Monoamory is as difficult as it sounds, and so is monotheism. “Adonai is our God, Adonai is one.” Others declared “Baal is one”, “Zeus is one”, “One was Abraham.” You are the one: a declaration of commitment, certainly not metaphysics. With each “You” and “One”, the possibility of another is humbly acknowledged and repeatedly rejected, […]Read Post ›
The people, presented with the Torah, respond: “All that God speaks we will do!” But perhaps they were less naïve, retorting: “Will we do all that God speaks?” Is this what the Torah demands? Will we become robots, blindly performing these commandments? No way. We want to choose, like lovers, we want to choose each […]Read Post ›
Man’s first task is to name animals, his first words are a string of nouns. He longs for verbs. On seeing a female, he bursts into a love-poem: “Finally! Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bones!” He struggles to create a new noun and express what it does. “This shall be called Woman, for […]Read Post ›
Jacob wakes up from a dream-encounter with God, and is shaken. “God is truly in this place, and I did not know!” A relationship with a transcendent God tends to sanctify actions, words, intentions and times rather than places; later Judaism expresses such a relationship in “places” such as prayer, Shabbat and commandments. Medieval commentator […]Read Post ›
120 words of Torah 