This blog is dedicated to exploring the meaning and joy in life. First, thanks and credit should be expressed to the Velveteen Rabbi (Rachel Barenblatt) and Heidi Hoover, fellow rabbinical students who also have blogs and have been models for me.

What is a blog?—short for weblog, it is a web site on which an individual or group of users produces an ongoing narrative and members can engage, debate, and respond.

Why a blog? A blog is able to reach more people and allows us to share ideas in ways that are more difficult within a synagogue building. It enables us to build community in unexpected and broader ways, across geographies, across timezones, across denominational boundaries and religious preferences. It enables people who are in remote areas but who have Internet access to share in this great adventure.

What will make this blog different from all other blogs? Simply, the joy, drive, dedication and life experiences we bring to Judaism and the Energizer Rabbi.

Areas that interest and excite me include tikkun ha-olam both of the world and of ourselves. It is clear that we are commanded to pursue justice. My mother’s favorite line of the Bible comes from Micah. “What does the Lord require of you: Do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God.” Micah and my mother had it right. This doesn’t have to be complicated.

Interfaith Dialogue is a way to build bridges between peoples, to explore what we have in common and what may separate us, to help promote peace and understanding, and to prevent antisemitism and further genocides. I have been an active member and past president of the Greater Lowell Interfaith Leadership Alliance and its book group meets at our home. Stay tuned for ideas about books to read.

Holidays are ways that we mark the cycle of the year. They give us time to pause, to celebrate the seasons, to rejoice and to mourn. This section will be dedicated to finding unique and meaningful ways to enrich our holiday celebrations.

Similarly life cycle events let us mark the passage of time and life transitions. I have never met a life cycle event that comes out of a box. People’s lives today are messier than that. I enjoy working with families to create meaning for their unique life cycle events–baby namings, brit milah, Bar and Bat Mitzvah, weddings, funerals and other transition moments: special birthdays, a new job, graduation, retirement. I like to help people make their dreams and their visions come true within the framework of the Jewish tradition–limited only by their creativity.