I can recall a few moments in my life when I had enough information to “know it all.”  I note the great pain often associated with such knowledge — the distance from friends and family who don’t “get it”,  for example. We can think of Socrates or Einstein whose insights into their objects of study brought them a certain amount of humility.

Pure confusion can’t be a proper goal but maybe a certain amount serves us well during our great pursuits. (image from here, a fun site)

I’ve settled on small ones.

• Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy  The Christian Future and Planetary Service. I feel I need Eugen at all times and these two are focused on issues of society’s speed and the need for communion.
• Ira Stone A Responsible Life: The Spiritual Path of Mussar.  Stone’s translation and commentary for Wisdom & Mussar by R. Simcha Zissel is a surprise gift as the appendix.  Mussar means “instruction” or “correction” and refers both to a literature of self-improvement throughout rabbinic Judaism and also specific activities. Stone’s encounter with Zissel’s Kelm school of mussar through the lens of Emmanuel Levinas brings the tradition to greater contemporary relevance.
• Dalai Lama Spiritual Advice for Buddhists and Christians.  Short and quick.
• Pirke Avot “Chapters of the Fathers”.  Olitsky brings major commentaries to his pages of both English and Aramaic. This is a major effort for the next few months to be able to teach this tractate.
• Margaret Atwood Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth.  The cover has a balloon near the top above the print and a thumb tack at the bottom facing up.  I started this in June and it was a riot.  Part of my effort see the financial bubble as a poetic invention.

Perhaps Walter Brueggeman The Covenanted Self: Explorations in Law and Covenant and a Daniel Elazar edited book on covenant and constitutionalism.  There’s a project in me about the federating, communing in personal and political dynamics, drawing on Jewish and Christian sources and seen in US history.   Not sure if that deserves my time now.

I’m concerned once again with the “culture wars.” Hopefully that may subside as a I depart the DC area. It forced to drop an idea of reviewing several classic studies of legislative dynamics through the lens of health care reform 1970s-1990s.  Yet there is less legislative activity now compared to the culture war of the town hall meetings which all media outlets excitedly channel to the viewer.

Was tempted to bring an Aquinas-based reading of salvation history through he lens of Torah & Temple and a book on Lonergan’s own intellectual conversion.

There are also a number of books relevant to retreat management or other activities where I’m going. They’ll have to wait here. I’m committed to easy of travel.

That’s the update. Scattered interests, as ever.

Rabbi Lew’s book This Is Real And You Are Completely Unprepared: The Days of Awe as a Journey of Transformation was published by Little Brown and Co. in August of 2003. ” . . .Yet for Rabbi Alan Lew, the real purpose of this annual passage is for us to experience brokenheartedness and open our hearts to God. . . . Lew has marked out a journey of seven distinct stages, one that draws on these rituals to awaken the soul and wholly transform us. . .”

I like and despise the Days of Awe, an annual death preparation meant to transform our lives.  During the Yom Kippur fast, white is worn to suggest our burial outfit and bathing discouraged.  You are already rotting!  The soul must experience Tshuvah, or re-direction, turning to the ways of God and away from sin, in order to be granted life in the coming year. This is severe yet Alan know the energy can be guided toward self-revelation, the death of the old self must be embraced.

I also note Richard John Neuhaus’ passing.  His fascinating life teaches what is possible.

Who drops out of school and runs a gas station in north Texas at age 13?   Who organizes with King and Heschel against the Vietnam War (Clergy Concerned about Vietnam) while serving in tough urban parish?  Who then becomes the author of a seminal text on American religious and political life (The Naked Public Square), leaves Lutheran Church of his upbrining for full communion with the Catholic Church, then edits a major conservative inntellectual magazine (First Things). RJN was unique in his path.  David Brooks here details RJN’s preparation for death.  Along the way a vision alerted him to the closeness of death, as well as its undeniability. I can’t quite capture it.

It’s a strange world, but there you have it. I’ve been talking to friends of mine, former Palestinian Authority intelligence officials (ejected from power by the Hamas coup), and they tell me that not only are they rooting for the Israelis to decimate Hamas, but that Fatah has actually been assisting the Israelis with targeting information. One of my friends — if you want to know why they’re my friends, read this book — told me that one of his comrades was thrown off a high-rise building in Gaza City last year by Hamas, and so he sheds no tears for the Hamas dead. “Let the Israelis kill them,” he said. “They’ve brought only trouble for my people.”  [emphasis added]

See below for a review of Hamas’ takeover of Gaza.

1) Gaza City: Presidential compound seized overnight on 14 June Headquarters of Fatah’s Preventative Security Force seized Key security and intelligence compounds targeted 2) Beit Hanoun: Four killed and at least 15 injured in fighting on 11 June, UN reports Most of northern Gaza under Hamas control by 12 June, UN reports 3) Central Gaza: Hamas believed to control area, including Maghazi, Brej and Nuseirat refugee camps by 12 June 4) Khan Younis: Explosion wrecks headquarters of the Fatah’s Preventive Security Force, killing five, on 13 June 5) Rafah: Hamas seizes control on 14 June 6) Key roads: Hamas controls main north/south road and coastal road 7) Gaza/Egypt border: Hamas claims control of border in south Erez crossing: About 600 Gazans, including 100 Fatah security men, attempt to flee into Israel but are detained at the border

This blog explores the weekday morning prayers in light of the contributors’ personal experiences with depression and anxiety, complemented by an analysis of what traditional Jewish sources have to say.

