Christianxiety Winter 2011 Issue #1

I n t h i s i s s u e Kabbalah and Psychotherapy Lithuanian Synagogues Poetic Ethics Table of Contents

I. Poetic Becomings: A Sensing of the Good by Dr. Michael Anker

II. Dr. Sanford Drob on Kabbalah, Psychotherapy, and Postmodern Philosophy

III. Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania by Joyce Ellen Weinsten

IV. Poetry by George J. Farrah

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Christianxiety Advisory Board: Dr. J Thomas Howe Dr. Bruce Ellis Benson

Editor­in­Chief/Graphic Design: Michael Sapiro Letter from the Editor

We live in strange times.

Never before has intellectual life been so radically divorced from religious life. Up until only a few hundred years ago, the deep thinkers, even the radical thinkers, were religious thinkers. Yet, they were religious in a strange way. Often they were dubbed atheists, though they were not the kind of atheist we know today. Sometimes they were simply called mystics. They were theologians and philosophers. Regardless of labels, they were thinkers who radically challenged common notions of god. These thinkers had an overabundant passion for life. They had an anxiety for something that could not be contained within social constructs. They had zeal for the unknowable, and in that zeal there was a very fine line between atheist and mystic.

Our current forms of religious engagement are historically entirely novel. Fundamentalism ( whether religious or atheistic) has soured our thought life. Never before have we related to his world so literally. The overwhelming mystery beckoning us beyond our surroundings, whether observed in nature or practiced in religious ritual, goes unrecognized. Can we linger in the garden of anxiety, seeking with such fervor that we sweat drops of blood? Or will we fall asleep due to lack of stimulation? It is my hope that this magazine will act as an elbow nudge for those about to drowse.

My deepest thanks to the authors who participated in this experiment. As I reviewed their submissions I was astonished how neatly they complimented each other - even as radically different people wrote in widely varying styles. Their contributions have inspired me and I hope they will do the same for you.

Thank you for reading, Michael Sapiro Founder/Editor-in-Chief Poetic Becomings: A Sensing of the Good by Dr. Michael Anker

José Antonio Sistiaga, Impresiones en la alta atmósfera (still from the film) Openings Opening ­ a Preliminary Orientation attempting to approach such concepts as “the of Thought: good”. It is also the way we discover meaning and new meanings in the movement of poetic Meaning and meanings always emerge through language and poetry. Relations as such, thus give conceptual and thus differential relations. The a sensibility of poetic becomings, an ontological Poetic Becomings: A Sensing of the Good relation and relations between concepts allow the and phenomenological movement where by Dr. Michael Anker movement of thinking to begin. Relations in meanings arrive through ongoing contextual relation thus open a space of multiple and relations. It is in this contextual space of meaning interstitial crossings where thought and meaning that one can gain a sense of such notions as “the may occur. In other words, there is no absolute good”, or quite simply a sense of ethical becoming direction for thought to go while in the midst of a itself. One cannot simply find “the good” and then relation. As Rodolphe Gasche states in the hold on to this as an absolute, but must continue introduction to his wonderful study of this topic, “A on in the contextual space of new occurrences as relation, which is nothing but the trait of being­ new beginnings for thought. This is the work of held­toward another, is what is only insofar as it ethics, or the ethical work necessary in a points away from an identity of its own.”2 In contextual world hitherto sought through differentiation to knowledge, where language absolutes. attempts an equivalency between terms as correlation and identity, relational thinking moves A historical analysis of the breakdown or about in variations of multiple crossings of “being­ dissolution of absolutes in Western philosophy can toward” and “pointing away”, but all the time from start in many places and take on many directions. an identity other than its own. In short, a relation For reasons of my affinity for and affiliation with sustains itself as relation not only by recognition their respective philosophies, I tend to follow or through similarity, but through the difference of not emphasize a “Nietzsche – Heidegger – Deleuze – being the same. Circling around the various Derrida – Nancy” trajectory.3 I suppose one could openings of thought which occur through simply call this a particular trajectory in conceptual relations, one begins the process of Continental philosophy, but as I hope to show not only finding meaning through the knowledge of throughout this essay, this particular lineage of the same, but of also sensing the emergence of thinking happens to orient itself around not only meanings through the relation of difference itself. the dissolution of metaphysics, but also the The relation between concepts moves the mind phenomenological and ontological relations of toward a space where meaning arrives through being in and with the world as such. It is my the ambiguity of relations as such. contention that these thinkers not only dismantle the metaphysics of absolutes, but at the same On one level, this is the power of the dialectic in time, resituate our being in the world, or our thinking itself. In Hegelian terms it may be relation to the world itself. In other words, by understood as the becoming of thinking through “deconstructing” the world of absolutes, they do the ongoing work of the dialectic process. My not just tear down the world of meaning and leave interest in this essay will certainly hover around an us without, but open up the world to new possible understanding of dialectics, but my main concern meanings. This of course is of absolute will be to utilize a phenomenology of relation as importance in regard to ethics. It gives us the relation itself. In short, I will attempt to focus on potentiality to move into the contextual realm that which emerges in a relation or multiple (aporetic opening) of finding ethics in uncertainty, relations (interstitial) in relation. It is this strategy as compared to the dogmatic certitude of absolute that I believe allows any meaning to emerge when truth.

1 The title of this essay, along with certain sections of the text, was 3 It is important to note here that for Nietzsche the breakdown of originally written for a conference at the Camden Philosophical Society absolutes is synonymous with nihilism. This is recognized early on in entitled “Thinking about the Good” in July 2010. I was unable to get aphorism 2 of “The Will to Power” where he states: “What does through much of my paper due to a wonderful open discussion nihilism mean? That the highest values devaluate themselves. The aim between myself and the audience. I am glad to have been able to is lacking; “why?” finds no answer.” rework some of this paper for this publication. 2 Rodolphe Gasche, Of Minimal Things: Studies on the Notion of Relation (Stanford University Press; 1 edition, 1999), 9. For some this breakdown of absolutes has been a ethics, a sensing within ethical becoming, and sign of troubled times, but for myself, and others, it hopefully, therefore, a new way of thinking and is a time that calls for a new thinking; a thinking acting in relation to a concept such as “the good”. first that is not only open to the ambiguities and If the relation itself is of utmost importance, as I aporias we confront, but furthermore a thinking am suggesting, then we must not only investigate which thinks within the aporetic space of thought the relation as such, but the terms involved that itself. As Nietzsche says regarding his thoughts on make up the relation. “the old god is dead”: “the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an Beginnings Beginning: “open sea”.”4 The act of decision, or ethical responsibility, therefore, must now be made in the A gesture is the beginning of thought. It gives us a “open sea” – the metaphoric space of not only beginning, a place to start – a place, however, new possibilities, but without the ground of hitherto without place as ground within the fabric of being absolutes as reference. It is a space of uncertainty and becoming. Being a beginning that which thus marks a path forward, an uncertain continuously begins, a gesture exists outside the terrain which opens the opening for new thoughts notion of absolute origin. It exists as a place or to emerge. An essential point here (the starting beginning for something other. There is no origin, point of being which precedes activity) is that as a since a gesture incessantly marks the beginning society, as individuals, as teachers, workers, or possibility for difference in thought ­ the place fathers, mothers, or what have you, I believe we (non­ place) where continuous decision marks an must first and foremost teach and learn how to always already opening/closing line in the pure embrace ambiguity in our lives – how to bring the opening of thought itself. A gesture in always already uncertainty of our becoming into differentiation to that which it hitherto differed from the ontology of our being. Without this, I believe also opens the space for new origins. Origins thus we will have only a world where new exist within the movement of beginning, and a absolutes, always at odds with other absolutes, gesture gives beginning to origin and trace at the continue to unfold in violent and unethical same time. A gesture opens the space which trajectories of binary opposition. There is no end allows a sense of origin as the novelty of or synthesis to oppositional thinking in terms of originality. The trace as simultaneous memory of absolutes themselves, for the very nature of what was, is, and what may become, holds open absolute thinking exists in the logic of totalization – the space for the beginning of beginnings. We a totalization always already closed around the cannot begin without the mark or trace which logic of the same. This logic either leaves us with always precedes us. A gesture is a medium, a world of opposing absolutes, or even worse, a (medio, mitte, middle, between) par excellence. totalized unity of coming together as an organized This is the beauty of a gesture in itself. It shows us or absolute one with no room at all for difference. I both what we are and what we are not. It is the believe it is thus of utmost importance to find a re/presentation, thus showing of “being” and “non­ way of thinking, being, and expression which being” at the same time, the ontological space of resists all forms of totalization itself. We must find exposure and exposition. A gesture is the as a starting point an opening of thought toward continuous something which emerges from the being as nothing other than a continuous giving potentiality of the pure opening of nothing ­ becoming. In this sense, we must find and nurture the nothing from which without there would be no­ an ontological sensibility of existing in a world thing. We thus have a world as some­thing which without reference to absolute truths – a way of shows itself to us through the movement of existing, in other words, within a framework of beginnings beginning again and again. The ontological, phenomenological, and ethical ontology of thought (and being as such) exists uncertainty. This starting point, I believe, opens thus not as a presence or even a presencing, but the space and discussion for a new sense of more so as a gesture, an interstitial movement

4 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs (Vintage; 1 edition, 1974), 280. and emergence into the multiple and differential having absolute access to the absolute meaning relations of being with a world. It gives (es gibt of of a concept is impossible (even if being forced), Heidegger), and in this giving it shows and and furthermore that each concept in and of itself exposes itself as the movement of difference itself. always exceeds totalized unity by existing in a In other words, a gesture shows itself as medium, relation of continuous differential movement. How the beginning and end at the same time, and then can we gain access to something which is therefore gives to and erases both notions of always in a state of change? How can we find beginning and end again at the same time. It meaning in something which is and is not at the shows the ex­position of ontological becoming same time – something, in other words, which in through differentiation ­ the differentiation of what becoming has no absolute origin, no fixed or static was, is, and will be. This continuous movement point of entry? We have a situation where our through differentiation once again erases access to meaning through concepts and presence and gives us nothing other than that of conceptual configurations, is perhaps best the interplay of an emerging gesture exposing understood through an activity itself, an activity being as such. A gesture shows the exposition, such as sensing or thinking, as compared to a exposure, exposing, and expository nature of projection of fixed subject and fixed object through being and thinking itself, and most importantly all the domain of knowledge. We cannot grasp “the of these phenomena at the same time. good” as such in totalization, but we may be able to sense and think the good within the opening of We thus begin with a gesture in the form of the becoming of good itself – the good which is proclamation, not a truth: There is no absolute and is not and all the gradations between at the knowledge of the good. The good is a concept, same time. Before we get ahead of ourselves we plain and simple, and as a concept it is open to must first ask: If the good as concept is always the continuous activity of change, renewal, already in a state of becoming, what type of intervention, invention, dissemination, and so on. thinking allows for a sensing of the becoming of This is the beauty of the concept as Nietzsche and good? Deleuze have wonderfully exemplified in their various philosophies on the concept as such.5 For Thinking Toward the Good, or, the Good which the former, concepts and conceptual Calls for Thinking: configurations exist in a constant “will to power” between meaning one thing and meaning I turn now to a passage from Heidegger. something other, and for the latter, creating concepts is nothing other than philosophy itself. “What must be thought about, turns away from Here is not the time to go into detail of their man. It withdraws from him. But how can we have respective philosophies on the notion of the least knowledge of something that withdraws “concepts”, but it is important to note that both from the very beginning, how can we even give it philosophers accentuate the malleability and the a name? Whatever withdraws, refuses arrival. But “always­already­becoming­ other” nature of the – withdrawing is not nothing. Withdrawal is an concept itself. In other words, each concept as event.... The event of withdrawal could be what is concept, is always undergoing the process of most present in our present, and so infinitely change – a transformation of meaning/being one exceed the actuality of everything actual.”7 thing but also becoming other. Each concept consists thus in being and not­being at the same In Was Heisst Denken? (What is Called time. This is best expressed perhaps in a phrase I Thinking?) Heidegger begins, as suggested in the developed in my book The Ethics of Uncertainty title of the text, with a question – a question which states: “As something is coming to be it is concerning not only the state of thinking in modern always already becoming something other.”6 What scientific times, but more so what it means to think does this mean for us? First, it shows us that in and of itself. In other words, his question asks

5 See Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morals and Deleuze and 7 Martin Heidegger, What is Called Thinking? (HarperCollins, 1976), 8, Guattari's What is Philosophy? 9. 6 Michael Anker, The Ethics of Uncertainty: Aporetic Openings (Atropos Press, 2009), 12. what is involved in the act and activity of thinking that thinking, as opposed to knowledge, offers us itself. What conditions are necessary (if any) for on one hand a glimpse of a mental activity in thinking to occur, and furthermore how does correlation with the becoming movement of thinking differ from the act of accumulating conceptual transformation itself, and on the other knowledge? The answer to these questions hand a way of sensing the symbiotic movement revolves around the ambiguous meaning implied and relation between thinking and being itself. in the verb “heissen”. This German verb can either Thinking moves in relation to the formation of mean “to be named” or “to be called”, thus Ich conceptual transformations as being becomes in heisse Michael (My name is Michael) signifies thinking. Thinking and being thus intermingle. In either “to be named” Michael or “to be called” Heidegger's terms, “Thinking accomplishes the Michael. We can sense here immediately an relation of being to the essence of man.”8 This important difference not only in meaning, but also intimate relation – the interstitial relation of in terms of phenomenological and thus ontological thinking, being, and existence, will prove of utmost relations with the world. “To be named” implies an importance as we continue our thinking toward an act of being within the name itself – the name understanding or sensing of ethical becoming. given, where as “to be called” suggests an activity of movement toward being itself –being called Relation of Thinking, Being, and Language: toward being. In regard to the phrase “Was heisst denken?”, we thus have on one hand, the Thinking begins without an origin or a known suggestion of “what does thinking mean?”, as in, destination. It begins within the multiplicity of other what is thinking named?, and on the other hand, a beginnings thus picking up and dropping off question within the realm of being called. The meaning and meanings within the opening of essential question for Heidegger thus becomes thinking itself. By thinking about “the good”, we are “What calls for thinking, or what calls us toward thinking thus within that which is known already thinking?" about the good, and more importantly that which is also not known of the good. There would be no It is in this question that we can begin to gain a thinking, whatsoever, about the good, if the good better sense of what thinking means for was known to us through knowledge itself. I am Heidegger. It is a “being­called­toward” which reminded here of the very simple yet powerful opens the space for thinking as such. Thinking is thoughts of Kierkegaard regarding the notion of being drawn toward that which one does not know. faith. For Kierkegaard, faith exists in the space of The not fully known thought as object being not­knowing, not being certain, and always in the thought, both reveals and conceals itself in the gap or distance of an unbridgeable activity of being thought of. This partially known phenomenological relation. Using Heideggerian and unknown object calls thinking toward it in its terms, one could say that it is the withdrawing of withdrawal. It phenomenologically withdraws away God which draws one toward faith. It is not from absolute comprehension. As Heidegger knowledge. I am not suggesting here that we states, “Whatever withdraws, refuses arrival”. The should simply have faith in the good (or God) as it thought that exists in thinking “refuses arrival” withdraws from us in our thinking about it. In fact, I because its arrival is the detriment to its being as am thinking something quite different altogether. such. By arriving and becoming actualized, the What I am pointing toward is that within the thought is removed from the open space of opening given to us by thinking itself, thinking relational thinking and forced into the concrete and about the good as it withdraws from our grasp of totalized unity of the same. In other words, the totalized knowledge, we begin to sense the good thought that once moved in the open and in terms of its giving. What does this mean? The differential space of always becoming potentially good as a concept gives itself to us as it other, gets closed down into the domain of simultaneously withdraws from us. In short, it does absolute knowledge. The point to be made here, is not become actualized as closed meaning itself,

8 Martin Heidegger, Basic Writings, ed. David Farrell Krell (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993), 217. but gives potential in our activity of being toward it do we “form” an idea, and what is a “form” in and each and every moment in its continuous of itself? If I look at the book on the table in front of movement of becoming other. The becoming of me now as I stop a moment in my writing, what our being joins the thinking of thought itself. takes place, what gives, what shows, what occurs Thought and thinking here are not abstractions, in the relation between mind and book? Of course but entities embedded in the physical properties of we may never know all the intimacies and existence itself. Being as becoming is the intricacies that occur in this phenomenological embodiment of thinking, or as Heidegger says, space, but we can, as Jean­Luc Nancy would say “Thinking is of being inasmuch as thinking, “sense” the relation as such. In other words, we propriated by Being, belongs to Being. At the can sense the book and get a sense as meaning same time thinking is of being insofar as thinking, of the book at the same time. The form is thus belonging to Being, listens to Being.”9 It is here given to us through a simultaneous moment of that we see the importance of language, for meaning and sensing. I sense the various angles language itself gives being its immanent relation to of shapes and silhouettes which organize thought. If thinking “listens to being” as Heidegger themselves in coordination with my memory of points out, it is language that enables being to image through imagination. This is the form of the show itself in thinking. book given through the object's relation to my senses. I also gain the form of the book through In a text devoted entirely to Heidegger's sense as meaning. I make sense (meaning) of it philosophy of thinking and language, Robert being a book, meaning a book, a book means Mugerauer states the following: “In brief, thinking such and such, by forming the idea of it through means the forming of ideas that represent what is recollection. What is also of importance here is thought. The interior, subjective process re­ that the phenomenological relation works both presents the object of thought. Where this is so, it ways; they work together in a space where form is naturally important to form ideas correctly, so makes sense and sense makes form. that the idea does conform to the object.”10 Soon after this statement he is quick to point out that We see here already that the relation of “the issue has become complicated in the last subject/object is not one of a clear split. The several centuries with the debate over whether activity of thinking occurs in fact only when the there is an independent, external reality in addition split itself is dismantled. Realizing that correlation to our internal ideas.” Here he is of course need not be thought as a relation of absolute referring to the many contemporary challenges to demarcation is of utmost importance for the the subject/object, mind/body split given to us from process of thinking itself. Meaning (sense) does Descartes' philosophy in the “Meditations”. occur through a temporary unity/form, but it must Mugerauer then moves on quickly. He even goes also stay open to the transformations of difference so far as to say here that he is not going to be in order to stay in the realm of thinking. Any “taking up this particular quarrel.” He does not attempt at totalized meaning through the closure suggest that Heidegger got caught up in this of itself as itself and nothing other, shuts down “quarrel”, but by moving quickly away from the thinking by simply becoming dogma. The dangers topic he also does not address the fundamental in this type of “thinking” as non­thinking are quite issues at stake in thinking about the subject/object obvious. I am reminded of a title of an exhibition relation as such. Before we move on to a closer and a book entitled “Thinking is Form: The analysis of this issue, let's first look back at Drawings of Joseph Beuys”. Long ago, this title Mugerauer's quote. stimulated my mind. It stayed with me for many years, and it wasn't until recently, that I discovered The first sentence brings us to the notion of form why. I have realized, as this title suggests, that all and forming. What does it mean to form thinking is forming, and that all form is in some something through the process of forming? How way or another, a temporary holding together of

