Category: Jewish Tradition

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…

Today’s One-Liner (#188)

Hillel said, Separate not thyself from the congregation; trust not in thyself until the day of thy death; judge not thy fellow-man until thou art come into his place and say not anything which cannot…

Then Things Changed

“I was prepared actually never to be translated, never to be known, to remain a Yiddish writer.” –Isaac Bashevis Singer, quoted in Janet Hadda, Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Life, 88

A Yiddish Counterculture

If you read enough of Peretz and the countless Yiddish writers who followed, a deeper vision begins to emerge: of a Jewishness infinitely more interesting, more challenging, and more relevant, rooted in tradition, shaped by…