“And you should love God with all your heart…” This is a verse written to the Israeli people by Moses, but the message I think transcends personal destinies. I wonder if the Palestinian people would listen to it. They would have to be taught its secret, which is the great human problem: how could my suffering have been for the best? How can a people love their creator when they are...
Fixing a few fractures: BROKEN If look at any obsessive dedication, especially where prone to escapism the following is apparent (simplified): The 10III, qua ta’anug, is not seen properly, and this is due to a few overlapping expressions (ratzon l’ratzon) of that hidden agenda. One damaged 10II seems to be for 4II as an ends unto itself, rationalized (8II) by its necessity for various causes...
Mimatai korim shema b’arvit…[I] Sof ma’ase[1]… The Mishnah was packaged to ensure the survival of key structures within the oral tradition, which although requiring great losses of wisdom, was deemed necessary for the great journey ahead. The terrible voyage had not yet hinted the breadth of its passages, nor depths, nor sense of lost horizons. The Mishnah begins with a question, but the purpose...
I am small and the world is great and beyond my comprehension right now. This at least I can say without doubt. But here is a dream. Once there was a fish in a fishbowl. There were pebbles on the ground, water all around, a toy castle, and a filtration system of some sort. Every so while food would fall from above the water, from where there was no water, a place of nothingness except pain of...
Editorial notes: This untitled 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 13/09/2016 Like a captain far from any familiar shore, gifted with a map without which he could only be utterly lost, yet dreading the fear that his past mistakes can only repeat so that he will lose even the ken...
A few thoughts on Holocaust Remembrance Day. Every culture has its ancestral story. This is one of mine. This is a story of survival. The Holocaust happened The Holocaust happened because of a world embedded deeply in antisemitism. It was embedded deeply with antisemitism because every country in Christendom had subjected Jews to second-class citizenship, to be denied, ransomed, evicted and...
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 15/06/2016 Decomposition of Zoroastrian mythology into Rasta ritual and cant An historical narrative with novel conclusions The field of comparative religion has been stymied by a reluctance to attribute any reality to...
Editorial notes: On this day Shai publishes his first post dedicated specifically to Judaism. This is significant as it is the beginning of the fourth phase in Shai’s intellectual journey. After having first devoted a substantial body of writing to scientific inquiry and to the study of ancient and classical Western philosophers, and having recently commenced his study of Eastern Wisdom, Shai...
Editorial notes: This Essay was found as a ‘draft’ entry in Everything2. It seems to be a continuation of the thought process recorded a few days earlier in A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful and it ends with a number of points for future consideration. It is published here with minor changes. I had first considered illustrating the...
This is for you. I love you. Love is the quintessential romantic, irrational, human experience. It is in the first place the domain of its clients, although readily owned by the poets. As for others. The philosophers are permitted access, though they often regress into poets too; describing love as sacred, profound, and utterly existential. In the penultimate place in the line for love, in front...
