L Cohen Quotes

the moon's too bright the chain's too tight the beast won't go to sleep. I've been thinking of those promises I made to you that I could not keep. I know a man never got a woman back by beggin on his knees, or I'd crawl to you baby and I'd fall at your feet I'd howl at your beauty like a dog in heat I'd tear at your heart I'd claw at your sheets And I'd say please. Please. I'm your man.

Un soir qu'ils étaient couchés l'un près de l'autre, comme elle lui demandait d'inventer un poème qui commencerait par je connais un beau pays, il s'exécuta sur-le-champ. Je connais un beau pays Il est de l'or et d'églantine Tout le monde s'y sourit Ah quelle aventure fine Les tigres y sont poltrons Les agneaux ont fière mine À tous les vieux vagabonds Ariane donne des tartines. Alors, elle lui baisa le la main, et il eut honte de cette admiration.

Pentru că au sâni rotunzi, cu gurguie care se ridică prin bluză când le e frig, pentru că au fundul mare şi grăsuţ, pentru că au feţe cu trăsături dulci ca ale copiilor, pentru că au buze pline, dinţi decenţi şi limbi de care nu ţi-e silă. Pentru că nu miros a transpiraţie sau a tutun prost şi nu asudă pe buza superioară. Pentru că le zâmbesc tuturor copiilor mici care trec pe lângă ele. Pentru că merg pe stradă drepte, cu capul sus, cu umerii traşi înapoi şi nu răspund privirii tale când le fixezi ca un maniac. Pentru că trec cu un curaj neaşteptat peste toate servitutile anatomiei lor delicate. Pentru că în pat sunt îndrăzneţe şi inventive nu din perversitate, ci ca să-ţi arate că te iubesc. Pentru că fac toate treburile sâcâitoare şi mărunte din casă fără să se laude cu asta şi fără să ceară recunoştinţă. Pentru că nu citesc reviste porno şi nu navighează pe site-uri porno. Pentru că poartă tot soiul de zdrăngănele pe care şi le asortează la îmbrăcăminte după reguli complicate şi de neînţeles. Pentru că îşi desenează şi-şi pictează feţele cu atenţia concentrată a unui artist inspirat. Pentru că au obsesia pentru subţirime a lui Giacometti. Pentru că se trag din fetiţe. Pentru că-şi ojează unghiile de la picioare. Pentru că joacă şah, whist sau ping-pong fără sa le intereseze cine câştigă. Pentru că şofează prudent în maşini lustruite ca nişte bomboane, aşteptând să le admiri când sunt oprite la stop şi treci pe zebră prin faţa lor. Pentru că au un fel de-a rezolva probleme care te scoate din minţi. Pentru că au un fel de-a gândi care te scoate din minţi. Pentru că-ţi spun „te iubesc” exact atunci când te iubesc mai puţin, ca un fel de compensaţie. Pentru că nu se masturbează. Pentru că au din când în când mici suferinţe: o durere reumatică, o constipaţie, o bătătură, şi-atunci îţi dai seama deodată că femeile sunt oameni, oameni ca şi tine. Pentru că scriu fie extrem de delicat, colecţionând mici observaţii şi schiţând subtile nuanţe psihologice, fie brutal şi scatologic ca nu cumva să fie suspectate de literatură feminină. Pentru că sunt extraordinare cititoare, pentru care se scriu trei sferturi din poezia şi proza lumii. Pentru că le înnebuneşte „Angie” al Rolling-ilor. Pentru că le termină Cohen. Pentru că poartă un război total şi inexplicabil contra gândacilor de bucătărie. Pentru că până şi cea mai dură bussiness woman poartă chiloţi cu înduioşătoare floricele şi danteluţe. Pentru că e aşa de ciudat să-ntinzi la uscat, pe balcon, chiloţii femeii tale, nişte lucruşoare umede, negre, roşii şi albe, parte satinate, parte aspre, mirându-te ce mici suprafeţe au de acoperit. Pentru că în filme nu fac duş niciodată înainte de-a face dragoste, dar numai în filme. Pentru că niciodată n-ajungi cu ele la un acord în privinţa frumuseţii altei femei sau a altui bărbat. Pentru că iau viaţa în serios, pentru că par să creadă cu adevărat în realitate. Pentru că le interesează cu adevărat cine cu cine s-a mai cuplat dintre vedetele de televiziune. Pentru că ţin minte numele actriţelor şi actorilor din filme, chiar ale celor mai obscuri. Pentru că dacă nu e supus nici unei hormonizări embrionul se dezvoltă întotdeauna într-o femeie. Pentru că nu se gândesc cum să i-o tragă tipului drăguţ pe care-l văd în troleibuz. Pentru că beau porcării ca Martini Orange, Gin Tonic sau Vanilia Coke. Pentru că nu-ţi pun mâna pe fund decât în reclame. Pentru că nu le excită ideea de viol decât în mintea bărbaţilor. Pentru că sunt blonde, brune, roşcate, dulci, futeşe, calde, drăgălaşe, pentru că au de fiecare dată orgasm. Pentru că dacă n-au orgasm nu îl mimează. Pentru că momentul cel mai frumos al zilei e cafeaua de dimineaţă, când timp de o oră ronţăiţi biscuiţi şi puneţi ziua la cale. Pentru că sunt femei, pentru că nu sunt bărbaţi, nici altceva. Pentru că din ele-am ieşit şi-n ele ne-ntoarcem, şi mintea noastră se roteşte ca o planetă greoaie, mereu şi mereu, numai în jurul lor.

There is evidence that the honoree [Leonard Cohen] might be privy to the secret of the universe, which, in case you're wondering, is simply this: everything is connected. Everything. Many, if not most, of the links are difficult to determine. The instrument, the apparatus, the focused ray that can uncover and illuminate those connections is language. And just as a sudden infatuation often will light up a person's biochemical atmosphere more pyrotechnically than any deep, abiding attachment, so an unlikely, unexpected burst of linguistic imagination will usually reveal greater truths than the most exacting scholarship. In fact. The poetic image may be the only device remotely capable of dissecting romantic passion, let alone disclosing the inherent mystical qualities of the material world. Cohen is a master of the quasi-surrealistic phrase, of the "illogical" line that speaks so directly to the unconscious that surface ambiguity is transformed into ultimate, if fleeting, comprehension: comprehension of the bewitching nuances of sex and bewildering assaults of culture. Undoubtedly, it is to his lyrical mastery that his prestigious colleagues now pay tribute. Yet, there may be something else. As various, as distinct, as rewarding as each of their expressions are, there can still be heard in their individual interpretations the distant echo of Cohen's own voice, for it is his singing voice as well as his writing pen that has spawned these songs. It is a voice raked by the claws of Cupid, a voice rubbed raw by the philosopher's stone. A voice marinated in kirschwasser, sulfur, deer musk and snow; bandaged with sackcloth from a ruined monastery; warmed by the embers left down near the river after the gypsies have gone. It is a penitent's voice, a rabbinical voice, a crust of unleavened vocal toasts -- spread with smoke and subversive wit. He has a voice like a carpet in an old hotel, like a bad itch on the hunchback of love. It is a voice meant for pronouncing the names of women -- and cataloging their sometimes hazardous charms. Nobody can say the word "naked" as nakedly as Cohen. He makes us see the markings where the pantyhose have been. Finally, the actual persona of their creator may be said to haunt these songs, although details of his private lifestyle can be only surmised. A decade ago, a teacher who called himself Shree Bhagwan Rajneesh came up with the name "Zorba the Buddha" to describe the ideal modern man: A contemplative man who maintains a strict devotional bond with cosmic energies, yet is completely at home in the physical realm. Such a man knows the value of the dharma and the value of the deutschmark, knows how much to tip a waiter in a Paris nightclub and how many times to bow in a Kyoto shrine, a man who can do business when business is necessary, allow his mind to enter a pine cone, or dance in wild abandon if moved by the tune. Refusing to shun beauty, this Zorba the Buddha finds in ripe pleasures not a contradiction but an affirmation of the spiritual self. Doesn't he sound a lot like Leonard Cohen? We have been led to picture Cohen spending his mornings meditating in Armani suits, his afternoons wrestling the muse, his evenings sitting in cafes were he eats, drinks and speaks soulfully but flirtatiously with the pretty larks of the street. Quite possibly this is a distorted portrait. The apocryphal, however, has a special kind of truth. It doesn't really matter. What matters here is that after thirty years, L. Cohen is holding court in the lobby of the whirlwind, and that giants have gathered to pay him homage. To him -- and to us -- they bring the offerings they have hammered from his iron, his lead, his nitrogen, his gold.

