In This Moment, April 23: Does Jewish Law Mandate Vaccinations? Bystanders and the Chauvin Trial; Breaking Down Real Barriers, Virtually

In This Moment The Shabbat Announcements are sponsored by Lisa and Eric Strom in honor of their daughter, Sarah, becoming a Bat Mitzvah on Shabbat morning.

Shabbat Shalom and welcome back (in body or spirit)! Mazal tov to Sarah Strom, who becomes bat mitzvah here this Shabbat. On Friday night, we'll have services outdoors (weather looks good), livestreamed so everyone can participate. We are coming off of Earth Day and with so many exciting plans being made to safeguard our planet, here are three things to remember about Jewish Values and Earth Day. The Chauvin Verdict was a great source of relief and excitement for so many who have wondered aloud whether whether that proverbial long arc of the moral universe might finally be definitively bending toward justice. My op-ed for the R.N.S., "Bystanders in a Digital Age: The Heroes of the Derek Chauvin Trial," was picked up by The Washington Post. It speaks of how bystanding 'aint what it used to be; in fact, there really is no such thing as a pure bystander anymore. The mitzvah found in this week's portion of Achare Mot - Kedoshim (Leviticus 19:16), not to stand idly by the blood of our neighbor, has been rendered nearly obsolete with the proliferation of cell phones and cameras nearly everywhere. No one can stand "idly by" anymore. If you are at the scene of a crime, you need to get involved, because you will be found.

200,000,000 Shots! This week Americans received their 200 millionth vaccine shot - and yet there is grave concern that too many people are backing away from taking it. Stamford's health commissioner called me this week to discuss what religious leaders can do to spread the word that these vaccines are safe and absolutely necessary. Jewish sources resoundingly concur. In short, they say, "take the shot!" So if your question is: Does Jewish Law Mandate Vaccinations? The answer is YES!!!! If you don't believe, me, take a look at this packet that I put together (presciently) in 2019, prior to Covid-19, but remaining relevant nonetheless. See also this more recent responsum, written this year: "Does halakhah require vaccination against dangerous diseases such as measles, rubella, polio and Covid-19?" by Rabbi David Golinkin, which passed the Committee of Jewish Law and Standards by a vote of 13-0-0. Rabbi Golinkin concludes that Jews are obligated to vaccinate themselves and their children, excepting only cases where vaccination would endanger an individual with pre-existing medical conditions that prevent it. Jewish schools, synagogues, and the government of the State of Israel are permitted to require vaccination. The CJLS also passed "Vaccination and Ethical Questions Posed by COVID-19 Vaccines" by Rabbi Micah Peltz by a vote of 18-0-0. This consistent message is also connected to this week's portion, which speaks of the need to save lives as the Torah's highest value. As Rabbi Peltz writes: The Torah emphasizes that we need to take responsibility for the well-being of those around us when it says, “Do not stand idly by the blood of your neighbor.” This is understood to mean that we do everything we can to safeguard the health of others. There's that verse again! I'll talk more about this at services on Friday night. Share the packets, especially with your recalcitrant friends. I'm especially concerned about young adults, who are now eligible. My advice - and halacha's - take the shot!

Praying Out of the Box We saw with last Shabbat's bar mitzvah just how much we can do with just a little out-of-the-bima thinking. Our hybrid service was wonderful both for those on-site and remote. At one point we had a split screen where the student's grandmother read the prayer for the State of Israel FROM Israel (see photo above) - and in real time, those in the sanctuary responded "Amen." I'm looking forward to many more such dramatic moments. The breaking down of barriers between, between in-person and remote prayer, combined with the experience of online community generated this past year by our Zoom services, reminded me of reflections I shared at the dawn of the internet age, in the late '90s, when I was putting together my initial thoughts about spirituality and cyberspace for my book, thelordismyshepherd.com:Seeking God in Cybersplace. For the past several years, and for good reason, we've become very skeptical about social media. But back in this period, before there was a Facebook, we saw the potential for community building and breaking down barriers. Covid brought us back to that - and last week's service was a stark reminder of the power of this medium, at its best See below a brief excerpt from that book: Alone/Together: Breaking Down Real Barriers, Virtually When we are alone in front of a blipping screen, there is sanctity and there can be community. One is truly alone, yet simultaneously in the presence of millions, and easily in the presence of a minyan who are like-minded. In any chat room, by definition, if there are ten people in the room who chose to be there because of that basic concern, whether it be saving the whales or nominating Jerry Springer for President, these are ten like-minded people. The masks come off, the hearts merge, and the aloneness is transcended. The experience of finding that minyan is incredibly powerful, obliterating boundaries, dissolving differences....                We find God on the Internet because it binds us all as One.                The Sh'ma, that central affirmation of monotheism, is speaking not about an abstract being "out there," but as that glue, that woven knot, that web, that binds us all. Jewish theologian Arthur Green has written: "In it we declare that God is One -- which is to say that humanity is one, that life is one, that joys and sufferings are one -- for God is the force that binds them all together. There is nothing obvious about this truth, for life as we know it seems infinitely fragmented. Human beings seem isolated from one another, divided by all the fears and hatreds that make up human history. Even within a single life, one moment feels cut off from the next. To assert that all is one in God is our supreme act of faith." Think about it: When we receive e-mail, unless the correspondent specifies where he or she lives, the geographic address remains unknown -- and irrelevant. The artificial barriers of space are broken down. When I read the Israeli newspapers every evening before I retire, I'm reviewing the stories that my Israeli sister is just waking up to. Even though we live seven time zones apart, my spiritual clock is in Jerusalem. The barriers of time have been obliterated. When my son Ethan checks out the major league baseball scores on the ESPN website, then shifts to my synagogue's site to see himself listed along with other 6 and 7 year olds on our temple's junior baseball league (our teams are the Lightning and Matzah Balls), his uniqueness as an athlete and a human being are placed on the very same level as that of major league baseball players. This dissolves artificial barriers of talent, income and age, affirming that all human beings are of equal and infinite worth. When with just a few clicks I can gain access to resources of rabbinic commentary larger than the combined libraries of all the great rabbis throughout the ages, the barriers of access to knowledge have been washed away. When a single click can shuttle me from Newt Gingrich to Greenpeace, from Alvin Toffler's conservative "third wave information age" to what Frank Rich has called a "whopping stealth victory for the counterculture," we have dismantled the intellectual boundaries separating left from right. The Internet is a grand party to which everyone is invited, and which everyone has in common. Everyone is part of the same single in-group. Everyone, that is, who has access to it – and as computers become more common in public schools and the Internet more affordable and available through other means (e.g. cable television) – that access will become increasingly democratized.  The Internet is the first real Main Street that we've ever had.

Above, a scene from last week's service, and below, Hebrew school returns to in-person outdoor classes.

Shabbat Shalom! Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Google Exodus

Thanks to everyone who has been sending me "The Google Exodus." It's a cute indicator of just how social media has impacted our lives.

