Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi » blogging

Things I Would Have Blogged About in the Last Ten Days If I Were a Real Blogger

rabbifink — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 07:52:47 +0000

Real bloggers don’t take 10 day blogcations. I did.

Did you miss me?

I missed writing about some things that I really wanted to discuss in the last week and a half or so.

If you ask me my opinion on these headlines I might be persuaded to do a full write-up.

So here are some the things I would have blogged about if I were a real blogger:

Do We Have Ahmadinejad All Wrong? | The Atlantic

Most Jewish Israelis Want To Live Separately From Their Ultra-Orthodox Brethren. And The Haredim Don’t Want To Live With Modern Jews Either | The New Republic

There’s no more room under the rug | The Jewish Star

An Infant Dies, and a Jewish Ritual of Birth Begins | NYTimes.com

Regular posing resumes NOW.

Malcolm Gladwell Doesn’t Use Twitter or Facebook But He Is Pretty Sure They Are Useless

rabbifink — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 19:49:11 +0000

I am an unabashed fan of Malcom Gladwell. (See: Outliers: Section 1 (and my grandfather), Another Gladwell Gem | How David Beats Goliath and Manny Being Manny | Some ‘Gladwellian’ Insight.

But when the man is wrong he deserves to be called out.

In a recent New Yorker article, Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted, Gladwell writes that we are told that the world is in the midst of a revolution. Twitter, Facebook, blogging et al have given the people a voice that they previously had not had. This will be the medium of social change for the next generation.

Gladwell vehemently disagrees.

In his inimitable style, Gladwell makes the case that there is a qualitative difference between strong-tie connections and weak-tie connections. He holds that strong-tie connections come from real life social interactions and friendships. Electronic relationships only create weak-ties. Further, he contends that the purported social changes that Facebook and Twitter have effected are bogus. (He might be right about that one…).

Gladwell then demonstrates that all social change generates from relationships. I agree. Read this post for more on that: Human Beings Are Social Beings).

Here is what gets my goat: Gladwell assumes that relationships created with Twitter / Facebook / blogging are weak-tie relationships. That is an assumption that many would disagree with. Further, he makes this assumption while sitting in his ivory tower of “old media”, writing for a magazine in a dying industry AND, here is the kicker – he DOESN’T USE FACEBOOK OR TWITTER!!! Gladwell has a twitter account, in fact he has two twitter accounts and he has 22 total tweets between the two of them.

Shorter Gladwell: “I don’t know how to use Twitter, ergo, it must be useless.”

Finally, the next social changes will almost certainly come via strong-tie relationships. However, social media has the ability to create strong-tie relationships if that is your goal and you use them to achieve that goal. Revolutions will inevitably occur. And invariably the revolutions will take place in real life and they will also take place in the digital world. Those who have strong-tie relationships in the digital world will utilize social media to help their cause and that will be a decided advantage over the cave dwellers and Luddites who listen to Malcolm Gladwell when it comes to social media.

I Was Interviewed By Gather The Jews

rabbifink — Wed, 22 Sep 2010 18:30:35 +0000

On gatherthejews.com I have been chosen as a “Mitzvah Maker”.

Check out their great website and my interview on their website: here.

Thanks for the interview and best of luck with your great site!

300th Post: Some Of The Most Interesting of the First 300

rabbifink — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 19:10:13 +0000

The World Celebrates 300 Posts on finkorswim.com

Today we are celebrating 300 posts on my blog. Hence, the fireworks. (To see the picture I DID NOT use, click here.) When I started blogging 15 months ago I never dreamed I would ever have 300 posts or a respectable, regular readership. As you all know, most blogs rise and fall quicker than the President’s polling numbers. A big reason I have been able to maintain this blog because of you the readers. So I thank you.

I have compiled a nice list of posts worth reading. For some of you it will be review, for others it will be interesting to see some of the things you may have missed. As always I welcome feedback.

