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< Back Pontius Pilate David Cowles “Pilate could be the avatar of an entire class of folks in the post-industrial West, society’s so-called middle managers.” On the one hand it is surprising that we know as much about Pontius Pilate as we do. After all, he was Roman Governor of a frontier province (Palestine) for a relatively short period of time (26 – 36CE). Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time…or the right place at the right time! Pilate’s modern fame is almost entirely dependent on a single prisoner, only intermittently in his custody and over a period of less than 24 hours, but a prisoner so famous, so consequential that Pilate’s brief and entirely unsatisfactory encounter was enough to make him the best known Roman Provincial Governor of all time. This was no ordinary prisoner; in time, he would become more famous than OJ (Simpson), more popular than Michael (Jackson), and more dangerous than Bobby (Seale or Sands). It’s fair to say that Pilate rode into history on Jesus’ coattails. But there’s more to Pilate than bright lights; this is no Judge Ito. Pilate could be the avatar of an entire class of folks in the post-industrial West, society’s so-called middle managers . Several studies have shown that Middle Managers (MMs) experience more toxic stress than either the people they manage or the people who manage them. They are responsible for everything but empowered to do nothing . Still, the managerial class is subject to all the same ‘domestic pressure’ as the rest of us. Expenses always seem to outstrip income and then there is always the unsolicited advice, or demands, of family members. Yet, the middle manager class is strangely immobile. Rarely are C-suite executives pulled from MM ranks. On the other hand, eschewing the stress and returning to the factory floor is usually not an option either. Aging bodies are not well suited to manual labor and financial commitments, once undertaken, cannot easily be scaled back. By all accounts, Pilate is an able administrator with an impossible task. He is constantly under pressure from three constituencies: Rome, ultimately the Emperor himself, demanding he maintain public order. The Jewish residents of Palestine, the population he meant to ‘serve and protect’, seeking immediate cultural autonomy…and eventual political liberty. His wife, Procla, who has her own mystically derived ideas, agitating for ‘a seat at the table’, a say in the affairs of state. Into this field of dry kindling steps Jesus, the spark . His claim to a ‘Kingdom not of this world’ threatens both Rome and the Jewish establishment in Jerusalem. On the other hand, it emboldens Procla to broadcast her darkly prophetic dreams. Though apparently wanting to favor his wife is this matter, Pilate’s real political assessment of the situation would not allow it. In the end, he called for a bowl of water and attempted to abdicate his role in Jesus’ crucifixion by a ceremonial washing of hands. Congrats, Pontius, you’ve managed to make exactly no one happy; welcome to the world of the middle manager. In the course of these proceedings, Pilate engages Jesus in a dialog that is among the best known, albeit most enigmatic, but also most consequential, ever recorded. Lucky there was a court reporter on hand…at that hour of the night…and on Preparation Day (before Passover) to boot! One could say that the books of the Old Testament share a common concern for Law ( Torah ), i.e. God’s order. In that case, the New Testament’s focus would be Truth ( Aletheia ) in the context of that order. Arguably, every book in the New Testament is addressed to Pilate (and through Pilate, us), answering his ‘overwhelming question’, What is Truth? In Greek drama, there is a separate dramatic personage, Chorus , that represents us, the audience, and interacts with the other characters, asking questions or making comments on our behalf. In the Gospel narratives, there is no Chorus per se . Different characters assume the role at different points in the drama, for example: The self-interested Congregation at Capernaum Jesus’ helicopter relatives in Nazareth The clueless Apostles wherever they go The Soldiers at the Foot of the Cross Pilate too is Deux Ex Machina . He asks the questions we might have asked had we been in the room, if we’d had a seat at that table: “Are you the King of the Jews? Where are you from? Why do you not speak to me ?” And finally, “What is Truth?” Are these not these questions we still ask today? Image: Mattia Preti. Pilate Washing His Hands. 1663. Oil on canvas, 81 1/8 x 72 3/4 in. (206.1 x 184.8 cm). The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Purchase, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan and Bequest of Helena W. Charlton, by exchange, Gwynne Andrews, Marquand, Rogers, Victor Wilbour Memorial, and The Alfred N. Punnett Endowment Funds, and funds given or bequeathed by friends of the Museum, 1978. Previous Next

< Back Speaking Piraha David Cowles The hidden grammar censor in our Euro-brains whispers inaudibly, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why did the speaker place ‘tall’ and ‘basketball’ in the same sentence, unless they are somehow connected?” A major fallacy that comes with a huge price tag. (This article is dedicated to three high school classmates whose abiding interest in, and respect for, other cultures helped me form my own view of the world. Thank you: Tom, Geoff, and Joe M!) We met the Piraha, an Amazonian tribe, in the August 18 Issue of Thoughts While Shaving (TWS ). Once again, just when we were sure we knew everything, we discovered we know nothing. Science and its pesky Scientific Method! It’s an outrageous inconvenience to have to study things as they are rather than as we think they should be! Piraha culture is one such example. We thought Noam Chomsky (20th century, MIT) had taught us everything we’d ever need to know about language; then along comes Daniel Everett, anthropologist, linguist, Christian missionary. Everett makes the case that Chomsky’s entire theory of language has been falsified by the confirmed discovery of just one ‘aberrant’ language, Piraha – a language that today has only a few hundred native speakers. Sorry, but that’s the nature of the Scientific Method. It admits no gray. One single ‘counter-example’ is all we need to show that we must broaden our hypothesis. In Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes (2008) Everett tells the story of his years living with the Piraha tribe in Brazil’s Amazon Rain Forest. The Piraha have a most unusual language. So far as we can tell, it is not directly related to any other language, living or extinct. Piraha has features that are rarely, if ever, found in other human languages. For example, Piraha has no words for numerals (1, 2, 3) or colors (red, green, blue). They do have quantitative concepts like ‘greater than’ and ‘less than’ and they do have words that describe an object’s visual appearance - just no words for numerals or colors per se . Example: I have a ‘whole fish.’ I start cutting the fish into pieces so that I can share it with my friends. When I’m done, I still have a ‘whole fish’ but now each of my friends has a ‘whole fish’ too. There are a number of indigenous cultures that have what we would consider ‘truncated’ number systems. For example, we find many cultures that distinguish only three quantitative states: 1, 2, > 2 (or ‘many’) – a far cry from Sister Mary Martha’s 3rd grade multiplication tables. If only! Yet, the mathematically inclined among us will correctly point out that we can reconstruct the entire set of rational numbers from just these three elements (1, 2, > 2). After all, computers do it with just 0’s and 1’s. But not so among the Piraha. The Piraha have no numerals, period. They just have fish, whole fish ! Even more esoterically, Piraha lacks the syntactic structure known by linguists as ‘recursion.’ Example: “The man, who was tall, played basketball.” Pretty simple concept, right? Not for the Piraha! This every day English sentence has no equivalent in their language. Of course, the Piraha could say, and do say, “The man was tall. The man played basketball,” but notice the difference. In our language, the juxtaposition of ‘being tall’ and ‘playing basketball’ emits a faint whiff of causality, or at least coincidence, even if the speaker has no such connection in mind. Our sentences regularly combine apparently unrelated predicates, suggesting connections that may not have been intended. Does that ever cause any problems? What do you think? The hidden grammar censor in our Indo-European brains whispers inaudibly, “Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. Why did the speaker place ‘tall’ and ‘basketball’ in the same sentence, unless they are somehow connected?” A major fallacy that comes with a huge price tag. Connecting ‘tall’ and ‘basketball’ is not the worst thing we could ever do. Although plenty of shorties have played the game brilliantly, there is certainly some statistical correlation between height and success on the court. And if, as my JHS coach said to me, “Sonny, you stink”, well, it’s probably not the end of my world. An advocate for Piraha might pile on, pointing out the obvious, “If there’s no necessary connection between being tall and playing basketball , why put the two ideas together in the same sentence?” Why indeed! In Piraha , being tall and playing basketball would simply be presented as the serial attributes of a single human being, not necessarily connected in any way. We could copy the Piraha. We could craft sentences like “John is tall, he likes Bach, he reads comics, and he snores when he sleeps.” The sentence enumerates certain facts about John without in any way suggesting that they are linked. This way of speaking might impoverish literature, but it would certainly simplify interpersonal relations. Perhaps we should require our politicians to ‘walk like an Egyptian and speak like a Piraha,’ at least while they are campaigning. Our language is a petri dish for the growth of stereotypes. Its recursive syntax encourages us to confuse statistical correlation with physical causation: Post hoc, ergo propter hoc – a logical fallacy, enshrined more or less forever in the structure of the language we call English . In a recursive language like ours, attributes have a tendency to ‘bleed’ into substances . Wassein (what we are) is often mistaken for Dasein (that we are). Our view of the world is cockeyed, oops, I meant to say, Popeyed : “I am what I am and that’s all that I am, I’m Popeye the Sailor Man.” 80 years ago, Jean-Paul Sartre provided a crucial correction. He showed Popeye that all our attributes belong to Wassein , none to Dasein . He called our Dasein , Le Neant , and he distinguished L’etre pour soi (I, you, s/he) from L’etre en soi (it). When I was growing up (the ‘60s), we were all on a quest to find ourselves . Beatniks, hippies, reformers, and revolutionaries, we were all asking, though few of us realized it at the time, to identify those aspects of our Wassein that were also part of our Dasein . What are the things about me that are hardwired, i.e., from which I cannot escape? It all seemed so self-evident ( it isn’t ). Of course, we should be whoever or whatever we are ( we shouldn’t )! It makes sense ( it doesn’t ) to think that problems may arise if we are not who we are ( we aren’t ). Fortunately, in this matter as in all others, Sartre had an answer: you can’t escape from the world you’re in. That’s your ‘facticity’…but it’s not you ! In fact, you are ( Dasein ) precisely because you are not ( Wassein ). ~W = D: You are not what you are, Popeye; you are what you are not! So, by extension, you can’t ‘find yourself’ either. You can’t find yourself because, turns out, there’s nothing for you to find. You are Le Neant (nothingness). Furthermore, you are ‘freedom,’ not just free but freedom . You are never what you are ( en soi ); you are always what you are striving to be ( pour soi ). To ‘search for yourself’ is equivalent to playing hide-and-seek in the woods… all by yourself ! Remember when you were a kid, and you thought you were playing hide and seek only to find out later that your friends had moved on to another game…or gone home for supper. Not a good feeling! But it was only a game, a warm-up for life. Now, there is never anyone coming to find you, and no one is hiding for you to find. There are not two people, one hiding, the other seeking. There is just one person, neither hiding nor seeking, but just being! My generation’s foundational myth was the belief that ‘finding ourselves’ would somehow make us happy, give our lives meaning, help us judge right from wrong, and point us in productive and satisfying directions. How’d that work out? (Don’t worry, the question is rhetorical.) The belief that people are ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’ lies at the root of all social conflict, especially war. We must kill the Hun (WW I), not because he (sic) is ( Dasein ) but because he is a certain way ( Wassein ). Now replace ‘the Hun’ by any group of people you don’t like and see what happens. Do I really need to spell it out? The illusion of identity is the root of social strife, and the Piraha have no identity. They aren’t someone or something , they are not even themselves ; they just are! And they have their language to thank for that. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Pronouns David Cowles Next time someone asks you for your ‘pronouns,’ try telling them, ‘you/you’…see what happens. I hadn’t thought much about the English language pronouns since third grade; now it seems I think of little else. Suddenly, the lowly pronoun is uppermost in everyone’s mind, be they eight…or 80. For more than a decade now, ‘they/them’ has been gradually replacing ‘she/her,’ ‘he/him,’ and ‘it.’ If this trend succeeds, and to a large extent it already has, English will lose distinctions of gender (M, F, N) and of number (S, P). Apparently, ‘case distinctions’ (they/them) will be retained. I said ‘case distinctions,’ not ‘class distinctions;’ but wait! Will “they/them” make it into the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies? Or will it become another one of the many markers we use to distinguish ‘us’ from ‘them?’ Eliza Doolittle was permanently excluded from the upper rungs of English society because of her accent, that is, until Henry Higgins came along and ‘fixed it.’ Thanks to the good professor, aided no doubt by the post-war ubiquity of television, accent is no longer reliable in the service of our deeply treasured, if much maligned, ‘snap judgments.’ Regrettable because there is no knowledge quite so satisfying as a good stereotype confirmed! I mean, “How am I supposed to know how to treat someone if I don’t know what social class they belong to?” It’s quite a dilemma! Well, you know, you’re posh . Will the pronoun war be co-opted by our social gatekeepers to keep old barriers in place…or even rebuild them where they’re worn with age and misuse? Only time will tell…but back to the task at hand. This is not the first time that our attention has been directed toward the lowly pronoun. 100 years ago, existentialist philosopher and Jewish theologian Martin Buber focused on the distinction between “I – Thou (you)” and “I – It” relationships, the latter appropriate for certain interactions with the ‘inanimate world,’ the former more appropriate to human relationships. Self-explanatory? But the problem comes when I impose an “I – It” structure onto an “I – Thou” opportunity. Ideally, my relationships with ontological equals will always be of the “I – Thou” sort…but of course, they’re not. Unfortunately, most of us do not have “I – Thou” relationships with our grocers, for example. Yet, most of us would accept the proposition that ‘grocers’ are our ontological equals. In fact, most of us today are comfortable with the idea that all (or almost all) human beings are our equals. This was not always so. Until very recently, in fact, it was entirely acceptable to consign other tribes, other races, other nationalities, etc. to an ontological level inferior to our own: “They’re not really human.” While the founding fathers were building a society “with liberty and justice for all,” they were also reinforcing the institution of slavery. In order to reconcile these apparently exclusive priorities, the southern slaveholders had to separate the concept of ‘slave’ from the concept of ‘all humans.’ Implicitly, or even explicitly, they dehumanized and reified their slaves. Slavery is a paradigm of ‘I – It’ relatedness. Commonwealth is, at least arguably, a paradigm of ‘I – Thou.’ But to quote the immortal Cars, “You can’t go on thinking nothing’s wrong,” and sure enough, 75 years later, the institution of slavery was on the ropes: the institution, not its hateful legacy. Reification is like skunk: once it’s in the fabric, it’s almost impossible to get out. Buber challenges us to expand the ‘Universe of Thou.’ It’s not just our kids, our spouses, our Higher Power, as many of us would prefer. It’s the guy across the street, the woman on life support, the homeless family…you know the drill. Implicit in Buber, and empowered by our reluctantly expanded collective consciousness, is the call to push the envelope of ‘ontological parity’ (or ‘congruence:’ I’m not insisting on pure equality here) beyond the species barrier. What about sea mammals? Apes? Pets? What about bees…and forests? I could go on. (“Please don’t!”) What do Hasidic Jews and Native Americans have in common? They both live in an enchanted world. For them, and others, the earth, the entire universe in fact, is ‘Thou:’ a living entity for us to nurture and enjoy…not injure and destroy. Sticking with Buber’s terminology, we have an opportunity to have an ‘I – Thou’ relationship with the Universe, through its creator and through each and every entity in it. But most of us don’t come close to realizing this potential. We take the so-called inanimate world for granted and guiltlessly rape it to satisfy our own immediate needs. We carefully cultivate plants and husband livestock, but only so that we can harvest and slaughter them down the road. Worst of all, though, we allow the poison of ‘I – It’ to seep into relationships with our fellow human beings, even those closest to us. 100 years on, I suspect that society is no better positioned today on the ‘It – Thou’ scale than it was when Buber started writing. And yet, Buber didn’t go nearly far enough. Traditionally, English has distinguished pronouns according to three ‘persons’ and two ‘numbers’ (singular/plural): I, me, we, us (‘I’ for our purposes); You, including thou and thee (‘you’); He, she, or it (‘it’). Both of Buber’s dyads begin with the pronoun, ‘I;’ but that ‘I’ is only stable as a placeholder, a catalyst. Implicit in the concept of ‘I – Thou’ is the potentiality for reciprocity. Of course, we all know about ‘unrequited love;’ but even then, the possibility of reciprocity remains, albeit unrealized. That’s what makes these situations so tragic. A fully developed ‘I – Thou’ relationship must also be ‘Thou – I’. A reciprocal ‘I – Thou’ relationship is really a ‘Thou – Thou’ relationship. In the context of that relationship, I am because you are, and you are because I am. We are two ‘thees’ in a pod. When I enter into an “I – It” relationship with another entity (human, sentient or otherwise), I immediately preclude the possibility of reciprocity. I have substituted an active voice vector for the middle voice resonance arrow of ‘I – Thou.’ The communication is all one way, and when I relate to an entity in a way that precludes reciprocity, then I make myself inert, I turn ‘me’ into ‘it.’ So, whether it’s ‘I – Thou’ or ‘I – It’, the ‘I’ is unstable in every relationship. As soon as ‘I’ comes in contact with any potential relatum , it decomposes like a subatomic particle into either a ‘Thou’ or an ‘It.’ ‘I’ is the still coherent wave function in Quantum Mechanics: it decoheres ‘on contact’ to become a ‘Thou’ or an ‘It.’ This is an admittedly ‘off label’ use of C.S. Lewis’ notion of the “Great Divorce.” We are all living in two worlds, not one. One world is a world populated only by ‘It(s),’ the other only by ‘Thou(s).’ While the two worlds are entirely coincident, they do not interact. They are ships passing in the night. Between these coincident worlds, there lies an infinitesimal, non-orientable membrane (called the ‘Sea of Green’ in the Beatles’ 1968 movie, Yellow Submarine ). ( Read "Yellow Submarine Part II" here. ) When we pass from the ‘It – It’ universe to the ‘Thou – Thou’ universe, we pass from Liverpool to Pepperland (in the movie) and from ‘this world’ to the Kingdom of Heaven. ‘Thou – Thou’ relationships, to the extent that we can foster them on earth, are a foretaste of eternal life. This is precisely the state of affairs we long for when we pray, “on earth as it is in heaven.” Challenge : Next time someone asks you for your ‘pronouns,’ try telling them, ‘you/you’ or even ‘thou/thou;’ see what happens and let us know. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Sic Semper Tyrannis David Cowles Oct 5, 2023 “His immediate fate is not the 'result' of your shooting at him; it’s the act itself.” Once upon a time, Ethics 101 was a gut course. The syllabus? “Be a good boy!” There were things you were supposed to do and things that you were not to do. The choice was yours…as were the consequences. “I set before you life and death, therefore choose life.” (Deuteronomy) Later, we realized that things were not quite so simple IRL. Take Adolph Hitler…if we must! While he fooled most of the people most of the time, men and women of goodwill eventually realized that he was slaughtering innocents and devastating Europe. You stood next to Hitler once, didn’t you? You were armed, weren’t you? Why didn’t you shoot him in the head, right then, right there, and put an end to this whole sorry mess? You could have changed history (perhaps) but for some unknown reason you chose not to do so; why? For all those who ever have an opportunity to intervene in history by cutting off the head of a snake, here are some ethical considerations that might weigh on their decision: Saving the lives of 6,000,000 Jews and preventing the destruction of Europe constitutes a moral imperative. Anyone who had an opportunity to kill Hitler and didn’t do so is guilty of a grave moral evil…and a crime against humanity. Ends do justify means, regardless of what you learned in Sunday School. (Machiavelli) So go ahead, do it! "Thou shalt not kill,” even when it would be convenient to do so. Assassinating a political leader would always be wrong in every circumstance, regardless of the leader or their policies. The moral quality of an act is defined by the act itself, without regard to its consequences. (Exodus) Don’t do it! What’s in it for me? Sure, I might save Europe. But I’d certainly be killed, and probably much worse, in the process. (Bart Simpson) I won’t do it! So you’re going to kiss (oops, I mean ‘kill’) Hitler and ‘make it all better’. Who are you, God? You know the future, do you? You may conjecture that killing Hitler will save lives, but you have no way of knowing that for sure. Worse things might follow, maybe immediately, maybe later. On November 11, 1918, the world celebrated the end of World War I, not realizing that the way the war ended made conditions ripe for World War II, 20 years later. Trying to change the future is a fool’s game. (Hume) So why do it? Do it or don’t do it, but stop wringing your hands over the decision. Decide and accept responsibility for your decision and its repercussions. Whatever you do, you’ll do for reasons you thought valid at the time. There’s no higher court of appeal than ‘good faith’. (Sartre) So do it…or don’t! By the year 2100, everyone alive in 1940 will be dead. (J. Leo Foley) It doesn’t matter! Fate has already determined Hitler’s destiny. Whatever you do, or try to do, you will simply be acting as an agent of fate. There are innumerable paths (choices, actions) but only one destination. (Nietzsche) Do it…or don’t! Everything that happens happens according to God’s plan. Whatever you do, you will simply be following that plan. (Anonymous funeral oration) So? Everything is determined by the laws of physics. Everything you do is pre-determined, and whatever comes about as a result of your actions is also pre-determined. (Laplace) You’ll do what you’ll do! Obviously, there is no way to reconcile these radically inconsistent views. Or is there? Earlier, Aletheia Today proposed a new model of causality . Like the strong force, causality dominates a limited region of spacetime; like gravity, it exerts only a weak influence outside those limits. According to this model, there is no ‘cause and effect’, nor are there ‘means and ends’. Divorcing one from the other is one of the major errors of Western philosophy. The proximate effect (or end) of an act is part of the act itself. It begins as its ‘subjective aim’ (intention) and ends as its ‘satisfaction’ (objective immortality). Hitler’s immediate fate is not the result of your shooting at him; it is part of the act itself. Of course, things do not always go as planned. But whatever happens to Hitler when you shoot at him is part of the act itself. It is the ‘satisfaction’, the legacy, of your effort. A completed action includes its immediate result, welcome or not, intended or otherwise. That result gives your gesture its final meaning. I catch a fly ball; a runner on third base tags-up and heads for home. I try to throw him out. My action is incomplete until the umpire gives the sign. Safe or out, that’s the meaning of my act, and that meaning is part of the act itself. Traditionally, Western ontologies have separated actions from their results. This makes no sense. If it did, there would only be one play in all of football – the Hail Mary! Put the ball in the air and see what happens. This is not the way the world works! So, follow Voltaire! “Il faut cultivar notre jardin.” ( Candide ) Everything has its patch, its locus of subjectivity; outside one’s ‘garden’, acts are just objects. Within the garden, events are self-determined; beyond the garden, they are merely influential. So it is right to hold the actor responsible for what happens on her patch, but wrong to blame her for what happens beyond her garden walls. So where does all this leave Hitler? Dead, of course! Go ahead , shoot the SOB! Keep the conversation going! 1. Click here to comment on this TWS. 2. To subscribe (at no cost) to TWS and ATM, follow this link . 3. We encourage new articles and reprints from freelance writers ; click here to view out Writers’ Specs. 4. Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) will be devoting its entire fall issue (released 9/1/23) to artificial intelligence (AI). What are the philosophical, theological, cultural and even spiritual implications of AI powered world? If you’d like to contribute to the AI Issue, click here . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Deborah Rutherford Contributor Hi. I am Deborah Rutherford, a Christian wife, passionate about Jesus and her family. I am currently a writer, makeup artist, and sometimes singer. You can find me on my blog at www.deborahrutherford.com. The Sacred Pause of Autumn Embracing the Sacred Season of Summer: Who Will You Be at the End of Summer The Dance of Autumn Prayer for Resting in God's Timing, Ways, and Rhythm

