Steven Pinker meets with students prior to his lecture. Photo courtesy of the Daily Northwestern.

As part of the revival of Northwestern’s Contemporary Thought speaker series, Steven Pinker visited Northwestern on Monday to give a talk based on his new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined”. While his talk was certainly thought provoking and brought together a number of different disciplines to attack a central problem of human existence, I thought there were a number of flaws in his argument, especially in his treatment of religion.

Pinker seemed to equate religion with superstition, citing the decline of both as a reason why violence has declined. He claimed that religious motives prompted about 10% of conflicts in world history and offered this, along with out-of-context Biblical approval of genocide, as proof that religion is a source of violence best to be discarded to the dustbin of history.

First of all, I doubt Pinker’s 10% figure. Even religiously motivated violent activities had secular causes as well. For example, while the Crusades were mainly an attempt to recapture the Holy Land for Christendom, they were also an attempt by the various popes to get the European powers to stop fighting one another by uniting them against a common enemy. This also increased the power of popes and religious authorities relative to political and military authorities.

As a history major, I can tell you that few events only have one cause, so to identify a percentage of wars throughout human history caused by religion is not a meaningful exercise. This is but one example of how Pinker plays fast and loose with statistics, citing numbers based on the broad sweep of human history while ignoring important qualitative distinctions in order to make his points.

Pinker, however, who is of Jewish origin but is a very public atheist, did present one identifiably Jewish concept in his account for why violence declined. He argued that humanity has both violent tendencies as well as tendencies like self-control and empathy. These practices, which control violence, are what he calls, borrowing Abraham Lincoln’s famous words, the “better angels of our nature.” This is akin to the Jewish concepts of the yeitzer hatov and the yeitzer hara, that good and evil inclination can be found within each person.

In rabbinic psychology, people are neither wholly good nor wholly bad, but rather a little bit of both. Pinker argued that circumstances determine which inclination will hold sway at any given moment, a notion very much in line with this rabbinic concept. So, in spite of otherwise anti-religious stance, Pinker’s analysis leads to a concept at the core of Judaism. Perhaps if he looked a bit harder he would realize this congruence and no longer equate religion with pre-modern superstition.

Settlers of Catan, a board game frequently played on Shabbat, was part of Glancy's positive lunch experience.

Saturday evening I was at Kafein, my favorite café, with Michelle, one of my favorite friends. I was in a positive and energetic mood. Michelle asked me, “Alex, why are you so excited right now?”

I quickly realized it was because I had lovely a Shabbat experience earlier that morning.

Saturday I ate lunch at Hillel to meet my friend Camila. Camila diligently attends cold cuts and cholent lunch every Saturday. Because I did not go to dinner the night before, I figured it would be nice to get my Shabbat time on Saturday morning and hang out with her.

After waking up at 12, I popped out of bed, hopped in the shower and put on my wool tights and knit dress in preparation for a cozy winter afternoon inside the Hillel building. When I got to the building, I hung up my coat.

I left my cell phone in my coat pocket the entire time I was there.

I stayed at Hillel for two hours. By the end of early afternoon, I got some kosher protein in my belly, had a great lunch conversation with fellow college students about college student topics (sex and reproduction), and played a college-level board game called Settlers of Catan.

Unplugged, nourished, and not worried about homework, I was able to enjoy a relaxing time with fellow Jews. This Shabbat lunch was the perfect foundation for my weekend and set the tone for the rest of the week to come.

The statement that was posted on Facebook by students at the University of Pennsylvania

I was perusing Facebook last week and a friend’s photo caught my eye. It did not include any faces, but rather a list of names.

More than 50 student leaders at the University of Pennsylvania signed a statement in support of a strong US-Israel relationship. These leaders varied from heads of Jewish student organizations to the presidents of fraternities, sororities and other cultural groups. Despite their diverse backgrounds they united for a common cause – political justice.

The statement came in response to a conference on Penn’s campus that advocated an anti-Israeli point of view. The group Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions established a chapter at Penn this year and hopes to delegitimize Israel. While the administration took a passive stance, the Jewish community at Penn took action.

This statement is the result.

The fact that more than 30 different organizations came together to support this sort of political action is something I find admirable. It is something I wish Northwestern could do.

I feel the NU community drops the ball when it comes to issues of race on campus. The dialogues and caucuses that have gone on the past couple of weeks on campus is a start (see Alex Glancy’s blog from last week), but the lack of response from student organizations outside of the Latino/a community is embarrassing. Where is the support from other student groups that these sorts of attacks are not okay?

