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.

A.D. Gordon viewed the world, the entirety of existence in fact, as a network of partnerships.

I keep thinking of Wollstonecraft, who took that leap of faith for all of us women, who risked everything and jumped into the waters herself, metaphorically and figuratively.

Many people want to pass on the books that they have so that others can make use of what they no longer need; however, the wise among them often fear that they lack the ability to discern what among their old books continues to be useful and what isn’t.

I believe that we can make space holy by designing it to be that way, not through our own will, but by shepherding and arranging elements of a space so that it conjures our most deeply held feelings and spiritual yearnings.

די סאָלדאַטן פֿונעם אַמעריקאַנער אַרמײ האָבן דערנענטערט יוטאַ, און די מאָרמאָנער האָבן זיך צוגעגרײט צו קעמפֿן. אָבער אין דער לעצטער מאָמענט, זײ האָבן שלום געמאַכט, און די אַמעריקאַנער ברירה פֿאַרן גובערנאַטאָר, אַלפֿרעד קומינג, האָט די שטעלע גענומען. אַחוץ די מאַסן־מאָרדערס, בוקאַנאָן האָט דערלאַנגט באַגענעדיקונג (מחילה) פֿאַר די מאָרמאָנער װאָלטן זײ געבליבן געטרײַ צו אַמעריקע.

Black Mountain would ultimately fail to attract almost any black students or faculty. Soltz credits this to the fact that the school, being unaccredited, was less useful to the type of Black students who might have been interested in the academic level of the school. But she also points to a serious failure of the culture.

We should get to know our students, respect them and let them know that we are here as companions, and know that their questioning of everything will help us, the adults, also question the systems that we have placed around us.

A street, neighborhood or city can, and usually does, reach a level of potency capable of carrying a spiritual identity that can be sensed or felt.

Our commentators struggled with the idea that God would now send Moses and Aaron with “cheap tricks” to try and make their appeal stronger.

"What happens in disasters demonstrates everything an anarchist ever wanted to believe about the triumph of civil society and the failure of institutional authority."

Black Mountain opened in 1933 and closed in 1956. It never enrolled more than a hundred students at a time, but it has had an outsized influence on American art, poetry, and education.

I got the sensation that this week we have entered a paradigm shift, which I define as an the ineffable moment when everything changes and our brains tell us that everything is the same.

In days to come all of us will either be directly affected by the fires or find that we have friends who are directly affected.