Enjoy.

One Year Anniversary

rabbifink — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:30:09 +0000

Oops!

I can’t believe it! A huge milestone!

At least I don’t forget my wedding anniversary. I did however, forget my one year Blogoversary. I am a week late…

This blog began last year on December 8, 2008. At the time, I had no idea that if anyone would ever read a single word I published. I am always surprised when I discover people reading my blog. But more than surprised, I am appreciative.

So much has happened, so much has changed in our world in the last year. Blogging from the sidelines has been a really great experience. I am glad I started the blog and I am glad that we are closing in on 250 posts.

Thank you for reading, thank you for commenting, thank you for linking and thank you for supporting my blog.

I look forward to another exciting year of blogging together.

In the meantime, check out the brand-spanking-new archives for links to every single post on the blog.

Only a few more posts til 250. We’ll celebrate that with a “best-of”. Stay tuned…

KCET Visits PJC and Interviews Me

rabbifink — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:13:40 +0000

KCET (the local PBS affiliate) has been working on a city-wide project. It is called Departures and it focuses on the people and places that make the neighborhoods of Los Angeles. For the last six weeks they have been working on Venice. Today they came to the Pacific Jewish Center Shul on the Beach to learn about us and to be included in their upcoming Venice piece.

It was a true honor and privilege to be a part of this worthwhile project. The production should be finished in February and I look forward to seeing that.

The camera crew shot some footage of our morning services and did two interviews. First, they interview Gary Dalin. Gary has been part of PJC since 1979 and provided great insight into the rich history of Pacific Jewish Center and the greater Venice Jewish community. He was eloquent and impressive in his interview and represented us very well. Great job Gary!

I was interviewed next. I hope I did okay. I myself have interviewed so many Jewish College student on camera and made those interviews into documentaries, so I know how hard it can be. (For two of my videos click here for JAM 2006 and click here for Chase Edler.) Among many topics, we talked about the juxtaposition of the historic quality of the Shul on the Beach to the future of outreach including this blog and my relative youth as a Rabbi. We also talked about the role the Shul plays in the boardwalk community, surrounded by the wild atmosphere of the boardwalk. It wasn’t too long, maybe a 35 minute interview in total, but we covered a lot of topics. Of course, there were some delinquents that felt the need to disturb us, that is just life on Venice Boardwalk…

I hope the final product reflects well on our special community and those who see it are inspired at least to check us out some time. I ended the interview with an open invitation to anyone who would like to see what we are all about and I extend that invitation to all of you reading this right now.

I also, want to thank Justin, Dan and Matt for including us in this project. I wish you much success in this endeavor and anything you do in the future.

Here are a couple pictures that Leslie Friedman took with her BlackBerry during the interview.

Matisyahu, NBC and The Olympic Winter Games Make A Great Team

rabbifink — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:25:57 +0000

I first heard of Matisyahu while working as a Campus Rabbi at USC. The Jewish students on campus were really into his music (this was ~5 years ago) and some of my students invited me to join them at a Matisyahu concert.

He was performing at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood which was right near my home. I went and it was really cool. The music was great, the message was equally wholesome and the connection that I got to build with my students was profound.

I liked it enough that I took my wife to a Matisyahu show at the American Jewish University a few weeks later. It was a bad venue for a concert. It was more like a movie theater than the right venue for a reggae concert. Still, we enjoyed the music.

I knew that Matisyahu had made it, when I was listening to my then favorite sports radio show, “The Loose Canons” on AM 570 in Los Angeles (oh how I miss those guys…) and they played Chop ‘em Down as their bumper music. That was an epiphany for me. At that point, Matisyahu has “made it” in my books.

If that wasn’t sufficient proof that Matisyahu had “made it”, I received another clue a few weeks ago. I was playing the NBA 2K10 video game and the background music was… Matisyahu!

I found a video of the NBA 2K10 playlist so you can see for yourself.

