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The Plan: Action!

We concluded, The Plan: What’s Next with ‘God demonstrates this very lesson to the magicians themselves.   “You may be able to play with nature and secret powers, but you must begin by mastering yourselves or you will collapse.”   The people of Egypt understand this, as does Moshe, as...

The Plan: What’s Next?

In, “The Plan: Introduction To Exodus,” we asked,  Why were Ten Plagues necessary to free the Children of Israel from Egypt? Why did Pharaoh need to be so thoroughly manipulated? Why did the magicians play such an important role? Why did the average Egyptian citizen have to suffer? Why were...

Here Live Monsters

There are spaces still to be filled before the map is completed- though these days it’s only in the explored territories that men write, sadly, Here lives monsters (Norman McCraig, Old Maps and New   The Isles of the Blessed, Kibu, Hawaiki, Hufaidh, Thule, Fusang, Bermeja, Onaseuse, imaginary lands all, existed on maps,...

Dura lex, sed lex

“The Law is harsh, but it is the Law!”   Not our law.   Not Halacha.   “Her ways are pleasant ways, And all her paths, peaceful (Proverbs 3:17 - sefaria.org).”   ‘Abaye objected: Aren’t the halakhot of the entire Torah also given on account of the ways of peace, as it is...

The Plan: The Lightning Bush

In the Aeneid, the Roman poet Virgil describes the vast cave inhabited by the god Vulcan and his worker-drones, the Cyclopes.  It is here, Virgil defines the lightning bolt of Jupiter as informatum – forged or given shape beneath their hammers.  To in-form meant to give a...

The Plan: Introduction to Exodus

The director Fred Schepisi tells a story about the time he invited an oral surgeon to his film class.  Dimming the lights, the man tacked to the wall a group of backlit X-rays, different shots of the same mouth, which anyone could see, even in these...

Each Small Act

And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, ‘Do as follows: load up your beasts and go at once to the land of Canaan. Take your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt...

Repairs Required

“Busy remaking the world, man forgot to remake himself (Andrei Platonov, Nursery of the New Man).” My limited understanding of Platanov, based on “Soul and Other Stories,” is that he understood that the Soviet communists were convinced they could successfully remake the world. Their failure to remake...

GPS To Egypt

How did Jacob get from Canaan to Egypt without GPS? I consider Debbie one of the smartest people I have ever met in my life. Yet, a mysterious obnoxious woman hiding somewhere in our car’s radio treats her like an idiot.  We often wonder if this woman...

FedHeads

Our obsession with celebrities is not new. Long ago, Pharaoh understood the need to have the newly freed young man transformed into something bigger than life, before, he placed Joseph over Egypt:  ‘And removing his signet ring from his hand, Pharaoh put it on Joseph’s hand;...

A Painful Silence

“Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while (46:29).” ‘Here, also, he wept greatly and continuously — more than is usual. Jacob,...

The Path Ignites The Soul

When the path ignites a soul, there's no remaining in place. The foot touches ground, but not for long.                            Hakim Sanai   “He had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph, to point the way before him to...