L'espèce humaine mourra de méchanceté.

Ciri accusava con voce stridula Cohen di imbrogliare al gioco. Cohen l'abbracciò e scoppiò a ridere. La maga si rese conto all'improvviso che fino ad ora non aveva mai sentito ridere uno strigo.

Dans les rues, je suis l'obsédé de ma morte, mornement regardant tous ces agités qui ne savent pas qu'ils vont mourir et que le bois de leur cercueil existe déjà dans une scierie ou dans une forêt, vaguement regardant ces jeunes et fardés futurs cadavres femelles qui rient avec leurs dents, annonce et commencement de leur squelette, qui montrent leurs trente-deux petits bouts de squelette et qui s'esclaffent comme s'ils ne devaient jamais mourir.

Aujourd'hui, je suis fou de mort, partout la mort, et ces roses sur ma table qui me parfument tandis que j'écris, affreusement vivant, ces roses sont des bouts de cadavres qu'on force à faire semblant de vivre trois jours de plus dans de l'eau et les gens achètent ces cadavres de fleurs et les jeunes filles s'en repaissent.

Un bébé titube avec des gestes d'ivrogne. Charmant, ce bébé, pas dangereux, pas jugeur de Juifs. Envie de l'embrasser. Non, trop blond, antisémite dans vingt ans.

We made a little garden in the middle of L.A. so our hearts they wouldn’t harden & our spirits they could play

NYers are cruel enough to neglect a bond due only to trackwork on the L.

He was rowed down from the north in a leather skiff manned by a crew of trolls. His fur cape was caked with candle wax, his brow stained blue by wine - though the latter was seldom noticed due to the fox mask he wore at-all times. A quill in his teeth, a solitary teardrop a-squirm in his palm, he was the young poet prince of Montreal, handsome, immaculate, searching for sturdier doors to nail his poignant verses on. In Manhattan, grit drifted into his ink bottle. In Vienna, his spice box exploded. On the Greek island of Hydra, Orpheus came to him at dawn astride a transparent donkey and restrung his cheap guitar. From that moment on, he shamelessly and willingly exposed himself to the contagion of music. To the secretly religious curiosity of the traveler was added the openly foolhardy dignity of the troubadour. By the time he returned to America, songs were working in him like bees in an attic. Connoisseurs developed cravings for his nocturnal honey, despite the fact that hearts were occasionally stung. Now, thirty years later, as society staggers towards the millennium - nailing and screeching at the while, like an orangutan with a steak knife in its side - Leonard Cohen, his vision, his gift, his perseverance, are finally getting their due. It may be because he speaks to this wounded zeitgeist with particular eloquence and accuracy, it may be merely cultural time-lag, another example of the slow-to-catch-on many opening their ears belatedly to what the few have been hearing all along. In any case, the sparkle curtain has shredded, the boogie-woogie gate has rocked loose from its hinges, and here sits L. Cohen at an altar in the garden, solemnly enjoying new-found popularity and expanded respect. From the beginning, his musical peers have recognized Cohen´s ability to establish succinct analogies among life´s realities, his talent for creating intimate relationships between the interior world of longing and language and the exterior world of trains and violins. Even those performers who have neither "covered" his compositions nor been overtly influenced by them have professed to admire their artfulness: the darkly delicious melodies - aural bouquets of gardenia and thistle - that bring to mind an electrified, de-Germanized Kurt Weill; the playfully (and therefore dangerously) mournful lyrics that can peel the apple of love and the peach of lust with a knife that cuts all the way to the mystery, a layer Cole Porter just could`t expose. It is their desire to honor L. Cohen, songwriter, that has prompted a delegation of our brightest artists to climb, one by one, joss sticks smoldering, the steep and salty staircase in the Tower of Song.

Du joli, la passion dite amour. Si pas de jalousie, ennui. Si jalousie, enfer bestial. Elle une esclave, et lui une brute. Ignobles romanciers, bande de menteurs qui embellissaient la passion, en donnaient l'envie aux idiotes et aux idiots. Ignobles romanciers, fournisseurs et flagorneurs de la classe possédante. Et les idiotes aimaient ces sales mensonges, ces escroqueries, s'en nourissaient.

Car l'homme ne vit que durant un clignement de paupières et ensuite c'est la pourriture à jamais, et chaque jour tu fais un pas de plus vers le trou en terre où tu moisiras en grande stupidité et silence en la seule compagnie de vers blancs et gras comme ceux de la farine et du fromage, et ils s'introduiront dans tous tes orifices pour s'y nourrir.

L'église de tout à l'heure. Plus de tapis rouge. Ce soir, une vierge de moins.

La vrai amour ce n'est pas de vivre avec une femme parce qu'on l'aime, mais de l'aimer parce qu'on vit avec elle.

J'écrivais pour éviter de parler. Parce que les mots, dans ma bouche, ne trouvaient jamais l'ordre dans lequel ils devaient se ranger, ni le sens que j'aurais souhaité leur donner.

En fait, je crois que personne n’a réellement peur de la mort. Nous avons seulement peur de ne pas avoir le temps de nous habituer à l’idée de mourir faute d’avoir compris ce que vivre signifie.

« Alors je prends mon stylo pour dire que je l'aime, qu'elle a les plus longs cheveux du monde et que ma vie s'y noie, et si tu trouves ça ridicule pauvre de toi, ses yeux sont pour moi, elle est moi, je suis elle, et quand elle crie je crie aussi et tout ce que je ferai jamais sera pour elle, toujours, toujours je lui donnerai tout et jusqu'à ma mort il n'y aura pas un mation où je me lèverai pour autre chose que pour elle et lui donner envie de m'aimer et m'embrasser encore et encore ses poignets, ses épaules, ses seins et alors je me suis rendu compte que quand on est amoureux on écrit des phrases qui n'ont pas de fin, on n'a plus le temps de mettre des points, il faut continuer à écrire, écrire, courir plus loin que son coeur, et la phrase ne veut pas s'arrêter, l'amour n'a pas de ponctuation, et de larmes de passion dégoulinent, quand on aime on finit toujours par écrire des choses interminables, quand on aime on finit toujours par se prendre pour Albert Cohen. »

Les souvenirs n’appartiennent qu’à ceux qui ont su vivre les instants de leur vie. Ils prennent leur place dans un album de photos et racontent une histoire. Quand l’existence n’a été qu’une attente, on ne possède que les cartes postales adressées par nos regrets de lieux où nous ne sommes pas allés de personnes que nous n’avons pas connues.

Place Saint-Germain-des-Près. Devant la sortie de l'église, le jeune homme qui crie son journal. Demandez l'Antijuif! Vient de paraître! Donc c'est un nouveau numéro. Non, défense de l'acheter. Il s'approche, son mouchoir contre son nez, demande l'Antijuif, paye le jeune homme qui lui sourit. Otez le mouchoir, lui parler, le convaincre? Frère, ne comprends tu pas que tu me tortures? Tu es intelligent, ton visage est beau, aimons nous. Demandez l'Antijuif! Il court, traverse, s'engouffre dans une petite rue, brandit la feuille de haine. Demandez l'Antijuif! crie t il dans la rue déserte. Mort aux juifs! crie t il dans une voix folle. Mort à moi! crie t il, le visage illuminé de larmes.