Too Much Information: The Questions

Due to the weather, the highly anticipated panel discussion, "Too Much Information: Privacy in the Age of Social Networking" will have to be postponed to later in the spring. However, this, of all topics, is one that can be discussed online. Below is the list of questions I was planning to use as a basis for the discussion. Take a look at them and if you have an observation to make, leave your comment below. Teens and adults are invited to participate. Meanwhile, enjoy the snow.

- Define “friend”- and how has that definition changed? What does it mean now to have a friend?

- How has the definition of friend changed for you?

- Is a person’s popularity measured by how many “friends” they have?

- What do you feel comfortable telling about yourself to your closest friends – and how does that differ from what you post to your “friends?”

- What constitutes “too much information?”

- What is self branding and is that a good thing? Is it new or just a new form of something people have been doing all along?

- Are adults ruining Facebook?

- Is it a good thing that adults now routinely rediscover old friends and relatives that they hadn't seen in decades?

- Does the current culture (texting, Skype, Facebook) make reunions obsolete? Are we in fact NEVER out of touch with our friends from home once you go off to college?

- Are we relating to others or simply keeping up on the facts of their lives (who got into what college, who had a haircut today... whose kids just threw up...) is all this an example of TMI???

- Does social networking reduce or increase the degree to which people gossip?

- Ashton Kutcher has posted numerous Tweets featuring vivid details tracking the state of his marriage with Demi Moore, including photos of her in her underwear. (Thankfully, their marriage was reignited recently when they were in Israel). In the past, such stories would have been printed by the tabloids against the will of the celebrities. What does it say about our society that now celebrities are voluntarily exposing themselves to the public. Is this Too Much Information?

- Should football players Tweet from the sidelines during the game? Soldiers from the front?

- Think of how social networking allowed word to filter our of Iran following the elections there, or from Haiti after the earthquake. How has this changed society? Are these changes for the good?

- In the film "The King's Speech" the heir to the throne of England was able to walk the streets of London unnoticed - this was an era before television. Could that happen today? How, with Facebook, have we all become, to a degree, like celebrities? Or are we just celebrities in our own eyes?

- What is the impact of cyberbullying? Is it overblown or are the dangers worse than described? Do you know students who have contemplated suicide because of it?

- Does social networking / texting, etc / increase the degree to which people in high school / college cheat? Or does it act as protection against cheating (since our actions are so “out there” and can be seen by the whole world)?Have the shifting boundaries of privacy changes what a newspaper might ordinarily cover?

- Is there any difference at this point between bloggers and mainstream media?

- Will newspapers exist in 20 years?

- How will people communicate?

- Facebook or Twitter postings often warn of dangers - anything from a flu outbreak to a traffic jam up ahead, to a road blocked with snow. How have social networks taken on the role of the old town crier, who would post important notices and alert the public of significant happenings? What about the Moslem muezzin, who calls people to prayer, a role that in ancient Israel was taken on by a priest at the Temple (the prayer "Barchu" was that call), and a shofar or trumpet blower standing on the ramparts.


- Given what happened with Wikileaks and with cameras on every phone, can we assume that, if we are relatively well known, anything and everything we say and do will likely be made public?

- Even if we are not famous, doesn’t the current environment eliminate privacy in all our communications as well?

- Is that a good thing?

Spirituality and the Internet

It's been ten years since I wrote this... and while the experience of surfing the Internet has now become routine, and many of the dangers exposed (not the least of which the isolation it can paradoxically bring), my initial claim still rings true. The Internet still connects people to something Beyond unlike anything else.

Sit down in front of your computer after midnight and see what is there. Reach out to connect - and not necessarily with people. Simply connecting to the latest news, to stock results or late ball scores, is enough to evoke a feeling of “humble surrender” and awe. How lovely can this universe be, how orderly and sound, when, without waking a soul, I can order cut-rate plane tickets to Chicago? How close to the mountaintop can you ascend, when, with a few clicks, you can see the deep blue earth from the perspective of a roving satellite hundreds of miles up? How dusty must my weary pilgrim’s feet get, when I can click my way to a live shot Jerusalem’s Western Wall in seconds, and fax my prayer to be placed within its ancient cracks? Mircea Eliade, a modern master of the study of the Sacred, writes of a sacred space as a place of breakthrough, a point of passage to another realm, an absolute reality. From where can we jump off into a higher world if not from a springboard whose range appears so limitless? Who would have thought that the “road less traveled” could be so easily located on the Information Superhighway?” (thelordismyshepherd.com, p. 113)

Technology and Jewish Education: A Revolution in the Making

I'm proud to have played a part in this exciting new venture by JESNA - the best Jewish education think tank going.

Introducing:"Technology and Jewish Education: A Revolution in the Making."

JESNA's Lippman Kanfer Institute would like to invite you to the launch of a new website www.jesna.org/je3, devoted to the growing impact of technology on Jewish learning and teaching.

The JE3 (Jewish Education 3.0) website grows out of a year-long process in which thought leaders, visionaries, and activists in the burgeoning world of Jewish educational technology met together both face-to-face and virtually to share ideas about the future of Jewish education in the age of Google, Facebook, Twitter, web 2.0, and beyond. Contributors to the site include individuals like My Jewish Learning.com's Daniel Septimus; Rabbi and author of thelordismyshepard.com: Seeking God in Cyberspace Joshua Hammerman; Jewish Television Network founder and Los Angeles Jewish Federation CEO Jay Sanderson, and Darim Online founder Lisa Colton. Together with more than a dozen of these leaders, we have put together in JE3 the first digital, open-source publication for the field of Jewish education on technology.

Here, you will find:

A "core narrative" exploring the far-reaching implications of new communication technologies for how we think about and implement Jewish education

Articles from our contributors.

A blog for both technology news and resources.

A feed from the #Jed21 discussion on Twitter.Plus, a featured video section and core narrative on our homepage.

'If You Stream It, They Will Come" (Jewish Week)

This article asks a fascinating contemporary question: Does the growing trend of streaming services online offer the same experience as attending services in the flesh? No. But that doesn't mean one is necessarily better than the other. The experiences are decidedly different, and in some ways complementary. Online offerings can engender quiet self reflection and spiritual intimacy (especailly for those ill or in remote locations), while being there in the flesh creates bonds of community (assuming that is, that you are going to a "home" synagogue and sitting among those with whom you feel a shared commitment, destiny, history and loyalty - which is decidedly different from attending anonymously one of the many commitment-free alternatives out there). The synagogue that thrives in this new age will be the one that can combine the best of both, synthesizing online and in-the-flesh spirituality.

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c37_a16768/News/National.html

by Steve Lipman
Staff Writer

Lisa Gilbert, a native of Cincinnati who now lives in Manhattan, listened to the rabbi’s sermon and the choir’s singing at her family’s Cincinnati congregation on the High Holy Days last year. From her New York apartment. Online.

