Michael Flinner

NiSh’ma

Unfortunately, human emotion routinely acts without the mitigating benefit of intellect, and so, in the blink of an eye, our conduct, resolve, and good nature evaporate. Trust me, it can happen to anyone. From within the walls of California’s infamous death row at San Quentin, as a Jew of 51 years, I am responding to Rabbi Haim David HaLevy’s writing about “obligations.” In God’s Creation, man is created last, along with a set of laws of human conduct. We live with the knowledge that we are inherently capable of wrongdoing (sin). I’m in prison for murder.