Ancient Jewish Proverb Says

What is the latest academic rage in China? Science? Medicine? Computers? How about Jewish Studies! A Center for Jewish Studies recently opened in China offering degrees up to the Ph. D. level and there are already over 200 students. Although there has been a Jewish community in China for centuries with a very complicated history, we don’t tend to think of China as being a place in which Judaism would be a topic of study. All the more surprising that the Jewish Program is well funded and growing rapidly. I think the first thing that we would all like to know is why would China want to grow its own native Judaic scholars? While some of the students might be Jewish, it must be a very small number. So why all this interest in Jewish history, culture, and religion? I think the answer tells us a lot about China and ourselves as well. China is an ancient culture that has a long and interesting history. We learn in High School that, when Europe was still in the Iron Age, China had science, literature, and technology. But the China of today is rapidly changing. It’s not just politics, communism or capitalism; it’s not just culture, east or west, but it is about the basic human values that create a country out of millions and millions of diverse peoples. It is ironic that a country as large as China seeks to takes lessons from our history, the history of a people that has always been a tiny sliver of humanity. You see the Chinese know that as a people they are changing. They sense that the structures that have lasted for centuries are crumbling. The Great Wall was meant to insulate, China but in the age of the internet there is no isolation, there is only change. Many Chinese also know that not all change is for the better that’s why they want to understand one of the most miraculous events in human history- Jewish survival. As many Chinese scholars try to deal with the bigger social issues of change and how to preserve that which is unique in their culture, they realize that it is the history of the Jews that holds the key to preserving a culture in the face of change and challenge. We have and do live all over the globe. We have survived in cultures that were hostile to every value that we hold dear and yet, through it all, we have maintained our culture, faith, and identity. That fact is even more impressive when we consider how very small our nation is. I hope the Chinese learn much about our culture. Maybe it will spark some of us to rediscover it for ourselves. With all the hand-wringing in the Jewish community about Jewish survival it is interesting to note that, at least so far, we still have a lot to teach the world. Now the question is can we appreciate our own culture enough to preserve it? An ancient Jewish proverb says…

On Line and Learning

It was a beautiful day at Citi Field in New York. The 40,000 seats had sold out in advance. A good day for any baseball field these days, but there was no game going on- instead it was a rally against the “dangers” of the internet that was sponsored by a coalition of ultra-right wing Jewish groups. These groups came together to warn the faithful that they should not use the internet or allow their children to use it. I understand that there is much on the internet that is undesirable. It is a double edged sword- the information age can spread knowledge but it can also spread hatred and lies. What I question is the wisdom of gathering 40,000 people together to tell them to ignore the greatest revolution in the history of humanity. We can’t make “evil” disappear by ignoring it. You can put your head in the sand but it won’t change anything. Jews cannot ignore the internet any more than we can ignore any other technology. I don’t think you have to condemn the internet to be a pious Jew, nor do I believe that any technology is intrinsically “evil.” Like every other tool, it depends on the user. You can use a hammer to build a home or you can use it to tear it down. As a student of Judaism I am bewildered that anyone would tell people not to use the internet. The web has made Jewish learning easier than ever both for the beginner and for the scholar. Just consider these innovations: the Dead Sea Scrolls were once hidden away, the “intellectual property” of a very small group of scholars who could not possibly do all the research needed to decode these texts. Today the entire contents of the scrolls have been digitized and are on line for the whole world. This makes scholarship much more of a democracy. Collections of scholarly materials that were once only accessible by travelling to many different countries to physically “see” the books are now accessible on line. Having just moved my personal library I can tell you that books get heavier and heavier the older you get- now you can carry an entire Jewish library on a few disks. Yes, there might be a lot of “dark corners” on the internet, but there is an entire world of learning that can go straight to your computer screen. The group that sponsored the anti-internet rally, The Union of Communities for Purity of the Camp, has made its point- there are bad things out there in cyberspace! But the internet is here to stay in every facet of our lives. People send e-mails, people do business on line, and our children are educated on line. For all the dangers the World Wide Web has made it easier than ever to communicate, to learn, and to save our most precious resource, time.