Posts Tagged judaism
On the seasonal nature of the Jewish Calender
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 29th, 2009
When seasons change I often give some thought to the nature of the cyclical Jewish year’s makeup. Something on this subject struck me when I was taking a walk the other day in pitch-perfect eighty-degree weather. All of our happy holidays occur during times of year when the climate is not much better than borderline-miserable, and all the depressing or solemn ones fall out when nature is really buzzing. I guess that there might be a yin/yang thing that goes along with that. Yiddishkeit holds onto us tightly during the seasons that we might be predisposed to being overly-ebullient, and perhaps do things that are not in our ‘best interests’, while instilling a sense of intrinsic joy within us during the calender’s dark and brisk period, when we are more susceptible to despondency.
The Kollel Guy (part 6)
Posted by Talmudist in Story Section, Uncategorized on April 26th, 2009
Writer’s note: For those who have been reading this blog from its inception, some of the next parts of this serial might bear an uncanny resembelance to a previously removed story. No, your eyes are not deceiving you.
Yonah walked back to his house, sure of himself for the first time in…in as long as he could really remember. He wanted this for so long, but now felt confident in himself – he was sure that he was making the ‘right’ choice. He dialed up a rebbi from one of the yeshivas that he had spent a large chunk of his seminal yeshiva days at.
On Conservatives and Liberals (Part 2); Acharon Shel Pesach
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah, Politics, Scatterbrained Posts, Thought on April 14th, 2009
When a more conservative government is in power, government tends to grow smaller, squeezing the populous into a position where they must answer for themselves to a greater degree. This pressure promotes a counter force in the ‘individual’ to strive for personal greatness. Such an attitude is contagious, causing families to stick together, strengthening their values (important to note: Some form of religious devotion often runs concurrently with this), and tends to harbor a nourishing incubatory atmosphere in the home for the appreciation of education.
To be baldly (and quite probably badly) reductionistic about it: There is an inverse relationship between the size of government and improvement in the infrastructure of our nation’s educational and academic paradigm.
Passover Redemption
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah, Thought on April 12th, 2009
Being that this is a particularly spiritually auspicious time of year and all, I’m currently putting up a higher ratio of ‘vertlech’ up relative to the normal output of such fare here.
So my friend Dov told me something nice and poignant in the name of R’ M.W. (Sometimes you have to [if you must] attack the messenger, and yet embrace the message; ha-mayvin yavin).
When a nation is freed, nothing much has really been achieved. What in the world are the populous of such a people supposed to do upon emancipation, fresh out of their weltenschung of (in some cases hundreds [or even thousands of] years of) bondage? That old man who got out of jail after x-many years in The Shawshank Redemption didn’t go off to Hawaii…he did himself in. He may not have liked prison that much, but it was still his way of life – his default setting – the glasses that he had been completely been behaviorized into being ‘comfortable’ with. Being ‘freed’ was the worst thing that could have been done for him.
The Limbo of it all *
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah, Scatterbrained Posts, Sports, Uncategorized on April 11th, 2009
So I’m supposed to be working on an article for a more ‘choshuv‘ publication than the ones that I have already been featured in, but it’s an uphill climb – for me. There are so many ways to view just what it is that I’m (supposed to be?) writing about w/r/t the particular subject matter at hand - so many seemingly conflicting ambiguities are involved (just how is it possible to have a truly objective POV on just about, well, just about anything…that is, at least when writing a piece of investigative journalism?), and seemingly unending fact-checking responsibilities float around the project’s background…
The calender has not been much of a friend in my endeavors either, what with ‘no-work’ Pesach days cramming up prime workweek real estate. But there’s nothing one can do but keep pushing.
The option of throwing in the towel does not exist. ‘Shevah yee’pol tzaddik v’kom;’ my friend. (”Get busy living or get busy dying,” etc.).
I heard an interview recently between Terry Gross and the comedian Russell Brand which is, I think, pretty ‘on point’ (no intention for punnery was latent there, seriously).
Upper West Side Shabbos
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on April 8th, 2009
Being that I had to be in the UWS before Shabbos this past Fri., I did not have much chance of leaving The Island after my meeting in time for Shabbos. There was some amount of guilt involved. I missed my bro’s kid’s Shalom Zachor in Jersey. Bernie, I was most definitely with you in spirit.
Thoughts To Go Into Pesach With
Posted by Talmudist in D'var Torah on April 7th, 2009
I’m going to be all over the place this Pesach, first days will be spent by Chuck, last days with other dear members of the family, and chol hamo’ed…well, that’s still a little TBD…
A vort:
The Kollel Guy (Part 3)
Posted by Talmudist in Story Section on March 24th, 2009
Yonah made his way back into the beis medrash, and re-sat himself across from Arnone, who was laughing like a hyena at his cellphone screen. Text messaging, Yonah thought, those SMS devices are going to bring about the complete decay and collapse of civilization. I just don’t get the allure of it all, isn’t it easier to just call the person you’re texting up?
Ode To Lethargy & More
Posted by Talmudist in Scatterbrained Posts on March 20th, 2009
According to Dr. Melfi (from The Sopranos), post-millennial sociologists posit that twenty-six is the new twenty-one. I was speaking to a friend yesterday who is my age; he expressed his sense of catharsis upon hearing such (supposedly [and surely subjectively] true) news. ”Great, I get a five year period of wasted time that I can pretty much nullify; I can feel pretty proud about the fact that I’m twenty-eight and am a (very) recent college grad without much to show for myself,” he declared.
The Kollel Guy (Part 2)
Posted by Talmudist in Story Section on March 17th, 2009
Yonah eyed his gemara; the letters on the page in front of him started to lose focus, and instead of producing one of those 3D-images found in the Sunday funnies, they simply cluttered into a formless glob of gray. He was startled out of his lacking-in-content-daydream when Arnone suddenly showed up, yelling some some sort of out-of-the-gutter-sounding Farsi salutation/stream of words into his right ear (Yonah had no hearing in his left ear, something that Arnone magically picked up on the first time they met).
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