Yesterday, my 13-year old son and I attended the Dover 400 NASCAR race in Dover, DE.

It was my son who had initiated the outing. I had appreciated how he had pursued his interest in NASCAR for about one year. It is an interest that none of his friends share. The fact that he was willing to pursue interests outside his peer group's, I viewed as a positive that I wanted to support.

And as for me, I'm an adventurer. Shucks, I went to China to learn about Chinese culture. Going to Dover to see NASCAR was an adventure which required far less commitment. Why not?

The race was not like anything I have experienced. The sound emanating from the 43 cars was so loud that talking was pointless. I couldn't hear anyone speak. And if I had chosen to speak, no one would have been able to hear me. Ironically, the cars' sound-that-trumped-all-sound created the functional equivalent of silence. Who would have thought that going to NASCAR had a bunch of similarities with attending a meditation retreat?

I think it is important to understand Palestinian claims against Israel. It is precisely the imagining of the perspective of one's adversary that I believe is so critical in order to get beyond violence as a means for "solving" our disputes.

Apartment and Skyscraper in Manhattan: Photo by Shai Gluskin. August 12, 2008 at 7:54:32 PM, somewhere in Manhattan.Tonight begins the 9th Day of the Omer (Arpil 27-28, 2011).

May that part of me that is broken in Gevurah in Gevurah be healed on this day.

One of the meanings of Gevurah is limitation. It's one of the forces that blocks our way back to the Garden of Eden. Gevurah sets the ultimate limit, our mortality. It also supports boundaries of all kinds, including the beginning and ending of Shabbat and the distinctions between permissible behavior as against transgression.

Gevurah works diligently against all of our delusions of grandeur. It exposes the falseness of our optimistic forecasts regarding when we will arrive and when that assignment will be completed.

Today, April 22-22, is the third day of the omer (tiferet in chesed).

I'm very pleased in the course of my web development work to have helped out Congregation Mishkan Shalom create a wonderful omer counting section of their web site with a daily email with teachings from Rabbi Yael Levy. Please check out Mishkan Shalom's Omer Counting Web Site and sign up for the emails.

I just re-read my post from three years ago. There I talked about the struggle for us to really take in our successes! Indeed!

On the occasion of my 53rd birthday, I want to begin to describe my feelings about the state of the world and my role in it.

Two scenes from a broken world:

1. A new Drupal user is having a hard time figuring out how he can change the "Read more" label.
2. The Palestinian West Bank village of Awata is being subjected to collective punishment by the Israel Defense Forces in the wake of the horrendous murder of the Fogel family. Awata is just next to the settlement of Ithamar, where the Fogel killing happened.

Photoshopped Talmud by Shai Gluskin

Inspired by reading a recent interview in HEEB with Douglas Rushkoff "New Commands, Old Programs", I wanted to share ran old proposal I dug up that I thought of while reading the Rushkoff article.

My Rosh Machaneh of Machaneh Bonim (camp director at a Habonim movement leadership camp that was in Hunter, New York that I attended in 1975) and current president of Ameinu (the new name of the Labor Zionist Alliance) wrote an opinion piece for the Forward. The following is my response. I have posted it as a comment on the Forward.com last night but it appears comments might not be working there at the current time.

Ken Bob makes two points:

I have some books that I'd like to find new homes for... Let me know if you are interested in any of these books. I'm giving them away for free if you can pick them up at my house in West Mt. Airy, Philly.

Leave a comment letting me (and other readers) know which one(s) you want and I'll set it aside for you. It'll be on my front porch with your name on it. But let me know about when you think you can pick it up.

Shai

I previously translated a part of the hymm "Anim Zemirot." I've now finished it. A shout-out to Donald Menzi who encouraged me to finish it. I would like to footnote it with comments about translation decisions I made. But I don't have the time right now.

There were some small changes I made to the part I had already done.

I've put brackets where i put words or information that weren't in the original. Given that pronouns can be fairly fluid in Hebrew, I've sometimes changed the pronoun to "I" to communicate the personal nature of this poem.

My response to some tweet questions from Yaakov Menken required more what I could do in Twitter. So here goes. Yaakov and others, please use the comments to respond.

The context: @nights_heart wrote in response to something the Republican Jewish Coalition wrote:

@RJCHQ Making pro-Israel advocacy a partisan issue weakens the pro-Israel lobby and weakens Israel

To which Yaakov Menken (@ymenken) responded:

Can't be worse for "Pro-Israel" than defining expansion of a Hamas terrorist base as "Pro-Israel"

To which I (@rabbishai) responded:

Where did you get the idea that J Street wants "expansion of a Hamas terrorist base?"

To which Yaakov made a coherent five tweet response which gracefully ended with "QED," which means something like, "thus signals the completion of the proof." (I had to look it up). My responses are interspersed between his tweets.