"Dispatches from the Wilderness" (Bamidbar)
28 de agosto de 2018
27 de agosto de 2018
26 de agosto de 2018
Vida
The rare
desert lions of Namibia are rapidly facing extinction
Here is a male around the Kunene region of Namibia
25 de agosto de 2018
Salmos
"Introducing The Psalms Experience"
Panelists include scholar and Psalms translator Robert Alter,
musicologist Neil W. Levin,
and David Van Biema, Time magazine’s former
chief religion writer
23 de agosto de 2018
When you reap the harvest in your field and overlook a sheaf in the
field, do not turn back to get it; it shall go to the stranger, the
fatherless, and the widow – in order that YHWH your God may bless you in
all your undertakings.
When
you beat down the fruit of your olive trees, do not go over them again;
that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
When you gather the grapes of your vineyard, do not pick it over again; that shall go to the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.
Deuteronomy 24, 19-21
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
16 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.