I thought that was pretty cool.

But today around the blogosphere and on Twitter the latest Matisyahu news is regarding the new NBC advertisement for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

This is, by far, the best exposure that Matisyahu has seen in the public eye. The commercial is perfect. The content, the timing of the cuts, the slow – motion, the music and the message are woven together to create a really perfect ad. The emotion that the 30 second spot exudes are exactly what NBC wants you to feel.

I like NBC as a network and I hope that they can mount a comeback and become relevant again. This ad is a great start.

I am sure Matisyahu is proud to be part of such a great ad. I am proud to share it with you.

President Obama's New Hardware: Nobel Peace Prize

rabbifink — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:19:40 +0000

Wow, two semi-political posts in a row. For a non-partisan blog that is a lot.

But once again, it would be impossible to ignore this elephant in the room.

Optimistic at best presumptuous at worse, President Obama’s recent Nobel Peace Prize award really pushes the envelope of credibilty.

I am pretty much in 100% agreement with two of my favorite bloggers on this one so I will link to their posts.

DovBear nails it (as nearly always) and is most worried that the Nobel Peace Prize has been transformed into a political stunt.

Conversations in Klal writes about the real (wrong) lesson here, that we can be rewarded for promises with no results.

My thoughts are along the same lines as both.

First, is this prize even worth anything anymore?

Isn’t a mandatory annual award cheapened by the fact that it must be awarded yearly with no regard for it being deserved? Doesn’t sound very meaningful to me.

My proposal is that when someone earns the award, give it to them. But don’t force-feed the public a manufactered awardee purely for the sake of awarding the prize. If no-one wins, no-one gets the prize.

Second, I am really concerned with the lesson being taught. Prizes must be earned. I wrote about this a while back when I wrote about a great cartoon in the New Yorker. It is symptomatic of our generation that we reward prematurely and place people on pedestals before they have climbed atop the pedestal on their own.

We should allow things to progress organically and give projects time to breath and develop.

Patience is a virtue. It is time to put patience back in our society.

Today's Sign The Apocalypse Is Upon Us

rabbifink — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:43:14 +0000

Yesterday morning I received a blogging gift.

Sometimes there is just not much to write and that’s every bloggers worst nightmare. I had a few things that were on my mind that I wished to share but none of those ideas fermented into anything worth posting.

I love blogging and I think it is important to supply fresh content as often as possible. It is no fun to see the same posts every day. I needed something new.

Then I went outside and I found what is perhaps the most disturbing flyer I have ever seen attached to my car.

Before my blogging days, I may have been annoyed with the person who stuck the flyer to my windsheield. But not this day. This flyer was so outrageous that I felt I must share it with you.

I present you with “alibisnpaybacks”.

Authentic Judaism and Authentic Charity

rabbifink — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:32:10 +0000

This post is really two Public Service Announcements.

Please read both and if you are able to help in any way possible, it is much appreciated.

One great thing about blogging is the opportunity to connect with other people for the sake of an important cause. Today, I present you with two important causes.

First, there is a blogger who writes vitriolic, hate laced blog posts against anyone with whom he disagrees. He does so under the guise of Authentic Judaism. He makes no real arguments, just yells loudly at those he views as a threat (read: anyone who thinks differently than he). Apparently, he thinks that God spoke to him directly and gave him Torah and nobody else. A number of bloggers are trying to snatch the Google search result ranking from his blog.

I am here to help.

More importantly, DovBear is looking for some kind souls to help a family in desperate financial need. The economic downturn has claimed some more victims and from what I understand, their situation is dire. It is really easy to help, Just click here and click donate in the upper right hand sidebar and donate just a little money. Type in the amount you can give and indicate it is for #famliyneedsdough. If you can give just a few dollars it would make a tremendous difference to this family. Every penny donated will be given directly to the needy family.

I appreciate any relief you can provide.

