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Rabbi David Wolpe Is an Admired Writer, the Popular Leader of One Of

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Rabbi David Wolpe Is an Admired Writer, the Popular Leader of One Of THE MANY SONGS OF DAVID Rabbi David Wolpe is an admired writer, the popular leader of one of the largest Conservative Jewish congregations in the country, and one of the “50 most infl uential Jews in the world,” according to one authoritative source. His latest book, David: The Divided Heart, delves into one of the Bible’s most fascinating—and human—characters. BY BETH KISSILEFF 50 SEPT | OCT 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE PHOTOGRAPHY BY ETHAN PINES C’92 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE SEPT | OCT 2015 51 hen Rabbi David Wolpe C’81 was can be great and flawless, is something Here is what David did not do: He did preparing to write about the we struggle with every single day.” At not have Nathan put to death. … That Wancient Biblical figure of David, this point, Wolpe makes a bankable pre- David did not seek to silence Nathan he approached his near-mythical diction based on the eternal verities of might be, religiously and historically, character in a very un-mythical manner. human nature: “There will soon be a his moment of redemption. “I thought of David the way I think of David and Bathsheba scandal—I should someone when I do a funeral,” Wolpe write the editorial now!” says simply. “The same person has lots atching David Wolpe speak in pub- of different roles. You hear from their Wlic is a little like watching a magic spouse, their kids. They are lots of dif- may be that David suffers from the act. A slight, handsome-but-other- ferent things to different people in their Itvertigo of success. To have risen so wise-ordinary-looking guy gets up, opens lives. That’s what David was.” quickly, to be God’s chosen one, beloved his mouth, and casts spells on his audi- Of course David was, and is, much more of the people, powerful and young, with fist- ence. After one recent talk at the New than that—an “exquisitely relevant as fuls of promise, may require a balance, a lev- York Historical Society, when he spoke well as fascinating character,” as Wolpe eling. A fall. at length about the relationship of contends in David: The Divided Heart, David rises from his house and walks Abraham Lincoln to the Jews and civil published last year by Yale University about on the roof, “And he saw from the religion in America, a man approached Press as part of its Jewish Lives series. roof a woman bathing, and the woman him and asked for a copy of his remarks. “He is great because of his complexity, was very beautiful.” David inquires Wolpe pulled out a piece of paper the not in spite of it,” Wolpe writes. “David and is told she is “Bathsheba daughter size of a business card. On it he had writ- is a man of contradictions, noble and of Eliam wife of Uriah the Hittite.” ten a few words. “That’s it,” he said. base, lyrical and brutal, all of which coex- —From David: The Divided Heart. “Those are my remarks.” ist in a quieter state in each human He pulls it off without secret chords or breast. We see ourselves in this man, and After David has Bathsheba brought to kabbalistic symbols. Writing is “a discov- we see this man in ourselves.” True, his palace and sleeps with her, Wolpe ery of what it is I think and believe, the Wolpe couldn’t interview David’s spous- recounts, he sends her home, only to find process by which I discover what is inside es or children, and he necessarily relies out later that she is pregnant. He orders me,” he explains, and despite his formi- on careful readings of the Book of Uriah to return from war and tries to dable gifts as a speaker, he still holds the Samuel and Chronicles and centuries of convince him to go to his wife (which written word in higher esteem. (When Biblical scholarship and commentary. would have shifted the suspicion of asked about his serious brushes with mor- But the book—whose nine chapters paternity), but Uriah refuses as long as tality—two surgeries for a brain tumor, and include thoughtful examinations of his comrades-in-arms are fighting in the a bout with lymphoma—he deferred to his David as Lover and Husband, Sinner, field. Finally David secretly arranges for piece on “My Last Cancer Treatment” in Father, and Once and Future King—revels Uriah to be killed in battle. the Huffington Post, written in early 2010 in the man’s all-too-human weaknesses “Of course, cover-ups are futile before and updated in late 2011, knowing that he as well as his formidable strengths. an omniscient God,” writes Wolpe. “In had been more precise in print than he was “It is such a big, messy, wonderful ancient Israel, God spoke primarily likely to be in a phone interview.) story,” says Wolpe, the Max Webb Senior through prophets.” And when the proph- Though he says he is not a person who can Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. et Nathan tells David a parable about a sit alone in a room and think, he trusts in E. David “speaks to modern Jews about the rich man who took a poor man’s ewe in M. Forster’s credo that “I don’t know what I state and the contradictions of the state— order to feed a wayfarer who had come think until I see what I say,” adding, “I dis- war and savagery and plotting and to him, David rails against the rich man, cover what I think through articulation.” manipulation and all of that. But at the prompting Nathan to respond accus- To write well, of course, one must read same time, he is a central religious fig- ingly: “You are the man.” well, and widely. ure. He is credited with writing the only “I follow what the critic Randall Jarrell personal prayers in the Bible, the Psalms. Behold a hinge of history. No matter wrote,” he says: “‘Read at whim.’” The whims If you are looking for a book to express how literally we take the story of David, in which he was indulging when we spoke the individual human soul, you have only this moment of reaction is indelible and last fall were: Absence of Mind, a collection the Psalms in the Bible.” enduring. Nathan continues to speak in of essays by Marilynne Robinson; a book Furthermore, David’s “legacy endures,” God’s voice, telling David that he has about the religious Zionism of Rabbi adds Wolpe, who three years ago was given him everything, and would have Abraham Isaac Kook; Bernard Cornwell’s named one of the 50 most influential Jews given more, but David instead chose to Waterloo; and Roger Grenier’s The Palace in the world by The Jerusalem Post. After commit both adultery and murder “by of Books. “Whatever grabs my interest I all, “Jerusalem is celebrating the 3,000th the sword of the Ammonites”—reminding read,” he adds. “I do what my professor in year as the City of David,” he points out. us of the special cowardice involved in English said to do.” “Finally and most powerfully, David is proxy murder. As a result, the son born It was during his freshman year at Penn a deeply flawed figure who is still a hero. of the adulterous union will die and that Wolpe went to an English professor That idea, that we don’t think a person another will lie with David’s wives. whose name he can’t recall and told him 52 SEPT | OCT 2015 THE PENNSYLVANIA GAZETTE how much he loved to read and write, then which he told his congregation that “the awful,” containing “so much that is offen- confessed that he wanted to become an way the Bible describes the Exodus is sive that it requires restraint to hold one- English professor himself. The professor not the way it happened, if it happened self to three ways in which this display demurred. “Be a writer and read what you at all,” which earned him a public lam- slaughters the spirit.” After a number of want” and you won’t be obliged to teach basting from radio host Laura correspondents, including the boy’s rabbi, the same texts year after year, Wolpe’s Schlessinger, among others, even though responded angrily to what Wolpe conced- would-be mentor advised. his arguments were in line with current ed was “appearing to insult a child and It was good advice. Wolpe remains a Biblical criticism and scholarship. (He those who love him,” he wrote another writer by design and by temperament, also proposed that Conservative Judaism column apologizing to the boy and his fam- rising early each day to put his thoughts change its name to Covenantal Judaism, ily and explaining that he had written the on paper or online. “Carve out a time that though that never gained traction.) first column “at white heat.” As a rabbi, he is sacred every day and sit down and do “To the extent that we have in American added, “I should know better than to push it,” he advises aspiring writers. “There Jewish culture a leading rabbi, certainly ‘send’ without calm and consideration.” is no other formula.” he’s the leading rabbi in the non-Orthodox But he also took the opportunity to re- Though he has been called the “most sphere,” says Jeffrey Goldberg C’87, the emphasize his point about the debasement influential rabbi in America” by Newsweek, highly regarded national correspondent of a sacred rite of passage—more gently one could argue that Wolpe is still not so for The Atlantic, who often writes about this time, but no less firmly.
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