When you hand in your key to the locker in the beit midrash (um, study hall), you know rabbinical school is just about over.

And, indeed, rabbinical school is just about over. I have one more exam–tomorrow–and Ordination is Monday night. It’s a little hard to believe, but it’s also very exciting, and it definitely feels like time, insofar as it would ever feel like time to do something as momentous as this. Becoming clergy? A pretty big deal. The only analogy I can think of is to getting married–except even there, the nature of the commitment, and the things that are hard and the things that are beautiful are not quite the same, I think. Well, I’m married, but I’m not yet clergy, so maybe I’ll have something intelligent to say about it all on the other side.

I’m sorry, blog, that this has been such a slow year for posting. It all just sort of zoomed by–the full load of classes, the internship, the working on various books and things, the planning for next year. I haven’t had as much time as I would like to have had to reflect on the whole process, or even to share some of the things that’ve been interesting, as they’ve happened. Zoooom. Hopefully soon I’ll have a little more time to catch my breath and blog and stuff more often.

So as for the news. I guess the big thing is that I’m moving to the Boston area in about a month. That’s pretty big. I’ve been paying California taxes for 11 years, now. It’ll be nice, though, I think, to go back to a city culture that’s a bit older and more established than SF or LA–lots of brick and mortar and history, or something. I went to college in Providence, though, so I know the whole New England scene a little bit, and have spent many fun days playing in B-town. It’s a great city, and I’m looking forward to getting to know it as a denizen. This now brings the places I’ve lived total up a bit–Chicago, Providence, SF, NYC, J’lem, LA, now this. Time to explore a whole new city. Anyway, the impetus for the move is that my sweetie will be starting a post-doc, but it’s a happy thing that it’s happening in such a Jewishly excellent place. I’m looking for the right (thing or combination of things that will be a) fit, work-wise, and may spend the fall freelancing and gigging and working on a few other book projects (more on that in a sec) and seeing how things unfold.

In that spirit, I’d like to officially make myself available to you as a scholar-in-residence. Check the “Speaking” link above to see some of the talks I give, and be in touch with me (“contact,” natch) about whatever you’d like–I do have a whole big fat pile of text under my belt, and a lot of different things I can do.

Books–so I’m editing this anthology for NYU Press on Judaism and sex. It’s been a lot of geeky fun to work on, and I’m close to the end; all the essays are in, and most of them have had their final adjustments. There are still a few details to take care of, though, all on the “stuff I actually have to do and can’t actually blame on contributors for being late” tip in order to get the mss ready for delivery to the publisher. I’m also co-editing a series of books on Jewish ethics for JPS. My co-editor is Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a teacher of mine and one of the universe’s true great mentsches. I’ve never co-edited before, but it’s been a pleasure, so far, to work with him on it (we’ve been meeting once a week-ish all semester), if a bit insane. We’re doing three volumes at once: Sex, War, and Social Justice. Three entire separate books, at one time. That’s keeping me entertained for the moment, really. That and getting ordained and trying to figure out how exactly we’re going to pull off moving in the next month, and all that fun stuff. Never a dull moment.

Oh! And I a nice little pre-Ordination mention in the Forward. Can’t not share that!

OK, dear blog. I’ll try to be better about you from now on. Don’t be too mad about my neglect, OK?