Book Review | The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook

rabbifink — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 15:58:23 +0000

Yesterday I flew from New York to Los Angeles. We got to the airport just under 3 hours before our flight. This is a direct result of missing a few flights in the last few years. We always err on the side of caution.

I stopped in a Hudson Books to peruse the available reading material. Prominently displayed was a new book by Ben Mezrich called “The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and BetrayalThe Accidental Billionaires“. I am a big fan of Mezrich having read, Busting Vegas: A True Story of Monumental Excess, Sex, Love, Violence, and Beating the OddsBusting Vegas, 21: Bringing Down the House - Movie Tie-In: The Inside Story of Six M.I.T. Students Who Took Vegas for MillionsBringing Down the House (I recommend all those books). I took a look at the book and discovered it was about the founding and founders of Facebook.

I bought the book.

And so should you.

Why?

The book is interesting, tells a compelling story and most of all offers fantastic insight into our world. Facebook transformed the way we interact with each other on the web and in real life.

Before Facebook, the web was mostly information that someone else put on the web for you to learn from. The genius of Facebook is that it gave everyone the opportunity to share their lives with their friends on the web. Facebook is a web platform that is the really the voice of the people. Facebook wrestled the web away from corporate content providers and gave the power of the web to you and me and our friends.

Prior to Facebook there was MySpace. MySpace was and continues to be a big advertisement for one’s brand, band, etc. It is not a relationship building platform. Facebook is a place to meet and befriend people. It is your real life, just online. Facebook took the interactions of our daily lives and transported them onto a web page. That is why Facebook is not only the largest online community, but is also the most popular photo sharing site on the web. People share their lives in a natural way on Facebook.

Twitter really took the Facebook lesson of sharing and community building and over-simplified it. Twitter has also become wildly successful because it builds community.

Understanding our highly interactive online world is important and this book really illuminates that reality.

The other thing that made the book powerful was the struggle the founders of Facebook encountered while attributed credit to the creator of Facebook.

See, Facebook wasn’t revolutionary. It was just social networking done the right way. Other folks had thought of similar sites and other sites were launched and they failed.

The tension over whose idea Facebook was is something that happens all the time in our modern world. People think of ideas or concepts at the same time as others. One of those parties may be successful with their version of the idea and the other version may fail. When the failing version owners realize they have not succeeded oftentimes they get angry, they file lawsuits, they yell and scream and make themselves look bad.

Much of the book is dedicated to appreciating this complex dynamic and it is a valuable lesson in modern fairness.

I recommend The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayalthis book (click to purchase) to anyone wishing to gain insight and appreciation for our interactive, modern, web based universe. As well as people who just like reading a good book about a college geek who became the youngest billionaire in the history of America.

Weekly Jewish Blog Round-Up #231

rabbifink — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 16:16:52 +0000

Haveil Havalim #231 is being hosted at Esser Agaroth.

Check it out by clicking here for a variety of very interesting links from all around the J-blogosphere.

Thanks to Esser Agaroth for hosting and doing another super job!

(And thanks for linking my post on Brett Favre.)

Elul Begins With A Warning | Anonymous Bloggers Take Note: Google Knows Your Every Move

rabbifink — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:32:05 +0000

A little while back I contributed a decent post to DovBear that generated an impressive response from legions of commenters on DovBear. The post was a comparison of anonymous vs. onymous blogging.

I argued that by blogging about important things anonymously, they are less effective and only perpetuate the near censorship of right-wing Orthodox Judaism. Some went on to call anonymous blogging cowardly.

In the discussion that ensued I conceded that quite possibly, better conversation can be had anonymously and I admitted that for a blog like DovBear, the unfortunate reality is that anonymity is the preferable choice.

Something left undiscussed was the reality that DovBear is not anonymous. Google, who hosts his blog, knows exactly who he is, where he lives and presumably, has access to all his email, searches and web history. Until a few days ago, one may have assumed that their information was safe with Google.

Not anymore.

