Sep 13, 2013

2 comments:

  1. The easiest way to reach some rabbonim for answers to shailohs,(today their in boxes are flooded with fasting shailohs) is to email the rav. Most shuls reach their members via email and the only way to register children for some yeshivas and camps is online, although they can make special arrangements for the tech illiterate, or those who are frum internet hold-outs.
    Community chessed is now handled online, rather than with laborious phone calls. One message and the volunteers email responses as to who can make Shabbos for new mothers or other chossadim.
    Today is erev Yom Kippur and as is the custom here, I went to the mikveh. I couldn't help but marvel at the comforts and privacy that my great-grandmother in Grudno Russian-Polish border town) did not have at the mikveh. Her town's mikveh water was not heated and most likely she dressed and undressed amidst other women rather than in a lavishly furnished private prep room, but then times have changed.
    Just as we cannot fathom disconnecting our internet, where would Torah Jews be without other types of technology that could either enhance or hinder our way of life?

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  2. We are not any smarter today than were our forefathers. The only reason we've become technologically advanced recently is only because we're headed towards Geulah, and in order to shrink the big wide world into one small informed world, technology had to be invennted in our times, so Hashem let some of His knowledge leak out. The internet is the latest tool to advance that ultimate cause. It's a window anyone from anywhere can open - to take a look.

    (Of course all good things can have negative aspects, just as a butter knife can be used for evil.)

    I think I make this same point here:
    http://hezbos.blogspot.com/2011/06/main-purpose-for-internet.html

    In fact, with every generation, our wisdom dwindles somewhat. The further we get from the generation of Moshe Rabbeinu, to be sure. It's just that we live in a time that will usher in the Era of Redemption, which is the only reason this phenomenon has now been allowed to emerge. King Solomon did not get it, but we measly homonids got it.

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