Shalom,
!
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Shalom,
!
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Shalom,
!
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Shalom,
!
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Thursday, November 12, 2026
Publisher’s notes
Jim Clevenson on voting in Schenectady, the big questions, curiosity, an autumn walk, the Festival of Nations and Rabbi Rubin.
Jim Clevenson
3
mins read time
Originally published at
The Jewish World
James R. Clevenson
Election
I voted on Sunday. Very quick and pleasant trip to the main library in Schenectady. While the air was a little nippy, there was a great farmers’ market on three sides of city hall — fruit, vegetables, meats, dough-nuts, hats and trinkets, food trucks and tables for the tummy, whiskeys and vodkas. This week reviewing election results and prospects for continued conflict from the pols, I think I should have stocked up on the last items.
Mortality
“Aging is not for sissies,” they used to say. Reminds us to focus on meaning and the “big questions.” In Yiddish, “Tachlis!” — Let’s get to the point! — as injuries and disease are the messengers of mortality. Is there a positive message?
What is your life about? What will be your feeling on your “death bed”? What did you do or not do?
Did I live my life? Did I really live? What would make my life fulfilled now? Can I leave with a sense of fulfillment? What am I leaving on the table?
Ignorance
I want to be the best parent I can. What can I do for my son that I’m not doing? I want to give him everything I think is valuable. He needs things and money, of course (“do I have enough?” is the continual plaguing thought). The intangibles — what should I try to teach him? What do I have to transmit? Love for language, love for artistic expression, love for analytical thought —especially in personal reflection.
What do I know? I’ve benefitted from guidance in the use of thought —dialectic — in understanding desires and frustrations — mine and those of others. That may not be his path!
ADVERTISEMENT
Curiosity
We must foment curiosity! in ourselves, in our loved family, in everyone! Why curiosity? In one of his 1958 “Coney Island of the Mind” poems, Ferlinghetti writes, “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.” It’s hard to admit ignorance, but that’s who we are. Benighted, unknowing. Let’s acknowledge this and ask the questions. This has an important application in our current “political” atmosphere. It’s more an indoctrinated atmosphere. Somehow our “western values” of questioning, scholarship, experimentation, “science” (which disciplines were mostly invented by, yes, the Jews) have been subverted by teachings—in the universities—presumed citadels of learning and thought!— teachings that do not question their own assumptions. That is the key: ask what is the assumption that makes X seem true?
How do we disengage from our automatic responses to events, how do we train ourselves to regard everything sub specie aeternitatis….?
Autumn
Oct. 31 was a beautiful day for trekking through Saratoga Spa Park with my 13-year-old. He wears headphones and listens to music, but OK, we’re out together enjoying nature. We admired the geysers and collected some mineral spring water.
Home repairs
I broke down and called my home repair guy, who last year painted a hideous red-pinkish trim on the front of my house. We chose to cover it with a neutral brown to go with the tan of house. And he rebuilt the little back porch my father built in around 1963. Amazing that it was still, though rotting, functioning!
Festival of Nations - Sunday, Nov. 1
Federation sponsored/coordinated the Israel booth, and presentation of songs and dancing kids on stage—
see pix on cover and below, and on our website— please share the website link!
Rabbi Rubin
‘Enjoy Torah’ sticker
Let’s keep in mind our departed friend Israel Rubin, and keep gratitude in our hearts for the Jewish resources he built. Shloshim gathering to remember and honor him was held Nov. 3 at Shabbos House, the magnificent facility on Fuller Road partly funded by the Rohr family.
ADVERTISEMENT
Publisher’s notes
Jim Clevenson on voting in Schenectady, the big questions, curiosity, an autumn walk, the Festival of Nations and Rabbi Rubin.
Jim Clevenson
3
mins read time
Originally published at
The Jewish World
James R. Clevenson
Election
I voted on Sunday. Very quick and pleasant trip to the main library in Schenectady. While the air was a little nippy, there was a great farmers’ market on three sides of city hall — fruit, vegetables, meats, dough-nuts, hats and trinkets, food trucks and tables for the tummy, whiskeys and vodkas. This week reviewing election results and prospects for continued conflict from the pols, I think I should have stocked up on the last items.
Mortality
“Aging is not for sissies,” they used to say. Reminds us to focus on meaning and the “big questions.” In Yiddish, “Tachlis!” — Let’s get to the point! — as injuries and disease are the messengers of mortality. Is there a positive message?
What is your life about? What will be your feeling on your “death bed”? What did you do or not do?
Did I live my life? Did I really live? What would make my life fulfilled now? Can I leave with a sense of fulfillment? What am I leaving on the table?
