Eighteen is a good number — its alpha-numerical equivalent is chet (8) yod
(10), which spells ‘chai’, or life. Just as giving tzedakah in multiples of 18
is a uniquely worthy undertaking, so is typing eighteen characters into your
web browser. These eighteen characters: www.adatshalom.net — Your new portal to
the life of our community, and to the Jewish world.
Adat Shalom’s newly redesigned website is pleasing to the eye, nourishing for
the intellect, stirring for the soul, and useful for the schedule. Helpful
hyperlinks access any category of information directly from the main screen; new
content and images improve the site’s utility; links put us in touch with the
larger Jewish and civic world; and regular updates make it the new go-to spot
for program updates, weekly and monthly calendars, and so on. While the
reconstructed website will not displace the Scroll and its calendar, it will make
for newfound speed and accuracy in sharing vital information.
Some may see a disconnect between the kodesh (holiness, apartness) of
spiritual community, and the hol (ordinary-ness, even profanity) of the web. But in
fact, the internet is a remarkable resource, not unlike the human intellect
which it enhances — a power that can be used for great good, or for evil ends; a
vehicle for tremendous productivity, or for wasting tremendous time; a realm
of knowledge-disconnected-from-life, or a source of life-enhancing-knowledge.
The choice lies in our brains, and in our browsers.
Jonathan Rosen has written a remarkable little book called The Talmud and the
Internet,1 in which he explores their many inter-connections. Each is full
of surprising twists and turns, where one thought leads to another seemingly
unconnected one; each contains a wealth of information both useful and arcane;
each is fascinating; each is endless. To tempt you into both taking full
spiritual advantage of the web, and into reading Rosen’s excellent meditations, I
offer a couple of excerpts here:
Have fun with the web, and with Adat Shalom’s renewed website! See what our
vital committee life looks like; brush up on Reconstructionism or holidays or
life cycle events; check out our many adult ed offerings; confirm your child’s
Torah School schedule; surf over to one of our social action partner
organizations; browse on-line learning resources; check on your Village; make a
donation; download our documents and guidelines; see who’s reading which aliyah next
Shabbat; and oh so much more. (Just remember not to type in “adatshalom.org,”
taken by a lovely Conservative shul which I know well from my days in
Michigan!)
Our enormous thanks go to Rachel Greenberg, Jim Ott, Myrna Seidman, and
others who brought us to this impressive new level of internet quality. Our
continued thanks also to Luther Jett, Matt Wald, and others for their excellent
efforts in the realm of the printed word. And special gratitude to our long-time
webmaster Ralph Silberman — though in good Reconstructionist fashion, each of us
can become a ba’al ha-web, literally, ‘master of the web.’
May we all use the web (and the Talmud!) in good health, and toward
productive and righteous ends. Enjoy the access that the newly reconstructed
www.adatshalom.net provides us! See you on-line, and see you in shul…
l’shalom,
Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Rabbi
1Rosen, Jonathan. Talmud and the Internet: A Journey between Worlds. NY: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2000; quotations from pp. 7-8 and p. 85.]