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I am moved yet again by this podcast/post. Truth is the only commodity that never loses its worth--and Whitman knew, proved and lived that truth--just as you are doing. Thanks.

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Thank you Naomi Wolf! I appreciate this as it comes to me in perfect order. Working through detaching in words n voice and the courage not give my power over to others. Blessings. Terry Kim. Also a bay area native! No longer though

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Dec 27, 2022·edited Dec 27, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

Inspiring words, Naomi! They "hit me in the write place". Done a few months ago, this short poem is yours, not mine! I cannot think of a better place and time to render it, in response to the wisdom from you and your father. Thank you. 💛

For Naomi Wolf

(A vision while reading The Bodies of Others)

You’re the tempest and the calm,

Making earth a better place.

You’re the sabre and the balm,

Wielding Truth within God’s Grace!

You’re the passion and the sorrow.

In your words we feel the fire

Lighting hope for a bright tomorrow

And to rescue souls’ desire.

As you boldly rise above

Worldly turmoil, with lament,

And imbued with God’s pure Love,

You share light from heaven sent.

In awe and gratitude,

The PoetLARRYeate™ 😏

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A poet and now you know it!

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😀. Yes, a published poet and lyricist. But my most gratifying ones have been for people who touch my soul.

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Dec 27, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

Oh, and two Christmas quotes for you..

“Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.”

--Eric Sevareid

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”

--Bob Hope

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You are a totally lovely individual.. I wish I had met you a long time ago.

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Dec 27, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

But even Peter, Paul and thousands of them were also Jews, and they saw and believe that Jesus was the one prophesized by Scriptures and raised and lived with them for 40 days teaching them all what until the Cross they did not understood.. Open your religious mind and you will also receive the light that comes from His Spirit.. We have been, Jew and Christians been thought wrong, since Genesis to the last books of the Old Testament, as God place Adam as His son on earth to perfoms His will, which he coudn't, but in Christ we can get to finish His predetermined plans and design... God bless you

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The real plurality isn’t “ Liberal vs. Conservative”. It is Globalism vs Freedom and the UniParty is a global entity.

Mitch McConnell , blinded by his shared elitism with the bipartisan duplicitous duopoly exposed that betrayal has long been a unified criminal enterprise. He, like his colleagues behind the curtains assumed “ We The People” were too stupid to figure it out.

I pray for a DeSantis/awakened Dem ticket in 2024. To form a strong, pro-sovereign America , pragmatic, Independent union. If we even have another election.

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Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah Naomi! Thank you for all that you are doing! Many blessings for the coming year as we will all have to find it within us to stand against the rising tide of the evil things currently being perpetuated upon the world. I do believe Jesus/ Yeshua is mashiach! So as this last night of Hanukkah comes to a close I just want to remind everyone that he was and is Jewish. He is represented by the Shamash candle who became the light unto the world. Baruch HaShem!

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Dr. Wolf, enjoyed your podcast today. You are not far from being a Christian, as you own Jesus as your Rabbi, for that He truly is. A Christian has taken one more step and has owned Jesus as their Lord and Savior from their sins. God continue to bless and guide you on your journey of discovering who Jesus truly is. I recommend reading the Gospel of John. Shalom in Jesus!

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My brother, Merry Christmas, Pastor, and a Joyous Channukah!

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Dec 26, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

Thank you, Dr. Wolf. Your perspectives never fail to capture my attention. I think your father must have been a very wise man, who spoke his truth beautifully thru Whitman. His daughter knew this, and drew her wisdom from him. As always, I'm looking forward to your next podcast.

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Dec 26, 2022·edited Dec 27, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

As usual, eloquent, poignant, profound -- and always fitting and direct. Thank you, Naomi. You, your poetic prose, a certain and wondrous gift to humankind, are inimitable. And permit me, even radiant.

Merry Christmas -- a feeling wished, born in felt measure, from the freedom-loving spirit of the Maccabees; and so, a joyous Channukah, rededication to God: Who is at once love and justice, and the eternal Source of renewing, infinite order and rationality.

