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Religion and Philosophy
Sunbeams
June 1974When you are at table, speak to none, keep your eyes lowered, and think of the heavenly table, of the food that is served thereon, which food is God Himself, and of the guests at this table, who are the angels.
Sy’s New York Diary: Amazing Flesh
I read, in the newspaper, about a man who is dragged from his car, knifed repeatedly for the few dollars in his wallet, and left bleeding in the gutter. My mother says her friends don’t go out at night. It’s an old story, old as the city’s tired and dour expression, old as the dry and wrinkled hands of a man trying to remember better days and remembering nothing but bone.
June 1974Chewing It Over
Yom Kippur. The Jewish Day of Atonement. Along with my family, I used to fast, on this holy day, to expiate my sins, to assure that God would mercifully grant me yet one more year, during which, along with my family, I might sit every night before the TV, eating enough fruit and cookies to feed the whole block.
June 1974
What Money Can’t Buy
In order to come together with people that share common interests, we have traveled around the U.S. for the last five months, hitchhiking with very little or no money and carrying only what we could stuff into our pockets. We shared with many people.
May 1974A Child Tonight
I wanted to touch him, hold him and laugh with him, show him something — just one thing — good about the world, but I couldn’t think of anything just then. I wanted to fold his mother into me, whoever she was, and love her, build for myself and these two people I didn’t even know a world where laughter and gentleness is possible, not distorted.
May 1974
Sy’s New York Diary
Everyone in high, high heels, reaching for heaven, an eyebrow raised above the clouds, trying to see.
April 1974
