I came up with a cool thesis topic for a 40 page paper that I will have to write if I get into the Jewish Studies Program in Oxford
I want to articulate an approach to theology and the life of faith informed by the comparison of the Christian mystic tradition with Hasidism, paying close attention to negative theology and the life of faith with or without the manifesting presence of God. This project will also incorporate or be informed by my current research of faith and its connection, or lack thereof, to belief propositions as well as the practice of faith within doubt.
Dostoyevsky in his papers and letters makes the claim that if the Christ were not historically true he would have to believe in Him anyway. I wonder at this kind of faith that does not require the destruction of all deity-doubt. Instead, it enters into life and practice with an intensity of directedness beyond itself, holding as paradigmatic the attitude of the martyr who says “be it unto me according to Thy word.” Yet this faith also includes the attitude of Job, David, and the Prophets when crying out their accusations against a God who often does not respond, or at least not in accordance with the demand. This concern over the silence of God has been expressed by both Christian and Jewish people of faith. It exists in the Hebrew Scriptures and very potently in the post-Holocaust discussion. Elie Wiesel recounted the experience of saying kaddish immediately following his liberation. He speaks with full emotion of his participation in this prayer for the dead while at the same time wondering if God’s name was worthy of honor after His silence during such evil. The presence/absence of God talk also implicates itself upon the life of prayer. Derridian thought suggests that the life of authentic prayer as a casting of oneself before God and an action of duty whether or not God manifests his presence.

My dad's biggest objection to me smoking was that others would take it up because of me and they wouldn't be able to control it. In the last few weeks I have had three different people tell me that they want to smoke like I do because I make it look so cool. My dad wins again! :)

The other kills freedom.

The reason to keep on living:
"Vows made to You are binding upon me, O God.
I will render praises to You,
For You have belivered my soul from death.
Have You not kept my feet from falling,
That I may walk before God
In the light of the living?" -Ps. 56.12-13

The co-existance of love and fear: You fear the loss of the object because you love. Fear that you will loose Him, or that He isn't there.

Does trust require that someone know everything about us? Is it possible that telling an event could actually cause them to know us less because they could never understand the you that participated?

Shame... what a horiffic thing. It grips like an iron claw, cuts open your gut and strangles you by punching your heart until it swells into your wind pipe. Then you look it in the face and see the faces looking back. Shame's power lives in the other. The other's evaluative power. The other who can't know my motives and will use their sight to define the worth, health or impurity of my being.

Maybe I should just stop talking. If I get lonely enough and depressed enough then writing will be my only escape. Whenever I say something the whole ethos of the thought becomes in compassed in the words that I first used and the fire to speak it sputters and I never write it out. It’s like having a flame thrower in side my breast instead of a hearth fire.

So at the risk of sounding too much like Hugger, Foucault is Great! History as problamitization, becoming aware of the uniting question that agravated divergent and often mutually exclussive answers. The unity of responses in the question.

I think my father will be happy... I still have a historian's soul after all.

If I can still be an instructor at the school run by bloggers I would like to teach a PE class dedicated to the art of Sangria. (hey, cutting up all that fruit has to be exercise!!)

Bloggers: What strange people. Val, Dan and I are sitting in an Anrbor Coffee Shop all seperated by our computer screens. Each of us marking our day in words.

The Sillimans
In the early morning hours Daniel showed up at my place with his sister in tow. They stayed until five, gosh it is good to not be old and boring yet. She has been as much of a delight as I had hoped and it has been right to get to see Daniel as a big brother and a member of a family. She confirmes the myths and yet I think that some people who claim to be intimdated by Dan might find him more accessible after seeing him with Valerie. I guess we will see.