Starting a blog was my sister's idea. "Remember this day," she told me. "It's the day you decided to write a blog and change your life." This is not the first idea she's had for me. Last year, she tried to convince me to go on "The Biggest Loser," that reality show where people engage in a very strict, intense regimen of diet and exercise, lose tons of weight and get fit and healthy. I don't know what she was thinking. I have a family: a husband, two teenagers and a little dog who live with me. And a mother and mother-in-law who live nearby. And a congregation. And they all depend on me. I can't leave them for months on end. I can barely leave them for hours on end.

And, of course, that's part of the problem. Like many women, like many rabbis (and other clergy), I'm too busy helping other people to take very good care of myself. And my sister worries about me. Hence the blog idea.

Start a blog about losing weight., she told me. A blog about getting fit. About learning to set limits and having a more balanced life. Make it a discipline. (A spiritual discipline?) Do it late at night, when your meetings are over and the kids are in bed (has she met my kids?) and it's too late to make any more phone calls and you're done cleaning and cooking and you're up anyway. (I am. I'm a night person.)

At first I dismissed the idea entirely. After all, I'm not a fan of blogs. Bloggers strike me as completely self-involved. They assume other people are interested in everything they do, in all their random musings. Plus, I don't like the idea of people knowing so much about me. Strangers, people I don't know, might read my blog. (Or, even worse, people I do know.)

But my sister's timing was impeccable. The summer was drawing to a close. Yet another summer during which I had not lost weight, or gotten enough exercise, hadn't felt relaxed or renewed by the end. And now it was going to be too late. Because facing me all too soon were back-to-school and Rosh Hashanah and programs and sermons and deadlines and responsibilities.

My sister told me to start a blog and I realized that the Hebrew month of Elul was about to start. The month before the new year. The month for introspection and resolution and taking stock. The month when we focus on all the ways we can change the world for the better, beginning with ourselves. The month when we acknowledge that we are created in God's image and ponder what that demands of us. My sister was right. It was the perfect time to begin to blog.