9 Ibid, p. 220. 10 Robert Mugerauer, Heidegger's Language and Thinking (Humanities Press International, 1990), 67. differences ­ a momentary unity of meaning as can sense here a relation of unity to difference. meaning within the fabric of a world at play in This relation continues to give us a sense of differentiation. The key here is not only to sense ethical becoming which exists neither in totalized this in thinking, but by sensing it, also always unity nor in the realm of pure difference. The therefore allow the temporary unity of thought to former is a closed system without the allowance of open itself and stay open to difference. Difference the other as other, and the latter points to a void in relation to organized unity gives possibility to where no meaning exists at all. It is between these new unities as meaning “to come” (Derrida). One two, in the ongoing relation as relation itself that could say that this process in itself is the giving we can perhaps not only find meanings such as and event of novelty itself. In short, there is the good, but also create new meanings which nothing new, will be nothing new to come, without continue in the opening of thinking – the opening the differing and deferring (the differance of where language, thinking, and being as becoming Derrida) movement of the same in relation to the intermingle. other. This is perhaps the “es gibt” of Heideggerian thought. The question remains for I am quite aware that Heidegger's understanding us, however, how language works to form thought, of Being is in many ways different from this and furthermore how being in relation to thought analysis of its relation to language. For Heidegger, (the listening of being as mentioned earlier) shows being is Dasein; not existence, identity, self, or itself through language. becoming. Here is not the place to attempt a thorough analysis of Being as Dasein, but I will In a brief and very insightful essay entitled “Letter mention that in many ways, and through many of on Humanism”, Heidegger states the well known my past works on this topic, I have discovered in (at least in philosophical circles) phrase: Dasein an intimate relation to all the above “Language is the house of being.” In a mentioned terms. In particular, I have discovered pedagogical manner (as a professor of philosophy through an analysis of Dasein an essential link to to undergraduate students) I utilize an ontology of what I call the becoming of being, this phrase many times to emphasize the especially in conjunction with the Heideggerian importance of language in the shaping of one's term “Mitsein” (being­with). It is the “there” of identity. This of course points primarily to the being in correlation to the “with” of being which intimate relation of being as existence to language gives us the temporal and spatial sensibility of itself, or the correlation between linguistic incessant becoming. Perhaps this activity is best articulation and a sense of self. summarized by Jean­Luc Nancy when he states In other words, I emphasize how language gives ­ that “Being cannot be anything but being­with­one­ how a new word gives not only a new another, circulating in the with and as the with of understanding in the realm of knowledge, but this singularly plural coexistence.”11 We are, thus, more so a new sense, sensibility, and opening of by being with, and it is the movement and being into the world as such. A hitherto unknown “circulation” in the “with” with others, which gives word thus opens the world us the open space for thinking and becoming. as an entrance upon which the self finds itself and Language can thus offer itself as a continuation of thus furthermore makes way for the self it is also this circulation, or as an attempt at closing this becoming. It is here that I attempt to show that down by a promotion of absolute truths. The language has the potential to both give and take former is shown through the various nuances of away. It gives by giving a new sense of self, and poetry or poetics, whereas the latter attempts a takes away by simultaneously releasing this self language equivalent to absolute meaning itself. into the opening of the “to come” of transformative Poetry shows by either not showing the thing as becoming. By teaching the formation of an identity thing itself, or by showing the thing as thing, but through language, I thus at the same time teach always already as another thing in becoming. the dissolution of a fixed identity. Once again we Poetic language, in other words, does not attempt

11 Jean­Luc Nancy, Being Singular Plural (Stanford University Press, 2000), 3. meaning through a fixed relation of language, paradoxical thinking – being too alone in the meaning, and thing, but as a relation at play in the world, and yet also at the same time not alone movement and becoming of the world. Poetry, or enough ­ too tiny in this world, yet also again not poetic gestures themselves, show us not only tiny enough. The desire is to be so inconspicuous relations in the world, but more importantly point as to simply facilitate a reflection (I want to be a us to a sense of relation as relation, i.e., the mirror for your whole body) back to the loved one. “being­in­relation” of being itself. We perhaps get But also in the almost nothing of his being his a sense of this when we read the poetry of desire is to unfold, a metaphor for the becoming of metaphor, simile, semblance, allegory, paradox, his being with the loved one. The unfolding can etc., for the meaning is always in a “movement­ only occur here through description (“I want to toward”. The meaning is thus always in transit describe myself”) thus language gives sensibility between being itself and being other. to his being, his being “like a painting”, “like a saying”, “like a ship”, etc. Through all of this his There are numerous examples of this in poetry but being folds and unfolds through a series of here I will simply offer one by the great poet relations – the relation to the loved one which Rainer Maria Rilke from “The Book of Hours”. It brings forth first a desire to be nothing other than a goes as follows: mirror for the reflection of the other, and to the outward movement of becoming something “I am too alone in the world, and not alone enough through descriptions of safety. It is a coming­to­be to make every minute holy. through a relation, and the relation is navigated I am too tiny in this world, and not tiny enough through the descriptive language of metaphor. just to lie before you like a thing, Being is thus not found, but opened to the shrewd and secretive. unfolding of existence. I want my own will, and I want simply to be with my will From Poesia: as it goes towards action; and in the silent, sometimes hardly moving times, “Countless lives inhabit us. when something is coming near, I don’t know, when I think or feel, I want to be with those who know secret things Who it is that thinks or feels. or else alone. I am merely the place I want to be a mirror for your whole body, Where things are thought or felt. and I never want to be blind or to be too old to hold up your heavy and swaying picture. I have more than just one soul. I want to unfold. There are more I’s than I myself. I don't want to stay folded anywhere, I exist, nevertheless, because where I am folded, there I am a lie. Indifferent to them all. And I want my grasp of things I silence them: I speak. true before you. I want to describe myself like a painting that I looked at The crossing urges of what closely for a long time, I feel or do not feel like a saying that I finally understood, Struggle in who I am, but I like the pitcher I use every day , Ignore them. They dictate nothing like the face of my mother, To the I I know: I write.”13 like a ship that took me safely This poem offers us a glimpse into the multiple through the wildest storm of all.”12 beings within one being, or the more than self which gives us the future selves we may or may This poem immediately brings us to a type of not become. This is not an “I” that senses

12 Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poems of Rainer Maria Rilke 13 See bilingual edition here: [Paperback] (Harper Perennial; New edition http://www.poetryinternational.org/piw_cms/cms/cms_module/index.ph edition, 1981), 25. p?obj_id=7082 the unfolding in relation to other others, but a Conclusion: relation to the other selves within the self that is always already becoming other. Once again we In the opening passage of an essay on cinema, also get a sense of paradox in the line “There are Alain Badiou says the following: more I's than I myself”. We can perhaps sense what this means, but what exactly does this “Philosophy only exists insofar as there are mean? The meaning does not arrive through paradoxical relations, relations which fail to knowledge, but through a gesture of letting the connect, or should not connect. When every mind move with the ambiguity – in relation to the connection is naturally legitimate, philosophy is ambiguity. The relation of the plural I's to the impossible or in vain.”16 imaginary I on one hand creates the introspective sense of confusion and struggle, but on the other Philosophy happens for Badiou when a relation hand, it also creates the desire for decision. In the fails, or when the relation lacks an absolute end, it is once again through language, the “I connection in and of meaning. As suggested, we write” that the author finds being in relation to find ourselves in this realm when we encounter a becoming. The author moves forward through the paradox. A paradox is nothing other than a relation decision of writing to the I that is known to the I at which cannot absolutely connect. It occurs in that particular moment in time. It is a strategy of thinking when we cannot make absolute sense of finding the I of being in the I's of becoming. the meaning at hand. A relation without absolute connection brings us toward thinking, because it There are of course other ways to show how lacks easy resolution or solution via hitherto poetic gestures create manifestations of meaning, knowledge. In other words, a paradox brings us to however, the point to be made here is that poetic a relation between meanings ­ a place in thinking language (if it is to be called poetry or poetics), where thinking not only begins, but must continue never looks to form meaning through absolute because the exit is difficult to find. This is why unity and thus totalization of the subject and object many people fear paradoxical thinking. Quite at hand. It always, through its various means and simply, it is much easier to live in a world with ways, opens the space for possible meanings to clear answers – answers, in other words, which emerge – a place where meanings come to be in close down the between space of paradoxical the interstitial space between being something, relations. But what does this attempt accomplish? being other, and thus being and not­being at the In my mind, it accomplishes nothing other than same time. Poetry always shows itself as a poetic gradations of unethical being in the world. I am not becoming – a gesture in sync with our being as a suggesting here that such things as strong becoming. We can see here the importance of opinions, convictions, or a fidelity to certain ideas poetry for being and being for poetry. In one way implies a necessary correlation to unethical being. poetry can teach us the becoming of being, and in I am suggesting, however, that if these ideas close another way, a sensibility of being as becoming, themselves around a cloak of absolute truth, they can open us to an “ethics of uncertainty”14 ­ an most certainly will fall quickly into the violence of ethics situated within a contextual realm as totalizing thought. What I mean to say here is that compared to a dogmatic realm of rigid absolutes. if I or anyone else were to imagine absolute It is here that philosophy can also learn most from access to “the good” in and of itself, i.e., the good the words of the poet­philosopher Paul Valery in relation to and in direct correlation to when he says that “the most authentic philosophy knowledge, it would immediately shut down the lies not so much in the objects of our reflection as space for not only thinking but discussion itself. in the very act of thought and its handling.”15 It is The beauty of discussion itself is the not so much therefore what we think, but how we acknowledgment of the other. In fact, discussion think. This makes all the difference when it comes by its very nature moves in the between space of to ethics. meanings – the space we discussed earlier where 14 Michael Anker, The Ethics of Uncertainty: Aporetic Openings 16 “Alain Badiou, "Cinema as a Democratic Emblem",”. (Atropos Press, 2009). http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2009/badiou050609.html 15Paul Valéry, The Art of Poetry (Vintage, 1958), 77. thinking, language, and being intermingle. Michael Anker, Ph.D., is an American philosopher Discussion, if done correctly, follows the ebbs and and Professor of Philosophy at The College of flows of poetic language and poetic becoming. New Rochelle, School of New Resources, John Through discussion one can thus literally and Cardinal O’Connor Campus in NYC. He is also figuratively change one's mind, and changing presently a Visiting Professor at the European one's mind not only occurs through the three Graduate School in Saas­Fee, Switzerland. terms mentioned, but also opens the space for a Michael Anker was born in New Jersey, in 1965, new thinking, a new use of language, and a new and he was raised in Iowa. He completed his B.A. sense of becoming in the world. This opening is in Comparative History of Ideas at the University the opening for ethics ­ an ethics not of absolute of Washington. He then pursued his Masters in truths, but of being in the opening of thinking and Liberal Studies at CUNY Graduate Center, NYC, becoming itself. It is here, in this space of thought culminating his studies with a Ph.D from the that we can discuss and perhaps gain a sense of European Graduate School. He has had the not only the concept of the good, but more opportunity to study under the guidance of importantly how we may also sense our being in renowned philosophers Jacques Derrida and relation to this concept. In my mind this relation Jean­Luc Nancy. (Bio adapted from egs.edu) should stay paradoxical through and through, for then thinking as thinking and discussion as discussion will continue.

