Books on faith, on God, on the absence of God, on morality and immorality arrive monthly, not so much articles of faith as a library of books on them or a lack thereof.
Virtue and vice have always duked it out for supremacy. Now two volumes arrive simultaneously to spread the word, good and bad….
[Alan] Jacobs never joins a temple, a minyan, a discussion group. (He does have a list of advisers as spiritual Phone-a-Friend Lifelines.) He robs himself of religion’s great gift of community. In a city teeming with Jewish residents, Jacobs tries to become literally observant in isolation, like a hermit, which makes the whole thing appear like a stunt, a stunt with a sizable book contract.
Jacobs’ strategy is about act and word, as if he were cramming for his God boards. “In the final stretch, I’ve been frantically trying to read every single book on religion, trying to interview every religious leader, trying to figure out how to obey every rule. What if I miss an insight?”
Year is rarely about belief. What is religion if not that? So what if you avoid winking (“He who winks his eyes plans perverse things”; Proverbs 16:30) if you never spiritually or historically bother to investigate the Bible’s relevance.
So, which is better, virtue or vice, Year or Vice? Jacobs is more ambitious, though sorely misdirected. Both men are agile writers and, at times, truly funny. They’re sit-down comics. [Peter] Sagal’s Vice is fun, though hardly comprehensive. Then again, there are enough potential vices to fill an encyclopedia. What Sagal fails to do, when lying and venality are epidemic, and consumption (if that is a vice) is synonymous with identity, is differentiate vice, sin and crime, what society will tolerate and what it will not. Now, that would make some book.
Jacobs’ strategy is flawed from the out-set. He’s taking the Bible as if it were written in a vacuum, delievered complete into his hand in the 21st Century, without any background or cultural history. To truly understand the Bible we must understand to whom it was sent and why. If, indeed, it is a “love letter from God to His people”, then of course a ‘stranger’ is going to find it confusing and legalistic.