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...
Editorial notes: This is a meditation on the Shema, and the nature of love. It is pointed out that, as Midrashic commentators say, the reference in the Shema to loving God with all one’s hearts (plural) signifies both with the good and the bad impulse, etc., bringing the evil urge into conformity with the good urge and directed to God. Within the fleshly and worldly is the spiritual and heavenly...
This is a poem about looking for purpose and direction, and how their considerations. Preface The gaze of our yearnings may differ Hence I had not tailored this message to my own.[1] Prelude In dreams born of dreams[2] All the meanings are cryptic And signify things unknowable. To rule them is to dream them, (the prophets read their own minds[3]). Method Goodness appears in the territorial...
{Part 1 – 26/10/2016} There are 22 Hebrew letters, plus 5 final variants. They are given numerical values. I don’t know if this is commonly thought by those who are better studied. This isn’t a proof, it’s a thought trail, followed by some demonstrations. Why are there only 4 letters in the 100’s order? There are 10 sefirot, but how would they fit? First thought: The...
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...
Editorial notes: This essay appears in two versions, the first documented as a draft in Shai’s A BASHFUL HOPE blog (see For the Complexed (v1)) and another version found as a Google Document. The two versions have a similar structure but somewhat different content and the version showing here has been adapted to merge the two versions to form a more complete version of this document. It...
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.
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...