Gilbert, a 30-year-old research analyst, watched the live streaming Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur services of Congregation Beth Adam, on the humanistic synagogue’s Web site, because she had attended several congregations after moving here and did not feel welcome or comfortable at any one of them.“I felt very disconnected,” says Gilbert, who considers herself “humanistic or Reform” and felt a connection watching on the Internet. “My family was physically there. The [Beth Adam] services are more relatable to me. I felt I was getting the experience of the holiday.”

This year, she’ll attend Beth Adam again, virtually.

Lisa Sharp, with no roots in Cincinnati, will also watch the Beth Adam services over the next Ten Days of Repentance.

A 44-year-old digital marketing specialist from Rockland County, she discovered the synagogue’s Web site (ourjewishcommunity.org) via Twitter this summer, started logging on regularly to Shabbat services, and considers Beth Adam her congregation.“I was never a shul-goer,” even on the High Holy Days, she says. “I’ve never felt a part of a congregation.”

But this week she will sit down in front of her laptop with her twin 8-year-old daughters. “It makes me feel more connected to Judaism than I otherwise might feel. For those people who wouldn’t feel comfortable in a synagogue, it’s a way to make Judaism relevant.”

In the last few years, only a few congregations carried their worship services online. An estimated several hundred individuals — Jews and interested non-Jews — were able to experience the High Holy Days at their computers, weekly or on holidays, live or delayed, freely available to anyone with passwords or synagogue memberships. But a virtual Jewish community of far-flung Jews united in cyberspace was still a dream.

This Rosh HaShanah, Internet experts say, the dream is becoming a reality. “Today, the technology is there,” says Rabbi Judith Schindler of Temple Beth El in Charlotte, a “shulcasting” pioneer. Temple Emanu-El in Birmingham, Ala., recently upgraded its Webcasting capabilities. “Now we broadcast everything,” says Rabbi Jonathan Miller.

The number of congregations live-streaming their High Holy Days services has risen significantly from 2008 to 2009. While no one keeps official figures of how many congregations — including Los Angeles’ Nashuva on JewishTVNetwork.com — are Webcasting or how many people are watching, interviews with experts and online research indicates that at least a few dozen synagogues in the U.S. are part of this year’s emerging trend. And tech-savvy organizations like OurJewishCommunity.org and CyberJudaism.org are launching new outreach efforts centered on the holiday season.

Worship services on the Internet, while having a natural appeal for the infirm, the homebound and the isolated, as well as college students away at school, may find a natural constituency among young, computer-adept Jews who are not affiliated with the Jewish community or who, like Gilbert, are away from home and have not found a new congregation. Shifting demographics are likely to help fuel the trend, as more and more young people seek jobs far from where they grew up.

“This year is a tipping point,” says Lisa Colton, president of Darim OnLine (darimonline.org), a “social media boot camp” based in Charlottesville, Va., that offers training and consultation for the Jewish community. (This fall Darim OnLine will sponsor, with the funding of UJA-Federation, two boot camps, one on Long Island and one in northern New Jersey.)

Next year, says Rabbi Yitzi Miller, founder and executive director of cyberjudaism.org, the number of Jews choosing Webcast High Holy Days services over in-person services “will be tens of thousands.” Cyberjudaism.org serves as a resource center that offers worship services and classes, serves as an online Judaica store, and coordinates meetings and other events in the Jewish community.

The growth of Webcast worship services is a portal to a cyber Jewish community, one likely to challenge the practices of extant Jewish institutions, especially brick-and-mortar synagogues, forcing congregations to reexamine how they do business. Within a decade, experts say, a non-Orthodox synagogue that doesn’t stream its services will be as rare as one now without a Web site, and “production values” will be a part of the lexicon of the people coordinating worship services.

Services “will have to be choreographed differently,” says Rabbi Hayim Herring, executive director of STAR-Synagogues: Transformation and Renewal, a leadership development organization. “You have to think differently because you have an audience.”

This, of course, is not a concern for most Orthodox or observant Conservative Jews, who would not use electricity on Shabbat or holy days. Some would find halachic objections to making a minyan or answering “amen” to prayers conveyed electronically, or would consider the sound of a shofar via the Internet insubstantial.

But the majority of American Jewry — most of the congregations offering worship services online are Reform — is catching a glimpse of its 21st-century community.

“The synagogue of the future is a synagogue without walls,” says Rabbi Joshua Hammerman, spiritual leader of Temple Beth El in Stamford, Conn., and author of “thelordismyshepherd.com: Seeking God in Cyberspace” (Simcha Press, 2000).

Virtual worship services won’t necessarily attract every member of the Jewish community, Rabbi Hammerman says. “There are High Holy Days Jews online too.”

He calls virtual Judaism an inevitability — an inevitability to which the Jewish community can adapt. “If you stream it, they will come.”

In Cincinnati, OurJewishCommunity.org, which bills itself as “the world’s first progressive online synagogue,” is the new face of the virtual Jewish community. An offshoot of Congregation Beth Adam, it was founded last year by Rabbi Laura Baum, a Hebrew Union College ordainee, to create a Web-only community. Unlike the shulcasts offered by other congregations, those of humanist-oriented Beth Adam are not aimed primarily at its own membership. “We’re casting our web much more widely,” Rabbi Baum says.

This year Rabbi Baum’s Web site will offer live streaming of the temple’s “nontheistic” services, and a recorded Memorial Service that features photographs of deceased family members.

The growing presence of online worship services “has the potential to enhance personal spirituality — you sit in front of a large screen and think you’ve been at a service — and the risk of attenuating community, as we have defined it,” Rabbi Herring says. In other words, people finding their theological needs met on the Internet may not feel the need to attend, or join, a synagogue.

Is the trend good or bad for the Jews?

Bad, says Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, who is Orthodox and has blogged for 10 years. “One of the weaknesses of the Internet is that it tends to weaken your interaction with the community.”

Rabbi Joel Roth, professor of Talmud and Jewish law at the Jewish Theological Seminary agrees. “There are so many potential pitfalls” of a letter-of-the-law and spirit-of-the-law nature.

Good, says Colton. “This is a net gain.” Instead of making it easier for affiliated Jews to drop out of synagogue life, virtual Jewish communities will attract the unaffiliated, allowing them to get a taste of a congregation before showing up in person. “It’s a way of expanding the community,” says Rabbi Michael Friedman of Manhattan’s Central Synagogue.

Good, says Rabbi Brad Hirschfield, president of CLAL-The National Jewish Center for Learning and Leadership. “The more opportunities there are for people to connect, the better it always is.”

Sitting in a physical synagogue next to flesh-and-blood people is the best way to enhance one’s spiritual experience and foster a Jewish community, all the experts agree, even the high-tech mavens. But it’s not an option for some people.“Sinai is not something that happened by computer,” says Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism.

“The online activities are by their nature a shadow of the real community,” says Andre Oboler, social media expert and CEO of Zionism On The Web. “For those cut off from the community, it is perhaps the start of a connection, but only the start.”

