There’s a Jewish belief that changing a name can change someone’s fortune, as though that name change represents a break from the past or from a difficult destiny. The origins of this belief are scattered throughout the Bible.

You can trawl the internet for treasures, and you will find them. A perfect picture of Mt. Hood on a cloudless day when the snow sparkles from miles away, or that sweater on Instagram you’ve been searching for. Maybe a meme that makes you laugh out loud on a humorless day. You can trawl the internet for treasures, and many do, but it’s the serendipity of the found object that really thrills me.

Peshita. Peshita is this fabulous Talmudic shorthand that instructs us to look past the obvious. Literally, it means “simple,” and its implications are that a given explanation is so obvious and clear that it would be unnecessary to even mention it. Instead, when the Talmud says peshita about some concept, it is actually asking us to seek the novel insight that isn’t obvious. What can we learn by looking past our first assumptions?

George was sick the day I took over for him at Kibbutz Ramat HaShofet, which is also the day I came to a new understanding of our ancestors Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses. But I am getting ahead of myself.

Who are the Jews? This is the sort of question that has generated countless answers. There is the historical approach, which will track our origins at least to an ancient Egyptian stele, or stone column, with an inscription that mentions how they “laid waste” to the Kingdom of Israel, thousands of years ago. There is a biological answer as there are definite genetic markers that the priestly class of kohenim carry. There of course is a religious answer, in which the Jews offer to the world the purest, earliest form of monotheism.

An Israeli election in which a far-right demagogue gains power. Upcoming American and local elections which will redraw assumptions. Fear of crime and homelessness. Skyrocketing gas and food prices. A regional war in Ukraine that is spreading its impact to all corners of the globe. Kyrie Irving, Kanye West, and the rising tide of antisemitism.

Ye, the rap musician formerly known as Kanye West, has been in the news recently after a long and continuous slew of antisemitic diatribes. His vitriolic hatred encouraged others, as shown by a banner that hung over a Los Angeles freeway that stated, “Kanye West is right about the Jews.” The banner hangers accompanied their action with a Nazi salute.