Prayer hall inside the Grand Choral Synagogue Makom It is It is a place, It is a place, Makom, It is a place, Makom, where animal and man, may be called to ascend, ascend the mount, ascend the stair, ascend to a space where the Name has enholied some stony ground, a place where one can say in the presence of time, 'Here I am, Here I am, I am a being-there.'

All Things Are Possible: A Brief Biography of Lev Shestov In 1936, two years before his death, the Jewish‑Russian philosopher Lev Shestov was invited by the Histadrut to deliver a series of lectures in Eretz Israel. He was warmly received by audiences in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem — the city that, in his late thought, came to symbolise the liberation of the individual from the tyranny of rational necessity. And yet, despite the intensity of that reception, Shestov and his

Judaism, Panentheism and Spinoza’s Intellectual Love of God It is a popular misconception that Spinoza was a pantheist or even an atheist. He was not. Like the medieval Kabbalists, Spinoza was a panentheist. Judaism, Panentheism and Spinoza’s Intellectual Love of God Panentheism, meaning “all-in-God,” is situated somewhere between pantheism and classical theism. For pantheists, the world is identical to God, while for classical theists, the world is completely external to G

The Heterodox Judaism of Baruch Spinoza There is only one and unique substance in existence, a substance that is infinite, self-caused, and eternal. This substance is the spatio-temporal world. But it is also God, says Baruch Spinoza, the Sephardi Jew from Amsterdam excommunicated by the Talmud Torah congregation. The Heterodox Judaism of Baruch Spinoza Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632 in Amsterdam to a Sephardi Jewish family who had fled Portugal because of persecution by th

Onement, 1 (1948) by Barnett Newman The Sublime Art of Barnett Newman The problem of a painting is physical and metaphysical, the same as I think life is physical and metaphysical – Barnett Newman Barnett Newman was born in 1905 to Abraham and Anna Newman, Jewish immigrants from Poland who came to New York City in 1900. Although not religious, Barnett’s father was a passionate Zionist and supporter of the National Hebrew School of the Bronx. As well as attending Hebrew schoo

Pictures of Eve I Adam cultivated Eve by swelling her belly with something so potent that it could only have come from the stone of a forbidden fruit. II Eve was striding the earth when Adam emerged from a black gap. Six days passed and earth was reduced to a pile of newsprint. And Eve tore her clothes and made for herself a garment of lamentations. But Adam, sated and pitiless, scoffed her beneath the absent apple tree.

Baal Tqiah (One Who Blows the Shofar) Baal Tqiah (One Who Blows the Shofar) A storm wind comes from the hidden north filling my mouth, my lungs, with dust and sand from Sinai. Then a great cloud of black, a no-thingness that deprives me of sense, of touch and taste, of sight, smell and hearing. Then a winding of burning. No, not wind, but f

On the Seventh Day On the seventh day God came down, dug earth deep and wide, buried Adam in the belly of the planet. From his grave came flowers and fruit trees, valleys and hills, rivers and seas, fish, lizards, birds, mammals, humans – lots and lots of humans. Seven million years later Adam awoke from a nightmare of holocausts, rape rooms, train wrecks, the rape of Eve. But being stuck in the belly of the world he could nothing but grind his jaw and weep for eternity to en

Microcosm בְּרֵאשִׁית was the command 10 PRINT "Hello Universe" 20 GOTO 10 Unbelievable, breathless, demonic even, how a singular point could yield space, time, protons, neutrons, chemicals – a bunch of ones and zeros, flashing on and off like little bits of light. But there it was: an actual universum, infinite in volume, brimming with dark energy and matter. And earth! Circumference forty thousand kilometres; composition iron, oxygen, silicon, magnesium; a mean sidereal day

Image, Idol, Dream Abraham prepared a table before me Even as I spoke harshly of the desert’s hot kisses. He moistened my head with oil. “You are safe,” he said. “My people will fight for you.” If I was a fugitive, I was no longer a stranger in his tent. He filled my cup to the brim As if I was a visiting king. I said: “I have found satisfaction in God. I need nothing else.” We sat and ate. He talked of Abel and Seth, Of the riddles of Shem and his book of secrets, Of his own

Lamech’s Revelation Lord, I have seen the inner workings of man and I am afraid. Poor and pathetic: he is corrupted from the start, living in a blasted world. But my eyes have seen the ark of salvation, which you have prepared in secret: my own son Noah, the justification of all that is to come. He knows the secrets of all living things. He was born in the night but came out perfect. He is my Adam on whom God will pour out His righteousness. The same God who will one day wipe

The Family Way Eve lay down and trembled. Her belly grew fat like the moon. Her womb conspired murder. Cain was gloomy at heart. Abel and his animals inflamed passions on all sides. Cain looked up and the sky shivered grey. Sin flew out the door of heaven. It stuck in Cain’s gullet like Aaron’s rod. Cain slaughtered his brother like a goat. He trembled as wiped the gore on his father’s coat of skin, which still carried the aroma of grandfather God.

Promise to Abraham Abraham, it is time to leave your lonely tent. Find a vacant spot in the belly of your heart and learn to fear the Lord. Stop seeking the wind that blows this way and that; come out from behind that fig tree and walk straight. Do not hide your thoughts from me or turn your hand to smooth things. Abraham, you are a dry land without green shoots. But I am making you a gift of wild grasses and flowers, of flowing rivers and fertile soil. It will be for you an

Exodus 20:21 ‘Moses approached the thick darkness where God was’ — (Exodus 20:21) God is a chasm deep & wide at the Heart of light, thick cloud Enveloping Moses — Cloud the color of ink on a scroll Of Torah. God’s best miracle? To disappear right in the middle Of things (when you need him most) & when you look up there’s Just a great nothing (Except a trail of smoke). But seek & you may find him — Way out on the sea’s brink Where the ice caps melt;

Zechariah The brickwork is broken, Gardens are in disarray, The iron gates swing free from their hinges, Rain sings in the gutters & the earth beneath my feet is possessed by evil spirits. How the giants have fallen! How the angels have vanished! Gone are the generations that once stood their ground (Bright were their faces; Noisy was their talk with childish laughter). War, plague, flood and drought have left their marks On the foreheads o

Letter to Iyov Before I had to chance to complete my creation I was cast down by the rebel angels and made to suffer this, my exile. Creation evolved and I was able to converse with man in the ear of his mind. It was I who hid in the fiery tree and called out to the shepherd. I spoke to my people in thunder. There we were, in shadows, in the fog of misunderstanding. I was there when my people fought