July 11, 2008
This comes from the “now I’ve seen it all” file. The JTA Wire Service just ran a brief entitled “Kabbalah seen as cause for A-Rod split.” Thus, Kaballah – the historically and currently maligned study of Jewish mysticism – is now at the root of America’s latest mega-celebrity divorce. What’s next: Gefilte fish causing the obesity of all Appalachin Americans? Matzah ball soup increasing high blood pressure on Native American reservations? Is this all the new way of saying, “The Jews did it?”
Jokes aside, for those not in the know, A-Rod is New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez, perhaps the greatest baseball player of modern times. The superstar is reportedly divorcing wife Cynthia because he is allegedly having an affair with popstar Madonna, whose marriage to film director Guy Ritchie is on the rocks. The reason: Madonna, according to trainer Dodd Romero on ABC’s “Good Morning America” has “brainwashed” Rodriguez by interesting him in Kaballah. To make it even crazier, Cynthia’s attorney, Raoul Felder, reportedly will challenge her husband’s credibility by bringing up his interest in Kaballah and claiming it is a cult.
(Didn’t the Colts leave Baltimore years ago?)
Oy. Now this all says a lot both about the place of Jews and Judaism in America, as well as the inability of Jews and others to understand that serious study of kaballah is both time-honored and vastly deeper than the surface brush strokes of those driven by the headline loving L.A.-based Kaballah Center, the venue where Madonna and a host of others enjoy their fad of the day.
In short, America – outside of Israel—simply put is the safest place in history for the Jewish people. Study of Kaballah, which still isn’t accepted by many mainstream rabbis, is embraced by some of the nation’s leading celebrities. Meanwhile, Jon Stewart on “The Tonight Show” is busy making jokes about hamentaschen. He wouldn’t do it if his audience wouldn’t get it. And most Americans no longer even know that words such as “chutzpah” and “glitch” are Yiddish.
Jews have it made in America. The only problem now is getting more of them to seriously engage Jewish living instead of the kitsch that goes over so well in our media-driven, celebrity-obsessed culture.
Posted by on 07/11/08 at 12:24 PM | Comments (1)Comments
What’s amazing is how mainstream Jewish concepts are at a time when less Jews seem interested. Why can’t we capitalize on that?
Posted by Frank on 07/13/08 at 12:12 PM
Subscribe to this blog