Dirty Sex and the Bible

 

Whenever we read a news story dealing with a field or event with which we are familiar, we are astonished at how wrong they get it. I have long been appalled at how poorly journalists seem to get religion. We ought to realize that they are probably just as bad on fields we do not know.

A recent piece in the Daily Mail mocks Biden’s White House for showcasing Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during a memorial ceremony for those who have died of COVID. Trump also had the song performed at a recent White House event—I think it was for Thanksgiving. It is becoming a nondenominational religious standard.

But the Daily Mail objects:

“Jewish fans of late Canadian singer Leonard Cohen are pleading for his classic hit 'Hallelujah' to no longer be played at memorials and other somber events because of the ballad's sexual lyrics after it was performed at a COVID-19 memorial this week on the eve of Joe Biden's inauguration.”

“It's actually a sexual song - and people should stop trying to make it into something it's not.”

“'Yes, Christians, all Jewish people make fun of you when you sing the song about Jewish sex to celebrate your holidays and commemorate your lost. All of us'”

The author of the Mail piece, and his Jewish informants, are apparently unaware that the story of David and Bathsheba is word for word in the Christian as well as the Jewish Bible. There is no reason why the adulterous allusion would be apparent to Jews and not Evangelical Christians, who do have a bit of a reputation for reading their Bibles.

And suggesting that Cohen’s song is not religious because it describes this affair makes just as much sense as saying the Bible is not about religion because it describes this affair. Do they imagine that sex and the relationship between the sexes is not a part of God’s creation? Have they never read the Song of Songs?

Probably not. They would be shocked.

The Daily Mail piece helpfully quotes the lyrics, although not accurately.

There are actually several versions of the song. But just go with the lyrics published with this story. They end

“I'll stand before the Lord of Song 

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.”

Who can the author and his Jewish informants imagine this “Lord of Song” might be? Donald Duck?

And don’t they know Hebrew? The word “Hallelujah” means “Praise God (Yahweh).” How subtle is that?

More on the meaning of Cohen’s “Hallelujah” here.

In similarly stupid recent articles elsewhere, Donald Trump is taken to task for having them play “Frank Sinatra’s ‘My Way’” as he departed the White House. They quote Mia Farrow and Nancy Sinatra saying Frank would have hated Trump. So how dare he take her father’s and her husband’s song?

Frank Sinatra had no rights to the song. The lyrics are by Paul Anka. Sinatra merely covered it. Trump has precisely as much right to it as Frank Sinatra did.