By Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz, Temple Israel

Rabbi Karen Bodney-Halasz

Over the last 20 years or more, the Internet has made major contributions to the world as we know it, connecting nearly everyone to a world larger than we ever could have imagined. At the same time, the Jewish community also took advantage of all that the ‘net could offer. It was no time before newsgroups, Listservs, bulletin boards, Web sites, wikis, social networks and dating sites were created specifically for the Jewish community. As more resources became available, Jewish education changed rapidly, and books like The Jewish Guide to the Internet and Wired into… were hot sellers.

A generation ago, the Jewish experience was completely different than it is today. When we wanted to feel connected to the Jewish community we did so through congregational and communal activities. We belonged to Jewish community centers, Jewish youth groups, fraternities, sororities, and lodges, rather than online chatrooms, virtual services, and J-Date. If we had questions about Judaism, we went to our rabbis, our teachers, our congregational library, or attended classes.

For better or worse, we have moved far away from this reality. The Internet has provided a way for us to become linked in to the Jewish community without ever leaving the house.

The walls of the synagogue are so wide that we don’t even need to step foot in the building to engage in congregational life.

We are greatly expanding the boundaries of our Jewish lives by the many opportunities that we find online. There are opportunities available in all of the normal programmatic areas of congregational life: social action, education, pastoral care, prayer, study, parenting, socialization.

My personal fascination is with what has become of educational opportunities online. There are Web sites like sacred-texts.com/jud that offer complete versions of ancient Hebrew texts.

There are online courses offered not only in high levels of Jewish studies and even rabbinics, but also in continuing education through Webinars. There is even online Bar Mitzvah tutoring at bible.ort.com.

For those interested in finding ways to make Judaism a larger part of their life through ritual, there is ritualwell.org.

For those involved in interfaith relationships or have friends and family who are, they can easily find more information at interfaithfamily.com. There are even online opportunities to study Hebrew and prepare for conversion, not to mention the wealth of online religious school curricula materials available.

In the last few years a new phenomenon has entered the scene: social networking sites, like Facebook and Twitter.

Though they aren’t Jewish in nature, they also expand the boundaries of our Jewish lives.

There are now ways to give “virtual challahs” to each other daily (your choice of raisin, poppy, round or braided) or to send virtual sufganiyot to friends during Chanukah. You can add Jewish texts to your home pages and there are ways to join Jewish advocacy groups and sign petitions for Jewish causes through these sites, such as the one in support of Rabbi Miri Gold of Kibbutz Gezer and her right to equal government recognition with her Orthodox counterparts in Israel.

During the recent incursion in Gaza, a program called Qassamcount would even update your Facebook status daily to inform your friends of the number of rockets launched into Israel that day.

Additionally, many synagogues and religious schools now have Facebook groups, increasing communication between the congregation and families.

Jewish blogging has also become extremely prevalent in the Jewish world. There are blogs about Jewish parenting, such as imabima.blogspot.com, discussions of weekly Torah portions, and hundreds of commentaries on Jewish life at jewishblogging.com.

In many positive ways, the Internet has expanded the reaches of Judaism. Especially for those who live in isolated areas, online Judaism has filled in many of the gaps of post-shtetl living. There are ways to meet other young Jews, stay current on Jewish living, study Torah, prepare for a Bar Mitzvah and more.

While some may feel threatened by the way in which cyber-Judaism seems to attract our community members more than creative congregational activities do, I believe that online Judaism is not to be seen as an enemy, but rather as a partner.

If the goal is that Judaism is always at the front of our people’s consciousness, in all that we do from the moment we wake up until the moment we fall asleep, then the online Jewish community is helping us to reach this goal.