For those of you wondering why it’s been so quiet on the TikkunGer blog it’s because a lot has been going on in my neck of the woods.

First there was the high holidays and then there was getting married (yup we got married) and then there’s the fact that I’ve been putting a lot of time and energy to a new group blog project entitled Jewsbychoice.org

I meant to blog about the high holidays and getting married but to be honest both events had me too tired to string together anything coherent and so it just never happened.

As for JewsByChoice.Org most of my recent available blogging time and energy has gone into kick starting that baby.  We only launched the first week of October and it’s still early in the game but we’re already generating great posts and conversation.  If you like the type of Jewish blogging I’ve been here, I highly recommend checking out this new blog. Also if you wouldn’t mind adding us to your blog roll would be happy to reciprocate, just let us know via e-mail. Lastly if you’re in the mood to do a mitzvah (which some readers already have) please consider doing a quick post on your own blog letting your own readers, know all about our new project.

The new blog does mean that I’m going to be Jewing things down here a little bit but only because I will be Jewing things up over at Jewsbychoice.org

Posting here will probably be light for the next couple of months but TikkunGer.com is far from dead and in fact I’m hoping to do some remodeling here in January.  You know freshen up the little bit as well as change the focus of content to better reflect my many varied interests. You know stuff like spirituality, politics, green issues, movies, books and whatever else strikes my fancy at any given moment in time.

Anyhow, that’s about it for now.

Oh and again please do consider updating your blogroll, feed subscriptions and bookmarks to include Jewsbychoice.org.

Be well

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Today a cool NPR program showed up in my RSS Reader on the subject of Jewish thought and practice as it pertains to marriage and family life. OK, actually it’s just the first half hour. The last 30 minutes focuses more on the Christian take and I’m not so into that. Not that there is anything wrong with the Christian take but its just not my cup of tea is all.

Anyhow obviously this is a subject which is of great interest to me both as an engaged (as in soon to be wed) and as a committed Jew. However I really enjoyed listening to this program for a few reasons above and beyond the obvious ones already mentioned.

The Jewish expert interviewed is Rabbi Elliot Dorff who just happens to me one of my favorite Contemporary Jewish Theologians. Incidentally he also teaches UJ here in LA which is a place I would eventually like to study at.

Another really cool and new thing I learnt listening to the show is that according to Rabbi Dorff a recent study looking at divorce showed that Jews who complete the UJ Marriage Preparation Course apparently only have an 8% divorce rate. I don’t know anything about how this study was conducted but 8% is a great number (even if only anecdotally) considering about 31% of US marriages end in divorce. More importantly is that Tamara and I have been planning on taking this course as soon as we can, so that 8% stats is very reassuring!

Rabbi Dorff ( in the extended interview - see below) also covers tons of other interesting stuff including sexual dynamics, the spirituality of marriage, homosexuality and divorce, to name but a few.  

There certainly is something of value here for anyone who is going to, is now, or has been married. So check it out!

Oh and if you do listen please feel free to share your thoughts on the topic!

Marriage, Family, and Divorce (July 5, 2007)

American ideals of courtship and marriage echo with Biblical imagery ? “bone of my bones” “flesh of my flesh.” But what does the Bible really say, and how has it been taught across the centuries in which the institution of marriage has changed dramatically? With a rabbi and a New Testament scholar, we explore nuances of biblical teachings about marriage, family, and divorce ? the surprising ambiguities of the New Testament and the striking practicality of Jewish tradition across the ages.

• Link
• Enclosure

Update: Click here to hear the full/unedited version of the Rabbi Dorff interview.

PS: TAMARA Check this out!

Summer 2007 Basic Seminars

Tue 7-9pm ? July 10 through September 11 ?  Wilshire Boulevard Temple (Olympic and Barrington) in West Los Angeles  

Wed 7:30-9:30pm ? June 13 through August 8 (no class July 4)

Thur 8:00-10:00pm ? May 10 through July 12

There’s not much time to think about this and it may even be too late to register but I thought I would put the the idea out there just in case you are into it!

Let me know what you think!

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This past weekend was crazy busy for me (which probably equals regular busy to most people) but it was a lot of fun.

Here’s the short version of what went down.

Friday Night

• A lovely Shabbos dinner with friends over at their place.

Saturday

• Tamara and I went for a 5 & 1/2 km Shabbos walk including a lovely visit with friends.
• Tamara made me what is probably the best homemade sandwich I’ve ever had in my entire life (no joke).
• A last-minute coffee date with a buddy to talk about Kaplanian Theology and gelato.

Sunday

• An Early Sunday morning trip to San Diego in order to attend a headstone unveiling.
• Two power stops at what I’m told are San Diego’s only two Judaica stores, where I bought Shabbat candles and a book.
• A power drive to Orange County from San Diego in order to spend Father’s Day with some of Tamara’s family.

