Ovadia at the “Just Jewish” blog is a very promising young student destined to be a scholar in our ranks.
He discovered a long time Christian blog called The Internet Monk. Many of you may know of Michael Spencer, a gifted and humble blogger who became a highly read blogger in spite of the fact that he had none of the usual platforms super-bloggers usually start from (i.e., he wasn’t a mega-church pastor, bestselling author, famous musician, electronics whiz, editor of a magazine, etc.).
Michael Spencer died this year of cancer at a young age (in his 50’s) and left a lot of sad people. But others continue his blogging work and The Internet Monk’s site is still quite strong.
Ovadia has taken a cue from The Internet Monk, in which the bloggers suggest Christianity needs to go back to pre-evangelical traditions to move forward. Ovadia is hoping Messianic Judaism can go back to pre-Messianic days when Judaism was Judaism.
And he will be doing a series on the meaning and practice of the Siddur (Jewish prayerbook) with application to Messianic Jews. I encourage everyone to follow his series here:
http://orgadol.wordpress.com/2010/08/11/the-messianic-liturgy-introduction/
Thanks for the plug!
“Ovadia is hoping Messianic Judaism can go back to pre-Messianic days when Judaism was Judaism.”
Would “Intro to Judaism” classes from your local Jewish Community Center also help people individually with this? The community centers sometimes branch out to synagogues with their teachings which is why I’m trying to see if it’s a good idea or not. A community invitation is usually given to these types of classes from what I have seen so far.
Wordmachine:
Yes, it is a great idea to take classes at JCC’s and places in the community where people from slightly different backgrounds and POV’s come together. This has the added benefit of helping unite the larger Jewish community in city.
Derek