When thy son shall ask thee in time to come, saying … —Exodus 13:14 The Bible envisions different questions, apparently posed by different sons, all to the same effect: why do we Jews do this, that, or the other thing? From the character of the question, one infers the character of the … [Read more...]
Archives for April 2011
Passover Seder – How Different Is This Night …
It’s Passover time again. Which means it’s time, if you’re Jewish and observe the traditions, for that archaic, baffling, weirdly compelling ceremony called the Seder. For those who don’t know the terminology: the Seder is the ritual meal for Passover eve, performed the first evening of Passover … [Read more...]
Peanuts Comic – A “Peanuts” Mystery
The week before last I blogged on “Peanuts.” Not the most august subject, I know. But there’s something about that comic strip that haunts me, that continues to mystify me. So I’m returning to it today. In my earlier post, I wrote that for the last three decades of the strip’s existence the … [Read more...]
Gore Vidal and the UFOs
“Stars fell to earth in a blaze of light, and where they fell, monsters were born, hideous and blind.” —Gore Vidal, Messiah Did Gore Vidal believe in UFOs? That was the question I asked myself, with some excitement, as a teen-age “UFO investigator” reading Vidal’s 1954 novel Messiah. This … [Read more...]