IN THE MAIL: Ellis Weiner & Barbara Davilman, “How to Raise a Jewish Dog” (Little, Brown and Co., September 5, 2007).
It’s actually a book by “The Rabbis of Boca Raton Theological Seminary as told to” Weiner and Davilman, the story of a technique developed by a fictional seminary of “clergyman-scholar dog trainers” who faced a scenario “familiar to anyone who has ever had a dog:”
You cry “Sit!” to make your dog stop jumping and spinning so you can get the collar on him for a walk. But he doesn’t sit. Instead he jumps and spins and frolics until you have to grab him. You do this four times a day for ten years (4 x 365 x 10 = 14,600 times), and he still doesn’t get it.
The book suggests a different technique, raising a Jewish dog through “guilting” — explaining to the dog that his behavior is not only bad in and of itself, but that his badness harms the owner. Examples: “You went through the garbage again? Why do you do this to me?” “I’m calling you and you’re not coming? Fine. We’ll stay here. I have nothing better to do and God forbid you should do anything for my convenience.”
In dealing with a dog, the book recommends developing a 10-point “Inner Dialogue” by repeating in order:
- A dog is a miracle and having one is a blessing.
- I can’t believe how happy this dog makes me.
- This is too good to last.
- In fact, who am I kidding? It won’t last.
- It won’t last because either something will happen to me or to the dog.
- Either a disaster will take place or some crazy son of a bitch will come and do something horrible.
- . . . And what if something happens to me? Who will take care of the dog? No one will love the dog as much as I do. The dog will die of a broken heart, just as I would if the dog himself died.
- Why does it have to be this way? I’ll tell you why. Because that’s the way the world is.
- And don’t talk to me about a heavenly reward afterward. There is no heaven. This is it. This life is it.
- That’s why you have to value and embrace every possible source of happiness that comes your way. Like, for example, a dog.
The authors recommend intoning these propositions “silently, in order, over and over, maybe while washing the dishes or brushing your teeth. You will notice that the last one leads smoothly back to the first.”
There are some serious points mixed in with the humor in this book, and a surprisingly moving conclusion. I won’t be giving anything away by providing an excerpt from part of a “final word” from “Rabbi Paul:”
[O]ne day, I was teaching a course called God: Past, Present and Future. And, as fate would have it, I opened the class by asking what the students thought God’s love was. They all started to ponder the question, except Ms. Echo Silverstein, whose hand immediately shot up and who didn’t wait to be called on to answer. “A dog’s love is the same as God’s love, she said. “That’s why ‘dog’ is ‘god’ spelled backwards.”
Well, naturally, I thought this was about the most jejune and ridiculous – and impious – thing I had ever heard. And so did the other students. A great shout of derision went up and I thought we were going to have a small riot on our hands.
But then a strange and very touching thing happened. One student, a Mr. Kyle Greenblatt, grudgingly admitted that Ms. Silverstein had a point. Mr. Greenblatt then went on to recount a story about the dog of his childhood years. And, one by one, everyone else shared their dog stories, too. . . .
In the end, I had to agree. Echo was absolutely right. . . . In fact I would even go so far as to say that a dog’s love teaches us something we don’t always learn from God.
A dog teaches us how to be loved.
Dogs are able to do this because they sneak past our defenses and under all our walls of distraction, self-centeredness, sophistication, or what-have-you. They completely ignore our KEEP OUT signs and then, once they get in, they hit us with a tsunami of love. . . They take us out of ourselves. They draw our attention to the here and now. They show us what it means to be patient, alert, focused, calm, nuts, vigilant, brave, kind, and curious.
This is a funny book that survives some repetitiousness and holds up for 162 pages, with a nice ending that stays with you.
It gives me the opportunity to recommend once again Ruth Wisse’s masterful speech “Getting Serious About Jewish Humor,” which is definitely worth reading in its entirety and some of whose lessons are reflected in this book.
More on Jewish humor here and here. And of course there is “Mouse Walks into a Bar . . .”