18 Comments
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David Bowman X Wintermute's avatar

"You either got faith or you got unbelief and there ain't no neutral ground" -Bob Dylan

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Chen Malul's avatar

"We teel ourselves stories in order to live", Joan Didion

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Roberta Cappellini's avatar

A very interesting,authentically religious path through belonging, rejecting, experience of doubt, widening of horizons, at last positioning between memory roots and an open minded vision. Your religion is nomadic at heart. Diaspora its living metaphor. Like the empty white spaces between the black letters of the Biblical text: they cannot go the ones without the others.

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Chen Malul's avatar

A lovely perspective. In it is said that Rabbi Israel bal shem used to read in the white space between the words! Thank

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Roberta Cappellini's avatar

Baal Shem Tov with his fantastic joyful dance with the biblical scrolls in his arms! I loved him so much!!!!!

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Emma Lewis's avatar

Very, very interesting read!

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Jim in Alaska's avatar

Atheism and theism are both matters of faith, untestable.

Agnosticism, damnedifIknow, is really the only rational position.

The only rational position, the problem is though, the жопа that Chen Rafaeli notes, is though that the older we get, the more we experience, the more we realize that there is in this world, this universe much that absolutely defies rational explanation.

Gotta take it on faith.

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Chen Malul's avatar

This whole thing, whatever it is, require faith and knowledge, reason and guess. Right?

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Jim in Alaska's avatar

Yep, and to mix metaphors, plus a willingness to switch gears when you find you're on the wrong track. ;-)

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Graeme Macbeth's avatar

>Anyone who has ever been to a synagogue knows that reading from the machzor (the prayer book) is not linear but jumps around.

Very much my experience the one time I attended a synagogue (for the bat mitzah celebration of a friend's daughter). Good to know it wasn't just me.

(Whereas Christian prayer books typically have "big chunk of text for regular services; big chunk of text for weddings; big chunk of text for funerals" and so. Even the hymn books are typically arranged by theme)

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Chen Rafaeli's avatar

knee-jerk reactions:

a) why a forbidden word? indeed it reminds me of what is often, somewhat rudely yet with humor , said in Russian, "жопа есть, а слова нет?"

b) you're also younger than me? incredible. et tu, Brute. Don't pay attention to this one. It's new, I have it now almost every time I learn somebody's age.

c) the main thing -I really loved reading it, thank you.

It's interesting, the paths we take, and how we choose them, and how the landscape change around, or maybe we do, or both, or maybe it's something else, I need to think

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Chen Malul's avatar

You see all the talk of Zionism as an evil ideology, like it's a crine for Jews to have our own place in the world where we can protect ourselves. Obviously I think that's wrong but that's the ettitude in various circles.

For the main thing: great you enjoyed it my friend.

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Linda Clark-Borre's avatar

Love this wonderful reflection! I converted to Judaism for the sole reason that I love living inside the questions. I’m a chaplain but not particularly religious; ritual however still has its purpose.

As a three year old I’d been introduced to the Almighty via my grandmother’s Catholicism. But divinity would never be contained in any image or set of beliefs. Yet I love…life itself.

Without rote beliefs for years I felt groundless. In my late twenties I realized the value of the question…who am I?

In my thirties I shared my musings (and newfound appreciation for Krishnamurti) with a man from India. “I feel in his questioning, I am brought back to the wondering of my child self,” I told him.

Dr Shastri replied: “Enlightenment. You’ll know you’re on your path when you find yourself arriving back to your beginnings, in your own way and time, within your own understanding. Not necessarily to practice - but to be yourself.”

Can it be the Angel? Grandma’s guidance? She’d have never understood my decision to convert - not in her human life anyway. Only God and love knows how to reconcile the complexities of the Self.

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Chen Malul's avatar

Thanks Linda for sharing your story. It's gotta be the angel - a real one or a symbol, who kniws?

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Nancy Hesting's avatar

Very interesting article. It makes me think back to my own journey -- Catholicism to nothing to Atheism and back to Catholicism a smidge.

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Scott Delaney's avatar

I became unashamed of being an American in the summer of 2008. I was in Germany on a train ride to Switzerland. During a conversation with a German passenger, he said something like “Why are you here?… You have your own beautiful country.”

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LennArrrt's avatar

Interesting.

Now U got me sitting here and reflekting my own pov & references & growing up ... 🤔 How did it (I) come here ...

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Oct 28
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Chen Malul's avatar

They do indeed.Thanks Brian

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