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OpEdNews Op Eds    H3'ed 4/9/19

Rabbi Heschel Writes With Moral Clarity That Pope Francis Lacks

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In conclusion, Rabbi Heschel's discussion of the time/space contrast is an important part of his book The Sabbath.

Similarly, as I explain in my OEN article "David Brooks Highlights Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel's Book on The Sabbath" (dated March 31, 2019), mentioned above, the American Jesuit Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Walter J. Ong's discussion of the time/space contrast is an important component of his massively researched book Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue: From the Art of Discourse to the Art of Reason (Harvard University Press, 1958) and of his book The Presence of the Word: Some Prolegomena for Cultural and Religious History (Yale University Press, 1967), the expanded version of his 1964 Terry Lectures at Yale University.

Similarly, as I also explained in my previous OEN article, the Canadian Renaissance specialist and cultural historian Marshall McLuhan's discussion of the time/space contrast is an important component of his controversial book The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man (University of Toronto Press, 1962). (By "Man" in the subtitle, he means humankind.)

Both Ong and McLuhan were well aware of the Roman Catholic Church's well-known critique of modern culture before Vatican II (1962-1965). So how did each of them manage to formulate his discussion of the time/space contrast in connection not only with modern culture but also pre-modern culture? Your guess is as good as mine. Perhaps it was a miracle. In any event, to this day, Pope Francis has not followed their pioneering examples.

But should people today who are interested in Ong's and/or McLuhan's discussion of the time/space contrast also be interested in Rabbi Herschel's discussion of the time/space contrast in his 1951 book The Sabbath? In my estimate, both Ong and McLuhan could have learned much from Rabbi Heschel's moral clarity about the time/space contrast and so could people today who are interested in Ong's and McLuhan's respective discussions of the time/space contrast and so could Pope Francis.

But should people today who are interested in Rabbi Heschel's discussion of the time/space contrast in his 1951 book as David Brooks is -- also be interested in Ong's and McLuhan's respective discussions of the time/space contrast? Whatever else may be said about Ong's and McLuhan's respective discussions of the time/space contrast, each of their discussions tends to be as sweeping in scope as Rabbi Heschel's discussion of the time/space contrast. Consequently, each of their discussions of the time/space contrast could expand the horizons of Rabbi Heschel's discussion of the time/space contrast.

But your guess is as good as mine as to whether David Brooks or anybody else today might be interested in expanding the horizons of Rabbi Heschel's discussion of the time/space contrast. But my guess is that David Brooks, for one, would not be interested in doing this.

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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