I continue to believe that this world has no ultimate meaning. But I know that something in it has a meaning and that is man, because he is the only creature to insist on having one.”
— Albert Camus
Tag: people
Ones I have known, if even tangentially.
I’m Going to Make This Viral If It’s the Last Thing I Do
THAT IS TO SAY, THIS: That Sonoma Valley’s synagogue-centered Jewish community is … “our little Anatevka-among-the-vines.” So there.
5 Thoughts: Lifechangers
0. YOU ARE ON A PATH. Suddenly, something knocks you onto another one. Here are five (of my many) “somethings.” 1. 2001: A space odyssey. At the tender age of six, my mind was blown, by what I could not…
Me and Mr. Jones
OUR TALE BEGINS SOME YEARS ago at my then-girlfriend’s folks’ house, specifically at their “hutch” — a giant, glass-shelved cabinet filled with such sentimental knickknacks and keepsakes as a commemorative Shirley Temple mug, souvenir spoons, porcelain bells, and the “good…
Sales Experience Necessary
IT HAS LONG BEEN PROPOSED in some circles that, in order to build a better class of citizens, we need some sort of national-service program along the lines of an in-house Peace Corps or revamped Works Progress Administration. “Give people…
We’re all just raindrops on a windshield.”
— Jerry Seinfeld, to Michael Richards in “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee”
One Another
THE SCENE: LAST WEEK AT a medical office. It was a strictly routine matter, but one which involved removing my cabbie cap and disclosing my kippah. “How was your Chanukah?” the technician asked. “It was good,” I replied. “Lots of…
Fear of death is worse than death.”
— R. Yehudah de Modena
Wish List
I want the rockets and bombings to stop. I want Hamas to surrender. I want the hostages released. I want civilians to stop dying. I want peaceful coexistence. I want to live without fear. I want to live without being…
Five More Thoughts
1. ANOTHER SERVICE, ANOTHER ARMED GUARD. After making cordial introductions — as one of the service leaders, I was the first to arrive this morning — he informed me that an access-grate was askew below the sanctuary. One of our…
The Feeling
YOM KIPPUR AFTERNOONS ARE USUALLY the spacetime nexus where radical growth happens — and this year was no exception. Let’s set the stage. After an intense twenty-or-so hours of not eating or otherwise tending to physicality, continuous guided liturgical meditation,…
A Weary Wariness
UNTIL OCTOBER 7 AND ITS AFTERMATH, I hadn’t understood just how pervasive and systemic Jew-hatred was. (Is.) I did know it was Out There, of course, but only intellectually. It’s something else to see it in its natural habitat. Case…