Some Letters to the Editor

In our continuing quest to serve a niche market in the blogosphere, herewith a selection from an overlooked area of great writing:  Recent Letters to the Editor in Various Journals:

Rabbi David Wolpe (Sinai Temple, Los Angeles), in the July 27 Jewish Journal:

With regard to Amy Klein’s article on "The Secret,". . . Klein finishes her article: "In other words, if you were going to boil each of the two visions down to a one-line philosophy, which would you rather choose, Wolpe’s ‘Life is no picnic’ theory or ‘The Secret’s’ ‘Life can be absolutely phenomenal?’"

Well, the point is that you cannot have the second without the first. Without struggle, one can never deeply know beauty, or love or life. Artistry requires discipline and disappointment. Marriage survives with difficulties and hard-won kindnesses. Friendship and devotion is never frictionless and free. Life can be "absolutely phenomenal," but not by simply wishing it so.

Contrary to the simplicities of "the Secret" the world is not only about me, and the variegated colors of life are the gift of effort that elevates our souls and reaches out toward others.

Professor Sidney Helfant (Kingsborough CC, CUNY), in the July 26 Wall Street Journal:

[Regarding Peter Berkowitz’s "The New New Atheism"] . . . “Scientific atheists” make a startling inference from infinitesimal evidence.  That evidence consists of the physical Earth and its history – as perceived by scientists through instruments of their own design and creation – which amounts to the consideration of a fraction of our solar system which is a fraction of our galaxy, which is a fraction of the universe.  The startling inference from this non-random and insufficient sample?  There is no God!  Instead, they posit spontaneous generation and the existence of intelligible but not intelligent laws.  At this point one can only recommend a refresher course in Statistics 1. 

Gerald Love (Woodmere, N.Y.), in the July 26 New York Times (of all places):

With regard to the July 25 letter writer’s concern about the “premature” publicizing of exit strategies from wars, the announced strategy for World War II certainly did not give aid and comfort to the enemy.  It was called unconditional surrender.