He was about to pocket a list of local sanitariums when he heard "Traitor," and saw Mickey and Herman Gerstein standing a few feet away. Cohen with a clean shot, but a half dozen witnesses spoiling his chance. Buzz said, "I suppose this means my guard gig's kaput. Huh, Mick?" The man looked hurt as much as he looked mad. "Goyishe shitheel traitor. Cocksucker. Communist. How much money did I give you? How much money did I set up for you that you should do me like you did?" Buzz said, "Too much, Mick." "That is no smart answer, you fuck. You should beg. You should beg that I don't do you slow." "Would it help?" "No." "There you go, boss." Mickey said, "Herman, leave this room"; Gerstein exited. The typers kept typing and the clerks kept clerking. Buzz gave the little hump's cage a rattle. "No hard feelin's, huh?" Mickey said, "I will make you a deal, because when I say "deal," it is always to trust. Right?" "Trust" and "deal" were the man's bond-it was why he went with him instead of Siegel or Dragna. "Sure, Mick." "Send Audrey back to me and I will not hurt a hair on her head and I will not do you slow. Do you trust my word?" "Yes." "Do you trust I'll get you?" "You're the oddson favorite, boss." "Then be smart and do it." "No deal. Take care, Jewboy. I'll miss you. I really will.

That’s how my cousin came to don the hand-tailored suits and to arrogate to himself the glamorous responsibility for ushering to their tables big-name customers such as Jersey City’s crooked mayor, Frank Hague; New Jersey’s light-heavyweight champion, Gus Lesnevich; and racket tycoons like Cleveland’s Moe Dalitz, Boston’s King Solomon, L.A.’s Mickey Cohen, and even “the Brain” himself, Meyer Lansky, when they were in town for a gangland convention.

Affirm: I don't mean dole out vapid praise or flatter ourselves in the mirror, which research shows to be counterproductive. I mean that we should create opportunities, even small ones, for people to express who they are and what they value, and to feel valued. Contrary to popular wisdom, many self-affirmations take the form not of "I am good, or smart, or well liked" but "Here is what I am committed to and why," which "firms up" the self. We miss far too many opportunities to affirm people, which, ironically, is the most important when they may seem least worthy of affirmation: when they're threatened, stressed, or defensive.

On a Parisienne’s Bookshelf THERE ARE MANY BOOKS ON A PARISIENNE’S BOOKSHELF: The books you so often claim you’ve read that you actually believe you have. The books you read in school from which you remember only the main character’s name. The art books your parents give you each Christmas so you can get some “culture”. The art books that you bought yourself and which you really love. The books that you’ve been promising yourself you’ll read next summer … for the past ten years. The books you bought only because you liked the title. The books that you think makes you cool. The books you read over and over again, and that evolve along with your life. The books that remind you of someone you loved. The books you keep for your children, just in case you ever have any. The books whose first ten pages you’ve read so many times you know them by heart. The books you own simply because you must and, taken together, form intangible proof that you are well read. AND THEN THERE ARE THE BOOKS YOU HAVE READ, LOVED, AND WHICH ARE A PART OF YOUR IDENTITY: The Stranger, Albert Camus The Elementary Particles, Michel Houellebecq Belle du Seigneur, Albert Cohen Bonjour Tristesse, Françoise Sagan Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert L'Écume des jours, Boris Vian Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov Les Fleurs du Mal, Charles Baudelaire Journey to the End of the Night, Louis-Ferdinand Céline À la recherche du temps perdu, Marcel Proust “How to Be Parisian Wherever You Are: Love, Style, and Bad Habits” By Anne Berest, Audrey Diwan, Caroline de Maigret, and Sophie Mas

My eye keeps escaping towards the big blue lacquered door that I've had painted in a trompe-l'oeil on the back wall. I would like to call Mrs. Cohen back and tell her there's no problem for her son's bar mitzvah, everything's ready: I would like to go through that door and disappear into the garden my mind's eye has painted behind it. The grass there is soft and sweet, there are bulrushes bowing along the banks of a river. I put lime trees in it, hornbeams, weeping elms, blossoming cherries and liquidambars. I plant it with ancient roses, daffodils, dahlias with their melancholy heavy heads, and flowerbeds of forget-me-nots. Pimpernels, armed with all the courage peculiar to such tiny entities, follow the twists and turns between the stones of a rockery. Triumphant artichokes raise their astonished arrows towards the sky. Apple trees and lilacs blossom at the same time as hellebores and winter magnolias. My garden knows no seasons. It is both hot and cool. Frost goes hand in hand with a shimmering heat haze. The leaves fall and grow again. row and fall again. Wisteria climbs voraciously over tumbledown walls and ancient porches leading to a boxwood alley with a poignant fragrance. The heady smell of fruit hangs in the air. Huge peaches, chubby-cheeked apricots, jewel-like cherries, redcurrants, raspberries, spanking red tomatoes and bristly cardoons feast on sunlight and water, because between the sunbeams it rains in rainbow-colored droplets. At the very end, beyond a painted wooden fence, is a woodland path strewn with brown leaves, protected from the heat of the skies by a wide parasol of foliage fluttering in the breeze. You can't see the end of it, just keep walking, and breathe.

Leggendo, diluisco la mia storia in quelle degli autori, semino le mie angosce nell’emozione degli intrighi. Mi smarrisco, scordo me stessa. ========== Era un giorno come gli altri. Contrariamente a quanto ci fanno credere i romanzi d’amore, i grandi eventi non avvengono nel bel mezzo di momenti particolari. Non sono la lunga pausa di una giornata o di una notte che li stavano preparando, pronte ad accoglierli. Spesso sorgono nello spazio della banalità quotidiana, ed è proprio per questo che sembrano ancora più belli. Perché ci strappano alla nostra routine, rompono la piattezza dell’esistenza, conferiscono un sapore nuovo ai momenti in arrivo, ci risvegliano i sensi e ci danno la sensazione di essere finalmente vivi. Eppure ogni fatto eccezionale, che si tratti di un colpo di fulmine, di una nascita, di un bell’incontro o della lettura di qualcosa di bello, ci fa talvolta pensare che tutto ciò che l’ha preceduto esistesse solo per portarci a lui; così che, sotto la forma di un perfido revisionismo, ridipingiamo le scene di quegli avvenimenti con i colori e la luce che proprio essi ci hanno rivelato. Quel giorno non si annunciava quindi né più bello, né più scialbo dei precedenti: eppure stavo per vivere l’incontro più importante della mia esistenza. ========== All’amore non interessano le ragioni della sua esistenza. L’amore è un sentimento totalitario: non accetta alcuna contraddizione, contestazione o controversia. Vi chiede di piegarvi alla sua legge, di classificare le vostre facoltà intellettuali dietro immagini dai colori pastello. Pretende la vostra sottomissione e vi promette, in cambio, la gioia dell’irresponsabilità. A quel punto, ogni giornata era una promessa. Quella di rivederla, incontrarla, parlarle, conquistarla, amarla. E, anche se ignoravo le mie possibilità di successo, la speranza era già fonte di felicità. ========== Avevamo l’ingenuità di credere che sentimenti belli e puri potessero annullare la frontiera tra sogno e realtà. Un po’ come un lettore finisce per credere che i personaggi del suo romanzo esistano per davvero. Perché non può essere altrimenti. Perché, in caso contrario, il mondo diventerebbe un insulto alla loro sensibilità. ========== «Non volevo che lo lasciasse qui e si accontentasse di venire a leggere qualche pagina ogni settimana. Volevo che creasse un rapporto d’intimità con il tuo romanzo, che se lo portasse a casa affinché si impossessasse del suo universo. Perché è comunque così che deve essere letto un romanzo. Deve occupare un posto nella vita del lettore, fare conoscenza con i mobili, riempirsi degli odori di una casa, passare di stanza in stanza. Insomma, è ciò che credo.» ========== Un amico si riconosce dalla forza silenziosa del suo ascolto, un ascolto che raccoglie le vostre confidenze e vi alleggerisce delle parole di cui vi siete liberati. Sono poche le persone dotate di questa facoltà. Di solito la gente inquina le vostre parole con i propri sentimenti e pareri. Con gli sguardi e il respiro indebolisce i vostri discorsi e li giudica non appena vengono espressi; alla fine, vi ritrovate a passare dalla confessione alla giustificazione. ========== Le parole sporcano tutto ciò che l’anima ha cercato di elevare sopra la nostra condizione di mortali. Riducono le emozioni, limitano l’anima alle possibilità che abbiamo di esprimerci.