In addition to exploring the intersection between tefillah [prayer] and depression, an important secondary goal of this blog is to create a virtual community around reflections on Jewish religious practice in general from the point of view of people who have experienced depression and other mental illnesses.

The blog’s title, “Borei Hoshech” or “בוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ,” means “who creates darkness,” and comes from the first blessing before the morning Shema. The full blessing reads:

The blog’s title, “Borei Hoshech” or “בוֹרֵא חֹשֶׁךְ,” means “who creates darkness,” and comes from the first blessing before the morning Shema. The full blessing reads:

ברוך אתה ה’ אלהינו מלך העולם. יוצר אור ובורא חושך

“Blessed are You, God, King of the World, who fashions light and who creates darkness, who makes peace and who creates everything.”

It reflects belief in a God who creates darkness and depression, as well as light and peace.

If you want to share this with other people and can’t quite remember how to spell “Borei Hoshech,” we don’t blame you! This blog can also be reached through www.fromdarkness.org, which is much easier to spell and remember. This redirect was inspired by the phrase “מאפלה לאורה,” which appears in various contexts throughout traditional Jewish literature, also has a strong connection to the idea of prayer.

:תלמוד ירושלמי, מסכת ברכות, פרק רביעי, הלכה א

ר’ שמואל בן נחמני אומר: ממה למדו שלוש תפילות? כנגד שלוש פעמים שהיום משתנה על הבריות. בשחר צריך אדם לומר: “מודה אני לפניך, ה’ אלוקיי ואלוקי אבותיי, שהוצאתני מאפלה לאורה”. במנחה צריך אדם לומר: “מודה אני לפניך… כשם שזיכיתני לראות החמה במזרח, כן זכיתי לראותה במערב (נוטה לצד מערב).” בערב צריך לומר: “יהי רצון לפניך, ה’ אלוקיי ואלוקי אבותיי, כשם שהייתי באפלה והוצאתני לאורה היום בבוקר כן תוציאני מאפלה לאורה מחר בבוקר

Jerusalem Talmud, Tractate Brachot, 4:1:

Rabbi Shmuel the son of Nachmani says: From where do we learn that we should pray three times a day? From the three times that the day changes for the creations. With sunrise, one must say: “I am grateful to you, God and God of my ancestors, that you brought me out of darkness to light.” In the afternoon, one must say: “I am grateful to you that just as I merited to see the sun in the East, so may I merit to see it in the West.” In the evening, one must say: “May it be your will, God and God of my ancestors, that just as I was in the dark and you brought me out into the light of day this morning, so may you bring me from darkness to light tomorrow morning.

The secondary way of reaching this blog reflects the hope that all of us who are in darkness may merit to see light–soon and every morning.

For many throughout church history, fasting is bound up with hostility to matter and the body.  We refrain from bodily pleasures of food and drink to train our souls in disembodied life.

That’s not biblical.  The biblical fast, as Isaiah 58 puts it, is to share food with the hungry and clothing with the naked.  The true fast gives good things away to those who don’t have them.

Biblical fasting, then, assumes the goodness of material things, and the propriety of pleasure.  After all, if good and drink and clothing are evil, why would we want to share them?  Isaiah’s fast assumes that creation is so good that we want everyone to have a piece of it.

The reason members of the Church began to value fasting as renunciation of the body is beyond my scope. I am concerned how a text loses its initial vitality and how a text is revivied.  Isaiah 58 illustrates this process. See reason for cat image below.

Isaiah 58, read in synagogues on Yom Kippur, is a great though often muted text.  Friend Rabbi Fred Dobbs recently explored this in a sermon,

“I once heard a short story about synagogue practice — ostensibly by Franz Kafka — that really grabbed me. A very short story: “One day a leopard stalked into the synagogue, roaring and lashing its tail. Three weeks later, it had become part of the liturgy.”…  I heard this version of Kafka’s leopard story from Rabbi Arthur Waskow, who bemoaned how “Many synagogues read [that] Haftarah as another droning piece of the machzor [liturgy].” “Unfortunately,” Waskow wrote, its predictable placement threatens it with being “not a challenge to the liturgy but a part of it” – a caged cat.

Waskow suggests we might unleashing the power of the prophets texts today by secretly staging a synagogue scene. (I paraphrase) “Oy, I’m so hungry,” one congregant says rudely out loud, voicing a common feeling.  Another congregant suddenly stands up and yells,” Do you think the Lord is pleased by your petty groans?  No, this is the fast He desires: To unlock the fetters of wickedness, And untie the cords of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free; To break off every yoke. It is to share your bread with the hungry, And to take the wretched poor into your home; When you see the naked, to clothe him.

via JPS Tanakh

² To be sure, they seek Me daily,
Eager to learn My ways.
Like a nation that does what is right,
That has not abandoned the laws of its God,
They ask Me for the right way,
They are eager for the nearness of God:³ “Why, when we fasted, did You not see?
When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?”
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!
⁴ Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist!
your fasting today is not such
As to make your voice heard on high.
⁵ Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the Lord is favorable?
⁶ No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
⁷ It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.

