The Golden Rule
Tzu-Kung asked saying, Is there any single saying that one can act upon all day and every day? The Master said, Perhaps the saying about consideration: ‘Never do to others what you would not like…
Category: Jewish Tradition
He Must Go on, He Can’t Go on, He’ll Go on
Everything was doomed [in 1943]: [Yankev Glatshteyn’s] people, his tradition, its language, his artistic freedom, his chances of contributing to a continuing literature. Even his awesome responsibility as the chronicler of the last days of…
To Cancel or Not to Cancel?
[A TV reporter] wanted to know how I came to terms with a Jew-hater like Richard Wagner. I replied spontaneously: ‘There were, and there are, many fine people on earth, but none of them has…
Share the Wealth: Writing with Yael
#1Last Night’s Email from Jessica Flier I write, becauseFirst and foremost, I must!But also – because,Of you.To take the broken heart and expose itbring the carefully concealed underbelly to the surfaceresisting the urge to hide…
“Observe What’s Vivid”
1.“There is a story in the Jewish tradition about a student going to see a great rabbi, not principally to study Torah or Talmud, but to watch how the rabbi ties his shoes.”–Eboo Patel 2. “I…
Denying Adorno
I have no idea that at the same time in the United States of America, Theodore Adorno has come out with the sweeping statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric. A meaningful, powerful…
Keep Going
He used to say,“It is not your dutyTo complete the work, But neither are you freeTo desist from it…” –Rabbi Tarfon, Pirke Avot, 2.21
Joanie’s Teacher
“Make the impossible possible, the possible easy, the easy elegant.” –Moshe Feldenkrais