Wikipedia Vitae
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This user's time zone is PDT. |
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This user runs a bot, Rabbot. It performs tasks that are extremely tedious to do manually. |
WikiProjects
Personal Vitae
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This user observes the dietary laws of Kashrut. |
Educational
Geographical
World-wide-web...ical
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This user maintains a blog. |
Personal not-so-Vitae
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This user is skilled in the sacred art of Shofar blowing. |
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This user has an iPod. |
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This user is owned by one or more dogs. |
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This user reads between the lines. |
Random Mild Accomplishments
| ACADEMIC JOURNAL |
This user has had his/her work published in an academic journal. |
| MAGAZINE |
This user has had his/her work published in a magazine. |
| POEM |
This user has had one of his/her poems published. |
| SHORT STORY |
This user has had one of his/her short stories published. |
Misc. Interests & Minor Beliefs
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This user drinks relatively infrequently. He or she is probably the better for it. |
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This user believes it is every citizen's duty to vote. |
Entertainment
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This user is Jack Bauer however, the preceding was a joke and most of us here on Wikipedia hate spreading false info. |
Diet
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This user obsessively drinks lots of Water and can be considered Aquaholic. |
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This user is on a diet. |
Languages
[edit] About Me
I'm a 28-year-old Rabbinical student and teacher, also involved in the catering industry, from Los Angeles, CA. I consider myself an expert on matters of Judaism, with a dabbling in the subjects, IRL, of the other WikiProjects (see sidebar) of which I am involved.
[edit] A Wikipedian Theology
When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden they suddenly developed the ability to know things and to be self-aware. This came at the cost of mortality and decay, that humans would have to toil for their natural lives which would be drastically shortened from eternity to much less. Pain, sorrow, and death are introduced into the world, in exchange for the blissful innocent ignorance. I have posed the question to my students, friends, colleagues, and teachers that "if you were in the position of Adam or Eve and given the choice of whether or not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, knowing the ramifications, would you eat"? Nine times out of ten the answer I have received is "yes".
Increasing knowledge is one of the greatest things given to humanity. I do not believe that there is any sin in what Adam and Eve did. Rather, I believe God placed it in front of them so that they would eat of it. "The sum of human knowledge is the fear of God", writes Ben Sira. It is this for reason that I find Wikipedia so noble a cause and so vital a pursuit. One person cannot know even a small fraction of all knowledge; yet through this collaborative effort, perhaps we can get that much closer to true enlightenment.
And as Rabbi Yehuda ben Teima writes in Pirkei Avot 5:23, "Be bold as the leopard".
[edit] My contribution to Wikipedia
Besides being an administrator on the English Wikipedia (where I participate mainly in deletion in its various forums and responding to vandalism and vandals) I also participate in many Wikiprojects, namely those related to Judaism In these categories I have created and done very major overhauls in a number of articles (which I will enumerate in the future). I also bill myself as a wikignome (or maybe Obsessive-Compulsive, making tiny edits all over the place, whether considered minor or major. I also tend to follow up edits with other edits (usually more minor) including things I have forgotten after clicking the Save page button.
I am quite passionate about issues regarding Judaism and Israel and love to debate topics relating to these, but I also maintain a semblance of unbias as I write or edit articles on these topics. I think one of the most important things to remember is that Wikipedia is first and foremost is to be a verifiable encyclopedic wiki (it says so right above the Save page button) and it is one thing to be passionate about something (this motivates edits on said topics) but it is another to include your bias within the articles. I am a stickler for policy and will not hesitate to bring up questions about the verifiablity, POV, et al. of any article. I am highly intolerant of vandalism and I will quickly revert any that I see. I am Pro-IP Profiling and look first at changes on my watchlist for anonymous IPs as those tend to contribute more vandalism (A recent study of the WP:Vandalism Studies concluded that about 97% of vandals are IP users). As such I am also in favor of quicker semi-protection for pages that are either vandalized or edit-warred by anonymous IPs. For other me-related things, there are links in some of my userboxes if you decide to stalk me.
Though I live in the Pacific Time Zone, you will find me editing at odd hours (probably because I'm in grad school). You will not, however, find me editing (or manipulating electricity for that matter) on the Jewish Sabbath or holidays. I will usually have a header on this page during these times (but sometimes I will forget). Therefore, understand if I don't get back to you during these times. Otherwise, I am usually pretty quick on getting back to people who post to my talk page. Occasionally I can also be found on the Freenode IRC network on #wikipedia_en and in the admin channel, on as Valley2city.
[edit] Torah Portion of the Week
Weekly Torah Portion
Vayakhel–Pekudei (ויקהל-פקודי)
Exodus 35:1–40:38
The Weekly Torah portion in synagogues on Shabbat, Saturday, 23 Adar, 5772; March 17, 2012
"And let all among you who are skilled come and make all that the Lord has commanded." (Exodus 35:10.)
The High Priest wearing his breastplate
Moses convoked the Israelites to build the Tabernacle. Moses started by reminding them of God’s commandment to keep the Sabbath of complete rest. Then Moses told them to collect gifts of materials from those whose heart so moved them — gifts of gold, silver, copper, colored yarns, fine linen, goats’ hair, tanned ram skins, acacia wood, olive oil, spices, lapis lazuli, and other stones. Moses invited all who were skilled to make the Tabernacle, its furnishings, and the priests’ vestments. The Israelites brought the gifts that Moses requested. Moses announced that God had singled out Bezalel and Oholiab to endow them with the skills needed to construct the Tabernacle. And Moses called on them and all skilled persons to undertake the task. The Israelites brought more than was needed, so Moses proclaimed and end to the collection. The skilled workers fashioned the Tabernacle. Bezalel made the ark, cover, table, menorah, incense altar, altar for sacrifices, laver, and enclosure for the Tabernacle. At Moses’ direction, Aaron’s son Ithamar oversaw the accounts of the Tabernacle, and the text sets forth the amounts of gold, silver, and copper that Bezalel, Oholiab, and their coworkers used. The silver came from the half-shekel a head for each man 20 years old and older who was counted in the census. Bezalel, Oholiab, and their coworkers made the Kohen|priests’ vestments, the ephod, the breastpiece, the robe, the tunics of fine linen, and the frontlet inscribed “Holy to the Lord” — just as God had commanded Moses. Then they brought the Tabernacle and all its furnishings to Moses, and he blessed them. God told Moses to set up the Tabernacle, and Moses did just as God had commanded him, on the first day of the second year of the Exodus. When Moses finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and God’s Presence filled the Tabernacle. When the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out, and when the cloud did not lift, they would not set out. And God’s cloud rested over the Tabernacle by day, and fire would appear in it by night, throughout the Israelites’ journeys.
Hebrew and English text
Hear the parshah chanted
Commentary from the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies at the American Jewish University (Conservative)
Commentary from the Jewish Theological Seminary (Conservative)
Commentary by the Conservative Yeshiva
Commentary by the Union for Reform Judaism (Reform)
Commentaries from Project Genesis (Orthodox)
Commentaries from Chabad.org (Orthodox)
Commentaries from Aish HaTorah (Orthodox)
Commentaries from the Jewish Reconstructionist Federation (Reconstructionist)
Commentaries from My Jewish Learning (trans-denominational)
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