“Jewish futurism is the idea that our people is far closer to its beginning than its end, that our future relies on development of ideas that are by their nature radical, that long-term thinking is an exercise neither in escapism nor frivolity but the thing that we have been called to do since the days of our foremother Sarah, who set the tempo for us all by literally giving birth to Isaac at the age of ninety, exemplifying the idea that this is a religion in which the old can and does give birth to the young.”

Our tradition encourages us on numerous occasions to use our imagination in order to succeed in our Jewish practice.

Sometimes freedom can be found inside a boundary that is put around us by choice. For me, it is the boundary of my Jewish identity, my nationality. 

Freedom demands that we understand how the world around us works.

In Eastern Europe, the size and cohesion of your ethnic group is very obviously the backdrop to your personal power. In America, we try to detach ourselves from the paradigm, but it still haunts us, some more than others. (Why is it that being a minority is a signal that society needs to protect a group? Even in places where the “minority” is a majority?)

Cultural identification is much more ambiguous than first meets the eye. Cultural groupings that seem obvious now fall apart under closer examination.

“Chief among the forces affecting political folly, is lust for power, named by Tacitus as ‘the most flagrant of all the passions.’ Because it can only be satisfied by power over others, government is its favorite field of exercise.”

Jack Micheline, the poet, said, “To be Jewish is to be free and beautiful.” I love this statement, but I find it challenging. Is it actually true? Is it a truth that accords with the kind of Rabbinic Judaism that I have been a part of? Is it true from the point of view of a Secular Jew like Micheline only?

We need to take a risk, which sometimes means to literally leap into the absurd, simply because… we have no choice.

My new goal is to create a separate Der Nister-distributed monthly newsletter, available to those who specifically sign up for it, which I call “Der Zunenshtral” (The Sunbeam), in homage to the many Yiddishists who came before to LA and fell in love with the sun.

Ahad Ha’am’s greatness is not in either his originality or in his successes. It lies in his struggle to overcome his flaws and to share what was best in himself despite those flaws.

We were made to create, we were made to become participants in the act of creation. The modern process of alienation in labor took it away from us.

״מצװה גדולה להיות בשׂמחה.״ אַזוי האָט רבי נחמן געזאָגט, ״כִּי טֶבַע הָאָדָם-לִמְשׁךְ עַצְמוֹ לְמָרָה שְׁחרָה וְעַצְבוּת מֵחֲמַת פִּגְעֵי וּמִקְרֵי הַזְּמַן, וְכָל אָדָם מָלֵא יִסּוּרִים.״ (װײַל דעם מענטשס נאַטור איז זיך אַרײַנצוצויגן אין אַ מרה־שהורה און טרויער צוליב די אומגערעכטיקײט פֿון זײַן תּקופֿה; יעדער אײנער לײַדט פֿון יסורים.) צו װאַרטן אויף עולם־הבא איז נישט קײן לײזונג.

Ahad Ha’am was exposed to manners and mores of the leadership of the Hasidic movement. While he was strongly critical of it, once he was able to put some distance between it and himself, he was never able to separate himself from the social thinking and organization that he experienced within it.

“Fashion is tyrannical and utopian at the same time: it imposes a norm which it claims is freedom.”

How moral is a tax system, and can it ever be? Is it a violation of human rights to coerce people to contribute their money towards purposes they might disagree with? 

The collective consciousness that is possible in Los Angeles is of the most diverse, the most interesting, the most wonderful people. As a metal box blocks out radio waves, so too does a car block out the emotions of others. Sometimes, those emotions are scary. Sometimes they are disturbing. But precluding those out of fear also precludes the generosity, the surprises, the opening up people do when they talk.

We forget sometimes how much history we are sitting on and what kind of a hold it has on us.

The sages compared a fire to a calamity which one does not have control over, calamity which may start at no fault of one's own, and becomes fueled and spread by thorns (the wicked) but unfortunately consumes the righteous first (the standing piles of grain.)

Cultural Zionism is neither Cultural Judaism nor the opposite of it. Rather, it is an idea that came into focus in opposition to Political Zionism.