In Ashkenazi Jewish culture much wisdom and (often irreverent) humor is conveyed by the antiphony of the Hebrew and Yiddish languages—the first carrying the enormous solemnity of Torah, its sacred words antedating the creation of the universe—the latter an idiom of common sense, often employed by women and others of lesser education. For example, there is this Yiddish joke: “How can you make God laugh?” – “Tell him your plans!”
Since my last communication with the readers of my blog, I have sort of lived this bitter-sweet joke. I had announced taking a vacation from my blogging. My plan had been to meet commitments to lecture in Germany and Switzerland—first about the role of values in a capitalist economy to an elite group of business leaders, then at a conference of the Lutheran World Federation about the continuing relevance of historic European Protestantism in a world where the majority of Christians now live in the Global South. I had imagined that I would return from these events full of fresh ideas to pour into my blog. As it turned out I never left Boston. I slipped on a smooth surface in the entrance of my condo building, fell and fractured my left hip. Following surgery, I have spent the last three weeks in intense interaction with physical therapists, pondering such issues as how best to put on my trousers in the morning without falling out of bed, rather than the intriguing question of what it means that (as has been claimed) more people attend Lutheran services every week in Ethiopia than in Sweden.
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