Last month I participated in a Jewish Week panel discussion in Manhattan, “Is the Internet Good for the Jews?” (download audio here and video highlights here), so having been designated as an "expert" in the Jewish Blogosphere, I figured it was about time to have an official blog of my own. For years I've been posting comments in my weekly newsletter, the Shabbat-O-Gram and, of course, I've written lots of articles and sermons, but a blog offers me the chance to react more sponteneously, share my thoughts more widely and gain more feedback from a more diverse audience. I've always believed in an interactive rabbinate, with the ideal contemporary clergy model being not fire-and-brimstone-spewer-from-on-high but rather a co-traveler on a common spiritual journey. Mine is a synagogue without walls, where my congregants and I connect both virtally and in-the-flesh, with the one complementing the other. This blog gives me the chance to expand this wall-less synagogue even more.
I've been at my congregation now for over twenty years - a rich and rare blessing in this tumultuous world. In this blog I hope to share thoughts about all the things I try to juggle in my life: the weighty demands of an impossible vocation, the inherent paradox of being a professional human being, the shifting sands of Jewish identity, and the exhausting-yet exhilerating struggle to transform the routine daily drudgery into a life filled with sacred moments.
You'll see here some new thoughts mixed with old, things I've shared before with ideas seen here for the first time. I welcome your feedback.
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