Fly, My Pretties, Fly!
No doubt to the chagrin of my sixth-grade DARE officer, today marks another victory for peer pressure. I'm taking my Mishkaneering into the blogosphere!
Mishkaneer represents the first baby step toward a Whole Mishkan Catalog, by means of which, and with G!d's help and yours, we may be blessed to learn of dwelling in a deeper way, perhaps even to help build the Modern Mishkan. We've been in this wilderness a long time. There's a ton of building to do, but also plenty to work with, thank G!d.
Over the next several days, weeks, or more, I will try to convert a heap of those quaint, old-fashioned word processor files, among other materials, into this format. To preserve a bit of the narrative, I will pre-date entries where appropriate, so don't skip the archives. Also, please comment as you are moved to. There is no Lone Mishkaneer! It may often be unclear what it is I'm driving at (like, say, right now); and, if words don't fail, that's because this whole drive is through unfamiliar territory. That said, I love driving to a fault (just ask my wife!), so navigational input, and reminders to check out the scenery, are welcome gifts.
Finally, I want to frame this new beginning with a moment of reflection upon Marshall MacLuhan, egotism, and our favorite exotic-religious-folk-who-aren't-us, the Amish. This Shabbat, Aviel read me a piece from Plain, poignantly describing the decline of communitarian consciousness in an Amish-Quaker-Plain community, following the introduction of new technologies that empowered individual households to self-reliance in lieu of depending on the help of neighbors. At first, it was a sad, sad story. After all, if the Amish can't block the ascendence of Self and the eclipse of Brotherhood, who the heck can? But the Chassidic masters saw this trend centuries ago, and, more to the point, they saw Torah in it: The Self bears G!dspark. Its rise is inevitable because the Holy must be elevated.
In other words, the reactionary traditionalists have it backwards -- communitarian outlook is not fading on account of our actions becoming selfish; an evolution of consciousness is forcing everybody to realize the immanent (Divine) value in the Self. Sure, selfishness is the big liability here, but really it's just the newest way for the new to snub its roots in the old; and the weave's denial of its cloth (not to mention the Loom) is the oldest idolatry in the book. We are all guilty as charged.
So the beginning of our work (look, Ma, I'm meta-blogging!) is to consider how we might grab the mantle of this new Self-consciousness and use it to draw toward the G!dspark in each other, rather than degrading ourselves into pathetic, self-absorbed, antisocial blogheads. There is no escaping the medium's message. I wonder what MacLuhan would have said of the blogosphere. We can see for ourselves that its message is clear and not always pretty. (As though reality TV weren't enough of an echo chamber for our cries!) But if the Luddites, G!d bless them, missed anything, it is that the meaning of any message depends entirely on its context. "Guns don't kill people; I do..."
My intention is to realize here the media whose message is: bring your truth outside to my truth inside, and we'll try to build, upon each place, a Home. My prayer is that it may be in the context of Torah and Friendship, for the service of Peace and Love.
Shavua tov!
