On Tourists, Observers and Readers

From Friedrich Nietzsche's, "Beyond Good and Evil"

Even in the midst of the strangest experiences we still do the same: we make up the major part of the experience and can scarcely be forced not to contemplate some event as its "inventors." All this means: basically and from time immemorial we are - accustomed to lying. Or to put it more virtuously and hypocritically, in short, more pleasantly: one is much more of an artist than one knows.

With this quote I offer a disclaimer and a justification for the blog's title. The following posts will make no attempt at assertions of the truth of the matter. I merely offer possible interpretations, mostly of the texts I spend my days and nights studying, Talmud and Midrash and sometimes of related ancient Christian and Greco-Roman literature. Occasionally I venture out into the world of current events, politics and the like. I like this quote from Nietzsche because it allows me the pleasure of thinking of myself as an artist in the act of interpreting. It seems necessary for it saves me from the dread I feel when I realize just how vast the ancient Jewish corpus is and helps to attenuate the anxiety I feel whenever I am engaged in pinning down any Rabbinic idea, phrase, or word. Artistry is also apt for it encompasses the emotive quality of the interpretive endeavor and the bodily affects that come with the creative process, especially when I am dealing with things I feel so inextricably tied to by gut and heritage... and yet I gaze at them as a flaneur.