How do we Turn This Place into a Community?

On the Possibilities of this Platform.

My internet semi-fame comes from two things: The Facebook group I founded (“God Save Us From Your Opinion”) and my contributions to Jewish Twitter. The common denominator between the two, I think, is that I found an audience of people who wanted a Jewish community that did not currently exist, especially in person, one where people discussed Jewish texts with deep love and reverent irreverence, where people took Torah seriously but not themselves seriously, and where all kinds of people who were normally unwelcome in or disregarded by Jewish institutions could feel at home. GSUFYO was something I was more directly responsible for, but even on Twitter the following I drew was frequently from people who did not feel at home in their own communities and went looking online for one. And I was in a unique place of theoretically having the kind of credentials and resume of a member of the establishment while very much not being that kind of person, allowing me to usher people in through the back door, so to speak.

In the midst of this, I founded MisfitTorah. I founded it after it seemed my education career was over (it was not), after the last rejection letter from my last hope at a job arrived in my inbox and I was left sobbing in the lobby of the nursing home where I washed lettuce until the skin peeled off my hands. It was at my rock bottom that I realized that my success on the internet had never had any sort of institutional support, and in fact, was precisely because I never could fit in regular Jewish institutions. I realized that I did not need them. Maybe for a paycheck, but definitely for my self-esteem. And that there was a whole community of people out there who needed what I was selling, who institutions were indifferent or even hostile to, and that it was among those people I could do the most good.

So I started a thing called Misfit Torah. It started with a podcast about the commentators on Tanach, but was never meant to be just that. What I envisioned was a platform that would exist independent of Jewish institutions, in which voices shut out of the mainstream could speak to and find their niche, in a way that would enable them to stay independent. My original model was a website aggregating different newsletters that people could choose to subscribe to for fee, and I had conversations with computer people about what that might look like.

Alas, my career in education was not quite over, which allowed me to support myself, sure, but meant my dreams of an platform for independent Torah were on hold, as I put out podcasts occasionally but otherwise nothing.

At the beginning of last year though, I was struggling at work and was unclear whether I would stay in the education business. Panicked, I made a Substack. Maybe I can support myself with my writing in case of emergency, I told myself. But even as my job became more safe, I found that I enjoyed writing for this place, and that, for some reason, people were willing to pay to read what I have to say. And I’m now in a place where I have 120+ paid subscribers, rising steadily, bringing in some income. Now, I have no plans to quit teaching. I like teaching, it grounds me in the Jewish community, it keeps me talking in ways understandable by middle schoolers, and it pays much more bills than this does. But I’m in a place where I’m very happy with how this is going.

But what I’m not seeing so much of is what enabled my success elsewhere: Community. People desperately want community, and America has offered fewer and fewer opportunities for it. Religion is one of the last avenues left, but even that is inaccessible to people normally unwelcome in religious communities, and my sense is people my age feel less and less welcome in those spaces. There is a need for a Jewish religious community for misfits, and I have normally been able to help fill those needs.

But communities are based on discussion, on sharing, on helping each other, and right now Substack feels more like a pulpit than a shul. One guy, telling everybody else something, and then people deciding in their heads whether they like it or not. That’s not how I like to teach, and that’s not how I like to commune. Twitter was great for me in that it was entirely discussion, but a) Twitter is dying b) Substack more closely aligns with my original plan for Misfit Torah, of providing means of independence for misfit Jewish thinkers.

So how do we get more discussion and more of a community feel on here?

Some ideas:

Putting out some questions and thoughts to discuss on the parsha

I’ve always wanted something like a devar torah workshop in which people could present their ideas for divrei torah and get feedback and crowdsourcing from a community of knowledgeable people, but every time I’ve tried it (in GSUFYO, a discord, a whatsapp chat) nobody participated. Is there a way to do this on substack? I’ve put out some ideas and questions on the parsha sometimes, but the success at prompting discussion is inconsistent. What would get y’all to contribute to that sort of thing?

Promoting other substacks with regular cross-promotions

I’ve done something like this, but a) no one took advantage of the sale I offered b) I need more people on substack whose work to promote

Using the chat feature

I know this can be used, but I’m not sure for what. Periodic AMA’s? General chatting? (maybe healthy communities need purposeless chatting). Devar Torah workshops on there? What would you like to see?