Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Kon Tiki of mind

In the course of my last conversations on kankanchadash.blogspot.org I noticed a need for a calibrating of well known terms (Shmo ha-gadol, Ahava,Yira,tzelem etc). I recalled a project that I meant to do at the very beginning of my site in 2007,but never quite got done. I originally spoke of a new series of posts with a strategy specifically focused on experiential epiphanies a la Adam ha-rishon. My intent was to capture Adam's fundamental sense of problem with "naming" his world subsequently resolved through insight. I call this project Kon Tiki of mind, in honor of the famous Thor Heyerdahl who sought to recapture Ancient notions by reliving their experience. Here too we will seek to recapture the ancient experience of Mesorah by a guided "reliving the naming" involved with key Torah experiences.

Each stop on the Kon Tiki voyage will focus on one "term" that will be grounded in its appropriate story. The first will be "tzelem" the unique soul of man grounded, appropriately, in Adam's naming of the animals.

2 comments:

Matt said...

Rabbi Sacks,

Sounds good! I was actually going to ask you to compile a dictionary of sorts for the terms you frequently use. However, I knew that just stating the definitions without context would be virtually meaningless. I'm glad you've found a solution to this problem.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks said...

Ok Matt. Terms might get more than one post. Tzelem will get at least two, one definitive in Rambam context then in more experiential Chumash fashion.