Halakha, theology, practice, and the inner life of Jewish observance.
There can be only one national law If every community splinters off into its own separate legal system, the nation is lost So there’s gotta be a baseline, a law set down by whatever court last represented the whole nation Beyond that baseline, communities can establish whatever customary practices and policies they want But the … Read more
“If it could be proven, I would reinterpret the Torah to resolve any contradiction with it” Bold words. Bold commitment. Even if what we know is contingent and limited – it’s the best of what we’ve got. Reinterpret the Torah.
I would argue that far more observant Jewish people are a small step away from Neomaimonidean thought and practice than they are aware. If you’re sure that there’s an organic, rational, coherent, meaningful approach to Judaism somewhere out there that embraces life and questions while respecting text and law, but are drowning in a mess … Read more
Being Jewish in an unredeemed world means living under essentially unfair conditions stacked against you, where you are the least understood yet the most well-known in the international room. Where a magnifying glass is held to your every deed solely because you insist on your difference, and where your own perspective is neither acknowledged nor … Read more
O ElLord of dreamsShow my soul your gardenOf cosmic vines heavy with starry fruit And trees five hundred years wideEver presently fragrant blossoms unfolding into infinityAngels hovering upon themPhotonic feathers rustling in the breezeFilled with the voices of your saintsGrant my soul dwelling for this nightAmidst the ethereal throngs gatheredBeneath your seven canopiesA seat from … Read more
“For the world is not its place – but it is the place of the world” The ground of all being necessarily exists, is one, and is incorporeal. I worship the ground of all being by contemplating its uniqueness and perfection with the mind whose development it causes. In this worship, I join not just … Read more
Gold from the Guide for Us Perplexed Folk What is God? Do Rambam’s Neoaristotelian premises and arguments still hold water in light of the subsequent scientific revolutions? Background: After dispensing with the theologians’ arguments for and about God at the end of part one, Rambam begins part two with 25/6 premises of the philosophers that … Read more
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.
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
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