Our relationship to Torah is not based on asserting its factual historicity — whether based on “proofs” or “assertion despite reason.” Instead, each individual’s connection to scripture is based on the premise that the biblical narrative reflects an authentic religious experience that envelops some sort of reality and expresses it in a narrative and poetic fashion.”
— Rabbi David Bigman, “Refracting History Through the Spiritual Experience of the Present”
Tag: moments
All that we ever really have.
Jedi Wisdom
OVERHEARD IN THE GROCERY CHECKOUT line, the following exchange between tall father and fidgety small son: SS (holding a 2021 Star Wars calendar): Look! It’s Darth Vader. And Luke Skywalker. TF: Luke is a Jedi, right? SS: Right. TF: Jedi…
A young person who goes out and sees this great conjunction now can potentially see the next close one in 2080. It’d be a nice connection between generations, one that makes you think about all those who have seen these conjunctions in the past–and those who will glimpse it in the future.”
— Astronomer Patrick Hartigan on tonight’s celestial event
Truly, you are where your mind is.”
–Baal Shem Tov
5 Thoughts: A Celebration of Bags
0. WHO AMONG US HAS NOT searched for the perfect shouldered carryall? Here are five of my favorites: 1. In high school, I owned a black, one-pocket, snap-closure American naval officer’s bag suitable for a notebook, pens, paperbacks and other…
How to Become Wise(r)
PICTURE, ON EVERYTHING/PLACE/PERSON/MOMENT you encounter, a big bright label that says, “LEARN HERE.”
VOTE.
I MAY LOSE SOME FRIENDS by saying this, but: It’s no longer Republican v. Democrat — it’s fascist v. patriot. Choose accordingly. (And if you’re in the mood for an escapist polemic, have at.) 11/8 UPDATE: !!!!!
Fixing a Hole
RECENTLY, I RECEIVED SOME SPAM from Chosen People Ministries (one flavor of the Jews-for-Jesus-ers). When their website’s response-form asked why I wanted to unsubscribe from future mailings, I wrote, “Exodus 20:3; 1 Kings 18:21. Go play with someone else.” They…
AND SO, EARTH CONTINUED TO shake off the irritants that had plagued her since the rise of the Industrial Age…”
— Barbatus the Elder
On Writerly Spirituality: Yom Kippur Edition
THIS DAY IS STEEPED IN regret — and resolve. Yom Kippur is not as joyful as Pesach or Shavuot, which respectively mark the exodus from Egypt and embrace of the Torah[1], but it’s a day which carries its own spiritual…
Disposathon!
SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE: IT IS easier to get rid of everything in one big purge than a few things in a bunch of smaller ones. The time: June 1985. Hopped-up on Jack Kerouac’s On the Road and The Dharma Bums,…
Prosatio Silban and the Sudden Feline
(Three printed pages. If you’re new to these tales, here are the preface and introduction.) IT BEGAN WITH AN ALMOST automatic kindness, and led to an inevitable but gracious end. Prosatio Silban was tidying up after a somewhat slow morning…