Could this really be socialism—with the labor camps of Kolyma, with the horrors of collectivization, with the cannibalism and the millions of deaths during the famine? Yes, there were times when a very different understanding…
Concentration, meditation, and pure contemplation focused on a single object constitute perfect discipline. 3.4—Barbara Stoler Miller, translation of Yoga Sutras Notes/Connections 1.Ekāgratā, noun, Sanskrit. One-pointedness, doing only one thing at a time, concentrating upon a…
Tarrou was swinging his leg, tapping he terrace lightly with his heel, as he concluded. After a short silence the doctor raised himself a little in his chair and asked if Tarrou had an idea…
Humanity is divided into two categories—the people who count for something and the people who count for nothing. To believe in God is not a decision that we can make. All we can do is…
Working on a kind of sequel to Dear Layla Welcome to Palestine, I am imagining a character named Bella Levenshteyn, who in her twenties devotes herself to learning Yiddish, the language of her ancestors. At…
Journal, July 2005 Susan Sontag spent two weeks in North Vietnam in 1968, and wrote 90 pages about her experiences. (Perhaps I will cull from those notebooks I kept in Gaza and the West Bank…
This essay was first published in Tikkun, November-December 2002. In his 1986 Nobel lecture, Elie Wiesel spoke with characteristic gravity on any attempt to reckon with the Holocaust: “There are no theological answers, there are no…
A library I once spent time in Is named in honor of Pope Pius XII He was nothing if not prudent And prudence is a virtue much of the time In 1948 When talking with…
Dear Mark, Here is my reflection of Dear Layla, I thought at first that I should apologize for the scatter-brained style of writing I’m sure this letter will take. Then I thought, he probably doesn’t…
During a recent theological conversation with a friend in Louisville, I mentioned several thinkers and writers who had been very influential on me over these years. That exchange led to this concise collage…. 1. For…