Tag Archives: kaballah

Screening in Jerusalem

Even in difficult times, life must go on.
Who wants to watch our movie “The Shoshani Riddle”?image_2023-11-30_125117442
It will happen soon in Jerusalem at the cinematheque. December the14th at 20.00.
See you there.

חידת שושני – הנווד שידע הכול

poster-Shoshani-heb-web

 

הסרט “חידת שושני” – הנווד שידע הכול – ישתתף בפסטיבל הסרטים הבינלאומי חיפה בעוד כמה ימים. התחלתי לעבוד על הסרט לפני ייותר מ-10 שנים. כן, 10 שנים. ראיינתי מאות עדים, נסעתי לכל העולם בעקבותיו וגיליתי המון סודות על האיש המסתורי והגאוני שהיה מר שושני. אבל הסרט היה תקוע במשך שנים בגלל סיבות בירוקרטיות אבסורדיות. היו חברים שהסבירו לי שמר שושני התערב בהפקה כדי שהסרט הזה לא ייצא…

 מי יודע. בכל אופן עכשיו הוא כנראה השתחרר ויוקרן גם בפסטיבלים וגם בכאן11. אין צורך להרחיב עד כמה הסרט הזה חשוב לדעתי: הוא יותר מסרט, הוא מעמיד שאלות מרכזיות ומפתיעות על עצמנו ועל החיים.
אני רוצה להודות לאמנים המוכשרים והמדהמים שעבדו איתי על הסרט המשוגע הזה:
רועי בן עמי העורך,
פיליפ בלאיש הצלם,
דוד וולץ האנימטור,
נועה הבר המעצבת,
אנדריי קוזלוב האפטריסט,
נדב שלמה גלעדי המפיק,
הקטור ברבי הקולוריסט,
דניאל מרקוביץ’ המלחין
ומיכאל גורביץ’ המעצב סאונד.
תודה לכם ולכל מי שעזר או עבד על הפרוייקט בדרך. ושתהיה שנה טובה לכולם

מיכאל גרינשפן

Three Masters sit: Borges, Kafka and Shoshani in the middle.

In this painting of the famous French painter Gerard Garouste “Three Masters and the fat gooses”, one can see Mister Shoshani sitting in the middle, between Kafka and Borges.garouste_les_trois_maitres

“Les trois maîtres et les oies grasses”, tableau du célèbre peintre contemporain Gérard Garouste.
On peut y voir Monsieur Chouchani assis au milieu entre Kafka et Borges.

50 years after Prof Chouchani passed away – Hazkara ceremony in Uruguay

Exactly 50 years after prof. Shoshani (Chouchani) passed away. On Sunday the 15th of January 2018, the Jewish community in Uruguay held a ceremony (Hazkara or Yortzeit) at the Jewish cemetery of La Paz (north to Montevideo) where prof Shoshani’s grave stands.

Here is an article about this ceremony that took place in the rain, in the national newspaper of Uruguay El Pais. They also mention the participation of filmmaker Michael Grynszpan who travelled from Israel to Uruguay to attend the event.

“La lluvia no detuvo homenaje de la comunidad israelita
Recuerdan al sabio Shoshani, inspirador de figuras mundiales.”

https://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/lluvia-detuvo-homenaje-comunidad-israelita.html

cimetiere - image El Pais 14 01 2018

(photo: Diego Moraes)

Le mystérieux Maître d’Elie Wiesel – article sur les rapports Chouchani-Wiesel

http://frblogs.timesofisrael.com/le-mysterieux-maitre-delie-wiesel/
Elie Wiesel and Michael

Elie Wiesel holds Shoshani / Chouchani’s letters in his private archives

Another fascinating article written by a talented journalist Ofer Aderet in Haaretz (same journalist who wrote the first article about our movie on Chouchani / Shoshani http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-1.553215)

Elie Wiesel and Joel Rappel - Picture : Dorit Rappel

Elie Wiesel and Joel Rappel – Picture : Dorit Rappel


This time it’s about the most famous book of Elie Wiesel, “Night”. We learn here that Dr Joel Rapel – who was the director of Elie Wiesel’s archives in Boston for years – found there this manuscript in Hebrew! Nobody knew until now that Wiesel wrote a version of “Night” in Hebrew because it has never been published. The text in Hebrew is different than the one in French.

Another interesting point in the article, though we knew it before from another source: Elie Wiesel holds letters that Chouchanu/Shoshani wrote him! Under what name did Chouchani sign his letters? good question… It’s important to stress the fact that Elie Wiesel has always maintained that Chouchani’s real name was Mordehai Rosenbaum.

