Posted on 06/05/2004 4:32:38 AM PDT by NYer
For many centuries Christians were warned that Satan would come to them as a seducer and offer them the world’s bounty—prosperity, beauty, fame—in return for their immortal soul. This legend has survived in modern America in the form of many films, novels, even songs—remember ‘The Devil Went Down to Georgia’?—depicting Satan promising untold riches in exchange for a soul.
In our age Satan need not bother. Who among us has a soul left to sell anyway? America, the greatest country ever founded, is today foundering as its original ideals are eroded through a culture of suffocating soullessness. Pope John Paul II’s warning that America is in danger of surrendering to a “soulless vision of life” is an understatement. America, the only country in the world to have G-d stamped on its money—not even the Vatican or Israel have it—is being laid low by mind-numbing materialism, vapidity, and vulgarity in a culture that increasingly resembles a soulless corpse.
The Declaration of Independence affirms the dignity of every human being and asserts their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
But where is the dignity, and where are these rights, in modern-day America? Is it dignity that we see when men eat bugs and women have sex with complete strangers on reality TV as they lust for the attention of the camera? Is it dignity we witness when young women—who are paying tens of thousands of dollars to educate their minds—lift their blouses for the "Girls Gone Wild" videos so that some vulgar pornographer can become a millionaire? Is it dignity we witness in a culture of serial dating among professional young men and women that rarely culminates in commitment? How can we have forgotten even how to fall in love?
And where is the second promise of the Declaration—liberty! Is it liberty we witness today in a culture where we all feel imprisoned by the latest need-to-see movie? Are we really free when we feel the incarceration of working to the bone in order to keep up with the Joneses, even as our children are neglected and raised by TV? Are we really so free if we don’t even have time to call on neighbors and grandparents go unvisited while "Shrek" rakes in half a billion dollars at the box office? Are teenagers today really free when they seem so imprisoned by their hormones and slaves to peer pressure?
The soul allows us rise above the needs of the body. But is it liberation of the body that is being exhibited in a culture where men and women spend hours a week at the gym but rarely ever read a wholesome book? Is it liberation that we witness in America among a generation of individuals who have enough time to check every email but not enough time to recite even a single daily prayer? It is liberation that we feel in America as our hearts become smaller while our cars become bigger?
Oh yes, the pursuit of happiness. Is it happiness that we see in America today in a culture that boasts a 50 percent divorce rate? Can we really speak of soulful celebration in a country where one out of four Americans is on an antidepressant? Is it a celebration of life that we are witnessing across America as shopping malls have replaced parks for Sunday family outings, and the impulse purchase has replaced churchgoing for a weekly feeling of satisfaction? If our kids are so happy, why are they numbing themselves with marijuana and thrilling their underdeveloped bodies with sex?
Children are the most spiritual of all creatures. But today they can’t wait to escape the soulfulness of childhood in pursuit of the fleshiness of being yet another corrupt adult.
The Jews taught the world of the existence of G-d and alerted the earth’s inhabitants to the existence of a fragment of the divine that lurks within each and every person. And that community held steadfastly to G-d through torture and persecution for more than two-thousand years. So why did so many decide to let go when they finally experienced emancipation? Why are the Jewish community centers—with their swimming pools, bowling alleys, and gyms—filled on Sundays while the synagogues remain unfilled on Saturdays?
The great Martin Luther King Jr. brought nobility to the African-American community by calling on the words of the Hebrew prophets: Let justice flow like a river, and righteousness like a mighty spring. Is that spirit of soulful majesty evident today in a community that has allowed out-of-wedlock births to mushroom to over 60 percent? The black community invented soul music and liberated their spirit, even while in chains, by singing the grand old spirituals. But is it soulfulness that we are witnessing in this music’s successor, the rap culture, with its misogyny, deadly guns, and thick gold chains?
Meanwhile, middle-class, suburbanites boast a TV in every bedroom, as if what their kids really need is a celluloid stranger rather than Mom and Dad reading them a bedtime story. Their kids get cars at 16, which usually just speeds them down the road of expecting everything and earning nothing. Parents have forgotten how work and effort are themselves soulful. Grapes need to be pressed in order to produce wine. But our kids are like a different kind of grape: spoiled, and many don’t know how to treat even their own parents with respect. If all our children—of every ethnic group and religious background—were conditioned to understand that they had a spark of the divine within them, they would be far less prone to wasting their lives.
