And A Unified Silence Fell Over the Land...

There has been a noticeable decrease in activity online over the past 3-4 days. For observant Jews, Passover's two holy days began Wednesday night, followed by the Sabbath, which arrived predictably Friday night. Good Friday and tomorrow's Easter mean the closing of most businesses. Bloggers have also taken a break: including Dave, Tom, Mike and others. I greatly enjoyed my greatly decreased Internet usage.

To fill this void I did what any other law-abiding Internet citizen would do, I read a book about the Web. Insert your laughter here. I decided to begin reading my "review copy" of David Weinberger's newest missive, Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web. Challenging this book's grandiose subtitle, I started reading from the last chapter. What follows is a random assortment of thoughts to ponder from the book's final chapter.

Lots and lots of metaphors. He doesn't try to come up with new metaphors, he does a good job of recounting the huge array of metaphors we use to talk about technology, the Web and their affects on us. I start to wonder about something whose answer I already know. Are metaphors necessary? Sure they are. All language is metaphorical. All understanding is personal, bound by a loosely joined set of "shared" understandings which themselves are up for debate and reveal varied meanings when gazed upon by varied people in varied situations and from varied backgrounds.

When we "surf the Web" do we refer to ourselves as the fly caught in the Web? Are we the spider weaving the Web? Are we the Web that does the connecting? Are we the tree which plays host to the spider, Web and fly? Taking another track, when we "surf the Web" do we refer to ourselves as surfers, hangin' ten as we surf the waves of silk? Don't spider webs get washed away by water? I don't think we intend to ruin the Web when we surf it. We are, as Weinberger says of an Internet company indicted for trespassing online (how do you trespass online?), guilty by metaphor.

Weinberger sets out to demonstrate how the true potential of the Web has not been hyped enough. He states it allows us to be better people by returning us to our better selves by allowing us to be more authentic than we can in the real world. There's another tricky term, by the way, real world.

The waters are dangerous and the language tricky when we discuss authenticity to the self (a hairy subject) and the truth of the Web (a subject for which we have such hairy and not-well-developed-enough language). Yet he tackles the subject with vigor and the final chapter is a fine piece of philosophy. Here are three separator quotes which, when combined, sum it up pretty well: "The Web's architecture itself is fundamentally moral;" "The changes we can see [in ourselves] generally feel like a return to our best nature;" "Paradoxical? No more so than falling in love and becoming more of the person you were waiting to be." I assume the first line is the conclusion based on the preceding chapters - which demonstrate how the Web is moral, and is altogether more of a personally-empowering "world" than the "real" one. Like love, "The Web helps us to embrace without embarrassment who we really are."

The Web is vastly different from anything ever before created. It is not just a faster horse, or a better telephone. It creates "a new, persistent public world that accumulates value with every interaction. It's a world that we build simply by using it..." And that's why, "Most of all, the Web is a more honest - because unguarded - reflection of what we are like when we seek one another without the limitations the real world imposes on us." I will now begin reading the beginning of the book and see the path Weinberger takes to get to these conclusions.

Stay tuned for other thoughts on and recountings of Small Pieces Loosely Joined: A Unified Theory of the Web.

Update: You can now read my follow-up posting on the book, where I sum up my thoughts and offer other ideas.

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The Resident Jew

Hi, my name is Jacob and I am a Jew. Hello. Most of my friends are not Jewish. Most that are, are not very observant. This places me in the exciting position of Jewish tradition teacher. I really enjoy it, no kidding. I am honored by people's trust in me and curiosity in my traditions. I never impose my beliefs and customs on others, so its exciting to have someone ask me to explain a holiday or a belief. Although no one wrote in asking me to talk about Passover, I'll do it anyway.

Being out of Jewish school for years now may make some of what I say totally wrong. Reader beware.

Passover, or Pesach (the Hebrew word), refers directly to the last of the 10 plagues God struck Egypt with. During this last plague, the Angel of Death passed from house to house in Egypt, killing all Egypt's first borns (including the Pharaoh's first born). Jews were instructed by Moses to place goat blood on their door. This was the Angel of Death's sign to PASS OVER those particular houses and spare their first borns.

The week-long holiday celebrates the Jews' exodus from Egypt and the hundreds of years of servitude in Egypt and finally the arrival at Mount Sinai, the location where God gave Moses the Ten Commandments, officially christening (I guess that's a funny word to use, right?) the Jewish people as a people, one cohesive nation. You can start to see what a big deal this holiday really is, right? Angel of death, freedom from slavery, exodus from diaspora, splitting of a whole sea, birth of a nation, etc.

Another meaning of Pesach is open mouth. This refers to the tradition of recounting the story of Passover to all present, especially children. More so than other holidays, Passover is about telling the story of Passover (and to children in particular). This is accomplished in the Seder, literally meaning organization. It is the festive feast had during Passover's first two nights (only on the first night for those in Israel). The entire evening is meticulously planned out and organized in the Haggadah, the evening's prayer book, whose title comes from "to say."

An interesting tidbit is that the name of Moses does not appear once in the Haggadah for fear that people would unduly praise him for the events described above. It is all God and it's important to remember that. One final tidbit is that Moses had a speech impediment, symbolizing that he didn't get the Israelites out of Egypt using keen negotiating skills. Again, it is all God.

During the entire holiday, Jews are prohibited from eating most foods acceptable during the rest of the year. This includes anything made with yeast, wheat, barley, rice (according to some, but not all sects of Judaism) and other ingredients. Matzah is the main food - bread that has only been given 18 minutes to rise (symbolizing what the Jews left Egypt with since they left in a hurry and did not have time to let the bread complete baking).

There you go. That's Jacob's Crash Course in Passover. For a great assortment of funny and serious links regarding Passover, traditional dishes and some other information, visit a klog apart.

A happy and healthy week to all, regardless of what you'll be doing!