Driving Driving

Having spent very little of the past 5+ years driving in New York City (aside from the occasional rental car for a trip), a big facet of my life out here in California is driving around. Yes, I not only grew up living in an Ohio suburb where driving was the modus operandi, but also spent a fair amount of time driving in high school and some in my last semester of college, when I finally had a car on campus. Nevertheless, driving around is a big component of my new job.
After starting out driving a minivan for the first few months of work, I am now riding around in my company's car, a Hyundai Accent (pictured at left) (pretty much half the size of the minivan), which is so much easier to park and maneuver and much better at fuel mileage.
The interesting thing with driving around so much with my job is that it reminds me of when I was on regional board for BBYO in KIO. When I was the regional מזכיר and the regional סגן, I visited every chapter/city (Munster, IN, Indianapolis, IN, Louisville, KY, Cincinnati, OH, Dayton, OH, and, of course, Columbus) and some of them I visited more frequently than others (especially Dayton), which included a lot of driving. However, a big difference is that the cities were further spaced out than they are here in southern California. Anyways, I was reminded of all that driving with my current job - it was good highway driving experience :)

Starting to Read the NT

After arriving to the great sunny land of California, my benefactor handed me a bunch of literature with information about what proselytizing Christians might say, including many quotations from the NT. After reading some of it, I realized that all the scriptural verses were not in their context. Moreover, how could I discuss, with any knowledge, what the NT or Christianity believed about various matters? So, I set aside that literature and began to read the NT, itself. So far, it's been good - I'm progressing. Although there's a lot in there that, for lack of better phrasing, I just don't believe, nonetheless, I've found reading it interesting on three accounts:
1) Seeing how it/Jesus uses Biblical verses (that is, from the Hebrew Bible) that aren't necessarily the way that we Jews read them. On the other hand, it is also interesting to see how the NT is describing certain Biblical laws being followed in that time.
2) Getting a better sense of the origins of certain ideas that have trickled down to our day in contemporary America, but more interestingly, phrases, as well.
3) Reading about certain social circumstances as well as outlooks that would also be reflected upon rabbinic literature as well as similar statements (or dissimilar, for that matter).
This last one is something that may not appeal to a lot of people, but is the most intellectually fascinating aspect to me. Although I may be reading it on account of needing to know this stuff for professional reasons (whether that would be confronting missionaries, contrasting NT statements to Jewish positions, or even just to discuss with Christian clergy), it's this third reason that really keeps me going, as someone who enjoys reading and studying rabbinic literature.

Moving to California: Heading to the Other Coast For an Exciting Job

After living in New York City for over five years, my wife, my daughter, and I are moving out to Long Beach, California! And even though we just moved into a new apartment less than two months ago, we are packing right back up again.
On 9 November, we will be heading out to Long Beach, California to begin our new jobs. Rachel will be the new Executive Director at the Long Beach Hillel and I will be providing rabbinic support to colleges and high schools in the Long Beach area and in Orange County (my predecessor called the position the Alevy Family Campus Rabbi as part of Alevy Jewish Student Services).

Oh, and here's where you can get jealous: the average temperature year-round is in the 70s ;)