Moses and Me
The reason I have trouble with Moses is that his basic task seems to me different. God is not just asking him to bring himself into being. The Lord is asking Moses to bring a people into being! Abig...
4 Apr 202410min
World History and Me
Last night I watched a documentary about the “discovery” by Europeans of the Western Hemisphere – that vast tract of land between Europe and the India that the spice-hunters sought. In my childhood, t...
28 Mar 202416min
Death, Dying, and Heroes
So, if death is ordinarily not that bad – a big relief, even – why the dread of dying? Abigail L. Rosenthal is Professor Emerita at Brooklyn College of The City University of New York. She is the ...
21 Mar 202410min
September 11, A Week Later –
This post, written the week after September 11, 2011, is dedicated to Frank De Martini and Pablo Ortiz. Starting at the 88th floor on the North Tower, they went from floor to floor calling out to peop...
14 Mar 202421min
Success in San Francisco
The trip wasn’t exactly a willing one on my part because my spouse had talked me into giving a paper at the conference where he was to chair a panel and present his own paper. I hadn’t given any philo...
7 Mar 202410min
Léo
Léo was Laurin’s philosophy of art teacher at Brandeis University. He was also my father’s closest friend and a sort of godfather to me, from my earliest days and continuing into adult life. As we tal...
29 Feb 202411min
Zeitgeist
What is it about the Zeitgeist? It’s never quite feasible to pretend it’s not real or to dodge it completely – unless you’ve managed to carve out an existence on an uninhabited Pacific island or a so...
22 Feb 202411min
Apologies to Kierkegaard
In a previous post or two of “Dear Abbie,” I found myself sharply critical – denunciatory even – of Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). He is the Danish philosopher/theologian who is still studied by serio...
15 Feb 202410min
