A local synagogue held a big shindig recently, and I realized in the course of it that talk-show hosting is America’s number one performance art.
When you are a talk-show host, your main goal is to get a laugh. Your big topics are gossip, sex, and people’s feelings. The talk show is, in short, a perfect match with the needs of communal worship in synagogue. (If you don’t get that last sentence, you may not be up to the challenges of modern American citizenship.) On the morning I’m talking about, the synagogue was celebrating the acquisition of a new Torah scroll and had invited guests, including a famous rabbi to perform during the morning service. Also including me; I was part of the after-lunch program. What I lacked in celebrity I made up in proximity — we live five minutes away.
It isn’t a synagogue we usually attend, but we know a lot of fine people who do. The regular starting rabbi is a smart and charming man. His special guest was state-of-the-art. Easing forward through the morning prayers, we reached the point where a rabbi can sermonize if he feels like it; the rules stipulate only that the Bible portion of the week must be the jumping-off point. Here the special guest took the controls, and in no time he had everyone in stitches. He informed us that this week’s Bible portion was full of “adult material” — “If you have children in here, be warned”; that got another big chuckle — and then he launched his spiel, which was as colorful and exciting as a hot-air balloon and equally appropriate to the time and place. We were led to understand how, with the right approach, you can see straight through the Bible; in actual fact it deals mainly with sex and women’s rights, just like every other book that has ever been written.
The presentation was novel almost until the end, but he closed with a routine that has become sadly commonplace in American synagogues, wading into the crowd and soliciting comments on the Bible portion — on the theory that, if a person has no information about a particular topic and has never studied or thought about it, his detailed opinions are eagerly awaited by everyone.
I heard afterwards from lots of people who were appalled, especially at the idea that a Bible discussion in synagogue could be inappropriate for children. I also heard one person defend the performance — the Bible, she said, is full of sex, so what’s a rabbi to do? In this light it seems amazing that religious leaders have managed to discuss the book in appropriate, even edifying terms for several thousand years. Almost as amazing, every great Hollywood classic of the pre-modern age is rated G. Civilization was dominated by yokels until we came along.
Bad taste usually wins, because it’s louder. People come to synagogue to pray, and in some cases to hear the rabbi expound. Some come to register support for the community, some because they are moved by the liturgy. No one (zero people) (0) comes to hear Mr. Schwartz’s unrehearsed ruminations on the weekly Bible portion. It’s not even clear whether Mrs. Schwartz wants to hear them. In any congregation, the large majority is in favor of sitting down and shutting up. Problem is, we express our opinion by sitting down and shutting up.
The cultural leadership urges us nowadays not to blend quietly with the crowd but to “share our feelings.” We are desperate to please our neighbors and superegos (a typical superego in these parts being the internalized voice of the New York Times); notwithstanding, we mostly ignore this bad advice. At the synagogue I’m talking about and many others, the seats to the rear fill up first. Latecomers have to sit in front. There is nothing wrong with that. You leave home and join a group because you want to be part of it; you want to blend in. You sit with the clump in back to be out of the limelight, to enjoy the strength and peace that come from slipping out of your personality for a while and putting on the stronger, more serene personality of the community. (Orthodox synagogues are different: The leader stands with his back to the group because he is part of it, headed in the same direction. There is no performer and no audience and no show, and the front seats are rarely empty.)
The traditional distance between rabbi and layman didn’t rule out friendship but helped preserve the rabbi’s authority; you can’t exercise moral leadership without authority. But authority frightens us. There are responsible householders in this neighborhood who can’t bring themselves to sit at the heads of their own dining tables. To assume authority requires that we act like adults when we don’t feel like it and secretly suspect that, as adults, we are frauds. And look at the way we are educating our children and running the country; we may be right.
DAVID GELERNTER
