BEEN THERE, DONE THAT...

Before the present journey through the Res Judaica section comes to its end, I need to further clarify my overall intent here.

The subject matter here, just as everywhere else, but perhaps even slightly more so, is not reduced to the academic interest of a detached scholar, but represents an intensely personal, and highly subjective preoccupation, which is the only way how I can write this book. Regardless of its shortcomings, in the conventional sense of solid methodology, organizational craftsmanship, exacting thoroughness, and broad comprehensiveness, the benefits of the opposite approach here epitomized, are no less commendable. In fact, the honorable job of copying the Encyclopedia Britannica, as performed by the proud Red-Headed League member in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s eponymous Sherlock Holmes mystery would never appeal to me as a substitute for this wildly undisciplined daydreaming fantasy. Le Roi S’Amuse, remember?

Res Judaica is perhaps the most intriguing object of study one can think of today, considering the colossal effect of the Jewish factor on the historical course of humanity, particularly since the end of World War II, the creation of the State of Israel, and the unprecedented activization of the American Jewry, in the wake of the 1967 war, waged and won by Israel against its Arab neighbors.

The extraordinary influence of Israel and of the international Jewish organizations on world affairs, as well as of the AIPAC on America’s foreign policy and on her domestic political process and public opinion has become a dominant feature in the life of our planet in the new millennium.

But to understand what is happening to the world today, one has to understand the past, and also the subtle intricacies of the present, and such knowledge is virtually inaccessible through regular academic channels. Only by going inside the Jewish phenomenon itself is it at all possible to gain the necessary insight, which is essential to the process of acquiring the knowledge in question.

Thus, much of the material in this section recounts my personal experiences and impressions from looking at the subject at a close personal range for the period of two years in the 1990’s as a virtual insider to the Jewish phenomenon. Prior to that experience I had been interested in res Judaica my whole life, with more or less success, but it was only in the course of my in-depth conversations with Rabbi Yisroel Rice, of the Marin County’s Chabad in California, with Rabbi Michael Barenbaum of the Reform Congregation Rodef Sholom, in San Rafael, and, of course, my unforgettable one-time meeting in San Francisco with the Beth Din of Northern California, headed by Rabbi Malcolm Sparer, with Jacob Traub and Eliezer Finkelman at his side, plus an uninterrupted stream of first-rate firsthand experiences as an eyewitness, which eventually forged that tiny key which can now unlock the secret door of Bluebeard’s castle, to the room, which makes all the difference, and without which the rest of the castle are mainly Pictures from an Exhibition. Indeed, no matter how delightful the pictures of Mr. Samuel Goldberg and Schmuyle are in Mussorgsky’s inspired rendering, they are still not the real thing.