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May 25, 2012
Mark Clayton: Is Hillary's State Dept. hacking Al Qaeda? Not quite
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The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman: The former president of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, whose members included the likes of Julia Child, is back with contemporary Shavous cuisine: Ruby Fruit Soup, Sweet Noodle Kugel with Cheese, Key Lime Curd, Calsone Casserole Frittata with Wild Mushrooms, Sun-dried tomatoes and Olives, Baked Tilapia with Pepper Cheese Cream and Brown Sugar Shortbread
May 24, 2012
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May 23, 2012
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May 22, 2012
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Thomas M. Anderson: Walking Away From a Mortgage
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May 21, 2012
Mark Clayton: Cybersecurity: How US utilities passed up chance to protect their networks
Howard LaFranchi: NATO summit: Who will foot the bill for long-term Afghanistan security?
Chris Farrell : Earn Dividends in Emerging Markets with This WisdomTree ETF
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The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali: Famed chef's veal shoulder farsumagru: A festive meat course for late spring
May 18, 2012
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The Kosher Gourmet by Carolyn Malcoun: DIY healthy lunchbox treats: HOMEMADE FRUIT BARS for kids and brown-bagging adults alike
May 17, 2012
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Josh Mitnick: Netanyahu's 'centrist' coalition is already proving it's anything but
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The Kosher Gourmet by Faith Duran : Cheesy Potato Breakfast Casserole with Cheddar and Sun-Dried Tomatoes
May 16, 2012
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The Kosher Gourmet by Joyce White : GOODNESS GRACIOUS: GREENS! 4 winning recipes that are no longer just for down-home folks (Includes expert tips & techniques)
May 15, 2012
Kristen Chick: Obama administration resumes arms sales to Bahrain despite serious unresolved human rights issues. Activists feel abandoned
Pat Mertz Esswein: Homes are now affordable again and mortgage rates are low. What you need to know before you buy
Kathy Kristof: Our Practical Investor Fights Inflation with These 6 Investments
Sue Hubbard, M.D.: The Kid's Doctor: Lactose intolerant young child? Check again
The Kosher Gourmet by Kathy Hunt: Spread a Little Excitement with EXOTIC CONDIMENTS (4 RECIPES)
May 14, 2012
Lisa Gerstner: How to Protect Your Identity, Finances If You Lose Your Phone
Harvard Health Letters: Heart disease and dementia
The Kosher Gourmet by Megan Gordon: MANGO COCONUT OAT MORNING MUFFINS are a bright but hearty delight
May 11, 2012
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Jett Stone: Forget face-lifts and fake knees. Scientists have seen the fountain of youth --- and it's broccoli
The Kosher Gourmet by Chef Mario Batali: The famed chef's vegetable dish that tastes true to the season: FAVAS AND SUGAR SNAP PEAS WITH POTATOES AND TARRAGON
May 10, 2012
Sergei L. Loiko: Putin sends warning to U.S., NATO in Victory Day speech at Red Square
Mary Rourke: How being a 'mentch' got Vidal Sasoon his start and fighting in Israel's War of Independence provided him with confidence and a strong sense of his own identity
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The Kosher Gourmet by Betty Rosbottom: Gleaming with its golden, crimson, and snowy white hues, this silken smooth and creamy STRAWBERRY ORANGE TRIFLE looks impressive, but is easy to prepare
May 9, 2012
Sharon Palmer, R.D. How you can reduce your risk -- or delay -- chronic diseases associated with aging
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Jewish World Review
August 22, 2007
/ 8 Elul, 5767
The Decalogue, dangerous? Advice for a society that cringes at commandments
By
Rod Dreher
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Everybody with male children this summer seems to be reading the wonderful retro guidebook The Dangerous Book for Boys. I was startled, and pleased, to find amid the knot-tying, semaphore-reading, poker playing and all things the Dennis the Menace set needs to know a page dedicated to, of all things, the Ten Commandments.
The Decalogue, dangerous? The commandments certainly are regarded as hazardous by the Irritable-American community, which successfully petitions the courts to banish them from public life. At least these stalwart secularists give the Decalogue its due; most of us admire the Ten Commandments just enough to avoid taking them seriously. If we grasped how radical they truly are, we'd find them an offensive stumbling block to us middle-class moderns, who live in a rebellious age characterized by sociologist Daniel Bell as "the rejection of a revealed order, or natural order, and the substitution of the ego, the self, as the lodestar of consciousness."
