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.