In Glasgow, Scotland, Anna Wood, a research scientist diagnosed last year with a recurrence of chronic fatigue syndrome, will watch the Web casts this year from Central Synagogue, wearing a silk tallit and white crocheted kipa, a machzor in her hands. In Thornhill, Ontario, Rhonda Greenberg, a retiree who does not belong to a synagogue because tickets have become too expensive will log on to the services from Temple Beth El in Charlotte, N.C., and send a donation to the congregation. In Fresno, Cal., Dr. Jeffrey Rosenfeld, a neurologist who moved last year from Charlotte, will attend services at Temple Beth Israel and watch a taped Web cast of that morning’s services at Temple Beth El, his family’s congregation in Charlotte. “This is a way to reach back and connect,” he says.

In Manhattan, Lisa Gilbert says an appealing worship online might lead her to attend in person — if the congregation were in her neighborhood. “If I saw something I could physically attend, I would want to physically be there,” she says. “It’s nice to have that option. I wish it was available when I was in college.”

The Shabbaton and the Texture of Jewish Life

I subscribe to a service that sends me a "Daily Halacha" a snippet of Jewish law to chew over each morning.

Just this week, I was reminded that "One should train oneself to only sleep on one's side, and it is a serious transgression for one to sleep lying on one's back or stomach. (Mishna Brura 239:1)" Also, you might be interested to learn that "When one removes one's shoes at night one should untie and remove the left shoe first. (Shulchan Aruch w/Mishnah Brurah 2:5 MB8 756" and "One should not sleep in one's regular clothes, and one should not place one's clothes under the pillow {as this will cause one to forget one's Torah learning}. Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 71:5."

While a number of these laws are not entirely relevant to the lives of many Jews, including myself, I find it endlessly fascinating to explore the intricacy of Jewish Law. True, some of the logic found in these halachot may be questionable, but they are a clear sign of the premise of all Judaism, that God is most certainly in the details.

Last week's Shabbaton was a reminder of that. What made it so successful - and what makes ANY well-run 24 hour Shabbaton worth about 200 hours of in-class Jewish learning - is that Judaism is LIVED rather than talked ABOUT. When Judaism is LIVED, Shabbat comes to mean much more than simply attending a two hour service with kiddush. A Shabbaton includes those services, to be sure - and we made sure that our services would be truly "out-of-the-box" experiences. When else do we begin the Morning Blessings with a vigorous game of Hebrew "Simon Sez?" When else do we enable students and parents to debate with one another what exactly they would ask of God? - some of the answers were astounding. Where else would we precede Lecha Dodi on Friday night by going around and having each student give us his or her "Wow of the Week?" - When one student said that his "wow" was in making friends with his "worst enemy," that became MY "wow of the week."

But services are not the point of Shabbat. If God is in the details, than Shabbat is too. It's in the fact that nearly 50 kids got by for an entire day without texting or turning on a computer. Shabbat is the day when nothing is virtual - everything is REAL. Shabbat was being at the ping pong table or even playing pool. The pool table was getting so popular that for a while I thought there was going to be trouble in River City. But nothing was wagered - it was simply everyone having fun together. At one point I scanned the large, comfy community room of Isabella Freedman and saw clusters of people playing "Apples to Apples" (the Jewish version, of course), Uno, or simply schmoozing, reading or learning Jewish texts with our guest scholar-in-residence. God was even in the details of the enormous icicles being admired by some of the kids, or the magnificent view of the frozen pond at sunset. God was in the details of doing a few spirited Shabbat songs before Birkat ha-Mazon, and God was certainly in the detail of hearing some 6th graders read torah for the first time.

We may or may not sleep on our sides or put shoes on in the prescribed manner, but the full texture of Jewish life can only be understood if it is seen as an entirety and not a compartment. We're not Jewish simply on Tuesdays at 4 and Fridays at 6. We're Jewish all the time. Every moment of our lives should be imbued with Jewish sensitivities and informed by our rich value system.

Every detail of our lives can be a Jewish detail, even if it seems as trivial and "unreligious" as how we tie our shoes. We're not just Jewish every waking hour. We're Jewish when we sleep too.

God is in the details.

Masechet Cyberspace #10: Seeking God in Cyberspace

As we break for the summer, Masechet Cyberspace will continue to develop and grow. I welcome your ideas. Meanwhile, I sign off with some passages from my prior writings on the subject of spirituality and cyberspace:

“I’ve found sanctity online. I've also found God in my VCR instruction manual. And in my home videos, my cell phone, my beeper, my remote control, my cable box and television screen. I've encountered God in the Hubbell telescope and the space shuttle, in my microwave oven and in a cloned sheep called Dolly. How I see God in these other technological phenomena is the subject for a more broad-based book; yet in some sense, a deep search for God on the Internet, the subject of this study, is a microcosm of the larger issue. And it is necessary to spend some time dealing with the general question of God and technology before we enter sacred cyberspace. Through my search for God on-line, I've discovered danger signals along the journey. God can be found on the Internet, but God can also be lost there.”

“If we look for God only in the usual places, we are sure to miss the mark. It is only when we seek God outside the sanctuary and beyond the prayer book that we have the best chance of succeeding. And technology is the terrain we all inhabit right now. That's where the path of our searching must lead. Pope Pius XII said it in his Christmas message in 1953, and these words resonate even more today: "The Church welcomes technological progress and receives it with love, for it is an indubitable fact that technological progress comes from God and, therefore, can and must lead to Him."

“We find God on the Internet through the redemptive power of the written word.

On the Internet, God lives not exactly in the "written" word, because the words we see on the screen aren't really written. Like God, they are real, but can't be touched; they stand clearly in front of us, yet are primarily a product of the imagination, as our eye fills in the spaces between the lines and creates the impression of permanence.

It is against Jewish law to erase the name of God. That is why the Hebrew name of God (the Tetragrammaton, as it is called, which consists of the letters yod-heh-vav-heh), is rarely spelled out in Jewish texts and most often seen in an abbreviated form. Some even shorten the English appellation, using G-D rather than God. Yet God's name is all over the Internet, in all forms. Why? Because as the name appears on the screen, it is not in fixed, permanent form. It can be compared to writing one's name with one's finger on a frosty window.
A leading Orthodox rabbi recently ruled that the word “God” may be erased from a computer screen or disk, because the pixels do not constitute real letters. Rabbi Moshe Shaul Klein published his ruling in an Israeli computer magazine aimed at Orthodox Jews, “Mahsheva Tova” “The letters on a computer screen are an assemblage of pixels, dots of light, what have you,'” the rabbi's assistant, Yossef Hayad explained to a reporter for the Associated Press. “Even when you save it to disk, it's not like you're throwing anything more than a sequence of ones and zeroes. It's there, but it really isn't.”

So the name of God isn't really being erased, because it never was really there in the first place. Or was it?

The words are virtual, just as the on-line relationships are virtual. Just as our relationship with God appears virtual, cloaked in metaphor. But it all feels so real -- because it is.

