Nibbling on a croque-en-bouche the other day with my sweet-toothed friend David Schoffman, the subject of Jewish mysticism came up. We were seated on the terrace of Felix Café am Bellvevue, a place where old Europe strains against the pressures of western gastronomical prudery. "Zurich always brings out my thaumaturgical urges," Schoffman garbled through a tongue tied with oozing caramel, "it's a place where tallis and talisman melt into an incoherent gush of personal melancholy.
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| study for Birkat Cohanim II, 1997 |
Pressed on the issue, he continued.
"I've been rereading the essays of the great philologist Mario Robitosen. He has a great quote regarding apostasy, calling it 'the midwife of staunch assurances.' I ruminated on this strange categorization for weeks until I finally realized that it was, at its very root, utterly meaningless. It was then when the future of my work became clear to me."
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| Schoffman's studio - Los Angeles, 2009 |
This piqued my curiosity and upon returning to Paris I picked up a copy of Robitosen's seminal work The Ethics of Accident and Bad Luck.
I found it almost completely unintelligible.
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