Gil 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 … Read more
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, … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
“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 … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
I woke upFrom a dream of youTo your light shining through a windowI called to youI cared for the friend you gave meI left you at homeAnd crossed a city with youI finally arrived at your doorstepYour smile and your greetingInvited me inward to your workYou built something newIn a heart you openedThrough hands you … Read more
I always have music playing in my head, never actual songs but riffs and solos and harmonies and b-sides, endless variations of the music that I’ve heard mixing with the tones and rhythms of the sounds that I’m hearing around me. It’s like life is one big jam session.
Arabic is central to my Judaism. Without it, the Sepharadi legal scholars (from whose waters I drink) would not have had such complete access to the cultural corpus of Geonic interpretations, rulings, and traditions, all of which are fundamental to correctly understanding the Gemara. There is much more to say, but let that simmer for … Read more