Open in app

Sign In

Write

Sign In

J. N.
J. N.

229 Followers

Home

About

May 4

Negative Coronation

Kings and Priests have a common unction of holy oil, a common spirit of sanctification, a common quality of benediction … whatever they do by virtue of this grace is not done by a man, but by a God and a Christ of the Lord. (Norman Anonymous, ca. 1100) L’opération…

6 min read

Negative Coronation
Negative Coronation

6 min read


Mar 28

Song of Songs 4–5.5: Translation and Commentary

In my senior year at Oberlin I was asked to prepare a twenty-verse section from the Hebrew Bible as the final assignment for a translation seminar. By then I was already immersed in my thesis work on a medieval commentary on the Song of Songs, and the choice of a…

Song Of Songs

6 min read

Song of Songs 4–5.5: Translation and Commentary
Song of Songs 4–5.5: Translation and Commentary
Song Of Songs

6 min read


Mar 22

Forms of Life: Poetry and Religion

In his essay “Pascoli and the Thought of the Voice” Giorgio Agamben treats a linguistic impulse in the poetry of Giovanni Pascoli toward what I will call archaism. …

Poetics

17 min read

Forms of Life: Poetry and Religion
Forms of Life: Poetry and Religion
Poetics

17 min read


Mar 16

Of a Veiled Sovereign

Royalty on earth is like royalty in heaven. (Berakhot 58a) 1. Arcana imperii Twice in the Annals Tacitus uses a phrase at once opaque and seductive: arcana imperii. Variously translated as “state secrets,” “secrets of imperial policy,” etc. the notion has “enjoyed a rich history in political thought down to the present day.”¹…

Negative Theology

21 min read

Of a Veiled Sovereign
Of a Veiled Sovereign
Negative Theology

21 min read


Mar 5

Getting Serious About Revelry

An unseasonable confession: I hate drunkenness. I hate being drunk and drunk people in turn repel me. Drinking isn’t something I…

8 min read

Getting Serious About Revelry
Getting Serious About Revelry

8 min read


Feb 19

Tár’s Religion

Denk dran, Johanna: der liebe Gott sieht alles. Religious films, like religious people, are generally only interesting to the extent that they’re also kind of opaque. Tarkovsky, a devout point of reference, was known to qualify questions about his religiosity with a rejoinder of opacity: “[my faith] is not so…

16 min read

Tár’s Religion
Tár’s Religion

16 min read


Oct 30, 2022

On Lacunae

(or: Reading Sappho at the Eschaton) — My premise is fourfold: The eschaton — read: the end of history, the days of the Messiah, the world to come — finds its primary symbol and realization in the universal resurrection of the flesh. Universal resurrection will restore individual bodies to their highest state of corporeal perfection. The risen…

Negative Theology

9 min read

On Lacunae
On Lacunae
Negative Theology

9 min read


Sep 28, 2022

Monarchy and Metaphor

The Holy One, Blessed be He, said: Sing to me on Rosh Hashanah verses of kingship […] that I might be your king. (TB Rosh Hashanah 34b) Leave metaphor, and walk with me. / Do you see traces of the moth in the light? (Darwish) At an especially poignant moment…

7 min read

Monarchy and Metaphor
Monarchy and Metaphor

7 min read


Sep 6, 2022

You Pour Me Like Water

In the haftorah of Rosh Hashanah we read of Chana, an apparently barren woman who would come miraculously to conceive and give birth to Samuel the prophet. The reading concerns Chana’s plea before God in the temple that she might come to be blessed with a child—a prayer so strange…

5 min read

You Pour Me Like Water
You Pour Me Like Water

5 min read


Aug 16, 2022

Kabbalah Studies and the Woman Question

“Woman makes a hole in language … we fail to say her.” (Pierre Naveau) There’s something telling in the discursive centrality of women and the feminine among contemporary academic scholars of Kabbalah. As in other Jewish studies subdisciplines, researchers in Jewish mysticism have been attempting with various degrees of success…

12 min read

Kabbalah Studies and the Woman Question
Kabbalah Studies and the Woman Question

12 min read

J. N.

J. N.

229 Followers

Theology, Hermeneutics, Jewish Mysticism | UChicago Divinity 2025

Following
  • Josiah Ketler

    Josiah Ketler

  • Nassim Nicholas Taleb

    Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  • AMosheLevy

    AMosheLevy

  • Jonah Mac Gelfand

    Jonah Mac Gelfand

  • Tuomas Ansio

    Tuomas Ansio

See all (11)

Help

Status

Writers

Blog

Careers

Privacy

Terms

About

Text to speech

Teams