We as students need to come out and support the Latino/a community and stand up to discrimination. Just like the student leaders at Penn who took a stand against injustice on its campus, the student leaders at NU need to do the same. At the end of the day we are all Wildcats and we need to have each other’s back. If there was an increase of anti-Semitism on campus, I know I would want to know the support of other people.

That is why I am taking a stand. I beg the NU student-leaders to show some sort of public support against discrimination. We cannot alienate the Latino/a community even if they seem to be handling the problem effectively. They need our support.

The traditional Jewish stew central to Spornstar's conversational Thursdays.

Every Thursday night I get together with some of the other Jewish students on campus, eat delicious cholent, and converse about various Jewish topics.  What is this wonderful event you may ask?  It is Stew’n’Jew. Meor, a Jewish programming center on the campus of many major universities, sponsors the event every Thursday night.

A different student hosts it in their dorm every week.  This not only allows me to visit dorms I have never been to, it is also facilities connections to meet Jewish students who I have never seen before.  I mean who would pass up on a free bowl of excellent cholent?  You would have to be crazy.

The more important part of Stew’n’Jew is the conversation.  Each week, the student in charge creates an opened-ended question which can spur discussion for a few hours.  We have talked through a variety of different topics ranging from “Why the land of Israel?” to “What does it mean to live a pleasurable life versus a good life?”

These conversations are extremely interesting because they ignite some polarizing opinions. The various Jewish backgrounds and political views of the students who are attracted to this event often makes for heated conversation and even results in several arguments.  In the end though, Rabbi Livingstone, the Meor Rabbi who generally runs Stew’n’Jew, provides us with some of his own insights and wisdom about the question of the week.

Katz rejoices in the beauty of nature while strawberry picking over the summer

We all know the basic drill: eat dried fruit, collect money to plant a tree in Israel, ruminate on how environmentalism and Judaism are intertwined. But what really is the point of Tu B’Shvat?

First of all, there’s the nitty-gritty Jewish law aspect of it: trees are now a year older, which was established because of the importance of knowing the age of a tree. For example, if a tree is less than three years old, we cannot eat its fruit.

Tu B’Shvat is also a day to remember the importance of the land and its greenery. We need to appreciate that God has given us the beauty of nature, and we must respect it and cherish it or we will lose it.

But while poking around on Aish.com, I stumbled across an article entitled “Man is a Tree”, which challenges us to consider the symbolism of the day. In many ways, humans and trees are similar, in the way that all living organisms are. We need water, energy, air, and the means to acquire them. But so much more can be found if just look deeper.

Water is every living thing’s most basic need. People can last weeks without food, but without water, we can only last three days. Throughout Jewish literature, water is likened to the Bible’s values and teachings. Both descend from heaven and help us to grow and flourish and become the most vibrant people we can be.

A tree gets its energy from the sun’s rays, and absorbing them provides the energy to create its own food that will be consumed later, when there is need. It has the strength it needs to survive even when there is no more sunlight. As Jews, we get our energy from the warmth of the community that surrounds us, and we use this community to build strength within ourselves. It is this strength, made of love and pride, that we call upon in times of adversity.

The Hebrew word for breath, neshimah, and the word for soul, neshamah, come from a related root. As much as we need air to survive, we also need our spirituality in order for out Judaism to survive, to maintain that most important part of us that makes us different from everyone else.

Finally, like a tree, a person needs firm roots and efficient leaves. We need to stretch ourselves out as far as we can into the world of Judaism to reap the benefits it will give us.

So as the weeks take us away from Tu B’Shvat, we need to remember the symbolism it teaches us: Hold fast to your Judaism, it’s what will make you strong.

We live in a world that thrives on discord.  On disagreement.  On disdain for those with whom we disagree. The “Us vs. Them” complex is alive and well today in our culture and politics.  Public discourse on television, on radio and on the internet has generally been reduced to baseless mockery, rather then thoughtful discussion and debate.

And we are worse off because of it.

I hold many beliefs that, as a Theatre major at Northwestern University, are frankly very easy ones to have. I believe in same-sex marriage. I believe in a woman’s right to choose. I support Planned Parenthood and Public Broadcasting. And I can safely say that most if not all of my friends and acquaintances would agree with me on these points.

