Category: Uncategorized
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Experimenting With Substack
Hey folks, I’m experimenting with moving my writing to Substack for a bit, you can find me over there at miloandthecalf.substack.com There you’ll find more book reviews and essays as well as a weekly round up of what I’ve been reading, listening to and watching. I expect I’ll return to this website at some point,…
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Chabad Lubavitch
Chabad Lubavitch is one of the largest Hasidic movement in the world. Its leader Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, called for members of Chabad to bring secular Jews closer to Judaism by asking them to do mitzvahs (good deeds). Chabad has been immensely successful in its outreach and outposts of the organization…
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Your Occasional Stoic (3.5) If to your benefit as a rational being, adopt it; if to your benefit as an animal, reject it.
But if there is nothing better than the very god that is seated in you, which has brought all your own impulses under its control, which scrutinizes your thoughts, which has withdrawn itself, as Socrates used to say, from all inducements of the senses, which has subordinated itself to the gods and takes care for…
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Your Occasional Stoic (3.4) A Radical Empathy
3.4 He remembers the kinship of all rational beings, and that caring for all men is in accordance with man’s nature. Nevertheless, he should not hold to the opinions of all, but only of those who live their lives in agreement with nature. He will constantly remind himself what sort of people they are who…
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How I’m Reading in 2023 and Why It’s Different
For as long as I can remember, my reading habits have had three main pillars – I choose what I am going to read next randomly, I read one book at a time, and I finish everything I start. This year, I am going to experiment with doing things a bit differently. Here’s how. From…
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D’Var Torah for the first day of Rosh Hashanah
I was lucky enough to give a drash on the first day of Rosh Hashanah this year at the always amazing altshul. Here it is. As those of you who know me know, and those of you who don’t can probably guess from my name, I was not raised Jewish. I come to all of…
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2021: My Year In Books
2021, what a mess, right? We had our good days and our bad days, and somehow or other we got through. I was luckier than many, having the privilege to spend alot of time outside, and (occasionally) lounge with a book. As always, books were where I found solace. As I’ve said before, my reading…
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Kinzer’s Poisoner in Chief
Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind ControlStephen Kinzer Undoubtably the strangest, most disturbing, book I read this year. The story of Sydney Gottlieb and the early years of the CIA is almost too cruel, to horrible to really comprehend. Yes, I knew about MK Ultra (where the CIA drugged unsuspecting…
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von Straten’s In Search of Lost Books
In Search of Lost Books: The forgotten stories of eight mythical volumesGiorgio von Straten, Simon Carnell (Translator) A wonderful little book chronicling the stories of books lost to time. By “lost books” von Straten isn’t referring to rare books, or even books we know were published, but no longer have. Here’s he’s talking about the…
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Konnikova’s The Biggest Bluff
The Biggest Bluff: How I Learned to Pay Attention, Master Myself, and Win Maria Konnikova Perhaps the most fun I had reading a book this year. Here’s he premise: Konnikova, a New Yorker writer with a phd in psychology hires one of the world’s greatest poker player to teach her the game with the intent…
Milo and the Calf 