"This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." < Back Matzah of Hope--Passover Part One B.J. Yudelson Apr 15, 2023 "This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms." You may remember that back in the ’70s and ’80s, we added a fourth matzah to the three required for the Seder and called it the Matzah of Hope. It was a symbol of the three million Soviet Jews who had no freedom to be Jews. Some twenty or thirty years later, our united voices had changed the situation. I propose that this year we once again add a fourth matzah to our Seder table and read the following. What do you think? Maybe together we can change the situation for the Agunot, women anchored to men who neither want them as wives nor are willing to free them to lead their own lives. This matzah, which we set aside as a symbol of hope for the thousands of women who are anchored to marriages in name only, reminds us that slavery comes in many forms. Three thousand years ago, Jewish women were forced to see their baby sons die. They themselves were forced to follow the orders of the Egyptian masters to make bricks and perform other onerous tasks. Today, there are women enslaved to unsustainable marriages. The common term for them is “chained” women. But the Hebrew, agunah, comes from the root that means “to anchor.” These women, who have asked for a divorce but are dependent upon their husbands for the “get” that completes the divorce procedure, are anchored in place by men who refuse to comply. Tethered under water, it is as if they are mired in the muck on the bottom. Although the water that swirls about them represents opportunity, freedom, the ability to navigate to new and different Jewish places, they can barely breathe. How tantalizing to be surrounded by freedom yet to be prohibited from leading the free, fulfilling Jewish lives they crave. These women can dream of a new life, of new experiences that await them in a different part of this lake or sea they are trapped in. But they can’t, by themselves, hoist the anchor to change their situations. They need our support: our prayers, our petitions, our demonstrations. They need for us to convince our rabbis to take action, for where there is a rabbinic will, there will be found a rabbinic way to free agunot. As we set aside this matzah in their honor, let us pledge to do more in the coming year to free all agunot from the bondage that weighs particularly heavily as we celebrate freedom this Seder night. This was republished with permission from T he Jewish Pluralist . It is first in the series Four Women’s Collected Essays on the Meaning of Passover . Click here for introduction to the series. This essay was also published on B.J. Yudelson website. Image: Passover Seder, 19th Century B.J. is an explorer who loves both the comfort of the familiar and the challenge of the unknown. As a child growing up in Atlanta, she knew the size and position of every tree in the wooded ravine behind her house as well as the best rocks for crossing the creek at the bottom. When she passes a street repeatedly, she may suddenly turn onto it just to find out where it goes, making the unknown familiar. World religions, her own beloved Judaism, a foreign country, or a local park all bring out the explorer in her. She writes to make sense of the inner landscapes of family and friends, the ins and outs of her community (currently, Rochester, New York), and the beauty of loon-filled lakes. Her writings—published in a variety of literary journals, websites, and anthologies —explore family, Judaism, nature, and overcoming obstacles. She invites you to join her on her adventures. Return to our Holy Days 2023 Table of Contents, Share Previous Next Click here. Do you like what you just read? Subscribe today and receive sneak previews of Aletheia Today Magazine articles before they're published. Plus, you'll receive our quick-read, biweekly blog, Thoughts While Shaving. Subscribe Thanks for subscribing! Return to Table of Contents, Winter 2023 Issue Return to Table of Contents, Holiday Issue Return to Table of Contents, Halloween Issue Return to Table of Contents, Fall Issue Return to Table of Contents, Beach Issue Return to Table of Contents, June Issue

Get paid to write. Calling all writers with critical thoughts and ideas about theology, science, philosophy, Christian educacation, culture, and prayer. Aletheia Today is online magazine where science, theology, and philosophy converge. Submission Guidelines Write for us! As we step into a new year, Aletheia Today is thrilled to announce our refreshed publication schedule for 2025! Our new approach allows us to better align our content with the ancient seasonal celebrations we honor. Here’s what’s coming up: February 1 – “Groundhog Day”: Revisit overlooked “Hidden Gems” from AT’s archives. April 1 – “Resurrection” - Life…it’s what’s happening! June 1 – “Summer” - The seeds are sown; we await the harvest. August 1 – “Lammas” - First harvest, first fruits, Transubstantiation, Eucharist. October 1 – “Harvest” - Second harvest, The Kingdom of God. Football. December 1 – “Yule” - Celebrate the triumph of light over darkness. We’re excited about the opportunities this schedule creates for deeper collaboration with independent contributors and more focused content for our readers. Thank you for being part of this journey as we continue to explore the intersection philosophy, theology and science. Specs for All Submissions: All completed work must be submitted through the online submissions form. (See link below.) All submissions must include a title and credited image. All submissions must include a headshot and a short (100 words or less) author bio with social handles. All work must be original. We will republish the author's previously published essays with credit to and permission from the original publication only. We will not use any images without a credit. Submission Due Dates: We accept unsolicited submissions throughout the year. Writers’ Comp (paid for original work only, not republications): For feature length articles and short stories, $250 per published article or short story plus a $100 bonus once the author’s work has reached 100 unique views. For original prayers and poems, $100 per published piece plus a $50 bonus once the author’s work has reached 100 unique views. For questions about submissions, email editor@aletheiatoday.com . Feel free, but not required, to email us a proposal, pitch, or query to the email address above prior to submitting your completed work. To becomes an AT Contributor, submit your work online; click here .

