Tag Archives: Jewish practices
What Kind of a Jew Was Jesus?
What Kind of a Jew Was Jesus? The other night this question kept me up half the night. I’m not concerned with his orthodoxy. He allowed healing on the Sabbath and held that what you said could be more polluting … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Bible, Biblical God, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, heroes, hidden God, history, history of ideas, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, love, male power, masculinity, memory, Messianic Age, mind control, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, non-violence, ontology, oppression, pacifism, past and future, peace, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romance, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, Utopia, victims, violence, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Abraham’s covenant, avoiding extremes, “His eye is on the sparrow”, “take no thought for your life”, Christian answers, Christian persecution, Christian questions, common sense, gates of heaven, God as partner, God as Witness, God's pilot project, God’s paradigm case, going to extremes, healing on the Sabbath, Hebrew Scripture, Isaiah's vision, Jesus the Jew, Jesus's hard sayings, Jesus’s love, Jewish practices, justice without mercy, King David’s story, life story, lion lying down with the lamb, living historically, living in balance, man from Nazareth, mercy without justice, netherworldly extreme, non-fiction narrative, non-resistance to evil, orthodoxy, otherworldly escapism, patriarchal stories, personal vulnerability, Pharisaic parables, Pharisaic self-criticism, Pharisees, reality checks, reform rabbi, Reform temple, religious dissenter, rigid orthodoxy, sleepless night, social prestige, surface and depth, taking Jesus literally, the gnostic Jesus, The Gospels, The Metaxy, the middle ground, The Old Testament, theological puzzles, turning the other cheek, unorthodoxy, Ur-story, what defiles, what is a Jew?, what to do about Jesus
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My Defense of My Parents
My Defense of My Parents Recently I read the collected letters of Lionel Trilling. Afterward, curiosity prompted me to look in the file folder I had under that name. Trilling had been, possibly, the most influential opinion-shaper in mid-twentieth-century America. … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, American politics, art of living, atheism, autonomy, beauty, Biblical God, books, childhood, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, immorality, immortality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, Judaism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, masculinity, memoir, memory, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, motherhood, ontology, past and future, philosophy, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, sociobiology, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
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Tagged adult children and parent friendship, anti-semitic phenomena, Clifton Fadiman, college friends, compassion, courageous love, Diana Trilling, Diana Trilling’s The Beginning of the Journey, elegy, filial piety, funeral address, Henry M. Rosenthal, historical memory, Holocaust rescue, Jewish practices, lessons from the past, Lionel Trilling, literary memoir, literary widow, male friendship, maternal devotion, moral fearlessness, moral realism, moral vision, natural coquetrie, opinion shaper, parent-child relations, parent/child obligations, Public Intellectual, recovering lost time, sense of humor, sense of self, spiritual openness, state department barriers, the rabbinate, the transcendent, tragic reality, true love, unanswered letter, wifely devotion
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Therapy from the Jews
Therapy from the Jews Have the Jews anything to offer the world today in their capacity as Jews? The remarkable plasticity and resilience of anti-semitism doesn’t answer my question about being a Jew: what the hell good is it? Let’s … Continue reading →
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, Bible, Biblical God, childhood, Christianity, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cool, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, Gnosticism, Hegel, hegemony, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, idolatry, Jews, Judaism, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, memoir, memory, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mysticism, nineteenth-century, ontology, oppression, past and future, peace, philosophy, political, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, public facade, reductionism, relationships, roles, secular, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, Zeitgeist
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Tagged Alber Camus, anti-semitism, assimilation, authorship by committee, being modern. modernity, Bibical record, Bible, Bible as metaphor, Brooklyn College, chronological experience, conventional conduct, covenant, cultural baggage, dialectical life, documentary hypothesis, dogmatism, erasing personhood, escapism, ethnic identity, false transcendence, God as energy, God as Person, God of history, higher criticism, History, human wholeness, human/divine relations, intersectionality, Jewish mind-set, Jewish orthodoxy, Jewish practices, linear thinking, literary reading of Bible, living one’s time, mechanical conformity, merger with the Absolute, Mysticism, observant Jews, Oral Law, Orthodox students, personal God, personhood, pragmatism, pretentiousness, principle of charity miracles, problem-solving, providential interventions, realm of action, religious identity, religious pretense, role of chronology, saintliness, scientism, self-correction, signing on to the covenant, Sinaitic covenant, supersessionism, Talmud, the Biblical record, The Examined Life, The Jewish Review of Books, Thomas Cahill’s The Gift of the Jews & How the Irish Saved Civilization, thought experiment, universality, Utopianism, world without Jews
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