Through the word, we have come to a new understanding of reality. For the Internet is a medium of the word. True, there are graphics too, and now increasing capacity to communicate via audio and video images. But when the medium was created in the late '60s by two UCLA professors and introduced in 1969, its goal was to connect computers in their language so that academicians could communicate in ours -- and ours happens to be words. The medium was intended originally as a depositary of massive amounts of recorded data. When Tim Berners-Lee first proposed the World Wide Web near Geneva in 1989, his intent was to make scientific papers available on the Internet to other scientists. Graphic images were then added to words, but in the beginning, it was all about words. And that is still how we primarily know it.

So now we live in a world where billions of invisible words are out there, massive virtual libraries, information on almost everything imaginable, real yet untouchable, at our fingertips, yet, without a computer impossible to fathom. Try explaining the Internet to those who have never experienced it -- it's almost as impossible as explaining the Red Sea splitting to those who slept through it.”

Masechet Cyberspace #8 - Can You Count in a Minyan Online?

The official position of the Rabbinical Assembly can be found in full here, and the conclusions are as follows:

1. A minyan may not be constituted over the Internet, an audio- or video-conference, or any other medium of long distance communication. Only physical proximity, as defined, that is being in the same room with the shaliah tzibbur (prayer leader), allows a quorum to be constituted.

2. Once a quorum has been duly constituted, anyone hearing the prayers being offered in that minyan may respond and fulfill his or her obligations thereby, even over long distance communications of whatever sort.

(a) Some would refrain from fulfilling the specific requirement to hear the shofar in this way, due to its specific nature, but others permit. This committee is on record among those who would allow even the hearing of Shofar in this way.

3. This specifically refers to hearing. A real-time audio connection is necessary. Two-way connection to the whole minyan is preferable, though connection to the shaliah tzibbur alone or a one way connection linking the minyan to the individual are sufficient. E-mail and chat room or other typewritten connections do not suffice. Video connections are not necessary, and in the absence of audio would not suffice.

4. A clear hierarchy of preference is discernible here. It is preferable by far to attend a minyan, for the full social and communal effect of minyan for which it was established is only possible in that way. Less desirable, but closest to attendance at a minyan proper, is real-time two-way audio-video connection, wherein the individual, though unable to reach the other minyonnaires, is able to converse with them and see and be seen by them. Only in rare or exigent circumstances should one enact the third, and least desirable, method of fulfilling one.s obligation to pray with a minyan by attaching oneself to that minyan through a one-way audio vehicle, essentially overhearing them as one standing outside the synagogue.

5. With regard to Mourner’s Kaddish, some member of the minyan must recite the kaddish, but a participant at a distant location may recite it along with him or her, as this is not considered a superfluous blessing (__!_______). There is no obligation to pursue additional opportunities to recite kaddish, and this should be discouraged.

6. To fulfill time-bound obligations, the prayers must be offered during the requisite period in the frame of reference of the one whose obligation is to be fulfilled.

The topic is a fascinating one, and as technologies improve and Jews disperse across the globe even more, it will surely be revisited again and again. What defines a community at prayer? What defines a community at all?

An article in article in the Jerusalem Post calls for 600,000 Jews to gather virtually on Facebook. Undoubtedly many more than 600,000 Jews are on there now! But if, as it is said, 600,000 were at Sinai to receive the Torah, and yet, in some virtual manner all the rest of us were as well, how is that different from online presence? We, who can testify to Sinai’s revelation but only from having been there “virtually,” can also attend our own synagogues virtually, no?

Well, no. While the power of a virtual visit can be extraordinary ( as we see in online prayer circles and CaringBridge), nothing can match the power of schlepping out of bed in the morning and being at a service to lend comfort or reaffirm hope. And it’s also just a great place to schmooze. In the words of my teacher, rabbi Neil Gillman, “the “schtibel” (study hall) served the Jewish male in the same way the corner bar served the Irish male — i.e., as an escape from the family, an opportunity to bond with other men, exchange gossip, do business and discuss politics.” What was once true for men only has now expanded vastly. In fact, at yesterday’s minyan, I was one of only three men there (which is not the norm) among over a dozen woman.

But we do use the Internet often now as a tool for getting a minyan, such TBE’s Rosner Minyan Maker and our “Guaranteed Minyan” e-mails. And as we begin interfacing much more visually through Skype and other tools, we may find the argument for online minyans, at least in some circumstances, more compelling.

Masechet Cyberspace #7 - The Horrors of Horace and Other Abuses

SOME RECENT ABUSES OF THE INTERNET…

1) Facebook and MySpace Scandals:
Horrors at Horace and Megan Meier’s Suicide

Facebook has become the most powerful social networking tool since the invention of the telephone. I’ve recently seem some of the good it can do in bringing people together.

But, as the great Spiderman once said, with great power comes great responsibility. So when a rabbinic colleague pointed me toward the recent New York Magazine account of happened at Horace Mann, I began to wonder whether this genie needs to be returned to its bottle. See the article at http://nymag.com/news/features/45592/. To quote from the article, “Kids have always ragged on an unpopular teacher or ridiculed an unfortunate classmate. But sites like Facebook and RateMyTeachers.com are changing the power dynamics of the community in an unpredictable way. It is as if students were standing outside the classroom window, taunting the teacher to her face. Should they be punished? There were, as yet, no rules or codes for how a school should address such issues.” The article goes on to show how powerless the teachers were in this matter.

And then there was the suicide of 13-year-old Megan Meier and the subsequent indictment of Lori Drew, Megan’s best friend’s mother, in her murder. Read about this case here in an essay by Michele Catalano. Lori’s actions were unquestionably despicable (she created a teenage boy character who gained Megan’s confidence online and then dumped her, saying that the world would be better off without her), but the essay raises difficult questions as to whether moral blame also should be legal responsibility in this case. Because of the peculiar grounds used for the indictment, she writes, “What Drew’s indictment means, in essence, is that any Internet user now risks criminal proceedings for doing something as simple as creating a fake name to post messages on a website, something many people do each day for legitimate reasons.”

This is a legitimate question. Is meanness a crime? Is bullying the same as murder?

The Jewish answer is the moral answer. And that answer is Yes. Long before Facebook existed, the rabbis recorded in the midrash (Bereshith Rabbah 98:23), "What is spoken in Rome can kill in Damascus." Now, with that same distance traversable in a millisecond, all the more so, these words can kill.

Words have extraordinary power – the power to ruin careers, as the teachers at Horace Mann are finding out, and the power to kill, as in the case of Megan Meier. Lori Drew is guilty, but the law simply has to catch up with the technology and find a way to put her away without compromising our cherished freedoms.


2) The Quick Fix and the Chain Letter Syndrome


This week I received a heartwarming e-mail chain letter, a poem called “Slow Dance,” ostensibly written by a terminally ill young girl.

You can find it here.

