Forwarding

I would like to invite my  readers to visit my main blog, A Freiburger Yid, to get information about the books I have read, or am reading at the moment.

 

Not dead… dormant

This blog (and the others I am responsible for) have been quite quiet for a while.

They are not dead… they have only been dormant. Watch out for more – they will be back !

Yaakov-Meir

 

Samuel P. Huntington: “The Clash of Civilizations”

There are German, French and Portuguese editions of this work.

I have decided now to read Samuel P. Huntington´s famous book in parallel to my study of Rabbi Klein´s Guide. So much has been written about that book, that I just had to read it. I plan to share my thoughts about it once I´m done.

 

Update

I have been intensively reading (or, better, studying) Klein´s Guide in the last days. It is an amazing amount of information to which I will certainly come back to.

At the same time I am wondering what should I read next on non-Jewish subjects. I am definitely not in the mood for fiction at the moment. So it´s going to be History again. I wanted to space my readings on US History, so not to read  one after the other.

 

Gems for the Day: the higher goal

The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments. In a religious experience (…) it is not a thing that imposes itself on man but a spiritual presence. What is retained in the soul is the moment of insight rather than the place where the act came to pass.

A.J.Heschel, The Sabbath, p. 6

 

Klein: Guide to Jewish Religious Practice

I am now reading Rabbi Isaac Klein´s A Guide to Jewish Religious Practice .

There are no French, German, or Portuguese editions of this book.

It is a detailed guide to Jewish religious life according to the Conservative (Masorti) movement.

 

Gems for the Day: Thinghood

Thing is a category that lies heavy on our minds, tyrannizing all our thoughts. Our imagination tends to mold all concepts in its image. (…) Reality to us is thinghood, consisting of substances that occupy space; even God is conceived by most of us a a thing.

Source: A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath, p.4

 

Gems for the Day: Power

I will be adding here on a (more or less) daily basis short quotes from the books I am reading, or those I pick up somewhere else. In the latter case, I will obviously provide you with the source.

I came up to this idea when reading Heschel´s small great book on the Shabbat. There are so many pearls,  so many linguistic gems there, that I feel the need to share them with all of you that might be reading this blog.

Let me start with this:

“Nothing is more useful than power, nothing more frightful. We have often suffered from degradation by poverty, now we are threatened by degradation through power.”

Source: A.J. Heschel, The Sabbath, p.3

 

“American Colonies”

I have decided to publish on this blog books with non-Jewish content that I am reading, as well.

History is one of the subjects that interests me most. World history is long, and there are dozens of countries whose individual history I feel attracted to. And since life is short, and the available time that I have for such studies is limited (as there are other subjects that need my attention), I had to take some decisions. In the next months, I will concentrate my readings on the history of the United States of America, on the history of France, where I live, and on the history of Brazil.

Starting with US history, I found the chronological way to be the best suited for my endeavor: from the colonial era to our days. It is not that I had never read something about the history of that grand nation, a nation that I deeply admire: I had, but not much, and never systematically, except for several books dealing with the Vietnam War.

At present, I am reading:

“American Colonies” by Alan Taylor.

Having already advanced through the introduction and the first chapter, which is dedicated to the Indians (or native americans, in a politically correct usage), my first impression is that the author positions himself a little further to the right than the revisionist school represented, among others, by Howard Zinn in his work A People’s History of the United States (1). Not searching for works that follow this perspective, as I consider her as simplistic as the more traditional approach, I have started feeling a like uncomfortable while reading these first pages. But as my interest is large, and as I see myself as someone with a reasonable level of tolerance, including with a good and healthy one towards certain typical, leftist exaggerations, I will continue reading the book with an open mind – look for an update.

(1) There is a French and a German edition

© Yaakov-Meir Freiburger, “A Freiburger Yid”, 2009. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to “Yaakov-Meir Freiburger” and “A Freiburger Yid” with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 

Heschel: “The Sabbath”

I am now reading Abraham Joshua Heschel’s “The Sabbath: Its Meaning for Modern Man”..

The French edition appeared under the title “Les Bâtisseurs du Temps”; the German as “Der Schabbat. Seine Bedeutung für den modernen Menschen”; and the Portuguese as “O Schabat: Seu Significado para o Homem Moderno”.