Your Next Act
Maimonides in his Code of Jewish Law provides an interesting image of the world teetering on a balance beam of existence–awaiting the very next human act (meaning your very next act) to either plummet it into oblivion or move it forward in its evolution (Laws of Repentance 3:4) A little over 10 years ago, […]
Sandersize and other Eponyms
I woke this morning with the word “ferberize” on my mind and then a string of associations to words such as sanitize, fantasize, compartmentalize and a whole string of words ending in “ize.” I then returned to ferberize and realized that what was intriguing me was that a word, in common English usage, was […]
Jyoti’s Light
I looked at those faces of young boys in India holding up placards No Rape and wondering what they understand about rape. As a boy I was introduced to the existence of rape rather early on—the bible has a number of stories about rape and to my teachers’ credit these stories were not glossed […]
Without a Calendar
The prediction that the world would end this past year on December 21st was an inaccurate portrayal of the Mayan culture’s very intricate and sophisticated solar calendar. Granted, the 13th baktun ended on that date (a baktun is 394 years) and all that is listed in the Mayan calendar is baktun 1-13. There is little […]
Life of Pi
I don’t get out much and felt it a great holiday treat to go to a theater to watch The Life of Pi, based on the book I read many years ago that remained in my memory. It took director Ang Lee 4 years to make the film—perhaps this helps explain why other directors passed […]
Teaching Love
William “Dave” Sanders was a computer and business teacher at Columbine High School for 25 years, and coach of the girls’ basketball and softball teams. When the gunmen started firing outside the school, Coach Sanders ran to the cafeteria and sounded the alarm. Along with two school’s janitors he helped get more than 100 students […]
Bringing it Home
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch is often credited as the pioneer of modern Orthodox Judaism (late 1800s in Germany). He is also credited with one of the most radical statements ever made by a Rabbi: “If I had the power, I would provisionally close all synagogues for a hundred years.” Hirsch’s statement was not meant to […]
If you dream it
“I am asleep but my heart is awake.” This verse from the Song of Songs is the message of the Hebrew month of Kislev (Chanukah begins on the 25th of Kislev falling this year on December 8). In the earliest text of Kabbalah, Sefer Yetzirah, each month of the year is designated to a […]
Live and Unlearn
I first came across this gem in Joseph Campbell’s the Power of Myth. It is a penetrating story about unlearning— a phrase I reacquainted myself with this weekend when reading an author describe himself as a “slow unleaner.” Aren’t we all? Here is the story about the god Indra: There was a terrible […]
Infant Morality
Not a typo. The most prevalent question in classes today was, “Did you see the piece on 60 minutes last night about infants and morality?” This past Sunday, a segment on 60 Minutes featured a wife-husband team at Yale University whose experiments with infants provide compelling evidence that babies know the difference between […]