa as a means of preventing HIV transmission, and I once suggested to a doctor working for UNAIDS on circumcision implementation in Namibia that it might be interesting to collect some before/after data on perceptions of sexual pleasure, but people took a predictably dim view of the idea: if your goal is to promote circumcision as a public health measure, it does your cause no good to document that the intervention decreases patients' pleasure in sex. For the record, I'm a gentile who was circumcised at birth for purposes of hygiene while my two sons are Jews who each had a bris, the second with an Hasidic mohel who insisted upon performing mezizah. Look it up.

- AaronW

February 21, 2012 at 10:08pm

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"For the record, I'm a gentile who was circumcised at birth for purposes of hygiene while my two sons are Jews who each had a bris, the second with an Hasidic mohel who insisted upon performing mezizah. Look it up." You are full of surprises, Aaron. Mezizah is the sucking of blood from the infants circumcision. It's supposed to have a health benefit. Qui sait? I know people who have undergone the procedure as adults and they told me that didn't notice a diminution in sexual pleasure at the time. They did notice changes twenty or so years out which they attribute plausibly to aging. My wife came up with and interesting thought. Why is it that in today's world it's the circumcised Muslims who are having all the children while the intact Europeans are enjoying themselves out of existence? So much for the evolutionary advantages of intactness.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 10:53pm

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blackton "yep, and good night arnon. and you never know when humans will regrow a tail, so don't sell that short." A tail, could use one, especially when I am climbing my backyard mimosa tree.

- arnon

February 21, 2012 at 10:54pm

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This individual got a transplant of an elephant trunk to his penis. A few months later he meets a friend that asks him how is it working your transplant? The individual answers, just fine. The only problem is when we pass a stand selling peanuts. My penis grabs them and pushes them to my ass.

- JAIMECHUCH

February 22, 2012 at 4:41am

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Oh please, Jaime, can we have a bit more refined jokes from you? Someone should ask this guy about the difference before and after. He seems happy enough, though: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgeVu5EZIJM

- noga1

February 22, 2012 at 6:18am

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"Plymouth Brethren"--better check that out, Mr Peretz. Not the same as the Pilgrims. Highly recommended: Edmund Gosse's 'Father and Son'

- JOHNGOLDFINE@GMAIL.COM-old

February 22, 2012 at 7:31am

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noga1. Thank you nice comedian. Now here is Jackie Mason on going to the psychiatrist. Check out this video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bs_U8eKM_2E&feature=youtube_gdata_player

- JAIMECHUCH

February 22, 2012 at 9:13am

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"...And what is more American than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?..." am fairly sure bagels are now more American than the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and bagels are not even in the top 20 - like baseball, basketball, and the Broadway musical. But, I do not recall ever hearing that Choir sing. Is today Ash Wednesday?

- K2K

February 22, 2012 at 10:52am

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It is indeed Ash Wednesday, which gives me the opening to paste the first stanza of T.S. Eliot's poem: "Because I do not hope to turn again Because I do not hope Because I do not hope to turn Desiring this man's gift and that man's scope I no longer strive to strive towards such things (Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?) Why should I mourn The vanished power of the usual reign?"

- ironyroad

February 22, 2012 at 12:33pm

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In Human, All Too Human, Friedrich Nietzsche about hope: "Hope. Pandora brought the jar with the evils and opened it. It was the gods' gift to man, on the outside a beautiful, enticing gift, called the "lucky jar." Then all the evils, those lively, winged beings, flew out of it. Since that time, they roam around and do harm to men by day and night. One single evil had not yet slipped out of the jar. As Zeus had wished, Pandora slammed the top down and it remained inside. So now man has the lucky jar in his house forever and thinks the world of the treasure. It is at his service; he reaches for it when he fancies it. For he does not know that that jar which Pandora brought was the jar of evils, and he takes the remaining evil for the greatest worldly good--it is hope, for Zeus did not want man to throw his life away, no matter how much the other evils might torment him, but rather to go on letting himself be tormented anew. To that end, he gives man hope. In truth, it is the most evil of evils because it prolongs man's torment."

- noga1

February 22, 2012 at 8:38pm

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Pericles' Funeral oration, also about the dangers of hope: "I have dwelt upon the greatness of Athens because I want to show you that we are contending for a higher prize than those who enjoy none of these privileges, and to establish by manifest proof the merit of these men whom I am now commemorating. Their loftiest praise has been already spoken. For in magnifying the city I have magnified them, and men like them whose virtues made her glorious. ... I believe that a death such as theirs has been the true measure of a man's worth; it may be the first revelation of his virtues, but is at any rate their final seal. For even those who come short in other ways may justly plead the valor with which they have fought for their country; they have blotted out the evil with the good, and have benefited the state more by their public services than they have injured her by their private actions. None of these men were enervated by wealth or hesitated to resign the pleasures of life; none of them put off the evil day in the hope, natural to poverty, that a man, though poor, may one day become rich. ... They resigned to hope their unknown chance of happiness; but in the face of death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone. And when the moment came they were minded to resist and suffer, rather than to fly and save their lives; they ran away from the word of dishonor, but on the battlefield their feet stood fast, and in an instant, at the height of their fortune, they passed away from the scene, not of their fear, but of their glory."

