Why am I...

Why me? Why now? Why this blog?

While I can't definitively prove that this entity is needed now more than ever, I have my suspicions.

And no one needs to spend money, or effort, on this endeavor unless they find something here that smacks of reason, or more accurately, love.

We live in a time of extremes, and whether it is truly different than all that came before, or just feels that way, is almost moot. What I feel, what I see, and what I hear from other concerned friends, is that our age and most people find themselves sandwiched between text based fundamentalists --who believe unquestionably, and in the name of God, sacrifice common sense and fellow man -- and those who, not surprisingly, are so repulsed by the actions of God's supposed representatives that they sacrifice the proverbial baby with the tainted bathwater of belief.

As a Jew, as a person, as someone attracted to religion and people, and repulsed by the presumed choice required to be made between the two, I peck and hunt for truth, and letters on my keyboard, and share what some will find so basic as to not need saying. But there are things that need to be said. I want to remind those who know, and educate those who don't, that Jewish tradition insists that we treat each other with love and respect. That there are two tablets, and one of them is all about man and woman's relationship with each other. That Rabbi Akiva summarized the entire jewish corpus as boiling down to loving your neighbor like yourself. That according to Rabbi Kook, former Chief Rabbi of Israel, the 2nd Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of baseless hatred between people --and as a corrolary, Rabbi Kook insisted, can only be rebuilt by an equal measure of "baseless love."

And so I have a very simple idea, one that I hope is simple as only truth can be. Each week, we have a built in opportunity to study Jewish law and lore, divided, by way of the Bible, in to 52 sections and weekly portions. Each week, I will aim to share thoughts from that section, with the caveat that each analysis, word, feeling, or moral lesson contributes something to how we treat each other, and should treat each other. I will focus on the neglected half, the less popular step-sister, the ethical not the purely religious.

But make no mistake: I don't advocate any backroom trades. There is no either/or in my world, or blog. Treat God well, Treat people well. Be a blessing. And you will be blessed.