Jose Antonio Sistiaga, Impresiones en la alta atmósfera, 1988–89. Dr. Sanford Drob On Kabbalah, Psychotherapy, and Postmodern Philosophy

Sanford Lewis Drob, Ph.D. is on the and Postmodernism: A Dialog, and faculty of Fielding Graduate University. Kabbalistic Visions: C.G. Jung and He holds doctorates in philosophy and Jewish Mysticism. His most recent clinical psychology and for many years book, Reading the Red Book: A served as Director of Psychological Thematic Guide to C. G. Jung’s Liber Assessment and Senior Forensic Novus will be published by Spring Psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in Journal Books, in early 2012. He is New York. Dr. Drob has a longstanding currently working on a study of the interest in the philosophy and coincidence of opposites in philosophy, psychology of Jewish Mysticism. Among psychology and mysticism. His work his publications are Kabbalistic can be viewed on the web at Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in www.newkabbalah.com. Ancient and Modern Thought, Kabbalah CX: How did you become interested in Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, which was in Kabbalah? walking distance from my home at the time, and its shluchim (emissaries to the community) were SD: My path to the Kabbalah was rather long and all over Brooklyn. One of these shluchim, Rabbi involved and I hope you will pardon my long, Shimon Hecht, invited me to a class on Schneur meandering response to this question. My Zalman’s Tanya, the founding work of the grandfather, Max Drob, was a well­known rabbi in Lubavitch­Chabad movement, a work that is itself New York, who in 1929 served as the president of inundated with Kabbalistic symbols and ideas. It the Rabbinical Assembly, a national organization was in this class that bells went off in my head, as of the Conservative movement within Judaism. A I immediately saw profound parallels between the traditional Jewish atmosphere pervaded my Tanya’s concepts and those of Hegel, Freud, childhood home, and particularly the home of my Jung, Wittgenstein, and Findlay. I immediately paternal grandparents, but there was, as far as I began reading whatever I could find on the subject On Kabbalah, Psychotherapy, and Postmodern Philosophy can recall, no mention of Judaism’s mystical face. of the Lurianic Kabbalah, and within a very short­ When I attended college at SUNY Stony Brook in time came to believe that I could spend a lifetime 1970, I originally thought to study astronomy and creating a rapprochement between Jewish astrophysics, but I was soon drawn to philosophy mysticism and western philosophy. I think that my and religion, and, particularly to the lectures of the growing passion for Judaism along with virtually all “death of God” theologian, Thomas J. J. Altizer, of my intellectual interests came together and who had recently come to Stony Brook from “exploded” in that first Tanya class with Rabbi Emory University in Atlanta. Altizer introduced me Hecht, and I am still experiencing the to the ideas of Hegel, Nietzsche, Buber, reverberations of that “big bang.” Dostoevsky, Jung, Tillich, Bultmann, and Eliade, and sparked my interest in comparative religion. CX: What is the “New Kabbalah?” After a period in which I was totally absorbed with Wittgenstein, I undertook graduate study in SD: The “New Kabbalah” is my term for a philosophy at Boston University, where I had the perspective on philosophy, theology and good fortune to obtain my doctorate under the psychology and human existence that arises from direction of J.N. Findlay, who was nearing the end the interaction and union between the Kabbalah of his long career as a noted scholar of Husserl, and modern and postmodern thought. The New Hegel and Plato (and critic of Wittgenstein), and Kabbalah seeks to examine and develop the who had developed his own “rational mysticism” in implications of Kabbalistic symbols, particularly a series of books and lectures. Findlay struck me those of the 16th century Kabbalist, Isaac Luria, not only for his profound mixture of the very by considering these symbols in relation to the ancient and the very modern but also for his theories of thinkers such as Hegel, Freud, Jung, wonderfully poetic style (My tribute to Findlay can Wittgenstein, Whitehead and Derrida, as well as be found on my website www.jnfindlay.com). through comparative studies with such religious and Postmodernism: A Dialog, and Returning to New York in 1978, this time to study and philosophical traditions as Gnosticism, Sanford Lewis Drob, Ph.D. is on the clinical psychology, I found myself increasingly Alchemy, Hinduism, Buddhism, NeoPlatonism, faculty of Fielding Graduate University. Kabbalistic Visions: C.G. Jung and Jewish Mysticism. His most recent drawn to my own Jewish roots, and in the process and Christianity. As I say on the New Kabbalah He holds doctorates in philosophy and of writing a biographical sketch of my grandfather website, “The New Kabbalah is born out of the clinical psychology and for many years book, Reading the Red Book: A Thematic Guide to C. G. Jung’s Liber (which can be found at www.newkabbalah.com) I conviction that the theosophical system of Luria served as Director of Psychological visited a number of rabbis who had been close to and his followers promotes an open economy of Assessment and Senior Forensic Novus will be published by Spring Journal Books, in early 2012. He is my grandfather in the 1920s and 30s. These visits thought, dialog and criticism, while at the same Psychologist at Bellevue Hospital in intensified my interest in the Jewish religion and I time providing a comprehensive account of the New York. Dr. Drob has a longstanding currently working on a study of the coincidence of opposites in philosophy, began attending various synagogues in Brooklyn. I world and humanity's role within it that is interest in the philosophy and suppose it was inevitable that at one of them that I intellectually, morally and spiritually vital for us psychology of Jewish Mysticism. Among psychology and mysticism. His work can be viewed on the web at would encounter the Chabad­Lubavitch Chasidim. today.” his publications are Kabbalistic Lubavitch has its world headquarters at 770 Metaphors: Jewish Mystical Themes in www.newkabbalah.com. Ancient and Modern Thought, Kabbalah I have developed the “New Kabbalah” on my Netzotzim (Divine Sparks) website, in a series of articles and four books Kellipot (Husks that entrap the Sparks) (Symbols of the Kabbalah, Kabbalistic Metaphors, Sitra Achra (the “Other Side”) Kabbalah and Postmodernism, and Kabbalistic Birur (extraction of the Sparks from the Husks) Visions) and it is impossible to summarize it Tikkun ha­Olam (Restoration of the World). “standing on one foot” as the rabbinic sage, Hillel was once asked to do regarding Judaism (he I have tried to show how this progression can famously responded, “What is hateful to you, don’t readily be understood as a template for the do to others, all the rest is commentary”). Had one linguistic and creative process, and that it is also of Luria’s early disciples been asked to summarize reflected in the narratives of Hegelian philosophy their master’s teaching they might have pointed to and both Freudian and Jungian psychology. Each two of the Lurianic symbols, Shevirah (rupture) of these modern thinkers had at least passing and Tikkun (restoration), which express the notion exposure to the Kabbalah, but it is not my view that the value archetypes (the Sefirot, e.g. Desire, that they derived their theories from Jewish Wisdom, Understanding, Love, Judgment, mystical sources. Rather, Luria seems to have Beauty/Compassion) which the Kabbalists held to intuitively discovered certain key elements of be the archetypal constituents of our world, dialectical thinking, which also came to inform inevitably shattered in the process of creation and these later thinkers. were entrapped as “sparks of divinity” in the “husks” (kellipot) of “the Other Side.” They might For Luria, an infinite/nothingness (Ein­sof/Ayin) is have further stated that it is the task of each contracted and concealed (Tzimtzum), providing a individual to liberate those sparks he/she metaphysical void within which finite entities can encounters in life, and to put their divine energy in arise and subsist without being absorbed in the the service of a new personal and collective “All.” Like a photographic slide, which creates the creation—thereby contributing to Tikkun ha­Olam, image of a world by selectively concealing the restoration and repair of the world. portions of a plenum of white light, the cosmic Interestingly, this dialectic of Shevirah and Tikkun concealment yields a positive, finite emanation is held to be constitutive of Ein­sof (the Infinite (Sefirot, Adam Kadmon). However, this positive God), who is thought of by the Lurianists as creation itself negated through displacement, evolving and being perfected by the Tikkun rupture and deconstruction (Shevirah) and finally process. This is one of the ways in which the restored (Tikkun) in a manner that, according to (New) Kabbalah creates a coincidentia Luria, actually fulfills and actualizes the potential oppositorum between theism and humanistic of the original infinite/nothingness. The parallels atheism. to Hegelian dialectics are relatively easy to grasp, and the parallels to Freud and Jung become clear In formulating the New Kabbalah I have examined once we translate the theosophical symbols into the entire Lurianic system from the perspective of psychological categories and ideas. For example, contemporary philosophy, theology and Ein­sof/Ayin, the Infinite/Nothingness is psychology. The system involves a dynamic understood as the completely undefined plenum of progression of theosophical events expressed the personal (or collective) unconscious that is various symbols/notions concealed and through a primal repression produce the ego, Adam Kadmon which Ein­sof (the Infinite) provisionally embodies the values and archetypes Ayin (Nothingness) that produce meaning in human life. This ego is Tzimtzum (Concealment/Contraction) constituted by values (Sefirot), symbols and Sefirot (Value Archetypes) language (Otiyot Yesod­foundational Adam Kadmon (the Primordial Human) letters). However, the ego is unstable and is Otiyot Yesod (Primordial letters—language) subject to conflict, crisis and deconstruction (the Shevirat ha­Kelim (The Breaking of the Vessels) Breaking of the Vessels). The ego’s energy, values and emotions are again repressed (the Sparks so much, but these are some of the things I have entrapped in the Husks—read “complexes), and found most helpful. then (via the analytic process) returned to consciousness as part of a restored, emended CX: What are your thoughts on some gentile and wider Self (Tikkun ha­Olam). interpretations of Kabbalistic thought? For example the writings of Jakob Boehme, CX: Do you think the typical reader who picks Paracelsus, or Eliphas Levi? Do you think non­ up a recently written book on Kabbalah from Jewish engagement with Kabbalah has the new age section of a bookstore is getting a contributed to anti­Semitism? good introduction? Do you like the attention Kabbalah is getting from celebrities and self­ SD: I have not pursued the Christian Kabbalah help gurus? except insofar as it impacted upon alchemy and through alchemy on C. G. Jung. I have argued SD: There are many “new age section” that Kabbalistic symbols and categories made introductions to the Kabbalah, and I have read their way into alchemy both via direct contact with very few of them. I have not been impressed with Jewish Kabbalists and also through the Christian those I have read, but this may be due to the Kabbalah, and it is alchemy that re­emerges as a selectivity of my sample. Those who are serious major force in the thought of Jung. By extracting about understanding the Kabbalah in its historical the spiritual and psychological gold that lay hidden and religious context are probably still best served in the alchemists’ symbols, Jung was, in effect, by turning to the works of Gershom Scholem, who reconstituting Kabbalistic ideas. Indeed, late in his effectively created modern Kabbalah scholarship, life Jung wrote that the origins of Freudian beginning in the 1930s. I am also very much psychoanalysis might be found in the recesses of enamored of Isaiah Tishby’s three volume Wisdom the Kabbalah and that his own psychology was of the Zohar, which effectively reorganizes almost anticipated by the Maggid of Mezirich, a Hasidic the entire Zohar (the locus classicus of the figure, whose thinking embodied many Kabbalistic Kabbalah) by theme, so that you can read all of ideas. One notion that the alchemists and Jung what the Zohar says about such topics as God, received from the Kabbalists is that both God and death, Torah, Morality, the Sefirot, creation, the self contain an evil, dark, “shadow” side (the soul, etc. in one place, with Tishby’s illuminative Kabbalist’s sitra achra or “other side”) that must be commentary. (I am so impressed by Tishby’s recognized, harnessed and incorporated into scheme that I have used a modified version of it in one’s understanding and relationship to self and my latest book, a commentary on C. G. Jung’s world. On the subject of anti­Semitism, and at the Red Book, where the first thing I did in writing it risk of inflaming controversy with my speculation, was to rearrange the Red Book according to its it is not out of the question that Jung’s flirtation major and minor themes.) Daniel Matt’s scholarly with National Socialism may have been indirectly edition of the Zohar is also an enormously helpful inspired by these Kabbalistic ideas, as he saw in resource (as are his other works on Jewish the Nazis a shadowy, evil but powerful energy that Mysticism). I also like the writings of Rachel Elior, in his view might ultimately be harnessed for the particularly those on the philosophy of Chabad. good of Germany and the world. The Zohar itself Immanuel Schochet is a Chabad philosopher who says “There is no true worship except it issue forth is also worth reading. Those interested in reading from darkness, and no true good except it proceed something inspirational (but quite scholarly) may from evil” (Zohar II: 184a). find the writings of Adin Steinsaltz interesting (you can find my interview with him, “The Mystic as CX: You draw some extremely interesting Philosopher,” at parallels between the work of Jacques Derrida http://www.newkabbalah.com/stein.html). Aryeh and aspects of the Lurianic Kabbalah. Most Kaplan’s popular books on Jewish and Kabbalistic readers are familiar with deconstruction. Can meditation are very practical and inspiring. There’s you tell us what similarities there are between deconstruction and the way language is in which all human experience, particularly Jewish handled in the Kabbalah? experience, is one of exile and alienation. God and the world are both revealed and concealed in SD: I deal with the relationship between Kabbalah language, and indeed concealment (Tzimtzum) is and Derrida fairly extensively in my book, the very origin of difference, meaning, revelation Kabbalah and Postmodernism and I can only and truth (Indeed, the symbol of Tzimtzum has provide a hint of this here. Interestingly, several many parallels with Derrida’s notion of différance). years ago in reply to my inquiries, the literary critic While there are clearly differences between and deconstructionist Hillis Miller wrote me that Kabbalah and deconstruction, for example, the Derrida had told him that near the end of his life Kabbalists (rather equivocal) acceptance Emanuel Levinas “looked him [Derrida] in the eye underlying ontological deity, there is a very and said, ‘Jacques, you know what you remind me significant overlap between Kabbalistic and of? A heretical Kabbalist of the 16th century!’” deconstructive hermeneutics and philosophy that (Hillis Miller, June 12, 2007). gives warrant to Levinas’s assertion that Derrida is a heretical Kabbalist of the 16th century. Specifically with regard to language, the Kabbalists held a view (that ran parallel to the CX: Can you speak a bit about the interplay doctrine of the Sefirot or value­archetypes) in between faith and unbelief that carves out a which the world is said to be comprised of the 22 spot for atheism within the Kabbalah? How “primordial letters” of the Hebrew alphabet, the would that atheism differ from the sort of “new constituents of the divine speech with which God atheism” found in popular culture today? spoke the world into existence, They thus held that reality is itself a linguistic construction, a text SD: I could address this question in a variety of that mirrors the Torah, and that God himself can ways. The 13th century Kabbalist, Azriel of be understood as identical to his Torah, and as Gernoa, held that Ein­sof, the Infinite God, was a thus having his origin and being in the book. This unity of opposites, including faith and unbelief. led the Kabbalists into a series of other ideas that Within the Lurianic system, the circular dialectic are in many ways anticipatory of Derrida, including that begins with Ein­sof is essentially empty the notions that there is no firm distinction potentiality until it evolves through the stages of between words and things, and that interpretations contraction, rupture and restoration that effectively rather than facts are primordial. Further, because conclude with humanity’s Tikkun, which actualizes reality is comprised of combinations and the Sefirot. By engaging, for example, in acts of permutations of letters, these letters can be read compassion in a broken world, human beings and recombined in a variety of ways leading to the actualize the Sefirah Rachamim (Compassion), view that both text and world are subject to which had been a mere abstraction or potentiality innumerable interpretations that are in part a in Ein­sof during the earlier phase of its function of the perspective of the interpreter. development. It is thus human activity that Kabbalah, there is a tension between actualizes, and in a sense, creates the very God hermeneutics as a vehicle for arriving at an that in that earlier stage is said to emanate or original, ontological truth, and hermeneutics as a create the world and the Primordial Man. I could creative, “playful,” and indeterminate endeavor. develop the significance of this circular dialectic Indeed, there are strands within the Kabbalah further, but at the moment I’d like to look at this which suggest the decidedly postmodern idea that problem from another angle, from what I regard to there is no “transcendental signified” behind words be the Kabbalist’s identification of Ein­sof with and names, only a “creative absence,” which is what today we might call an “open economy of referred to as the “infinite nothing”, Ein­sof/Ayin. experience and thought.” Very briefly, each of the While language is for the Kabbalists the vehicle of Kabbalist’s symbols, and each stage in the creation and revelation, it at the same time Lurianic theosophy, represents an aspect of such produces alienation and exile, yielding a condition an open economy. Ein­sof, the Infinite God, is ineffable and, according to the Kabbalist, Abraham at times even rather literally, the biblical notion that ha­Lavan, the proper mode of intuiting Ein­ sof is the human being was created “btzalmo” in the through “unknowing,” forestalling any claim to image (tzelem) of God, and they put forth the absolute knowledge about ultimates, and thus notions that various parts of the human figure assuring that the dialog about them will never corresponded to each of the ten Sefirot, that the close. The symbol of Tzimtzum, by suggesting number of limbs and sinews of the human body that God’s presence is withdrawn and in “eclipse,” corresponded to the 613 commandments of the reinforces the deity’s unknowability, and insofar as Torah, and that the Torah is embodied in the figure the Kabbalists held that each individual must of man, a “mesoanthropos,” which serves as an replicate the Tzimtzum (contraction) in his/her intermediate human that connects the earthly interaction with others, it further suggests the view anthropos with Adam Kadmon. that one must maintain an openness to the “other,” without expectation or conditions. The Shevirah, While the orthodox tradition, based on the biblical the Breaking of the Vessels, which the Kabbalists ban on graven images, forbade drawing and hold permeates each entity and moment of sculpting the human figure and visage (thereby creation, suggests that all things and all ideas are greatly limiting the scope of Jewish art until the subject to deconstruction and revision (via Tikkun). late 19th century) I am of the view that the process Finally, the symbols of Kellipot (husks) and Tikkun of drawing, painting and sculpting the human (restoration, repair) suggests that evil and figure can itself be a deeply meditative and even malevolence are a function of a constriction and mystical act, in which one participates in the re­ rigidity of sefirotic energy, and that the world’s creation of the human reflection of the divine redemption consists in the liberation of that energy image. This process, by the way, again in service of the cognitive, emotional, and spiritual reproduces the entire Lurianic system—as one values of both man and God. At each point along begins with a blank canvas (Ein­sof, nothing and the way, the development of Ein­ sof involves a yet infinite possibility), progressively and radically limitation upon man’s capacity to know ultimate contracts one’s possibilities as one paints or truth, a deconstruction and revision of fixed deas, draws (Tzimtzum), produces a first “draft,” (Sefirot, and the liberation of experience, ideas, and Adam Kadmon, the human figure) that is emotions, from dogmatic constraints. This is the deconstructed by one’s critical eye (Shevirah) and very thrust of contemporary scientific atheism revised (Tikkun) in a manner that hopefully fulfills (when it does not fall back into dogma) and I the potential of one’s initial conception prior to any believe atheism’s great contribution to both the paint being laid on the canvas. I would also western intellectual tradition. Yet it is this very suggest that drawing the human figure or portrait liberation from dogma that also paradoxically involves the production of a complete image that paves the way for a non­ idolatrous understanding like Jung’s paintings of madalas has a wholeness­ of God. The “unbelief” of the Kabbalah, that for making and healing effect upon the artist’s and Azriel exists in coincidentia oppositorum with faith viewer’s psyche. In discussing what he calls the is an atheism that exists in creative tension with “mirror stage,” the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan theism and is open and receptive to a spiritual says that the child who sees his own reflection or view of the world and human experience. who views the body of another is confronted with an integrated whole that contrasts markedly with CX: On your blog, Tzelem, you exhibit a the fragmentation experience of his/her own collection of drawings exploring the human psyche. While Lacan gives this an unsettling, figure. Could you talk about the spiritual somewhat negative reading, I see the experience importance of the body? Does Kabbalah, as a of wholeness in rendering the human image as a mystical belief system, approach the body in potentially healing experience. There is also a an especially unique way? further spiritual dimension to painting in the rendering of light, form and color, each of which SD: Well, the Kabbalists took very seriously, and have theosophical significance in the Kabbalah. the understanding that ideas we had thought to be The Kabbalists characterized the Sefirot in terms mutually exclusive are actually interdependent and of colors and light, and the blending of chroma mutually supportive. This leads to what I call and value on the artist’s palette and canvas can “rational mysticism.” be understood as a reflection of the “alchemy” of creation. CX: How can mysticism be rational?

