Crit

5 Thoughts: Informed Appreciation

1. IT’S ONE THING TO LIKE something. It’s something quite else to know why you like it — and how it came to be.

2. “Informed appreciation” is the key to that knowing. Only when you can comprehend the effort, expense, skill and moxie involved in making anything — dance, music, sequential or static art, acting, a useful tool, a good meal — can you be said to have truly grasped its essence.

3. This is especially true of those things that are done so well that they look easy. Take Dick Van Dyke’s 1960s-era physical comedy, or Gene Kelly’s soft-shoe; it’s as though their bones are made of rubber, if indeed they have any bones at all.

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Torah

365 Names: “Shekhina”

THE SHEKHINA, or “Presence (of G?d),” comes from the Hebrew root meaning “to dwell” (it’s the same root as “mishkan,” the portable desert G?d-tent AKA “Tabernacle”). There’s a seamless distinction between the Presence of G?d and G?d Itself. Tradition teaches that G?d is everywhere/when — but that doesn’t mean we always feel that. Shekhina is that closeness. With attention and practice, G?d’s Presence can be easier to experience in some places and times than others (e.g., the Western Wall, a maternity ward, or an observatory for the former; for the latter, Shabbat and other holy days, solar or lunar eclipses).

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Crit

Words to Bring Back: “Pink”

– Definition (per SubGenius usage): adj. Happily and/or militantly vapid and mediocre; commercially soulless n. One who or that which exhibits these traits.

– Used in a sentence: adj. “I’m surprised to see the otherwise excellently talented Tom Hanks in a movie as Pink as Forrest Gump.” n. “Spank the Pink who tries to drive you nuts.” (DEVO)

– Why: Not so much a WTBB as a word deserving of greater currency. It’s a genuine and succinct Four Letter Word as nasty as any of its once-taboo brethren or sistren.

The only difference between a madman and myself is that I am not mad.”
— Salvador Dali

Life

Pithyism #$$$

IN THE ABSENCE OF A national social-service corps, and for proper character-building, everyone should work in retail sales for a year. (Especially during the holiday rush.)

Torah

Right (of) Passage

ONE QUESTION THAT OFTEN COMES up during Torah study, especially the portions that concern the seemingly over-described sacrifices and Tabernacle (portable wilderness G?d-tent) and its holy furniture, is, “Does G?d really care about all these details?”

One answer: “Who knows? But we care.”

What do Jews do when it comes time to experience pivotal life-events? We talk to a rabbi (or at least someone knowledgeable). According to Jewish law and custom, there is an ancient and proper way to do anything whether birth, education, adulthood-attainment, marriage, divorce, illness, or burial and mourning. It doesn’t matter how non-observant the querent is — they always want to know what to do, and how to do it right.

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