A Mind-Boggler: Rabbi Jackie Mason and Rev. Hal Lindsey

[Dogmudgeon]

I peeked inside my mom's bedroom to check on her -- she has been having some sleep-related breathing problems from COPD -- and she had fallen asleep with the TV on. The Jackie Mason call-in show was on, and Mason had Hal Lindsey, the Erich von Däniken of End-Times religionizing, on the phone.

Lindsey was once again twisting and torturing the book of Revelations into a Conservative's wet dream with his oft-told tale of how Russia, China, and the Islamic states would attack Israel, and lo, the blood would run as high as a horse's henna-hued hiney upon the Plain of Megiddo, which incidentally is an olive-growing section (with some expensive real estate and pricey apartments) these days.

Mason was, pardon the term, enraptured, as Lindsey stammered through his sermon of horror. I was surprised, to say the least. Mason originally was a rabbi before he became the sour, bigoted borscht-belt tummler we know him as today. But for his many faults, Mason is an intelligent guy, and you would think that he'd heard of Lindsey's Late Great Planet Earth, which was a best-seller in 1970, or at least Pre-Millenarianist Fundamentalist Christians (which, in theological jargon, is what Lindsey is espousing).

And Mason was kissing Lindsay's toochiss big-time.

So Mason is a Conservative. So Mason is an ugly-minded cuss. But his naive kissing up to Hal Lindsay is like an engineer who designs a zero-gravity flying saucer hanger out of unobtainium, to be powered with phlogiston -- and competes to win the contract. The pop-culture-wannabe who once appeared on The Simpsons appears to be entirely unaware of pop-culture fundamentalist eschatology and the chilling P.S. to the story, the part that requires every Jew on the Earth to be slaughtered to satisfy the blood-lust of Lindsay's perverse belief.

Here we have an otherwise intelligent man who had significant theological training, and Rabbinical schools have traditionally demanded their students to study the arts, sciences, and humanities in some depth. As easy as it is to understand how Fundamentalist preachers can be theologically ignorant, it is as difficult to understand how Rabbis from any of the branches of Judaism can be theologically ignorant.

So, is this some part of the religious-right-wing decay getting a few of its tentacles into Judaism, or is it just Jackie Mason's brain tumor talking?

--p!
Shabatai Zvi lives.
(Just our luck.)

[Maat]

1. I once stumbled over the most bigoted article I had ever read ..

and it was co-authored by none other than Jackie Mason, with someone else. It was hateful.

And, Hal Lindsey, what a nutball!

Sorry you had to listen to that.

I'll try to find that article.

On edit:
This one kind of gives the flavor of a Mason/Feld article:
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0206/mason021406.php3

**quote**
Jews are never known to get into unnecessary physical battles. That is why people are never afraid of being attacked by a Jew. Did you ever hear anybody say, "Don't go into that neighborhood it is very dangerous, there are a lot of Jews there?" Jews have for so long been accustomed to being threatened and persecuted all over the world that they could never dream of creating needless violence anywhere because they would be grateful to even find a place where they are allowed to live in peace. Jews could never dream of threatening innocent people with inexcusable violence. Meanwhile the rest of the world is reacting to the Muslims with an amazing cowardice. Instead of a collective fury, we are pleading for forgiveness, and promising not to offend them with any more cartoons. Could anything be more perverted? The same people who are not offended by suicide bombers and terrorist killings, murder, mayhem, and destruction around the world have now decided that a cartoon... "OY VEY IS THIS TERRIBLE!"
**endquote**

[Dogmudgeon]

3. Well, I read the article

One good point hidden in a cesspool of verbal vomit. Like a Tarbaby.

Now I feel all dirty.

Mason has clearly lost his mind.

--p!

[Maat]

4. Well-said! Well-described! You hit the nail on the head!

And I mean that. Thanks for expressing what I felt so well.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. Mason has become unbearable in his old age.