A Second Bible by Melech Ravitch
Why shouldn’t a second Jewish Book be put together and edited and canonized, on the lines of our Bible? 377 A Bible is not an anthology, nor a history, nor a collection of documents. It…
Category: Wisdom Traditions
No Time for Literary Criticism
You are the voice of people with adhesive tape across their mouths This is no time for literary criticism. Nor for attacking the gorillas with surrealistic poems. And what use are metaphors if slavery is…
A Disciple and His Guru
Dear Max, I never read Christopher Isherwood until this summer. What drew me to him was not his fictional output but his spiritual journey. My Guru and His Disciple is his engaging memoir of several…
Om Satyam Shivam Sundaram
If you’ve ever … put your faith in a guru traveled to India and were blown away and never took a single drug recited a mantram throughout the day memorized part of chapter 2 of…
A Most Unsolemn Request
At my wake or funeral With a big smile on your shining-with-sri face Announce: “Happy Continuation Day, Shimmelstoy!”
Ann Manganaro, Teka Childress, Ellen Rehg
We were just sitting there talking when Peter Maurin came in. We were just sitting there talking when lines of people began to form, saying, “We need bread.” We could not say, “Go, be…
Maintain Your Equanimity–
Innumerable spheres enter one sphere. One sphere enters innumerable spheres. —Diamond Sutra
Five Thousand Years of Jewish Creativity
I learned Hebrew by dint of much effort. It is a difficult language, severe and ascetic. Its ancient basis is the proverb from the Mishna: “Silence is a fence for wisdom.”…If it weren’t for Hebrew,…
Ventures
Friends, I wanted to pass this brief passage on to you from Hannah Arendt, German philosopher, Jewish immigrant to the USA, author of Eichmann in Jerusalem, from an interview in 1964… The venture into the…
On Moshe-Leib of Sassov
Before we leave Sassov, let us take a minute to ask ourselves these last questions: Was Reb Moshe-Leib the forerunner of all those helpless men and women who, generations later, eternities later, continued to…