Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. ---------- If you have questions, comments, or ...
Feb 05, 2021•15 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. ---------- Naval Ravikant – Twitter thread from...
Feb 04, 2021•10 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. ---------- Rabbi Moskowitz – transcript from an...
Feb 03, 2021•8 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Seneca – Letter #2 Judging by what you write me, and by what I hear, I am forming a good opinion regarding your future. You do not run hither and thither and distract yourself by changing your abode; for such restlessness is the sign of a disordered spirit. The primary indication, to my thinking, of a well-ordered mind is a man’s ability to remain in one place and linger in his own company. ---------- Aurelius – Meditations 4:3 Men look ...
Feb 02, 2021•10 min•Season 3Ep. 2
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Epictetus – Enchiridion (The Handbook) 1:1 – On the one hand, there are things that are in our power, whereas other things are not in our power. In our power are opinion, impulse, desire, aversion and, in a word, whatever is our own doing. Things not in our power include our body, our possessions, our reputations, our status, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing. 1:2 – Now, things that are in our power are by nature free, unhind...
Feb 01, 2021•14 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Today's episode is a sneak peak of what's in store for next season, when we switch from the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius to the Letters of Seneca. Today's reading is from the first letter of Seneca I ever read. It's been on my mind because of a conversation I had with a student about what it means to be a reader - something that Seneca and I have different views on, as do Chazal. ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback,...
Jan 15, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 43
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! You will soon die and are not yet simple, untroubled, void of suspicion that anything from outside can hurt you, nor kindly disposed towards all, nor counting wisdom to consist only in just action. ---------- Epictetus - Discourses 3:10 (conclusion) Yirmiyahu 22:16 “He judged the case of the poor and the destitute, and then it was good. Is this not knowing Me?” says Hashem. ---------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would...
Jan 14, 2021•11 min•Season 2Ep. 42
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! I recorded this episode yesterday morning, in anticipation of getting the first dose of my COVID-19 vaccine. It's a few minutes longer than the usual episode, but that's because it covers three texts: one from Marcus Aurelius, one from Epictetus, and one from Seneca. ---------- The sources cited in today's episode are too long to cite in their entirety. Here are links to each text: - Aurelius – Meditations 5:8 - Epictetus – Discourses 2:...
Jan 13, 2021•13 min•Season 2Ep. 41
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Contemplate continually all things coming to pass by change, and accustom yourself to think that the nature of the universe loves nothing so much as to change what is and to create new things in their likeness. For everything that exists is, in a way, the seed of what will come out of it, whereas you imagine seeds to be only those which are cast into the earth or into the womb. But that is very unscientific (or “is a very vulgar notion”)...
Jan 12, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 40
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! All is ephemeral, both what remembers and what is remembered. ---------- Koheles 1:11 There is no memory of the earlier generations, and also the later generations that will be, there will not be a memory of them with those that will come later [yet]. Mahari Kara – Koheles 1:11 There is no memory of the earlier generations , for they have already died, and just as it seems like a new world from your own perspective because you don’t reme...
Jan 11, 2021•12 min•Season 2Ep. 39
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Epictetus – Enchiridion Chapter 17 Remember that you are an actor in a play of such a kind as the playwright chooses: short, if he wants it short, long if he wants it long. If he wants you to play the part of a beggar, play even this part well; and so also for the parts of a disabled person, an administrator, or a private individual. For this is your business, to play well the part you are given; but choosing it belongs to Another. Epict...
Jan 08, 2021•14 min•Season 2Ep. 38
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! With your whole will surrender yourself to Clotho to spin your fate into whatever web of things she will. ---------- Plato: The Republic, Book X ... the distaff rotates on the knees of Necessity … and seated around, at equal interval, three, each upon a throne, daughters of Necessity, in white garments, with wreaths on their heads, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos, the Fates, singing to the Sirens' song; Lachesis, the past: Clotho, the pres...
Jan 07, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 37
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Words familiar in olden times are now archaisms; so also the names of those whose praises were hymned in bygone days are now in a sense archaisms; Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus; a little after, Scipio too and Cato; then also Augustus, then also Hadrian and Antoninus. For all things quickly fade and turn to fable, and quickly, too, utter oblivion covers them like sand. And this I say of those who shone like stars to wonder at; the re...
Jan 06, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 36
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Call to mind by way of example the time of Vespasian: you will see everything the same: men marrying, bringing up children, falling ill, dying, fighting, feasting, trading, farming, flattering, asserting themselves, suspecting, plotting, praying for another's death, murmuring at the present, lusting, heaping up riches, setting their heart on offices and thrones. And now that life of theirs is no more and nowhere. Again pass on to the tim...
Jan 05, 2021•11 min•Season 2Ep. 35
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Love the art which you were taught, set up your retirement in this, and pass through what is left of life as one who has committed all that is yours, with your whole heart, to God, making yourself neither despot nor servant to any man. ---------- Aurelius – 5:9 Don't be disgusted, don't give up, don't be impatient if you do not carry out entirely conduct based in every detail upon right principles; but after a fall return again, and rejo...
Jan 04, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 34
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Here is a philosopher without a tunic, another without a book, another here half-naked. “I have no bread,” he says, “and still I abide by reason.” And I do not get the means of living out of my learning, and I abide by my reason. ---------- Epictetus – Enchiridion 23 If at any time it should happen that you turn to external things with the aim of pleasing someone, understand that you have ruined your life's plan. Be content, then, in eve...
Jan 01, 2021•10 min•Season 2Ep. 33
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! If he is a foreigner in the Universe who does not recognize the essence of the Universe, no less is he a foreigner, who does not recognize what comes to pass in it. A fugitive is he who runs away from the reasonable law of his City; a blind man, he who shuts the eye of the mind; a beggar, he who has need of another and has not all that is necessary for life in himself; an abscess on the Universe, he who rebels and separates himself from ...
