Tag Archives: God

Sefat Emet (Leviticus + Shavuot)

Posted on June 9, 2022 by zjb

[Am updating my long Sefat Emet digest with a digest of Leviticus + Shavuot] [You can see the whole digest here, still in progress, from Genesis and Hanukah]] After Exodus, the Sefas Emes on Leviticus dives more deeply into the … Continue reading →

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(Christianity) Talmud and the Impotence of God (Petrus Alfonsi)

Posted on May 24, 2022 by zjb

Petrus Alfonsi was a Jewish convert to Christianity who grew up in an Iberian-Islamic milieu in Huesca, which became the capital of Aragon atthe time of the Christian reconquest. While it goes unnamed as such, his Dialogus contra Iudaeos (ca. … Continue reading →

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Sefat Emet (A Rough Digest)

Posted on December 17, 2021 by zjb

This blogpost tracking Hasidic thought in the commentary to the Torah, the Sefas Emes (Sefat Emet) (english: Language of Truth) is going to be a running project that I will update and complete, volume by volume, more or less in … Continue reading →

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Religion = Spiritual Beings

Posted on September 1, 2021 by zjb

Teaching Theories and Methods again, the classics.. “Belief” is not quite the right word and not what he actually meant. I’ve lost all patience with beating around the bush as to what people mean by “religion” and “religious.” In social-historical-political … Continue reading →

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Creative Evolution Supra Consciousness (Henri Bergson)

Posted on August 30, 2021 by zjb

Bergson’s philosophical method in Creative Evolution is primarily contemplative and visual: recognize reality as a flux of matter and mind, and dissolve back into it by following the course of its creative evolution (pp.191-2). The world picture is art nouveau: … Continue reading →

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Anthropomorphism (Arthur Marmorstein & The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God)

Posted on August 6, 2021 by zjb

Reading up about God and rabbinic theology, I found this reference by Yair Lorberbaum in to the Hungarian born and forgotten Arthur Marmorstein (1882–1946), author of the two volume The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God. I: The Names and Attributes … Continue reading →

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You Saw An Image (Surrealist God)

Posted on July 29, 2021 by zjb

The Bahir plays with that biblical icon of the modern iconoclastic tradition that is sometimes translated into English as “you saw no manner of image” (kal-temunah) (Deut. 4:15). The Bahir says, “You saw an image, not an entire image” (temunah … Continue reading →

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(Rashi) Anti-theodicy (Tisha B’Av)

Posted on July 19, 2021 by zjb

The through-line in Rashi’s commentary to Lamenations is that, yes, the people sin, but that God is responsible for the calamity, for what we today call anti-Semitism, for the human inclination to sin, for setting up a barrier between God … Continue reading →

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Haredi Response to Har Meron (Chaim Kanievsky)

Posted on April 30, 2021 by zjb

I’m posting this statement that was issued in the name of Harav Chaim Kanievsky responding to the Lag Ba’Omer disaster at Mt. Meron in Israel. Some forty-five people were killed at a stampede at a religious pilgrimage site, a mass … Continue reading →

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Creation/Contemplation of the Virtual World (Genesis Rabbah)

Posted on April 27, 2021 by zjb

Reading in seminar with Syracuse undergrad students Naama Erez, Sam Gelfand, Giulia Kean from Genesis Rabbah 1:4. According to the rabbis here, the Torah and Throne of Glory were created before the creation of the physical world, and the contemplation … Continue reading →

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