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[HANASHIR:14714] Re: secular music



>I have spent the past half an hour trying to figure out what to say.  And 
>you know...it doesn't matter.  I didn't miss Sholom's point.  I just think 
>that it's idealistic, and blind to the reality of the Jewish people.

I confess that I don't understand your understanding of my point!  <g>

I don't know what I said that's idealistic.

>we need to take a step back from 100% Judaism, and recognize that 50% is 
>better than none at all.

What Jews (other than, perhaps, some chassidim in Boro Park) are getting 
100% Judaism?  Almost _no_ Jew in America is isolated from secular music 
and thought, etc.  The kids get plenty of that, we have a chance to 
_slightly_ tip the balance away from their overwhelmingly secular 
influences.  Most kids live a life that is "a couple hours out of a 168 
hour-week" Jewish.

I don't think that teaching secular music is bad per se -- but I think it 
can be bad in the sense that the time spent on it is a missed opportunity 
to teach something Jewish.

==========
Separate issue:

As for "Imagine", I just don't get it.  I'm sorry.  I'm not being 
stubborn.  I don't understand how, in a Jewish setting, we can express our 
hope for "no religion".

>I see Lennon's song as making the unfortunate connection between religion 
>and violence.  This is not the fault of any single religion, nor of any 
>single follower, but rather a very gruesome reality of religion, since the 
>beginning of time.  The crusades?

Martin Luther King?  Gandhi?  The idea of beating swords into plowshares?

Do planes cause violence?  They can airlift food to the starving, or they 
can be used to fly into the World Trade Center.  It's the same with 
religion.  (BTW, the perpetrators of the 4 largest genocides in the past 
century were those who were atheist: Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tze Tung, Pol Pot).

When a person comes home sick from the doctor's office -- that doesn't mean 
the doctor caused the illness.  In fact, it is usually the case that the 
patient would have been sick anyway, but the doctor is ameliorating the 
problem.

(BTW, try this thought experiment.  It's late at night, you're in an alley, 
and four large guys are walking your way.  Then they tell you that they've 
just been to a bible study class).

But, again, I'm sorry -- I just don't understand how we can try to get 
across the message that "Judaism matters", and simultaneously sing a song 
to impressionable youngsters which prays for "no religion, too."

Shavua Tov!

-- Sholom

------------------------ hanashir (at) shamash(dot)org -----------------------+


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