(New York Observer) — DAVOS, Switzerland — They say that Justin Bieber says the Shema, the Jewish prayer about the singularity of God, before every performance. That’s beautiful. But it would be even more so if he internalized the words.
Shema dismisses any ideas of a tri-partite God and insists that God is one. What it tells those of us who recite it is that we too must bring together the disparate parts of our nature, the different strands of our lives, and weave them into a coherent, healthy whole.
Justin Bieber’s life is falling apart. Fame is overwhelming him, just as it did my friend Michael Jackson before him and Elvis before him. But Michael and Elvis made it through their twenties and thirties. The new brat-pack of baby celebs are barely making it through their teens. Their lives are being derailed, corruption is setting in, when they are at their most innocent.
