About Me[edit]

I'm a rabbi 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.

A Wikipedian Theology[edit]

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".

My contribution to Wikipedia[edit]

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.

Torah Portion of the Week[edit]