Tasting Torah (www.tastingtorah.com) debuts this week. I'm excited about my new website. Following the advice of the Nobel Prize winner for literature and local hero #2, Bob Dylan, who counseled, "don't look back," I am looking forward.
During my seven years of retirement I've had the chance to plunge into new challenges and indulge my love for teaching in many new ways. Tasting Torah, is my latest educational venture with a culinary twist. It launches on October 18, 2016 and, of course, begins with Parashat B'reishit, the first Torah portion of Genesis read on October 29. You'll be able to sign up to receive each week's installment. Rather than explain the various components of the site, I'll leave it to you to wander on your own and discover.
I do love an etiological story, but this website is more than a decade in the making so its genesis is a lot longer than the creation story and longer than you'd want to read in a blog. Although it's not a joint venture with my sister Leslie, it is the result of a lot of encouragement and support from Leslie and all my family as well as my friends, and Beth El Synagogue that distributed a version of this website every week for a year on Shabbat mornings.
The superb logo design is by Israeli graphic artist Anat Szendro (http://www.tuktuk-design.com/) and the website design is by the incomparable Israeli team of Lisa and Giora Shimoni at (livesites.co.il.) If you sense the blue and white theme, it's my gesture of protest against the BDS movement.
Look for each week's new Torah portion to appear early Sunday morning. Parashat Noah will be online on Oct. 30th. My web designer, Lisa, and I have spent a lot of time trying to decide if six days is enough lead time to make a grocery list. This is probably not the usual stuff of web talk that predominantly focuses on design and site engine optimization. Let us know your thoughts.
I encourage you to tour the website, try a recipe or enjoy discussing one of the questions around your Shabbat table. Of course, there's opportunity for feedback and I invite you to email me, call me, or meet me for a walk if you can and let me hear your ideas. I suspect there's a wealth of creativity among you. Let's share and enrich each other.
