Tuesday, June 21, 2022

How much time are you willing to give?

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From the Curmudgucation blog : I see this thread from time to time, this insistence on denying that students are bad at something. "...
Saturday, June 18, 2022

So, what's the answer?

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Maybe you want to know the question first? What's the best way out of the current high degree of wealth inequality? The Atlantic takes ...
Friday, June 17, 2022

Strawberries!

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OK, one strawberry, but it is the promise of more to come. I picked our first strawberry of the season yesterday, and it reminded me of why ...
Thursday, June 16, 2022

About those celebrity bookshelves

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Via Publishers Weekly, an article on books by the yard, from The Millions : "Is It So Wrong to Accessorize with Books?" I had re...
Friday, June 10, 2022

Train up a conscience…

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OK, an intentional misquote of the proverb. Not sure where I ran across this link, so if you’ve seen it, apologies, but it is well-worth ...
Wednesday, June 08, 2022

Plant a garden!

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This excerpt from Braiding Sweetgrass stands on its own and is too good not to post: People often ask me what one thing I would recommen...
Monday, June 06, 2022

What's happening here?

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I've been silent here for a few days, and it's likely to continue. Right now I'm in the process of reading Braiding Sweetgrass ,...
Wednesday, June 01, 2022

Counter-factual

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Suppose Abraham had not been silent. Suppose he had been so sure of the mercy of God that he could wrestle with God, arguing back, challengi...
Tuesday, May 31, 2022

A make-up exam

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Yet Abraham finally did come to understand that God didn’t want him to sacrifice his son. If we consider his sacrificing the ram as analogous ...
Friday, May 27, 2022

Did he pass?

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Yet the fact that he did eventually look around could be taken as a point in his favor. Perhaps Abraham is to be commended not simply for lo...
Thursday, May 26, 2022

Speak up!

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If I were to construct a hierarchy of possible responses that Abraham might have made to God’s request to sacrifice his son, I would put prot...
Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Too task oriented

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Let us understand what is going on. A ram is a male goat or sheep, and for its curled horns (from which a shofar is made) to be long enough ...
Monday, May 23, 2022

But, what if…

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Prior to the Aqedah, the promise was stated in terms of the nations blessing one another by Abraham (12:3; 18:18). But here for the first ti...
Friday, May 20, 2022

A blessing missed

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Later, we are told by Abraham’s servant (24:36) and by the narrator in a genealogy (25:5) that Abraham gave all he had to Isaac (possibly as...
Thursday, May 19, 2022

Silence speaking volumes

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Whereas Abraham became silent at the end of his intercession in Genesis 18 (he stopped the conversation earlier than he needed to and so nev...
Wednesday, May 18, 2022

And he was shown wanting

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It is possible that Abraham was merely accommodating his speech to the presumed polytheism of the pagan king (which was unnecessary, since G...
Tuesday, May 17, 2022

Beyond what we can ask or think…

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…It is as if YHWH is looking for an excuse to save Sodom (and Lot). YHWH’s instructions to Jeremiah might be relevant here. In 5:1 God tell...
Monday, May 16, 2022

Unquestioning obedience? Not so much!

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I am going to suggest that Abraham was being tested not for his unquestioning obedience (that is not something God wants) but rather for his...
Friday, May 13, 2022

We might have it all wrong

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Given that it isn’t clear at all that Abraham is attached to Isaac, could it be that Abraham is being given a chance in chapter 22 to prove ...
Thursday, May 12, 2022

How not to treat a promise (and your wife!)

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But there is a second problem with the traditional reading of the Aqedah—namely, that it is unclear why this test is needed at all. The Abra...