Andy Bachman

Rabbi Andy Bachman is executive director of the Jewish Community Project Downtown in New York. He has served as senior rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim in Brooklyn, where he lives, and executive director of the Edgar M. Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at New York University.

NiSh’ma

Andy BachmanSeptember 6, 2019

I recently read Moby-Dick , joining a long tradition held by those who believe that this is the greatest novel written in the English language. Melville’s character the Whale trolls deeply our untamed, elusive, wildly creative unconscious mind. Melville goes where every creative person aspires to travel: to the depths and heights of prophecy; to the inner sanctum of madness; and, like Akiva emerging from deep inquiry, to a place of ephemeral humility where he is adrift in a fleeting tranquility before his next adventure into chaos and creativity.