- noga1

February 22, 2012 at 8:41pm

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Emily Dickinson: "Hope" is the thing with feathers— That perches in the soul— And sings the tune without the words— And never stops—at all— And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard— And sore must be the storm— That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm— I've heard it in the chillest land— And on the strangest Sea— Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a crumb—of Me.

- ironyroad

February 22, 2012 at 9:54pm

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A Descent into the maelstrom/ Poe "At length, after making several guesses of this nature, and being deceived in all --this fact --the fact of my invariable miscalculation, set me upon a train of reflection that made my limbs again tremble, and my heart beat heavily once more. "It was not a new terror that thus affected me, but the dawn of a more exciting hope. This hope arose partly from memory, and partly from present observation." Tadeusz Borowski: "It is hope that makes people walk apathetically into the gas chamber, makes them shrink back from uprising ... Hope that tears apart family bonds, makes mothers reject their children, makes women sell themselves for a piece of bread and turns men into killers. Hope makes them fight for each day of life, for maybe the next day will bring liberation ... We did not learn to renounce hope, and that is why we died in the gas."

- noga1

February 23, 2012 at 6:11am

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and a Blue Jay just lost all hope of getting his beak into my sole suet offering, but the Starling was smart enough to know he just had to get his beak in from an upside-down position. Between this burst of poetic gloom, and watching a Blue Jay lose hope, I forgot that Newt's 29 minute energy speech was a real pick-me-up 40 minutes ago: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vOImnCrKPZ8&feature=player_embedded

- K2K

February 23, 2012 at 10:23am

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K2K: You are a breath of fresh air. "Poetic gloom", aye. Oy.

- noga1

February 23, 2012 at 1:42pm

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In the context we were just in, Ash Wednesday isn't meant to be a breath of fresh air, really. When I was a kid it was Lent and giving up stuff. Easter Sunday, ok. Then we got our eggs.

- ironyroad

February 23, 2012 at 1:57pm

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Yes I know all about Lent. And the meaning of Ash Wednesday. And still, K2K's comment made me smile, in its down-to-earth no nonsense tone.

- noga1

February 23, 2012 at 2:03pm

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02/23/2012 - 12:00am EDT | malahat "The miserable have no other medicine but only hope". Measure for Measure "Been down so long, it looks like up to me." "If I didn't have bad luck, I'd have no luck at all."

- basman

February 23, 2012 at 8:03pm

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P.S. Etta James, The Muscle Shoals Sessions. Got to be got. Waiting now for some jerk's recipe.

- basman

February 23, 2012 at 8:06pm

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I already have the Blue State Blues. No Hope. Now trying a few days of bird watching with Mozart from inside, and, outside, seeking my new neighbor's Newfoundland named Boggs for regular doses of, well, Boggs. Remarkable dog. Here is the antidote to poetic gloom and the blues: Lord Byron's eulogy to his Newfoundland, Boatswain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epitaph_to_a_Dog Epitaph to a Dog Near this Spot are deposited the Remains of one who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferosity, and all the virtues of Man without his Vices. This praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery if inscribed over human Ashes, is but a just tribute to the Memory of BOATSWAIN, a DOG, who was born in Newfoundland May 1803 and died at Newstead Nov. 18, 1808. When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth, Unknown by Glory, but upheld by Birth, The sculptor’s art exhausts the pomp of woe, And storied urns record who rests below. When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen, Not what he was, but what he should have been. But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own, Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, Unhonoured falls, unnoticed all his worth, Denied in heaven the Soul he held on earth – While man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven, And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven. Oh man! thou feeble tenant of an hour, Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power – Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust! Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat, Thy tongue hypocrisy, thy heart deceit! By nature vile, ennobled but by name, Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. Ye, who perchance behold this simple urn, Pass on – it honors none you wish to mourn. To mark a friend’s remains these stones arise; I never knew but one – and here he lies.

- K2K

February 23, 2012 at 8:31pm

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a cold thread, but, I do hope blackton saw Stephen Colbert's posthumous circumcision of all dead Mormons on Thursday night.

- K2K

February 25, 2012 at 12:38pm

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"Stephen Colbert's posthumous circumcision of all dead Mormons" http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/stephen-colbert-converts-all-dead-mormons-t

- noga1

February 26, 2012 at 9:10am

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