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Music Has Brought Us Together: Evolutionary Musicology?
I am Ben Miller–a new blogger about whom you’ll learn more soon. Raffi’s last post explored the idea of music as text—a Geertzian participant in its cultural context. The Breslovers yearn for their artistic product to find an integrated role … Continue reading →
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Reading: it’s all in the family
The last post begins by considering whether Rousseau believes in a legitimate state—political authority—and finishes by questioning whether Dylan believes in legitimate interpretation—textual authority. By examining an old puzzle in Biblical textual criticism, I’ll connect these two problems, suggesting that … Continue reading →
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The Doctrine of Double Entendre
Dylan ends his post with a meditation on the entanglement of the subjective and objective experience. It’s all very nice to write poetry in which your head is the head-wrap, but how do you make laws if what’s in your … Continue reading →
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Post-Structuralist Golems
Here is a d’var torah (a word of teaching) that I gave tonight at the Drisha tisch. The subject was golems. -
Talmudicity or Why Blog?
Martin Buber privileges what he called “religiosity,” the individual’s spontaneous feeling of spirituality, over “religion,” the traditional outward forms and rituals of spiritual life. Similarly, Jacques Derrida contrasts “messianicity” with “messianism”: the former is a commitment to the possibility of revolutionary redemption, the latter the fact of an actual Messiah. -
Discipline and Punish lo hayah v’lo nivra ela mashal haya…
You might think that Foucault, a post-structuralist social critic, who helped open political science to the study of the human body and to what he called “bio-power,” would clash with the 1500+ year old religious legal code. Yet there are odd resonances, and even odder ironies. -
Post-Structuralist Golems
Here is a d’var torah (a word of teaching) that I gave tonight at the Drisha tisch. The subject was golems. A couple of points: 1) Tisches are, traditionally (or semi-traditionally–Chasidut is only a couple hundred years old) Friday night … Continue reading →
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Discipline and Punish lo hayah v’lo nivra ela mashal haya…
This month, I am learning at Drisha; in Talmud, we are covering the execution procedure for stoning. The post-modern yeshiva is a weird place; the dapei mekorot (source sheets) have included the non-canonical Book of Jubilees, the definitely non-canonical (for … Continue reading →
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On Jokes
I recently told my partner Sarah the following joke, from Woody Allen’s stand-up: I’m getting sued because I made a nasty remark about her [my ex-wife]. She lives on the upper west side of Manhattan, and she was coming home … Continue reading →
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Talmudicity or Why Blog?
Martin Buber privileges what he called “religiosity,” the individual’s spontaneous feeling of spirituality, over “religion,” the traditional outward forms and rituals of spiritual life. Similarly, Jacques Derrida contrasts “messianicity” with “messianism”: the former is a commitment to the possibility of … Continue reading →