Category: Jewish Tradition

To Learn by Heart

In a more general vein: that which we know by heart will ripen and deploy within us. The memorized text interacts with our temporal existence, modifying our experiences, being dialectically modified by them. The stronger…

Ecclesiastes

Compared with the neat little nostrums of comfort-mongering minds who cross our t’s and dot our i’s, Ecclesiastes is as great, as deep, and as terrifying as the ocean. If this philosopher were alive today…

Today’s One-Liner (#231)

The writer wakens you, the reader, he rouses you out of your indifference, he shows you the things you had not seen before, he makes your imagination work, he gives you wings, and you see…

Kafka, Sholom Aleichem, Peretz

In this respect Sholom Aleichem and Peretz are more like Kafka  than any of the three are like most modern writers. The Yiddish masters are largely unconcerned with the psychology of individual difference;   Kafka…

Conscience Thunders

King summoned the bold protest of ancient sources—“Today we particularly need the Hebrew prophets”—whose words had goaded the movement past fear and silence. “They did not believe that conscience is a still, small voice,” he…

Up to Us

If you’re looking for a silver lining in these years of chaos and rancor, consider this: We now know, beyond a shadow of doubt, that the calvary ain’t coming.  We know that our elected officials,…

Today’s One-Liner (#197)

To pray the psalms with even half a heart was to be comforted and discomfited, set in motion, set in stillness, set free, set on edge, led outside, led within.  –Daniel Berrigan, Uncommon Prayer: A…

The Talmud Jew

The Talmud Jew doesn’t kill. He doesn’t take part in wild orgies. You don’t have to fear him in the woods or on a lonely road. He doesn’t carry a gun. He doesn’t scheme to…