CLAL Special Features
Welcome to CLAL Special Features where you will find articles by guest columnists and roundtables on hot issues and special topics.
Jewish Public Forum Seminar:
“What Is Religion For?”
November 19, 2001
Pre-Seminar
Response
“What Is Religion For?”
By Daniel Brenner
Since the 12th, I’ve been
thinking about what lasts forever. I can hear a faint echo of Louis Armstrong bellowing,
“Gibraltar may crumble, the Rockies may tumble, they’re only made of clay, but
…” and Ella comes in on “Our Love is Here to Stay, Forever and a
Day…our love is here to stay.”
That song, to me, is about the role of
religion in the face of inevitable finitude. Everything around us dies. Empires rise and fall. Mountains crumble to the
sea. Even plastic has a half-life. But in a
disposable culture that trains us to believe that material can easily be discarded and
replaced, these great losses seem trivial. However,
the fact that people die, that we all die, that those we love the most will die—this is too much to bear. So religion jumps in and
connects each individual loss to something more.
Whether we speak of the beyond word
category (God, or the spirit) or we talk of the words we use to make sense of it all
(Torah, meaning, narrative) religion functions as both a ritual and literary instrument
that allows us to embrace the paradox of being optimists in a pessimistic world.
After the 12th I have turned
to religion—both to join others in expressing how
horrific and unjust these attacks have been and to remind myself why I should not let them
control my life.
To join the conversation at Special Features Discussion, click here.
To access the Special Features Archive, click here.
To receive CLAL Special Features column by email on a regular basis, complete
the box below:
