Tag Archives: nature

(Maharal of Prague) Tiferet Yisrael (AI Translation)

Posted on June 1, 2025 by zjb

From the age of the Renaissance, the sci-fi Torah of the Maharal is a auratic object, strange and alien, from a distant place. Here’s a complete AI translation of the Maharal of Prague’s Tiferet Yisrael, a table of contents. The translation … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

(Reader’s Digest) ME’OR ‘EINAYIM (Theology of Mind and Cossack Baroque)

Posted on January 10, 2025 by zjb

What follows in this post after a quick introduction is a digest of my reading notes to Me’or ‘Einayim (Light of the Eyes) (1763 -1797). Translated into English with erudite care by Arthur Green, this early Hasidic text is a … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

(Air) Smoke (New York City)

Posted on June 7, 2023 by zjb
Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , | 1 Comment

(Pile) Autumn (Bridge)

Posted on October 31, 2022 by zjb

This bridge pile supports a part of the overpass of the West Side Highway. It pile blocks, and frames the tree in the park (Riverside Park South) that now surrounds it.

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A Finite God of Gaps (Franz Rosenzweig)

Posted on September 14, 2022 by zjb

Better than the infinite and nameless God is the becoming finite God of the gap in the haze of names as thought out by Franz Rosenzweig as he begins to close his chapter on the metaphysical God in The Star … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Pharisees (Matthew)

Posted on February 23, 2022 by zjb

Cutting through the imprecation, there are at least eight things that Matthew says about the Pharisees that are maybe or probably true. –They observe Shabbat punctiliously; they do not pick grain in the fields or practice healing or exorcism on … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Universe of Technical Images (The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic)

Posted on February 4, 2022 by zjb

I was almost going to post the very polished photographic images that appeared here at the NYT about The 1.28 GHz MeerKAT Galactic Center Mosaic. They are definitely worth a look. But I couldn’t post them in good faith. The … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

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 →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

(Animism) Primitive Jewish Culture (E.B. Tylor)

Posted on October 7, 2021 by zjb

Jewish culture and Judaism spot E.B. Tylor’s monumental Primitive Culture. There is no special theory of Jewish culture or Judaism in Primitive Culture. Judaism is nothing special, just one more dataset in the ethnographic record. Primitive Judaism is folklore Primitive … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

Animism, Affect, Spiritual Beings (E.B. Tylor)

Posted on October 4, 2021 by zjb

In late mid-career, I finally got around to E.B. Tylor’s Primitive Culture and more of these musty nineteenth century contributions to the science of Religion. I am now including in my graduate seminar on Theories and Methods Max Müller’s Lectures … Continue reading →

Posted in uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment