Thursday, April 14, 2011

Days of reluxation

I bought another Kindle book by Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, this one called The Candle of God. It seems to be a collection of essays or some such, spanning a few different topics. I thoroughly enjoyed his book The Thirteen-petalled Rose, which was more of a unified work, but I don't expect that to stop me. I am at chapter 2 and already enjoying it greatly. As in palpably missing the physical ability to whine like a slightly underage teen fangirl. There are some phrases there that I just read, then stop, then read again several times, not willing to read on for a while because that would mean having to let them out of my sight.

I don't really think any random raccoon would have the same experience with the same book, though you never know. It may be another book that makes you go wheee in the night.

There is some exclusively Jewish stuff, of course. And then some, given that the Rabbi is a kabbalist. But he is not sneaky about it, so it bothers me not.

About the Sabbath, the Rabbi writes: "The essence of Shabbat is really a trickle, an infiltration, of the next world into this world. It is a percolation and diffusion of an existing Divine Reality." So now I better understand the Gag: "Relux and call it a Diety." It is not merely a day of relaxation, as common people have thought, but a day of reluxation, to draw the Divine Light into the soul of man which is the Candle (or lamp) of God.

Literature like this is actually a kind of reluxation in itself, at least the books that happen to find us home, wherever that may for each of us.