Sunday, April 5, 2026

urbi et orbi

 

Liturgy comes from the Greek leitourgia — literally "public work" or "service of the people." It refers to the formal, structured order of religious worship — the prescribed texts, prayers, rituals, and ceremonies that define how a community practices its faith collectively.

In the Jewish context, the most obvious example is the Haggadah — the text you follow at the Seder. It is liturgy: a fixed order (seder literally means "order") of prayers, blessings, songs, questions, and narrative that structures the collective religious act of remembering the Exodus.

Saturday, April 4, 2026

Escalation


Today's Israeli airstrikes on Iran’s Mahshahr petrochemical zone, including damage at the Fajr 1 and Fajr 2 facilities in Khuzestan. It is near the key port of Bandar Abbas. No significant military assets at Mahshahr — it's a civilian industrial zone. The target is Iran's income, not its weapons. Netanyahu even said it explicitly: "money machine."