A New York State Supreme Court ruled that Google was compelled to reveal the identity of a blogger using Google’s Blogger software. The blogger is question had posted defamatory comments about a fashion model that negatively affected her career. The model sued Google to uncloak the anonymous blogger and the court held that Google must comply.

Some may think I herald this as a victory for onymous blogging. Not so. If one is not comfortable blogging onymously his privacy must be respected. I urge people to choose to blog onymously, I am not on favor of mandating it and banning anonymous blogging.

The Bray of Fundie has an interesting post about his opinion on the ramifications of this ruling which is worth reading. Click here to go to to his excellent blog called HaMavdil.

(This is just one more reason to self host one’s blog. Technically the owner of a Blogger blog is Google and it is their information to share or withhold. A self hosted blog cannot be “outed” by Google as the blog owner is the rights holder to the information on the blog.)

But what of the courts decision? How does this affect the blogosphere? Some are calling it the “end of anonymous blogging”. That may very well be the case, but a new anonymous medium (twitter?) will crop up and still give voice to the anony-addicts out there. So really, the voice of the anonymous will not be quelled it will just need to move its home base.

The prospect of Google sharing our information is more worrisome than anything else. Everything we do is being recorded by Google. That can seem very scary.

Yet, when we reflect on this idea we can ask ourselves, is it so strange to us that our lives are being recorded by Google? Is it such a foreign concept that our every movement has meaning and does not disappear into the oblivion of infinite time and space?

Of course it is not. Our Rabbis teach us “V’chol ma’asecha b’sefer nichtavim”. All our actions are recorded in a “book”. Obviously, this cannot be a real, leather-bound volume published by Harper-Collins. I understsand this to mean that each of our actions has cosmic ramifications. Whenever we act, it affects us and the world is affected. None of our actions are meaningless that they would go “unrecorded”.

This is what Elul and the High Holidays are about. Realizing that our decisions and choices make real differences and hopefully adjusting our lives accordingly to make good and true choices.

The court decision in favor of the fashion model comes at a great time. We can take stock and learn a lesson about what it means for our lives to “recorded”; what it means to live life with the understanding that everything we do matters.

At some point we all will need to face our life’s choices. Let’s make the right choices.

Jewish Blog Round-Up #225

rabbifink — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 14:05:28 +0000

Another week, another Haveil Havalim.

This week’s round-up is hosted by “How To Be An Israeli”. A number of excellent blog posts from the week that was are linked.

An excellent job all around.

My Book Review of DovBear on the Parsha is mentioned with a very nice comment:

Rabbi Fink talks of being swept away by DovBear’s passion and insight; I felt the same way about reading this post!

Thanks for the mention.

To check out Haveil Havalim #225 click through.

Haveil Havalim #225.

Onymous Blogging

rabbifink — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 16:51:22 +0000

This post has been cross-posted to DovBear. – more discussion there.

Social Networking has been around for a long time. The term is nearly two centuries old and the concept perhaps 30 times that.

With the internet explosion around the new millennium social networking became all the rage on the world wide web. MySpace and others blazed the trail. Now, blogging, Facebook and Twitter are an integral part of our social landscape.

Naturally, I was drawn to these new age ways of using technology to create social networks. I’ve been on Facebook since its inception five years ago and joined Twitter a while ago and have only recently begun to blog.

Over the last few weeks some incredible things have happened that are direct results of social networking online.

A couple of weeks ago a lovely woman came to our Shul on the Beach for Shabbos morning services. At the Kiddush (where incredibly, we do not have Kugel) she approached me and introduced herself as “Rena, I follow you on Twitter”. Immediately I realized it was @Tinsbar from Baltimore. Rena was in LA for a few days and decided to come check out our Shul. Rena enjoyed her time spent at PJC and we enjoyed her company. In fact one community member even got some footwear recommendations from Rena!

