The Bliss with Books
Back and forth from my desk to my shelves, ten, twenty, thirty times a day. The sources swirl around me. I am drugged by books. The sweet savor rises from the pages. A delirium of…
Tag: Leon Wieseltier
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…
Picking and Choosing
“Nothing Jewish is alien to me.” [Gerschom] Scholem liked to say that. We argued about it many times. I objected that a great deal that is Jewish is alien to me (and to him, too)….
Drugged by Books
Soon after my father’s death, I started reading Leon Wieseltier’s Kaddish, his journal of reflections on his year of going to shul and saying Kaddish. In the days and weeks ahead, Wieseltier offered me some…