Ro counted to three, waiting for the station's tired AI to parse her request and decide to give her access. The round door irised in silence. Daedalus didn't even bother to acknowledge her. Wiggling her middle finger at the recessed ocular, she stepped through the opening into the central nexus. She needed to get as far away from her quarters and her father as she could despite the confines of the station.

Chiar și când nu era vreo cădere de tensiune trăiam într-o lumină slabă, pentru că era important să faci economie: părinții mei înlocuiau becurile de 40 de wați cu unele de 25, nu doar pentru a face economie, ci din principiu, pentru că lumina puternică e risipă, iar risipa e imorală. Apartamentul nostru micuț era întotdeauna ticsit cu suferințele întregii omeniri. Copiii care mureau de foame în India, de dragul cărora eram eu silit să mănânc tot ce mi se punea în farfurie. Supraviețuitorii infernului lui Hitler, pe care englezii ii deportaseră în lagăre din Cipru. Orfanii zdrențăroși care încă mai bântuiau prin pădurile copleșite de zăpadă din Europa în ruine. Tata lucra la biroul lui până la două dimineața, la lumina unui bec anemic de 25 de wați, chinuindu-și ochii, pentru că nu i se părea corect sa folosească o lumină mai puternică: pionierii din kibbutzurile Galileii ședeau în corturile lor noapte de noapte scriind cărți de poezii sau tratate filozofice la lumina unor lumânări ce picurau, și cum ai putea să uiți de ei și să șezi aici ca Rothschild, la un bec orbitor de 40 de wați? Şi ce-ar zice vecinii dacă ar vedea dintr-odată la noi lumină ca într-o sală de bal? Mai bine să-și distrugă vederea decât să atragă privirile furișe ale celorlalți. Nu ne număram printre cei mai nevoiași. Slujba pe care o avea tata la Biblioteca Națională îi aducea un salariu modest, dar regulat. Mama dădea meditații. Eu udam în fiecare vineri grădina domnului Cohen din Tel Arza, pentru un șiling, iar miercurea mai câștigam patru piaștri pentru că așezam sticlele goale în lăzi, în dosul băcăniei domnului Auster, și pe lângă astea îl învățam pe fiul doamnei Finster să citească o hartă, cu doi piaștri pe lecție (dar asta era pe credit, și nici până în ziua de azi nu m-au plătit Finsterii). În ciuda tuturor acestor surse de venit, făceam tot timpul economii. Viața din apartamentul nostru micuț semăna cu viața dintr-un submarin, așa cum se arăta într-un film pe care l-am văzut cândva la cinematograful Edison, unde marinarii închideau după ei o trapă ori de câte ori treceau dintr-un compartiment în altul. În clipa în care aprindeam cu o mână lumina la baie, stingeam cu cealaltă lumina de pe coridor, ca să nu irosesc curentul. Trăgeam lanțul ușurel, pentru că nu se cuvenea să golești toată Niagara din rezervor pentru un pipi. Erau alte funcții (pe care nu le numeam niciodată) care puteau justifica, uneori, golirea completă a rezervorului. Dar pentru un pipi? Toată Niagara? În vreme ce pionierii din Negev păstrau apa cu care se spălaseră pe dinți pentru udatul plantelor? În vreme în lagărele din Cipru o întreagă familie trebuia să se descurce cu o găleată de apă timp de trei zile? Când plecam de la toaletă stingeam lumina cu mâna stângă și în aceeași clipă aprindeam lumina de pe coridor cu dreapta, pentru că Shoah a fost doar ieri, pentru că erau încă evrei fără adăpost care bântuiau prin Carpați și Dolomiți, lâncezeau prin lagărele de deportare și pe corăbii greoaie, gata-gata să se scufunde, scheletici, acoperiți de zdrențe, și pentru că și prin alte părți ale lumii erau greutăți și sărăcie: culii din China, culegătorii de bumbac din Mississippi, copiii din Africa, pescarii din Sicilia. Era de datoria noastră să nu fim risipitori.

I have studies religions of the world, but cheerfulness kept breaking through. Leonard Cohen

[La mente que hace planes] Y no se da cuenta de que aquí y ahora se encuentra todo cuanto necesita para garantizar un futuro muy diferente del pasado, libre de la continuidad de las viejas ideas y de las creencias enfermizas. No hay ansiedad con respecto al porvenir, pues la confianza presente está a cargo de éste. L

No fue el acto lo que te hirió, sino cómo lo interpretaste. Del mismo modo que elegiste una interpretación que te hizo sufrir, también puedes elegir una que te cure. «Puedo elegir cambiar todos los pensamientos que me causan dolor» (L, Lección 284). A

The term "Abrahamic religions" is itself embedded in politics. The phrase gained currency during and after the 1990s, as conflicts around the world subjected the relationships between them to intense scrutiny. One line of analysis has posited that Judaism and Christianity belong to one civilization, and Islam belongs to another, and that antagonism between the two sides is endemic, perhaps inevitable. This characterization may seem natural given global political alignments in the early twenty-first century, yet, when viewed historically, the idea that Judaism and Christianity belong to a single cultural complex looks rather odd.

For virtually all of their mutual existence, Christians and Jews considered themselves separate groups and wanted little interaction. The idea of a Judeo-Christian civilization is a twentieth-century creation, one result of which has been a massive reconsideration of Christianity's Jewish origins. The phrase "Abrahamic religions" connotes a category founded on the three traditions' practice of invoking Abraham, but this book further deploys it to consider Islam as being less alien to the Jewish and Christian worldviews than one might suppose. Any conclusion that Islam belongs to a different civilization than do Judaism and Christianity should emerge (if at all) only after long consideration about their intertwined pasts, rather than be asserted as an axiom.

Ever since Christians and then Muslims joined Jews in asserting the primacy of Abraham's One God, they have lived within one another's gravitational fields. The varying political contexts in which they have operated have had much to do with their trajectories, both individual and collective. Setting these traditions in dynamic juxtaposition emphasizes their identities as changing historical phenomena, however much each may claim singular possession of eternal truth. There may be one God, but there is no single Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

Recognizing a supreme divinity did not . . . translate immediately into conceiving one universal God. Israelites first took YHWH/El as their own while sometimes continuing to worship other people's deities as well. God could be described as heading an assembly of divine beings, but the Lord also sentences its members to death for "showing favor to the wicked" (Ps. 82:2). The prophets frequently express both themes: God is both virtuous and unique. This characterization of a single God who upholds moral standards ("ethical monotheism") surfaced strongly in light of the theological and military problems that Assyria posed. Did that empire's devastating triumph discredit God for having betrayed or failed Israel? "No," answered the prophets. God rules the nations, disposes their affairs justly, and deploys foreign powers as agents to rebuke Israel's iniquities. By the sixth century, this conclusion had become axiomatic. Consoling the exiles, the anonymous "Second Isaiah" reverenced "The Creator.... who alone is God" and who will reduce Babylon for having shown Israel "no mercy" (Is. 45:18, 47:5, 6).

