King Saul
Ye Sacred MusesThursday, July 26, 2012 by Simon Gordon | Jewish Ideas Daily » Daily Features
Are Jewish mourners forbidden from listening to music? On the face of it, the prohibition is absolute. Certainly, it is forbidden for mourners to attend concerts, or performances in general. But what about liturgical music, the music of the synagogue?
Editors' Picks
The Two Sauls Clive Sinclair, Times Literary Supplement. Like his biblical namesake, Saul Bellow became a monster in his dotage, according to his son's memoir. But in his writing, at least, Old Saul remained generous.
"How the Mighty Have Fallen!" Geoffrey O'Brien, New York Review of Books. Marc-Antoine Charpentier's opera David et Jonathas, now playing in Brooklyn, minimizes the religious elements of the biblical narrative to turn the fall of Saul's dynasty into a tragedy.
Waiting for God to Call Steven Millhauser, New Yorker. "His father and Samuel, two of a kind. Samuel: 'Thou art wicked.' His father: 'You are ignorant.' A special sect: the Jewish atheist." (Fiction)