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Dec 26, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (aka Edith Stein) was martyred at Auschwitz in 1942. She was a

teacher and often said that anyone who diligently and sincerely embarked on the search for Truth

was on the way to Christ.

Naomi, I wish you a good journey.

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Quite apt, indeed.

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My poem :

When sentient humanity cedes free will

Dark forces within are free to kill

A collective society is a collective fool

Incuriosity leads to centralized rule

Propaganda has become global truth

Lies have poisoned the minds of our youth

Political divide is a crafted ruse

To create a battle between two views

Stifling independent thought and speech

Assuring that freedom is out of our reach

So long as we sleep and stay in our lane

We pave the path for a future of pain

When everything we ceded is finally gone

How many will ask “What have I done?”

Will they seek for what they’ve wrought?

That ship sailed by.ceding free thought

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Well crafted truths!

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Hmm ... nice. I wish I had more appropriate guitar chops (only play bossa) ... but with a little tweaking for rhythm, they would make for good lyrics for rap or rock.

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Got it!! Would work well using Jim Morrison crash an boom percussions while reciting “ Horse Latitudes” or the cadence of “ Ship Of Fools”. Not exactly Iambic Pentameter… more Beat Poetry

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LOL. Haven't heard 'iambic pentameter' in a coon's age.

I love The Doors ... but jazz even more so.

Here is a great Joni Mitchell tune that doesn't fit typical cadences, nor beat ... but Hancock and Cohen ... wow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVp8JlT1oo0

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Love it!

Isn’t it something when ever music sucks as of late?

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Yeah. At first, I thought it was just me becoming older, like my parents ... and just not 'getting' what the younger generation has to say. Turns out ... they don't have much to say. We are in a relative dark ages of popular music. Another verification is when I introduce 'old' pop, rock, and jazz to Junior High kids, they are genuinely surprised, and quickly get into it. One thing is similar ... the majority of really popular music is just eye-candy for kids who need an outlet for raging hormones.

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Hancock was so cool. Jimmy Page had an interesting pattern. If you listen to each song, you’ll notice he plays a riff and reverses it. Took me years to pinpoint what made Zep immediately recognizable

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I’d give it to Joe Strummer and The Clash if he was still with us.😂Google Genius Lyrics / London Calling and make sure to read the interview with strummer regarding his inspiration. It’s too fabulous!

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Just did! Thanks Gail.

Yep, interesting indeed.

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Steven, Google The Doors/ Horse Latitudes. The cadence is perfect for my “ poem”😂😂😂Or Keats “ La Belle Dame Sans Merci”.

Can’t remember what I did ten minutes ago, but for whatever reason, this stuff is fresh. The Doors were ten years prior to my teens, The Clash was 5 years post high school and I barely passed Classic Poetry in my senior year. Suddenly I can recite Keats. Go figure. Apparently, the qualuudes were a good thing. Well, they were great back in the day, too

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Sounds like we are roughly the same generation. I was born in '55. Grew up with AM radio, and not until undergrad that I peaked in popular with groups like early Yes, CSNY, Seals and Crofts, Carole King, America, etc. ... Joni Mitchell and Steely Dan were my among my bridges for more exploratory music (still favorites) ... but during my 2nd year, a music major buddy took me to a party, somebody on a funky-fusion piece ... Lenny White's 'Sorceress' from a Return to Forever album ... and my world turned upside down. Ha, the cheap Mexican ragweed might have had something to do with it. From that point on, I became infatuated with almost everything 'jazz' (still don't get off on Ornette Coleman and free jazz) , fusion, and thengs from Brazil. I still have a floor to ceiling book case full of CDs, roughly half 'jazz' and half Brazil ... but if I started nameing names now, this comment might never end.

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I appreciate the sentiment but unlike Ms. Wolf, I don’t agree with equating Jesus with Hillel, Buddha, Mohammed. Jesus is the literal Savior, the others are not.

