Worship in the Cloud 73

Is this a realistic fear? On the one hand, it seems like our movement might be the least susceptible to this kind of web centricity. In a halakhically bound community, the devout are under a binding obligation to pray regularly (especially those who are, for instance, saying kaddish for a loved one). Attending services serves not only a spiritual purpose, but also a technical one, to be yorzei so, its entirely conceivable that a busy person might log on toa web-service to fulfill his/her obligation, whereas he/she would find a way to attend services in person, were the virtual option not available.

But, that is not our reality. For all intents and purposes, there is no obligation to pray communally, in Reform Judaism. No one would ever log on to a livestreamed service simply to make sure that they were yotzei. The only reason that someone would participate in a service was because they got“something” out of that service. What that something might be is certainly highly variable. It could be spiritual uplift, it could be communal connection, it could be alleviation of guilt, or anything else But, most of the reasons that our members pray have to do, on some level, with how praying makes them feel. Therefore if some version of prayer does not create that same subjective experience for them, itis unlikely that they would choose it. To put it differently, for what reason would a Reform Jew who might otherwise attend services in person, decide instead to stay home? Clearly, it's not impossible to imagine such a situation, but it's hard to imagine a widespread movement toward this, but not impossible. It's certainly true that our society is moving, more and more, towards a focus on the individual, and on individual spirituality. The idea of community having inherent value, and inherent power, isless and less