Ignorance
I want to be the best parent I can. What can I do for my son that I’m not doing? I want to give him everything I think is valuable. He needs things and money, of course (“do I have enough?” is the continual plaguing thought). The intangibles — what should I try to teach him? What do I have to transmit? Love for language, love for artistic expression, love for analytical thought —especially in personal reflection.
What do I know? I’ve benefitted from guidance in the use of thought —dialectic — in understanding desires and frustrations — mine and those of others. That may not be his path!
ADVERTISEMENT
Curiosity
We must foment curiosity! in ourselves, in our loved family, in everyone! Why curiosity? In one of his 1958 “Coney Island of the Mind” poems, Ferlinghetti writes, “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.” It’s hard to admit ignorance, but that’s who we are. Benighted, unknowing. Let’s acknowledge this and ask the questions. This has an important application in our current “political” atmosphere. It’s more an indoctrinated atmosphere. Somehow our “western values” of questioning, scholarship, experimentation, “science” (which disciplines were mostly invented by, yes, the Jews) have been subverted by teachings—in the universities—presumed citadels of learning and thought!— teachings that do not question their own assumptions. That is the key: ask what is the assumption that makes X seem true?
How do we disengage from our automatic responses to events, how do we train ourselves to regard everything sub specie aeternitatis….?
Autumn
Oct. 31 was a beautiful day for trekking through Saratoga Spa Park with my 13-year-old. He wears headphones and listens to music, but OK, we’re out together enjoying nature. We admired the geysers and collected some mineral spring water.
Home repairs
I broke down and called my home repair guy, who last year painted a hideous red-pinkish trim on the front of my house. We chose to cover it with a neutral brown to go with the tan of house. And he rebuilt the little back porch my father built in around 1963. Amazing that it was still, though rotting, functioning!
Festival of Nations - Sunday, Nov. 1
Federation sponsored/coordinated the Israel booth, and presentation of songs and dancing kids on stage—
see pix on cover and below, and on our website— please share the website link!
Rabbi Rubin
‘Enjoy Torah’ sticker
Let’s keep in mind our departed friend Israel Rubin, and keep gratitude in our hearts for the Jewish resources he built. Shloshim gathering to remember and honor him was held Nov. 3 at Shabbos House, the magnificent facility on Fuller Road partly funded by the Rohr family.
ADVERTISEMENT
Publisher’s notes
Jim Clevenson on voting in Schenectady, the big questions, curiosity, an autumn walk, the Festival of Nations and Rabbi Rubin.
Jim Clevenson
3
mins read time
Originally published at
The Jewish World
James R. Clevenson
Election
I voted on Sunday. Very quick and pleasant trip to the main library in Schenectady. While the air was a little nippy, there was a great farmers’ market on three sides of city hall — fruit, vegetables, meats, dough-nuts, hats and trinkets, food trucks and tables for the tummy, whiskeys and vodkas. This week reviewing election results and prospects for continued conflict from the pols, I think I should have stocked up on the last items.
Mortality
“Aging is not for sissies,” they used to say. Reminds us to focus on meaning and the “big questions.” In Yiddish, “Tachlis!” — Let’s get to the point! — as injuries and disease are the messengers of mortality. Is there a positive message?
What is your life about? What will be your feeling on your “death bed”? What did you do or not do?
Did I live my life? Did I really live? What would make my life fulfilled now? Can I leave with a sense of fulfillment? What am I leaving on the table?
Ignorance
I want to be the best parent I can. What can I do for my son that I’m not doing? I want to give him everything I think is valuable. He needs things and money, of course (“do I have enough?” is the continual plaguing thought). The intangibles — what should I try to teach him? What do I have to transmit? Love for language, love for artistic expression, love for analytical thought —especially in personal reflection.
What do I know? I’ve benefitted from guidance in the use of thought —dialectic — in understanding desires and frustrations — mine and those of others. That may not be his path!
ADVERTISEMENT
Curiosity
We must foment curiosity! in ourselves, in our loved family, in everyone! Why curiosity? In one of his 1958 “Coney Island of the Mind” poems, Ferlinghetti writes, “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.” It’s hard to admit ignorance, but that’s who we are. Benighted, unknowing. Let’s acknowledge this and ask the questions. This has an important application in our current “political” atmosphere. It’s more an indoctrinated atmosphere. Somehow our “western values” of questioning, scholarship, experimentation, “science” (which disciplines were mostly invented by, yes, the Jews) have been subverted by teachings—in the universities—presumed citadels of learning and thought!— teachings that do not question their own assumptions. That is the key: ask what is the assumption that makes X seem true?
How do we disengage from our automatic responses to events, how do we train ourselves to regard everything sub specie aeternitatis….?
