Preface
Years and years ago, Ivanhoe started a thread called Spiritual Quotes. What is a “spiritual quote”? It need not be religious; humanistic, philosophical and scientific quotes were fully welcome. Fundamentally, but without a strict definition, it is any quote that might inspire or reflect the human emotion of awe and wonder vis-à-vis some dimension of our existence, as the individual perceives it; or simply an expression of an existential understanding that the poster finds meaningful—including both the religious and the anti-religious, serious and humorous, etc., etc..
The protocol, to which people pretty much adhered for years, was that any argument that a quote prompted would be removed to another thread—although there was always some commentary that peppered the thread. Eventually, that protocol collapsed, and the thread degenerated into extended arguments until nobody bothered posting on it.
For those who want to look at the original (now closed) “Spiritual Quotes” thread, you can start here: http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=20465&page=1.
I thought that perhaps we might have a go at it again . . .
One Shabbos afternoon, Reb Reuven called me into his study. He was sitting behind his desk and motioned me to take the chair across from him. A volume of the Zohar was lying open in front of him.
“Do you know what the Zohar is?” he asked.
“Of course,” I said. “It is a mystical commentary on Torah written by Moshe de Leon, a thirteenth century Spanish kabbalist who....”
“Nonsense!” he yelled at me, half rising out of his chair. “The Zohar isn’t just a commentary; it’s a Torah all by itself. It is a new Torah, a new telling of the last Torah. You do know what Torah is, don’t you?”
Suspecting that I didn’t, and afraid to invoke his wrath a second time, I waited silently, certain that he would answer his own question. I was not disappointed.
“Torah is story. God is story. Israel is story. You, my university-educated soon-to-be a liberal pain in the ass rabbi, are a story. We are all stories! We are all Torahs!...Listen, Rami,” Reuven said in a softer voice. “Torah starts with the word b’reisheet,* ‘Once upon a time!’”
—Rami Shapiro, Hasidic Tales
_________________________________________________
* Conventionally translated as “in the beginning” or “with beginning” or “when God began…”.
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the earth chemically and to the rest of the universe atomically. That’s kinda cool! That makes me smile and I actually feel quite large at the end of that. It’s not that we are better than the universe, we are part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
Originally posted by vistesd(Referring to that earlier thread)
[b]Preface
Years and years ago, Ivanhoe started a thread called Spiritual Quotes. What is a “spiritual quote”? It need not be religious; humanistic, philosophical and scientific quotes were fully welcome. Fundamentally, but without a strict definition, it is any quote that might inspire or reflect the human emotion of awe and wonder vis-à-vis some ...[text shortened]... read.php?threadid=20465&page=1.
I thought that perhaps we might have a go at it again . . .[/b]
Thanks for that trip down memory lane. I cant believe I've been here that long already. And thanks for the reminder of daniel 58. It seems the forum has balanced itself out again with the arrival of RJ to fill his huge size 13 shoes 🙂
All is well, I didn't want to get off on the wrong foot, but I also feel a sense of balance to what I write 🙂
Originally posted by rwingettI intend to live large!
Recognize that the very molecules that make up your body, the atoms that construct the molecules, are traceable to the crucibles that were once the centers of high mass stars that exploded their chemically rich guts into the galaxy, enriching pristine gas clouds with the chemistry of life. So that we are all connected to each other biologically, to the eart ...[text shortened]... part of the universe. We are in the universe and the universe is in us.
- Neil deGrasse Tyson
—Shatika, one of my wife’s former students.
“Western philosophy goes ‘thesis, antithesis, synthesis’. Judaism goes ‘thesis, antithesis, antithesis, antithesis . . .’.”
—The rabbi in Joann Sfar’s graphic novel The Rabbi’s Cat
____________________________________________
Such an ongoing, open-ended dialectic is one of the techniques (along with poetry, deliberate paradox, and the like) that Judaism uses to avoid the idolatry of the frozen concept.
