{Part 1 – 3/3/2017} B/S: Teruma/Mishkan in terms of Societies made of self-defining individuals who combine into a greater-ly unified character, and yet their collective is a decentralized harmony by way of integrating purposes (without contradiction) Another telling of Creation A mapping of human “unfolding” (cf. creation) onto the metaphysical unfolding (aka creation) Half...
{Part 1 – 26/03/2017} “The Degel Machaneh Ephraim, one of the earliest books that disseminated the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov, connects this to the second Mishna in the 6th chapter of Tractate Avot: “Each and every day, a divine voice calls out from Mt. Moriah saying, ‘Woe to the people because their actions are an affront to the Torah!'” This divine voice is our...
{Part 1 – 7/3/2017} Plan: Some ways of seeing Haazinu Segue into phenomenological vectorized matrix metaphor for Torah Segue into Moshe Midrash re negotiation after golden caf Segue into “ve’atah” analytic inverse of Moshe Segue into “tezaveh” Via linking Teruma “vayikchu” side-track otiyot to add depth to “tetzaveh” by...
Compare for example Beit Hillel and Beit Shamai on washing hands before bread, and which parts of table-setting may be touched without concern for purity (for potential Teruma): [Is this seen in Brachot 8.4?][I] Does this show that when they are called lenient & strict (i.e. in those few cases which are said to be the cases where this occurs) that they are concerned with the strictness of...
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...
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...
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...
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...
Editorial notes: This draft exposition is significant as it is the first documented evidence to Shai’s deep study of Kabbalistic concepts. Alongside his Kabbalistic writings, Shai also uses (sometimes extensively) a special notation for depicting combinations Hebrew letters. So, 1I refers to the Hebrew letter Aleph, 8I to the Hebrew letter Chet, and 4I to the Hebrew letter Daled. In this...
