Author: Mark J. Chmiel

The Jewish Inheritance

Leon Wieseltier also took pleasure in studying with Wiesel. The two would spend time on the phone analyzing, say, a poem by Hayim Nachman Bialik, or a rabbinical text or midrash. Wieseltier prized the “depth…

Today’s One-Liner (#280)

After [Elie Wiesel’s] death on July 2, 2016, the Holocaust scholar Michael Berenbaum praised him as an “heir of Jeremiah with his message of rebuke but also of Isaiah with his words of consolation.” –Joseph…

Virtue’s Greatness

Fortitude appears to excel among the virtues. Virtue is concerned with things difficult and good. But fortitude is concerned with difficulty; hence it is the greatest of the virtues. To this we must reply: the…

Today’s One-Liner (#279)

And while it’s nice to feel virtuous, it’s worth considering whether feeling virtuous and being virtuous are actually the same thing.  –Bret Easton Ellis, White, 89

Devouring Its Own

As a result of this upheaval Vietnam has indeed freed itself from its former colonial masters. But the national liberation that the revolution achieved was not the only liberation for which it was fought. “We…

Love Is the Way

To love with understanding and without understanding.  To love blindly, and to folly.  To see only what is lovable.  To think only on these things.  To see the best in everyone around, their virtues rather…

Today’s One-Liner (#277)

We are to keep our eyes on Him (and on our neighbors’ needs) rather than on ourselves.  –Peter Kreeft, Practical Theology: Spiritual Direction from Saint Thomas Aquinas

Simplify!

Simplify your life by throwing out all the things you have that you don’t need, all that’s not virtuous, useful, or pleasant. Don’t do anything for any other reason, e.g., because “everybody’s doing it” or…