I am always suspicious of dispatches like this (like that ubiquitous e-mail warning us of the anti-Holocaust curricula in the United Kingdom…or is it the University of Kentucky?), so I did some research. The poem has made its way around the cyber world several times over. If you go to Snopes - http://www.snopes.com/inboxer/medical/slowdance.asp, you’ll discover, in fact that “Slow Dance” has been circulating online for eight years! And it’s a hoax. Not a harmful hoax, as hoaxes go, but a hoax nonetheless. It wasn’t written by someone who is dying, the American Cancer society will not donate money for every time this is forwarded, and Amy Bruce, the 7 year old cancer patient to whom the poem is often attributed in several variants, does not exist. You can read more background on this at http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/weekly/aa022599.htm. Originally, the poem wasn’t even part of the hoax, and the professor named here (from Yeshiva U) had nothing to do with it, he simply was one of those good-natured souls who forwarded it, with his signature unfortunately affixed at the bottom.

Otherwise, the poem ‘aint bad.

But don’t you feel deceived – violated – when reading that it’s a hoax?

The Internet has a way of drawing us in and spitting us out. So an important precept of Masechet Cyberspace is that we should be highly skeptical of everything we read. Even people we know may not be sending us the e-mails that we think are coming from them. One spammer has in fact latched onto my own name to send things to me – from “me.” I’m now hawking Viagra to myself on a regular basis, which is somewhat disconcerting. And even when the e-mail is genuine, it can be so easily misunderstood. Such is the immense power – and the danger - of this new technological tool.

Masechet Cyberspace #6 - A Netiquette Primer

An entirely new ethical field is growing regarding proper online behavior. A nice summary of some of the issues can be found at http://digiteen.wikispaces.com/Digital+Etiquette, a site that was just sent to me from colleagues working on new initiatives regarding the impact of Cyber Culture on Jewish education. This is being coordinated by the Lippman Kanfer Institute Learnings and Consultation Center at JESNA, a Jewish education think tank. I’ve become involved in the project and will be attending special sessions on the topic at this summer’s big annual happening in Jewish Education, the CAJE Conference.

So if you look at this site you’ll find the following definition:

Digital etiquette, or netiquette as its sometimes called, is a basic set of rules you should follow in order to make the internet better for others, and better for you. It’s just as important to treat people with courtesy and respect online as it is in real life. When you instant message, chat, or email someone over the Internet, they can’t see your face to tell if you’re teasing them or saying something in jest. How do you practice good Netiquette? It’s simple – just treat others as you want to be treated – with courtesy and respect. People know these rules but usually do not follow when using the Internet. This includes hacking others computer, downloading illegally, plagiarism and using bad language on the Internet. Not a lot of schools teach students how important it is to follow these rules that everyone knows. If all of us follow this it could make the Internet a better space to share and use.

Interesting that it always comes right back to the Golden Rule.
They must have been thinking of Leviticus 19:18 when they wrote this. In fact at Tech Blorge.com they even call them “Golden Rules” – and here they are:

1. Keep e-mails short and to the point
Office e-mail has a specific business purpose such as getting results, communicating an important fact or getting a response. The chances of quickly accomplishing that purpose increase when your e-mail is short, easy to understand and gets to the point.

2. Write the action you are requesting and topic in the ’subject’ line
Describe what you need the recipient to do and the topic in the “subject” line. Something short and to the point. For instance: “Please review Jones proposal letter;” or “Need blueprint for Jones project.” By clearly identifying the purpose of your e-mail in the subject line, the recipient will quickly know what you are writing about; it’s easy to find; and it separates your e-mail from spam.

3. Check your grammar and spelling
Grammar and spelling are often overlooked, but remember that your e-mail may be going out to a client, a prospective client, your employees or maybe your boss. You want to look smart, not sloppy. Use any built-in spell check before sending an e-mail.

4. Be cautious.
Think before you send an e-mailIt’s so easy to hit the “reply” button and write a message. This can be a problem if you act spontaneously. Temper and tone matter.In most instances, once an e-mail is sent, it’s gone. You cannot take it back. So if you have written any harsh words or forwarded an inappropriate e- mail to several colleagues and inadvertently added your boss’s name to the distribution list, once you hit “send” they will be reading it shortly.

5. Remember that e-mail is not private
When you send an e-mail to someone, it goes through many networks before it reaches your recipient and may even leave copies of your e-mail on a server, which can be accessed. It may seem as though you are communicating only with that person (and in most instances you are); however, your e-mail can be forwarded by the recipient to others. A number of companies, including Verizon, offer e-mail encryption products, which encrypt a sender’s e-mail message and digitally sign it. The services also verify and authenticate that the message has not been altered and prevent it from being opened by anyone except the intended recipient. Additionally, users can lock e-mails so that they cannot be viewed by others.

6. Use out of office response, if available, to alert others of your absence
Many e-mail systems and services let you set up an automatic reply advising senders that you are not available. For efficiency of communications, trigger this auto-reply tool when you are away so senders know not to expect a timely response.

7. Keep it strictly business
It is best not to use the business e-mail systems for personal communication. Use your personal e-mail instead.

8. Be courteous, considerate and responsible when writing an e-mail message
Communication via e-mail is often considered informal, but you shouldn’t treat it that way. Remember, your e-mail may be going to your boss, your clients, your prospective clients, your colleagues. Be courteous and reply in a timely manner. It’s good to have a signature in your e-mail so the recipient can easily contact you. Additionally, it clearly identifies you and your company. Before e-mailing a large file, it’s wise to alert the recipients to be sure they want the file and in case they need to make room for it.

9. Keep your computer virus free
Lastly, make sure your computer is virus-free because you don’t want to be the person sending everyone a virus. As an aside, with the success of this book every computer journalist and writer (me included) is thinking “doh”, why didn’t I think of email etiquette as a topic for book? Just goes to show that the next hot topic may be something as unlikely as email…

These suggestions are very helpful, but the conversation about Netiquette is only beginning…

No More "Three-Day" Jews

The Jewish Week: May 14, 2008

If there were a graveyard for the outmoded, it would be filled with typewriters, telephone dials, shortwave radios and three-day-a-year Jews. These items don’t exist any more, except in museums, attics and the nostalgic yearnings of those caught up in the imagery of yesteryear.

All are victims of the technological revolution. Typewriters have been replaced by the computer; dial phones with touch tones, shortwave with Web sites, and three-day Jews have been rendered obsolete by radically new modes of connection providing grass-roots Jewish empowerment 365 days a year.

A few weeks ago, a congregant came up to me and the conversation turned to one of those moral perplexities that seem to confound us with greater frequency these days. As we parted, he said,
“I guess the answer will never be fully understood, just like the red cow.”

“Right,” I said as I walked away, impressed that he knew all about that obscure law, categorized by commentators as one of those few mitzvot that defy human understanding. It’s complicated stuff, indicating a high level of curiosity and inquiry.

Now this particular congregant is hardly of the legendary three-day ilk. He attends services often, but his erudite allusion was typical of comments I’ve been getting lately, even from congregants whom I rarely see between High Holy Days.

I’ve always felt that this three-day thing was overrated. Even the most marginal Jew occasionally finds his way to a synagogue for bar mitzvahs, funerals, concerts or lectures. The “three-day” moniker was just another way to foster guilt and degradation, to reinforce the hierarchical nature of Jewish life and to highlight the alienation many feel from institutional Judaism. But it never had much to do with true levels of Jewish engagement.

