I have not posted anything for months. One reason may be that I have been very busy at my work (probably working harder than I ever have). But I have also not had a clear focus in my study. This blog has always contained my Talmudic/Jewish reflections, but recently I have also been drifting toward John Russell Brown's writings on Shakespeare here, here and here, a book on Everyday Aesthetics, even the Concordia Bible Commentary, but never with much focus or passion.
In fact, I haven't even been listening to many shiurim; instead I have been listening to audiobooks from http://www.audible.com/.
A couple blogs that I have been following (which couldn't be more different) are:
Dr. Alan Brill's The Book of Doctrines and Opinions: notes on Jewish theology and spirituality. Rabbi Brill taught at Yeshiva University (you can still download a few of his classes from there. He is amazingly well read and has a profound interest in meditation and Jewish theology and has recently published: Judaism and Other Religions: Models of Understanding. His blog is a wide ranging reflection on the contemporary religion scene with some focus on the divergences and similarities between Evangelical Christianity and Orthodox Judaism.
The other is Gil Baille's: Reflections on Faith and Culture. Bailie is the author of Violence Unveiled: Humanity at the Crossroads, a profound reflection on the work of Rene Girard. Gil's blog, as the title states, looks at today's society and finds many issues to raise. While I find him too conservative at times for me, I respect his concern and his appreciation of one of my favorite thinkers, Hans Urs von Balthasar.
2 comments:
My goodness - you don't read books, you read booklists...I know the process, so guilty of it myself - a case could be made that I, an old teacher, don't read booklists, I read curricula...structuring my Reading toward some hoped-for Telos or Revelation or whatever.
And yet, in my case & I'd never accuse you of my failing, I know that whatever revelations were & have been for me came ad hoc and unexpected -- an interesting cover or title, a subtitle that drew me in, etc.
Out of such I've woven the patchwork performer (Rilke's acrobat, perhaps) who slogs & bounces thru my blogs.
In the meantime, yer post-post-&beyond-gradness fills me with awe & admiration.
You never cease to amaze me - you don't Read, you Study...& widely & well. I'm even worse, I fear - I don't make study-lists, I make curricula (old teacher at work), ie, if I read This then I should read That, because of some real or perceived connection or context...
But I sometimes miss The Days Of Youth, when I might take a book off the library shelf 'cause the cover caught my attention or the title was clever or the subtitle promised riches of wisdom or whatever. The days of reading as an ad hoc activity.
Meanwhile, keep up the Good Worke!
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