“The Greeks’ ever-more powerful demand for beauty, for festivals, entertainments, new cults really grew from a lack, from deprivation, from melancholy [and] from pain.”1

Reading an interesting treatment of the topic of free will, science and the nature of G-d, I found the writer discussing the Noahide Laws. He listed them and commented that “of the seven laws, five relate to interpersonal contacts, only two to our relations with the Divine.2 But the two mitzvoth forbidding idolatry and blasphemy pertain not only to our stance to the Creator but pervade the structure, norms and education of our society. It is through aesthetics, the science of beauty the West inherits from ancient Greece that these two behaviors shape what we term ethics, psychology, social structure, economics, entertainment, politics and more… Image-work is common, in lesser degrees to all but one other culture: that of ancient Israel. (more…)

Readers of Tehillim (“psalms”) frequently encounter the word, “Selah” for example, in the verse, “He answers me from His holy mountain, selah” (3:5). Some people are not entirely clear about the interpretation of this word. (more…)

This extensively revised essay moves from geopolitics to analysis of cultural principles, contrasts and development. (more…)

“The sky of … European culture, its evening sky is burning now – perhaps burning itself out. We artists among the spectators and philosophers are grateful for this to the Jews.1 (more…)

Symbolism usually is associated with a style in visual and literary arts from 1860-1920. This essay suggests that it also reveals important cultural shifts reflecting the essential nature of the West in contrast with its Jewish root.

One hardly could describe influential philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) as a proponent of Judaism or its imperial Hellenic successor. Yet the vegetarian and Buddhist Schopenhauer wrote intriguingly on these matters and his works influenced many. (more…)