Old Technology Worth Preserving

The other night while babysitting, techno-savvy almost-5 Little Miss dissed me because she couldn’t get the touchscreen on my trusty Dell laptop to work. I politely explained I don’t have a touch screen on my laptop, and she asked, “Savta, what’s wrong with you?” 

A few days later, sitting outside while trying to read an article in the New York Times online edition, there was a frustration-filled moment with my cheapo ChromeBook-pretend-pad and I came perilously close to tossing it off my mirpeset. I didn’t think I could bear watching, yet again, the Junior Son sadly shaking his head, saying, “Just go get an iPad.”

So, I bit the bullet and got me an iPad. 

photo taken with iPhone

I did just fine setting it up, syncing it to my phone, and turning off Siri. I don’t want to listen to me so I’m guessing Siri doesn’t need to, either. I do have a keyboard, so I thought I'd give writing on the iPad a try,  but there's no mouse. Yet. The local geniuses assure me there will be a software update this month and my Bluetooth mouse will magically work. Anyway, I need mouse when I write, so I was going to go upstairs to write the blog on the BIG MAC like I usually do....until I realized I could not turn this iPad thing off. Nothing I did worked, I was having doubts about my own Mac-head techno-savvy-ness. I tried pressing the buttons, swiping the screen, looking at the little pictograph folder that came with it, all of it useless. I used the laptop to query Google with no luck. In an act of utter desperation, I broke down and did the last thing I could possibly do: I asked Siri. And she told me. I turned it off, turned it back on, and immediately turned off Siri. 

I now know how to turn it on and off. This is, as Martha would say, a good thing. 

At the same time I am laughing about my new technology, I am acutely aware that some very old technology was salvaged today in Duluth. Adas Israel, a shul that has been a landmark in the port for over 119 years, was gutted by a fire this morning. The building is basically gone. Nothing much is left. But in the basement, 8 sifrei Torah somehow managed to survive the blaze. 

(Jed Carlson / jcarlson@superiortelegram.com) 

At the news conference, it was reported that eight of the synagogue's 14 Torahs were saved, although [Mike] Baddin later said there was some uncertainty about the number. But he placed half in storage and half in someone else's home, Baddin said.  Firefighters carried them out in plastic containers to protect them from water, Baddin said. 

"The miracle was that they were found intact," he said. "Everything else there was wet, and they were in a cabinet, and the cabinet

apparently was sealed on the top."      Duluth New Tribune 

With the Yamim Nora'im, the holiest days of the Jewish year just a couple of weeks away, the congregations will need help pulling it together. Communities across Duluth, Minnesota, and the country are coming  together to lend a hand. Feel free to help. 

A fit-for-use Torah is hand-written by a trained scribe (sofer) on specially prepared animal parchment. Scrolls in this format have been in use since about the 4th century of the Common Era. That's a long time. The text has had some modification over 1700 years, like a really old game of telephone, but overall it has not changed too much. The piece on the right is a line from Genesis, found in the Cairo Geniza. It's from about 800 C.E. If you can read Hebrew today, you can make out a few words; they haven't changed much. My cousin Perdie has spent the last couple of years volunteering for the Scribes of the Cairo Geniza project attempting to translate various bits and pieces. It's a long, difficult, thankless slog, but there are a lot of people who think knowing how ancient people thought is worth the effort. This should come as no surprise to anyone. 

All of which makes one consider the importance of preserving such a document. Two of the world's major religions think this stuff is so important that the text remains a vital part of daily worship. The precepts taught in Torah serve as a significant foundation for western law. There are 613 positive commandments in there, 10 if which are better known as the Decalogue. 

Old-fashioned ideas. Torah scrolls are old fashioned. The Dec is old fashioned. Which makes me ask, are ethics old fashioned?

Not that long ago I would not have thought the question had to be asked. But it does. And it should be asked often. Every amalgamation of humans living within a communal setting, be it clan, tribe, village, town, city, state, nation, world, has, on some level, a set of shared values. There are zillions out there, a set for every social system. Still, the human population has a through-line, ethics and values that appear in almost every banded group. Parents teach kids, kids teach their kids, and society manages not to kill itself off in the process. 

Have we stopped teaching our kids values and ethics? I don't think so. I think every parent transmits accepted behavioral norms to their kids. That doesn't mean every parent teaches the same things. We don't. But it's pretty safe to say parents teach kids NOT to kill their toddler sibs when (and heaven knows they do) they become annoying. Most social groups manage to transmit a social pecking order to their offspring. And I suspect it's safe to say it's a universal that most parental units teach their kids that truth is better than fabrication. 

And kids have their own expectations. They expect parental units will raise them and teach them how to survive. They expect if they ask a question they'll get a reasonably truthful answer. And most kids learn not to kill their parents when they become annoying. 

There are, alas, exceptions to every rule. 

The reason I like looking at an open Torah scroll is because when I look at it, I see at least a thousand years of transmission of values. I see a guide to behaving in public and in private. I see a long chain with any "me" in the center....a long line going back to someone standing at the foot of Mount Sinai...and the ones who will come after me. My dad, holding newborn senior son in his arms, said, "I am holding eternity." He was right. When I hold a Torah scroll, it is truly holding eternity as well.

We, the People are holding eternity in our hands as we stand at a moral crossroad. Do we stand up and say something, or do we give the guy a pass because we can't be bothered to address the moral and ethical shortcomings of the government? What we ultimately do is up to all of us. We don't have a Sinai at which to stand; we have a voting booth. 

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Inviting the Taliban to Camp David 3 days 

before 9/11 was no accident.

Feckless Leader expected to announce the end of

the Afghan War on this year's 9/11 anniversary.

Hail, hail, all bow down. 

Bullshit.