When I related this story to a Shul Board Member, he said this is the new wave of Shuls. We have moved from being just a “Brick and Morter” Shul to a “Click and Mortar” Shul.

About a month ago I posted the story of a penniless Jewish artist on the beach who was homeless. He needed some money and I was not sure if he was a good candidate for Tzedaka and I posted my moral dilemma on DovBear.

As reported last week, an anonymous donor (living miles away from Los Angeles) who read the blog post here on DovBear, literally saved this man from a dire situation.

On Twitter I follow a wonderful couple from Connecticut. She is a blogging convert and is now in the process of a more stringent conversion that would be universally accepted. He is a fellow blogger as well who blogs about his relationship with his Judaism.

He recently discovered the wonderful Jewish town of Waterbury CT. With a Yeshiva, Day School, Shul, Mikva, Kosher restaurant and very affordable housing, Waterbury is quickly picking up young couples looking to settle (slightly) out of town. I read all about that on his “onymous” (it’s a new word that means ‘the opposite of anonymous’) blog.

My sister and brother in law live in Waterbury, I told him to call my brother in law and check out Waterbury. They set a date and spent a wonderful afternoon together.

In short all of this great stuff occurred as a direct result of blogging, Twitter and social-networking 2009 style. These events also occurred in many ways as a result of “onymous” blogging. The charity case required someone be known (in this case, me). There is no way Rena would have found me if I blogged and Twittered anonymously. And if I was an anonymous blogger I never would have connected my sister with two fellow Jews looking for friends and connections.

These are the benefits of “onymous” blogging.

On the other hand (term of art – remember that discussion?), anonymous blogging and Twittering is also great. In particular I point to DovBear’s blog as a bastion of anonymity and great discussion that would admittedly never happen if we all had faces, names and families. The unfortunate realities of the Frum world as they are, almost force us cower in fear when we disagree with authority or tradition and we tend to hide behind familiar rituals, thus avoiding conflict and we are safe behind the veil of secrecy that is anonymous blogging.

Anonymity gives the silent, a voice. It gives us all a chance to be heard.

In truth, we have other things to worry about as well. As Tikkun Olam pointed out, we have Frum leaders blanketing all bloggers as a negative force, when we know that is ridiculous. There are some negative forces and many positive forces in the J-Blogosphere.

Worse is the fear we all feel of expressing our opinions. My opinion on this is transparent as I blog “onymously”. Speak your mind, challenge what you don’t understand but never lose the art of respectful questioning. I am (usually) not afraid to speak my mind and challenge what I don’t understand and thus I don’t need to be anonymous. Plus, I support many of the traditional ideals that “they” espouse. But, the crux of the issue remains the environment which we have created and now support that does not allow for us to challenge.

I say created, and that is self evident. I say support because we “give in” to the cyber bullies that force us to remain anonymous. How much greater impact would have as a group if those whom we challenge knew that we were real people? They should know that we have Yeshiva educations, wonderful families and jobs and we are frustrated with the status quo. But to “them” we are words on a computer screen, not people.

Words are cheap. Words have no soul when they are anonymous. If we want to be heard we need to be people. People have souls and people need to be dealt with. It is easy to ignore anonymous bloggers. People with souls demand attention and can affect change.

Should we strive to create a Frum culture that allows for challenging and questioning?

Are we helping the situation by blogging anonymously?

Do we lose a lot by blogging anonymously?

Do we stand to lose more by “onymous” blogging?

Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi » blogging

Things I Would Have Blogged About in the Last Ten Days If I Were a Real Blogger

Malcolm Gladwell Doesn’t Use Twitter or Facebook But He Is Pretty Sure They Are Useless

I Was Interviewed By Gather The Jews

300th Post: Some Of The Most Interesting of the First 300

Most Popular Posts (and why)

Most Commented Posts

Best Video Posts

Under-read Posts

Law and Law School Related Posts

Some Favorite Guest Posts on DovBear

Some Good Torah Posts