GIVEAWAY: Listen, It's [Dot] Complicated

"A successful woman is one who can build a firm
foundation with the bricks others have thrown at her."
[modified from an original quote by David Brinkley]

Several months ago the amazing folks at Zuckerberg Media contacted me about reading, reviewing, and offering up a giveaway of Randi Zuckerberg's Dot Complicated: Untangling Our Wired Lives. If you're not sure who Randi is, but you recognize that obviously recognizable last name, yes, she's related to the illustrious Mark of Facebook fame. What you might not know is that Randi was the mastermind behind some of Facebook's most amazing and groundbreaking live streaming initiatives and relationships with big dogs like CNN and ABC.

As the master of her own company and life now, having written this stellar read about her experiences at Facebook and how she got out and launched herself, she's also a published children's book author. Her first masterpiece? Dot., a book for children about putting down the tech and enjoying life. In this children's book, the flutters and noises of technology are found outside, too, whether it's surfing down a hill or listening to the twitter of the birds. It's a beautiful pairing with her Dot Complicated book for adults. I envision myself sitting down to reread Randi's book someday with Ash sitting next to me with Dot. Sort of a his and her's experience, except in this case, it'll be a tech savvy mommy's and a tech savvy baby's experience.

In Dot Complicated, Randi is casual and paints one of the most vivid pictures of a life experience I've read in recent years. As a work of nonfiction, her honesty and candid reflections about being "Mark Zuckerberg's sister" and her breaking point when she realized that she had to get out and do her own thing in a big way. Her narrative is inspiring and I have no doubt in my mind that she's paving the way for future generations of women -- both through her children's book and her book for more adult-like individuals.

I also have to applaud her realistic approach to technology and how it is shaping our lives in positive and negative ways. Early on in the book she says the following:

The famous science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." He was right. New technology is a kind of magic and today we can do things with ease that were impossible just a few years ago. Like magic, each new innovation has advanced our society and our potential. Of course, the seductive glow of these magical devices can also blind us to some of their downsides and effects." (57)

Her jaunts into her journey took me back to the days of AIM and the melancholy of being a teenager and college study.

Remember the effort you'd make to choose the perfect IM profile picture, or the time you invested in crafting the perfect "away" message? I admit that I spent way too much time selecting vague but meaningful lyrics from the latest song I was obsessed with. Plenty of times I would announce my presence online with "I believe I can fly," "I saw the sign," or "I get knocked down." (71)

Yes, I used to have "Sleep, those little slices of death" (a la Edgar Allen Poe) as one of my away messages. I was the original when it came to super vague and sometimes frightening posts in the "social" sphere.

Randi's take on the merging of the public and private spheres also had me rolling my fist in the air Arsenio Hall style.

"It can't be that we're going to have to adjust to a world where we cannot share anything but our utmost public and sterile information. Sharing the personal stuff with others is an essential aspect of what it means to be human. If our online lives are to be as fulfilling as our offline ones, and if those two lives are to be fully integrated, then as we go forward we need to find a way to bring back personal information online. We must be able to post some pool pics without the whole world finding out, even if one of our friends is feeling a little overenthusiastic with the share button that day. (80)

Preach! Now that's a manifesto. As someone whose life is very public by my own choice, I can't say enough about the truth in Randi's sentiments. I don't believe in separating the two, and neither does Randi. Huzzah!

I will say that one thing that slightly bummed me out, although not in a big way, was her reflections on being a Jewish woman and mother. A quick reference to Chinese food on Christmas a Jewish woman entrepreneur does not make.

That aside, probably the most valuable piece of actionable advice Randi dishes out is that everyday, you have to pick three from the following and that's it. You can't do it all, so pick three and make them work. And don't feel guilty about it either.

• Work
• Sleep
• Family
• Friends
• Fitness

I remember reading this before Ash was born and thinking "YES! What a great approach to life." Have I enacted the "pick three" philosophy? No. But guess what? Starting tomorrow, I'm going to because, let's be honest, I've been trying to pack four of those into every day (sorry, fitness). And maybe, maybe someday we'll all work for a company like FullContact in Denver, Colorado, which pays their employees $7,500 bonus if they don't take their phones with them on vacation. A girl can dream, right? (168)

Oh, and I don't forget: 

"The more successful you are and the more you have to say, the more people will be mean to you on the Internet. The only way forward is to embrace your haters. Don't be afraid of the keyboard cowards. Engage them." (237)

Have I sold you yet on Dot Complicated? If you haven't read the book already and are seriously jonesing for some mind-blowingly awesome writing, storytelling, and inspiration, hold tight! It's time for a giveaway. 

To be entered to win:

• Comment on this post and you'll be entered to win a copy of Dot Complicated!
• Share this blog post to Twitter and/or Facebook for an extra chance to win. You must include in your comment that you've posted on these social sites for the extra chances (i.e., "I'm commenting on your blog post to win this awesome book, and I also shared on Twitter and Facebook.")
• Contest is open to U.S. residents only.

I'll draw a winner at random on Wednesday, March 19 at midnight (EST). 

Ask Chaviva Anything: Women of the Wall

ANNOUNCEMENT: I am super stoked to say that there will be a Mr. T video coming up in the next few weeks. Brace yourselves for the awesomeness that is my husband. Stay tuned to the YouTube channel and/or here for the video. If you have questions for Mr. T, feel free to ask them in the comments of this post and/or on Ask Chaviva Anything!

