I’m talking with a friend about machloket l’shem shemayim, perhaps the one most crucial value that makes me feel Jewish and which makes a person feel Jewish to me, regardless of whether that person is secular or observant: There is a practice of truth-finding among us, based on the infinitude of God, where we seek … Continue reading Machloket l’shem shemayim
Since last Saturday I’ve been obsessing on the concept of machloket, “sacred arguing”. I haven’t been this happy since I learned the word “agonism”. Anyone who knows me well, knows that I hoard ideas. This is the root of my terrible book problem. Many of the books I’ve collected are really just husks for a … Continue reading Machloket
The main difficulty I have with esoteric thought is this: I know from direct experience how effective esoteric thought structures are in the dissolution, coagulation, crystallization and stabilization our own souls (psyches) and, consequently, the givenness of the world. Comprehensive conversion — transformation of soul — is a perpetual possibility. This is not even open … Continue reading Polycentered declarations
I cannot stop thinking about Christopher Alexander’s essay “A City is Not a Tree”. The specific theme that is emerging as most important to me is this idea of a designed thing’s capacity to accommodate multiple perspectives, as intrinsically valuable. A functionalist might see such accommodation in terms of versatility. A functionalist would say that … Continue reading What is richness?
From Charles Stein’s Light of Hermes: Mathematics as sacrifice: one sacrifices one’s woolly fantasies for the orderliness of collective positivity. But the sacrifice is only satisfied or completed when the entire mathematical project becomes a noetic mandala and one’s sacrifice is of one’s phantom apparencies only as requiescent unto Being. What one believes or supposes … Continue reading Intellectual sacrifice
I sent off for three plates yesterday. The ultra-thick Crane’s Lettra I ordered is supposed to arrive day after tomorrow. I have studio time scheduled for the week after Christmas. My first priority is the Jacob’s Ladder reference sheet. Another piece is the (extremely cool-looking) circular Sefirot (Iggulim), which depicts the ray of Divine Light … Continue reading Ten, no more, no less
“I no longer know how from that I came to speak of Jesus and to say that we Jews knew him from within, in the impulses and stirrings of his Jewish being, in a way that remains inaccessible to the peoples submissive to him. ‘In a way that remains inaccessible to you’ — so I … Continue reading Gospel Pharisee