Tag Archives: ritual

(Yom Kippur) Vidui (Circles)

Posted on October 1, 2025 by zjb

The vidui recited throught the long day of Yom Kippur is a confession composed of t5wo parts. The “ashamnu” is a short confession, an alphabetical acrostic, a list that starts with the first letter alef scrolling down to the last … Continue reading →

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(Maharal of Prague) Hanukah and Night (Ner Mitzvah)

Posted on December 30, 2024 by zjb

Night consumes the entire visual ambience of the Ner Mitzvah, a short text on the holiday of Hanukah, the festival of lights, by the Maharal of Prague. Volume I constitutes a long and vivid excursus on Daniel, visions of the … Continue reading →

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(Trump) Covenant of Pieces (2024)

Posted on November 9, 2024 by zjb

Kudos to Jeremy Kolmanofsky for connecting the dots between the re-election of Donald Trump election this week and this week’s parsha read in the synagogue as part of the yearly cycle of ritual reading. In Genesis 15, God takes Abram … Continue reading →

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Botanical Judaism (Sukkot)

Posted on October 20, 2024 by zjb

This Sukkot may we all merit to botanical devotion. [Woodcuts from Sefer Minhagim, Amsterdam, 1708] —Yosef Rosen @Yossele

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(Anti-Seder) Passover Haggadah (2024)

Posted on April 26, 2024 by zjb

“Our heart a prisoner in Gaza” with no political horizon and no foreseeable way out of this terrible war and civilian suffering. Under the pall of a deep collective political and moral crisis, Passover this year was unlike any other … Continue reading →

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High Holidays (Sefas Emes)

Posted on October 6, 2022 by zjb

[sukka in very bright light, generated at DALL-E] The commentaries in the Sefas Emes to the High Holidays comprise different component parts in a single composition. They are the last major word of the fifth and final volume of the … Continue reading →

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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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The Hasidic Seder Plate is an Objet de Fantasie

Posted on April 19, 2022 by zjb

I’ll post more later from Batsheva Goldman-Ida’s Hasidic Art and Kabbalah, but I want to share these three pictures in particular for the Passover holiday. In part, I’m choosing these three photographs because they are themselves rather remarkable. The photographs by … Continue reading →

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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 →

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Light Object Held in Place (Helen Pashgian)

Posted on December 23, 2021 by zjb

I especially liked the two large lenses at the recent show by Helen Pashgian, an early member of the 1960s Light and Space Movement. Instead of the more diffuse light effect in the Light Art of Turrell and others, the … Continue reading →

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