Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Even Media Non-Jews Study Torah

...NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory talked about how he discovered the importance of Judaism in his life. In a conversation with Brown, with whom he has been studying Jewish texts since September, Gregory recounted how he was brought up Jewish ‹ son of a Jewish father and non-Jewish mother ‹ with a sense of "peoplehood and tradition," but not much "theology or spirituality." But, with the encouragement of his non-Jewish wife, it was "enough to carry me to a sense of identity" and give him a desire to "probe further" the question of "Why be Jewish?"

"What I decided was [that] what mattered was not just a sense of actual knowledge" or attending High Holiday services, "it was to understand how to live Jewishly ... [and] find daily meaning in Judaism."

So now "Shabbat has become a lot more important to me" as a way to "stop and think about what matters most to me ... what kind of father and husband I want to be." And he says a bedtime Sh'ma with his children as a way to model Judaism for them and "create a Jewish narrative in their lives that's not just obligatory."

"I was born into a tradition," he said. "Who am I to let it slip through my fingers?"


And more.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

David Gregory is one of the most biased, second only to Olbermann and Matthews, disrespectful, arrogant on-air personaliities at NBC-TV. Certainly you could have found a more amenable character than he, to use as an example of someone practicing their faith! Couldn't you?
Tom in Tulsa, OK USA

YMedad said...

Tom,

I was just being informative but judgemental.

YMedad said...

oops. not judgmental