CX: What is bilinear thinking and what is its SD: I suppose that I mean to suggest two (related) significance to psychology, philosophy, and things with the term “rational mysticism,” a term I theology? have borrowed directly from J. N. Findlay. On the one hand, rational mysticism involves the SD: I believe that the Jewish mystics thought intellectual examination of certain notions, like the “bilinearly” or “multi­linearly,” that is, they coincidence of opposites, or the existence of a attempted to follow two or more, seemingly unity behind the veil of difference, that are contrasting thoughts or points of view at once. A associated with mystical experience. However, it good example of this can be seen in the goes beyond this by also attempting to provide a philosophy of Schnerur Zalman of Lyadi, the rational, philosophical ground for certain mystical founder of the Chabad Chasidic movement in the intuitions and ideas. A second related sense of 18th century. He writes: “rational mysticism” involves the idea that “reason” and “intellect” (as well as such things as logic and (Looking) upwards from below, as it appears to mathematics) can themselves be highly meditative eyes of flesh, the tangible world seems to be Yesh practices that are a vehicle of mystical ascent. I and a thing, while spirituality, which is above, is an will try to provide an example that illustrates these aspect of Ayin (nothingness). (But looking) ideas. downwards from above the world is an aspect of Ayin, and everything which is linked downwards According to many mystics, the “inexpressible and descends lower and lower is more and more unity of all things” represents an intuition of a Ayin and is considered as nought truly as nothing unified plenum, prior to its being sundered into and null (Schneur Zalman Likutei Torah, Devarim, polarities and difference by the word­thing fol. 83a, as quoted in Elior, Paradoxical Ascent, p. (signifier­signified) distinction. The world as it is 137­8.) experienced through categories and distinctions, and as it is described and mediated via language, Other examples of bilinear thinking are applicable is necessarily finite, multiple, and polarized, and to fundamental controversies in philosdophy. For thus one might be led to the conclusion that there example, at the same time that we follow the line can be no rational, conceptual or linguistic of thought that views human subjectivity to be the understanding of the primal unity, which, by product of a material universe, we also follow an necessity, is effaced once we enter into language opposite line of thought that understands the and concepts. Nevertheless, I believe that there is “material universe” to be the product of human an “echo” or “trace” of the original pre­linguistic consciousness and language. Another example unity that can be intuited within language, and this would be the train of thought whichunderstands all echo is found in the coincidentia oppositorum or “interpretations” to be grounded upon an fundamental interdependence of seemingly anchored, agreed upon “datum,” coupled with an contradictory ideas in philosophy, theology, and opposing line of reasoning which indicates that psychology (akin to the Kantian “antinomies”). The such datum of is itself the product of history of each of these disciplines shows thinkers interpretations. By engaging in bilinear thinking we to be constantly shuttling between (and arguing for maintain a certain intellectual flexibility and keep one pole) of a series of contrasting pairs of ourselves open to wider possibilities of thought, “opposites,” such as idealism and materialism, attitude and discovery. Ultimately, we may come to essentialism and nominalism, theism and atheism, free­will and determinism, factual science and SD: I have discussed the relationship between hermeneutics. My view, however, is that instead of Kabbalah and psychotherapy in a prior interview naming incommensurable positions, such published on my website, www.newkabbalah.com. conceptual pairs actually involve fully To answer your question, I don’t think that the interdependent ideas. Thus my own philosophical process of psychotherapy is aimed directly at the project has been to argue for the interdependence world’s redemption or repair, but I do believe that of ideas that philosophers, psychologists, and the Tikkun of an individual will certainly contribute theologians typically regard as contradictory, or at to the Tikkun of the world. To my way of thinking, least mutually exclusive. I have, for example, the ultimate goal of psychotherapy is not the cure written about such complementarity with respect of psychological symptoms but a change in to the psychological “antinomies” of public attitude, whereby the individual becomes more observabilty and introspection, facts and deeply open and reflective about his/her own and interpretations, elementism and holism, free­will others’ experience, becomes less blinded by and determinism, knowledge and essential dogma and prejudices, more accepting of unknowability, etc. (Journal of Humanistic difference, and achieves greater empathy and Psychology 43:4, 2003, compassion for self and others. A further result of http://www.newkabbalah.com/frag.pdf). I have also psychotherapy is that the individual becomes less argued, in my book Kabbalah and reactive and more therapeutic towards those he or Postmodernism, that on a more fundamental level she encounters and thus encourages others to the opposing ideas that there is and there is not a also live their lives in a more reflective, less sustainable distinction between words and things prejudiced and more compassionate way. As I are themselves interdependent ideas. Ultimately, have stated earlier, I read the Lurianic Kabbalah my view is that a rational understanding of the as leading to an “open economy” of experience interdependence of ideas that are thought to be and thought, and thus to the furtherance of what I mutually exclusive permits us to “listen to the am calling the therapeutic attitude. As more echo” of the primal unity that was sundered by individuals adopt this attitude (whether through logic and language, and to climb the ladder of therapy, education, or other means) the world rational mystical ascent to that primal unity. moves closer towards Tikkun. In a recent book, Stephen Pinker suggests that as bad as the world Now, such “unity” is of course, itself part of a pair, now is it is actually a whole lot better and much with “difference,” and thus the mystical or less violent and dangerous than it used to be, in Hegelian notion that unity is somehow “Absolute” part, because as a result of education and media, itself requires critique. I must confess that in spite people have come to experience and accept of my personal predilection for closure and while I difference and develop empathy and compassion believe that unity and difference are themselves for people who are dissimilar to themselves. I interdependent I have no way of rationally bringing believe that psychotherapy has and will continue the dialectic to an end, and that I must, finally, to contribute to this trend. resort to thinking bilinearly, i.e. both mystically and deconstructively. In this sense I resonate with the CX: You have worked as a psychologist with passage in Jung’s Red Book, where he speaks of criminals in Bellevue’s prison ward. Can you the “Supreme Meaning” as the melting together of tell us how Kabbalah helped you work with the sense and nonsenses, meaning and chaos. criminals you encountered there? However, even here Jung’s use of the term “Supreme meaning” shows his own preference for SD: The patients I saw at Bellevue were rarely on an absolute. my unit for more than several weeks and I had to develop a mode of interacting with them that took CX: Do you view your psychotherapy as this seriously into account. I concluded that it was working toward the completion of Tikkun ha­ best to focus upon my own attitude and Olam (the restoration of the world)? behavior—endeavoring to take a respectful, concerned, but realistic therapeutic course, one must guard against projecting one’s attitude—rather than always working to directly own goals, passions and distortions on the other, change their thinking and behavior. I also tried to but in general I have not found this to be a spread a bit of good cheer and for many years ran problem. In working with the patients at Bellevue I a music group on the ward, where I played guitar began to ask questions that differed from the and led them in singing the sort of oldies that standard clinical interview and mental status seemed to be a universal language in New York inquiries, questions like “Have you ever been in City. I also encouraged them to do their own love?” or “Tell me about an activity, place or singing, playing and performances in that group, relationship where you found that you could really many of which were quite impressive. I recall that be yourself,” and this proved very fruitful. once we had a musician on the unit who the other inmates compared to Jimi Hendrix and he CX: How would Kabbalah help an individual mesmerized us all with his virtuoso performance who has just undergone trauma in his/her life? on my old Guild acoustic guitar. SD: This is an interesting question. I don’t think One of the ethical implications of the Lurianic that reading about or even practicing Kabbalah Kabbalah, is that one’s actions should always be should be a substitute for obtaining counseling or directed towards liberating sparks of divine and other professional help for the psychological human creative energy from their entrapment in effects of a trauma or any other deep the Kellipot or husks. Indeed, the liberation of the psychological wound or difficulty. As a sparks constitutes the actualization of the sefirotic psychologist, however, I am inspired by the values (wisdom, knowledge, understanding, loving Lurianic notion that trauma (i.e. the Shevirah or kindness, judgment, beauty/ compassion, etc.) “Breaking of the Vessels”) is a normal, even that were alienated from the godhead and human essential part of both the cosmogenic and life personality as a result of the Breaking of the process, and that trauma, if handled in a positive Vessels. Throughout my years at Bellevue (and manner paves the way for Tikkun, a far richer, since) I have tried to be conscious of this charge, deeper and more meaningful life and world. I have and I often ask myself if an action I am about to found this to be true in my own life—that those take or words that I am about to say will serve this occasions that I experienced what seemed to be a end, or, rather, sink the world (or the person I am complete rupture along the path of my life journey interacting it) deeper into the Sitra Achra and the turned out to be heralds and opportunities for the world of the Kellipot. I’m sure I fail to do this as very things in my life that I now value the most. much as I succeed, but this is essentially Fortunately, I have not experienced anything like equivalent to taking the “therapeutic attitude” I the unspeakable traumas I have seen in some of spoke about just a few moments ago. One my patients’ lives but I have found the general particularly interesting aspect of the attitude is principle holds for them as well, over the long what I have come to call therapeutic vision, “the term. rebbe principle,” which I derived from observing and reading about the late Lubavitcher rebbe’s CX: Last question. The variety of pursuits you interactions with those who came to him for take on is staggering! How do you have time to advice. The main idea here is that in interacting master so many subjects? with another, in particular patients, clients or students, one observes and listens to them with By slowing down, and taking the time that is the thought of intuiting their hidden passion, and a necessary for each. Life sometimes seems very concomitant creative, intellectual, or other human short, but I believe that for most of us the Eibisther potential that they have not as yet fully actualized. (Yiddish for the “One Above”) actually gives us Then, through dialog, feedback and plenty of time, but we must take the time that is encouragement, one helps to move them along necessary to effectively complete our tasks. toward realizing that passion or potential. Of MS Be a part of Christianxiety.

