Month: August 2021

Holy Folly: Using Humor to Reach for God

On By SarahIn Hassidut, Humor, Jewish Identity, Kabbalah, Language, Modernism, Pop Culture, Religion, Western CivilizationLeave a comment
Holy Folly: Using Humor to Reach for G-d

In his 1905 philosophical analysis of humor, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious, Sigmund Freud cites a classic Jewish joke: “Two Jews met in a railway carriage at a station in Galicia. ‘Where are you going?’ asked one. ‘To Cracow,’ was the answer. ‘What a liar you are!’ broke out the other. ‘If you say you’re going to Cracow, you want me to believe you’re going to Lemberg. But I know that in fact you’re going to Cracow. So why are you lying to me?’”

On the surface, the joke is a self-deprecating jab at the Jewish tendency to overthink things. But on a deeper level (and for Freud of course there is always a deeper level) the joke comments on the difficulty of discerning truth. He asks, “is it the truth if we describe things as they are without troubling to consider how our hearer will understand what we say?” Freud proposes that jokes like the one above “attack not a person or an institution but the certainty of our knowledge itself.” He is struck by how many jokes of this nature are Jewish ones.

For the full article please see the wonderful Summer edition of Lubavitch International Magazine.

What Does the Future Hold for Modern Orthodox Judaism?

On By SarahIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

From Mosaic Magazine

This week we published an essay by our new columnist Eli Spitzer about the direction of the Modern Orthodox movement and why it finds itself caught up in so many controversies. Eli’s article has attracted significant attention and comment, and so we thought we’d further the conversation, and also introduce him to you properly, by inviting Eli to discuss the ideas in his essay live next week. He’ll be chatting with another Mosaic writer, Sarah Rindner, who has plenty of ideas about Modern Orthodoxy herself. And they’ll both be answering questions from you, our readers and friends in the Mosaic community.

Join us on Tuesday, August 10, at 1:00 pm Eastern time for this private, live-streamed discussion on one of the most important topics facing Jewish observance today.

How to Join

This event is available to Mosaic subscribers. A subscription costs just $30, will get you access to this discussion, all of the essays—like Eli’s—that we publish, along with access to other events like this.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, you can sign up and ensure your access to this discussion right here.