Hug a Heretic Today

Writing in Fortune Magazine, Polly LaBarre explains, "Why you should embrace your company's heretics."

We find this article noteworthy for two reasons. First, we learn that management consultants can use religious terminology and concepts to speak lucidly about organizational behavior and corporate life.

Second, we start to think that perhaps what is good for a commercial corporation may be good for an organized religion.

LaBarre's observations begin, "Making your organization a home for heretics just might be the best way of making sure it has a future."

The Strange David Hartman Yediot Interview

We read the strange David Hartman interview in Yediot in Hebrew last week and our reaction was, "How sad." When asked whether we meant sad for Hartman, or sad for religion in Israel, we said, "Both."

But now, after reading again the article in English, we judge that there are more points that jump out from the interview, that overall coalesce, sadly, to portray Hartman as a kvetch and a crank.

Ynet titles the interview, 'Religion now more dangerous than Arabs' and explains, "Rabbi David Hartman, teacher and rebel, is celebrating his 80th birthday and cannot believe the kind of Judaism developing around him: 'Instead of creating a new humanity, Religious Zionism leaders are fighting over stones and verses.'"

Hartman should not have been allowed by his children or disciples to be interviewed without any filtering. Hartman misses every opportunity to explain modern Orthodox values and his own views. Instead he complains and carps and criticizes, here, there and everywhere. And most of what he says is raw opinion, confused, conflicting and self-contradictory.

The interviewer, Uri Misgav, did no favor to Hartman either. After asking, "Is anyone even listening to you?" and getting an evasion, he does not pursue the issue. After asking, "So your life work was in a sense a failure?" and getting no list of dozens of achievements, rather than pursuing the question, the interviewer abruptly changes the subject.

So we are sad, mainly for David Hartman. He comes across as a sore loser, a man of sour grapes. He lost his life's battle. The right wing religious Israelis won. And Hartman is hopping mad.

To sum it up wryly, Hartman's mentor (an ours) Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, published a famous self-defining essay, "The Lonely Man of Faith."

In this interview Hartman has clinched his life-persona as, "The Kvetchy Man of Faith."

Never kvetchy or cranky, read, "God's Favorite Prayers," a book with a destiny

Religious Celebrities: Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow and the Orthodox Jewish Taliban-Like Women

Amazingly, in our archetypal framework of analysis of religious personalities, two ostensibly different types of religious practice fall into the same personality category, the "Celebrity."

As we see it these two religious personae in the news today are "Celebrities" -- Broncos Quarterback Tim Tebow (see Times Op-Ed Columnist Frank Bruni on, "Tim Tebow’s Gospel of Optimism") (and see the Times editorial, "Tebowing on the Gridiron and Off") and the Orthodox Jewish Taliban Women (hat tip to David for the latter VIN link).

Our sharp scalpel of analysis cuts it like this. Both are valid expressions of what we call in our new book, "the celebrity mode of religious expression" whose anthem is, "We're number one!"

Celebrities show their specialness and triumphalism in many ways, by slogans, by unusual and distinctive tribal dress, and in purely public mannerisms. You could point to war paint for native Americans, or to the Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow genuflecting in the end zone after a touchdown. Those kinds of public displays immediately reduce down to parallel archetypal content-less bravura put on for show.

Those acts have a dual purpose for the personality who puts them on for us. They say first, We are better than you, We are winning, and they, second, seek to intimidate the competition. The intellectual, theological and philosophical emptiness of the celebrity mode is so elegantly demonstrated when Tebow equates winning at a football game with winning at religion. It's all just a big game for him in both those cases.

And witness that neither of his celebrations of victory or supremacy has any depth or durability.

Eventually all teams will lose. And then they will have to go back and look for some actual defining knowledge or substantive meaning, some real content, not just bravura. Or else they just will disappear into the mists of former glory.

And oh well, we might go one step further in our parsing of religious personality.

If you are not an admirer of fundamentalist Christians or if you are not a fan of Taliban-like burka-wearing Orthodox women, the answers you may speak to the celebrities that you don't like are:  (a) simply and loudly tell them that they don't scare you; and (b) mock them mercilessly to everyone else for their utterly silly actions.

And of course, for the "Celebrities" that you do like, just wave your finger in the air and join them in the chant and the dance, "We're number one!" And, go out there and win that game! And if you win, take a bow.