We often sit around in Norris, the student center, reading articles about the latest statements made by Ricky Rightwinger, the Republican congressmen from Nowheresville, Southland, laughing at what we perceive to be purely ludicrous arguments against these points. And we safely sit on our high horse, knowing that there’s nobody around to knock us off of it.

A group called the Secular Student Alliance set up a table in Norris as a part of their “Send an Atheist to Church” fundraiser. The premise was this group of pledged atheists would go to the prayer service of whichever religious group donated the most money.

I found the basic assumptions of this group offensive: Religious people are so driven to convert others that they will throw money at non-believers in an effort to bring them to a club meeting. Worse than this was the flyers they had, referring to the Bible as a “fairy tale”, to God as a concept that believers made up long ago to comfort ourselves and as a means to control others.

Naturally, I was incensed. These were my beliefs they were stepping on here! I wanted to ask them what was wrong with them. I wanted to yell and scream. “Fairy tale?” Were they serious? It just seemed mean and malicious.

It then occurred to me that me and my friends her about Ricky Rightwinger on a daily basis, but it no longer gets to us. We are just so used to it from the Right that we are, in a sense, desensitized and it does not bother us.

But happens if there is a discord with people whom we share many other beliefs with?

We do the right thing. We do what the Torah and the Midrash instruct us to do. We put away the vitriol. We put away the mockery and the labels. We respect each others beliefs instead of stepping on them. We should reject the example of our media and our politicians and allow ourselves to be open to debate, to not dismiss each other. That is how we become a better people.

Example of your standard meme from the Northwestern Facebook group.

In the last 48 hours, my Facebook newsfeed has exploded with people sharing humorous images that were posted to the Northwestern Memes Facebook page. The pages, which has more than 2,200 likes, invites people to post Northwestern-specific “memes.”

In case you’ve been living under a rock, a meme is one of a set of standardized images that have emerged on sites like Memegenerator.com carrying a message that makes fun of a common situation. For example, a common meme features a velociraptor dinosaur deep in thought, with the text asking paradoxical questions like “If being a hipster became mainstream, what would hipsters be?”

There has been an enormous outpouring of creative memes specific to Northwestern, such as “If Foster House can be FoHo, can Hobart House be HoHo?” which is funny because the latter dorm is all-female and the former all-male. Similarly, recent weeks have seen the proliferation of “Sh*t People Say” videos, which poke fun at a specific subculture, city, or group of people by documenting common things that those people say. Both the memes and the videos spread rapidly through Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.

This kind of inside, self-depricating humor reminds me of a Purim shpiel. A Purim shpiel is a farsical play performed on the Jewish holiday of Purim, ostensibly retelling the story of Esther, but using the story to poke fun at politicians, community leaders, and otherwise taboo subjects. It’s part of the overall theme of the holiday to turn things on their heads. That’s why we wear costumes to pretend to be someone else and drink to excess in ways we usually wouldn’t under religious sanction.

Memes, videos, and the Purim shpiel provide opportunities for a close-knit community or subculture to poke fun at itself and provide a healthy space for the sometimes frustrating aspects of that particular group. They create a common creative outlet and topic of conversation. While writing this post I checked the page several times, and several memes reference how the project has brought people together. I can only hope that this keeps up its momentum so that by Purim, we’ll all be able to have a good laugh.

In the photo that ran in the NY Times, mass crowds celebrate the overturning of Proposition 8.

Yesterday, a federal appeals court panel declared California’s Prop 8, which banned same-sex marriage in the state, unconstitutional. Passed by voters in November 2008, the lift of the ban has been cause for celebration throughout the state and around the country. I know I’m celebrating!

I’m celebrating because I believe that marriage is a personal and intimate union between two people and two people only. Outside commentary just isn’t necessary because the marriage of two people isn’t anyone else’s business. Marriage is a partnership and a promise to share your life with someone, and whoever that person happens to be, man or woman, so be it! As a Jew, I value my ability to have such strong beliefs marriage, and upon finding out about Prop 8’s overturning, I immediately thought about what other Jews around the nation were saying.

In Judaism, marriage is one of the most important milestones in one’s life, aside from being born, becoming a bar mitzvah, and dying. It’s an occasion for immense celebration and happiness, the party of all parties for Jews. At least that’s how it’s been in my experience of Jewish weddings. To be honest, I don’t know Judaism’s official (read: traditional) stance on the subject of same-sex marriage, but I certainly know how some of my Jewish friends of different denominations feel about the topic. Several of my friends of reform, conservative, and orthodox observance are fully accepting of same-sex unions, and I feel confident that they’re just as relieved about the unconstitutionality of Prop 8 as I am.

