It takes courage to believe in the quiet goodness surrounding us in a world of loud wickedness threatening us.
It’s a narrow, fragile bridge to walk with your heart in hand.
Have strength and courage.
Gil
Arabic in Our National Future
Tally Gotliv wants Arabic speakers to feel unwelcome in our country and in the halls of our government.
Sorry Tally, Arabic is part of our national heritage as Jews and it is part of our national future as Zionists, and the millions of Arabic speakers in this country should speak loud and proud, until and beyond the point when it is restored as a national language and our children learn it together with Hebrew from elementary school onward.
The forces of racism and fascism traffic in fear and intimidation, and they’re desperate to hang on to the power we give them.
It falls on us especially, those committed to our laws and traditions, to ensure that our service and our work do not unintentionally sustain the forces of evil subverting those very laws and traditions.
The First Word
At the start, [God] spoke a word, and the word was “God,” and the word heard itself and knew itself, and thereby came to know its [Speaker].
Within itself the word heard many words, and many words within words within words, words beyond count or containment in any human tongue
At the lowest levels of this speech, in the deepest undertones of the original word, pulsed a sub-sonic fractal of the entire word itself.
A word that at first heard itself incorrectly, and understood itself mistakenly, until it joined itself with the other words it heard and came to know.
An ineffable word, in its own, translated way:
“Human”
Don’t Get Boiled Alive
There’s a famous experiment people like to bring up.
The story goes, some researchers decided to test animals’ sensitivity to a harmful environment. So they took some frogs and dumped them into a pot of boiling water. Surprise surprise – the frogs immediately jumped out.
But what the researchers did next is the punchline. Supposedly, they put frogs in a pot of regular water and slowly turned up the temperature. Instead of jumping out, the frogs boiled to death. The takeaway is obvious – animals (and by extension people) will act quickly to save themselves from an immediate threat, but will inure themselves to a threat introduced slowly over time.
Applied to political situations in democratic societies, the analogous message is equally clear: attack freedom too quickly and people will react strongly; steal it slowly over time and people won’t move a muscle.
But is that really the story of the frogs?
As it happens, there’s a crucial piece missing that’s not widely known. (Or at least, not as widely as the rest of the story.)
Those frogs that remained in the slowly heated water and boiled to death?
They were lobotomized first.
It turns out, no – animals (and by extension people) will not simply remain in an increasingly hostile and threatening situation until they expire (or are expired).
They will jump, they will flee, they will seek shelter and safety, and they will do everything they can to live.
Whether they’re dumped into a dangerous situation or whether it slowly creeps up around them.
Unless they’re lobotomized.
Lobotomies can be physical. Like the researchers did with the frogs, actual portions of the brain can be removed, leaving the organism non-responsive to its impending doom.
Those don’t happen often in democratic societies.
But lobotomies can also be psychological. The result of social pressures and cultural dynamics. The product of mass media technology and mass education curricula. The outcome of a misguided confrontation with ambiguity and difference for generations trapped in a web of myths, slogans, and soundbytes.
Until people no longer read books, they scroll screens.
They no longer have discussions, they watch reels.
They no longer ask questions, they follow crowds.
They no longer think, they just absorb and repeat.
Those kinds of lobotomies are much more insidious, and much harder to detect – you can hear it in someone’s words but you can’t spot it on a brain scan.
Those kinds of lobotomies happen often, even in democratic societies.
And when a person has been thus lobotomized, what they’ve lost isn’t a particular cortex but the faculty to critically observe and analyze and strategize. They’ve lost the ability to trust what they’re seeing, to analyze it against the rules of reason and experience, to plan to effectively escape it if need be.
They’ve lost their survival instincts as a rational animal, and they will remain in the pot while the water is slowly heated, and they will boil to death.
Less than a century after Mein Kampf, one of the world’s most popular AI’s created by one of the world’s richest (and most popular) men is going full MechaHitler and blaming the Jews for everything.
Less than a century after Kristallnacht, Jewish people and synagogues are being regularly attacked for collective crimes uniquely imputed to them as Jews.
Less than a century after Auschwitz, an authoritarian government is once again spending tens of billions of dollars building concentration camps.
The temperature of the water is rising, my friends.
Don’t get boiled alive.
