Mourning a dead disposition
On the mysterious persistence of faith
Morte e Satisfação Ao Lado do Tejo
Why ever move from a perfect place?
11 Lessons for Existential Tourists
The Chassidic masters recognize there is something both profound and wrong with uprootedness, travel, the state of being on the road. Their approach is too complex for a full survey here, but we need for contrast look no further than the (desirable) recognition of the Maggid of Mezritch that he is but a traveler in […]
I Won’t Know What Pittsburgh Means
Sometimes, when I’m bored, I imagine something truly preposterous—a man of space and time. Such a man would not see the world the way we do. I like to think he’d divide things neatly into cubic meters, or perhaps (with a nod to the issue of establishing an absolute frame of reference for such a […]
Every argument, every compromise, every concession to pragmatism, every demarcation and limit and definition driven into the ground seeking solid bedrock for anchoring the chains, they make me sick. There are only two places I can actually live, sub-rational nihilism and faith. Subrational nihilism, the power of it — this is the good stuff. Let […]
How The Holocaust Became A Political Plaything
By some miracle, the world seemed to decide, after the holocaust, that anti-Semitism was not the Jews’ issue to be dealt with by them alone, as everyone had previously agreed, but the world’s issue to be dealt with by everyone. This acknowledgment by the nations of the world did not immediately bring the Messiah, as […]
I once heard an explanation for why students of Chassidus seem to write fewer works of original Torah thought than those who do not study it. Without Chassidus, you learn a text, find what seems to be a flaw in it, study more, and write an essay rescuing the author from his apparent error. With […]
My Thoughts When You Quit Observant Judaism
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