THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS Friday, November 16, 1984 17 The Responsa project at Bar-Ilan University in Israel has 12 centuries of rabbinic decisions stored on computers. telegrams were the reason," says Ben- jamin. But what that shows is that the computer can mobilize the com- munity. Now, in an emergency, the community can respond in an instant and bring force to bear. We are a dis- persed people. Direct mail is the ideal medium to get us together." > -G And that, says Benjamin, is not the only important effect com- puterized direct mail is having in the Jewish community. "Because now, you don't have to be an organization founded in 1906 to have a significant impact on Jewish life. You don't need the endorsement of significant indi- viduals or to be cleared by the central structures. Now, you can take your case directly to the Jewish commu- nity." In this election year, a host of can- didates, including Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan and Sen. Rudy Boschwitz of Minnesota, both of whom were re- elected, and James Hunt of North Carolina, who challenged Jesse Helms, used AB Data to take their cases "directly to the Jewish commu- nity." "We can raise anywhere from $250,000 to $1 million in $25 checks from Jews," says Benjamin. "What that does is show those candidates that are supportive of us that we're behind them, that we are helping them. That's very important." There are other ways, big and small, in which computers are chang- ing and affecting the life of the Jewish community. There are the projects the Insti- tute for Computers in Jewish Life is about to begin such as putting the Encyclopedia Judaica on computer to allow for constant updating; a pro- gram for Hebrew word processing; a Talmud program that will let the com- puter be your study partner; the addi- tion of the Bible and other Jewish scholarly works to Bar-Ilan's data base. There are the computers at Yad Vashem and the Museum of the Dias- pora in Israel designed to help rela- tives find each other and to help people to find their roots. There is ORT's plan to train its 113,000 students in 20 countries around the world in corn- puter literacy. There is the Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies which is working on-a Jewish data base that would list every book in the collection of 40 Jewish lib- raries — including the Hebrew books in Hebrew. Jewish federations are using computers for a variety of tasks. The Cleveland Federation, a leader in computer use among federations, uses computers not only for daily reports on its fund-raising campaign (to allow for adjustments in strategy) but also for human resource management, such as picking a person to serve on a specific committee. Not everyone, it should be said, is enthralled with the computer and its effects on Jewish life. Yechiel Poupko, for one. "I have no problem with com- puters storing and retrieving informa- tion," says Poupko, director of Judaica for the Jewish Community Centers of Chicago, "though I do think you have to be careful even with that. But I'm worried that you lose intimacy with computers. Central to the Jewish ex- perience is the intimacy between per- son and book. That doesn't exist be- As 'high tech' becomes more prevalent, the greater is the need for `high touch.' tween a person and a machine. A book can be picked up and touched. Torah tells us to study it day and night. With a book you can sit on a plane or walk down the street and study. You can't do that with a computer. "If the medium is the message, what is the message of the computer? With a computer, all knowledge is utilitarian. If there is no immediate use for the information, forget it. In Judaism, the idea is knowledge for its own sake. "Computers don't have souls. They're sterile. The essence of Judaism, on the other hand, is sanc- tity, something magical, spiritual and sublime." And so it is. But this is just why Rabbi Samuel Karff of Cong. Beth Is- rael in Houston thinks computers will be good for Judaism. The danger of the computer age is its depersonaliz- ing aspect," says Karff, who spoke about the issue at the recent Coalition for Alternatives in Jewish Education conference. "Thus, as 'high tech' be- comes more prevalent, the greater is the need for 'high touch.' As we become items in a data processing system, the more important are the other contexts that affirm our personhood. And that is the realm in which religion func- tions best." So, says Karff, instead of com- puters "making outmoded the quest for the sacred" it will, he says, make that quest all the more urgent and compelling." In fact, he says, he ex- pects attendance at synagogues to in- crease as computer use increases, be- cause people have to get away from the computer. They need the human community. The more we control, the more we will recognize how much we don't control. The more knowledge we have, the more we will recognize how much we don't know. Each surge of power brings us face to face with a new sense of limits. Religion helps us come to terms with those limits." But, whether good or bad, profane or sacred, computers are part of the Jewish community to stay. Says Irving Rosenbaum: It is said that money is the root of all evil. It's not. It's a tool. In the hands of a good man, it is used for good, in the hands of a bad man, for bad. A hatchet can cut wood for a fire or cut a man's head off. The same goes for the technology of the computer: It can be misused or it can be used for the service of Jewish tradi- tion."-