Tag Archives: gratitude
“Thankfulness”
Abbie is unable to write a new column this week because she and her husband, Jerry Martin, are stuck in Denver, CO, where a succession of flights home have been canceled. She and Jerry were in Denver for a fascinating … Continue reading
Posted in academe, action, alienation, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology
Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, covenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, political correctness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity
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“Thankfulness”
“Thankfulness” The other day, in the Saturday morning Torah Study class at my Reform temple, we were studying the verses on the ancient temple cultus detailed – and I mean detailed – in the Book of Leviticus. My patience with these Memory … Continue reading
Posted in academe, action, alienation, cultural politics, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology
Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, convenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, Political Corrrectness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity
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Days of Awe
Days of Awe On the anniversary of September 11, I often rerun the column that I posted here in September 2001, after my visit to the City, a week later. Like many people, I’d felt shattered by the attack on … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art, art of living, beauty, Biblical God, Christianity, cities, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, Jews, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, love, martyrdom, masculinity, medieval, memory, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political, political movements, politics, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, relationships, religion, roles, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, suffering, terror, terrorism, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 9/11, American crisis, art protection, Book of Job, Byzantine crucifix, city walking, cultural crisis, defining event, desire to live, divine immanence, Faith, fear, fearfulness, FEMA, first responders, gratitude, grief, Ground Zero, Henry M. Rosenthal's "Prayer and Its Power", heroes, Kali, loss, Lower Manhattan, mental concentration, mental focus, Metropolitan Museum, National Guard, New York City, New York cops, New York firemen, New York resilience, New Yorkers, power of prayer, prayer, psychological fragmentation, Rabbi, realism, self-integration, sermon, sincerity, sorrow, spirit, spiritual focus, street smarts, terrorism, Todd Stone, transcendence, urban attack, walking intelligently, war zone
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Why I Failed to Notice that I’m Happy
Why I Failed to Notice that I’m Happy Lately, I’ve been passing through what a friend called “a perfect storm” of setbacks. When they mount to a certain number, you can’t tell what’s big and what’s little. Anyway, they came … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, bigotry, childhood, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, freedom, friendship, gender balance, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, ideality, identity, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, martyrdom, masculinity, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, secular, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twenty-first century, victimhood, victims, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "Carolina Blue", anti-Israel bias, cheering up friends, collegial friend, computer angst, country music, dental crisis, female friendship, fractured toe, friendship and politics, gift cards, gratitude, greeting cards, health scare, information transfer, injury and exercise, instructive fables, Jews on the Brain, life blessings, life's precariousness, loving life, Luke Combs's "What You See Is What You Get", midrashic story, natural poetry, neuropathy treatments, outpatient surgery, perfect storm, poitics of friendship, setbacks, small fracture, song lyrics, sturdy soul
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September 11, A Week Later
This post, written the week after September 11, 2011, is dedicated to Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz. Starting at the 88th floor on the North Tower, they went from floor to floor calling out to people who crouched in … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art, cities, contradictions, cool, culture, desire, dialectic, ethics, evil, faith, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, history, history of ideas, ideality, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, memoir, non-violence, peace, political, political movements, power, psychology, relationships, religion, roles, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time, twentieth century, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 9/11, art protection, attack, Byzantine crucifix, city walkers, cops, crisis, crisis center, cultural crisis, defining event, emergency vehicles, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Faith, fear, fearfulness, FEMA, fire station, first responders, God Bless America, gratitude, Ground Zero, heroes, immanence, Jihad, Job, Kali, Lower Manhattan, Metropolitan Museum, National Guard, New York City, New York Subway, New Yorkers, realism, sorrow, spirit, sprit of the City, street smarts, terrorism, Todd Stone, transcendence, TV history, urban neighborhood, voyeurism, walking intelligently, Wall Street, war zone
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September 11, A Week Later –
This post, written the week after September 11, 2011, is dedicated to Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz. Starting at the 88th floor on the North Tower, they went from floor to floor calling out to people who crouched in … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, action, alienation, art, cities, contradictions, cool, culture, desire, dialectic, ethics, evil, faith, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, history, history of ideas, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, memoir, non-violence, peace, political, political movements, power, psychology, relationships, religion, roles, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, time, twenty-first century, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 9/11, art protection, attack, Byzantine crucifix, city walkers, cops, crisis, crisis center, cultural crisis, defining event, emergency vehicles, Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, Faith, fear, fearfulness, FEMA, fire station, first responders, God Bless America, gratitude, Ground Zero, heroes, immanence, Jihad, Job, Kali, Lower Manhattan, Metropolitan Museum, National Guard, New York City, New York Subway, New Yorkers, realism, sorrow, spirit, sprit of the City, street smarts, terrorism, Todd Stone, transcendence, TV history, urban neighborhood, voyeurism, walking intelligently, Wall Street, war zone
