Pro­duc­ing con­tent on the Web since 1995.


some say­ings of ר‘משבצונה“ל

For many years I have worked hard, and strug­gled with mas­ter­ing virtuous. Now, in addi­tion, I’m work­ing on becom­ing more virtual.
This is an expres­sion of that effort.
* * * * * * *

השיבנו ה‘ אליך ונשובה חדש ימינו
כעוד לא היו
* * * * * * *
ומביא גאלה…
לצאצאיהם

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All pho­tographs are by Mark Hurvitz unless they are obvi­ously not.

The pho­tos in the ban­ner at the top (only a shal­low sliver of a much larger photo) are either from our home or our trav­els and are offered for their beauty alone (though a brain-teaser for me: “Where was that?”).

davka flickr

st. paintings

At least three col­ors of painted mes­sages on the pave­ment. By the time there are three col­ors that fit within the photo, none can have any “mean­ing” what remains is the pattern.

davka flickr

3 pavements

Three pave­ments poured next to each other (con­tigu­ous), but not at a prop­erty line.

promise of dawn

dark morn­ings

As the north­ern hemi­sphere moves deeper into win­ter with less light for each day, our morn­ings begin near dawn. This is a beau­ti­ful time of begin­nings and promise. While the sounds we hear each morn­ing are not those of birds chirp­ing and chil­dren learn­ing, but the clank­ing of men at work, even these call […]

keep those cards coming

chang­ing technologies

Most peo­ple who know me under­stand that I am not averse to tech­no­log­i­cal change. I have been inter­ested in how com­mu­ni­ca­tions tech­nolo­gies have been used and changed for many years. In June of 2010, I wrote about my involve­ment in the devel­op­ment of what I called “the elec­tronic leaflet”. When I was in college […]

what's the difference between 48 and 11?

back then

I under­stand that dur­ing the first half of the 20th cen­tury not even the major­ity of world Jewry sup­ported a nation­al­ist solu­tion to Jew­ish exis­tence. Jew­ish work­ing class move­ments were gen­er­ally non-Zionist and many of the “lead­ers” of world Jewry were inter­na­tion­al­ists, look­ing for inter­na­tional solu­tions. Why, then, should I be sur­prised that the […]

a cold peace

where is this place מצרים? Is it the Egypt we know?

I ask these ques­tions in my Hag­gadah. And I answer:

Yes, though only the name of the place is the same, the peo­ple have changed. In fact we are at peace and allied with the Egypt of today.
The Egypt of the Hag­gadah is more than a place, […]

now is the time for change

the month of elul אלול has begun.

Bradley Burston writes:

in Israel, the future can come down to just one night

Actu­ally, every­where in the world our future is deter­mined by the actions at each of the moments we live them. Nonethe­less, tonight (Sep­tem­ber 3, 2011) after Shab­bat in Israel: ה אלול תשע”א, peo­ple all over the coun­try are expected […]

…the real thing?

can you speak for 3 min­utes on any subject?

Early in our stud­ies at rab­binic school, one of our classes intended to make us bet­ter pub­lic speak­ers. Our instruc­tor was Hol­ly­wood actor Stan­ley Wax­man. He would often assign us the task of speak­ing extem­po­ra­ne­ously for three min­utes on any sub­ject he would present (usu­ally offer­ing one […]

& bring them close 2 #Torah">love humanity, & bring them close 2 #Torah

study­ing pirkei avot dur­ing the omer

Dur­ing the period of the Omer I have been study­ing Pirkei Avot. This is a tra­di­tional activ­ity for the period, but I have been doing it in a non-traditional man­ner. I take each Mish­nah and break it down into as few words as I can, yet still express a mean­ing­ful thought. […]

when?

…when­ever”

How often have we heard peo­ple respond in this way?

I’m always ready to go out and enjoy life. But, the daily alarm of the sho­far in Elul reminds us to mix those plea­sures, and that time is…

Lena Horne [from notes on the Idel­sohn Society’s blog, to which I can­not link directly] sang this song “Now!,” written […]

which jews…?

I found this image on a crazy anti-Zionist site:

Which ‘Jews’ do you believe are the descen­dants of the bib­li­cal ‘Israelites’?

to which I answer:

All are Jews! I am not a racist.

The site may also be anti-Semitic, it sure feels that way, but I’ve not had a chance to study it thoroughly.

What is Zion­ism?
Zion­ism is […]

the electronic leaflet

from prayer­book to leaflet

I have been involved in writ­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing leaflets at least since 1966 when our fam­ily com­posed a leaflet [text] we dis­trib­uted in front of our congregation’s Yom Kip­pur obser­vance call­ing atten­tion to the war in Vietnam.

The Hurvitz Family’s Yom Kip­pur Leaflet call­ing for an end to the war in Vietnam (1966)

Dur­ing […]