Tag Archives: Shabbat & holidays

Avinu Malkeinu Splits the Difference

Posted on October 3, 2025 by zjb

Jewish tradition is internally oriented and self-reflecting. As the concluding refrain of Yom Kippur, the Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father Our King, splits the difference between maintaining vigilance vis-a-vis anti-Jewish violence and communal sin and iniquity. The prayer holds the tense … Continue reading →

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(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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(Judgment) Rosh Hashanah (Mercy)

Posted on September 26, 2025 by zjb

Here is one way to juxta-position what is the combination of judgment, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the canny confidence with which Jewish tradition meets the new year. The relation is not one thing next to … Continue reading →

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(Last Week) Erev Shabbat (Jerusalem)

Posted on August 15, 2025 by zjb

The place shuts down erev Shabbat on Rechov Azza. The sign reads, “They could have returned alive”

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(נתיב ההפקרה) Tisha B’Av (2025)

Posted on August 4, 2025 by zjb

Tisha B’Av directs the religious imagination deep into its own pain. This fearsome day looks straight ahead, neither to the right nor to the left. In the book of Lamentations, read on the fast day, the suffering that the collective … Continue reading →

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(Purim) Amalek (Martin Buber)

Posted on March 12, 2025 by zjb

Religious truth, in contradistinction to philosophical truth, is not a maxim but a way, not a thesis but a process. That God is merciful is an abstract statement; to penetrate the religious truth that lies beyond it, we must not … 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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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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(Isaiah) Place of Consolation (7 Weeks)

Posted on August 20, 2024 by zjb

(Isaiah) What is Consolation (7 Weeks) In the prophetic imagination, consolation is a super violent and theopolitical counter-reality. Other-worldly without being otherworldly is the liturgical view drawn from the 7 haftaroth of consolation recited in the synagogue on Shabbat between … Continue reading →

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(Against Divine Violence) 9 Av (Lamentations)

Posted on August 13, 2024 by zjb

Read on the fast day of Tisha B’Av, the lament in the book of Lamentations (in Hebrew Eicha or Alas, named after the first word of the text) is a rebuke. But who is the object of recrimination? Only on … Continue reading →

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