Why I love my community, part Many in a Large series

[xiphias]

At the Yom Kippur Mincha service:

PHIL, OUR NOT-A-RABBI¹: For our Torah portion this afternoon, we have a list of people you shouldn't have sex with.
A VOICE FROM THE CONGREGATION: By name?
PHIL: . . . It's a long list.
A DIFFERENT VOICE FROM THE CONGREGATION: Dang. That would have been useful to have . . .

1: Phil is the spiritual leader of our congregation. He's not a rabbi, and, to the extent that he has "rabbinic training", it's entirely on-the-job. His day job is a professor of philosophy, so he does have some of the mentality which makes a good rabbi. But he's not a rabbi, never intended to be a rabbi, never trained to be a rabbi, and never planned to have rabbinic duties. So why does he do it? Because, a bit over twenty years ago, Morry Kleiman told asked him to lead services, and nobody's told him to stop, yet. All of you on my friends list who are involved in Jewish communities? Let this be a lesson to you. Actually, this holds for fannish communities, too. How do you get stuck doing whatever it is that you're not sure how you got stuck doing it? You failed to say "no" quickly enough, and you're competent, so nobody wants you to stop.

Comments

[mattblum.livejournal.com]

Wait, but...if everyone followed that rule, then people could only sleep with people exactly as crazy as themselves. That sounds like making things difficult.