Evangelical Christians and religious Catholics, whom I so admire, exhibit a profound attachment to G-d and country that is rousing and inspiring. But an attachment to G-d must breed a distinct humility. Being in touch with one’s soul must lead us to experience the soul of the other and acknowledge the divine worth of every human being. So homosexuality can be opposed. But homophobia has no place in religious life. The right to life may be affirmed. But using any kind of violence against those who perform an abortion is itself an abortion of one’s own soul, and an abomination against G-d’s law. Yes, even we religious people can experience a spiritual renewal in America.
The secret of recapturing soulfulness lies in recapturing the spirit of sacrifice. Unlike the body, with its constant needs, the soul is prepared to give up unimportant things in favor of important ones. One of the places that we witness true soulfulness today is in the U.S. military, where men and women give up lucrative jobs to serve, and where courage inspires men and women to risk their lives so that others might live. It is no coincidence that the U.S. military boasts a disproportionately high number of men and women of deep religious faith. Yes, they have to take orders from superiors, and yes, they have to dress according to a strict regimen. But compared to us, they are truly free because they are liberated from the most incarcerating and soul-destroying cage of all: the prison of the ego.
We don’t have to sign up for military duty to experience this soulful rejuvenation. Rather, we need only put service before selfishness and the interests of others on a par with our own.
Who among us has a soul left to sell anyway?
I did, but I gave it to Jesus.
TV is not American life, fact is, most of us have our noses so close to the grind stone, trying to hold onto our standard of living, roof over our heads, food on the table, a few toys, while "rising the boats of the whole planet", that we fall asleep before we see very many "reality programs".
He's also the bigot who trashed Christians on every cable talk show fo weeks regarding The Passion. He was absolutely convinced that inside every Christian there's a Nazi struggling to get out.
Dumb f*ck. If Boteach is a "rabbi" then American Jewry has a problem of its own.
I apologize for my harsh judgement in accusing you of a "disgusting, cowardly attitude". I am trying to be careful when I hit the POST button, since my motives are not always right in posting. I wasn't fair to you.
I agree with some of your points, yet do not believe we can cherrypick our wars. Once committed to battle our troops need our support. All wars include risk of death. We will always have wars, some of which are noble, some not.
You don't get the war on terror, Piers.
You really don't.
And, unless your children are as selfish as you are, when they reach majority, YOU don't get to tell them whether they will serve in the military.
It is a war on terror, not a war on Muslims, which you would seem to prefer.
I don't want to reject his words when they are helpful and on target, but he really needs to get back to authentic Orthodox Judaism before anything else.
Evangelical Christians and religious Catholics, whom I so admire, exhibit a profound attachment to G-d and country that is rousing and inspiring. But an attachment to G-d must breed a distinct humility. Being in touch with one’s soul must lead us to experience the soul of the other and acknowledge the divine worth of every human being. So homosexuality can be opposed. But homophobia has no place in religious life.
Ick. See what I mean? And by the way, since when is it a "sin" to be afraid of something???
The Jews taught the world of the existence of G-d and alerted the earth’s inhabitants to the existence of a fragment of the divine that lurks within each and every person. And that community held steadfastly to G-d through torture and persecution for more than two-thousand years. So why did so many decide to let go when they finally experienced emancipation? Why are the Jewish community centers—with their swimming pools, bowling alleys, and gyms—filled on Sundays while the synagogues remain unfilled on Saturdays?
For some reason Jewish history is always limited to the "two thousand years of persecution." The thousand years before that--when Jews were the original "crusaders," pagan-killers, and heretic-haters, has been banished to an Orwellian memory hole. Read the Book of Joshua, y'all (and Ezra and Nehemiah too).
I applaud Rabbi Boteach for taking the steps he has made so far, but he isn't home yet. May G-d guide him.
I'll give you credibility when you sell your cars and ride a bicycle to work. When you and your wife go out shopping on your bicycles. Until then your are full of it. Full of selfish libertarian nonsense.
you wrote:
I'll give you credibility when you sell your cars and ride a bicycle to work. When you and your wife go out shopping on your bicycles. Until then your are full of it. Full of selfish libertarian nonsense.
Huh? Bicycles only? I am not an "environmentalist" at least by media standards. Selfish? I want you and yours to live in peace also.
dennisw, I want osama and his aides captured and executed. Because of the presence of al-Qaeda headquarters, Afghan invasion is clearly justified.
I am skeptical how the Iraqi war as currently prosecuted will achieve its desired end. "Road to hell paved with good intentions." Don't want to waste precious american lives on a boondoggle.
I know that I have a soul, and it's not for sale, since I was bought by the blood of Jesus Christ.
The rabbi shouldn't scold.
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