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Wikipedia Vitae
 | This user is an administrator on the English Wikipedia. (verify) |
 | This user's time zone is CST. |
 | This administrator will consider reasonable requests to provide copies of deleted articles. |
 | This user runs a bot, Rabbot (contribs). It performs tasks that are extremely tedious to do manually. |
 | This editor is a Veteran Editor and is entitled to display this Iron Editor Star. |
 | This user is a member of the Counter-Vandalism Unit. |
 | This user is a recent changes patroller with Twinkle! |
 | This user believes that only articles need reflect a NPOV, and that displaying political, religious, or other beliefs using userboxes and user categories should not be banned. |
 | This user scored 9732 on the Wikipediholic test (revision 285667092). |
WikiProjects
 | This user is a member of WikiProject Judaism |
 | This user participates in WikiProject Israel. |
 | This user is a member of the Jewish History WikiProject. |
 | This user is a member of the Hebrew languages WikiProject. |
 | This user is a member of the Jewish Culture Wikiproject. |
| C | This user participates in WikiProject Columbia University. |
 | This user participates in WikiProject California. |
| HP | This user is a participant in the Harry Potter Task Force. |
 | This user is a participant in WikiProject Musical Theatre. |
 | This user is a participant in WikiProject Council. |
Personal Vitae
| This user is Jewish. |
| This user is of Ashkenazi Jewish ancestry. |
| This user is of Sephardi Jewish ancestry. |  |
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This user claims to be a descendant of King David. |
 | This user observes Shabbat. |
 | This user observes the dietary laws of Kashrut. |
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This user is left-handed. |
Educational
| AJU | This user attends or attended American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism). |
 | This user is a teacher. |
| JTS | This user attends or attended Jewish Theological Seminary. The bush was not consumed. |
| C | This user attends or attended Columbia University. |
| BA | This user has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science. |
| BA | This user has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Talmud & Rabbinics. |
Geographical
 | This user lives in, or hails from, Los Angeles. |
 | This user lives in, or hails from, New York City. |
World-wide-web...ical
 | This user maintains a Facebook profile. |
 | This user maintains a blog. |
Personal not-so-Vitae
 | This user is skilled in the sacred art of Shofar blowing. |
 | This user has an iPod. |
 | This user is owned by one or more dogs. |
| G | This user is a Gryffindor. |
 | This user reads between the lines. |
Random Mild Accomplishments
| ACADEMIC JOURNAL | This user has had his/her work published in an academic journal. |
| MAGAZINE | This user has had his work published in a magazine. |
| POEM | This user has had one of his poems published. |
| SHORT STORY | This user has had one of his/her short stories published. |
Misc. Interests & Minor Beliefs
 | This user is interested in issues related to religious pluralism. |
| C2H5OH-1 | This user drinks relatively infrequently. he is probably the better for it. |
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This user is opposed to online censorship. |
 | Secondhand smoke is one of this user's pet peeves. |
 | This user believes it is every citizen's duty to vote. |
Entertainment
| d'oh! | This user thinks The Simpsons is simply... excellent. |
 | This user enjoys klezmer. |
| Phantom | This user is past the point of no return. |
| CYE | This user wants you to Curb Your Enthusiasm. |
| ent | This user rolls with Vince. |
 | This user is Jack Bauer however, the preceding was a joke and most of us here on Wikipedia hate spreading false info. |
| J! | This user phrases responses in the form of a question. |
| AD | This user made a huge mistake. |
Diet
 | This user is dieting. |
| Aer | This user does aerobics. |
 | This user eats salad. |
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This user eats sushi. |
 | This user loves to eat cucumbers. |
| BAM! | This user believes that gaaahhhlic is a beautiful thing! |
Languages
| en | This user is a native speaker of the English language. |
| yi-2 | דער באַניצער רעדט אַ נישקשהדיקן ייִדיש. |
| es-2 | Este usuario puede contribuir con un nivel intermedio de español. |
| tmr-1 | היא מיתהנאה משתעי בארמאה דתלמודא בבלאה בדרגא נחותא. |
 | This user has an understanding of the Phoenician alphabet. |
| ase-1 | This user can communicate at a basic level in American Sign Language. |
| grc-1 | Ὅδε ὁ χρήστης δύναται συμβάλλεσθαι ὀλίγῃ γνώσει τῆς ἀρχαίας ἑλληνικῆς. |
| Java-2 | This user is an intermediate Java programmer. |
| en-us-ca | Dude, this person is totally a California English speaker. |
| ... | This user would like to be able to speak many more languages. |
About Me
editI'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
editWhen 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".
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Assume good faith
Assume the presence of a belly-button
Don't stuff beans up your nose
Please do not bite the newcomers
No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
Staying cool when the editing gets hot
No angry mastodons
The world will not end tomorrow
Wikipedia is not...
The universe does not revolve around you
Words of Pessimism
Murphy's law: Anything that can go wrong, will
Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives Anything that can go wrong, will—at the worst possible moment
Hanlon's razor:Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.
My contribution to Wikipedia
editBesides 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
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Commentaries from Aleph Beta Academy