Dec 31, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 32
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! A black character is an unmanly character, a stubborn character; bestial, childish, animalistic, foolish, crafty, ribald, fraudulent, tyrannical. ---------- Aurelius - Meditations 4:18 – How great a rest from labour he gains who does not look to what his neighbour says or does or thinks, but only to what he himself is doing, in order that exactly this may be just and holy, or in accord with a good man's conduct. 'Do not look round at a b...
Dec 30, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 31
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Either an ordered universe or a chaotic medley heaped together mechanically but still an order; but can order subsist in you and disorder in the whole? And that, too, when all things are so distinguished and yet intermingled and sympathetic. ---------- Aurelius – Meditations 12:14-15 Either the necessity of destiny and an order none may transgress, or providence that hears intercession, or an ungoverned chaos without a purpose. If then a...
Dec 29, 2020•10 min•Season 2Ep. 30
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! 4:26 – You have seen those things, look now at these: do not trouble yourself, make yourself simple. Does a man do wrong? He does wrong to himself. Has some chance befallen you? It is well; from Universal Nature, from the beginning, all that befalls has been apportioned for you and the thread was spun. The sum of the matter is this: life is short; the present must be turned to profit by the aid of reason and righteousness. Be sober in yo...
Dec 28, 2020•10 min•Season 2Ep. 29
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! In memory of Yocheved Gouarie (a"h). Click here for the link to the Amudim fundraiser on my Facebook page, or email me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail.com for other donation options. Seneca's Letter #18 (pp.92-96) Yeshayahu 58:1-10 Cry out with a powerful voice, do not restrain yourself; raise your voice like a shofar – proclaim to My people their willful sins, to the House of Jacob their transgressions. They [pretend to] seek Me every day ...
Dec 25, 2020•18 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! For the full text of Seneca's Letter #18, click here and skip to pp.92-96. For Rabbi Joshua Maroof's article, The Celebration of Hanukkah: "Rededicating" the Original Winter Festival , click here . -------------------- Rambam – Mishneh Torah: Sefer Zmanim, Hilchos Shevisas Yom Tov 6:19 Even though eating and drinking on the festivals is included within the positive commandment, a person should not eat and drink the entire day. Rather, th...
Dec 24, 2020•15 min•Season 2Ep. 27
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Make trial for yourself how the life of the good man, too, fares well, of the man who is satisfied with his portion out of the whole and contented by his own just action and kind disposition. -------------------- Avos 4:1 Who is wealthy? One who is satisfied with his portion. Rambam – Moreh ha’Nevuchim 3:12 … the soul, when accustomed to superfluous things, acquires a strong habit of desiring things which are neither necessary for the pr...
Dec 23, 2020•10 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Democritus has said: “Do few things, if you would enjoy tranquility.” May it not be better to do the necessary things and what the reason of a creature intended by Nature to be social prescribes, and as that reason prescribes? For this brings not only the tranquility from doing right but also from doing few things. For if one removes most of what we say and do as unnecessary, he will have more leisure and less interruption. Wherefore on ...
Dec 22, 2020•7 min•Season 2Ep. 25
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Everything is fitting for me, my Universe, which fits thy purpose. Nothing in thy good time is too early or too late for me; everything is fruit for me which thy seasons, Nature, bear; from thee, in thee, to thee are all things. The poet sings: 'Dear city of Cecrops', and will you not say: 'Dear city of God'? -------------------- Avos 2:4 [Rabban Gamliel, son of R' Yehuda ha'Nassi,] used to say: make His will like your will so that He wi...
Dec 21, 2020•9 min•Season 2Ep. 24
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Epictetus – Discourses 2.18 (excerpt) In the first place, do not allow yourself to be carried away by [the] intensity [of your impression]: but say, “Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me test you.” Then, afterwards, do not allow it to draw you on by picturing what may come next, for if you do, it will lead you wherever it pleases. But rather, you should introduce some fair and noble im...
Dec 18, 2020•6 min•Season 2Ep. 23
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Do not wander without a purpose, but in all your impulses render what is just, and in all your imaginations maintain your faculty of comprehension and understanding. -------------------- Epictetus – Discourses 2.18.24-25 (trans. Hard) In the first place, do not allow yourself to be carried away by [the] intensity [of your impression]: but say, “Impression, wait for me a little. Let me see what you are, and what you represent. Let me test...
Dec 17, 2020•10 min•Season 2Ep. 22
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! 4:21 – You ask how, if souls continue to exist, the atmosphere has room for them from time eternal. But how does the ground have room for the bodies of those who for so long an age are buried in it? The answer is that, as on earth change and dissolution after a continuance for so long make room for other dead bodies, so in the atmosphere souls pass on and continue for so long, and then change and are poured out and are kindled being assu...
Dec 16, 2020•10 min•Season 2Ep. 21
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Today's reading is from Seneca's Letter #13: On Groundless Fears . The letter in its entirety, or even in its excerpted form, is too long to include here, but you can access the entire thing in PDF form here , clicking on The Tao of Seneca Volume 1 , and locating Letter #13 on page 66 in the document (page 68 in the PDF file). Have a happy Chanukah! -------------------- If you have questions, comments, or feedback, I would love to hear f...
Dec 11, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 20
Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text! Epictetus – Enchiridion (Handbook) 3-4 With respect to any of those things you find attractive or useful or have a fondness for, recall to mind what kind of thing it is, beginning with the most trifling. So if you are fond of an earthenware pot, say, “I am fond of an earthenware pot.” Then you will not be upset if it gets broken … When you are about to undertake some task, remind yourself what sort of business it is. If you are going out...
Dec 10, 2020•11 min•Season 2Ep. 19