The actual exercise of Israel's relationship with God began with the king and was managed by a hereditary priesthood. During the monarchical period, publics devotions took place at various shrines, and the Jerusalem Temple eventually became the supreme focus of state-sanctioned ceremony. The principal rite—public and private—was animal sacrifice. Tanakh glosses over the underlying rationales, but, at its root, such sacrifice was intended to repair divine-human relationship disordered by the supplicants' impure acts.

Exile and restoration had impacts on belief, observance, and religious identity that can be discerned even if the forces shaping them remain obscure. Competitors to the One God dropped away; adoration of figurines vanished. Israel's sense of its covenantal obligations came to include not simply ritual performance but, more importantly, each individual's internalized commitment to ethical behavior, a change signified by Jeremiah's proclamation of the "new covenant" in which God "will put My Teaching into their inmost being" (Jer 31:33).

By ca. 400 BCE, roughly when Tanakh's historical material ends, a religious community, the self-acknowledged heir of Biblical Israel, had unified itself around a collective self-understanding that distinguished it from its neighbors. That identity included lore about how the God of nations had covenanted with them and guided their history, an attachment to the land God had deeded them, distinctive customs (such as infant male circumcision and a prohibition against eating pork), a common language, and shared worship. Religious life revolved around the Temple, not sacred scripture, and presumed that its rituals were secured by either an Israelite government or a foreign ruler disposed to protect it. We can begin to call these people "Jews" (Yehudim), a name derived from "Yehud" and used in some of Tanakh's late-written books. It is, however, to early to speak of a coherent "Judaism," at least if that designation denotes the liturgical centrality of the Torah, much less of Tanakh, the whole of which did not yet exist.

Torah" can be construed as "law," but to prioritize this sense assumes the perspective of early Christians, who regarded Jewish devotion as fixated on obeying divine law and thus insufficient for salvation. For Jews, the broader meaning of "Torah" is "teaching" or "instruction." Its organizing narrative relates the People of Israel's fortunes from the time of their progenitor, Abraham, until they stand along the River Jordan poised to conquer Canaan; it also contains myths, cosmology, genealogies, and poetry, as well as legal codes.

Although no longer gospel, the assumption that multiple sources underlie the Torah can still help clarify many of the text's contradictions. Some version of it existed in 458 BCE, when Ezra, a Jewish priest in the Persian emperor's service, read it to the Yehudites in Jerusalem, but that scroll included less than what exists today.

Unlike modern historians, who analyze the proximate reason why things happen and strive for even-handedness, biblical writers reflected on events' ultimate meanings and sided with those who promoted the One God's worship against backsliders and idolaters. This perspective yielded the radical insight that God evaluates human behavior morally and favors the just, even though they may not triumph in the world like the Assyrians and the Babylonians—victors who, according to adage, write history on their own terms.

Accepting that the Gospels are problematic sources, we can still sketch Jesus's life and teachings. The evidence puts him among the Jewish peasantry of first-century Palestine. He was born ca. 4 BCE, more likely in or around Nazareth than in Bethlehem, given both widespread doubts about the historicity of Matthew's and Luke's Nativity narratives and recognition of their apologetic aims. He came from a family of modest means, spoke Aramaic, and worked as a carpenter or builder. At about age thirty, he was baptized by an itinerant preacher named John, after which he spent one (or more) years in the Galilee, gaining disciples and sometimes teaching in synagogues. By all accounts he moved easily among and displayed great compassion for people at society's margins. He fomented a major disturbance in Jerusalem, for which he was executed. Some of what Jesus taught was already familiar—the Golden Rule (Matt. 7:12) parallels a saying of the Jewish sage Hillel, his elder contemporary—but much represented a distinctive message about "the kingdom of God," a highly disputed term that many researchers understand as a place and time to come in which God will reign supreme. Heavenly or earthly, future or present, the kingdom would be ushered in by the "Son of Man," an apocalyptic figure whom Jesus may—or may not—have identified as himself. The kingdom's advent is imminent and would occasion a catastrophe, leading to a universal judgment of each person's fitness to enter it that would radically remake the social order. Mark 1:15 offers a concise precis: "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come, repent, and believe the good news.

[Jesus's] concern for society's outcasts and his portrayals of the transformation wrought by the kingdom of God have helped cast him as a militant revolutionary, but he lived a generation before the Zealots, and his admonition that all who take the sword will "perish" by it (Matt 26:52) hardly intimates a rebel chieftain. Self-authorized preachers such as John the Baptist or Theudas, who professed that he could part the Jordan River, roamed first-century Palestine, and Jesus seems to fit this profile.

There is a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in" - Leonard Cohen

Perhaps we are by nature no more Hobbesian brute than caring altruist. As Erving Goffman once quipped, “Universal human nature is not a very human thing.” I propose this variation: Uniform human nature is not a very human thing. Our nature is different in different situations. What is universal is our vast potential to behave in such diverse ways. As the anthropologist Clifford

We far too often fail to account for how situations in real life have also been crafted, intentionally or not, to confer advantages on some and disadvantages on others. This tendency contributes to beliefs that students from difficult homes are less motivated or less capable because of who they are, rather than what their home situation is.

The overwhelming conclusion across a large body of studies is that personality matters less than we think while the situation matters more than we think.

The impact of personality was overridden by whether the employees at the company perceived social norms that favored speaking up. If a company were interested in getting people to speak up, they'd be better off putting their energy into cultivating new norms rather than selecting gregarious employees.

It may seem unrealistic to expect that teachers should love their students, but the more I delve into the research on teaching, the more it seems to converge on the importance of love--not the type between parents and their children, surely, but love in the sense that Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Nelson Mandela meant it, a faith we choose to have in the inherent worth and dignity of another human being.

I, like my father before me, had been a wandering Aramean, seeking refuge in a distant land in the hopes of surviving the coming drought, the coming famine, only to become enslaved in that land, forced to make mud bricks and arrange them into pyramids for my own tomb? Not even—for the tomb of the man I used to be? All men are Arameans, whoever they are, and we commemorate our enslavement to our female taskmasters and their mothers—our mothers—not just two nights a year, but daily. L’chaim.

The biggest secret that traders don’t want the world to know is that anyone with a more or less sane disposition can do what they’re doing. The trick is getting access to the trough, to the P&L, to the “book.” The road toward it is tough, treacherous and crowded. On the way there, you will be misled into believing that in order to be a trader you must have a physics PhD, or know how to write code and build models, or have a top-school MBA, or, when all else fails, just be a young Caucasian male. But in the end, it doesn’t matter who made it to the top. In the end, it all comes down to merely placing a bet.

Miss McTavish era una laureata di Bryn Mawr del '21, alta e mascolina, ed era segretamente convinta di essere l'unica in America a capire veramente la poesia di Gerard Manley Hopkins. Era anche convinta che il mondo accademico non fosse degno del vero Hopkins ed era quindi riluttante a parlare delle proprie teorie. Lo stesso senso di superiorità la teneva lontana dalle universitá. Non desiderava prendere parte alla cospirazione accademica contro la Vita e l'Arte. Lo stesso senso di superiorità, unito a un naso grottesco, la teneva lontana dal matrimonio. Sapeva che l'uomo sufficientemente appassionato, ribelle e giocoso per un'intima relazione spirituale con lei non era disponibile per la vita domestica, essendosi con tutta probabilità giá consacrato al monastero oppure all'alpinismo.

