“Should we offer the best classes we can, or teach adults to become independent learners of Jewish texts?” So my…
Year: 2015
Yesod: Cohen on Peace
Sixth week of the Omer count: An opportunity to reflect on Yesod: Foundation In today’s “postmodern” intellectual climate, philosophers like…
Hod: Two Philosophers, Two Qualities
“To you God, belongs greatness, strength (gevurah), beauty (tiferet), eternity (netzach) and splendour (hod), because…well, everything in heaven and on…
Fly On, Sweetie
We sat on my brother’s tiny urban porch, in the bright sun, six stories above the street. A fly lit…
Netzach: Ibn Gabirol on Eternity
Netzach: I translate it as “endurance” and as “eternity.” “Eternity” fits when I imagine the sefirot as qualities of the…
Tiferet: Plotinus on Beauty
Beauty: I see it in flaming sunsets, soaring raptors, astonishing works of art. I want those experiences to last forever; they seem…
Tree of Incomparable Beauty
Recently, a new artisan storefront opened near my Main Street home. As I like to support local artisans, I wandered…
Gevurah: Aristotle on Judgment
Virtue is a state of character concerned with choice of the mean between two extremes, i.e., a mean relative to…
Chesed: Plato on Love
Do you know the wise woman Diotima, a fictional character in Plato’s dialogue Symposium? Six learned, drunken men discuss their…