Autumn
Oct. 31 was a beautiful day for trekking through Saratoga Spa Park with my 13-year-old. He wears headphones and listens to music, but OK, we’re out together enjoying nature. We admired the geysers and collected some mineral spring water.
Home repairs
I broke down and called my home repair guy, who last year painted a hideous red-pinkish trim on the front of my house. We chose to cover it with a neutral brown to go with the tan of house. And he rebuilt the little back porch my father built in around 1963. Amazing that it was still, though rotting, functioning!
Festival of Nations - Sunday, Nov. 1
Federation sponsored/coordinated the Israel booth, and presentation of songs and dancing kids on stage—
see pix on cover and below, and on our website— please share the website link!
Rabbi Rubin
‘Enjoy Torah’ sticker
Let’s keep in mind our departed friend Israel Rubin, and keep gratitude in our hearts for the Jewish resources he built. Shloshim gathering to remember and honor him was held Nov. 3 at Shabbos House, the magnificent facility on Fuller Road partly funded by the Rohr family.
ADVERTISEMENT
Publisher’s notes
Jim Clevenson on voting in Schenectady, the big questions, curiosity, an autumn walk, the Festival of Nations and Rabbi Rubin.
Jim Clevenson
3
mins read time
Originally published at
The Jewish World
James R. Clevenson
Election
I voted on Sunday. Very quick and pleasant trip to the main library in Schenectady. While the air was a little nippy, there was a great farmers’ market on three sides of city hall — fruit, vegetables, meats, dough-nuts, hats and trinkets, food trucks and tables for the tummy, whiskeys and vodkas. This week reviewing election results and prospects for continued conflict from the pols, I think I should have stocked up on the last items.
Mortality
“Aging is not for sissies,” they used to say. Reminds us to focus on meaning and the “big questions.” In Yiddish, “Tachlis!” — Let’s get to the point! — as injuries and disease are the messengers of mortality. Is there a positive message?
What is your life about? What will be your feeling on your “death bed”? What did you do or not do?
Did I live my life? Did I really live? What would make my life fulfilled now? Can I leave with a sense of fulfillment? What am I leaving on the table?
Ignorance
I want to be the best parent I can. What can I do for my son that I’m not doing? I want to give him everything I think is valuable. He needs things and money, of course (“do I have enough?” is the continual plaguing thought). The intangibles — what should I try to teach him? What do I have to transmit? Love for language, love for artistic expression, love for analytical thought —especially in personal reflection.
What do I know? I’ve benefitted from guidance in the use of thought —dialectic — in understanding desires and frustrations — mine and those of others. That may not be his path!
ADVERTISEMENT
Curiosity
We must foment curiosity! in ourselves, in our loved family, in everyone! Why curiosity? In one of his 1958 “Coney Island of the Mind” poems, Ferlinghetti writes, “I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder.” It’s hard to admit ignorance, but that’s who we are. Benighted, unknowing. Let’s acknowledge this and ask the questions. This has an important application in our current “political” atmosphere. It’s more an indoctrinated atmosphere. Somehow our “western values” of questioning, scholarship, experimentation, “science” (which disciplines were mostly invented by, yes, the Jews) have been subverted by teachings—in the universities—presumed citadels of learning and thought!— teachings that do not question their own assumptions. That is the key: ask what is the assumption that makes X seem true?
How do we disengage from our automatic responses to events, how do we train ourselves to regard everything sub specie aeternitatis….?
Autumn
Oct. 31 was a beautiful day for trekking through Saratoga Spa Park with my 13-year-old. He wears headphones and listens to music, but OK, we’re out together enjoying nature. We admired the geysers and collected some mineral spring water.
Home repairs
I broke down and called my home repair guy, who last year painted a hideous red-pinkish trim on the front of my house. We chose to cover it with a neutral brown to go with the tan of house. And he rebuilt the little back porch my father built in around 1963. Amazing that it was still, though rotting, functioning!
Festival of Nations - Sunday, Nov. 1
Federation sponsored/coordinated the Israel booth, and presentation of songs and dancing kids on stage—
see pix on cover and below, and on our website— please share the website link!
Rabbi Rubin
‘Enjoy Torah’ sticker
Let’s keep in mind our departed friend Israel Rubin, and keep gratitude in our hearts for the Jewish resources he built. Shloshim gathering to remember and honor him was held Nov. 3 at Shabbos House, the magnificent facility on Fuller Road partly funded by the Rohr family.
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© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios
© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios
© 2026 The Jewish World · Since 1965 - The Capital Region's gateway to Jewish life
Designed and Developed by Ta-Da Studios