Technical Holiness
This Dvar Torah was originally published in Torah && Tech, the weekly newsletter I publish together with my good friend Ben Greenberg. To order volume one of Torah && Tech containing the first year’s worth of Divrei Torah or to subscribe to get the weekly issue delivered straight to your inbox click here.
Today is a day that has much meaning for me.
The 3rd of Tammuz marks the 26th anniversary of the passing of Rabbi Menachem Schneerson OBM in 1994, better known as the Lubavitcher Rebbe.
The Rebbe might be best known for the worldwide network of Chabad Houses that span the globe serving some 3,500 communities and providing for their needs, both spiritual and material. But for me personally, it was the Rebbe’s approach to technology that has informed my career and has found its expression in the creation of the Torah && Tech newsletter and, more recently, the book.
When the Rebbe took leadership of the Chabad movement in 1950, the Jewish world was reeling from the losses of the holocaust. The few Chassidic dynasties that survived and made their way to the new world were trying to rebuild themselves from the ashes and viewed the technological marvels of the “Goldene Medinah” (the “golden country”) with suspicion. They were afraid that these outside influences would pose a spiritual threat to their way of life, after narrowly escaping the physical threats that almost destroyed them.
The Rebbe saw things differently.
“Everything the Holy One Created in his world, he has created for His honor” (Pirkei Avot chapter 6:11)
Nothing in this world happens by chance. These technological discoveries can not be a threat to the Torah and a Godly way of life. On the contrary, argued the Rebbe, they can and must be used to help us serve G-d better.
And the relationship both ways. Technological advances created without the moral guidance of the Torah are in danger of becoming tools for evil, while a Torah life that doesn’t use the G-d given tools provided to us is at risk of limiting itself and not maximizing its G-d given potential.
In a sense, where others felt that the worlds of Torah and technology where incompatible, “Torah ^ Tech” in programming terms, the Rebbe saw it as “Torah && Tech” where both sides of the operation need to be true, and both complement each other.
To that end, the Rebbe encouraged his followers to use all of the cutting edge tools at their disposal to spread the light of Torah to the world. Whether it be by giving Torah classes over the radio, holiday broadcasts on TV, or public Menorah lightings via live satellite hookups.
When the internet came on the scene, the Rebbe’s Chassidim were among the first to realize its potential (chabad.org was registered in 1993, 2 years after the launch of the world wide web!)
This passion the Rebbe had is what drove me when I was a Chabad rabbi giving online Torah classes to children in isolated communities. It’s also what drives me now in my career as a developer, continually reminding me that my technical decisions aren’t divorced from their ethical and moral implications.
It’s also what drives me to write a newsletter every other week where my friend Ben and I try to find a Torah lesson to apply to people in the world of tech, and what drove me after a year of that to publish it all in a book for posterity.