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Dec 26, 2022·edited Dec 26, 2022Liked by Dr Naomi Wolf

Were mine the Christian point of view, like your own, I'd agree; call it, then, perhaps, ecumenical equity, but in the best of all possible faiths (ie, bona fide; it means well). It wasn't, however, an oversight, or a slip; nor was it an error, I believe; for NW confessed therein, she sees Jesus, and loves him (read: thus not, in her view, Him), as "my rabbi".

That is why, it's plain enough to my sense of the matter, she compares (pace, I think your "equat[e]" misses the mark) the historically unique, fully human man -- to Christians, of course, in most mysterious and fascinating holy part -- to Hillel, et al -- who, whether identified as "The (Buddha; or Prophet)," remain as well in such an esteemed class of servants: gifted, great-spirited men and teachers.

(I certainly and unreservedly would include Moses, the great Hebrew-Levite "prophet" and "teacher," of all Israel for all time, among the above "et al" with whom to compare, in NW's sense of these things, to Jesus. But that should be understandable, coming from such a Christian-loving and -inspired Jew, like myself -- my theologically and biographically limited, incomplete, and non-full-fledged understandings w/r/t to the identity and significance of Jesus notwithstanding. We can, rather brotherly, of course, and sincerely, in peace, agree to disagree here.)

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The beautiful thoughts about your father inspired me to start writing In my substack. I opened the account and kept putting it off. Today I published my first post. I thank you and your Father for the inspiration and gentle butt kick. God bless you both

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Wonderful! Dad would be pleased. :)

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a beautiful poem, and I wonder how would it be possible to think that you love Jesus and His teachings, and you can't open your hearth to know Him as God?? His purpose is done only with those who believe in Him and the magnitud of His sacrifice, otherwise, His death would have been as the death of all men, but He raised from death and resurrected, and ascended to His Father torne, the trone of God his habit from were He was send because our Father loved so much His creation that He send His only begotten Son to save them... He came to each believer so we can mature to His Son statude, and understand His work to be done having His as Head in the heavenly realm

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It's a huge conundrum for me as Jews are not supposed to worship anyone but YHWH.

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Hello Naomi,

Just an option, one that I may have naturally followed by temperament as much as post-hoc reasoning.

As a master wordsmith yourself, you may have come across the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity. Even the wiki-read is good enough to get the gist. As I came to understand it, I had been long following the strong version that says basically the same as the mystics at the edge of more literal-minded interpretations of religion, or psychoanalysts such as Jung, or his acolyte Joseph Campbell so eloquently explored in his 'Power of Myth' interview with Bill Moyers. I once taught that in a graduation seminar at a Japanese college at which I formerly held tenure.

But I was also the biology lab director at Temple University Japan for close to two decades. It was geared towards non STEM undergrads, but to make the labs relevant and appeal to their natural curiosity, I also sneaked in a lot of sugar-coated philosophy of science — the observation that Cartesian distinctions between subject and object are a bootstrapping, problem solving heuristics (Jill Bolte Taylor's TED talk and book is a moving expression of this) ... not insight into fundamental reality.

Or how the 'hard' data of quantifiable science rests on the soft palate of provisional social constructs. The universe could not care less whether it is 'divided-and-conquered' by the metric system or the King's foot.

Which brings me back to a favorite old-school Jewish heretic, Baruch Spinoza, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Einstein ... 'God' as a metaphor for nature-in-its entirety. If it is not, what other word would serve better?

And thus the Gordion Knot has been severed with that pregnant silence of zen, or those meaningful micro second pauses between the notes that identify it as a classic Miles Davis solo.

Voids and silences, whirling rabbit holes of multiverse - mandelbrot sets exceeding the planck unit and preceding a big-bang. It's all good. Or god.

Ha. I'm happy if the neighborhood crow inches a bit closer for some cat food.

Maybe that is my prayer, and feeding my ritual?

More power to you Naomi.

An inspiration.

cheers from Japan,

steve

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That is the mystery and the essence of the Triune God. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are One.

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I hear you but this concept is forbidden to Jews. It's also, forgive me, hard to grasp. I am still wrestling.

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Your use of the word "forbidden" gives me great pause. One must follow the path

that leads to Truth using reason as a guide. Edith Stein/St.Teresa wrote extensively of her journey.

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