A Freudian slip

'The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization...' (S.Freud) Why does Freud always address pertinent issues and manage to just miss the mark?

The Limbo of the Matriarch

A whole book could be written about Magritude Feather. Unfortunately not this one. This fascinating woman was recently excised from my novel and is urgently scurrying around trying to find a home elsewhere. Please don't forget her.

Saint Allen by the Stones

There were golden days when Rama, Sita and Lakshmana having traveled along the banks of river Godavari, settled in a garden clearing where they built houses and lived off the land. But far away, beyond the stone mountains, Rakshasa, the demon king, was stirring. 

Drumbeat

As an indicator of financial resilience, our beloved transvestite taxidermist, Gruffydd Beddows, who recently sold his business and retired, likes to point to the income from his sideline as a repairer and renovator of percussion instruments. However even he is stumped by the unusual damage to the Welsh  tabwrdd that is standing forlornly on the workbench in his garage.

(It is fascinating that beyond their specific role in novels, some characters continue live out their day-to-day life in events that have no link to the plot into which they were conceived.)

קִטְנִיּוֹת - The Small Things of God

Kitniyot (small things) are foodstuffs similar to those banned at Pesach (Passsover). Ashkenazim refrain from eating things like rice and beans for this reason. In the 1930s Maxwell House hired a rabbi to research coffee, resulting in a determination that the coffee bean is more like a berry than a bean, thus making it kosher for Passover. However, we do not know whether this applies to Nescafe instant coffee (that to the colour-blind looks like flour).

Translocation - make of it what you will.

Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go. (T.S.Eliot apparently) 

Atsilut

The Five Worlds are the comprehensive categories of spiritual realms in the descending chain of Existence. They are: 1/ Adam Kadmon (אָדָם קַדְמוֹן) Primordial Man, 2/ Atzilut (אֲצִילוּת), Emanation, 3/Beri'ah (בְּרִיָּה) Creation, 4/Yetzirah (יְצִירָה)Formation, and 5/Assiah (עֲשִׂיָּה), Action. The original builder of the Royal Pavillion (with two L's) could not have know how his creation would evolve either.

A Stranger in Paradise

In case it is not clear, there seem to be two Metatrons, one spelled with six letters (מטטרון), and one spelled with seven (מיטטרון). Neither should be confused with Megatron (and definitely not with Enoch Powell). It is mentioned here because it is related that Elisha ben Abuyah (the Akher) bumped into the Metatron when he entered the orchard. In mentioning the Orchard or Pardes(פרדס ) it is clear that the meaning is Paradise (same etymology) and that (for Davnob geeks) suggests a familial link. But let's not be over-judgemental.

So what do we really know about the Hushites then?

In the Book of Chronicles (דִּבְרֵי־הַיָּמִים‎) we learn that the Shuppites and Huppites were the descendants of Ir, and the Hushites the descendants of Akher. This Akher was someone else Akher completely (not the later vilified and misunderstood Rabbi).  There are some politicians who try to identify Akher in other texts with the figure of Akhiram from the tribe of Benjamin (in Numbers 26:38).

Ben Abuya - who else could it be?

Four men went into an orchard, and three are still there. The other, the Akher, went out and, as Isaac Deutscher notes, took a stroll with Rabbi Meir. But the Akher saw that the Rabbi had reached the Eruv - the boundary beyond which he ought not proceed, and advised him to return. Without that intervention the Rabbi would have transgressed.

A Vague Impression

You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. (Henry David Thoreau - he was always saying that).

Let's not be narrow, nasty, and negative (TS Eliot)

"For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice.
And to make an end is to make a beginning."