Centuries ago, the Baal Shem Tov literally blew the whistle on such derogatory labels with his tale of the shepherd who came to services on Yom Kippur, and who, when moved to pray, pulled out his shepherd’s whistle and blew. The congregation was outraged, until the founder of modern Chasidism asserted that only the shrill blasts of this uninitiated stranger had enabled everyone’s prayers to pierce the gates of heaven.

The Dalai Lama hasn’t seen the inside of his holy place since 1959, yet no one calls him a three-day Tibetan. It’s time to stop bemoaning the drop in institutional affiliation and recognize that Jewish identification is now being fostered in ways that community leaders cannot possibly measure — much of it anonymously, online.

Now, everyone has complete access, in the office or at home, to a Jewish library larger than the cumulative libraries of every great rabbi for the past two millennia. The entire Talmud, the venerable Jewish Encyclopedia and reams of Torah commentary are just a click away.

It’s a new era. As we’ve seen this year in domestic and foreign politics, the operative direction for the flow of information is no longer top-down but rather bottom-up. The old hierarchies no longer hold the power they used to, from the Chinese government, which struggles to control grassroots protests against repressive policies, to the Catholic Church, which faces dissent from within.

Good thing we don’t have such hierarchies in Judaism.

And if we did, we won’t. Now every Jew is theoretically his or her own rabbi. The Torah, after all, calls us a “nation of priests.” But while we no longer need rabbis or synagogues to access Jewish information, it helps to have someone capable of interpreting it, who can help people choose from the dizzying array of options. Just as the WebMD generation still needs doctors, we still need trained rabbis — but the training needs to be more befitting a non hierarchical age of empowerment.

Behold, the birth of the Wiki Jew.

According to — what else? — Wikipedia, “A wiki is software that allows users to collaboratively create, edit, link, and organize the content of a website... Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites.”

Wikipedia has many flaws, but the enormity of the collaboration that creates it is awe-inspiring. The community that is constructing this vast compendium of accumulating knowledge s nothing less than the entire human race. Anyone can contribute to this trove of information — even those less than qualified. But in the end, the power of numbers enables Wikipedia, more often than not, to be self-correcting. One recent study pointed out that it rivals even the Encyclopedia Britannica (also now online) for accuracy.

For millennia, Jewish tradition has evolved in much the same collaborative, incremental manner, and now it is finding a home in the global cyber-yeshiva. While rabbis still play a major role, everyone is now welcome to join in this timeless conversation. As new halachic questions mount — on subjects ranging from intellectual property rights and workplace privacy to the forwarding of third-party e-mails, rabbis are weighing in online; but so is everyone else. On my own blog (http://joshuahammerman.blogspot.com/), I’ve initiated “Masechet Cyberspace,” a “halachic wiki” of sorts, for the discussion of these issues. Fittingly, “Masechet” means both a Talmudic tractate and a web.

So the three-day Jew is no more. During the rest of the year, she may be tapping into the Jewish stream in a brand-new way: frequenting the enchanted Wiki-room.

Masechet Cyberspace #5: Sources on God, Judaism and the Internet

Sources on God, Judaism and the Internet

1) Rabbi Avraham Ya’akov of Sadigora (19th century)

“You can learn something from everything:
o From the railway – we learn that one moment’s delay can throw everything off schedule;
o from the telegraph we learn that every word counts;
o and from the telephone we learn that what we say Here is heard There.”

2) Martin Buber “All real living is meeting”

3) Fritjof Capra, “The Web of Life”

“To regain our full humanity, we have to regain our connectedness with the entire web of life. This reconnecting, religio in Latin, is the very essence of the spiritual grounding of deep ecology.”

4) Chris Anderson, “The Long Tail”

“The era of one size fits all is ending, and in its place is something new, a market of multitudes.” “The mainstream has been shattered into a zillion different cultural shards. * Increasingly the mass market is turning into a mass of niches.”

* In Lurianic Kabbala, holy sparks are embedded in shards of shattered divine vessels scattered throughout the universe.

5) The great Hasidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratzlav:

“It is good to have a special room set aside for sacred study and prayer, secluded meditation and conversation with God….and speak with Him about everything that is going on in your life. Confess to Her all your sins, transgressions and failings, and speak to Him freely as one speaks to a friend. You should speak at length, talk and talk some more, argue with Her, sigh and weep, and ask that S/He have mercy and allow us to achieve true devotion."

6) Joshua Hammerman, “thelordismyshepherd.com: Seeking God in Cyberspace”

Sit down in front of your computer late at night and see what is there. Reach out to connect — and not necessarily with people. Simply connecting to the latest news, to stock results or late ball scores, is enough to evoke a feeling of “humble surrender” and awe. How lovely can this universe be, how orderly and sound, when, without waking a soul, I can order cut-rate plane tickets to Chicago? How close to the mountaintop can one ascend, when, with a few clicks, one can see the deep blue earth from the perspective of a roving satellite hundreds of miles up? How dusty must my weary pilgrim’s feet get, when I can click my way to a live shot of Jerusalem’s Western Wall in seconds, and fax my prayer to be placed within its ancient cracks?

What's So Jewish About Mother's Day (A Web Journey)

(This web journey is a Shabbat-O-Gram “classic” – my apologies for those links no longer working)

A man calls his mother in Florida. "Mom, how are you?"

"Not too good," says the mother. "I've been very weak."

The son says, "Why are you so weak?"

She says, "Because I haven't eaten in 38 days."

The man says, "That's terrible. Why haven't you eaten in 38 days?"

The mother answers, "Because I didn't want my mouth to be filled with food if you should call."

When I was growing up, I used to love the little satiric book by Dan Greenberg, "How to be a Jewish Mother." It contained the typical jokes about dominating, overprotective mothers and obedient, castrated sons. There's still lots of Jewish Mother jokes on the Web, such as those found at http://www.geocities.com/CollegePark/6174/jmom-food-def.htm, "Jewish Mothers' Food Definitions," http://dave.editthispage.com/discuss/msgReader$148?mode=day, "Jewish Mother Jokes," and more assorted jokes at http://www.mazornet.com/jewishcl/humor/humor-mothers01.htm and http://www.zipple.com/weeklyzipple/joke.shtml#jewishmother.

Here's a typical one:

A Jewish young man was seeing a psychiatrist for an eating and sleeping disorder. "I am so obsessed with my mother... As soon as I go to sleep, I start dreaming, and everyone in my dream turns into my mother. I wake up in such a state, all I can do is go downstairs and eat a piece of toast." The psychiatrist replies: "What, just one piece of toast, for a big boy like you?"

Of course, Jews didn't always stereotype their mothers negatively. When Rabbi Yosef heard his mother enter the room he would say, "I must stand up, for the glory of God enters." Rabbi Tarfon used to help his mother get into bed by bending down and allowing her to use his back as a step ladder (nowadays, most people prefer to tell their mothers to get OFF their backs). For Jews, it used to be that every day was mothers day.