⁸ Then shall your light burst through like the dawn
And your healing spring up quickly;
Your Vindicator shall march before you,
The Presence of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

]]> http://scottdinsmore.wordpress.com/2008/12/31/fasting-and-caged-cats/feed/ 0 scottdinsmore http://scottdinsmore.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/general-update/ http://scottdinsmore.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/general-update/#comments Wed, 24 Dec 2008 04:46:52 +0000 Scott http://scottdinsmore.wordpress.com/2008/12/24/general-update/ ]]> I’ve thought about updating here numerous times since I arrived in Fall Village, CT 10 days ago.  Alas, I’m rarely sitting down at my laptop when I’m not exhausted.  I find myself quite content amid a flurry of work and snow.  However, I must get two ideas out before they are lost.

On the train to NYC I found a large, carpeted floor space in the last car to rest my weary back. I took my usual three deep breaths and a lower back disc slipped back into alignment. For about 3 years I’ve been able (or had to) do this a few times a day.  When the alignment is sufficiently off, my low back experiences a painful constriction of motion until this “crack” occurs.  This restores motion and eases painful pressure.

Prone on the train, a constellation of aging, body deterioration, and the soul’s growth connected in my mind’s night sky. Twenty years of ‘adult’ responses to anxiety and stimuli erode the body.  My lower back pain demands reduction of built up tension.  Breathing deeper, as this crack requires, calms nerves. Aches of aging train the spirit to confront its repression and shadow preparing for the long dark night of adulthood.

I’m the retreat manager for a silent retreat this week (and next). I watched the fire I made today and considered the fire’s molecular balance. At some point the oxygen which fuels the fire becomes a gust extinguishing the flame. Can a surplus of fuel kill the spark, like flooding the gas tank?  That thought could end here, but I’ll stretch it below.

Rededicating the Israelite’s Temple by rekindling the Ner Tamid (eternal flame) is the central activity in the Chanukah story.  (I say story because the Talmudic Aggadah, or post-Temple rabbinic elaboration upon previous sacred texts, not the Torah itself, suggests the miraculously long-lasting oil was the Divine’s doing.)  This Temple was designed to channel humankind’s tendency to worship away from concrete pagan deities to a Divine whose justice and mercy extend beyond place and time.  “No Man shall see my face and live,” Moses is told.  How do we capture what is beyond our understanding?  How to we buoy our lives with the fuel of sacred connection with a) destroying all b) lose own spark through too much exposure?

Conversation started about the benefit of lower gas prices to taxi drivers.  Then the driver announced suggestively, “What I want to know is how the price went up so fast and then down again.” I blogged last May on the poor reporting, each explanation pointing to different cavern ignorance. “I’m not happy with the reporting. There’s no clear explanation of these price changes. One reason for the drop, though, is the slowdown of the US economy. Less demand.”

“So how do they actually set prices,” he inquired.

On this new supply-and-demand topic, we became stuck for a moment around the idea of “competition” and pricing. Are drivers competing for fuel or gas stations competing for customers? I had to imagine this specific hurdle in my mind.   I had to choose an appropriate response based on what I know and can clearly state. Not a simple act, though made easier since I don’t know much.  Supply and demand is one of those areas of knowledge which I have a hazy grasp of.  I can rely on getting it clear most of the time but examining the assumptions takes effort to connect the proper word to the proper image in my mind.

Relying on general ideas I added, “Assume there’s plenty of oil. Most drivers are willing to pay up to five dollars per gallon.”  That didn’t feel sufficient.  At least I didn’t just blather until interrupted in an effort to appear smart enough. Fortunately, my partner was with me.  Sounds of recognition audibly filled his cab.  “Oh, ok. If lots of drivers need to fill up, the station’s got the power to charge more.”  We extended this to the concept of economic slowdowns.

Did we talk about other topics, stay quiet, or remain on this one? I can’t remember. I do humbly appreciate my conversation partner’s willingness to share a question, to search jointly.  We brought a little bit of light into each others mind.  In the darkness of the unknown, companionship matters.  Isn’t that the way it should work?

Now,  just let me talk with some reporters and get some naked self-exposure about the many things we do not yet know.

A similar theme here:

By not getting
What you want you become who you
Are: time permitting

[Line separation in original.  I was told the meter is off with the line breaks, but works otherwise]

[There's a] Walker Percy novel with a near future setting, a dystopian scenario, in which he said, `As things fell apart, the center did not hold; however the GDP continued to rise.’

Some of us will say, “GDP is up.  Who cares about the center, whatever that is.”  Others in tense laughter announce our concern.

See WB Yeats “The Second Coming” (1920)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?