I wish that I could ask you[I] (not for an answer, just for the telling of the story): I split the world in half and put it back together, I saw the stars appear for the first time in the sky, and possibilities flicker in and out between seconds, minutes and days; grey fog becoming incandescent flowers, bodies dancing around me like clockwork dolls singing the hour. I saw everything I wanted I...
Editorial notes: One of Shai’s special skills was writing short stories in a style used by famous authors. The two short stories below are a reflection of these attempts. The first written in the writing style of the American-British novelist and screenwriter, Raymond Chandler[I] and the second in the writing style of Jorge Luis Borges. Instant Noodles with Egg by Raymond Chandler The night...
Editorial notes: This is one of Shai’s longest essays, written in seven instalments, six within a period of just ten days in 2016 (from 13th October to 23rd October 2016) and the seventh, a year later, on August 31 2017. Reflecting on Shai’s complete collection of writings, this can be seen, perhaps, as the zenith and culmination of his intellectual journey. As he was writing this essay he was...
A man receives a vision in the psych ward that causes him to perceive his own life in its terms. *foreshadowing* [The rest was added much later. That line was an idea I once had for a story about a man who is studying history and a crime that occurred in the past, when his (original idea was for neural disease/cancer) delusions overlap his life with the past, and he discovers that he was the...
Editorial notes: These reflections are about the quest to find underlying enduring meaning in the transitory experiences and events that make up our lives and constitute our world. It suggests that there is no such underlying enduring meaning, at least none accessible to us. But there can be crucial turning points in which we are surprised by experiences that transcend what we thought were the...
Editorial notes: The title suggests that a person who is unable to speak (such as a seeker for truth or reality or God who cannot articulate just what is being sought nor where it resides), nevertheless emits a deep prayer that “echoes” and thus can be heard in some sense. The text of this essay is that prayer. “Part 1” is unclear. “Part 2” is more comprehensible. “The Book of the Spirit Ladder”...
In my heart, the real challenge awakened into quarrel’s inner courtrooms by Korach is the essence of post-theodic[I] egalitarianism[II], i.e. if all are facets of the same diamond, and all the centre of the stage, then why arrange ourselves by systems that force us to interact with each other and the world in specified protocols? This is both (1) unfair, why should only royalty enjoy fame’s...
Editorial notes: This essay offers a meditation on the meaning of the festivals, and especially of course Shavuot. Since Shai merely alludes in passing to Rashi’s interpretations, Midrashic accounts, and Kabbalistic teachings, any fuller explanation even of some of his allusions must be longer than his account [EZ*]. *Many thanks to Dr. Evan Zuesse for providing the commentary for this essay...
Editorial notes: This commentary on the Shema makes reference to the ten sephirot, the underlying spiritual modalities structuring the divine image or “Tree of Life” on which the universe is designed according to the Kabbalah. These sephirotic powers are merely implicit and potential in the highest realm of infinity that is the source of all lower worlds, but are given more and more material form...
I hope that enough time has passed for me to talk about the last time I saw Hitch[I]. Fortune had blessed me with the opportunity to interview the shrunken titan, and also to test the mettle of my confidence against the confidence of his mettle. [Editor: Strike, no one cares about your B.A. – people want to know about Hitchens because he’s dead, not you] I had planned to write an article...