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Contact christianxiety@gmail. com for more information. Refections on War 3 (L), Rozalimas Cemetary (R) Both by author. Wooden Synagogues of Lithuania

by Joyce Ellen Weinstein The wooden synagogues of Lithuania are rotting waiting with a small bouquet of wild flowers she away. Today, there are only eight wooden had picked for me. With tears in her eyes she synagogues (of hundreds) still standing in remote embraced me and said, “I want to apologize for villages: Pakruojis, Tirksliai, Seda, Zeizmariai, the terrible things that were done to your people,” Kurkliai, Alanta, Rozalimas and Kaltinenai. – my people who were decimated during the Holocaust and later during the Soviet occupation. I became aware of these wooden synagogues while reading about the history of Lithuania before Upon arriving at a village, Lilia would ask a local my first trip there in the summer of 2000. I where the wooden synagogue is located. Our attempted some research on the buildings but visits to the villages created a variety of found almost nothing written about them, even responses. Typically, the first response would be, though they were at one time beautiful structures “I don’t know­­ there is no wooden synagogue that were integral to the life of the villages. The here.” Eventually, someone would recall the more I looked, the less I found. Since I always location of the building. Some people were loved a great challenge, and since much of my reluctant to talk with us at first ­ but then, wouldn’t recent art work has been based on Jewish history, stop, as if they needed to unburden themselves. I became obsessed with the idea of finding and Others literally ran away, when we told them what documenting these structures. we wanted. Still others just stood nearby and listened. In Pakruojis two drunken men sitting on I soon learned that although efforts have been their porch yelled very loudly at us in a threatening made to raise money for synagogue restoration, way. One woman made it very clear that Jews the remaining Jewish community in Lithuania is never occupied the house she was living in, even much too small to mobilize efforts. Money is in though it was right next to the synagogue and short supply, and no one is certain whether the clearly in the Jewish quarter. In Rozalimas, a buildings belong to the municipality, township or woman thought it funny that she is now living in region in which they are located. With my guide the house once occupied by the Rabbi and and interpreter, Lilia Jureviciene, provided by laughed as she spoke about it. Nevertheless, and Europos Parkas Open Air Museum of the Center perhaps surprisingly, most people we spoke to of Europe, I was able to visit five of the eight praised their Jewish neighbors. They said “We all synagogues. It was an affecting adventure, loved the Jews. They always helped people by moving in more ways than I had ever imagined. giving them things and money. We can’t understand why such terrible things happened.” The photos I took during my visits to the wooden synagogues are mostly exterior views, although Records show that Jews were already settled in there are occasional shots of interiors, when I Lithuania well before the fourteenth century. In the could get inside. As a visual artist I find the mid­sixteenth century Lithuania and Poland synagogues and the stories about them merged under common government and inspirational and have included some shots of my legislation. During the late sixteenth and art work based on this theme. An additional photo seventeenth centuries, the complex political is of a small abandoned cemetery that lay outside relationship of Poland, Lithuania and Russia (a the village of Rozalimas. Taken to the site by our subject well outside the scope of this article) new found friend from the village, Ola Vitekunene, brought many more Jews to Lithuania, mostly from I was instructed to walk up the hill she pointed to. Poland. One of the first buildings constructed in There I found several ancient Jewish gravestones each new Shtetl was the synagogue. covered with dirt, grass and weeds. A couple of stones were still standing, but most were toppled According to Rosa Bielioiskiene, Chief Curator of over, lying on the ground under the debris. Greatly the Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum, the newest moved, I remained in the cemetery for quite a of the synagogues is close to one hundred years while. When I descended from the hill, I found Ola old. The oldest of these Baroque buildings, dating from the seventeenth century, were in Valkininkai, imagery as they went along. The artists would Jubarkas, Saukenai and Vilkaviskis, villages that work on the decoration after finishing a day’s are scattered throughout the country. These work. It is possible that someone a little more villages had sizable Jewish populations and in prosperous in the village requested and paid for some cases were completely Jewish. Construction the work, but most probably it was purely a labor of wooden synagogues continued until the early of love. (This is only an educated assumption) part of the twentieth century, with more than Experts now characterize the decoration in the twenty­three constructed between the nineteenth synagogues as “folk art.” and the early twentieth centuries. After WWI almost nine percent of the total population of In Kurkliai, a village of 117 families, located about Lithuania was ethnic Jewish and up until the 100 kilometers northwest of Vilnius, we found the Second World War there were 500 to 600 different synagogue behind several very old wooden kinds of Jewish prayer houses in the country. cottages. Built somewhere between 1915 and 1939, it is similar in style to eighteenth­century Because of the abundance of forestland in Poland, Romanticist/Historicist architecture. The square the settlers were experienced in using wood. building is one story, with a little corner tower with Lithuania’s vast woodland (similar to Poland’s in a small peaked roof that accommodated stairs to its magnitude) made construction of the the women’s balcony. The façade is plain with synagogues simple and affordable. There is no some elements of Moorish styling in the window definitive evidence as to whether Jews or frames; narrow and high with a peaked triangle as Lithuanians actually built the structures, but it is a crown. A Star of David can be seen on the generally assumed that Jews at least ordered the facade of the building. It is not known what the construction to their specifications. They were able glass in the windows actually looked like. Today to tell the workers how to build what they wanted. the windows are boarded up. Later, into the twentieth century, professionals and architects were hired. The interiors of most of the synagogues have been destroyed, but we can infer the layout. Generally, wooden synagogues took on the Based on measurements of the building in appearance of barns so as not be conspicuous. To Kurkliai, technical plans were drawn by a Mr. P. avoid competition with the churches located in the Jurenas in 1935. He concluded that the center of town, synagogues were usually erected synagogue was divided into two rooms, one in areas reserved for the Jewish quarter. But there slightly larger than the other. The plans indicate are conflicting stories about where Jews lived. the staircase to the women’s balcony. In Kurkliai, According to some people we interviewed, Jews as in other villages, during the Soviet occupation were scattered throughout the village and lived the synagogue was used as a warehouse and near their shops, wherever they were located. storage building for cars, horses, pigs and other Others claimed Jews lived in specific areas. In animals. either case, for safety, buildings were enclosed and monumental. In earlier times there were no What makes the Kurkliai synagogue remarkable is significant details on the façade to identify them. that the inside has been cleaned. Angele Dudiene, a secondary school teacher, has become the The interiors of some of the synagogues were village specialist in Jewish history. She teaches elaborately decorated. It is probable that except the subject in her classes.A compassionate for very early on, Jews painted the interiors. They person with considerable initiative, she took it might have seen the elaborate ornamentation upon herself to mobilize some of the townspeople inside neighboring churches and used that model and students to help clean up the synagogue. She to create their own decorations. However, there made the villagers aware of the building as a was no special tradition or imagery for the Jewish religious institution. “This,” she says, “is reason artists to draw upon so they had to invent the enough to restore it.” During the cleaning she found old newspapers and documents, including important role in Lithuania’s cultural history. The some