At MAD Magazine, an Unlikely Rabbinic Figure
... what many people dont know is that Berg was a pretty religious guy. And working at MAD, there was little tolerance for serious, straight-laced Judaism, especially from then-publisher Bill Gaines, who happened to be an atheist. Gaines would respond to Bergs God bless you by telling him to go to hell ...
Berg held an honorary doctorate in theology and often contributed religiously themed pieces to Chabads Moshiach Times and the Bnai Brith newsletter. According to cartoonist Al Jaffee, MADs longest-running contributor (and a fellow contributor to Moshiach Times), Berg had a very moralistic personality. In a 2009 interview, he said, Dave had a messianic complex of some sort. He was battling
he had good and evil inside of him, clashing all the time. It was sad, in a sense, because he wanted to be taken very seriously and, you know, the staffers at MAD just didnt take anybody seriously; most of all ourselves ...
Like a Jewish Mark Twain, he was a great observer of life and how humans live it, especially in America. He took our insecurities, our contradictions, our strengths and weaknesses and he wrote and drew about them, exposing them all in such a way that we cant help but laugh at ourselves. And thats how Berg approached his religious writing as well ...
In a passage from My Friend God, he writes:
In the beginning God created
Whats that you ask, WHO IS GOD?
Im talking about MY FRIEND GOD.
Whens the last time I saw God?
Well, the astronauts just saw God
on the last shuttle mission
and SHES BLACK ...
http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/175952/at-mad-magazine-an-unlikely-rabbinic-figure