Monday

Tamara decided not to go to work so we made it a fun day!

• Went out for a kick ass Israeli style kosher breakfast at a great little restaurant in the valley called Cafe Eilat.
• Checked out a few kosher shops in the valley where Tamara picked up some of her favorite kosher gum.
• Spontaneously decided to go and check out VBS which is one of the finalists in our current shul shopping as a couple thing.
• Found this kosher meat restaurant where we proceeded to buy some take out vegetarian lunch.
• Drove down to the La Brea Tar Pits where we enjoyed a picnic style lunch and then toured the park.

I realize that it doesn’t look like that much but it sure felt like a lot to me. I mean I’m a guy who spent the last eight months or so trying to go out no more than once or twice a week. I’m not complaining rather just sitting here thinking, wow I did more this past weekend and I normally do in a week back home. All in all it was very fun and I look forward to doing more of this kind of stuff with Tamara. It really is great that we are finally together as a couple.

Anyhow that’s about it for now, so ttyl.

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This past month Tamara and I began actively exploring what our (as a couple) Jewish community opportunities might be in Los Angeles. Tamara already belongs to a Chabad community which she has been participating in for over a year now. It’s a very nice, friendly community however unfortunately it’s not the best place for me as a non-Orthodox Jew by choice, who isn’t interested at this point in doing a halachick conversion. Besides that I don’t think either of us feel it’s the best fit in terms of an environment for raising our (G-D willing) children with the values and attitudes we feel are most important.

While I was down last fall we did spend time checking out several reform communities but to be honest they were just too big and seemed a little bit on the impersonal side of things.

We are looking for more than just a place to go on Saturdays or for the High Holidays. We are looking for a community and social network we can plug into. You know a group of people that aren’t necessarily identically like us but who share our values, interests and Jewish predilections. Anyhow the good news is that we found a couple of really promising communities and both of us are pretty excited about it.

The first community is called Ikar and it’s a new young and groovy kinda place made up of mostly 20 and 30 something’s. The community is led by Rabbi Sharon Brous who is JTS trained and has been named by foreword as one of 2006’s most distinguished Jewish leaders. From what I gather the community has something of a Reconstructionist/Renewal vibe to it but they are unaffiliated. At first I wasn’t sure how I felt about the unaffiliated status but the more I think about it the more I like it. That’s not to say that I’m against affiliation or anything but it’s nice to just be Jewish and community focused, without unnecessarily abiding by institutional party lines.

From what we’ve gathered they are a very progressive group of people who are interested in study, social action and community building. The only anticipated difficulty is going to be adjusting to their Shabbat services format. Although I’ve been told that they’re very traditional in terms of liturgy much of it is sung and they incorporate the use of drums and bells. Bottom line is if that’s our biggest problem we may have found a really great community.

Tamara got a chance to meet the Rabbi and seemed to be impressed with her.  Although I obviously haven’t met her I did get a chance to watch a short video of her which was impressive.

This post seems to have grown a little larger in size than I had planned so I think I’ll save the second candidate for another post.

Anyhow if anyone reading this is a member or has experience with Ikar please feel free to share your thoughts with me.

Up Date: here is an interesting Radio Interview with Rabbi Sharon Brous. Part 1 begins about 8 minutes in and Part 2 begins about 40:30 minutes into the show.

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Some of my more regular readers I’m sure have realized that my posting has dwindled in frequency over the last few weeks and actually down to nothing this week. Part of that is because Tamara was in town and we were just busy doing fun stuff and I didn’t get around to posting as much as I usually do. But this weekend I got a nasty case of food poisoning.

Food poisoning does indeed suck ass and for the first 24 hours of the illness my family seemed to think I was going to wind up in the hospital, however I managed to avoid that. I will spare everyone the gross details and suffice it to say, today (which is day four) although I’m not at 100% my body seems to be functioning more or less within normal parameters again. Yay for solid BM’s!!!

What appears to be the cause of all of this is an improperly washed bowl. You see I have this one big plastic bowl for eating kosher chicken on the occasions that I do treat myself to such food. I keep a kosher kitchen so I don’t mix my meat and dairy at all and actually only by pre-cooked chicken which I don’t heat up or refrigerate as not to have any cross-contamination accidents (no pun intended). Basically sometimes on Friday afternoon I’ll go and buy a pre-cooked chicken and I’ll eat it cold that evening out of my one chicken bowl.