Read my chapter on the Celebrity archetype in my book "God's Favorite Prayers"

The Jewish Channel: Steven I. Weiss' Exclusive Controversial Interview with Newt Gingrich

On the The Jewish Channel, Steven I. Weiss' conducted an exclusive controversial interview with Newt Gingrich. Newt called the Palestinians an "invented people."

"God's Favorite Prayers" - six invented people that you meet in the synagogue

Times: Nobody is responsible for publishing a story about student sex at Yeshiva University

The Yeshiva sex story episode continues. Now, we do understand that people must save face and try to avoid responsibility for a controversy. A student paper published a bland anonymous story of premarital sex at the University. Censorship efforts ensued. Journalists and bloggers became interested. And now the Times.

But the NY Times article ends with statements that make little sense to us. They seem to say, all kinds of conflicting things like, we had nothing to do with this, we had something to do with this, this is not official anymore, but other things like this are official, we are democratic and are not for censorship, but we did what we did, we are open, and we are closed.

All that we get from this episode is a picture that some forty plus years after we graduated from the college, the school has no clearer idea that what it represents is a liberal arts college within a comprehensive university, combined with a Talmudic academy, and an ethos of traditional Orthodox Judaism.

Hello. Reality check. The answer to what defines the Yeshiva College and Stern College is, and always has been and will be, "All of the above." That means that the rabbis, and the ethic they represent are one major facet in a complex composite. They are not the sole regulators of all practice. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

The Times says contradictory things at the end of their account, representing well the ambiguity of the current state of affairs at the school. In our view, ambiguity is not in this instance any sign of strength, any expression of value. The school tried to suppress and censor a student story. They seriously failed. They need to own up to that and make sure it never ever happens again.

...Mayer Fertig, senior director of media relations for Yeshiva University, said the administration had not been involved in the controversy, though several faculty members had served as mediators at the Wednesday night meeting at which The Beacon and the student council parted ways.

The Beacon, the student council reported, is no longer an official club, so it will no longer get student funding, which amounted to about $500 this year. Other publications, including a humor magazine, The Quipster, also function unofficially at the school, supported by donations.

“We have a vibrant student press and a vibrant democracy here,” Mr. Fertig said, adding that the council had acted according to the wishes of the students. Rather than being about censorship, he said, “this whole thing showcases our diversity in our campus that we are proud of. This is a yeshiva and a university, and we take both very seriously.”

"God's Favorite Prayers"-- embraces the complexity of Jewish Liturgy as a strength

WSJ: Student Sex at Yeshiva University

We waited. We thought, this item is not of any consequence. But the story is now on the Wall Street Journal.

What a lovely report. An anonymous author writes about a sexual encounter between a Yeshiva boy and a Stern College girl in a hotel room. The narrative is published in a second-tier college periodical. But wait. The Yeshiva U morality police could not restrain themselves. So instead of letting a non-story die, we now have a big deal here.

It is fair to assume that for over 50 years Yeshiva College men and Stern College women have been having sex. That is what college students do.

How now does a student short story generate such heat? Well, that's easy. The no-sex team that runs the show at religious fundamentalist schools like Yeshiva and BYU and Liberty U did not get the memo. Students are having sex, and by the way, it is fair to assume that contrary to the literary angst in the Yeshiva story, students are enjoying their sex.

Essay Sparks Campus Uproar
By SOPHIA HOLLANDER

An essay about pre-marital sex published in a student newspaper has caused an uproar at Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Jewish college in Manhattan, prompting the student council to withdraw the paper's funding and igniting a campus-wide debate over censorship....[more...]

"God's Favorite Prayers"-- better than sex

Gotcha! An Imaginary Poison Acorn in the Forest

Gotcha! Going back to 2006 we've written on occasion about the valuless and tiresome right wing sport called, "Gotcha!" That is what we call it when some conservative activist finds some small item in the verdant forest of liberal and progressive politics and holds it up for ridicule. The notion behind Gotcha! is that some small defect invalidates the whole liberal enterprise.

We've said in the past that the conservative Gotcha! game brings no value to the world.

Now we've thought through all the possible metaphors for further explaining our view and have come up with another way to make our point.

"Look here," says the radical right-wing Gotcha! player, "I have here a poison acorn. Because it fell from that tree over there, and that tree is part of the forest, this whole forest is poison! Run away from it as fast as you can because we must burn it down!"

