'Boy were you on today. Boy did you ever make that guy look sick. When he hit that one down the line and you got it and fell down and hit that drop-volley Pemulis said the guy looked like he was going to be sick all over the net, he said.'
'Boo, I kicked a kid's ass is all. End of story. I don’t think it's good to rehash it when I've kicked somebody's ass. It's like a dignity thing. I think we should just let it sort of lie in state, quietly. Speaking of which.'
'Hey Hal?'
'…'
'Hey Hal?'
'It's late, Mario. It's sleepy-time. Close your eyes and think fuzzy thoughts.'
'That's what the Moms always says, too.'
'Always worked for me, Boo.'
'You think I think fuzzy thoughts all the time. You let me room with you because you feel sorry for me.'
'Booboo I'm not even going to dignify that. I'll regard it as like a warning sign. You always get petulant when you don’t get enough sleep. And here we are seeing petulance already on the western horizon, right here.'
'…'
'…'
'When I asked if you were asleep I was going to ask if you felt like you believed in God, today, out there, when you were so on, making that guy look sick.'
'This again?'
'…'
'Really don’t think midnight in a totally dark room with me so tired my hair hurts and drills in six short hours is the time and place to get into this, Mario.'
'…'
'You ask me this once a week.'
'You never say, is why.'
'So tonight to shush you how about if I say I have administrative bones to pick with God, Boo. I'll say God seems to have a kind of laid-back management style I'm not that crazy about, I'm pretty much anti-death. God looks by all accounts to be pro-death. I’m not seeing how we can get together on this issue, he and I, Boo.'
-David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest page 40
This week, a week of tennis and theology, I've been thinking about the late-night conversation between (two of) the Incandenza boys, Mario and Hal. The Australian Open, the first Major of the calendar year, will soon be over. And, admittedly, I've been watching too much of it. Luckily there's a good amount of down-time between points, games, sets, matches, which makes tennis a pretty good sport to watch if you have, say, a book of Jewish theology to finish reading for class. So, this week, my heart has been in Melbourne, but I, I have been in Arthur Green's masterful Radical Judaism: Rethinking God and Tradition.
Now if you'd like to see a review of Green's book, and a response to the review and a response to the response, look in the pages of the tasteful “Jewish Review of Books.” Unlike the talented authors writing for that publication, I haven't even finished reading the book; but I'm already pretty confident that it does some very important things. First and foremost, and without getting into particulars, it is an example of what a non-dogmatic theology can be; a theology for moderns who are unwilling to give up their beliefs in what have come to be regarded as social and scientific truths. Equal rights and opportunities for people of all genders and sexual orientations, basic trust that science pretty much gets things like evolution right, etc.
And he does all this without hiding his own embeddedness, his own contingency. On page one he reveals who he is: “Through [sacred language, rites, and symbols] I am sometimes able to enter into states of inner openness to a nameless and transcendent presence, that which I choose to call 'God.'” Green is much like Mario (nicknamed Boo) in the Wallace passage quoted above. He doesn't prove God's existence through logic games or appeals to Scripture. He has moments of transcendence, some of which are “evoked by great beauty,” (4) and he chooses the theological language(s) of Judaism to talk about those experiences. For Mario, the language of God is how one expresses that feeling of being totally “on” in a tennis game. A melding, as it were, of mental and physical reality. Hal, whose conception of God is more about logic than about experience, chooses not to use his brother Mario's “metaphor.” The language we use to describe the world is a choice we make. If we think that there is only one description for something, perhaps we are deceiving ourselves. The question Green forces us to answer is: have we actively chosen the language we use? And if so, why?
Green's book is not just important for us committed Jews who want to be challenged in how we think/talk about God; it is, I think, important for those Jews and non-Jews who are atheists or “new-atheist” anti-God/anti-religion people. Green addresses this latter category: “'Religion,' to them, seems to allow for nothing other than a literal belief in nonsensical biblical tales and various accruing superstitions. This caricature obviates the need for serious dialogue and the encounter thus devolves into mutual distrust and recrimination, great fodder for the media but quite useless for the future of civilization.” (9) Green offers sophistication, and invites everyone into the conversation of Jewish theology in an open and honest way.
It's not about whether you end up reading this book and agreeing with it. The book makes radical claims and interpretations that traditional Jews may be uncomfortable with. But ultimately, the book is an act of faith that the Judaism it promotes is quite useful for the future of civilization.
If you get to the end (page 971, which is almost the end) of Infinite Jest you'll read about how Mario's simple kindness makes a difference to the people around him. And you may wonder if his moral goodness is related to the religious language he chooses to use when he witnesses beauty, like that of Hal's tennis game. The question of how religious language can contribute to the improvement of the world is an important question to ask. I believe that Art Green makes a lasting contribution, outlining in religious language what it means to be thinking Jews in our era, and what it can mean to be “partners of the One in the survival and maintenance of this planet....” (27)
Art Green will be speaking on Radical Judaism on February 03, 12:15 pm - 1:30 pm at JTS, 3080 Broadway, Mendolson Convocation Center
No comments:
Post a Comment