Interestingly enough it wasn’t the chicken that actually got me rather it was my crappy dishwashing job. You see the chicken was purchased and eaten almost 3 weeks ago without incident. Roasted chickens of course are greasy and I just didn’t do a good enough job washing the bowl that I used before putting it away. So basically chicken germs had about two weeks to hang out in my bowl and do whatever it is they do. So last Shabbos I grab my bowl which I also use for salad (salad is Parve after all) and although I noticed a slight filmy grease on, it I opted to use the bowl without cleaning it. Later that evening I started to feel a little bit off so I went to bed early but awoke at 2:30 AM convulsing with the shivers. In fact so much so that the next morning every centimeter of my body ached like I had run a marathon.

It was an absolutely awful experience, to the point that I’ve decided to go off meat completely and back into the world of vegetarianism, which is a lifestyle I’ve been engaged in on and off most of my adult life anyhow. In general I don’t think eating animals is a very healthy thing and the chicken was something I often referred to as my crack habit. I am not suggesting that others shouldn’t eat chicken if they want to just that personally for a long time I’ve had ethical issues with it although over the last year and a half I’ve been turning a blind eye.

On the one hand I think it’s kind of lame that it took me going through this atrocious bout of food poisoning, in order for me to do what I “think is the right thing to do” but if that’s what it takes then I guess that’s what it takes.

The other cool thing about this experience is that although Tamara had just flown back home she was ready to hop right back on a plane fly across the continent again to Ottawa if I was going to be in the hospital. Of course my first thought to that is no you can’t do that we don’t have the money etc. etc. but the bottom line is as she put it ” if you had been admitted to the hospital, you would not have a choice, I would have been coming up”.

Now although I don’t really like “not having a choice” I must admit it’s nice to know that I have someone in my life who cares about me. Someone who cares about me so much that the first thought that crosses her mind when I’m sick is not about finance or the burden this places upon her, rather how quickly can she get here. What can say other than it’s nice to realize that I have someone like that in my life and I am very lucky.

So that’s about it for this update but if I keep feeling better I’m sure to do some more posting this week.

Be well

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Well I’ve learned a couple of things in the past week including the following.

One: It’s really hard for me to get around to doing proper posts when Tamara is here.

Two: Apparently people aren’t really interested in commenting on my Jesus related posts, LOL.

Anyhow Tamara is still here but I’ve managed to carve out a little time for myself in order to do a post or to and catch up on blog reading. So stay tuned for more blog posts later today and tomorrow.

It’s nice to have Tamara here and things are going well we’ve got a car, so we are able to get out and about despite the snow. Now speaking of the snow it’s actually been relatively mild and tolerable this past week. The weather has actually gone above zero several times and so Tamara hasn’t been overly traumatized by the Arctic climate that is Ottawa in March.

We’ve managed to check out the Museum of Civilization, which we have both already posted pictures from. While at the museum we also had a chance to see an IMAX (actually I think it was Omnimax) film which was probably my first in over 10 or 12 years. I can’t remember what it was called but it was about six beautiful natural environments including Tibet and Greenland. The cinematography was breathtaking and with that domed screen you literally got pulled into the images. It was truly amazing.

We also went to the movies one day and saw the Last King of Scotland starring Forest Whitaker. Wow, what an incredible film albeit a disturbing one. Forest certainly did a brilliant job playing Idi Amin it was truly chilling.

We got to spend an afternoon with my mother and stepfather which was quite enjoyable and we feasted on vegetarian lasagna that had corn in it. I love corn!

We also ran around and did errands which was fun to do as a couple.

Lastly and probably most importantly is that we managed to watch (thus far) 2 1/2 seasons of BattleStar Galactica. I knew that Tamara would like BattleStar Galactica but she’s actually really, really, really liking it, which is cool.

Anyhow that’s about it for now but I will be back.

Oh PS Thursday night I also got to spend a couple of hours revamping the blog and as you may or may not have noticed I’ve changed the look.

Okay well that’s it for now.

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Last night Tamara and I were having a conversation related to the messianic promise of resurrection. Anyhow at one point Tamara shared something with me which I found rather insightful, not to mention beautiful.

What did she say? Okay I’ll tell you!

Note: I’m paraphrasing here and may in fact be getting what she said completely wrong.

She basically told me that she didn’t believe in the physical resurrection but that our souls lived on through the good deeds we managed to accomplish during our physical lives here on Earth. To be honest I don’t know if she meant that’s all that exists, nor do I know that I agree with it 100% if that is what she meant. At first I thought she meant that our souls are carried on in terms of people remembering us because of our kindness and interactions with them, but I’m not sure that’s what she meant. Now after giving it some thought, I get the feeling that she meant that our souls (either in full or in part) continue on through the good works that we’ve done. That is our loving kindness when it leads to actions which in turn have a positive influence and effect on the world ripple out, like a pebble thrown into a calm lake. And in some way those ripples out into eternity carry a piece of our positive creativity with them, a piece of our soul.

I’m not sure if I misunderstood but I think it’s a beautiful idea.

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