Ask The Rabbi
February 26, 1994, Issue #12

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This edition contains:
1.	Virtual Reality Minyan

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Michael from Montreal asks:

>Dear Rabbi,
>I wanted to know whether a virtual reality minyan would be acceptable
>according to Judaism, because there are small communities all over the world
>for whom it is hard to get a minyan every day.
>
>Thanks,

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dear Michael,

I know you're not going to believe this but a very similar question 
was asked by a famous Halachic authority about 250 years ago!  Rabbi 
Tzvi Ashkenazi (The Chacham Tzvi) in one of his responsa writes 
about whether a Golem may be counted as part of a minyan. (A Golem 
is a man-made creature.  The kabbalistic work Sefer Yetzirah is said 
to contain the secret method for making such a being.  It looks and 
acts like a person but does not have a human soul.  The Talmud 
refers to famous scholars who were said to have made them.  The 
Chacham Tzvi in his responsa says that his grandfather was known to 
have made one.)  

At first blush you may not connect a Golem with the nine other 
participants in a virtual reality minyan.  However, they really are 
quite similar.  Essentially they are both man-made creatures that 
act and look like people but are missing a human soul.  Rabbi 
Ashkenazi proves indirectly from one of the famous references to a 
Golem in the Talmud, that a Golem may not be counted as part of a 
minyan.

Professor Alvin Radkowsky writes in an article in B'or Hatorah that 
such a Halachic discussion in fact touches upon the nerve of one of 
the most troubling questions to face modern man.  In an age of 
incredible technological advancement when nothing seems beyond our 
reach, what is man's place in this world?  (I think it was Woody 
Allen who once lamented that his father was laid off from his job 
and replaced by a computer chip that did everything better than he 
did...shortly afterward his mother bought one of the chips for 
herself.)  The Golem is such a creation.  It can be stronger, more 
efficient, and have more endurance, but there is one area that 
technology will never enter and that is the world of _devotion_.  A 
computer-generated image cannot be counted into a minyan.

The Torah says in Parshat Yitro:
"And if an altar of stone you will make for Me, 
you shall not build it of hewn stones; for if you 
lift up your tool upon it it, you have profaned 
it." 

Rashi in his commentary on that verse quotes a Midrash which says:
"...for the altar was created to lengthen the 
days of man.  It is not right that that which 
_shortens_ life should be lifted up against that 
which _lengthens_ it..."

Generally that Midrash is understood to mean that metal is symbolic 
of weapons which shorten man's life.  But I once heard Rabbi Twerski 
in Milwaukee explain that metal is in a broader sense a symbol of 
technology_human achievement which has "shortened" man's life in the 
sense that tasks that once took a long time are now performed must 
faster.  The message of the Midrash is that there is no technology 
of the _spirit_. 

Sources:
	Rabbi Tzvi Ashkenazi - Shaelot V'tshuvot Chacham Tzvi,
		responsa # 93.
	Professor Alvin Radkowski - B'or Hatorah Magazine.
	The Torah - Parshat Yitro, chapter 20, verse 22.
	Rashi - ibid.
	   
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