Hello to the Blogging World

Hello to anyone who stumbles across this blog!

I've been an active member of the Jewish Internet world for a long time. Of course in the internet world, there are different definitions of long. Let's just say I was posting to Usenet when the jewish group there was net.religion.jewish. If you can remember the Great Usenet ReNaming, then you've been around for a while.

From my limited perusal of some Jewish Blogs, it seems that it is fasionable to not identify oneself directly on the blog. However, there are a number where the concealment is fairly thin. I was particularly amused by Gil, where he talks about how he is not identifying himself, but then signs all the posts with his real name.

So I will follow that new tradition. I don't think my cousin, the current Sambor Rebbi is online, so I figured I'll take that title here, sort of. I'll be the Internet Sambor Rebbi. At the same time, I'm not from the Chassidish side of the family, so I don't quite feel comfortable calling myself the Rebbe. So I'll try the un_Rebbi.

By the way, if there actually are any Sambor chassidim who read this, please feel free to contact me. I'm not aware if there really are any left.

So what are my interests?

As I say in my profile, while I dislike labels, I do identify as an Orthodox Jew. However, I strongly believe that one should question and explore all aspects of ones religion and practices. Too often people do things because others do it, they have been told that is the way to do things, etc. They do not take the effort to really understand what is the source and what level of authority something has. One of the things I enjoy doing is challanging the accepted. As I go along, I'll probably publish here some of my favorites.

OK, enough for now.

The Sambor Un-Rebbi