“When I was a student in yeshiva, I asked one of the rabbis why Jews talk so much. We were studying Talmud, and I was trying to understand the comprehensive, obsessive inquiry into questions from the minuscule and seemingly pedestrian–are the water cisterns adjacent to a house included in the price of its sale?–to the transcendent, like what is the nature of God. “Jewish time is circular, so we work to make things perfect for the next time around,” he replied, before adding world-wearily: “Also, we don’t believe in perfection.””
— Alana Newhouse, NYT Book Review of Stranger in a Strange Land by George Prochnik (via spikenards)














