I'm Being Followed...

At Shabbos lunch the woman of the house raised the issue of how it was suddenly striking to her when she read that morning that not to be jealous was up there in the big ten. The man of the house, a Talmudic scholar, and I suggested that it's not just being jealous but defined by most early commentators as involving some action or at least a plan. And then I said that I think there's mussar in it that, yes - middot really do matter. Thoughts and feelings are at least as much a part of what G-d expects us to sculpt into our beings as actions.

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A man says to an old Jewish woman, "I haven't eaten in three days." She replies, "Force yourself." At the moment I'm content living more and blogging less, it's kind of a dream. And yet, I am committed to this blog; it's one of my sharing places (yes, I just used the phrase "sharing places.")

If you want me to buy a book a good way to get me to do so is to have Billy Collins edit it and write the forward. This tactic worked last week for Bright Wings. It worked again tonight for The Poets Laureate Anthology.

The former is a collection of poems about birds. Here's an out of the norm one from that work:

FROM WOODY'S RESTAURANT, MIDDLEBURY

Today, noon, a young macho friendly waiter and three diners,
business types --two males, one female--
are in a quandary about the name of the duck paddling
Otter Creek,
the duck being brown, but too large to be a female mallard.
They really
want to know, and I'm the human-watcher behind the nook
of my table,
camouflaged by my stillness and nonchalant plumage.
They really want to know.
This sighting I record in the back of my Field Guide to People. back of my Field Guide to People.y procured (hot off the press at a discount book store on around 79th and Broadway) is just what the title says it will be. Here's a strong one from the Poet Laureate of the United States, 1997 - 2000:my strategy. When I had