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Worsh ip in the Cloud 71
Of course, this says nothing explicit about whether this kind of transformation is available via the Internet. About whether people can truly feel part of a sacred group, when their presence is only virtual. But, it does at least sharpen the question. We are not simply asking whether an Internet connection can create a minyan(a fairly technical question). Now we are asking whether an Internet connection can convey the sense of compelling moral force, of which Klein speaks. Whether a webcam can create the nearly mystical union of individuals into a whole, as Hirsch suggests. Whether spiritual loneliness can be mitigated by a screen, or whether it takes flesh and blood to do so.
It seems obvious that different people will respond differently to those questions. Most, at least in this day, will feel intuitively that this kind of serious, deep connection is simply not available, or even close to available, via a virtual connection. That only physical presence can carry and convey the spiritual presence of which our sages speak. They will agree with Malcolm Gladwell who recently asserted that the Internet is highly effective at breadth of communication, but not at depth of connection.”
One real possibility, though, is that this sense that the Internet provides only partial, ersatz presence is true of this generation, but not necessarily of the next which will still be addressed.