The Schrift - Ancient Jewish Wisdom for Modern Times – Détails, épisodes et analyse

When Richard Wagner wrote his operas it was--wait for it--actually cool to be German. Indeed, one need only listen to this music for ten seconds to figure this out. Being Jewish back then on the other hand was, well, not so coveted. How times have changed. For today, horn players like Bar Zemach are welcomed to blast the shofar in the best orchestras of Germany.

"Ironic" is a word we throw around in casual conversation. And yet, when we peer back the curtain, we soon see that irony has explosive cultural and philosophical meaning. And what happens when we get ironic about irony itself? That was a devastating question which even Alanis Morrissette seems not to have foreseen. Schlegel, on the other hand... Nowadays, ironic speech is so commonplace that it irks more than it phases. By contrast, in the entire Torah we get just one ironic remark. Professor Erica Weitzman disentangles irony for us and shares her fascinating theory of comic irony.

The word "romantic" is not always as romantic as one might think. In the Torah, there is an unquestionable "love triangle" between Jacob, Rachel, and Leah. Two years ago on The Schrift, I questioned whether Jacob's love for the infertile Rachel might be read as a cautionary tale. Yet my interviewee Meir Goldberg teaches that this love triangle is elegant--not problematic. Meir explains why the Torah wants us to get married and have children and why it is not Jacob but we who are "lovesick."

Dramatic irony occurs when we know something about a character's fate which the character himself does not know. The ability to predict the character's future fate takes audiences on emotional rollercoasters as we wish to jump out of our seats to help the character, but know we are powerless to do so. Yet, is it not the case that we view our own lives through the lens of dramatic irony all the time? We see ourselves not in the present, but as tiny specks on the vast spectrum of past and future. We extend this Weltanschauung not only to ourselves, but to the lives of others, and even to history. The Torah teaches us how to transcend this burdensome worldview.

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Music: Radiohead - "Morning Bell"

Why do hundreds of people travel from distant lands to see the Mona Lisa but then when they finally get there, their first act is to take out their cameras and snap a picture of it? Walter Benjamin's 1936 essay "On the Reproducibility of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" discusses how, in modern times, art can be reproduced on a massive scale. This technology causes copies of art, even if identical to the original work, to seem paltry in comparison to the original work, which retains its "aura." When Moses ascends Mount Sinai, the first thing God tells him is how to build a temple in the wilderness, known as the Mishkan. Yet, the instructions God gives are awfully tedious and allow for the temple to be easily copied. The Torah, read ironically, suggests that this "replacement" for God, we might say, lacks the "aura" of the original work. In a war between Art and God, God will always have the last word.

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Music: Led Zeppelin - "Kashmir"

We tend to think of suck-ups as just exasperating, but ultimately harmless, pests. In fact, they are the great movers and shakers of society. They parrot back the values of their bosses at the office. Over time, these values spread like a virus, and are no longer subjective values but just “normal beliefs.” The Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci knew that, to change society, it was not enough to call for revolution, as Marx did. Rather, it was necessary to change culture itself. Immanuel Kant observed cultural change can only occur through relentless self-questioning and vigorous debate. Yet, our society is automatized; we are more keen to mimic behavior than to question it. As a result, we have come to oversimplify the concepts of freedom and slavery, thereby preventing us from learning from these ideas. The Torah shows how language should grappled with as something ambiguous and open to multiple meanings. Only then can we see slavery for what it really is.

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Music: Morrissey - "What Kind of People Live in These Houses?"

Why is it that people so often close themselves off to good advice? Why do people stubbornly refuse to meditate or consider controversial nutrition tips?

Moses was open to new ideas, and he took the advice of his father-in-law with graciousness.

Among the great German composers, Mendelssohn may have been too willing to take advice and yield his individuality, whereas Wagner was too egotistical and insular about his music.

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Music: Mahler - "Symphony No. 4, Fourth Movement"

Irony is more than just a literary device; the Zeitgeist of an age or the Weltanschauung of a people can be inferred by looking into their use of irony.

Our current age is so saturated with irony that we have plunged irony into the most advanced stages: into meta-irony, hyper-irony, and postmodern irony.

In his 1841 work, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard shows how toxic and nihilistic a force irony can be. Socrates used irony to prove to his fellow Athenians that they actually know nothing. Yet Socrates had nothing behind the curtain to offer them instead.

The Hebrews are quickly dissatisfied after they escape slavery, and their first complaint to Moses is drenched in irony. Coincidence?

The German Romantic Friedrich Schlegel saw Ironic Art as the pinnacle of artistic achievement. Yet, Hegel thought quite otherwise.

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Music: Smashing Pumpkins - "Bullet with Butterfly Wings"

Simpsons Clip: https://youtu.be/udJw-CzX7sA

In this week’s parsha, God takes the extraordinary decision of killing off every first-born being in Egypt in order to finally force the Pharaoh’s hand. These first-born beings include not just the Egyptian aristocracy, but also the peasants, the middle-class, even the animals. Yes, even the cute, innocent, first-born animals must die so that the Hebrews can be let free. At worst, God’s decision is a genocide. At best, it is an act of war.

What is the justification for this?

We can ask Hegel, who would have said that "the Owl of Minerva flies at dusk." We cannot know whether a revolution is good or bad until years afterward.

It is easy to start a revolution. It is not so easy to finish it.

To learn to live in the moment would be the equivalent of a revolution within ourselves. Are we ready for this transformation? Just as ready as the Hebrews were to leave Egypt.

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Music: Pink Floyd - "Run Like Hell"

Have you ever thought about the heart? I mean really thought about it? We have the word heartfelt, which we all immediately understand. Why don’t we have words for other organs? Why don’t we say kidneyfelt or brainfelt or liverfelt or gallbladderfelt?

It has been the trend in recent years to praise the toughness and almost ruthlessness of leaders. This is a trope that never seems to get old, it would seem. Ned Stark’s downfall came about because, essentially, he was too naïve, too gullible. We might say: his heart was too big. Nietzsche, too, uses the metaphor of the heart. He says that the heart of a leader must be “hard enough” for evil and for good.

The Egyptian Pharaoh, of course, was cold-hearted. We read again and again that the Pharaoh hardened his heart and wouldn’t concede to Moshe’s demands. However, in fact, if we read the original Hebrew of the Torah, it does not read that the Pharaoh hardened his heart. Actually, the Torah alternates between two words which are loaded with meaning and connotation.

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Music: Pink Floyd - "Breathe"