Gil Maybe it’s part of the romanticization of the past, but I really feel like critical theory had made its point about the inherent incoherence of binary thinking, by the end of the Nineties. Over the past twenty years, it really seems like the situation has regressed, with binary thinking resurging and this time mobilizing the … Read more
I guess I still got #TDS. After much back and forth with ChatGPT, eliminating Eurocentric biases, ensuring it was operating from an updated knowledge base, and requesting elaboration on points raised, I found this to be a helpful taxonomy and summary of the uniquely American variant of fascism. There’s no hope for me, friends. It … Read more
The land needs the rain. I’m grateful for it. I’m also grateful to live in a safe, dry home, with a heater. And not in a tent on a rubble-strewn mudslide of a street running between the ruins of bombed-out stores and apartment buildings, struggling to keep the freezing wind and downpour away from my … Read more
As a child, my parents taught me that Judaism is not a religion, it’s a way of life. Now, as an adult, I understand why the distinction is so important – and what it means for identity, culture, and covenant.
Will the release of the Epstein files bring down the current POTUS? And does that mean that Vance will take over as POTUS?
Allahu Akbar. But also: “A strong atheistic explanation has to work without invoking chosenness, providence, metaphysics, or teleology, while still accounting for the extraordinary empirical fact-pattern: a tiny, dispersed, repeatedly targeted ethnocultural group not only survives but regenerates political autonomy, cultural creativity, and demographic continuity over multiple millennia. The best explanation in secular scholarship combines … Read more
Those of us who use AI daily are not worried about it taking over anything soon. 😂 We’re worried about the people who have already taken over using AI. 😬 This tech is DUMB. Like, it may be the best tech ever invented, but it’s still DUMB. And people make life or death, hire or … Read more
What ties together all Hasidim across time and space? Look to the root, not the branches There is one river with many streams You can research the thing in the academy if you want, but set your scope to maximum scale Otherwise you’ll spend your life in the tide pool not even knowing of the … Read more
Rambam, Maimonides, Abu Imran, or the Ra”m ba”r Maza”l, as he was variously known, was not just a legal scholar and judge, not just a doctor and a philosopher, but a contemplative mystic on the path of prophecy, not just practicing conceptual-emotional quietude through meditative prayer but actively living a life of self-abnegation, service, and … Read more
I see your “Palestinians/Israelis are a made-up people” and raise you “Palestinians and Israelis are both made-up peoples descended from second commonwealth Israelites”