Judaism | On the Presence of Being Everywhere

Provocations from a Libertine Counter-World: Jacob Frank and/or the Marquis de Sade

Trigger Warning This article examines the lives, writings, and legacies of Jacob Frank and the Marquis de Sade, including their engagements with sexual transgression, religious antinomianism, coercive practices, and violence. It discusses explicit themes such as sexual exploitation, ritualized power dynamics, and philosophical justifications of cruelty within historical contexts. The analysis is scholarly, but the material may be disturbing or overwhelming for some

Richard Mather

Between Messiah and Monster: A Brief Biography of Jacob Frank

Between Messiah and Monster: A Brief Biography of Jacob Frank Jacob Frank — born Jakub Lejbowicz in Podolia in 1726, then a province of Poland and now part of Ukraine — was the son of Leib Buchbinder and Rachel Hirschl. Through his father he inherited a link to the scandal‑ridden Sabbateans, the heterodox Jewish movement that continued to uphold the messianic claims of Sabbatai Zevi, the seventeenth‑century Ottoman rabbi, Kabbalist, and apostate whose doctrine of redemption

Richard Mather

No God but the Gold Forged in the Furnace of Flesh: A Poem on Jacob Frank

No God but the Gold Forged in the Furnace of Flesh: A Poem on Jacob Frank Jakub Lejbowicz slithered east Beneath a heretic’s curse. A worm of rot, crowned in Ottoman dust, He wore another man’s face — Berukhiah reborn Jacob Frank, Westerner of Podolia, Messianic pretender. In Salonica, blasphemy transmuted: Sin kissed the breasts Of someone else’s wife. Torah pressed into palpable skin, White fire turned utterly black. Apostates writhed. A th

Richard Mather

Academia.edu: Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life [complete]

Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life [complete] New on Academia.edu (DOC) Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life [complete]

Richard Mather

Part 1 - Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life

Ludwig Wittgenstein Wittgenstein's Willing Subject: How the Happy Life Is the Only Right Life (Part One) New monograph on Academia.edu...

Richard Mather

Ornate gold menorah with seven lit candles set against a rich purple backdrop with draped curtains; three golden Stars of David are integrated into the curtain design above and around the menorah, creating a dramatic and reverent depiction of Jewish heritage and ritual symbolism.

A Vagabond Jew from Lithuania: A Poem on Salomon Maimon

A Vagabond Jew from Lithuania: A Poem on Salomon Maimon It took a vagabond Jew from Lithuania to strike the wick that Königsberg’s sage had hid and let go out in dark’s old age. Said the synagogue’s rude son: Let there be German with a Yiddish tongue , and from his restless mind concepts flowed like fire onto the page. With quid facti? and quid juris? as his lamps, he lit the lecture halls and shadowed nooks of Europe with flame incandescent,

Richard Mather

A Strange Hatching

A Strange Hatching Into Eden fly the winged elohim screeching like owls, scattering dark mist and whirling about, their wings...

Richard Mather

Saul

The soul of the king an out-of-tune lyre with harpstrings for guts – many sharps and flats. Sent by the LORD the holy pneuma's hand...

Richard Mather

Seven Worlds

God turns -- and the fishes dance blue gold silver beneath a yellow sky. Another turn, the boughs of thick trees become as air: invisibly...

Richard Mather

Cometh the Lion

Cometh the Lion Cometh the Lion, cometh the hour. On his head is my name; on his back is my power. The time is narrow, and the world is wide And the Lion comes now with a spear in his side. Look how he bleeds; his flesh is a prize For the cross-hearted hunter with blood in his eyes (Brimming red in the heat of the noon) And vowing to return by the light of the moon. ‘Come follow me,’ the Lion commands, ‘Or the hunter will come and hack off your hands.

Richard Mather