< Back Meggie Gates Contributor Meggie Gates is a freelance writer living in Chicago, Illinois. In the past, their work has appeared in the Chicago Reader , Southside Weekly , and Vulture Magazine . You can find more of their work or what karaoke bar they're singing at this weekend here. How the Saints Taught Me Feminism

< Back Alice David Cowles In Looking-glass world, there’s plenty of there and then, but not a whiff of here and now. You remember Alice – the girl who chased a white rabbit down a hole and almost got her head chopped off by the Queen of Hearts! But did you know that later, when she was a bit older, Alice had another, entirely different adventure? Whenever Alice was bored, and she was often very bored – remember, in her day there was no TV, no smartphones and no video games – she would spend hours staring into the big mirror that hung on her living room wall. (I wonder if her parents limited her ‘screen’ time.) As she gazed into that looking glass, she could see a room on the other side. It looked just like her own living room…well, almost just like it. It looked just like it except that on the other side of the looking glass, everything was reversed! That’s right, reversed! If Alice stuck out her right hand to shake hands with the girl in the mirror, the girl in the mirror would stick out her left hand. If Alice wrote a note (from left to right, of course), the girl on the other side of the glass would write the very same note…but from right to left. Otherwise, everything looked exactly the same. But Alice wondered, “was it really the same?” After all, if right and left were reversed, maybe other things were reversed too. But how could she find out? “How nice it would be if we could only get into Looking-glass house,” she thought. And then, a moment later, there she was…on the other side of the glass! As expected, whatever Alice had been able to see in the mirror was just the same in Looking-glass house as it was in her own home. But what about everything she couldn’t see from her side? That turned out to be as different as different could be! Alice had been right to be suspicious of the mirror, after all. The mirror did not ‘reveal’ a world; it hid one. Alice immediately headed out of Looking-glass house and into its garden. She was not at all surprised to find flowers…but she was VERY surprised to learn that these flowers could talk! “…Can all the flowers talk?” Alice asked. “As well as you can,” said the Tiger-lily. “And a great deal louder.” Alice noticed a high hill in the distance. “I should see the garden far better,” said Alice to herself. “If I could get to the top of that hill: and here’s a path that leads straight to it…” Only it didn’t! No matter how hard Alice tried, no matter what turns she made, she always ended up right back where she started. But Alice was a very clever girl, so she decided to try a new plan. Instead of walking toward the hill and always missing it, she decided to walk in the opposite direction, away from the hill, to see where that would take her. Her plan succeeded beautifully. She hadn’t been walking more than a minute when she found herself at the base of the hill. So, it’s not just right and left that are reversed in Looking-glass world; it’s also to and from, forwards and backwards. At the base of the hill, Alice met the Red Queen. After some polite conversation, Alice and the queen suddenly started running. They ran hand-in-hand, as fast as they possibly could, for as long as they possibly could. But while she was running, Alice noticed something strange: the trees and the other things around them never changed; they seemed to move right along with them. Finally, the queen stopped, and Alice flopped to the ground breathless beside her. Then she noticed, “…We’ve been under this tree the whole time! Everything’s just as it was!” Alice complained to the queen, “…In our country, you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time as we’ve been doing.” But the queen replied, “Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do just to stay in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!” Next, Alice encountered the White Queen and her majesty looked quite the mess. Alice did her best to help the queen tidy up, and then she suggested that the queen might like to hire a maid to help her stay neat and clean in the future. The queen offered the job to Alice, “Two pence a week and jam every other day.” Imagine getting by on an allowance of two pennies a week! I guess pennies could buy a lot more in Alice’s time. But Alice didn’t object to the low wage; instead, she protested that she didn’t like jam, “Well, I don’t want any to-day at any rate.” “You couldn’t have it if you did want it,” the queen said. “The rule is jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today …” Alice objected, “It must come sometimes to jam today.” “No, it can’t,” said the queen. “It’s jam every other day; today isn’t any other day, you know.” “I don’t understand you,” said Alice, obviously puzzled. “That’s the effect of living backwards,” the queen explained. “It always makes one a little giddy at first.” Then the queen decided to tell Alice more about what it’s like to live on her side of the glass. “Memory works both ways,” she said. “I’m sure mine only works one way,” interrupted Alice. “I can’t remember things before they happen…What sorts of things do you remember best?” “Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the queen replied. The queen pointed to the King’s Messenger, “He’s in prison now, being punished, and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday, and of course, the crime comes last of all.” Before Alice could object to this unfair treatment, the queen began screaming. Alice rushed to comfort her, “What is the matter? Have you pricked your finger?” “I haven’t pricked it yet,” the queen said. “But I soon shall.” And sure enough, a moment later, she did just that! But let’s get back to the matter of the jam. Alice explained to the queen that she did not like jam, “Well, I don’t want any to-day at any rate.” Remember what the queen said? “’You couldn’t have it if you did want it…the rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday – but never jam today .” So, in Looking-glass world there is a past (yesterday) and a future (tomorrow), but never a present (jam today). Later, Alice found herself in a shop where every shelf seemed to be overflowing with interesting things to buy. But whenever she walked up to any particular shelf, that shelf was always completely empty. The shelves that are there are always full, but the shelf that is here is always empty! In Looking-glass world, it seems you can have all the jam you want…just not now ; and you can buy anything you want…just not here . The stores are always brimming with merchandise, but always out of whatever it is you want. In Looking-glass world, there’s plenty of there and then, but not a whiff of here and now . Later, while visiting Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Alice sees the Red King. He is asleep. “He’s dreaming now,” said Tweedledee. “And what do