Hello, I'm Dana.

Some time ago, I had joined the forum, mostly for the Hebrew Language. Now, I spend a good deal of any spare time reading books, generally of the non-fiction genres. New start overs can be refreshing, in that we all change and grow over time, and hopefully, for the better.  My priorities have changed. I'm not religious, yet I strongly believe in a sense of having grounded, good ethics. That is why I am interested in the teachings that come from Judaism. I'm no longer as concerned about belief as I am about personal conduct.  I'm working at learning Word with an online transcription course, and plan to resume once the holiday seasons are over. My love/hate, very emotional relationship with computers and technology hamper learning, but I'm working on that.
 
 I have encountered, almost continuously, every single one of these situations that was sent as an anonymous prayer, taken from one of Rabbi Joseph Telushkin's books.   I value greatly.  

The chapter on judging fairly and charitably.  


Heavenly Father,

 Help us to remember that the "jerk" who cut us off in traffic last night may be a single mother who worked nine hours that day and who is now rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry, and spend a few precious moments with her children.

 Help us to remember that the pierced, tatooed, disinterested young man who couldn't make change correctly at the register today is a worried nineteen-year-old student who is preoccupied with whether he passed his final exams and with his fear of not getting a student loan for next semester.

 Remind us Lord, that the scary-looking "bum" begging for money in the same spot every day is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

 Help us to realize that the old couple walking so slowly through the store isles, blocking our shopping cart, are savoring this moment, because they know that, based on the biopsy report she got back yesterday, this may be the last year they will go shopping together.

ברוכים הבאים לכל אלה שאוהבים את השפה העברית. פה אפשר להרגיש חופשי לכתוב בעברית.

hi

Instead of having a bunch of different forums, we're going to start using thread prefixes to keep the threads orderly.

When you make a new thread, choose a prefix before you write a subject. I'll keep an eye on new threads to sort them by prefix if one hasn't been chosen.

When threads have prefixes, you can view threads by prefix by choosing the prefix at the end of the topic page and clicking "Go."

Instead of having a separate forum for everything little thing, we can have all of our topics in a few forums with prefix sorting. I think this is more reasonable given the size of our active online community.

Let me know what you think and if you can think of thread prefixes that need to be added.

Jason

I'm not sure this is really necessary. I suspect that for some time to come most of the "newbies" are going to be "oldies" reenlisting, so to speak, on the forum.

Anyhow, I am RabbiO. For those who may be unfamiliar with me, I am, indeed, a rabbi..... of the Reform variety. I did not enter the rabbinate until an age when many rabbis are retiring or thinking of retirement. I am occasionally crotchety, but usually I am unbelievably cute and adorable.

I don't take myself overly serious, but I am serious about Judaism and my responsibilities as a rabbi.

Hi. I’m Jason (Guy).

I’ve been admin of the Hebrew Café for a long time. The recent crash (this morning) is my fault. I don’t know how to access the backup that I have on my harddrive to merge it with what I’ve had to create this morning.

Either way, new beginnings for a new year aren’t completely unwelcome.

I’m into Hebrew language. Understand religion but am not convinced by anything anymore. I live in Israel and lead a secular lifestyle. I spend my time learning, reading and learning some more. Right now, I’ve got the new Septuaginta: A Reader’s Edition that takes up what time I don’t devote to my beginning studies of computer science (hopefully I’ll soon be better acquainted with SQL and database manipulation) and to reading Star Wars novels.

How about you? Open a thread and introduce yourself.

Well, it used to happen every time we upgraded the forum to the newest software. We’ve been using the same forum for years, but now it’s happened again.

We’re now marking December 24, 2018 as the new beginning of the Hebrew Café’s Jewish Forums.

Guess it’s a good time to clean out the gutters and be ready for the new year and a new forum home.

This is our time to redefine ourselves, reestablish the rules by which our forum plays, rethink how we can work together as a forum community (and family).

I’m sorry for this happening again after so many years. I hope you’ll move forward with me into our next phase.

If you have any issues while trying to sign up again, please contact me at jason@thehebrewcafe.com.

Yours,
Jason (Guy)