Letter to the Editor

K’vod Harav,

I am most honored and humbled to have been invited to participate in this lofty endeavor together with individuals of such peerless talent and unparalleled genius. However, there are a few small issues that stand in the way of what would’ve been and should’ve been an unqualified “yes, I will.”

First, my budget for humorous and lighthearted banter is rather tight. Occasionally even sarcasm runs short — only cynicism remains. This may not result in the kind of writing people want or expect.

Second, I do not care (much) about Chasidism, ex-Chasidism, post-Chasidism, pre-Chasidism, or any other permutation of ‘ism I can think of right now. I don’t have anything intelligent to contribute to discussions of a particular sort — the sort I think you are going for on this blog. I have no dog left in this fight, no ship left in that harbor. (Of course, this is not a statement about some objective reality, as truthfully I do have lots of… puppies in that fight. However, I am not motivated to hold any strong opinions one way or the other about these issues.) I no longer care enough to argue, proclaim, or otherwise hold forth on issues concerning chassidim, ex-chassidim, y-chassidim, orthodoxy, religion, or politics. Let the ghosts of generations past haunt the vacant imagination of the hoi-polis… or not.

Is it an ossified culture where any form of creativity, ingenuity, and inquisitiveness has perished and putrefied in the face of an ultra-conservative and restrictive value-system that is deathly afraid of change, as has happened among other once-great thinking cultures in existence today? Is it a vibrant and lively community where gossip is a form of high art and subtle arguments about obscure points of religious law is a rigorous intellectual exercise rivaling the experience of the top law schools? Is it taboo among the Piraha Indians to have sex with another person’s wife? Do I care to discuss it at length?

Third, I do not have the time to do any quality writing, which as you surely know is something that takes time to do well. Work, learn, play. There are phone calls to make, things that need urgent attention, books to read, files to clear and birds to chase into the beautiful blue sky. Occasionally things get so overwhelming that my dreams turn into horrifying nightmares of unbalanced balance-sheets and unsolvable Laplace equations, not to mention grotesque second-order differentials in several variables and wave-equations that… do not wave. It is the strangest thing.

Nevertheless, as you know, I always have something to say even if it might not be what people want to hear or the way they want to hear it. This very letter may prove THAT point. I guess I could post this letter in lieu of writing something? Yes, apparently I can!

All the best then,
Baal Devarim