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Review of After One-Hundred-and-Twenty by Hillel Halkin

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After One-Hundred-and-Twenty is Halkin’s own midrash or commentary on Jewish perspectives of death, mourning, and the afterlife. He weaves his own humanity and stories into a remarkable work of scholarship. At the beginning of the book, Halkin acknowledges that Jewish perspectives on death are diverse and pointed out that he has his own biases. Thus, Halkin writes as himself and encourages readers to find themselves between the lines, which I did.

General News

It's Happening Right Here, Right Now: Review of It Can't Happen Here at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre

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Despite the play’s ultimately hopeful conclusion, these images of totalitarian violence within American borders are haunting. It Can’t Happen Here serves as a chilling reminder of what lies just around the corner when fear overcomes a nation, when power is placed in the hands of those with the flashiest campaigns, and when hate speech and misogyny become normal — and accepted — parts of political discourse. All of these things are already happening here, and we are closer than we think to living out the same plot line. And unless we begin to admit this, we might as well be cheering Trump right into the Oval Office.

Culture

Ever-Dying People: Review of Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

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The rabbi brings Julia and Jacob in to discuss their son’s sin, and threatens to disallow Sam’s bar mitzvah, a much anticipated event that arguably keeps great-grandfather Isaac alive. Sam claims he did not do it, though the words are in his handwriting. Jacob, his father, believes Sam. Julia, his mother, does not. This is the first sign of a rift in their sixteen-year marriage, one that has been full of love, tradition, organic mattresses, and goofy and touching family rituals. And then Julia finds a burner cell phone that Jacob has been hiding from her, full of filthy texts to another woman. “There is not a single story about a cell phone that ends well,” a friend cautions Julia, but that doesn’t mean the story isn’t a great one.

Gender and Sexuality

Trump: Jung's Warning

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Many politicians display egotistical personality distortions, some more than others. Trump, however, is of an entirely different order. Do we want a president accessing nuclear codes, shaping the Supreme Court for generations, and leading the world in extreme climate denial, who, in the eyes of many psychologists is a narcissistic sociopath/ psychopath well accomplished in the art of gaslighting, which is when abusers undermine and distort the reality and truth of others’ perceptions and emotions in order to control or destroy them, i.e. Trump claiming victory for ending the birther myth he promoted for years by falsely shifting blame to Clinton.

General News

In Loving Memory: The Yizkor Booklet

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No – what gives me pause is the yizkor (memorial) booklet that’s compiled for the afternoon service on Yom Kippur. For a small donation to my synagogue, I can include the names of my parents in this booklet.Given that I’m a longtime congregant whose parents are both deceased, this would appear to be a straightforward matter. Yet I struggle each year as if newly faced with a baffling choice.

Culture

The King is the Field – Chabad Insights on the Divinity of Creation

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During the High Holidays, we strive to fashion our heart to become a dwelling place for God in the physical, earthly realm, a dirah batachtonim. However, the earliest aggadic (storytelling) midrash, Genesis Rabbah (4th or 5th century), taught that “the root/essence of God’s presence was in the lower creatures / `iqar Shekhinah batachtonim haytah.” (19:7)
If the Shekhinah, the indwelling presence of God, was essentially in all creatures, how did we arrive at the idea that the primary dwelling place of God was within the human heart?