Rosh Hashanah 5776: Community in the digital era

What is community now?
Are any of us members of a community?
In the age of the internet, is there such a thing as community?
Do we even need it?
The internet has connected us in ways we never imagined. I have 982 facebook friends, including high school acquaintances, college classmates, relatives, current & former congregants, and some woman named sheila.
When a local congregant broke her ankle and needed her dog walked, I saw it on a listserv; ten years ago, that would not have happened.
Last month, I read a profile in the New Yorker about a pilot named Mark VanHoeniker, who I realized was a childhood friend. I cyberstalked him, and indeed, he was from Pittsfield, so I friended him.
We are so connected now—and what an opportunity!
Tanya, as some of you know, is a psychologist. She recently conducted an evaluation a client in Thailand. These evaluations require a face to face meeting. How could that person have been seen before? We are now connected in ways we could not have imagined. Amazing possibilities are opening before our eyes.
a few years back, when Hannah was 3 and we were living in Philadelphia. I skyped my parents in Cleveland, 500 miles away, and put the laptop on the kitchen table. Hannah played charades with her grandfather for an hour, separated by 500 miles, but in the same room.
There’s someone here with a child in Israel, who will just connect by skype with the laptop on the kitchen counter and the two of them will cook in the same room. That’s a lot better than a phone call, and a whole heck of a lot better than a letter. That’s actually being together.
we need to use digital connectivity to create human connectivity,
But we must never think that digital connectivity replaces human contact.
We need to use technology to enrich, not replace, human interaction.
The Talmud understands the focus of Jewish spirituality as creating sacred energy in the world, through shared sacred action.
And how do you know that if ten people pray together the Divine presence is with them? For it is said: ‘God standeth in the congregation of God (BT Sanhedrin 2b).
That means god is standing here, right here, in this room
The Talmud goes on to discuss doing this through forming a jewish court, and also through studying torah together.
spirituality is not about some trip where we feel close to god;
It’s not about an individual feeling good, feeling high, feeling spiritual.
The Talmud insists that no human has ever ascended to god.
Spirituality is manifesting the presence of the divine, the schechinah, through sacred community, through davenning together, through applying jewish law together, through studying together.
I might be able to meditate better alone, but I can’t bring the presence of the divine into the world that way.
This principle is expressed well by a story about Rebbe Nathan of Nemirov, a hassidic rebbe. During the ten days of repentace, reb Nathan would disappear during the early morning selichot prayers; nobody knew where he went to. His followers believed that he would ascend to heaven each morning to plead on their behalf. A skeptical Lithuanian jew –a misnogged-set out to disprove the followers’ superstitious beliefs. He follows him before dawn, and watches in disbelief as he dons peasant clothes, chops some firewood, and carries the load to a broken down shack. An elderly, homebound woman opens the door, and he carries the wood in and lights the fire in her wood stove, while whispering the selichot prayers. The skeptic becomes a follower, and years later when asked if it was true that his rebbe ascended to heaven, he replied, “even higher.”
Jewish spirituality is not about getting high, not about a great personal spiritual experience. It is about bringing the presence of god, bringing sacred energy, in between. It is about bringing god’s presence to the world, sanctifying the world, through caring relationships, through sacred community.
The question that arises is, how close do we need to be to light that fire? How intimate must our relationships be in order to manifest the presence of the divine? Stated as a practical question, can we join in a minyan, in the required 10 people to form a prayer quorum, if we can’t hear each other, or can’t see each other?
Scarf waving shul—sukkot 51b
It has been taught, R. Judah stated, He who has not seen the double colonnade of Alexandria in Egypt has never seen the glory of Israel. It was said that it was like a huge basilica, one colonnade within the other, and it sometimes held twice the number of people that went forth from Egypt. …there was a wooden platform in the middle upon which the shamash of the Synagogue stood with a scarf in his hand. When the time came to answer Amen, he waved his scarf and all the congregation duly responded .

We don’t create sacred community just by being in the same room
We need to be aware of each other
And we need to be aware of each others’ needs—continuation:
They moreover did not sit willy nilly, but goldsmiths sat separately, silversmiths separately, blacksmiths separately, metalworkers separately and weavers separately, so that when a poor man entered the place he recognized the members of his craft and on joining them, obtained a livelihood for himself and for the members of his family

