Our second class — in the series of four that I am sharing with Rabbi Menachem Creditor, titled “Swimming the Sea of Reeds” — focused on several myths that the Jewish spiritual tradition has inserted into gaps in the Torah’s account of the Sea of Reeds story. These were from a remarkable book, Tree of Souls: … Read more
So how tough were the Israelites, really? This question — like a stand of reeds — lay just beneath the surface of our many discussions in the first installment of the four-session class that I’m doing with Rabbi Menachem Creditor at Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley. Titled “Swimming the Sea of Reeds,” this short but … Read more
A dog doesn’t want me to be typing right now. We’re at the Vermont home of my wife’s oldest brother, Denry, and his wife, Chris, and their daughter, Nadya. They have two goats, one of whom has miraculously recovered from a complete de-horning, and two very friendly dogs (and, I think, two cats — they’re … Read more
In Modern Hebrew for Beginners, a book I just bought at Afikomen Judaica in Berkeley, a footnote says: aleph and ayin are pronounced with a stoppage of the air flow, much like the initial sound in “oh oh.” I once interviewed Michael Tilson Thomas, and asked him what he does in the moments before he … Read more