This week, we have a special guest writer, Rabbi Tzvi Freeman, author of KabbalaToons.


Thank you, Rabbi Infinity, for providing your kind introduction. But truth be told, I don't consider myself the author of KabbalaToons. Perhaps co-author would be a more appropriate title. You see, Rabbi Infinity is at least as much the author as myself. And Miri as well. And yes, Feivel too.

I can already hear Rabbi Infinity protesting. That's just the point. How could I hear a character protesting if he's only a fictional character?

Because that's how a real writer writes and a true author authors: Not by stuffing words in the mouths of dumb figments of his imagination, dictating their every move and shlepping them helplessly down the rigid road of his preconceived plot. The real author first conjures up characters and themes, brings them alive in his mind, befriends them, explores the intricacies of their personalities and private lives—and then allows them to dictate their own stories and words to him as he transcribes.

That, after all, is the technique by which the Grand Author Of All Stories composed this story in which we all play. "With whom did He consult?" ask the rabbis. And then they answer (rabbis are wont to answer their own questions that way), "He consulted with the souls of the righteous."

He conceived of these souls, knew them intimately as He knows His own self (so to speak—because knowing is also a creation, and nothing had really been created yet, so what's He doing knowing anything? But that's for another blog…), and then, according to the dictates of these souls, that is how He composed a universe. So that, to this day, whatever those righteous souls demand of Him, He listens up. (See the blog to Give Life, Get Life for more on this.)

All our souls are righteous. We are all co-authors of the universe.

—Tzvi Freeman, very humble co-author


Thank you, Rabbi Freeman, especially for your exceeding humility. And now, in keeping with the theme of those kabbalistic words, I would like to turn to all our co-authors out there and ask (cuz Rabbi Freeman and I are kinda lost on this one), "What do you think should happen next?"