The magazine Heeb interviewed Rush singer-bassist-keyboardist Geddy Lee a couple of years ago, focusing especially on his relationship to Jewishness/Judaism. Like most rock bands, Rush rarely speak in interviews about religion, although their lyrics have constantly registered a strong skepticism about religion, and in more recent years edge toward agnosticism or atheism. This has caused some discomfort and mild protest from religious Rush fans, as Rush drummer and lyricist Neil Peart has made criticism of religion and articulations of a post-religious sensibility more frequent in Rush songs in recent years.

From my perspective, it is refreshing to read Lee speaking frankly, albeit in a typically clipped rock-interview style, about the place of the Holocaust in his family’s life, and about his Jewish atheism. Theology is nothing if not a certain relentless and learned preoccupation with divinity, and theological preoccupations are best sculpted in free and frank exchanges and inquiry about how people experience and process their worlds. For this reason, I wish the interviewer would

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