Se registri i loro fischi, Shell, e li ascolti al rallentatore si possono sentire le cose più straordinarie. Quello che il nudo orecchio sente come una sola nota, in realtà è fatta spesso di due o tre note cantate insieme. Un uccello riesce a cantare tre note contemporaneamente!". "Vorrei saper parlare in questo modo. Vorrei poter dire dodici cose insieme. Vorrei poter dire tutto quello che c'è da dire in una sola parola. Odio tutte le cose che possono accadere tra l'inizio di una frase e la sua fine".

Si lasciarono davanti al tavolino di un caffè. Se conoscevi la proprietaria e ordinavi in francese potevi avere del vino nelle tazze da tè. Lui aveva sempre saputo che non la conosceva e che non sarebbe mai arrivato a conoscerla. Adorare un paio di cosce non è sufficiente. Non gli era mai importato sapere chi era Tamara, ma solo quello che rappresentava. Glielo confessò e parlarono per tre ore. "Mi dispiace, Tamara. Voglio toccare le persone come se fossi un mago, per cambiarle far loro del male, lasciare il mio marchio, farle diventare belle. Voglio essere l'ipnotizzatore che non corre il rischio di addormentarsi anche lui. Voglio baciare tenendo un occhio aperto. O forse l'ho fatto. Non voglio più farlo".

Durante le due settimane in cui restó in città, vide Tamara quasi tutte le sere. Lei aveva lasciato lo psichiatra e aveva sposato l'Arte, che era meno esigente e costava meno. "Non raccontiamoci nessuna novità, Tamara". "Cos'è, pigrizia o amicizia?". "È amore!". Breavman finse uno svenimento teatrale.

L'autostrada era vuota. Erano gli unici due in fuga e questa consapevolezza li rendeva più amici che mai. Bravman ne era inebriato. Diceva: "Krantz, di noi troveranno solo una striscia d'olio sul pavimento del garage, senza nemmeno i riflessi dell'arcobaleno". Ultimamente Krantz era molto silenzioso, ma Breavman era sicuro che pensasse le stesse cose.

Con grande cura sistemò una piattaforma di kleenex dentro ciascuna scarpa. Gli sollevava i talloni fino quasi ai bordi della scarpa. Fede scendere i pantaloni. Qualche piroetta sul pavimento e si convinse che poteva funzionare. Il panico si placò. Ancora una volta la scienza trionfava. (…) Ballo bene per una mezz’ora e poi i piedi cominciarono a dolergli. I kleenex si erano spostati sotto l’arco del piedi. Dopo altri due dischi sfrenati riusciva a malapena a camminare. Andò in bagno e cercò di raddrizzare i kleenex, ma si erano tutti schiacciati e appallottolati in una massa compatta. Pensò di toglierli del tutto, ma immaginò la sopresa e lo sguardo inorridito del resto della compagnia nel vederlo rimpicciolito. Infilò il piede nella scarpa solo a metà, collocò la palla tra il calcagno e la soletta interna, premette forte e annodò i lacci. Il dolore lo trafisse fino alle caviglie. Il “trenino” lo mise quasi fuori combattimento. Nel bel mezzo della fila, strizzato tra la ragazza che teneva per la vita e quella che si aggrappava a lui, con la musica forte e ripetitiva, tutti che cantilenavano uno-due, uno-due-tre, con i piedi che sfuggivano al suo controllo a causa del dolore, pensò: è così che deve essere l’inferno, un eterno “trenino” ballato con i piedi doloranti, dal quale non puoi uscire.

According to Kezban Özcan, Leonard Cohen's assistant one of his favourite sayings was: ‘In this world, you have to be a bit too kind just to be kind enough.’ KO: I heard those words from him the first time but I think they belong to Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux, a dramatist and novelist. [The quote comes from the 1730 Marivaux play, “Le Jeu de l’Amour et du Hasard.”] KO: After knowing him, kindness has a whole new meaning to me, and witnessing him perform kindnesses every single day is a very rare and beautiful thing. Also, I learned that it’s OK to take as long as you need to complete a task or anything else in the interest of excellence, even if that means missing deadlines, etc. He doesn’t rush anything or anyone. This is something I’m still learning this because I tend to move very fast because this kind of job requires you to be that way. But I’m unlearning this one.

Perhaps most dangerously, Cohen claimed that Spinoza created certain negative stereotypes about Judaism and biblical religion that were later to influence Kant, who depended upon Spinoza’s research. Spinoza thus stands accused of being the chief “prosecutor” of Judaism before a hostile Gentile world.25

Strauss’s later judgment on the Kantian-Cohenian idea of ethical socialism was dispositive: Cohen’s thought belongs to the world preceding World War I. Accordingly, he had a greater faith in the power of modern Western culture to mold the fate of mankind than seems warranted now. The worst things he had experienced were the Dreyfus scandal and the pogroms instigated by Czarist Russia; he did not experience Communist Russia and Hitler’s Germany.

Pour Proust, l'univers intérieur d'un homme constituait un étonnant miracle, un infini vertigineux. Ce n'est pas ce qui étonne Kafka. Il ne se demande pas quelles sont les motivations intérieures qui déterminent le comportement de l'homme. Il pose une question radicalement différente : quelles sont encore les possibilités de l'homme dans un monde où les déterminations extérieures sont devenues si écrasantes que les mobiles intérieurs ne pèsent plus rien ? En effet, qu'est-ce que cela aurait pu changer au destin de K s'il avait eu des pulsions homosexuelles ou un complexe d'Oedipe ? Rien, tandis que pour un personnage de Proust, ça changerait tout. Autoportrait en lecteur, page 62

Le photographe Hessling, ancien étudiant du Bauhaus, faisait la guerre, en 1943, dans les armées de son pays. La nuit de Noël, au village de Novimgorod, tous les habitants reçurent l'ordre de sortir dans la neige et de chanter leurs cantiques à la lueur des flambeaux tandis que les SS crucifiaient une jeune femme sur la porte de l'église. Son agonie dura la nuit entière. Au lever du jour, la beauté surnaturelle de son visage était inondée de sourire et de larmes. Hessling s'approcha, s'agenouilla et, comme elle semblait dire oui, il la photographia. Peu après, il était exécuté à Kiev comme anti-nazi, traître à l'Allemagne. Il avait eu le temps de remettre son négatif à Wolfgang Borchert. Hessling savait qu'aucune photographie dans le monde ne pouvait être comparée à celle-ci. Il fit promettre à Borchert de la développer au retour de la guerre, de la regarder, puis de la jeter dans l'Elbe, afin que jamais, dans aucun musée, on ne pût s'arrêter et contempler cette crucifixion. Même avec des larmes. C'est peut-être en pensant à cela que Maurice Blanchot, beaucoup plus tard, note dans L'écriture du désastre : "Il y a une limite où l'exercice d'un art, quel qu'il soit, devient une insulte au malheur. Autoportrait en lecteur (page 60)

C'est à Jassy, selon une note de bas de page du livre des souvenirs d'Alexandre Safran, qui fut grand rabbin de Roumanie de 1940 à 1947, que fut écrit par Naftali Herz Imber, en 1878 le poème en hébreu, « Hatikvah », « L'espoir », qui fut mis en musique en 1882 par Samuel Cohen sur une mélodie moldave, et devint un chant sioniste connu, puis l’hymne national Israël. (p.56-57)

The Combination had finally been smashed. In a world with Mickey Cohen and Bugsy Siegel on the loose, it was simply too dangerous for men like Guy McAfee to operate in Los Angeles without police protection. Moreover, it seemed evident that the new mayor was determined to “close” Los Angeles. And so the organized crime figures who had held sway over the L.A. underworld since the 1920s left Los Angeles. Most relocated to a dusty little town in the Nevada desert where gambling was legal and supervision was lax—Las Vegas.

The students on campuses with such a [Confederate] statue had higher levels of implicit racial bias. This finding speaks to the haunting effects of historical expressions of racism. Not only do these statues cause pain for many black students and faculty; they may help to sustain implicit anti-black bias.