even though room was huge, they were present for each other in very practical way—they helped each other get jobs
can we form community in the same way online?
Jan Saltzman, a renewal rabbi, wrote a paper asking whether people living spread out, such is in the west, should be able to form a virtual minyan, in which only the internet connects them. Although most orthodox poskim argue that this doesn’t work, she writes,
In today’s world, the virtual world is no longer virtual; it has become a comfortable and accepted part of the inter-netted world community, and is a mode of inter-subjectivity amongst those who participate.
In other words, although it’s not the same as physically being together, we can create the sacred in-between even at a distance. We can be together, even if the internet brings us together.
This form of connecting has its dangers. When we replace lived community with digital community, we lose a significant element inherent in lived human interactions.
According to Emmanual levinas, the face of the other calls us into responsibility for the other. When I know you’re suffering I can ignore it; when I see you face to face, I can’t. There is a distance when we connect with technology, and there can be a lowered sense of responsibility.
I mentioned that my wife does internet based psychology. She has a second contract with a service called “doctors on demand,” where people sign up via internet for therapy over the internet. It’s a brilliant idea. But perhaps half of her patients never show up. When I know I can just pull the plug, when you’re just a screen shot, I feel the distance, there can be a lowered sense of responsibility to the other.
Amother fundamental challenge is the lack of accidental interaction. Everything is intentional, there is no serendipity. In lived community, we encounter each other accidentally. I walk by you and see that you look down. An elderly person shows up for minyan, but then gets lost outside the building confused. Someone doesn’t show up for shul; what’s wrong? What’s going on for them? When we choose how and whether to connect, we may actually never connect, we may never see what’s going on for each other.
In America, most places we gather are transient and low-commitment: fairs, ball games, concerts, restaurants. We live disconnected lives. Last year I mentioned the book “bowling alone,” about the shift toward individual pursuits and disconnectedness in America. So the internet is not a hiddush, it is just a step further in this direction. At the same time that it allows us to connect with more people, it allows us to remain disconnected.
We may not even know we are disconnected. There is an illusion of connectedness, a feeling of being connected even though there’s no lived encounter. I know of people who will go on facebook late at night to feel connected, reading their distant friends’ posts. Maybe they will ‘like’ a status. Do these friends know they have been visited? No. It’s an illusion. There’s no connection. It’s knowing about each other, remembering each other, but it’s not an interaction.
We need use technology to enrich, not replace, living human community

Jewish learning
We all know about the Shift in universities and even public schools, toward online learning. This shift is happening with jewish learning, too.
On the positive side, the internet creates amazing opportunities: you can study torah anywhere, anytime. There are now hundreds of Jewish websites; I get about 20 divrey torah every week, many of them written this week and relating to what’s going on now. You simply couldn’t do that 20 years ago.
But online learning has its challenges
[this from a NYTimes article] Jack London was the subject in Daterrius Hamilton’s online English 3 course. In a high school classroom packed with computers, he read a brief biography of London with single-paragraph excerpts from the author’s works. But the curriculum did not require him, as it had generations of English students, to wade through a tattered copy of “Call of the Wild” or “To Build a Fire.”
Mr. Hamilton, who had failed English 3 in a conventional classroom and was hoping to earn credit online to graduate, was asked a question about the meaning of social Darwinism. He pasted the question into Google and read a summary of a Wikipedia entry. He copied the language, spell-checked it and e-mailed it to his teacher
The loss of human interaction results in a loss of accountability, a loss of responsibility to the Other, in Levinas’ terms
The Talmud tells the story of a famous hevruta, learning pair, yohanan and resh lakish, a former highway robber. Their debate about the kashrut of a knife got overheated, and R Yohanan said to resh lakish, “a bandit knows his trade.” In the ensuing argument, Resh Lakish and R Yohanan both became hurt and angry, and somehow R Yohanan’s harsh prayers ended up killing Resh Lakish.
Rabbi Yochanan was very pained by his passing. The Rabbis said: "Who will go and help calm Rabbi Yochanan? Let Rabbi Elazar ben Pedat go, for he is sharp in learning."
He went and sat in from of Rabbi Yochanan. Every time Rabbi Yochanan said something, Rabbi Elazar said, “a tanna supports you”
Rabbi Yochanan said: "Are you like the son of Lakish? When I said something, the son of Lakish would ask me twenty-four questions, and I would respond with twenty-four answers. As a result, learning increased. And you tell me a Tannaitic support. Don’t I know that my ideas are good?"
He walked, and tore his garment, and wept.
He said: "Where are you, son of Lakish? Where are you, son of Lakish?" He was crying out until he lost his mind. The Rabbis asked for mercy on him and he passed away. (Bava Metzia 84a)

Education is not about transfer of information from an expert to a student
It’s About challenging each other, growing from interaction
Massive amounts of online information can never replace human interaction, studying together, growing together

The great irony of Technology is that while it hyperconnects us, it also takes us away from each other

