A Jewish blogger looking at the bigger picture….

Though I have spent some time over the past few years writing in the blogosphere, most of it has been on Morethodoxy.org, a blog I write with three other Orthodox rabbis.   We started writing it because we felt that the center and left of Orthodox Judaism, often termed “Modern Orthodoxy,” instead of bringing together the passion and commitment of its more insular brethren to the right and the openness of its more reform brethren to the left, was taking the worst of all worlds and forming a brand of religion that I think is not so uncommon today, one of not enough passion and too much insularity.   

Modern Orthodoxy today runs the risk of forming communities whose religious commitments make them less than welcoming to others unlike them -newcomers, gays, interfaith couples, people of lower economic strata -and yet at the same time whose involvement in secular life has diluted their passion and commitment to Torah study and its commandments.

Instead we thought; take the passion of the right wing and the openness of the left.   Create communities that are committed to study and observance, that are deeply spiritual and fervent, but at the same time are open in an extreme way to newcomers, to beginners, to gays, to people of color, to interfaith families and to everyone in between.   This is what we termed “Morethodoxy” and blog about.   

I welcome the opportunity to join you here on Civil Religion and look forward to opening up my writing and reflecting to wider issues.  I hope to bring some of my Orthodox Jewish writing but also to push myself, someone not by nature interested in politics, to write about the larger world.  I look forward to lots of good conversations with you about St. Louis, Religious life and its import, and our bigger but increasingly complex world.

B’Shalom-In Peace,

Hyim