Post-Jewschool

I was hesitant to write anything about this, but decided that since there are readers who expect to see my posts on occasion, I should say something somewhere.

Well, the skinny is that because of differences over “liberal Judaism,� I will no longer be writing for Jewschool. This was, according to Mobius, the major point of contention. Then he rolled our respective contributions (exactly 50/50!) into a spliff, and then he crashed on my sofa.

For me, the problems in “liberal Judaism� are the inverse of those in the charedi Jewish community. I harbor grave concerns about those philosophies that seek resolution at the expense of vibrant and natural tensions and conflicts with our ancient civilization and laws and the secular world and modern ideas.

I do not believe it is in our communal interest to rewrite halachic code as we see fit. But I also do not demand that all Jews follow halachic code. I would just ask that when we do something outside of halachic law, we don’t call it Judaism.

Regardless, I have no shortage of projects to pursue with greater focus. I will continue to blog, and will not rule out guest posts anywhere.

In the end, I am better positioned to examine the challenges in charedi outreach than those afflicting the religious left, a world I never was part of in a significant way.

Despite serious differences with many of Jewschool’s writers, I would be ungrateful to not acknowledge that this was a tremendous learning opportunity, both in terms of web and craft.

And I even made a couple of friends in the process.