YOU DON'T KNOW FROM GUILT

On Wednesday night, members of Harvard's Hillel and the Catholic Students Association (CSA) gathered to discuss the one thing of which Jews and Catholics alike are expert purveyors--guilt.

For the most part, the conversation, or "dialogue" as we now call such things, dealt with serious issues such as communal history, the perception of ethics and the conscience itself. The participants earnestly tried to pin down the nature and origins of guilt in their religions through soul-searching and cerebration. Unfortunately, they failed.

We at Dartboard would like to make this process much simpler for those who missed the meeting on Wednesday. We'll happily tell you the source of all that guilt, no extensive study necessary; it's the Jewish mother.

The Jewish mother, legendary creator of guilt, needs little introduction or explanation. The simple phrase "No, it's alright..."(left trailing off at the end) succinctly expresses the true guilt-producing power of the Jewish mother. Examine these examples:

"Want to sit down, Ma?"

"No, it's alright..."

"Have a cup of tea, Ma?"

"No, it's alright..."

"Need an aspirin, Ma?"

"No, it's alright..."

"Use my umbrella, Ma?"

"No, it's alright..."

We could go on, but we would have to eat something to feel better. And we don't want to devastate our faithful readers.

You might ask how the Jewish mother became responsible for the guilt of our Catholic friends as well. The answer is purely historical, since Catholicism is merely a popular off-shoot of Judaism--and a financially successful one at that! In effect, all Catholic mothers are just Jewish mothers whose ancestors took a detour several years ago.

Of course, this claim need not be universalized to all guilt. The emergence of mothers in other cultures--Chinese, Italian, you name it--has given rise to the theory that guilt has prime sources all over the world. In fact, the sentence "No, let the children have it; I'll be fine..." has been found translated in more than 200 languages and dialects as well as in ancient hieroglyphs.

For their next such meeting, we at Dartboard encourage Hillel and the CSA to invite another constituency--namely, their mothers. At least no one will go home hungry.