Shabbat shalom! Yaakov here, coming to you with recent postings of mine, along with small, shiny nuggets I’ve gathered since I emailed last.
This week, my personal parsha musings (Parshat Noach, which includes the story of the flood and the covenant) build on the swirling imagery of the body of Hashem as water that predates the creation story, our study of Psalm 42 on Monday in Tehillim class, and a wonderful discussion in Torah study (both classes with The Torah Studio).
Here are my visual notes for both classes:
I just love the shit out of Bereshit. I love the expansive way these stories can be examined and turned and poked and how it encompasses the big stories, not just about the Jewish people but about all of life, all of everything, while also showing us the parallel evolution of the Eternal, a creator of creators who has freshly externalized the process of reflection and self-examination by making us in their image. What wild, enormous, complex stuff. I hope I never stop being mystified, inspired, and even infuriated by it.
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Other tidbits this week:
- It’s almost time for NaNoWriMo! If you have no idea what that is, I shared a bit about my long history of embarking on yearly November writing adventures.
- Nano (see previous bullet point) is the reason I can’t take ALL of these amazing-looking classes from UnYeshiva. Please take them for me and then tell me all about them.
- Hearing the definition of the word “sonder” read vulnerably left me in a kiddie pool of feels.
- Jericho blows my mind weekly, including this week’s edition of The World’ Oldest Book Club: “We Are One”
- Loving my recent discovery of A Queer Niggun Project on SoundCloud
- Did you know there’s Torah karaoke app? The Tanakh Read-Along app (iOS and Android) is a new discovery that I can’t wait to play with.
Wishing you a quiet Shabbat and a well-behaved week (the week, not you – go misbehave well and enjoy it) to follow it.
Yaakov