New Projects, New Priorities

Image: My little office assistant, Jojo, likes to sunbathe when she can. This is a photo of her enjoying the sunshine with the caption, “California Girl.”

I’ve hardly posted in the month of December, 2018. Some of that has been because I was traveling on a family vacation. Some of it has been because I had two different accidents that have taken time for recovery. But the big reason is that I’m starting some new projects, and something had to give.

First new project: This spring I’m co-teaching two terms of “Angels in the Bible and Beyond” with Dr. Jehon Grist through Lehrhaus Judaica. You can find information about those classes in our online catalog, on the page where my classes are listed. Teaching a new class means first doing a lot of reading and sorting: what that I know can be conveyed in x number of sessions and will be both interesting and possibly useful? What can I learn, to add to what I already know, that will make the class better? I love getting ready for a new class, because there’s so much for me to learn and to think over.

Second new project: I’m taking an old interest of mine, ritual studies, and turning that lens on the process of gerut, conversion to Judaism. There are several parts to such a project: my studies in ritual studies stopped in 1981, when I graduated from the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, but the field has been perking right along with new ideas and postmodernism and such. So task #1 was to catch up on what I’ve missed. Task #2 was to take a long hard look at the texts that underlie modern-day gerut, mostly but not exclusively in Talmud and in the codes. And Task #3 was to take my own memories of being a giyoret (female of ger) and of being a rabbi guiding people through conversions, to look at the rituals involved. I hope the result will be an academic article, but I’ll just have to see how it all goes.

Third new project: I’m looking at a new format for teaching online. Writing blog articles has been helpful to people, but I’m running out of topics and I have been told there’s a huge audience unlikely to read even short essays. So I am working on moving to video in the near future. Instructions on how to find me will be posted here, of course.

I’m not officially closing this blog, but it isn’t the focus for my creative energy right now. I will post from time to time, so those who subscribe to the blog will get notice of it, and those who follow me on Twitter will hear of it. So no worries!

 לַכֹּל, זְמָן; וְעֵת לְכָל-חֵפֶץ, תַּחַת הַשָּׁמָיִם. 

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Ecclesiastes 3:1

As the seasons change, and the years turn, we change and turn to new tasks. I wish us all a peaceful conclusion to the old year of 2018, and many good works in the upcoming year.