Abstract
[...]one must stay on one's toes, and strive to be, academically speaking, a Hebrew of Hebrews. [...]the word "tradition" is an enormously rich and complex one. At its core, it is a parable of modernization, of the breakdown of shtetl life and the emigration to America, the land of the future.4 And while the life of the shtetl is lovingly portrayed, with its wonderfully colorful array of human types, on the crucial issue separating the traditional order from the modern one-the issue of arranged marriages, and more generally, of the importance of romantic love and mutual consent in marriage-it leaves us in no doubt that the old order did not stand a chance. [...]let me conclude with a poem, an extraordinary poem, by the American poet Dana Gioia.