Can't really comment on the specifics here, except to say I think your points are all really good and are worth discussing. I think these are meta issues which clearly continue to preoccupy many Jews, whether they be in the Diaspora or in Israel. Editorially speaking, my area(s) of focus are Israel and Culture - books, film, music. Those are the departments I took direct responsibility for at Tikkun, as well as @ other periodicals I've edited. Not as interested in religion theologically as I am politically.
Best, Joel
On Dec 29, 2006, at 7:45 AM, Chuck Grimes wrote:
>
>
> ``....Joel's main thing was Israel. My main thing is
> Judaism.''
>
> ``There's a real tension there within Judaism. Michael and I both
> agree
> that Jewish particularism without any kind of universalism is the
> wrong way to go...''
>
> ``...Lerner, meanwhile, is, in Green Kaiser's view, more interested in
> taking Jewish ethical ideals and teaching them to anyone who will
> listen..''
>
> ``But can a magazine be both `Jewish' and `Interfaith'? Some of
> Tikkun's followers think not. Even outgoing editor Schalit intimated
> that Lerner is trying to strike an impossible balance...''
>
> ---------
>
> I'd be interested in Joel's thoughts on this problem, or anybody
> else. The reason is that this is the kind of split that dominated Leo
> Strauss's early work, particularly his Zionist magazine writings and
> his first book on Spinoza. He could not resolve the
> problem. His own identity as a political theorist was too much wrapped
> around his own identity as a German Jew. In Strauss's case it was
> understandable enough, given his political world in Weimar in the 20s.
>
> Eventually, Strauss much like Arendt returned to the ancient world and
> tried to find some foundation for universalism within the Helenic
> world prior to the Roman conquest. But unlike Arendt, Strauss
> absolutely aborred the modern version of this universalism in what
> Johanth Israel called the Radical Enlightenment, namely centered on
> Spinoza.
>
> Within the US context, this problem surfaces again and again in the
> civil rights movements and the post-modern identity movements under
> different guises. Nobody it seems is willing to assert the universal
> rights of humanity, if that means they must give up their own identity
> and whatever privilage that confirs.
>
> But this problem only begins to deepen further, if you follow the
> Enlightenment proscription that Spinoza advocated. Reason and science
> are supposed to lead to this universal realm in which the mystical and
> superstitious particularisms of the natural and human world are
> dissolved. But as a whole collection of postmodernist writings have
> attempted to demonstrate, such a universalist realm leads to an even
> more pernicious tyranny---that of the hegemonic truths which
> constitute the meta-narratives of those in power. What happens to the
> multiplicity of particular human truths under such a regime?
>
> A retreat into the boundaries of any particularism never seems to
> abolish the same dilemma. For each group the same problem arises anew
> under the rubric of constituting its own greater collective. The
> Lerner v. Schalit divide for example sounds like it comes down to a
> Judaism v. Israel divide, where the central question is the perennial
> one of what does it mean to be a Jew?
>
> I watched a remarkably similar series of arguments (from the
> non-disabled sidelines) over the definitions, identities, and
> directions of the disability movements back in the early
> Seventies. Just put physically disabled activists in the same room
> with the activist blind and the deaf. The fur will fly. The groups I
> worked for made a concerted effort to build coalitions with the blind
> and deaf. But the deaf didn't like the term disability, because they
> reasoned they were not disabled. This brought out the centrality of
> deaf culture in which all the potential of disability (not hearing) is
> neutralized through socialization and acculturalization. In this
> way the deaf are not disabled, if you follow. At any rate, deaf
> culture
> has its own particularism v. universal issues. We saw an example this
> conflict last fall over the presidency at Gallaudet.
>
> Other examples more relevant to this list are the sectarian lines
> that divide the left, particularly over the truth, beauty and love
> status of the postmodern writers, or over how to fit the anarchists
> into these complex equations. Death to the Right, death to the neocons
> and death to the neoliberals seems like the only universal rallying
> cry
> here. Perhaps I am projecting.
>
> But as Strauss has shown me, depending on your enemies to define your
> identity is a big mistake.
>
> CG
>
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