Exactly a century ago, in 1907, Anna Jarvis campaigned for a national day to honor mothers. It is said that she was at odds with her mother at the time (ah… the power of maternal guilt). Read about her at http://www.rootsweb.com/~wvtaylor/mother.htm.

For Jews, the "patron saint" of maternal figures would have to be the matriarch Rachel, who stands watch over her children even in death, as in life. At http://www.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/Shokel/910501_Mothers_Day.html, you can read how Rachel's Yahrzeit has been transformed into a national Mothers Day of sorts in Israel, especially among pre-schoolers (it occurs in the fall, on the 11th of Heshvan).
To read the fifth commandment is to understand that Mother's Day is indeed a daily occurrence for Jews -- or at least it should be. Sometimes it isn't easy to respect our moms. Take this Talmudic account, as related in a sermon by Rabbi Elan Adler of Baltimore (with whom I shared many great times when he lived here in Stamford):

The Talmud tells of Dama the son of Netina, who was once wearing a gold-embroidered silken cloak sitting among Roman nobles. It is clear that Dama ben Netina was highly regarded and respected. One day, his mother came to where he was sitting, tore off his elegant gown, struck him on the head, and spat repeatedly in his face. The Talmud says that with all this, he did not shame her. For he knew that the Torah demanded, "kabed et avicha v'et imecha," honor your father and your mother in all circumstances. The word "kabed" without vowels can also be read as "kaved", meaning a heavy load or burden. Sometimes, it is a heavy burden to respect our parents, especially when they are no longer capable, or when we don't see eye to eye with them. (find the rest of the sermon at http://www.btfiloh.org/adler.htm).

And indeed, there are also times when we can't honor our parents as much as we would like, specifically when they are abusive. Aish's Web site discusses these limits in an article found at http://www.aish.com/literacy/mitzvahs/Honoring_Parents.asp.

But, for the most part, mothers are due the highest respect and honor. As the saying goes, "God could not be everywhere, so God created mothers."

Masechet Cyperspace #4: Can We Erase God's Name on a Computer Screen?

On Wednesday, the New York Times ran an interesting article about a unique Holocaust Torah: From Auschwitz, a Torah as Strong as Its Spirit. This inspiring piece has generated concern among some Jews because if you look closely at the accompanying photo featuring columns of Torah text, God’s name appears. This means that the New York Times has at last attained the status that it has always sought: it is a now a sacred document! Since God’s name is there, that issue cannot be discarded routinely and should be buried.

This naturally brings us to the question of what to do when the ineffable name appears (in Hebrew) on a computer screen. Can it be erased?

To respond to that question, I direct you to this article by educator Joel Lurie Grishaver (once a scholar in residence here). He writes: God's name on a computer screen is not sacred; otherwise you would never be able to change the screen or turn it off if God's name came up. Several legal authorities have allowed the electronic destruction of a sacred name on our screens because they are no longer printed - they have been broken down to a series of dots, and dots can be erased.

Here’s an interesting paradox. Most authorities say that the image can be erased because it is “non durable” (Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s words) – or, one can say, not “real.” Yet we also know that, like Las Vegas, things that happen on your computer STAY on your computer. Forensic experts can recover even e-mails that have long since been erased, and this is happening increasingly in legal cases. There is also the more spiritual notion that missives that we place on the Web, like prayers, are sent off into worlds unknown and heard Somewhere Else. Think of all the jokes or sappy stories that you receive as emails, only to be received again months or even years later. They return like Halley’s comet, again and again and again. The point is that when you write God’s name on your screen, it never really disappears. Like God Herself, it may not be visible after a while, but it is there. Somewhere.

So for two completely contradictory reasons, it is permissible to write the divine name on your computer screen, and then to delete it.

Masechet Cyperspace 3: Communicating in Shorthand

What is the language that we use to communicate online?

See This article on Online Etiquette as a good source for the basics, covering e-mail and other online do’s and don’ts and giving basic terminology (like what constitutes “flaming”). It begins by telling us:

Learning how to behave on the Internet may seem like second nature—just point, click, and download. But with millions more surfers crowding into cyberspace each day, it's critical to know and practice Web etiquette (commonly referred to as 'Netiquette) to keep the data flowing smoothly. Adhering to a few Internet "dos" and "don'ts" can help ensure a frustration-free experience for yourself and others.

Many novices to the Internet have no idea what some of the acronyms are. They seem alien and indicative of a culture where people are in too much of a hurry to spell out what they really mean in good-old, plain English . That may be true, but it is still good to know the lingo. For a complete, head-spinning list, head on over to THE CANONICAL ABBREVIATION/ACRONYM LIST at http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall/abbrev.html.

What do Jewish sources say about such shorthand? Well, anyone who has ever sat in on a Talmud class knows that rabbinic literature is overflowing with acronyms and technical jargon that only insiders would be able to decipher. In Hebrew they are called “Roshei Teivot.” Some interesting background, including a reprint of an article from the 18th century can be found at http://englishhebraica.blogspot.com/2007/01/something-about-hebrew-abbreviations.html. The best collection of Hebrew acronyms that I’ve found on the web is at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~orjgs/Abrrev.pdf

It’s not only about complex expressions that become abbreviated. People do too! Every rabbi worth his salt, in fact, becomes an acronym, from Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitchaki, a French scholar born in 1040) to the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, one of the first codifiers of Jewish law, born in Spain in 1135, lived most of his life in Egypt, and died there in 1185). As of yet, alas, no one has immortalized my initials in such a manner.

Modern Jewish communal life is also filled with its own “Alphabet Soup,” and many outsiders feel alienated in conversations that go from the JCC to the USCJ to the URJ to the UJA to the UJC to the UJ…whatever! The Jewish Outreach Institute (JOI)’s blog correctly points out that “it is always important that as insiders we define our codes and languages for those who are on the outside. Simply speaking and writing the full names of places encourages inclusiveness and reduces frustration. This is Big Tent Judaism’s Principle #6: “Identify and lower the barriers to participation.” Translating acronyms is an easy way to promote inclusiveness and welcome everyone into the broader Jewish community.”

The aptly titled blog "On the Fringe" put it best:

“By failing to explain, you prevent the less learned from learning, and hence, you violate the rabbinic interpretation… of the statement from Torah she-bi-chtav (the Written Law/Five Books of Moses/first five books of the Bible), "lifnei iver lo titen michshol, in front of a blind [rabbinic interpretation: ignorant] person, do not put a stumbling block" (Parshat Kedoshim, Leviticus, chapter 19, verse 11).”

By throwing all this secret jargon at people, we turn them off and turn them away, and thereby place a “stumbling block” before them, screaming out, “You are an idiot! You are not wanted.”

The Internet, like the Torah, belongs to everyone. Each is a grand experiment in embracing the Other, in opening eternal gates and dissolving boundaries. No need to build exclusivist, artificial ones as we journey along that path.