MIT: The domed Maclaurin Building, as seen from Killian Court. aka Building 10. When I first began dating my wife, she was reluctant to tell me that she has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from MIT; I’m not sure why. Eventually, she decided to come clean. When she told me, I rolled my eyes … Continue reading Writing and Social Dialectics
Life’s Troubled Sea
Passamaquoddy Bay, New Brunswick, Canada. ©2017 Anne Guthrie. "I’ve had this idea that the amount of suffering in the world is fixed somehow. It doesn’t increase or decrease. It merely moves around. The calculus changes. Sometimes I call it the law of the conservation of suffering.” Swimming, spoken by Elijah Brooks. I am excited to … Continue reading Life’s Troubled Sea
You Don’t Have a Soul
New Jewish Cemetery, Kraków, Poland. ©2018 Beth Ben-Avraham. Last month, my wife and I attended a music performance by a young married Israeli couple. We first saw them in YouTube videos posted by friends on Facebook. I began looking for them on my own on YouTube and subscribed to their channel. When my wife heard … Continue reading You Don’t Have a Soul
Someone Tapped by Divinity
I earned a Bachelor of Music degree from Belhaven College, now University, in Jackson, Mississippi. My major was piano performance. In addition to classes in piano, I had to take courses in music theory: harmony, counterpoint, form and analysis, and composition. Music history was also required and, since Belhaven was a liberal arts college, there … Continue reading Someone Tapped by Divinity
Poland: Epilogue
This blog post, originally published December 26, 2018, is being reposted in memory of Professor Irene Eber, who passed away in Jerusalem on April 10, 2019. May her memory be for a blessing. Beth Ben-Avraham by the grave of Jakob Leimann, her great-great-uncle. New Cemetery, Kraków. We have an abundance of documentation concerning what life … Continue reading Poland: Epilogue
The Death of the Author
Leo Tolstoy reading, by Ilya Repin, 1891. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia. Recently, I came across the following quotation from Roland Barthes, the late French literary theorist: "The birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author."Roland Barthes The statement appears in Barthes' 1967 essay "The Death of the Author" … Continue reading The Death of the Author
Sabbath Blues
My favorite time of the week begins in the late afternoon of the Jewish Sabbath and ends at nightfall. It comprises roughly the time from the conclusion of the Sabbath Afternoon Prayer to the beginning of the Evening Prayer. It spans about one and a quarter hours. Its starting and ending times by the clock … Continue reading Sabbath Blues
