[Avodah] The Future of the Sefer

[Micha Berger]

On Fri, Sep 07, 2012 at 10:17:27PM -0400, cantorwolberg at cox.net wrote:
: In the recent August 30th Jewish Action Magazine, there was a critique
: by Avi Muschel of an article by Gil Student entitled "The Future of
: the Sefer."
...
: Personally, I feel the fact that Muschel feels "This concession is
: painful and fundamentally problematic. Is it not an article of our
: faith that we must protect Torah from the raging forces of modern
: societal change?"
: is an indication that Muschel doesn't understand the context...

I think he is blurring an important distinction. Quoting myself from
<http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2010/07/chatzotzros.shtml>:

    All the vessels that Moshe made were valid for him and valid for
    future generations, [except for] the chatzotzros ([silver] trumpets)
    which were valid for him but invalid for future generations.
					    -Menachos 28b

While it is permissible to use a 100 year old shofar, or in the beis
hamiqdash, an ancient menorah, mizbeiach or shulchan, each generation
that has a beis hamiqdash in which to use it has to make its own
chatzotzros. Why the difference?

Yahadus walks a tight balance between the permanence of its message,
and its relevance to people in very different contexts who are living in
different times. The call of the shofar is eternal, and thus a shofar
is not invalidated by age. However, in contrast to the raw, natural,
shofar, the silver chatzotzros are man-made. Their message changes as
people do. The call of the chatzotzros is distinct for the generation.

End-quote. But there are actually three categories. The two mentioned
above:

1- The Torah's message
2- The application of that message to people living in a particular
context

and there is also

3- the "new bottle" in which the "old wine" is poured.

Whether we learn from books or from apps isn't an issue of either
theoretical or applied values.

The only real problem I find with it is that we're teaching people
to be more dependent on tools they can't use on Shabbos or Yom Tov.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to
micha at aishdas.org        suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
http://www.aishdas.org                 -Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Fax: (270) 514-1507