interviewed by jerusha

[cellio]

1) What would you look for in a congregation? Are there any factors in there that are factors only for Jewish congretagions, as opposed to any other religious gathering?

In no particular order:

• People who are open and welcoming. If I feel like I'm invading someone's space just by showing up for services, I'll find it hard to go back.
• A good relationship between the clergy and the congregants, and specifically, a good relationship between the clergy and me. I need to know that I can talk with these people.
• A balance between respecting tradition and trying new things. I myself am more traditional about liturgy and more open to new things with music, but this also plays a role outside of worship, such as in teaching.
• Opportunities for adult learning, and for adult participation. It can't be all about the kids, either in classes or in worship, or this non-parent will feel unwelcome.
• Theological compatability. My theology doesn't have to exactly match anyone else's (that rarely happens, I'd guess), but it needs to be close enough to (1) the community standard and (2) what the clergy teaches that I can relate.
• An appropriate degree of tolerance and open-mindedness from the congregation and the clergy. People who are absolutely certain that they know precisely what God wants need not apply.
• Opportunities to participate and grow.
• Enough attention to basic secular matters that I believe we'll be able to pay our bills and keep the place clean and structurally sound.
• Absence of (evidence of) political in-fighting. That's never a good sign.

Specifically for a Jewish congregation:

• Halachic standards that match my needs. I expect to be able to eat the food at congregational affairs, participate in worship led by Jews (not gentiles), walk to services (which means if they move the congregation five miles down the road I'll have to stop going there on Shabbat), and so on.

There may be more, but that's what comes to mind right now. I'll admit that I didn't go congregation-shopping with a checklist; I knew the right one when I saw it.

2) You've remarked in the past that your current job is just about perfect. Assuming that you were going to change fields, what would you change to?

Is this the "go wild and choose anything" world, or the "within the realm of what's possible for your skills, finances, and family situation" question? :-)

If the latter, let's see... I could go back to programming (though I'd never excel), or I could take up a different kind of writing (though that might be cheating). While the idea of writing a book on technical writing (for programmers -- the stuff I do) has appeal, because there's not a lot out there, that's a project and not a career. I don't know if I could make a career of being a "professional co-author", someone who works with experts (say, at universities) to get their work published for the masses. Or I suppose software quality assurance would be a possibility; I have the right process clues at least, and the right degree of anal-retentiveness. If I have to be practical, that's probably the best option for me -- software QA.

If instead I were not hindered by little details like money and keeping peace in the family, I think I would like to be a congregational rabbi.

3) Is there any item (concept, technique, whatever) from your education that you thought was useless at the time, but have since come to appreciate? Any item that you thought was useless at the time, and have come to the mature, considered opinion that you were right?

Ooh, fun question!

I'll do the second one first: I went through eleven years of public school convinced that phys-ed was utterly useless and the time would have been better spent reading anything, and I was right. The classes were glorified baby-sitting ("here, play softball") and taught me nothing that I can use. (They certainly didn't encourage physical fitness.) My reaction might, or might not, have been different if my vision hadn't hindered me so much that I couldn't really fully participate in many of the activities.

The courses that turned out to be useful despite my feelings at the time were (most of) the history courses. With the exception of a wasted semester studying the French revolution, which subject I have managed to put entirely out of my mind, I think my history courses taught me how to look at events in a particular context that is not my own, and that this matters. Once you get beyond memorizing names and dates and get to the principles, then (1) it's more interesting and (2) you learn techniques that apply elsewhere. I had one stand-out teacher in high school, and I think that's when I started to wise up.

4) What do you read for pleasure? What have you read recently?

Well, there's LiveJournal. :-)

I actually read books on religion for pleasure. Recently I've been sampling Larry Kushner's Five Cities of Refuge (better than reading straight through), Jewish Living (which is a guide to moden practice), and a few others. On a different note, I enjoyed RealLivePreacher.com even though I'd read most of the essays online.

In other areas, I also enjoy semi-random walks through the Miss Manners books, of which we own several, and cookbooks of all sorts. (Yes, I read about food for pleasure. Beats gorging myself with the actual food, eh? :-) )

I recently read a short (6-issue?) comic-book series called The Crossovers, which is great fun -- the premise is that you've got your typical family, except that dad's secretly a superhero (but no one else knows), and mom's secretly a vampire-hunter (but no one else knows), and the boy is secretly working with aliens (but... you get the idea), and the girl's secretly a princess in an alternate world, and naturally, their stories interact. Oh, and I spent most of the series wondering about the dog. :-)

My daily-except-for-Shabbat routine also involves check-ins with my favorite comics: Dilbert, FoxTrot, Bizarro, Doonesbury (though this is a mixed bag), and a couple guilty pleasures like Hagar and Garfield. :-)

5) Are you ever going to buy a Volkswagon again?

At the moment, that seems very very unlikely. But I won't make a judgement for "forever" at this point; when the time comes to buy my next car I will research the then-current options. But I will apply an extra degree of scrutiny to anything positive I hear about VWs!

The Golf is a very pleasnat car to drive, but if they can't make 'em right and they won't stand behind 'em, it's not worth it.

Comments

hah!

[ironangel]

...cookbooks of all sorts.

I thought I was the only one who did this. Neat! I think I do it in part because the more I read about food, the better my food intuition seems to be. Well, plus, your point about reading instead of eating.

[gregbo.livejournal.com]

You've written a lot about how you don't think you'd excel at programming if you went back to it ... why do you feel that way? What do you think is the difference between someone who excels at programming and someone who doesn't? Is it a "time spent" issue ... could you make yourself better at programming if you spent more time on it? Would that perhaps make you unhappy, because you couldn't spend more time doing other things you enjoyed more? (I guess this is a lot of questions ... just curious I guess, seeing as I have been thinking along these lines.)