ACRE Blog

In 1990, I visited my friend Rebecca at MIT. As we walked the halls, she described a form of computer communications which she and her friends used to share homework or to set times to meet for pizza. Puzzled, I wondered why they didn't just walk down the hall and knock? Two years passed and Rebecca, still at MIT, spent an evening showing me around her computer account. Loading a rudimentary program, she asked me to envision a newspaper that could focus stories about subjects I was particularly interested in, such as Israel. I simply could not see the value.

Nothing in our tradition speaks against technology. On the contrary, some innovations, such as the printing press and movable type, have played important roles in enabling more Jews to own and access the wisdom of our teachers. In many ways, these most recent innovations have a very familiar feel. The listservs that are favored by many in the rabbinic community resemble the letter writing that previous generations used to seek rabbinic counsel. And the hyper-linking of the web resembles nothing so much as a page of Talmud, which (while lacking the speed of point and click) uses key words and phrases to direct us to other relevant texts. The web is filled with treasures of Jewish knowledge, and the miracles of modern databases have been a blessing to all of us who search through rabbinic and scholarly materials.