I’m back in Rocinante (My Time Machine) and my first stop is 19th century, Concord to pick up Henry David Thoreau. I assumed he was along to interview Joseph. After all, it was he who said, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live...
“Life lies before us, like a huge quarry lies before the architect; he doesn’t deserve the name of architect except when, out of this fortuitous mass, he can combine with the greatest economy and fitness and durability some form - the pattern of which originated...
Continued from “Looking For Babel Part One - The Language Of Silence”: Why was I visiting China with Thubron, besides the fact that traveling anywhere with him, even in his imagination, his fiction, is an education? (Personal Note: I’ve been everywhere, from Tibet to Damascus and back...
Colin Thubron, in his beautiful “Shadow of the Silk Road,” visits the Chinese city of Xian after an absence of eighteen years. “Xian had suffered a hallucinatory change (page 7).” The new generation, born after the Cultural Revolution, complain, “Our parents’ world was safer: state pensions,...
How should a father explain the intended Tower of Babel to a four-year old child who is seeing the Empire State Building for the first time? The historical plaques explain the wondrous engineering history as a Modern Wonder of the World. It was fair to believe...
Someone challenged “Each Step,” by demanding the Halachot that guide Rocinante, my Time Machine, on its travels. Yes, Discover Magazine has posted the Rules of Time Travel, but those are rules, not Halacha, or, they are Chukim similar to the laws of gravity, but certainly not...
Immediately upon moving to New York City from Los Angeles I had to pay attention to all the issues of living in a new city and examine them through the eyes of Halacha. I would step out the door of the brownstone on 79th and usually...
The First Edition of the London Review of Books, the beginning of a long relationship with superb writing of masters with whom I disagree on most important ideas, began with the following paragraph: “Borges has written (and it is certainly true of Borges) that the writer...
One of my favorite information emails - yes, I, too, am inundated, but one I find worthwhile for serious readers, is thinkr.org I decided to spend a few hours preparing for Chanukah with Gary Klein, author of, “Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain...
I can never be all the people I want and live all the lives I want. I can never train myself in all the skills I want. And why do I want? I want to live and feel all the shades, tones and variations of...
I began the Story Magic series with a Gregory Clark column, and since Brian Ross - to whom it was dedicated - responded in an unfunny way and is now having his Canadian citizenship examined, being unfamiliar with Mr. Clark, I shall pause to pray...
One of the innumerable reasons for revering Homer Simpson is that he once coined a memorably pithy definition of fiction. At the end of one episode of The Simpsons the family is shown mulling over the preceding plot-line in an endeavor to discern what lesson...
Joseph would not have made it past one dream in my family! We, too, were a family of dreamers and visionaries. They were also master story tellers. My mother a”h, who could turn a story of starting a fire in Naomi’s kitchen on Erev Pesach into fifteen...
I read each stage of this week’s parsha and I kept thinking of the opening line of Dante’s Divine Comedy: “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself in a dark wood where the straight way was lost.” “Jacob took an...
“I love that God hears my voice, my supplications (Psalm 116:1).” “How can I respond to God for all His empowering benefits toward me (Verse 12)?” John P. Weiss, introduced me to the thought of Jean Vanier’s “From Brokenness To Community”. Two of this philosopher/theologian’s teachings have made...
“One can use songs and tunes to ease the burdens of work, even in service of God, just as we see physical laborers often sing to lighten their load (Tiferet Yisrael; Avot 1, Yachin 38). When the verse (Psalms 113 - First Paragraph of Hallel) describes,...
Great art ‘offers us images by which to imagine our lives, and once the imagination has been awakened it is procreative: through it we can give more than we were given, say more than we had to say (Lewis Hyde, The Gift).’ Something awakens our imagination,...
In, “Journeys: The First Step,” we set out to travel with the major Biblical characters. I could tell you that my Time Machine was in the repair shop or, that life, Countdowns to Chanukah and Asarah BiTevet, combined with the Loom channel have distracted me....
I can’t read the story of Joseph interpreting the dreams of the Royal Baker and Wine Steward without thinking of Victor Hugo’s, “The Last Day of a Condemned Man.” The baker, hopeful upon hearing the slave’s interpretation of the wine steward’s dream, and observing how so...
I have the great pleasure of regularly studying with incredible people, one of whom suggested that we consider quarantine, and the Siege of Jerusalem/Tenth of Tevet as a “Go To Your Room For A Timeout!” I offer her insights below as an introduction to an important...
“He drove the man out, and stationed east of the garden of Eden the cherubim and the fiery ever-turning sword, to guard the way to the tree of life (Bereishit 3:24 - sefaria.org).” “He said: The LORD came from Sinai; He shone upon them from Seir;...
I am considering becoming a curmudgeon for both religious and financial reasons. For those of you who read, “Fasting Training Exercises,” I am not breaking my “fast”; I am considering becoming a temporary curmudgeon. For those who already consider me an ungrateful grouch,...