{"id":25791,"date":"2011-02-21T15:53:50","date_gmt":"2011-02-21T15:53:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/theanchoress\/?p=25791"},"modified":"2017-03-09T00:09:19","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T00:09:19","slug":"an-israelite-without-guile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2011\/02\/21\/an-israelite-without-guile\/","title":{"rendered":""An Israelite Without Guile""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It has always seemed somehow fitting to me<\/strong> that the apostle Jesus called \u201cAn Israelite Without Guile\u201d would suffer a martyrdom that involved being skinned alive<\/strong><\/a>. Whether one resolves to live without guile or is simply gifted with its absence, going through life without a bit of craftiness suggests walking around with a degree of naked self-revelation that can go beyond skin deep.<\/p>\n

So, it\u2019s not really surprising that Max Lindenman has chosen to call his new weekly column at Patheos, \u201cAn Israelite Without Guile.\u201d Last week, we watched him submit to wonder at the recklessly pious among us<\/strong><\/a> and this week\u2019s debut column finds him Kvetching in Antiphon<\/strong><\/a> as his inner Alvy Singer and inner Andy Hardy duke it out in the pews:<\/p>\n

I hate to be a kvetch\u2014Yiddish for a complainer. This sort of thing is best let go. The man meant no harm. He was young, new to the priesthood, and had grown up in the suburbs, where cultural sensitivity was, I\u2019m guessing, a non-issue. But even now, making these allowances requires a teeth-grinding act of will. At the time\u2014forget it. Right there in the pew, I had an Annie Hall hallucination. I could see myself in Father\u2019s eyes, growing a beard, side curls, and a mansion in Scarsdale.<\/p>\n

The punchline; I\u2019m not even Jewish.<\/p>\n

At least, according to the best Jewish authorities, I never was. My father, now he was Jewish: a descendant of Galitzianers, bar mitzvah at thirteen, buried in a linen shroud at 66. The test, says Jewish law, rests with the mother, and mine is a cradle Catholic turned cafeteria Buddhist<\/a>. My knowledge of Judaism is appallingly shallow; I wouldn\u2019t know a mikva from a Mossad agent. Nevertheless, I have a Jewish name and a Jewish punim. These alone would have been just grounds for the Nazis to deal me out a Jewish death, so I consider them just grounds for nurturing a Jewish sense of paranoia. My baptism may have tweaked the DNA of my soul, so to speak, but it did not give me a new birth certificate.<\/p>\n

A surprising number of cradle Catholics feed the Jewish convert\u2019s sense of dual identity. . .<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.<\/strong><\/a> It will be interesting \u2014 and I am certain both provocative and entertaining \u2014 to watch Lindenman peel off his layers, week by week.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It has always seemed somehow fitting to me that the apostle Jesus called \u201cAn Israelite Without Guile\u201d would suffer a martyrdom that involved being skinned alive. 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