Another way to foster a sense of belonging for employees is to form teams that are encouraged to engage in collective problem-solving. This affords regular opportunities for all members of the teams to express their views and contribute their talents. But leaders of these teams should establish the norm that colleagues treat each other with respect, making room for everyone in discussions and listening thoughtfully to one another. As we saw with high-status students leading the way in establishing an antibullying norm in schools, managers, as the highest-status member of a team, can set powerful norms. A key goal is foster what leadership scholar Amy Edmonson calls psychological safety, which she describes as "the belief that the environment is safe for interpersonal risk taking. People feel able to speak up when needed--with relevant ideas, questions, or concerns--without being shut down in a gratuitous way. Psychological safety is present when colleagues trust and respect each other and feel able, even obligated, to be candid." No matter how ingenious or talented individual team members are, if the climate does not foster the psychological safety people need to express themselves, they are likely to hold back on valuable input.

When people reflect on harsh events in their lives, it's important that they write or talk and not just think. Thinking doesn't provide the narrative closure that writing or talking does, and it often leads people to sink into ruminative loops that prolong their anguish.

Paris 12 May 1941 Monsieur l’Inspecteur: Why aren’t you looking for undeclared Jews in hiding? Here is the address of Professor Cohen at 35 rue Blanche. She used to teach so-called literature at the Sorbonne. Now she invites students to her home for lectures so she can cavort with colleagues and students, mostly male—at her age! When she ventures out, you see her coming a kilometer away in that swishy purple cape, a peacock feather askew in her hair. Ask the Jewess for her baptism certificate and passport, you’ll see her religion noted there. While good Frenchmen and women work, Madame le Professeur sits around and reads books. My indications are exact, now it’s up to you.

Paris 12 May 1941 Monsieur l’Inspecteur: Why aren’t you looking for undeclared Jews in hiding? Here is the address of Professor Cohen at 35 rue Blanche. She used to teach so-called literature at the Sorbonne. Now she invites students to her home for lectures so she can cavort with colleagues and students, mostly male—at her age! When she ventures out, you see her coming a kilometer away in that swishy purple cape, a peacock feather askew in her hair. Ask the Jewess for her baptism certificate and passport, you’ll see her religion noted there. While good Frenchmen and women work, Madame le Professeur sits around and reads books. My indications are exact, now it’s up to you. Signed, One

The Quran identifies Abraham as a hanif, an "upright" individual who rejected idolatry and submitted fully to Allah. It repudiates Arab polytheism while contending that this "[true] religion" (hanifiyya, Qur. 3:19) preceded Judaism and Christianity and owes them essentially nothing.

Contemporary non-Muslim sources confirm only scattered details about Muhammad, and the single seventh-century Islamic witness—the Quran—is not (nor does it purport to be) a biography. The historical quests for both Muhammad and Jesus thus face similar dilemmas.

The Quran's relationship to Tanakh and the Bible differs from that of the New Testament to Tanakh. Whereas the New Testament reinterprets Tanakh and incorporates it into the Bible as the Old Testament, the Quran refers to the Jewish and Christian scriptures while remaining independent of both.

The Quran departs from Tanakh and the Bible in both format and literary structure. It is a single volume composed of what might be described as oral poetry that embeds snippets of stories, parables, liturgies, and laws. The text is broken into 114 suras (conventionally called "chapters") that are generally arranged in descending order of length. Each now bears a number (adopted from Western practice) and a name added later by Muslims.

The Quran's most prominent message might be summarized as the imperative to believe in one God, God's messengers, books, and angels, and the Day of Judgment.

Through its self-presentation and subsequent Muslim reflection, the Quran has achieved a higher status in Islam than either Tanakh in Judaism or the Bible in Christianity. It calls itself "noble" and "hidden," Allah's "Revelation" that only "the purified" may touch (Qur. 56.77–80). These statements gird the widely held tenet that it is "uncreated"—that it existed eternally with God before being disclosed in historical time—and they guide its treatment.

Forced to govern as well as preach, Muhammad in Medina was a prophet with exceptional civil power, given that the umma was a polity as well as a congregation.

It [Islam] likely began as an Arab monotheism, but empire catalyzed its contact with non-Arabs, who in due course converted, integrated themselves into Islamic polities, and eventually ruled them. As a result, Islam neither totally detached itself from its founders' ethnicity (as did Christianity) nor elevated its identity and language to exclusive status (as did Judaism). Instead, it ended up a hybrid, privileging its ethnic origins even as non-Arab Muslims began to outnumber Arab ones.

The term "Abrahamic" did not appear in its original sense—"relating to, or characteristic of the biblical patriarch, Abraham"—until 1699. "Abrahamic" in this book means principally "belonging to the group of religions comprising Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which trace their origin to Abraham," a twentieth-century usage. This definition updates the commonplace observation that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the "Abrahamic religions"—are somehow closely related. Not everyone likes this expression or its categorical implications. Some scholars object that the term "Abrahamic" can mislead, especially insofar as it may exaggerate the three religions' similarities and the likelihood that Jews, Christians, and Muslims can set their differences aside. Others regard the categorization itself as incoherent, given adherents' fundamental divisions over matters such as what scriptures they consider canonical and how they understand God's nature.

Relegating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to separate spheres discounts their affinities. Even as they strove to differentiate themselves polemically, they acknowledged that they shared a common deity and took notice of each other's sacred texts.

Tanakh does contain historical material, especially as one moves forward form the tenth century BCE, but it does not depict a baseline narrative that needs only minor adjustments to its generally accurate trajectory.

The Hebrew Bible is called "Tanakh," a title that amalgamates its collective parts: Torah, Nevi'im (Prophets), and Ketuvim (Writings). Tanakh preserves and interprets the historical, cultural, and religious heritage of Israel and Judah. In its current form, it serves as both the definitive anthology that constitutes Judaism's holy scriptures and a pillar of Jewish religious life, but these roles postdate its compilation.

Tanakh accrued literary authority only when Jewish intellectuals in Hellenistic Egypt began to credit texts with greater significance than priestly pronouncements or prophetic utterances, and it achieved its current form only after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE.

The religion of Biblical Israel developed first in conditions of self-determination, then of exile, and finally of mild toleration and limited self-autonomy under the Persians, circumstances that continued under Alexander and his successors until the reign of Antiochus IV (r. 175–164 BCE), who feared that Judea had rebelled against him. In reprisal, he erected a statue of Zeus in the Temple and forbade Jews from observing the Torah. This unprecedented intervention—the first instance in antiquity of an adversary targeting a religion rather than a polity—triggered a revolt led by Mattathias and Judah Maccabee. Beginning as a religious resistance movement, it had within a decade transformed into a national liberation campaign that established a kingdom ruled by the Hasmonean dynasty (140–37 BCE). The revolt has frequently been seen as a rejection of Hellenization, but the Maccabees counted Hellenized Jews as supporters and adopted Greek political customs.

Defeat, exile, and restoration had altered ancient Israel's religion, but the Second Temple's obliteration, coupled with Jews' declining status in the Roman Empire, would force a far greater reconstruction. Lacking a single agreed-upon holy place, modern Christians, however empathetic, may have difficulty imagining the magnitude of the liturgical renovations that the Temple's loss demanded, though Orthodox Byzantines watching Hagia Sophia—their monumental cathedral—reconfigured as a mosque certainly could. Muslims contemplating a hypothetical demolition of Mecca's Masjid al-Haram (Sacred Mosque) and the consequent disruption of the hajj (pilgrimage) may be able to entertain a more visceral understanding of what the Second Temple's loss portended for Judaism.