ICE Budget
ICE budget is now over
$145 billion
On par with the Russian defense budget (at war) of
$145.9 billion
Almost as big as the entire US defense budget of
$150 billion
Together with the funding allocated for other federal departments’ programs targeting immigrants, the total US budget for rounding up immigrants and putting them in concentration camps is now
$168 billion
Do you think it has stopped with criminals?
Do you think it will stop with immigrants?
Do you think it can stop, with all the popular and political support?
Maps and Geography
Is it just me or are random map and geography pages obsessed with the Jewish people and Israel?
I’m not particularly complaining, since they don’t seem to be antisemitic and especially since it might just be an impression generated by the algorithm, but even so, there is an oddly not low number of seemingly generic map and geography pages with a recurring interest in sharing illustrations of Jewish statistics.
I Prefer to Call Myself a Jew
“My language is [American English]. My culture, my attainments are [North Eastern American]. I considered myself [American] intellectually, until I noticed the growth of anti-Semitic prejudice in [the United States]. Since that time, I consider myself no longer a[n American]. I prefer to call myself a Jew.”
Truth be told, I noticed the trend towards racist fascism almost two decades ago, and the historical bigotry upon which that trend is built has been known to me since my youth. Antisemitism found fertile ground in the old prejudices of the New World.
But I feel you, Siggy.
H/t Rivka Hellendall
Divine Communication as Relational Autobiography
And so – the summarization of my discussion with ChatGPT on the tension between and intersection of metaphysics and semiotics in divine communication…
“Divine Communication as Relational Autobiography in Translation: A Semiotic-Semantic Framework for Embodied Hermeneutics”
This article proposes a theory of divine communication that integrates semiotic structure, semantic content, and embodied interpretation. Building on the insights of Rabbi José Faur, classical Kabbalistic sources, and contemporary semiotics and hermeneutics, it argues that divine speech constitutes a relational autobiography translated into symbolic form. This theory reframes traditional theological models by locating divine meaning not in metaphysical essence but in structured, covenantal relations. It expands the scope of interpretation to include non-conceptual, embodied forms of semantic uptake, laying the foundation for a broader, non-reductive theology of divine signs.
1. Introduction: The Problem of Divine Communication
The nature of divine speech has long posed a central problem in theology. How can an infinite, transcendent Being communicate with finite, embodied creatures? If divine communication is real, must it be propositional? If it is symbolic, how can it be meaningful without reducing God to the symbols themselves? This article proposes a semiotic and semantic framework in which divine communication is understood not as metaphysical disclosure but as relational autobiography in translation. The divine speaks not “about” God, but to the human, within a structured system of signs that mediate will, memory, and relationship.
2. Semiotic Foundations: Symbols as Structured Signs
Divine communication takes the form of structured symbols—names, words, rituals, cosmic patterns—that function as signs. These signs are not arbitrary; they are chosen, relational, and isomorphic to the divine-human covenant. Drawing on Peircean semiotics, we understand a sign as composed of a representamen (form), an object (what it refers to), and an interpretant (the effect it produces). In the case of divine signs, the interpretant may include not only thought but emotion, ethical transformation, or bodily attunement.
In Semitic traditions, especially within Hebrew, the act of “reading” already includes interpretation and even creative supplementation: vowels, cantillation, and meaning are not fixed in the consonantal text but constructed through articulation. Thus, reading is already semiotic and performative. It brings into view the fundamentally relational nature of sacred symbols.
3. Semantic Content as Translated Will
The semantic content of divine communication is not ontological information about God but translated divine will. In this framework, meaning is not reducible to propositional truth but arises from the relation between sign and recipient. The divine name, for instance, does not signify God’s essence but discloses God’s relational stance: “I will be with you.” The Torah, in this view, is not a set of metaphysical claims but a structured mode of divine presence in the form of law, story, and ritual.
This semantic structure is layered and multidimensional. It includes the behavioral (halakhic) level, the symbolic (narrative and metaphorical) level, and the existential (transformative or experiential) level. Meaning arises not from one-to-one correspondence with divine essence, but from a field of fidelity, memory, and interpretive enactment.
4. Ontological Translation and Divine Autobiography
To understand divine speech as an autobiography in translation is to recognize that God does not disclose His essence but His relational structure—as it can be received. The gap between divine being (ad intra) and human experience necessitates translation: an ontological filtering or adaptation that renders divine will intelligible within the created order.
