The third day of the CCAR conference was about professional development. The theme of the two workshops was on how we as rabbis use the pulpit to inspire, comfort and communicate. The emphasis on these workshops was on Social Media that includes blogging, facebook, twitter among other new technologies. Some technology experts say that email will no longer be the main source of communication but rather it will be through social media. It was fascinating to learn and understand the various types of media and left me wondering as to how many people in our TAE congregation actually use one or more of these social medias.
The second workshop was about visual t’fillah and the idea of using visual media during the services. The challenge is how to balance one’s own personal t’fillah along with the community and to use a visual image or picture on the bimah during the service. This idea is not so new as its greatly used in the mega churches. Later in April, I will be visiting Woodlands Community Synagogue in New York that actually uses Visual T’fillah once a month. I look forward to this t’fillah experience and to bring back some insights to the possibility that this might be something we would like to try here at TAE.