From Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People, and Its History, HarperCollins, New York, 2001, ISBN 0-688-08406-7, page 249:
hopefulYeah, I rather thought so. I'm not at all surprised you agree, love.
aet on November 7th, 2006 04:59 am (UTC)OUCH! Funny, I never thought of it that way but of course you're right—it can be read to mean something other than what was intended.
As to why you read it as you did … you probably can answer that better than I. Perhaps you're just one of those people who automatically riffles through all (or at least many) possible meanings of any given statement before deciding which one is most likely to have been intended. I know I frequently do that, which is why one of my mottos is: "Never give a straight-line an even break."
Or it might be as you posit here: that the recent history of your region has skewed your perspective.
Or perhaps it was because of something else entirely.
Interesting thoughts, though. Thank you.
You're quite welcome. I'm very glad you're enjoying them (you being among those whose opinions I most respect) and, as you no doubt noticed, I am continuing to post them. I actually have a number of post-it notes sticking out of that book, but I don't want to overwhelm people. I also want to try to post a few writings of my very own (or, at least, as much as any thought, idea, and words can be one's "very own") every now and then, and I suspect that posting too many quotations allatime would decrease my energy for that. I guess time will tell.
