Tag: blog

A Regretful Note to Readers

Image: Gabi and Jojo say, “Time to get up from the desk, Rabbi!”

Regular readers have noticed that I am posting less often. Some have pointed out typos and errors recently. I’m grateful for your readership, and appreciate the assistance in catching mistakes. Many of the mistakes recently have come from hastily written materials that I later edit on my cell phone, lying down. 

The state of my body, especially sciatica which has become near-constant, means that I need to ration my time at the computer very carefully. I now prepare and teach two classes a week at the computer, including email support and a Facebook discussion group. I write divrei Torah regularly for the quarterly CCAR Newsletter. 

I  find that I have to cut back somewhere on the time I spend at my desk. I think this blog is the most responsible place to make one of those cuts.

I will continue to post occasionally and to develop entries that serve my original goal, which was to provide plainly worded brief explanations of Jewish life for those who need answers. Judging from the traffic from search engines of roughly 600 visits here per day, this blog will continue to serve the Jewish People by that means. 

I won’t stop doing other posts entirely, but they will be less frequent. I hope you will understand.

I Think I’ve Got It.

Image: Swiss Army Knife. Public Domain.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I felt like changing the look of my blog. What I finally decided was that I didn’t like all the blinkety-shminkety from the ads, I didn’t like the green background, and that this new theme would be better.

I DID listen to your comments, and I think I have something that will please the majority of commenters. At any rate, I like it. I hope you will speak up if you don’t like something, or if you do – I am a tinkerer by nature, so it’s never completely done.

And now for a little ad of my own:

Yesterday I posted about Steps to Success, a truly wonderful project. I am so enthused over these women that I will give a one-hour Skype study session to anyone who gives them $35 using this link. Your choice of text, OR if you want to spend it telling me all about how horrible Religious School was at temple when you were a kid, I will listen with care and respect.

Peering Through the Screen

Image: World Map, by Grand_Scient / Pixabay.

I have known for a while that I have readers in some pretty far-flung places. Recently I saw a report from tweepsmap, a company that tracks twitter activity, about the location of my Twitter followers. It matches up very consistently with the information I get from wordpress.com about the readers of this blog. No surprise there, since I advertise articles using my Twitter account, @CoffeeShopRabbi.

Much of the info was unsurprising. I have many readers in the larger Jewish centers of population like Southern California, New York City, and Israel. But I also have readers in some places that surprise (and rather delight) me.

I must say, I’m curious and I’d love to hear from more of you.

Apparently there’s a regular reader in Cuzco, Peru. Are you Jewish? What brought you to the blog? I visited Cuzco once and found the people there to be extraordinarily kind.

There are quite a few of you in Dallas and Houston, TX – that makes sense, there are significant Jewish communities there. But what about you in Victoria, TX? How did you find me? Is the blog useful to you? How could I be more useful?

Mexico City was a nice surprise – more than one reader there – but in Guadalajara, too? Cool! How can I be more helpful to you?

I was astonished to find out there’s a reader in Dhaka, Bangladesh.If you are willing to tell me more, I’d love to hear from you.

I was excited to see that there is a reader in Shanghai, China. A number of European Jews took shelter in Shanghai during the Holocaust, and I understand the Chinese were very kind to them.

There are a surprising number of readers living in the Arab world, and in other places where there are very few if any Jews. Again, I wonder what you get out of this blog?  If I can answer questions that you wonder about, I hope you will ask.

Some of you I know. I know the reader in Karlsruhe, Germany. I have corresponded with the reader in Lyon, France. One of the readers in Norwich, UK, is an old friend from 43things.com.

I’m writing this litany because I want to encourage all readers to leave a comment or two. I truly would love to hear from you. I’m curious about your questions and about what interests you. If you are Jewish and isolated, I hope that I cut through some of that isolation. If you aren’t Jewish, how is this blog useful or interesting? Do you have questions I could answer?

Thanks to all of you for reading. I am grateful to you for doing so, and especially grateful when you comment. Torah is not a solitary activity.

