Maybe He Works At Yale Community College

Rabbi Shmully Hecht is the advisor to the Chabad-sponsored Yale Eliezer Society. He is also a blogger at the Washington Post’s On Faith site where he wrote about the criticism that was supposedly leveled at Israel for missing the president’s UN speech because it was the first day of Sukkot. Hecht doesn’t bother to properly cite or link to any of this flood of criticism, except for Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show host Jon Stewart (born Jonathan Leibowitz) recently revealed to great laughs that the actual meaning of Sukkot is “how many holidays can Jews fit into one month.” While a comedian, Stewart’s words are often accorded journalistic integrity.

Apparently, Hecht is one of those gifted writers who puts his little jibes in parentheses. See, Jon Stewart’s real last name is Leibowitz. Get it?! He’s Jewish! He’s a bad Jew hiding his Jewishness?! Do you get it?! Do you?!

I guess he doesn’t watch The Daily Show very often. Stewart hardly conceals the fact that he’s Jewish.

The point of Hecht’s article is that Sukkot is a really important holiday and Jon Stewart is woefully ignorant of that. He contrasts Stewart to the gnu atheists:

To be fair…Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris (both of Jewish descent) present in fact quite the opposite of Jon Stewarts antics, indeed taking their studies of G‑d very seriously. …Atheists make a case against G‑d (though surely would find it a bit odd to argue that the fully assembled car in their driveway had no designer).

I have four things to say about this.

First of all, I don’t know if Jon Stewart is an atheist or not and I don’t see what that has to do with his hysterical bit about Jewish holidays. Second, who cares if Hitchens or Harris are of Jewish descent? Third, it’s clear that Hecht has no comprehension of Hitchens or Harris if he doesn’t know how they would answer the argument from design. Finally, what’s with all of this “G‑d” business?

Is that how the elites at Yale spell the generic English name for the monotheistic deity? Well maybe just in the Eliezer Society.

And now for something completely different, “Jehovah, Jehovah, Jehovah!”: