With some trepidation I tender my first posting. I see that this name was used before with the last posting occurring in 2003. The author signed off apologetically - as there where many demands on his time and he could not keep up the blog. How will I do? Only time will tell.

I live in the Northeast in a thriving young frum community who shall go nameless. It is a diverse Orthodox community - yeshivish, MO, 'shtark-YU' types, Zionists, non-zionists, Brooklyn-wanabees, Baalei Tshuva. We have a handful of schools, about twenty shuls, not a lot of restaurants but a lot of very friendly, frum and spiritual people.

The challenges facing our community are well representative of the challenges facing the Orthodox world at the dawn of the 21st century. How do we educate our children? How can we afford the lifestyle that we have become accustomed to in a real-estate world gone mad? Can we truly live achdus with those with which we differ? We have great respect for our Gedolim but we sometimes feel as if we are not on the same page (e.g. Indian Sheitels, Torah and Science, secular education, etc.)

These are the topics I hope to cover. I hope to avoid all personal attacks. I do hope to ruffle feathers. The motto of this blog is from Emerson: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesman and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." If you can predict what I am going to say based on other opinions of mine, that means that I have stopped thinking.