We can always be called, and if it is late, we can text or email. My phone buzzes when I get a text; it used to buzz when I got an email, which was driving me crazy. it’s such a temptation to pick it up, see who’s emailed me, and if it’s a quick question, just reply.
All of this time that we are plugged in, we are not really present for each other. In one cartoon, a couple sits at a candle-lit restaurant table. The man, at his laptop, types “after all our online chats, I’m finally happy to meet you in person,” and the woman texts back on her cell phone, “me too.” It’s hard, when someone calls during dinner, not to at least glance and see who it is. We constantly have these little interruptions from being present, we constantly watch the phone in the corner of our eye to see who’s emailing us now.
When I first switched over to a smart phone, I had been using a palm pilot and was in the market for a blackberry, which was already obsolete. The sales clerk at staples tried to talk me into a smart phone by telling me it would make me more efficient. I couldn’t figure out how that would work—a sermon is a sermon, a call is a call. How would having a camera and a data plan make me more efficient?
So I bought it
Am I more efficient?
I find myself whipping off emails while I’m making dinner, or while the kids eat their peas. These are not emergency emails, they could wait until tomorrow, but once I know about them, they nag at my consciousness until I respond. If someone emails me, I like to just respond.
Is this really being more efficient, or just more available for work, and unavailable for family?
A study by Pixmania in 2012 found that use of a smart phone for worked increased 2 hours to the workday, checking their email as much as 20 times a day. Technology hasn’t made us more efficient, it’s turned us into workaholics, and taken away from our availability for the people who matter most.
Tiffany shlane: father was dying of brain cancer technology Shabbat
Her family instituted Technology Shabbat: no screens
She realized Emails: distracted by so many things that feels like being a pinball machine
Technology takes us away from being present
Technology overloads us with too much info
Shabbat is a great opportunity to unplug.
Halachically, the issue with texting and email is minimal:
led’s aren’t really fire,
so texting does not violate any of the 39 melachot (one of which is extinguishing a fire to make charcoal).
But if you think of Shabbat as creating space for that which matters most—family, community, deep prayer & contemplation-then in general, technology takes us away from those things,
Technology Takes us away from being present for each other
Your technology Shabbat may be Friday night. It may be dinner time every night. It may be 25 hours, from sunset Friday until 3 stars appear on Saturday. Whatever time you feel you can carve out, make a time when you put down your cell phones, unplug, and focus on being present for those around you.
Conclusion
Technology offers amazing new possibilities, both access to vast amounts of information, and opportunities to create real connections with those who are distant. Take advantage of it. Read listserv posts and offer to help. Read facebook posts and call people who seem unhappy, stressed out. Find out about events and offer to volunteer. Skype with parents, children.
Take advantage of the vast world of online jewish learning. I find the best way is to choose a column to have delivered to your inbox, so you don’t even need to surf the web to find it. Read one commentary on the parsha each week.
And when we don’t need technology to connect, to put down the phone, close the laptop, unplug, and experience being together, totally focused and present with all our heart.



Online Resources for Jewish Learning
List compiled by Jonathan Kligler

http://rabbishefagold.com/Torah1.html
Rabbi Shefa Gold is the author of Torah Journeys. Her approach is summarized by the subtitle of her book: “The Torah is the map. You are the territory.” The Torah is the map we follow for our own spiritual and personal development.

http://www.reclaimingjudaism.org/
Rabbi Goldie Milgram has created a website with weekly Torah commentaries and with excellent guidance on how to create your own D’var Torah. When you open the home page, click on “Torah Commentary & Guides to Writing Your Own”.

http://jrf.org/recon-dt
The Reconstructionist Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.

http://urj.org/torah/
The Reform Movement’s site for Divrei Torah.

http://www.uscj.org/Torah_Sparks__Weekly5467.html
The Conservative Movement’s site for Divrei Torah

http://www.ou.org/torah/index
The Orthodox Union’s site for Divrei Torah

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Torah/Commentaries.shtml?TSBI
A brief overview on the nature of Torah commentary.

http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/Bible/Weekly_Torah_Portion.shtml
Excellent, extensive library of Divrei Torah from all over the Jewish world.

http://www.chabad.org/parshah/otherparshas_cdo/aid/9175/jewish/All-Parshas.htm
The Chabad website offers Hasidic commentaries, as well as an excellent sampling of commentaries and midrashim from throughout the ages. Make sure in particular to click on “In-Depth Parshah Overview with Selected Commentaries”. Also includes a “library of classical texts” with translations of several classics.

http://torah.org/
Orthodox website with extensive and well-organized commentaries on the weekly Torah portion.

http://www.shamash.org/tanach/dvar.shtml#shamash
Massive index and links of Divrei Torah from across the Jewish spectrum. Don’t get overwhelmed!

http://www.ravkooktorah.org/ind_bami.htm
Torah commentary based on the writings of Rav A. I. Kook, the first Chief Rabbi of Palestine in the early 20th century and a much-loved mystical teacher.

http://www.azamra.org/parshah.shtml
Torah commentary based on the teachings of the Hassidic master Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav.

http://www.chassidus.net/
Chassidic teachings on the weekly portion. Useful entry-point into the Chassidic approach.

http://inner.org/
Jewish mysticism and thought, based on the teachings of HaRav Yitzchak Ginsburgh. Very thorough, hold on to your hat!

http://www.meaningfullife.com/torah/parsha/
Rabbi Simon Jacobson presents teachings of the Lubavitcher Rebbe

http://kolel.org/pages/lobby.html
The “Adult Centre for Liberal Jewish Learning” in Toronto, Canada. Click on the link for “Weekly Parasha”.

http://g-dcast.com
Animated and sometimes musical Torah interpretations!

Some more recommendations from Rabbi Siff:

Responsafortoday.com
Answers to practical questions by David Golinkin, of the Schechter Institute in Jerusalem

http://www.jewishbusiness.com/torah.html
Articles on Jewish Business ethics from an orthodox perspective

Aish.com
Orthodox, great resource on contemporary topics, archived classes, & divrey torah at a range of ability levels

Jlaw.com
In-depth articles on contemporary halachic issues