First Post

Well, here we are. I'm making my very first blog post in any format, I guess you could say that I have arrived late to the Blogging party, but that will not deter me now.

Over the coming months, I envision this space being a forum of open discussion and mutual contribution where we can delve into the aspects of t'fillah that are troubling, mystifying, rewarding, meaningful, bizarre, or humorous. Also, as an exploration of t'fillah spaces and settings, I am working on a rubric so that prayer experiences can be analyzed on some sort of quantitative scale.

Now you might ask, why would I want to quantify t'fillah, a very spirtual and potentially personal undertaking? The answer is simple, I am not evaluating the spirituality of any individual per se, rather trying to understand what makes up a "good davening." Obviously, that is subjective, but with objective criteria perhaps we can also understand different models for prayer and how elements may be shared from one to another, rather than settling into a mode where we are blind to other ideas.

In this case, as in all future posts, I am not discussing the halakhic status of any particular davening setting. However, in order to understand the setting, we may characterize a space as "with/without musical instruments" or "with/without mechitza" so as to understand the space more fully.

I look forward to reading, discussing, and sharing with you.