Re: Fear of Repercussions...
m.e. pierce (mepierce@sfasu.edu)
Sat, 12 Jun 1999 12:49:05 -0700
James J Rovira wrote:
> If you want to view it from within the context of Judaism, that "old"
> covenant is the "only" covenant and you'd darn well better watch what you
> eat if you want to live with respect for the law of Moses :).
staying Salinger centered--who was half a Jew, right?. . .
I just returned from my brother-in-law's interfaith wedding in New Jersey,
where he had to special order twenty plates of kosher food for his Jewish
relatives. My husband does not insist that his food be blessed by the rabbi,
but he does follow many of the strict dietary mandates (I have seen him
secretly trashing baby food with bits of ham).
He knows that waiting three to fours between eating steak and eating sour
cream is not really going to enhance his spirituality, but it does enhance
his image of himself as a Jew. That's really what it's all about. After a
long history of foreign folks rushing in to pillage their temples and demean
their rituals, the Jews have had to find a way to stay connected--to their
roots, "their God," their inner strength.
So my mother-in-law insists upon two separate sets of cookware and my uncle
won't answer the phone or even tear toilet paper on the Sabboth. It all
seemed so silly at first, but they have a great need to do something physical
that says to the world "You can't take away who I want to be." So there.
Question: Please remind me, were any of Salinger's characters Jewish?
--
M.E. Pierce
Dept. of English, SFASU
http://TITAN.SFASU.EDU/~f_pierceme/
"Are you a nobody too?" --The Belle of Amherst