David Wolpe: evaluation

Transcript context

…But again, coming to this as an outsider, I read Chronicles, I think of Chronicles as the very long-run perspective, saying that all of these events of the moment, which are so dramatic, so emotional, so engrossing, they seem to be what’s so relevant. Just like we’re all entranced by Twitter or the daily news. But ultimately, what matters is the long run of history. Does the kingdom survive? And it’s actually the contrast between the extreme impersonality of Chronicles and the deeply personal story of Book of Samuel — that are these multiple duelers competing, layers or levels of wisdom. And that, that’s better than either book taken alone. Am I off base there? No, I think that’s a beautiful explanation. I would say two things about it: One is, if you’re writing this story of David, and you’re writing the story of David as opposed to, say, a political analysis of David’s kingship, then you want the story at its most dramatic, full of blood and fury and sex and betrayal and so on. And that’s in Samuel. The second is that Chronicles — it’s not just that Chronicles is . . . When I said it was made boring, what I meant was, not that it’s a dry textbook as opposed to a bodice ripper of a romance novel. But that it takes the very humanness of David and tries to sanctify him, in a way that I think is untrue to David’s character. It’s the first time, for example, that the character of the Satan appears as an inciter. He incites David to do something bad, so that way you don’t have to blame David that he did it. And in that sense, I think the Chronicles is a sanitizing of the real history of David, even though it may be a more interesting political — I don’t know — more interesting, a different political lens. Now let me try asking you about some well-known Jewish thinkers, and tell me what you think are their significance, either for Judaism or maybe for you personally. And here’s a man who sadly passed away not long ago: Jacob Neusner.…

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