let's try to do nuance

[Michael Eisenstadt]

Pepi,

Thanks for writing at length about this.

No, I don't speak it.

In Hebrew school (to prepare for confirmation at 13
for the sake of my religious grandmother who would 
have had a fit if I wasn't confirmed), we used to say
Baruch ator, I don't know anymore.

Baruch ator are the first 2 words of all the prayers. 
Actually we worked our way through quite a bit of 
Genesis reading it in the original which was my original
introduction to the ENORMOUS charm of reading a 
foreign language.When I slowly worked my way through 
one of the books of the Iliad in the original many years 
later, I thought back to Miss Snow with the enormous 
boobs driving us like Gadarene swine through the beginning
of the bible.

As for your and your sisters' previous lives, that sounds 
like hard work.

Let me get this straight: the jews burnt in the ovens 
came back as the Plowman sisters (or some of the
Plowman sisters); the Nazis who died came back as 
Israelis.

I still come back to this simple question: if you and your
sisters love all people all that much, how do you come
to the conclusion that the Israelis are reborn Nazis?

You write:

> But may you not hate too much, it's bad for the soul
> (I know, you don't believe in its existence.  Oh,
> well, so be it).

I'm not the hater. I was taking exception to other folks'
hatred. Is that allowed in your scheme of things?

And yes, it is totally bad for the soul. I believe in the
existence of the soul, I just don't believe in its survival
after death. That's for cowards who don't want to 
accept that they must die and stay dead.

And I aint got no agenda. If you or others want to 
believe in up to 5 impossible things before breakfast
like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, hey! be
my guest!

Best,

Mike

P.S. When it comes to learning foreign languages, unless
one is a very talented linguini, you hafta choose which 
one or two or three is it is worth learning in terms of
what's written in said languages. Having been an Asian monk
in a previous life, have you learnt or remembered how to
speak or read Asian monk books? Or is that considered 
unnecessary.