WHY I SHOULD LIVE IN TORONTO
בס"ד
15 Tevet
Last week I was waiting for a client to come over to pick up an illuminated maftir piece I made for them when I caught a slice of Valerie Pringle's "Test of Faith" on Vision TV. Her guests included Douglas Rushkoff, Prof. Rachael Turkienicz, Adrienne Gold & Rabbi Elyse Goldstein.
The Professor & the Rabbi are minor celebrities here in Canada. I've been a huge fan of R' Goldstein since I first saw "Half the Kingdom" 15 years ago & since seeing Dr. Turkienicz in "Judaism: A Quest for Meaning" (no good link, sorry) in '98. We need more women like them. Heck, we need more Jews like them, period.
Rushkoff claimed that Judaism is a means by which we "get over" religion. That G@d has taken away the idols & such & created a void for us to use in order for people to interact with each other, connect with the Earth & so on. He suggested we restore beit midrash in the space of increasing abstraction.
Dr. Turkienicz asserted his writings as being anti-Zionist & saying Judaism is meaningless & suggested to him that he needs to focus his argument.
R' Goldstein stated that she thought his view was simplistic.
Ms. Gold (labelled only as "Orthodox Jew" by the subtitle on the screen) said he was emotionally off course, had no sense of what his next direction might be & that he had factored G@d out of the equation.
It was fascinating for me to catch these few minutes of televised gender collision - he was very constructional & they were very practical. Each time he made a conceptual statement they would counter with real-life examples which disproved his ideas in concrete ways.
Women are very powerful. & scary sometimes. Reality check.
That's Shekhinah for you :}
posted by Soferet | 10:47:00 p.m.
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2 Comments:
Don't forget Michelle Lansberg (also Half the Kingdom)!
All that said, though, I couldn't live in Toronto. The north shore of Lake Superior beats it hollow.
בס"ד
That's true - she was a force to be reckoned with! BTW, I'm going to mail Joyce's copy of "Half the Kingdom" back to you guys soon...sorry it's taken me so long :(
Your part of the country is truly stunning, in both a physical & spiritual sense. I grew up in small towns - some as small as Thunder Bay - & I miss many things about them. But Jewish resources are nil in most of these places. I don't actually *want* to live in Toronto - I'm one of the Canadians who loves to hate the place - but the Torah one can access in Toronto & Montreal is fantastic. & Since I already live in the third largest Jewish centre in my country, well...it sometimes tempts me, but they're so flat & so cold there (the cities, not the Jews ;+>).
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