Shalom, chaverim! Greetings, friends!

 

 

Self Care in the Wilderness

NaBloPoMo
NaBloPoMo (Photo credit: underdutchskies)

As my life gets more chaotic with the process of moving (cleaning out one place, settling into another, with all the attendant messes involved) I notice that I’ve gotten less regular about posting here.  So I am taking action! I registered for NaBloPoMo, It’s a lot of things (click on the link to learn more) but for me, it’s a commitment to post every single day in the month of November.

This is how things often happen with me: if I want to prioritize something, there’s nothing quite like making a public commitment to it.  So there it is: let’s see if I can keep blogging while my life gets scattered all over San Leandro, CA.

“Home” is such an important place, and it can be such a slippery concept when we are under stress. I am living in two places right now, not fully in either, and the division is stressful. My office is in one place, my bed in another. Most of my clothes are in boxes, and I already know of one thing that probably got packed when it should have gone to Goodwill. Or maybe it didn’t. Nothing is sure anymore except that a lot of stuff is lost temporarily.

Our ancestors spent 40 years in the wilderness, wondering when they would get home to a place they had never seen. A whole generation had to pass before they could get to where they were going. Right now I can identify with them, even though I’m only moving a couple of miles, because I have pulled up the roots in one place and not yet put them all the way down in another. I’m living out of boxes, out of my car, and my car is a mess. When I think of it this way, though, I can’t fuss much: by the end of the month, I will be home. And in the meantime, writing this blog will be a fixed point in a moving universe, something that always helps me feel more secure.

When in your life have you been stuck in between? What did you do to take care of yourself in the meantime?

A Comment on Comments

English: Groucho Marx & anonymous blogging

Dear Readers,

I’m on vacation for the moment, just checking periodically to clean up spam comments.  I’ve noticed a trend on my blog of people leaving comments that have nothing to do with the topic of the blog entry. They’re basically using the comment section as a little soapbox. Some opinions I agree with, some I don’t. Some are expressed rudely. Some have such poor spelling and grammar it takes a major effort to figure out what they are saying and even then, it’s a puzzle.  Thank goodness, wordpress does a nice job of weeding out the commercial comments before they even hit the board.

Today I went through and un-approved the rude comments, the totally off-topic comments, and the unreadable comments, and it occurs to me that perhaps I should articulate a policy about comments, since now I’m deleting some things.

Here’s the deal:

1.  I love a good discussion.  Feel free to disagree in the comments, or to question what I’ve written.  That is the best possible use for comments.

2. I don’t love off topic rants.  If you want to reach a wide number of people with your soapbox, go build your own blog and build your readership the hard way. Comment on the topic at hand. If there’s a topic you wish I’d address, put that request in the comments – that’s fine. But don’t just post an essay out of the clear blue sky, because it’s wasted effort – I’ll delete it. I do this not because I disagree (or agree) with you, but because I want to be respectful of my readers’ time and interest.

3. If you are rude, talk about “idiots,” or attack another person or group of persons with your words, I will delete the comment the moment I see it. Do that stuff somewhere else, please. Doesn’t matter if we agree or not, it’s gone.

4. Not everyone is a ba’al hadikduk [master of grammar] but please do try to make your message intelligible. If English is not your first language, just do your best and that’s OK – I do understand. However, if I can’t make it out at all, I’ll delete the message whether English is your mother tongue or not.

5. Finally, if you’ve made it this far, don’t let this fussy post of mine prevent you from commenting and questioning my posts.  I really do love a good discussion, and we can only get there with a comment.  Disagree, question my assumptions, ask questions, whatever – mazal tov!  I love that stuff.

As 2012 comes to an end, thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate the readers who follow me regularly, and the people who follow tweets and other breadcrumbs to come check me out. In the coming year, I will try to post more essays and “tips for beginners” of interest, and make the time you spend reading my blog worthwhile.

Blessings to you in the secular New Year!

— Rabbi Ruth Adar