"The Monarchy of Fear" (2018)
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "It is not in the heavens, that you should say, "Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?" (...) No, the thing is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to observe it". Deuteronomy
20 de agosto de 2018
Torah
"There are four basic assumptions shared by all ancient biblical interpreters:
- The belief that the Torah is a fundamentally cryptic text, so that when it says A it often really means B;
- The assumption that the Torah is a perfect text, without any internal contradictions or even any unnecessary words;
- The idea that, although the words of the Torah were uttered in the past and in a specific historical setting, those words are nonetheless directed to us today, teaching us what to do and think; and
- The idea that the Torah is a divinely given text from start to finish—not just the parts that are explicitly labeled as divine speech, “And the Lord said to Moses…” and the like, but every single word.
All
four of these assumptions might be described nowadays as
counter-intuitive, in the sense that they are not what we generally
assume about, for example, the laws of Hammurabi or the Legend of King
Keret or other writings from the ancient Near East—and, more to the
point, they’re not what modern scholars generally assume about the
Pentateuch. But they are what people came to assume about the Torah, and
ultimately this changed the meaning of the text as a whole. It also
became a mark of the Torah’s specialness. The Torah was the Book, the
profound, unitary, and eternally valid revelation of divine truth, and
the fact that it was interpreted in these special ways only vouchsafed
its unique standing."
James Kugel in "Not a Naive Reading: An Interview with Prof. James Kugel" (here)
19 de agosto de 2018
14 de agosto de 2018
Yom Kippur
For sins between man and God, Yom Kippur atones.
But for sins between a man and his fellow,
Yom Kippur does not atone until he appeases his fellow.
Mishnah, Tractate Yoma
12 de agosto de 2018
It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. Nothing could be seen of Castle Hill, it was wrapped in mist and darkness, not a glimmer of light hinted at the presence of the great castle. K. stood for a long while on the wooden bridge that led from the main road to the village, gazing up into the seeming emptiness.
"The Castle", Kafka (beginning)
11 de agosto de 2018
If there appears among you a prophet or a dream-diviner—and he gives you a sign or a portent, and the sign or portent that he named to you comes true—saying, “Let us follow other gods—whom you have not known—and worship them,” do not heed the words of that prophet or that dream-diviner. For YHWH your God is testing you to see whether you really love YHWH your God with all your heart and soul.
Deuteronomy 13, 2-4
Jerusalém
A gold Hellenistic-era earring unearthed in the City of David’s Givati Parking Lot excavations
belonged to an upper class man or woman in Jerusalem (2nd or 3rd century BCE)
9 de agosto de 2018
Vida
A king penguin colony on Ile aux Cochon, part of Frances Iles Crozet
archipelago
The world’s largest colony of king penguin has declined by
nearly 90 percent in three decades, researchers report
Recent satellite
image show the population has collapsed, with barely 200,000 remaining
6 de agosto de 2018
4 de agosto de 2018
Vida
An orca whale off the Canada coast near Victoria, British Columbia.
Whale researchers are keeping close watch on an endangered orca that has spent the past week carrying and keeping her dead calf afloat in Pacific Northwest waters.
2 de agosto de 2018
31 de julho de 2018
30 de julho de 2018
Christine Hayes
"The Derech Eretz of Civil Discourse: Being Right, Being Good - How to Answer a Fool"
29 de julho de 2018
26 de julho de 2018
24 de julho de 2018
23 de julho de 2018
All who possess these three things,
praise as disciples of our father Abraham.
But if these three other things,
they are disciples of the wicked Balaam.
A good eye, a humble spirit, and a forbearing soul -
a disciple of our father Abraham.
A bad eye, a haughty spirit, and a greedy soul -
A disciple of the wicked Balaam.
Avot 5:22
22 de julho de 2018
18 de julho de 2018
The LORD our God spoke to us at Horeb, saying: You have stayed long enough at this mountain. Start out and make your way to the hill country of the Amorites
and to all their neighbors in the Arabah, the hill country, the
Shephelah, the Negeb, the seacoast, the land of the Canaanites, and the Lebanon, as far as the Great River, the river Euphrates.
Deuteronomy 1, 6-7
17 de julho de 2018
Maimónides
"The Great Eagle - Journey in the Footsteps of Maimonides"
(with the option of english subtitles)
16 de julho de 2018
15 de julho de 2018
12 de julho de 2018
Sinagoga de Huqoq
A mosaic found in the 2018 Huqoq excavation is labeled 'a pole between two' and depicts a biblical scene from Numbers 13-23.
The images show two spies sent by Moses to explore Canaan carrying a pole with a cluster of grapes.
11 de julho de 2018
To be elsewhere - the great vice of this race, its great and secret virtue, the great vocation of this people. Any crossing for them means the crossing of the desert. The most comfortable houses, the best built from stones as big as the temples pillars, the most real of real estate, the most overwhelming of apartment houses will never mean more to them than a tent in the desert.
Charles Péguy, "Basic Verities"
10 de julho de 2018
8 de julho de 2018
5 de julho de 2018
4 de julho de 2018
Médio Oriente
"The MESA Debate: The Scholars, the Media, and the Middle East",
Bernard Lewis and Leon Wieseltier vs. Edward Said and Christopher Hitchens (1986)
3 de julho de 2018
2 de julho de 2018
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