I love books. I love their physical feel, the beauty of text laid out on a page, and most of all the chance of seeing the world through someone else's eyes. But we book readers are an ever smaller breed, having faced first the onslaught of radio and television and in these later days the draw of video games and the Internet. Having first learned the love of books from my parents, long time readers themselves, the solution to this problem seems obvious: book readers must only marry other book readers. Only thus can we be certain that our children will not be tempted by other media. "The best way to have a home that expresses a love for reading books is to share your home with a life partner who loves being a reader."
That last sentence is, of course, not a completely accurate quote: it comes from Tough Questions Jews Ask, by Rabbi Edward Feinstein, a book aimed Jewish teenagers. The tough question in this case is "Why Should I Marry Someone Jewish?" Rabbi Feinstein first approaches this question with a musical metaphor (p. 123): "Suppose I love classical music. What would happen if I have an intimate relationship with someone who hates classical music but loves heavy-metal rock? I'm into symphonies ... she collects Metallica, Megadeath, Nine Inch Nails. ... I wouldn't be able to take my partner to the concerts I enjoy ... [or] share the thrill of finding a great CD... Such a relationship would mean that I would have to give up a great deal of myself. What kind of love is that? And how long could we be happy?" In other words, the Jewish reader should marry someone Jewish because only someone who shares their culture will truly make them happy.
Are classical music and heavy metal really so incompatible? I could point to the genre of symphonic metal, which is influenced by classical and operatic music (at least, according to Wikipedia, though I first heard of such bands from a friend who loves both jazz and heavy metal.) But a more obvious example is the Metallica album S&M, a collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra that came out in 1999, four years before Rabbi Feinstein's book. My girlfriend pointed to the band Apocalyptica, a group of "classically trained cellists" (Wikipedia again) who released an album of Metallica covers in 1996.
While it's certainly unfair to require Rabbi Feinstein to be an expert on popular music, I think his choice of metaphor is significant. He starts with the unobjectionable claim that one probably cannot be happy with someone whose culture is too different from one's own (p. 124): "Eventually, we get tired of all the compromising that such relationships require. We get tired of giving up the things that mean so much to us." But as we see with his approach to music, he goes further than that. Rabbi Feinstein believes that cultures don't merge or blend, but rather are distinct entities with clearly defined borders. Heavy metal and classical music are too dissonant to combine, and the same goes for religion (p. 81): "Being a Christian is very admirable ... [and] being a Jew is equally admirable ... but being a 'Jew for Jesus' combines things that are impossible to mix."
And yet organizations like Jews for Jesus and the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations do exist, and they at least would claim the combination is not only possible but necessary for their members. Rabbi Feinstein asks (p. 125), "if you think a lot about the Holocaust, about Israel, about Torah, wouldn't you be happier spending your life with someone who shared all this with you?" According to the UMJC's website they "envision Messianic Judaism as a movement ... committed to Yeshua the Messiah that embrace the covenantal responsibility of Jewish life and identity rooted in Torah ...", and certainly Israel and the Holocaust appear to be important to them. What Rabbi Feinstein sees as immovable borders simply don't exist at all to others.
...
That's how far I got before running out of typing time, and getting distracted by other ideas. Somewhere in the final result, if I ever get back to it, will be a pivotal event in my youth: my failure to stop two former classmates from burning a copy of the New Testament (their Rabbi told them to burn it.) I don't think Feinstein would actually support such a thing, but it peeves me when people tell me how deep in my soul only Jews are my brethren. Including, apparently, Jewish Orthodox men who every morning at the beginning of their prayers say "Blessed are Thou for not making me a woman." Hilariously, Feinstein describes the different Jewish movements (including the Orthodox) as different instruments in a single beautiful orchestra. Though Ultra Orthodox Jews believe a woman's singing is impure, so presumably they're not playing opera.
I have many things to say regarding the Jewish issue, but they are all boring.
So I'll talk a little about the beginning -- the books. I'm a reader. Hardcore. I am never without a book, and I read between 2 books per week and 0.5 a book per week at a constant rate. However, I *ABSOLUTELY HATE* books. They are a crude physical format which should have died ages ago. eBooks are just not convenient enough yet, but I think that this is because of the lack of an economic incentive to make them convenient. Convenient means more than "easy to read", which some DRM-laden thingy could do for me, it also means easy to lend them out (I borrow, and lend, books from and to friends quite a bit), and it would mean all the comforts. However, I am thoroughly annoyed by this physical form factor. They are heavy. They take up a lot of room. They require me to either pay heavily for shipping or to carry them in suitcases and drive around. Basically, it's a horrible thing and I wish it could die.
Please do not equate love of reading and love of books!