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Due to a massive influx of spam comments (we’re talking thousands), I’ve had to turn off comments for this blog. Luckily, it’s not much of a discussion blog so comments aren’t overly necessary. From God To Verse is now available on Amazon as an ebook for $5, all of Genesis still remains free to view in the archives on this site, and if you have anything you need to tell me, feel free to drop me an email.

From God To Verse: The Rap!

Well, the ebook edition of From God To Verse launched earlier this year, and in celebration of that fact, I commissioned a rap about sacred texts from one of my favorite rappers, MC Abdominal. He even named it after my book! So please go take a listen to this insightful and lyrically masterful rap:

MC Abdominal: From God To Verse

eBook edition! Plus new poetry!

Hello there.

I guess it has been 8 years since I posted on this site? Well, since the pandemic started, time seems more of a nebulous construct than ever. I have returned with two pieces of big news, however.

First: From God To Verse is getting an ebook edition!

Coming on Sept. 6th in ebook form!

If you like the idea of From God To Verse, but wish it could fit in your pocket instead of being a giant tome, or wish you could just click “Genesis 23” and have the chapter instantly show up instead of having to flip through the book, or just wish the book was less expensive… good news! The ebook edition will work on kindles and phones and other ebook readers, has all chapters hyperlinked from the table of contents, and will be a full 80% off the cover price of the print edition. You can pre-order now and get the full ebook version of From God To Verse for just $5 starting September 6th, 2021 (in just a few weeks).

My second big announcement is that during this pandemic, I’ve been writing some poetry that (mostly) doesn’t rhyme. I’ve gathered my favorites into a collection of short poems that I’ve put together as a new book:

poems from a pandemic — but not all about it!

My hope is that these poems speak to the human condition, and they really cover the gamut from pessimistic to hopeful, from the ridiculous to the thought-provoking, and on topics of all sorts from spiders to food to love. The price of this new book of poetry is $15 and is only available in print copies. You may purchase it through Amazon, or directly through Cyberwit.net, the publisher of this book, with whom I have arranged to donate 50% of all profits to COVID relief in India where they are located.

So I thank you for reading, hope you might enjoy one (or ideally, both!) of these books of my poetry, and most importantly, bid us all health and safety in these difficult times.

Whoever saves a life, saves the entire world

The title of this post is an old Talmudic maxim, and one I have been thinking about over the course of the past few weeks. Two weeks ago, someone on a gaming forum I frequent mentioned that his grandmother took care of concentration camp refugees in Sweden after the war. In response, another member of the forum revealed that he was a “Wallenberg Jew”. He explained that this meant that his father was saved by Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish architect who rescued thousands of Jews from Hungary during the holocaust with protective passports. This fellow on the forum pointed out that his siblings, their children, etc., are all Wallenberg Jews, generations springing from a single life saved. Multiplied by the number of people Wallenberg saved, the effect one man had on the world is truly amazing.

And he was not alone. Just last week, I came across information on another humanitarian during the holocaust named Irena Sendler. Sendler, a Polish social worker, saved thousands of children from the Warsaw Ghetto by smuggling them out and providing them with false identities and places to stay. When one extrapolates how many generations and people exist on this earth only because of her actions, it is a staggering thought.

Both Sendler and Wallenberg were designated “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel, a special honorific for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the holocaust. I’ve always had a special admiration for those who stand up for subgroups to which they do not belong, and surely risking one’s life to save others during the holocaust is the pinnacle of this. Wallenberg died a half-century ago, but Sendler passed away recently in 2008. Her story was much less well-known, until a few years ago when a project was founded to tell the world about Irena Sendler.

A single individual can change the world. There are probably many more people we’ve never heard of, whose names would never spark any recognition, yet who single-handedly made a difference in the world far greater than any dozen celebrities whose names we could rattle off. For me, hearing about two such people unrelatedly in the span of two weeks was a sign that the matter merited some attention. There’s a place called the Lowell Milken Center where they research and share the stories of other unsung heroes, and while their names may never be as famous as the trending pop culture icons, at the very least it’s good to add these names to the history books, and acknowledge the tremendous contributions they made.

L’Shanah Tovah

A happy healthy new year to all of you. In the past year my latest book about Rhode Island was released, I did some rhyming work for an educational company teaching children how to read, and I participated in a poetry festival. All wonderful things, to be sure, but I think my magnum opus so far remains this line-by-line rhyming version of the Torah. If you are coming to the site for the first time, admittedly I have not updated often, but it is my hope that the book mostly speaks for itself. If you have not yet taken a look, I encourage (beseech) you to do so.

5773

With the High Holidays now over, we’re into the midst of 5773, or for those of you who don’t use that calendar, we’re still into the midst of October. I know I haven’t done a lot with this site recently, although I have been busy working on an unrelated book about Rhode Island history that will be published next month. In the meantime, though, one of the advantages of the “eternal word” (as some call it) is that it doesn’t need current newsflashes and blogposts to remain relevant.

Hope you are all enjoying life as the year, the season, and the leaves, all turn.

Still loving thy neighbor

The Velveteen Rabbi has a lovely post about This week’s Torah portion: on loving our neighbors. As alluded to in my previous post, I see a lot of argument over religion in the world, but I’d be happy if people of all (and no) religions were able to come together on this issue. I’m fine with people who hold different beliefs about the nature/existence of God. My issue is with people who use their religious beliefs (regardless of how close they may or may not be to mine) as justification to treat some people as lesser.

Villanelle for National Poetry Month

Well, as you might suspect, the article referred to in the previous post never materialized. No matter.

The other week I was having an online conversation with a friend of a friend about morality (a subject dear to my heart), and we were discussing what might be universalizable. I said that while I don’t think there is any religion whose totality of moral teachings would be amenable to non-believers, the Biblical precept of “love thy neighbor as thyself” always struck me as a reasonable starting place, and we agreed that it would be a better world if people all showed compassion for and respect for the rights of their fellow humans, no matter what other differences they may have.

As I told some friends a few months ago, what I find most inspiring is when people stand up to improve the lives of others to whom they have no connection or shared affiliation save for their shared humanity. I am fortunate to have many friends out improving the world.

Anyway, this poem is some love for those who love their neighbors.

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Happy New Year

Well, Rosh Hashanah is upon us again. Just wanted to wish everyone a happy healthy. And I may soon have an interesting announcement regarding an article about my writing of this book. Don’t want to say more now, but I’ll certainly post something once I can say a bit more. In the meantime, I wish you all L’Shanah Tovah, and may the new year bring us all the things we hope for.

Still Here

Well, in spite of those who believed that today (May 21) was going to be the rapture, here we are still on Earth. It seems like an excellent time for me to remind you that the holy word is still available in rhyming form in a convenient book:

From God To Verse: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, in Rhyme

And while you’re waiting for that book to ship, you can start reading from Genesis 1 right here on my site. Sure, it doesn’t have the summaries or look as nice as the book does, but with all the main text of Genesis at your fingertips, it should tide you over until your package is dropped at the doorstep.