Rabbinic Judaism, Stephen Geller suggests, is the “triumph of Deuteronomy and the Word.”After the fall of the temple especially, the place of the cult was taken by prayer and the liturgy. The literary temple became far more important than any possible future building. And with the end of . . . . Continue Reading »
Michel Anteby’s Manufacturing Morals is an “ethnography” of the Harvard Business School. It’s an odd book, very insight-the-HBS, but along the way he develops the intriguing notions of “vocal silence.”Routine seems to rob individuals of responsibility. But . . . . Continue Reading »
In his contribution to The Neighbor, Zizek offers this typically contrarian, typically extreme, description of the impact of God’s command to love the neighbor:“What gets lost in this ‘critique of ethical violence’ is precisely the most precious and revolutionary aspect . . . . Continue Reading »
Rivers have a unique place in biblical cosmology. Though watery, rivers are unlike the sea, which always threatens to overwhelm the land. Channeled, water becomes life-giving. They keep land fruitful, set boundaries between peoples or join them as liquid roads. A river is water brought into . . . . Continue Reading »
Someone asked me recently if my Gratitude includes a section on Barth. It doesn’t, and I’m sure this is not the last time I will turn sheepish as I confess to a large, unconscionable gap in the book.It doesn’t make up for the oversight, but here are some summary comments . . . . Continue Reading »
Stephen Geller opens an essay on blood in “P” by stating that he is treating the Pentateuch as a literary unit.What the “priestly editor” produced, he argue is not “patchwork aggregate signifying nothing” but “a work meaningful in the whole, a tapestry . . . . Continue Reading »
The whole of Marcia Angell’s review of Alison Wolf’s The XX Factor is worth careful reading. It’s a detailed sketch of the lives of upper-middle-class working women and the effect their entrance into the workplace has had on marriage and family.Some of those effects are . . . . Continue Reading »
Zizek’s more violent apocalypticism avoids these difficulties of the milder but less coherent apocalyptic of Alain Badiou. It is the commitment and passion inherent in apocalyptic that attracts Zizek. The deconstructive theology of John Caputo destroys the very foundations of Christianity . . . . Continue Reading »
Timothy Snyder reports that gay marriage got implicated in the Ukrainian uprising and the Russian response.Putin’s appeal to Ukraine’s President Viktor Yanukovych included, as everyone knows, financial incentives. It also included warnings about the effect of entering the . . . . Continue Reading »
Oedipus was the ideal hero for classical Athens, a solver of riddles intent on discovering secrets. And the Sphinx was the perfect monstrous adversary. It’s no surprise that the story became one of the most famous myths of the ancient and modern worlds.In her recent brief . . . . Continue Reading »
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