76 Jason Rosenberg

Torah, and so many more services are not enhanced versions of the telephone, but rather virtual versions of the community.

Those who do not hold such a positive view of the potential of the Internet are likely to respond that these kids and young adults only think that the community in which they participate is just as good as a real community. But, they are fooling themselves; they do not know what they are missing. Our job, the argument goes, is to convince them of the inadequacy of online community, and to try to draw them, instead, into the physical synagogue.

It's impossible to know what an experience means to anyone else. Itis impossible to say, with any kind of certainty, that the community experienced by our youngest cohort is inherently worse, or better, than the community which has been part of Jewish life for millennia. It is possible that, with time, research will emerge which does shed some light on this issue in an objective way similar to the work of Gladwell . We may show that the Internet community isnot as deep as traditional communities, or that Internet communities are even more engaging, and more sustaining than others.

As frustrating as it may be, important for now is the centrality of the question. The effectiveness, the goodness of the Internet worship is inherently tied to the reality of Internet community. The more we see a virtual community as equally valid, the more we will accept virtual worship as equally valid. The more that virtual community can move