Why This Blog?

Monday, March 10, 2008

Why This Blog?

Last month I participated in a Jewish Week panel discussion in Manhattan, “Is the Internet Good for the Jews?” 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.