Monthly Archives: March 2012

Zohar (Sick-Souled)

Posted on March 14, 2012 by zjb

    Like Yosemite Sam said about Bugs Bunny, I hates Zohar. I had read through the first two volumes of Daniel Matt’s Pritzker translation and stalled. I just couldn’t stand it anymore. I thought the text had reached a … Continue reading →

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Love Me (Ephemera)

Posted on March 13, 2012 by zjb

  “Love is as strong as death” (Song of Songs 8:6). It’s also the slogan to Franz Rosenzweig’s chapter on “revelation” in his 1921 magnum opus Der Stern der Erlösung (The Star of Redemption). In the imperative voice, the love-me … Continue reading →

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A Talmud-Place at the Movies (Joseph Cedar, Footnote)

Posted on March 13, 2012 by zjb

Intimate, caustic, and backbiting –now that’s a religion movie!! It’s not often that you get to see Jewish Studies staged on the big screen. Kudos to Daniel Boyarin, who gets mentioned in Jospeh Cedar’s Footnote! And also to Alon, Ben … Continue reading →

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Literature, Trust, and the Return to the Real (Jonathan Franzen or Why Can’t I?)

Posted on March 12, 2012 by zjb

(photo taken from the SU Daily Orange)  Jonathan Franzen spoke at Syracuse University last week, so I figured this might be interesting. Great excitement at Hendrick’s Chapel. Incredibly tall, the author stepped up to the podium.  I’ve never seen a … Continue reading →

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Metalic Folds, Smashed Up Cars, & The Light Touch of Sculptural Stuff (John Chamberlain at the Guggenheim)

Posted on March 10, 2012 by zjb

(John Chamberlain, Hillbilly Galoot [1960]) Went to the Guggenheim to see the big John Chamberlain exhibit. Chamberlain (1927-2011) is famous for taking scraps of metal from old cars and bending them and folding them into sculptural objects. I didn’t think … Continue reading →

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Shabbat: Aesthetic Judaism

Posted on March 9, 2012 by zjb

Fire, wine, bread –the material elemental building blocks of Shabbat Idea, sound, suspended animation –less palpable shapes. Everything else is commentary [footnote: The term “Aesthetic Judaism” is Jonathan Karp’s from an essay on Moses Mendelssohn’s Kohelet Musar, in Ross Brann … Continue reading →

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Whirls and Twirls, Glorious Descent (New York Subway)

Posted on March 9, 2012 by zjb

  Sol Lewitt, “Whirls and Twirls (MTA)” (2004) (just past the main entrance at the 59th Street subway station at Columbus Circle)   Sol Lewitt is a veteran Conceptualist artist with roots in the 1970s. Conceptualism is generally understood to … Continue reading →

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Purim (from Rabbis for Human Rights)

Posted on March 8, 2012 by zjb

   I posted earlier that sometimes it’s best not to moralize too much about the Bible. And sometimes it is, even on Purim. I’m re-posting here the follow thoughts from Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis for Human Rights. Arik is … Continue reading →

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Inebriated (Mystical Purim)

Posted on March 8, 2012 by zjb

Sorry about the Hitler. It must be the holiday. Please bear with me. As for reading Rav Shagar’s Chance and Providence: Discourses on the Inner Meaning of Purim, I’m not sure what to say except that reading him left me … Continue reading →

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Until You Don’t Know the Difference between Esther and Sarah (Tonight is Purim)

Posted on March 7, 2012 by zjb

http://simplymommy-heather.blogspot.com/2011/09/more-bible-costumes-trunk-or-treat.html I know, I know, it’s very weird, but one my favorite details in the Book of Esther is how all the women brought to King Ahasuerus spent “a twelve months’ treatment (for that was the period spent on beautifying … Continue reading →

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