I’m part of a discussion elist for progressive Jews, and like a zillion other online groups, we’ve been posting messages about the Terry Schiavo case (may she rest in peace). Over the weeks of its unfolding, people have sent eloquent expositions of their own widely divergent views to the list, from those who feel the …
Our cultural moment is characterized by public displays of incredibly intimate information. People outdo each other in telling all, including gruesome tales of abuse and even voluntary self-debasement recounted with relish. Just look at the nonfiction best-seller list. I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m a private person (that’s become such a cliche, …
The news of the world is so instantaneous, multifarious and bizarre that it provides corroboration for almost any mood. Maybe it’s just my temperament, but when I feel disgruntled, instead of looking at my own choices, I am often tempted to lay it off on man’s inhumanity to man, and the news usually gives me …
The Jewish holiday of Purim begins on Thursday evening, so as every year, my thoughts turn to the tale of identity and redemption it commemorates. A few years ago I took a course in midrashic writing (writing that elaborates biblical texts) from a well-known poet who decided to use \Megillat Esther\/the Scroll of Esther — …
I’ve been thinking about the ways we are shaped by whatever we resist. Because of anomalies in the Hebrew calendar, the anniversaries of my parent’s death fall a week apart, the 20th and 27th of the month of Adar, which this year begin on two successive Monday nights, 28 February and tomorrow. My father died …
Each of us has a characteristic disappointment, something that strikes in a very deep and very old place. Mine is regression. Whether between two people or two nations, nothing sends me into despair more quickly than believing genuine progress has been made, then seeing things snap back into their original distorted shape. Say my friend …
I have — as we say here on the left coast — trust issues. Not the mundane kind: I’m happy to give most people the benefit of the doubt, and more often than not, they prove trustworthy. I’m content to trust the roads to hold me and the sun to rise tomorrow morning. No, I’ve …
Condoleezza Rice is a work of art, her own exquisite creation. As we all by now know, as a child she excelled in music and sports, skipping two grades and achieving a baccalaureate by 19. Yesterday, NPR commentators were awestruck in admiration at her self-containment. At a break they remarked that while she’d come into …
I have a birthday coming up in a few days, and because I’ve been very, very good this year, I’ve decided to make it an eight-day birthday festival. (What I want for my birthday is a column! If you can give me an introduction to an editor who might be interested in regular dispatches from …
When I started writing “2005” on things last week, I had a surreal feeling: this isn’t the future I was expecting. The turn of the 21st century was such a big deal for my generation, a longed-for milestone. When I was a child in the fifties, we thought that by the year 2000 people would …