By Rabbi, Dr. Moshe Dror
We are talking about the Jewish Community. We experience the community when we can be together and share all kinds of interests. We tend to think of community when we can gather people together in one building or one room in order to do some specific task at some specific time.
In other words we gather the people together in order to access their minds and hearts and consciousness, and of course their bodies.
You might recall the Midrash that is motivating this entire Blog—
Just a reminder—Abraham was the first Hebrew-Ivri-: translation – Abraham was the first Boundary Crosser of his time.
This status has lasted nearly 4,000 years and is held in sacred trust by at least half of the world’s population.
What is the boundary crossing of our generation?
I suggested that it is the theme of Dr. Nicholas Negroponte, The Director of the MIT Media Lab, that we are the generation shifting from a civilization based on Atoms to a civilization based on Bits. (See Nicholas Negroponte; Being Digital, Vintage, 1996; also look at the Center for Bits and Atoms at MIT [http://cba.mit.edu])
It is this Net Generation, Jews among them, who are creating and redefining this kind of civilization.
If any of the readers are interested- before we go any further – in what this is kind of digital generation about? I suggest that you look at the following. The book “Being Digital” by Negroponte was published in 1996 and written in the early 1990’s- that’s 15 years ago. His foresight is reality now.
You might also want to look at the book “Growing Up Digital” by Don Tapscott who published this in 1997. This is also about 10 years old and set the scene for our understanding of this generation.
Don Tapscott just came out with a new book: “Grown Up Digital”, McGraw Hill, 2009. This is the best general study of the Net Generation that I know of, and I use it a lot and get a lot of my information from which I am sharing with you, the readers.
To get back to the congregation and the Synagogue. Here we are dealing with a group of people who share their presence and physical bodies in order to create a minyan- a “quorum” of ten adult Jewish men so that certain parts of the religious service can be held.
But just think- in just the last few years this idea of the minyan has been expanded to include not only men but also women as well- as equal partners in this process.
Not only in being part of a minyan but as Rabbis as well and Synagogue leaders.
You may say – well OK but not in the Orthodox community.
Fine, those who want to participate in this creative aspect of Jewish religiosity and spirituality are welcome. Others who for whatever reason do not want to participate— that’s OK also.
If you look at the Rabbinical schools of the Reform and Conservative religious communities, you will find that majority of current students are women.
I would suggest that this is a direct consequence of the Net Gen uses of computer technology connecting with the Right Brain aspects of learning and communication and developing the Feminine-Yin aspect of being human in the 21st. century.
But more about that later.
John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene in “Megatrends 2000” ( Morrow, 1990) that’s 20 years ago—suggest that
“When people are buffeted about by change, the need for spiritual belief intensifies.
Most seek reassurance in one of two ways: either through inner-directed “trust the feeling inside” movements,
OR
Through outer-directed ”this is the way it is” authoritarian Religions.
BOTH ARE FLOURISHING TODAY” (page 272).
We are witness today, in 2009, to both of these aspects of religion and spirituality that is not only happening but that is increasingly influencing our world in nearly every aspect of our culture and on a global scale.
