About Celebrity Worship

The worship of the trademark has become so important that the merchandise is becoming almost valueless. I think these things should be emphasized because they are at the very root of the crisis of all values in our time. It's true about religion, it's true about art, it's true about politics, and it's becoming true about everything. This is a kind of spiritual system of dictatorship where the authority is everything and the idea is nothing. It is not an accident that the pious Jews knew almost nothing about the life of their prophets, the creators of the Talmud, or their many saints and spiritual leaders. They were interested in what those great men taught, not in whom they married and where they lived. While there are thousands and thousands of books about Jesus, I never read one single book about the life of Moses. Neither did my father. You may say they cared about the medicine, not about the person who prescribed it. (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

from Conversations with Isaac Bashevis Singer