"But," we object, "we don't see any acorn. You are imagining that it exists. You are imagining that it is poison. You are imagining that it infects the whole forest. None of that is reality."

Latest example is some alleged statement by an Obama administration diplomat that "blames" anti-semitism on the "Arab-Israeli conflict." It turns out that the statement never existed, that it wasn't poison, and that it did not prove there is any smattering of toxicity of the Obama administration's policies towards Israel.

Just say it along with me, "They cannot see the forest for they are locked in on gazing at an imaginary poison acorn."

A reality-based appraisal of Jewish Liturgy: "God's Favorite Prayers". A great gift idea for reality-based people.

The Great Neck SAT Cheating Scandal

The Times reported that in a Long Island suburb students have been cheating on the SAT college entrance exam (Exam Cheating on Long Island Hardly a Secret).

We have one comment on this that would render the whole matter moot in the future: get fingerprints of all the test takers.

...So far, 20 teenagers at five schools in Nassau County — Great Neck North, Great Neck South, Roslyn High School, the North Shore Hebrew Academy and St. Mary’s High School in Manhasset — have been arrested: the five suspected of taking the tests were charged with felonies, while the 15 accused of paying them $500 to $3,600 to do so face misdemeanor charges.

Kathleen M. Rice, the Nassau County district attorney, said that she had evidence against 20 others, but that they could not be pursued because of the two-year statute of limitations regarding misdemeanors, or the absence of testing records...

Sent from my iPad

Amazon is by far the best vendor for selling your eBook

This blogger -- the Online Journalism Review -- makes the case for what we knew all along and what has been confirmed by the sales of our ebook.

Our Kindle edition sells well. It is available worldwide, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and in the US.

Our Nook edition at Barnes and Noble simply does not sell. We did not even publish an iBook edition.


So just get yourself a copy of our Kindle edition of God's Favorite Prayers, or give one as a gift.

David Gruber: Teaneck Taxes are Out of Control

If this letter writer in our local Teaneck Suburbanite paper is correct, our Teaneck taxes have been skyrocketing out of control the past few years. We need to get them under control.

Keeping Teaneck affordable means better leadership

To the editor:

Between 2001-10, Teaneck property taxes increased 58.8 percent compared to an increase in the CPI of 26.6 percent, a measure of inflation experienced by consumers in their day-to-day living expenses. In other words, the Teaneck property tax growth rate was more than double (122 percent) the U.S. inflation rate. During this period, Teaneck's overall population (39,650), as well as its student population (4,310) remained nearly constant.

Details are provided for Teaneck and the Consumer Price Index on a year-by-year basis (last five years): 2006: Property taxes + 6.3 percent vs. CPI + 3.2 percent; 2007: Property taxes + 7.8 percent vs. CPI + 2.8 percent; 2008: Property taxes + 2.5percent vs. CPI + 3.8 percent; 2009: Property taxes + 4.0 percent vs. CPI -0.4 percent; 2010: Property taxes + 2.3 percent vs. CPI + 1.6 percent.

From an analytical perspective, Teaneck residents should compare the rate of rise in property taxes to the CPI for evidence of cost control. The difference is compounded over time. In aggregate, there is no evidence of cost controls or productivity savings, though a few isolated programs may have generated either/or both.

What are we paying for? Where is the value of our investment? Levels of academic achievement have not improved in our schools. Neither has the responsiveness our municipality. Teaneck already spends 10 percent of its municipal budget for Police and Fire pensions — a figure that has increased 617 percent since 2005. We don't even have garbage pick-up!

Contract reform is needed. Police earn $100,000 within six years of being hired. Our teachers are the third highest paid in New Jersey. At the same time, costly grievance procedures applying to all union employees, combined with disincentives for productivity enhancement limits the ability of management to make fundamental or even incremental changes on a timely basis.

We also don't need to spend $3.5 million for renovation of the police station (via a debt offering). Build now, pay later for what? We need better service, not a better building.

Bottom line: The local economy remains weak. People are frustrated by Congressional inertia. Foreclosures are happening even within Teaneck. A clarion call for "No More Taxes" and "shared sacrifice" by the unions exists. Change won't happen overnight. Strategic leadership is required.

David Gruber
Teaneck