Note: this mention of these letters doesn’t appear in the Hebrew translation of the original article of Aderet in Hebrew, one can say that Chouchani was lost in translation :)

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/.premium-1.717093?utm_content=%24sections%2F1.717093.1462094157&utm_medium=EMAIL&utm_source=SMARTFOCUS&utm_campaign=1390118&utm_term=20160501-03%3A05&ts=_1462146040434

Pearls of Chouchani – Pearl number 1

Pearls of Chouchani – Pearl number 1
Pniney Chouchani 01

Read Proverbs 3,29 “Do not plow (plot) harm against your neighbor, who lives trustfully near you”
and Job 4,8 “As I have observed, those who plow evil and those who sow trouble reap it.”

The Thought = Plowing

Action = Sowing

The Result  = Harvest
—————————————————–
Perles de Chouchani – perle numéro 1

Lire Proverbes 3,29 “Ne laboure (médite) pas le mal contre ton prochain, Lorsqu’il demeure tranquillement près de toi.”
et Job 4,8 “Selon ce que j’ai vu, ceux qui labourent l’iniquité et qui sèment la misère, la moissonnent”

La pensée = labourer

L’action = semer

Le résultat = la récolte

On Instruction and Knowledge

“Préférez mes instructions à l’argent, Et la science à l’or le plus précieux; Car la sagesse vaut mieux que les perles, Elle a plus de valeur que tous les objets de prix.” (Proverbes 8,10-11)

(קְחוּ מוּסָרִי וְאַל כָּסֶף וְדַעַת מֵחָרוּץ נִבְחָר. כִּי טוֹבָה חָכְמָה מִפְּנִינִים וְכָל חֲפָצִים לֹא יִשְׁווּ בָהּ” (משלי ח י-יא”

“Choose my instruction instead of silver,
knowledge rather than choice gold,
for wisdom is more precious than rubies,
and nothing you desire can compare with her.”
(Proverbs 8,10-11)

מר שושני והרבי

מר שושני ביקש וקיבל טלית מהרבי מליובביץ. עוד מאמר על “הגאון המסתורי”.
Monsieur Chouchani a demandé et a reçu un Talith du Rabbi de Loubavitch. Voici un nouvel article sur le “génie mystérieux”.03-12-2015-16-07-10-Beis-Moshiach-998-36-758x496
Mister Shoshani requested and received a Talith from the Lubavitch Rabbi. Here is a new article on the “the Mysterious Genius”.ha Rabbi

http://beismoshiachmagazine.org/katavot/2015/12/3/254747701448-2.html

“Shushani and the Problem of Humiliation”

“Shushani and the Problem of HumiliationIMG_3013

Not every teacher thus honored performed their task with equanimity of spirit. Many were angry, some morose. But Mordechai Rosenbaum (aka Harav Mordechai Shushani) presents a special case. His brilliance, erudition, and devotion to study are legendary, as experienced by Wiesel, Emmanuel Levinas, Shalom Rosenberg, and other members of an elite group of students. He was eccentric in appearance, behavior, and method, dressing poorly, maintaining secrecy in his comings and goings, saying little about his past, and holding marathon classes some days and disappearing for long stretches on others. (…) Wiesel also characterizes Harav Shushani as rude and abrupt, stooping so low as to mock, humiliate, and and torment his students. (…)
Harav Shushani did everything, in other words, that his student wouldn’t think of doing. Wiesel’s way is not to humiliate but to humanize.
Indeed, the relationship between Rav Shushani and his admiring student – humiliation on the one hand, loyalty on the other – replays how Wiesel some years later described the relationship between the renegade talmudic master, Elisha ben Abuya, and his lone remaining disciple, Rabbi Meir.(…) Wiesel never refers to Shushani as an apostate (though others apparently did). The question was more the effect of his teaching on the faith of others rather than on his own. Nevertheless, what thy shared was a pedagogy that had room for the humiliation of their closest disciples.
What then did our teacher learn from his own about teaching ? Perhaps he learned what NOT to do; perhaps WE learn, indirectly and paradoxically, that sometimes one chooses a master (or a master chooses a student) from whom one eventually diverges 180 degrees. But then again, it may be that Wiesel’s classroom teaching draws on Shushani’s, while filtering away its excesses.”

from ELIE WIESEL Jewish, Literary and Moral Perspectives. Alan Rosen.