Rashi hints that we should no longer justify our ownership of the land of Israel[I]. A person might have thought, “The land has not been given to us back“. But the verse says that there were disagreements between the shepherds, due (Rashi explains) to some of them being thieves by presuming that the land was there’s on the basis that one day it would be. And that is why...
I see your shadow in the mirror, in the shapes between a flock of birds, in the space between my eyes, my thoughts.
All that I know is that I can’t see you. I see your beauty but not your hand. Your elegance but not your feet.
How could I not love you, who crafts the smudges of clouds, at every hour, every vista, every biography, history, event horizon.
Editorial notes: This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 11/11/2016. These are my thoughts. It is my intention and hope that they not contradict what has already been established. In only a few places will I include methods. This is also an exercise in communication (i.e. in...
Just for a few minutes. Not literally. The way things look is undeniable. The more we look, the more we see. And it’s still undeniable. But behind it all. Between shadows and flickers of distraction, is some other thing, a gossamer lighthouse, impossible and tall. I don’t know what other shapes it has; only the ones I’ve seen: It’s the desperate hope that the way something...
This is an expression of how I’ve been thinking about the first Mishna. It goes into more detail than my previous post. It does not propose to explain what the Mishna is about. Instead, I propose to explain what I have been thinking about. 1. From when are we to perform the Shema recital in the evening? 2. “From the hour that the Kohanim move to eat their Teruma; until the end of the...
This is an allegory. It distorts a lot what it intends to allude. There was an article the other day about new documents uncovered in King’s College. The papers are by Newton and describe a dream he had. In this dream he discovered the key to the alchemist’s stone and used the stone to gaze back in time, to see who had built the stone hedges near his house. He saw primitive sapiens...
The following have coalesced in my mind: The first module of the Mishna; the study of Mishna vs Torah; the temporal track-marks of Judaism. First I’ll introduce these, and then unpack them as a whole. First The first Mishna teaches the times for the recitation of Shema in the evening[I]. The Torah (i.e. as we have it) was created alongside and in parallel to the world, whereas the Mishna (i...
Editorial notes: This post was found in ‘Draft’ mode in the original blog and may be incomplete. It is published here in its original state. It was last updated on 06/11/2014. Every commentator is an author whose concerns and responses allude to a hidden constellation. Thus a hidden dynamic – the back and forth of text-into-potential-engagement and specific-engagement – is...
What a beautiful world this is.
Its magnitude is refracted from before the waves of nothing into the spaces that grow faster than they could know.
Its power measures dew drops into infernos and beyond indefatigable momentum. Its terrible subtlety hinted in tendrils of air, the rustling of feathers, in the dreams of a man, echoed in every moment.
Editorial notes: This essay can be categorised as the first in a series of 18 expositions comprising Shai’s Consolidation work. Shai commences his analysis by stipulating that the core ideas found in the “Indus Canon” – apparently referring to the wisdom of the East – provide a better philosophical reach than those found in the “ancient West” – referring, I believe, to ancient Greek philosophy...
