Akedah secular source

12/22, 4pm
    A young man, university-age, approached the Reference Desk, and asked for information on the akedah. At first I thought he meant Acadia, but he explained that it is Isaac's binding (the binding that Abraham used to bind Isaac before the sacrifice). He wanted a "secular source," he explained when I suggested the Encyclopedia Judaica, which he had at his table. He also has a Christian source he got from the Internet; when I asked him if he thought it a reliable source he pointed out that he'll explain in his paper that it is an electronic source, and, indeed, it is that sort of source that he needs. Makes sense.

    OPAC searches revealed that HW's book on it was gone and billed; his deadline is tonight ("I like to leave papers for the last minute."). I suggested database searches, and gave him 296.14 as the call number of the book that is not there, the religion call number (actually 296 is Judaism). He thanked me, and went back to his table, laptop and assignment.
 
    Remembering Tikkun, I went to to the site and searched; plenty of results. I searched ProQuest and also found many results (Galenet gave 4 results).
 
    Walked over to the table where he's sitting, and told him about Tikkun, "it's a liberal Jewish publication." As soon as I said the word Jewish the Orthodox Jew sitting at the next table turned around to look at me.
 
    O, and the students first name is Solomon; I told him mine is Salomon.

Bells, Saffron and Elephant

Monday was the last day of a five-day ceremony reconsecrating the Ganesha Temple in Flushing, Queens.







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As priests poured holy water on the sacred statues, the faithful rushed to catch drops. The temple honors Ganesha, the elephant-faced deity.

The Long Road to Infinity

Giordano Bruno
By Ingrid D. Rowland
(Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 335 pages, $27)

Was he a megalomanic, a crackpot, a genius or a martyr to science? Over the years, Giordano Bruno has been characterized in all sorts of ways. The short, scrappy Neopolitan was certainly a maverick thinker who challenged the pieties of his day. For his pains, he was incinerated at the stake in Rome, naked and gagged, a kind of a sacrifice to the papal jubilee of 1600.

In "Giordano Bruno," the classicist Ingrid Rowland offers a series of brilliant vignettes tracing this peripatetic figure from his birthplace outside Naples, to the Dominican convent in Naples itself where he studied for the priesthood (he was ordained in his mid-20s), to Geneva, Toulouse, Paris, Oxford, London, Wittenberg, Prague, Frankfurt, Zurich and – finally and dangerously – Venice and Rome.

Early in his studies, Bruno was arraigned before the Inquisition for, among other things, reading forbidden books. Over time, he flirted with Calvinism and later with Lutheranism when he was residing among German scholars. He was excommunicated from both churches. (It is important to note that Bruno was born in 1548, only three decades after Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg church door.) He gave lectures on logic and metaphysics and taught at various universities. He wrote many small books on a variety of subjects, often in a poetical style. Eventually, Bruno sought reconciliation within the Catholic fold, only to end his life with eight years of imprisonment and execution for heresy.

Rescuing the Bible

Do you have Rescuing the Bible from fundamentalism: a bishop rethinks the meaning of Scripture / John Shelby Spong. here? he asked without any formalities or chit-chat. A tall man wearing a big yamulke and a serious look, a white sweater, and traces of whiskers, approached the Reference Desk a bit after 3 this afternoon.

No, as it happens, only two libraries in Nassau County own said book. He went to the stacks to look in the 220.6 area, but returned soon, unsatisfied with what he had found. In a loud voice he asserted that the reason we do not have Rescuing the Bible is because "orthodox parents do not want their kids reading" such books. He then wondered if perhaps some books that such people object to have been checked out and never returned.

He told me of having a discussion with a rabbi, who rebuffed his assertions by refusing to discuss them. "It's blind faith," he asserted emphatically, "not just faith."

I found several entries and told him to look and see if any books there satisfied him. He seemed not just willing, but insistent, on arguing the point. Good to see such passion and vehemence.