We have lost the fear of the Lord and the absence of 'holy fear' makes us terrors unto ourselves and one another. Why? Because we know what humans who recognize no authority but themselves are capable of.
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Another dangerous book this summer, this one for grown-ups, is David Klinghoffer's marvelously lucid Shattered Tablets: Why We Ignore The Ten Commandments at Our Peril. It weaves theological insight with the author's reflections on living in a society (ours, alas) that has cast off the Decalogue's authority.
Mr. Klinghoffer is a religious Jew, but his argument is as sociological as it is theological. The Ten Commandments are far more than a list of taboos, Mr. Klinghoffer explains. They reveal what it means to live a fully human life, both as individuals and in community and as commandments (not suggestions), they provide us with the psychological means of doing so.
That is, the justice of the commandments is guaranteed by the G-d who issued them an all-powerful being who will judge individuals and cultures by these laws. The old-fashioned phrase "the fear of the Lord" meant precisely the respect men owed to G-d and his laws a respect that, properly understood, bound their consciences and compelled their obedience.
Mr. Klinghoffer cites the work of noted Baylor University sociologist Rodney Stark, who found that across global cultures, the degree to which individuals believe in a personal G-d indicates how likely they are to behave morally. You don't have to believe in G-d to be good, but it demonstrably helps. Mr. Klinghoffer identifies the loss of the Ten Commandments' as responsible for America's cultural crises.
No surprise there: What else would you expect a believing Jew (or Christian) to say?
But here's the thing: This is essentially the same conclusion reached by the late Philip Rieff, an agnostic who was one of the 20th century's most important social critics.
Mr. Rieff, a sociologist whose most important work dealt with psychology and religion, taught that all cultures develop from prohibitions, that is, the creative tension between the commanding "Thou shalt not" and the assertive "I will." We now dwell in an anti-culture, according to Mr. Rieff, in which we no longer feel the pull of old prohibitions against the expression of individual instinct and will to power.
In biblical terms, we have lost the fear of the Lord and in Mr. Rieff's telling, the absence of "holy fear" makes us terrors unto ourselves and one another.
By placing the Self in the place of G-d, said Mr. Rieff, Western man has passed into a perilous state in which his fear, anxiety and loss of ultimate meaning can only be endured through pleasure-seeking and other therapeutic means. We latter-day Americans are wealthy and cultured, but we quickly approach a state of barbarism, which Mr. Rieff defined as "the sophisticated cutting off of the inhibiting authority of the past." Popular American Christianity, with its Jesus-As-Best-Friend rather than Sovereign Lord, is in Mr. Rieff's view an ersatz substitute.
What both the believing Jew Klinghoffer and the unbelieving Jew Rieff affirm is the absolute requirement of religious grounding to maintain a moral culture. We will live in holy terror the fear of the Lord or we will live in terror of ourselves and one another. Why? Because we know what humans who recognize no authority but themselves are capable of.
"How a culture thinks about G-d will go a long way toward determining how it thinks about other people," writes Mr. Klinghoffer. For all our historical crimes and failings, no culture in the history of the world has treated the individual with as much respect as the Western civilization, which derived its worldview largely from the Bible. If we lose the image of G-d as revealed in the laws He declared on Sinai, we will lose the Western image of the human person.
And then?
Many of us think of the Ten Commandments as noble sentiments from simpler days, worthy but naive concepts we left behind in Sunday school. Funny how the older you get especially if you have children the ideas you once dismissed or forgot about turn out to be the most important ones of all.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Rod Dreher is assistant editorial page editor of the Dallas Morning News and author of the forthcoming "Crunchy Cons" (Crown Forum).
PREVIOUSLY
08/15/07: Playing the anti-science card
08/01/07: How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire
07/24/07: Conservative author: Big business can be as dangerous a threat as big government
07/09/07: All quiet but the doleful pleas of a father who knows
06/28/07: When we let conspiracy theory masquerade as news, we fall prey to much more than deception
06/20/07: Stranded on Delta: They may love to fly, but it certainly doesn't show
06/13/07: When did conservatism start to mean never having to say you're sorry?
05/08/07: PBS darling gets abused by PC police
05/02/07: Impervious to beauty and deadened to depravity
04/20/07: What I know about being a loner
10/28/05: How the conservatives crumble
© 2007, The Dallas Morning News,
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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