Donate

EN
/

Join our email list

Fooled by Holiness

Can the fool be holy? Can the troll be a prophet? Can the idiot travel where the philosopher cannot?
©bbourdages/stock.adobe.com
©bbourdages/stock.adobe.com
Dr. Zohar Atkins is a former Fellow of the Kogod Research Center at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. He is also a former member of the inaugural cohort of North American David Hartman Center Fellows and is the founder of Etz Hasadeh. He holds a DPhil in Theology from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and semikha from the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he was a Wexner Graduate Fellow. He received both

I am a Jewish man trapped
in the body of a Jewish man.
—Charles Bernstein, “Unready, Unwilling, Unable”

Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise.
—1 Corinthians 3:18

Just as nothing is more foolish than misplaced wisdom, so too, nothing is more imprudent than perverse prudence. And surely it is perverse not to adapt yourself to the prevailing circumstances, to refuse ‘to do as the Romans do,’ to ignore the party-goer’s maxim ‘take a drink or take your leave,’ to insist that the play should not be a play. True prudence, on the other hand, recognizes human limitations and does not strive to leap beyond them; it is willing to run with the herd, to overlook faults tolerantly or to share them in a friendly spirit. But, they say, that is exactly what we mean by folly. (I will hardly deny it—as long as they will reciprocate by admitting that this is exactly what it means to perform the play of life.)
—Erasmus, In Praise of Folly”

Read the complete essay on Ayin Press

You care about Israel, peoplehood, and vibrant, ethical Jewish communities. We do too.

Join our email list for more Hartman ideas

Search
FOLLOW HARTMAN INSTITUTE
Join our email list

SEND BY EMAIL

The End of Policy Substance in Israel Politics