One of the nice things about being essentially skeptical is that I don’t take a prooftext as a definitive answer. One of the bad things about being essentially skeptical is that when a prooftext is adduced as a definitive answer, I sometimes want to hit my head on a desk.
Unfortunately, prooftexts on Yom HaShoah turn out to be no exception.
So, I’ve been a bit lax in posting recently. In part, I’ve been busy with various other things–Passover, classwork, grading student papers, working, parenting, etc. But in part, my podcast consumption has been down. I usually find something of interest in podcasts, but I just wasn’t listening to them as often because, during the winter, it can be hard to concentrate on driving safely and on keeping continuity of attention on the podcast. With winter mostly over, though, I’ve got a bit more mental bandwidth during commutes, and podcasts are coming back into the listening diet.
I subscribe to a number of podcasts–lots of New Books Network podcasts, some Jewish-oriented ones, some humanism-oriented ones. I try to enjoy what I find, but in the humanist-oriented podcasts, especially, I find this difficult because much of it is shrill and self-congratulatory.
I’ve written a bit before about the Israeli government’s new initiative to…well, fix? save? something?…diaspora Judaism. Now this appears in The Forward as a puff piece for the new project.
I’m still not buying the program.
So, finally, I’m jumping on the “Jewish bloggers blogging about Pesach” bandwagon.
I know, I know–I’m late to the party. I can live with that. I’ve always been a bit of an outlier and, in the spirit of the festival, mah nishtanah.
And, like many, I’ve been seeing or receiving the various Haggadah supplements that are going around. I’m going to be a bit of a contrarian about Haggadahs for a moment. Specifically, I’m going to complain about text.
As in so many other things, Judaism has largely developed to have a “fixed” text for the Seder. A script, with stage directions. Many of these are important, of course–if you don’t know the Kiddush, you need the text, assuming that doing the Kiddush “right” is something you want to do.
But what if it isn’t? Or, put another way: should it be?
A quick note. It’s been radio silence here for a bit. That’s not intentional; I’ve been either prepping for this week’s seminar at IISHJ or actually in the seminar. Posting will pick back up in about a week.
A Humanistic Jew Goes to Washington 