How Things Looked in 1990

All over the world, we are saturated by a contemporary culture of materialism, instant communications, and electronic luxury. Advertising bombards us with pulsating music, sexual imagery, and the urgent appeal to involve ourselves more and…

Advice from the Sages

I am sorry that I cannot say anything more comforting, for active love is a harsh and fearful thing compared with love in dreams. Love in dreams thirsts for immediate action, quickly performed, and with…

Reading’s Joys

“Nothing is more beautiful than Plato; such reading, for those who are able to understand him, can give one happiness even in the most miserable circumstances.” –Simone Weil

Who Remained Decent?

So let us ask: who behaved better u­nder pressure, imprisoned Bolsheviks or religious believers? Materialists or ­those who acknowledged absolute standards of good and evil? Who acted nobly and who behaved like a scoundrel?  To…

Twenty-two Years Ago

The following is from Israeli novelist David Grossman’s Seven Days: A Diary, October 2001, in Death as a Way of Life: Israel Ten Years after Oslo MONDAYI keep reading hostile remarks about Israel in the…