show more concern about hannah arendt than i am able to muster

but honestly if i have to choose between . . .

a - worrying about ms arendt's "internalized and subconscious" acceptance of nazi propaganda some 70 years ago, or . . .

b - worrying about what syria, iran, and al qaeda are up to right now . . .

can you guess whether i'll pick A or B?

i worry every time our president refuses to criticize holocaust denial, the torture of iranan election protestors, the unending flow of show range missiles into gaza, etc.

hannah arendt is not an immediate threat to me, and no amount of deconstructing her past writings is going to convince today's anti-semites they are on an unfortunate trajectory

How do you lapse as a Jew? Are there dues or something? A license renewel? Do you turn in your Abramic DNA? I mean, Catholics have sacraments that if you stop observing them, you've "lapsed." How this happens with Jews, I cannot fathom. Although perhaps taking Communion might qualify, I suppose.

10 - marry a gentile

9 - stop attending temple

8 - don't raise your daughter in the faith

7 - criticize israel for buidling settlements in the occupied territories

6 - celebrate christmas in the spirt of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men

5 - admit it - gefilte fish are vile

4 - theorize that lamp that burned for 8 days was in fact replenished when people weren't watching (similar to the christian story of jesus' miracle of the loaves and fish)

3 - try scallops wrapped in bacon at a backyard barbecue

2 - get a tattoo

1 - vote your conscience, rather than reflexively for democrats

baltimore aureole:

10 - marry a gentile

9 - stop attending temple

8 - don't raise your daughter in the faith

7 - criticize israel for buidling settlements in the occupied territories

6 - celebrate christmas in the spirt of peace on earth and goodwill towards all men

5 - admit it - gefilte fish are vile

4 - theorize that lamp that burned for 8 days was in fact replenished when people weren't watching (similar to the christian story of jesus' miracle of the loaves and fish)

3 - try scallops wrapped in bacon at a backyard barbecue

2 - get a tattoo

1 - vote your conscience, rather than reflexively for democrats

sounds like my college roommate and half the Jewish girls I've slept with. None of them considered themselves lapsed, just not religious.

As for the Loaves and Fishes, you, like most folks, misunderstand the Scripture. It never says Jesus created a magical all you can eat buffet. He was Jewish, not Chinese.

What it actually says is that he commanded the disciples to put all that they had to eat in baskets and pass the baskets around. What they had to offer was a few fish and a few loaves. The miracle was that for one day, in one place, people had enough faith in the Kingdom that they themselves gave up all they had to the common good, food they were hiding or keeping for themselves. And when they did so, they found that there was more than enough for all, with plenty left over-- contrary to what they must have thought at first, which is that their charity would be abused by "others" who were lazy, unprepared or parasitical. The lesson is that to live faith, and thereby to give all that one has while trusting God to provide what's needed, will result in a world of plenty for all.