Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site mhuxi.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!floyd!vax135!houxz!houxm!mhuxl!aluxe!mhuxi!dsg From: dsg@mhuxi.UUCP (GREEN) Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish Subject: re: Hassidic Tales Message-ID: <175@mhuxi.UUCP> Date: Tue, 19-Jun-84 09:32:02 EDT Article-I.D.: mhuxi.175 Posted: Tue Jun 19 09:32:02 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 21-Jun-84 00:59:19 EDT Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 25 I received this by UUCP: I, for one, think the Hassidic tales, far from being irreverent, demonstrate an ironic sense about Yiddishkeit. Irony does not imply (or does not HAVE) to imply) disrespect; it can--and, to be effective, MUST--imply a love for the Tradition and an ability to treat it in the spirit of mind-play. The redacted Talmud probably does not record some of the jokes that must have been told during study sessions in the yeshivot of Sura and Pumbedita, but I would not be surprised if some of them treated with comic intellectual respect the very deliberations in which the Rabbis were engaged. In order for one to retain perspective on an intensive activity, it is sometimes necessary to step back from it and treat it ironically. It restores perspective and a sense of mortality. Thus, I think Woody Allen is engaged in something a good deal older than himself, and which probably puts him in the line of great Jewish ironists which includes Herschel Ostropolier and Sholom Aleichem. They were of their centuries, he is of his . . . and ours. By the way, since I don't have direct access to the Net, you might want to post this as a general reply. Thanx. Ken Wolman, 898-1177 posted by David Seth Green 201-564-4468 mhuxi!dsg