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For Rabbi Delcau, July 8th, 2016
For Rabbi Delcau, July 8th, 2016 Looking back over our four years with Rabbi Delcau, here are some sides of his presence that will always stand out for me. He has been a font of faith in this temple. If … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art of living, atheism, Bible, Biblical God, bureaucracy, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, heroes, hidden God, idealism, ideality, identity, idolatry, Jews, legal responsibility, literature, love, martyrdom, masculinity, memory, modernism, mortality, mysticism, non-violence, past and future, peace, political, power, presence, promissory notes, psychology, public facade, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, self-deception, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged advocate for Israel, argument from design, balancing books, BDS, Boycott Sanction and Divestment, burning bush, contagion of cynicism, contagion of faith, contagion of pessimism, cynicism, debating Israel, defending Israel, dialogue with God, emotional distance, emotional presence, facing facts, facing the music, Faith, fear and Jews, for such a time as this, God of Israel, God's call, God's micromanaging, gratitude, Hashem, hostile questions, hostility to Israel, insolvency, Israel as home, keeping accounts, moral accounting, Mordecai and Ester, Moses, Moses in Midian, natural faith, pessimism, Presbyterian BDS, proof of God, providence, Rabbi Mitchell Delcau, rabbinic mission, reaping what you sow, Reform Judaism, resentment, speaking to God, Synagogue finances, temple search committee, terror and Jews, The Name, Torah Study, unselfconscious religion
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The Gift of the Jews
Unwrapping the Gift of the Jews What’s the gift of the Jews? It’s to live with God chronologically. Is that all? Is that anything? Well, I don’t know if it’s anything, but it’s the reasoning behind the Bible. Keep track … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, anthropology, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, Christianity, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, health, Hegel, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, institutional power, Jews, journalism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, memoir, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, modernism, mortality, nineteenth-century, non-violence, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, power, propaganda, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romanticism, seduction, sex appeal, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "God is my witness", 19th century thought, anti-semitism, anti-Zionism, appeasement, atrocities, Australian Outback, bad people, beheadings, Bible, biblical studies, Charles Dickens, Christians, crucifixions, defamation, Emmanuel Lévinas' "A Religion for Adults" in Difficult Freedom, Emmanuel Lévinas' Difficile Liberté, genocide, good people, good people and bad people, grace, gratitude, Hans Castorp, ISIS, Israel, Joseph Puder, literary criticism, living historically, malice, Malmo, Middle East, Modernity, narrative criticism, non-fiction lives, normality, novelistic lives, novels of ideas, Oliver Twist, pacificism, Peace, Philosophical fiction, Quakers, Roger Sandall's documentary films, salt of the earth, sanatoriums, sanity, sentimentality, StandWithUs, Sweden, Swedish Anti-Semitism, thankfulness, The Covenant, the face of The Covenant, The Face of the Other, the gift, the Other, Thomas Cahill's The Gifts of the Jews, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, World War I, Yazidis, Zionism
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“Thankfulness”
“Thankfulness” The other day, in the Saturday morning Torah Study class at my Reform temple, we were studying the verses on the ancient temple cultus detailed – and I mean detailed – in the Book of Leviticus. My patience with … Continue reading
Posted in academe, action, alienation, culture, desire, erotic life, faith, friendship, guilt and innocence, history, ideology, philosophy, psychology
Tagged anger, bad faith, blessings, candor, collective community, Committee of Public Safety, consensus, convenant, decorum, dissent, Foucault, French Revolution, gratitude, Hebrew Scripture, homophobia, honesty, ideality, inauthenticity, insensitivity, Islamophobia, Israel, kibbutz, Leviticus, Mount Sinai, personal sincerity, politeness, Political Corrrectness, popularity, prayer, racism, ritual, sacrifice, sexism, Thanksgiving, The Archaeological Method, The Terror, Thought Crimes, Torah Study, unity
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“Happiness”
“Happiness” “Call no man happy until he is dead,” said Solon, the ancient sage, to Croesus. Croesus was “rich as Croesus,” as the saying goes, and king of Lydia. So he was nonplussed at Solon’s reluctance to admit that he … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, autonomy, class, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courtship, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, faith, fashion, femininity, freedom, friendship, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, history, history of ideas, identity, idolatry, institutional power, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, masculinity, memoir, philosophy, poetry, political, power, psychology, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, seduction, sex appeal, social conventions, sociobiology, spirituality, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, theism, twentieth century, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged "Quiz Show", "the pursuit of happiness", academic fight, acupuncture, Advice, Ancient Lydia, Ancient Persia, anguish, Aristotle, bird baths, bird watching, birds, birthright, Brooklyn College, Carl Mangione PT, celebrity, Charles Van Doren, cheating, college curriculum, Columbia class of 1925, confession, Croesus, Cyrus the Great, Declaration of Independence, despair, divine gifts, family honor, grace, gratitude, hairdresser, handicap, Henry M. Rosenthal, human rights, identity, ingratitude, insincerity, Jennifer Kelly hairstylist, Kinetic syndrome, Mark Van Doren, memoir, misery, mortification, Mr. Right, national scandal, Nicomachean Ethics, non-advice, normality, physical therapy, problem of evil, reputation, resignation, Richard Firnhaber acupuncture, right to happiness, sell out, selling one's birthright, sincerity, Solon, suffering, the emotional norm, The History of Herodotus, the human norm, the mental norm, the physical norm, the psychical norm, TV idol, TV Quiz Show, unhappiness, walking handicap, wickedness
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