By Yaacov Mascetti* Texts are organic entities – they breathe, grow, become old, fall into disgrace, rejuvenate and come back to life. The Book of Esther is one of these texts – it never fails to give me new feelings, it never stops talking to me, and, to say it with Kafka, more than a …
By Daniela Fubini* Israelis at this time of the year get a little confused. The weather is still moody, hot chamsin waves share the week with chilly nights and even rain at times. The trees are blossoming everywhere, but rather often you can see new leaves, flowers and fruit on the same tree. Is it …
By Benedetto Carucci Viterbi “Every mitzvah requires a appropriate deliberateness. The only exception is humbleness. A deliberate humbleness is not valid.” (Menachem Mendel, Kotzk rebbe) *Benedetto Carucci Viterbi is a rabbi.
By Yaakov Mascetti* It’s all lapsing back into senseless violence, anger, fear and militant need for revenge. Once again, I feel this urge to yell at people, to scream at the intrusive aggression of a blade into my consciousness. It’s all surreal. I wake up at 6:00, make myself coffee, make sandwiches for the kids, …
By Daniela Fubini* There must be something political about hair. Something I cannot completely grasp and therefore lingers in my mind while I watch the news and the social media posts. Photo-shopped caricatures merging Donald John Trump and Silvio Bunga Bunga Berlusconi are already out there, I suppose with big nuisance to Mr. B, who …
By Susanna Calimani Last week I was wasting my usual amount of daily time in compulsive internet browsing: from IKEA to Financial Times, from Huffington Post to the new Spring collection of Max&Co, from Bloomberg to Lufthansa offers, from the Macro Prudential Policies Bulletin to the new catalogue of Barbies. Because financial markets might be …
By Yaakov Mascetti I write this article on February 21st 2016, twenty years after my conversion: for this reason I wish to address a central characteristic of the religious and psychological persona which I have become over the years. Solitude. While I have written about this various times here on this platform, this time I …
By Daniela Fubini* February is one of the favorite months in my double, even triple life. It counts many blessings: framed by the American high holidays of the Superbowl at the beginning and the Oscars at the end, spiced up in the middle by the Italian musical sanctity of Sanremo: there is never a dumb …
By Susanna Calimani I had somehow promised myself I would have not mention him again, but my new Muslim officemate is giving me so many new emotions. He was telling me how an Israeli girl who was taking a course with him at the university and used to smile at him, looking for his complicity, …
By Yaakov Mascetti* The revelation of God to the People of Israel, and the ensuing giving of the Torah, are preceded by an encounter between Moses and his father-in-law, Yitro. (Ex. 18:1-9) Now Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses’ father-in-law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel His people, how …
By Benedetto Carucci Viterbi* Reuven, who as the first-born was destined to royal and sacerdotal services, loses his rights because of his impulsiveness/impetuosity. Those who take care of the general public, and not only them, need always to reflect before acting. *Benedetto Carucci Viterbi is a rabbi.
By Susanna Calimani* Let’s talk about it, although it’s kind of private. A few days ago I went for lunch with my colleague: he comes from North Africa, he is Muslim, a PhD student here in Germany and currently sitting in front of me at the European Central Bank, so not really the last caveman. …
By Yaacov Mascetti* In Charles Dickens’ Hard Times, Thomas Gradgrind is presented as a “man of realities,” and can be read as a literary representation of the (disturbing) modern trend of adoring and serving facts, empirical data and objective foundationalism. “Now, what I want is, facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts …
By Daniela Fubini* The light of hundreds of candles lit in apparent lack of order sheds light and warmth all around the shattered windows of the pub Simta. On the left, the health food store is open until late. Nothing has changed here, not even the position of the carts, still close to the entrance …
By Benedetto Carucci Viterbi* When Joseph meets his father after many years apart, while Yaakov had believed him dead, he hugs him, kisses him, and weeps. Yaakov does not: according to the Midrash, he was intent on reciting the Shemah. Rav Wolbe sees in this behavior the achievement of menuchat hanefesh, peace of mind, the …
By Yaacov Mascetti* I’m a stage in my life where God’s omniscience and omnipresence is no longer an axiom of faith – actually, I am at a stage in life where the opposite is the case, where Divine absence is to be wished for in order for there to be faith, for there to be …
By Daniela Fubini* Don’t we all love the holidays, with or without fake pine trees with colorful lights and the star up on top. Right now, from end of November all the way through early January is a very interesting time, in Israel, especially when you live a double life. When family and friends are …
By Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello There are small gestures, barely visible, that change the history of the world. One of these happened on a bus in Alabama, when a woman named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person. This episode occurred precisely 61 years ago, in December 1955. The lighting of …
By Yaacov Mascetti* There is an impossible and uncompromising tension between the individual and the collective, between the specific and the general – a tension which can lead to the crushing of the individual in the name of the general, in the name of the coherence of the collective; or which can lead to the …
By Daniela Fubini* A while ago, a very influential man (the Pope, no less) said in an interview that we are in the middle of World War Three, and we don’t recognize it only because it is fought in small battles rather than in one large campaign. At that time, I took the comment as …