By Donald H. Harrison

SAN DIEGO, Calif.—Nancy's cousins, Jay and Lorita Jacobson, kindly sent to us a copy of  Sex, God, Christmas & Jews that was autographed to us "with best wishes" by the author, Gil Mann. Yes, of course, "best wishes" is an innocuous inscription suited for those occasions when someone asks an author to inscribe a book to someone else with whom the author has no connection. 

Except for the fact that there was a picture of Mann on the back of the book, I had no idea who he was. And double ditto for Mann about Nancy and me. So what else could he inscribe but a cliché?  Believe me, I empathize.  As an author, I have written the same cliché on the title page of my own book and never have felt good about it.  I'd rather write something meaningful and I'm sure he would too.

When I called Jay and Lorita to thank them for the book, they filled me in a little.  Mann's wife, Debbie, is the daughter of their very dear friends, Leonard and Fay Ribnick of Minneapolis. Ribnick once was president of the synagogue where the Jacobsons worship, Congregation Beth El, and Mann later was president of the Minneapolis Jewish Federation.  As cousin Jay has spent much of his life in Jewish communal work in Minneapolis, it is natural that they know and like each other.

From the book I learned that Mann is a columnist for the Jewish-interest area of America On Line. An e-mail inquiry from a reader may prompt him to write a column, and the combination of  letter and column will generate more letters from other readers, possibly setting off one of those Internet chain reactions that people who charge for advertising by the number of "hits" or "visits" dream about.

Many of us utilize Internet providers other than AOL (mine for example is Cox), so, therefore,  republishing some of these exchanges in book form reaches out to a wider audience than AOL's. Reviewers practically are obligated to mention AOL in order to explain the context for Mann's book,  and that generates publicity for that Internet service.  If Mann didn't ask AOL to subsidize the publication of his book, he ought to—although Mann did so well in the computer business as a young man, his life today is more about philanthropy than about collecting royalties.

I am a big user of the Internet for reference materials, but I am not drawn to chat rooms or even to such relatively well-informed discussion groups as that led by Mann. One quality of the Internet that Mann finds praiseworthy is repelling to me: the anonymity of the people who write in to express all manner of opinion. 

In Mann's view, because of their anonymity, these e-correspondents can really express themselves. They can give vent to their thoughts without looking over their shoulders. In turn, we can retain the wheat and discard the chaff, if we take the time to sift carefully through the correspondence.

My own view is that if something is worth saying on the Internet, it is worth putting your name to. All the stories that appear on the jewishsightseeing.com website have bylines or signature lines—not because the writers are vain, although some of us are—but because we ought to be held accountable for what we say. Sometimes when people really express themselves on the Internet, they are passing along rumors, half-truths, urban legends, clichés, and canards.  Rather than shedding light, they are just adding to the noise, and may be libeling people in the process.

With such firm  reservations,  I started reading this volume bearing the subtitle "Intimate Emails About Faith and Life Challenges."  There indeed was a lot of chaff, but, I must admit, there also was some wheat. Mann describes himself as a person who is "basically non-combative...Minnesota Nice we call it in the Midwest" and it seemed to me most of his own essays reflected that proclivity.  He's thoughtful and not very controversial—a consensus builder, rather than a paradigm changer. You're less likely to get worked up over one of his essays than about one of the e-mails he reprints.

I did like his spin on Rabbi Mordechai Kaplan's concept that one's identification as a Jew depends on believing, behaving and belonging.  Mann suggests that there are three overlapping rings of Judaism—Spirituality, Ethics and Peoplehood.  Some  people will find themselves in that area where all three rings intersect, but many may find identification in fewer rings.  We may be Jews because are parents are, Jews because we believe in Judaism's concepts of God, or Jews because we follow its ethical teachings—or some combination of these.  According to Mann, "Jews can live Jewishly in any one of the three circles and never touch the other circles.  Plus, a Jew can move from circle to circle during their life—or even during a day..."

The book was divided into three sections, based on the classifications of spirituality, ethics and peoplehood. I was impressed by two discussions in the ethics section, one concerning Jews and Blacks (incidentally, I believe the names of  both groups should be capitalized) and the other on teaching morality to Jewish teenagers today.  These discussions cover many pages, so let me just quote some salient points from anonymous e-letters on each topic.

On Jews and Blacks: "A professor of mine once said, 'America used to be the world's Melting Pot, where everyone came and eventually merged into the American culture. In this century, America has become the world's Ice Cube Tray, where each group is being herded into its own cold little compartment...' ... I believe that the only answer is to refuse to stay in my own 'cube.'  That is, I wander out into other people's cultural, ethnic and religious contexts—always as a Jew, but as an interested and loving observer, and participant, if allowed..."

On Jewish teens: The e-writer, a teacher at a synagogue, told of asking her 9th grade class members their opinions of two situations. One concerned a man who had murdered a young woman 19 years previously, and had assumed a new identity and thereafter lived a model life.  He turned himself into authorities, feeling he must own up to what he did.  Was he right to do so?  More than half of the class opined that he should have said nothing, while continuing to do good works.  The other situation concerned a teenager who did not intervene, although he could have, when a friend killed a child. The parents of the child thought the teenager should be expelled from the university he attended.  Should he be? More than half the students said the teenager should have intervened, but broke no law in failing to do so. Therefore he should remain at the university.

After summarizing the two cases, the teacher offered this comment: "What troubled me about the students' responses to both cases, but particularly the second one, is the lack of any sense of moral obligation, any sense that there might be standards that transcend what is legal. According to German law at the time, what the Nazis did was perfectly legal. No one today, however, would argue that it was right. The same is true for slavery in America..."

Both these are thought-provoking comments. I find the 'ice cube' metaphor intriguing, having for some years now accepted the idea that America is a chef's salad, with many ingredients, each contributing its unique flavor and thereby adding to the whole. In the second case,  I think the teacher's differentiation between what is lawful and what is right is a question that students of my generation faced during the Civil Rights Movement and Vietnam War protests of the 1960s and 1970s, and that students today are grappling with in the debate over immigration reform.

My hunch is that both letter-writers could have been persuaded to identify themselves by name because their commentaries were so well reasoned. It is possible that the teacher might have had some qualms about saying his/ her name lest parents of the students think the letter was intended as a criticism of them. But this problem could have been handled through re-wording. 

Bottom line: Anything that we can learn from is worthwhile, so Sex, God, Christians & Jews surely is worth looking over. It may be ordered via www.BeingJewish.org. On the other hand, I am hopeful that Mann will someday cull from all those e-mails not simply a representative sample of what his readers think, but that correspondence which, in his mind, actually has something profound to say.  And then, I hope he'll ask the best of these correspondents to let him quote them by name.  That will open the gates for others to probe the thoughts of these correspondents even more deeply.