This week I attended a formal seder, an informal seder, worshiped at the altar of wine (Saturday night at Old Town), and went to Easter Mass at St. Patrick's with my grandparents. I am keeping kosher for Passover (not strictly, but very much conscious of food decisions), and I broke it this morning to have the body of Christ (probably not O-U ( Read more... )

Per a conversation I had tonight about why we read and write blogs, I admitted how vanity drives me to obsession when it comes to reading my old blog posts. And I realized just now in doing so that I used to drop so much Christian, Catholic particularly, rhetoric. Little bits of the Mass sprinkled right in my prose, bits of Scripture there as well ( Read more... )

I'm in a weird place right now, religiously speaking. Although I've completed a BA and an MA without learning any particular [real-world] skills, I think I've gained a tremendous cultural literacy. My poor Hebrew skills are still enough for me to read any English publication that makes use of transliteration and understand completely. (Today's ( Read more... )

I wound up not attending a first seder this Pesach, but I did go to a fantastic second seder just tonight. A few remarks ( Read more... )

"One of the problems I have with religion, in fact, is that it’s stifled the ability of society to deal with death. We’re this highly aware species, how do we deal with the fear of death? Oh! I know. Let’s pretend we don’t die! Which is what religion is, it’s pretending we don’t die ( Read more... )

I spent most of my weekend thinking about queer theory. It didn't happen that way intentionally, but all my roads converged on this subject in a most interesting way. It started Friday, when I began reading my dear friend Oren's seminar paper, an inquiry into queer space, the AIDS issue, homosexuality, and Zionism in Yotam Reuveny's published diary ( Read more... )