The quest for the historical Jesus, begun during the Enlightenment to purge the Gospels of "superstition" by subjecting them to critical reason, has since sought to situate him within his own time and place. That endeavor has proved troublesome. Historians depend on records, the best of which are produced contemporaneously with the events they relate, but most documentation about Jesus is neither collateral nor detailed. Although the Gospels offer abundant information and appear to contain primary-source material, they are not firsthand testimonies, and determining to what degree they may include unmediated reports about Jesus has generated substantial disagreement.

The term "Abrahamic" did not appear in its original sense—"relating to, or characteristic of the biblical patriarch, Abraham"—until 1699. "Abrahamic" in this book means principally "belonging to the group of religions comprising Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, which trace their origin to Abraham," a twentieth-century usage. This definition updates the commonplace observation that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—the "Abrahamic religions"—are somehow closely related. Not everyone likes this expression or its categorical implications. Some scholars object that the term "Abrahamic" can mislead, especially insofar as it may exaggerate the three religions' similarities and the likelihood that Jews, Christians, and Muslims can set their differences aside. Others regard the categorization itself as incoherent, given adherents' fundamental divisions over matters such as what scriptures they consider canonical and how they understand God's nature.

The People of Israel understood their relationship with God as a covenant, an agreement stipulating mutual obligations. While this form was a political commonplace in the ancient Near East, its use to articulate the relationship between a people and their deity seems to have been unique to them.

The two most important covenants in Tanakh involve God's pacts with Abraham and Moses. The former assigns Abraham's offspring a permanent homeland; the latter stipulates that the People of Israel belong to the Lord who led them from bondage and commanded their obedience. God will bless them if they comply and punish them if they refuse.

One can classify Judaism, Christianity, and Islam variously. From one perspective, they are monotheisms, religions that uphold God's singularity. Islam itself provides another view, linking them by a tradition of continued divine revelation disclosed in scripture and culminating in the Quran. Muslims regard Jews and Christians as "People of the Book"—a name that outside observers occasionally apply to Muslims too. As apt as these designations may be, however, they do not entirely differentiate these three religions from others. Sikhism and ancient Egyptian Atenism, for example, also qualify as monotheisms, and Muslims came to include Zoroastrians and Hindus as other "People of the Book." The most useful term for collating Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into a single category is "Abrhamic," which distinguishes them by stressing the significance they accord to Abraham: Israel's founding patriarch for Jews, guarantor of the covenant for Christians, and a prophet for Muslims. These Abrahamic identities unite the religions conceptually, even while frequently polarizing their adherents.

By the first century CE, Jews living abroad had long outnumbered those inhabiting the Holy Land. The diaspora's existence inaugurated an ongoing, pregnant dynamic for Judaism and Jewish identity. On the one hand, Eretz Yisrael, especially Jerusalem, maintained its emotional resonance and ritual importance; diaspora Jews flocked to the Temple for the pilgrimage festivals and, in the later second century BCE, began to pay annual half-shekel contributions toward its support. For some, particularly after the Second Temple's destruction, the homeland beckoned as the place of return, a distant object of longing. At the same time, diaspora Jews seem to have experienced little dissonance between the respect they accorded the Holy Land and the loyalty they paid their own communities and governments.

One of Hellenistic Jewry's signature achievements was the Septuagint, the translation of Tanakh into Koine (common) Greek. Compiled between the third and first centuries BCE, it almost certainly represents the work of Alexandrian Jewry, who needed scripture in Greek because they no longer spoke or wrote Hebrew. The Septuagint makes some formal changes, reordering books and including new material. Its existence offers witness to the religious power that Jews in the last centuries BCE were according written texts, a significant moment in the process by which Jewish identity embraced Torah and Judaism became a "religion of the book." Even so, the Septuagint has arguably had a greater abiding significance for Christianity than for Judaism. The Old Testament used it, rather than Tanakh, for a basis; New Testament writers quoted it (rather than Hebrew versions). Catholic and Orthodox Christians would accept its additions as a second set of fully authoritative (deuterocanonical) books. Most Protestants would not, although some printed them in a separate section of their Bibles. The early Church forged its principal doctrines in conversation with it. The legend that seventy-two translators "harmoniously" produced identical copies has a Christian provenance: Epiphanius, a fourth-century bishop who defended the Septuagint's superiority against later Jewish revisions. As its importance for Christians rose, Jews abandoned it to assert the sole legitimacy of the Hebrew text.

Notwithstanding the preeminence of cultic observances, religious life during the Second Temple era increasingly emphasized personal duties to purify oneself, follow the Torah, and perform daily rites. Jews prayed in both public and private, beyond as well as within Jerusalem. Scripture study emerged as a principal function of a new local institution, the synagogue. Injunctions for holy living (like dietary prohibitions) multiplied. This shifting emphasis toward God's relationship with Jews individually, as opposed to Israel collectively, was manifested theologically by an intensified interest in the workings of God's justice and personal redemption, stimulating heated speculation about resurrection, free will, and eternal judgment. In some circles, apocalyptic (Greek, "revelation") theories explaining evil's persistence and Jews' subordination posited a final war between the righteous and the wicked in which the former would triumph, led by a messiah (mashiach, "anointed one") who was ordinarily conceived as a transcendently powerful human figure and occasionally as a cosmic one. Still, Jews coalesced around their rules of conduct, not their beliefs.

Christianity arose within the context of Second Temple Judaism: Jesus might be best understood as an itinerant preacher within Jewish apocalyptic tradition and Christianity as initially a Jewish sect. But it soon became something else, attracting Gentiles while absorbing influences from the peoples it encountered.

Well, I keep my book Heart Thoughts with me because it’s easy to read a few short passages in one sitting. I also have Alan Cohen’s A Deep Breath of Life nearby. And right now I’m rereading Florence Scovel Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It.

Ne pas devenir pauvre avec une âme de pauvre. La misère avilit. Le pauvre devient laid et prend l'autobus, se lave moins, sent la transpiration, compte ses sous, perd sa seigneurie et ne peut plus sincèrement mépriser. On ne méprise bien peu ce que l'on possède et domine. Goethe méprisait mieux que Rousseau.

De plaisir, elle aspira longuement tandis qu’au même moment un nommé Louis Bovard, ouvrier âgé de soixante-dix ans, dépourvu de piano et même de tapis persan, trop âgé pour trouver de l’embauche et seul au monde, se jetait dans le lac de Genève, sans même en admirer les teintes délicates et les subtiles harmonies. Car les pauvres sont vulgaires, ne s’intéressent pas à la beauté, à ce qui élève l’âme, bien différents en vérité de la reine Marie de Roumanie qui dans ses mémoires a béni la faculté que Dieu, paraît-il, lui a donné « de ressentir profondément la beauté des choses et de s’en réjouir ». Délicate attention de l’Éternel.

La vie est un peu à l’image de ce couloir d’hôpital. Derrière chaque porte se niche une existence. Nous avançons à la recherche des êtres qui nous aideront à construire notre vie : notre amour, nos amis. Certains, chanceux ou avertis, connaissent les chambres dans lesquelles les découvrir. D’autres ne savent pas et restent éternellement à errer sans oser toquer ici ou là. Et s’ils ouvrent l’une d’entre elles, ils se montrent incapables de questionner, de s’intéresser vraiment à celles et ceux qui leur font face et repartent dériver vers d’improbables rencontres. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’ils ne savent pas ce qu’ils cherchent. Parce qu’ils ne savent plus qui ils sont. Selon moi, chaque porte ouverte, chaque rencontre, est suscitée par le destin et doit nous apprendre quelque chose.

L'avvenire della Germania e del nostro benamato Führer diventa ora l'obbiettivo di tutti i nostri sforzi. Gli apparteniamo oggi, domani, sempre!" "La distruzione della vostra Germania del cazzo e del suo Führer di merda diventa ora l'obbiettivo di tutti i miei sforzi. Gli cacherò in faccia oggi, domani, sempre!