The Evolving Jew

In the New York Times a couple of days ago, Paul Krugman  writes : “Back in the 1950s three social psychologists joined a cult that was predicting the imminent end of the world. Their purpose was to observe the cultists’ response when the world did not, in fact, end on schedule. What they discovered, and described in their classic book, “When Prophecy Fails,” is that the irrefutable failure of a prophecy does not cause true believers — people who have committed themselves to a belief both emotionally and by their life choices — to reconsider. On the contrary, they become even more fervent, and proselytize even harder.” The rest of his column is about the “fiscal cliff”. But the part above is relevant to every eschatological prediction in Judaism. There have been many dates when Mashiach was predicted to arrive. When he didn’t, Jews just figured that hadn’t been worthy and believed in the next date, be it 5. 15, or 150 years in the future, and that the geulah would occur then.

It’s that time of year again tonight – Nitl Nacht! (Or at least it was last night, when I meant to post this.) Silent night – that is without the learning of Torah. What is Nitl Nacht? Where did it come from? I recently listened online to a lecture by Marc Shapiro and ended up giving small class in my neighborhood about Nitl Nacht and some related topics. Here’s some of what I said. I took most of it from the Marc Shapiro lecture, but some is also from Dovbear ( here  and  here ), Miriam Shaviv ( here ), the Seforim blog ( here ), and Hirhurim ( here ). I can’t seem to find where I downloaded the audio of Marc Shapiro’s lecture from, but I suspect that the lecture was mostly the same as what he wrote in ”Torah Study on Christmas Eve,”  Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy  8 (1999), (which I didn’t read, due to the $40 price tag associated with downloading it.) So what is Nitl Nacht? Well, basically, it’s a traditional approach to Christmas eve among most Chassidim, in tha