unspecified objects that she gave to the European Heritage Days Council of Europe, a Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum in Vilnius. major event planned for September, has appointed Lithuania to choose the team for Jewish It is common for one person in the village to hold Cultural Heritage Awareness. Seminars, lectures the key to the synagogue, sometimes the mayor. and other events have been planned to educate Usually, however, the person who holds the key is and raise consciousness. According to Ms someone who lives right near the synagogue. In Varnaite, the launching of cultural tourism, Zeismarai the key to the synagogue is held by an protection of monuments and education are top eighty­two year old Russian woman. She was priorities. She says, “It important to begin now once the caretaker of animals that were stored in while the material heritage is still in the memories the shul by the local veterinarian during the Soviet of the people.” But a dilemma remains. If the occupation. She says, “I hold the key because I synagogues are restored, what will they be am such a good person. Ask anyone in the village restored to? What will they become? Some what a good person I am. They will all tell you this suggestions include multicultural centers, is true.” museums or art schools. One village had considered turning its old synagogue into a disco, The synagogue in Zeismarai is quite large, with but was short on funds. three or four rooms on the lower floor. Although we were able to go inside it is impossible to tell Although the idea of a discothèque synagogue exactly how many rooms there were. The walls might seem bazaar, transforming the synagogues and beams are collapsing, torn down or lying on into a public attraction might be a pragmatic way the ground. Trash is everywhere. There is a to preserve the synagogues and keep them from second floor but it is completely inaccessible. total collapse. (Granted, a disco hardly seems like Because of the size of the structure it is assumed the answer.) There are very few Jews left in that the Jews in the village were prosperous. On Lithuania and none who still remain in the villages. one of the doors one can still see a silhouette of The people that do remain, mostly in Vilnius and the mezuzah. According to a Russian friend of Kaunas, are not wealthy, so there is almost no mine, the Jews here were not ghettoized but lived money for any kind of reconstruction or care all over the town and owned a number of shops. taking. Nevertheless, preserving the buildings Now, she says, “The synagogue seems to stand would be an important reminder of what once was. more for a monument to the killing of Jews instead This would attach great importance to the legacy of a religious institution.” Last year some people of the vibrant cultural heritage of the Jews of from Israel, Moscow and the USA visited Lithuania, once called the Jerusalem of the North. Zeismarai and organized a candle­lit concert on And in a larger sense it would bring to the forefront the synagogue grounds. the recognition by the greater Lithuanian community to the historical value of the wooden Because of the curious attitudes of the people we synagogues not only for Jews but for Lithuanians encountered and the uncertainty surrounding the as well. question of the synagogues, I resolved to learn the government’s official position on the subject. I BornandraisedinNYC,JoyceEllenWeinsteinmovedtotheWashington,DCareain1988.Her gained easy access to Ms. Diana Varnaite, worksareinpermanentcollectionsintheUSAandEurope.Sheisamongtheartistsincludedin Director of the Department of Cultural Heritage of 'FixingtheWorld:JewishAmericanArtistsoftheTwentiethCentury',publishedbytheBrandies Lithuania, and Mr. Alfredas Jomantas, Head of DivisionofNewEnglandUniversityPressandTheBookasArt,NationalMuseumofWomenin International Cooperation, Department of Cultural theArts.Shehasreceivedmanyhonorsandawards.In2007shewasnamedaFulbrightSenior Heritage Protection. According to these high SpecialistCandidate,threetimesfinalistandonetimewinnerMetroDCDanceAwardsforScenic officials, the government of Lithuania is taking Design.JoyceEllenWeinsteinisrepresentedbyTheWashingtonPrintmakersGallery, serious steps to raise awareness of the rich Washington,DC,andPhoenixGallery,Chelsea,NY. cultural heritage left by the Jews and their http://www.joyceellenweinstein.com. Poetry by George J. Farrah

"Green City #14" Art by author.

GeorgeJ.FarrahreceivedanMFAfromBardCollege,NY.

HisworkhasappearedinTheWashingtonReview,Open24Hrs.,Ribot,BUGHOUSE,FourteenHills,DisturbedGuillotine,Tight, Aileron,FishDrum,TheColumbiaPoetryReview;CaldronAndNet,Moria,CROWD,Xstream,MORIA,Ampersand,Elimae, BlazeVOX,BHOusevol.2,BlueandYellowDog,Experiential­ExperimentalLiterature,LosMagazine,AnemoneSidecar(early winter2012)andothers.

Formoreofhispoetryandpaintingsvisit:http://www.georgejosephfarrah.com/index.html "Flyby #27" Art by author. Lemon Grass How Often do We Print This

Where pebbles are my body he said How often is it printed do we and a lover of bones print this the car goes by fast and old things the heat escapes compounds you down the middle want cake chocolate beer wine water something else a skinny girl mountain who are you now in the heat? next to a you don’t know or care bull of a father you are happy in the flies and wind & long grass you are not safe anymore there are always these signs directing us advising us she said encouraging a life change with product smiling into the gong which are the teeth in the weather we are in warm cold indifferent of the old house icon of the scratched by the emptiness again & again rusting field where do we go now that it’s over again who do we call legs open or closed stretched or bent all into the wind elbows up or down hands holding we who are the heart of a widow or just breathing we are waiting cut across the white rice city hungry or tired we are sleepy but not tired until the smallest one yet we are too full too empty & busy arrives like hair does too full & tired were can we go and she turns her back lists of things to do that occur and her blouse turns black that have occurred that are occurring where do we fit in in all of that and goodbye is a stage we are bored but hungry below the highest nation we are sleepy and well rested and like an aged Persian we are sore so sore the man riding into the but we ache to move some more match box we ache for it to begin all night and day for it to be over wears his cloths like a river we ache to just be in there through your darkness in it in us he pilots a call with everyone & everything anger and love unfolding for us alone and not for us at all and useful bickering we are disquiet disrupted water and quiet trees opening inflamed and fused in the bed next to her we are always wanting the young wall to stop waiting of a thunderstorm as the day’s light arks past or the night ticks its starlight by a guest upon our skin a singer of white light we hold ourselves up chickens looking like their fields each other the bag of a green king and lay down who’s looking for a waitress holding the time within us the water and red sun learning to let it go again and you’re still alive we find each other in the new dark while the Spring never wavers "Housecard" Art by author. Notes On Migration

Birds in a hat in the dog wood and red brick in a fist what was that her mouth it’s a push a stasis a stain against my chest

a boat crimped in the sky

an inconvenient conversation with that well come the a wire above the garbage outside iron flutter dangling no current of old mouths but dark and curling welcome the city you’ve been a long circling

a cat on the log sleep (clawing) a wag lifting

where are the questions the loosen asking themselves silly lit things and dark and unrelenting ? that arc and hunger over fortune you are a brick but are almost in the forest too thin to happen contained the crawlers growing in walkers and flyers more rooted seek security

wet and dry well come me stone fish of the baking eastern bridge

nightfall east of you I am going into my cradle now for my weapons or something like that “the whole empire hard to tell anyone is not big enough” talking on the roof Who will know peace? years ago skin sutras What is the definition again? drugged What length or times or place describe the difficulty? imbalance Wine clouds of the riders? The rich? Friends of the recruits? & three in love with traces different slicing you endings? opening toward the sunset Waving good­bye to the deep mountains where we have made are stoves of ashes our home

storms in opposite They say we have come a long way directions to say nothing in particular

“a perfect place You left for country folk” in a hurry happy an argument while you could

you think the only while the river thing that makes sense was cold and empty. Next issue out Spring 2012

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