FORTY YEARS AGO THIS WEEK, my friend Ralfh came over to my apartment, held up an album cover, and said, “You have to hear this.” He slid out the vinyl disk, put it on the stereo, lowered the tone arm,…
Month: August 2018
Two Letters, One Torah
THE FIRST THING YOU NEED to know is that, in Hebrew, the letter D (dalet) looks a lot like the letter R (reish). It’s so easy to confuse the two, in fact, that Source Critics (those who see the Torah…
First Graf: The Illuminati Papers
THE LATE ROBERT ANTON WILSON is perhaps the greatest influence on my life and thought since even before Rabbi Akiva. His spirit is sprinkled here and there throughout this blog like raisins in a cake. A prolific author, RAW (as…
Don’t Look Up
OF ALL THE PET PEEVES this modern life offers, one of the most soul-sucking is checking out at the grocery store. I’m specifically talking about the debit-card machine. Time was, you could fill the two-to-three-minute transaction with friendly banter; ask…
365 Names of God: El Shaddai
EL SHADDAI is the name used primarily by the Biblical Patriarchs, usually translated as “God Almighty” and focusing on the deity’s providential or nurturing aspect. Scholars differ over whether “Shaddai” is cognate with similar Phoenician or Ugaritic words for mountains,…
The Torah can be taken, among other things, as a ‘polyphonic’ text, or a loose anthology of competing claims regarding the legal stipulations of the covenant. The edited Torah, following this approach, was not meant to be read as a practical and coherent handbook on how to carry out the law, but as a collage of competing understandings of the requirements of the covenant.”
— Rabbi David Frankel
Words to Bring Back: “Amateur”
– Definition: n one who engages in a pursuit, study, science, or sport as a pastime rather than as a profession – Used in a sentence: “He is a true amateur of cooking.” – Why: What I would like to…
Why I Love: Writing
IT’S THE SCARINESS OF THE blank screen. It’s the focused attention. It’s the mental sensation of assembling Tinker-Toy pieces into a coherent structure. It’s the way the hours fly by. It’s the nothing-else-like-it buzz (thank you, Stephen King). It’s the…
The Seven Don’ts (bagel reprise)
THE AUTHOR OF THIS PIECE is a “born and bred New Yorker,” but even here in the sticks some things are sacrosanct when it comes to that most iconic of Jewish foods. I agree with much of what she says,…
Minute Mitzvah: Saying the Shema
Today: Say the Shema. Explanation: The Shema (“Listen, Israel: יהוה our G?d! יהוה One!”), from Deuteronomy 6:4, is the statement of Jewish faith-commitment. It’s the first prayer we learn after birth and, if we time it right, the last prayer…
Raiders of the Lost Prayer
THE SCENE IS TENSE. RENE Belloq, a French archaeologist hired by the Nazi government (ptoo ptoo ptoo) to steal the Ark of the Covenant in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, is about to open the sacred artifact wherein…
Art Imitates Science Imitates Art
WHO DOESN’T KNOW “THE UNIVERSE Song” from the Monty Python movie Meaning of Life? The one that starts out, “Just remember that you’re standing on a planet that’s evolving / And revolving at 900 miles an hour…”? For years, I’ve…