Behold! Chapter 7 of OMGWTFBIBLE with Lonnie Mann is now available!!
In which all sorts of sexy things (and one very unsexy one) happen
There are so many ways to listen!
Direct link is here.
You can also: subscribe in iTunes, subscribe via RSS, or listen via Stitcher!
Last night, before the show, I felt compelled to address the terrorist attacks in Boston that day. To start the show without talking about that tragedy felt wrong. Since I was recording, I’ve released my remarks as a special podcast episode.
It’s available in Stitcher, iTunes, RSS, and direct download.
My statements, as prepared (I deviated a bit in the recording), appear below:
There’s something I need to address. As you hear this, this happened more than a week ago, but just a few hours ago, there were two explosions at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. We don’t really know anything right now. Two people are dead and there are reports of over a hundred wounded.
This is awful and has made me sick to my stomach. My heart goes out to everyone affected by these apparently deliberate attacks. I have family in Boston and I got in touch with them and they’re ok—but there are a lot of people who aren’t.
These was a moment this afternoon when I considered cancelling tonight’s show. Something about my taking such a cavalier attitude to a text so many people consider sacred in the wake of such a tragedy seemed a bit insensitive.
But then I realized that’s exactly why I should perform tonight.
This book is at the center of millions of peoples’ ideologies. For a lot of the world, morality is driven by the book I’m going to make fun of tonight. And sometimes, some people (a very small minority, but some) stand so firm in their ideologies, whether they come from this book or not, that they reject all other points of view. And they kill.
You’ll see seemingly righteous killing in this month’s chapter. And a lot of people base certain moral judgements on what we’re about to read. Part of the reason this show must go on is to point out the ambiguity that exists even within this ideology—that those who stake a claim to absolute truth and morality might just be mistaken. And if they are, they probably shouldn’t condemn anyone. Or kill them.
The other reason, and this is more of a traditional reading than I usually do in this show, is because of the conversation Avraham has with God. As you’ll see, Avraham convinces Yehovah to spare the cities of S’dom and G’mora if He can find 10 innocent men within.
Presumably God, if you believe in Him, knows what lies in the hearts of men. He is the only entity that can know whether a soul is truly innocent. And he relents for the sake of 10 innocents. How can anyone, especially one who professes a belief in an Almighty, possibly claim to know what lies in the hearts of others and condemn countless times more than 10 innocents to death—when even God wouldn’t do such a thing?
Growing up in a religious Jewish community, I always had a special affinity for the films of the Coen brothers. Their cheeky humor was appealed to my cynical side and the whispers I heard that they’d grown up Orthodox made me feel an unearned kinship with them. Seeing Walter Sobchak on screen was a formative experience for a generation of Sabbath-observing Jews. As I got older and a little brighter, I started to notice the murky moral waters in which their films swam and my appreciation for them deepened.
Throughout their films, the Coens grapple with the struggles between good and evil, the impact of luck and fate on our lives, and the concept of a creator running it all. Matt Zoller Seitz spoke with film critic Jeffrey Overstreet in Indiewire last month about the representation of religion in the worlds of the Coens:
I think the Coens suggest him via negativa. They show the incompleteness and insufficiency of a vision that leaves God out. There are clearly human evils at work —evils of foolishness, carelessness, folly, and evils of greed and deliberate violence. But there are also evils of apocalyptic, seemingly supernatural proportions. As No Country demonstrates, good deeds and the power of law are not enough to save the world. Ultimately, the best we can do is seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in the presence of something greater than ourselves.
Chasid-in-a-bag
Well, this definitely isn’t in the Torah. Yesterday, a redditor posted this image of a Chasid wrapped in a plastic bag aboard an airplane. The poster assumed it was to avoid touching women, which while TOTALLY INSANE, is not really that crazy an assumption. Another was quick to point out that this was likely a Kohen (or priest) protecting himself from the impurity he’d pick up from flying 40,000 feet over a cemetary. And that this solution was prescribed by the venerable Rabbi Yosef Shalom Eliashiv. OK!
Isn’t kind of a suffocation hazard? What will this dude say when his children start hanging out in plastic bags and tell him “we learned it from watching YOU!”?
Ok, first thing’s first: if you’re still scratching your head over yesterday’s announcement, just take a look at the date.
Second: the facebook event for Episode 7 is now up! Our special guest this month is Lonnie Mann, an old high school mate of mine (and cartoonist) who will be joining me as we gleefully describe the destruction of Sodom and Gomora and discuss the modern implications of this chapter’s wacky sexual politics. Make your reservations now!
I don’t have much to say about David Brooks’ kinda weird walking tour of Midwood Jews, but this stuck out to me:
Nationwide, only 21 percent of non-Orthodox Jews between the ages of 18 and 29 are married. But an astounding 71 percent of Orthodox Jews are married at that age. And they are having four and five kids per couple. In the New York City area, for example, the Orthodox make up 32 percent of Jews over all. But the Orthodox make up 61 percent of Jewish children. Because the Orthodox are so fertile, in a few years, they will be the dominant group in New York Jewry.
Um, David, by “Because the Orthodox are so fertile” you meant “Because the Orthodox prohibit pre-marital sex and believe birth control is immoral,” but I guess that’s just splitting hairs.
Chapter 5 will be arriving on your Internet listening devices this Saturday! But to whet your palates for more biblical wackiness, I’m please to present our very first bonus episode. Recorded just before Chapter 5 was this Monday, in this special episode of the show, I’m joined by Jewniverse and Hello Giggles writer Julia Gazdag as we read an e-mail from a very special listener.
Enjoy!
Chapter 5 happened last night and some of our audience took some instagram photos! If you took some pictures, be sure to share them with #omgwtfbible!
First, some pre-show prep:
http://instagram.com/p/V5H8mErBtV/
http://instagram.com/p/V5H5BlQVmQ/
Here’s a shot of Esther and me talking about something crazy Avram did:
http://instagram.com/p/V5JjvBwVoR/
And of course, an upside-down picture of me turning into a ghost.
Get set to listen to Chapter 5 this Saturday! And check this space tomorrow! There might be a surprise!
I have been profoundly flattered by all the nice things people have been saying about OMGWTFBIBLE. Recently, Jewish Atheist, a not-very-religious blogger who, like me, comes from an Orthodox Jewish background, had this to say about the show:
This is a pretty awesome.
Reading through the Hebrew Bible.. and making fun all the way through. And done by an OTD Jew, which makes it a bit more relevant for folk like me than other popular bible-mockings. If you’re in NY, you should check out the live show.
I can’t say I disagree. If you’re curious about the live show, check out the details on facebook.
OMGWTFBIBLE 