Giving My Patience a Try

B"H

More news on the fearless patience of Faith: My verbiage and I have become involved in a back-and-forth on the very well-named Passionate Life blog. It has raised some issues that I find interesting, among them the nature of compassion and the missionary instinct, which I think I'll write about at length here, G!d willing. Meanwhile, I find myself asking several questions of the thin air in front of me:

1. Does the Israeli ban on missionary efforts have the effect of dulling an essential Jewish sensitivity to the spiritual dangers of such efforts?

2. Is Consumer Culture fundamentally missionary?

3. If so, is Consumerism therefore fundamentally un-Jewish?

4. Does the burden of Consumer Choice (in particular, its requirement that we be informed) impair our capacity to wait patiently for Revelation?

5. Is it just me, or have we become very picky about what Gifts we will accept from G!d?

Thoughts?

Shalom Aleychem

B"H

I have begun the long process of mixing down the recordings for my new CD. Half of the songs are recorded -- the rest I plan to record in two weeks -- and my hope is to have a final mix for one of these each day this week and next. (We'll see how that goes... G!d willing it won't involve being up this late every night!)

As sort of a trial run, tonight I did my Friday night "Shalom Aleychem," which is not destined for this CD. I am moderately pleased with the result, though I hope to improve from here. Feedback is welcome and encouraged. Write me directly (joel at ashgroveaudiobook dot com) for a link to the demo mp3.

Layla tov.