This translation results in the formation of signs—names, structures, laws—that convey the divine autobiography not as static information, but as an ongoing relationship. For humans, this translated autobiography is ontological: our being is constituted through the very relation God initiates. Divine speech, then, is not secondary to being—it structures it. From the human side, existence is lived within a semiotic field shaped by the divine act of communication. Symbols are thus both relational in function and ontological in consequence.
5. Embodied Hermeneutics: Beyond Conceptual Interpretation
Interpretation has often been understood as a rational, cognitive process aimed at decoding textual content. However, both Jewish hermeneutics and contemporary philosophical approaches (e.g., Gadamer, Ricoeur) have broadened this view to include understanding as encounter. In this model, interpretation is not mere decoding but a relational act in which the self is addressed and transformed.
Within this frame, we propose that divine symbols can also be interpreted through embodied responses. These include emotional resonance, ethical orientation, aesthetic engagement, and somatic alignment. A person who lives the Shabbat not only reads its laws but inhabits its symbolic structure, aligning themselves with its semantic content through experience. Such engagement is not irrational, but non-conceptual. It is a form of interpretation that produces semantic uptake: a legitimate response to the sign that actualizes its meaning without translating it into propositions.
6. Alternative Hermeneutics and the Validity of Embodied Meaning
This expanded hermeneutic framework raises a critical question: Can embodied experience legitimately count as interpretation? We argue yes, provided that:
– The symbol originates in a structured, shared tradition (e.g., Torah, halakha, liturgy).
– The interpretive act respects the relational grammar of the symbol.
– The result is coherent with the broader semantic field of the tradition.
This model avoids two extremes: it rejects both the hypostatization of the symbol (idolatry) and the subjectivization of meaning (relativism). Instead, it positions interpretation as a participatory, multi-modal act grounded in covenantal structure.
7. Toward a Semiotic Theology
This framework leads to a vision of theology not as metaphysical speculation but as faithful interpretation of divine signs. Semiotic theology focuses not on what God is, but on how God relates and how humans live within that relational structure. It honors the complexity of divine speech without reducing it to propositional statements, and it embraces the full range of human interpretive response—including the body, the imagination, and the senses.
In such a theology, sacredness is not located in essence but in the structured interface between divine intention and human reception. Divine communication is thus not merely a historical event but an ongoing structure of meaning in which human beings participate through acts of reading, living, and embodying the sign.
8. Conclusion
Divine communication, when viewed through a semiotic and semantic lens, reveals itself as a relational act: a translated autobiography of the divine will, structured through signs and mediated through the body, text, and community. Interpretation is not confined to conceptual analysis but includes every legitimate mode of symbolic uptake. The result is a rich, non-reductive, and embodied theology that opens new avenues for understanding both revelation and human response.
Rereading Golden Doves
Rereading Golden Doves after almost twenty years, to see what I understand better and what ideas I still find persuasive.
It’s a trip. Every page has an insight or claim that resonates deeply. The book is full of associations, parallels, and references that, for the careful reader, are mind-blowing to consider and transform one’s understanding of key terms and concepts in Judaism. R Faur z”l was highly intelligent, very creative, and extremely well-read.
But every page also has a tendentious claim presented nakedly or features a binary polemic that seems labored, totalizing, and at times self-contradictory. Arguments undermine each other (and sometimes the overarching claims of the book). I’ve long said that Faur the polemicist is surpassed by Faur the exponent, and it shows no less in this early work.
After twenty years, I understand why R Faur z”l had trouble getting his ideas accepted by academia: it’s not all due to Ashkenormative bias.
But after twenty years, I’m glad to see that this book, which was so impactful on my understanding of rabbinics, language, and culture, still has a lot to offer the critical reader. I’m looking forward to continuing this read and to returning to the book repeatedly in the future.
Addendum: I’ll also say that the conversations I’ve had with ChatGPT about this book and about R Faur’s ideas in general, have been very illuminating. In particular, my exploration of the intersection of semiotics and metaphysics has been quite thought-provoking.
From a Dream of You
I woke up
From a dream of you
To your light shining through a window
I called to you
I cared for the friend you gave me
I left you at home
And crossed a city with you
I finally arrived at your doorstep
Your smile and your greeting
Invited me inward to your work
You built something new
In a heart you opened
Through hands you made wise
You released an angel into your world
I witnessed you
I thanked you
I took my leave of you
I traveled back with you
Found you at home
Waiting for me
“For we are Allah’s and to Allah we return”