Suck it Up or _____ it Up

A very long time ago, i mentioned that Rousseau said something like 'Put a young man in a workshop, his hands will work to the benefit of his brain, and he will become a philosopher while thinking himself only a craftsman.' It's something i think about at least weekly. Now, i just want to warn anyone reading this that this is more of a personal post. Anyway, i learnt a valuable lesson through my woodworking that i really hope will translate into my other work habits; my progress on the doctorate. I have noticed that these habits are one in the same, as i am the same person when i do both. Simple enough. The doctorate, or at least writing the doctorate has been a real challenge. I keep wanting to recheck my notes, to downplay the risks i am taking in some of the ideas i set forth. The well-known expression in the woodworking world 'measure twice, cut once' was something i seemed (i am writing in past tense because i hope to leave this behind) to take to the extreme. And i noticed i had the same issue of avoidance or fear with my woodworking. I have wanted to build for myself a proper workbench at which i could really perfect my craft. One's work can only turn out so well when one must assume contorted positions on the floor or kitchen counter in order to stabilise workpieces. So i obviously bought the Schwarz's book on workbenches and resolved to make myself the 18th century French workbench, known by the name of its designer, Roubo (pictured).Of course, i went over and over and over the book, debated on the lumber to order, the dimensions, etc. It took a lot of energy. Finally i took the plunge and ordered the wood. I was very happy!

Then the wood had to acclimate to my house and i flew to the States to visit my family. When i returned, i was struck with fear. Oh, crap. There's a giant pile of wood in my house. How am i going to dimension all the lumber for the top with only hand tools and no workbench?! What if i mess this up? It's going to be so much money and time wasted and i will be stuck with all this messed up lumber! So i let it sit for a while. And then a little more. Wow--the lumber is for sure acclimated to my house now! Last week, i decided to just go for it. The situation was beginning to look a bit ridiculous. I decided to glue up the top to the best of my limited abilities, and i would just deal with gaps, should they form. There's always epoxy. I took the plunge and glued up the top. To those of you reading who don't know about woodworking, glue-ups are the most stressful aspect of projects. But, i had forced myself the point of just not caring anymore. F-it. How bad can it turn out? I just want the wood off my floor! So i glued it up--in sections, over a few days, and i am pleased (and still surprised) to say that it turned out pretty ok. It's not perfect, but it wasn't as bad as i feared, and now i am well on my way to my goal, and i feel emboldened. I think the same attitude can be put towards academics. I am definitely at the point where i am saying F-it. How bad can it turn out? But i think there's a lesson here. Either suck it up, or you will f- it up. In other words, your best effort may fall short of perfection (God forbid!), but it will not be as bad as being stuck with loads of lumber on your floor or loads of notes and unfinished chapter drafts. As you can see, my bench top needs some work, but at least i have something to work on:

Religious Tolerance Continued

In the last post, we mentioned Tayor's attributing of a story about Abraham by the Persian poet Saadi to rabbinic sources. This we can trace to Taylor's reading of Gentius's (who, as did other scholars of the era-such as Grotius-Latinised his name. Gentius's given name was Georg Gentze) Historia Judaica, a translation of Rabbi Solomon Ibn Verga's Shevet Yehuda (or Scepter of Judah). One reader mentioned that George Alexander Kohut offers a plausible explanation for Gentius's interesting scholarly oversight in inserting the Saadi story into Historia Judaica. The article is reproduced below.

For information on Gentius which was well nigh impossible to find online, i turned to one of the definitive books on Early Modern Hebraism: Aaron L. Katchen's Christian Hebraists and Dutch Rabbis: Seventeenth Century Apologetics and the Study of Maimonides' Mishneh Torah. It's seriously one of my favourite books!

Another reader expressed curiosity about Gentius, which i found in Katchen's book. I've (rather poorly) scanned some biographical information that Katchen provides about Gentius, which can read here. Katchen also discusses the Abraham story, which is also available here.

Below is the article by Kohut, published in 1902:
Abraham's Lesson in Tolerance

Early Modern Hebraism as an Antecedent for Religious Toleration? Jeremy Taylor, John Locke, and Benjamin Franklin

Over forty years before Locke published his Letter Concerning Toleration (1689), Jeremy Taylor's A Discourse of the Liberty of Prophesying (1646) was a pioneering Protestant work on the subject of religious liberty. Interestingly, Taylor ends this treatise with a story he found in the 'Jews' books'; a story of Abraham being chastened by God for not being tolerant enough to an idolator! Below is Taylor's rendering of the story:

About a century later, Ben Franklin would paraphrase Taylor's story in order to argue in favour of religious toleration.

But from which of the 'Jews' books' did this story come? Surprisingly, from none; not the Talmud, Midrash, or any other mifarshim (commentators). Richard J. Newman, identifies the source of Taylor's story as Saadi's Bustan-a work which he has translated-in this post (header beginning with 'Benjamin Franklin').

But why did Taylor think that a medieval Persian poet was a 'Jewish doctor'? And what does a German Hebraist named Georg Gentze have to do with it? Stay tuned...

Rietveld: Zigzagstoel

Here is a great clip of a guy building Rietveld's famous zig-zag stoel (chair):

Jeremy Taylor, שמות רבה, and Going for the Gold

It's pretty cool to see midrash, specifically שמות רבה quoted by Jeremy Taylor. Since I like to keep my blog fairly apolitical, so i will try and resist from relating the idea of grabbing at shiny coal and getting burnt to some recent political developments:

And then, a few lines later, Taylor references another midrash, this time, i think it's from Pirke De Rabbi Eliezer:

Absalom, caught by his hair in the tree felt as if he was dangling directly over hell, and to cut himself down would be to effectively hasten his death. Therefore, he saw his painful

predicamentas buying him time, effectively. That's according to Rashi, who brings the midrash. Taylor continues:

Although doing the right thing is pretty clear, we tend to get our priorities a bit mixed up, so to speak. Perhaps Absalom was also entangled in his own delusions that he thought he wouldn't be caught. Hopefully on a personal level we won't sink that low. But as a voting population, hopefully

we'll know when to cut down our entangled, corrupt leadership. For a more politically explicit rendering of this story, see Dryden's 1681 poem 'Absalom and Achitophel,' by clicking here.

Doing Da Vinci

I know the title sounds a bit suggestive, but it's actually the name of a series on the Discovery Channel. Anyway, today is the birthday of Leonardo Da Vinci, a great example of a handy intellectual, or a tinker-thinker. The Wikipedia entry on Da Vinci has some great external links, including his notebooks.

Here's the first part of a documentary about Da Vinci: