INTRODUCTION

The title of this volume is taken from Moses’ admonition in Deuteronomy 4:32: “For ask now of the days that are past, which were before thee, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and ask from the one side of heaven unto the other….” Israel’s great leader was telling his people that the only way to appreciate their present situation was to view it within the context of their complete history. Indeed, the notion that there is a religious significance and direction to history was one of the radical innovations introduced by Hebrew religion into a world that saw meaning only in the unchanging cycles of nature.

Although this book reflects my deeply held conviction that a historical perspective is crucial to a healthy awareness of ourselves as Jews, it does not grapple openly with weighty theological or historiographical issues. Quite the contrary, I have tried throughout to ensure that the reading of the book be a pleasurable and entertaining experience that does not demand a lot of serious reflection.

The short essays that are collected in the following pages allow me to step outside the normal strictures of objective academic scholarship and to demonstrate how diverse aspects of the Jewish past can still speak with familiarity to modern “western” culture. The interpretations, personalities, texts, events, and ideas that you will be encountering here hail from eras and locations that seem to differ radically from our own, and often express themselves in arcane or alien formulations. And yet the questions that they deal with, as well as the characters and social forces that they embody, bear uncanny similarities to our contemporary experiences.

Several years ago, I was solemnly cautioned by a veteran professor that I should not let the university authorities know the Dark Little Secret of my predilection for publishing non-technical articles directed to a general audience. Such activities, he assured me, would inevitably destroy my credibility as a serious academic and brand me as a hopeless dilettante.

Thankfully, I am pleased to observe that the mentality exemplified by my colleague’s warning has greatly diminished in today’s scholarly environment. University administrators have come around to the view that the importance of our research obliges us to disseminate it among the wide public, and that the ability to express the fruits of scholarship in an understandable manner is a virtue, not an embarrassment.

I have tried not to let readability come at the expense of sound scholarship. The studies contained in this book, although they can be appreciated and enjoyed by intelligent and receptive non-specialists, are the products of considerable research, whether by myself or others. Those whose curiosity has been whetted by these essays are encouraged to pursue the bibliographic “Suggestions for Further Reading” in order to obtain a clearer impression of how scholars go about the business of describing the ancient and medieval worlds. I have identified primary sources from the Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, and Midrash for the benefit of readers who are capable of accessing the sources. Other books, authors, technical terms and concepts (usually in Hebrew), insofar as they are not identified when they occur in the text, are explained in the Glossary at the end of the book.

Ask Now of the Days that are Past is a natural sequel to its predecessor, Why Didn’t I Learn This in Hebrew School?, published by Jason Aronson Publishers. Like it, this book is composed of articles that were originally published in newspapers and posted on my site on the World Wide Web. The vast majority of the chapters first appeared in The Jewish Free Press in my hometown of Calgary, Alberta, though a few were contributed to Ha-Atid, the magazine of the Melbourne Hebrew Congregation in Australia. Their journalistic origins are often perceptible in the manner that they relate to local scenery and recent news, though some of the more specific and esoteric allusions have been removed for this republication. The essays about weddings, financial planning, healthy living, and home improvement were composed to accompany advertising supplements on those themes, and I am confident that their integrity and readability were not compromised by that fact.

This collection attests to my fascination with Jewish history and tradition, and my conviction that old Jewish documents can be relevant to our contemporary situation. My stimulating experiences in a Department of Religious Studies have convinced me that many of the phenomena that I once regarded as distinctive or idiosyncratic to the Jewish experience are in reality shared by other cultures and religious communities, and I have made especial efforts to point out such instances, which are often rooted in elemental realities of human nature and social dynamics. In presenting this material, it is my sincere hope that the experience will be no less entertaining than it is educational.

Several of the chapters in this book were written during that stimulating academic sabbatical year of 1999–2000, which I spent in Jerusalem, enjoying easy access to the bibliographical treasures of the Jewish National and University Library. That sabbatical was facilitated and enhanced by a generous grant from the Lady Davis Fellowship Trust, to which I wish to express my gratitude.