And now ... back to your regularly scheduled post ...

I had a question on Ask Chaviva Anything about my thoughts on "Women of the Wall," so I thought I'd go ahead and address it since, for now, the insanity surrounding the group has died down a bit. Although the next time Rosh Chodesh rolls around it will be one more big giant display of Chillul HaShem from both sides of the issue down at the Kotel, which I find hugely disappointing and a shame for Judaism.

Women of the Wall is an organization that has been around since the late 1980s in Israel but only in the past few years has the group come under increased scrutiny after throwing themselves at the media like a 12-year-old girl at a Justin Bieber concert. According to their website, their main goal is

to achieve the right, as women, to wear prayer shawls, pray and read from the Torah collectively and out loud at the Western Wall (Kotel) in Jerusalem, Israel.

As my understanding of the group goes, the group struggled for the ability to do this in legal battles up until 2003, when the group was granted the right to hold their services at Robinson's Arch. In 2009 a complaint was filed and the insanity broke out again, and over the past few years Anat Hoffman and the WoW crew have taken their plight to new media levels. On the WoW website, it says that Anat has dedicated her life to "the Jewish principle of tikkun olam, which literally means repairing the world." But seriously, is what WoW doing repairing the world? At all? In any way shape or form? 

I believe in the right for any person -- Jewish or not -- to express themselves and their religious beliefs in a manner that does not bring physical or emotional harm on others, in a manner that follows a standard of basic human rights, but that also is conscious of the responsibility of one human being on another human being for respect. 

(Also: I have to say that wearing a prayer shawl or tefillin or a kippah or anything like that has never appealed to me, even when I was a Reform Jew being called up for aliyot regularly. I'm a firm believer that equality is a misunderstood concept. Men are not women and women are not men. If men and women could be perfectly equal in the eyes of HaShem or Judaism or any religion, then there would only be one human and that human would be sexless and genderless and everyone would look exactly the same. Unfortunately, that's just not how we were created.)

Do I think that Women of the Wall meet that perspective? Not really, no. Do I think that the violent Haredi mobs that attack WoW meet that perspective? Definitely not. Do I support either side? No, I don't. 

Basically I think both sides are screwing up royally, and, in the process, are making the ritual side of Jewish life look like a joke and making the kotel look like a pagan shrine rather than what it is -- a retaining wall from the time of the fall of the Second Temple. Yes, it's an important site, but good lord we've turned the Kotel into the last thing on earth it was meant to be. We're treating it as if the wall itself holds the shechinah, the dwelling place of HaShem. And if that's how people on both sides of the aisle want to see the Kotel, then I think Judaism has a major, major problem. 

If the Women of the Wall really wanted to do themselves, Judaism, and ritual a favor, they'd go into the Kotel tunnels and hold their service at the space closest to the Holy of Holies. Call me crazy, but it seems to make a whole lot more sense. 

Also, as an aside, I think that their choice of name is just ... sigh ... unfortunate. Historically, women of the wall were prostitutes. Rachav, in the book of Joshua, was a woman of the wall. Prostitutes worked in the city's walls because they would catch travelers going in and out of the city and because for dignitaries it was far enough away from their homes that no one would traverse the seedy area looking for them. 

I know I'm opening myself up for criticism here, and I'm willing to take it. I believe we all connect to HaShem in our own way, in our own time, and I support everyone's right to connect or not connect. For me, what is most important is owning -- 110 percent -- where you are, defining yourself by what you believe and who you are as opposed to what you are not. I think that one of the problems with the Women of the Wall and a lot of very liberal organizations is that they devote themselves to not being Orthodox, to not separating men and women, to not keeping kosher, to not doing this and that. 

It's easy to define ourselves by what we aren't. It's a lot harder to define yourself by who you are, what you believe, and to own it. 

Neve Daniel: Sushi Style

The final (veggie) sushi! Produced by me and the illustrious Ruti!

There are a lot of people who still don't "get" why I am living in Neve Daniel, or rather how I can be living in Neve Daniel ("It's not your land!" they say), but while I can't please everyone and can only defend my right and responsibility to be here to so many people so many times, I can say that living here is one of the greatest gifts in life right now.

Tonight was a women's pre-Shavuot event, complete with sushi-making demonstrations, the selling of beautiful scarves and mitpachot, and lots of delicious noshing on the samplings of Shavuot menus. I was hesitant about signing up because of my gluten-free issues, but I was assured by a few of the organizers who even went out of their way to label the gluten-free goodies for me.

As the evening approached, I wasn't feeling super hot, but I decided to power through it and go anyway, as I've been scolded for not being social enough here in the community. I mustered up the strength after a lengthy nap, put together a gluten-free, potato-crusted broccoli-and-cheese quiche, and schlepped off. (The quiche went CRAZY fast -- I was elated!)


I'll admit, it was a pleasant surprise to be there and catch up with friends and meet some new folks. And making sushi for the first time? Most excellent. It's not nearly as hard as I thought. Then again, I didn't have to make my own sushi rice.

Okay okay, so I need to be more social. More involved. Get out and get recognized by my community members. Heck, maybe I'll even organize something.