In a state like California, where Jews make up a significant portion of the population, it’s surprising to me that Prop 8 has such adamant supporters, even some willing to appeal its overturn in the Supreme Court. However, I truly believe that as Jews, as a minority, as a group who has experienced discrimination like the LGBT community, and finally as a group accepting of others different from us, we have the power to make our voices heard. Marriage is everyone’s right. Despite whatever formal definition of it people may try to use to refute this blog, I’m happy to say that as a Jew and as a gay rights advocate, today’s events were a victory for a group of people fighting for the equality they deserve.

Toplin and some of the girls she has come to call her sisters.

Now that I’m about to cross the one-month mark of being a member of my sorority, I’ve been doing some reflecting about what the experience has meant to me so far. Making the decision to go through recruitment here wasn’t necessarily the easiest—being in a sorority was never something I’d really considered in high school, even though it was in my family. Once I arrived at Northwestern and saw how dedicated, involved, and present the Greek community was on campus, I felt like sorority life was something I “needed” to do.

After kickoff, preview, and winter break agonizing, the first Thursday back finally arrived and recruitment began. Through a week of stress, emotions, and a variety of outfits, I grappled with the houses I had left, and questioned the process more than once—things that I know now are all completely normal recruitment emotions. And come bid night, even though I was uncertain, I landed in a house.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve learned about the founders of my sorority, our colors, our crest, and our values—none of the secret “ritual” so stereotyped in movies, but things that are important to me in learning why I belong in the house I’m in. I’ve spent time at the house studying with the girls, eating delicious food, and—the most priceless—just joking around with everyone and forming bonds that didn’t exist before. And on Friday, when I arrived at the house just before the festivities for Gone Greek Night were about to begin, I noticed that the girls whose names I didn’t know a short month ago had become my sisters. When I climbed off the shuttle with a girl I just met and rang the doorbell of the house to be greeted by sisters screaming to see our dresses, I felt like I was home.

By this point, you might be wondering: how does being in a sorority relate to Judaism? It’s simple: it’s just another family. Growing up, my Hebrew school always emphasized that Judaism is being part of a strong community, but to get a lot out of the community, you have to give a lot to it. I’ve seen this time and time again in my sorority; the girls who love the most and care the most are the girls who give the most. The exec board is comprised of the ones who are known and loved, but also the ones who give the most back, spending countless hours working on projects. Through my one month in my new “sisterhood,” I can already see how it aligns with my heritage and the community in which I grew up, a connection for which I am grateful.

Greek Green Cup is another branch of NU's effort to reduce its carbon footprint.

This month is Northwestern’s Green Cup competition, in which residential halls, residential colleges, and Greek houses compete to see who can reduce their consumption and environmental impact for the entire month of February. Also coinciding this Wednesday is Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish holiday that celebrates trees and the environment.  People may not think of Judaism as an environmentally conscious religion, but there are many themes and ideas present in Judaism teaching us how to relate to our earth.

On Tu B’Shevat, it is customary to have a meal of fruit, nuts, and other produce that comes from trees.  By doing this, we give thanks to the earth and remember the importance of trees and the environment in our everyday lives.  In the past few decades, Tu B’Shevat has taken on an especially environmental meaning through which Jews can learn more about how to limit their environmental impact on the world.  Many Jews now have special Tu B’Shevat Seders, similar to the Passover Seder.  However, instead of learning about the Exodus story like on Passover, they learn about how we can improve the earth, and the philosophical and religious sons of Tu B’Shevat and environmentalism.

As Northwestern students save water, electricity, food, and other important resources, I am reminded of all the Jewish values and ideas inherent to environmentalism.  In the story of Genesis, God created Man to look after the Garden of Eden and to ensure the safekeeping of the animals and plants.  Within the very first story told in the Torah is the theme of environmentalism.  This world isn’t just for us, but rather belongs to all living things.  This is just one of many examples of environmentalism in the Torah, and I think that it’s just as important for us to learn about the overarching ideas and philosophies of environmentalism, as it is to conserve water and energy this month and year-round.

Northwestern brings in many speakers for Green Cup who talk about the environmentalist movement and how to save the environment.  I think that in addition, it would be nice for Northwestern to bring in speakers who could talk about environmentalism in different world religions and philosophies, to not just educate us on the how, but also on the moral and philosophical importance of environmentalism.