Is It All About Getting Spiritually High?
Our natural human desire to get close to G-d sometimes leads us to pursue methods of religious ecstasy. Yet our human desire to be close to G-d may well be at odds with G-d’s divine desire to be close to us.
Michael Chighel (Kigel) received his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Toronto for his dissertation on the Book of Job, after a specialization in 20th-century French and German thought. In Canada he taught in the departments of philosophy and of Jewish studies at the universities of York, Queen’s and Waterloo. He produced Passages and Messages for eleven seasons on Canadian television (CTS). Until this year he held the Rohr Chair of Jewish Studies at the Lauder Business School in Vienna, where he taught Torah, European ethics and political economy. He has translated a number of books and published various articles in Jewish thought. Michael and his family have made aliyah, and now live in Jerusalem.
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Gotta be honest with you, man. I hate pot, and the thumbnail made me assume the worst. But your characters impressed me with the Freudian one related to this week's Parasha. I had so many questions (Is the sin forgetting an oath unintentionally?). Your impression of Freud was spot on. I've seen those original interviews of his.