HP giveaway

There is currently a large giveaway of HP equipment through 50 blogs.
This is my attempt to participate in the contest at one of the blogs, Moosh in indy.

This is what I would do with the HP equipment. First of all, I could not use all of the material myself. We have a new HP desktop and I have a work-owned notebook. I would use our current desktop for my children (10, 7, 5, 1 1/2) and my wife and I would use the new desktop. We would probably donate one of the laptops and an older desktop that my oldest son uses to my children's school--LGA Schechter (which could use newer computers). The Jewish Day School has a great facility and talented and enthusiastic faculty but could use more cutting edge technology versus old cast-off donations.

I use the internet in a few ways for more work as a Campus Rabbi/Hillel Director at Smith and Amherst Colleges. I have this blog and use Facebook as a means to reach out to students. The HP Mini would allow me to post more frequently and from more places. Also, the equipment would help me update the websites at both colleges. I started to use this blog a number of years ago and Facebook three summers ago to reach out to students in a non-intrusive way (versus emailing all students on my list about everything on my mind). I know from direct feedback that prospective students and even current students use the blog/Facebook to find out about Jewish life and concerns.

Please help me to do my work better and help my children's school at the same time.
Also, we took my son's class to see Kung Fu Panda! Great movie.
You may see more

Links to My Blog

According to technorati, two other blogs link to mine. The first is xlubi is a blog for ex-Lubavitchers. While I have met a few in my life, I didn't realize they had (at
least) one blog. I am not sure why I am included, unless it was my post about
meeting the Rebbe. I am part of a list of Alternative Jewish Blogs. Who knew?

The second blog is written by a rabbinic colleague--Rabbi Yonah Blookstein(Campus Rabbi at Long Beach State, UC Irvine, Chapman U. and Fullerton State through Beach Hillel and OC Hillel). In correspondance with Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, I mentioned that many campus
rabbis were using Facebook. Some of us also use Blogs and even pod casts to reach our students.

Shalom,
Rabbi Bruce

Rabbis Respond (Jewish Ledger): Prayer

Do I Have to Pray the Standard Cycle of Prayers?

Is it okay to pray only when the spirit moves me? What I need from God changes depending on my situation. I don’t feel particularly moved by what is written in the prayerbook and often I find it repetitive and boring. Are regular synagogue prayers really necessary?

I read this as related, but distinct, questions. Regarding prayer, the rabbis place prayer on a continuum between two values—the fixed nature of prayer (keva) and the individual nature of prayer at any specific moment (kavana). The more fixed a prayer is, the harder it is for an individual to bring themselves into it. Jewish liturgy seems to fall clearly on the keva end of the continuum, since we have a fixed cycle of prayers with day-to-day variations (however, there are much more variations than one imagines. For those who like math puzzles and liturgy see p. 2 of Steven Schach’s Structure of the Siddur, where the author stops counting unique services partly through the year after finding over 3,000 variations). Despite the fixed nature of our prayers, the rabbis clearly wanted intentionality in our daily prayers—we are supposed bring our hearts and souls into the fixed liturgy.

In order to fulfill the kavana value in a keva-oriented liturgy, I view the prayers as hypertexts. Each time I pray a psalm or prayer, I either intentionally focus on one or two phrases or allow for it to happen on its own as I pray. This requires fluency in Hebrew and liturgy since translations rarely allow for the linguistic or conceptual connections that make prayer different for me each day.

As to whether synagogue prayers are necessary at all, I view prayer in a minyan as occurring in six directions—each direction placing me within overlapping contexts. On my left and right sides are other members of the Jewish community who join together for a common purpose. These connections extend far beyond our location to encompass other Jews praying around the world. I view front and back as placing me in a historical context. My prayers are part of a history of Jews praying that extends back to our earliest ancestors and will continue through our descendants. The remaining directions, up and down, place me within two very important contexts. The down direction reminds me about my connections to the earth and that my prayers are taking place in a particular place (and time) on earth. Up reminds me that I pray in the presence of God (although of course God is not literally up). Without participating in regular synagogue prayers with other Jews, these six contexts would either not be present or would be greatly diminished in meaning.