Reading: The Beginner's Bible, 194-221 (King Solomon, Building of the Temple, Elija and Ahab, Elisha).
Listening: Margot Käßmann, Die Bibel für Kinder, part 1, 50:00 - 58:00; Arnulf Zitelmann, Die Weltreligionen, 15:00 - 24:00.
We hadn't covered Solomon before. The wisdom theme dovetails nicely with our discussion of Athena earlier in the week. J was also fascinated with the "bad" king Ahab and his worship of Baal. But he objected to Elijah making fun of Baal:
"Gods don't go on vacation!", was his response. In our discussions of the old testament, I try to negotiate the monotheistic perspective on false gods with a modern basic liberal attitude about religious freedom and acceptance of religious difference. As I was blathering on to this effect this morning, J interrupted and said: "I don't like to talk about that. I just like to talk about what the gods do." Seems about right to me.
As I was explaining to J that ancient Chinese religions also had a lot of gods, he told me he already knew that already from Kung Fu Panda, specifically from the episode where Master Shifu is trying to "find inner peace."
Reading: The Beginner's Bible, 146-163; Monika Tworuschka, Udo Tworuschka, Guido Wandrey, Die Weltreligionen Kindern erklärt, loc. 1-97/2119.
Listening: Karlheinz Koinegg, Moses und die Wüste der Wunder, 1.39-2.45 (end).
J had an interesting reaction to something in the book on world religions.
When I read the section where the Jewish girl Ruth is explaining how Jews believe that Jesus is a Jewish man, not the son of God or the messiah, his brow wrinkled and he said that he "didn't like that." When I asked him what exactly he didn't like, he said that he didn't like the way she said what she said, not what she said.
At least I think this is what he was getting at; I deliberately refrain from ever pressing him about his thoughts on religious questions or giving him the impression that there is a right way a priori to think about these things. By way of follow-up, I told him that we always have to keep in mind that the Jesus stories we have been reading from the bible were written by Christians, not Jews; that Christians generally think Jews were wrong about Jesus, and so the stories often make a lot of the Jews look bad, sometimes even without trying to make them look bad; but that the Jews, too, think the Christians are wrong. People of different religions disagree about a lot of stuff, and that's ok, they just have to learn to get along.
***
After this, I also broached the subject of the shoah for the first time. A couple of weeks ago (in connection with the movie Bedknobs and Broomsticks), I had begun telling J about the Germans' role in the second world war. Today I told him that during that war, Germans persecuted the Jews; that many fled, but very many were killed; that after that, not many Jews have wanted to live in Germany; that many came to America and many went to Israel, which is where most of the bible stories take place and which many Jews still think of as their homeland.
J didn't evince much of a reaction, either to this or to the WW2 discussion. In connection to the latter he did say, "But the Germans are good now, right, daddy?" Which I confirmed.
On a related note. Who knows if J will continue to progress in the German language at the current rate as he grows up. But if he does, he will essentially be a native speaker, but without any of the usual identity-conditioning factors like family and heritage (very important for traditional notions of German identity). I'm very curious to see—if it happens—what this German-American "third space" identity-hybrid will end up looking like. Obviously I will have a huge role in the process, which is quite a responsibility but very exciting as well.
***
The conclusion to the Moses story moves into theologically pretty interesting territory. After the Israelites make and worship the golden calf, Joshua wants to execute the perpetrators. God himself tells Moses that he feels similarly, that he has decided to wipe his entire people out, except Moses, and give the latter "a brand new people that will be good and wise and hardworking and obedient, not rebellious and lazy like the Hebrews."
Obviously the Noah-flood story is the subtext here. But the really interesting part is that in talking God out of this plan, Moses tells God that the latter doesn't really know human nature; doesn't have the power to create beings that are without flaw; that the problem with the ten commandments is that they are "lacking in love"; that God's view that he is always right is wrong; and that God has "been evil" and "done evil things" (there is a deliberate play on and conflation of the two main senses of the word böse here, "evil" and "angry"):
"Wie viele Menschen hast Du umgebracht, weil Du böse [ = angry] auf sie warst? Du hast uns nach Deinem Bild erschaffen. Aber wenn Du selber böse [ = evil] bist, können wir nicht besser sein!"
After Moses's reprimand, God admits that he himself has sinned ("Ich sehe ein, dass auch ich gesündigt habe") and asks for forgiveness. Moses grants it, asking for forgiveness as well. God says that he has now changed and doesn't want to be a fearsome God anymore. Moses, he says, has shown him that God, too, is a pupil (Schüler).
At this point J chimed in from the back of the car and said he didn't understand what was going on. He said he understood Moses's words, but didn't really know what they mean. I laughed and agreed, telling him that this version is very different from most bible stories, where God is always right and he's the one teaching the people and telling them what to do. Here, in contrast, Moses is able to teach God things and tell God he's wrong, and he can tell God what to do and he does it!
Pretty strong tobacco, as they say in German.
My son loves the Ich weiß was audiobooks, a German nonfiction series from Random House Deutschland covering many fields of basic knowledge in a way perfectly attuned to young minds. In the last year we have purchased and listened to nine installments, which I have reviewed very positively on this blog. We are looking forward to getting to all or most of the 48 of them eventually.
The audiobook on the major world religions, Albert E. erklärt Religionen, is the first one I have encountered with a flaw. But it's a serious one. Despite the cover picture featuring a rabbi with his arm around the pope ...
... and despite the announcement at minute 25:20 that "It's time to talk about the three great world religions," namely Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (one can question that ranking in today's world, but it has tradition in Germany), Judaism plays essentially no role in the audiobook. Worse, the particular way it plays no role is highly problematic when one reflects that the series is designed for impressionable young minds—specifically German minds.
All the other religions are discussed in detail for several minutes each (Buddhism 5:30-14:15; Hinduism 17:20-22:50; Christianity 27:48-35:36; Islam 36:20-42:00). Judaism gets less than 30 seconds (27:13-27:41).
Even worse: Judaism is excluded from the representation of community within the story, which features a bunch of children talking with each other about their beliefs. All the other religions are represented by a sympathetic child (Jenny for Buddhism [at least, she is learning about it in school and meditating at home]; Rashid for Hinduism, Jenny and Amalie for Christianity, and Nalan for Islam). Judaism gets no such representative. The only character in the story who explains anything about Judaism is ... a Christian pastor, in the context of a Christian confirmation lesson.
I mean, instead of the good pastor talking about Bar/Bat Mitzvah, how hard could it have been to script in four or five minutes with a Jewish child-friend of the group talking about going through Bar/Bat Mitzvah themselves? Maybe episode time was tight, but then there were 3.5 whole minutes on the religion of the ancient Egyptians at the beginning, which is cool to know about but which nobody practices anymore today, hello?
This minuscule amount of attention and lack of a representative in the community can leave two very unfortunate impressions about Judaism on the young German mind. First, that Judaism can be adequately represented and explained from the perspective of one of its "successor" religions. Secondly, and again, worse, that people of many different religions live and get along with each other in Germany, but no Jews.
In an uncanny way, both of these impressions call to mind the worst sorts of historical associations when it comes to Judaism in the west, especially in Germany.
I really can't believe this audiobook got past a modern German editorial process.