you think he’s dreaming about?” “Nobody can guess that!” Alice replied. Alice is depending on the difference between inside and outside to keep her thoughts, and the king’s, private. But Tweedledee knows better. The way Looking-glass world works, inner and outer could be reversed; or the distinction could be wiped away entirely. Either way, Tweedledee knows that in Looking-glass world, anyone can see what you’re thinking just by looking at you. “Why about you !” Tweedledee continued, returning to the content of the Red King’s dream. “And if he left off dreaming about you, where do you suppose you’d be?” “Where I am now, of course,” said Alice. “’You’d be nowhere,” replied Tweedledee. “Why you’re only a sort of thing in his dream!’” (It seems that Shakespeare listened to Tweedledee’s podcasts because in one of his most famous plays, The Tempest , he wrote, “We are such stuff as dreams are made on.”) “If the King were to wake,” added Tweedledum. “You’d go out – bang! – just like a candle!’” Toward the end of her stay in Looking-glass world, Alice met the famous Humpty-Dumpty. Like any good girl of her day, Alice knew her nursery rhymes backwards and forwards, so when she met Humpty, she was immediately worried about his safety. “Don’t you think you’d be safer down on the ground? That wall is so very narrow!” In response, Humpty Dumpty growled. “Of course, I don’t think so. Why, if I ever did fall off – which there’s no chance of – but if I did…the King has promised me – with his very own mouth…” Here Alice interrupted, “To send all his horses and all his men…” Moments later, a crash shook the forest from end to end and soldiers came running, first two or three, then ten or twenty, finally thousands. So many that they seemed to fill the whole forest! The king had kept his promise. But would his horses and his men be able to put Humpty together again? Maybe not on our side of the looking glass, but on the other side…who knows? At the end of her adventure, when Alice was once again safely back on her own side of the mirror, she thought about her experience and said to her pussycat, “’Now, Kitty, let’s consider, who it was that dreamed it all…it must have been either me or the Red King. He was part of my dream, of course – but then I was part of his dream too!’” David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

Fr. Timothy Joyce, OSB, STL continues his regular blog, “Monastic Scribe”, where he reflects on "what I may have learned from all these years and what I am still trying to learn." Fr. Timothy notes, “I do not speak on behalf of Glastonbury Abbey, the Archdiocese of Boston or the Catholic Church, though I hope my faith is in harmony with all these. Any error in judgment should be credited to me and not anyone else.” < Back Fr. Timothy Joyce, OSB, STL Contributor Fr. Timothy Joyce, OSB, STL continues his regular blog, “ Monastic Scribe ”, where he reflects on "what I may have learned from all these years and what I am still trying to learn." Fr. Timothy notes, “I do not speak on behalf of Glastonbury Abbey, the Archdiocese of Boston or the Catholic Church, though I hope my faith is in harmony with all these. Any error in judgment should be credited to me and not anyone else.” Jesus Meets Mr. Spock

< Back Fernanda Nascimento Contributor Fernanda Nascimento is a Brazilian writer whose work has appeared in Koinesune Magazine. Finding Gold in the Scars

< Back Causality & the B-Gita “Because every event is sui generis, no event causes any other event! That said, every event contributes to the Actual World of every subsequent event.” David Cowles In an earlier article Cause and Effect , we spelled out a ‘new’ theory of causality , based in part on the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead. According to this model, every ‘act’ ( aka Actual Entity) begins with the conversion of the disordered multiplicity that is Universe (“Universe is plural” – Buckminster Fuller) into a uniquely ordered nexus, an Actual World. Each Actual Entity (event) has its own Actual World: one world, one event; one event, one world! However, it is important to note at the outset that the Actual World does not in any way cause or determine its Actual Entity; rather every Actual Entity determines its own Actual World. The first stage in the concrescence of any Actual Entity is a single process with three aspects: (1) conversion of the Multiplicity (Universe) into a nexus (Actual World), (2) evaluation of that nexus in terms of objective eternal values, and (3) formation of intent (‘subjective aim’), not necessarily conscious, based on that evaluation. Expressed this way, these three ‘aspects’ seem to suggest a sequence; however, that is a trick of language. In fact, they constitute a single act with three simultaneous aspects. In the real world, process is multi-valent, not simply vectored through time. This initial stage is motivated and guided by transcendental values (‘eternal objects’), like Beauty, Truth, and Justice, that logically (not temporally) precede Universe and subsist in God’s Primordial Nature. The final stage in the concrescence of any Actual Entity is also a single process with three simultaneous aspects: (1) satisfaction, (2) objective immortality, and (3) superject. These aspects are denotatively identical but connotatively distinct. Here the three-in-one phenomenon is a bit more apparent. ‘Satisfaction’ is the realization of the ‘subjective aim’ as felt by the Actual Entity itself; ‘objective immortality’ is that satisfaction seen from the perspective of the Multiplicity; and ‘superject’ is that objective immortality felt by other Actual Entities, including God’s Consequent Nature. The function of every act is to convert intention into satisfaction. This is the act itself and the process is called ‘concrescence’ (Whitehead). In the process of concrescence, the subjective aim usually undergoes substantial modification. The event ends as a ‘settled matter of fact’ (objective immortality) projected (superject) into the Actual Worlds of all future Actual Entities. The ‘subject’ of the action, the Actual Entity itself, is responsible (1) for its intention (subjective aim), (2) for its objective immortality (superject), and (3) for the way (‘subjective form’) that the intention is reflected in the satisfaction. Style counts! Every event is sui generis , it ‘causes itself’. Is this Nihilism? Or Solipsism? The very opposite! Every event begins with an evaluation of ‘everything that is’, and the formation of a complex intention that reflects that valuation and the relevant values it seeks to realize. On the other hand, no event is responsible for the way it is received by and integrated into subsequent Actual Entities. That is entirely the responsibility of those subsequent entities. Because every event is sui generis , no event causes any other event! That said, every event contributes to the Actual World of every subsequent event. This model of reality is not new, not to me, not even to Whitehead. In fact, I discovered a similar concept of causality in a 2000 year old Hindu scripture, the justly famous Bhagavad Gita . Let’s set the scene: We are on a field of battle but Arjuna, commander of one of the armies, is having second thoughts. He recognizes his kinship with the warriors on the other side and he is loath to kill them: “I foresee no good resulting from slaughtering my kin in war…for if we killed these murderers, evil like theirs would cling to us…The wrong done by this destruction is evident… Nor do we know whether it would be better for us to vanquish them or to be overcome.” In just a few words, Arjuna raises three cogent arguments against ‘activism’: (1) ‘karma’ from committed acts blows back on whoever commits those acts; (2) the acts that duty calls us to perform may be immoral per se (for example, killing other human beings); (3) there is no way to know anything about the long term consequences of our actions. Fortunately, however, Arjuna is best buds with the divine Lord Krishna and this ‘Handsome Haired One’ sets the ‘Strong-Armed Warrior’ straight: “Your concern should be with action, never with action’s fruits.” Lord Krishna swats away Arjuna’s weighty reservations with the flick of his supple wrist. In the process, he exposes the unstated premise undergirding both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment: i.e., that future events ( ends ) are ‘caused’ by prior events ( means ). Krishna exhorts Arjuna to detach himself from the fruits of his actions and to focus exclusively on the actions themselves. This is not an appeal for Quietism. Rejection of the fruits of action is not the same thing as rejection of action itself: “Not by not acting in this world does one become free from action… Not even for a moment does someone exist without acting… In order to maintain the world, your obligation is to act… Should I not engage in action these worlds would perish, utterly…” Today, we know that the cessation of all activity is synonymous with Absolute Zero on the Kelvin Scale; 0°K defines Big Freeze , the end of Universe. Krishna was ahead of his time. Non-action is an illusion. To be is to act. The question is how : “Scripture is your authority for what to do and not to do. Understanding its injunctions, you are obliged to action…These actions, though, should be performed without attachment to their fruits…” By Scripture, the Gita is referring to the Hindu Vedas and the Upanishads. Scripture plays a comparable role in Judeo-Christian theology. Here though, we are referring to the Torah, the Midrashim, the Talmud, the Semon on the Mount, etc. “All actions are undertaken by the qualities of nature though one deceived by his ego imagines, ‘I am doing this’… Qualities act on one another.” In other words, God, the conduit of all values into the world, acts through us, his mortal agents. Per Whitehead, all action is motivated by qualities (values). Actual Entities are the loci of acts but the acts themselves are pure expressions of values. The ‘subject’ is merely the mechanism by which those values are realized in the present and projected into the future. “Better to do one’s own duty ineptly than another’s well.” Here, The Gita calls to mind Paul’s contemporaneous Letter to Ephesians: “For we are his handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for the good works that God had prepared in advance that we should live in them.” (2: 10) We do not determine our duty. We divine it and we perform it…or we don’t! Duty is dictated by the ‘eternal objects’ ( aka ‘transcendental values’) that constitute God’s Primordial Nature. Nor is Krishna (God) exempt from these laws ( dharma ): “In order to protect the good…and to establish righteousness, age after age, I come to be.” God too is a manifestation of ‘qualities acting on one another’. Good is what constitutes God and it is God who projects Good into Universe. No Good, no God! No God, no Good! This is a radical form of the ontological argument for the existence of God. Medieval theologians noted that some entities are ‘more good’ than others. They reasoned that there must therefore be something that is ‘ most good ’, and that whatever is ‘most good’ must exist, because it is better to exist than not. That ‘most good being’ is what we call ‘God’. The Gita arrives at the same destination via a somewhat different route; Krishna says, “Know me as one who never acts.” - i.e., as one who selflessly lets qualities act through him. Speaking of qualities, “Of lights, I am the radiant sun…of stars, I am the Moon…of beings, I am consciousness…of waters, I am Ocean…of mountains, I am the Himalayas…of mortal men, I am the king…of rivers, I am Ganges…of creations, I am beginning, middle, and end…of speakers, I am the discourse…of secrets, I am the silence, and the knowledge of those who know…” Anslem of Bec never wrote like this! But a Medieval Irish poet ( St. Dallan ) came close: “Be Thou my vision…my best thought…my light…my wisdom…my true word…my treasure...” Like Dallan, Krishna defines himself in terms of essential qualities: “I am water’s taste, Arjuna, I am the light of the sun and moon…sound in the air, manhood in men. I am the pure fragrance of earth and the radiance of fire; I am the life in all beings…the mind of the intelligent, the splendor of the radiant. I am the might of the mighty…” “And know that states of being…proceed from me – however, I am not in them, they are in me…Here behold all the universe…standing as one in my body.” “I am that which is the seed within all beings, Arjuna – without me nothing can exist.” The Gospel of John applies this same insight to Christ: “All things came to be through him and without him nothing came to be.” (1: 3) Finally, Krishna makes clear to Arjuna that he neither controls nor is responsible for the course of events in the world: “Those warriors arrayed in lines opposing your men, even without you, will have perished…I have destroyed your enemy already: serve as my tool, O Ambidextrous Archer! (Arjuna)” “Who sees himself as the sole doer, does not see…even after slaying these people, he neither slays, nor is he bound…” Arjuna is responsible for discerning his duty, perhaps with a gentle nudge from Lord Krishna, and then performing that duty to the best of his ability. That will be his legacy, not the outcome of some battle now barely visible through the fog of history. So how is any of this different from the traditional Western view of causality? I’ll grant you the distinction is subtle…but important! We tend to focus on intent, motive, ‘what was he trying to do’. The model we are proposing here includes the formation of intent but also the execution of that intent. Our judges put great emphasis on the dismount. We focus on ‘settled matters of fact’: what did he do! We are not concerned, however, with what happens next. What use future Actual Entities make of Arjuna’s Objective Immortality is between them and their God. Leave Arjuna out of it. He is not to blame for the Great London Fire (1666) or for Johnny’s poor performance on this morning’s algebra exam. So, in the spirit of Voltaire ( Candide ), “Tend to your own patch!” David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Harvest Issue 2023 Share Previous Next