On October 7th, about two weeks before this excursion described above, Hamas infamously attacked civilians in Southern Israel. The terrorists performed barbaric acts. The mystic asks: Where is this Hamas in me? That is the red fox. My own inner animal, which when left untamed, can do the unspeakable.

I traveled to the university museum on a Wednesday. That previous Saturday, as the Sabbath came to a close, my friend Levi Paris asleep upstairs, I flipped through the New Yorker – a magazine subscription my parents have had for decades. The very last page was an advertisement for an exhibition at the local university gallery: In Real Times - Arthur Szyk: