In the late nineties, television took a great leap forward. This story could be told in many ways: by focussing on the quality cable dramas, starting with “The Sopranos”; by emphasizing luminous genre myths like[…]
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Month: September 2013
Jewish law teaches that we should always bring salt to our table and dip bread in salt before eating it
Jewish law teaches that we should always bring salt to our table and dip bread in salt before eating it. The general explanation given for this is that our table is like an altar; just[…]
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The need for salt on sacrifices can be taken as a metaphorical lesson regarding our prayers
The need for salt on sacrifices can be taken as a metaphorical lesson regarding our prayers, which are like sacrifices before God. Our prayers should include genuine (salty) tears. We are told that, even in[…]
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Angels can’t be part of the moral universe. Only humans can be
Angels can’t be part of the moral universe. Only humans can be. If we go in the direction of the Eitz Yosef, melakhim aren’t moral; they have no ethical language; they do exactly what they’re[…]
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Everything that is said about the Internet’s destruction of “interiority” was said for decades about television
It is the wraparound presence, not the specific evils, of the machine that oppresses us. Simply reducing the machine’s presence will go a long way toward alleviating the disorder. Which points, in turn, to a[…]
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Being up on the latest movies is not as important when one becomes a parent…
When I used to hear parents complain that they didn’t have even a few minutes to scan the newspaper, let alone finish a novel or catch all that year’s Oscar nominees, I inwardly scoffed (sometimes[…]
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Brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, but it doesn’t work….
Brainstorming was an immediate hit and Osborn became an influential business guru, writing such best-sellers as “Wake Up Your Mind” and “The Gold Mine Between Your Ears.” Brainstorming provided companies with an easy way to[…]
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A social network is crucially different from a social circle
A social network is crucially different from a social circle, since the function of a social circle is to curb our appetites and of a network to extend them. Everything once inside is outside, a[…]
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We should expect that each Amora has his own individual understanding of various issues
In a statement repeated several times in Shas, Rava emphasizes the importance of an individual’s input in Torah study, that is, the process of making Torah one’s own. Let us look at AZ 19a, where[…]
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Enjoying cliffhangers done well versus those not done well
When done poorly, the cliffhanger is all about shoddy craftsmanship, the creepy manipulation by a storyteller who has run out of tricks. When done well, however, it can be about much more: surprise, shock, outrage,[…]
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