The Talmud and the Internet: A Journey Between Worlds - Hardcover

Rosen, Jonathan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0374272387 ISBN 13: 9780374272388

Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 2000

Synopsis

Blending autobiographical musings, religious history, and literary reflection, the author of Eve's Apple explores the relationship between ancient religious tradition and modern technology as he reflects on the very different lives of his two grandmothers--one American, and one murdered by the Nazis--and examines the parallels between a page of the Talmud and the home page of a website. 50,000 first printing.

About this title

Review

The Talmud and the Internet by Jonathan Rosen is a small, wise, ingenious meditation on faith, technology, literature and love. In the book's opening pages, Rosen (formerly the culture editor of Forward) seeks solace after his grandmother's death in the poetry of John Donne. Nagged by a half-remembered phrase from one poem, Rosen tracked down the text online, and "For one moment, there in dimensionless, chilly cyberspace, I felt close to my grandmother, close to John Donne, and close to some stranger who, as it happens, designs software for a living". In the Internet's "world of unbounded curiosity, of argument and information, where anyone with a modem can wander out of the wilderness for a while, ask a question and receive an answer", Rosen finds a real parallel to the Talmud, "a place where everything exists, if only one knows how and where to look". The literary resemblance has a cultural resonance, too. Rosen observes that "the Talmud offered a virtual home for an uprooted culture, and grew out of the Jewish need to pack civilization into words and wander out into the world". And the Internet suggests to Rosen "a similar sense of Diaspora, a feeling of being everywhere and nowhere. Where else but in the middle of Diaspora do you need a homepage?" In Rosen's analysis, the Internet and the Talmud signal and salve social and spiritual isolation. His book does this same thing, too. --Michael Joseph Gross

Review

" Rosen' s wise and heartfelt book is a home page with links to infinity." -- Anne Fadiman, author of" Ex Libris"
" The Talmud and the Internet is a lyrical meditation about the quest to illuminate what has come before us in order to live wisely...(it) is a journey, not only between two worlds but among the great questions and the great souls who have considered life' s purposes amid often horrifying evidence." -- Nessa Rapoport, "Los Angeles Times"
" We are moved and enlightened...Others have raised the felt contradictions between the tragic and luminous Jewish heritage and the ahistorical comforts and complacencies of American life. Few have managed to do so with such a mix of the searching, the modest and...with such charm." -- Richard Eder, "The New York Times"
“Rosen’s wise and heartfelt book is a home page with links to infinity.” —Anne Fadiman, author of" Ex Libris"
“The Talmud and the Internet is a lyrical meditation about the quest to illuminate what has come before us in order to live wisely...(it) is a journey, not only between two worlds but among the great questions and the great souls who have considered life’s purposes amid often horrifying evidence.”—Nessa Rapoport, "Los Angeles Times"
“We are moved and enlightened...Others have raised the felt contradictions between the tragic and luminous Jewish heritage and the ahistorical comforts and complacencies of American life. Few have managed to do so with such a mix of the searching, the modest and...with such charm.”—Richard Eder, "The New York Times"
"Rosen's wise and heartfelt book is a home page with links to infinity." --Anne Fadiman, author of" Ex Libris"

"The Talmud and the Internet is a lyrical meditation about the quest to illuminate what has come before us in order to live wisely...(it) is a journey, not only between two worlds but among the great questions and the great souls who have considered life's purposes amid often horrifying evidence."--Nessa Rapoport, "Los Angeles Times"

"We are moved and enlightened...Others have raised the felt contradictions between the tragic and luminous Jewish heritage and the ahistorical comforts and complacencies of American life. Few have managed to do so with such a mix of the searching, the modest and...with such charm."--Richard Eder, "The New York Times"

Rosen's wise and heartfelt book is a home page with links to infinity. "Anne Fadiman, author of Ex Libris"

The Talmud and the Internet is a lyrical meditation about the quest to illuminate what has come before us in order to live wisely...(it) is a journey, not only between two worlds but among the great questions and the great souls who have considered life's purposes amid often horrifying evidence. "Nessa Rapoport, Los Angeles Times"

We are moved and enlightened...Others have raised the felt contradictions between the tragic and luminous Jewish heritage and the ahistorical comforts and complacencies of American life. Few have managed to do so with such a mix of the searching, the modest and...with such charm. "Richard Eder, The New York Times""

"Rosen's wise and heartfelt book is a home page with links to infinity." --Anne Fadiman, author of Ex Libris

"The Talmud and the Internet is a lyrical meditation about the quest to illuminate what has come before us in order to live wisely...(it) is a journey, not only between two worlds but among the great questions and the great souls who have considered life's purposes amid often horrifying evidence." --Nessa Rapoport, Los Angeles Times

"We are moved and enlightened...Others have raised the felt contradictions between the tragic and luminous Jewish heritage and the ahistorical comforts and complacencies of American life. Few have managed to do so with such a mix of the searching, the modest and...with such charm." --Richard Eder, The New York Times

Edition details

• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0374272387
• ISBN 13: 9780374272388
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 132