Where Was I?

I sometimes wonder the same thing.

Some of you may have been concerned or curious as to my whereabouts, at least as far as the Web is concerned. The truth is I was right here, in a way afraid of the keyboard. Not wanting to write, not caring enough to write. Maybe I'm not cut out for the hardcore blogging, i.e. targeting people from the community etc., like others do. As a matter of fact I know I'm not. I don't usually do that. I almost NEVER do that. Some of the comments I got on the Friedlander thread were a wakeup call for me. I happened to see one of the people pictured over Rosh Hashonoh, and I wondered what my reaction would be had he known who I was and had he confronted me about what I wrote, as benign as it was. That sort of took my cheshek of writing away for me, and I decided to take a shtikkel break from writing. THAT BREAK IS OVER.

I now realize that I was being intimidated by people with agendas and with things to hide. Nothing I did was so terrible. I see other "respectable" blogs get nice "mainstream" companies and businesses with constant ads on their sites, even if they report every single Loshon HoRah piece about every Jew available on the web. Somehow nobody I know is embarrassed to say that he reads Vos Iz Naies, yet the Tzig's blog is somehow taboo for some people. I fail to see the logic in that.

The picture above is from an Artscroll book published by the Munkacser Rebbe's aunt - his father's sister - before Artscroll became the final word in Charedi policy. I doubt they'd print such a picture today, for several reasons. I also happen to have loved the article/interview in the Mishpacha magazine with the MR. He seems to be in touch with today's society - at least when conducting an interview. I loved how he "taytshed op" his zeide's shitos regarding Zionism etc. and adapted them to his own less-zealous way of dealing with all kinds of people. The pictures were also great. I also was crazy about how he mentions the Baal Shem Tov so often and bases so much of what he does on the Besht and his approach.

There are good times ahead for my readers, iy"H. Spread the word.