{"id":66,"date":"2006-09-07T03:44:47","date_gmt":"2006-09-07T03:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/summametaphysica.com\/gg\/foreword-2\/"},"modified":"2018-04-23T16:38:02","modified_gmt":"2018-04-23T21:38:02","slug":"foreword-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/gg\/foreword-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Foreword by DROB"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Sanford Drob<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Eighteen years in the making, David Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the poetic portion of his new book God and Good<\/em>, is a beautiful and fitting complement to his 1988 masterpiece, God and Evil<\/em>. Nearly everything about this new work, with the exception of its genuine excellence, contrasts markedly with Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s earlier book.<\/p>\n

Whereas God and Evil was discursive, closely argued and philosophical, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is poetic, highly personal, and mythological. Whereas God and Evil<\/em> was profoundly serious, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is often light and humorous.<\/p>\n

Whereas God and Evil <\/em>spoke with the highest imaginable degree of generality (declaring, for example, that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Holy Potential is at the epicenter of the Divine\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be extraordinarily particular (Guardian Angel #62 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Snowstorms on School Days, and #88 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Playing Chess with Your Son\u00e2\u20ac\u009d). However, while Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new work is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153particular\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the Aristotelian sense that knowledge of the particular brings clarity to the universal, it is hardly particular in the sense of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153particularistic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153parochial\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Indeed, Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s angels, while they do seem to have a fondness for Jewish ideas and activities (Guardian Angel #25 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lighting Shabbos<\/em> Candles\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and #75 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gemorrah Chavrusahs<\/em>\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), are ecumenical enough to include in amongst them #71 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Ju Jitsu\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and #89 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Catholic School Marching Bands.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Birnbaum, in God and Evil<\/em>, argued that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Holy Potential\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153primal thrust of the cosmos\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and that man, created in the divine image, has as his purpose the actualization and fulfillment of that potential. In this new book, Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s angels speak to us directly and inform us precisely how this potential can be attained. Many of the angels, of course, reflect universally acknowledged ideas and values (Guardian Angel #4 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Freedom\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and #5 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Mercy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), but it is in the more idiosyncratic amongst them (e.g. #44 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Five-Year Old Girls Giggling\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, #50 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Putting-the-Kids-to-Bed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, and #58 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Iron Mill Workers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) that we get the sense that the factory of Holy (and human) Potential is really working.<\/p>\n

~continued~<\/p>\n

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\nReading Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book, I cannot help but also view it as a complement to Lin Yutang\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 1937 Confucian classic The Importance of Living<\/em>, in which the author speaks so eloquently and so spiritually of life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simple pleasures, like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153lying in bed\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sitting in chairs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Lin tells us \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned how to live.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Birnbaum, in God and Evil, espoused a much more active, and hence Jewish\/Western, view of life\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s meaning, but here in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he makes room for such dalliances as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bubbles\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (angel #13), \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kite Flying\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (#54) and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Catching the Moment\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (#40). There appears to be an appreciation that in matters of actualizing Holy Potential there is, indeed, as Lin Yutang articulated, both \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the noble art of getting things done [and] the noble art of [sometimes] leaving things undone.<\/p>\n

The Kabbalists, in whom much of Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s thinking is rooted (angel #109 is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lurianic Kabbalah\u00e2\u20ac\u009d), held that there is a coincidence of opposites governing both God and humanity; Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s latest effort, especially when placed in the context of his earlier one, (with the complementary book titles explicitly forewarning us) most certainly seems to embody this dialectical spirit.<\/p>\n

Chayyim Vital<\/em>, whose great work Sefer Etz Chayyim<\/em>, is the classic exposition of Lurianic Kabbalah, once acknowledged that the world is for the most part evil, with only the slightest bit of good mixed in. Adin Steinsaltz, the contemporary rabbinic sage and Kabbalist, has said that the full meaning of Vital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seemingly pessimistic dictum is that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153ours is the worst of all possible worlds in which there is yet hope, and that this is paradoxically the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbest of all possible worlds.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The reason for this, Rabbi Steinsaltz tells us, is that only in such a world of extreme adversity, a world \u00e2\u20ac\u0153on the brink\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of total disaster, can humankind be motivated to realize the emotional, spiritual, aesthetic and intellectual possibilities that have been bequeathed to it by our creator.<\/p>\n

David Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s mythic 120 Guardian Angels are a celestial chorus imploring us to do just that, to realize our full cosmic potential as human beings and thereby act as partners with the divine in actualizing the potential of our world.<\/p>\n

Dr. Sanford Drob
\nMay 19, 2006
\nFounding co-Editor, The NY Jewish Review
\nwww.NewKabbalah.com<\/a>
\n<\/a><\/p>\n

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by Sanford Drob \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eighteen years in the making, David Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the poetic portion of his new book God and Good, is a beautiful and fitting complement to his 1988 masterpiece, God and Evil. Nearly everything about this new work, with the exception of its genuine excellence, contrasts markedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nForeword by DROB - David Birnbaum Summa Metaphysica II<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/gg\/foreword-2\/\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/www.summametaphysica.com\/gg\/foreword-2\/2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Foreword by DROB - David Birnbaum Summa Metaphysica II\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"by Sanford Drob \u00e2\u20ac\u0153God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Eighteen years in the making, David Birnbaum\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153120 Guardian Angels\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the poetic portion of his new book God and Good, is a beautiful and fitting complement to his 1988 masterpiece, God and Evil. 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